Rise of Tiamat - Intro

[Skarsgard]

Ashur starts to laugh at the tirade. The normally quite hunter is finding the situation hilarious.

Wiping tears from his eyes he retorts " I notice you didn't arrive while it was loose and killing people. Too busy flying above the world's problems?"

 

[mips42]

Dumos pointedly ignores the commander and goes to the folk who are dealing with the dead chimera. "Burial is for those left behind. This creature has no-one left behind to mourn it. And, if you just leave it in the bushes, the local predators will do the job for you."

 

[Envisioner]

OOC: Mips, the Chimera is already buried, so your post is out of continuity, but please leave it up because I think it's good characterization; we can just assume you said something of this sort to someone in your past at some point.

The half-orc boy Nevek smiles, sitting down upon a rock that's far too small to make a comfortable seat for pretty much anyone human-sized. "Shel's got a right to be cranky, but not to take it out on you, since you're clearly not part of the Dragon Army. We think they were the ones who let the chimera loose, but we still don't know why; they've been making quite a lot of trouble, and our Enclave is one of those who are trying to disrupt their operation. She'd have liked to have been one of the frontline soldiers who actually engaged with these enemies and forced them to retreat from one of our sanctuaries, but by the time we got word of the attack it was already over. Anyway, from what we've observed, the group that we battled with was only a diversionary arm of the main force; we don't know where exactly they are, but we've gotten a lot of reports of small villages being pillaged of all their valuables, and more than a few of our contacts have disappeared in circumstances that suggest they might well have been abducted or killed simply to silence them. It's bordering on a full-fledged war, but not one that anybody bothered to declare openly. And we still don't know who exactly they're fighting for."

Spoiler: jmuchiello ooc

Not sure who you think the mage is; if you meant Fiona, there's no evidence she has any magic, or at least any more than an average Ranger. The way I figure, if this bunch had any significant amount of magical power, they wouldn't be traveling by balloon.

 

[mips42]

OOC: Fair point.

"Dragon army? The last place we were had a dragon cult, a dragon they were in league with and was attacked but a different dragon. I thought dragons were rarer than they seem to be."

 

[jmucchiello]

OOC: Even already buried, he could have just been saying they could have just left the creature. Ana was going to say that exact same thing but Fiona walked away too quickly and I had to edit it out of my initial response to Robyn and Nevek Spoiler: Response to spoiler I had a bunch text Ana was going to say in response to Fiona being bitchy but after writing it noticed she had already walked away. So what I said above is if we were sitting around a table, when the mage Ninuel said "Miss Shelterweight", Ana would have cut him off and laid into Fiona asking her how two people with no shovel would bury a 5-10 ton creature? But we're not at the table. So I deleted it and wrote something about talking to Robyn and Nevek instead. No big deal. And I know who is who.

"This is the first I'm hearing about this," Ana said as she followed after Ninuel and the Second Commandant.

 

[Envisioner]

OOC: Oh right, that mage. I keep forgetting my own NPC is in the scene, that's always a great sign. Welp, I'm too tired to write any more at this point, so I'll give Ashur and Robyn's players another chance to respond, and if they don't I'll eventually respond to Mips's point.

 

[billd91]

"Sounds like we could all use a briefing on this subject. Let's all follow along and we can badger Shelterweight together. What can go wrong?" Robyn asks with a grin. He turns to Nevek, "Why don't you come along, son. You can fill us in on any more details if you have them. I suppose this is an army of men or other humanoids, not dragons. So what can you tell us about the nature of this "dragon" army? They worship or revere dragons or just fly standards bearing them?"

 

[Envisioner]

Nevek looks thoughtful at the tiefling sellsword's question. "Rare isn't quite the right word. 'Retiring' is closer. They're numerous enough, on the global scale at least, but they tend to spend most of their time in hibernation, brooding atop their treasure hordes. While their metabolism is partly magical, they're still flesh-and-blood creatures, so they need to burn energy in order to function, the same as any animal. To live for centuries as they do, they spend most of their time asleep, which means those who have political aspirations work through intermediaries a lot. Thusly, they're assumed to be rare, because nobody sees them most of the time. Presumably the battle you describe involved one dragon who was in league with this army of cultists, and another who was out of the political loop and thought he could succeed through his own sheer power. Both of them appear to have died for their respective ambitions, but the one who sided with a human faction may still have some allies surviving to carry on his goals, if he had any which were not completely selfish. There's a lesson in there somewhere, I'm sure..."

 

[mips42]

"You seem to know a lot about dragons."

 

[Envisioner]

"Not directly. Our expert on the subject is back at Home Tree, but when he talks, I listen. My specialty is people, which means paying attention to others who specialize in something else."