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BattleCorp™: Combatant Creator

The main drawback of the Tabletop RPs, I've noticed, is that they can't get very far without the active participation of the GM.

The Horde of Evil - Tresspassing through treacherous tribes' territory! (RP closed)

After That Which Consumes Peace finished his counter-accusation, there came the critical moment. Now it was the Master's turn to act, and that realisation seemed to hit the Keeper pretty hard. The Keeper hesitated, while Torrens watched and within his mind judged the Keeper. Unlike most of the beings here, who were first timers when it came to serving Keepers, Torrens had served many Keepers before this one over many Ages of Evil. This Keeper was not an expert leader or diplomat, but that could be forgiven since Keepers very rarely if ever have to settle disputes among their own minions. In all the past Ages Keepers had conjured their own minions and Constructs, which often varied from loyal to unerringly obedient, and took only one or two Rogue Beings. However, inside this Dungeon were not one or two but at least thirteen Rogue Beings, including himself, filling a full spectrum of loyalty and temper. He could understand why the Master might err at this moment.

With this analysis in mind, Torrens deduced that the casting of the shadow spell on the slaves was to buy time to think more than any other reason, especially given the slow way he cast it, individually rather than all at once. Given that time, the Keeper had finally found words to say and berated the two beings standing before him. Then he passed judgement and punishment. With Shukra, he confiscated the stolen slaves. What he did with That Which Consumes Peace, though, made Torrens stand to attention. In the warlock's hand materialised a whip of concentrated soulflame, which Torrens instantly recognised. Before he could so much as take a step, yet alone grab a sample, the which cracked and it was gone as fast as it had appeared. He admired the control the Keeper had over the flame, controlling the strike such that the shadowy demon's soul would only be slightly burned, not catch fire and be completely immolated. For soulflame is tricky stuff to contain indeed- the foul magic behind it makes the green flames almost alive, seeking out a soul to burn unless the utmost care is taken. The moment was over, but Torrens made sure to remember that the Master had the power and knowledge to summon soulflame.

With the scene over and business shifting back to dividing up the loot, Torrens left the chamber and sought out a room to call his own. Unlike most of the other denizens, who would be satisfied with any room provided it had suitable furnishings, Torrens needed a room which would contain his thermal energy and minimise his heat loss. A lava pit would be ideal, but lacking that he knew what would be second best. He entered the Dungeon's forge, which was occupied at this time by imps preparing for the influx of metal to work with. He walked up to a group of them and said, "I have a request- well, an order, really. Build me a room behind the furnace. Reroute the furnace's exhaust into that room, so as to keep it hot. You'll probably need to conceive something to stop the smoke from coming out the doorway filling the rest of the Dungeon. And I want it done quickly. Understood?"

These imps, however, were not keen on taking up extra work. "Bah, find yerself another room. We got work 'ere to do."

In response to that Torrens slammed his hand onto the bench beside the imp and leaned over so his face was right up close to the imp. Although this imp was a furnace worker, being in such close proximity to Torrens was still deeply uncomfortable and even somewhat painful and the imp was forced to shy back. "It wasn't optional," Torrens snarled, "You build me that room, or else you'll be getting to know me a bit too... closely. Understand now?" The imp swallowed hard and nodded. Getting the response he wanted, Torrens stood back up and returned to normal tones, the only sign of his anger before being the deep, red-hot smoking hand-print in the workbench. "Good. Get to work. I haven't got much better to do." As the imps prepared to dig, Torrens went to the furnace and sat down at its opening. It wasn't particularly hot for a furnace, since it wasn't in use, but it definitely beat standing in the cold cave.

The Horde of Evil - Tresspassing through treacherous tribes' territory! (RP closed)

Ha, I like how everyone is getting all pissed at Narza eating some souls, but when Athinar takes Meat right off the bat, nobody complains. I guess being big and bad has its advantages.

@Athinar

I guess it is more that Athinar took only one person, which is fair and reasonable, while some invisible ghost is feasting on the souls of many slaves and will probably eat all of them if not stopped.

