- Location
- Centro Italia
[X] Distract the Beastmen
Hour of the Wolf (WHF)
- Thread starter prometheus110
- Start date
0t4n1z3r019
Member of the HAFPTG
- Location
- Philippines
[X] Distract the Beastmen
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Work's started again, so expect the pace of updates to slow down a bit. I'll close the voting end of my workday.
Vote closed
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The people have spoken, let the distraction begin. loving the quest so far @prometheus110 great stuff.
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You say that now, but you haven't seen some of the rolls yet. 😬
... oh bugger.
0t4n1z3r019
Member of the HAFPTG
- Location
- Philippines
Oh gee, I can't wait to see how scuffed the rolls are.
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
As a teaser, the next Hour of the Wolf update will be called Violently Executed. I leave the reason up to you to figure out, but I will say it's almost certainly not your first thought unless you have the same brain as I do.
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
My first thought: "Well that was a short quest"
Yeah fishing for matches in a totally RNG based system is going to lead to some scuffed rolls.
Like @prometheus110 at least give us some safety net like having a number rolling over success threahold would at least give you a partial success or put a point into a limited pool to reroll a dice or at Least upgrade the degree of succes.
Edit: grammar
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prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Sorry, but I won't. I'm using this system because I like this system, want the results it generates, and want to get better at it; not because I don't know any others.
If anything, I've been generous by giving you dice pools that ensure anything from 70% to a 99% of your rolls generate at least one match. The reason I mention rolls is because your enemy also gets a chance to roll and sometimes a Gor hits you in the skull with an axe wider than your head or some Ungors have really good reflexes.
Edit:
Actually, I should turn that second reserved post into a ORE information page when I get home.
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Ah so that's the execution or is it the freaked out woods man's who decides to take advantage of infighting between chaos beasts.
Hm fine though I would have like a system based on dealing cards like the one in his majesty the worm. Or maybe burning wheel's roll under/roll over system.
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You'll find out in a day or two. I've written most of it already.
There's always next time/when someone gets me invested in a new system
Elllo I am new here and I've caught up with the chapters, will we become a stronger wolf as the quest goes along?
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Depends how long it lasts, but you'll very likely develop new skills and hone existing ones.
Woooo, let do it guys let's become the ultimate werewolf. 'maybe even the biggest wolf too' I'm just excited
V - Violently Executed
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
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- He/Him
[X] Distract the Beastmen. You might be able to save some of the woodsmen. Distracting the beastmen would risk death, but give their prey time to finish whatever they're trying to accomplish, and you may even get your claws bloody.
Staring at the burning woodcutter's village, you find your mind unerringly arrowing towards a single conclusion, your racing thoughts returning to their starting point every few moments. Try as you might, whatever excuses you can come up with, you find yourself arriving at the same inevitable conclusions. First, you have to help. And second, you don't have the luxury of a good plan.
Snarling at your own stupidity and the thought of getting your hands—your claws—on more beastmen, you hastily loosen the straps of your leather bag until it hangs limply off your shoulder before breathing deep and calling on the wolf inside your soul. Faithful as ever, it answers.
Within moments, you are not Kasled the healer, but the black wolf of the woods, your gemstone eyes gleaming a vivid yellow and your teeth bared and ready to tear. Taking one heaving gasp after another—every exhalation sending a cloud of steam out from between your vast jaws—you rise from your prostrate position on the ground with the surety of a mountain and throw your blunt wedge of a head towards the sound of screaming.
Killll, your wolf growls in its not-words, the very thought sending a pulse of energy through your flagging limbs, lightning flooding your veins.
Seizing the moment to drink in the night air, the stink of inhuman sweat on beastly hides fills your mind with the thought of rending flesh from bone, loops of saliva streaming from your mouth as your scimitar claws flex unconsciously.
You want to hunt, you want to kill, you want to rip, you want to tear, you want-
A scream suddenly fills the night, and you twitch your head in time to see one of the ungors leaning on its spear, a supine woodsman pinned to its end and clawing weakly at the haft. Beside it, another beastman cackles as it twists the spear, the sound rising over the man's dying wails until he finally breathes his last. As terrible as it is, the sound shakes you out of your bloodlust, the sheer wanton cruelty twisting your heart so hard it feels as if it might burst.
No, you castigate the wolf spirit firmly; a snarl your only reply.
You bite back. We'll kill, but not a hunt. We distract the beastmen, save the survivors, and then we escape.
Cowed, perhaps, or perhaps merely giving you enough rope to hang yourself, Ulric's wolf cedes to your will; a final head jerk is all it takes to drop the last of the blood-dimmed tide's veil from your eyes.
Your thoughts once more your own, you turn towards the distant palisade and look upon its rough-hewn spikes with no small wariness as you ponder their height. Twice as tall as you are even now, they are a substantial obstacle to threats such as, well, yourself, the sharpened stakes looking painfully sharp in the crisp moonlight. Glancing at the tips, you feel your muscles tighten despite yourself, your doctor's bag creaking as its leather straps strain against your bulk.
"Noo chooice," you half snarl, half growl between your teeth, the words daemonic in your shadowed hide.
The die is cast, Rience's shade agrees in a papery voice.
Black and terrible, your yellow eyes burning with an inner fire, you burst out of the woods and across the field of severed stumps as if the daemons of the north were chasing you. Gulping down lungfuls of air into your broad chest, you eat up the ground with your long-limbed stride as you race towards a carefully chosen section of the palisade—the nearest entrance a good distance away. Still distracted by the sport of killing, the beastmen standing behind it don't notice as you approach, and mere heartbeats are all it takes for you to cross the distance between the wood's edge and your goal. Rising like a giant from one of Old Nan's stories, the palisade suddenly looms before you, a quiver in your heart all you allow yourself before you redouble your efforts.
Your heart pounding, your breath heaving, you come to the first and perhaps hardest part of your cobbled-together plan and think a prayer to Ulric as you bunch your muscles.
Preserve me on this foolish course, oh, Ulric, and I'll be yours forever.
Without hesitating, you leap up and forward, your body's momentum and muscles' strength working hand in hand to hurl you into the air. A heartbeat later, you slam ten lethal claws into the hardwood posts and pull yourself over the edge in one fluid motion.
In your time aiding Roslas' militia in battle and hearing stories from bored caravan guards, you have heard tell of instances where time seems to slow, and a man's eyes and mind gain precious clarity, where the passage of time slows and moments stretch on and on until the world feels as if it will burst apart into a cloud of frozen instants.
You don't experience any of this.
Quick as a flash, you sail over the palisade and come down hard, all Ulric-knows-how-many-stones of your body slamming to the ground and scattering the pack of torturous ungors standing with their backs to the wall. Acting more on instinct than rational thought, you don't hesitate as the monsters spring away on impulse, instead snatching up the nearest of the squealing, braying beastmen—a goblin-faced, goat-legged thing wearing a string of human fingers about its neck—and wring it by the neck. For a bare instant, the ungor twitches as your claws punch into its brain, and then, with a howl that shakes the timbers, you tear its head from its shoulders, an arterial spray drenching the living and the dead with hot blood.
For a heartbeat, silence reigns save for the hungry crackle of flames as man and beast stare at you, the pounding drums hushed by your act. As if entranced, the beastmen raiders, even the ones pressing the woodcutter back, stop and stare through the ever-shifting smoke curtain draped over the settlement, your old plan of clambering back up the wall falling from your mind as you spot a hole in the eastern wall.
The better to lead the beasts away, you tell yourself as a kernel of doubt sprouts in the back of your mind.
And then the stillness shatters as the ungors screech in fright, a glimpse in the corner of your eye revealing gors and minotaurs rushing towards you against the fleeing tide.
