Ponies & Dragons - Episode 1: A Tail of Two Cities

[Trilobite]

Ironmane is certain that the gold wagon is well-defended, but Celestia helps those who help themselves. She snorts, looks over the situation, and leaps out onto the road, turning the face the flank of the charging group. She lowers her head, scapes the ground with a forehoof, and charges forward at full tilt, aiming for the midst of the group!

"Caaannnterrrlllooottt!"

(Maybe a situational bonus to Curtain Call's rolls if this is sufficiently distracting?)

[Starburst]

The bandits, running on all fours, easily outdistance Curtain call's attempts at a backstab. Running on four legs is definitely faster than running on two.

Luckily because of their pace they have left you behind.

Ironmane has some distance to make up, and quickly arrives at the disguised Curtain call, lagging behind because he's running on two legs. Filt Firehorn turns towards the large group of charging bandits and conjures a huge flaming sphere above his staff, red and yellow flames coalescing into a large ball of fiery fire. Filt Firehorn fires the fiery fireball at the group of bandits, and many of them turn tail and run, some of them skid to a stop, and some continue running, trying to keep themselves ahead of the deadly fireball.

As the ball moves towards the bandits and collides into the ground, many of the ponies clutch their hides as if they were burning, but no fire exists to burn them. An explosion clearly happened, but no flames linger to lick the skin of the bad ponies. The ponies who ran at full speed managed to outdistance the explosion, and look back to see their comrades rolling on the ground as if they were on fire, which causes all but one of them to halt in place and turn around. The one that doesn't halt eventually slows to a stop. He stands on his back legs and begins to wave his arms around in motions, energy building in his capable hooves.

[Bramble Rose]

Bramble Rose narrowed his eyes at the vista before him, watching silently from the cover of the trees. The bandits had been rebuffed from the first attack ... but they had regrouped, and were readying their own reply. And worse - there was a spellcaster with them! Bramble had no idea what class or how skilled he was, but the bandits were, for now, all clustered together, and that gave him the opportunity. His energy flowed from him, into the ground, into the grass, into the trees, as he murmured the swift words, his horn glowing a soft green glow as he encouraged the verdant forest itself to restrain the bandits. With any luck, most of them would be captured... and that spellcaster might find it just a little harder to use his magical villainy!

(Entangle Spell)

[Starburst]

Vines grow rapidly from the ground, constricting and restricting the limbs of the enemy spell-caster, he looks quite surprised, and his concentration falters, causing his spell to end before coming to fruition. The vines also move to grab the other ponies in the area, wrapping around their legs.

[Trilobite]

(Would you mind making a check for Ironmane to see if she recognizes the disguised Curtain Call? Otherwise she's going to try to knock him flat!)

[Starburst]

( Curtain call's disguise is too good I'm afraid, and you aren't well acquainted enough with his form to realize it's him, he's dressed as a mare. Ironmane has no idea. )

[Trilobite]

Ironmane turns to the closest bandit still standing, not knowing it's Curtain Call. She rears up to her full height and glares down with eyes like fiery amethysts. "You will drop your weapons and surrender." She slams one forehoof into the ground. "IMMEDIATELY!"

[Kirby Krackle]

(Oh Lord in heaven this is amazing. Completely didn't see it coming! So happy though! )

If Curtain Call has ever been more terrified in his life previously, he certainly can't recall it. The already small pony, caught completely off guard, collapsed into a pitiful little ball on the grass. The mare who couldn't walk though a tavern without knocking into every table was capable of this? No, preposterous, that's not her. It couldn't be. Terrified, he brought a shaking hoof to his face. Slowly, he tried wiping the dye off. No sudden movements or this mare would cut his bloody head off.

"Ironmane? It's me. Curtains. Please don't hurt me."

[Trilobite]

The mare draws back, eyes widening, and stammers for a moment, then leans in, intending to reassure Curtain Call. She thinks better of it, draws back her head again, and gestures to a spot near the golden wagon. "Lay down by the central wagon. The magistrates of Garden Gait will deal properly with you."

She stares at him for a moment, amazed by his transformation, and then finally looks up and around to assess the situation.

