User:RArcangeli/Arcane Legions

Arcane Legions

Game Overview:
Arcane Legions is an epic-scale, strategic combat simulation in which players command hundreds of miniatures on the table at a time. It is designed for two to six players ages 14 and up. The game mechanics combines many traditional features of miniatures wargames such as dice regulated combat and limited order choices with new ones regarding figure placement within a game "unit".

The Night of Mists
Like one of the plagues of Moses, an unearthly mist crept across the land, unleashing arcane powers upon an unsuspecting world. It started in the Middle East, and as the Earth turned and darkness fell across the globe the ghostly mists followed; within the span of 24 hours the world was cast into chaos. The arcane power of the mists left much of humanity unaltered, but those it touched it transformed completely. Magic infused their very bones, manifested in their children, came unbidden to the fingertips of their women, and plagued their countryside with uncontrolled bursts of power. Beasts of the wilderness were turned by the mists into creatures of legend. Entire tribes of humans were altered by the flood of uncontrolled magic, changing before the very eyes of their friends and neighbors into the old races of myth. Ancient gods and the spirits of the deceased were awakened from their slumber to walk among the living. The world would never be the same. The year is now 37 B.C.E., year 5 of a new and terrible age, and the Middle East sits at the center of a vast struggle to control humanity’s fate. Three nations have harnessed the power unleashed by the Night of Mists. As they struggle to claim dominance over the known world, their arcane legions are yours to control.

The Roman Empire
Ruler: Caesar Augustus, Emperor

Major Characters: Atia of the Juliae, mother of Augustus

Marcus Agrippa, Master of the Horse

Vercingetorix, King of the Gauls

Diviciacus, leader of the Druids

Minos, King of Crete, Senate adjunct

Overview: Caesar Augustus, once known simply as Octavian, is the nephew and adopted heir of Julius Caesar, and a devious young politician. After Caesar’s assassination, Octavian used his inherited wealth to hold onto some of his uncle’s power, but circumstances and politics forced him share it with two others; a savvy old general named Lepidus and his uncle’s former Master of the Horse, Mark Antony. This uneasy triumvirate was strained and ultimately broken by the Night of Mists. As chaos swept the Empire, Antony was dispatched to secure Egypt and Lepidus to make sure of North Africa, leaving young Octavian the challenge of restoring order to Rome and Gaul. A year later, when Antony’s forces killed Lepidus and took North Africa, Octavian had the fuel he needed to unite the Empire under his banner. He seized on Antony’s betrayal of Rome and rode a wave of public outcry to be elected Emperor. The newly crowned Caesar Augustus immediately sought allies to bolster his legions. He made a pact with the neighboring Gauls and forged an alliance with the minotaurs of Crete, at the same time working to perfect the art of Roman warfare by focusing massive resources on harnessing the power unleashed by the Night of Mists. To this end, he hired a tribe of Slavic dvergar to yoke the powers of magic and steam, to better protect his legionaries and improve his siege weaponry. His mother, the powerful sorceress Atia of the Juliae, used her influence to gather young women who showed aptitude at sorcery and deliver them into the service of the Gods as a way to focus and control their power. The three temples she has founded thus far have created a deep pool of loyal battle priestesses with which her son can augment his Legions. Rome is once again ready for war, and Augustus is anxious to strike.

