Quest:Iron Hearts
A tactical simulated paper and dice RPG/War Game created by Monday, normally played on 4chan's /tg/. A world where fantasy meets World War II technology, lovingly dubbed Diesel Punk by a few players. It's ran primarily late evenings on Thursday and into the weekend.
The Backstory
Major Factions and Groups
Ragnyll
The nationality of the protagonists of Iron Hearts. Embroiled in a bitter war with their former allies of the Voss Empire, Ragnyll separated from its brother-state. The young nation quickly developed a strong economy, more likely than not due to its deposits of a new, abundant, and powerful resource, Ibonyte. The metal, once mined and refined, is highly reactive, and can be bonded and/or converted to any element through a special electrical process that isn't fully understood.
- Hellghast Armored Unit
The fighting force that the playerbase controls, the Hellghast Armored Unit was bathed in the fires of war from its inception, the earliest cadets having to fight their way out of their own military academy after it had been overrun by a Voss offensive. The Hellghast forces have fought all across Ragnyll, from the forests of Dandelion and Wassau to the mines of Kolstec. The Armored Unit functions through the usage of combined arms, utilizing conventional infantry and armor forces alongside a limited air corps and, in some cases, elemental casters.
The Hellghast Unit has made a name for itself by being one of the more infamous units of the Ragnyllian military, leading the charge that is the Ragnyllian counter-offensive. Currently led by Major Gunther.
- Ragnyllian Legion
Ragnyllian company famous for its usage of large amounts of infantry. Deployed alongside the Hellghast unit during the Invasion of Stallion. Led by a Major Thaneus Kane.
- 3rd Ragnyll Air Wing
Ragnyll air corps, nicknamed "The Flying Scissors." Composed of natural pilots, and specialize in the patrol, interception, and harassment of enemy supply lines.
- Bad Company
A band of 13 soldiers that functions pretty much like Schaeffer and his Last Chancers. Fight battles of attrition with the Voss and win. An elite unit, sent on highly dangerous, top secret missions deep into enemy territory.
- Class of '56
The survivors of the elementalist academy in Solstice, the class has reformed into a sort of quick-response group that specializes in battlefield control, anti-occult warfare, and research expeditions. Have contributed heavily to the rebuilding of Ragnyllian cities in the wake of Voss attacks.
Voss
The primary antagonists of Iron Hearts, Voss is a nation fueled by war. More martial than its Brother-state, the Voss Empire has recently launched offensives into Ragnyll, no doubt to secure the nation's newest rare and valuable resource, Ibonyte. Besides conventional infantry and armor, Voss forces are also made up of mindless hordes of reanimated corpses, Ghouls, and beasts of varying size and power, from the deadly flying Gargoyles to the heavily armored Dullahan.
Voss armies function on the generation and usage of a special battlefield resource, Terror. Terror is gained through attrition, ripping apart enemy units and the like. Once enough Terror has been created, it can be used to purchase new units. This aggressive style of play suits the Voss well, their tactics revolving around the usage of massed, weak infantry, heavy armor/monstrous creatures, and large Monotanks that make most anyone shit their pants.
- The Three Generals of Terror
The Generals of Terror are the most brilliant and well-known tacticians in all of the Voss Empire's armed forces. Two of the three have been met on the field and killed; the third, however, remains to be seen.
- Thanatos
An ancient god of immeasurable power, Thanatos was accidentally summoned by Hellghast during the Invasion of Stallion when the Hellghast denied the god its Vossian tribute, human souls in the form of civilians. May or may not be the source of the Voss' ability to resurrect its dead as Ghouls/ source of power in general. Has given Hellghast something of a timeframe, proclaiming that it will claim the souls of those who fought that day in 99 days from the battle.
Aeon
A holy empire founded on the teachings of Alexander, The Holy Church of Aeon has mainly kept to itself during the wars, holding Ragnyll in contempt and eschewing alliance with the Voss for their profane treatment of the dead.
Aeoni units are separated into three different groups: The Crown, which holds the armor units; The Inquisition, who provide heavy hitting but fragile units (think glass cannon), and The Order, which provides the main infantry forces.
Aeon armies make usage of two unique battlefield resources, Faith and Glory. Faith is acquired whenever bodies are consecrated, selfless acts of service are performed, or when holy works are created. Glory is gained upon defeating enemy units, and is lost whenever allied units are destroyed. Faith acts as a multiplier to Glory (if one has 2 Faith points and 35 Glory points, the total Glory the Aeoni player would have would be 70), and Glory, in turn, can be used to purchase new units. This makes Aeon armies deadly if they hold out long enough.
