Hated Centaurs!
Aug. 13th, 2005 09:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothLast night we had a session of Lazar's Shadake game. I took the freeway, getting on after Factoria, and it seemed to go decently fast -- what made it inefficient going to his old place was that after getting off you had a long trip down windy roads *or* a parking lot on 4th street to get through... now you get off the freeway and have even farther south to go. Traffic was light all around, though, so it's premature to judge which is the best route.
Anyway, in the game, we finished scavenging and moved on to trying to sell refrigerators to the amish.
A few other interesting things were found in the battlefield over the next day or two of scavenging -- Perrel ran across a large poison area, extending into the sea... Balthazaar salvaged the engines out of six of the war machines, then fixed a seventh in-place to see if they still worked. Then a rainbow appeared, between them and the ship, and they all wandered over to check it out.
At the center of the rainbow was a crystalline spider (transparent, with crystalline organs visible) weaving a magitech web -- or at least, a web with patterns Wayne recognized. Wayne tried to talk to it, in case it was intelligent, but it just hissed and leapt at him... and he noticed something obviously magical was happening with the ground, in addition to the rainbow and the charm effect that had drawn him close enough to be attacked.
So, he asked Balthazaar if he could keep it. Balthazaar said 'no' -- they should kill it, and he would try to get its spinnerets to work in zombie mode to make more of the magical webbing. So Jardin stabbed it, Wayne carefully recovered the existing strands of web, Balthazaar put all the spider-babies from the now dead, pregnant spider in a well-sealed jar, and they retreated to their ship, as the poison warnings were worrying and they'd stolen enough.
It took a day to reach the island -- as they'd predicted, their airship flew too low to land on top of it, but circling the outside they found a port carved into the rock to tie off to. They kept the ship tied off at a slight distance, due to general caution and the dead airship landed inside the port-cave.
But the airship was only dead from lack of sunlight, and there was nothing threatening inside the cave. They searched its holds and managed to salvage some kili hide, some old peacock feathers, a few mithril coins, some coffee... random valuable junk. They also found that the skeleton-on-a-gibbet hadn't escaped the ship after all -- it instead had put itself on display on top of their canopy. This worried Balthazaar -- he thought it made them look like pirates. Wayne suggested dressing it in happy clothing to make it appear nonthreatening, but most everyone thought that would just make it creepier.
The main doors of the port were frozen shut from age (the lubricant that made the massive stone hinges turn was gone) but a side passage seemed to lead towards the surface. While they were clearing out a blockage some ways up (a massive discarded beetle carapace), Perrel mentioned that Roshan -- who'd been sent back to keep watch over the ship, in case someone from the island or the rest of the port they hadn't explored came calling -- had no aura.
P: "I think those exploding hood-bugs destroyed her soul."
W: "Er... then why is she walking around?"
P: "I don't know, but she doesn't have an aura."
B: "She's certainly shown no initiative since the attack."
W: "I thought she was just sulking... and she seemed to be showing *some* initiative even right after the explosion... I don't know. Maybe her spirit's just wounded, and not putting out an aura outside her body?"
P: "I'd still be able to see it."
B: "Obviously some spirit is driving her. If it's not present, it must be some form of remote control."
W: "Well... maybe her spirit is still 'attached', then, just... unconscious. And not in her body?"
At any rate, the 'no initiative' part meant that leaving her in charge of the ship's defense was a bad idea, so Wayne (who'd been designated the leader at this stop) put Ruby in charge, telling her that she was allowed to order Roshan around especially in the case of attack. It seemed like the cook had more menial tasks in mind for her... which was fine, but she was reminded to keep someone on watch, since they were vulnerable with the ship tied down and didn't really know how hostile the island was.
Eventually, they dug their way out of the tunnel and into a dense jungle, and Wayne scouted ahead to see how hostile the island was. The nearby town seemed peaceful -- there were a few police on guard, but not many weapons in view otherwise, and the sound of music filled the air. The population seemed to be mixed butterfly-folk and centaurs. It was one of several villages -- a large bonfire in the center was the source of one of the plumes of smoke they'd seen from a distance, and there were others in other clearings, far away.
There was also an old, abandoned tower in the middle of the island, with no fires or clearing -- an old mage's tower, perhaps? Still, contacting the natives was their first goal, so they approached openly, and were suddenly ambushed by bandits.
"YOU!" shouted a large glazend [I think, they might have been vlindars] -- a humanoid butterfly with colorful glassy wings -- pointing at Jardin while brandishing a huge club.
"Got issues?" Jardin snarked back.
"Yes!" the freakishly huge butterfly replied, attacking with a club. Other, more normal sized butterflies (eg, 5-6 foot tall instead of 8 foot) joined in, trying to grab the others. Wayne tried to calm things down, unsuccessfully, but he managed to confuse the smaller butterflies, who -- unlike 'Gonne' who was beating unmercifully on Jardin -- didn't seem to be that *hostile* exactly. In fact, they looked like they were trying to help them escape.
