Post by Learned Hand on Feb 15, 2008 10:31:44 GMT
Our heroes, Steeped in Moonlight, Eight Curses and Crimson Voice have not seen each other in over a decade, since their initiation into the Silver Pact. Their reunion is not entirely joyous. Summoned by their one-time mentor, Fire Tiger, and after only one night to rest from their travels across the deserts of the south and catch up, they are charged with finding Fire Tiger’s friend Silver Claws. Silver Claws was an agent in Chiaroscuro and his last report indicated that he was infiltrating a group led by the exiled Dynast Ragara Soras.
After pausing briefly to invade Fire Tiger’s privacy and discover that he and Silver Claws are ‘special friends’, the newly reformed pack head to Texia, a firedust mining town effectively owned by Soras. Texia turns out to be a town taken from every cowboy movie ever. Accordingly, the pack start their information gathering from the saloon. Moonight and Curses drink fire whisky in the corner whilst Crimson Voice, in the form of a buxom wench, cleverly infiltrates a group of drunken, gropey, poker playing locals. Unfortunately for Crimson Voice, although Moonlight and Curses, decide its time to leave, the gropey ringleader of the poker players, Dave, is not so happy to let his new girlfriend leave. Moreover, the other lunars seem oblivious to his plight, and walk straight out into the street without so much of a glance back.
Fortunately, Crimson Voice has Luna’s own cunning. He lures Dave upstairs with the promise of a sexy party, and then bites Dave’s throat out. One quick feast of heart’s blood later and ‘Dave’ is wandering downstairs, waving good bye to his poker buddies, knowing in his heart that nothing bad will happen.
In the meantime, Crimson Voice’s oblivious partners have discovered the house of Soras, and have been scouting it out in animal form. There is an air aspected terrestrial upstairs in an office, but since the Ragara house favours earth, there is no way to know if it is him for certain. The lunars decide to bide their time, and scout out the firedust mine until sundown.
As they return to the city they notice a crowd has gathered. Steeped in Moonlight is able to hear what they’re saying. It turns out that there is a lynch mob forming, with the aim of looking for the strangers who killed Dave. Dave’s weeping widow is near the front of it. Undeterred, our heroes decide to turn into tiny animals and scout out the inside of Soras’ house. Only Curses, who can’t turn into a tiny animal, remains outside, where he notices that the mob disperses before the sun drifts past the horizon, and presently shutter their windows and extinguish all light.
The group’s prying is disturbed by a loud crash and some screams. They emerge to see a large beast emerge from a hole in somebody’s wall with a leg in its mouth and flee into the night. Steeped in Moonlight realises they may be dealing with a chimera; a lunar, like them, driven mad by the wyld. Naturally, our heroes’ thoughts quickly turn to blackmail and bribery. The next morning, Crimson Voice, tattoos on show, and two wolves walk up to the front door of Soras’s house. Ten minutes later, they leave. If Crimson Voice can present the head of the beast to Soras in such a way as to allow Soras to take the credit for its death, then Soras will tell the lunars ‘anything he knows about other lunars’. However, they must be wary, for the beast will mimic the powers of any opponent it faces; there must be more than one hero to stand a chance of slaying it.
Eight Curses tracks the beast to its lair, and sends Crimson Voice, in the form of a fox, to scout out its lair. Voice doesn’t feel a fly land on his back. He doesn’t feel the fly turn into a giant rabid squirrel. Incredibly, he doesn’t feel the squirrel beginning to eat him. It is only when an arrow from Moonlight’s bow lands on the ground in front of him, and blood drips down onto the floor that he realises something is amiss.
By then, Curses has leapt forth with a roar, transforming into his crocodile-based war form and raining blow after blow on the chimera. The beast is unable to avoid the onslaught of a Full Moon but instead turns into a tortoise in an attempt to withstand the blows. Even so, when he lands, his shell is cracked and broken, and one leg seems unable to withstand his weight. In spite of this it manages to scamper between the legs of Voice –now an elephant – who can only trample the ground around him.
