As the barbarians show up, a handful of warriors holds them back easily enough. But I need a military with more kick. I need to expand north to grab a bronze mine that will give my units better weapons. Swordsmen are one way to do this. But for the Belseraphs, there is another way: an army of freaks. Unfortunately, freaks aren't always reliable. Sometimes, they're downright dangerous. Turn 217 was one such time.

After the jump, read about the Southern Freak Uprising of 217 and the sad fate of Argenteria.

The Balseraphs have a unique unique unit. That may sound redundant, but it's not. The freak is, as they say, very unique. Even truly unique. He is even uniquely unique. A freak is basically just a military unit with a strength of 3 and a movement of 1. He costs the same as a swordsman, but he's slightly weaker. However, every freak comes with a promotion called "mutated". And this is where the fun begins. A "mutated" unit receives 2 to 5 random promotions. These can be negative or positive.

For instance, I train my first freak on turn 136. He is "light" (reduced strength but increased movement), resistant to cold damage, and "crazed". This last promotion, crazed, is an interesting one. Every turn he has a random chance to become enraged, which will increase his strength and movement, but also give him a slight chance to covert to a hostile unit. I decide he's a keeper, so I upgrade him to a swordsman for a small fee, which gives him even more strength. I name him Heavy Coat and Running Shoes. He serves me well as I beat back goblins and drive north to found Hexam, which secures that bronze mine.

But sometimes you get a really crappy freak. For instance, somewhere around turn 210, I got a freak who was diseased, cannibalistic, and crazed. The cannibal trait was the only useful one, since it meant he automatically healed himself after a battle. However, he was weakened by disease, which would have made him a sub-par swordsman. But even gimped freaks have a use. You can send them to a city and "spend" them, creating of a freak show. This unique Belseraph building adds to a city's happiness and culture. You can even improve their effectiveness by adding different races of slaves, which you can capture in battle. Human, orc, dwarf, and elf slaves each upgrade any freak show to which they're attached. Freak shows are a crucial part of keeping a Balseraph society running smoothly.

My only city without a freak show is Argenteria to the south. It was founded once I'd cleared out a goblin fort harrying this part of the map. My best swordsman, the 1st Jubilee Battalion, finished off the goblins and then explored the fort. Explorable locations are one of the cool features of Fall from Heaven. You can send a unit into these locations for a random event. Maybe the unit will get a promotion, maybe it'll get injured, or maybe it'll find a magic item. Sometimes the units will be killed.

The 1st Jubilee got off relatively easy when the fort collapsed and sent up a black cloud of noxious gas (I didn't just make that up; it was explained in a text window!). The gas didn't kill the battalion, but it did disease them. Disease is a 30% reduction to unit strength until you apply some sort of healing, usually magical. But this was particularly problematic because the swordsmen had just been poisoned by their fight with the goblins, who are nasty little creatures with poisonous weapons. Poison goes away when you heal, but the terrible cocktail of disease and poison meant the 1st Jubilee couldn't heal. So this once powerful but now sickly unit languished in the newly founded city of Argenteria, serving as its sole defender. I wasn't worried, since this was the limit of the continent, and there was no place for barbarians to emerge. I'd eventually bring around a priest or someone to heal them. They were a great 5th level unit and they'd earned the right to some R&R, even if they spent the entire time vomiting, feverish, and in bed waiting for me to somehow research the Cure Disease spell.

But back to my useless cannibalistic freak, who is on his way to Argenteria, where he'll start a freak show to spread happiness and culture. Maybe this will lift the spirits of my vomiting feverish 1st Jubilee Battalion. But just outside the city, something happens to the cannibalistic freaks. They go crazy, activating the enraged bonus, and then they turn into a hostile unit. It's one of those one-in-a-million die rolls. Technically, it's three-in-a-hundred, given the 3% chance to turn barbarian. But what makes it one-in-a-million is that it happens just outside a city whose only defender is my best unit, except for the fact that it's been laid low by poison and disease.

Swordsman from the north rush to help, but they can't get there in time; Argenteria isn't connected to the road network yet. The cannibalistic freaks fall on Argenteria, defeat the 1st Jubilee Battalion, and capture the city. Where they promptly eat the men of the 1st Jubilee, slightly healing themselves. I manage to recapture the city a couple turns later, but not before its population has been reduced, and its monument, carnival, and market have been destroyed in the fighting.

Maybe a crazed freak isn't worth the gamble. And it certainly shouldn't be left unattended. Let this be a lesson to you all: watch your crazed freaks closely.

Up next: choosing my religion
(Click here for the previous Fall from Heaven game diary.)