Friendship is Dragons
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Page 532 - Half-Glassed
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1. A time when It Got Worse;
2. A time when you or your players did something that resulted in an annual holiday/festival/event/somethingorother.
I then proceeded to spray several tons of fine sawdust into the stadium, then I fired a burning arrow into it. Not a single survivor. It was ruled the blast was great enough to deal massive amounts of force damage, too. Anyone not killed instantly dies shortly after, due to the layer of pitch on the floor.
And those thousands died in order for me to summon my dark masters from the deepest pits of hell.
This began an annual celebration we just called Burning Mankind. As you can imagine, I retroactively did not do any of this, by GM's orders. The look on her face was priceless as I described the scene. I had to turn on video chat just to see it.
It was simple really- she just wanted to open an orphanage. That hardly seemed nefarious, and since the game had some social aspects I thought she was just trying to gain a few positive points among the public after it got out that she had been a member of a demon cult.
five sessions later: The orphanage was being used to bind demons into children, which she would then kill and devour the power of- increasing her own. I sent in a brigade of vampires to take her down but...
Well to put it plainly- in all subsequent campaigns among our group it is canon that the east coast starts at Louisiana.
five sessions later: The orphanage was being used to bind demons into children, which she would then kill and devour the power of- increasing her own. I sent in a brigade of vampires to take her down but...
Well to put it plainly- in all subsequent campaigns among our group it is canon that the east coast starts at Louisiana.
Well, it wasn't 'worse', but there was the time our merry band converted a quaint local tradition in a sleepy village into an epic festival.
See, the town was very big on raising cattle. They would have a tradition that in late fall, new bull calves would, ah... become oxen, if you catch my drift. This meant that the local tradition was to have 'Rocky Mountain Oysters' as a celebration, praise local goddess, fertility, yadda yadda.
Enter our party. A ragtag bunch of misfits if ever there was one. We heard about this quaint holiday tradition, and decided to help out. Amongst our party was an Elven bard of some skill (me), and a Goblin cook. Yes, a cook. Very clever with dual-weilded knives. Don't piss her off. In any case, the cook threlows herself into the kitchen with a fervor.
It is worth noting at this point that the GM had a homebrew system of 'exploding' critical successes. Roll a crit, confirm it, but if you crit again...
The cook had apparently gotten creative, spicing up the sweetmeats in a manner as yet undreamed of by men or gods. She rolled a nigh-impossible triple critical success for her cooking skill roll, amd another regular crit on presentation.
This caused quite a stir at the little tavern we were in, so not to be outdone, my bard threw together an ode to the testicular delights. Composition: double crit. Performance: double crit. It was perhaps the best song he had ever done, and it was about bull balls in sauce.
The community went nuts. Chefs from fine noble houses were trying to steal the recipie, while the cook got many ludicrously profitable offers of employment. The bard's tune was a catchy little earworm that the entire town was singing by the end of the day.
Then we ran out of the primary ingredient.
Suddenly more appeared, in great quantity, and were cheerfully tossed into the pot.
"Wait... Where did we get these?"
"Shh... Don't ask..."
"But... It's not like they grow on trees... do they?"
Turns out that 'soft tissue' heals up nicely with magic, and the party healer had snuck off to one of the castration pens. I feel really bad for the one poor bull that got over twenty passes as a result...
See, the town was very big on raising cattle. They would have a tradition that in late fall, new bull calves would, ah... become oxen, if you catch my drift. This meant that the local tradition was to have 'Rocky Mountain Oysters' as a celebration, praise local goddess, fertility, yadda yadda.
Enter our party. A ragtag bunch of misfits if ever there was one. We heard about this quaint holiday tradition, and decided to help out. Amongst our party was an Elven bard of some skill (me), and a Goblin cook. Yes, a cook. Very clever with dual-weilded knives. Don't piss her off. In any case, the cook threlows herself into the kitchen with a fervor.
It is worth noting at this point that the GM had a homebrew system of 'exploding' critical successes. Roll a crit, confirm it, but if you crit again...
The cook had apparently gotten creative, spicing up the sweetmeats in a manner as yet undreamed of by men or gods. She rolled a nigh-impossible triple critical success for her cooking skill roll, amd another regular crit on presentation.
