AAR: [2M] Food Fight (2020-08-14@TBD)

[etherial]

LFG: Food Fight
Time: 2020-08-14@TBD
GM: etherial
Circle: 2
Difficulty: Medium

Rumor: The windlings of Skyreader Island are planting berry bushes along one side of the island and getting absolutely smashed on sugar; the local T'Skrang include a number of fanatic cooks and the new Festival of Pastry is born. Victory, however, has not been sweet as the participants fight over who exactly gets to keep the leftovers...and the winners.

Note: Game will probably start at 23:00 GMT and last four hours, but I am flexible, so if you have a limited range of times available, please list them.

[iceface9]

Name: Killian
Last time you (player) played: 8-12-2020 (Rose)
Circle: 2
Discipline: Warrior
Notable Abilities: Hitting Really hard
Downtime: Craft weapon and armor step 8

22:00GMT is the earliest time for me

[predajey]

Name: Jarock Hammer-Shield
Last played: Aug 12
ECR: 2

Discipline: Weaponsmith
Quote: "Words?" Grunts disgruntledly and mutters under his breath, "Weaponsmith, not scholar."
Notable Abilities: Tactics(3)
Downtime:
Forge Weapon (ESR 13)
Craftsman (ESR 17)
Item History (ESR 13)

Secondary character

[redwraith]

Name: Redsun
ECL: 3
Discipline: Archer
Quote/Unique: Big and hard hitting
Notable Abilities: Bring's the rain
Downtime:

[Rathan01]

Name: Malonin "Mal" Tyrnith
Last time you (player) played: 2020-08-08
Circle: 2
Discipline: Archer
Quote/Unique: I shoot arrows and I know things.
Notable Abilities: Putting holes in places there shouldn't be holes.
Downtime: Craft Weapon (rank 3, step 10)

[ChrisDDickey]

Name: Truck
Date Player last played: Aug 6th.
ECR: 1
Discipline: Warrior - Windling.
Quote/Unique:
Notable Abilities: Slice and Dice
Downtime:
Secondary character.

[Serespar]

Name: Nib
Date of Last Game Played: First Ever in West Marches! Whoo hoo!
Circle: 1

Discipline: Wizard
Unique: A friendly flying astral sensitive and spell slinger, (buffs n attacks), with some social skills [Yep, he's a windling]
Downtime: Talents and Skills that other characters can use over downtime:
[Research Skill] [Step 14] ([1]) ([His background is as a page working at the Great Library of Throal. He has the Speed Reading spell with the Increase Effect extra thread for +6 to Research tests; Perception step 7 + Skill Rank 1 + Speed Reading Spell 6 = Step 14])

[predajey]

The following is a recollection from Jarock Hammer-Shield, a secluded Ork Weaponsmith. The text remains unaltered to maintain its authenticity. It is written in Or'zet.

Redsun invited me to a pie party or something. Nothing to do, so tagged along. Got lost, found pig farm. Pigs ran away. Fixed pig pen. Pigs were vicious boars. Led back to farm. No fight. Got directions to Skyreader Island.

Found Skyreader Island. Entered by pulley system. Lots of sweets, lots of crazy Windlings, lots of T'Skrang. Made wooden toys for kids. Confectionary contest won by Obsidiman. Food fight broke out. Many upset Windlings and T'Skrang. Obsidiman captured. Followed to boat. Beat the crew, killed the Leftenant. Bound the crew. Captain paid ransom. Set up contest to encourage Windlings and T'Skrang to work together. They made fish and fowl pies. Truck and Mal were judges. Truck threw up many times. Took pie back to pig farm. Truck stayed in Skyreader Island. Ambushed by wolves. Got wounded. We fought like true Orks. Returned to Throal.

Fought well. Used focused targeting. Disrupted lines against ship crew. Killian and Truck formed front line. Good warriors. I was highly effective in encouraging retreat. Against wolves, not so well. No formation. Blindsided many times. Redsun did great archery. With Mal, I killed Alpha. Left with one wound. No injuries to teammates.

Waste of time. Don't like sweets. The fish and fowl pies were good. Need better jobs. Still have to investigate the city north of Servos Jungle. Add K'tenshin to parties of interest. Worked on Mal's bow. Still hate journals. Weaponsmith, not scholar.

