Upper_Krust
Legend
RandallFlagg said:Howdy Krust!
Hiya mate!
RandallFlagg said:
Anytime, you know that.
RandallFlagg said:
The former.
RandallFlagg said:Alright, I have a question for you not pertaining exactly to the book per se: We all know that Gods and similar power level beings use all kinds of agents to get the affairs done and do their fighting for them, such as human heros, proxies, celestial armies, demon/devil armies, etc, etc. But what could drive two beings of that kind of power into direct personal combat? What kind of situation would warrent them battling another God directly, especially when they have all the above and more at their desposal?
Thanks again dude!
Well, direct confrontations can occur between deities with a history of enmity usually when one of two things occurs.
1) One of the sides believes they have a distinct advantage over their enemy.
2) One of the sides believes their enemy is about to gain a distinct advantage.
As an example I will relate something that happened in our campaign.
In the aftermath of Doomstars initial show of force, the Babylonian deity Anu had been destroyed. This meant that in the largest Empire (on S'mons home brew world), the devil god Druaga (as the next most powerful religion in the empire) was about to gain a significant influx of power.
Not only would this shortly raise Druaga to Greater God (this was 1st Ed. remember, so no Intermediate status), but he would almost certainly set the Empire directly against the Kingdom of Thrinia - the greatest concentration of my characters worship.
I weighed up my options and decided I had to act. In previous skirmishes between the two deities, Druaga had always shown to have the slight edge over my character in combat*, I also knew he would have a number of devils with him, so I contacted a Solar ally I had helped in the past and convinced him to help.
*Note that this was a slightly tougher Druaga than the one in 1st Ed. D&Dg.
Anyway, we struck deep in the heart of the Great Fane of Druaga under the empires capital city. We couldn't teleport into the Great Fane because it was protected, so we had to start at the perimeter and work our way in. Initial resistance was obviously ill-prepared and ill-equipped to do anything more than die quickly, as we neared the great hall, resistance had peeled off. At the doors to the great hall I disintigrated the wall nearest the door just incase they had booby trapped the doors. We flew in and there was Druaga with pretty much all his High Priests, 20 Pit Fiends and 20 Ice Devils and numerous lesser guards and devils. The forces initially tried to swamp us. However Thrin was killing six or more pit fiends per round so they weren't going to last long. Multiple Dispel Magics hit Thrin and were absorbed by his Ioun Stone. Druaga entered the fray. Both gods were combat heavy deities (in fact after Surtur probably the two most powerful Lesser Deities in existence). So it was Thrin vs. Druaga (who also still had multiple Pit Fiends aiding him). Both of us had a full compliment of buffs/protections. It really came down to initiative and who got the critical hits in*. I anticipated I would kill Druaga in 9/12 hits and he would kill me in 6/8 hits (7 if I had been at full health, but occasionally the Pit fiends had sneaked a hit or two in). Both of us had double attacks for being hasted.
*In our 1st Ed. game a natural 18-20 signified a critical hit of some description (Natural 20 was double maximum).
As I recall Thrin shaded initiative, which meant he got 1/4 of his attacks first, then each in turn got 1/4 of their attacks. Thrin then proceeded to reduce Druagas number of limbs thanks to sharpness. Unfortunately Druaga had limbs enough to spare. I think Druaga scored a single critical hit to Thrins two.
The Solar (Al-Kamerion) had been destroyed by the remaining devils, but he had held them off long enough for Thrin to get the job done. Unfortunately some of the Pit Fiends folled his silver cord back to the Seven Heavens and permanently killed him.
Just as Thrin followed Druagas silver cord back (equivalent to an unseen teleport), Thrin had a 50% chance of being destroyed upon arrival.
However, the gods of luck were with me again and I successfully arrived to greet the helpless spirit of Druaga - who began to squeal like a pig for his very existence. Alas, to no avail. Thrin finished off the devil god, and returned to Asgard.
Thrin requested that Odin use Hlidskialf, the all-seeing throne to locate the reincarnated spirit of Druaga, before it reached maturity. Fortunately, Odin trumped Druaga and so we were able to find it and finish off the beast at long last.
Thrin then returned to the Great Fane and set about the remaining occupants with the proverbial 'pair of pliers and a blow torch'.
...okay I seem to have got distracted there, hope you all don't mind.
