I've been having a careful read through all the entries for the contest, but it is harder than expected to pick out my immediate favourites! There are some great ideas there, and I'm already struggling to chose! Quite a few of them need a bit of work to make them playable, but there are good ideas there to be going on with, so I thought I'd open things up to an initial vote to choose a small number to develop more fully.
I've selected my favourite seven scenarios that I am going to expand upon. I’ve missed out a lot of cool scenarios to pick these, so please don’t take offence! Those are certainly worth a look, and I may well revisit them myself when I have some more time. For each of the scenarios I've given a quick summary of the scenario, a link to the original entry and a couple of comments on it.
I've set the voting so you can choose your favourite three entries. The entry with the most votes by the end of the month will win the public vote, and in the mean time I'm going to work these together into a cohesive set of scenarios, as well as choosing my favourite.
Life in the Empire:These first three scenarios expand upon life in the Empire and I like how they all fit very well into my view of the Empire
Now, Where did he leave it?An engineer leads a band of militia in search of some vitally important plans for an old invention, but must brave the local devanu.
I like the idea of an engineer trying to dig out some old, forgotten plans as it fits right into my view of how the engineers work.
Crush the ClutchA force of knights and militia head out to eradicate a nest of grishak.
This is another scenario that fleshes out part of the world that seems kinda fun. The special rules for different types of grishak need quite a bit of work and you would need quite a lot of grishak models to be able to play a game! I was thinking it might be fun to add a couple of young Devanu into the game as it would seem quite likely that a local devanu pack might keep an eye on a future supply of hunting beasts.
The ScoundrelThis scenario tells the unfortunate tale of a small village that chose to cross the powerful trading guilds.
This will be a great little scenario to try out, unusually pitching the Empire against itself.
EscalationA number of the scenarios sat quite nicely together, telling of the escalating conflicts between Delgon and the Empire. Punitive Measure and Death and Glory both fit quite nicely into my plans for a later campaign, and would need quite a lot of work to balance, so I’ve left them out of the shortlist for the moment.
Preacher’s WelcomeThis scenario sits earlier in the timeline, with a priest meeting a rather unfriendly welcome in an Empire town. The locals aren’t too sure which side to back though.
This sort of scenario is definitely needed, with the Priests trying to convert villages to their cause before resorting to more violent means. Some work is needed on the ‘converting’ mechanics, but it’s a great start.
Derak DaysBeru tells a good tale of how his old apprentice (who's name he has happened to forget) gave away his derak designs to the fiendish Delgon, and how he fought them off almost single handed. This scenario reenacts that tale, however fallacious it might be!
This is a fun little scenario, in spite of the historical inaccuracies! A more accurate version of how the Delgon came to ‘invent’ the Derak can be gleaned from some of Beru’s letters. Beru’s story is also somewhat inaccurate as the Striders were created a while after the Derak became standard issue in the Delgon forces.
Other stories from the land of the DelgonThe last couple of scenarios look more broadly at the Delgon themselves.
Wrath of Khan'ta: Scouting KillAs the Delgon expand their borders they are experiencing more conflicts with Devanu who have been pushed out of the central Empire. This scenario pitches a hungry band of Devanu against a Delgon encampment
This is the first of a little trilogy of scenarios. The other two look to escalate the battles well, but this one stood out as being a slightly different style of battle rather than a straight-out fight. I think the balance is slightly out at the moment on this scenario (not enough Delgon to defend against the Devanu), but I really like the idea of the Devanu gathering food and trying to flee with it. This could be a fun scenario to try and balance!
Kill it with FireA Delgon priest has to deal with the consequences of an experiment gone wrong.
The history behind this is completely wrong, but the scenario idea would work well for a Priest overseeing an experiment that goes disastrously wrong... The main challenge for balancing this scenario will be working out the stats on the escaping beast!