Prince Agapetos
You are Prince Agapetos of Paralía, and the kingdom is your right. How dare your brother call himself a king? He is a deceiver, and your father’s blood was not yet cold when he cast you out and claimed his false throne. Knowing you alone saw the true events of that fateful night, he rallied the populace against you, spewing lies and slander—all he is capable of, with his horrible shrunken tongue. Yes, you are merely half the man your father was, but the false king Hesperos is not even one tenth of that! You can prove his weakness and redeem your shame, if you could just make the long journey back… but first, you must eat. You have grown too hungry.
Aims of the Anteater
- Your destiny is a long way away, and you would be no good to your kingdom starved. Eat at least 35,000 ants.
- Slurp up all the delicious larvae in the colony’s nursery to bolster your spirits before the long journey ahead of you.
The Colony
The anthill before you is the largest you have ever seen. You could gorge yourself for hours on its inhabitants. It has four entrances, hundreds of thousands of ants within it, and no-doubt a royal nursery full of succulent larvae. You have heard of some large colonies having multiple queens and multiple nurseries—this one certainly seems large enough to contain multiple, if such a thing is true.
If you find and devour the larvae, immediately return your morale to its resting state.
The Tongue
Your tongue is treated as an army with 100,000 effective strength. It moves only along larger tunnels (roads) and occupies every hex along its path at once. The tongue cannot double back on itself.
Each hour, you may extend your tongue up to 12 hexes or retract any number of hexes. You may spend 4 hexes of movement to move one hex offroad in packed dirt terrain; doing so leaves a tunnel when your tongue retracts. If your tongue is retracted fully at the start of the hour, you may choose to enter from any one of the colony’s four entrances. Your movement is stopped by garrisoned strongholds and stony terrain, but not by loose armies. You will receive scouting on every hex you occupy at the end of every hour.
All orders for the movement of your tongue must be made at the start of the hour, except for the decision to fully retract at the end of an hour. An example order: "I move down the tunnel, picking the left-hand opening every time I meet a crossroads, as far as I can."
You can begin a battle and be attacked anywhere along the tongue’s length, and in battles your effective strength is compared to the total effective strength of all enemy forces you are fighting. All battles you fight last one hour. You do not take casualties, but battle will still reduce your morale as normal. You may retreat from the anthill for two hours to regain one lost morale.
Casualties dealt to ant armies are stuck to your tongue. Strongholds who “surrender” after a successful assault count as 100% casualties, and the stronghold is left empty and passable by you until troops reoccupy it. In order to eat ants or larvae, you must fully retract your tongue from the anthill at the end of the hour in which you collected them. Otherwise they fall off your tongue, are lost in the dirt, etc.
The Foot
At the start of every hour, choose one entrance to the colony to block with your foot. For the duration of that hour, nothing, including your tongue, can enter or leave through that exit. You can do this even while your tongue is resting.
The Others
- Prince Hesperos of Paralía. Your brother, whose tongue has been shriveled since birth—a sure sign of his crooked heart. While you were lavished with deserved honors, he took what little sugar he was given and let it his heart rot on it. Now he sits festering like a great pustule upon the Amber Throne.
- Princess Laodike of Dásos. Your betrothed, who surely mourns your absence every minute of every day. Unless… Unless she has found someone else in the long lonely months? No! It is impossible! Your love remains true!
- Half-Heart Kleisthenes. The general of the guard, who once fought most-nobly alongside your father and trained you in the art of combat. Only the stars above know what weakness of soul came upon him to turn his crooked claws upon you.
- Lysander of the Silver Shears. A cruel bounty hunter who chased you through the grasslands for seven days without sleeping. If the stars shine on you, you lost him in the mud of that foul swamp—but you can never be sure. You will sleep fitfully every night until his death is confirmed.