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Experience

THE WORM TURNS

Game Two - January 5th, 2008

We begin in the well that once was the mighty tower of the arch-mage, now collapsed because of the magic-destroying "Screaming Wind" of the legendary shaman. Most of us exit by using our newly small forms to climb to safety through a crack, and sabretooth-boy claws his way out. Up top, a small detachment of goblins are running toward the gap created by the tower. The group move to engage.

Much fighting and stuntyness ensues; and the goblins drop quickly, often due to scorpion poison or sharp pointy objects. We discover a couple things: First, we can change forms at will to and from our animal form; second, if we do this too much, something bad might happen. We end up in human form by the end of the fight.

The group gathers at the wall but find that a sand giant has arrived. He's cut down, and his head is used as a motivating factor for the troops.

The team rally some troops. A makeshift militia is formed. MASS COMBAT begins!

Our highest "War" skill was with Karth (3), while Kern and Viox each had (1). Davion remained with the main group of troops, run by Karth and fired arrows at the enemy, functioning as a hero.

There are 4 clusters of 200 Goblins, 2 clusters of 500 Goblins, and 1 bigass cluster of 2,000(?) goblins. We are a fairly untrained militia of 200 humans.

Right away, Kern takes a small group off of the 200 and uses them to engage a 500 goblin group, so that they can't curl around and flank Karth's larger group. The huge group crashes against the city walls.

At Mark's behest, Alan rolls for the small group of goblins we engaged, and he manages to roll a triple-botch! *POOF* that group evaporates. Karth's batallion goes after the big group, Kern's goes after a smaller group that have just arrived, and another small group make a bee-line for the tower, which is the main gap in the defenses of the city. Viox pulls a small group off of Karth's, and makes a charge for them, smacking them in the flank hard enough to get their attention.

At Mark's behest, Jim rolls for the large group of goblins we engaged at the gates, and he manages to roll a botch! That group shrinks. Human soldiers come in from the sides after that and flank the groups, and the city is saved. For a moment.

Because now, coming our way are several more groups. Some are small detachments of goblin troops. Some are large detachments of goblin troops each with a sand giant leader riding a giant purple worm, and the last is a humongous purple worm with the legendary shaman (of screaming wind fame) riding it.

Rather than a mass combat, however, if we "shape of.... rabid animals" and assemble on the back of the sabretooth, he can run us around to the big worm and we can engage the leader in normal combat.

And do we ever. An expert leaping roll allows for a nice round of surprise, which is all the difference.

Spider-boy steals his necklace (the likely source of the screaming wind). Tiger boy slices. Turtle-boy wrestles him down into an ankle lock. Scorpion-boy slashes. Giant loses leg, which Turtle-boy proceeds to use as a club on all of the other goblins and sand giants who are hanging out on the purple worm's back. It's all good after that.

The forces are routed without their big leader, and the city reconstruction begins. We all go about our side activities while assisting the city. The surviving arch-mages, great druid, and arch-bishop can't tell us much. None seem to understand what exactly became of us that we can suddenly do this transformation, except there's a theory that because we were in the mage's heavily magicked tower and the screaming wind blew through that it's that confluence of events.

At that point, by the way, Kern lost contact with his god. His spells were gone and he hasn't felt the presence of his God. What's more, his injuries were not healed by a simple healing spell. In fact, testing shows that none of use seem to be subject to direct application of normal human magics, as if we are highly resistant. Not even a magic missile can find us.

We are granted titles by the king (Lord Defenders), and given room, and duties. We are consulted on matters of state. The latest problem, aside from rebuilding, has to do with three other countries building ships. One is an isolationist country, one is an ally, one is hostile. Each is creating a fleet and no one knows exactly why. We give our informed opinion. (Diplomacy might be the first line, followed by proper application of spying, and reinforcement of the rivers, as we are landlocked.)

The king asks us to go hunting with him. During the hunt, things go alright, until we come across a mythical animal. At this stage the four of us are with the king, his nearest knight having been de-horsed by the beast, which had no qualms about thrashing their horses.

The creature is a mythical gray bull whose hide is highly prized. There is even a bounty on it. Taking the creature down for the king would reward him greatly. The four of us sense that this is more than your average foe, and so Viox (with the subtlety of a hammer) tries to keep the king from attacking it. Doesn't matter anyway, as the beast seems to target him specifically. Attempts by our heroes to intercede mean nothing, the beast being so strong that he pushes them aside. He gives the king a good thump on the head which knocks him out.

The beast then transforms to a human form and chides us for taking so long to arrive, and then gives us a very long list of instructions, which include following him, doing so quickly, NOT transforming during the entire length of the trip, and leaving immediately.

When it's pointed out that we'd be abandoning the king after giving our word, he allows us 30 seconds to write a note, which is hastily scribbled. We then follow him, knowing first off from our fight that he would thrash us in a fight, that getting him away from the king is important, and that since he transformed from an animal that he might have important information for us.

We come to a wagon, and most of us get in, only tiger-boy deciding he needs to show his manliness by running alongside. The running takes days. Each time he stops to rest and we camp, the group tries to weidel information out of him. Scorpion boy takes the indirect route, by "thinking out loud" to friends, causing him to overhear and answer. The rest of us are more direct. Well, except for a couple of attempts to manipulate information from him, which gratefully do not get us beaten.

Seems there are 4 others with transformative powers, aside form our group. He, the bull. The redhead girl who lured the black knight and his pet away from Blythe. And two others, one of whom is our destination.

We stop briefly as he converses with the "guardian of the road", some kind of creature, part gator, part bat, part other stuff. This is not one of us.

Next time we encounter someone, it's the redhead! She has more of an outgoing personality and slyly convinces bull-man to run off to a city that is having trouble so he can do what he does best (thrash things), while she leads us the rest of the way.

More talking and wheedling. And drinking. This one likes to frequent the pubs.

 At last we reach the city of destination; Megalos, the capital city of the country which is the enemy of the country from which we just came.

Our benefactor/teacher here is a praying mantis, who uses his teleportation powers to bring us to the center of the world.

This is where it gets all metaphysical. In other words, it's complicated and likely anything I outline below will need corrected. But here goes...

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