Attendees:

RETURN OF THE S.S. PROPHYLACTIC

7/18/2008

Sorry.  It was either that or Kraken puns.

It's no secret that the number of details I have about a fight is proportional to the amount of involvement I have in it.  ("Some stuff happens, then I swing and do a point of damage; Then someone knocks it out.")  So here's my recap of this game:  There was a fight.  Done!

ENEMIES:  Lanthi Witches, Kraken, Unconscious troops, Landshark, and a Living Island of Chaos - Mark

As we left our heroes last:  We had disabled the lead ship.  Now the bad guys know that we are aware of them.  But the demon fog had been lifted and one ship was down.

That left 30 ships, each with a shark guarding them; the flagship with a kraken leading it (And the shark from the destroyed lead ship is now circling it), and an unknown transport ship of some kind way at the back.  So we begin with recon.

GROUP 1 - Truthspinner and JT.... Checking out the big, distant trailing ship.

Truthspinner makes an exceptional perception roll to see some details from many miles away.  But at the same time he botches an occult roll and so doesn't pick up on the fact that it is a living thing until we move in much closer and actually get shot at by the mounted artillery (both escaping alright).

Seems this is less a massive aircraft-carrier sized ship than it is the island of Tir Nog (home of these marauding elves) that has been reconfigured in the image of the largest ship ever to sail.  What's worse is that it is not rowed nor propelled by wind, but rather by simply being a living magical being (I picture tiny little feet on the underside paddling like mad), and it has at its bow a giant horn-like "island breaker".  'Tis a spike used when it rams islands and sinks them!

Yeh, we gotta get back and tell the others and act quickly.

GROUP 2 - Defender, Stings, and Injun McFirewater... Scoping the flagship.

Within 100 ft or so, stealth-boy can see that the ship is protected by runes of the usual sort.  Some consultation tells us it's fire-proof, wyld-proof, and enchanted for speed, as well as being just a tougher ship than the other one we wrecked.

There's the big, magical arbalest, a host of witches, a captain, and the kraken pulling it by virtue of the super-sized chains wrapped around him.  It is surmised that while we hoped the kraken might turn on the ship if freed, it's more likely that, like the elves, the kraken was birthed by the island.  Thus it is unlikely to turn on its kin.

We regroup, go back to Lyta (the Orca "Darfolin" girl) in a boat.  As "worship" is the primary way to get ahold of a god's attention, we implore her to pray to her Orca father, the great Leviathan, to prey for the safety of the islands from the Tir Nog.  Hopefully that will get his attention.  Especially since she is imbued with essence, because now she's Alan's pet.

After some discussion, the concensus is that the sooner we attack thebetter.  We decide that taking out the flagship and using the arbalest to decimate the fleet would be the ideal choice. A subsequent attempt by Jim to land on the ship resulted in him bouncing right off of it and setting off some kind of alarm.  Seems the flagship is protected against unwanted boardings.  BUT, near as we can tell, if we all tried to crash at the same time, the chance of making it goes up.

Then a plan is hatched to hinder a group of them by having the Albatross airforce drop a weighted sail over a group of them.  On the surface this is a clever and interesting ploy.  However, in practice, it means we're all close together when the ship spots us and thus can fireball--er, I mean, explosive arbalest the entire group of us.  So we land with injuries already.  Some of us pretty badly injured because we were in bird form (thus not all that resistant).  Aquila is in snake form and lands amid piles of ropes. We crash the invisble barrier and land on deck.  Truthspinner tries to fight the arbalest guy but is too injured and goes down in short order. Stings slices and dices the captain!  Turtle shells out some damage
(<----See what i did there?), while Tiger manages to get taken down by injury & poison and was indeed first to fall, he does his Friday-the-13th homage and pops back up due to his regeneration and gets back into the swing of things, right 'til the very end.

But the big blow for ourside is let out by the snake-who-roars.

Aquila.... Moonfeather(?)  proceeds to let out a piercing sqwuak that knocks out all of the miscellaneous crew and some of the witches.

