[] Saved the village of Akal from a Beastmen raiding party. You and your best friend, Belle, had spotted the flames from a hill where you were sparring. You were the first to saddle your horse, and told her to go back to the Citadel to get help. When you arrived, five houses were on fire, and the savages had already killed six people. You ran in there, alone against over a hundred furred monsters surrounding you. You held out long enough for reinforcements to arrive and drive off the rest. (Trait: Hundred Beast Slayer)
[x] Against a renegade Mage from Slenait. One of the students from the Guild had gone mad, and was carving a path of destruction towards Aranbi. The Silver Pendant knew that they couldn't allow her to reach the Province, else the storehouse would burn. So, it gathered up all of it's forces and marched to face the threat. You were among the forces arrayed against the Mage. She killed over a half of your thousands strong force, before you finally put her down. You somehow made it through her defenses, sinking your lance through her chest. (Trait: Anti-Magic)
[X] Being called away by one of the female camp followers. It was pretty obvious what she wanted, but you were already slightly drunk off ale.
[X] Teeth….claws….impossible strength….your bones breaking. (Werewolf Brute)
[X] Someone you didn't know, but feltsorry for nonetheless. (Sire is alive)
Going with this.
Also:
[] Against a renegade Mage from Slenait. One of the students from the Guild had gone mad, and was carving a path of destruction towards Aranbi. The Silver Pendant knew that they couldn't allow her to reach the Province, else the storehouse would burn. So, it gathered up all of it's forces and marched to face the threat. You were among the forces arrayed against the Mage. She killed over a half of your thousands strong force, before you finally put her down. You somehow made it through her defenses, sinking your lance through her chest. (Trait: Anti-Magic)
What? A freaking
student from the Mage Guild goes mad, carves a path towards the nation's farmland with the intent to burn it down, and she toasts 500 fighters before being put down... Holy quadratic wizards, Batman.
How freaking powerful is magic if a single goddam student can rampage across the country and only massed armies can stop them?
Where the hell were the other mages during this? Sitting around with their thumbs up their bums while the nation goes through medieval 9/11?
Are there any defenses a well-equipped and trained soldier could use against magic users? Either something simple like metal shields or armor that resists fire, etching crosses or religions symbols or wards on armor to resist magic attacks, etc. If this setting has a functioning mage guild and the mages there aren't developing defenses against magic attacks then what good are they?
I mean, if the student was summoning demons or undead or something (which basically means they could conjure up their own army of 1,000 strong given enough time and those soldiers were being sent to hunt down the minions as much as the mage herself) then that would make sense. If she was using some manner of mind-control and sending out mind-controled civilians, and the soldiers had resistance to mind control ("Keep these silver-tinted lenses over your eyes and this tin foil padding under your helmet. Do
not take them off until the mage is dead!") then that also makes sense if the forces were trying to subdue hostile civilians without killing them. Or maybe she was setting off the setting's equivilent of a bomb and summoning clouds of madness or some other unconventional warfare thing. That could work.
But the idea that a single student mage can just run around throwing fireballs and neither the teachers, the guards around the school, or any of the other people who's supposed job it is to deal with combat magic can deal with this in a more efficient manner sounds wrong. If that magic school wasn't reduced to rubble with some kind of hidden
bomb, and the teacher and faculty all
dead, then I imagine they'd have some freakin' explaining to do when the nation's military had to zerg-rush a thousand soldiers at single mage and none of the old farts at the mage guild did anything to help.
But anyway, I'm liking this quest so far and there's no need to changing everything, but... yeah. The idea that one mad magic student is equivalent to half a thousand trained soldiers and there's like no other way to better handle this situation just brings up hilarious images to mind.
Actually... I'm going with it. I was going to go with the "Gaston is a beast hunter" route... but now I'm genuinely curious how it would go if manly Gaston saw five hundred or so of his brothers-in-arms get killed by a single freakin' bookworm, he had to stab her through the chest to keep her from putting farmlands to the torch, what exactly the mage guild would have to say about this, and the absolutely massive fallout this event should have on the nation.
Also, a superstrong werewolf with PTSD against magic and students.
~Gaston and the mob enter the enchanted castle~
Gaston: Alright men! We'll track down that beast and deal with him once and for all!
Enchanted furniture: Attack!
Gaston: *Becomes a werewolf as he goes into flashbacks of his traumatizing battle.*
~hours later~
Gaston: *covered in blood and smashing a still-twitching dresser* Damm you! Damm you to hell! *snaps out of his berzerker rage and slowly turns human.* Oh... oh God... WHO'D I KILL?
Lefou: Nobody. You saved everyone!
Villager: Except that one guy the dresser fell onto. *points to pulped villager under the dresser Gaston was smashing*
Lefou: Also, you killed the Beast.
Villager: The real one. Not your curse, or inner demons or whatever.
Gaston: *blinks and looks at the horribly mangled body of the Beast, then back at his own hands, stained red with the blood of both enemy and friend alike.* Yeah... right. Well... let's burn down the castle and everything inside. There's magic in here. No good can come of it.
