Pielorinho
Iron Fist of Pelor
Okay, normally this would go under story-hour, but it's the only bit of the campaign that I feel like writing it up, so I'll turn it into a General thread: what's the wackiest played-straight battle in your campaign?
We had ours last night.
BRIEF BACKGROUND: we're going to the capital city to report on evil goings-on. We carry the corpse of a noble with us, so that we can have her resurrected when we arrive. But forces foul and dark are destroying the roads in the kingdom, and seeding the roads with scary invisible-turning undeads. The day before this battle, we'd been attacked by four of these undead and almost lost our barbarian in the fight.
Along the way, we met up with a travelling merchant and his granddad: they reported that a bridge across a chasm up ahead has been destroyed, and that a couple dozen of these scary invisible-turning undead had attacked them there. They'd barely managed to escape.
No worries, we think: we've got a plan.
Little do we know.
The day is sunny and bright when we reach the chasm. Sure enough, although the area is now abandoned, the bridge itself--a marvel of engineering, spanning a 100-yard abyss--has been shattered by some impossibly strong force. We stop our two carts (one filled with the merchant's goods, the other with our dead noble), and the camels are grazing peacefully while Ngede, a bird-of-paradise bard, flies over the chasm to scout.
Just in case there are undead about, Ngede casts See Invisible. And gasps.
"Uh guys," he calls down. "You might want to hurry things up." About twenty halfmen--undead who consist of the left half of a body--are creeping, invisible, toward the party, and are about 10 paces away. He whistles a series of sharp notes, and a massive stone wall springs forth from the ground, interposed between the party and the undead; along its parapets, shining warriors with flaming spheres ready themselves for an attack.
Kom, the barbarian, squints at the wall dubiously, and then peers up in the sky at Ngede. "So what's that supposed to be, some kind of illusion?"
Ngede winces. "Shut UP!" he hisses. He wheels overhead.
Ochi, meanwhile, is busy. The ratman shaman smacks his hand against the dead-noble-cart, and it becomes light as air, under the effect of a Levitation. "Get this camel flying!" he shouts to Lwanda, the sorceress.
The undead charge the wall, entering into battle with the shining warriors. The majority of them are struggling to climb the wall, but five of them realize that the wall has no substance, and begin to pass through.
Soon Lwanda has got both the first camel and the barbarian Flying, and Ochi has spoken with the camel. "Remember yesterday how you could fly? You can fly again. Fly like the wind, camel! Fly like the wind!"
"Uhhhhh....oohhhkay," says the camel, and the camel rockets into the air, pulling the cart effortlessly behind it. Ochi and Lwanda, perched on the cart, now have a great view of the battlefield.
From this vantage, then, they watch as the first undead break through the wall and attack the other cart. Four of them pile onto the cart, lashing out at the old man and the merchant, who cry out in pain. Nobody is anywhere close to them; nobody has any way of protecting them. And soon more undead will break through....
Lwanda casts Spectral Hand. Everyone looks dubiously at him, but nobody says anything.
"Tell the other camel to fly!" shouts Ngede. "I can cast feather fall on it!" He follows up with a feather-fall including the camel and the merchants. And Ochi tells the other camel: "You too can fly! Escape these evil creatures!" So the camel charges off the cliff....
....at which point Ngede realizes that Feather Fall can only target Medium-sized or smaller creatures. "Uhhhhh, I'm not flying!" the camel brays as it, the cart, and the four undead plummet into the chasm.
The merchant and the grandfather, of course, begin a majestic, slow descent down the face of the cliffs; the undead, far beneath them, look up in frustration. "Er, a little help?" the merchant calls out as he sinks.
That's Kom's cue: he swoops down and catches a merchant under one arm, a grandfather under another. It's good being a raging flying barbarian.
It's bad being a falling camel, though. So Lwanda reaches out with his Spectral Hand and casts Fly on it, and Ochi shouts, "Now you can fly! FLY, CAMEL, FLY!"
And the camel does: it scrabbles with its legs on thin air, and then remembers how to control itself and arcs out of the plummet, beginning to climb. But the undead are clinging for dear unlife to the back of the wildly careening cart, and they're looking hungrily at the camel.
Ngede tucks his wings in close and hurtles down into the abyss. Just a little bit closer, and --that's it. "Oh no you don't!" he calls out. Another series of whistles, and the undead, more suprised than ever, slip easily off the Greased cart and to their final resting places.
We rode the flying camel carts to the other side of the cliff, waving cheerily back at the hordes of undead shaking their clawed fists at us.