"Kill. You. All," you lie with a huff before throwing the headless corpse into the drums and shattering them with a crash. Turning on the spot, you do what you've done since Roslas and run.
Bashing aside a pile of shattered barrels with barely an effort, you fairly leap towards the perforated eastern wall as you hear the braying mass charge behind you, flames and embers pouring into the air in vast sheets and lending the night hellish glow. Between one footstep and the next, you curse as you see the tell-tale signs of frenzied axe work on the wall's still-distant timbers, little effort required to imagine how easy it would be for the raider's musclebound minotaurs to deliver the same blows to you. An instant later, the thought vanishes as a victorious cry rises from human throats, a deep-pitched and bestial scream echoing from the West as the number of beastmen afflicting the world drops by one. Grinning wolfishly at the noise, you let out a howl that rattles bones and bashes eardrums before jolting right, quicksilver fast, as a gor larger than any you've seen before barrels out of the smoke, a single step seeing you dodge past the monster so close you can see its bullish face transform into a hateful sneer.
"Snrt," you hear the thing roar as it vanishes behind you. "K-k-kill him!"
Then the creature vanishes as the pall of smoke swallows you whole, the brown-black fog burning your throat and stinging your eyes, its sheer heat prickling your skin.
"Fight!" The voice brays again. "Fight or d-d-d-diiiiiiie."
Tearing through a blazing tent with a great rip of tearing canvas, you almost think the leader-beast too late. An instant later, some instinct flares, and you twist just in time to see a black-edged axe sailing toward you, pain splitting your skull as it strikes true and sends a brace of stars flashing across your vision. Rebounding off the blow, surprised, blood rushing down your snout, you give a low growl and lash out with your scimitar claws. A thud follows, and a sound like ripping cloth fills the air as a throat appears in your hand as if by sorcery, its ram-headed gor owner dropping out of the smoke and clutching its ruined neck in vain. A moment later, it too vanishes as your sprint continues, a hoarse whinnying cry making your fur stand on end.
Not stopping to see what made the noise, you reorient yourself toward the nearest glow and charge forward, a sound like leather on flesh snapping past your ear a second later. Before you can do much more than wonder at its source, you have your answer as a dozen star-bright flares of pain suddenly erupt across your back and arms as arrows pierce the air and then you. Yelping, you stumble for a split second before catching yourself, luck more than anything allowing you to regain your footing.
"Go," you swear you hear a man shout as you continue your madcap dash through the blaze, the crackle of the flames almost overwhelming his words. "Go through!"
Praying that the beastmen are still chasing you but too scared to look behind you, you choose that moment to zig, an arrow whipping past your head and sailing into the night a heartbeat after. Laughing at your luck, the sound rendered horrible by your twisted throat, you almost miss it when swirling shadows step in front of the still-distant glow. Almost.
With a wordless cry, a mass of figures burst from the inky smoke, a forest of spears and a fistful of axes soaring towards you. Like a boar, you spear yourself, sheer momentum pushing the spear into your chest and driving the axe heads deep. Then, like a boar, you barrel through the mass of shrieking gors and ungors, the crack of broken bones filling the air as mass and speed conspire to render you unstoppable. Ripping the spear out of your chest with a roar, you toss it blindly into the smoke and then yelp as another arrow thunks into the meat of your thigh.
I'm not, you concede as you cut left, cut out for bait.
Then the smoke clears, revealing your goal: the smashed open palisade wall laying bare before you, beckoning you onward. Casting a glance over your shoulder, a savage laugh escapes your lips as you see the last of the woodcutters wriggling through a hole in the palisade wall, a pack of gors slipping on the remnants of their victims as they desperately try to reach them.
They're free! You think as you race through the blazing portal and into the open land beyond, the oppressive heat vanishing as swiftly as the sunset as cold air washes over you and the forest's protective embrace looms ahead. They've only gone and done it. Ulric, I-
Something slams into the back of your head with the force of a falling tree, a steel claw piercing your skull at the base of your neck, your vision blurring. Convulsing, your stomach churning at the pain, you stumble halfway to the ground before catching yourself and clapping a hand to the back of your head, the coarse grain of an arrow suddenly between your fingers. Without thinking, without stopping, you wrench it free with a scream and drop it behind you, the steel claw vanishing as you feel the wound knit close, the trees closing around you as the settlement vanishes.
Fools, you think, as the beastmen follow, a bitter kind of glee filling your thoughts as you lead them deeper into the woods and away from their erstwhile prey.
How long they chase you, how long it takes for them to spend themselves and grow exhausted, you cannot say, but it takes quite some time before the last of their shouts and roars fade to nothing. Slowing to a halt in an unfamiliar patch of trees—your many wounds healed, though sore—you cock your head askance and listen for the sounds of pursuit for a long while before accepting that you've lost them. Panting, your body shaking with an admixture of adrenaline and exhaustion, you feel your changes slink away as you lean against a fallen log, your lupine form receding and leaving you draped across its age-greyed timbers.
"Thank you," you gasp between breaths as you press your forehead against the log's surface, the words directed both within and without as weariness cradles you in its soft embrace.
Closing your eyes, you repeat the words, your wolf stirring lazily but remaining silent.
Huddled against the tree's moss-covered surface, you earnestly consider staying put until the End Times, the fuzzy greenery invitingly soft beneath your touch and the air's chill growing less bitter with every passing moment. However, just as you feel yourself begin to nod off, a terrible burning stings the back of your hand. Startled awake, you jerk back with a stifled cry and blink at the white blur upon your hand, rheumy eyes resolving the formless thing into a perfect snowflake. Brushing it away with a curse, you look up at the darkening sky and let out an irritated yowl as you see an army of snowflakes wafting gently down, another shining crystal landing on unprotected skin and sending a cold fire racing up your arm as its chill touch invades your body.
As before, your wolf spirit doesn't speak, but a need for warmth and shelter flickers to life within you, hazy memories of Varrel rising, unbidden, to your mind.
Groaning as you realise it's right, that you'll die if you stay here, you push yourself to rise onto unsteady feet and try to change your form once again. An instant later, you let out a gasp as a wave of nausea strikes you, your temples pounding in time with your heartbeat and a sudden shake coursing up your body. You don't need to be a healer to know that you've pushed yourself too far, too fast; your marathon pursuit of the beastmen and the battles you've fought brought your body to the edge of its capabilities.
Barely forcing down the urge to vomit, you lean against the traitor log for a moment to catch your breath before forcing yourself to start shuffling north, each swing of your leaden limbs requiring an act of will to push yourself forward. Slowly at first, sheer exhaustion hampering you at every turn, you pick your way towards where foggy memories tell you Varrel lies, one footstep after another restoring a measure of warmth to your much-abused body even as the snowfall quickens around you. Picking up speed as your body warms, your muscles unlocking as if ice were melting within them, you ignore the searing pain that rises from within them and pull tight the remnants of your shirt against your chest, a breeze sending blades of icy cold through the gashes and holes the beastmen left in its once handsome fabric.
"Bastards," you mutter to your wolf, a confused agreement meeting you.
It was a good shirt, a hidden part of you adds.
Thereafter, silence reigns as the challenge of trudging through the falling snow grows more imposing, the yielding ground swallowing your feet at every footstep and draining your energy like no other ground you've ventured across. Several times, a warning from your wolf spirit alerts you just before you fall; its silent cries allow you to catch yourself just in time to stop a tumble as you make your way north. Steadily, the snow continues to fall, cruel winds stirring the flurries this way and that, and every gust robbing you of a little more warmth. Hunched over against the cold and shivering wildly, the world contracts to a point as your focus turns to survival, every sound but the slow thump of your heart and the quiet rasp of your breath vanishing from your mind. On and on it goes as you progress, the snowfall growing steadily heavier and the winds growing steadily worse until all before you is a haze; the moon Mannslieb nowhere to be seen and its silver light vanished from sight.
