DIE: Orodruin Obfuscation

[Gwai]

Gazorpazorp the Unfortunate Yet Still Alive Lava Snake

Zorp's tail may never be the same again. He lay on his back, looking up at the swirling dark clouds above, the smell of sulfur on the air. It was home, and he loved it, but sometimes he wished he had a different life. He could have been one of those rattle snakes, with protection on the end of their tails! He bet getting stepped on or accidentally stabbed there by your neighbor wouldn't hurt! Or he could have been born a lizard. Apparently their tails grew back. Perhaps that was a legend, but he liked the sound of it. He heard howling from nearby, but decided his own problems and considering his life if he had been born a different sort of reptile were much more important. Besides, when he tried to help Blinky, he'd already accomplished his good deed for the year. Any more and he would get laughed out of the Snakehole Lounge next Tuesday at trivia night.

He was just thinking about crawling his way back home when the acid rain started. Normally Zorp loved the acid rain, it did great things for his rock garden by corroding the rocks a little more. The corrosion, however, did little for his soft little underbelly. Zorp was not a vain lava snake, or at least, no more than most, but he lotioned his belly daily, with the good lotion too, the Doomasil. "Pssssss pssssss!" (Yeeeooooccchhhhh!) Zorp cried out as the acid rain hit him, making little droplet shaped craters in his tummy. He turned over, which did not help the acid burns when the dirt got in the wounds.

Edit: B Roll, please!

[Silky Gooseness]

Karkrash, A Minion

Karkrash trundled up the slopes, shaking his putrid head sadly (it started off as an ear infection, but had ended in what was more or less an unfortunate occupation of his face... anyway). It was tragic what had happened to Cousin Rakhash, but at least at the next family barbecue there would be more snails and toenails for Karkrash to eat, because Cousin Rakhash, belying his skinny little form, had been a nasty little glutton. Not so Karkrash, he just wanted to get his job done. Efficient, that’s what he was.

Oh wait. He was going in the wrong direction.

A Roll

[Zôrzimril]

Blinky the Snek of Lava

POP. Blinky heard something explode in his head. Was he imagining things? The pain in his tooth was blinding, so he stared wide-eyed and unseeing to discern where the popping noise had come from.

. . . and then, pain! Pain! Everywhere! Pain! Blinky "sss"d and "SSSsssSSSSsSSSS"d and flailed about in his agony. He couldn't recall ever being in the throes of such exquisite pain. What could he do? Where could he go? Could he hide from the pain? Maybe go into his rock garden and wait for it to subside while clutching his little rock mouse?

He calmed himself just long enough to sniff the air. The usually delightful aroma of burning flesh reached him, as did shrieks of agony from someone, somewhere. Maybe it was him. He did not know. He did not care. All he wanted was something to ease the pain.

He caught the scent of melting rock. Fire. Lava. Those had always worked! He recalled that his mother used to toss him into it to calm him down whenever he got too upset as a child. He slowly wriggled away from the site of his injury, flicking his tongue out every few seconds to sense his way toward the lava. The oozy, gooey, fiery, molten lava. He found a puddle nearby and slid in; his last breath sent shiny red bubbles to the surface.

. . . But with a hissssss, the poison coursing through his newly-deceased body vaporized in the inferno of the molten rock. The lava flowed around him and through him and kickstarted his heart. His body glowed a deep, blood red. His eyes opened wide, still unblinking but now he could see! He reared up out of the lava pit, cracked tooth dangling madly and lava dripping from his face as he opened his mouth and screamed.

D (for Death) roll please

[Fairy Nuff]

Pansy Greenbottom, a Hobbit

After what turned out to be a much longer rest than planned, Pansy did indeed feel better...well, better isn't really the right word because it implies some good has happened, when really all she felt was less bad. Still bad, but less of it. Still, with slightly more hope she might one day see home again, she picked up her frying pan and traced her steps back, avoiding some of the dead ends, and hopefully back onto the main path.

