Wallstormers #10.03 The Breakthrough

 There comes a time, when the heroes cross the threshold, from struggling to survive, to formidable opponents. This happened at last.

The Threshold

While I had hinted at it, and we explored it a little. the characters who found this out, were lost to badly timed spells, and whisked away before being able to report back what they discovered. Today an explored concept took the next phase.

Weeks ago, maybe months, some explorers dropped a silver coin in a pond that had some blood at the bottom of it. the blood retreated. 

It could have been a copper coin, or a nail, but it was silver. So it retreated.

I've had this happen a few times.. copper coin or tin bit, dropped into blood, no effect. heroes shrug their shoulders and nothing happens.. that was 2017. 

This time, 2026, a silver coin, and it set of a chain reaction of events.

Next, players attempted a silver fork, stab it in the ground, and the blood stops creeping at them. Hmm they said.. weeks pass.

Silver dipped arrow, shot into a blood gate. the create is halted, confused.. the blood hasn't penetrated the wood, but its close enough to cause it pause.

Today, 20+ silver dipped arrows.

Why was it that the zombies were holding back.. why were they not nearby?

The team started bringing in some expensive furniture from the town houses, there were no zombies around.. word had it they're all gone to the Ziggurat gate and started to congregate, so nothing was near the North gate. Perfect timing.

House No.1 was cleared, and almost house number 2, but some strange robed fellow out on the far end of the main road stood and watched.

Kane decided to get closer, taunt the thing, see what was up.

Hammond wasn't in for it, he returned to town. Nope.. not gonna risk it.

Kane got the others to provide backup.. they joked.. sure, we'll just back up a bit more.. they stood 100m on the road behind him.

He approached. 200m from the robed man, with a long staff. a knarled staff, Oh.. Oh no.. too late Kane started running as the man raised his staff and struck the base at the ground, small tendrils under the sandy road snaked their way, impossible fast, rippling the soil. Kane ran faster as they snaked towards him, at the last moment he dodged, dived, rolled and then returned to his feet, not stopping for a second. 

His friends were all already panting, running, escaping. This thing was obviously dangerous.

Someone pointed out, they hadn't finished with the house.. they calmed down, watching the robed fellow from now 1000 of metres away. keeping watch, collected Hammond, they went back to the house.. but as they returned, they saw their path blocked by the robed fellow..

Kane, keeping watch the entire time, exclaimed how he'd not taken his eye off the creature, and there. look it still stood there, but was that.. who was this new one? were there two? more? 

confused, they dropped the tallboy right there in the street and ran.

Jorren called out to the group. He had a key to a secret entrance, "follow me" he said.

A few moments later, they were scrambling at the wall, 

Hammond panicked, not realising or looking for an escape route, he ran down an alley to the gate, but the robed being was there, too late, the sand tendril was send on its way, it caught Hammond by the leg, tore at his flesh, scarred and marked he ran back to his friends.. but they were gone. Hammond threw himself at the wall, "Hey, HEY I'm here, let me in", the crack appeared and a door opened, they pulled him in, and shut the door.

Fingers pressed to his lips, they waited.. then slowly began crawling back along a passage.

Emerging into the daylight. They called it a day. BUT, news would get out about the townhouses and the high quality furniture.. they would have days if they were lucky.

They decided to go for the Ziggurat gate, they hadn't heard the news.

The next morning, ready at the gates, the guards warned them to be ready. They opened the gates.

More than 300 metres away the edge of a horde of zombies stood. cold, slow, moving, but unaware in the light fog. The bulk of the zombies were 500 metres back further, so there was a chance.

Greed possibly took over their sense of preservation, so they made their way to a townhouse. Yet at some point the conversation got to prices of healing, and Hammond required more than he had, to buy a potion of cure-all. So they changed track, and went for a tavern.

Recently, Taverns were paying more and more for acquired bottles, as there often seemed to be a mix between magical potions and fancy alcohols. So a Tavern would likely end up with a few more coins. AND were easier to carry.

They made their way to the taverns back gate, slipped their way inside. The backdoor was blocked by a moat of blood, but the back 2 rooms were accessible from their windows.. IF they could make little to no noise.

The team set about, guarding and watching as the knife experts started removing panes from rotting frames.

