[D&D-5e-2024] The Death Wars

[GleefulNihilism]

The Eve of Battle “That’s it? A few Archers is all the Elves could spare?” “Master Anvilsong - What can I say? Cambredth is ultimately a Human city, most of the elves that do live here are married to humans. Usually against the wishes of their family houses. We’re lucky they remembered us at all. Besides, word is the Elven Splenders are completely overrun. They are Mausoleums at the end of the day.” “Moridan Preserve us, I Cannae think this can get worse with that Horde of the Dead marching this way.” “It’s kind of incredible, isn’t it? Their armies move so fast. Their pace is slow, but they can march 24 hours a day, no need to stop for sleep or food. Gods, we could use a miracle now.” They seem to get the opposite as the Warning Bell tolls. It can’t be the Dead, supposedly they are still several hours out. Captain Lia Price winces, and heads for the walls to do her duty. The guards that see her approach don’t even have to Wait for her to ask, they just scowl and shake their heads. “Captain. We have Orcs near the East Gates.” “Moridan Preserve Us, why Now?” “How many?” “At least three times the size of a normal raid, at least. But that’s the strangest part, Captain. Most of them have stopped at the edge of the clearing. Only Two are actually approaching and the Worgs are only going at a calm walk.” “…Open the Gate.” “Captain?” “Isn’t it obvious? They want to talk.” “But they’re Orcs.” “And as far as we can tell the Dead have declared war the Living, all over the realm. Why would the Orcs be any different?” The guards say nothing to that, but they do obey the orders of their captain. If they close the gate immediately after if they’re not brave enough to join her. And they spoke the truth, on the far side of the field is probably the most orcs Captain Price has ever seen in one place - but only two approach on their mounts. A male and a female. The male smirks as if out of habit, a female orc appears to be trying to give the impression she hasn’t smiled in a long time and won’t for a while. And they stopped at 10 paces away from the Captain. “Allo, State your business.” “I am Kazrir Darkeyes of Clan Bloodtooth. This is Widow Tahra Gravefoot of Clan Bloodtooth. She is the Acting War Leader, you address her, I will Translate.” “…You speak pretty good Common, Kazrir.” “I did Mercenary work in the Western Territories. Tell us, do the Dead rise there too?” “They’re rising and attacking everywhere as far as we know. How have the Orcs fared?” Kazrir does take the moment to translate their gutteral language, the Widow’s response comes with a nod before he starts. “Our tradition has always been to burn our dead after a day or two, so our Dead rose too but nothing we couldn’t handle. Your dead have been a bigger problem than our own.” Captain Price winces, and nods. “Is that why you’ve come, vengence?” “We figured out quickly that you aren’t controlling the dead, so No. We want something else.” Kazrir remarks, adding something else for the Widow. And for a moment, Captain Price dares hope. “You want an Alliance against the Dead.” “The Widow had some thoughts on Strategy if you’re open to sharing.”

The Alignment Begins Alright, admittedly I don't have a deep poetic start for this idea. What I have is an itch for a game where the players are part of a larger scale conflict, including having to deal with warfare with larger groups then just a party and the immediate opponents. Think whole battles and war campaigns. So the basic story I've been imagining for something like this is that it's a setting where when the physical plane was made some dark gods managed to do something particularly sneaky and every couple thousand years some planetary alignments happen that *automatically* sets off a massive pulse of necromantic energies. Every few thousand years a massive army of undead rises and wipes the slate clean, and will do so until the end of time even after the gods that set this up themselves are long dead. So let's talk, I'd love to see something come from this even if it's a solo thing.

[bandanana]

Sounds fun, I'd be down to throw in my slate.
Have you seen the new D&D Beyond adventure released called Hold Back the Dead? Sounds like a segment of your story here, but yours is at a larger cosmic scale.

Edit: Sorry, didn't mean to lead you on but I thought that this thread was part of the "Game Seeking Players" forum. I still like the idea though and I'm willing to mull on DMing for you, but no promises

[Double or Nothing]

Sounds interesting, how were you thinking the battles would be run?

Is the idea it'd be sort of like nation-building or straightforward territory-defense?

[GleefulNihilism]

I legit never heard of “Hold Back The Dead” before you mentioned it. I can see what you’re getting at though.

How to handle large battles? Still working on that part, lol. But I do picture tactics as being important.

As for nation building or territory defense, more the later but some of the former possibly later on. Also wanna go on territory offense to occasionally. I’m picturing a literal war, just so happens with an enemy or most of the foot soldiers have no real minds. The officers on the other hand?

[Double or Nothing]

I bought the Legendary Ultimate bundle so I've got a few sets of possible war rules.

[GleefulNihilism]

I’m interested what it says, and I added to the intro post.

[GleefulNihilism]

Alright, sorry to poke this but this feels on the edge of something. So, how to handle bigger battles?

Honestly, right now the only hard idea I have is that I like the idea of having strategy war-room scenes before big battles. Plan out lines, formations, account for special battlefield conditions or situations - letting the players let out their inner Sun Tzu / Hannibal Barca / Alexander the Great.

Beyond that, there's some flexibility.

[savoylen]

Originally Posted by GleefulNihilism

Alright, sorry to poke this but this feels on the edge of something. So, how to handle bigger battles?

Honestly, right now the only hard idea I have is that I like the idea of having strategy war-room scenes before big battles. Plan out lines, formations, account for special battlefield conditions or situations - letting the players let out their inner Sun Tzu / Hannibal Barca / Alexander the Great.

Beyond that, there's some flexibility.

The old BattleSystem wouldn't be too hard to tweak to your needs.


It was TONS OF FUN for DnD back in the day.
Ages ago I ported it over to a very different system for sci-fi (TRS Alternity) and it still worked great. Looking at it again now, it would be fairly easy to move over to DnD 5e. The "simplified" (Basic) version might fit your needs quite well.

Designed for miniatures , this works amazingly well with digital maps, etc. etc.
Your "Warroom" concept leans right into this.

Anyway, good luck with this... sounds like a blast!