B roll please

[Moriel]

The Factions:

Minons
Snarf (Thalionwen) - no roll
Karkrash (Sil) - A Roll - You have wandered off in the wrong direction/otherwise gone missing in action. You may RP your conundrum but not roll again until the next round.
Snivlak (Elarith) - no roll
Jormungandr (Frost) - B Roll - DIE. Fortunately for you, you're getting the advantage, which means that instead of dying another grisly death, you get to make a roll. Lucky lucky.

Lava Snakes
Phoebe (Nerwen) - B Roll - DIE. Your have managed to find some lunch, but whatever it was you found is too clever and eats you first. RP your grisly demise, and you may then either start with a new character, or go for a creative resurrection.
Gazorpazorp (Gwai) - B Roll - DIE. The acid burn wound with dirt ground into them have caused an extremely fast acting infection to set in, followed by gangrene and a horrible death. RP your grisly demise, and you may then either start with a new character, or go for a creative resurrection.
Blinky (Tarawen) - D Roll - You have been injured! Your screams have attracted a local buzzard, which swoops down and attempts to eat you for lunch.
Sssssssss (Alma) - no roll

Hobbits
Dodo Proudfoot (Ducky) - A Roll - You have (somehow) wandered off in the wrong direction/otherwise gone missing in action. You may RP your conundrum but not roll again until the next round.
Pansy Greenbottom (Fairy) - B Roll - DIE. You have utterly failed to step onto the main path, and instead into the path of an oncoming flow of lava. RP your grisly demise, and you may then either start with a new character, or go for a creative resurrection.

Advantage goes to Jormungandr (@Bïfrøst), for a truly masterful resurrection. You get one roll.


Two rounds remain! Time to get wild & crazy!!

[The Good Hunter]

Jormungandr, Definitely an Orc?

Being an orc after being a lava snake all his life was difficult. He had legs and arms, he had to stand on them. How was he supposed to move? He stood on his hands and tried to walk but that didn’t feel right, he was unbalanced and awkward. How did the orcs do this again? He tried to watch the hobbits run by but they all looked weird. Were they running on their feet? Was that how he was supposed move? Having limbs was an inconvenience, Jormungandr decided. He fell over onto his back. Right into a lava pit!! The howl that ripped through his throat could have shattered glass, or at least some eardrums. His snake brain acted fast, the orc would have just sat there and let it happen. He jumped out of the lava like a breaching shark. How did he know what that looked like? Jormungandr had never seen a shark before. Was it a fish? What did they taste like? No! Now is not the time! He was out of the lava but now he had to run on his legs and feet like an orc and chase down those hobbits. Was he going to eat them or sacrifice them? He opened his jaw and muttered angrily. Orcs were stupid, they couldn’t dislocate their jaw to swallow their victims whole. How did they even survive? What did they use their hands for? There was one! He shambled like a scarecrow coming down off its pole. He wasn’t sure what to do with his arms as he moved, maybe if he held them out at odd angles would that make him faster? Would it make him scarier? He popped his jaw, nope, that was as wide as it was going to go.

C Roll, please

[KingODuckingham]

Dodo Proudfoot, a Hobbit

Three words flashed into Dodo's head, perhaps a rememberance from a time long ago on his grandfather's knee. Old Odo Proudfoot had once said,

"Stop. Drop. Roll."

Now as far as Dodo could recall Odo had been talking about what to do if you ever found yourself needing to relieve yourself of too much ale after also having eaten too much food. But in this situation, with a burned off foot, it still seemed like good advice. Odo had been a wise fellow. Dodo put the plan into action, going as quickly as possible without falling into another lava pit. He had learned his lesson: don't be too cocky to watch where you're going!

However, watching where he was going was a bit myopic, and he wasn't watching where he was headed. But was going off in an odd direction really a problem for him, since the direction everyone else wanted him to go was into a mouth? Some wanted him in a snake mouth, some wanted him in a volcano mouth. He wanted food to go into his mouth. But it appeared none of those things would be happening just yet. Wherever he was going, no mouths appeared to be involved.

