Heroes and Heroines Live Action Roleplay (Larp/LRP)

18 Cetenari, 8979 Ta

Source: Ma-arrr-ius the Ma-arrr-volous

 Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

A M-arr-ius the M-arr-volous adventure

 

Siver me timbers me hearties, and brace yerselves for a rollicking adventure with Pirates, pirate ghosts, a bad case of crabs, a bunch of ner-do-wells, and more booty that all the Kardashian’s combined (I have no idea what that last bit means).

 

So the Protectorate is under attack in the North by those scurvy dogs of Malice and it’s all hands to the pumps to repel boarders at our borders, when what arrives in the post, it’s a letter from our friends in the Iron League where the good King is dying of old age!

In the letter we learn that one of his subjects, the evil Baroness, has managed a conniving and underhanded plot to buy up the debt we owe the Iron League for Clearwater and plans to foreclose and possess it and to make an alliance with Malice in the process!

Well, I mean it’s pretty clever and well done to you Baroness, but everyone’s favourite purveyor of Porn Star Martinis, Angel, has hired a band of plucky heroes and loveable rogues to stop your plan!

The saviours of Clearwater were:

M-arr-ius the M-arr-volous, hero of many a tale and who may in fact be Marius the Magnificent in disguise.  Or not.

Val’Eth – Sorcerer of the Air college and apocalypse waiting to happen

Kinook – Yes, that Kinook.

Tenth – Caster of the Green school, and some other stuff as well.  He can’t make up his mind.

And the non-magical hangers on

Gurak – from the Fellowship, and what he hangs on, stays hung on.

Piper – Whom I have never seen play the pipes strangely.

Rai – edgy, gothic, loves to cast cause mortals and get caught in the rain.

Ela – Caster of the neutral sphere and general fixer of boo-boos.

Weed – Summer Druid and mushroom lover

May – A princess of Strawberryness.

Whiskers – I’m not sure what it is about Mistwalkers to me named after things they don’t do / have, but he doesn’t have whiskers.   Bright Yellow trousers though.

And joining us for a part of the adventure were:

Big Tony – a mighty fighter, needs a step ladder to still be shorter than Gurak.

Felic  – Claimed to be from the Iron League and wanting to have sanctuary in the Protectorate, trouble maker definitely.  Keen mind at puzzles though.

 

We set of from Clearwater upon a heavily armed fighting vessel called the Sanctuary, captained by the esteemed Captain Bartimus, and sailed to the seedy port of Dirmacia in Caiso’Tan.  The journey was uneventful for many days until we heaved to at night just off the coast, awaiting the morning light and favourable tide to enter the harbour.  Alas our plans were disrupted when it appeared that the good captain had a bad case of crabs!   A huge crustation emerged over the side of the ship and laid waste to the vessel, shredding sails, snapping ropes, and ripping the steering wheel clean off and hurling it into the depths of the ocean.  Naturally we assailed the creature with all our might, but without sufficient lemon butter, it escaped and plunged overboard, leaving chaos and havoc in its’ wake.  Luckily that would be the last we saw of that horrible beast – or would it?  Dun, dun Duuuun.

Taking stock (fish stock naturally), it was soon apparent that we were shipping water, which the Captain assured us was a bad thing, so we had no option but to head for the port immediately before we sank (again, we were told that this is a bad thing).  This is how we found ourselves heading at full speed to the port, in the dark and with no brakes.  Our arrival was announced with a loud crashing and splintering, and pretty much true protectorate fashion, no one could miss us.

This led to many question from the locals, but more important than that, the town had been captured by none other than that Pirate who’s name strikes fear into the hearts of all who sail the seas – Captain Finn their dastardly crew.  (okay, I had never heard of Captain Finn either until this moment).  The Mayor of the town had been locked up in the local prison, and it was up to us to rescue him!  Luckily this required those skills that the protectorate is famous for – kicking shit over until it works the way we want and so leaving Captain Bartimus and his crew to fix the ship, we headed off into the night, and destiny!