This caused quite a stir at the little tavern we were in, so not to be outdone, my bard threw together an ode to the testicular delights. Composition: double crit. Performance: double crit. It was perhaps the best song he had ever done, and it was about bull balls in sauce.
The community went nuts. Chefs from fine noble houses were trying to steal the recipie, while the cook got many ludicrously profitable offers of employment. The bard's tune was a catchy little earworm that the entire town was singing by the end of the day.
Then we ran out of the primary ingredient.
Suddenly more appeared, in great quantity, and were cheerfully tossed into the pot.
"Wait... Where did we get these?"
"Shh... Don't ask..."
"But... It's not like they grow on trees... do they?"
Turns out that 'soft tissue' heals up nicely with magic, and the party healer had snuck off to one of the castration pens. I feel really bad for the one poor bull that got over twenty passes as a result...
This is considerably better than Raxon's usual "I killed the everything" story part 117
Remember that commoner that instakilled a T-Rex with a simple carving knife? Died immediately after.
That said, maybe I should build another pacifist character to use. You know, because the last one was such a success.
A time where things got worse... In a super hero campaign, the PCs were at the BBEG's mansion trying to take him down. They forgot that he had one thing the party did not-- Zeppelins!
The BBEG was escaping while his main henchman (a talking intelligent dog) was shooting a death ray at the PCs. The party started shooting the zeppelin despite taking heavy damage from the ray to ensure the BBEG wouldn't escape. They punctured the gas bag with a high-powered laser.
Igniting the hydrogen gas inside.
The zepplin crashed down upon the mansion, setting it on fire, setting the death ray on fire, causing the death ray to explode, causing the HVAG gas lines to rupture, causing the fire to catch fire, and destroying everything within a two-acre radius (with the fire).
Every PC ended up in ICU for two weeks after that.
The BBEG was escaping while his main henchman (a talking intelligent dog) was shooting a death ray at the PCs. The party started shooting the zeppelin despite taking heavy damage from the ray to ensure the BBEG wouldn't escape. They punctured the gas bag with a high-powered laser.
Igniting the hydrogen gas inside.
The zepplin crashed down upon the mansion, setting it on fire, setting the death ray on fire, causing the death ray to explode, causing the HVAG gas lines to rupture, causing the fire to catch fire, and destroying everything within a two-acre radius (with the fire).
Every PC ended up in ICU for two weeks after that.
I've got a When It Got Worse story from a Werewolf: The Apocalypse campaign. To be exact, my players are Mokolé, which are basically were-crocodiles, so they are also interested in aquatic environments.
Thus, they located an caern (a place of spiritual focus) of Black Spiral Dancers (corrupt werwolves) on an oil-rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Grouping up with some schools of weresharks, they attacked the platform. During the emerging battle, they ignited the oil supplies. They did this on purpose, but didn't expect an explosion as huge as was following (which was because a corrupt fire elemental was lurking in the caerns bowels.)
Admittedly, the caern and the platform were destroyed, but... well, let me just say that the platform's name was
DEEPWATER HORIZON
Thus, they located an caern (a place of spiritual focus) of Black Spiral Dancers (corrupt werwolves) on an oil-rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Grouping up with some schools of weresharks, they attacked the platform. During the emerging battle, they ignited the oil supplies. They did this on purpose, but didn't expect an explosion as huge as was following (which was because a corrupt fire elemental was lurking in the caerns bowels.)
Admittedly, the caern and the platform were destroyed, but... well, let me just say that the platform's name was
DEEPWATER HORIZON
Well, it hasn't happened yet, but Javolt has arranged for an entire raider gang to be freed from the mind control of their so called leader at around the same time that leader is in a political meeting with other leaders and also there's this other guy who may or may not have an army poised to attack the place.
So, yeah. Hasn't happened yet, but...
So, yeah. Hasn't happened yet, but...
So there we were, a group of adventurers that had been tasked with discovering the location of the cultist camp and figure out what they were doing and with finding one half-elf monk. Should of been a simple task to infiltrate the camp since half of it was made up of mercenaries and everyone looked like one by default...except for me. Being a good cleric, I had an aura of light about myself that just screamed 'holier than thou.' Not really something you want to have when your trying to pass yourself off as a cultist of a dark dragon. So a plan was hatched that I would pretend to be a prisoner instead and ask the other prisoners about the man we were looking for while everyone else searched around for clues. At night, they break everyone free and we run for it. Nothing could possibly go wrong!
