The Battle Braunstein - Campaign Day 1324-1330 - After Action Report

 THE BATTLE FOR THE MUPPLE VALLEY

After seeing BDubs throw down the gauntlet for a Braunstein event, I knew it was time for Make Adventuring Great Again to step into the ring. 

Do a #BattleBraunstein of the stupidest ideas you and your players can come up with. Give me a theme and I’ll give you some ideas you undercard son of a gun. #brosr #dnd https://t.co/U5qblSKIu5 pic.twitter.com/n15O8pCpvE

— BookerDubs (@Bdubs1776) December 24, 2023

So what was the setup for us? How would we do this? WHY would we do this? What is a Braunstein?

A Braunstein is a game where participants take on roles in some scenario of conflict and was a direct influence in the creation of the original Dungeons & Dragons game. For a fascinating exploration of that era, watch the documentary "The Secrets of Blackmoor". In this context we are focusing a session towards high level factions rather than a group of PCs, but there is some overlap. 

We already had an active AD&D campaign (in every real sense) from August of 2019 until today, with over 104 live sessions and countless async chat interactions to flesh out the situation. 

As for "why now?" - the answer is that it would be fun. And the current "winner" by real measurable metrics, EXPERIENCE POINTS was clearly Kel, aka the Necromancer! Kel is a 9th level Lawful Evil cleric of Arkabal, "The Slaughter Prince", archfiend of Hell. 

There were other factions that, possibly, if combined into action may pose a serious threat. Plus there were several threats lurking on the periphery that players hadn't been able to wrap their grabbling hands on yet. Every faction was different in alignment. But first, let's look at the field of play, our map:

Each hex is roughly 6 miles, and this is a generalization of the tedious 1 hex = 1 mile map I have on Worldographer. (Worldopgrapher is an interesting tool but too much detail at lower resolutions is too dense to read when "zoomed out".)

This map will make more sense from a strategic sense when we look at the factions (and who signed up to play them). Important points are the 3 settlements - Burmstone, Arkala, and Aearavir, from north to south.

The Factions

Burmstone/Arkala

Seat of power for Kel and original "town" of the campaign with 2.5k+ inhabitants. Forces: several thousand undead (the infamous blackened skeletons armed with 15' military forks), high level LE clerics, assassins, and fighters. Rumors abound that there is a massive underground storage scheme for the undead near the manor just west of town. The town of Arkala is run by Lug the Despot, underling to Kel.

Aeravir

The "Jewel of the Mupple", this city remains the largest around, almost 15k inhabitants. It's run by a crime syndicate, the leader of which no one has identified. Recently acquired a young black dragon Frequent patron to the Stormbringers and Nighthawks mercenary bands. Fought an invasion of fishfolk and now a surging plague of lycanthropy in the south eastern area. Forces are a thousand men at arms, a powerful thieves guild, flying troops (hippogriffs), and several competent higher level fighters that act as field commanders.

The Domed City

This place was discovered by the players during a lair smash raid and quickly developed into a post-apocalyptic ruin still managed by the robotic entities named the "Terminator Whores", aka "Aunties". Also home to a race of servitor monsters named "Teddies", which appear as 7' tall teddy bears. They are controlled by some central intelligence that has yet to reveal itself. They posses a giant floating "Zardoz" head that transports the Terminator Whores to raid.

The Skeksis

Masters of illusion and shapeshifting, reside in a black castle that teleports every 30 days to different locations. In the past they've send garthim raids into Aeravir for unknown purposes, but the destruction was absolute. Every battle against the garthim was a slaughter as these armored beasts seemed unstoppable.

Ft. Weskfen

The fort is a small town of almost 1k+, including a bustling village ("Halflington") which seemed to attract numerous bands of roaming halflings. The fort is run by the Order of Virtue under the paladin General Derrax, who commands several high level LG clerics and fighters, including lower level paladins. The fort saw lots of fighting earlier in the campaign when a beastmen insurgency threatened ot overwhelm the place.

The Cloud Giants

A group of 4 cloud giant castles appeared over Aeravir in the previous month and demanded a tribute! Their goal is to exact tribute from all the earth bound settlements or face aerial bombardment. 

Other possible factions that might have been used but didn't end up in this event: the assassin's guild, a mysterious site known as The Lightning Towers, the nearby settlement of Okwalar run by a ranger lord, and finally a pack of vampires that Kel tried to wipe out last year (and managed to destroy the city of Dubrak in the process).

Procedure of the Event

I laid out the follow as rules, mostly to provide some extra "chum" in the water for the participants. For some, Kel, for example, their PC was directly involved and really didn't need additional motivation or direction.