 

Despite all our cunning and strategies, the plan ended up very simple.  First we kicked over the local pirates, then we kicked over the installed by captain Finn town administrator, then a local inhabitant pointed us in the right direction (we didn’t kick her over), and then we kicked over the guards at the jailhouse and liberated the mayor.  He was remarkably grateful and set off to raise his forces that had been scattered by the surprise attack by Captain Finn, and rally them to retake the town – promising us he would return in the morning.  In the mean time we hunkered down in an abandoned warehouse that we found and made ourselves comfortable for the night.

In the morning an itinerant porridge seller was seen to be wandering past and so we nabbed them to make us breakfast, then some itinerant naer-do-wells was seen walking past and disturbed our breakfast casting so we had to quell their enthusiasm, and lastly an itinerant mayor of the town was seen walking past so we asked them some questions.

One thing we had discovered through was a letter, from the Baroness to Captain Finn, tying these two evil people together into one sinister plot, which was a plot of 3 parts…

1.  Get the treasure, buy Clearwater
2. Cosy up to Malice, get undeady.
3. Kill the 3 wise men of the Protectorate.  Ma-arr-ius was worried by this but it turned out they meant Lord Farakeen (too good at commerce), Angel (To good at cocktails?), and Anduin (Too good at being good?) 

I mean this is clearly a highly developed and doomed to fail plot, but just to be sure I think these 3 should be kept safe.  Angel can stay with Marius and Pip as their personal bartender. 

So we had to set out to find the treasure first, and this meant finding where it might be, we were advised to check out the Dryads at a temple somewhere over ‘The Broken Road’.  This meant, oh terror of terrors, a 3 day walk!  3 days!  Walk!  Not things Ma-arr-ius is fond of, but do it we must, Angel (and by extension the martinis) relied on it.  But horror!  Gurak wanted to stay behind to discuss some stuff so we had to do all this without him!

 

After a 3 day walk we crossed over the borders to the central plateau of Dirmacia, which meant crossing The Broken Road.  Once across the road the forest took on a strange and sinister aspect, we were assaulted by powerful and twisted creatures with claws like daggers and fangs like daggers but with saliva.

Even the very plants shambled and mounded at us, striking with their long stout wooden limbs that had a strange bluish tinge to the bark.  Destroying these abominations Ma-arr-ius paused to pick up and examine one of the strange wooden sticks (maybe as a present for Lyra?) only to find it couldn’t be put down again!  Luckily it proved a most powerful weapon and Marius is known for his most amazing skills with the quarterstaff (especially against Zombies) but even so, the inability to use both hands for spells could be an inconvenience so he made a mental note to get that fixed as soon as possible, ideally before dinner.

Pressing on, and getting assailed at every step of the way, we finally emerged into a clearing where a magnificent temple sat, stone towers and stepped garden walls  covered in all sorts of unseasonable plants in full flower as a snub to the winter storm that raged around us.   This must be the home of a powerful Dryad spirit for sure, but first, there was a huge Dick between us and our goal.

Lord Dick, lickspittle and aid to the Baroness, had reached the temple before us, clad in a magnificent feathered coat and with his big sword, sneering down at us from an overlooking balcony.   Well, there was only one way that we were going to deal with this big Dick and his crew, despite our efforts to negotiate we just had to try to take him.

 

Opening with a firestorm of firebolts, the battle raged with ebbing and flowing.  Alas in that battle Ma-arr-ius fell and was neglected while the party finally beat Dick until he went all floppy.  With Lord Dick Dead and his crew slain, the party took time to take stock of their wounds, luckily Ma-arr-ius was straight back on his feet, unluckily it was due to the evil influence of the corrupted bluewood and straight away he laid into his very friends!  Luckily Val’Eth is very scary and the spirit inhabiting Ma-arrr-ius fled before him (Ma-arrr-ius’s body going with it).  When the spell has worn off, Ma-arrr-ius returned but was met by a incredibly beautiful High Priest of the dryad temple that effortlessly broke the corrupted enchantment that had possessed Ma-arrr-ius and retuned him to sanity.

Even better, the dryads and guardians of the temple invited us to lunch, which we enjoyed immensely.  After eating our fill, the High Priest Dryad showed us the danger of the weapons that we were carrying made of eh bluewood of the local woods, for while they were powerful beyond reckoning, they were corrupted and evil which they demonstrated by breaking the curse that bound the weapon to Marius’s hand that had the effect of transforming it into a corrupted plant that attacked us and we barely were able to overcome.

