THE SKY WENT BLACK,

[agogemod]

WHO? Everybody!
WHAT? Agoge's inaugural TDM.
WHEN? The Battle of Hattin, 1187.
ANYTHING ELSE? Violence, as always. Please warn in subject lines for anything beyond physical violence, and move to a personal journal if things go beyond PG-13.

FROM JERUSALEM WITH LOVE;

the horns of hattin, 1187: the holy land

read the jerusalem setting infopage

Your eyes open, and above you is the roof of a tent, a heavy woven material that blocks you from what must be an otherwise glaring heat that is beating down. Near you stands a man - you understand him, but you aren’t sure you are supposed to. Aware as you are that he is speaking Arabic, a trickle of words as he dabs water on your brow, that as you go to reply, you realise, you are speaking Arabic too. Urging you to sit up slowly, and now that you are awake -

“Good, slowly does it. You are meant to have heat stroke. Nothing sudden now. The Commander will explain it to you soon - in here it’s safe, no outsiders can come in. Check your BCE, it will tell you what has happened - ”

As he indicates to the small pack that seems to hold your belongings, he explains: you are in the encampment of Saladin, the greatest commander in all of Islam. He has been fighting the crusading invaders since the death of the Crusader King Baldwin VII. But one of the most important was about to start: you are here, at Hattin, though the enemy hasn’t arrived yet. Not that it means it’s time to rest: this is a war camp. There is much to do. Saladin runs a impressive army, and it wins by its discipline, no idle hands here, and for you, newly awakened to it, there is just as much to do. So enjoy the first few moments of reprieve, there won’t be much of it in the coming days.

MISSION OBJECTIVE

The forces of COST-- allied, today, with the armies of Saladin, though they will never know-- aim to win the day.

This is imperative, because Saladin's victory at Hattin makes his next victory possible: he intends to march on Jerusalem, long held by invading Crusaders, and take his city back. Historically, he wins a Hattin and at Jerusalem. But, the Regency supposes, if they could weaken Saladin in Hattin, perhaps even completely defeat him, he would not be so able to take the city.

Preserve the flow of history. Aid Saladin's army. Defeat the Crusader army at Hattin.

A MESSAGE FROM GROTHIA

>>@CMDR

@ALL I don't have time to explain right now, but the transporters have played havoc on the way in and we think that the - nevermind, the techdacts don't make any sense at the best of times. Your memory has been tampered with, one of the Regency's tricks, no doubt. Price for late intelligence, we didn't know until we made the transfer.

Short of it is, I put you all down as having a bout of heat stroke that knocked you out and that’s the story you need to stick to. Even if you don't want to trust me, you're going to have to follow my instructions if you want to live through the next week. We can do our reintroductions later.

Follow our instructions and we’ll all make it through this with minimal casualties.

Welcome back, soldiers. Good to have you with us again.

WIN THE DAY

MEDICAL

Help build up the army after the Siege of Tiberias.

After this battle, Saladin's forces turn toward Jerusalem, and eventually take it from Crusader control. It's imperative, then, that Saladin's forces are strong, healthy, and most importantly, alive. This is war: there are a larger number of soldiers who are wounded and require medical care to maintain the numbers. Saladin's forces are lucky: their medics are some of the best in the medieval world. But there is constant need for more hands on deck to assist. Whether that’s holding down a soldier to cut off his leg - or dress a wound. Maybe it’s just as simple as a soldier that wakes up from his fever wanting water, there is always something that needs doing.

STEALTH

Sabotage the water supply of the crusaders.

All armies march on their stomach, and in the desert, access to water means life or death. Saladin knows this, and the Crusaders are heading for the largest oasis between Jerusalem and Hattin to replenish their stores. Saladin has placed a line of defense at the oasis to stop the Crusaders. Some truly desperate Crusaders are risking death, attempting to break through the defenses in an attempt to get some water. Your orders are simple: no Crusader should be getting to that water.

STEALTH

You know what else armies need? Sleep. For those brave enough, its been encouraged to try and exhaust those Crusaders. Your orders are vague, leaving plenty of room for creativity: psychologically mess with them, mimic loud animals to wake them up, forcibly introduce these 12th century men to Cyndi Lauper at the top of your lungs. Whatever takes your fancy, just try not wake Saladin’s forces, they still need their beauty sleep. And most importantly: don't get caught.

COMBAT

The Crusaders are here: fight them. Crusaders will in heavy chain mail into battle, often with a padded gambeson underneath them. Aim your weapons for the chinks in the points that quickly immobilize: the throat, armpit, inner elbow, inner thigh, inner knee. You will always want to aim for the veins and joints. This isn't about clean, this is about hard and fast. Battles in the desert are made worse for every hour spent in the gruelly heat.

