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The Black Rock, the Sodden Lands—home to the most savage gladiatorial event in Golarion, the legendary Green Blood on Black Rock. For the last few weeks eight Free Captain ships had been arriving in the harbor, edging around the huge spire of ashen rock that serves as the arena for the event. Anxiously spilling out of the ships were harried sailors, to be met by armor covered men bearing enormous chains. Gamblers, pirates, blood-bards and criminals rushed to the ships to catch the first glimpse of their monstrous contents, and the Free Captains who had captured them.
Arriving first was the tengu pirate Chirag, renown throughout the Shackles for his sharp tongue and sharper rapier. Chirag proudly paraded his monsters out from him ship, The Dirty Eel. The first, a monstrous bulette, captured while young in its burrow in the Mana Wastes, its burrowing claws clipped to a nub to prevent it from digging into the arena rock. The second, a proud dire lion, purchased in an Osirion slave market and fed a special diet of troll meat and auroch blood. Finally, the legendary Ol’ Marrow the Crooked Back, a long time competitor whom Chirag purchased and brought out of retirement, toughened up on a hardy diet of raw cannibal tribesmen captured near Smuggler's Shiv, in hopes that the old merrow's former reputation as a vicious killer would win him wagers and prestige since his years-long absence.
Arriving next was the Free Captain Frisbee. First from his ship was a came a deadly and quick opponent, from the sand dune seas of Osirion—an emperor cobra. Second came a ferocious garillon, its four arms bound in chains, the three time reigning champion of the Tymon's annual gladiatorial arena and the pride of the River Kingdoms 'Best of the Beasts' contest. Finally, no Black Rock tournament is complete without a troll entry, and each year the Free Captains leave a slot open for their beloved regenerators. The captains love little more than seeing creature tear futilely at the flesh of the beast only to see the flesh mend and repair. Captain Frisbee was met with a roar of approval as his troll was pulled screaming from his ship’s hull.
Free Captain Roberts was next to pull into harbor, arriving at midnight amidst a ferocious storm, his ship covered with scorch marks and burns. The Captain made straight away to a tavern, and a barmaid there later recounted in hushed tones the epic capture of a flame drake, resulting in two ships sunk and dozens of dead sailors. The next day the Captain cursed bitterly as Black Rock organizers clipped the fiery creature’s wings, and many felt his luck was doubly worsened when he revealed his next monster: a giant mantis, trapped by natives in the wild jungles of Mediogalti, and smuggled from the port of Ilizmagorti away from the prying eyes of Red Mantis assassins, who would not forget Captain Robert’s enslavement of their sacred bug. His final choice of monster – a minotaur from Absalom – raised no eyebrows, although few felt it would survive the Black Rock.
The next Free Captain to arrive to Captain Kitsune, a fox-man from the distant lands of Tian Xia. The Kitsune brought with him a fearsome beast - a huge allosaurus, captured from the Tusk lowlands of the Realm of the Mammoth Lords. The ancient lizard nearly destroyed the Free Captain’s ship upon exit, and crowds gathered, slack-jawed, to observe its passage to the holding pens surrounding the Black Rock. The Captain’s second and third choices were equally impressive – a clipped-wing manticore from the Sirmium Plane, and monstrous Yeti from the rocky crags of the wastelands past Icestair.
Free Captain Raziel’s ship made port next, and from it lumbered an enormous, tusked elephant, which Raziel slyly purchased from a Sargavan circus after it became too enormous to be properly contained. His second choice brought much laughter to the crowd of onlookers, as he wheeled out, in a large glass jug, a glistening, green ochre jelly (no doubt a respectful nod to the previous year’s surprise success, “Inky” the black pudding!). “Dinner will serve itself!” Raziel wryly noted, before unveiling his final competitor, a giant frilled lizard from Sargava.
Gregarious Captain McBride maneuvered into port shortly after Captain Raziel, and made shore riding the back of the River Kingdom’s mythical hodag. “Fear the wrath of the hodag!”, he bellowed to the crowd, many of whom were first seeing this beast – a sort of boar crossed with reptile, covered with spikes and sporting an enormous spiked tail. The presentation was so memorable that few could recount his second and third choices—the first, a dire polar bear captured in a deep pit trap by Ulfen raiders along the icy coast north of the Steaming Sea, and the second, a grostesque shambling mound, seeded in Geb and nurtured in the hold of (as McBride explained) “the hold of a cursed pirate ship.”
