Friendship is Dragons
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Page 1021 - Back in Blue
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33 Comments:
Me too!
Especially how each of the three guild thieves were dealt with during the fight, and the teamwork that took down Elusive so quickly. :)
Especially how each of the three guild thieves were dealt with during the fight, and the teamwork that took down Elusive so quickly. :)
"You gained a royal favor to be called in when you choose, there's control of the Thieves Guild for Rarity, and the reward for any stolen loot found in Elusive's stores.
Also, Fluttershy now has a follower."
Also, Fluttershy now has a follower."
We arrive, and we see a warbeast taller than anything we've ever had to fight before, who loves fire about as much as your average dragon given that the inside of his throat flickers with flames whenever he opens his mouth. Our senses tell us that this beast is the warlock we've been sensing. We ask why it even agreed to meet with us and get something like "you're the first people to ever try." After some talking, we discover that this guy was created to be sufficiently advanced that he ended up breaking free of the hive mind the bad guys are all part of. We told him that we were fighting said hive mind, and ask if he's interested in coming back to the mainland with us to help out. Some incredibly fortunate Negotiate checks later, he's agreed to join the fight on our side instead of terrorizing a local fishing village, and our GM is joking about how of course our party managed to convince the 30-foot-tall death monster boss fight to kill his creator somehow.
Why hello my brother, why are you guys not in my group, sounds like you'd fit!
Heel-Face Turns and Diplomacy are just as common as Murderhobo-ing in my group, so I'll avoid telling one of those stories...
Lets see...
Ah, how about a Recent one? I was playing a WoD Fangame called Princess:The Hopeful, and the DM decided to go full Anime, Mix in Equestria Girls, and set the thing in a custom Modern setting.
I join the Game Aileen O'Sullivan, 16 year old girl with a Kaenach Accent(Imagine Scotland, Ireland, England, and southern accents all rolled into one. Th' accent s' outright addictin' t' do, lemme tell ya!), going to this fancy Private school in Englamerica, and all her stats basically went into Wrasslin', and she had Olympic Ambitions.
SO, anyway, end up being sent by my Aunt(and legal guardian, Long story short: My parents are shit and i was born in a Expy of Detroit) to find my Cousin who never came home from school...
I see him Unconscious and three toothy Dogmen Badguy Demons, two were size 5, one was Size 6, which was right next to cousin... Hasty being my Vice, i bumrushed that one shouting in my incomprehensible accent, and basically let myself get surrounded due to my own In Character dumbness.
Thats not the Unexpected part, tho the DM was clearly laughing his ass off.
This was where i was supposed t get rescued by the Magical Girl PC's, some Muskateer looking Fencer girl, some sort of Shinto Priestess with a Naginata, and a... erm... Space Marine? ^^;
Anyway they show up, and each take one, the Fencer taking the Big one, and tell me to stand back and let them save me and my brother basically.
Aileen is like "NO FUCK THAT!" and runs up to the big one and attempts to grapple, and Fails... but the DM as a Joke lets me hang from the back of his neck like a silly-girl Cape as fluff.
Next Round, get called stupid, fight goes on, my turn comes... "I ROLL TO ENGAGE GRAPPLE!" and spend a willpower!
Critical Success! As i got 3 dots of the Grappler Style merit, i literally SUPLEX the Large-size-equivalent Demon Dogman onto the ground, and maintain Grapple. The Muskateer stops fighting and just stares as everyone links Reaction Gif Images(its on roll20 btw).
I also did like 6 damage.
Next Round, the Muskateer opts to stand there gaping, and i spend a willpower to Maintain Grapple... i succeed.
I scream "I BREAK YOUR BACK, MAKE YOU HUMBLE!" and Break the Demons neck, killing it.
And this is why Hugging is the best Weapon in a Magical Girl story.
But yeah, Instead of Witnessing the magical girls and escaping without a mind-wipe to do a "Who is sailor moon?" Mystery as the DM planned, i Badass Normal a monster to death, and got invited by two of them to join despite not being magic yet.
To be honest i expected to end up injured or something, but it worked out amazing.
This happened barely a week ago, so there's not much to say beyond that!
Tho now the DM is afraid of what I'd do when i become a Senshi myself, because my Grappling is already pushing "Crippling Overpowered", and the Grappling options available with the Template are even more amazing.
