Presto2112
Explorer
A challenge for you...
This is a gnomish weapon I designed for the home brew game I'm playing. Hasn't been used by a PC yet, but I'm hoping. Here's the back story for it:
The Duck & Dice is one of the most frequented taverns in the town, boasting a sweet mead known as Hammerbrow by the small folk, and Filby’s widely known and touted Dragon Turtle Stew. The stew was not made from Dragon Turtle, just regular turtle; where the “dragon” part comes from is the spiciness of the broth! Gnomes love hot, spicy food, and get tremendous kicks from those taller races who cannot handle their spice.
Filby would occasionally (and absent-mindedly) forget to schedule his staff to work some evenings, and found himself both tending bar and serving food. One particular night he had made this oversight, he also discovered that he had uncharacteristically made the Dragon Turtle Stew a bit on the mild side. As a result, he was leaving the bar a great deal to mill pepper into patron’s stews. As a result, business at the bar suffered. Filby vowed to himself to be prepared for another night such as that.
The next day, using gnomish ingenuity, and lacking the common sense to actually make sure his staff showed up, Filby made some adjustments to his pepper mill. He fixed it so that he could telescope a section of the mill out a slight way, fill the empty space with fresh ground pepper, and push the telescoped segment back into the body of the mill, creating a bellows effect and blowing the ground pepper out of the device to a distance of 15 feet. The improved pepper mill was so improved that he could fire the pepper from the bar into a bowl sitting on a table at the back of the tavern! Hearing of this marvelous new culinary invention, customers started flocking to the Duck & Dice, demanding weak Dragon Turtle Soup, just so they could see the spectacle of Filby’s Amazing Pepper Shooter in action!
All was well with Filby until the day of the Hill Giant Rock Raid. A dozen Hill Giants stormed across the Myt River with rocks and heavy clubs to raid the town’s foodstocks. A member of the reserve militia, Filby was called upon to help defend the town. On his way to the gate, Filby absent-mindedly grabbed his wonderful pepper mill instead of his usual weapon, his light mace, which was about the same size and shape as the mill, and lying right next to it. Filby did not realize what he was wielding until he was almost at his post, and by then it was too late to go back.
The wood of the mill held up surprisingly well in the fight, and the heavy steel knob at the top of the mill which Filby cranked to churn out pepper cracked hard against quite a few giant ankles. During the fight, however, Filby turned and saw one of the giants – an adolescent male – rushing him with his heavy oaken club. Knowing he could not avoid the charging hulk, a thought occurred to him. He quickly began cranking and grinding the pepper still within the mill, and just as the young giant was about to surely crush Filby’s skull, he fired the pepper within the chamber of the mill straight into the giants face. Surprised and overtaken by an incredible sneezing fit, the giant stopped in his tracks, and quickly fell to the ground as Filby placed a well aimed crack to the giant’s groin with is makeshift weapon.
The Hill giants that survived the ill-fated raid were driven off, and the gnomes of Solblom were astounded by the accidental ingenuity of the Tavernkeeper Filby and his brilliant weapon. So much, in fact, that Filby was commissioned to construct more of these special pepper mills with reinforced construction, so as they could be used by the militia in the future.
As a weapon, the War Mill (as they came to be known) functions the same as a heavy mace in melee combat. However, the mill can also be cranked at its head for a full round and release a small cloud of pepper from the pommel end of the weapon at an opponent. The War mill must be wielded two-handed in order to use this function.
This is a gnomish weapon I designed for the home brew game I'm playing. Hasn't been used by a PC yet, but I'm hoping. Here's the back story for it:
The Duck & Dice is one of the most frequented taverns in the town, boasting a sweet mead known as Hammerbrow by the small folk, and Filby’s widely known and touted Dragon Turtle Stew. The stew was not made from Dragon Turtle, just regular turtle; where the “dragon” part comes from is the spiciness of the broth! Gnomes love hot, spicy food, and get tremendous kicks from those taller races who cannot handle their spice.
Filby would occasionally (and absent-mindedly) forget to schedule his staff to work some evenings, and found himself both tending bar and serving food. One particular night he had made this oversight, he also discovered that he had uncharacteristically made the Dragon Turtle Stew a bit on the mild side. As a result, he was leaving the bar a great deal to mill pepper into patron’s stews. As a result, business at the bar suffered. Filby vowed to himself to be prepared for another night such as that.
The next day, using gnomish ingenuity, and lacking the common sense to actually make sure his staff showed up, Filby made some adjustments to his pepper mill. He fixed it so that he could telescope a section of the mill out a slight way, fill the empty space with fresh ground pepper, and push the telescoped segment back into the body of the mill, creating a bellows effect and blowing the ground pepper out of the device to a distance of 15 feet. The improved pepper mill was so improved that he could fire the pepper from the bar into a bowl sitting on a table at the back of the tavern! Hearing of this marvelous new culinary invention, customers started flocking to the Duck & Dice, demanding weak Dragon Turtle Soup, just so they could see the spectacle of Filby’s Amazing Pepper Shooter in action!
All was well with Filby until the day of the Hill Giant Rock Raid. A dozen Hill Giants stormed across the Myt River with rocks and heavy clubs to raid the town’s foodstocks. A member of the reserve militia, Filby was called upon to help defend the town. On his way to the gate, Filby absent-mindedly grabbed his wonderful pepper mill instead of his usual weapon, his light mace, which was about the same size and shape as the mill, and lying right next to it. Filby did not realize what he was wielding until he was almost at his post, and by then it was too late to go back.
The wood of the mill held up surprisingly well in the fight, and the heavy steel knob at the top of the mill which Filby cranked to churn out pepper cracked hard against quite a few giant ankles. During the fight, however, Filby turned and saw one of the giants – an adolescent male – rushing him with his heavy oaken club. Knowing he could not avoid the charging hulk, a thought occurred to him. He quickly began cranking and grinding the pepper still within the mill, and just as the young giant was about to surely crush Filby’s skull, he fired the pepper within the chamber of the mill straight into the giants face. Surprised and overtaken by an incredible sneezing fit, the giant stopped in his tracks, and quickly fell to the ground as Filby placed a well aimed crack to the giant’s groin with is makeshift weapon.
The Hill giants that survived the ill-fated raid were driven off, and the gnomes of Solblom were astounded by the accidental ingenuity of the Tavernkeeper Filby and his brilliant weapon. So much, in fact, that Filby was commissioned to construct more of these special pepper mills with reinforced construction, so as they could be used by the militia in the future.
As a weapon, the War Mill (as they came to be known) functions the same as a heavy mace in melee combat. However, the mill can also be cranked at its head for a full round and release a small cloud of pepper from the pommel end of the weapon at an opponent. The War mill must be wielded two-handed in order to use this function.