Next to arrive was the famous pirate captain #185, a sentient pirate ship, constructed by a long-dead sea wizard after one hundred and eighty four failed attempts. Now the master of its own destiny, #185 demonstrated superb skill navigating the stormy port waters, and from its hold disgorged three awesome beasts. First, a giant glyptodon, captured from the great ice shelf of the Crown of the World, fed a steady diet of assassin vines and shambling mounds. Then, an albino owlbear, described by #185’s first mate as “The luckiest owlbear alive! It has survived three forest fires and immersion in acid on two occasions. An enterprising adventuring party used it for six months to set off traps in dungeon corridors. It has been fed broken glass and lived to tell the tale! This owlbear has been hunted by hellhounds, evaded hungry dragons and, worst of all, survived a sordid relationship with a gelatinous cube”. Finally a grotesque flesh golem, constructed from the discarded limbs of amputee sailors (and probably the less fortunate victims of the Free Captain #185). The construct ship made a well-reasoned case for the monster, and, after some debate, the Black Rock organizers declared that, for the first time, a construct would participate in the event.
The last Free Captain finally arrived – Captain Soren, drunk, who stumbled off the gangplank before being reminded that he needed to present his beasts. He presented a many-headed hydra, dredged up from the swamps along the Jagged Saw coast; a fearsome (smelling) otyugh caught lurking in the sewers below a popular Absalom whorehouse, and finally, as if an afterthought, “fished out of the waters by happenstance near Drenchport just twelve hours ago!”, a massive shark-eating crab.
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(author's note: for those who just want to skip right to the end, here is the final tournament crosstable)
Day Bracket, Round One
Bulette (Captain Chirag) vs Crab (Captain Soren)
Most of the gamblers bet on the powerful land shark, but some felt that the shark-eating crab might have good luck against the beast. The fight ended quickly, with the land shark making a leaping pounce onto the back of the crab. The crab tried in vain to grab its equally large opponent, and succeeded in drawing a bloody gash down the bulette’s back, but it was too late, and after several rounds the first gallon of green crab guts were spilled onto the thirsty black rock.
Winner: Bulette
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Polar Bear (Captain McBride) vs Girallon (Captain Frisbee)
Betting slightly favored the polar bear in this battle, but the experience of the Girallon (champion of the River Kingdom’s Best of the Beasts contest), its powerful rend, capable climb speed and fast legs led many gamblers to place gold on it.
The garallon was faster on the draw, and charged the polar bear, but only one of its four claws hit the mark, leaving it badly exposed to the claws and bite of the bear. The bear efficiently crushed the River Kingdom’s champion, biting and clawing it into a bloody splatter.
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Ochre Jelly (Captain Raziel) vs Mantis (Captain Roberts)
Sensing a repeat of Inky’s success from the previous year, all of the Free Captains except for #185 bet upon the jelly, assuming that its flesh dissolving digestive acid would easily crack the carapace of the mantis. The two creatures approached each other cautiously, and for many rounds they traded ineffective blows. Finally the mantis lunged forward and scored a deep claw strike upon the jelly, which promptly split into two, then three smaller jellies. But the new jellies were unable to utilize their acid attack against the mantis, splashing acid wildly around without great success. The mantis and the split jellies fought bitterly until the very end, and when the last glob of jelly finally dissolved, the victorious mantis was barely able to drag itself off of the rock.
Winner: Mantis
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Allosaurus (Captain Kitsune) vs Flesh Golem (Captain #185)
The crowd and Free Captains were unsure to bet on this one, given that this was the first time a construct was allowed into the games! Unfortunately, #185's gambit did not pay off, as the huge allosaurus easily grabbed the large flesh golem, and after a bite, two claws, a grapple, and two rakes the tough golem was nearly the destroyed. All observers thought that fight was instantly over, but the foul taste of the diseased golem flesh seemed to have sickened the giant mega fauna, but the respite was only temporary and one more chomp from its giant jaws and snipped the golem's life.
Winner: Allosaurus
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Night Bracket, Round One
Hydra (Captain Soren) vs Hodag (Captain McBride)
The morning's pleasent weather continued, and even the moon dained to peek its face through the ever-present cloud front. The crowd, boisterous and hungry for blood, eagerly greeted the arrival of the hydra and the hodag. Even money bets were placed on this battle. The two monsters immediately went toe to toe, with the hodag managing to avoid the hydra's charge and pounce attack. The hydra would not be denied, and bit down fiercely upon the hodag's face, spewing blood everywhere and driving the crowd into a pitched frenzy. Everyone thought the hodag was meat, but then the strange creature went insane and attacked the hydra with fierce abandon! It bit, it clawed, it clawed again, it gored, and finally finished the hydra off with its spiked tail! The crowd was shocked into silence, a reverie that was only interrupted by the gleeful battlecry of Captain McBride: "FEAR THE WRATH OF THE HODAG!"
