The cursor scrolls to the right, and a confirmation beeping noise is heard.
A triumphant shout “BLURB BLURBLE GLURB!!!” rings out as the other options die screaming.
And then the army of the Glubdeeblug forces surfaces, screaming in some sort of blurbly speech. No idea what they’re saying.
Now, with the whole battle preparation thing out of the way… You did look at the Soap that introduces the other forces, right? Because if you did, congratulations! You’re more prepared than the players were! Let’s meet them but without photos because those were in the soap! THAT THE PLAYERS DID NOT READ! Something something “Forum’s weren’t working and why would we read the text dump your threw at us that required loading images individually??”.
Stingy Jack, the original Jack O’ Lantern: The best player. Also running the most terrifyingly singing PC ever, Eh Leck the Smrt. Blue Goblin of the holy castings, stealer of the forbidden thinky thoughts and spends his downtime reading the previous edition of the game’s rulebook. If you ask him, he’s cold, and he doesn’t like being cold.(“If I could read I could understand what this person is saying”) .
Glubdeeblug: Also running Fandraenal, the Half-Orc Druid that sometimes forgets he knows magic if it won’t catch Ollivier in the splash (After all, “If you’re not hurting the paladin, what’s the point of casting a spell?”).
Nerdy Annoying Santa: Also running Chaxo, the scroll obsessed know it all that may have accidentally gotten involved in selling snake oil. Also can juggle. And is a birdman. (He has all his “fingers, and knife goes smash smash smash.”)
Orcipelagan Orcs: Also running Olivier De Vienne, the uptight holy clanky who somehow turned down an opportunity to preach. (Usually can be found yelling “Where are you and what did you just blow up?” in Eh Leck’s general presumed direction)
Half-orcs: The person who is the DM, and therefore is running the Druid’s animal companion, Ursa the Bear as their bonus hero who didn’t remember Pathfinder was canceled this week. (“I didn’t confess, I just said we murdered him.”)
Turn Order for the very large number of turns we got through:
Boris and the Green Half-Orcs
Captain Haddock and the Brown Orcipelagans
Jack O’ Lantern and the Pumpkin Patch
*incoherent blurbling* and the Glubdeeblug *incoherent gurbles*
The Pathfinder Party
Professor Childtorture
LET’S GET THIS BRIK TO WARRING!
Turn 1
Half-Orcs
Hawthorne steers the stolen merchant ship such that it has a firing solution on the large pumpkin armed with 4 3” sized missiles with the launchers for them that will be so awesome and the gunner shoots…
DIRECT HIT!
The Half-Orcs earn the First Blood Benny! It shall remain unused, like all consumable items. LOOK AT ALL THAT PUMPKINNY BLOOD THAT IS TOTALLY NOT CARROTS!
At least one of the archers on the stolen merchant ship was apparently shooting arrows made of dynamite and completely annihilated the Zombie Pirate Captain before fun could be had with it.
A bunch of boring movement that most of the time doesn’t even get a photo ensues!
Boris: “Seriously? No secondary explosions? Fine, whatever… Archers, shoot over the head of that child thing ineffectively! Good job missing. ”
Orcipelagan
Not pictured: The launcher on the Boris flank shoots a dud that uselessly dribbles onto the ground below it.
“PUT YOUR BACKS INTO IT LADS! EACH OF YOU ROWING GIVES AN ENTIRE HALF IN OF MOVEMENT PER TURN!”
One of the mounted crossbows on the warship poofs away the legs of a banshee grenadier, ending her misery.
Boris: “Ugh. Safeties on the grenades? If I die because it’s the only time secondary explosions happen, I am going to be so mad about it.”
Like a proper orc, the gunner with the primary weapon on the warship focuses on the elves riding on the mammoth, killing one of them but also elliciting annoyance from Boris about the lack of secondary explosions.
Captain Haddock tries to fire his not-hand-cannon, and learns what “Recoil” is.
Captain Haddock: “”
He lands precariously balanced on a barrel somehow.
The clifftop spear shooter with a very consistent name takes out a skeleton rider.
An archer shoots at Ursa. HOW RUDE! All it accomplishes is tickling the bear. And angering the bear. On second thought, that sounds like it accomplished a lot of “Not what you intended”.
The orcs in the rowboats were to busy having spent their first turns movement and actions in the soap for anyone to remember they existed.
