Sacrament of the Altar - Renaissance Horror Piece

He took the host, gave thanks, broke it, and said, “This is my body, broken for you. Take it and eat it, and when you do, do it in memory of me.” Then he took the wine, gave thanks, and said “This is my blood, poured out for you, take it and drink it, and when you do, do it in memory of me.”

As it is written, so shall it be.

Darkness fell on Italy. It was late into the evening, and the candles in the crypts of the church flickered, making the shadows dance across the walls. Sounds of a struggle and raised voices approached from above. The sounds of footsteps on the steps leading down into the crypt became louder and louder, and the source of the noise emerged; a man, in ragged clothes, chained at the wrists was led down the steps by two muscled men in uniform, wearing plate armour and carrying halberds. Their halberds had various machines wired to them, and their plate armour was covered with all manner of devices and machinations. Behind them, a man in long, black, flowing robes carried a staff with a cross at its head; wires and archaic machinery wrapped round it. The chained man struggled, but his captors did not let go. They took him down the last few steps, into the crypt and tied him to a surgeon’s slab in the centre of the crypt. The robed figure followed, chanting in a language that sounded vaguely like Latin. The surgeon’s slab was made of metal; it was fixed to the floor by metal supports and wiring. The two guards stripped the chained man of his clothes and the robed man stepped forward. He made the sign of the cross with his staff over the tied down man and drew out a device from a pocket in his robes. The device was made of metal and had a glass panel, as well as various runes, carved into the front. The robed figure touched one of the runes on the device and began to speak again, saying, “My lord god, we have sinned, may you forgive us for what we have done, and bring new, perfect life into this, this most wretched of your subjects, let him be reborn to serve you anew, in your name!” “His body shall be broken, his blood poured out and he shall be cleansed, in memory of you.” At that point he pressed another rune on the device, and various machines folded out from underneath the surgical slab, covered in a myriad of devices, saws, drills, injectors, and, most importantly, a gun-like device, engraved in runes and shaped like the head of a dragon. The man tied to the slab struggled and screamed as he saw the device with the dragon’s head. As he screamed, the dragon’s head spewed forth a cloud of steam, engulfing him in the scalding vapours from head to foot. The cloud engulfed the man entirely, and he stopped screaming.

I wrote this about a year ago, before my first attempt at NaNoWriMo. Since then I hope my writing has improved, but I thought I'd upload this here, because it isn't that bad. 

A Modern User's Guide to Fortification #3

Part 1 Here
Part 2 Here

Next on the imaginary list is...

The Trench

Possibly the most infamous form of defensive fortification (due to the First World War), and also potentially the most versatile (as you can dig a trench in most places) , the trench is, well, a glorified hole. However, a trench network is an extremely glorified hole, and is less susceptible to artillery and general assault by most things than a massive set of walls.

Conclusion? Great if you want to defend something with infantry, not so good against tanks, or flamethrowers, or grenades. Be sure to dig deep and reinforce with more than wood, especially if you're in temperate climates.

In a similar time period...

The Defensive Line

This defensive method goes down in the annals of history as the one most famously bypassed, as most of them were. The Maginot line? - bypassed through the Ardennes Forest. The Metaxas line? - bypassed through the Yugoslavian mountains. The Siegfried Line? Actually not bypassed, but still broken. The Atlantic Wall? Partially bypassed by Paratroopers of the 6th British Airborne, and the 82nd and 101st US Airborne divisions. When these "lines" weren't bypassed, they were quite effective, holding up attacking divisions for months. This was probably because they were a combination of defenses, designed to hold back and destroy every and any enemy.

If you have the money to build a line of bunkers, trenches, minefields, machine gun nests, tank traps, anti tank gun nests, anti air guns and all the rest of the latest defensive structures across the threatened area, then sure, go ahead, as long as you can build it long enough so it won't be bypassed, and yes, remember to defend the forests (yes they can get tanks through), and that mountain range (yes their pioneers can get over them).

Next up...

The Nuclear Fallout Shelter

It is, effectively, a nuclear bunker, with extras to allow an occupant to survive for longer (air con, food supplies, electricity, water etc). Shelters can vary in size from small underground bunkers, to massive underground fortresses.

Great for dealing with the threat of nuclear attack, but require extra defenses for anything else. They're underground so not much risk from tank or plane attack, but could be easily taken by infantry is not fortified with anti infantry defenses (long corridors with machine gun nests, barricades etc).


