Lwausf's Intra Continental Sling Shot
'I knew Lwausf would be angry when we banished him, but I didn't see the whole undead-bearman-projectile thing coming. Looking back it was kind of inevitable. '
Prince Gorim, Lord of the Mounatian Hall at Silverspike
      Captain Gevin Rotnaught, commander of the goblin submersible Prettymuchatomb faced the most difficult decision of his 13 week old nautical career.  Rotnaught and his crew were three quarters of the way through their transoceanic journey and the only nearby land mass was the island chain of Gumbearkin. The tribes of intelligent ursine creatures that inhabited Gumbearkin were fabled among goblin-kind for their physical strength, violent tempers, and worst of all their stealth and skill with trickster magics.  But if Rotnaught was even thinking about making land fall on those dangerous islands, he knew that his reasons must be strong ones, and like all goblins once he tastes the slightest hint of a desire there was no turning him from it.  Rotnaught had to get that damn dwarf of his boat.
     The dwarven master Lwausf (pronounced la-ow-saw-FF) had been guilty of so many crimes that his execution or exile had long been predicted.  It was eqaully inevitable that another nation or power would attempt to woo Lwausf to their camp.  The goblins believed that they would be able to tolerate Lwausf.  But three weeks into this journey Rotnaught had learned what Lwausf's real crime had been and decided that it was better for all goblin kind that he deposit Lwausf on Gumbearkin rather than bring him home: wrath of the chieftains be damned.  The dwarven nations had indeed tolerated much from Lwausf. His shifting alliances between dwarven princes were forgiven when he invented the breach loading arquebus and again when he develop a pasteurization process for beer.  Lwausf's embrace of vampirism was over looked when his designs for siege engines and war machines lifted the siege of Bluestone's Deep and repelled the invasions of Dyracuse and Dwalermo.  His experimentations with beard shaving were ignored as long as he was able to improve the efficiency of what ever mine he was named engineer. Even his affair with the human teenager that produced the obnoxious part dwarf, part human, and part vampire child, (the existence of which some how managed to precipitate a vampire-lycan war within the dwarven borders) was tolerated long enough for him to finish work on the Twelve Rivers Dam.   The traits that burned all of Lwausf's bridges was that he talked too much and always spoke of himself in third person. The goblins, use to constant and asinine chatter, thought that they could tolerate this where the dwarves had failed. They didn't make it a month.
 Rotnaught let the surf carry his whale skin and wood craft towards the hostile beaches of Gumbearkin.  He had told Lwausf that he needed to gather some fuel for the copper bellied boiler that powered his little craft and this was true, but Rotnaught figured they could get close enough to home with the fuel they had and then break out the oars...or drown...it didn't matter as long Lwausf was off his boat.  Rotnaught was not sure Lwausf had heard him mention the fuel problem, since Lwausf was talking the entire time about how Rotnaught needed to study Gnomish, employ a check list system for his crew and eat more fiber. But when Rotnaught was preparing to send (sacrifice really) two of his crew ashore to gather wood, Lwausf insisted on going, 'It will go much faster with Lwausf in charge, beside it is twilight no?, excellent the perfect time to gather wood particularly...' and so on.Â
When Lwausf returned to the beach in six minutes with enough wood to build a new submersible, he was confronted with a unsettling scene. Â The Prettymuchatomb was steaming out of the little cove, far enough away that he realized it must have made an about face as soon he entered the woods and a party of quarter ton brown furred long snouted bear like creatures wearing bronze armor and carrying polearms were emerging from the forest behind him: these were the native inhabitants of Gumbearkin. Â As his two goblin companions panicked, one fleeing, one fighting both getting slaughtered, Lwausf shut up. Â He looked around and assessed his situation.
-Lwausf has been wronged by the nations of dwarves
-Lwausf has been wronged by the nation of goblins
-Lwausf must have his revenge.Â
Unintimidateed by the bronze tipped weapons leveled at him, he stared up at the twin peaks of the island, they were narrow, of equal size and completely parallel like two prongs of giant a sling shot....
The leader of the Gumbearkin warrior spoke to Lwausf in a growl approximating dwarven. Â 'Thank you for bring the goblins ashore, we enjoyed their deaths, but you not fighting or running, why don't you give us some sport.'Â
Lwausf, always genius with regard to language, responded in Gumbearkin. 'Hey, there is a whole box of goblins out in the water there why don't, go slaughter them.'