The captain had (and the arbalest guy still has) armor of eels, which gives them some protection via an electric shock to any attacker.  Neat. The Kraken is annoyed by the eagle-snake-moan and shrugs off the chains to come back and get some.  It will be a while before he arrives.  By then witches will be stomped, and the arbalest guy finally dispatched; Another shout takes out the rest of the witches.

There is however another problem... well actually two.

First is that before one of the witches was dumped in the water, she managed to cast a charm which made Jade Tiger her very best friend.

He gains an intimacy about helping her and thus goes even so far as to swing into the water and hoist her out.  She ultimately gets sliced in two.  But she was the lesser of the problems taking place.

The midlde problem in the pecking order would be the shark.  Yes, the shark from last game is guarding THIS ship now, and decides to leap on board and grow legs.  Whereupon he tries to chow down on everything.

He's a remorseless eating machine.

And now for a non-sequitor quote:
 
                "Contrary to popular belief, the most dangerous animal is not the lion or tiger or even the elephant. The most dangerous animal is a shark riding on an elephant, just trampling and eating everything they see."
                 
                -Jack Handy
 
That, by the way, is the animal kingdom's interpretation of the "John Sparre Manuever".  And now back to our recap.

The shark-man (and I can kick myself because I have a shark-man miniature that now will never haven opportunity to be used ever again) begins to chomp on our heroes.  It becomes more interesting when the deck is caved in by... one of the witches I think.  And those who are still awake have to save or fall to the deck below.  The eternal struggle between turtle and shark carries on for a while, neither gaining much of an edge, until ultimately the turtle wins.  Just like in nature.

This is about when the last witch is horribly cut in two, and the Kraken arrives.

So there's this Kraken.  And our best archer has an archery of around 1 or 2.  So the arbalest takes a while to actually hit.  Meanwhile the cast of Circe Du Solleil are leaping and bounding off of the Kraken doing damage to him.  I believe it's a few disgustingly savage claws by JT that bring down the tentacled horror.

We (I use the editorial we, as my job is to roll around in my sleep) proceed to destroy the surrounding armada with the magical arbalest.

Of course there's the little problem of that encroaching island.

The story goes that once upon a time, the Leviathan took on this dimension's 2nd Circl soul, the Tir Nog (a living island) and injured it badly.  Ultimately it fled into the maelstrom to escape and we were all safe and the Tir Nog was not heard from again.  Well, in the rematch, the Tir Nog is healthy, and the two engage.  The Leviathan then proceeds to lead it away and down into the maelstrom, and both vanish.  Two years later, as we are moving on to the next dimension, we've
still not heard word from the Leviathan.  Perhaps we'll see him in another life.  But that's a little foreshadowing.
As a reward for our success, Ten Stripes (the patrin of this set of islands) grants us 1 year of use of the land and its people.  We use that, plus another season, to do some minor rearranging.

Not sure all the details are that worth mentioning.  It was mostly about manuevering people we wanted into the government so that we could gain the favor of the merchants and guildsmen, so that we could have new ships made and enchanted.  And Truthspinner could make a new weapon (a "dire chain", described as the orignal "unbreakable web" that was demagicked last time, but re-enchanted and grafted with the claw salvaged from the Kraken as the hook on the end of the chain).

Now that I have the skills I hope to make stuff for everyone who needs something eventually.

We get boats.  We get boats enchanted.  We set sail for the new world.  The rest is told to us in narrative:

We encounter pirates who are the charges of another patrin (The barracuda) and thus outrun them.  Turns out to be a good choice, as there were repercussions to most other choices (picking a fight, negotiating, etc.)  Then we come across some horribly cold woman who we slay.  Then her mother shows up and tries to crush our ships with icebergs.  Through a feat of handwavery the bounce off us like ice cubes.  We also kill her and cross into the next world. This world begins with a waterfall that cascades at a steep angle, and our tiny fleet plunges down a thousand feet below... to the laaaaand
of the looooost.

Yup, we hit a tropical, primeval world.  Undoubtedly repute with sleestak.

 

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