The Pumpkin Patch
Two of the little pumpkin boats board the stolen merchant ship.
They carve up a half-orc like a pumpkin.
The other two little pumpkin boats go beat a couple mantas to death.
A well placed pumpkin grenade causes a lot of death problems for the half-orcs.
Flying child things can’t reach the crew, so instead they beat on the ship itself reasonably effectively.
The Half-Orc who looked like he was supposed to be a named character at a minimum is unceremoniously killed by skeleton riders.
“Good grief. It looks like I don’t have any useful targets in range. I guess I can’t scythe anyone. BUT WHAT’S THIS? FIRE IN MY HEAD? LIKE I HAVE A FLAMETHROWER? BURN BURN BURN!!!”
Glubdeeblug
The shark cannon fires a shark missile at a skeleton, killing it and it’s ammo.
Mantas take out the other skeleton boat, and they even do it without dying!
The rest of the Glubdeeblug forces swim out towards the stolen merchant ship but they can only swim-walk-on-water so fast.
“BLUB BLUG GLUB BLUUUUUUUB!!!!!”
(Add annoyed language quotes)
With a great bellyflop, the shiny gold guy who has rudely refused to give me a name splashes down.
A big wave goes out and pushes a bunch of the troops forward, and some of the dead rejects out of the shipwreck.
This pushes the mantas into range to smack the stolen merchant ship…
…apparently that was the only light on the entire battlefield.
Nerdy Annoying Santa: “Ha! Manly Santa Day brings the lights! Know what else it brings? ICE! IT FREEZES THE WATERS FOR SKATING!”
Oh no. He didn’t summon Manly Santa Day. HE SUMMONED ARBOR DAY!! TREES! TREES GROWING EVERYWHERE! NO REGARD FOR LOGIC!
Trees continue to grow throughout the rest of the battle as people kind of throw trees together as well, in line with the Arbor day Spirit making this the Arbor Harbor.
The giant nutcracker unceremoniously misses Professor Child Torture, but some angry gingercavalry candy canes her to a bloody pulp.
The not so big nutcracker brings Eh Leck a present.
Eh Leck: “Oh boy! I hope it’s a book of being smarter!”
Fandraenal: “Ursa really needs some armour…”
Ursa: “I hope it’s a pic-a-nic basket…”
Chaxo: “How about getting back to where we came from?”
Ollivier: “I will be happy if I just don’t have to hear Eh Leck talking for awhile…”
WISG rolls are made on d20s… 20, 20, 20, 19, 18… and a 2. That’ll be a problem next session that we burned all the high rolls… Anyways, we then do some tiebreakers…
Eh Leck: “A BOOK! A BOOK OF ALL THE THINGS GOING ON!! HOW THE UNIVERSE WORKS! MAYBE THIS TIME THE UNIVERSE WILL ACTUALLY LISTEN TO THE RULES??”
Mammoth decides that tusks are boring when you have a gun and kills an orc by bullet wounds.
A Manly Santa Day elf decides to use a grenade. The idea was throw it at the boat. What he actually does however is explode it at his feet harmlessly…
TO HIMS ELF! The dock on the other hand, is destroyed underneath him.
Nerdy Annoying Santa shoots the bow gun with a Manly Santa Day tree. The armour breaks, but otherwise it’s all completely fine.
Pathfinder People Who Think They Are Important
Eh Leck is excitedly reading the rulebook. He excitedly yells out “I WANT TO WHAT I SAY GOES THAT I IS BE THE SMRTEST GOBLIN OF ALL EVERS!!! 16!!”
Chaxo: “I agree! …uhhh… 2…”
Ursa: “Ruh Gruh Uuurwaaa 7”
Fandraenal: “Uh could we not? 4….”
Ollivier: “Are you all kidding me? ABSOLUTELY NOT! 18!”
Eh Leck begins to sulk.
Chaxo teleports Ursa towards the meanie who shot Ursa. Ursa no like meanie. URSA CHOMP MEANIE!
Ursa tries to thrash the orcorpse and throw it around, but just gets a herniated disk which we all know makes one revert to being a child of their species.
Without a photo, Ollivier decides that Eh Leck is to sad:
Ollivier: “Hey buddy, just because you’re not the smrtest goblin doesn’t mean you’re not a smrt goblin.”