Winner: Hodag
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Dire Lion (Captain Chirag) vs Manticore (Captain Kitsune)
The crowd and Free Captains thought that this would be a straightforward victory for the manticore, by simply taking advantage of its limited flight to gain the high ground, and its ranged spike attacks (the only creature to have one in the tournament).
The lion was the first to act, and clawed its way to the top of Black Rock’s highest peak, proudly roaring a challenge down to the manticore, who, against the wishes of Kitsune, immediately flew to the top of the peak, errantly clawed and bit at its feline foe, and flew back down to safer ground. Unfortunately, this left the manticore almost directly below the lion, and with a roar the big cat leapt off the peak onto the manticore.
The dire lion’s five attacks were too much for the manticore and in two rounds it was a bloody splatter of quills and guts on the rock.
Winner: Dire Lion
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Elephant (Captain Raziel) vs Glyptodon (Captain #185)
The larger elephant was heavy favored in the gambling pits, having a size advantage over the smaller glyptodont. Eager for battle, the elephant rushed the slow moving megafauna and attempted to trample it, but the underdog glyptodon somehow avoided the stomping maneuver and tore its claws into the elephant’s soft underbelly, bloodying the big pachyderm.
For a few toe-to-toe moments an upset seemed possible, but the elephant managed to gore the glyptodon with its huge tusk, and, lifting it into the air, slammed its broken corpse heavily onto the sharp rock.
Winner: Elephant
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Emperor Cobra (Captain Frisbee) vs Flame Drake (Captain Roberts)
The gambling pit was unable to determine a clear favorite here, and, as midnight approached, the crowd raucously welcomed the final first round match.
Their enthusiasm was soon dampened: the cobra took straight to the water, ducking out of the flame drake’s line of sight, patiently looking for a good angle of attack. “We’re a patient lot. LOAD THE CANNONS!” shouted Captain McBride, and the crowd gleefully brandished all sorts of dangerous glittering weapons, eagerly looking forward to the first application of the “three round rule” (where cowardly monsters are unloaded upon by the onlookers).
Finally (spurred on either by shouts of “BLOOD!!”, or by the glint of gunmetal and scent of burning wick), the snake leapt out of the water and bit deeply into the flame drake, who was unable to shrug off the poisonous bite and began to lose its constitution rapidly. Too weak to fight, the flame drake spat out a pitiful gout of flame, but it was well wide of the mark and the emperor cobra scored a second poisonous bite, before sliding back into the water and – for the first time in tourney history – a monster died of poison.
Winner: Emperor Cobra
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Tourney Day 2, Day Bracket, Quarterfinals
Early morning gave rise to ferocious storms, and many an onlooker raised a sloppy toast to the weather. The first match was heavily anticipated …
Bulette (Captain Chirag) vs Polar Bear (Captain McBride)
Betting heavily favored the bulette, and for a moment it appeared that the powerful landshark would easily destroy the dire polar bear. But the bulette’s leap onto the dire bear missed its mark, allowing the dire bear to tear viciously into the bulette’s belly. The two creatures went toe-to-toe for several rounds, but the bulette, perhaps groggy from its missed leap, was unable to land any solid blows, whereas the bear, invigorated by the taste of blood, landed most of its attacks. With a final groan, the bulette rolled over on its back, spilling its guts and dying upon the black rock.
Winner: Polar Bear
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Allosaurus (Captain Kitsune) vs Minotaur (Captain Roberts)
The Free Captain Todo wisely decided to substitute out the badly injured mantis from this fight, but even still all bets were on the much larger allosaurus. The minotaur decided upon an all-or-nothing attack: waiting for the allosaurus to step close to the end of the rock, the minotaur stepped out of hiding and bravely attempt to bull rush the giant megafauna in the ocean behind it.
The smaller minotaur slammed into the allosaurus, and, for a moment, teetering on the edge of the rock, it looked to many that it might fall into the ocean – but it managed to regain its footing, grabbed the minotaur, shoved the screaming monsters head into its mouth, and decapitated it in a single bite.
Winner: Allosaurus
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Tourney Day Two, Night Bracket, Quarterfinals
The day’s storms passed, and evening found the black rock much drier than the rambunctious crowd of pirates, merchants, voyeurs, bards, whores, and criminals.
Hodag (Captain McBride) vs Lion (Captain Chirag)
Betting was very one sided here, with everyone pouring their bets upon the legendary hodag. (It helped that Captain McBride had spent a significant amount of coin to the blood bards to compose songs about the hodag’s inevitable victory.)