Or were they?

[Zôrzimril]

Blinky the Resurrected Lava Snake

"SSSSSSSsssss!" His scream, the scream that declared him alive (if not well), trailed off in a decrescendo until it was the tiniest hiss. Blinky had been on the brink of death, and he knew it. He felt life and lava coursing through him like never before.

He slowly slithered out of the fiery puddle in which he'd been reborn, head turning this way and that in search of victims upon whom he could enact his revenge. Everyone needed to pay for this. They had ruined his rock garden, his day, and his tooth. As he took stock of the increasingly chaotic situation around him, he spied his sharp little rock, which he'd carelessly discarded it his agony not minutes before.

He noted a hobbit (Dodo) who was rolling about like a fool. An easy target. Blinky veered toward him. The snake knew what he would do: use his rock to puncture the hobbit’s eyeballs and hack at the stump where his foot had been burned off. And he still had one sac of venom left, on his good tooth's side - that could be a handy tool to maximize the ugly creature's suffering. He was just about to put his plan into motion when a screech from above announced the arrival of one of his least-favorite creatures: a buzzard.

The buzzard's talons closed around him; the great bird opened its wings to leap back into the sky. But Blinky's flesh, so recently imbued with the scorching heat of lava, seared the bird's scaly foot. With a fresh cry, the buzzard loosened its grasp, and Blinky was free-falling once again. He hoped he'd land on that stupid fat hobbit, or, barring that, into some lava to cushion his fall . . .

C roll, please

[Gwai]

Gazorpazorp, the Dying Lava Snake

This might be the end. The acid rain had burned deep holes in poor Zorp's belly, and the ash on the ground soon made it's way into said holes. Poor Zorp. Very soon he developed a fever, and shortly after the holes from the acid rain began festering. Pus formed inside several of them, and soon he had a raging infection that spread to his bloodstream. From there is was just a matter of time for his organs to begin failing, one by one. He began hallucinating from the high fever, imagining he was a person, and lived in a world far, far away, a long, long time from now, where a simple injection would have fixed his ailments. He kept hallucinating that perhaps in this place there was no acid rain. But who would want to live in a place like that? His blood pressure dropped some more as his kidneys shut down. He was barely getting any bloodflow to his brain at this point, and with his last thought, he regretted that he would not, in fact, be able to use that BOGO coupon for Big Macs that had been sitting on his kitchen counter for the last month.

Cronenberg Gazorpazorp

Infinite timelines, infinite universes...Cronenberg Zorp accidentally fell through a tear between space and time that just happened to be on the slopes of Mount Doom, and ended up in an alternate universe, next to the dead body of a lava snake. Or at least, he thought it was a lava snake. Cronenberg Zorp peered at it closely. What an odd creature, he thought to himself. Instead of the teeth coming out of the tail, like normal, this dead creature seemed to have teeth in the head! And eyes in the head instead of the neck? Was that black blood instead of the usual purple? Cronenberg Zorp shook his head. How interesting. What an odd place this new universe was, to be sure! Would he be able to get back to his home, or would he be stuck in this weird place where the lava was reddish orange instead of green?

B Roll please!

[Silky Gooseness]

Karkrash, a minion

Karkrash sighed with satisfaction and set down his cup of tea. The cake was really pretty good. He had no idea that his fellow orcs could bake so well. He would’ve thought this place would be packed out! Instead, the cafe was completely empty, and the tables not only deserted but overturned, as if the occupants had fled; there was some smoke and shouting in the distance, and ... was that an angry mob? With pitchforks? Shouting about chasing the dirty orc out of the village?!

Oh right. Karkrash really had gone quite far the wrong way.