Having demonstrated the danger of these items, the High Priest Dryad revealed that they knew the location of the treasure which they would share with us, just as soon as we would do a small favour for them.

Now, entranced by their beauty and beguiled by their feeding us lunch, we would agree to anything and so we did, which is why we found ourselves tree-shifted to a port on the coast with instructions to destroy a shipment of weapons made of this cursed wood that was being loaded and sent to the Iron League, and of course we landed in the middle of a bunch of Captain Finn’s pirate crew.   A quick fight later Marius woke up on the docks having missed the whole thing, finding the whole thing quite a nightmare, literally.

After the fight we approached the docks customs officer, an Iron League lacky by the name of Himler, he tried to deny that any bluewood weapons were passing through his port, even though we knew they were coming through and even after we explained the danger these weapons posed to the entire Iron League!  Almost suspiciously steadfast in his denial he was, so Rai stepped forward and discerned if he was under any spiritual influence.  He wasn’t, so he clearly was just a lying bastard.  Worse, he discerened back upon Rai and then claimed that we was under the influence of necromancy!

Ma-arr-ous is sure this cannot be true, after all Balgor has recently lambasted the Pyramid for such attachments, and wouldn’t allow such a thing to happen in his own Temple, surely not.  So Himler must be lying, or Rai might have been absent on the checking day (maybe tipped off by an insider?) or Balgor must have tolerated it?  Those last two options would be unthinkable, so Marius can only assume Himler was lying.

Still, wouldn’t hurt to check, surely.  Just in case.  After all Rai is a nice guy, Ma-arr-ius likes him and would hate for such a scurrilous rumour to taint his career.  Or love life.

 

Despite Himlers’ protestations we demanded to see one of the boats and eventually he aquested.  In the company of one of his guards we marched down the wharf to an awaiting vessel where the boat crew vehemently denied seeing any such weapons being loaded, even when Ma-arrr-ius sweet talked one of them into checking for him there was denial of any of the cursed weapons.  At last we persuaded Himler to allow Piper onto the boat, but when she came back there was clearly something wrong – her weak and feeble mind had been beguiled!  Well, it all kicked off and a huge fight started, with streams of seamen pouring forth from the boat in what seemed to be a never ending flow, with us being pushed back then us pushing forwards, raging here and there and finally ended with much elixering (our people) and looting of bodies (Their Bodies).

We boarded the boat and discovered a locked room sealed with a cunning cypher lock.  We had no way to know the code, but there was a pile of scrolls on the table that we investigated, these were filled with cunning riddles, maybe one of these would have the solution on it?  The only catch, each one trapped with a random enchantment! 

The first one send Val’Eth to the plane of Air (he gets all the luck), then another send him to the plane of light (good and bad luck).  Various traps set off fire, lightning, darkness, sleep, and all other manners of magics.  One by one we worked through them with our crack team of puzzle solvers, Big Tony and Felic proving most helpful, until at last we cracked it!  The answer was “Cloud” and as we entered it into the cypher box there was a click, and the door swung open. 

Inside was a pile of gold, and a huge selection of bluewood weapons.  We had found our horde and proof that Himler was a lying bastard.

 

Carefully Ma-arr-ius and a couple of others loaded the weapons into Marius’s cloak and being most careful not to touch a single one, we carried them outside, placed them on the docks and burnt every last one.  As the last ashes settled down, the High Priest of the Dryads appeared with the instructions of how to find the treasure we sought, but it would be dangerous.  We would need to find a legendary horn that would allow us safe passage to a lost temple where the fabled treasure was. 

Without delay we set off.  Except we took quite a long delay since it was time for a Solstice Feast!  Inviting a group of wandering peasants and dock workers to join us the tables groaned under the weight of the spread placed before us.  Food piled upon food sat there and was attacked with the same Gusto that Ma-arr-ius loves to attack Zombies! 

