cola: this is where we could play "olaf hits the dragon with his sword"
cola: the blood-embittered rules are here [this was originally an image but here it is a link: olaf hits the dragon with his sword]
Garran: Which of us should play as which figure?
Garran: Hmm, I wonder if Avrae can see threads.
cola: i'm ok with either!
BOT
Avrae: @Garran :game_die:
Result: 1d7 (7)
Total: 7
cola: or we can roll a death
Garran: Yep.
Garran: Sure, let's flip a proverbial coin.
cola: okay, i shall be olaf on 1, and i shall be the dragon on 2
BOT
Avrae: @cola :game_die:
a fateful roll: 1d2 (2)
Total: 2
cola: grooar!
Garran: Olaaaaf!
(The dragon says:)
OLAF, why have you come to my lair?
cola: (There are six options, the dragon whispers)
(Olaf says:)
I say even to myself that I am seeking justice, but in fact I come in wrath, a blazing fury that feels like how I imagine moral certainty must. BLOOD+1.
Garran: What's your nature, DRAG?
You say even to yourself that you are seeking justice, but in fact you must come in greed, for you have power, and there is no greater power in all the world than the smoldering red heart that sees and wants and takes. I am Greed. ENVY+1.
cola: (I mean this as like, what the dragon is saying. I don't mean to contradict the fact that you come in wrath.)
Shrub Dryad: Dragon is bossy.
cola: NO you come in GREED
cola: a few coins should discourage you
Olaf has fought the dragon's cultists and minions across the blasted waste of its domain and scaled the spire that holds the hollow where it slumbers. Now his breath is quick and his sword is drawn.
“Wake, foul worm! I am the greatest warrior of the vales! I have slain seven great beasts, each more terrible and pestilent than the last; with each I have grown stronger and more sure. You cannot stand against me, nor fly past me, because my sword is too quick to escape. Give up now, or fight and fail!”
AMBITION+1
Garran: Current pool: BLOOD 1, ENVY 1, AMBITION 1
The dragon uncurls slightly in its coils. “So you have slain my men in the ports, at their games; and my worshippers in the taiga, at their altars; and as you say it, I smell their blood on you and know it to be true. And you say you have slain seven great beasts; and this is also true, for I smell the blood of Aligator, I smell Roc, I smell Tyger, I smell Amphibius, I smell Antlion and Gryphon and even Behemoth. Yes, seven beasts you have slain. And seven is the number AND NO MORE.” The dragon abruptly shoots up into the air and spreads its wings to their full length, an enormous shadow that blots out the setting sun.
cola: Which is supposed to be a prophecy of doom. DEATH +1
cola: i only had to get two of them from final fantasy
Garran: And one from Blake.
cola: it is your future that is blake, hero!
cola: (shakes tail)
cola: also the fight with antlion was more of a technical victory imo
cola: not really slaying in the purest sense
“I suppose you think so, Dragon, for you can count no higher. But I will kill you in the end, you who woke those beasts when you burned Brightsand and Torpin, where the seven towers kept them sealed, to pillage the treasures beneath; you who slew my greatest friend and my most treasured enemy both when they stood against you there, and maimed the great wizard Pushpin so that he only lived long enough to tell me your three hidden names. When you did those things you brought a doom upon yourself, and I carry that doom with me now!” IRON+1
Garran: If the beast is dead it counts.
Garran: (That was a denouncement of crimes, or at least a list of some of them.)
Garran: Okay, I will go and drive for a bit.
Shrub Dryad: Justice for Pushpin
cola: but they stood against me, what do you want
cola: it's not like i did it specifically
cola: you should of said to your greatest friend and most treasured enemy: it's probably a bad idea to slay that dragon, let's go have dinner
cola: as for pushpin, invasion of privacy much
cola: and did the people of brightsand not build a great false dragon, but with a shorter tail and an exaggerated paunch, and did they not stand around the dragon and laugh and say, “That dragon is not a big deal.”
cola: and did the people of torpin not build a city that looks remarkably like the city of brightsand, next to a similar-looking river
cola: and was it not fairly confusing
cola: from the air
cola: ok you know what, that one's on me. that was my fault Brave hero! I admit partial fault in that instance.
cola: but you know what they say, “when a dragon seeks revenge, dig two graves”
cola: or more
Garran: You mock me, you prattling tyrant, for you know I can't give proper answer until you say something that has a thematic colour about it.
cola: sorry i am just kibitzing, i'll think of something
Shrub Dryad: Its already pretty plausible as a couple of them.