The first sign that things weren't going to work out all right was when I realised that it would of been a smart idea to stash my stuff when I was brought in for reasons that were obvious in hindsight. Ok, so add 'get my stuff' to the list of things to do when we escape, no problem, things are still going alright...until I was put into a chain gang to mine rocks...with a strength score of 8...Ok, I was hoping to be in cells instead of being in the open with a slave master breathing down my back, but that's why everyone else looking for info from the actual cultists so we should be fine.
Of course, everyone else was having a hard time actually finding anything useful from the cultists. The rogue found the cave where all the stuff was suppose to be stored in but found nothing except for some dragons eggs. But since it wasn't a bag of holding, she didn't bother to tell anyone about that fact until much later. The fighter and barbarian weren't having much luck and had resorted to beating up one of the prisoners that had been marked for death. Ok, so we weren't really learning anything new. Still, things couldn't get any worse.
Then I got called in by the leader, Mondath. Apparently, I was so pathetic at mining that they probably would of kicked me out of the camp by now if that wouldn't have set a bad example. So, instead, I would be tied to a stick and left to die next to the other prisoner that was also going to die. My assertion that I was a cleric and could be of better use attending to the other prisoners was unheard and my lie about wanting to swap religions was ignored. Ok then, outside of the many ways I figured I was going to die, this was probably the best. Sure, I was now in the worst position possible towards getting rescued (as I was now out in the open instead of shoved off in one corner of the camp) but hey, the guy the other party members were beating up? That happened to be the monk we were looking for! Ok, so he wasn't really thrilled about my plan to free them all, but I was working on it! Anyway, the guards were more willing to talk to me than the prisoners (I guess because I've literally destroyed whatever kind of respect I had with them with being a complete pansy so I can't possibly do anything to hurt them...screaming in pain as our rogue decided to constantly kick my shins didn't help convince them otherwise) and I found out about a festival the cultist acolytes were going to have that night. Brilliant! While everyone is distracted with the giant bond fires and unholy chants, we can make our escape. Surely, nothing could go wrong this time!
Then our barbarian, wracked with guilt that she just sentenced one of her party members to death and thus dishonored her clan, decided that now, in broad daylight, right after I had just found out a way to get us all away safely without being seen, was when she would free us and then stay behind to give us time as she fought to the death. Well, to heck with that! I'm sworn to protect those under my charge and that includes everyone in the party! So I decided to draw the attention of everyone away from my barbarian friend by lighting a tent on fire and hoping that it would provide enough of a distraction to get us all away safely. But of course things got worse.
First, some good news: I did provide a good distraction. Bad news: Despite the screams from the burning cultists inside the tent and the threat of the fire spreading to a few more tents, I was apparently the bigger distraction for about 12 guards, who promptly surrounded me. So there I was, in my loin cloth, trying to figure out how to get out of this situation with my head intact. Despite managing to get lucky and wiping out a little more than half of them, getting critted while trying to get away tends to destroy whatever enthusiasm I might have had at living through this. So, with two hitpoints left, I made my peace with my maker and waited for the end to catch up with me...Until our rogue killed one of them and caused the others to back off in fear of more friendly fire. Thus, we somehow freed all the prisoners, the monk, and myself without getting the rest of the party killed in the process. My fire took over as the next distracting thing after we were gone and our barbarian had actually just killed off all the people that had seen her free us, so she was tasked with going with a few other cultists to bring the prisoners back. She came back to the keep completely bloodied and told us that we shouldn't worry about the cultists finding us anytime soon.
Following "Order of the Stick" logic (if I am right) in the instance of asking for a name from any of my none named npcs, they immediately gain a portion of health, max health, and stats. Some still don't understand my reasoning for that.
I suppose I could be persuaded to tell the backstory of a character's village. You see, he hails from a land known as the salt wastes. This area is known for yhree primary things. First, an abundance of salt. Second, an abundance of lead. Third, an abundance of birth defects and brain damage.
Well, the village had an annual event called the day of sticks, celebrating a great battle fought with stick. It was not won with sticks, but it was certainly fought with them.
