The Harbinger of Ferocity

Describe your favourite game in a nutshell

Dungeons and Dragons:
Arm your actual friends with incredibly powerful weapons and magic, then watch them make terrible life choices for themselves under the guise of pretending to be other people who "adventure" for a living while using oddly shaped dice.

D&D 5e - Hoard of the Dragon Queen

The startling shout at last signaled the fellow's descent from the skies above, collapsing into a frothing heap made up of battered and bruised flesh, but off again was the orc - ranting and raving as though he was possessed, which was quite apparently an ever increasing probability. Something had him in its throes, but just what it was no one, perhaps not even Orchid, knew yet it had the vibrant spirit to spur him from his dazed stupor by impact, one that would regularly have killed a man, and off to the edge of the stone ramparts; he yelled and spat, his bloodied lips smacking with incoherent but focused anger. Only narrowly had a guardsman been able to save his own life by avoiding the almost nude berserker, others surely dodging his charge as well, now left to watch along with his remaining company as the orc panted and collapsed, adding nothing more than, ”Hgn. Dragon gone.”

We can only hope it is.

Brannor spoke but to himself in thought, exhaling a long, deserved breath as the exhilaration of the battle petered out into nothingness. All that remained was the badly wounded guard and any other defender that took up arms here, the rest was destruction or death. The priestess, or what the imposing man could recall her as, knelt down to lay her hand upon the either foolishly brave or bravely foolish warrior. With a glimmer to her hands, she rekindled the light in his heart, the same that was nearly snuffed out and near effortlessly mended his injuries in a way that suggested a particular talent for the art of healing.

"I will see to it then." Brannor responded, looking the woman over as she took added time to rise to her feet, her own body obviously taxed.

If anyone was going to rouse the half-blood to his feet by muscle alone, it would be the hunter whose frame was no stranger to hauling arms, armor and quarry across rugged wilderness. What changed really now, was that this wilderness was worked by the hands of mortal men and that the thing to be carried was an unconscious man. Short of this, at least they could get off the damned wall before the lightning-gifted leviathan could return for another pass. They fought the beast off once, by divine mandate it seemed. The second time was unlikely to be so successful.

Approaching Orchid, whose body now bore not even the faint echo of the worst he sustained tonight, Brannor took a moment to note both the robed man and his strange icy stalk he had crafted with magic; it bloomed at its top as though it were a mushroom. It did not resemble anything he had ever understood or seen before, but wizardry and sorcery were strange arts. What was stranger yet was that the elder knew something of the Sylvan tongue, or at least owned a tome of the text, and more oddly kept vaguely familiar berries on his person. The outlander knew well what a druid was, but this timeworn fellow was off in his own ways as he fit none of those descriptions in just one way. There was reason to be suspicious, enough to nag at Brannor even now when he looked upon him again.

Brannor provided Torus with an ever so wary and subtle nod whilst sharing a glance, otherwise the man kept his keen senses scrying for another pass by the dragon. After putting his bow to rest, as well as the once knocked arrow, he knelt down to rest his arm around the half orc's back in preparation to drag the man out of the open where he fell into his stupor.

"Help the woman with the rest while I move him out of here." Brannor announced to any of their party who would listen, paying no mind if they did or did not act; that was on their heart and conscious, not his.

With the gritting of his broad jaw some, he hefted the sizable casualty as best he could with uncanny efficiency, ensuring he would not just simply drag Orchid wholly across the ground. There were a number of reasons for this, not the least of which was to avoid awakening the man from his unconsciousness with what might be seen as an attack.

Effects

Brannor has a Strength score of 18 and dragging an object multiplies this amount by x30. He can push, drag or lift objects weighing up to 540lbs. Because he is dragging an object, his speed is set to 5ft. He avoids any obstacles that he can while moving Orchid inside the entryway he was using earlier for cover and concealment.

@Hekazu@Ryonara@Lucius Cypher@Gordian Nought@Norschtalen

D&D 5e - Hoard of the Dragon Queen

I would say that's a reasonable excuse for not being around as much as you would in the norm, @Norschtalen.

Favorite underrated monster

@JaceBeleren, @gcold, yet they are astoundingly more polite and purposeful than the typical spam bots that assault the forums almost nightly in their attempts to encourage us to buy furniture, gamble or some combination of both, while shoutig at us in Hangul.

That said, I suppose to return to the topic, animals as a whole and magical beasts in Dungeons and Dragons are very underrated. Usually they are played as mindless drones by Dungeon Masters, just fodder for the players to slaughter in their quest for experience points. They seldom make up anything of importance or memorability, but I find that playing the beasts true to their actual nature tends to challenge the party pretty significantly. Scaling ultimately gets the better of them, but I have lost more players to predatory creatures of this sort than anything else.

Mind you I tend to play exceptionally low magic settings, so beasts tend to be more reasonably dangerous.

D&D 5e - Hoard of the Dragon Queen

The language the terrible blue dragon spoke with unceremonious directness clouded its boastfulness from the ears of many of the men below on the ramparts; the leaping sparks that danced from its even more terrible jaws were enough to mark its vendetta against the hin. They did not know of the "dialogue" the two had engaged in, although at this moment even if they did they likely would not have cared. It was only with the strong, whipping beat of scaled wings that the attacker proved to distance itself from but a stone's throw away and into the night beyond, ending the exchange on its mysterious terms.

Cowl still drawn over his head, the hunter emerged with bow at the ready as his wild heart was still well in the fight, tracking first the sound until his eyes could make out the distant shadow; the creature was gone, mayhap only for a moment, but with it so too was something else amiss. Lowering the weapon, easing the string forward, Brannor listened over the sounds of the wounded men, those few alive but forever maimed by searing lightning, for anything that sounded remotely like the orc's warcry, but found himself instead in apparent silence to that voice.

The entire field of battle atop the wall was littered with scorched stone, air full of static charge and ice crystals, and visibly numerous with arrows and arms abandoned by the living and dead alike, all strewn about... but none appeared to be the mad half-blood.

Turning on point at the sole of his traveled boot, having felt the hairs upon his neck stand on end to something his eyes could not yet see instead rather his spirit felt, Brannor witnessed the other man's return to the earth.

@Hekazu@Ryonara@Lucius Cypher@Gordian Nought@Norschtalen

The Lost Lands

Unfortunately it has become apparent that one of the players will be withdrawing, and thus with two players this adventure is exceedingly unlikely. I will keep this topic open for a few more days, but failing at least one more applicant to replace the now lost individual, this game will sadly be no more.

The Lost Lands

@Mister, @Big Dread, @Zverda, please post your Myth-Weaver character sheet links here.

D&D 5e - Hoard of the Dragon Queen

I admit I am impressed Orchid survived, thankful at that, but what a whirlwind of unexpected events this has been in one encounter. If no one posts by this evening, I certainly will. As for pinning the map, I would say either in the initial post, or in hider beneath the now cleared initiative order.

D&D 5e - Hoard of the Dragon Queen

I cannot say I am surprised that the dragon did feel legitimately angered, @Hekazu. That maneuver was a bold move on @Ryonara's part, but thus far, quite a few characters have undertaken bold actions. On a related note to that, I am assuming it is @Lucius Cypher's quasi-turn?

The Lost Lands

Thus far we have a fighter and an arcane spellcaster or pseudo-arcane type. That leaves @Mister, mainly. Please state your classes and current intents, @Zverda, @Big Dread, just so it is formal.