agogelogs | THE SKY WENT BLACK,

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[And it is because of the blood that Overhaul is utterly disgusted by it. Surrounded by people in their most disgusting, natural state. Not that he hadn't seen worse things. He had reduced humans to bleeding pairs of legs missing their entire upper half of their body, he had torn their forms to shreds and reassembled it, taking what he needed. He had seen blood and guts so many times and yet every single time they thoroughly disgusted him, through and through.

[As he is called over by Angela, he didn't know why he complies. He had too much pride to simply obey orders but also he is here and he has nothing better to do. He's playing Doctor because it is something his Quirk is well suited to, just as well suited to it as it is to ridding himself of disgusting people, and he might as well do something he is good at rather than something even more disgusting. He removed his glove from his right hand, placed his hand on the patient, activating his Quirk as he did so. He only needed minimal concentration to be able to reassemble the person, wounds perfectly healed, and he completely disassembled the blood on his hands to remove himself from being stained by it, and he slipped his glove back on.]

"I think you'll owe me a favor for this later."

( with his hand in place angela turns to gather some more cloth, starting to unravel it as she moves back. though where she'd expected to see blood instead she simply sees no wound, his hand no longer over her patient.

he'd healed it. it's not entirely surprising, not with what angela can do herself with her own tools, but those capabilities didn't arrive with her )

Thank you. ( she places the cloth by the man, checking now the vitals of her patient ) Though I don't work in favours.

( she helped, she healed. saving lives didn't grant favours )

"Then I suppose we work in different currency, then."

[Not that he had anything in mind. It was simply the natural order of things, keeping people indebted to him. Still, his usage of his Quirk hadn't taken her by surprise, as he would have thought it would. The people here, from his own assessment, seemed to lack the quirk factor. So, she wasn't unfamiliar with such abilities.

[Perhaps her world was as unclean as his own.

[But it didn't matter. He had his own world to worry about, and neither of those worlds were relevant to the matter at hand. He made sure to put his distance between himself and the doctor, as he smiled a little bit under his mask. For the sake of keeping things covert he had been forced to switch out of his usual mask, but that didn't also mean he couldn't cut off a piece of his vest and fashion it around his head to protect himself from breathing the same air as these people nonetheless.]

My help comes without a price.

( it was what she did, what she'd trained to do. her profession, her life. healing people healed the world in a way, and she hated to see people suffer. her gaze is still down on her patient, fingers measuring their pulse as she silently counts. things are starting to look better )

They're improving already.

"Good to hear."

[Not really, he didn't particularly care but Overhaul also knew the ways of not being too offputting. Or rather, not people as offputting to others as others were to him. He looked down at his hands, however, covered in their gloves to keep them from picking up excess dirt. He was glad he had, at least, gotten to keep the gloves. He didn't know what he would do without them.]

"Playing straight healer is a change of pace for me, however."

( she runs a few more checks before lifting her head up, settling her gaze back on him )

Perhaps you should try it. You'd be able to do a lot of good here.

( his abilities would help many, and keeping people safe was her priority )

"I could, but I prefer to keep my hands away from people."

[People after all, were filthy, disgusting creatures, which he hated even breathing the same air as. He only tolerated them for the purposes of business matters, and because often times there was no other way of dealing with things but through tolerance. And in this case, it was the latter.]

"Nothing personal, just dirt."

Unfortunately, it's a circumstance of where we are.

( angela wished that it was not, that they were somewhere that would allow her patients to recover with less risk of infection or further disease, but battlefields were not ideal locations )

Though we keep it as clean as we can.

( though injuries would still cause blood )

"Yes. But mundane dirt is something I can at least, deal with on my own."

[And truthfully he had at many times had simply been inclined to disassemble the ones who had. But he knew how to keep up an image, and so he simply had to content himself with getting rid of their dirt and their dirt only]

"But, I would like to ask you something. You weren't surprised by my Quirk. Have you perhaps seen something similar in the past?"

( her head turns to her patient for a few seconds again, examining their outward appearance. his question earns a gentle frown as angela looks his way again )

I haven't heard of a Quirk before, though if you are talking about your healing ability it is not that surprising.

"It's not truly a healing ability. I simply change structures around."

[And also take those structures apart, but that was something people found far more undesirable, which was a shame, given it's usefulness. But he supposed most people didn't carry his same disgust for others, didn't see others for the repugnant, disgusting things they were. Which was also a shame. It's why so many Heroes had opposed him. But, he realized that his manners had escaped him, which, given the situation was rather unsurprising. He folded his arms.]

"But, I don't believe I managed to catch your name. I go by Overhaul."

My name is Angela.

( she gives him a small smile, and confident that this patient is stable for now she moves aside, walking further down the tent to check on one of the others also there )

"Angela. I see."

[For a span of less than a second that accursed name came to his lips, a name which would not be uttered aloud. Still, he followed after her a bit, deciding to ask her a small question that she could answer as vaguely or precisely as she wished.]

"What sort of world are you from?"

THE SKY WENT BLACK,

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