As the panes were extracted, it was obvious zombies inside the building were being affected by this powerful pull, they were clawing at the door to get out.. obviously facing the wrong way, Hammond and Bob called over Jorren and got him to shoot them. 

Jorren got out his silver arrows.. This is where things get set in motion..

The arrow not only penetrated the back of the skull, but the blood in the head of the zombie tried to violently retreat, tearing the head off the shoulder and splattering all over the walls.

Jorren was already mid shot of the 2nd and third arrow before he noticed what had happed.

This was not normal.

He walked over to the yard and aimed at the pool of blood.

He shot.

It landed in soil, blood pushed back in a circle from the arrow tip.

Silver arrow tip.

He shot again, deeper, and again.. the blood was pushing back, and gravity was spilling it over, and it happened so fast, it began to steam!

Bob yelped as an arm came out of the window, he raised his short sword, chopping off the arm, but recently he'd had the sword coated in silver.

The arm didn't just come off.. the flesh fled the bones, and turned to soup. he bones fell on the ground, nothing holding them together, the zombies shoulder bones protruded from the flesh, and nothing else remained.

Jorren stepped up pegged 6 arrows into the room and took out the lot. He stood for a few seconds and watched as one, pinned to the wall, melted and dribbled down the wall. 

Hammond had just started to climb into the room, 

It was then that Johnathan yelled back to the group "Hey you GUUUYS!"

Johnathan had climbed the wall to keep watch, and noticed zombies closing in on the back gate.

"GUUYS!!!"

Kane and Bob ran back to the Gate, and opened it, to find more than a handful of Zombies had made their way to the gate. Bob started to push back against one gate, block the way, while Kane hacked into the zombies.. beheading them one at a time. In a quick effort and speedy thought, Bob got out his staff, Hammond a spear, and they pushed zombies back, while Kane slashed a path down the street. Jorren jabbed 5 arrows in the ground, creating a barrier.

But the zombies kept pushing.

Jorren looked on in horror and disgust, but also intrigue and understanding.

The Zombies.. being pushed from behind pushed against the barrier, their feet too close, melted. their bodies crumpled into the arrows and melted some more. Bones fell where bodies landed. and a thick ooze flowed onto the road.. absent of blood. that flowed back into the next zombie behind it.

The gang created a machine. Kane hacking the way at the front, Bob and Hammond pushing them out at the sides, creating barriers, while Jorren created blockades with arrows, He called to the group "Use Silver!"

Johnathan dug his hand into his pocket, and pulled out some silvers.. in another life, this was a weeks pay, This could afford rend, food, and a few drinks on Friday, and here he was.. as he loaded one into the sling.. throwing his money away.

He slung it, expecting it to need as much force as possible, the coin didn't edge into the head of his target as expected, it imploded. as did the zombie behind, and the few behind that..

While shocked, they didn't have time to take in what they just saw.

They burst out into the main street, their escape route at last.. but to the right, hundreds of zombies, and in the lead a zombie centaur, with helm and spear!

Jorren shot at it with arrows, Johnathan let loose with a handful of coin, slung at velocity, the blood curdling screams of the zombies or was it merely the escaping of gasses as they melted.

Johnathan, taking a second look at the spear, decide it was worth it and ran for the spear. grabbed it and ran.

The whole gang ran, the zombies were closing in. they were low on silver bullets, as they neared the gate Johnathan could feel the spear rising in power.. something was going to happen, so he willed it to happen.

The blood drained from his body, the flesh from his skin, the muscle from his bones, the marrow from within, he was barely a skeleton, covered in skin, but a 30ft tall skeleton, his clothes burst from his body, tearing at his flesh, he passed out, and returned to normal.

The gates shut, the party saved. They looked at each other as the naked unconscious Johnathan shrank back to his original size, but not his original health.

They rushed him to hospital, some of them slept there and then, others walked wearily home to sleep.  

 

Wallstormers #10.04.01 AI written

 North gate creaked open

The wind howled through the cracked battlements of the North Gate—once called Temple Gate in the old tongue—as five young Wall Stormers slipped into the eternal twilight beyond the walls. For one hundred and thirty-seven years, the undead had clotted the lands like a festering wound that would not heal. Inside the city, generations had starved, clawed back from the brink, and forged a desperate new society of scavengers and dreamers. But the lure of the outside world never died. Tales whispered in the taverns spoke of bold lads and even women returning heavy with unimaginable wealth: rusted gold, ancient relics, treasures from a dead civilization. Heroes, they called them.

