Best Battle aftermath scene?

[Alejandro]

Genocide: when bad things happen to good people.

We were hired by a subject nation to sink a viking tribute ship in Harn. We gate into the hold, notice the plague-ridden sailors nearby, and tap the hull in multiple places with a time-delayed rot spell. We tried to loot the ship, but the sailors above heard us and came down to investigate. We fought bravely, but our bad-ass NPC went down almost immediately and half the group fled through the gate. I hacked down the remaining defenders, scooped up my dying brother-in-arms, and ran for the rapidly-closing gate. Our elven mage, who could cast gate himself, jumped on my back as I leapt through. Unfortunately, the gate could only support two and the dying warrior was left behind.

Harn uses Godcalls. I have never seen a good Godcall yet. The last Godcall resulted in the destruction of a city and the devastation of the countryside when a party member decided to turn to the dark side. This Godcall was no different.

As the hull ruptured and the ship started sinking, the dying warrior called upon his Goddess to save him. She does so, and his unconscious body is recovered by the longships accompanying the tribute ship. Our companion was tortured and returned to us sans eyes and tongue, six months later. To add insult to injury, the viking king decided to punish us for our impudence and announced to his thanes that the subject nation who hired us had captured his tribute (worth an ungodly amount of gold) and hidden it away. He then announced that it's up for grabs, if anyone can find it.

Thousands of longships were launched against the subject nation in search of the "lost" tribute. There were vikings all over the countryside, doing what vikings do best. Did I mention that winter was coming? Starving, frustrated vikings are terrible guests.

And our party? Well, we gained skill and experience and were even able to regenerate our companion's lost body parts. But boy did we feel bad for destroying an entire people.

 

[drnuncheon]

My favorite aftermath scene as a DM...

This came after insectoid invaders from another dimension had taken over my campaign world. One group of players was preparing to lay seige to the former Imperial capitol (and current central hive of the invaders) with the help of the armies they had rallied.

One of the NPCs with them was a lizardman who had been adopted into a clan of highlanders (the Scottish type, not the immortal type). He was, in fact, betrothed to a noted female blacksmith of the clan.

He and his comic relief servant Ian (nearly blind, a bit senile, and steadfastly refused to believe that the man who saved him was one of those lizardmen) had been with the group for most of the game.

Anyway, they had their siege all set up, the city was surrounded, and they prepared to launch an assault on the walls with the help of their allies inside the city (who were to get the gates open for them). Come time for the battle, and everyting was going according to plan...

...until, that is, a reserve strike force of the invaders caught them from behind, tearing through their camp and causing an alarm to be sounded. They had made it out past the beseigers by using the same tunnelling equipment used to create the hive.

There was nearly a rout as the assault on the city was broken and the beseigers returned to defend their camp. The attack was fought off (barely), but then they had to assess the damage.

Large amounts of their supplies had been destroyed. Their tents were ablaze, their army in disarray - and everyone left behind in the camp had been slaughtered. They found old Ian struck down, clutching a rusty sword, where he had been defending his master's betrothed.

The look on my player's faces went from shock to disbelief to horror...and then to determination. I have never seen an NPC's death affect a group so much. Every single one of them felt responsible for what had happened, and it made their eventual victory far more meaningful.

J