You are a prisoner. Taken from your homeland and transported unknown distances, you have ended up in a strange place. Here you have been incarcerated. The place is full of animals, monsters, and strange beasts. There are also other intelligent beings, strange folk speaking stranger tongues, all torn from their homes and brought here.
The guards often take you from your cell, off to rooms where you are tested. You have been chased by beasts, shot at with weapons, and afflicted with magic. They have been testing you. Improper responses bring swift reprisals of pain and then a return to your cell. Still, a spark of hope remains, kept alight and carefully guarded until a time comes when you can seize a moment to try and reclaim your freedom.
In one cell is what appears to be a Goblin, yet far more primal and animalistic. He even has a tail, that swishes in annoyance or excitement. His fur is dark, with an almost shifting quality. When he's in the corners of his cell, he's practically invisible.
At times, when he's feeling playful, or wants to aggravate his captors, he'll climb up the walls of his cell, and run around on them. It often gets him punished, but it always pisses off the guards.
Gurk waits in his cell.
He was forced to crouch in the cramped quarters, barely able to move. Growing weak.
He'd been always mightier than the other orcs, more ruthless and twice as massive. When the humans came he was the obvious target. Some of the other ran like cowards, betraying their heritage. He didn't remember how many of the humans he'd crushed before they had him wrapped in enough nets and chains to capture him, but he vowed to crush more of them. Humans were weak, and he would escape eventually.
It is the humans that put you through your tests, that feed you and guard your cell, but you do not fear them. It is the sense of the others, the nightmares of white-eyed terrors that keep you dreading your incarceration. In your dreams they take you, study you, and cut... They only appear in your dreams, but you can feel fresh scars under your fur that make the nightmares somehow more than just images in your mind.
Once free from your cell, you know the most direct route to the testing facility. You know that there are many sharp implements that you can use as weapons, as well as certain drugs and toxins that are kept hidden somewhere nearby.
Pacing back and forth in his cage --the space between the bars of a real cell easily wide enough for him to slip through-- Ji'grik occasionally tries to bend the bars. He looks like an extremely small halfling with verdant green hair.
"Never shoulda left First World..." He utters under his breath as he sits down with his legs dangling through the bars. Bored, he says something in the language of magic and makes little balls of light dance around his cage in time with ghostly music.
The only upside to your small size is that you're easily overlooked. As a result, the guards of the place speak openly around you, often discussing things you have no business knowing.
Still, you bide your time. You allow the rage to build within you, waiting for the time when their guard is down and you can visit your suffering back upon them ten-fold.
The lot of you sit in your cells--praying, brooding, grumbling, seething--when without warning a great tremor rocks the place. You are flung to the floor with the force of the shockwave. Bounced about like the contents of a wagon on a rut-filled road, you have no idea what is going on. Je'grik hears a cracking sound, peering up between the bars of his cage to see a great crack split through the ceiling. The fixture holding the chain on his cage falls loose, and his cage clatters to the floor, bouncing along as the tremor continues. The shaking seems to last forever. Then, as suddenly as it began, it is over.
Those of you in cells: Pulling yourselves upright, you find yourselves jarred but undamaged. Then you notice the doors. The doors to your cells all stand open, either burst from their frames or released by mechanisms triggered by the quake. Your first step to freedom is before you.
Je'grik: Your cage now sits on its side against the wall, near an open cell door. It's slightly battered from the fall, but still intact. Unfortunately the door has not been sprung.
For the moment, all is silent but for the occasional whines, moans, and grunts of other prisoners.
Gurk lumbers out of his cell, glad to be able to stand tall over the weak once again.
He lets out a deep, ominous laugh and claps his hands together.
Now the humans will pay.
The massive orc gazes around the room at the others, "I am the mighty Gurk, strongest of the orcs! Who are you, puny creatures?"
When the first tremor hits, Vaki clings to corner of his cell, as if he were a spider. When the dust and trembling settles, the primal goblin jumps down easily landing on his feet.
Leaving his cell, he scampers over any fallen debris and makes his way to where the other prisoners are gathered. "I am Vaki, a primal goblin of the Blackwolf clan."
The mask is only placed on you when you are being removed from your cell. However, the wing restraints are still in place, and are locked in place. A blade would allow you to cut the leather straps of the harness without having to open the locks.
As you stumble out of your mirrored cell, you catch sight of a familiar undulating movement on the ground, as you see your familiar hurrying to your side. It apparently was able to free itself from somewhere nearby.
"Hey! You guys! Got the key to this thing?!" Comes a tiny voice from the ground. Je'grik is gesturing wildly to get the attention of the big folk.
"If you could maybe just bend the bars a bit more I might be able to slip out." Je'grik replies. "If you can hurry though, I'd like that. I don't want to be in this cursed cage any longer than I have to."
At this point, it is general chaos. Your cell block is about sixty feet square, with cells lining all four walls. A gate at the center of the north wall leads to a spiral stair that you all know takes you up to a main prison level. Unlike the cell doors, it has not been sprung, though it appears ill-fitted to its frame, damaged from the quake.
All of you are close enough to speak, and since no one has made hostile moves toward one another, feel free. There are other prisoners here at the moment, who haven't really begun to to much other than wander about or bicker with one another. As to weapons, the only things at hand for the moment are chunks of rubble fallen from the ceiling, which could be used as improvised bludgeoning or missile weapons. Gurk, however, eyes the fallen cage and its attached chain as a fairly suitable flail...a screaming one if the little man stays inside it.
