The adventures of Craick & Scaley (spoilers eventually)

[Armen]

ok here we go - lets hope i manage to keep this up

the details:
bgtutu
solo beastmaster (ranger kit)
there will be SPOILERS eventually

the story:
see below

[Armen]

Craick’s mind was a whirl as he followed Gorion out into the dark beyond Candlekeep. He replayed the moment when the first man had stunned him by pulling out a dagger and lunging at him with murderous intent. Shocked by the violent intrusion into the ordered calm of Candlekeep, Craick had acted purely on instinct, picking up a chair and smashing it into his assailant, knocking the man halfway across the room. The assassin quickly sprang back to his feet though and for the first time Craick looked into the eyes of someone who wanted to kill him. As the man closed Craick stepped back blocking a low dagger thrust with one of the chair legs remaining in his hands and slamming the other into his would be killer’s head. The man slumped to the ground, dead.

That had been hours ago and his stumbling run to Gorion, the genuine look of concern on the face of his usually serene guardian and their hurried departure had done nothing to calm him. Craick gripped the shaft of his bow nervously as he walked. He desperately needed to rest but Gorion seemed determined to put some distance between them and Candlekeep. Unfortunately for the old man they were walking into danger, not away from it. As the pair entered a clearing in the sparse woodland a huge armoured warrior stepped out of the shadows and confronted Gorion. The man, if man he was, was encased from head to toe in black steel plate armour with a terrible helm that completely obscured his features. Even he was dwarfed though by the two enormous ogres that flanked him as he strode forward demanding that Gorion hand Craick over to them. Craick stared in disbelief at the monsters – rooted to the spot his bow still in his hands as he faced what must surely be a nightmare.

A word and a gesture from Gorion broke the spell and sent him running from the scene. Craick ran as the sound of battle escalated behind him. Ran after all fell quiet. Ran in fear of the monsters who were surely now pursuing him. Too scared to cry out loud Craick silently screamed, “Help me please! Somebody help me!” He stumbled and fell forward slamming hard into the ground his breath knocked out of him. He sensed more than saw a disturbance in the air around him and fearing some form of magic aimed against him shook his head desperately to clear it and tried to stand. “Quickly!” he heard a voice nearby, “crawl towards me and lie still.” Craick didn’t recognise the voice. In his confused state he couldn’t be sure he had even heard it at all. But somehow he trusted it completely and did as it asked crawling towards it until he found himself hidden from sight in a hollow between a stand of thick bushes. As he lay there, still and exhausted, closing his eyes and trying to quieten his breathing he heard the strange voice again. “Sleep now master. I shall watch”.

Craick slept . . .

[RoSs_bg2_rox]

[img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] Great start Armen, Im intrigued! MORE MORE MORE

[Armen]

A traveller on the Sword Coast road the following morning might have been surprised to see a very grubby large young man staring at a very small dragon sitting in the branches of a small tree.

Craick finally reached out a tentative hand towards the image of the little dragon. Still not quite believing his eyes he was surprised when his fingers connected with the creatures tough hide. “scaley . . .” he muttered to himself as he slowly drew his hand away.

“Well, I’d have preferred Silverclaw or Shadowfang or something but I guess it’ll have to do,” said the dragon turning to look at Craick directly as he scrabbled back away a shocked look on his face. Finally Craick spoke.

“I’m sorry but I don’t understand what you are saying”

“The Naming. If you’d read a bit more you’d have realised the importance that some place on it but it doesn’t actually matter too much. ‘Scaley’ it is then.”

“It was you last night wasn’t it? The voice that showed me the hiding places.” Craick thought back again to the night before and a puzzled frown passed across his face. “Why did you call me ‘master’?” he asked.

“Well, I thought you were a mage at first. They tend towards the arrogant it helps to start off on the right wing with mages. I could tell you a thing or two about some of them”

“Have you had many masters then?” said Craick cautiously.

“More than I can even tell you, mainly mages of course and a few bards but the odd elven ranger. The last one was a high-ranking thief that had somehow worked out how to use a scroll and wanted me to lie on his treasure. They were all basically good people of course even the thief although he cut it a little bit close a few times.”

“Is that why you left him?”

“I didn’t leave him master he died. They all died – eventually”

“Died?”

