You have the militia disbanded, including Sgt. Pepper who must have his gun taken from him by Farmer Leland (who is a known Drunkard, albeit burly and suggestable to following orders when drinking). \n\nThe next morning, a Miner runs into town shouting about a giant group of Fishpeople crawling from the sea. "There are more than I've ever seen, and they're carrying weapons!"\n\nPrunella Oatswale steps forward, determination on her brow, a cabbage in her hand. "This is our last chance for peace. We have to show them that we mean them no harm."\n\nShe walks toward the advancing mob of Fishpeople, an offering cabbage held out.\n\nThe amorphous horde pauses a couple yards from Prunella, grows quiet. And then falls on her, tearing and biting. You don't even hear a scream.\n\nThe assembled colony looks at you. \n\n[[Uh oh.|Invasion]]\n
The next day Leland Chain is tending cabbages in the fields when a Fishperson gibbers menacingly out of the bushes.\n\nRecalling your lack of orders, Leland stands confused for a moment, then runs into the center of town. He inhales as if to call for help, then remembers again. He looks back and can just make out a hunched form rooting around in the fields. Leland sighs and finds a Bottle of Whiskey in the stockpile to drink while he waits it out.\n\nIt is late afternoon before Leland feels fit to return to the field with you, the Colonial Bureaucrat in tow whereupon you quietly discovers that half of the cabbage crop has been torn apart by the creature for no apparent reason.\n\nLeland looks at you and shrugs a little unsteadily then manages to catch his balance.\n\n1. [[This didn't happen. Here, have another drink.|Denial2]]\n\n2. [[Maybe this Fish-person was simply curious. Perhaps we should ask Prunella to make a friendly gesture and explain that it shouldn't be digging up our fields.|Befriend2]]\n\n3. [[This savage creature destroyed half our food supply! I shall have to order Sgt. Porridge call up the militia and shoot these Fishpeople on sight.|Hostile2]]\n\n
The next day Leland Chain is tending cabbages in the fields when a Fishperson gibbers menacingly out of the bushes.\n\nRecalling your orders, Leland shouts an alarm and flees toward the center of the colony. Sgt. Porridge stops his pushups and leaps into action, pistol ready. He fires at the monster, injuring but not killing it, and the enraged & frothing Fishperson closes to deadly melee. \n\nFearsome battle ensures and Sgt. Porridge emerges victorious but badly injured. Several other colonists were alerted by the commotion and gather around - most are horrified by the unnatural creature; Prunella is crying.\n\n1. [[That's enough! None of this happened. Sgt. Porridge was attacked by a vicious Giant Beetle. Now don't talk about this ever again.|Denial2]]\n\n1. [[These Fishpeople are a grave threat. We must request more weapons and conscript a militia, and maintain a constant watch!|Hostile2]]\n\n2. [[It's possible this is all some sort of misunderstanding. Did not we shoot first? Perhaps we should return the body to its kind in hopes of reconcilliation.|Reconcilliation]]\n\n
Return fishperson body to the see, surrounded by what you imagine to be gifts. Prunella lays some flowers on the Fishperson.\n\nFrom afar you watch a group of fishpeople reclaim the body. They look angry and stomp on the flowers and take the body back to the sea. \n\nThis isn't going to be easy.\n\n[[We need to keep trying. Peace is never easy.|Befriend2]]\n\n[[I've had enough of these confounded Fishpeople. Sergeant, assemble your troops. Let's stick to what we're good at.|Hostile2]]
