The Brawl: Cool, Cool Water / Klengons Battered

Creature guzzles a canteen full of weal or woe or just plain old water, and a ruckus ensues between the klengons and the new recruits...

Max
Rokem zooms past Buck and Creature, bounces over Tumek and crashes into the line of AWOL klengons, furiously spinning his begloved fists....The clown Wiggy Plop blows a warlike blast on a bicycle horn. Sugar Ray Rocketblaster shouts insults and struts for a non-existent crowd. Shifty McJumper and 3M "Triple Muscles" Ragnar charge forward, and the man-frog Leeplo leaps overhead.

Max

Creature grabs the canteen from Buck and guzzles the cool water, stopping only to gargle and spit, rinsing the blood from his mouth. He does not spin like a top and blow smoke from ears like Popeye hopped up on spinach, but neither does he keel over dead with X's over his eyes.

Smiling sweetly despite a split lip, Bob the Fighter trots up. "Sure hate to bother you fellas, but things are just about to go FUBAR. We got a few guys gone buck wild on those klengons, and that Sugar Ray fella puttin' on some kinda wild fandango, and then that Amazon gal is puttin' together some jim-jerry contraption. And well the rest of us ain't any to sure if up is up and down isn't."

He shrugs apologetically, "I guess we could use a little advice before this turns into a situation."

wulfgar

Is the refreshing water helping Creature recover at all?

[OOC: My thought is that we offer leniency to any Klengons who will join up with us, and beat the others mercilessly. Can Buck or Zarko head that up, while Creature gets his wind back?]

Max

[The water has marvelous powers...of thirst quenching!

[Your raggle-taggle band will answer to any of the PCs in the arena, yeah, with varying levels of tractability.

Rondo

(I'm up for that, Wulfgar. We can sure go that way...what do the rest of you think? I doubt if Klengons will 'join up,' it'll probably just end up being a brawl, but I have no problem with staying in the fight. At some point we gotta get to Darryl too.)

Max

Bob the Fighter awaits his orders.

[when y'all figure it out, feel free to direct your forces as you like. Note that four dudes (Rokem Sokem, Leeplo, Shifty & 3M Ragnar) are engaged with the klengons -- I'll catch up with them tonight. The others are more or less at your disposal.

[You haven't really asked about your crew, but I'll fill in a few details: Bob, One-Eye, & Philimon are Warriors. Sugar Ray Rocketblaster is a Wrestler. Muruzabal & Prince Abdul are Pioneers. Shifty is a Criminal. Wiggy is a Doxy (I use the class for bards, rock stars, jesters, clowns, etc. as well as purveyors of "personal services"). The others are unleveled.

[I've not decided how a full on brawl would go. Not real keen on rolling 20 attacks and saves, right? So I'd probably fudge things by assigning random damage to allies and foes not in direct collaboration or confrontation with PCs. Any suggestions?]

wulfgar

That's how I've always done it for any rpg I've run. The PCs and NPCs they are fighting get rolls. The rest of battle royal plays out according to some combination of random rolling (mass battle rules may or may not be useful here) and DM/GM/JM/etc fiat.

Max

As Buck and Creature stumble to the wall, Leeplo launches himself at the klengons, followed by Shifty and Ragnar afoot. The man-frog's hop takes him clean over the klengon line, and he lands hard on his skinny green tailbone.

The dwarf and the elf acquit themselves better. Shifty tumbles toward a startled klengon, grabbing his beard and swinging onto his shoulders. With a wicked smirk the gremlin-sized elf jabs his thumbs into the klengon's eyes. The klengon throws him off but the scrappy elf rebounds like a spring.

The barrel-chested yet bony-kneed dwarf Triple Muscles Ragnar crashes fist first into another klengon, who crumples like a candy wrapper. Unfortunately two others gang up on the dwarf, one landing a solid leg kick and the other slugging him in the gut. Ragnar falls back but he keeps his feet.

Bob, still waiting for his orders, looks worried.

wulfgar

"GET..EM..BOB!" Creature yells at the bewildered Bob.