“People die all the time master – adventurers more often and more quickly than most. Actually one of the mages didn’t actually die as such but he became a bit evil and, well undead. I don’t work with evil so we parted company but we saw some things before that – demons, elemental forces, even a god once. Happy days. Actually not exactly happy now I think about it but interesting, always interesting”

“Why haven’t you died then?”

“Because I’m careful. And I’d suggest you do the same. More importantly I suggest you’re careful with me. I don’t know exactly what happens to you if I die but its something bad apparently and my guess is it’ll hurt. Remember, I’ve been around a bit – don’t get me wrong master, you’re in charge and I wouldn’t dream of telling you what to do, but well – I’d like to think I can help with some of the tactical details if you know what I mean”

Craick paused and tried to digest what the dragon was saying. And why, he wondered, why was he sat talking to a dragon? He voiced the question.

“Because you called me.” Scaley answered as if it was the simplest thing in the world.

“But I don’t even know what I did. How can I just call out and a make dragon appear?”

“I was wondering that as well – are you sure you’re not a mage?”

“No – I don’t think I’m anyone much”

“Found a scroll? Some sort of powerful magical item?”

“No”

“You’re a beast talker then”

“Am I?

“Definitely. Elves have them I know for certain – you don’t look elvish though – were your parents both human?”

“I don’t know – my mother was I think but Gorion took me in when I was a baby – I don’t know anything about my father”

“Hmm,” mused the dragon looking suddenly quizzical. “Practically an orphan then. You don’t have a birthmark in the shape of anything do you?”

“Birthmark?” echoed Craick, “why do you say that? And what’s a beast talker?” he added.

“Just a thought master, just a thought. Don’t worry about the beast talking now – it’ll come to you in time. Right shall we get on with it then?”

“Get on with what?”

The dragon, Scaley, locked his amber eyes onto Craick. “Surviving” he said quietly, “and avenging Gorion.”

Craick stared at the small dragon wondering at the course his life had taken. He looked into Scaley’s eyes – eyes that had looked out at the world for generations – eyes that had seen things beyond his imagination. And as he looked he found himself strangely reminded of Gorion. Usually the face of his mentor had been full of humour and affection. Gorion had seemed just one of the many scholars in Candlekeep. But now he wondered who Gorion really was and what those kindly eyes had seen. The thought of those eyes now being closed forever filled him with sorrow but also with a determination to enact the revenge of which Scaley had spoken. His thoughts were interrupted by Scaley’s voice.

“There’s a girl dressed in the most ridiculous purple outfit I have ever seen trying unsuccessfully to sneak towards us along the side of the road. Shall we go and see what she wants?”

[Armen]

Well Craick has come a long way in a short time. Scaley (a pseudo dragon familiar by the way – beast masters get find familiar as an innate ability) has saved his life a couple of times now – mainly in battles with magic users. The little dragon managed to disrupt the assassin at the FA inn long enough for Craick and the guards to wear though his mirror images. The assassin in the inn at Nashkel nearly killed us both (I’m very susceptible to hold person and never seem to make my save which usually means death) and it was only Scaley catching the assassin’s attention and taking a couple of hammer hits in the process that stopped me dying. Similarly with Bassilus the little fella managed to make himself the target of the rigid thinking and the hold person while Craick pounded away with the his staff.

We’ve searched every inch of the wilderness south of the beregost and west of the main road, all of the larswood region and we’re most of the way through cloakwood now. I’ve found Ettercaps a difficult and dangerous foe taking the most arrow hits of anything short of ogre berserkers.

Kit-wise the beastmaster is playing like an archer and attacking from stealth a lot. An actual archer would be a good bit tougher and the addition of stalker backstab would be insane. I’m 8th level now so have a monster summoning 1 slot that I’ve used once.

Equipment wise the lack of any (that’s ANY) magical clubs and the near constant archery has sent me down the quarterstaff route so no particular benefits from dual wielding for me. I’ve also run into the ‘getting into ulgoth’s beard problem’ so the mighty +3 staff will have to wait until after I’ve opened the BG bridge (I’m avoiding doing anything drastic until I’ve checked all the usual ways in). I’m also still using the studded leather I bought in Candlekeep (and I still think rangers should be able to buy the shadow armour!). I’m not spending money on anything except a few arrows of biting (reserved for magic user battles), healing potions and antidotes so I have ~60K gold built up for when I get to the proper shops.