Eh Leck: “You’re right. I just need to resume my quest for a degree, THEN I can be the smrtest goblin, or even the smrtest of all the Ancestries! Oh wait, I have the first edition rules, it was race in that one still wasn’t it?”
Ollivier: “Why did I do that…”
Faendrenal gets worried about what the reindeer guy is doing to the reindeer and tackles him off. With death.
Wait, what’s this larger pumpkin we never noticed?
“I HAVE ARISEN TO BRING PRESENTS TO THE GOOD BOYS AND GIRLS OF THE WORLD!”
Nerdy Annoying Santa: “Uh no, that’s my, well, my much cooler older brother’s job.”
“YOU DARE ATTEMPT TO STEAL THE GOODER PUMPKIN’S HOLIEST OF DAYS? YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR CRIMES INSOLENT WHELP!”
End of Turn 1
At long last, we have made it to (SPOILER!) the final full turn of the battle (SPOILER!). Turn 2. Maybe having this many teams on a weeknight evening was unwise…
Half-Orcs
With a nice well aimed KABOOM, the skeleton riders are destroyed.
According to my notes, this photo is Hawthorne taking the stolen merchant ship to “RAMMING SPEED!” on the sandbar. Probably skipped it because he hasn’t hit the sandbar yet, just lined up for it.
The archers from the “RAMMING SPEED” photo destroy another pair of Banshee pants, which we all know is how you kill banshees.
Boris, for like the sixth time this battle, narrowly misses killing a child due to them being to short. In anger, he roars out to the child to “FIGHT ME LIKE AN ADULT ALREADY!”. The child puts on platform shoes and an epic duel to the death begins!
“I missed.”
“Same.”
“Missed again.”
“Yep…”
“Aaaaand another miss…”
“Oh hey I hit! Gah, not enough damage to kill..”
“Wow, another miss.”
“Wait, you’re not short now. THAT’S A HIT!! DIE STUPID CHILD!”
(Seriously, these things giving a -1 to hit because of being short came up SO MANY TIMES as relevant)
Boris (After way to many rounds) does the impossible: He killed a child. And stole it’s platform shoes, making him far greater than any regular minifig.
Orcs
Captain Haddock Rocket Jumps back onto the ship, the splashing water puts out the fire and instantly grows two seeds on the ship where the masts are supposed to go because that’s how violently gardening works.
Captain Haddock then fires his cannon in a less heroic way, expending a redshirt for Jack.
Another misfire, joining the previous misfire pathetically at the base of the cliff. Apparently this launcher’s defective.
“Do we even bother loading the third shot? I mean, I know you have literally nothing else you can do, but is that even worth it?”
“I don’t know anymore. There’s no way all three would be duds is there??”
Evil plant pumpkin guy #1 is down by an archer.
An orc worker runs and jumps the destroyed dock, landing on the mammoth’s tusks. My notes say “Doing most of it’s damage doing” which I think translates to “Mammoth got hurt”? I’m not sure, it was getting pretty late and we were kind of rushing to try to finish this at this point…
The Unforgettable Rowboats deal with the borders on the stolen merchant ship.
The big cliff gun takes out not one but TWO children in one shot, it happens so unexpectedly that even the world’s physics engine doesn’t realize they’re dead!
Even worse, the last child (somehow) rolls high enough on it’s redshirt roll to jump into the bow guns big shot to save Jack from the whopping 26 damage (vs. armour roll of… 3).
One of the rowers is unfamiliar with what an “Attack of Opportunity” is, and loses his head to a lovely scythe attack for standing up. Apparently there’s also an explosion in here somewhere that fails to kill an unspecified hero. My notes are getting kind of useless…
Pumpkin Patch
A specter spookily bonks a rower to being not among the living anymore.
“HOW DARE YOU BE JUST OUT OF MY MURDER RANGE!! FINE! I’LL DESTROY YOUR SHIP INSTEAD!”
Alarms ring out as the ship takes more damage.
A half-orc is tentacled to death. Thankfully we can’t see just how horrific it really is.
Glubdeeblug
The shark shooting shark switches from “Missile” to “paradrop” mode, and lands a sharkguy on the stolen merchant ship… at the helm… It’s uncertain what is said, but it vaguely sounded like a bubbly “PUNCH IT!”
The ship takes off at full speed, hurtling right towards Boris!