Objective                            VP

Control or loot Aeravir              25 (earavir)

Control or loot Arkala               20 (kel)

Control or loot Burmstone            15 (kel)

Control or loot Domed City           10 (ft weskfen/kel)

Control or loot the Lightning Towers 10 (aeravir/domed city)

Control or loot the Skeksis Castle   10 (skeksis)

Control means the faction has ousted any rivals, or neutralized opponent leadership, from the victory objective. VP will be awarded to only 1 faction, even if in an alliance.

Procedure:

- During and leading into the event patrons and PCs may communicate as they please, without referee approval or oversight.

- The play will be conducted via Discord voice chat with VTT assistance in the 4 hour time period allotted. Battles will be conducted as quickly as possible, it's likely only 1 will be effectively played out during the event.

- Death and dismemberment for any and all PCs are possible, just like usual. TAKE NECESSARY PRECAUTIONS.

- If a player is not present, notes on strategy and tactics will be referred to, otherwise actions taken will be based on referee knowledge and best guess of course of actions.

- Deals and alliances are encouraged but cannot be enforced by the referee.

Results and Rewards

- At the end of the battle Braunstein victory points will be totaled per faction.

Winning (Total VP > than any other faction):

- 10,000 XP to be spend in any way you wish, on any PC

- Non-aligned factions (dwarves, Okwalar, etc) agree to form alliance with winning faction and pay tribute.

Tie (No faction has a majority of VP):

- Goblidar and Soifomme invade the Mupple Valley in April.

As soon as the event started and the participants were in the chat "lobby" I explained how I would set a timer and go day by day collecting orders. If there were conflicts I would resolve them ASAP, and if need be we'd throw down a battlemap and go to 1:20 scale for the fighting.

Other than that I said that players were free to use any means of communication during the event with each other. I didn't need to be present! 

We were only missing the player for the Skeksis, who couldn't join us, so I decided they would randomly attack different factions on different days.

With that I started the timer and we kicked off.

Day 1324

Orders:

Aearvir has been casting haste on their young black dragon as often as every day. A group of 200 men  with silver spears and 50 longbowmen are sent to the Lightning Towers.

Kel sends 1450 skeletons and 2 giant undead constructs to Arkala.

Ft. Weskfen sent the Nighthawks to watch the crossroads between them and Burmstone.

The Cloud Giants floated over to Arkala and demanded a payment of 4500pp from the city!

Resolution:

The group sent to the Lightning Towers overcomes the lycanthropes there and find a huge RED CRYSTAL. This is similar to the other large semi-intelligent crystals the players have seen elsewhere - the black one held by "Orange Magic Man" some time ago, and a blue on in the ruins north of Burmstone.

Day 1325

Orders:

Aeravir wants to retrieve the crystal.

Arkala refuses the Cloud Giant demand for money.

Resolution:

The Nighthawks observe the skeleton force moving to Arkala. The Domed City receives a radio messages from the Lightning Tower location, source identifier MILTON, which indicates a perimeter and reactor room breach.

Day 1326

Orders:

General Derrax orders the entire force to follow the skeleton force.

The Domed City attempts to assassinate General Derrax with Terminator Whores. The Zardoz head is sent to the Lightning Towers with a force of Terminator Whores.

Kel sends an imp to scout the the disposition of the Ft. Weskfen army.

Resolution:

The Terminator Whores fail: they self-destruct and explode when captured, filled with oil they cause some damage but don't manage to kill the General. 

The Terminator Whores overcome the Aeravirans trying to move the crystal and take it with them.

Day 1327

Orders:

The Domed City sends the Zardoz head to Ft. Weskfen to burn it down, but retreat if there is resistance.

Ft. Weskfen scouts the Arkala defenses, and if there is nothing happening orders a return to the fort in the afternoon. The Nighthawks return at once.

Resolution:

The Zardoz head raid does minimal damage, some buildings are burned, they retreat. 

Day 1328

Orders:

Cloud Giants send 1 castle to see what happened at Ft. Weskfen.

Kel moves out to march on the domed city with his 950 Skeletons

Ft Weskfen:

1. One of my clerics has a stone of earth elemental command.
2. [3:56 PM]
   I'm going to send him, the monk, and a couple of thieves to that domed city on medium warhorses. Be fast but stealthy. Summon the earth elemental, use it to fuck up the city as much as possible.(edited)
3. [3:57 PM]
   undermine it, or cause a landslide or something

Skeksis attacks Aeravir with a garthim raid.

The Domed City attempts to connect the RED CRYSTAL to the Central Computing Complex (CCC) which runs the city.

Resolution:

Skeksis attack causes several hundred casualties but they retreat after taking perhaps a dozen losses to the defenders.