[Moriel]

The Factions:

Minons
Snarf (Thalionwen) - no roll
Karkrash (Sil) - make yer last roll!!
Snivlak (Elarith) - no roll
Jormungandr (Frost) - DIE. You have managed to get your jaw stuck in the locked open position, which is a great way to get hot ash sucked right into your lungs. Can Jormungandr pull off another resurrection?!

Lava Snakes
Phoebe (Nerwen) - no roll
Cronenberg Gazorpazorp (Gwai) - B Roll - You live!! Go Cronenberg, go!!
Blinky (Tarawen) - C Roll - DIE. Unfortunately your fall is broken by a pool of acid, rather than a flow of lava. Can Blinky pull off another resurrection?!
Sssssssss (Alma) - no roll

Hobbits
Dodo Proudfoot (Ducky) - make yer last roll!!
Pansy Greenbottom (Fairy) - no roll

No advantage on the final roll, you're all on your own.


FINAL ROLL!! MAKE IT COUNT!

[The Good Hunter]

Jormungandr, the Unfortunate/Jorgy Underash, Potato Lover

Ow! Ow! OW! His jaw was stuck. He had been practicing opening his jaw as wide as he could and now it was stuck. It was painful, but Jormungandr has endured worse before. He shuddered remembering Sil and her noodles. He saw something in the distance, a rising, fast moving cloud of... oh no! Jormungandr turned to run but the distraction of his painfully open jaw and his wonky, uncooperative limbs proved too much. The cloud of ash enveloped him. Ash flowed like boiling water into his mouth, searing his flesh until he could feel it give way in ragged shreds. It moved down his throat until it reached his lungs, igniting them in a burst of horrible pain. The fire in his lungs spewed forth. Any onlooker would mistake him for a fire-breathing orc, but he was actually breathing out the last fiery remnants of his lungs! It was too much. The ash was coming in too fast for him to stop it. Before he could cry out, the ash was over his head and he was gone.

But then semantics came to his rescue again with another timely maxim: The Hunter becomes the Hunted!

Something emerged from the pile of ash, something small, hairy, and naked as his birthday. He didn’t know who he was, or where he was. Poor Jorgy Underash didn't know much as he emerged like a rotund Phoenix out of the ash. He did know that he was hungry though, and that he was sitting in a pile of ashes. Which way to the potatoes please?

A final B Roll, please

[KingODuckingham]

Dodo Proudfoot, a Hobbit

Was...was he free? Had the eagles come? He had seen from the corner of his eye, the one that wasn't smushed in the dirt, a lava snake headed his way a moment ago. Dodo had thought that was the end, given that he could not get up and run away. And then, at the last possible second, a bird straight from heaven had lifted the snake away from Dodo, leaving him safe. And free?

He certainly -felt- free. Nobody seemed to be looking at him. Perhaps he was camouflaged. He had rolled around in the dirt, ash, and mud enough that he was now the color of the surrounding terrain, certainly. And his belly had deflated from all that nightmare-body-horror stuff that had happened previously, so he didn't stick out (heh) so much now. Maybe if he just kept rolling, just kept rolling...maybe he could roll his way out of Mordor. Maybe he could roll all the way to the Shire and leave everything scary and mean back here in the lava pits. Maybe he could roll his way to the top of the family tree and become Patriarch Proudfoot. Maybe he could roll his way to being Mayor of the Shire. Maybe he could roll his way to becoming a mighty king like those of legend, first hobbit king of the West. MAYBE NOBODY COULD STOP HIM HAHAHA

In the midst of this dreaming he looked the only direction he could at that moment, down, and noticed a ring on his finger. Surely that had not been there before?

An A roll please!

[Gwai]

Cronenberg Gazorpazorp, Lava Snake, More or Less

Cronenberg Zorp decided to explore this new Mount Doom, as it seemed vastly different than the one he had just left. Also, he wasn't quite sure how to get back. His eyes wide open where they belonged on his tail, he slithered sideways across the ashen plains. Despite the lava being a different color than he was used to, the familiar smell of sulfur was in the air, as well as...he twitched his ears, smelling through them, he nostrils flaring as he tasted the wind. Were those hoppits he smelled? Was something here actually the same as Cronenberg Mount Doom?

