Friendship is Dragons
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Page 522 - Avoid By Example
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Saving the whole town from imminent destruction is always a good place to start.
Just a couple of weeks ago my group did a oneshot session where we defended a town from three days of gnoll attacks. The first night, everyone thought our party's swordsman was an insane asshole, and us by extension.
They were right about him, but then he killed 6 gnolls in about 20 seconds, and then got one that was sneaking around a couple minutes later. We left that town as celebrities.
Just a couple of weeks ago my group did a oneshot session where we defended a town from three days of gnoll attacks. The first night, everyone thought our party's swordsman was an insane asshole, and us by extension.
They were right about him, but then he killed 6 gnolls in about 20 seconds, and then got one that was sneaking around a couple minutes later. We left that town as celebrities.
I'm currently involved in a campaign where nobility is very important, and some of the players are actual nobility with land rights and everything. My character is one of these, except that he is a bastard. He has the campaign trait and everything. The others are a sorceress whose family was wiped out and her loyal house knight as well as her friend from another, more powerful noble family.
The sorceress and her friend are more or less ambivalent about my character's background, but the knight specifically is roleplaying the shit out of contempt for my character. While I enjoy it, it is a little frustrating to both me and my character and he is working hard to show him that a bastard isn't any better or worse than a noble (or a commoner for that matter). He's earned some small, grudging respect in combat, but the knight is in dire need of a talking-to.
The sorceress and her friend are more or less ambivalent about my character's background, but the knight specifically is roleplaying the shit out of contempt for my character. While I enjoy it, it is a little frustrating to both me and my character and he is working hard to show him that a bastard isn't any better or worse than a noble (or a commoner for that matter). He's earned some small, grudging respect in combat, but the knight is in dire need of a talking-to.
As it turns out, however, the townsfolk had never seen him off duty, so they were caught totally unaware when the tavern door opened, and my paladin, Jagger Osborn (yes, he talked like Ozzie) burst in. He bought the whole bar a round of good whiskey, began basically swallowing drugs by the handful, and drinking entire bottles of very hard liquor.
He started playing darts, and accidentally put his own eye out with a very bad throw. The others wanted to get him to a healer, but he wasn't done carousing yet. He easily pushed through the guys trying to force him out, walked right up to a sexy elf woman, dart still impaled in his eye, and aced his diplomacy roll.
He slung her over his shoulder and carried her out, winking at every guy. Well, about ten minutes later, blood curdling screams can be heard. The tavern boys rush to it, and find Jagger had punched out some would be murderer, and was, err... "comforting" the victim.
He was caught fooling around, fighting, and doing so many kinds of drugs together, that the townspeople had figured out the next day that he's a wild, rowdy guy.
Seems they actually rather like the professional paladin they had seen a bit more, since a dude running around with a dart in his eye is a bit horrifying, especially when that guy can easily seduce anyone, anywhere, with his incredible persuasion.
Also, because he never did return that dart, so he still owes the bar a copper coin.
The holy forces of the Imperium of Man in the Tiji Sector have assembled to purge the quarantined world Euclisine of the Chaos taint that has befouled it for far too long. Shortly after the arrival of the heads of Knight House Excelsus, the final representatives arrived to the council that would decide the Crusade's course: a Castellan of the Black Templars Chapter of Space Marines, flanked by members of his battle company.
First, our combat specialist guardsman annoyed him by valuing human life, and opposing a total purge of the planet's population in case there were any loyalists left. While most of us agreed with him in principle, he kind of shot himself in the foot by forgetting how expendable lives are to the Imperium - his gift of archeotech to the Mechanicus representatives got him some support, though; enough that everyone agreed not to go on the offensive until our Legio Cybernetica robots had time to sweep the countryside for loyalist bastions.