- Legio Aurora
Something of a splinter group from the main body of the Aeoni Order, Legio Aurora consists of the remnants of a larger Aeon force that had originally been sent deep into Ragnyllian lines to confirm that the Vinculum Gate, an interdimensional portal through which daemons poured out, had opened. The group found itself whittled down by constant Voss attacks, until Hallow's Eve, when, during the Battle of The Fist, a miracle occurred. Just as all seemed lost, the Voss continually sending soldiers against Aeon's dwindling numbers, a large group of reinforcements appeared. Ghostly Hellghast warriors and armor, casualties of previous battles, miraculously appeared out of thin air, and cut down the Voss with frightening precision. The Legion, seeing this as a sign of divine intervention, had their spirits renewed, and continued fighting until the Voss forces were completely wiped out. The ghostly soldiers, their job done, then quietly disappeared with the first light of the new day.
The Legion, led by the Chapter Master Wight, held brief relations with the Hellghast Armored Unit until Wight led the legion on a merry chase to find relic gear that could slay the demons and close the gate once and for all.
Iffram
Forest-dwelling elf people. Rely heavily on magic. Unfortunately, not much has been mentioned about them.
- Riverns
From the Faelands are the Riverns who travel across such a vast mythical plane that unreliably changes shape and form, inviting one danger too many or inducing one distraction too much for them to bear its vastly complicated ecosystem. It is thus that the Riverns trace ancient rivers until their solitary and nomadic quests take them to the other side, where the waters become more still and the skies become less wrinkled. As a result, they are constant visitors to every Terra they visit, oftentimes seen as an uninvited guest or a stationary fixture, incapable of keeping up with the underclocked lifespan of the humans.
A Rivern shares the Ragnyllian spirit of exploration and progress; however, vary rarely will a Rivern ever be compatible with his true home, wherever that was. So here they settle, taking with them the odds and ends from the Fae, acting as liaisons to these chaotic lands that even they would shun.
Riverns are said to be splinter reincarnations of themselves--that is to say, if a Rivern dies on another world, chances are he will come back as some random race that could have been. From this, it can be surmised that an Iffram army would focus on something such as random rolls to be effective.
Riverns have come into the spotlight as of the Battle of Hinzerhaus, in which, due to interdimensional dickery, Scout Sniper Finch transformed into a Rivern.
Clovis
Clovis was created by an international exodus of peoples whose homes and countries were destroyed in the Midland Wars. That burned through the Valknyres up to the wastes of Qwloo, primarily it was also spurred by the sheer need of resources to keep their nations afloat. However the rich and fertile lands of Clovis only had so much but more in the way of agriculture and essentially isolation from the rest of the world. Here, trade federations began to spring up, and due to the escalating diversity of interests , became a nation onto itself in order to conduct said trades.
Valuing a base set of ethics and hard practical knowledge, Clovis became the incidental nation that never could have happened, hence its flag; a 5 leafed clover that stresses its separation of many ideas and values that often times MUST meet in a middle point. In its growth as a nation, Clovis focused their resources on the industrial sciences, and improved their means of living through practical use of growing technology. Many a times, resource struggles would break out in its more fringe parts where the government proper could not reach, in these instances much of their military technology operated on the concept of fast hitting, and fast moving forces that can occupy, invade, and reinforce yet another skirmish that is sure to break out elsewhere. As a nation they rely heavily on the many trade companies and industrial corporations that make up its fast paced military.
Clovis are what happens when you take a merc unit, give it a nation to run, and make said nation ultra-capitalistic. Clovis operates much like a modern-day PMC--they sell their services to nations that need a little bit more firepower. Clovis first came into contact with the Hellghast unit during the First Battle of Five Fingers, wherein a Clovis supply plane crash-landed right in front of the battlefield. The Hellghast unit moved to secure the supplies that had dropped out of the plane upon impact, and Clovis had sent a massive reinforcement force to make sure her assets were protected. Clovis units, particularly the Clovis air unit Peregrine, are currently under the employ of the Hellghast Unit, on the assurance that they will be paid handsomely for their services in Ibonyte.