Reduced to a mindless advance, all about you dark and misty, you almost miss it when the first orange glow peeks through the haze of snow; the flickering beacon describing the trees around you with the absence of its light and sending a pulse of fear through the iced-over channels of your mind.
The beastmen, you think slowly, your mind turgid and unwieldy from the cold. I must have gotten turned around and continued the way I came.
Prodding the beast within for answers, it takes you a moment to realise that you're still walking, your legs taking on a life of their own as another beacon joins the first, then another, and then another.
I must still be far, you think to yourself, almost conversationally, as you continue. For those fires to seem so small, they must still be a goodly distance away. I'll soon be killed.
In truth, the prospect did not seem so terrible. Between the cutting frost and the feeling in your limbs that now went beyond exhaustion, beyond words, a final rest in Morr's Underworld or an eternal hunt by Ulric's side had its appeal. Though if you had a choice, the sleep of cold after saving the innocent seemed a kinder way to it than a beastman's axe or a dread wizard's spell.
Finding yourself chuckling for reasons you can't quite work out, you fall headfirst into the snow without warning, the crunch of frost breaking beneath your body the only sound to reach your ears. Pushing your head through the snow, its bitter sting now a lover's kiss, you gaze at the still distant fires and wonder what will kill you first: beastmen or exposure. The axe or the cold. Still pondering the question as the darkness closes in—the idea of a world beyond the confines of your mind fading to nought—you don't notice when the wind shifts towards you, freshly baked bread the last thing you smell before unconsciousness claims you as its own.
Staring at the burning woodcutter's village, you find your mind unerringly arrowing towards a single conclusion, your racing thoughts returning to their starting point every few moments. Try as you might, whatever excuses you can come up with, you find yourself arriving at the same inevitable conclusions. First, you have to help. And second, you don't have the luxury of a good plan.
Snarling at your own stupidity and the thought of getting your hands—your claws—on more beastmen, you hastily loosen the straps of your leather bag until it hangs limply off your shoulder before breathing deep and calling on the wolf inside your soul. Faithful as ever, it answers.
Within moments, you are not Kasled the healer, but the black wolf of the woods, your gemstone eyes gleaming a vivid yellow and your teeth bared and ready to tear. Taking one heaving gasp after another—every exhalation sending a cloud of steam out from between your vast jaws—you rise from your prostrate position on the ground with the surety of a mountain and throw your blunt wedge of a head towards the sound of screaming.
Killll, your wolf growls in its not-words, the very thought sending a pulse of energy through your flagging limbs, lightning flooding your veins.
Seizing the moment to drink in the night air, the stink of inhuman sweat on beastly hides fills your mind with the thought of rending flesh from bone, loops of saliva streaming from your mouth as your scimitar claws flex unconsciously.
You want to hunt, you want to kill, you want to rip, you want to tear, you want-
A scream suddenly fills the night, and you twitch your head in time to see one of the ungors leaning on its spear, a supine woodsman pinned to its end and clawing weakly at the haft. Beside it, another beastman cackles as it twists the spear, the sound rising over the man's dying wails until he finally breathes his last. As terrible as it is, the sound shakes you out of your bloodlust, the sheer wanton cruelty twisting your heart so hard it feels as if it might burst.
No, you castigate the wolf spirit firmly; a snarl your only reply.
You bite back. We'll kill, but not a hunt. We distract the beastmen, save the survivors, and then we escape.
Cowed, perhaps, or perhaps merely giving you enough rope to hang yourself, Ulric's wolf cedes to your will; a final head jerk is all it takes to drop the last of the blood-dimmed tide's veil from your eyes.
Your thoughts once more your own, you turn towards the distant palisade and look upon its rough-hewn spikes with no small wariness as you ponder their height. Twice as tall as you are even now, they are a substantial obstacle to threats such as, well, yourself, the sharpened stakes looking painfully sharp in the crisp moonlight. Glancing at the tips, you feel your muscles tighten despite yourself, your doctor's bag creaking as its leather straps strain against your bulk.
"Noo chooice," you half snarl, half growl between your teeth, the words daemonic in your shadowed hide.
The die is cast, Rience's shade agrees in a papery voice.
Black and terrible, your yellow eyes burning with an inner fire, you burst out of the woods and across the field of severed stumps as if the daemons of the north were chasing you. Gulping down lungfuls of air into your broad chest, you eat up the ground with your long-limbed stride as you race towards a carefully chosen section of the palisade—the nearest entrance a good distance away. Still distracted by the sport of killing, the beastmen standing behind it don't notice as you approach, and mere heartbeats are all it takes for you to cross the distance between the wood's edge and your goal. Rising like a giant from one of Old Nan's stories, the palisade suddenly looms before you, a quiver in your heart all you allow yourself before you redouble your efforts.
Your heart pounding, your breath heaving, you come to the first and perhaps hardest part of your cobbled-together plan and think a prayer to Ulric as you bunch your muscles.
Preserve me on this foolish course, oh, Ulric, and I'll be yours forever.
Difficulty: 5
Dice Pool: Coordination (5) + Athletics (0) + passion (1) = 6d10
Rolled: 7 +7 +2 +1 +3 +5
Pairs: 2x7
Dice Pool: Coordination (5) + Athletics (0) + passion (1) = 6d10
Rolled: 7 +7 +2 +1 +3 +5
Pairs: 2x7
Without hesitating, you leap up and forward, your body's momentum and muscles' strength working hand in hand to hurl you into the air. A heartbeat later, you slam ten lethal claws into the hardwood posts and pull yourself over the edge in one fluid motion.
In your time aiding Roslas' militia in battle and hearing stories from bored caravan guards, you have heard tell of instances where time seems to slow, and a man's eyes and mind gain precious clarity, where the passage of time slows and moments stretch on and on until the world feels as if it will burst apart into a cloud of frozen instants.
You don't experience any of this.
This is our first introduction to the concept of unworthy opponents, which is Reign's way of handling group combat between PCs/important NPCs and NPCs who aren't otherwise notable (E.G town guards, skavenslave packs, etc). It has some very neat ideas behind it that make group combat easy to do, but I'll speak about it separately.
For now, the key points you need to know are: all enemies in a group of unworthy opponents have 1 hitpoint, their dice pool is always equal to the number of people in said group, the only actions they can do are attack and dodge (unless I intervene), and each group has a threat level from 1-4 (by default) that you need to meet or exceed in either the number of successes or height of the successes you attain during an attack roll. E.G a threat 2 group requires your set to be width 2 or greater (2x+) for you to hit it, while a threat 3 group requires your set to be width 3 or greater (3x+) or else be height 3 or greater (2x3+) for you to hit it. There's some other stuff, but it isn't that important right now.
Round 1
Kas
Is doing a display kill to try and frighten a bunch of Ungors into running away
Pool: Body (5) + Fight (4) + Passion (1) - Display Kill (-1)
Rolled: 1+1+1+5+7+8+8+8+10
Pairs: 3x1, 3x8. Uses 3x8 for a display kill on the Ungors.
Note: Display kills are you killing a dude in a particularly nasty way in order to scare his mates. They're easiest to do against unworthy foes since they're easy to kill, but can only be done at the start of combat/engagement as everyone's too busy not dying to notice it, otherwise.
Ungors - 1 - Size 10
Rolled: 2+2+3+3+5+6+8+9+9+10
Pairs: 2x2, 2x3, 2x9.