[Bramble Rose]

(( Are the bandits defeated, or just ... impaired? ))

[Starburst]

(( Impaired. They think they're on fire. Some are also wrapped in vines. ))

[Trilobite]

Ironmane narrows her eyes and marches over to one of the bandits who's rolling about, panicking. She shakes her head sadly and then reaches down to seize him with her teeth, intending to drag him over toward the golden wagon. She has no idea what's wrong with the cowardly brutes.

[Bramble Rose]

Bramble walked forward towards the twisting vines, the plants almost seeming to part around his hooves to let him through without difficulty, and Blossom, stalking behind him like a looming, snarling bodyguard, lent his words a certain weight. "I would highly recommend that you surrender and allow us to bind you," Bramble said simply and honestly, "Because if this gets ugly ... well, I don't expect you would fare any better than the ponies you left back at the camp. The terrain itself is against you this day."

At Bramble's gesture and body language, Blossom set herself right next to the spellcaster, and gave him a special little growl, while Bramble floated out his rope so it could start tying itself off into 'come-along' hobbles. "Will you die this day? Or will you come along peacefully and assure your future?"

[Starburst]

The spell-caster narrows his eyes at you, whispers a word for a quickened dweomer and falls through the ground, disappearing. Thorn Blossom attempts to bite him as he's falling but manages only to catch a maw full of air. He vanishes through the ground without a trace. The spell he used to do so is completely unfamiliar to you, but you have theories about where he could've gone with such a short casting.

The leader of the bandits with a large axe begins chopping up the vines he's entangled by, his blade and strength making short work of the vines, after freeing himself he snarls viciously and charges Bramble, narrowly missing him with its broad blade.

[Bramble Rose]

Bramble scrambles backwards, glad that the grasping vines hinders the leader's movement and not Bramble's! The grass and vines writhe up around the huge pony's legs, trying to entangle him again, while Bramble hurriedly mumbled the words - burning off both his remaining spells. At first, nothing seems to happen... but then, from out of the vines, from behind the leader, a snake made of woven grass and leaves around one thick vine strikes, the thorns it uses as fangs dripping with poison! ( +5 to hit, 1d2-2 = 1 damage, and poison: DC 9, 6 rounds of 1d2 con damage. )

Thorn Blossom also races forward, snarling, to see that little pony she protects being threatened! She lets out a fierce snarl, racing through the twisting vines without impediment ( Bite: +4 (1d6+2 plus trip) + flanking )

Bramble himself, waiting for the leader to be distracted by attacks from other directions, then strikes himself, darting forward, spinning, and delivering as solid a kick to him as the little pony can! ( +0 ( 1d4 -2 nonlethal, +1d6 sneak attack ) + flanking )

[Kirby Krackle]

"No point in theatrics then. Fine. The old fashioned way."

May his friends forgive him for yet again getting right to the point and striking with his steel, what with them being assaulted with an axe.

(BAB +3, Dex +3. Not going for sneak attack, unless flanking gives me that anyway. I hope it does in this system. I like flanking.)

[Trilobite]

(I'll see the result of this before I act, just to avoid piling actions on our gracious GM. Oh wait! Even better:)

Ironmane watches in shock and horror as Curtain Call appears, as if out of nowhere, a deadly weapon in one hoof!

[Starburst]

Bramble Rose's thorn snake latches onto the bandits shoulder, injecting its venom into the large axe-wielding pony. He swings his large axe in a large arc, slicing the vine in twain, causing the head to flop off of his shoulder and land limply on the ground, severed. Thorn blossom's attack goes in at the same angle of the vine-snake, and Thorn backpedals to avoid the large axe swinging towards her maw. While his attention is turned bramble launches a kick that hits the large fighter directly in his diaphragm, causing him to lurch over in pain. ( 1 damage from the snake, 10 damage from the near-critical kick )

Curtain call comes into the melee at the large ponies back, cleverly concealing himself in the large bandit's blind spot. However, his attack comes at the same time that the armored tank of a pony lurches over, causing the knife to whiz harmlessly over his head, missing among other things his vital points.