Heel-Face Turns and Diplomacy are just as common as Murderhobo-ing in my group, so I'll avoid telling one of those stories...
Lets see...
Ah, how about a Recent one? I was playing a WoD Fangame called Princess:The Hopeful, and the DM decided to go full Anime, Mix in Equestria Girls, and set the thing in a custom Modern setting.
I join the Game Aileen O'Sullivan, 16 year old girl with a Kaenach Accent(Imagine Scotland, Ireland, England, and southern accents all rolled into one. Th' accent s' outright addictin' t' do, lemme tell ya!), going to this fancy Private school in Englamerica, and all her stats basically went into Wrasslin', and she had Olympic Ambitions.
SO, anyway, end up being sent by my Aunt(and legal guardian, Long story short: My parents are shit and i was born in a Expy of Detroit) to find my Cousin who never came home from school...
I see him Unconscious and three toothy Dogmen Badguy Demons, two were size 5, one was Size 6, which was right next to cousin... Hasty being my Vice, i bumrushed that one shouting in my incomprehensible accent, and basically let myself get surrounded due to my own In Character dumbness.
Thats not the Unexpected part, tho the DM was clearly laughing his ass off.
This was where i was supposed t get rescued by the Magical Girl PC's, some Muskateer looking Fencer girl, some sort of Shinto Priestess with a Naginata, and a... erm... Space Marine? ^^;
Anyway they show up, and each take one, the Fencer taking the Big one, and tell me to stand back and let them save me and my brother basically.
Aileen is like "NO FUCK THAT!" and runs up to the big one and attempts to grapple, and Fails... but the DM as a Joke lets me hang from the back of his neck like a silly-girl Cape as fluff.
Next Round, get called stupid, fight goes on, my turn comes... "I ROLL TO ENGAGE GRAPPLE!" and spend a willpower!
Critical Success! As i got 3 dots of the Grappler Style merit, i literally SUPLEX the Large-size-equivalent Demon Dogman onto the ground, and maintain Grapple. The Muskateer stops fighting and just stares as everyone links Reaction Gif Images(its on roll20 btw).
I also did like 6 damage.
Next Round, the Muskateer opts to stand there gaping, and i spend a willpower to Maintain Grapple... i succeed.
I scream "I BREAK YOUR BACK, MAKE YOU HUMBLE!" and Break the Demons neck, killing it.
And this is why Hugging is the best Weapon in a Magical Girl story.
But yeah, Instead of Witnessing the magical girls and escaping without a mind-wipe to do a "Who is sailor moon?" Mystery as the DM planned, i Badass Normal a monster to death, and got invited by two of them to join despite not being magic yet.
To be honest i expected to end up injured or something, but it worked out amazing.
This happened barely a week ago, so there's not much to say beyond that!
Tho now the DM is afraid of what I'd do when i become a Senshi myself, because my Grappling is already pushing "Crippling Overpowered", and the Grappling options available with the Template are even more amazing.
Well clearly your fate is to not get magical'd. You're to be the Badass Normal of the group, getting through on willpower and determination.
It'll add more RP chances, since you won't be 'safe' under the glamour, and will have to work harder to not be recognized. And it'll give any healers a more dedicated target.
Talk with your DM about maybe getting full Charles Atlass powers, or finding an ancient artifact like Thor's Megingjord to keep up as things go crazyer, but you can be the 'ground' of the group.
It'll add more RP chances, since you won't be 'safe' under the glamour, and will have to work harder to not be recognized. And it'll give any healers a more dedicated target.
Talk with your DM about maybe getting full Charles Atlass powers, or finding an ancient artifact like Thor's Megingjord to keep up as things go crazyer, but you can be the 'ground' of the group.
As cool as that'd be, Anvildude, I'd rather go all Smile Precure instead.
It's why i Joined, afterall. XD
It's why i Joined, afterall. XD
It was the end of my grand campaign, the big bad wasn't fully evil - she had really good reasons for doing what she was doing, but what she was doing was trying to go out and killing deities. She had already succeeded once and the players were there to stop her.
Due to previous events and a whole bunch of weird coincidences, said big-bad never actually realized who was going after her; she actually thought the party were her friends (and they were, before they found out what was going on). So when she found them fighting her allies, she basically just asked what was going on.
Long story short, instead of fighting the big bad, or somehow convincing her of the err of her ways... the party joined the big bad. That campaign world lost all of its deities at that point. VERY fascinating, but not exactly expected by anyone.