"We can't go anywhere without our friend, so unless you can carry a centaur we have to fight!" was the line that *utterly* confused the attackers. Except Gonne, who had a commendable singleness of purpose. But Jardin was skillful and Wayne and Perrel were lucky, and after Perrel disabled his arms with a couple nasty axe strikes, Wayne stung him to paralyze him and Jardin turned and kicked him in the chest to knock him out. The others fled.
But since their reactions were so *strange* -- they'd managed to grab Balthazaar, but he was a few feet away unconscious but resting comfortably, for instance, and they'd obviously shown concern for Gonne even though they'd otherwise seemed to be trying to save the party from him -- they decided to heal Gonne up and take him into town, in case this was all some sort of misunderstanding after all.
In town, Wayne called over a cop, who told them that there was, in fact, a bounty on Gonne, who was, in fact a bandit. The police station paid off the bounty and took thier large assailant into custody, but was otherwise unwilling to answer their questions since the judge had already retired for the evening. They did figure out that there was a general edict against magic, so Wayne wanted to talk to the judge to ensure magitech was allowed before setting up shop.
But, while the government was shut down, the town's nightlife was still going, around the massive bonfire. Wayne and Balthazaar decided to stay in town and prepare to make a pitch, while Jardin and Perrel headed back to the ship to heal Jardin's remaining wounds and make sure the bandits hadn't backtracked to the ship and attacked it.
Wayne chatted up one of the merchants, who told them that the 'bandits' were more like 'freedom fighters' (in her opinion, or rather, NOT in her opinion, she didn't say anything!) who objected to the centaur's rule. "With magic banned, the strong rule," she said with a shrug, "The centaurs are certainly never going to let anything threaten their system." She also warned Wayne -- who she assumed was from a floating cytherian city -- that there was a law against flight in the town. "Anyone who flies higher than 10 feet off the ground shall be shot, or something like that."
Wayne was a bit peeved that the centaurs hadn't seen fit to mention that when he'd asked about local laws, but she told him that they probably assumed he'd come from another village, which would have the same basic edicts. And recommended he not let on that he was actually from outside the island, because some vague badness might happen if the centaurs figured that out.
So, anyway, the two of them decided to get a bed at the inn (since Balthazaar didn't want to walk all the way back to the ship) and rest until morning, when they could talk to the judge. Jardin and Perrel, meanwhile, ran into no sign of banditry on the way back to the ship, and found that nothing had happened there either, except that Ruby had had Roshan reorganizing the cargo hold after the fire and everything.
last week | next week
Aaanyway, my plan is to try to sell magitech as 'not really magic' and 'not for use in weapons, that would be wrong!' to the centaurs, because while the butterflies were much more open to it, a revolution would get a lot of people killed and we only have the one old lady's word for how opposed the centaurs would be.
Plus, it's the official Jirae line, so my ass would be firmly covered if it didn't work. c.c
Anyway, in the game, we finished scavenging and moved on to trying to sell refrigerators to the amish.
A few other interesting things were found in the battlefield over the next day or two of scavenging -- Perrel ran across a large poison area, extending into the sea... Balthazaar salvaged the engines out of six of the war machines, then fixed a seventh in-place to see if they still worked. Then a rainbow appeared, between them and the ship, and they all wandered over to check it out.
At the center of the rainbow was a crystalline spider (transparent, with crystalline organs visible) weaving a magitech web -- or at least, a web with patterns Wayne recognized. Wayne tried to talk to it, in case it was intelligent, but it just hissed and leapt at him... and he noticed something obviously magical was happening with the ground, in addition to the rainbow and the charm effect that had drawn him close enough to be attacked.
So, he asked Balthazaar if he could keep it. Balthazaar said 'no' -- they should kill it, and he would try to get its spinnerets to work in zombie mode to make more of the magical webbing. So Jardin stabbed it, Wayne carefully recovered the existing strands of web, Balthazaar put all the spider-babies from the now dead, pregnant spider in a well-sealed jar, and they retreated to their ship, as the poison warnings were worrying and they'd stolen enough.
It took a day to reach the island -- as they'd predicted, their airship flew too low to land on top of it, but circling the outside they found a port carved into the rock to tie off to. They kept the ship tied off at a slight distance, due to general caution and the dead airship landed inside the port-cave.
But the airship was only dead from lack of sunlight, and there was nothing threatening inside the cave. They searched its holds and managed to salvage some kili hide, some old peacock feathers, a few mithril coins, some coffee... random valuable junk. They also found that the skeleton-on-a-gibbet hadn't escaped the ship after all -- it instead had put itself on display on top of their canopy. This worried Balthazaar -- he thought it made them look like pirates. Wayne suggested dressing it in happy clothing to make it appear nonthreatening, but most everyone thought that would just make it creepier.
The main doors of the port were frozen shut from age (the lubricant that made the massive stone hinges turn was gone) but a side passage seemed to lead towards the surface. While they were clearing out a blockage some ways up (a massive discarded beetle carapace), Perrel mentioned that Roshan -- who'd been sent back to keep watch over the ship, in case someone from the island or the rest of the port they hadn't explored came calling -- had no aura.
P: "I think those exploding hood-bugs destroyed her soul."