[Bramble Rose]

(( I'd suggest piling on the actions, Trilobite. The way I see it - and I could be wrong - each series of us-declaring and Starburst-answering constitutes a 'turn'. Each of us gets our part in the initiative round, and the villains each go once as well. If you wait, then you lose your turn. Starburst, correct me if I'm wrong! ))

Bramble scrambles forward to get away from the inevitable return blow... then realizes... he'd done it! He'd connected and ... he'd bent over that big brute with a really solid kick! That pony was, like, twice his size or more! A sudden surge of confidence flooded through the little pony. "I warned you! Thorn, take him!" he cried, signalling Thorn to try not to kill him, but instead to just get her jaws round his throat once he was down, and snarl threateningly - unless, of course, he didn't go down!

With fierce abandon, Bramble charged forward to spin around and deliver another fierce kick, working with Thorn Blossom and Curtain Call to take on this particular biggest threat, before the other bandits might get ideas. Defeat their strongest fighter ... and the fight should go out of the rest!

( Bramble Rose: Kick: +0 ( 1d4 -2 nonlethal, +1d6 sneak attack ) + flanking )

( Thorn Blossom: Bite: +4 (1d6+2 plus trip) + flanking - if Bramble's attack does enough nonlethal on the big guy to bring him into the danger zone, consider her to be just going for a grapple. )

[Starburst]

(( Your assumptions would be rather correct, Bramble. ))

[Kirby Krackle]

Through formal training, experience and good old fashioned common sense, Curtain Call has learned that when the backstab fails, run. Run, hide, wait for another opportunity to present itself. Do not, he was told again and again, do not continue to engage the enemy. Nuts to that.

"You really think I was the only plant? I had five other stallions with me from the start! The rest of the ponies loyal to you are down and we have reinforcements on the way. Your plan was destined to fail because you were too blind to see that many spies under you! So give up now! I don't want to kill you and you don't want to be dead!"

He kept his poker face in prime form, thrusting steel forward yet again. It's mostly for dramatic effect. To keep the pressure on. Oh, if he gets in a lucky shot, hurray! Problem solved. If not, maybe one extra sting added to jaws and bucks will force this villain to consider dropping the axe and putting his hooves in the air. Hold on a second. Was he considering a solution that didn't involve bloodshed? No, couldn't be. Must be his imagination.

(( Bluff is in total +7. And, as always, Dex +3 BAB +3 ))

[Trilobite]

Curtain Call's quick thinking snaps Ironmane out of her daze. She knows he's talking to the bandit leader, gets the general idea of what he saying, but--something tells her that if she wants to save Curtain Call, she has to act now. She doesn't really understand the impulse, but yields to it, running at the bandit leader with a wild war cry, intending to strike the ruffian to the ground with both forehooves.

(charging attack +3, including what I think is the -2 penalty for charging. Not sure if my beautiful, masterworked hoofguards add a +1 to this or not.)

[Starburst]

The gruff bandit leader dodges a kick and takes a bite to the leg, swinging his axe again in an arc, cutting Bramble's mane some and nearly hitting Curtain Call on the pull back. With a sound that could only be described as a "Gwahahaha" he parries Curtain's knife with the pullback from his axe.

What he's not expecting however, is a large mare in barding coming at him in his blind spot and crashing into him with her fore-hooves. She collides into the side of the bandit leader and they tumble over, Ironmane crashing over him and ending up trampling him. He quickly rights himself and stands back up, but takes another bite from Thorn blossom in the side in the process.

[Trilobite]

"Arrogant worm! In the name of Princess Platinum and all the Higher Powers, surrender!"

[Bramble Rose]

Bramble rocks backwards as the magic axe swings towards him. He blanches, his silvery mane floating up around his face... the feel of the breeze as the axe sweeps past ... the floating silvery threads drifting away ... the cold feeling in his gut as he realizes how close he just got ...

For a moment, he considered retreat. He wasn't a warrior - the others were! But no, he had his ways of contributing, too. He dropped back five feet, silently wishing the vines would hurry up and re-capture this pony, He whispered his words swiftly, once more gathering in his will - he could feel the forest around him, feel the magic flowing through it, through the ponies, the entire *feel* of the area, and how everything was moving, and acting. The grand wholeness of the world around them - and as he touched Curtain Call's flank, he passed that awareness onto his ally.

(Guidance: +1 to Curtain Call's next attack, skill check, or save )