After the meeting, the Inquisitors present talked us into a covert operation for the Crusade, recovering a targeting matrix, so that evening we flew out to some backwater village where orbital surveillance had spotted it. Lo and behold, we nearly crashed into Black Templar drop pods, who proceeded to ignore the agreement everyone else made and slaughter unarmed men, women, and children with high-grade military hardware. Unfortunately, we were using archeotech Scimitar-class Space Marine jetbikes 'acquired' from a Squat hold in an earlier episode, so shortly after disembarking from our even-more-heretical drop ship (a Phantomfish - a Tau Devilfish modified with Dark Eldar stealth technology) we got hailed by Castellan Dietrich himself, demanding that the unidentified Astartes signatures ID ourselves. We complied, but our combat specialist but his foot in his mouth again by answering "Why are you broadcasting Astartes identification codes?" with, "Long story; buy us a drink later and we'll tell it." Thus began Castellan Dietrich's hatred of us. Our techpriest made a good attempt to defuse the situation, only for the other Guardsman to try the same... By discrediting the techpriest. Things aren't improving, so we decide to break off, making promises to sort this all out later, with the social Guardsman BARELY making the Charm roll to convince the Castellan. Fast forward a bit, and we've ascertained that an obscure Chaos cult, the Hellstar cult, are active in the area, so while the Guardsmen and I razed the defiled church to the ground, the techpriest alerted the Black Templars to the cult's presence... By redialing Dietrich, and asking to be connected to the Captain, the rank most Chapters use in place of Castellan. Hellrage restored; he gets chewed out and hung up on. We proceed to complete the mission, reducing a cultist and a lesser Daemon to fine red mist and slaying a Greater Daemon, and pull out of town in time to find some Black Templars being surrounded and overwhelmed by more of the lesser Daemon I one-shotted. Most of the Templars were knocked out of commission by the time we got into effective range, but then we sprayed the Daemon-Hounds with so much sanctified bolter-fire that the few left over were easily mopped up by the remaining Space Marines, allowing them to recover the fallen in time for us all to evacuate before an orbital strike dealt with the next wave, and everything else in the vicinity too. Dietrich called us again after that. Apparently, the (homebrew) daemons associated with the cult we'd tried to warn him about gave his troops no small amount of trouble, even making them afraid. Both Guardsmen's players having had to leave early as soon as the dice-rolling action was over, the techpriest responded, deferentially praising the Castellan and his Templars. The response was an oath that the Sword-Brethren of the Black Templars would be at our Knights' side in the final march of the crusade for Euclisine, delivered in the calmest voice we'd ever heard from the man, or from any Space Marine.
(Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Yes, everyone; I don't care if you don't celebrate it, I still hope you have a pleasant day.)
Also, your character wouldn't want to be heavily injured on my ship if he's serious about that hatred of his; Jace is ludicrously devoted in his belief that machines are better than flesh (Stupid freakin Mars tech pri-I mean they are wonderful! Absolutely pleasant group of people, Mars is) and he's also the only "skilled" physician in our group (to the point where the med bay has been converted to be an extension of his lab...Dad wasn't the smartest tool in the shed.) He'd probably take one look at you before immediately deciding to just hack the damaged parts off in favor of superior machine parts. It's one of the reasons why Tork is part machine at this point and why I play nice with everyone in an attempt to avoid bodily harm. I'm more terrified of what my own tech priest will do to me than I am of anyone else.
Then again, that seems to be the MO of every tech priest I bump into.
I *did* run into a couple Chirurgeons in an Imperial Guard camp who tried to amptutate my limbs (atrocious rolls by the GM for them patching me up after some plasma burns) until I pulled some of my many concealed laspistols on them and waited for our techpriest to finish going gaga over the archeotech Fellglaive tank we were about to pilot. He literally couldn't fail without rolling a critical fail; it was a pretty cheesy campaign.
In the beginning of the game, he got a bit of a bad rep as a thief and such, and it didn't get much better for him from there, as he's been known to rob shops and devour the owners to remove the evidence. Nothing's ever been pinned on him, of course... but the suspicion is there.
Cut to the part where the party comes to a city that is under attack by a doppelganger infestation. Everyone agrees that they need to do something about it, but they aren't sure how. The rogue goes off on his own while they're arguing and begins shaking people's hands, speaking to them briefly.
It is important to note here that he had acquired a powerful artifact that he dubbed 'Handy'; a black glove that is highly intelligent and very, very evil. It sustains itself by eating hands, and has all manner of powers, one of which is the ability to communicate with anyone that is touching it.
Cut back to the rogue shaking peoples' hands; Handy would tell him if they were doppelgangers, and then they would bring them back to the party. Eventually it was set up with the city guard, so that all citizens had to go through a customs check with the serpentfolk.