Half-Orc gunner: “NOOO!!! I WILL STOP IT!!!” as he heroically splatters himself in the way, stopping the ship’s 29 damage from annihilating Boris’ 7 armour.
Boris: “I will never forget your sacrifice whoever you were.”
The unknown hero blurbles a bunch. Angrily I think. Very angrily.
Chaxo: “I am never leaving home without Comprehend Languages ever again.”
Eh Leck: “Oh, right, sorry. Forgot to mention, where we leveled last session but haven’t had next session, I in theory can have anything on my spell list so even though I won’t have Comprehend Languages when I change my mind before officially setting my spells when we have the next session, I 100% have Comprehend Languages now and totally cast it before the fight on Blub-dee-Glub-dee. Yeah, so those guys are mad that we’re in ‘Their’ water, and he was just yelling about ‘FINE! YOU WANT MY WATER? HAVE MY WATER! HAVE ALL OF IT!’ and he’s trying to summon a tsunami. Though his Blub-dee-Glub-dee is kind of poor and he has a thick accent, I’m pretty sure he said ‘suck’ and not ‘blow’ in there….”
Whatever the insane goblin was rambling about is apparently plausible, since suddenly most of the water dries up into sand and mud. Well, this crime against nature is at least good for the previous crime against nature in this battle… Still, probably should be careful about a certain 1980’s environmental children’s show’s protagonist.
Glubdeeblug forces mostly just try to gather into what few puddles remains.
Chaco: “So I’ve never seen a high level wizard duel before, but this has got to be one right?”
Ollivier: “It would seem so…”
Fandraenal: “Or it’s druids. Trees sprouting everywhere, water drying up, sure feels like a lot of Primal magic to me.”
Eh Leck: “Nah. High level Wizard duels are nowhere near this fun. Mostly just spamming Power Word: Kill, Implosion, Massacre, and most importantly, Meteor Swarm. If they get clever, there’s some use of negative levels in there.”
Manly Santa Day
Nerdy Annoying Santa uses the newly formed sand ramp to charge onto the boat. He then tries to use Manly Santa Day magic to teleport the nutcracker to him.
*zoop* It goes back to where it started, ensuring it will take even longer to do ANYTHING.
Annoyed at his uselessness at teleporting things, he shoots the leaf off the top of the Gooder Pumpkin.
The mammoth gores the orc with it’s tusks, but the physics engine glitches out a bit.
Some say that orc is still flying upwards to this day…
Eh Leck: “Nah, you put him down on the table to the side afterwards.”
Jack: “Yeah. Do we need a photo?”
Boris: “Don’t be ridiculous, minifigs can’t fly indefinitely.”
…Why did I add even MORE characters with no regard for the fourth wall??
Ollivier and Fandraenal are festively attacked. It accomplishes nothing.
Pathfinder People Who Think They Are Important
Chaxo: “Hm… What is Manly Santa Day vulnerable to…. Oh wait, obviously the thing that ends Manly Santa Day: HAPPY NEW YEAR MR. NUT CRACKER! Where’s my Manly Santa Day blood?”
Ah. There’s the festive green and red blood. Oh and Ollivier killing the gingerwoman, but festively. It’s time for a festive murder spree!
(Offscreen: Fandraenal restores Ursa to normal young bear instead of herniated disc cub bear form)
Eh Leck’s personal background music turns quite festive.
Eh Leck: “We wish to steal your think thoughts, we wish to steal your think thoughts. Oh bring us some tasty think thoughts, oh bring us some tasty think thoughts.”
The Gingerbreadman’s head explodes.
Eh Leck: “Hmm… the life stage of being separate ingredients in a mixer is weird, the dough being chilled is awful, the being split into multiple entities is confusing, but 9-10 minutes at 350 degrees… that sounds lovely. The rest was probably a mistake. Also, did you know the US State with the most volcanoes is Alaska?”
Fandraenal: “Nope, still horrifying when he does that.”
Chaxo: “Hold on, 350 degrees? Is he trying to melt lead?”
Ollivier: “Not entirely convinced he isn’t a thought vampire or something…”
End of Turn 2
Turn 3
Half-Orcs
Boris… what are you doing with an anchor…?
Boris: “Opportunity knocks.”
BORIS??
*SMASH*
Jack: “Owie. I’ve been crushed by a boat. It really hurts. WHERE ARE MY REDSHIRTS!”