The Story so Far
The story of Iron Hearts begins with the Fall of Sylvia. On that fateful July day in the 656th year, the Voss Empire marched across the borders of Ragnyll and began their attack. The response army shattered, the Cross Military Academy was the next target of the Voss forces. The cadets fought bravely, but ultimately had to make their escape as Ghouls overran their defenses. With the images of the dying academy burned into their memories, the cadets quickly swore revenge, christening themselves the Hellghast. The Hellghast soon found themselves thrust into deployment after deployment; at Norwood Forest, still raw from their first deployments, the unit routed the Vosskon offensive; at Stilemar, they became liberators, and at Dandelion, they became heroes.
It was not until the Battle of Five Fingers that the Hellghast started to form alliances with the various factions that populated the land. How opportune, it seemed, then, when a Clovis cargo plane dropped out of the sky, disgorging its cargo of supplies and soldiers in the midst of traded cannon shells and whistling death! The unit, then under the command of the fiery Captain Iceval, immediately stepped forward to protect the Clovis units and secure the precious cargo. The battle, though successful, saw the end of Iceval, and the passing of the torch to Mana Lanista, a Vanguard Knight, and one of the original survivors of the Fall of Sylvia. In the Battle of Solstice, Mana, then a Captain, was caught in the middle of an artillery barrage, breaking her body and leaving her for dead. Fortunately, a process was revealed wherein Mana could be rebuilt. She became more machine than human, her flesh and bone replaced by armor and wires. Black-gold oil pulsed through veins where blood would have pumped. She had become something not quite human.
Under Mana's leadership, Hellghast's next battle came in the form of sweeping the undead-infested mines of Kolstec. The town held high strategic value to both sides; a massive store of Ibonyte lay within the town's mines, and both parties wished to control it. Though Hellghast took the several losses and Mana was heavily damaged, the mines were liberated, and a massive parasitic worm creature that had been feeding on the Ibonyte deposits was destroyed in a rather large, rather impressive explosion that made the inside of the mine momentarily glow as bright as midday. For their efforts in this battle, the unit was rewarded handsomely: alternate weapon choices were procured for the infantry, and new armor was introduced into the unit's vehicle pool.
The next test for the Hellghast came deep in the forests of Wassau. Under commission from an Aeon Inquisitor, the unit's objective was two-fold: first, to rescue a band of Aeoni missionaries holed up in a small chapel in the woods; and second, to exterminate a fellow Ragnyllian Army unit that had decided to use unholy magicks, shaping themselves into beings that were more beast than human. The extermination effort, however, did not entirely go as planned: while searching the forest for the unit, A Voss contingent made itself known, and both Ragnyllian units formed a temporary truce to beat back the Voss. The battle shifted, though, when a Scout Sniper took a wounding shot at the targeted Ragnyllian unit's commander. The veil pulled back and the Voss all but routed, Wilder's unit turned on the Hellghast, some of their number turned into fierce were-beasts. The fighting became fierce, as brother turned against brother, but the Hellghast prevailed at a high cost: the units that had not been outright killed by the were-beasts were to succumb to lycanthropy themselves unless something was done quickly. Fortunately for the unit, a mystical Aeoni artifact, a sword known only by the name of Sol, was housed in the missionaries' church. The good Captain, seeing the potential of the weapon, took the sword as her own. The sword purified those who had been bitten; amputation of the infected limb stopped the lycanthropy from overtaking the afflicted.
[More to come.]
Joining in on the War
There are only a few things you need to play Iron Hearts, A name, a tripcode, and a class to play as. Seems easy right? Well despite being so the game has many things that primarily Veteran's know about and aren't mentioned. Quite a few of these things will be mentioned here so that you might live longer. Before that you might want to get to know the images below with the unit types on them as they will include your possible player card. Player Card's are your personal stat sheet which you can edit with color and any upgrades you might get from spending Xp.
Unit Cards
-
An Example of a Unit Card with upgrades
-
Ragnllian Infantry page 1
-
Ragnllian Infantry page 2
-
Ragnllian Infantry page 3
-
Ragnyllian Armor
-
Ragnyllian Armor page 2
-
Ragnyllian Armor page 3
-
Alternate Equipment for Ragnyllians
-
Aeoni Infantry
-
Aeoni Armor
Field Manual
The Field Manual made up by Monday and a few others with possible things you can do in the game is always something you might want to read at least once, since it might have something you can do that you'd never think of to begin with.
-
Basics like how to read unit cards
-
Standard maneuvers and firing
-
Special actions
-
Special actions continued
-
Array actions
-
Current Aspects available