“If you are carrying my doom on those little shoulders, then so it may be, hero, if that is how it happens,” the dragon says, affecting unconcern. “But sooner than that, your bones will crack and sinews will tear under the weight; your blunt teeth will roll out of your head and your weak body will fall to pieces under the weight of such a doom as mine!” It slaps a pillar with its tail and breaks it for emphasis. IRON +1
cola: ("nice elaboration of my metaphor. very epic," says olaf. "thank you," booms the dragon)
Garran: Okay, I drove and then ate dinner and now I'm back.
“Perhaps I may indeed be crushed under the fate that we make today. Every warrior knows that one day the battle will come that breaks them. But an it crush me, still I will do as it demands of me, and when skalds in ages to come sing of the fate of Olaf the Warrior, they will call me Eightslayer, he who definitely slew eight beasts, the last of them a dragon!” DEATH+1
Garran: Pool: BLOOD 1, ENVY 1, AMBITION 1, DEATH 2, IRON 2
“Then do you think foolishly, Olaf Sevenslayer-And-No-More; for who is to say whether ages to come will even hold a single skald to tell a single story, let alone yours! Your tale might be conflated with that of Beowulf, for example, and certain elements taken from each. What then will the ages say? Will they say that Olaf carried a sword with dots of rust on the blade, because his years of rambling had not taught him to care for it properly; will they speak of the rasp in his voice and the scars on his face left by an idle plague in his youth; will they say that he owned a dog in his childhood, and when that dog died, he was so inconsolable that he bound the jawbone of the dog into his hair, and he wears it even today, but says instead that it is a wolf which he defeated as a youth of ten, so as to appear a more impressive warrior, although the canines are clearly those of a dog?! Or will all this die even with you, Sevenslayer and fool?!!”
cola: SORROW +1
“You leave my dog out of this!” howls Olaf, and strikes.
Garran: I think that's right, anyway? We've done three back and forths, I think.
Garran: Backs and forth.
cola: Yes!
Garran: Should we take turns rolling pools?
cola: Sure, okay.
cola: One BLOOD:
BOT
Avrae: @cola :game_die:
BLOOD is red.: 1d6 (2)
Total: 2
BOT
Avrae: @Garran :game_die:
Green for ENVY: 1d6 (1)
Total: 1
BOT
Avrae: @cola :game_die:
One AMBITION.: 1d6 (5)
Total: 5
BOT
Avrae: @Garran :game_die:
Pale DEATH: 2d6 (2, 2)
Total: 4
Garran: Geeze.
BOT
Avrae: @cola :game_die:
Dull IRON.: 2d6 (6, 6)
Total: 12
Garran: 😮
BOT
Avrae: @Garran :game_die:
SORROW makes me blue: 1d6 (6)
Total: 6
cola: !
Garran: Unreal.
Garran: So I think ambition wins?
cola: Okay, IRON and SORROW cancel out. Yeah.
Garran: What a weird ending. That's like the only outcome in which the dragon definitely doesn't die.
cola: What do you go on to achieve, Sevenslayer?
cola: See I was right, you can't slay eight things the number is wrong.
cola: Three or seven, you know, I'm telling you
Garran: You're subjugated now so you have to shut up about that.