"If it gets me out of this cage, yes! I want to get back at them too! I can get us out of here too." Je'grik replies, now trying to bend the bent bars even further in an attempt to escape. "It's one of the perks of being so small."
"Hang on, let me bring you up to our height" With that Vaki uses his tail to pick up the cage and transfers it to his hands.
Gripping the cage with his tail and one hand, the simian uses his other hand to try and open the cage
Vaki strains mightily on the bars of the cold iron cage, but they do not budge; the door remains shut.
Szinroc likewise strains, but the cage holds fast.
At this point, the other occupants of your cell block seem to be recovering from the initial shock and acting upon their new-found freedom.
2 lizardfolk, an ogre, and a hairy, wild-looking humanoid are headed for the stairs leading up and out. Meanwhile a bugbear, a boggard, and two gnolls begin engaging in a free-for-all brawl with one another.
"Oh forget this!!, Big man! let the little guy out, the more we have to help us escape, the better." Vaki says to Gurk, passing him the cage with his tail.
Gurk takes the cage from Vaki.
"Yes, I will free the little one. I claim the cage as reward for this."
With a squeal of metal, Gurk tears the cage door from its hinges. Then he flips it over and gives it a shake, dumping Je'grik unceremoniously to the floor. He wraps the chain once around his hand for grip and gives the cage an experimental twirl.
"Yes, this will do. Now I can crush my puny human captors."
Szinroc's fearsome countenance stops the two gnolls in their tracks. Seizing the opportunity, the bugbear and the boggard cave their skulls in with chunks of stone. Then they turn on Szinroc, hefting their bloody rocks and preparing to advance on him.
"Ow... I'm free! Yes!" Je'grik runs around happily for a moment before he turns to the bugbear and boggard.
"Stay back!" He yells, gesturing erratically. A small, sickly green blob flies through the air toward the boggard.
Suddenly a swift red blur strikes the boggard from behind.
The boggard goes down, upended by the force of the strike. Over it stands a hulking red figure covered in scars and tattoos, glowering at both the Boggard and the Hobgoblin from beneath its spiny brow. Мы не боремся между собой, лишь против розовые he shouts in an unfamiliar tongue.
Gurk roars and brings the improvised flail down on the bugbear.
The cage sparks against the stone floor as Gurk follows through, dragging his mighty flail to strike the boggard as well.
Initiative Order:
Je'grik
Adas Urr
Vaki
Bugbear
Gurk
Boggard
Szinroc
Round 1:
Je'grik announces his warning, sending the acid glob hurtling toward the boggard. It strikes the bufanoid in the chest and his skin sizzles and smokes as it eats a messy hole in him.
A strange demonic figure moves up the stairs behind the two attackers, grabbing the bugbear by the ankle and toppling it to the ground, roaring in a strange tongue.
Vaki scrabbles up the wall like an insect, putting himself out of reach.
The bugbear snarls and attempts to get to his feet this round, prompting attacks by Gurk and Adas Urr. The cage hurtles down, striking the back of the bugbear's head with a loud crack, before ricocheting off the floor and catching the boggard in the midsection with a meaty thump, blasting the breath from thing. Adas Urr brings a fist down across the side of the bugbear's head and it falls back to the ground and ceases to struggle.
The boggard's neck region swells grotesquely, then deflates as a great rumbling croak blasts from its mouth, echoing mightily off the stone walls.
Szinroc, Adas Urr, and Vaki make their saves.
Gurk and Je'grik are shaken for 2 rounds.
Alchemically Fortified: During your time here, your captors have been subjecting you to regular treatments of alchemical infusions. This has been uncomfortable and often painful, but it seems to have garnered you some small advantage. Adas Urr gains a +2 alchemical bonus to Fortitude saves vs. poisons.
Unfortunately, your body has come to crave such infusions. In the presence of any alchemical or magical agents which can be drunk or injected, you must make a Will save (DC 15) to avoid partaking of them.
Weapon Adept: Your familiarity of weapons has broadened during captivity, giving you some slight familiarity in even the most bizarre or crude weaponry. Your penalty for using improvised weapons, or weapons with which you are unfamiliar, is reduced by one.
During your time here, your captors have terrorized you with dogs, to the point where you absolutely despise them above all other things. This causes you to take unreasonable risks to destroy them. In a combat where dogs are present, you must attack them in preference to other targets unless you succeed at a Will save (DC 15) in order to resist this compulsion.
you see, heading towards the combat at massive speeds (base land speed of 50), a Trim yet Well toned Feral Man of 66 inches in height. he doesn't seem to be speaking, just smiling with a look of bloodlust. his long black hair hanging loosely behind his back, his main discerning facial feature is a set of feral golden eyes reminiscent of a tiger, he appears to be clad in a robelike garment made from the hides of various Apex Land predators, his skin had a fairly oriental yellow tint. his fingernails closely resembling crude claws.
Seeing the short work that Gurk and his furiously swung cage have done to the bugbear, the red creature shoulder checks the unsuspecting boggard; sending it tumbling to the ground and clearly setting up another kill for Gurk. ...и останусь.
Trip:
Revised Initiative Order:
Nekogami Sinkuro
Je'grik
Adas Urr
Vaki
Gurk
Boggard
Szinroc