Outposts
Small camps founded at defensible sites in held regions. What they can work, who staffs them, what they bring home and what they risk.
Founding one
An outpost is a second, smaller camp at a camp site in a region the exiles hold. The home camp can run 2 outposts at once, and 1 more with the Outpost Logistics study.
- Where: a site in a region held for at least 1 week, with no strike pending there.
- Cost: 6 wood, 2 hide and 2 plant fibre, paid at once.
- Staff: 1 to 3 exiles. They travel during the week and start work at the next tick.
- Upkeep: 1 wood a week each. Unpaid, the outpost sends nothing that week.
Staff are away. They can't deploy, take no work order at camp and don't train. A recalled exile spends the week on the road and is back after the next tick.
The works
An outpost takes one kind of work and a focus: one resource of that work that the region can give.
| Work | Skill | Focus | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mine | Earth Sciences | iron ore, obsidian, flint, clay | Ore and stone from the site's ground |
| Timber camp | Survival | wood, pine resin, charcoal, birch bark | Felling, resin tapping and charcoal |
| Salt works | Earth Sciences | salt, gypsum, nitre | Pans, crust and cave scrapings |
| Hunting lodge | Survival | hide, sinew, bone, horn | Hides, sinew, bone and horn |
| Herb garden | Life Sciences | willow bark, plantain, wormwood, joint-pine, yarrow, wild honey, birch bark | The site's healing plants, tended and dried |
| Shard diggings | Earth Sciences | Court crystal | The Court's old workings in the basin floor: Court crystal, slowly |
| Watch post | Survival | - | No yield: +1 garrison here, so a strike on it comes a force weaker (like any outpost it still draws strikes), and strikes on it or next to it are seen a week early |
Each staff member brings home what a camp gatherer would, plus 2, up to 6 each a week. Rare ores and nitre come at half that, and at least one. Shard diggings are slow whatever the skill: 1 Court crystal per staff member every 2 weeks, and only on the basin floor.
| Staff member's skill | Haul a week | Rare resource |
|---|---|---|
| 0 (None) | 3 | 1 |
| 1 (Hobbyist) | 4 | 2 |
| 2 (Trained) | 5 | 2 |
| 3 (Professional) | 6 | 3 |
| 4 (Expert) | 6 | 3 |
| 5 (Luminary) | 6 | 3 |
The risk
Outposts draw strikes. When a power chooses where to strike, a region with an outpost counts as 2 weaker than it is. A watch post gives its region +1 garrison, so a strike there comes a force weaker, and shows strikes on it or next to it a week early.
If the region is lost, the outpost is sacked. Its defences are gone, and its staff come home wounded for 2 weeks. Nobody dies off the battlefield. The site is free again once the region is retaken.
Camp sites
Refuges that have joined are camp sites too. The others:
| Camp site | Region | Kind | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Salt Shelf | The Sunken Hearth | Ridge | A crust-capped ledge above the brine, where the wind keeps the pans dry. |
| The Sill Step | The Sill | Ridge | A low step of hard salt across the flats, high enough to see a column coming. |
| Spindrift Ridge | The Northern Arm | Ridge | A spine of old shore rock above the arm's brine, white with blown salt. |
| The Dry Islet | The Glare | Ridge | A drowned island's crown, now a rock rising out of the glare. |
| The Selenite Caves | The Gypsum Hills | Cave | Gypsum caverns with blades of clear crystal in the walls, cool and dry. |
| Heel Ridge | The Boot | Ridge | A limestone ridge at the boot's heel, scrub on its back and fresh water seeping at its foot. |
| The Echo Caves | The Gutter | Cave | Deep caves in the gutter's walls. Old droppings in their back halls crust the stone with nitre. |
| Signal Crag | The Bright Hills | Ridge | A bare crag over the hills. On a clear dusk you can see the salt to the south. |
| The Wind Cave | The Dust Ridges | Cave | A cave that breathes: cold air out by day, in by night. |
| Pitch Ridge | The Great Wood | Ridge | A pine ridge in the great wood, its trunks scarred and weeping resin. |
| Black Glass Ford | The Basin of Reeds | Ford | A gravel ford under the old volcanic hills, black glass in the shingle. |
| Shingle Ford | The Quiet Basin | Ford | A wide, shallow crossing of the basin's river, beech on both banks. |
| The Ash Caves | The Smoking Hills | Cave | Caves in old ash beds under the smoking hills. Flint lies in the chalk below. |
| The White Scar | The Chalk Downs | Ridge | A chalk cliff where the downs break, flint nodules standing out of the face. |
| Sinkhole Cave | The Karst Wall | Cave | A collapsed doline with a dry cave mouth in its side, out of the wind. |
| The Tuff Cliffs | The High Steppe | Cave | Soft volcanic cliffs on the plateau, easy to cut rooms into. |
| The Marble Ford | The Broken Country | Ford | A ford over white stone in a broken valley, scrub on the slopes above. |