Realm of the Sorcerer

Realm of the Sorcerer is a special province or area of the campaign map. It appears in The Realm of Chaos campaign.
==Overview==
:"His skin writhes with changing faces, each one speaks ten lies for every truth..."
To enter Realm of the Sorcerer, an army must use a Chaos Rifts to cross into the Realm of Chaos, and choose the destination as "Realm of the Sorcerer."
Realm of the Sorcerer consists of many separate islands, connected by Teleport Loci (AKA The Hidden Paths) - rifts that teleport you randomly between the islands. On the main island is The Impossible Fortress which players must reach to claim the the soul of The Librarian - Tzeentch's favoured Daemon Prince.
There are 3 obstacles there, aside from rival factions:
* Fighting the armies of All-Seeing Eye, who guard the realm.
* The dilemmas in certain locations (see below), offering Favours & Boons, but delaying your journey to the Impossible Fortress.
* The randomness of the Teleport Loci.
Additionally,
* Allied recruitment and regiment of renown recruitment is disabled in this province/area
==Teleport Loci==
To reach the Impossible Fortress, your army must go through Teleport Loci. Each Teleport Locus has another that it is paired with. They both share the same sigil.
Which Loci are paired, is randomised each time the player's army enters the Realm of the Sorcerer. However, which ones are paired is at first hidden from the player.
To reveal which ones are paired, you can:
* Defeat an army of All-Seeing Eye and choose the "reveal sigil" post-battle option, or
* Move your army to a point of interest (see below) and choose reveal sigil in the dilemma that pops up, or
* Move your army through a Teleport Locus, which will permanently reveal which other Locus it's paired with.
==Points of Interest==
Moving your army onto the white circle near a point of interest will bring up the dilemma The Boons of Tzeentch. This gives you a choice of whether to take a boon (buff), or to reveal a teleport sigil pairing.
* The True Liar's Monlith - Falsehoods and secrets are the weapons of a true liar, but for every deceit there must be a chance at truth.
* The Eternity Stair - Where does the Eternity Stair lead? Some say only the Great Architect truly knows.
* The Heavenward Halls - Within the Heavenward Halls are games of skill, mystery, mental and the physical.
* The Eyrie of the Watcher - The roosts of the Watchers offer great vantage from which to observe myriad worlds and realities.
* Citadel of the Iron Knight - The Iron Knight kows the inner passages of the Crystal Labyrinth, but is cursed by Tzeentch to never walk beyond the boundaries of his Citadel.
* The Ruins of the Dead King - Why does the Dead King no longer live? He possesses knowledge that Tzeentch does not want told...
== Strategy ==
The Realm of the Sorcerer, as befits its ruler, is a complicated pain in the ass. Conceptually, it's quite simple -- find the right teleporter to get you to the end. However, this process is time-consuming. The Realm is divided up into a number of small islands connected by paired teleporters, none of which are labeled when you first arrive. You need to find which combination of teleporters will take you to where you need to go. As the maze randomizes itself every time you enter, any prior knowledge will do bupkis to help you. One sigil is always provided -- the one for the final portal next to the Impossible Fortress. You need to find its mate, and the way to get to said mate.
Simply barging through every teleporter will tell you where to go eventually through process of elimination, as going through one marks it with its unique rune. As going through a teleporter drains all your movement points, however, you can only go through a maximum of one per turn, making this strategy potentially extremely time-consuming. The better ways to reveal the network are visiting the Points of Interest and beating the small All-Seeing Eye stacks scattered around. All the Points of Interest give you an option to reveal a teleporter pair in addition to replenishing your stack fully; beating an All-Seeing Eye stack gives you a postbattle option to identify a single teleporter, giving you half of its pair.
This is still, however, fairly time-consuming. Unless you're very lucky (and a little cunning, more on that later), finding the exit will require mapping most if not all of the maze. At one PoI and one or two stacks per island resulting in three or four sigils per turn, you're likely to spend four or five turns before you can even know where to go, let alone go there with the teleporters draining your unused movement. Taking the teleporter reveal postbattle option also means you're NOT taking options that could heal your stack, putting you at risk of faster attrition than normal. It's still the better option, but can put you in a bind if you're not thinking about it. Particularly in the lategame, the All-Seeing-Eye stacks can be some of the absolute most dangerous Chaos chaff stacks on offer; between the hit-absorbing barriers and the vast proliferation of magic-damage ranged attacks, they're surprisingly tough to kill and can absolutely melt armies that rely on raw Armor or non-Magical resistances for defense, such as both Kislev and Cathay.
On top of this, some of the alternate rewards Tzeentch provides at his PoI can be EXTREMELY powerful. The standard alternative is a colossal reduction in global recruitment time (-9, meaning that absolutely everything will drop down to one turn recruitment time) that lasts for two turns and allows recruitment into the Realm of the Sorcerer. While this CAN replenish your Leader's stack if it's taken a beating, as it's a global buff, you can also use it back on the main map to basically pull armies out of thin air. At two turns long, it lasts just long enough to summon a new Lord at a forward settlement and then pack them with as many units as your global recruitment cap and finances allow. Beyond that, what third option shows up (or if it does at all) is completely random -- it's Tzeentch, that's how he rolls -- but they usually last for nine turns (nine being Tzeentch's number) and can be VERY potent, including a rare boost to Research rate. They can also include just getting Tzeentch Chaos corruption sprayed all over your territory, because again, it's Tzeentch, unpredictable is what he does.
Between these factors, the Realm of the Sorcerer is the Chaos Realm where you're most likely to get unexpectedly outpaced by an AI competitor. As the teleport maze is different every time you enter, every competitor in the Realm will get their own maze that doesn't correspond to what you're seeing (so if you HAVE figured out which teleporter goes right to the end and some lucky devil warps in right next to it, don't despair -- it's only the right teleporter for you. Probably. The maze doesn't like starting people right next to their solution, it defeats the whole point). This makes tracking your opponents' progress almost impossible until they appear on the Fortress' doorstep, and while it's possible for them to get lost in the maze, it's equally possible for them to luck into the quick path just as much as it is for you. If you do manage to find a competitor on the same island as you in the Realm of the Sorcerer, taking them out there and then can be a very good idea -- you might not get another chance.
However, there is one key you can use to help speed up the thought process -- the islands with more than just two teleporters are crucial to the solution, as they represent the only place where the maze can branch. If you map out a loop at any point, beeline for the islands with multiple teleporters, as that's where the route out will go. There's no avoiding some time-consuming mapping in Tzeentch's realm, but if you use your head on drawing conclusions, you can potentially find the right path well before you've revealed every teleporter's marking.
== Rewards ==
* ???
== Battle maps ==
* The Impossible Fortress (survival)
* Crystal Causeway (ambush)
* Crystal Mountains
* Fields of Eternity
* Fields of Possibility
* The Blasted Wastes
* The Eyrie
* The Truth Plain
* Watcher Ruins
Category:Realm of Chaos (region)
Category:Tzeentch