Nerdy Annoying Santa: “I believe neither of us have them…”
Captain haddock: “Wait, weren’t we on the same team??”
*CRUNCH*
Captain Haddock has been crushed by a flying boat!
Jack O’ Lantern has been crushed by a flying boat!
Nerdy Annoying Santa has been crushed by a flying boat!
The Gooder Pumpkin has been crushed by a flying boat!
The useless nutcracker falls over with the death of his controller. Not that he did anything useful.
“Well, guess that’s it then. Lost again. At least Arbor Day has trees, so I guess it’s better than losing to Valentine’s Day… again…”
“Blurb blurble glub glub glurble blug!! GLURBLE BLUUUG!!!!”
Eh Leck: “They’re claiming victory because nobody else is in the water.”
Fandraenal: “That seems oddly convenient. They felt like more of a minor distraction than anything.”
“The child… will be… considered a fool…”
“BLEAAAARGH I AM PIE INGREDIENTS!!!!”
A couple pumpkin patch forces survive for now, including a child. They die due to irrelevance or something.
Boris: “Oh noooo, Captain Haddock died and there are two boats here that just need some uuhh.. Probably dry-docking given the damage they took.”
Boris: “So, what did you think of what I did here? Finally having an on-screen appearance?”
“Yes, I suppose I can let the camera come into focus. I mean, you were supposed to get boats and orcs…”
Boris: “Hm, right, sorry, got something else to do before we call it… wait, what’s moving over there??”
The head of Jack O’ Lantern begins to move, separated from the body.
The connection is severed entirely and it begins floating.
Jester: “Oooohh noooooooo nooooow whaaaaaaat”
Orc: “Uuhh… why is your voice so annoying??”
With a rather unsettling squelching noise, the severed jester head attaches itself to the bow of the ship.
Some final carnage shots.
Carnage.
Death and destruction and horrors!
And more of it!
I know how to sail.
Definitely.
See my course, boating for crashing.
So much pumpkin guts!
If only we had been able to blow all of these explosives up…
Eh Leck: “I wonder which Eh Leck this was reality for, wait, was it me this time?”
Ollivier: “Can we just go home already?”
Eh Leck: “Sure thing, I think there’s a Teleport scroll or something in here. Chaxo, do the ready whirr teleport!”
Chaxo: “TELEPOOOOORT!!”
As the Pathfinder Party warps out back to where they belong, Eh Leck remarks: “This is, by far, the most reasonably and understandable thing to happen in my life. Plus I got a new of rules for the universe, maybe this time the universe will be kind enough to actually follow them!”
Fandraenal: “WHY WAS THERE SOMEONE DRESSING UP AS A REINDEER? EITHER COMMIT FULLY OR NOT AT ALL WITH AN ANIMAL TRANSFORMATION!”
Ursa(in bear): “Why did those orcs attack me? Are orc/half-orcs not like owner dangerous? They also tasted strange…”
Chaxo: “How… boat… How he throw boat…?”
Ollivier: “Did we let Eh Leck cook last night, because I just had the weirdest dream?”
As the strange shiny man watches on, Boris addresses the orcs: “Well, seeing as I am the only chief still alive by some convenience, will you serve me? THE AUTHOR SAYS YOU HAVE TO BY THE WAY!”
All: “YEEAH! YOU’RE AWESOME!!!”
*suspicious running water noise*
Boris: “Happy now?”
“Sure. By the way, you’re story is going to be off-screen for a bit, going to have to focus on other parts of the world/the excuse making for violence that we call ‘plot’. Mostly because of all the fourth wall breaking inherent to you. Incidentally, happen to know if as a Quantumsurfer I’m an author insert, or am I a separate character from the author?”
“NO! I AM ABSOLUTELY NOT INTRODUCING ANOTHER CHARACTER THAT HAS NO REGARD FOR THE FOURTH WALL! YOU’RE OFF-SCREEN!”
“You can’t really get rid of me. I get to be in other stuff.”
“Yes, but HE won’t be here so you two can’t encourage each other. Eh Leck’s probably not on screen again for awhile.”
Boris: “You attached the jester head to the Manowar. Oh, by the way, I’m naming the first warship the Manowar, but you already knew this.”
“I think the jester will be worse for me than for you, because I say so.”
Boris: “I rolled a 20. You rolled a 1.”
“Okay, we’re done here. HAPPY HALLOWEEN PEOPLES!”