The beast is cornered but it is not out of tricks. It spins out of its tortoise form and into that of a human identical to Steeped in Moonlight. As it does so it looses a flying guillotine at Eight Curses’ neck. He has not had time to set up a defensive stance, and the guillotine finds its mark. It’s not lethal, but it slows him down long enough to allow the beast to attempt to escape over the edge of the cliff. The group chase; Curses leaps after the chimera, but is only able to claim one of its toe in his snapping jaws; Voice stampeding off the cliff, still in elephant form; Moonlight rides her cloud down after the beast and is able to pin its hand to the cliff wall with a well placed arrow.
The beast uses this arrow to anchor himself and clings on to the wall, leaving Curses to continue his fall towards the shoal of floating sky-sharks below and Voice, now a gorilla, to do the same after flailing uselessly at his foe. Meanwhile the beast, now in Curses’ War Form, launches itself at Moonlight, successfully ambushing her cloud by means of biting the driver’s head.
But Curses is not out of the fight. He lands on one of the sky-sharks and, thanks to their buoyant nature, is able to spring back up towards the cloud, and a damaging flurry of attacks once again sends the beast flying. Voice, who has been able to execute a similar manoeuvre, and is now a dragon, soars toward his opponent, looking to inflict a coup-de-grâce.
Yet again, though, Voice is off-target. Instead, the beast is able to grab a leg hold on the dragon’s back, run along the dragon’s back, and launch itself in an all-or-nothing assault on Eight Curses, sending the latter flying into the air and away from the battle. Before anybody can react, the beast has turned into a fly and is attempting a tiny getaway. However, he didn’t realise the sheer tenacity and deviousness of Crimson Voice. Using all of his powers of concentration, Voice lines himself above the fly, calculates their relative trajectories, and turns himself into a potted Venus Fly Trap.
As the fly watched with curiosity at this strange object, falling through the air several metres from him, Moonlight finally readied her Flying Guillotine and sent her own teeny, tiny chain off towards the beast, successfully decapitating it, and ending its reign of terror. Fortunately, and for no apparent canonical reason, once dead, the beast transformed into the ugly-looking-panther form which the group had witnessed the night before.
Two days later, the pack have the information they need. Silver Claws was working with Soras to investigate and infiltrate a death-cult in the Glass City. They have the name of the cult and the names of a few contacts there. It’s time to vist Chiaroscuro.
[everybody can have a spontaneous dot in a specialty of their choice. This is one specific use of an ability e.g. melee (swords); presence (intimidation); performance (being a buxom wench) that then gets a one dice bonus whenever you use it. Post your choices here]
After pausing briefly to invade Fire Tiger’s privacy and discover that he and Silver Claws are ‘special friends’, the newly reformed pack head to Texia, a firedust mining town effectively owned by Soras. Texia turns out to be a town taken from every cowboy movie ever. Accordingly, the pack start their information gathering from the saloon. Moonight and Curses drink fire whisky in the corner whilst Crimson Voice, in the form of a buxom wench, cleverly infiltrates a group of drunken, gropey, poker playing locals. Unfortunately for Crimson Voice, although Moonlight and Curses, decide its time to leave, the gropey ringleader of the poker players, Dave, is not so happy to let his new girlfriend leave. Moreover, the other lunars seem oblivious to his plight, and walk straight out into the street without so much of a glance back.
Fortunately, Crimson Voice has Luna’s own cunning. He lures Dave upstairs with the promise of a sexy party, and then bites Dave’s throat out. One quick feast of heart’s blood later and ‘Dave’ is wandering downstairs, waving good bye to his poker buddies, knowing in his heart that nothing bad will happen.
In the meantime, Crimson Voice’s oblivious partners have discovered the house of Soras, and have been scouting it out in animal form. There is an air aspected terrestrial upstairs in an office, but since the Ragara house favours earth, there is no way to know if it is him for certain. The lunars decide to bide their time, and scout out the firedust mine until sundown.
As they return to the city they notice a crowd has gathered. Steeped in Moonlight is able to hear what they’re saying. It turns out that there is a lynch mob forming, with the aim of looking for the strangers who killed Dave. Dave’s weeping widow is near the front of it. Undeterred, our heroes decide to turn into tiny animals and scout out the inside of Soras’ house. Only Curses, who can’t turn into a tiny animal, remains outside, where he notices that the mob disperses before the sun drifts past the horizon, and presently shutter their windows and extinguish all light.