2x2 and 2x3 are attacks against Kas, 2x9 is being used to dodge.
Ungors - 2 - Size 10
Rolled: 1+1+2+3+4+5+6+7+9+10
Pairs: 2x1
Attack the woodsmen 1x
Gors - 1 - Size 2
Rolled: 5+5
Pairs: 2x5
Attack the woodsmen 1x
Woodsmen - Size7
Rolled: 2+2+4+6+6+9+10
Pairs: 2x2, 2x6
Both dedicated to dodging
Ernst
Pool: Coordination (3) + Passion: Survive (1)
Rolled: 7+3+9+2
Pairs: cutting through rope
Note: Ernst needs to cut through a rope loop and push a bolt to unlock the escape hatch he's trying to open. The former requires a Coordination roll with a height of 6+, the latter takes a turn.
Round 1 Summary
With his 3x8 Kas display kills an Ungor in group 1 before any of them can react and the remaining 9 suffer a morale attack. By default, successful display kills generate a morale attack with a value equal to the highest out of a set's width or height (which is 8 here), but an 3x success adds Kas's command skill of 2 to the value meaning that up to 10 ungors run away from him and are effectively out of the fight.
The woodsmen, meanwhile, dodge the gors' and ungors attacks while screaming at Ernst to hurry up.
Round 2
Kas
Pool: Coordination (5) + Run (2) + Passion (1)
Rolled: 1+1+4+4+7+8+9+10
Pairs: 2x1, 2x4
Kas sprints without bothering to do anything more as everyone's trying to kill him already and his goal is to get as far from the woodsmen as he can. Runs an extra 10 feet this round.
Gors 1 - Size 2
Rolled: 5+5
Pairs: 2x5
Gors in group 1 attack the woodsmen 1x
Ungors - 2 - Size 10
Retreat from woodsmen to chase Kas
Woodsmen - Size 7
Rolled: 1+5+5+6+6+6+9
Pairs: 2x5, 3x6
Uses 3x6 to attack Gors, uses 2x5 to dodge. Rolled 1d2 to break the tie and the woodsmen won.
Ernst
Pool: Coordination (3) + Passion: Survive (1)
Rolled: 5+6+6+8
Pairs: 2x6
Cuts the knot!
Round 2 Summary
Kaz succeeds in sprinting towards a burning exit. As everyone's focus is on him except for the gors currently battling the woodsmen, they all move 15 feet closer. A wargor also appears from a burning building.
The woodsmen then proceed to kill one of the gors attacking them before it can strike and dodge the remaining gor's blow. Still screaming at Ernst, but a little less hostile about it.
Round 3
Wargor
Pool: ???
Pairs: 2x8, 2x9
Uses 2x9 to command ungors back into the fight. They regroup but can't act this turn.
Ungors (bows) - Size 10
Rolled: 1+3+3+6+6+7+8+9+9+10
Pairs: 2x3, 2x6, 2x9
Attack kas 3x hitting him in the arms and chest/back. Does 2 shock damage to each arm and 2 shock damage to torso after armour is taken into account.
Ungor spears - 1 - Size 9
Regroup, but are too panicked to do anything
Ungor spears - 2 - Size 10
Continue moving towards Kas but can't make it past the minotaurs (RIP bozos)
Kas
Pool: Body (5) + Fight (4) + Passion (1) - 2nd attack (1) - 3rd attack (1) = 8d10
Rolled: 1+4+4+5+7+9+9+10
Pairs: 2x4, 2x9
Runs without sprinting, but attacks gors 2x in the process.
Gors - 1 - Size 1
Breaks towards rest of group 1
Gors - 1 - Size 3 (they're the rest of group 1)
Merge with above to bring group to ⅘ strength
Gors - 2 - Size 5
Rolled: 1+3+4+10+10
Pairs: 2x10
Attack Kas and hit him in the head, forces him to slow (he drops his 2x4). Armed with roughly made battleaxes, the Gors are hitting for Width Killing damage and Width Shock Damage (in this case dealing 2 Killing and 2 Shock damage before armour). As Kas is effectively equipped with 1 point of light armour thanks to his werewolfism, this damage is reduced to 1 Killing and 2 shock damage to the head.
Light Armour acts kind of weird in that a body part with light armour drops all shock damage done to a body part to 1 point, then converts X points of killing damage to shock damage where X is the armour rating. I.E LAR (1) converts 1 killing damage to 1 shock damage, LAR(3) converts 3 points to 3 shock damage, etc.
Minotaur - 1
Minotaur - 2
Move towards kas but get blocked by gors in group 2
Ernst
Opens the hatch automatically
Woodsmen - Size 7
Start falling back towards Ernst
Round 3 Summary
The wargor rallies the ungors by threatening death. Kas, still running, gets clipped in the head by a gor's axe and takes 1K/2S, but immediately swipes at the nearest shape and rips out a throat from Gors - 2. At that point, the ungors with bows open fire hitting him in the arm and back doing 1K/1S to both arms and his torso
The other gor pack regroups, while the minotaurs move towards kas but get stuck behind their brothers.
Ernst opens the hatch, and the woodsmen begin falling back towards it.
Kas rolls 1+2+6+8+9 and regens… nothing.
Kas wounds at the end of round 3.
Roll Hit | Location
1 | Left leg | [o][o][o][o][o][o]
2 | Right leg | [o][o][o][o][o][o]
3-4 | Left arm | [/][/][o][o][o][o]
5-6 | Right arm | [/][/][o][o][o][o]
7-9 | Torso | [/][/][o][o][o][o][o][o][o][o][o][o]
10 | Head | [X][/][/][o][o]
X represents killing damage while / represents shock damage. If a limb's wound boxes are full of killing damage, the limb has been removed/destroyed. If it's full of shock damage, it's some degree of temporarily non functional.
If your head is full of killing damage, you're dead. If your head is full of shock damage, you're unconscious.
Round 4
Wargor
Pool: ???
Pairs: 2x2, 2x7
Runs towards Kas and unsheaths his pitted and bloodstained blade
Ungors (bows) - Size 10
Group 1
Rolled:1+1+2+6+10
Pairs: 2x1
Group 2
Rolled: 3+6+6+8+10
Pairs: 2x6
Split into 2 subgroups at wargor's orders. One fires at Kas, one fires at woodsmen.
Ungor spears - 1 - Size 9
Rolled: 3+4+5+6+7+7+7+8+10
Pairs: 3x7
Moves towards kas and temporarily gets into range to attack. 3x7 success means they hit Kas' torso hit for 3K/1S before armour is taken into account and 2K/2S after armour
Ungor spears - 2 - Size 10
Advances as far as it can but is blocked by minotaurs
Kas
Pool: Coordination (5) + Run (2) + Passion (1)
Rolled: 1+2+4+5+6+6+7+8
Pairs: 2x6
Continues leading beastmen on a chase. Runs an extra 10 feet this round.
Gors - 1 - Size 4
Runs towards woodsmen but is too far to catch up
Gors - 2 - Size 4
Rolled: 4+9+6+9
Pairs: 2x9
Moves to block kas and attack. 2x9 hit deals 2K/2S to Kas' torso before armour and 1K/2S after armour.
Minotaur - 1
Advances as far as it can but is too slow and blocked by gors
Minotaur - 2
Advances towards kas but out of range
Ernst
Escapes through hatch
Woodsmen - Size 7
Rolled: 1+2+3+3+3+6+9
Pairs: 3x3
Spend 3x3 to dodge and start moving through hatch. 2 escape through the hatch, but 4 others are stuck behind a big guy currently trying to wriggle through.
