The Last Pilgrimmage

[Manbearcat]

@Campbell and @pemerton ,

I'm going to go ahead and frame you guys into the next conflict. You guys can retroactively depict the assembly in the courtyard and the ride to this point, making any appropriate moves, at your discretion. I can involve myself in that retroactive action if play requires it.

The ride to Stonefort it marked by sweeping farmlands and a few small steadings that have evolved over the last 20 years or so. The proximity to the Iron Tower proper and its Stonefort flank, including some fertile acreage, made for a secure and financially fruitful investment by many inland farmers who decided to uproot. They have become the primary provisioner of foodstuffs for the Knights and there are fine ropemakers amongst one of the steadings.

Three quartsers of the way to Stonefort, your contingent crests one of the larger hills. The horses are tiring due to the breakneck pace but the steeds are as formidable and relentless as the knights they bear. However, when the wardrums catch their ears, their "giddy-up" is invigorated. Looking down from the hill, your eyes take in perhaps a score of farmers and laborers engaging perhaps ten orc raiders and a giant who apparently decided to cause some collateral damage and pillage while Stonefort was under siege and unable to respond.

Ten of the farmers have lassoed the arms and legs of the giant and are desperately trying to get it from its feet with a heavy horse-drawn wagon. Curiously enough, there is a great balista in the back of the wagon and one of the ten men is trying to get it loaded to take a shot.

The other ten farmers are scattered about a freshly harvested field, trying to fight in some semblance of small, defensible formations against the savage orcs. It isn't going well for them.

The backdrop to the skirmish is a large barn set ablaze and a pair of silos which lie in utter ruins. You are at Far range.

 

[Campbell]

Now is the time for action and not words. After murmering a soft prayer to Sehanine, Lucann's spear is lifted by a divine wind. He takes it in one hand (holding the reins of his horse with the other) and rushes forward into the fray to give the farmer's chance to load their ballista. As he closes in on the giant his adversary hurls a boulder his way, but Lucann's horse is too fast. Lucann's spear find its home in the giant's torso as he plunges with all his might. Unfortunately, it seems to be stuck and Lucann has no where to go.

[sblock=Mechanics]
Cast A Spell - Magic Weapon 2d6+3=14
Hack and Slash 2d6+3=8
Damage 1d10+2+1d4=14

Defy Danger 2d6+3=10
[/sblock]

 

[Manbearcat]

@Campbell

[sblock]Roll b[2d8] +3 for the giant's counterattack due to your Hack and Slash 7-9 result[/sblock]

Lucann's spear impales the creature. Such a wound can be nothing short of mortal. However, the creature's dying moment is a testament to the engine of destruction it was in its life. Its huge hand grasps the elf's torso, encompassing it in full. He rips the comparatively small elf from the horse and as the spear tears free from his chest, the giant's heart pumps its last. But before he takes an unsteady step back and falls flat on his face, dead, he heaves the elf some 120 feet through the air, just as he might a boulder. The elf smashes through the wall framing of the burning barn and lands somewhere on the second story.

The farmers that were formerly tangling with the giant let out a cry of victory after they all gasp in unison at the horrible strength of the now dead behemoth.

As Lucann is flying through the air, he sees a young human boy, perhaps 11, backed against a tree nearby the barn. Pitchfork in hands, the boy is trying desperately to fend off a pair of orcs who are toying with him.

What is Lucann doing? Regardless of what you decide to do afterward, I'm going to need you to start with a DD Con (unless you've got something else to handle the smoke/heat situation). Complication on a 7-9 will either be:

1) The collapse of the 2nd floor beneath Lucann's feat. 1d6 damage (armor applies) but you can easily get out of the barn afterward.

or

2) The orcs grab the boy, throw him into the burning, smoke-infested barn, shut the doors and chain them.

Your choice. 6- and you're getting a Con Debility and pick 1 or 2.

---

@pemerton , presumably you guys are charging down the hill same time as Lucann? You see the fall of the giant and the renewal of the farmer's spirit. Obviously you see your companion airmailed into the burning barn as well. In your immediate area of the fields, there are two skirmishes scattered about. One of them sees several orcs surrounding a few farmers in haphazard formation. The second features several farmers who have managed something of a pike hedge going with pitchforks and other farm tools. They're fending off 3 orcs who are bemusedly testing them for weak spots.

Somewhere beyond your sight, the fire and smoke from the huge barn obscures much beyond it, there are war drums. What is Thurgon doing?