They fight with heavy sword and shield, and the metal they wear makes them more strongly defended, but also slower; they cannot mount their horses without some help, so if you manage to unhorse a Crusader, they must survive the remainder of the battle on foot. Often if you wounded a horse, it can kill the man riding it.

Medieval warhorses are huge animals that can do serious damage with a single kick; however, by Crusader tradition, many are stallions, which are famously willful difficult to control. Being thrown from one of these horses, especially in armor, is no small thing. This is where by contrast Saladin's army comes into its own. They ride a lighter horse more suited to this kind of warfare, and the cavalry works by spiking in quickly, reigning down an attack, then retreating. The Turks are famous for riding by, and shooting down arrows into foot soldiers before retreating out of range again.

Aside from the knights on their horses, keep an eye on hired mercenaries and others of all classes storming into battle. Watch out for crossbows: a single bolt can punch through thick metal, much less whatever you might be wearing. However, the shots take a great deal of time and strength to load, requiring the user to pull the bolt back while standing on the bow. The weapons are not stealthy, and striking an opponent while they load them is the surest route to victory. More traditional archers are far more difficult to defeat; though their arrows can't cut through metal, they can shoot from much farther away and draw another arrow ten times as fast. Other fighters charge in with cudgels, maces, spears, axes, polearms, and the fervent determination fanaticism brings. Do your fellow soldier on the battlefield a favor: try and take out an archer whenever you can. But for those fielding the arrows, don't stay put, they'll always try and take you out first.

The battle of Hattin is one of the most bloody in the history of the Crusades; famously, it is said that its outcome left the sky black for all the birds hungrily circling the carnage. Your job in this battle is twofold: fight to win, and survive.

COMBAT / STEALTH

Capture Guy D'Lusignan.

History dictates Guy D'Lusignan, current King of Frankish-ruled Jerusalem, is captured by Saracen forces, which later leads to Muslims recapturing Jersusalem from Frankish hands. Help the Saracen war parties ride out, make sure they aren't sabotaged, and attack King Guy's war party. Along with them, you'll find Reynard de Chatillion, another nobleman whose capture will herald a collapse of the Crusader forces. Medieval battle isn't like modern warfare, where soldiers fight on in spite of their leader's capture or death.

A medieval battle ends when one side gives up, or when a leader has been killed or captured. Capturing the heads of an army leads to the immediate death of the battle's morale and will to fight. To win the Battle of Hattin, it is imperative that Guy D'Lusignan and Raynard de Chatillion are captured, as they were in history.

read the jerusalem setting infopage

NAV. NETWORK LOGS OOC PLURK DISCORD

Comments

A

[disorderdisgust]

Overhaul does not consider himself a spy. A scientist, a Yakuza boss, a mastermind, yes. Leave the combat to the mooks beneath you and simply destroy your enemies from the shadows through them. But here he has no underlings to order around, and because he lacked them, that meant getting out there and taking matters into his own hands. And when there is an enemy he has to sabotage, well, he has plenty of experience with planning such things that actually performing that action was nothing for him.

Of course, he runs into Henry there and his body freezes when he sees the energy projectiles. His first instinct is to presume a quirk, but... most people in this group didn't have such things. Yet it was some other power, one just as disgusting and deserving of cleansing. But of course, they were technically "allies", so he had to tolerate him. But tolerance does not mean being nice. But the man who had covered the lower half of his face with the resources he had available walked over to Henry, a wry smile concealed beneath.

"I see you too have your own little parlor tricks."

[handsomefoil]

Henry's first instinct is to hide his blade the moment he hears footsteps, but the shine of the light wouldn't escape even the dullest of minds. Most from the century would probably dismiss it as a lamp or something, as the flash is brief and he deactivates the blade immediately.

But judging by the calm tone, he assumes that this person is more than used to seeing strange things in his day to day. That helps avoid a lot of explaining, at least. One less thing to worry about.

"It's hardly a trick," he says, trying not to sound offended. The handle of his Cross Saber comes back into view, less afraid of bringing it into the open now that this masked stranger seemed unafraid of it. A little twirl of it, but leaves it inactivated for now.

"I take it you've got something interesting up your sleeve, too."

[disorderdisgust]

"Depends on how you define interesting." Quirks, after all, were completely mundane in his world, even though his was an oddity among oddities. But only in its usage, he still looked wholly normal, unlike so many others. He hadn't become an unclean, mutant freak after all.

But still, he decides to give a small demonstration. Nothing that will alert people to his position. He removes one of his gloves, touching the ground. The ground which then shifts as he concentrates a bit on it, forming a series of spikes out of it before returning the earth to its normal shape. He removed the dirt from his hand, and slipped his glove back on.

It was a simple action, really, little effort that would likely amount to little reward. A fair trade off. Of course, he wasn't sure if the other man would consider it a simple action or not.