The Gumbearkin leader responded with a mild amount of surprise but not dilution in aggression. ' How? We can not fly!'
Lwausf gave the knowing grin of an evil self-centered undead beardless dwarven super-genius struck by inspiration and responded confidently 'Lwausf can help you with that one.'
The Gumbearkin islands are very rich in copper and while Lwausf designed seductive flying machines for the Gumbearkins (Bearplanes, Grizzly Gliders and Bearachutes), he also over saw the construction of his intra-continental sling shot. Â By forging an extremely long chain made of interlocking copper springs, linking that chain between the two peaks and then a combination of a locking wench and pulley system and the physical might of the Gumbearkin allowed full extension of the spring chain. With this system Lwausf was able to propel a projectile at hypersonic speeds over the ocean back towards the dwarven lands that rejected him or by wenching chain in the other direction at the goblin lands that failed to accept him. Â Â
Lwausf is more or less running the Gumbearkin islands now, it forced him to turn some of the natives to vampirism or more often a type of zombie, both involved a process of necromancy that Lwausf is still refining. Â Using Bearplanes as spotters, Lwausf has maintained a daily bombardment of the mainlands for months now. Â The sling shot can propel up to 40 tons of material towards the dwarven shores with a margin of error of about 200 miles. Â While solid projectiles were his first experiments. Lwausf has now taken to sending teams of his undead Gumbearkin minions in Grizzly Gliders or wearing Bearachutes. The flight time to the dwarf lands takes about 2 hours, but the zombified Gumbearkin don't seem to mind. The undead Gumbearkin possess enough intelligence still to guide their aircraft down with a reasonable amount of success and once down they enjoy creating havoc among the living. Â Even if they fail, the shock and awe of a hyper sonic bear-ball striking a community is significant. Â Several sail ship expeditions have attempted to find the source of the bear-attacks, and Lwausf defeated them all. Â Using instead the crews' knowledge of his attacks and their sail charts as sources of information to further calibrate his invention and in one case actually launching the ship back towards its home port. Â Â
Thus is the state of things currently, Lwausf and his minions are waiting for the dwarves or the goblins to come after them.  Lwausf longs for an attack on his island fortress so he can employ the many traps and war machines he has constructed on the island.  The destruction of the dwarven armies will be justice for their hypocrisy, because they  profited from Lwausf but they never respected the Lwausf.  Once the dwarves attack Gumbearkin they will realize what they lost when they exiled Lwausf.  They will realize that Lwausf is a true dwarf and they are pretenders. Lwausf knows his flaws and he accepts them.  A dwarf is not judged by who is he, but is judged by the quality of his work. Lwausf's work is flawless.  As soon as the Lords of the Mountain Halls banished Lwausf because of who is he they ceased to be true dwarves. Â
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? Responses (5)
Was this inspired by Burrito Bison? It was a somewhat compelling read, but it could do with some proof reading and finishing touches. So I won't vote on it just yet.
I meant this to be one of scras 30 minutes writing challenges. In that you are supposed to write up something original in 30 minutes. To be original it couldn't be a write up of some aspect of my standing settings or write up of some game material I have lying around. So sat down to write with a timer I used -stumbleupon-to get some inspiration and then I cranked out 7 paragraphs in 30 minutes. But when I was done it didn't fit any of the topic criteria, other than it was quickly written. So I broke up one paragraph, added an 8th and tossed it up here.
Don't know burrito bison, the bear flying craft were a gag used by stand up comedian working out of Ashville NC and the submarine was inspired CSS Hunley.
An island fortress of undead gumbearkins which can be shot to neighbouring continents. That. Is. Awesome.
yes, there are spelling and grammatical errors. But considering you did this in 30 minutes they can be overlooked. I couldn't write half as much in 30 minutes, so cudos there. The backstory of how the island and sling shot came to be is amusing and light-hearted and the island will give any adventurers trying to invade a good challenge as well as a few guffaws.
I can just see the party, sailing towards the island whilst undead bear creatures glide above them, some dropping into the water around them, others missing the mark by miles and flying off onto the horizon.
This is an entire campaign. The character start in a tiny village, approximately 200 miles away from the dwarven or goblin lands. A stray bearachute lands in their town hall, causing havoc. Investigating what happened leads them on a course of political intrigue, vampire-lycan parley, sailing, fighting, and (mostly) bears.
Amusing and clever in all the right places and has that consistent dwarviness throughout. I can tell you had fun writing this!