Due to previous events and a whole bunch of weird coincidences, said big-bad never actually realized who was going after her; she actually thought the party were her friends (and they were, before they found out what was going on). So when she found them fighting her allies, she basically just asked what was going on.
Long story short, instead of fighting the big bad, or somehow convincing her of the err of her ways... the party joined the big bad. That campaign world lost all of its deities at that point. VERY fascinating, but not exactly expected by anyone.
Made it to the top of the tower of the first Big Bad of a campaign, who at the time we believed was the only Big Bad. We'd had a rough time getting there, and were expecting a "by the skin of our teeth" sort of fight.
Our wizard was a bit worse for wear, so expecting to die during the fight he decided to goof off and cast an equivalent of Charm Person (can't remember which system we were playing, so I don't remember the specific spell). The Big Bad then absolutely botched his magic defense/save, and we all just kind of stood there for a moment and didn't know what to do.
He ended up giving us loot and healing potions, telling us everything he knew about his boss' plan, and if I remember right he and the wizard actually stayed in touch and became close friends.
Our wizard was a bit worse for wear, so expecting to die during the fight he decided to goof off and cast an equivalent of Charm Person (can't remember which system we were playing, so I don't remember the specific spell). The Big Bad then absolutely botched his magic defense/save, and we all just kind of stood there for a moment and didn't know what to do.
He ended up giving us loot and healing potions, telling us everything he knew about his boss' plan, and if I remember right he and the wizard actually stayed in touch and became close friends.
Funny thing literally just happened as I'm writing this. Our party pretty much had a final Dragon (with Down/upgrading forms as it Phased) and we were just starting Phase 2 when our Diplomancers discovered enough info about the boss that we could just get our Fighter to stop fighting and start Diplomancing as well.... when there were still 3 full phases to go through
What a shame that I already used that story about how I fireballed one of my teammates to kill two enemies that were flanking him. I fully expected him to shrug it off, instead he nearly avoided death. The player gave me a "WTF dude" look.
I said: "I was sure you had fire resistance,"
and he was: "Well obviously not!"
GM ruled that the guy lived (so I wasn't kicked from the party for that), but she basically told him to roll a new character. His new character didn't go that well, so five sessions later GM unexpectedly said that the guy I fireballed got out of the hospital and he didn't see who put him there. So he could return to the party without any complications. I mean, the player knew, but all party decided to not tell the character on me.
One thing that would make this story perfect is our characters becoming best friends afterwards, but that simply didn't happen.
I said: "I was sure you had fire resistance,"
and he was: "Well obviously not!"
GM ruled that the guy lived (so I wasn't kicked from the party for that), but she basically told him to roll a new character. His new character didn't go that well, so five sessions later GM unexpectedly said that the guy I fireballed got out of the hospital and he didn't see who put him there. So he could return to the party without any complications. I mean, the player knew, but all party decided to not tell the character on me.
One thing that would make this story perfect is our characters becoming best friends afterwards, but that simply didn't happen.
K.K.: re fireball
Many moons ago (AD&D, maybe 2nd Edition) the party was on a fighting retreat through a series of dungeon rooms. Forget what we had chasing us -- some large trollish critter. My magic user was down to about one significant spell (fireball) and not much better off in hit points.
I told the rest of the party to leave the room via the other door and head down the hallway. I was going to do a suicide move, of setting off the fireball point-blank (practically touching distance) once the critter made it into the room.
Fried the critter.
Somehow my magic user survived. What was not expected was that the expanding back-blast made it through the door and down the hall-way enough to kill the other character I was running (it was common practice in our group to run two characters, on the odds that one might be killed -- that way the night wasn't a waste for the player).
Many moons ago (AD&D, maybe 2nd Edition) the party was on a fighting retreat through a series of dungeon rooms. Forget what we had chasing us -- some large trollish critter. My magic user was down to about one significant spell (fireball) and not much better off in hit points.
I told the rest of the party to leave the room via the other door and head down the hallway. I was going to do a suicide move, of setting off the fireball point-blank (practically touching distance) once the critter made it into the room.
Fried the critter.
Somehow my magic user survived. What was not expected was that the expanding back-blast made it through the door and down the hall-way enough to kill the other character I was running (it was common practice in our group to run two characters, on the odds that one might be killed -- that way the night wasn't a waste for the player).