\nDue to your complete lack of discretion, the Colonial Ministry Commission For Investigation Into Certain Unsavoury Rumours Which Have Been Plaguing Our Fair Frontier In Recent Times is forced to conclude that the Fishy Menace has taken root in your colony and that the Her Majesty's Ministry Of Investigation Into And Purging Of The Occult Influences must be informed.\n\nThe report is sent directly to the office of Her Majesty's Minister Of Direct Consequence As Relates To Occult Affairs, the All-Purger.\n\nA squad of Occult Investigators arrives without warning, with locked crates and strange weapons. Others follow. Questions are asked of the Colonists, then asked again. Then again. Holes are dug in seemingly random arrangements, then filled back in.\n\nPrunella is the first to disappear. Sgt. Porridge breaks and accuses Farmer Leland of "Fishy Association" - and claims that you knew of it all along. \n\nPorridge is the second to disappear. \n\nIn fact, everyone disappears. The cabbages fields are burned by the Investigators strange weapons, the Workshops are burned as well, and all of your papers are burned.\n\n\nYou sit alone in the ashes of your Fine Colony waiting for whatever fate befell your Colonists from the silent masked figures. You are handed a letter. \n\n//Esteemed Colonial Bureaucrat,\n\nHave you heard of New Antipodea? Well, I'm sure you will come to know it quite well ... //\n\nEND
You heed the advice of Hiram Cloudsley Steamworth-Oxwhistle Crimblecowl and work with admirable efficiency in various Bureaucratic shenanigans to keep the Empire off your back.\n\nTrade is shunted through bandits, foreigners, and smugglers. Questions are asked, yes, but you provide sufficiently difficult to investigate justification - in triplicate - to all inquiries. Certain of the more inflexible members of the Bureaucracy spread rumours and gossip, decreasing your prestige back in the Capital, but you are untouchable in your Fine Office in your Fine Colony.\n\nPeace is maintained with the Fishpeople over the objections of certain Colonists. There are sacrifices to be made on the altar of peace, you say, and the rewards of our bright future are well worth the cost. Sgt. Porridge screams about corruption and treachery as he is dragged off by your new guards. They have that look about them, a certain moistness and a little gilly about the neck, but they're more loyal than Sgt. Porridge ever was.\n\nPrunella has changed, looking more radiant, moist, and alive than ever. You approve her request to participate in an extended trade delegation Beneath the Waves with the Fishpeople.\n\nThe pyramid in the corner of the Office winks at you. You wink back and smile.\n\n\n//Beneath the waves, beyond the continental shelf, in the darkest depths an ancient being stirs atop a drowned basalt zigguraut wrought not by human hands. The pathetic pleadings of its obsequious attendants grow stronger and more numerous, strengthened by land-blood and land-flesh. The Time Is Right.//\n\nEND
What a fine colony we have established! The trees are lush, berries sweet, and ore nodes shimmering with the promise of profitable exploitation.\n\nOur Overseers merely await your order to start clearing ground, harvesting materials, and constructing workshops.\n\n[[Strike the Earth!|Discovery]]\n
The next day Leland Chain is tending cabbages in the fields when a Fishperson emerges from the bushes. It appears to be making fishy noises.\n\nRecalling your orders, Leland calls others from the center of the colony. The colonists are pale and frightened to see that the stories were true. Prunella Oatswale steps forward and puts her hand out.\n\n"Hello fishy friend. We mean you no harm."\n\nIt gurgles something in response and gestures toward the cabbage.\n\n"Would you like one? Here." says Prunella, passing the Fishperson a cabbage.\n\nIt holds the vegetable, apparently confused. It gibbers something uncertain, drops the cabbage, then hastily retreats to the foliage.\n\nPrunella speaks - "What a miraculous creature! I think it wants to be friends." \n\n"Nonsense!" barks Sgt. Porridge, "It's awful, and did you see the slime? And that's good cabbage wasted, besides."\n\n1. [[We should make further friendly actions and see if we can't find some mutually beneficial arrangement.|Befriend2]]\n\n2. [[This is too weird. We're going to pretend this didn't happen. It will not appear on my report. Don't let me catch anyone talking to or about these things!|Denial2]]\n\n3. [[Porridge is right, it's a waste of time to attempt to communicate with these monsters. Sergeant, shoot them on sight.|Hostile2]]
