Just like in Game of Thrones, no character is safe...

[Indoril120]

In this game I was playing on Cassandra Classic, Rough. I got about a year in and I was decently happy with the way things were going for my colony. We had a nice compound with ample accommodations, an as-of-yet adequate amount of food, meager but effective defenses, a stock of medicine, etc. - y'know, just nice things in general. But the best part of all was my crew of colonists.

I initially started with 3; Daniel Bishop, a spacer and captain of the late "Twilight Runner", who naturally crashed his ship on the remote rimworld of Alshat, stranding him along with his crew mates, Maverick and Murray. Garth Maverick was a beefy gun-wielding maniac that loved to kill and generally enjoyed manual labor. He had the "bloodlust" and "trigger happy" traits, and he seemed like the kind of guy who's best ideas were usually to shoot the problem and call it a day. Ironically, he was also the best doctor. The second crew member, a girl by the name of Sophie Murray, was a stoic psychopath with a passion for stabbing people. While she didn't mince words well, she minced pirates just fine with her plasteel dagger and she sure knew how to build. She too was a competent medic. The good captain Bishop himself was a handsome, roguish son-of-a-gun, good with a pistol and even better with his silver tongue. He could sell a thrumbo its own horn if he had a mind to, and he wasn't such a bad mechanic. Like his crew mates, a lifetime of close shaves had taught Captain Bishop how to patch a bullet hole and suture a stab wound too.

I instantly fell in love with this motley crew of space cowboys 1) because they were actually more than halfway decent colonists, not one of whom was incapable of anything and together they covered almost all the vital skills in the game, and 2) because they seemed like the perfect cast of a tv series like Firefly. Like any good Rimworld characters, they had personality, which I think we can all agree makes this game infinitely more entertaining - and tragic.

The band of crashed colonists was soon joined by a man named Seymour Keyes. Like my original three, Keyes was super useful. He was good at growing, good with animals, was a fantastic chef, and besides that, he TOO was a medical practitioner. With Keyes on board I now had four semi-decent doctors, a chef, a farmer, a carftsman, a miner, a researcher, and all four of my peops could fight, haul, and clean. Like the rest of them, Seymour had his award-winning traits. First of all, he was "industrious", making him almost worth the work of two colonists for the price of one, and secondly he had a "green thumb", which means he was a skilled AND happy farmer. Finally, Keyes was a masochist. And there you have it.

We got a few more to supplement the colony. Jonathan "Jono" Rigby, a microbiologist who loved smacking people around with his club; Yuliya, who turned out to be Keyes' wife; Darcie Keyes, who was Yuliya's mother and Seymour's mother-in law despite having his last name; and finally Vlad, a pirate-turned-colonist after Bishop buttered him up a bit. One thing I found funny was that Keyes, his wife, and his mother-in-law were all good cooks, something I assume went with the last name.

But yes, we were happy. We'd fought off tribal raids and pirate sieges, mad muffalos and demented deer (I apologize, I like my alterations). The captain and Murray even got married! Life was good!

That all changed one night when Selma showed up.

Distress call! Someone's being chased by the Green Locust tribesmen!

She was a "Lord". Lords don't do any work, so I was hesitant to save her, but she was in trouble and it was our job to save her...

They showed up at dusk, stalking the poor woman through the fields like animals. She was an astounding marksman (so her stats said), so the captain told her to arm up and join the rest of the colonists on the barricade. There were 17 savages closing in on the western perimeter. Keyes dropped one with a single sniper bolt while they were still a hundred meters out. Another two fell to fire from Bishop's rifle before they got in range of shotgunners Maverick and Darcie. Then they were upon us. It was a massacre, but no matter how many guys my brave little pawns took out there were still more. My colonists were spared from most of the exchange until suddenly a throwing spear from a pila bearer hits Keyes square in the neck and literally decapitates him. Now the only defender posted on the right flank, Maverick goes down under overwhelming volleys of spears and arrows. The colony's melee brigade arrives from the north and joins in the fray, flanking from out of a postern and setting on the tribesmen. Several of the bow-toting savages fall to their blade, club, and spear, but to little effect. Soon, Jono goes down, followed by Murray, and the remaining melee fighter, Vlad, is forced to retreat to the barricade with a rapidly depleting shield. With the outer defenses overrun, the remaining defenders are forced back into the light forest cover behind the barricade and there they make their final stand.