[ChrisDDickey]

From the journal of Truck of the Deep Servos. The earlier parts of this journal are written with rather amateurish made ink on poorly made paper. 

As I completed my journey from the Servos jungle and arrived at the gates of Throal, I met a mixed group Exiting Throal. They told me that they were going to a festival at the windling settlement, and asked me if I wanted to come along. I really want to meet the Throalish windlings, so I eagerly said yes. THEY DID NOT TELL ME THE FESTIVAL WAS A WHOLE WEEKS TRAVEL AWAY! 

On the way there, we took a wrong turn at a fork, and ended up talking to a farmer by the name of Clem who's pigs had busted out of their enclosure. We volunteered to fetch them for him. HE DID NOT TELL US THAT THEY WERE VICIOUS WILD BOARS! We learned that they liked crab apples, and got them to follow us home. Only one of us got gored.

Finally (AFTER A WEEK OF TRAVEL!) we arrived at the festival, which was wonderful. there was food and drink of all kinds, all day and all night (but mostly pies and pastry). On the first day of the festival they judged the best pastry. The favorites were a windling by the name of Llander Flutterby, with a brillberry pie, a T'Skrang by the name of Patron Gatrench, with a blueberry winedark cream pie.that was by far the best decorated. Also an Obsidiman chef by the name of Keston who made a mixed berry compote, who was the final winner. 

Both the Windlings and the T'Skrang were upset that their own champion cooks did not win, and a pie fight broke out. In the chaos of the food fight, we noticed somebody hustling the Obsikiman winner away. We followed and caught up in time to hear the ships Leftenant order the ship launched and the confused Obsidiman protesting that he did not want to go anywhere. We fought the leftenant and the anchor watch, and beat them senseless and recovered the Obsidiman. The captain then came on deck and apologised for the fracus, and gave us a small purse of money in exchange for returning her crew. The captain's name was Gerri Van Drake of the Soaring Eapagra. 

One of my traveling companions had organized a fish and fowl pie making contest that was to be completed by mixed teams of windlings and T'Skrang. There were prizes for the first pie completed, and for the best pie. I volunteered to be a judge, and boy was that a mistake, Some of the first pies submitted were 3/4 raw! However many of the later pies were very, very good. We judges had a hard time deciding before we finally decided to award the best pie award to the team of Yajjo Sentekar & Kay Eterkalas. 
At the end of the week the whole community was in a stupor from overeating. I was frankly still feeling ill from my stint as a meat pie judge, so stayed on for a few more days. The others returned directly t o Throal. They took a nice cobbler to Clem, but My understanding is that the tasty cobbler attracted wolves. 

[Serespar]

Food Fight, 1422 - 09 - 10 (August 14, 2020)

Was so good to get out into the fresh air, stretch my wings and fly a bit. I love Throal, but the magic outside is so varied and different – wonderful feeling. I really enjoyed strolling through Bartertown then taking those first, legendary steps on the road to adventure and the reported deliciousness of Pastry.

Yes, it was a rough assignment; travel to Skyreader Island and bring back a report to the Great Library on the first Festival of Pastry that the windlings had organized with the local t’skrang. A bumper crop of a huge variety of berries (both on shore and aquatic varieties native to the Upper Coil) had led to a cooking contest, and then the local merchants and entertainers got involved. Before you know it the conjunction of food, booze, music, dancing, and beautiful autumn weather had combined into something pretty special. So here I was, my pack on my back, heading out to see a bit of the world.

As I left Throal behind, I realized there were other travelers headed to the Festival. I met a stoic Obsidiman Warrior named Killian, a gruff Orc Weaponsmith named Jarok, a pair of Archers; Redsun, a troll and Mal, an elf, and a fellow windling, a warrior named Truk. They seemed nice enough and their patterns showed that they were all novice adepts like me, but yeesh. I waited and watched for a bit, but they were each off kinda doing their own thing. Finally, I just gave up n flew circles round ‘em a bit, and got ‘em into a party headed to the party, as it were. Safer and a bit of company can be a good thing with the hazards of the road. Made a note not to ask them to self-organize their way out of a wet paper bag tho >.<

As we traveled, we realized that even tho the route IS used quite a bit these days, sometimes the goats don’t leave much in the way of goat trails with instructions. In Throal, the locals all know the ins and outs of the halls, out here, well, the odd bit of shrubbery isn’t much for giving helpful directions.

