Most Glorious Fields of Strife

[DugCoffin]

"Captain Crimson watched as his adversary leapt nimbly from rock to blackened rock up a river of lava towards the volcano that spewed it forth.  If the sphere made it to the secret caverns below, thousands more in Gem would die.  He would not allow that to happen..."


In the age of sorrows powerful beings do epic battle to determine the fate of creation.  What are some of the battlefields you have fought on or challenged your players with?  Seen a cool fight scene in a movie or read about one that was Exalted worthy?  


Large or small I'd love to <strike>steal</strike> hear about them!

 

[Flagg]

I had my players battle Mask of Winters once while in free fall down an effectively bottomless shaft lined with rusty iron cages full of emaciated mortal captives.


They didn't stunt nearly as much as they should have.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

I had a set piece in the middle of the frozen north once. Just one I cooked up on the spot. A PC and a rather large contingent of mercs and Realm regulars were moving along the ice plains in large sleds to nail a Hslanti air harbor. It was nestled inside a mountain.


It was dead silent, only the wind, cloudy night, full moon peaking out behind the clouds. The PC was starting to sweat outside of game, he must have been real worried. Then the clouds broke and they all spied a looming shadow somewhere above them against the stars.


An airship.


Well...after a few moments it swooped down close along side the sleds, probably a hundred or so yards away and fifty feet off the ground. It was the oddest airship they'd ever seen. And then it's gunwales opened...


First volley killed some of the mercs right next to the PC and destroyed another sled. Then it became one of the best chase scenes I've ever done

 

[memesis]

The Eclipse Caste of my last game battling the Princess Magnificent at the Maw of Oblivion, trying to retrieve the names of the deathlords held there in a pattern spider's web.

 

[Ledaal Kajiri]

One of the more interesting battlefields I've been on was in a ruined section of Chiroscuro, in one of the Shadowlands...fighting hordes of hungry ghosts while moving a piece of First Age office furniture back to my manse...having to keep stopping to move the desk over obstacles while battling the encroaching undead hordes. Pausing to winch the desk up and over a fallen tower, then slowly lower it, having to pause and fight while holding a pulley rope in one hand and sword in the other, fighting to keep from dropping the desk while driving off the next incursion...that was fun.


Furnishing my manse was certainly...interesting. Every manse since then hasn't been surrounded by Shadowlands in a ruined, but still live section of a half ruined city...for some reason. Though it was useful in keeping the Wyld Hunt from knowing where home was...


Hmm...as for the most interesting location for a battle that I've run...that's a hard call. Hmm...might be the battle in the middle of a river running extra strong and deep after the spring thaw...filled with hordes of insane animals driven to violent madness by the spells of the Celestial Sorceror in the group, two barbarian hordes clashing in a battle of fierce Lunar on Lunar action as people fought for control of the Ten Tribes with Dark Eyes. Sadly, they accidentally killed him...which hadn't really been in their plans.

 

[Vanman]

Our DB group fought an Anathema hungry ghost in a First Age observatory that launched into space. There were also a bunch of floating chairs, and you could see the whole of Creation from that vantage point. Then the observatory started to plummet to the ground. So we had to leap from chair to chair, fighting off the ghosts whilst the 2 sorcerers in the group tried to prevent the observatory from crashing into the ground. It was pretty cool.

 

[The Mad hatter]

with a mixed group (2 solars, and 3 lunars), Battle in a Rashakas domain, said little weasle ruled a Castle that was its own island in the west... Memorable spots of fighting...


The Hanging Gardens.... Living Plants were suspended over a 200 foot drop to the waters below, all plants had their own little plot of earth the was hung by silvery threads and had a bad habit of swaying when stood on, jump from one spot to the next, try not to fall off, all while duking it out with Goblins and the plants themselfs who thought you were lunch


The main hall.... ever see that painting or heck the end of Laymbirth where there is stairs and platforms in every direction and gravity is basicly oriented to wherever your foot is? ya.. that


the best however was the last, once we managed to fight out way though all his retainers, and finally find the head honcho himself it was a battle atop the peaks of the castle, where less then 4 suxx on a athletics, ment a very very long fall.... all while evading his superior swordmansip, twin behemoths and resisting his attempts to shape everything to make us belive we lost and render us helpless..... we lost...badly....

 

[Fruan]

I had a couple of Abyssals (One with Labyrinth Circle Necromancy and one with Celestial Circle Sorcery (God that was an awesome group)) fight in and around a large lagoon as a wyld hunt came at them from both the surrounding jungle and a large ship offshore.


They did some seriously cool stuff with Magma Kraken and Ivory Razor Forest to fuck up the longboats coming at them.