On this holiday, a game is organized. It is called stick game. Young men from all over the local villages gather with their ceremonial lead sticks. The object of the game is to knock everybody else down with your lead stick. Anyone knocked down is out and has to watch the game from the sidelines. The winner is the last one standing.
Did I mention that mental retardation is common there? Because it is really, really common.
Well, early in one of my campaigns, my players befriended an ancient silver dragon named Octavian, who ran a safe haven for chromatic dragons who wanted to change sides. He offered the party help, should they need it, and a few of Octavian's disciples showed up later in the campaign, though they ended up being mostly sidelined as the party went after the campaign's BBGs.
In the end, the party finally makes it though the final dungeon and into the BBGs inner sanctum. I had intended this moment to be a set-piece, as the BBGs would show them places they had visited and friends they had made throughout the campaign getting demolished and force the party to decide who would live and who would die.
Well, the party isn't having any of that. They get Octavian on the line and tell him what's up. Moments later, an ancient silver teleports into the BBGs lair and, with the help of the party, messes them up something fierce. Once the BBGs are gone, Octavian teleports everyone back to his stronghold of Ohkavir and rallies his disciples to save the mortals getting their butts handed to them. Thousands of lives are saved, and people all over the continent came to see the dragons of
Okhavir as their guardians.
The next campaign I run will be in one of the places that got saved, with one of Octavian's disciples living in the city, about 50 years later. The people there still celebrate Dragon's Day, to remember the day that dragons dropped from the heavens and laid waste to the army of mind flayers that had risen out of the ground, intent on devouring a city's worth of brains.
In the end, the party finally makes it though the final dungeon and into the BBGs inner sanctum. I had intended this moment to be a set-piece, as the BBGs would show them places they had visited and friends they had made throughout the campaign getting demolished and force the party to decide who would live and who would die.
Well, the party isn't having any of that. They get Octavian on the line and tell him what's up. Moments later, an ancient silver teleports into the BBGs lair and, with the help of the party, messes them up something fierce. Once the BBGs are gone, Octavian teleports everyone back to his stronghold of Ohkavir and rallies his disciples to save the mortals getting their butts handed to them. Thousands of lives are saved, and people all over the continent came to see the dragons of
Okhavir as their guardians.
The next campaign I run will be in one of the places that got saved, with one of Octavian's disciples living in the city, about 50 years later. The people there still celebrate Dragon's Day, to remember the day that dragons dropped from the heavens and laid waste to the army of mind flayers that had risen out of the ground, intent on devouring a city's worth of brains.
Not to burn your bards or anything, but didn't we already do this one?
That's one of the things I like about RPGs that I've never managed to be in one long enough to experience: Changes in the background attributable to the story. I've always wanted to take a character from, say, nobody to king, or at least to come back ten years later and see what the NPCs have built out of the ruins. Most parties leave only bad memories behind; a good one is one the NPCs are happy to see return.
I can see Darths and Droids is definitely doing this. Even before Twilight gets to level 30 in 55 episodes or so...
I can see Darths and Droids is definitely doing this. Even before Twilight gets to level 30 in 55 episodes or so...
So somewhere along the line of character creation our little party of 4 ended up with an Arch-Militant[other 40k buff, likes to bash enemy skulls in so no brainer] An Explorator who is slightly more knowledgeable about the setting than me. A Void-Master [Me], and a Seneschal[Who knows even less about the setting than me. So we had no Rogue Trader. After I'd finished char creation our GM's advisor[someone who GM'd RT for him in the past] comes in and says that we shouldn't have an NPC in that role. The whole fact that it's just a title, you don't have to be that class. And suddenly the title of Rogue Trader was thrust upon me. [Granted, I'm not surprised, I'd already built our ship with the DM's profit factor roll] Same way I'd built a Regiment when we were considering using Only War or RT.]
So TL;DR I'm a Void-Master in a group of an Arch-Militant, Explorator, and Seneschal who has the title of Rogue Trader for the group. Only vaguely familiar with the whole 40k-verse. Any suggestions?