The group’s prying is disturbed by a loud crash and some screams. They emerge to see a large beast emerge from a hole in somebody’s wall with a leg in its mouth and flee into the night. Steeped in Moonlight realises they may be dealing with a chimera; a lunar, like them, driven mad by the wyld. Naturally, our heroes’ thoughts quickly turn to blackmail and bribery. The next morning, Crimson Voice, tattoos on show, and two wolves walk up to the front door of Soras’s house. Ten minutes later, they leave. If Crimson Voice can present the head of the beast to Soras in such a way as to allow Soras to take the credit for its death, then Soras will tell the lunars ‘anything he knows about other lunars’. However, they must be wary, for the beast will mimic the powers of any opponent it faces; there must be more than one hero to stand a chance of slaying it.
Eight Curses tracks the beast to its lair, and sends Crimson Voice, in the form of a fox, to scout out its lair. Voice doesn’t feel a fly land on his back. He doesn’t feel the fly turn into a giant rabid squirrel. Incredibly, he doesn’t feel the squirrel beginning to eat him. It is only when an arrow from Moonlight’s bow lands on the ground in front of him, and blood drips down onto the floor that he realises something is amiss.
By then, Curses has leapt forth with a roar, transforming into his crocodile-based war form and raining blow after blow on the chimera. The beast is unable to avoid the onslaught of a Full Moon but instead turns into a tortoise in an attempt to withstand the blows. Even so, when he lands, his shell is cracked and broken, and one leg seems unable to withstand his weight. In spite of this it manages to scamper between the legs of Voice –now an elephant – who can only trample the ground around him.
The beast is cornered but it is not out of tricks. It spins out of its tortoise form and into that of a human identical to Steeped in Moonlight. As it does so it looses a flying guillotine at Eight Curses’ neck. He has not had time to set up a defensive stance, and the guillotine finds its mark. It’s not lethal, but it slows him down long enough to allow the beast to attempt to escape over the edge of the cliff. The group chase; Curses leaps after the chimera, but is only able to claim one of its toe in his snapping jaws; Voice stampeding off the cliff, still in elephant form; Moonlight rides her cloud down after the beast and is able to pin its hand to the cliff wall with a well placed arrow.
The beast uses this arrow to anchor himself and clings on to the wall, leaving Curses to continue his fall towards the shoal of floating sky-sharks below and Voice, now a gorilla, to do the same after flailing uselessly at his foe. Meanwhile the beast, now in Curses’ War Form, launches itself at Moonlight, successfully ambushing her cloud by means of biting the driver’s head.
But Curses is not out of the fight. He lands on one of the sky-sharks and, thanks to their buoyant nature, is able to spring back up towards the cloud, and a damaging flurry of attacks once again sends the beast flying. Voice, who has been able to execute a similar manoeuvre, and is now a dragon, soars toward his opponent, looking to inflict a coup-de-grâce.
Yet again, though, Voice is off-target. Instead, the beast is able to grab a leg hold on the dragon’s back, run along the dragon’s back, and launch itself in an all-or-nothing assault on Eight Curses, sending the latter flying into the air and away from the battle. Before anybody can react, the beast has turned into a fly and is attempting a tiny getaway. However, he didn’t realise the sheer tenacity and deviousness of Crimson Voice. Using all of his powers of concentration, Voice lines himself above the fly, calculates their relative trajectories, and turns himself into a potted Venus Fly Trap.
As the fly watched with curiosity at this strange object, falling through the air several metres from him, Moonlight finally readied her Flying Guillotine and sent her own teeny, tiny chain off towards the beast, successfully decapitating it, and ending its reign of terror. Fortunately, and for no apparent canonical reason, once dead, the beast transformed into the ugly-looking-panther form which the group had witnessed the night before.
Two days later, the pack have the information they need. Silver Claws was working with Soras to investigate and infiltrate a death-cult in the Glass City. They have the name of the cult and the names of a few contacts there. It’s time to vist Chiaroscuro.
[everybody can have a spontaneous dot in a specialty of their choice. This is one specific use of an ability e.g. melee (swords); presence (intimidation); performance (being a buxom wench) that then gets a one dice bonus whenever you use it. Post your choices here]
]
