Back to the Home PageThis page is an account of some of the more memorable botches that have occured during the course of the Saga.
The following is an excerpt from Serina's secret diary in 1228:
Graham wrote:
On a trip to investigate the loss of our supplier of glassware from De Panne in Flanders we found that a dragon called Pan Cauderax was due to turn up. Being responsible people (or was that stupid?) we decided to stay and help. We had a good group of grogs and Napoleon with us, we should have stood a chance against this dragon. Besides, his heart blood would have been very useful since it was an ingredient we needed for Marlowe's lichdom.
...
Well it turned up alright and brought a few drakes with it, albeit ones that were summoned by the dragon. I went invisible and the warriors went out after it, helped by a knight with a crazy code of honour. He knew its weakness but refused to use it since he gave his word. Well the grogs had their hands full. Odette was dueling with a drake in the sky (stupid women, obviously trying to get herself killed). One of our grogs was crispy fried by the dragon before he had a chance to do anything. I tried to get my perdo animal spells through to no avail from some distance away. I had to get a bit closer to hit it with a bigger spell. The dragon managed to kill the knight without too much trouble and somehow spotted me. The warriors were sloping off in all directions trying to get away so I took to the air. That dratted dragon was in breathing distance so spotting Braeble in the distance I decided that would be a good place to be. Fast casting a seven league stride with a few pawns of corpus vis I aimed next to Braeble. Something went wrong with my aim. I must have been too hurried and got it wrong big time. I materialised joined to Braeble, back to back by the limbs. Fortunately I was still invisible and Braeble wasn't sure what was going on.
It was a long journey home, most of it spent convincing him not to commit suicide. It's the last time I fast cast that spell, thats for sure.
...To a count of three, we blasted through the wall and into the huge cavern beyond. As expected, the Sea Giant was there waiting for us. The Turb leapt forward to attack, lead by the trustworthy Napoleon, and we followed through after. Contrary to my worst fears, the Giant was not invulnerable and was taking a lot of damage from our soldiers. Still, I thought that a helpful spell or two might not go amiss - in a moment of madness, for some reason I chose to cast The Liquid Earth. As soon as I had released the magics, I knew it was a mistake. The grogs, who were one minute happily piling into the beast, then found themselves sinking rapidly into a large pool of mire, horrified. The scene was transformed from an ordered melee on the verge of victory to utter chaos. Encumbered by their armour, our troops were struggling to swim to the edge of the liquid, leaving themselves vulnerable to the attacks of the Giant, who seemed to be having no such problem! Luckily Serina was on hand to destroy the mud, to prevent the grogs from drowning.
I then tried to rectify this mistake and readied myself with the Wand of Fire. However I mistargeted the attack and the ball of flame instead struck the grog Seban! Luckily he survived, but now he seems to hold some kind of grudge against me!
The Giant was eventually dispatched - no thanks to me, though. Needless to say, I'm not exactly flavour of the month with the grogs at the moment! Still, I am glad that the Council have decided to overlook my foolishness. It was a bad day...
Mark wrote:
In the Spring of 1231AD I was attempting to gain access to the inside of a mountain, to obtain an item called "The Box of the Everglades". However I was thwarted by a group of rock-throwing fay, and could feel the choler within me begin to rise.
Myself and the group of erstwhile men that accompanied us were ordered to retreat by Callidus, scholae Verditii, who led our caterva; and as this was a course of action that I wholeheartedly agreed with, we did so. Descending the regio as well as the mountain, we enlarged a cave so that we could spend the night planning our offense, and after providing light and heat, we had a council of war.
The cource of action was this - the three magi would ascend the mountain under the cover of invisibility. Both Callidus and myself were able to fly, although the wimp of a Tremere that accompanied us was unable. Therefore he was responsible for lightening himself by what paltry Corpus magic he could summon, and then we would drag him up with us. I would then employ a tactic that I first used against a pesky Bjornaer that I was hunting back in the Summer of 1187AD. The wily beast had gone to ground in a forest, and I had the Devil's own job in flushing him out, so I flooded the area with flammable oil, then ignited it. I found his roasted body 2 days later, trapped between forms. A suitably ignoble death for a flaunter of the Code.
