Well, in the tradition of everyone who failed to have enough happening to talk about, I've got character development.
The old grizzled veteran was sitting in front of the fire carefully rewrapping leather onto the hilt of a old but well-cared for longsword. He turned as a young man came in carrying a leather-wrapped satchel.
"Are you Dane Soont?"
The grizzled veteran turned his eyes towards the young man and replied "Yes, I am. What do you want?"
"My organization was hired to get this book to you by a strange individual. Someone by the name of Pheron. Does that name ring any bells?"
Dane's eyes unfocused as the memories come flooding in.
Dane's bones ached. A bit of bad weather was coming, but he ignored the pain. He had been out most of the day on the ballista range nearby. Those kids had shown the most promise with the equipment, and it was important for them to get practical experience with them so they could effectively help man the ballistas on the village walls. The village had never been attacked to anyone's knowledge, but Dane believed a strong deterrent to aggression was strong defenses. A well-trained watch was critical for strong defenses. Dane turned to address the children waiting their turn. His eyes grew wide as he saw a group of half-starved dogs slowly slinking towards them.
Dane addressed the children in a calm, monotone voice. "Don't make any sudden moves, kids. Slowly walk as a group behind me."
Joban, always one to not listen, shouted "Why, Master Soont?"
The starving dogs, startled by the sudden change in volume, growled and rushed the group.
The children, instead of complying, turned towards the new sound. Some started screaming. By the time Dane had pushed his way through the kids to get at the dogs, the dogs had already ran off. Standing at the front, covered in blood, was Pheron. In his hand he had the Dagger Dane had given him some weeks ago. Somehow he had put himself in between the attacking dogs and the group of kids.
"Pheron, my boy, are you hurt?"
"No, master Soont."
Dane turned towards his pupils. "Well Kids, I think the lesson is over for today, let's get home."
Dane remembered the hunt afterwards. Finding the crazed pack of dogs and putting them down. He remembered seeing Pheron the next day all cleaned up with the fresh bandage on his arm. He remembered then thinking that the Kid was made of tougher stuff than normal, and knew he'd someday go adventuring.
Dane Soont took the journal and fished out a silver piece for him.
"Thank you, young man. May Syreth guard you on your journy back."
With that he sat back down, opened the journal, and began reading.
When he was done, he put it up on the shelf with other Journals of old pupils who had decided to go adventuring. He offered a brief prayer to Syreth that Pheron's next one wouldn't come back stained with blood and abruptly ended, like some before had. He wondered if Pheron had made it into unexplored territory like the journal talked about. Then he put his wanderings aside and resumed his preparations for the trip to the Ballista range tomorrow.
About the fight... That was wickedly funny. You have two well-dressed women leaning on a building. Suddenly Vaba takes out a bow and shoots not one arrow, not two, but FOUR in rapid succession at these women. The women take flight.
You'd think the party would act to stop Vaba. Nope. They run AFTER the women, calling for them to stop running. Well, Maelrigar jumped in with Vaba in the combat them, but it was in his character. A fight with them isn't much different in his mind as a fight with purple skinned underworlders or whatever.
So, the women, totally panicked, cast sandstorm. Lyca, chasing the women, gets injured by the sandstorm and the fight goes from "Let's chase these women and make them stop so we can apologize and explain why Vaba is actively turning them into pincushions" to "They are hurting Lyca! KILL!!!"
Well, they duck into an alleyway and try a little pedophilia. Well, not quite that extreme, but they do try to grab Uskton Slek (whom is a 21 year old dwarf. A CHILD.) and try to kiss him. They fail, but the kissing on others goes on. Suddenly half the party is fighting the other half. Barb kept trying to find a way to get Mael to kill one even while charmed, but the Shoruke wasn't having any of it. Well somehow an AoO by Uskton against Mael gave everyone a new saves round which allowed Mael to break free. The girls quickly fell, and then the battle was over.
Still, the reason Vaba attacked at all was never addressed by the party. When the girls were subdued it was Maelrigar and Vaba who killed the downed girls, Vaba while he was arguing with Uskton about wrestling.
Tallulah (whom showed up at the end of battle) wanted to sell them into slavery at the Mage's Guild.
Uskton was all in favor of killing them.
Ethan tried to get them to stop killing them, but halfheartedly.
Mathaf was too focued on Vaba's Slimeball comment to really have an opinion about what to do with the girls.
So, interesting encounter. Very funny. Lots and wierd and wrong parts too, but funny throughout!
As usual,
Journals can be found here.
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Topic: D&D 3.5- Western Marches: dead and gone (RIP) (Read 300538 times)