Thursday 20 April 2017

Ioun Dwarf vs Crag Giant

Crag giants …”When labor is in short supply and high demand, crag giant hunting parties venture forth, raiding nearby civilized lands and capturing whatever humanoids they can.” They are the perfect CR 11 adversary for my new level 12 dwarf mountain witch with an ioun wyrd familiar. The stories will be written in first person, so that I do not have to figure out the name any time soon, names are the hardest thing for me to figure out for characters.
Why the mountain witch? Because it focuses on stones. It grants new hexes based upon the shaman stone spirit. The first hex would be cauldron, as she will be a brewmaster and possibly have a small tavern that also sells magic items. The second level hex is taken by the archetype. Then it is perfect with the 4th, 6th, 8th, 10,th, and 12th hexes being taken by crystal sight, lodestone, metal curse, stone stability, and ward of stone, not necessarily in that order. Preferring to be paid in gemstones she ends up selling magical stones and gemstones too after a while. Thus she has a tavern that sells alcohol, magic potions, some liquid alchemical items, gemstones, and magical gems and stones. Something that would belong in a very small settlement or as a waypoint.
She started out life as a brewer and then when she got her ioun wyrd familiar she became all about stones. I still need to choose her patron too. For now though, a battle to prove her prowess.
I had been collecting water from the stream when he came lumbering out of the strand of trees. Thirteen feet tall with mud brown skin and long, shaggy black hair. He pointed his greatclub at me and said in the language of the giants “You will come with me to be a slave of the crags.” 
“I don’t think so.” I said back in the same language, switching out the full waterskin in my hands for an empty one beside me. I dipped it into the water to fill it while mentally going over the spells I had prepared this morning with Wyrdy.
“You will come willingly or I will incapacitate you and bring you with me unwillingly.”
“Are you saying you might be unwilling to incapacitate me?” I asked trying to confuse him with circular logic.
“You are coming with me one way or another. Your knowledge of our language makes you a better slave than one without it. Your waterskins will be coming with us as well.” He added as I switched out the now full waterskin for my last empty one.
“I have too much work to do today. Just go find some young adventurer and take them instead.” I said taking the fifth full waterskin from the stream. Picking up the other four I stood and warned him “I would not want to have to kill you.” I said thinking of my slay living spell.
He laughed. Then stepped forward and swung his greatclub at my head. He made contact but I never go out without a ward of stone. He rang my bell a bit but not enough to cause me to forget the spell. I stepped forward and let the necromantic energy loose into the giant. Giants have a great fortitude but hopefully the giant would have enough reason to back off.
He stepped back then swung the greatclub at my head again. I ducked and he howled in pain from an overextension. Apparently I needed to inflict more pain. I touched him again, sending more necromantic into him, inflicting critical wounds.
He growled and switched his club to his other hand. He swung at my head again. It hurt. A lot. I had been planning on using vampiric touch to work on a martyr’s tear but now I needed a quick healing. I felt the boost like putting a compress of cold peppermint leaves on the two places the greatclub had struck.
The third hit, on my shoulder, dislocated it. I used vampiric touch again shouting “I can last longer than you.”
“Your necromancy will not save you.” He argued, swinging his club again. I ducked and inflicted wounds on him one last time.
He stumbled and I gave him one last chance. I popped my shoulder back into place and glared at him. “Are we done?”
Apparently not as he swung the greatglub at me again. I ducked and lessened my infliction to serious wounds. It was enough to knock the giant over, unconscious nearly dead.
I kicked the greatclub over towards my waterskins, it would make a nice addition to the weapon trophies on my wall. I took the giants waterskin, four times bigger than the ones I usually carried and still half full, mine now. I looked into the pouch around the giants neck and came out with a fortune. The eight platinum pieces would have made a normal adventurer or businessman but I loved the thirteen gemstones. One by one I transferred the gems into my own pouch, a sardonyx, citrine, peridot, a black tourmaline, a black pearl, a small diamond, another small diamond, a small ruby, a second small ruby, an emerald, a third small ruby, a second emerald, and a star sapphire. I picked up the greatclub, my waterskins, and headed back to The Drunken Magic Stone, my tavern magic shop. I still had spells left to make potions and one use of vampiric touch to work on the tear too. It wasn’t too bad of a fight and the bounty was more than worth the pain. I valued my Drunken Magic Stone too much to go out adventuring again but the gems…

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