NEW CUSTOM BANDS
The basic idea of Warmonger is that, although we offer you our own official miniatures, you can use any of the ones you have in the cabinet at home or lost in a drawer from other fantasy games you have played or collected in the past.
It is possible, then, that you may find that you don’t know where to fit those miniatures into our game because none of the existing factions in this rulebook fit their style, armament, description or race. But thanks to the simplicity of the basic Warmonger rules you will find that it is much easier to add them to the game than you might think.
BACKGROUND
The first thing to do is to find a background and a place for them in the Warmonger universe.
If they are clearly human and you want to play them as such, it is very simple to invent a new tribe, give them a region to inhabit and make them enemies or allies of other nearby inhabitants.
Otherwise they might fit well among the Wildlings (if they are intelligent creatures or monsters) or the Inhumans (if they stray too far from the natural realm to get closer to the aberrant).
BASIC PROFILES
All basic troop profiles (Warrior, Veteran, Creature, Hero and Sorcerer) are the same for all bands, so there is nothing to touch here.
SPELLS
For Sorcerers there is an important change, which are the Sources of Sorcery they have access to. Usually each band has access to two or three sources, so you can choose those that best suit the background you choose for your miniatures, guided by the category in which you have included them.
SPECIAL TRAITS
The most complicated thing to think about, implement and balance will be the band’s distinctive traits. These are usually two or three special rules that define their character to fit their background (such as immunity to Fear and Poison of some Living Dead), with the counterbalance of some counterbalance in case the said rules are too powerful (the Toughness rolls if they lose their Sorcerer leader).
Most likely you will have to test how the band performs on the game table to determine if these traits are very or not very relevant, before you can take them for granted.
Take as an example the traits of the existing bands in each category (Human, Undead, Inhuman and Savage) and invent your own along the same lines without copying them entirely so that each band maintains its particular essence.
EXAMPLES
FLAME SERVANTS
In the drawers where you hide the miniatures you buy compulsively you discover a bunch of half naked female warriors of various brands, that you collected for that amazon project you left half finished. They don’t fit in with the Warmonger human bands because they don’t wear masks, nor heavy layers of skin, nor look like they eat human flesh, but you want to use them for a few games.
Since you have a fetish for red-haired female warriors from all the Red Sonja comics you’ve read, you decide to give the gang a fire theme, so you place them around the Hellmouth: a human redoubt near this hotbed of demons. In keeping with that idea you christen their tribe the Flame servants, giving them a whole liturgy of fire worship in their rituals. They lacerate their flesh with red-hot irons to prove their worth or atone for their faults, cremate their dead women and abandon their male babies to their fate near the volcanic caldera: some die, others are dragged by the demons to an uncertain fate and some are rescued by the Stump People who consider these mountains sacred. They mate their male prisoners like animals and then throw them into the fiery lava cauldrons of the volcanoes.
Their Sorceresses have access of course to the Source of Elements (Fire). You can also give them access to that of Elements (Earth) by coming from a mountainous region. And, if you’re feeling creative and want to give the band a cool touch because of their proximity to the Hellmouth, they may also know the Source of Madness.
A distinctive feature may serve to represent the steep and rugged terrain of their home region. They are expert climbers, hunting as young girls, stealing eggs from the highest nests and playing hide-and-seek on ledges where some men wouldn’t go near. They can reduce the range of a Fall by 1 (i.e. up to 10 cm they would not suffer damage, starting with Strength 2 thereafter according to the table on page 14).
You can use the other distinctive trait to emphasize that their Sorceresses are specialized in Fire magic. When a Sorceress of the Flame servants casts an Elemental spell (Fire), when rolling on the Sorcery Hazards table she will consider it to be of a lower level than the actual level (i.e., for example, Scorch would not add anything to the roll on that table).
They do not seem to be distinctive traits that are particularly unbalancing or powerful in the game, so in principle it would not be necessary to compensate with a negative trait. But now it’s time to create a list, test them on the table and see how your new band works.
THE HAND OF OTZII
One of the most characteristic human factions that, for some reason, has aroused more interest in the Unholy Lands role-playing supplement is that of the Stump People. It is not usual to find miniatures of mutilated warriors, but maybe you have some internal deviation that leads you to modify or make conversions of your figures to represent the ritual amputations of this elusive tribe.
Here we are going to give them a more sinister and less “neutral” touch than they have in the RPG supplement, in order to include them in the Inhuman factions.
The Hand of Otzii is a radical sect within the Stump People. They have twisted the cult of their main deity until reducing it only to their hand, whose silhouette they draw everywhere by sprinkling blue pigments or tracing it roughly with clay or dyes. The Hand guides all their actions, metaphorically and practically: their leader is a medicine-man who calls himself the Hand and who fiercely rules his tribe backed by five warlords who are called Fingers.
Although they accept the amputation of any limb as payment for joining their tribe, to be a full member, a warrior who can go into combat and a trustworthy person in the eyes of the Hand or his lieutenants, a man or woman must mutilate one of his or her two hands. Preferably the good one. Such an act of submission pleases the wizard-man, a mean and sadistic shaman who uses the limbs collected by his warriors in black magic rituals to invoke demonic forces. Both his Fingers and his trusted warriors have drunk demon blood and suffered horrible internal lacerations from the corrosive poison, leaving them sick for life and subject to the healing magic of the Hand in order to continue breathing.
Their bone totems are covered in hideous offerings, their bodies lacerated by ritual atonement, so scarred that the blue painted hands that identify them are barely visible on their skin. Still they fight fiercely for their territory and their god, in the belief that the punishment if they fail him will be far worse than this miserable life.
Sorcerers of the Hand of Otzii have access to the Sources of Elements (Air), Madness and Curse.
Their first special trait should represent the lack of a hand of all their combatants. Thus, no miniature of the Hand of Otzii can carry two-handed weapons. However, they can carry two weapons or weapon and shield, since they can attach a blade to their stump or tie a buckler to their forearm.
The next trait has to do with the fear and faith that their shamans cause them in equal parts. Any miniature of the Hand of Otzii that is in Line of Sight of one of their Sorcerers will have 1 additional point of Courage for all purposes.
Do they complement each other well, is one more unbalanced than the other, and it’s time to put them to the test on the table!
CONCLUSION
This rulebook has been written with the idea of making it as open as possible. The basic profiles for each troop type and the simplicity of the special faction rules help to balance the game right from the start. Maybe the sorcery rules, rune cards or random event tables will throw you back a bit at first, but the basic mechanics sink in after a few games and, from then on, you decide what you add or what you don’t add.
If the tenebrous designs or the primitive theme of our environment doesn’t suit you, give it a more medieval, gothic or manga feel, depending on your tastes, favorite aesthetics or the miniatures you are going to play with.
Invent new factions that better fit your figures. Develop scenarios that you and your friends come up with. Use the special terrain rules, design new ones or ignore them altogether if you find they slow down your games or you forget them most of the time.
Warmonger is yours to shape the Unholy Lands as you please.