Knowing of course that raiders like to kidnap people and bug out if they deem the remaining resistance not worth the trouble, I rapidly deployed several colonists in a desperate attempt to save the wounded. Vlad, injured but still standing, throws himself back over the barricade to distract the assailants, but as it turns out, ranged weapons can bypass energy shields when in melee range, and the ex-pirate is slain by a single shot from a great bow, point blank, to the chest. Darcie goes out the same way as her son-in-law, taking a pilum to the face and promptly losing her head. Meanwhile, Yuliya Keyes somehow manages to dart out past the flailing wildmen and snatch up Jono, dragging him back to the medical ward and the relative safety of the inner compound. Captain Bishop catches one too many arrow grazes in the torso and falls, wounded, joining Maverick on the ground amid the bodies and blood. The last fighter, the newly-arrived Selma, cowers behind a tree as it is riddled with projectiles, firing blindly from around the trunk until a brute comes around the other side and clubs her down. Seriously, what the heck! 17 skill in shooting and more than half a dozen shots at short-medium range - the optimum range for the survival rifle - and she lands ZERO hits, contributing a net total of nothing to the fight to save HER life.

Obviously I lay most of the blame for our defeat on her shoulders, and when the tribespeople opted to kidnap who they could and leave, I admit it was with some satisfaction that I watched her get carried away. Unfortunately she was not the only one. Daniel Bishop, Garth Maverick, and Sophie Murray were also hoisted up and spirited off the battlefield. My only remaining colonists were Jono, now in critical condition in the med ward, and Yuliya, our only non-combatant who would have had trouble taking on a single warrior even if he were wounded, besides the fact that she was unlikely to even catch the tribals before they left the map if she went after them. I watched, helpless, as the three original colonists that I loved so much were hauled toward oblivion along with the one responsible for this atrocity.

The one carrying Maverick vanishes, followed closely by Selma's bearer. Then, just as she was about to be dragged off the map, Murray GETS UP. She must have recovered from her wounds just enough to no longer be incapable of walking. Unarmed, she flees from her captor and strikes back for the camp. Along the way she runs into the man carrying Bishop. BAM! Lays the poor guy out like a rug. Spouse in arms, Murray stumbles back toward the compound.

Meanwhile, Yuliya, who happens to be one of the few colonists not versed in medical care, is stabilizing Jono. She hears a cry from outside and quickly darts to help, but by the time she arrives it is already too late. There, in the yard, is Murray. The young woman rests on her knees, the body of her husband held loosely in her arms. She is gazing at him, face expressionless, unsure when the exact moment was that the life seeped out of Daniel's body in the bright red rivulets of his blood.

Despite being a psychopath, Murray received a mood debuff for the loss of her husband. This firmly planted her, along with my other two colonists, in danger of psychosis. Medicine was administered and meals dispersed, patients were confined to their beds to heal for fear of infection, and the colony slowly fell into that numb void of recovery in the face of immense loss. In an attempt to maintain sanity, Jono and Yuliya hiked out past the carnage to the body of Bishop's captor, who happened to drop a few smokeleaf joints when Murray strangled him. Jono lit one up and dredged back toward the compound, but Yuliya didn't make it before she snapped. I guess losing her husband, her mother, and then seeing the body of the last colonist she liked lying in the yard tipped her over the edge, because she flipped out and started chasing animals. Hurtling into a crowd of ibex rams, she starts beating them with her tiny club. Sure enough, the whole herd aggros, surrounds her, and quickly stomps her to death.

Oh, but the misery doesn't end there. I was praying that maybe the savages would offer a ransom for the life of Maverick (I wouldn't much care to purchase Selma if the opportunity should arise). I'd seen it happen before in a previous game, although I hadn't had the means to meet the raiders' demands then. This time I had money, and more than enough to by back a person. Then, in a cruel twist of irony, the message actually came! The Green Locusts offered Maverick in return for a meager ransom of 396 silver. Perfect! But this is where the galaxy revealed its true wickedness. As it happens, the money for a ransom has to be in the area of a trade beacon, which in hindsight makes sense, but I found myself lacking a beacon at the time of the call and consequently I was forced to "Refuse". I now have two colonists, both mortally wounded and in the depths of despair - so basically a normal day in Rimworld. The fight goes on!

[shaya]

That was an epic story. Loved it. Can't believe no one has replied. I would love to hear more from you

[Indoril120]

That was an epic story. Loved it. Can't believe no one has replied. I would love to hear more from you

Thanks for the feedback! Always nice to see one's work appreciated.

[kubolek01]

Play tactical. Use right guns for situation. Stay behind solid cover if available.