So, I’m going to be setting my campaign leading up to the Winter War of 1149 but we really don’t have a whole lot of info. The RPG gives us what little info we have and I have a feeling we have a while to wait for the Winter War comic
So, I’m posting this partially as help for my own campaign, but I thought we could do some spitballing about ideas for how stuff went down. Like how was the Darkheather discovered? How did they finally get rid of the weasels? Did the weasels use other animals? Etc…
From Legends of the Guard we’ve learned that the bats offered to side with either group, but were not really wanted. They are considered spies, but didn’t actually make binding ties with weasels or mice.
I would use that during the adventures of the winter war especially for loremouse. It can give a chance for mice to make contacts outside of other mice and possibly draw upon those contacts as resources. Certainly, the bats can’t step into the role of actually aligning with mice; because, mice won’t accept full trust towards the bats. Regardless, a loremouse that can take advantage of their fence-sitting on occassion would be a good injection of shades of gray during the war.
In the rule book it mentions that the weasels lived inside the Territories before the war, so the mice could already have known about the Darkheather. The western border might have been beyond the Darkheather entrance, and it was certainly beyond the abandoned towns of Woodruff’s Grove, Ferndale, and Walnutpeck (and the warren of Darkheather tunnels noted in the southwest corner of the map, which might not have been revealed until the war’s start).
What was the relationship between the weasels and the mice before the war? Were they tentative allies? Did they simply tolerate one another’s existence? Did they trade? (Were the weasels inside the Territories simply a trading outpost?) Did the weasels make use of the scent border for protection from larger predators? The rules also say that only three mice ever entered the Darkheather and returned alive (Saxon being one of them), so it’s probably safe to assume that the relationship was a fairly suspicious one, if not downright hostile. Which would be difficult with a group living within your borders.
I’m building my own campaign in the post-war period, so I’m looking forward to everyone’s contributions to this thread.
edit: Clarity. Where’s the strikethrough feature for full edit transparency, I ask?
If you have access to the comics, you can see which mice cities fell and play with that. Trying to hold of a siege long enough for a successful evacuation and/or escorting those refugees home would make for quite an adventure. Also, Barkstone became a border city after its more western neighbors fell. This suggests the possibility of long siege on that city that is ultimately broken. The could be achieved with any combination of siege/open warfare, covert maneuvers, and guerrilla style raids. Also, if you have the new rules at your disposal, you’d be hard pressed to find a faster way to introduce mounted combat. In the middle of a war, it makes sense for Lockhaven to be actively negotiating for mounts and giving them to key Guardsmice so that can take to the field quickly. This would negate the players need to negotiate for or capture and train mounts for themselves.
Kovan, I fully intend to play with that. My PCs will in fact be at Walnutpeck and have the chance to prevent it’s fall depending on how things work out. Not sure how I’d incorporate Mounts as I only have one Loremouse in my group. That’s also very much dependent on the PCs wanting mounts
Adverb, see when I read that I assumed they meant living in the Darkheather within the territories. Which to me implies not openly. But it’s an interesting idea
Kendesign… Hmmm I’d forgotten about the Bats. Though we actually learned that in Winter 1152
also something to consider, The Black Axe was active during this time and could be used as an almost mythical mouse who travels the territories killing all weasels who oppose him. then he goes mad and retires to his tree house.