Since he almost single-handedly eliminated all the doppelgangers in the city, he was given the title of 'Hero of Truth', and given a permanent position as the city's defender. The paladin was mortified.
Usually it's to the negative side, like the PC that wanted to become a demigod... and instead got possessed by an evil demigod that needed a new body. After that mess got fixed no one trusted the PC and he ended up getting killed when the king put up a reward for him dead or disintegrated.
Oh and PCs tend to have reputation shifts just by being associated with each other. :D
I can't think of any sitch for any of MY characters...
Oh and PCs tend to have reputation shifts just by being associated with each other. :D
I can't think of any sitch for any of MY characters...
Dude your avatar is epic.
I'm going to go play The World Ends With You now ok bye
I'm going to go play The World Ends With You now ok bye
The setting was partial pre-modern/steam punk (many of technologies had jumped years ahead of what they should have. Example, modern day agriculture (minus vehicles), no electricity (but a lot of manual labor machinery), but we still had pre-gun powder weaponry).
Anyway, one of our party members (a very evil anti-paladin of deception and destruction by the name of Korrik) was practically a celebrity everywhere we went, because he attained the reputation of doing good by destroying evildoers everywhere he went (because he was the only one who fought villains in public).
The other party member in question was a famed news reporter named W. E. "Asel", (he basically wrote up what we did during these adventures (himself being the moral drop piece of our group)). Well, his news company wanted him to write a series of short stories about each talking about each member of the team.
Well, Korrik was the only one who didn't know this, and was "absent" for the interviews Asel did. So, as Asel's morals dictated, he provided evidence of what he had to say about Korrik (from the blade to the scripts). His company had a field day selling those papers, and after almost every P.I. and investigation group in the country doing there own investigating on his past, Korrik's reputation not only dropped, but also got him a bounty by the official church.
The campaign changed almost instantly from hero simulator to stealth/mystery/survival simulator, and it did not recover.
I helped get a town to adore a Neutral Evil Druid, had her set up as the dead-body remover, and she got to quietly raise an army of Lagomorphs of Caerbannog. Mostly squirrel-men, but also some wererabbits. The fact that I also got half the town's virgins to join my "convent" so I'd always have willing blood to sate my thirst made it all pretty good for me, too. It was fun playing as the Big Bads of a campaign, the DM had the Heroes walk through our town, and despite meeting both of us, they never suspected a thing. Mwahahaha!
Yeah, doesn't always work, especially with a smartass GM.
-"Hi, we're a heavily-armed party of rude adventurers!" (Villagers run away.)
-"Don't run away, we just killed your local dragon and are here to spend its treasure and bask in your gratitude!" (Villagers return, proceed to fleece party for all its worth.)
-"Hi, we're a heavily-armed party of rude adventurers!" (Villagers run away.)
-"Don't run away, we just killed your local dragon and are here to spend its treasure and bask in your gratitude!" (Villagers return, proceed to fleece party for all its worth.)
Apparently some Spanish towns are still feeling it from when the Conquistodores tried this.
He's called Dovakin by the dragons but by the economy he is known as the cause of massive Inflation
PR Campaign... Those either tend to run very bad or very good. I had tried running one just for kicks... the team's job was to help restore order in a town and give their "inquisition" a good PR rep. Instead half of the town tried to kill them due to their bad negations. They had managed to befriend a monster race in the woods by saving them from a demon (they accidently summoned in their camp) as they BS their way to making them believe the group.
Then it ended with them having to rely the parts left in the town that trusted them and used the monster race to help defend as the other half tried killing them because they found out that the inquisition was coming to "secure" the town... and they had accidently summoned a demonic outbreak and promptly blamed it on the villains.
It ended with town saved with lots of damage. They were celebrated, but only because anyone who actually knew the truth had died... So does that count as a good PR adventure or a bad one considering most of the town died. Oh and the Inquisition decided to take control of the town due to the demonic outbreak and of course because not many people were left. So essentially the town was converted into a Inquisition base/city.
Then it ended with them having to rely the parts left in the town that trusted them and used the monster race to help defend as the other half tried killing them because they found out that the inquisition was coming to "secure" the town... and they had accidently summoned a demonic outbreak and promptly blamed it on the villains.