We're left wondering what happened cause if that was a bribe to get us to keep going on this quest, it backfired. We never continued that quest since.
Alright, this was a fun one.
So, we were playing in the DMs homemade setting and the PCs are budding Avatars of this planet's dieties. We're just a handful of sessions into this campaign and we hear a rumour that the Big Bad (a Wendigo) is moving quickly in our direction. This is where we totally threw our DM. He expected us to gather supplies and flee, knowing we were vastly outmatched against this guy and his undead/moster army, even with our god-powers.
We didn't run. We did the opposite of running.
We were in the Feritai (essentially catfolk that live in massive tree cities) capital. We'd been traveling for some time before making it here and had just gotten our feet back beneath us. Because the diety I was tied to was that of beasts and chaos, it was very obvious that I was special, even before factoring that I was like 13 and casually riding on the back of a massive feline death machine called Scáth Deamhan. (Essentially sapient matriarchal tree-dwelling panthers that have paralytic quills, to which I'm immune. Their name roughly translates to Shadow Daemon.) I was physically altered by being an awakened Avatar so everyone knew to take our party seriously. Oh and I was also a Wendikari, meaning I could consume souls to gain power but by doing so I'm slowly driving myself insane and with each consumption I risk losing all control and becoming a full-fledged Wendigo.
Long story short, we tell everybody to prepare for war. We lay out vines on the battlefield-to-be that some can control to slow our enemies, as well as pits and various other traps. We get everyone that can fight in gear, making sure everyone has ranged weaponry for the first part of the battle and melee weapons for the second. As the beast Avatar, I was able to acquire assistance from the local wildlife as well as the Scáth that lived near enough to help. There was a small Feritai town not far from the capital that had also been preparing with the help of one of the PCs but they were attacked before they could finish putting up their defenses. The PC rejoins the party to tell us that the town has fallen and almost everyone there is already dead, very likely including an NPC we'd grown to love. Big Bad finally makes his way over to the capital and with all of our preperations, his army is at less than half by the time they actually get close. Suddenly, Big Bad is VERY close, so the party engages. Thanks to the dice gods, one PC got a beautiful crit that pinned him to the wall via a sword in his lower abdomen and with that, he was done for. One round later I was consuming his soul (and fighting to keep what sanity I had left) and the DM is just sitting there looking dumbstruck.
Evidently we skipped at least 19 sessions worth of material lol
So, we were playing in the DMs homemade setting and the PCs are budding Avatars of this planet's dieties. We're just a handful of sessions into this campaign and we hear a rumour that the Big Bad (a Wendigo) is moving quickly in our direction. This is where we totally threw our DM. He expected us to gather supplies and flee, knowing we were vastly outmatched against this guy and his undead/moster army, even with our god-powers.
We didn't run. We did the opposite of running.
We were in the Feritai (essentially catfolk that live in massive tree cities) capital. We'd been traveling for some time before making it here and had just gotten our feet back beneath us. Because the diety I was tied to was that of beasts and chaos, it was very obvious that I was special, even before factoring that I was like 13 and casually riding on the back of a massive feline death machine called Scáth Deamhan. (Essentially sapient matriarchal tree-dwelling panthers that have paralytic quills, to which I'm immune. Their name roughly translates to Shadow Daemon.) I was physically altered by being an awakened Avatar so everyone knew to take our party seriously. Oh and I was also a Wendikari, meaning I could consume souls to gain power but by doing so I'm slowly driving myself insane and with each consumption I risk losing all control and becoming a full-fledged Wendigo.
Long story short, we tell everybody to prepare for war. We lay out vines on the battlefield-to-be that some can control to slow our enemies, as well as pits and various other traps. We get everyone that can fight in gear, making sure everyone has ranged weaponry for the first part of the battle and melee weapons for the second. As the beast Avatar, I was able to acquire assistance from the local wildlife as well as the Scáth that lived near enough to help. There was a small Feritai town not far from the capital that had also been preparing with the help of one of the PCs but they were attacked before they could finish putting up their defenses. The PC rejoins the party to tell us that the town has fallen and almost everyone there is already dead, very likely including an NPC we'd grown to love. Big Bad finally makes his way over to the capital and with all of our preperations, his army is at less than half by the time they actually get close. Suddenly, Big Bad is VERY close, so the party engages. Thanks to the dice gods, one PC got a beautiful crit that pinned him to the wall via a sword in his lower abdomen and with that, he was done for. One round later I was consuming his soul (and fighting to keep what sanity I had left) and the DM is just sitting there looking dumbstruck.