Gordon—Jordon to those who knew the old pronunciations—led them, his axe gleaming dully in the gray light. Beside him strode Gason (Json), Jreg (Greg), Jayson (Garson), and Geoffrey (Jeffery). They were young, reckless, eyes bright with visions of glory and overflowing pouches of Pg—the pitted coin of the reclaimed world. "We'll return as kings," Gordon had boasted at the gate, ignoring the hollow-eyed guards who muttered warnings about the shadows that lingered too close to the walls.

They had not gone far before the Customs House rose before them, a squat, malevolent tower built into the wall itself. Its stones seemed to drink what little light remained, windows like empty eye sockets staring down at the intruders. "Stay clear," the elders had warned time and again. "That place devours the living. Built wrong. Cursed from the first brick." But youth and greed are deaf. The lads forced the iron-bound door, boots echoing in the dust-choked halls.

The tower fought back.

What happened inside remains a blur of screams and splintering bone. Gordon and Jayson, the strongest warriors among them, vanished into its depths first. A low groan rose from the foundations, like the earth itself awakening. Shadows detached from the walls—rotted hands clawing, jaws unhinging with wet hunger. The survivors fled, hearts hammering, leaving their brothers to whatever fate the Customs House claimed. No bodies were found. Only silence, and the faint, wet sounds of feeding that echoed long after they sealed the door behind them.

Shaken but unbowed, the remaining three pressed on, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and that damned tower. They came upon an old smithy, its forge cold and black, tools scattered as if the smith had simply walked away mid-strike one hundred and thirty-seven years ago. Gason rifled through a warped workbench and uncovered a strange, leather-bound book. Its pages crackled with forbidden knowledge: meticulous notes on the forging of a "sledge hammer," a weapon of terrible weight that could wield a mighty stone head capable of shattering undead skulls like overripe fruit. His fingers trembled as he read—power, real power, lay in those diagrams.

Jreg, meanwhile, discovered yellowed parchments nailed to a beam. They spoke at length of a shadowy deal between the old guilds to complete the Customs House tower. Vast wealth had poured into its construction—gold, labor, secrets. Yet it had been ruined before completion, abandoned in haste. "Something stirred beneath," one note read in a frantic hand. "The stones... they listen."

Emboldened by these finds, they moved to the nearby Guild Hall, its grand doors hanging crooked on rusted hinges. This place felt right for Gason and Jreg—halls of knowledge and craft, ripe for plunder. They scoured the echoing chambers, boots disturbing layers of dust that smelled of rot and forgotten oaths. But the dead do not rest easy.

Jeffery wandered too far into a side gallery. A sickening scrape of bone on stone alerted them. Two zombies—twisted remnants of guild scribes, their quills still clutched in skeletal fingers—pinned him against a crumbling pillar. Their eyes, if they could be called eyes, burned with an ancient, patient malice. Jeffery's screams tore through the hall as decayed hands tore at his leathers. Jreg and Gason charged in, blades flashing. They saved him, barely—hacking the creatures apart in a spray of black ichor that burned where it touched skin. Jeffery gasped, bleeding, eyes wide with the knowledge that the walls had claimed another piece of them.

Yet the Guild Hall yielded treasures amid the horror. Jreg pried open a sealed cabinet and found a cache of rare fountain pens and shimmering ink vials, untouched by time, worth a small fortune—50 Pg at least in the markets behind the walls. Gason, hands still shaking from the fight, unearthed a stack of history books detailing the Northern Temples. Their pages whispered of older horrors, rituals that once bound the dead, and secrets that might explain why the siege had never truly ended.

As the three survivors limped back toward the distant lights of the city, the wind carried new sounds—low, wet laughter from the Customs House tower, and the shuffle of countless feet stirring in the ruins. The wealth they carried felt heavier now, tainted. Gordon and Jayson were gone, swallowed by the bones of the old world. And in the deepening dark, the lads realized the truth that every Wall Stormer eventually learns:

The undead do not simply wait outside the walls.