The combat itself was surprisingly short: the dire lion executed a perfect charging pounce upon the hodag, critically wounding it twice with its bite and claw attacks. Punch drunk and perforated, the hodag was unable to use its spiked tail or toss abilities, and the lion finished it off neatly in the second round of combat.
Winner: Dire Lion
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Elephant (Captain Raziel) versus Emperor Cobra (Captain Frisbee)
Despite the cobra’s surprising victory over the flame drake in the previous round, the gambling fit clearly favored the elephant. The cobra again tried its sneaky water moves to surprise elephant, which stolidly stood and waited for the reptile to make its move. When it did, the cobra scored a clean bite on the elephant, which simply shrugged off the poison and stomped the cobra to a bloody pulp.
Winner: Elephant
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Tourney Day 3, Day Bracket, Semifinals
Dawn broke like a spoiled egg on the third day of the tourney, and with it a great lightning storm, brought in from the Eye. Great crowds gathered on the outskirts of the rock, eager to witness the first day battle, which many observers declared the “hidden final” of the tournament:
Polar Bear (Captain McBride) vs Allosaurus (Captain Kitsune)
The Allosaurus was clearly favored going into the bout, due to its larger size and easy victories in previous rounds, and the polar bear’s difficult battle against the bulette. The fight ended up being a terrain battle, with the allosaurus gaining the high ground over the bear, and leveraging its reach advantage to bite and claw from above. The bear was unable to overcome this advantage, and, after several rounds of toe-to-toe fighting (during which it scored some nice blows), finally succumbed to the megafauna’s teeth and claws.
Winner: Allosaurus
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Tourney Day 3, Night Bracket, Semifinals
Dire Lion (Captain Chirag) vs Elephant (Captain Raziel)
The surprising dire lion had earned the respect of the raucous crowd, and many put hard gold down on the big cat to defeat the larger, more powerful, and favored elephant. The lion was first to act, and climbed up to the highest point of the Black Rock, roaring a challenge down to the elephant. Lumbering forward, the elephant lowered its head and prepared to gore the lion upon its tusk during the big cat’s inevitable pounce.
Unafraid, the lion sprinted down the rock face, making a great pouncing leap upon the back of the elephant, which twisted its head aside and scored a great wounding blow across the lion’s flank. The cacophony of the crowd reached a tumultuous crescendo as the dire lions bite, claw, claw, and rake all cut deeply into the elephant’s hide. With both creatures near death, the lion raised a final claw, tearing out the elephant’s throat and dropping the huge creature to the ground with a tremendous thud.
Winner: Dire Lion
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Tourney Day 4, Finals
And so, after three days of bloodshed, Free Captains Kitsune and Chirag had reached the grand finale of Greed Blood on Black Rock. Everyone expected the fox-man Kitsune to push the allosaurus into the pit, and there was some speculation over the tengu’s choice: would he submit the wounded dire lion, or would it be the marrow?
Allosaurus (Captain Kitsune) vs Merrow (Captain Chirag)
It was Ol' Marrow the Crooked-Backed, not a surprising choice given the creature’s long history with the Black Rock tournament, and that its huge size matched evenly against the dinosaur. “I’m retiring the lion to a were-lioness’ harem in Osirion”, winked Captain Chirag.
The opening gong rang, and the Ol’ Marrow immediately sprang into the ocean, trying to remain out of sight from the allosaurus. The megafauna stormed up and down the Black Rock, its eyes never leaving the subtle stream of bubbles that Ol’ Marrow left in its wake. Unable to gain a stealth advantage, Ol’ Merrow consigned himself to brutal hand and hand combat, climbing up out of the ocean and charging towards the dinosaur.
The salt water troll fought bravely, but in the end it was unable to compete with the megafauna’s vicious bite and claw attacks, and after several rounds of toe-to-toe combat it fell under the foot of the great dinosaur.
Winner and Champion: Allosaurus
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thanks to Adam Daigle and Brandon Hodge for building the awesome three dimensional black rock battle map, providing the awesome monsters and minis, managing all the gambling/betting (Construct Pirate Ship Free Captain #185 was the ultimate winner of the gambling competition, btw), creating the gorgeous monster handouts, and finally providing me good information/editing to build the tourney report. You guys rock! Also thanks for Wes Schneider for putting up with our rambunctious gladiator shouting while, at the table next to ours, he was trying to run a gothic horror session. Next year I think Brandon and Adam are going to try to move the event to the hotel bar :-).
Well this is just incredible.
Thanks to Sozin for taking the time to write this up.
How did you make those images?!
Congrats to the victors. ("Damned dinos!")
