What Went on Before
Mugwump (ranger), Aewdil (cleric/ranger) and Errol the Druid chased a rumor that a bronze dragon lived south of Areavir and spent a good 2 weeks traipsing about the mountains seeking out this beast. After meeting the dragon at mountain lake they learned that dragons eat gems as food. In exchange for bringing a sack of gem, the dragon would lend it's help in repelling the growing fishman invasion in the east.
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| "Bronze Buddy" |
Supplied with the bag of gems, the dragon drew the trio into it's claws and flew to the mustering point of the Aearviran/Arkabalist armies.
Concurrently a force of several hundred blackened skeletons arrived. Kel had joined the battle! Of course the news wasn't all good. The ranking Arkabalan primarch, Amkur, had been slain by a demon it seemed, a floating worm of immense size that was surrounded by sickening mist. Now Kel was the defacto head of the Arkbalans in the Mupple Vale. Should they survive the coming battle, a new primarch would be elected.
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| Artist depiction of the demon, according to eye-witness reports. |
The City of Aeravir also had refreshed its ranks with troops from the siege of Ft. Greenwalk, where Kel's surprise arrival broke the defenders in a decisive battle. On the far right flank a tribe of pigmen had joined with promise of loot and fishmen flesh. Finally, the Stormbringers were also present in the center of the allied lines, while the Nighthawks moved to secure the old Fishman holes in the villages near the ruin of Ft. Westop.
The Battle Begins!
The allied forced marched towards Oriskavia where hundreds and hundreds of fishmen gathered. Every day more fishmen were swimming out of the sea and joining the horde.
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| Precision military grade schematic. |
As the battle line was being dressed, the demon materialized above the bronze dragon, and began to attack! Panic began to set in here as players scrambled to get into position or defend themselves against what was to come.
As pre-planned, a Nighthawk illusionist cast _invisibility_ on the monk, Jeremy, who had specific orders to infiltrate the fishmen groups and locate their leadership, who had seen before on a previous intelligence raid.
Now, I had been preparing as a DM for this battle for a long time. There was a wealth of magic interactions, spells, and even psionic powers to consider. The demon had already taken out the high level cleric NPC/patron and was aiming to eliminate the player's biggest weapon, the dragon. As luck would have it, stupid dice rolls ruined all this!
The first action was a wave of magical paralysis that the dragon shook off with a save, which then countered with a breath attack. The demon only needed a low roll to save, which promptly meant a "2" came up. As a DM, I can only say that the sense of impending failure was high within. The epic battle wasn't going to even last 2 minutes! The breath weapon did 45 pts of damage, which was enough to liquidate the demon right then and there.
Of course the players cheered, the bastards. They capitalize on this by ordering a general advance. Jeremy notes the fishmen high priestess is anguished, and uses her screams of rage and terror to locate her entourage.
Kel's skeletal legion smashed headlong into the first fishmen units. All the payers now get a good glimpse of the tactics employed by this force - darkness spells, _prayer_, and 15' military forks! The effect is devastating and the fishmen masses are slaughtered in great numbers. Only the allied pigmen are pushed back. Every other advance is gaining ground and inflicting heavy losses.
By the morale rules, the effects of one fishmen unit disentegrating under extreme casualties triggers additional morale checks at heavy penalty. The route becomes widespread, and soon almost the entire fihsmen horde is fleeing the battlefield. Fishmen are cut down in scores as they are chased into the ruined city as fast as the infantry can follow.
In this chaos Jeremy elects to close while invisible on the evil high priestess, tackling her in now standard monk-linebacker fashion. The result is the evil priestess is stunned and under the monk's torrent of strikes. The issue is that Jeremy is surrounded by the bodyguards of the priestess. Luckily for Jeremy, the next round Bronze Buddy descends from the sky and lands on top of one of these bodyguards/assistant clerics, dealing a successful overbear in the form of "a dragon sits on you". It's an instant death for that guy, and then the fear aura kicked in. One of the clerics is not affected, and prepares to make stand in the name of its hideous goddess LAMALLA.
The players win the next round initiative, so again Bronze Buddy burps out a bolt of lightning, which unfortunately also hits Jeremy and the priestess he is beating into the ground. Jeremy makes his save but still is smarting, though he is alive. The cleric is shocked to death.
The Stormbringers by now have pushed into the city wharf. They find the ship the priestess used to enter the city with and rake her with repeated volleys of missile fire, killing most of the human-ish crew attempting to surrender. Today, there are no prisoners!
The combined treasure of the priestess and he buccaneers crew is piled up and sorted. Throughout the city the echoes of the battle are fading as the last pockets of fishmen survivors are put to the sword. A few fishmen make it to the water and swim into the deep.
The treasure gained is a huge collection of 80 gems and a bizarre potion, which an identify spell reveals to be an elixir of madness!
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| Who would be crazy enough to drink this? |
XP (119321 XP TOTAL), Ratings
Gerolt F2
Franz I1
Charles T2
Tasso C3
Ove F1
Aewdil R2/C1
Kel C1
Israfel A1
Marten MU1
Jeremy M1
83874 XP defeating monsters PLUS 35457 XP for treasure taken for 119321 XP TOTAL
XP was initially calculated at 7273 per PC/henchman. We elected that for future battles we would use the XP awards similar to ACKS, where the XP value of things defeated were attributed to you by the proportion of the troops under your command, except in cases where you personally defeated a monster.
Additional treasure awards were broken out like:
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