The Domed City CCC fails a saving throw and the RED CRYSTAL assumes total control with one mission: CREATE MORE LYCANTHROPES. It decides to take the Zardoz head back to the Lightning Towers along with a force of Aunties, Teddies, and the crystal itself to re-power the place.

Day 1329

Orders:

Ft. Weskfen commando squad, the Stormbringers from the Army, and Kel's skeletons attack the Domed City.

The Cloud Giants recall their castle from Ft. Weskfen.

Resolution:

The combined army at the Domed City finds it abandoned by the Aunties. They do find a colony of light skinned "Eloi" like people who are childlike and frightened. Each has a small colored gem set in their forehead. A helm of telepathy used on one of the remaining Teddies reveals that a bandit force tracked to the city last year was taken in and reprocessed as nutrient paste.

Day 1330

Orders:

Kel orders his forces back to Arkala.

Aeraviran forces move to the Lightning Towers.

The Cloud giants move to Ft. Weskfen

Resolution:

Aeravirans thieves attempt to sneak aboard the Zardozi head but are "seen" by the infravision of the Terminator Whores. Combat ensues!

There is a battle between the men of Aeravir and the Domed City force at the Lightning Towers. Three mages hurl lightning bolts at the advancing "Aunties", shutting down 8 of the 30. The Aeravirans have ramseuers which they use to disarm the rest of the Terminator Whores, and a general melee breaks out. The men try to grapple and restrain the Terminator Whores, who have natural weapons (their hands and such) - 48 men die before they are taken down. The proceed to shock the Terminator Whores with the disarmed stun-sticks, then the Terminator Whores self-destruct. Each one has been filled with oil, this kills many more men.

The mages then dispatch one of their to examine the mouth of the Zardoz head. Inside are the Teddies, and they are hostile. The RED CRYSTAL has copper wires connecting it to the "bunker" below. The mage decides to hurl another lightning bolt. The crystal must make a save as an item against that spells, which is fails. The destroyed crystal then releases it's primal energies, which is the equivalent of a 1kt burst. 

A debate begins about what would happen here, but all within a a few dozen yards are totally and outright vaporized. Those beyond have a 50% chance of immediate blast death to several hundred yards. The area of LYCANTHROPIC RADIATION extends nearly 6 miles, up to the outlying villages of Aeravir city! What remains of the task force limps back to the city, mostly likely due to die in a few days from what one player called "heckin' cancer."

Wrap-Up Due to Time

Through the session players were forming ad hoc alliances every day, breaking them, and forging new ones as the situation changed. There was a real challenge in keeping up with the constant flow of direct messages. I think there were also several side channels set up for parties to engage in real time talk. Overall, I was a messy, hilarious event. 

(NOTE: There are also a few actions that were not resolved during the session. I won't disclose them here because their eventual reveal is sensitive to other pending situations. Stay tuned!)

At this point we've reached the last bit of time we had in the session. There was a final flurry of activity!

The Cloud Giants announced that they were moving directly over Burmstone and began to bombard the city with boulders. There was some discussion about how many rocks were to be thrown. I seemed to recall from Sword and Spells that a typical ammunition store per unit would be about 20 volleys. Everyone agrees. Rating the Cloud Giant boulders as catapults means they would do enough damage to obliterate the southern curtain wall (just about completed after years of construction!) around Burmstone. 

Meanwhile General Derrax announces his intention to take the town. The garrison commander of Burmstone tries to parlay for mercy given the bombardment but General Derrax insists on surrender, that demand is refused.

Kel is furious, but he's a day away...

At this point I tally up the VP!

Objective                            VP

Control or loot Aeravir              25 (earavir)

Control or loot Arkala               20 (kel)

Control or loot Burmstone            15 (kel)

Control or loot Domed City           10 (ft weskfen/kel)

Control or loot the Lightning Towers 10 (aeravir/domed city)

Control or loot the Skeksis Castle   10 (skeksis)

This means that the VP for ties is split, leaving Aeravir and Kel as tied overall! Kel's player informs me that he forfeits the split VP for sacking the Domed City, which gives Aeravir the victory at 36VP.

That player now has 10kXP to spend as they see fit. 

After Shocks

The Cloud Giants have pulled 68,000gp worth of tribute in a week. They also messaged me:

How will Kel respond to his hometown being blasted by the Cloud Giants and General Derrax's attack? What will happen to the blasted area near Aeravir? What will happen to the "Eloi" in the Domed City? What other artifacts remain there? 

The session ended on day 1330, almost a week into the future. Our game calendar has an event marked for that day, March 9, 2024. Until then the participants are locked into their courses.