It ended with town saved with lots of damage. They were celebrated, but only because anyone who actually knew the truth had died... So does that count as a good PR adventure or a bad one considering most of the town died. Oh and the Inquisition decided to take control of the town due to the demonic outbreak and of course because not many people were left. So essentially the town was converted into a Inquisition base/city.
Oh oh, maybe dress up like a giant clown and-...nevermind, bad idea...
Hmm...yea I got nothing. Maybe we need to get Fluttershy over here and...no wait, she's just as terrified as the kids. Maybe we can use her as a test subject for whatever idea we come up with before we use it on the town? Hopefully we'll come up with better ideas along the way to her place.
Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Happy Thanksgiving!
I miss my local group. The PR of being heroes was a fun thing to work on.
I miss my local group. The PR of being heroes was a fun thing to work on.
For backstory: A town we had just been in a few hours ago was covered in a fog/mist that was sapping the energy of the people in it to feed the beings of another plane. getting answers from a man who had become a servant to the demon running this required signing with our true names a promise to let him leave alive. I asked what the source of the mist was and promptly snuck past him to deal with it as he answered the rest of the party's questions.
I came across a cauldron that was spewing it forth. Removing the source of heat ended up doing nothing, and all I could gather from it was that it smelled like chicken soup by the time the rest of the party showed up along with the man. Thinking of nothing else, I turned over the cauldron to spill out the contents...
I may have broken reality and teleported everyone from our home plane to the feywild.
As a level 5 tiefling thief I may have screwed over two entire planes, now one with double the population and slowly dying now that our reality is poisoning it.
Leave something like that just lying around, you get what you deserve. My question is, what would have happened if you had ladled it out and ate it?
A whole other reality would be inside his body.
It's the demons special homemade chicken soup and it is delicious
Rainbow Dash: ...why not roll with it?
Luna: E-excuse me?
Applejack: Actually, that's not a bad idea. Nightmare Night is a holiday about the fun side of being scared, so if Luna goes all out with the being scary, then she can just say that the entire thing was in the spirit of the holiday.
Pinkie Pie: Yeah! And then she'll get a reputation as the laid back, fun-loving sister! A real late-night party girl!
Fluttershy: As...as long as she doesn't go too far and traumatize somepony...
Luna: So I have to walk the fine line between fun loving scary and traumatizing scary...thank goodness my other character's the social rogue.
This evening's pbp Pony game nearly ended in our group friendship getting TPK'd by a slice-of-life episode. It started with an argument over whether a golem was sentient. Then the debate got heated. With each other.
In front of a changeling queen.
Derp. :D
In front of a changeling queen.
Derp. :D
Changeling: My queen, I don't think we need to kill them. It looks like their trying to kill each other.
Queen: Hmm, you appear to be right. Do you think the survivors will be weak enough to attack after this?
Changeling: Maybe... wait, don't we need their lives to extort love out of them?
Queen: ... Quick! Save them from themselves!
"Umm, guys? I know we're all extremely ticked with each other to the point where I'm not sure that can adequately describe how we're feeling right now, but maybe we can hold this off until AFTER we're far away from the Changeling Queen? J-just a thought here....HEY! You do NOT make fun of my comic book collection! Take that back!!!"
...On second thought, nevermind. I'm not really that skilled in this whole diplomacy thing.
@Specter: I can imagine one of their plans on saving everyone being to pretend to be everyone else and apologize when they are apart. Then I expect it to seriously fall apart when they get back together again like so:
Pony 1: Again, I'm really sorry about what I said back there.
Pony 2: Eh, don't worry about it. I'm just glad that you finally admitted that Iron Pony was the best superhero out of the whole lot.
Pony 1:...No I didn't, you liar!
Changeling Queen: *Facehoof*
The only way that could become even funnier would be at one point the Changling Queen started arguing with them as we'll.
Luna should follow Sweetie Bot's lead and embrace it.
IF THE WORLD CANNOT LOVE ME, THEN I WILL TEACH IT TO FEAR ME, INSTEAD!
IF THE WORLD CANNOT LOVE ME, THEN I WILL TEACH IT TO FEAR ME, INSTEAD!
To which the world responds "awwww how cut" just like Rarity did to sweetiebot
Twilight forgot to mention how she sometimes trolls her subjects.
Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving to/from the US!