by Archmage » Mon Apr 02, 2007 5:37 pm
Come one, come all! There's a giant rampaging fantasy Godzilla on the loose, and he's going to destroy Tok--er, Doma! By which I mean the entire country, not just the city, because this thing only wakes up once every century or so to come out and eat the entire countryside for breakfast before it goes back to hibernation for its own inscrutible purposes. You can stand around all you want blaming the gods and trying to figure out which cruel bastard woke him up (it was probably Nakibe), but it won't do you any good now, because here he comes!
This is going to be a forum colosseum-style bout in which a large group of players (probably backed up by totally ineffectual NPCs) attempt to bring down the tarrasque as faithfully recreated in Philsys.
THE CHALLENGERS
In this corner, we have...THE TARRASQUE!
Weighing in at a nifty 260,000 pounds and a fabulous 50 feet tall, the tarrasque is one challenger who will have you thinking twice about throwing that right hook! With huge teeth and claws, he'll rip your farm to shreds to digest the paltry 350,000 calories in the average 70 kilogram man's body, which is roughly analogous to the average 70 kilogram man tearing apart a house to eat one cocktail weenie.
He's big, he's nasty, he has armor as thick as the strongest dragons and the durability and stamina of a dozen elephants combined! He regenerates almost any wound, devours the landscape without a second thought, charges rapidly across the open plains whenever he's feeling energetic, and best of all, the only way to make him stay dead is to get down on your knees and start praying, because nothing short of divine intervention is going to stop his prodigious regeneration! Let's hear it for our challenger!
AAAAAND in THIS corner, we have...GAERA!
Gaera the world has survived some tough challenges in its day, folks! We've got people running around who have stood toe-to-tentacle with (or are) fearsome dragons, giant slimes, mind-warping chaos beasts and even the gods themselves! Let's see if they can handle this one!
THE RULES
Rule 1: There is NO theoretical limit to the number of characters I will take for this. You're probably all gonna die anyway. I'll decide what kind of NPC backup you have when I figure out who the PCs will be. One character per RPer, please.
Rule 2: You may level your existing PC up 5 levels from his current level, OR set his level to 10, whichever is less. There are some restrictions on this:
-You must roll all stat-ups and other increases legitimately.
-You may not add new skills to your character's sheet, only advance existing ones.
-You may not learn techs or spells specifically designed to kill the tarrasque. I am the final arbiter on this.
Rule 3: The battle will be on-forum, so I'm going to use a hexboard. The battlefield is a large open plain, for the most part; there is no cover unless you create it yourself. Before anyone complains about this, consider the fact that
-The tarrasque does not use missile attacks, so cover does not help you, and
-If you hid behind an object it would just trample and eat the object, giving you about two seconds of additional lifespan.
Spells that make objects, walls, cover, etc. are all fair game if you think they will be strategically useful, but the battlefield is barren beforehand except for the fact that I might put some trees on it or something. It's attacking from the Forbidden Plains, if you want an in-universe explanation.
Rule 4: This is completely non-canon. Duh. It is also poly-temporal. You can use characters from first or second gen as long as they are Gaeran characters. You may not use MAC characters or characters from Charles's Philsys superhero RP. If you ask me to use a character that does not have a Philsys sheet I will shoot you in the head and put tetrodotoxin in your next meal. You will then be informed that you are allowed to make a new Philsys character (at level 5).
If you have existing characters that I am already familiar with, Philsys or otherwise, and you make a brand new one, I will make sure the tarrasque eats your new character first if you don't use one of those instead. Characters I am totally unfamiliar with get to wear "cannon fodder" signs unless I like them a whooooole lot.
Rule 5: I reserve to alter, edit, or change the rules at any time to prevent abuse. This is mostly for fun. If you complain about how the tarrasque ate your character, I will smack you. If you think you might complain about how the tarrasque ate your character, consider the possibility in advance and think about whether or not you really want to play.
Rule 6: The tarrasque speaks no languages and has a WIS of -5. Sorry, charisma-whores.
Rule 7: I also resolve that anyone who does anything I deem to be abusive without being exceedingly clever will fail at my whim. This is meant to be entertaining. Let's make sure it is!
Rule 8: You may not add new magical equipment to your existing characters, but any items they have earned in RPs are fair to use. I will potentially award consumable healing items to characters at the beginning of play based on the number of participants, much like NPC backup. If your character can make consumable items, they may have one day's worth of consumables on hand at the beginning of the fight.
As a point of interest, since it might come up, no, you don't need a magic weapon to hurt the tarrasque. I have converted its damage reduction and Natural AC bonus to determine its Philsys AC.
Rule 9: I might award some small amount of EXP to participants' characters if they do things that I find suitably entertaining. Consider it your reward for being awesome.
I will post the thread for this in FOUR DAYS. That's Friday, April 6th. If your sheet isn't ready or whatever, you're too late.
Let the games begin!