Bgtutu wise everything seems to be going well. The increased movement speed makes the wilderness areas a joy even without the boots of speed (I’ve raced for the boots before in previous games but have taken my time in this one). Also once I’d been to FA Inn, Beregost and High Hedge I cheated in one each of scroll case, gem bag and potion case (and donated 3K gp to a temple) which I thought was just about acceptable.

The only bugs I’ve seen were one funky one where all of my stealth disappeared (I thought it was a XP cap issue but it happened between level ups?). SK put them back but I need to dig around a bit more as it looks a bit like the kit bonus of +15% wasn’t implemented. The other was that Scaley sent the guards in Naskel hostile which was funny but obviously a bit inconvenient so he stays in the backpack in towns now.

I currently have about ~200K xp and it will be interesting to see what level I am for the final battle (I need 300 for level 9 for example).

I am LOVING playing BG 1 again and I’m already half planning to exploit the admittedly unbalanced XP rewards for scribing scrolls and locks and traps with a thief/illusionist game as well - its very nice doing things in BG1 that you couldn't before (dual-wielding and find familiar in this case) and i reckon that set traps would be interesting too

Sorry to break the story – I’ll try to pick it up again.

[Armen]

Craick was drawing near to the Iron Throne’s mines when he came across a huge bloody cave mouth in a clearing in the forest. Thinking of the Elven wyvern hunter he’d met a few days ago he slipped quietly into the cave to be confronted with two of what he now realised were baby wyverns and two fully grown beasts. They were enormous and Craick wondered for a second what he thought he was doing as he let fly the first arrow. The enchanted shaft sunk into the neck of the nearest big reptile and his eyes snapped up to lock on Craick as he knocked and fired another after the first.

Before the wyvern could take off in pursuit Craick dived out of the cave ran across the clearing and hid silently in the undergrowth watching as one each of the large and small wyverns flew out and looked around for him. Carefully picking his escape route and next hiding place he drew back the bowstring again for the third time sending a magical arrow of ice into the wing muscle of the large monster before breaking cover and running hard through the congested woodland – the wyvern’s pursuit slowed by the densely overgrown battleground that Craick had selected. Eventually, Craick’s stealth and patience won this dangerous and exhausting game of cat and mouse and the wyvern’s all lay dead. Craick stowed one of the wyvern heads in his pack (much to Scaley’s disapproval) and set off back to Beregost to claim his reward.

[RoSs_bg2_rox]

[img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] keep goin!

[Xen]

Nice! When you come to BG II prepare for the most miserable days of your life. You will DIE and DIE and DIE and DIE and DIE! ARGH!!!!!!!


With a little sarcasem... good luck! [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Armen]

Cast:
Thalantyr (a mage & shopkeeper)
Craick (a beastmaster & adventurer)
Scaley (a pseudo dragon, familiar to Craick)

The scene:
High Hedge. Craick, recently returned from Cloakwood, has engaged Thalantyr to identify some magical items that he has recovered.

T: It’s a Wand Of Fear.
C: What does it do?
T: It instils fear in you enemies causing them to flee in panic.
C: That sounds useful - enemies that flee can be hunted down at leisure.
T: Yes but you won’t be able to use it I’m afraid. I’ll give you 300 gold for it.
C: Why can’t I use it?
T: Because you do not have the skills and knowledge of a mage of power.

(Craick appears to be listening to his backpack for a minute)

C: Can’t mages do that sort of thing anyway? Why make a wand for it that only mages can use?
T: Mages can do many things that are beyond the likes of you! But a wand is a conduit if you like a storehouse of power . . .
C: Have you got any wands that I can use?
T: Yes, I have this Wand Of Sleep, only 1,500 gold
C: 1500?! What does it do?
T: It instils sleep in you enemies causing them to fall insensible to the floor.
C: That sounds even more useful – enemies that don’t flee don’t have to be chased around and can be smacked round the head at leisure. Why can I use this one but not the fear one?
T: It would take to long to explain woodsman – now do you want the Wand Of Sleep or not?
C: Go on then I’ll give it a go – its not like I can’t afford it . . .

(Craick wedges the wand in his belt and sets off for the Coakwood mines)

[RoSs_bg2_rox]

like the shop roleplay, put some more of them in!