Round 4 Summary
Wargor sprints towards kas and draws his weapon, but fails to catch him; instead orders his bow ungors to split fire between kas and the woodsmen. The gors, meanwhile, slice Kas' chest with their axes for 1K/2S, the ungors stab him in the back for 2K/2S, and the bow ungors pepper his left leg for 2S. Both minotaurs remain frustrated by their allies.
The woodsmen start slipping through the escape hatch, but the bow ungors pepper them with arrows at just the right time and kill two despite thier 3x3 dodge set. This is because dodge sets need to be at least as wide and at least as high as attack sets pitted against them to work.
Kas rolls 2+5+6+8+8 and regens two head shock. Trust me, you don't want head wounds at all as it's super easy to get knocked out if someone is well equipped and you don't have good armour.
Kas wound boxes at the end of round 4.
Roll Hit | Location
1 | Left leg | [/][/][o][o][o][o]
2 | Right leg | [o][o][o][o][o][o]
3-4 | Left arm | [/][/][o][o][o][o]
5-6 | Right arm | [/][/][o][o][o][o]
7-9 | Torso | [X][X][X][/][/][/][/][o][o][o][o][o]
10 | Head | [X][o][o][o][o]
Note: Killing damage (X) replaces shock damage (/) on your wounds table as you receive it. This is why you only have 4 shock damage in your torso despite starting the turn with 2 and receiving an additional 4.
Round 5
Wargor
Pool: ???
Pairs: 3x7, 2x7
Runs after Kas. Gets an extra 10 feet but is at a disadvantage since he started behind.
Kas
Pool: Coordination (5) + Run (2) + Passion (1)
Rolled: 1+1+1+2+4+4+5+9
Pairs: 3x1, 2x4
Runs and gets extra 10 feet.
Ungors (bows) - Size 10
Group 1
Rolled: 4+5+8+10+10
Pairs: 2x10
Group 2
Rolled: 2+5+7+8+8
Pairs: 2x8
Group 1 shoots at kaz and hits the back of his head for 2 shock after armour, group 2 shoots at woodsmen
Gors - 1 - Size 4
Chases woodsmen, is too far
Gors - 2 - Size 4
Moves to chase
Minotaur - 1
Minotaur - 2
Chases kas
Ernst
Escapes into woods
Woodsmen - Size 5
Rolled: 1+5+7+8+10
Pairs:
Run to edge of woods
Round 5 Summary
Kas continues to lead wargor and others on a merry chase, but the bow ungors shoot him in the head for 2S, nearly knocking him out and kill two more woodsmen leaving a total of 5 (including Ernst). Fortunately, both Kas and the woodsmen are now out of range of the bows.
Kas rolls 1+2+2+5+8 to regen and gets a 2x2. I make him regen 2 head shock (again).
Kas wound boxes at the end of round 5.
Roll Hit | Location
1 | Left leg | [o][o][o][o][o][o]
2 | Right leg | [o][o][o][o][o][o]
3-4 | Left arm | [/][/][o][o][o][o]
5-6 | Right arm | [/][/][o][o][o][o]
7-9 | Torso | [X][X][X][/][/][/][/][o][o][o][o][o]
10 | Head | [X][o][o][o][o]
Round 6
Wargor
Pool: ???
Pairs: 2x4
Runs after Kas but fails to catch him
Kas
Pool: Coordination (5) + Run (2) + Passion (1)
Rolled: 2+3+4+7+7+7+9+9
Pairs: 3x7, 2x9
Runs with 3x7 for an extra 15 feet.
Round 6 summary
Kaz escapes into the woods with severe wounds, the remaining beastmen fall back, and the wargor stands outside the ruined gate bellowing challenges.
Kas rolls 1+3+6+8+9 for regen recovering… nothing.
Kas wound boxes at the end of round 6.
Roll Hit | Location
1 | Left leg | [o][o][o][o][o][o]
2 | Right leg | [o][o][o][o][o][o]
3-4 | Left arm | [/][/][o][o][o][o]
5-6 | Right arm | [/][/][o][o][o][o]
7-9 | Torso | [X][X][X][/][/][/][/][o][o][o][o][o]
10 | Head | [X][o][o][o][o]
Fortunately, as he's left combat and had a chance to catch his breath, half the shock damage Kasled has taken fades away. However, as I'm mean, I'm rounding down.
Final Wound Tally
Roll Hit | Location
1 | Left leg | [o][o][o][o][o][o]
2 | Right leg | [o][o][o][o][o][o]
3-4 | Left arm | [/][o][o][o][o][o]
5-6 | Right arm | [/][o][o][o][o][o]
7-9 | Torso | [X][X][X][/][/][o][o][o][o][o][o][o]
10 | Head | [X][o][o][o][o]
For now, the key points you need to know are: all enemies in a group of unworthy opponents have 1 hitpoint, their dice pool is always equal to the number of people in said group, the only actions they can do are attack and dodge (unless I intervene), and each group has a threat level from 1-4 (by default) that you need to meet or exceed in either the number of successes or height of the successes you attain during an attack roll. E.G a threat 2 group requires your set to be width 2 or greater (2x+) for you to hit it, while a threat 3 group requires your set to be width 3 or greater (3x+) or else be height 3 or greater (2x3+) for you to hit it. There's some other stuff, but it isn't that important right now.
Round 1
Kas
Is doing a display kill to try and frighten a bunch of Ungors into running away
Pool: Body (5) + Fight (4) + Passion (1) - Display Kill (-1)
Rolled: 1+1+1+5+7+8+8+8+10
Pairs: 3x1, 3x8. Uses 3x8 for a display kill on the Ungors.
Note: Display kills are you killing a dude in a particularly nasty way in order to scare his mates. They're easiest to do against unworthy foes since they're easy to kill, but can only be done at the start of combat/engagement as everyone's too busy not dying to notice it, otherwise.
Ungors - 1 - Size 10
Rolled: 2+2+3+3+5+6+8+9+9+10
Pairs: 2x2, 2x3, 2x9.
2x2 and 2x3 are attacks against Kas, 2x9 is being used to dodge.
Ungors - 2 - Size 10
Rolled: 1+1+2+3+4+5+6+7+9+10
Pairs: 2x1
Attack the woodsmen 1x
Gors - 1 - Size 2
Rolled: 5+5
Pairs: 2x5
Attack the woodsmen 1x
Woodsmen - Size7
Rolled: 2+2+4+6+6+9+10
Pairs: 2x2, 2x6
Both dedicated to dodging
Ernst
Pool: Coordination (3) + Passion: Survive (1)
Rolled: 7+3+9+2
Pairs:
cutting through ropeNote: Ernst needs to cut through a rope loop and push a bolt to unlock the escape hatch he's trying to open. The former requires a Coordination roll with a height of 6+, the latter takes a turn.
Round 1 Summary
With his 3x8 Kas display kills an Ungor in group 1 before any of them can react and the remaining 9 suffer a morale attack. By default, successful display kills generate a morale attack with a value equal to the highest out of a set's width or height (which is 8 here), but an 3x success adds Kas's command skill of 2 to the value meaning that up to 10 ungors run away from him and are effectively out of the fight.
The woodsmen, meanwhile, dodge the gors' and ungors attacks while screaming at Ernst to hurry up.
Round 2
Kas
Pool: Coordination (5) + Run (2) + Passion (1)
Rolled: 1+1+4+4+7+8+9+10
Pairs: 2x1, 2x4
Kas sprints without bothering to do anything more as everyone's trying to kill him already and his goal is to get as far from the woodsmen as he can. Runs an extra 10 feet this round.
