GURPS Fantasy Warriors Session 44: Astraeus, God of the Sun and Animals

Characters:

Granmarg The Striking Vanguard, The Boulderstruck, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate
Pomegranite The Treefallen, The Spymaster

Mielikki The Field Marshal, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate

Thicket The Grandmaster Terramorpher, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate

 

Twin Flames

Pomegranite used his Path of Secrets to lure Astraeus into a trap with illusions, but his reactions were strange.  Visual illusions didn't seem to work on the god at all, while tactile illusions stopped working after initial success.  It took the two in combination to finally trick him into a cave, away from the flammable forest.  Granmarg, Thicket, Morkral, and some of their advisors followed him in.  Astraeus came to a halt and spun around, asking who they were.  Granmarg started to say that he was here to put him under, and was then interrupted as the god breathed a plume of dragon's fire.

 

Everyone dove out of the way, just as a second jet of white flame shot out, also centered on Granmarg.  In response, Granmarg charged in, and launched a flurry of punches.  Astraeus expertly parried several of the blows with his bare hands, but the last made it through.  A clang resounded through the cave as Granmarg's stone fist deflected off the god's golden body.  Thicket realized that Astraeus' golden body was a similar (and superior) magic to the reinforced stone the earthlings used to enhance their armour and weapons.

 

Thicket followed Granmarg, trying to keep the Astraeus penned in, but the god retaliated by spinning on the spot and bludgeoning him with a dozen rapid blows that overwhelmed his defenses, and then continued by shooting a beam of pale fire behind himself at Granmarg.  The others did their best to crowd in around Astraeus, but he proved nimble and evaded them, bouncing from foe to foe, firing beams of alternating gold and pale flame at all those around him.  He would before always eventually return to pummeling Granmarg with a strange martial art involving rapid strikes with his fists, elbows, forearms, and knees.

 

Garmnrag and Bramble closed in, finally surrounding Astraeus, but he continued to fend off all their attacks.  He then pointed to the forest, yelled something in elvish, and a herd of flaming animals charged out and into the cave.  Several deer, a squirrel, and a raccoon attacked those in front of the god, with one deer in particular being thrown through the air by Bramble, bouncing off Swiftbreeze and Smugbrush before finally slamming into Granmarg.  Another pillar of white flame then shot from his torso and charred Granmarg, Thicket, Smugbrush, and Swiftbreeze.

 

Granmarg noticed that the source of the pale flame wasn't Astraeus, but rather, Consus.  Since the god of Secrets and the Moon could appear on reflective surfaces, he was freely moving around Astraeus' golden body.  Granmarg called for someone to cover him in mud, and then continued to try to pry open his defenses with more and more punches.  Thicket used his terramorphing to liquify part of the ceiling and dropped it on Astraeus, but the god sidestepped perfectly, still bearing a mirror sheen.

 

The earthlings began to struggle.  Swiftbreeze fell, and a flurry of blows knocked Granmarg off his feet.  Astraeus turned to face the others, while Consus continued to focus all of his pale flame spells on Granmarg.  Bramble and Morkral landed strikes on Astraeus, though he then turned and sent Bramble to the floor with a half-dozen palm strikes.  Granmarg sprung to his feet, and called down lightning on Astraeus.  However, due to the fact that they were inside a cave, he was forced to use himself as a conduit.  Both were badly burned, but more importantly, Astraeus' golden body was now blackened with soot, and Consus' attacking ceased.

 

The Tide Turns
Astraeus spun and knocked Granmarg unconscious with a blow to the forehead, but without Consus' assistance, the difference in numbers was beginning to tell.  Morkral continued to batter him with his shields, but the god seemed obsessed with the earthlings, finishing off Bramble.  The fallen earthlings were replaced by reinforcements, first Sigillaria and Hawthorn soon after.  More flaming forest animals charged into the earthlings, but most were batted aside.

 

Thicket had a thought: if Astraeus had no eyes, he might be seeing through vibrations in the ground, and so turning that ground to sand might blind him.  He shook the earth apart below the god's feet, only for him to turn it to glass with a flaming axe kick.  Sigillaria and Hawthorn worked in tandem, both landing a number of blows that overwhelmed Astraeus' defenses, and his formerly pristine golden body was now dented in many places.

  

 

Notes:

Mielikki and Pomegranite sat this battle out, which is a little odd.

 

I misheard Granmarg's initial damage roll and thought he did 1 point of damage, but then he corrected me and I informed him that he had done 0 damage.  From that, they knew that Astraeus' gold skin was giving him 3DR.

 

Granmarg went to -5x HP, and then passed the check to actually live on death.

 

In retrospect, allowing them to throw more and more advisors at Astraeus means it's more or less impossible for the earthlings to lose.  On the other hand, if they hadn't realized Consus was present, or Granmarg's lightning attack hadn't worked to dispel him, it's a good chance they would have lost even with reinforcements.