The only thing that was missing was a honkytonk piano playing funny music.
Daniel
We had ours last night.
BRIEF BACKGROUND: we're going to the capital city to report on evil goings-on. We carry the corpse of a noble with us, so that we can have her resurrected when we arrive. But forces foul and dark are destroying the roads in the kingdom, and seeding the roads with scary invisible-turning undeads. The day before this battle, we'd been attacked by four of these undead and almost lost our barbarian in the fight.
Along the way, we met up with a travelling merchant and his granddad: they reported that a bridge across a chasm up ahead has been destroyed, and that a couple dozen of these scary invisible-turning undead had attacked them there. They'd barely managed to escape.
No worries, we think: we've got a plan.
Little do we know.
The day is sunny and bright when we reach the chasm. Sure enough, although the area is now abandoned, the bridge itself--a marvel of engineering, spanning a 100-yard abyss--has been shattered by some impossibly strong force. We stop our two carts (one filled with the merchant's goods, the other with our dead noble), and the camels are grazing peacefully while Ngede, a bird-of-paradise bard, flies over the chasm to scout.
Just in case there are undead about, Ngede casts See Invisible. And gasps.
"Uh guys," he calls down. "You might want to hurry things up." About twenty halfmen--undead who consist of the left half of a body--are creeping, invisible, toward the party, and are about 10 paces away. He whistles a series of sharp notes, and a massive stone wall springs forth from the ground, interposed between the party and the undead; along its parapets, shining warriors with flaming spheres ready themselves for an attack.
Kom, the barbarian, squints at the wall dubiously, and then peers up in the sky at Ngede. "So what's that supposed to be, some kind of illusion?"
Ngede winces. "Shut UP!" he hisses. He wheels overhead.
Ochi, meanwhile, is busy. The ratman shaman smacks his hand against the dead-noble-cart, and it becomes light as air, under the effect of a Levitation. "Get this camel flying!" he shouts to Lwanda, the sorceress.
The undead charge the wall, entering into battle with the shining warriors. The majority of them are struggling to climb the wall, but five of them realize that the wall has no substance, and begin to pass through.
Soon Lwanda has got both the first camel and the barbarian Flying, and Ochi has spoken with the camel. "Remember yesterday how you could fly? You can fly again. Fly like the wind, camel! Fly like the wind!"
"Uhhhhh....oohhhkay," says the camel, and the camel rockets into the air, pulling the cart effortlessly behind it. Ochi and Lwanda, perched on the cart, now have a great view of the battlefield.
From this vantage, then, they watch as the first undead break through the wall and attack the other cart. Four of them pile onto the cart, lashing out at the old man and the merchant, who cry out in pain. Nobody is anywhere close to them; nobody has any way of protecting them. And soon more undead will break through....
Lwanda casts Spectral Hand. Everyone looks dubiously at him, but nobody says anything.
"Tell the other camel to fly!" shouts Ngede. "I can cast feather fall on it!" He follows up with a feather-fall including the camel and the merchants. And Ochi tells the other camel: "You too can fly! Escape these evil creatures!" So the camel charges off the cliff....
....at which point Ngede realizes that Feather Fall can only target Medium-sized or smaller creatures. "Uhhhhh, I'm not flying!" the camel brays as it, the cart, and the four undead plummet into the chasm.
The merchant and the grandfather, of course, begin a majestic, slow descent down the face of the cliffs; the undead, far beneath them, look up in frustration. "Er, a little help?" the merchant calls out as he sinks.
That's Kom's cue: he swoops down and catches a merchant under one arm, a grandfather under another. It's good being a raging flying barbarian.
It's bad being a falling camel, though. So Lwanda reaches out with his Spectral Hand and casts Fly on it, and Ochi shouts, "Now you can fly! FLY, CAMEL, FLY!"
And the camel does: it scrabbles with its legs on thin air, and then remembers how to control itself and arcs out of the plummet, beginning to climb. But the undead are clinging for dear unlife to the back of the wildly careening cart, and they're looking hungrily at the camel.
Ngede tucks his wings in close and hurtles down into the abyss. Just a little bit closer, and --that's it. "Oh no you don't!" he calls out. Another series of whistles, and the undead, more suprised than ever, slip easily off the Greased cart and to their final resting places.
We rode the flying camel carts to the other side of the cliff, waving cheerily back at the hordes of undead shaking their clawed fists at us.
The only thing that was missing was a honkytonk piano playing funny music.
Daniel