Gors 1 - Size 2
Rolled: 5+5
Pairs: 2x5
Gors in group 1 attack the woodsmen 1x
Ungors - 2 - Size 10
Retreat from woodsmen to chase Kas
Woodsmen - Size 7
Rolled: 1+5+5+6+6+6+9
Pairs: 2x5, 3x6
Uses 3x6 to attack Gors, uses 2x5 to dodge. Rolled 1d2 to break the tie and the woodsmen won.
Ernst
Pool: Coordination (3) + Passion: Survive (1)
Rolled: 5+6+6+8
Pairs: 2x6
Cuts the knot!
Round 2 Summary
Kaz succeeds in sprinting towards a burning exit. As everyone's focus is on him except for the gors currently battling the woodsmen, they all move 15 feet closer. A wargor also appears from a burning building.
The woodsmen then proceed to kill one of the gors attacking them before it can strike and dodge the remaining gor's blow. Still screaming at Ernst, but a little less hostile about it.
Round 3
Wargor
Pool: ???
Pairs: 2x8, 2x9
Uses 2x9 to command ungors back into the fight. They regroup but can't act this turn.
Ungors (bows) - Size 10
Rolled: 1+3+3+6+6+7+8+9+9+10
Pairs: 2x3, 2x6, 2x9
Attack kas 3x hitting him in the arms and chest/back. Does 2 shock damage to each arm and 2 shock damage to torso after armour is taken into account.
Ungor spears - 1 - Size 9
Regroup, but are too panicked to do anything
Ungor spears - 2 - Size 10
Continue moving towards Kas but can't make it past the minotaurs (RIP bozos)
Kas
Pool: Body (5) + Fight (4) + Passion (1) - 2nd attack (1) - 3rd attack (1) = 8d10
Rolled: 1+4+4+5+7+9+9+10
Pairs: 2x4, 2x9
Runs without sprinting, but attacks gors 2x in the process.
Gors - 1 - Size 1
Breaks towards rest of group 1
Gors - 1 - Size 3 (they're the rest of group 1)
Merge with above to bring group to ⅘ strength
Gors - 2 - Size 5
Rolled: 1+3+4+10+10
Pairs: 2x10
Attack Kas and hit him in the head, forces him to slow (he drops his 2x4). Armed with roughly made battleaxes, the Gors are hitting for Width Killing damage and Width Shock Damage (in this case dealing 2 Killing and 2 Shock damage before armour). As Kas is effectively equipped with 1 point of light armour thanks to his werewolfism, this damage is reduced to 1 Killing and 2 shock damage to the head.
Light Armour acts kind of weird in that a body part with light armour drops all shock damage done to a body part to 1 point, then converts X points of killing damage to shock damage where X is the armour rating. I.E LAR (1) converts 1 killing damage to 1 shock damage, LAR(3) converts 3 points to 3 shock damage, etc.
Minotaur - 1
Minotaur - 2
Move towards kas but get blocked by gors in group 2
Ernst
Opens the hatch automatically
Woodsmen - Size 7
Start falling back towards Ernst
Round 3 Summary
The wargor rallies the ungors by threatening death. Kas, still running, gets clipped in the head by a gor's axe and takes 1K/2S, but immediately swipes at the nearest shape and rips out a throat from Gors - 2. At that point, the ungors with bows open fire hitting him in the arm and back doing 1K/1S to both arms and his torso
The other gor pack regroups, while the minotaurs move towards kas but get stuck behind their brothers.
Ernst opens the hatch, and the woodsmen begin falling back towards it.
Kas rolls 1+2+6+8+9 and regens… nothing.
Kas wounds at the end of round 3.
Roll Hit | Location
1 | Left leg | [o][o][o][o][o][o]
2 | Right leg | [o][o][o][o][o][o]
3-4 | Left arm | [/][/][o][o][o][o]
5-6 | Right arm | [/][/][o][o][o][o]
7-9 | Torso | [/][/][o][o][o][o][o][o][o][o][o][o]
10 | Head | [X][/][/][o][o]
X represents killing damage while / represents shock damage. If a limb's wound boxes are full of killing damage, the limb has been removed/destroyed. If it's full of shock damage, it's some degree of temporarily non functional.
If your head is full of killing damage, you're dead. If your head is full of shock damage, you're unconscious.
Round 4
Wargor
Pool: ???
Pairs: 2x2, 2x7
Runs towards Kas and unsheaths his pitted and bloodstained blade
Ungors (bows) - Size 10
Group 1
Rolled:1+1+2+6+10
Pairs: 2x1
Group 2
Rolled: 3+6+6+8+10
Pairs: 2x6
Split into 2 subgroups at wargor's orders. One fires at Kas, one fires at woodsmen.
Ungor spears - 1 - Size 9
Rolled: 3+4+5+6+7+7+7+8+10
Pairs: 3x7
Moves towards kas and temporarily gets into range to attack. 3x7 success means they hit Kas' torso hit for 3K/1S before armour is taken into account and 2K/2S after armour
Ungor spears - 2 - Size 10
Advances as far as it can but is blocked by minotaurs
Kas
Pool: Coordination (5) + Run (2) + Passion (1)
Rolled: 1+2+4+5+6+6+7+8
Pairs: 2x6
Continues leading beastmen on a chase. Runs an extra 10 feet this round.
Gors - 1 - Size 4
Runs towards woodsmen but is too far to catch up
Gors - 2 - Size 4
Rolled: 4+9+6+9
Pairs: 2x9
Moves to block kas and attack. 2x9 hit deals 2K/2S to Kas' torso before armour and 1K/2S after armour.
Minotaur - 1
Advances as far as it can but is too slow and blocked by gors
Minotaur - 2
Advances towards kas but out of range
Ernst
Escapes through hatch
Woodsmen - Size 7
Rolled: 1+2+3+3+3+6+9
Pairs: 3x3
Spend 3x3 to dodge and start moving through hatch. 2 escape through the hatch, but 4 others are stuck behind a big guy currently trying to wriggle through.
Round 4 Summary
Wargor sprints towards kas and draws his weapon, but fails to catch him; instead orders his bow ungors to split fire between kas and the woodsmen. The gors, meanwhile, slice Kas' chest with their axes for 1K/2S, the ungors stab him in the back for 2K/2S, and the bow ungors pepper his left leg for 2S. Both minotaurs remain frustrated by their allies.
The woodsmen start slipping through the escape hatch, but the bow ungors pepper them with arrows at just the right time and kill two despite thier 3x3 dodge set. This is because dodge sets need to be at least as wide and at least as high as attack sets pitted against them to work.
Kas rolls 2+5+6+8+8 and regens two head shock. Trust me, you don't want head wounds at all as it's super easy to get knocked out if someone is well equipped and you don't have good armour.
Kas wound boxes at the end of round 4.
Roll Hit | Location
1 | Left leg | [/][/][o][o][o][o]
2 | Right leg | [o][o][o][o][o][o]
3-4 | Left arm | [/][/][o][o][o][o]
5-6 | Right arm | [/][/][o][o][o][o]
7-9 | Torso | [X][X][X][/][/][/][/][o][o][o][o][o]
10 | Head | [X][o][o][o][o]
Note: Killing damage (X) replaces shock damage (/) on your wounds table as you receive it. This is why you only have 4 shock damage in your torso despite starting the turn with 2 and receiving an additional 4.
Round 5
Wargor
Pool: ???
Pairs: 3x7, 2x7
Runs after Kas. Gets an extra 10 feet but is at a disadvantage since he started behind.
Kas
Pool: Coordination (5) + Run (2) + Passion (1)
Rolled: 1+1+1+2+4+4+5+9
Pairs: 3x1, 2x4
Runs and gets extra 10 feet.