The Egyptian Imperium
Rulers: Cleopatra VII, Queen & Mark Antony, King

Major Characters: Decidius Saxa, General

Masika, High Hand of Isis

Amenhotep III, Lord of the Dead

Darius of Pontus, leader of Greece

Queen Cleopatra VII is a clever, manipulative, and incredibly powerful sorceress who rules the newly founded Egyptian Imperium alongside her Roman husband, King Mark Antony. As soon as he arrived in Egypt, Antony had found himself captivated by Cleopatra. She was beautiful, sensual, and tactically brilliant. She already had an entire battalion of trained battle sorceresses at her command called the Hand of Isis; while others wondered how they had been assembled so quickly after the Night of Mists, they made Antony’s task of controlling Egypt so easy that he did not question their origins. With the Hand of Isis pacifying Egypt, it took very little persuasion to convince the restless and lovestruck Antony to take by force what he had not been able to take by scheming. He launched a campaign against Lepidus in Africa and forged an alliance with Greece, capitalizing on the chaos to help them to throw off Roman rule. Meanwhile, Cleopatra conscripted or enslaved every kind of magical creature she found. She turned the hordes of mummified corpses that had risen following the mists into an ever-regenerating army and, determined to control Antony as well as Egypt, summoned Amenhotep III, greatest of the pharaohs, to lead them on her behalf. War with Rome was inevitable, so when a horde of mysterious Xiongnu nomads wandered into the Greeks’ northern holdings, Antony paid a massive sum for the aid of their cavalry. Cleopatra also paid an astronomical amount to the Slavic dvergar to combine her necromancy with their strange golem designs. The Egyptian Imperium has amassed a huge army of men, myths, constructs, and undead. When the time comes, even the mighty Roman Empire may not be able to stand against such a juggernaut.

The Han Dynasty
Ruler: Emperor Wu

Major Characters: Himiko, Jotei of Japan

Zhongli Quan, General and one of the Eight Immortals

Lord Muira, General of the Goryo

Nuwa, creator of the terracotta soldiers

Emperor Wu’s long-held dream of immortality was nearly within his grasp; if he could only tame its harbinger, a remarkable young Japanese sorceress named Himiko. This powerful leader of the Yamato clan singlehandedly united the tribes of the archipelago. The Japanese revere her as their Jotei, or Empress–a title of which China’s deified monarch definitely does not approve. When the Night of Mists struck, Wu and Himiko already were tangled in a complicated web of intrigue and ambition that was threatening to tear apart the Dynasty. She was poised to grant Wu true immortality and in return receive the honor of marriage to his eldest son, but the mists struck before either event could take place. Himiko saved the Emperor countless times during the chaos of that night, and as a reward was given command of what remained of the army and dispatched to bring China back under Imperial control. Her task occupied her for three years, and she returned to the Emperor at the head of an amazing, frightening army of spirits, ghosts, and loyal Chinese volunteers whose lives she had saved. Now a confrontation between the two seemed inevitable, but the Emperor postponed it by revealing that he had determined the approximate source of the Night of Mists. He sent Himiko and her immense army on a crusade into the West, past the great desert and beyond the top of the world, to find and punish those responsible for the magical chaos that nearly destroyed their land. Wu is counting on this war to eliminate Himiko or, failing that, on his own loyal forces in her ranks to turn on her. Himiko, however, plans to use this time to gather enough power to depose Emperor Wu outright and install herself on the throne. A true Empress Himiko would then rule not just China, but the entire known world.

The Xiongnu Nomads
Major Characters:Modu Shanyu, spirit, chieftain of the Xiongnu

The Crone, shaman, host to Shanyu’s spirit

The nomadic Xiongnu have been fighting the Han Dynasty since Modu Shanyu united them nearly 200 years ago. The tribes had fragmented upon his death, and were on the verge of defeat until the Night of Mists. The mists altered some Xiongnu, making them larger and more powerful, as well as giving them greenish skin and prominent tusks. The tribesmen refer to these individuals as Kör, or “proud.” Now too large to ride ordinary horses, they have tamed the tigers of the Steppes to use as mounts. The spirit of Shanyu himself floats above the tribe’s shriveled old crone of a shaman – a Kör woman with no name of her own that anyone can remember. The Xiongnu migrated west at Shanyu’s order, where they will fight for anyone willing to pay their price.

The Slavic Dvegar
Major Characters: Savros Kuznetzov, chief golem mechanic

Bogomir Litvinov, leader of the Great Ones

The Slavs were transformed en masse by the mists. Most became shorter and stouter, and gained a deep and instinctive understanding of the new world. These fiercely independent Slavs took the name dvergar and have become synonymous with magic. They have created a small army of clockwork golems to defend themselves, and they willingly assist any nation in developing unique technologies and weapons—any nation that can pay the cost of development, that is. A few Slavs underwent the opposite change, becoming much larger and more powerful. Most suffered severe mental damage from the transformation, but despite their handicap these Great Ones, as they are called, remain fiercely loyal to their smaller cousins.