I think Olaf fights the dragon for hours, until both are exhausted, but he wins, and then he cannot bear to kill it. He is too angry, and he's been chasing it too long, and why should the dragon be allowed the peace of death after everything it's done? It should have to watch and suffer through the consequences of its defeat. His victory and its humiliation should never be allowed to end. He speaks the three names Pushpin told him and binds it into his service.
cola: This is unfair.
cola: You know you're like, retroactively justifying me in maiming that guy.
cola: What are you going to have me do, sit in the middle of the town square and spit out water?
cola: (This goes on pretty much indefinitely)
He has the dragon melt its hoard with its own breath, except for the ancient crown of Torpin, which he rides on its back to return. He maybe isn't expecting the people to make him king, though really what else are they going to do when a guy shows up on a dragon with the crown. Pushpin's apprentice Pinnipin is there, and she urges him to seal the dragon beneath a tower as the other beasts were sealed before. It's a good idea. Maybe one day he'll do it. But there's so much to do when you're a warrior with a whole kingdom and army now, and he isn't tired of winning yet...
cola: (“And how did that work out for you,” interjects the dragon)
cola: (“Silence,” mutters Olaf and hits the dragon with the pommel again)
He has great statues erected of all the other beasts he slew, which spurs a minor artistic renaissance in the kingdom, so that's something.
Okay, now you tell me how I suck.
Garran: (Also I make all the court records call me Eightslayer even though it doesn't make sense.)
You don't! Actually, the reign of Olaf the Hero is regarded as a high point in the kingdom's history. He lives a long life and the country prospers.
The only problem is that he fails to account for succession very well, leaving one First Prince, seven other lesser princes who stand in line to inherit the kingdom if the First Prince were to die somehow, a whole court full of scheming dukes and duchesses, and — one dragon.
Garran: Remember, kids, failing to write an ironclad will that explains what to do with your dragon is the biggest atrocity of all.
cola: If you don't like that moral, get a different skald!
cola: All right, that's three pfennigs from each of you. I don't care if you were asleep.
Garran: Olaf and the Dragon each turn and bow to the audience (Shrub Dryad).
Garran: So does the dragon end up slowly eating the whole court in the ensuing civil war, or what?
cola: thank you for the game! i feel like that's another story for another time
Garran: Yay. I enjoyed it.
cola: i feel like the dragon gets hold of the crown and uses it to convince the contenders for the throne to endure its trials
cola: the dragon presents itself as a disinterested magical beast judge who has set up these trials because it wants to hand down the crown only to a true hero, but they're actually really petty and rigged
cola: however, it always tries to make it look as though the king candidate failed due to some kind of personal flaw
cola: like dragon willy wonka
cola: there is a simultaneous civil war about which prince gets to enter the trials next, and they're always expected to win but then they always die, and there's a massive shift of power
Shrub Dryad: This was truly a joy to behold.
cola: the dragon just thinks this is the funniest way possible to kill all of olaf's sons
Shrub Dryad: Pinnipin is a humanoid seal girl.
cola: eventually it proclaims that none of them were worthy, and takes the crown and all the loose treasure and goes back to its lair. unless perhaps another hero were to come
cola: there are two months before that where it tries to become the king itself (after all, it's on all the heraldry!) but it's basically just too big
cola: it's not good at magic or anything so it can't change shape
cola: and humans are just Too Small for a dragon to conveniently be king
cola: that's what might have happened, but is it what did happen? my memory is failing me, but i might recover it with the aid of three more pfennigs. and some mead. and a new red feather, this one is getting really scruffy looking
cola: I seem to have set it up so that the dragon slays seven princes, which is neat.
cola: (The First Prince just gets assassinated)
cola: (or possibly escapes????)
Garran: Try as we might, neither of us can slay eight.
cola: It's the wrong number
cola: Yeah it makes the most sense to me if the First Prince secretly escapes the assassination.
cola: Thus do the golden gears of ambition and the marble jaws of death bite into each other.
cola: I don't know.
cola: Just, I like the symmetry of killing seven and failing to kill the last.
cola: Also I like how the dragon's sentences are so long and coiled up.
cola:
Image
cola: could i post this transcript to the discord server where i got the link to the game (possum creek games server)
cola: i like it and want to share it
Shrub Dryad: Either include or excise my commentary to your heart's content~
Garran: Go for it.