Criminals are sent to your Colony and are quickly recruited, given muskets crafted in the new Metalworks, and sent to patrol the beaches. Fine caviar is discovered, and soldiers guard the harvesters - the Empire has an insatiable demand for good foods, and the continued flow of trade ensures that your garrison can be supplied with fresh munitions and immigrants.\n\nGabions are built, landmines laid, and militia drilled. Green recruits are tested in combat; some are tempered into hardened veterens. Others are broken and driven mad by the violence and waves of creatures climbing from the sea, tearing apart their comrades, and eating their flesh. Occultism spreads amongst the discontents, but Sgt. Porridge's troops keep order by destroying cultist shrines and executing certain ringleaders according to the harsh but necessary principles of Frontier Justice.\n\nIn two short years this corner of the Frontier is Civilized, the monsters purged by musket and bayonet. The Ministry is pleased with your progress and recommends you for promotion. The Duchess of Boltshire - a second cousin of the Queen herself! - awards you the Colonial Service Medal for your dedication to The Empire.\n\n\n//Beneath the waves, beyond the continental shelf, in the darkest depths an ancient being sleeps atop of drowned basalt zigguraut wrought not by human hands. Despite the pathetic pleadings of its obsequious attendants, grown fewer in recent seasons, The Time Is Not Right. It sleeps more deeply.//\n\nEND
Fishpeople in Paradise
David Baumgart @ Gaslamp Games\n\nfor www.clockworkempires.com
The Fishpeople horde descends on your defenseless Colony like, well, perhaps like Scintillating Beetles onto a particularly ripe field of pumpkins. Or perhaps a sea-related analogy is more correct, like a school of Threshing Maw Serpent upon some kind of Aurochs Steak filled ship capsizing disaster.\n\nIt should suffice to say that your Fine Colony is splattered with gore, the buildings torn apart, bottles and crates smashed to pieces, and all humans killed and eaten.\n\n* * * \n\n//The official report, compiled months later, blames the destruction of the Colony on a confluence of a flash flood, certain rare meteorlogical phenomena involving voltaic energies described in Lord Palmerstoke's latest publication, and the annual migration of the Lesser Nesting Cerulean Dodo.//\n\nEND
After a further Fishperson sighting, Prunella Oatswale is summoned and quickly establishes herself as de-facto delegate to the Fishpeople. \n\nThe interactions are confused though a series of awful gifts manage to be exchanged. The Colony stocks now hold a basket of shells, some kind of gelatinous blob that pulsating for a day before it apparently died, and a tiny pyramid inscribed with an eye that seems to follow you around. You try not to think about the pyramid, though it keeps appearing in your dreams for some reason.\n\nIt is eventually discovered that the Fishpeople really wanted fresh Aurochs Steaks and are willing to trade for them with various bits of junk, shiny rocks, and fishes they discover on the sea-floor. This brings wealth of a sort to your Colony, though it is when one of the stranger artifacts is dispatched to The Capital that questions start being asked by The Ministry.\n\n[[A message has arrived from the Ministry.|Befriend3]]
\n//Esteemed Colonial Bureaucrat & Friend,\n\nI write to you personally for I have been inducted into the Colonial Ministry Commission For Investigation Into Certain Unsavoury Rumours Which Have Been Plaguing Our Fair Frontier In Recent Times. \n\nThe other Bureaucrat-Commissioners have noted a marked increase in exports of peculiar goods and artifacts not generally produced among the, if you will pardon the implication, "mundane" Colonies of the Empire. The hypotheses being assembled (though not considered founded at this time by this Ministry Commission) are alarming - at best. \n\nAs a fellow Bureaucrat, allow us to dispense of this double-talk and put the issue at hand to you more directly: The participation of Her Majesty's Ministry Of Investigation Into And Purging Of The Occult Influences is not desired by The Colonial Ministry for the results are generally Unprofitable and make for, as they say, Unintended Damages To Persons and Property a near certainty, to say nothing of the damage to the reputation of our fine Colonial Ministry and of the fine class of Bureaucrats in its employ. It is all terribly vexing.