"Does that qualify?"

[handsomefoil]

Henry doesn't answer straight away, giving the man a brief once over. It's not that he hasn't seen a bunch of weird and impossible shit in his lifetime, but even a little demonstration like that was certainly bizarre in his book. There are Questions, yes, but most importantly, will this be of any use in their current situation?

He observes the way the man cleans his hand off and puts his glove back on, wondering if there's a reason behind that. Wearing gloves is something he can relate to on a very practical level, as he does it to protect his hands when on the job and handling a weapon... but he's not so sure about this guy. Looks like it might be a sanitary reason? He could be wrong.

"It does," he answers. "And perhaps even more so if it's something you can utilize to annoy a few buggers out there."

Then he activates his saber, the fuchsia-tinted light cutting through the dim lighting of the early evening. With a press of a button, he charges up the beam saber and continues chucking the balls of light towards the camp. He wants to hear some annoyed yelling and confusion before he's satisfied.

"Not that you have to or anything."

[disorderdisgust]

"I could easily scramble all the orifices on their body if I was so inclined. That would be a proper annoyance." But people were disgusting enough already, he didn't need to make them moreso. Now that, that would be truly terrible.

Although perhaps, on another level, somewhat amusing. Watching them struggle even to scream. But he could easily close all of the orifices for that effect, and that was overall much less disgusting.

He'd have to give that a test.

"But, I think that would be too much for the people of this time. So normal disruptions it is. Although, I lack the range to do anything from other here." Rest in peace, Overhaul, for one of your Quirk's only limitations.

[handsomefoil]

"Shame. I would've liked to see that proper for myself."

His tone is almost disbelieving, even after Overhaul's demonstration. He doesn't know the extent of those abilities, and even if he isn't inclined to dismiss it in the slightest, there's still room for doubt in his mind. That being said, it is still true that he would've liked to see it.

There's a bit of hurried chatter rising in the distance, and he can only assume that a small group of people in camp are reporting to each other about a strange sound and some light. Vague enough descriptions that it could be anything, be it natural or something more otherworldly or even a preemptive strike from the enemy camp.

"Maybe you can throw some rocks."

He jokes, pausing in his ball-chucking. He's rarely ever funny, and this is still one of those times.

[disorderdisgust]

"...I'm not particularly keen on revealing our location, thank you. And while normally my intimidation stunts would be viable here, sadly they have the advantage of raw numbers." As his enemies usually did. Which was why he had his own followers to be able to disrupt and split up them, to be able to even remove some from the picture, if possible. Right now he had himself and one person, neither with the specially picked skills to be able to cause said disruptions.

He cursed his own lack of authority.

But he was no idiot. He could strategize a way out of this. Or well, around this. While his Quirk required contact to work, the upper range limit from there meant that if they could just find a location close enough to the camp yet far enough to stay hidden, he could do a bit of remodeling. Or well, at least, open up a few cracks in their setup. So, quietly, he moves, just a bit, eyes searching the horizon for his spot to move to.

[handsomefoil]

Henry had no interest in taking on an entire camp on his own. It wasn't in his job description to kill for free, and he didn't kill for fun. So he is more than content to just sit back and cause a little mischief rather than full-on attack an army. Albeit a very sleepy and easy army, but an army nonetheless.

Only offering a sideways glance, amusement hiding in the look he gives, he follows Overhaul with his eyes as the man moves away to do...something. Whatever it is, it's probably better than just standing here, so he carefully follows, his footsteps barely a whisper on the dry ground below. It was probably a good time to adjust his position too, anyway. Just in case a scout comes out here to check things out for suspicious activity.

[disorderdisgust]

He slides into position naturally, out of sight and in the range. He's smiling, though it's hidden, as he touches a single finger to the ground. it's at the edge of the enemy camp he opens it, a fissure 50cm deep and wide enough for a man to be able to lie in it, spanning a decent enough length. Parting the earth itself in a grand display, that leaves him satisfied. It's out of the Crusader's sight, he can tell, but he knows they'll hear it soon enough. And well, parting the earth itself is not an ignorable feat.

But decides to head back to a position slightly further away, though still making him able to observe their reactions, bringing himself closer to the ground in such a way to minimize his contact with it and give him less dirt to clean off.

[handsomefoil]

He lets out a low whistle of appreciation. Like his new buddy here, he makes sure to keep out of sight should any of the groggy soldiers suddenly bolt up awake and decide to check out the noise. Judging by the sheer force of the miraculous act, it seems very likely.

"A trap?"

Overhaul can reply if he wishes, but Henry could easily be talking to himself. There's only a few scenarios he can get from this that don't end in murder, which he hopes it doesn't come out to, seeing as that would incite a ruckus.