The Horde of Evil - Tresspassing through treacherous tribes' territory! (RP closed)

Torrens' attention was briefly drawn from the argument and fight developing before him as some of the humans started falling to the ground, unconscious. It appeared evident that one of the soul eaters of the party was at work here, taking an early pick of the spoils. "Don't forget to leave some for the others," Torrens berated the invisible entity. While he himself didn't particularly care about the slaves, he felt like doing his bit to maintain order in the Dungeon. One fight would be enough for the moment. They didn't need another fight if everyone turned around to discover the slaves they wanted all useless. His piece said, he turned back to observe the unfolding spectacle.

The Horde of Evil - Tresspassing through treacherous tribes' territory! (RP closed)

The scene that unfolded with Shukra caught Torrens' attention, like the attention of just about everyone in the room. Contrary to Shukra's suspicion, Torrens did not 'leap right onto him in a moment'. That fire was little greater than a campfire, which made it nothing more than a morsel to the well-fed demon of heat, and leaping onto people was rude. Torrens did make a mental note that the big cat warrior chieftain could summon fire, though, especially when mad, and filed it away for later use.

Torrens watched in amusement as the great chieftain was reduced to pleading for forgiveness from the Keeper. He filed that away also, in case it every became necessary to humiliate Shukra. Then came the accusation against That Which Consumes Peace. Things just got interesting, and he was mighty glad that he was watching from the sidelines because things could get nasty really quickly. Either way, someone would walk away from this confrontation having made a rather poor early impression.

While Torrens had not been in a position to properly observe most of the raid, he was not surprised that someone had done a little bit of indiscriminate killing. Almost never had he seen so many individual Rogue Beings assembled under one Dungeon Keeper, so it was almost certain that some of them would be bad eggs. Especially That Which Consumes Peace. That demon looked shifty and had a shifty name. Torrens, on the other hand, had more self control. While his purpose in life might be to burn things, he was more than experienced and smart enough to know what not to burn and when not to burn things. If he had gone around killing his Keeper's minions for fun, or even for short term personal gain, he would have built up a poor reputation rather quickly. Depending on how this confrontation went, Torrens might give That Which Consumes Peace a bit of advice in that regard.

BattleCorp™: Combatant Creator

Hello there @KabenSaal! Good to see you here.

I count 8 stat points used in your character's stat block, when we're meant to start with 7.
As for leveling up, we're already at level 2. Behemoth will probably want you to start at level 2, so you don't get steamrolled. Level 2 yields 4 stat points and 1 skill point (unless otherwise stated, 1 skill point buys one skill/trait).

IMO, 3 Energy is a small cost for an attack which does double damage. Behemoth has the final word, of course, but that's my thought.

Have fun!

The Horde of Evil - Tresspassing through treacherous tribes' territory! (RP closed)

Torrens was also in the chamber when the Master had congratulated the lot of them on their destruction of the village. He was pacing in a corner, with everyone who could help it keeping their distance from the searing incandescence of the demon. In fact, his mere presence in the room for the minutes they had been there would have made the temperature of that chamber uncomfortably warm. As for the offer of the loot, Torrens was rather detached from it. No material goods could possibly benefit him unless they were either enchanted completely against heat or were combustible and in very large quantity, and none of the loot fitted either category. "I have no use for any of this stuff," Torrens announced.

As discussion shifted to plans of further raids, his attention was grabbed. "I'd be happy to come along, although I'm afraid that I can't be of much help if your plans don't accommodate frontal assaults or lots of fire. As you can tell," Torrens said, gesturing to his incandescent self, "I'm not well built for subtlety. But I can burn things really well. Especially if I get a chance to before I radiate all this energy away."

It then hit Torrens that he hadn't killed anything during the raid, and as for burning things he had set one house alight in passing and that was it. He would be annoyed if he hadn't been able to feast on the blacksmith's forge, but since he had Torrens was quite content with the outcome of that raid. There had been no villagers he had seen which had been worth expending energy in killing, so his active presence wouldn't have been missed. When they actually found something worth fighting, though, then things would get fun.

The Horde of Evil - Tresspassing through treacherous tribes' territory! (RP closed)

I felt quotes was the simplest and least ambiguous way to respond to specific fragments of dialogue, especially since our characters don't have any colours associated with their speech. Perhaps not the prettiest way, but effective all the same.