At one of the key crossroads we decided to head down each option a little ways, to see if we could figure out where we were and where the tracks led, when we stumbled across a farmhouse with a nice famer fellow, an elf by the name of Clem. Clem was quite proud of his pigpen, which was full of, ahem, the end product of feeding pigs but no pigs, as it were, and a large gap thru which said pigs could wiggle. While I’m no dwarven engineer, our weaponsmith was kind enough to do some helpful rebuilding of said pigpen so that the holes in the fencing were smaller than the pigs, which I believe will be a useful improvement in the long run. As we weren’t really in any hurry in the beautiful weather, we agreed to lend the fellow a hand with rounding up his wayward swine, a favor for the favor of a local geography lesson and updated directions. I used skills honed in listening to aged dwarven scholars droning on, and on, and on, to put together a list of the swine, their descriptions, names, favorite foods, and so forth from the erudite Clem, at least on the subject of his piglets. We also gathered a large basket of the piggy’s favorite treats, a local over-ripe crabapple, and sallied forth on our mission of mercy.

Well, I believe Clem may just possibly have over-stated the “cute” and “beautiful” and other little descriptors of his porcine friends, as we discovered the pack of giant, wild boars with rock sharpened tusks rooting through the forest looking for tasties. Thank goodness for a bit of preparation. We fanned out, out of reach of their famous charge attack that Mal was good enough to warn us about, and I proceeded to bonk Albert (the first of said boars) upon the head with carefully targeted fruity treats. Crush fruit, make smell, leave trail, lead by the nose back to his new improved pen, rinse, repeat. There was some variation involved of course, as Cletis earned the title “Most Stubborn of the Swine”, but eventually all the “little piggies” were tucked back into their new and improved habitation. Poor Mal did wind up being gored by Franklin, but we were able to wash the wound BEFORE Franklin had rolled back in the, ahem, material, in the bottom of the pigpen, so yay.

Armed with an idea of how to get to the Coil River, we made our way to the little chain of islands that makes up Skyreader Island. The smallest, Guardian Island, is the closest to shore, followed by the mid-sized Rabbit Island a bit further out, followed by the large Skyrider Island well out into the water at the bend in the Coil. The t’skrang run an interesting basket system for visitors for a few coppers; even an obsidiman can dangle over the deep water current while the basket dips and sways, cranking the greenish looking passenger from island to island as you make your way to the main island where we could hear the party was in full swing. We did notice a number of boats docked at the island as we came across, but didn’t think much of it at the time, other than that the largest ship had some t’skrang that were kinda being jerks. They were trying to undercut the nominal price the locals were charging for the basket system with their ferry service, but the vibe was weird.

Once on the island is was AMAZING. Great food, drink, music, art, crafts, fresh air, sunlight, beautiful river views, t’skrang, windling and visitors all having a good time. Very FUN. Could almost feel Floranuus passion of revelry watching over it all and grinning. Had a bit of silver in my pocket and shared it out with my companions so we could all pick n choose the treats of our choice. Such a celebration.

We quickly realized that the main event was a pastry contest with three leading contestants, at least by the bookies’ reckoning. The “Big Three” had all made over the top Pastry concoctions with consummate skill and magic. Lilander Flutterby may have been covered in frosting, but the petite female windling had crafted an amazing Brillberry recipe was a drizzle of glaze that had the judges wowed. Patron Gatrench represented the local t’skrang and his pie was pure magic flavor that proved irresistible to the judges. Keystone… …how to describe Keystone… …hmm… …the obsidiman is… …slow… …but focused on his craft in a mentally might not be all there in other ways but, Ooooh, the talent. He magically crafted a series of liquors from the local berries, and marinated fresh berries in the liquor, all in a pastry shell so light it almost floated off the plate. That sauce… That crust… …those berries… …the judges surrendered, and the visiting Pastry Master was declared the First Ever Winner of the Skyrider Island Pastry Festival Grand Pastry Event!

Then it went sideways.

Some folks in the crowd began booing and saying the contest was rigged, and started flinging pastry in the most wasteful of fashions. (I did enjoy the flavor of that last berry pie, but it took FOREVER to get the stains out, and that POOR banner I was hiding, behind, tsk). We of course were looking at the whole thing as a distract-o-riot bit of transparency, and so it was. The booers started jostling the winner away from the award stand, and the pastry chef kidnapping heist was ON!