Evidently we skipped at least 19 sessions worth of material lol
This is where Kyroth would put him on a "Work Release Program".
...that program is why that PC has a Bro-Harem of Ex-Antagonists >_<
Why must i adore Redemption arcs so much?
Yes, I got that rare party of Non-Murderhobos.
...that program is why that PC has a Bro-Harem of Ex-Antagonists >_<
Why must i adore Redemption arcs so much?
Yes, I got that rare party of Non-Murderhobos.
My current character keeps recruiting the bad guy's minions. To be fair, I'm the exiled Winter Queen building an army to reclaim my realm and my full power, but it's starting to annoy the rest of the (mostly Good) party. Except for the paladin, who doesn't seem to mind.
Of course the Paladin would be all for Redeeming the Enemies and making good use of them!
This ranger, Kyroth, just hates wasting Talent, and always offers more reasonable antagonists a way out without dying...
Also, Winter Queen, Like... the Fey Queen of the Winter Court???
This ranger, Kyroth, just hates wasting Talent, and always offers more reasonable antagonists a way out without dying...
Also, Winter Queen, Like... the Fey Queen of the Winter Court???
Yep. Class on paper: warlock. Class in reality: diplomancer. Actual combat is so gauche.
Having been a part of a home campaign of borderline murderhobos... yeah. Getting people to care about more than just killing for loots is hard.
Especially when members of the party don't want a game with political implications and some big overarching plotline, and would rather just go monster slaying instead.
Especially when members of the party don't want a game with political implications and some big overarching plotline, and would rather just go monster slaying instead.
Normally we play highly social campaigns using GURPS. But there was a notable time when we played combat-oriented DnD. And our DM didn't expect and was annoyed by us being non-murderhobos. It went as far as DM telling us how he expect us to fight each encounter with best result, but we try our best to avoid those fights.
Dude, I rolled a social rogue. I'm not fighting if I can help it.
Dude, I rolled a social rogue. I'm not fighting if I can help it.
Full-res shots here.
Not much I can say here that Rainbow Dash didn't already say.
Not much I can say here that Rainbow Dash didn't already say.
I agree with RD, but I'm not gonna lie...I'll be glad to see this go back to regular, minimally-edited show screenshots. No disrespect to Spud or Chris, the work was fantastic, but...idk, part of the appeal of comics like this (for me, anyway) is working within the show to see what kinds of scenarios they can come up with. A big, extended combat encounter like this was flashy and cool, but it started to drag after a while. Again, not meant to belittle the work that went in to making these pages - but I'll be glad to go back to regular screenshots again.
I've liked this battle a lot, and I think it's a necessity of the big sweeping storyline that was happening. Otherwise, either someone else would have had to be Elusive, or it would have ended in an anticlimax.
I like reading this comic for the adaptation of the original as well, and I'll be glad to see what episode gets tackled next.
But I'm also quite glad for the knock down drag out battle with Elusive, and the adaptation of the Grand Galloping Gala that hasn't quite finished yet. Because this battle HAS been really fun. Especially the guild thieves that helped Elusive during the fight, how the party dealt with them, and the teamwork that made such short work of Elusive.
I like reading this comic for the adaptation of the original as well, and I'll be glad to see what episode gets tackled next.
But I'm also quite glad for the knock down drag out battle with Elusive, and the adaptation of the Grand Galloping Gala that hasn't quite finished yet. Because this battle HAS been really fun. Especially the guild thieves that helped Elusive during the fight, how the party dealt with them, and the teamwork that made such short work of Elusive.
I liked the battle a lot, but I agree that it was dragged out for a bit too long.
never seen those two words said in such a bad@$$ and angry way before
ARCANA CHECK
-angry magical pony noises-
ARCANA CHECK
-angry magical pony noises-
Given how dangerous horses can be, angry magical pony noises are rather ominous. ;D
The other part of the latest Tales of New Dunhaven session is up! It probably has the most bombastic ending of any game of Dusk City Outlaws we've played so far – there's even a wizard duel amidst the chaos.
The Most Wanted Job, Part 2: Libsyn YouTube