Ungors (bows) - Size 10
Group 1
Rolled: 4+5+8+10+10
Pairs: 2x10
Group 2
Rolled: 2+5+7+8+8
Pairs: 2x8
Group 1 shoots at kaz and hits the back of his head for 2 shock after armour, group 2 shoots at woodsmen
Gors - 1 - Size 4
Chases woodsmen, is too far
Gors - 2 - Size 4
Moves to chase
Minotaur - 1
Minotaur - 2
Chases kas
Ernst
Escapes into woods
Woodsmen - Size 5
Rolled: 1+5+7+8+10
Pairs:
Run to edge of woods
Round 5 Summary
Kas continues to lead wargor and others on a merry chase, but the bow ungors shoot him in the head for 2S, nearly knocking him out and kill two more woodsmen leaving a total of 5 (including Ernst). Fortunately, both Kas and the woodsmen are now out of range of the bows.
Kas rolls 1+2+2+5+8 to regen and gets a 2x2. I make him regen 2 head shock (again).
Kas wound boxes at the end of round 5.
Roll Hit | Location
1 | Left leg | [o][o][o][o][o][o]
2 | Right leg | [o][o][o][o][o][o]
3-4 | Left arm | [/][/][o][o][o][o]
5-6 | Right arm | [/][/][o][o][o][o]
7-9 | Torso | [X][X][X][/][/][/][/][o][o][o][o][o]
10 | Head | [X][o][o][o][o]
Round 6
Wargor
Pool: ???
Pairs: 2x4
Runs after Kas but fails to catch him
Kas
Pool: Coordination (5) + Run (2) + Passion (1)
Rolled: 2+3+4+7+7+7+9+9
Pairs: 3x7, 2x9
Runs with 3x7 for an extra 15 feet.
Round 6 summary
Kaz escapes into the woods with severe wounds, the remaining beastmen fall back, and the wargor stands outside the ruined gate bellowing challenges.
Kas rolls 1+3+6+8+9 for regen recovering… nothing.
Kas wound boxes at the end of round 6.
Roll Hit | Location
1 | Left leg | [o][o][o][o][o][o]
2 | Right leg | [o][o][o][o][o][o]
3-4 | Left arm | [/][/][o][o][o][o]
5-6 | Right arm | [/][/][o][o][o][o]
7-9 | Torso | [X][X][X][/][/][/][/][o][o][o][o][o]
10 | Head | [X][o][o][o][o]
Fortunately, as he's left combat and had a chance to catch his breath, half the shock damage Kasled has taken fades away. However, as I'm mean, I'm rounding down.
Final Wound Tally
Roll Hit | Location
1 | Left leg | [o][o][o][o][o][o]
2 | Right leg | [o][o][o][o][o][o]
3-4 | Left arm | [/][o][o][o][o][o]
5-6 | Right arm | [/][o][o][o][o][o]
7-9 | Torso | [X][X][X][/][/][o][o][o][o][o][o][o]
10 | Head | [X][o][o][o][o]
Quick as a flash, you sail over the palisade and come down hard, all Ulric-knows-how-many-stones of your body slamming to the ground and scattering the pack of torturous ungors standing with their backs to the wall. Acting more on instinct than rational thought, you don't hesitate as the monsters spring away on impulse, instead snatching up the nearest of the squealing, braying beastmen—a goblin-faced, goat-legged thing wearing a string of human fingers about its neck—and wring it by the neck. For a bare instant, the ungor twitches as your claws punch into its brain, and then, with a howl that shakes the timbers, you tear its head from its shoulders, an arterial spray drenching the living and the dead with hot blood.
For a heartbeat, silence reigns save for the hungry crackle of flames as man and beast stare at you, the pounding drums hushed by your act. As if entranced, the beastmen raiders, even the ones pressing the woodcutter back, stop and stare through the ever-shifting smoke curtain draped over the settlement, your old plan of clambering back up the wall falling from your mind as you spot a hole in the eastern wall.
The better to lead the beasts away, you tell yourself as a kernel of doubt sprouts in the back of your mind.
And then the stillness shatters as the ungors screech in fright, a glimpse in the corner of your eye revealing gors and minotaurs rushing towards you against the fleeing tide.
"Kill. You. All," you lie with a huff before throwing the headless corpse into the drums and shattering them with a crash. Turning on the spot, you do what you've done since Roslas and run.
Bashing aside a pile of shattered barrels with barely an effort, you fairly leap towards the perforated eastern wall as you hear the braying mass charge behind you, flames and embers pouring into the air in vast sheets and lending the night hellish glow. Between one footstep and the next, you curse as you see the tell-tale signs of frenzied axe work on the wall's still-distant timbers, little effort required to imagine how easy it would be for the raider's musclebound minotaurs to deliver the same blows to you. An instant later, the thought vanishes as a victorious cry rises from human throats, a deep-pitched and bestial scream echoing from the West as the number of beastmen afflicting the world drops by one. Grinning wolfishly at the noise, you let out a howl that rattles bones and bashes eardrums before jolting right, quicksilver fast, as a gor larger than any you've seen before barrels out of the smoke, a single step seeing you dodge past the monster so close you can see its bullish face transform into a hateful sneer.
"Snrt," you hear the thing roar as it vanishes behind you. "K-k-kill him!"
Then the creature vanishes as the pall of smoke swallows you whole, the brown-black fog burning your throat and stinging your eyes, its sheer heat prickling your skin.
"Fight!" The voice brays again. "Fight or d-d-d-diiiiiiie."
Tearing through a blazing tent with a great rip of tearing canvas, you almost think the leader-beast too late. An instant later, some instinct flares, and you twist just in time to see a black-edged axe sailing toward you, pain splitting your skull as it strikes true and sends a brace of stars flashing across your vision. Rebounding off the blow, surprised, blood rushing down your snout, you give a low growl and lash out with your scimitar claws. A thud follows, and a sound like ripping cloth fills the air as a throat appears in your hand as if by sorcery, its ram-headed gor owner dropping out of the smoke and clutching its ruined neck in vain. A moment later, it too vanishes as your sprint continues, a hoarse whinnying cry making your fur stand on end.
Not stopping to see what made the noise, you reorient yourself toward the nearest glow and charge forward, a sound like leather on flesh snapping past your ear a second later. Before you can do much more than wonder at its source, you have your answer as a dozen star-bright flares of pain suddenly erupt across your back and arms as arrows pierce the air and then you. Yelping, you stumble for a split second before catching yourself, luck more than anything allowing you to regain your footing.
"Go," you swear you hear a man shout as you continue your madcap dash through the blaze, the crackle of the flames almost overwhelming his words. "Go through!"
Praying that the beastmen are still chasing you but too scared to look behind you, you choose that moment to zig, an arrow whipping past your head and sailing into the night a heartbeat after. Laughing at your luck, the sound rendered horrible by your twisted throat, you almost miss it when swirling shadows step in front of the still-distant glow. Almost.
With a wordless cry, a mass of figures burst from the inky smoke, a forest of spears and a fistful of axes soaring towards you. Like a boar, you spear yourself, sheer momentum pushing the spear into your chest and driving the axe heads deep. Then, like a boar, you barrel through the mass of shrieking gors and ungors, the crack of broken bones filling the air as mass and speed conspire to render you unstoppable. Ripping the spear out of your chest with a roar, you toss it blindly into the smoke and then yelp as another arrow thunks into the meat of your thigh.
I'm not, you concede as you cut left, cut out for bait.
Then the smoke clears, revealing your goal: the smashed open palisade wall laying bare before you, beckoning you onward. Casting a glance over your shoulder, a savage laugh escapes your lips as you see the last of the woodcutters wriggling through a hole in the palisade wall, a pack of gors slipping on the remnants of their victims as they desperately try to reach them.