What could we do? As heroes, it was obviously our duty to protect the chef and prevent Barsaive’s loss of his talent and his recipe! We intercepted the villains as they hustled the kidnapped cook to the docks, and low and behold, it was the jerks from earlier readying the ship for a hasty departure. Their leader, a sorry excuse for a boatman by the Name of Leftenant, I mean, seriously, who chooses that sort of name for a hatchling, was all “Quick, take the slave for the shivalaha! He will make a pastry chef worthy of her holiness!”. Blerg. No surprise, the lizard had the symbol of the nine diamonds on him, and the ship, the Soaring Espagra was allied with house K’tenshin.

Well, my companions and I put quick work to the ijit and his goons. Of course, all we wanted to do was rescue the chef. There was no need to hurt anyone once the kidnappers got out of our way. All but ijit got off with a few bruises. Am sure it was completely accidental the way the ijit slipped and fell on Jarok’s Warhammer. Twice. The brains did make an awful mess on the deck, and he *might* have been able to recover if he hadn’t slid overboard in all that blood with his neck broken at a funny angle, but am sure the fishies enjoyed their meal.

Speaking of plausible deniability, out came the Captain, one Gerri Van Drake, explaining that the ijit never was very bright and that he was acting completely on his own with no official sanction or connection to the slavers, er merchants, of House K’tenshin or the shivalaha – glad we got that cleared up. She told us to get off her ship, and looked very irritated with us when we mumbled something about “taking the kidnappers to the watch" while we were dragging a chunk of her roped up crew off the ship. The bag of silver she tossed our way distracted us long enough for the Soaring Espagra to launch, but I think she might, privately, have been somewhat displeased with us. I didn’t understand the half heard reference to “something something too, if not for you meddling kids…” as she drifted down the river, but am sure it’s unimportant.

Back at the festival, we schmoozed and drank and had a lot of fun now that we were in the inner circle of the winning chef, but the shenanigans of the K’tenshin had changed the mood a bit. We put our heads together and sponsored a contest for TEAMS of t’skrang and windlings to compete in. The t’skrang racing and fishing while the windlings scavenged materials on land to make a savory pie, with awards for fastest completed pie and best tasting pie. Point was less about the pie truthfully, than to change the tone to an experience where the t’skrang and windling neighbors would be working together and make some fun memories as they settle on the island side by side.

We got a T’skrang Troubadour by the Name of “Loud by Nature”, again, who is naming these hatchlings? to busk and promote the thing, while we ran rumors through the bookies to get things built up to a fever pitch. The fastest pies were really awful, and took iron stomachs to eat. The best pie category was a delight tho. The Pastry-Team Chef-Race Bestist-Pie was won by a t’skrang Named Yajjo Sentekar & her partner, a windling cook Named Kay Eterkalas. We danced the night away and PARTIED. Was a blast.

The next day, we got up a little late and started our journey back to Throal, carrying a gift basket o goodies for poor Clem, who was unable to leave his adoring piggies and make it to the festival. I don’t know why, but I DID feel compelled to wear that little red cloak with the hood on it. Sure enough, we were accosted by wolves drawn to the basket as if by magic. My what big teeth they had. By this point, our teamwork had gotten pretty smooth, and we kicked some furry tushy and sent all but the alpha wolf packing. He alas, needed to be taken down a peg or two in an arrow sticking out of him sort of way. I was very relieved when we reached the farm and delivered the goodies WITHOUT finding the house blown down, but what do I know?

Anyway, the attached appendices contain details of the festival, layout, contests, merchants, recipes, and yes, an entire section is dedicated to Clem’s piggies. Have also included sketches of the sailing ship, the Soaring Espagra, notes on crew numbers, capacity, draft, observed speed and so forth, along with a drawing of Captain Gerri and what we were able to learn about her on the island. Peace on the local section of the Coil is important to the safety of the growing community on Skyreader Island, and the local t’skrang and those of nearby Kampung Gajah are both allied with House V’strimon. If K’tenshin slavers are extending their activities up the Coil with impunity, House V’strimon’s counter moves may put the safety of the islanders at risk. Only time will tell, but please flag this report for Eye of Throal analysis.

Respectfully

Nib