Satiated, fed, and generally 20kg heavier, we finally forced ourselves away from the food and company and reluctantly set off.   Hiring some local fisherfolk we (they) piloted our craft to the shores where the treasure and temple were said to be.  We couldn’t sail directly there due to a huge wall of water that shielded the island of the temple, and so landed in a bay nearby.  There we were assaulted by waves of undead that roamed the area, bodies and spirits of sailors past who had perished in these waters.  We were set upon by drowned spirits, salty sea dogs, brine Zombies, sea skeletons, and other nautically themed undead monsters.  Team Mage banded together to take them down, while the others were paralysed by ghouls, or had their arms ripped off by giant undead horrors.  Last of all was their spiritual leader, a dread pirate captain who keelhauled anyone who vexed him, dragging them underground and causing great damage as a result.  All these undead were slain by team mage and then we set about fixing the others.

 

On through the woods we pushed, until we came upon our first target, the fabled Horn of blowing.  A scroll beneath it told us the following riddle in a combination of power and magic runes (luckily Marius reads both):

“Blow me by night, the undead will be put to flight.

Blow me by day, the Kraken will stay away”

Who knows what this would mean, but putting the undead to flight seemed like a good idea ta the time so Ma-arr-ius put his blowing skills to good use and the undead melted away into the night.

Deeming the passage too dangerous to risk crossing by night, and worried about that Kraken thing, we decided to retreat to the boat and await the morning.

 

 

 

In the morning we had some good news, Gurak was back!  And with a wry smile that he refused to tell us what it meant, just a cryptic “Wait and you’ll see”

Also Big Tony and Flica had fled, clearly too scared by what they were going to face, or possibly due to other reasons, either ways they contributed!

Setting off we found that the undead had returned, and in greater numbers.  We ploughed our way through them until we met a huge marrow crusher, which struck blows with the strength of a giant!   There was only one thing for it, we left that for Gurak and then sat back and enjoyed the show!  Gurak proving his worth and demonstrating why you never bet against him in the pits.

We reached the horn and Piper had given it a good blow.  The waters that had been roiling and bubbling quietened and it looked safe to cross – however he horn had summoned it’s protector – the undead Captain Dreadlocks, who was very officially not a Dick, but a complete arsehole (Direct quote).  Worse, one of his scurvy crew beguiled Rai who cast terror on Ma-arr-ius, who fled across the sea into a waiting water elemental who Ice javalined him to near-death!  Luckily Weed was on hand to rescue Ma-arr-ius.  Yay Weed, boo Rai!

The captain defeated we set off, buoyed [get it – buoyed becuse ships and water etc.] by the horn that once per day allowed us to walk across the water (Val’Eth and Marius already could, but the others needed the horns’ help)

We raced as fast as we could across the sea to an island.  Just the last small straight to cross, but first, do you remember that Giant Crab we had met earlier?  It was back!  But this time we were cooking with garlic butter and soon had that critter ready for lunch!  Soon being a relative term, because it took aged and we wll needed big patching up afterwards, but all we had to do was walk across the last bit of water and claim the treasure – hooray for us, heroes all!

So we did that, only to find that the temple was already inhabited!  A great water node resided there and demanded that we make a sacrifice of a royalty to it!  Well, we had a princess with us so offered her as companion to this being, but he wanted her to drown first, we weren’t about to give up our strawberry to this great oaf, so we negotiated in true protectorate style, slaying this being, his two lieutenants, and a never ending stream of water elementals in the process in a climatic and very nail biting battle, before finally he was overcome and the temple (and treasure) was ours!

 

What a sight, gold piled high and higher, gems, jewels, shiny stuff.  Enough to clear the debt for clearwater for sure!  And even better, a potion bottle that contained a liquid that promised the drinker to lose 50 years!

And so, treasure in hand, secured from Captain Finn, Val’Eth started to cast our way home, where we gave our debrief, handed the treasure to Angel and the bottle to Foxglove, who traded it to the King of the Iron league in return for clearing Clearwater’s debt, then Foxglove claimed the gold and allocated it to defence and research, with a little extra towards the guilds.

All in all, a good result for the home team!  And home we went!

 

 

 

 

A huge thanks to Mig and all the monsters who worked so hard over the weekend, and managed to somehow avoid the worst of the stormy weather, to deliver an awesome event in both terms of epic battles, amazing storytelling, and incredible scene dressing.  The pile of gold at the end was epic. 

 

May you all have a wonderful Solstice period and your start to the New Year be plain sailing!