\n\nIt is therefore my suggestion - in strict confidence as a personal favour - that you conclude this "fishy" business once and for all. Personal initiative & alternate enteprise are the marks of a fine Bureaucrat, but equally is the art of "discretion".\n\nEver your Friend at the Ministry,\nHiram Cloudsley Steamworth-Oxwhistle Crimblecowl// \n\n[[Let them investigate! I've done nothing wrong.|Purging]]\n\n[[I guess that's the end of that. Sgt. Porridge: call the militia, make your preparations.|Hostile2]]\n\n[[From now on I shall review all outgoing mail and employ, ah, third parties ("smuggler" is such a course word) - for the Good of the Colony, mind you. Everything will be fine.|Peace End]]
Sgt. Porridge's defensive preparations have paid off: A keen-eyed militia trooper on patrol spots a group of fishpeople advanincing through the forest. She alets Sgt. Porridge who then summons the entire Colonial garrison. \n\nPorridge's ambush strikes with sudden, deathly efficiency. A fishy creatures is torn apart by the first wave of gunfire. The soldiers manage another barrage before the first screaming Fishperson closes to bayonet-range to be put down. With such devastating losses, the surviving monsters quickly take flight.\n\n"Today we showed 'em how our Frontier Lads fight! But they'll be back - in numbers. The Fishy Menace will find us ready to give 'em bloody what-for again - for Queen & Empire!"\n\n[[Good work Sergeant! This shall be a long fight, but Progress, Civilization, and The Empire shall inevitably prevail.|War End]]\n\n[[This is madness, I didn't ask for a slaughter! Sgt. Porridge, stand down your troops, we have to try a different way.|Reconcilliation2]]
Despite your best efforts at official denial, encounters with Fishpeople continue. Cabbages are torn up, workers flee from their job sites, and there are even occasional injuries. All of this must be blamed on "freak gusts of wind", "rabid Giant Beetles", and "meddling foreign agents" in official reports. In triplicate.\n\nThe Colonists are restless and strained at trying to carry out your orders for total denial. Farmer Leland mostly drinks these days while Prunella Oatswale seems to have developed a mean-spirited rivalry with Sgt. Porridge.\n\nOne day, Sgt. Porridge bursts into your office with Prunella close behind.\n\n"As Colonial Bureaucrat, sir, you must take a stand against the growing Fish-monster menance! By my honour as a soldier who has sworn loyalty to Queen & Empire, I have been forced to sent a missive directly to the Colonial Ministry informing them of the situation."\n\nPrunella cuts him off: "The Sergeant would have us murder the Fishpeople! The poor things are simply curious but confused. We have to make a serious attempt to talk to them, and trade."\n\n"Preposterous!" - Sgt. Porridge grows quite red-faced - "They're inhuman monsters and if we give an inch they'll corrupt our fine Settlement!"\n\nIt seems you have to make a decision.\n\n[[Sgt. Porridge, assemble the militia. We will settle this once and for all.|Hostile2]]\n\n[[Let's try it your way Prunella. Perhaps a profitable arrangement could be found.|Befriend2]]
Trees are felled, ore ripped from the soil, cabbage is planted, and the foundation of the first Carpentry Workshop set. \n\nSuddenly Zebulon Coalhopper rushes from the woods where he was chopping wood - he says he's seen something terrible and unnatural: a mix of Fish and Person like some squamous abonination, atavistic nightmare!\n\nThe others are skeptical, and Prunella Oatswale even comments that this suppposed creature "might be nice" (be everyone has always considered her a bit fishy, if truth be told). \n\nIt is your Bureaucratic Responsibility to Set A Policy.\n\n1. [[This is all rubbish, I'm certain that Zebulon is simply drunk on the fresh air.|Denial]]\n\n2. [[These "Fish-People" surely mean no harm. We should attempt to communicate and perhaps foster trade.|Befriend]]\n\n3. [[I knew there were monsters in the forest, no wonder I got this assignment so easily. Sgt. Porridge, shoot these creatures on sight!|Hostile]]