Of course, the didn't realize that Unbreathing Earth Meditation could be used on other people, so that got interesting.

 

[Flyck]

This was an interesting one.  Our group was in Gem, and consisted of 2 Solars, an alchemical (Moonsilver I believe), and myself (playing my Abyssal Day Caste Funerary Director from Sijan).  We're staying at a local Inn, when a Wyld Hunt moves in to attack us, as well as arrest a Water-Caste (NPC) gone rogue who ran the Inn.  As the group (and the NPC fled), myself and the Alchemical hid out on the roof and dropped down to the street when the Dragon Blooded and his soldiers made their way to the horses.  It turned into a showdown-style of the soldiers and the DB squaring off 50 paces away from my character and my friend playing the Alchemical.  The fight was short with the DB taking upwards of 25+ lethal (after soak) through both our attacks going off on the same initiative count (dramatic effect).  But the image of a mass of Realm Soldiery led by a DB staring down a blond spike-haired guy with a red jacket and a mortician with a casket on his back was pretty cool.


Nothing astounding as far as terrain went, but the scene itself and dramatic showdown-esque pause was what made it cool.

 

[Solfi]

... that sounds like a scene that could be in a Nintendo fighting game ... (Well, your characters does...)

 

[Flyck]

... that sounds like a scene that could be in a Nintendo fighting game ... (Well, your characters does...)

Since when does a Mortician sound like a Nintendo character???

 

[Persell]

Imagine the imperial senate, the empress gone, tempers flaring high, the realm: on the brink of civil war, because some of their brightest servants are more worried about positioning themselves well for the succession wars rather than furthering the goals of the realm.


The characters overpower the guars, burst open the huge portal and stride proudly over the ancient marble to present the evidence they gathered against those aforementioned senators. The guards back down, awed by their reputation (and the fact that two of their comrades lie on the ground already) and the characters take the stage for themselves. The fire aspect making a speech about the honour of serving the realm, the water aspect: presenting the evidence.


All the while in the shadows: the groups air aspect moving in, blocking escape routes for the traitors, quietly eliminating guards loyal to the traitorous scum.


After the fire aspect and the water aspect whipped the senators into a righteous frenzy they arrested the traitors on the spot by themselves.


This was the end of the exposition of my very first dragon blooded games and I still think it is one of the better figthing scenes I ever gamemastered despite actually no combat rolls being made (the guards were extras, and the player characters were in the 4-5 essence range).

 

[Sheridan Boyce]

Playing DBs, we were at a big athletic competition outside of Great Forks when word got out that there was a four talent bounty on my head (I still don't know why) and all hell broke loose.  I ended up fighting  one of our rivals on top of the crowd, as the whole thing turned into a massive brawl.  Same campaign but much earlier, we got attacked by a couple low-Essence and inexperianced Solars while on the water.  They attacked up from another boat and we put up a good fight, I used Sparrow Dives at Hawk to shatter a cannonball in midair with an arrow, and one of the group got put through the deck.  It was a pretty sweet fight, which we lost in the long run.  Ironically, the Solars were Guild agents, and probably sent by one of my other characters (Righteously Brilliant Smile).


With Solars we fought a couple powerful DBs in a clockwork tower that was spinning downward incredibly fast, that was pretty cool though mecahnicaly akward.

 

[Persell]

a blond spike-haired guy with a red jacket and a mortician with a casket on his back was pretty cool.

that sounds like Gungrave and Vash the Stampede. Were you ripping anime character   :x


just kidding

 

[Flyck]

a blond spike-haired guy with a red jacket and a mortician with a casket on his back was pretty cool.

that sounds like Gungrave and Vash the Stampede. Were you ripping anime character   :x


just kidding

Gungrave was where I got the idea for a casket on his back, but his preferred weaponry had nothing to do with firearms.  He was a melee built character who specialized with Grimscythes (1e 'counted as' Grand Daiklave).  But fell back on an exquisitely crafted Greatsword to hide his Abyssal Nature (the scythe was Soulsteel).  Aside from that, 7' tall, long indigo jacket, smoked quartz sunglasses, and a wide-brimmed hat.  So yes, alot of his style was from various anime (including Hellsing and Vampire Hunter D), but the character overall was very unique and fun to play.  I gave him a very dour yet oddly cynical personality, far contrasting any of the characters his style pulled from.


As for the Red Jacket and Blond hair.  My buddy was an Alchemical who had the look-human enhancements.  He came up with his overall appearance on his own, decided on red for his main colors, went for a jacket, and decided on blond hair.  Although he had no intentions of pulling Vash as a concept, someone mentioned the similarity and the joke continued to the point of him buying a box of donuts.