Epilogue
Kalyustar brooded in the deepest crypt of the mausoleum where the Cursed Company had retreated after conceiding the Twisted Oak to the Rotmoons.'You did well in the eyes of the Master', the Shadeglass Skull's voice came, for once sooting and devoid of its usual mocking tones.
'He too is no stranger to meddlesome brutes and vermins tampering with His plans. But He and His servants have time as their ally. And what does he do with time, Soulchemist?'
"He gather strength and soldiers and plans His next move... Once again, you're right old friend. I should follow in the footsteps of the Master!"
Kalyustar rose from the chair he had been sitting and walked to the crypt altar. There, seething with the cold energies of Shyish, sat the skulls where the power of the Twisted Oak had been stored. It was less than he had wanted, but it would have been enough to try something that so far only the Vampire Lords of the Vyrkos dynasty had achieved.
The necromancer lifted the two skulls and smashed them together. Amethyst sparks flew around his hands as he started to intone a summoning incantation.
The amethyst sparks coalesced in a globe of necrotic energy, skulls appearing and fading across it, their jaws open wide in silent screams. Then the globe darted upwards, flewing straight through the shaft bringing the musty air of the Harrowmark down into the crypt.
"It is done, old friend. Now we wait".
It wasn't long before a deep, rumbling moan and heavy footsteps sounded outsyde the mausoleum doors.
Kalyustar opened them wide and there, next to the engraved lintels, they waited, awkwardly shuffling their feet, their arms hanging slack along their bodies, guts spilling out of deep wounds.
'Deadwalker Ogors. Good, Soulchemist, good!'
"Yes, my friend! If it is only brute force that DaLeeva and his crew understand, i'll give them some like they have never seen before".
This has been an amazingly entertaining campaign, even though it was on a COVID hiatus for two whole years and, towards the end of it, I couldn't post about it as regularly as I'd liked.
The games were all tense and fought to the very last, all the while giving plenty of opportunities to develop a good story.
One thing those game thought me is that you need a careful balance between numbers and muscles when playing Warcry. Not knowing what the battle conditions will be until the very last moment before starting to fight means that going for pure elite or horde warbands might find you at a disadvantage. Gamewise, this means that I had to add some elite fighters to the Cursed Company.
Narratively, however, Ididn't want to go for any vampire. Kalyustar is not likely to share power, and a necromancer will inevitably fell under the sway of even a lesser vampire like a Bloodknight. Luckly, the release of rules for the Kosargi Nightguard gave me the perfect choice: big, strong, mindless zombies, easy for Kalyustar to control.
I had two Mournfang Cavalry bodies in my bits box and all I had to do was repositioning the legs so that they stood rather than sit astride a saddle. This also allowed me to give the legs the typical unnatural angles of zombie legs.
Similarly, I had to glue the Glutton hands, arms and heads at unusual angles to keep the feeling of a shambling zombie. Then, I carved holes in the exposed flesh and eyes and filled the gutplate holes with rolls of greenstuff to represent spilling guts. Finally, I sculpted flaps of torn skin above the spilling guts and around some of rents I had carved.
The final touches before painting were the addition of weapons embedded into the zombies bodies, all taken from the Glutton sprue, and rebuilding the belts. For that, I glued the buckles from a gut plate on the right and then sculpted the end of the belt on the left.
Painting wise, I stuck with the dirty yellow and black uniforms and worn metals of the Cursed Company, going for a rotten green for the ogors flesh.
I painted the guts with Bugman's Glow, followed by washes of Carrobourg Crimson and Druchi Violet and finally a liberal coat of Blood for the Blood God, giving the feeling they are still wet, as if the belly bursted recently. For the wounds I instead wanted an old, scabby look, achieved by sparingly applying Blood for the Blood God over blotches of Typhus Corrosion.
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