W: "Er... then why is she walking around?"
P: "I don't know, but she doesn't have an aura."
B: "She's certainly shown no initiative since the attack."
W: "I thought she was just sulking... and she seemed to be showing *some* initiative even right after the explosion... I don't know. Maybe her spirit's just wounded, and not putting out an aura outside her body?"
P: "I'd still be able to see it."
B: "Obviously some spirit is driving her. If it's not present, it must be some form of remote control."
W: "Well... maybe her spirit is still 'attached', then, just... unconscious. And not in her body?"
At any rate, the 'no initiative' part meant that leaving her in charge of the ship's defense was a bad idea, so Wayne (who'd been designated the leader at this stop) put Ruby in charge, telling her that she was allowed to order Roshan around especially in the case of attack. It seemed like the cook had more menial tasks in mind for her... which was fine, but she was reminded to keep someone on watch, since they were vulnerable with the ship tied down and didn't really know how hostile the island was.
Eventually, they dug their way out of the tunnel and into a dense jungle, and Wayne scouted ahead to see how hostile the island was. The nearby town seemed peaceful -- there were a few police on guard, but not many weapons in view otherwise, and the sound of music filled the air. The population seemed to be mixed butterfly-folk and centaurs. It was one of several villages -- a large bonfire in the center was the source of one of the plumes of smoke they'd seen from a distance, and there were others in other clearings, far away.
There was also an old, abandoned tower in the middle of the island, with no fires or clearing -- an old mage's tower, perhaps? Still, contacting the natives was their first goal, so they approached openly, and were suddenly ambushed by bandits.
"YOU!" shouted a large glazend [I think, they might have been vlindars] -- a humanoid butterfly with colorful glassy wings -- pointing at Jardin while brandishing a huge club.
"Got issues?" Jardin snarked back.
"Yes!" the freakishly huge butterfly replied, attacking with a club. Other, more normal sized butterflies (eg, 5-6 foot tall instead of 8 foot) joined in, trying to grab the others. Wayne tried to calm things down, unsuccessfully, but he managed to confuse the smaller butterflies, who -- unlike 'Gonne' who was beating unmercifully on Jardin -- didn't seem to be that *hostile* exactly. In fact, they looked like they were trying to help them escape.
"We can't go anywhere without our friend, so unless you can carry a centaur we have to fight!" was the line that *utterly* confused the attackers. Except Gonne, who had a commendable singleness of purpose. But Jardin was skillful and Wayne and Perrel were lucky, and after Perrel disabled his arms with a couple nasty axe strikes, Wayne stung him to paralyze him and Jardin turned and kicked him in the chest to knock him out. The others fled.
But since their reactions were so *strange* -- they'd managed to grab Balthazaar, but he was a few feet away unconscious but resting comfortably, for instance, and they'd obviously shown concern for Gonne even though they'd otherwise seemed to be trying to save the party from him -- they decided to heal Gonne up and take him into town, in case this was all some sort of misunderstanding after all.
In town, Wayne called over a cop, who told them that there was, in fact, a bounty on Gonne, who was, in fact a bandit. The police station paid off the bounty and took thier large assailant into custody, but was otherwise unwilling to answer their questions since the judge had already retired for the evening. They did figure out that there was a general edict against magic, so Wayne wanted to talk to the judge to ensure magitech was allowed before setting up shop.
But, while the government was shut down, the town's nightlife was still going, around the massive bonfire. Wayne and Balthazaar decided to stay in town and prepare to make a pitch, while Jardin and Perrel headed back to the ship to heal Jardin's remaining wounds and make sure the bandits hadn't backtracked to the ship and attacked it.
Wayne chatted up one of the merchants, who told them that the 'bandits' were more like 'freedom fighters' (in her opinion, or rather, NOT in her opinion, she didn't say anything!) who objected to the centaur's rule. "With magic banned, the strong rule," she said with a shrug, "The centaurs are certainly never going to let anything threaten their system." She also warned Wayne -- who she assumed was from a floating cytherian city -- that there was a law against flight in the town. "Anyone who flies higher than 10 feet off the ground shall be shot, or something like that."
Wayne was a bit peeved that the centaurs hadn't seen fit to mention that when he'd asked about local laws, but she told him that they probably assumed he'd come from another village, which would have the same basic edicts. And recommended he not let on that he was actually from outside the island, because some vague badness might happen if the centaurs figured that out.
So, anyway, the two of them decided to get a bed at the inn (since Balthazaar didn't want to walk all the way back to the ship) and rest until morning, when they could talk to the judge. Jardin and Perrel, meanwhile, ran into no sign of banditry on the way back to the ship, and found that nothing had happened there either, except that Ruby had had Roshan reorganizing the cargo hold after the fire and everything.
last week | next week
Aaanyway, my plan is to try to sell magitech as 'not really magic' and 'not for use in weapons, that would be wrong!' to the centaurs, because while the butterflies were much more open to it, a revolution would get a lot of people killed and we only have the one old lady's word for how opposed the centaurs would be.
Plus, it's the official Jirae line, so my ass would be firmly covered if it didn't work. c.c