They *build* the walls. They *haunt* the treasures. And they never let the living leave unchanged.

The North Gate loomed ahead, but behind them, something vast and patient stirred once more. The siege was far from over.
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While we have our misgivings over AI, sometimes I like to dabble and see what direction it goes.. Todays AI written story comes from these notes:

Customs house, no treasure, Gordon dead, Gason dead. Smithy, treasure: lore & metal working. Guildhall, Jeffry fails, but saved, story lore and small treasure, Temple Jeffry dead, treasures found. 

Hidden Information in Roleplay Games

 Recently I read a post about some people consider it cheating to use a piece of paper to takes notes. I Balked. Why? So I deep dived into the topic to understand it better.

Should GMs allow players all information? 

Should Players Meta play?

Its a common enough topic that I might not have considered writing a blog for it, so I don't want to go into it and bore you if you've read it all before, so let me just preface this with a paragraph or three on secret information.

Hidden information games, come in two varieties, Known (but often forgotten) and Unknown (but discoverable). outside of this, are random hidden, which I find, and seems a majority of the internet agrees, is not a great mechanic and is often used only in poorly design or children's games. So not worth discussing here.

Unknown but discoverable, makes 100% sense. You might start a game, such as Pagan, where you have 9 possible suspects, you whittle down the list by A) watching your opponent give them more power, and B) eliminating the suspects, until either of you have enough information to win.

Unknown Information in Roleplay

I don't hear of it often enough, but I do not understand why players get to know the stats of the enemy? Unless their character has encountered this creature often, and knows their standard moves, it makes zero sense. The first encounter should be caution, you don't have a clue about it, learn what it is, and how it reacts. It might even be friendly, but might be unknowingly deadly too.

The interaction of players with the unknown, is half of what roleplay is about. Yet we throw that out the window for combat.   

Known but Forgotten

But, Known but forgotten? A Game like Catan, you can see what cards a player picks up on their turn, you can memorize this, and as such always know at all times what all players have. But, this means you need to have a great memory or some cool memory tricks to hold this info. So some players are driving Ferrari's and some have Corolla's, So should a game create speed limits? doesn't seem fair to me.

This leads me to think, If the point of the game is to compete over who has a better memory, then ok. but its not fun, and you'll soon find yourself not playing games anymore if you're at either end of the spectrum of memory.

So instead players with poorer memories should be allowed to take notes about who has what cards, to level the playing field a little. 

That said, in roleplay, we have a stat 'INTELLIGENCE' which dictates how much memory a character should have.. Its worse, we're talking about a roleplay game, where the characters Intelligence doesn't always match the players Intelligence, how can we level that playing field? shouldn't we be be using this as a game mechanic? 

Notes in Roleplay

Players are not often banned from taking notes in a roleplay game, but I propose that there should be limitations and encouragements based on character Intelligence scores.

When you should take notes, how much notes you take on any given topic, daily allowances vs limits to maximum notes? Even if we did, players might personally remember everything.

I encourage players with lower than 10 INT to not write things down and 'forget' anything that happened in any previous session that wasn't "big". I might jot down those big items to remind the team, i.e. weakest link, I keep those level of notes for players, but above that, players are encouraged to jot down 1 item per 3 pts INT above 10.

Recently, because I'm running Westmarches, there are 20+ players with 50+ characters, so I've got people writing down the names of the other characters they've met and dealt with, and again, based on their INT score, they can tick that many to 'instantly' remember their details, vs all the rest they need a reminder key, something we're still working on. i.e. if they were both on the quest for the red key, and the red key gets mentioned, then they recall the whole person, not just their name or thing.

I some of my players use the characters weapons as their actual knowledge, as a more interesting nuance "Oh, you two, Bow guy and Shield girl, sure, we met 3 years ago in that tavern".

The more interesting (to me) is that players are learning about how people remember each other, real life education from playing a game.      

 It becomes it own little meta game, should I tick 2-3 pieces of information? or create a memory key and link that to a bunch of information. I have memorized the 7 secret dials for the dungeon we are coming up on, but to do that I need to drop the names of my rivals and the recipe for that +1 Intelligence soup. How can I group  it to a memory key?