Rondo

"Well, we in this or not boys? I'm not calling the shots around here anymore...all I do is get us into a jam!"

????????

Max

With a small frown of concern Bob turns smartly and jogs back to the other fighters, shouting for them to charge the klengons.

He and One-Eye Malone lead the way, with Philimon and the Ape Sultan close behind. Mad Muruzabal finishes assembling an odd contraption, a cylindrical cage of bamboo strung with lodestones which attaches to her belt and covers her upper body. Tugging a whipcord she sets the cage to spinning and stalks into battle, shouting Amazon curses as she goes.¹

Coffee

If Creature looks like he's going to be okay, Zarko will join the others in their assault on the Klengons. The more the merrier, he guesses. (If Creature needs defending, of course, he'll stay...)

Initiative: 14 (woo-hoo!)
Attack: 90 (whoops...) out of 55 -- miss
Saving Throw: 13 (probably need it...) out of 37 -- made under half!

Rondo

Buck looks at Creature trying to determine his state of health. He's not going to leave his side until he's in condition to defend himself. He looks up to his comrade Zarko heading the direction of the melee. "How you feeling, buddy?" he asks Creech.

(assuming that Zarko has started that direction of course, otherwise Zarko and I are looking Creature over and see how he's doing...see if we can get responses from him, etc.)

Max

The battle with the klengons is brief. Rokem and Shifty each down their foes, and Ragnar punches out his second klengon before being dropped by an uppercut. Rokem has his sensor array twisted off and powers down to indefinite stand-by, but Leeplo knocks the 'droid's opponent over with a high-hopping frog kick.

By the time Zarko and the rest arrive the four remaining klengons have had enough. Showing the same un-klengish lust for compromise that made them go AWOL in the first place, three of them throw up their hands in surrender. The fourth stands his ground for a moment, toe to toe with One-Eye Malone. But he can't out-glare the unblinking cyclopean, and when Malone twitches the klengon kicks up his heels. Malone flicks his cigar butt after the deserter.

The rumble with the klengons appears to have been the main action in the arena. As before, runners still move about the arena offering individual challenges but for the most part things seem to have returned a tense detente.

Goblins arrive shortly to cart off the wounded, and a properly hobbled and harnessed pair of goons trundles out a long trough full of water. Fighters from various camps slowly approach to drink and wash off the dust and blood of the Brawl.

wulfgar

Creature keeps his back against the arena wall and takes a few deep breaths. "Creature...ok..but.friends..no..go..too far." He's hoping to stay out of the way and get some strength back, but here's his rolls in case someone comes looking for trouble, hopefully he doesn't have to use these:

Initiative: -3
Attack: 5% HIT
Damage: 8
Saving Throw: 30% SAVE!

Max

[Creature is coherent but shaken. He can stand, and could fight with his full melee ATT and Damage ratings -- but at 1 hp he won't likely fight for long. Let's say he'll regain 2-8 hp every 4 hours of rest (much faster than the usual rate of 1-4 hp per level/day, but again this is subdual damage).

[We can gloss over resting time as needed. Let me know how you'll generally occupy yourselves and your fighters and I'll narrate away. Watch out for Wandering Brawlers, though. Gotta roll those every so often!]

Rondo

Buck dusts Creature off, "You kiddin' you big lug? We ain't going nowhere..." (here's a throw or two for Buck in case any wandering wise-guys come along):

Attack: 59% (made it)
Damage: 6 (4 rolled +2)
Save: 51% (missed)

Coffee

"That's right!" Zarko says with a grin. "We came in here as a team and we stay a team!"

While Buck stands by and tends to Creature, Zarko moves among the recruits and organizes a watch -- at least two men on at all times, keeping an eye out for trouble. As a leadership exercise, Zarko himself will take the first watch (along with one of the recruits). Everybody else gets to rest.
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¹ An example of the Pioneering Provide skill, Muruzabal's gyrospoke shield is equivalent to a gravitron shield except that it has a 7% lemon chance of failure every round of use.