Thinking again about my logististics I still need to fix the root issue of smiths, the one we acquired is not a dedicated arms smith or armourer. He can make a few simple things but not enough quality for me not to mention he can only make so many, better for him to supply the other forge work we need that is not for war. Still we have some stockpile of raw materials once everything is properly gathered up, undead do not handle fire well as a general rule which is why I want living smiths. Judging by the general human xenophobia there may be discriminated humans or nonhumans that I can persuade to join me. Well here is to hoping that we do find something of use, I assume there will be thinking about how my fellow humans can act like.

My little take over group at the cemetery has gone well and I now control the focal point for the cemetery which is a statue of a mourning figure in fully covering robes such that no details about what is underneath it can be found. I assume that the imagery resonated with the souls there that made up the guardian which was a possessed gargoyle which was destroyed though the pieces can be taken back for study at another point. Unlike normal gargoyles which were creations of mages to guard important places which were usually tombs this one was a regular statute, yet the spirits could use it as a host to take action. Perhaps a few points can be derived from such work, I could always use new insight to improve my work. As for my wild idea about the dung beetle which I will now call the Beetle of Ossis was rather simple to make. I had a surprising ease in modifying my already make bone gatherer form that it actually makes me uneasy.

My vats are in the process of making the many pieces that will be needed though the larger vats can still be reused for my eventual golem and dragon projects. Just like my warrior and veteran projects I already have the technical documents for each ready in my grimoire for production. I just need wrym and dragon bones though for the golems though if I can find a substitute material from a powerful enough creature that would work. As a related note I am using deer bone for my general plaques and other minor objects though obviously I will need bone from a strong enough creature(can still be human) for making proper equipment. If I am making a construct then it helps to have the original creature it is based on or a similar creature to simplify things with movement but I can get around that with some effort unless quality drops too much.

The crusade will come in less than a month now but I plan on delaying them further with their preparation phase unless that backfires. The simplest thing is of course food and water as mentioned before, water is available but usually not in enough quantity for a small army and stopping any wells from being sunk is needed. Lack of water kills faster than food and only trained individuals can sustain on mana, and if they have necromancers then what in the world is wrong with this church. Speaking of necromancers I have gathered some more over time though none as good as Zanna. Strictly speaking most are a bunch of acolytes the same as the group I just took over who came here like moths to a flame, rather literal since they are weak enough to only be able to have a little resistance than regular mortals to the miasma.

Still just like them they took soul links so I will be putting them through what their seniors just went through, actually having them oversee the progress could go well if I molded them right. The rest are weaker but are close to Zanna’s level, some were somewhat old and I mean legitimately old as in having not grown strong enough to be able to rejuvenate their bodies with mana and energy. These ones will probably be troublesome but will behave themselves to a degree. Regardless if it turns out to not be entertaining to watch I can interfere to make sure things go well if something happens. I do not appreciate true dissent and will act accordingly....

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The armies I have made just keep growing though I did not swell the peons not meant for menial labour too heavily having concentrated on war potential. As it is right now I have 320 peons, 250 workers, 150 boneclaws, 150 warriors, 100 ranged units, 90 veterans, 12 mages, 20 knights and 6 priests available for battle directly. Very good progress if I must say so myself though most of the lower ranks were created by the necromancers under my command with the use of bones grown in the laboratory vats and some careful poaching from the town and other already dead we scavenged. I feel proud having a battalion sized force so quickly though judging from the rough size of this kingdom I could face a full army of 15000 if they do not pull from border and town security not counting the baggage train. The whispers so far caught by my scouts points to a much much smaller force though no exact numbers.

Judging from things I can expect about 2-3000 with half being made up of pure fodder. The numbers do not seem to be good but home advantage, quality, and the miasma can negate this number to only a thousand effective troops while the rest can be almost ignored. If forced I can fight this out but I prefer relying on my troops and I expect attrition to get to work even if it is the fodder that dies. I expect the disposition to be 3-1-2-30-100 by knights, mages, priests, adventurers/mercenaries, and levy troops. The mage numbers may change depending on adventurers and of course the baggage train will be massive at the usual 3-1 follower-soldier ratio. I find these numbers funny with the amount of bodies I can expect at the end of this campaign. I am salivating at this opportunity to expand my forces, never underestimate attrition in war since they are already having food problems in the local area. Though imagine what is buried in the earth here..... No must not grow power hungry, that is the path to disaster and paperwork hell. Never again paperwork hell....

Anyway besides the things I have mentioned I have had progress in adapting some of my research projects to properly be used here. Most of these never got beyond the theoretical but still enough planning was done to make this not a stumbling through the dark affair. I have noticed that I only created stock units suitable for mimicking a normal human army but I need more, my projects were meant for this gap however. I am creating units under the category of “monstrous” such as equivalents to trolls or giants. Obviously having the bones of such creature will work just fine but I am unable to find such beings on short notice, creating what could be simplified as clockwork beings from parts is the crux of current work.

But creating the parts in such a way to be able to made en masse from my smaller vats and not guzzle up resources is key, right now I have made prototypes from several of the projects to test the concepts they embody but modifying them for large scale production is key to viability. I hope to be able to test out my work in the future conflicts however as even if I cannot make too many of them the prototypes I have now can still be used, proof of concept models are more unrestrained with resource usage and while unstable are quite powerful. I almost don’t want to but I am counting on the enemies relatively swift arrival in the next few months to actually put my work to the test. We shall see who wins this little skirmish that will soon be upon us.

AN-This country will be about 3 million total pop with an area equivalent to england by itself and the agros de mortis is say half that size. England during the 1400 which is the general time period culture wise had 3-3.5 million people with about 36,000 in soldiers. With magic let us say that we can easily have 4 million people and a bigger military, really puts things into perspective now doesn’t it.