The Horde of Evil - Tresspassing through treacherous tribes' territory! (RP closed)

Torrens stood upright as all the Fire Spirits burst out of the ground and flew across the village, hunting for bodies. He smiled at the sight of fire everywhere, despite the fact that it wasn't burning anything.

"That, is what it does. And, that is what I was waiting here for. I am glad that nobody tried to interupt me while I was doing that. Small rituals are fine, but something this size would be likely to spill Muspelheim into our realm, and make the area contained in this rune an eternal super-lava pit, and the increase in temprature would affect everything for miles and miles, which would basically screw up the eco-system and, in fifty or so years, make this a hunk of rock with a highly unpredictable weather pattern"

"That sounds pretty good, actually. Could you do that some time?" Torrens said, with a laugh to let the others know that he wasn't entirely serious. An eternal lava pit would be exactly what Torrens wanted, although destroying the world to have it may make some of his allies a little unhappy. "Maybe just a small one."

"So, I think I have just sorted out the central heating problem in the Dungeon"

Torrens' face lit up at the thought. "Yes! About time we fixed that."

"Ow....remind me to work on the flying when we get back"

"I could help with that. I've got some experience with rocket flight," Torrens offered. He was sincere, since he was starting to like Emily. She was useful- she generated fire, he ate it. He could see the benefit of staying on her good side.

Looking around to the rising bodies, and the village which was now empty save for the zombies and themselves, Torrens remarked, "I think we're done here. I'll see if I can get back to the Dungeon without burning down too much forest." He waved to Clotho and Emily and started the trek back to the Dungeon.

The Horde of Evil - Tresspassing through treacherous tribes' territory! (RP closed)

Torrens had been having such a good time, lavishing in the temperatures of the blacksmith's furnace, that he had completely lost track of time. At one point Octavius had popped by briefly to check that the blacksmith had been secured, but despite that brief interruption Torrens may have sat there until all the coal in the house had been consumed, if beautifully sung lyrics didn't drift their way across the entire village. Torrens took it as a wake-up call, and finally crawled out of the furnace and stepped into the room proper. He was in much better condition than at the start of the raid. His skin had gone from a dull to a bright shade of red. The stones beneath his feet were already red-hot after only a few moments of contact. And his incandescence was visible, like that of hot coals.

The blacksmith backpedaled away from Torrens as he walked ahead, in case the demon had decided to turn on him, but Torrens instead went for the door and opened it, leaving a blackened imprint of his hand about a centimeter deep in the wood. He poked his head outside and looked both ways, and discovered that the raid was almost at a close. There were bodies down the main road, some with mortal wounds or mutilation, others just stone cold dead, some unhurt but unconscious and unmoving. The other raiders were leaving the village, with prisoners in tow, and some raiders were leaving the village in a great hurry. And near the center of the village stood Emily, facing away from him and singing next to part of the giant glowing red rune which encircled the whole village. He had noticed, when he was standing on the roof, Emily doing something flying around the village shooting lines onto the ground, so he figured this must be it.

Torrens stepped out of the blacksmith's and motioned for his captive to follow. "I think we're done here. You go join that lot over there," Torrens said to the blacksmith, pointing to the group of prisoners being led out of the village by Athinar, "Hurry over, surrender yourself to them, and you should be fine. Tell them that Torrens the fire demon sent you. If you flee, they'll murder you. Run along now." Left with no real option, the blacksmith hurried to catch up with the group of prisoners being led by Athinar.

Torrens, on the other hand, turned and walked towards Emily. There was no rush. No panic. No fear about the possible effects of this massive rune. After his veritable feast and brimming with overconfidence, Torrens felt nothing short of a lake or a village-obliterating explosion could threaten him. He figured that dumping a lake on the village would be unlikely for Emily to do and a little silly, with what knowledge he knew about her, and one does not stand willingly in the epicenter of village-leveling explosions unless it was a suicidal last resort, so it probably wasn't the second option either. And so Torrens walked casually until he was standing about 15 meters from Emily, positioned far enough in front of her to have entered Emily's vision.

Torrens nonchalantly leaned against a house, the stone wall and the dirt beneath him slowly starting to melt, and listened to Emily's song for a few more lines before speaking out. "Lovely song. If you can't respond, I understand, but what will this rune do?"