Crusadercore Write
A knight in a great helm and a white surcoat with a red cross walks a desert road at dusk.

Anno Domini 1096, and onward

Crusadercore

A hack-and-slash about an order of knights whose oath does not expire.

Write to the Order Play · not yet

I

The Oath

In the autumn of 1096, in a timber chapel on the road out of Lotharingia, a priest laid a splinter the length of a finger on the altar and told the men in front of him it was a piece of the True Cross. He had carried it from Constantinople in a lead case. Some of them believed him. All of them put their hands on it.

The oath they swore has three clauses, and the Order has not changed a word of it since.

  1. To find the Wood whole and keep it.
  2. To go where the Wood goes.
  3. To come back.

The third clause was, at the time, taken to mean the return journey. The Order has since read it more strictly. A man sworn to keep a thing is not excused from keeping it by dying.

The oath does not expire. It was not written to.

Over the shoulder of a crusader in a street of Antioch; brothers with kite shields stand either side, the dead between them and the gate.
Antioch, the street to the gate. The street has been cleared, for now.

The game follows the Order through the First Crusade. Then a portal drops the Wood and its brothers into a hangar in 1947, and the Order is handed the wars of the twentieth century, and then the cities of the 2030s.

The premise is absurd. The delivery never is. The chronicle reads a minigun requisition with the same gravity as the fall of Jerusalem.

II

The Chronicle

Three campaigns. The case that holds the Wood does not change. What it rides on does.

  1. A crusader in third person on the walls of Jerusalem at dusk.

    Chapter I1097 – 1099

    The First Crusade

    Dorylaeum, Antioch taken and Antioch besieged, Ma'arra, Jerusalem. The army is too large to feed and too far from home to turn round. Death is final here: the brother is buried in the chronicle and another takes the helm.

    The Reliquary rides on a handcart with two solid wheels, pulled by postulants.

  2. A crusader with a rifle on his back on a snowbound hill; the enemy comes along the far ridge.

    Chapter II1950 – 2010s

    The Long Century

    The portal put the Order in a hangar in 1947, and the men who had the hangar took three years to decide what to do with twelve men in mail who could not be killed and would not take orders. The rifles came with a manual. The sword stayed on the hip.

    The Reliquary rides on a flatbed truck, olive drab, issued with no paperwork.

  3. A crusader with a belt-fed gun across his back stands in a trench line under smoke; a red banner flies beside him.

    Chapter IIIThe 2030s

    The Second Reconquista

    A House in Poland, gold and chapels between fields. Trenches and drone swarms in the east, then the old quarters of four capitals, then the basilica. From here a brother leads squads, from the raised command view the Order calls the Throne.

    The Reliquary rides on an armoured personnel carrier, the case welded to the troop bench.

III

Arms

Formation-breaking melee comes first. Guns are tools with a failure mode, never an upgrade. Everything he carries is visible on him: a weapon on each hip, a two-hand weapon and the shield across the back, a belt of flasks. The sword stays on the hip.

The string

Light cuts chain into a three-step combo, and the heavy cut ends it. Blade, blunt, flail, polearm and great weapon each cut their own way. A step, not a roll. A kick for crowds. A finisher on the staggered.

The shield

Raised, it holds a frontal arc and costs stamina. A bash opens a stagger. In the modern eras it stops small arms for a moment before the boards come apart. It does nothing against fire. Out of stamina, he eats the hit.

The century's guns

They overheat, run empty, jam, and reload slowly in gauntlets. Then the sword.

Graces

Zelus
Fifteen blows landed in a row without being hurt. The weapon glows and the cuts come faster.
Furor
Zelus at low health. The string collapses into one repeating hack.
Fortitudo
Ten blocks in a row. The shield glows, and he can loose a flock of homing swords of light.
Iustitia
Ten kills untouched. He burns with light and deals double damage.

Prayers, by rank

Blinding Light · Crucifixion · Juggernaut · Angelform · Call Siege · Vexillum · Testudo · Vigil

A crusader in a rain-soaked Paris street at night.
Paris, the old quarter. Rain, night.
A crusader with a rifle in a jungle village, a fallen man at his feet.
A river valley in the century. Rain since the morning.

IV

The Brotherhood

The save file is twelve men, each with a trait, a rank and deeds entered in the Book. They fight beside the brother who carries the oath and shout Latin at each other. When he dies for good, the next brother takes the helm. After Jerusalem, a brother who falls within sight of the Wood gets up again beside it.

There is no experience grind. Deeds witnessed raise a brother through six ranks: Postulant, Sergeant, Brother, Knight, Commander, Marshal.

  1. Odo the IronOdo Ferreus · grimThe Ardennes; a forester's son in the service of a minor lord.
  2. Conrad the FierceConradus Ferox · zealousSwabia; an outlaw.
  3. Rainier the RedRainerius Rufus · zealousApulia; a Norman of the second generation there.
  4. Gerard the BlackGerardus Niger · grimBurgundy; a smallholder.
  5. Anselm the LameAnselmus Claudus · piousNormandy; a clerk of the abbey at Jumièges.
  6. Guy the SilentWido Tacitus · cunningFlanders; a weaver's son and a debtor.
  7. Theobald the OldTheobaldus Senex · cunningChampagne; a soldier for hire.
  8. Lambert the HungryLambertus Vorax · zealousProvence; a shepherd.
  9. Benedict the CobblerBenedictus Sutor · piousLotharingia; a cobbler, a lay brother from the first.
  10. Milo the PaleMilo Pallidus · grimNormandy; a leper's son, raised outside the walls.
  11. Hugh the BoyHugo Puer · youngPicardy; squire to a knight who did not reach Antioch.
  12. Everard the BeardlessEverardus Imberbis · youngLiège; a priest's bastard, raised in the cathedral school.

V

The Fields

Twenty sets, a new layout for every seed, and weather that changes the ground. The camera sits over the shoulder or high above the field.

VI

Letters

The gates are not open yet. The Chronicler reads what is sent to him, and answers when there is something to say.

chronicler@crusadercore.com