Side Note: GM rolled a 10, so we have a 20 starting profit factor, but with the 70 ship points I outfitted the group with an Ambiition-class Cruiser with a decent arsenal and Archeotech Plasma Drive through IRL-Persuasion. [It had a ship point cost, so he let me get it after a brief diplomacy check]
Heckuva way to get introduced to the 40K-verse. Well, look at it this way -- in a world where humanity is basically enchained by religion and fascism in a 1984-esque fashion, the Rogue Trader is basically the only one with freedom as we 20th-century Westerners know it. You can do pretty much anything you want to, including things that are generally illegal in the setting such as consorting with aliens.
Go slow if you need to (With a starship and small army of your own, you can afford it) and get a feel for the milieu and the campaign setting, then set a goal in conjunction with the DM and go for it. Depending on the circumstances, this can be anything from "conquer a planet for your own personal fief" to "steal an artifact of doom from space elves." It's not easy to give you more suggestion than that without you being more familiar with the setting, but the key thing to remember with 40K and especially Rogue Traders is -- audacity. Go ahead and be wild, the GM will rein you in if need be. Good luck!
Go slow if you need to (With a starship and small army of your own, you can afford it) and get a feel for the milieu and the campaign setting, then set a goal in conjunction with the DM and go for it. Depending on the circumstances, this can be anything from "conquer a planet for your own personal fief" to "steal an artifact of doom from space elves." It's not easy to give you more suggestion than that without you being more familiar with the setting, but the key thing to remember with 40K and especially Rogue Traders is -- audacity. Go ahead and be wild, the GM will rein you in if need be. Good luck!
One: The recovery of the ancient 2nd millennium artifact of a text-to-speech device.
Two: Acquire a fleet. [Most likely by capturing enemy ships if possible]
I say I'm not familiar, but I've been doing a bit of research, so I know most of the organizations and important events such as the birth of Slaneesh, the Horus Heresy, the fact the Golden Throne is slowly becoming less effective. The whole Imperial webway project. Important alien species such as Necrons, Tyranids, Eldar, Tau, Orks.
On a side note, before I realized I was going to be leading the group, I may have acquired the Enemy(Ecclesiarchy) and Rival(Inquisition) talents through character creation. Let's hope we don't have to deal with them ALL that much.
Also, my story should be a nice example of how NOT to act as a Rogue Trader. A Rogue Trader should radiate with charisma, confidence, and deadly cunning: None of which my character seems to possess at the moment. I'm pretty sure he's still alive only because he happens to be of Noble blood. So learn from my mistakes!
The last campaign, we killed the boss, which sort of ruined the planet.
See, during the Godwar people were tossing out major spells. One sort-of-immortal guy got cursed to have the sun always be over his head. The curse altered the planet's motion. The planet became tide-locked. The guy just settled down in a big pyramid.
Because of fantasy logic, the dark side of the planet became frozen. The interplanetary portalkeepers used the frozen land as a prison and dumping ground for all the worst stuff. When normal rotation was reinstated, all those things would thaw. So, they allowed a couple days for evacuation, then quarantined the planet.
See, during the Godwar people were tossing out major spells. One sort-of-immortal guy got cursed to have the sun always be over his head. The curse altered the planet's motion. The planet became tide-locked. The guy just settled down in a big pyramid.
Because of fantasy logic, the dark side of the planet became frozen. The interplanetary portalkeepers used the frozen land as a prison and dumping ground for all the worst stuff. When normal rotation was reinstated, all those things would thaw. So, they allowed a couple days for evacuation, then quarantined the planet.
that's not fantasy logic,thats what would happen to the dark side of a planet if it didn't rotate,though in fairness,the sun side would be even worse
Or the Twilit ring, which is consumed by giant storms caused by colliding hot/cold air masses?
In this case the hot side is probably worse due to constant unmitigated radiation.
Even if the temperature range was acceptable, it seems like the radiation would damage organic tissue too much for sustainable life. Getting bombarded by radiation without protection is bad regardless of temperature.
Even if the temperature range was acceptable, it seems like the radiation would damage organic tissue too much for sustainable life. Getting bombarded by radiation without protection is bad regardless of temperature.
Speaking of, coming down the pipeline is a new episode of Fallout is Dragons, and it would've been out by now... but whatever my neighbor downstairs has been cooking the past day or so, it's been triggering some kind of constant allergic reaction for me. So I'm gonna spend today recovering and try to get it finished within the next day.