Anyway, back to the tale. The plan went smoothly. Three of the fay had escaped the conflagration, so I targeted them with a thrice-born Incantation of Lightning. The first bolt caught the cowardly fay right in the back, fusing its essence with the rock upon which it stood. As the fluid vis for the second spell welled up inside me, I realised that the flow was turbulent, not smooth. I immediatly tried to dam the flow of vis, but to no avail. I felt it leak out of every pore in my body into the chill air of the mountain side. Before I had time to comprehend the magnitude of this error, the third spell built within me. The obstruction to the flow must have still been in place, for the final spell was flawed as well. It exploded from my mouth despite my attempts to abort the magics with a mighty crack, worthy of Jupiter Himself. Fortunatly for us we were air-borne, for a mountain covered with snow is not the best place for a thunderclap. The resulting avalanche descended the mountain like surf crashing onto a beach, and we took shelter in the cave as a storm of sleet and snow, summoned by the excess atmospheric load of fluid vis, lashed the rockface below us.
After a brief moment of meditation to ensure that the blockage within my spirit was clear, we proceeded to explore the cavern system we had entered. What transpired there is the tale of another, and the Tremere may feel like regaling that tale if we ever see him again. Suffice it to say that many wonders did we meet, such as Earth-faeries who detested Iron, and creatures who claimed to be Alven but acted more like naughty children than the staid and haughty air-fay that Germanic legend attests to. By the time of Salamandrus' disappearance and our subsequent stranding at the mountain top, frustration and wrath were building once more, and I knew that something soon would give, as it had (lamentably) in the past. Instead of giving in, I focussed upon the quest for my brother, pouring the seething emotion into that raw and open wound on my soul that drives me ever onwards. Finally, at dusk, we broke through the walls of our mystic prison.
Alas, all was not over. Callidus and I descended the mountain, dejected at the disappearance of our comrade at the upper regio boundary. The Gods must have taken leave of their senses, for not only had the avalanche of snow managed to pierce the mystic boundary that had proved so hard to cross, but it had also buried our mundane comrades we had left below. Having spent my childhood in northern Navarre, I have been witness to many avalanches and falls of snow, and am well aware of how dangerous they are. However, never before have I seen someone die so horrifically of frostbite as did Hassan, the trusted retainer whom I had called to Malinbois barely a fortnight ago. The snow must have been filled with glass-like shards of ice to inflict the massive damage that his body had suffered. I arranged for his body to be wrapped, so that we could return it to Iberia for whatever rites those of the Muslim faith recieve.
This task that we set ourselves had resulted in defeat after defeat. Even Callidus, Provost of Malinbois and famed for his lust of Vis, conceded that the effort of attempting again was not worth the rook of Lifesblood that we had been promised for the Box of the Everglades, so we resolved to head for home.
- Galian Sicarius, Scholae Flambonis et Ordo Hoplitis
Graham wrote:
Graham wrote:
The grog games of 1235, Doissetep.
For some reason, the captain of the red team thought that a small ferret would stand a good chance of winning the pentathalon. The five events, a sprint, the long jump, discus, javelin and wrestling were slightly confusing to Thccar. The concept of rules were never his strong point. This was shown earlier in the day when in another sprint, he attempted to scare the opposition away. Well it seemed easier than running. After being disqualified the captain, a giant, beat him up for losing. So when it came to the pentathalon Thccar was still heavily wounded. The sprint was more of a walk, the long jump a short step. He was lining up for his second throw in the discus and decided to spin around a lot before throwing the disc. Well the discus went quite a long way, just not in the direction he wanted. The people behind picked themselves up as a rather ugly woman with tattoos over her face approached. Screaming about losing lots of money after betting on him, she proceeded to pick him up. Thinking that the woman was not only stupid for betting on the red team (he had bet 5 pebbles that the red team would lose with Hemsok earlier) but rather nasty he tried to scare her away. After a quadruple botch Thccar had a heart attack and died. The woman skinned him and left him pegged out in the field.