They're free! You think as you race through the blazing portal and into the open land beyond, the oppressive heat vanishing as swiftly as the sunset as cold air washes over you and the forest's protective embrace looms ahead. They've only gone and done it. Ulric, I-
Something slams into the back of your head with the force of a falling tree, a steel claw piercing your skull at the base of your neck, your vision blurring. Convulsing, your stomach churning at the pain, you stumble halfway to the ground before catching yourself and clapping a hand to the back of your head, the coarse grain of an arrow suddenly between your fingers. Without thinking, without stopping, you wrench it free with a scream and drop it behind you, the steel claw vanishing as you feel the wound knit close, the trees closing around you as the settlement vanishes.
Fools, you think, as the beastmen follow, a bitter kind of glee filling your thoughts as you lead them deeper into the woods and away from their erstwhile prey.
How long they chase you, how long it takes for them to spend themselves and grow exhausted, you cannot say, but it takes quite some time before the last of their shouts and roars fade to nothing. Slowing to a halt in an unfamiliar patch of trees—your many wounds healed, though sore—you cock your head askance and listen for the sounds of pursuit for a long while before accepting that you've lost them. Panting, your body shaking with an admixture of adrenaline and exhaustion, you feel your changes slink away as you lean against a fallen log, your lupine form receding and leaving you draped across its age-greyed timbers.
"Thank you," you gasp between breaths as you press your forehead against the log's surface, the words directed both within and without as weariness cradles you in its soft embrace.
Closing your eyes, you repeat the words, your wolf stirring lazily but remaining silent.
Huddled against the tree's moss-covered surface, you earnestly consider staying put until the End Times, the fuzzy greenery invitingly soft beneath your touch and the air's chill growing less bitter with every passing moment. However, just as you feel yourself begin to nod off, a terrible burning stings the back of your hand. Startled awake, you jerk back with a stifled cry and blink at the white blur upon your hand, rheumy eyes resolving the formless thing into a perfect snowflake. Brushing it away with a curse, you look up at the darkening sky and let out an irritated yowl as you see an army of snowflakes wafting gently down, another shining crystal landing on unprotected skin and sending a cold fire racing up your arm as its chill touch invades your body.
As before, your wolf spirit doesn't speak, but a need for warmth and shelter flickers to life within you, hazy memories of Varrel rising, unbidden, to your mind.
Groaning as you realise it's right, that you'll die if you stay here, you push yourself to rise onto unsteady feet and try to change your form once again. An instant later, you let out a gasp as a wave of nausea strikes you, your temples pounding in time with your heartbeat and a sudden shake coursing up your body. You don't need to be a healer to know that you've pushed yourself too far, too fast; your marathon pursuit of the beastmen and the battles you've fought brought your body to the edge of its capabilities.
Barely forcing down the urge to vomit, you lean against the traitor log for a moment to catch your breath before forcing yourself to start shuffling north, each swing of your leaden limbs requiring an act of will to push yourself forward. Slowly at first, sheer exhaustion hampering you at every turn, you pick your way towards where foggy memories tell you Varrel lies, one footstep after another restoring a measure of warmth to your much-abused body even as the snowfall quickens around you. Picking up speed as your body warms, your muscles unlocking as if ice were melting within them, you ignore the searing pain that rises from within them and pull tight the remnants of your shirt against your chest, a breeze sending blades of icy cold through the gashes and holes the beastmen left in its once handsome fabric.
"Bastards," you mutter to your wolf, a confused agreement meeting you.
It was a good shirt, a hidden part of you adds.
Thereafter, silence reigns as the challenge of trudging through the falling snow grows more imposing, the yielding ground swallowing your feet at every footstep and draining your energy like no other ground you've ventured across. Several times, a warning from your wolf spirit alerts you just before you fall; its silent cries allow you to catch yourself just in time to stop a tumble as you make your way north. Steadily, the snow continues to fall, cruel winds stirring the flurries this way and that, and every gust robbing you of a little more warmth. Hunched over against the cold and shivering wildly, the world contracts to a point as your focus turns to survival, every sound but the slow thump of your heart and the quiet rasp of your breath vanishing from your mind. On and on it goes as you progress, the snowfall growing steadily heavier and the winds growing steadily worse until all before you is a haze; the moon Mannslieb nowhere to be seen and its silver light vanished from sight.
Reduced to a mindless advance, all about you dark and misty, you almost miss it when the first orange glow peeks through the haze of snow; the flickering beacon describing the trees around you with the absence of its light and sending a pulse of fear through the iced-over channels of your mind.
The beastmen, you think slowly, your mind turgid and unwieldy from the cold. I must have gotten turned around and continued the way I came.
Prodding the beast within for answers, it takes you a moment to realise that you're still walking, your legs taking on a life of their own as another beacon joins the first, then another, and then another.
I must still be far, you think to yourself, almost conversationally, as you continue. For those fires to seem so small, they must still be a goodly distance away. I'll soon be killed.
In truth, the prospect did not seem so terrible. Between the cutting frost and the feeling in your limbs that now went beyond exhaustion, beyond words, a final rest in Morr's Underworld or an eternal hunt by Ulric's side had its appeal. Though if you had a choice, the sleep of cold after saving the innocent seemed a kinder way to it than a beastman's axe or a dread wizard's spell.
Finding yourself chuckling for reasons you can't quite work out, you fall headfirst into the snow without warning, the crunch of frost breaking beneath your body the only sound to reach your ears. Pushing your head through the snow, its bitter sting now a lover's kiss, you gaze at the still distant fires and wonder what will kill you first: beastmen or exposure. The axe or the cold. Still pondering the question as the darkness closes in—the idea of a world beyond the confines of your mind fading to nought—you don't notice when the wind shifts towards you, freshly baked bread the last thing you smell before unconsciousness claims you as its own.
Article: Kasled is a man who has seen and done much these past few days. As he lays in the snow, passing into unconsciousness some distance outside Varrel, what does he dream about?
[] The Beastmen
Blood and smoke. Hoof and horn. Something evil breeds in the Forest of Shadows, and its evil seeps like glistening oil.
[] The Elector-Count
Cold stones. Colder hearts. A white flame gutters low, and a child and its mother scream as one.
[] The Survivors
Hope and terror. Safety and danger. Braying herds shake the walls and spill steaming blood on the snow; hungry eyes turn north to a familiar town.
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Turns out that your not particularly tactically educated doctor can make a mediocre plan work by executing it violently. Granted he took a lot of damage and drove himself to exhaustion doing it, but you saved more than I thought you would (hence only Ernst having a name).
Also, apologies for the delays in getting this out. I had a distraction in the form of some of the very strange decisions made RE Boris Todbringer's family.
Also, apologies for the delays in getting this out. I had a distraction in the form of some of the very strange decisions made RE Boris Todbringer's family.
Claudette Savagely
Ball of flies
- Location
- (and made of) Parts Unknown
Speed and violence of action do a hell of a lot work.
We dream of the pack.
[X] The Survivors
Hope and terror. Safety and danger. Braying herds shake the walls and spill steaming blood on the snow; hungry eyes turn north to a familiar town.
Although the goats to be slain shall be next in our thoughts, one suspects.
We dream of the pack.
[X] The Survivors
Hope and terror. Safety and danger. Braying herds shake the walls and spill steaming blood on the snow; hungry eyes turn north to a familiar town.
Although the goats to be slain shall be next in our thoughts, one suspects.
[X] The Elector-Count
I'm really curious about this one.
I'm really curious about this one.