Part 1 Here
Part 2 Here

A Modern User's Guide to Fortification #2

Part 1 Here
Part 3 Here

Next up, it's the fortress.

The fortress is similar to a concentric castle design, but with added elements from Middle-Eastern architecture. When crusading knights took a fortress in the Middle East (in what is now Syria), they took some leaves from the enemy's books, and ended up with this:

Notice the fact that it has multiple sets of walls, like a concentric castle, and things are built into the walls, like a concentric castle. So then, what's the difference? A concentric castle is designed to be adequate living quarters for a feudal lord - a fortress isn't - in the case of Krak Des Chevaliers (as seen above) the only people living there were members of the Knights Hospitaller Order, who were primarily monks and warriors.

Fortresses are useful for defending something, and they will do that job exceedingly well, but don't expect comfortable living conditions, and watch out for cannon.

Now for the Walled Town or Palace

A simple way of defending something, and an ancient method, but particularly prevalent in the late middle ages, as it's cheaper to build a few sets of walls round the thing you want to defend than build a castle, and it's easier to update the defences to deal with new threats.

In summary, cheap, quick to build and does the job. Won't provide accommodation for your troops though, and won't stand up to heavy punishment from siege engines for very long.

Moving out of the medieval period, we see the emergence of the Star Fort

With the emergence of cannon, large, stone castle walls become impractical and ineffective. So architects take a tip from the Romans, and build forts with earthwork embankments, in star shapes. Yes, star shapes.
This wasn't just some weird obsession of architects of the time, or even a fashion thing, but a purely practical, and quite effective idea. Building bastions, revetments and redoubts allows the defenders a larger arc of fire, and a larger range, while creating "kill zones" of enfilliading fire, allowing the defenders to trap and  slaughter enemy troops easily.

There aren't many weaknesses to this design, in fact variations on it are still used today! (the first ones were built around the early 1500's) It's useful for defending most things, and can be easily adapted, as well as providing secure accommodation for troops and their equipment.


Part 1 Here
Part 3 Here

A Modern User's Guide to Fortification #1

This is my attempt at writing a user's guide to castles, forts, walls, ditches and generally ways of protecting yourself from the nasty things that are trying to kill you/ slaughter your dwarves/ steal the emerald/ take the briefcase etc.

Part 2 Here

Part 3 Here

Anyway...

First up, the Hill-Fort

The hill fort is one of the earliest ways of defending your village/town/extended family, with a simple hill-with-ditches design as shown in the picture. This made it more difficult to storm the place by just walking in with your tribe/mates, and also is easier to construct than the next type of fortification.

Looks cool but isn't really effective against most attacks that involve more than basic infantry.

The Roman Fort

This picture is a reconstruction of Vindolanda, a roman fort on Hadrian's wall. It's a simple design - one curtain wall (built of wood first, then stone if the fort needs to stick around) with the buildings within, all surrounded by a ditch. Fairly cheap and quick to build, if built of wood, this could be constructed very quickly to protect a camp.

Good for armies on the march, won't hold against more than a primitive attacker.

Next up its the classic Motte and Bailey Castle...

Not particularly complex this one. Really, it's just a hill, with a wooden tower on, with a fenced off enclosure attached to it all surrounded by a ditch of course (seeing a trend with these ditches?) Fairly cheap again, good for invading armies wanting to protect themselves but not having many resources to build a massive fortress.

To quote the famous song, "Burn, baby, burn, disco inferno..." Great unless your enemy has fire.

Now for the stone keep...

Pretty imposing isn't it? No? Well maybe its 'cos the picture's smaller than real life(Captain Obvious strikes again! Quick Tree Powers Activate!) Nevertheless, this work of engineering is the stone keep castle design - similar to the motte and bailey idea, but built out of stone, with the keep having much ticker walls (Rochester here can take trebuchet hits easily).

Great castle design - takes a determined attacker to take out - watch out for undermining though.

Now for a trip to Wales - the concentric castle!

This is the peak of medieval castle design. The two castles above are Harlech (top) and Conwy (bottom). Effectively - the idea of this castle design is that two walls are better than one. They don't have keeps, they use buildings built into the walls and gatehouses for storing important objects - moneys, arrows, kings, your grandmother etc. and have smaller 9so they can be shot over) rings of walls around main rings of walls (or in Conwy's case a series of rings attached to each other). 

Great castle design - breaching this with medieval weaponry is nigh-impossible. Watch out for enemies with explosives or large armies willing to lay siege. 

Part 2 Here

Part 3 Here