The Scene: Aboard the lightning rail, traveling southeast into Aundair.
The Party: A halfling warrior and her clawfoot mount (currently in the cattle car); a shifter ranger who's a professional bounty hunter; and a bard/rogue, son of a small family of House Orien.
The Situation: Having recently destroyed a powerful machine that had been stolen by the Order of the Emerald Claw, the heroes travel back toward Passage, where they are to report to their employers. En route, the train suddenly picks up speed. Looking outside, the PCs discover that the train is being attacked by over
two dozen Emerald Claw soldiers. Most of them swoop in under the effects of
fly spells, but four archers ride flying carpets (two on each), and above it all, the leader of this cell of the Emerald Claw, mounted atop a nightmare! The PCs, and many other passengers and guards aboard the lightning rail, move to defend themselves.
(For the record, the Colonel wasn't intended to fight much in the battle. He was primarily there to direct the troops, perhaps to get in a few good hits, and essentially to make the PCs hate him for when he showed up later in the campaign.)
For the first several rounds of combat:
The bard remains atop the last car of the train, sniping archers with his
wand of magic missiles, crouched low against incoming arrows and the 30-mile-per-hour winds. The shifter, his twin blades spinning fiercely, battles back the Emerald Claw troops who would land on the top of the car. And the halfling, mounted on her swift-footed dinosaur,
leaps from the back of the train, and immediately sets out after one of the magic carpets, intent on slaying the archers and capturing the carpet.
After several rounds of battle and leaping about, the halfling finds herself atop a carpet she has no idea how to steer. The shifter finds himself hanging from the car by his fingertips, and barely walks himself, hand-over-hand, to the nearest platform between cars. The halfling returns to the train, allowing the carpet to continue on unguided; she and the shifter move inside, where many of the passengers are engaged in bloody struggle with the Emerald Claw.
Atop the train, the bard has taken the second carpet out of the battle by casting
grease on it. But the Colonel has had enough. The nightmare plunges downward, slamming both hooves into the poor bard. The bard, to that point wounded only by a few stray arrows, is nearly slain. He must flee, and he must do so quickly.
Dodging beneath the foul beast's thrashing, firey hooves, the bard tumbles toward the end of the train, drawing his whip from his belt as he does so. Continuing his movement, the bard
leaps off the back of the train, lashing his whip back as he does so! Incredibly, his attack roll is sufficient to "trip" or "disarm" the nightmare. The whip lashes about the beast's left rear ankle, and using his own enemy as a fulcrum point, the bard lets his momentum carry him out to the furthest extent of the whip's reach, and then swings back downward into the rear door of the train!
As the halfling and the shifter battle back the Claw soldiers, the Colonel and his nightmare ride ahead, eventually getting ahead of the lightning rail. The bard, after casting a few
cures on himself, searches the cattle car for several long lengths of chain and a metal bar or spike, which he eventually lashes together. He quaffs his
potion of jump, in case it should be needed, and climbs back atop the train. In his hands, he holds the end of the chain with the metal spike; the other end of the chain dangles off the train, held just a few feet above the ground by a
mage hand. The Colonel isn't there, having ridden ahead, but two other Emerald Claw soldiers have landed on the roof of the car, believing it now unguarded. Creeping stealthily, any sound he might accidentally make drowned out by the roar of the train, he approaches the guards unnoticed. In a single move, he drops the spike, crosswise, so it lands atop both their feet--and releases the
mage hand as well,
dropping the other end of the metal chain into the electrical field on which the lightning rail rides.
(I didn't even roll for damage. These were 2nd level warriors. They were just dead.)
The bard casts
invisibility, again lifts the end of the chain from the field with his
mage hand, and begins moving toward the front of the train.
In front of the train, the Colonel and his nightmare drop down to the level of the train. The rider draws his two-bladed
ghost touch sword. The nightmare turns ethereal, and they charge through the train, blade spinning. Several passengers are slain, and one of our heroes aboard is badly wounded. Once the Colonel has passed completely through the train, he and his mount become solid once more, and begin to take to the sky. The bard, who ceased moving forward when the Colonel vanished at the front of the train, sees his mounted foe emerge from the rear, sword dripping blood. And the bard, once again, leaps from the train...
His natural roll, his
potion of jump, and his action point result in a
43 total. The nightmare is a mere 30 feet from the train.
Materializing in mid-air, as he makes his attack, the bard slams into the nightmare, impaling it with the metal spike! And even as he falls to earth, bouncing from the painfully hot hide of the beast, he once more drops the spike into the electrical field.
I decided that an electrical charge so powerful should do rather substantial damage. 10d6, to be exact, equivalent to the highest-level
lightning bolt.
The result? The bard lay on the ground, bruised and battered but alive. The Colonel, dazed and confused (much as I was, as DM, after witnessing this), wandered off, where he proceeded to escape via a preprepared
refuge spell. And the nightmare, which was to have been a major aspect of the final battle with the Colonel, several games from now? Quite, quite dead.
Many action points were spent that day, and the heroes got themselves a nice flying carpet out of the deal.
And
that is the sort of thing we've been doing with Eberron so far.
New group. New campaign.![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
