Warfare

Warfare

Combat commences when one House moves an army to the tactical point it wishes to take. The attacking House may then expend a Sword to reduce the defender's Chalices by one. If the defender has the Swords Reversed attribute, he or she may opt to lose a Reversed Sword instead of a Chalice. Once this exchange occurs, the defender becomes the attacker and combat recommences. If the attacker has Swords Reversed, he may only expend half of his Swords Reversed attribute in attacking.

The original attacker may back off at any time, but the original defender gets a parting shot at them and their army is destroyed. The original defender may back off at any time if the territory does not contain a keep. That territory is given to the original attacker. If the territory does contain a keep, the defender can still abandon it at any time, but all named characters present that do not have PC protection are taken hostage by the original attacker. (The character with PC protection may slip away.) If the original defender abandons the territory, they must surrender either one Pentacle or one Chalice directly to the original attacker.

An attacker whose swords run out has two options. He may keep his army in place, living off the land and laying siege. In that case the defender may continue to expend swords to damage it. Alternately he may break off. In that case the army is destroyed. Survivors may make their way back to friendly territory but reconstituting the army will cost a pentacle and take a turn.

A defender who loses all his swords is basically screwed. He may surrender, retreat or continue taking lumps in the hopes that the attacker will exhaust his army. A surrendering House must immediately lose an attribute point of the victor’s choosing, or offer an acceptable favor to the victor, usually the use of an Arcanum. Alternately, they may give up a character of the victor's choosing as a hostage against future hostilities. These are merely examples of typical terms of surrender: the warring Houses may negotiate as they see fit. Unless otherwise specified by the terms, the contested territory is granted to the victor and the army opposing him destroyed.

In the event that both sides run out of swords without a firm defeat the battle turns into a long term siege. Essentially the defender is pinned down and the attacker can make no forward progress. If the battle is not around a keep or the like then it becomes a series of skirmishes and raids between two exhausted forces. Once XP is spent the battle may be resumed.

If either side loses all of its Chalices, it no longer has the capacity to maintain any of its holdings and its surviving members must seek asylum with the King or with one of its allies. The restoration of a House from such a state will be handled on a case by case basis.

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