If so, this would be perfect, as he was terribly hungry after his long travels in between universes. He continued his sideways slithers, dodging the odd dead body here and there. He finally came to the top of a rather large rock, and looking down at the lava plains below him, definitively identified some hoppits, although they were different than the ones from his home. For starters, they only had two feet, and looked absolutely ridiculous that way. No matter, he decided as he slithered onward, sideways down the rock. They are probably still tasty, he thought to himself, and unlikely to be able to run quickly with only two legs.

A Roll, please!

[Zôrzimril]

Blinky the Lava Snake

With a high-pitched "SSSSSS!" of horror, Blinky plummeted toward the ground. He had hoped for a nice pool of lava or a hobbit to break his fall, but he recognized the festering pit below him as something much worse: a pool of lime-green acid.

He plunked straight into the stuff. He gave a gurgling, "Sssssss," of pain as he sank beneath the surface. The pit spat smoke as the acid burned slowly through his skin, then his muscle, his organs, and finally his bones. His broken tooth fell off and melted away. His unblinking eyes popped and ran. But Blinky's spirit lived on and, as it floated up out of his body, began to embody the smoke billowing out of the pit. Like a cruel wind, his spirit undulated away, a serpentine cloud, seeking his home. At the very least, he'd go out of this world in the comfort of his own hole.

As the Blinky-spirit-smoke-snake approached his hole, he saw (because smokey snake spirits can totally see) an unusually large, well-muscled lava snake inspecting his rock garden. The newcomer was clearly intent on moving in. This would not stand. With a soft "hissssss" of the wind, Blinky's spirit descended on the stranger. The other cried out, there was a great writhing and wrestling of wills, and then the snake's body fell still. Unseen by any but the most astute and observant of lava snakes (so no one), a thin vapor rose from the body, like a heat shimmer above the lava. The burly snake's soul floated up, up, into the air, coming to rest in the buzzard who was still flying about overhead, looking for food. It was a weird day on Mount Doom.

Down below, the snake body twitched after a moment. Then its eyes opened . . . and blinked. Blinky had won. He was home. And he was finally living up to his name. He gathered his favorite mouse-shaped rock to him, and curled up protectively around it. He felt extremely odd in his new, much bulkier body, but still was ready to strike.

C roll, please!

[Silky Gooseness]

Karkrash A Minion

Despondent at the lack of cake, Karkrash had legged it out of the cafe and was now only just approaching the slopes of Orodruin again. Alas, no hobbits were to be seen, although you’d naturally think they would gravitate to cake. Karkrash had managed to scrape up a few crumbs, which he was now busily scattering on the ground in an attempt to lure a few more into range.

D roll

[Moriel]

In a finale that was definitely delayed for dramatic purposes, the final rolls are as follows!!!!

Jorgy Underdash - LIVE!!
Dodo Proudfoot - LIVE!!
Gazorpazorp - LIVE!!
Blinky - Injured!
Karkrash - DIE.

After a thorough review of the action, including slo-mo and play by play, the "judges" have determined a winning faction. For dogged endurance, an excess of creativity, and some of the best resurrection this game has ever seen, the winning team is

THE LAVA SNAKES!!

Congratulations sneky-poos, you have successfully repelled the invaders both minion and hobbit from your mountainside, either back where they came from or straight into the heart of Orodruin, never to darken your rock gardens again.

Honorable mention goes to

Dodo Proudfoot

For exceptional commitment and sheer disgustingness. You ESCAPE the lava snakes and may run away unharmed! Well, not harmed any more than you already are.

Thread will remain open for ~48 hours for any final posts!

Thank you for playing and join us next time on DIE: Núrnen Ninnies!
But for now stay tuned for the next exciting game in the lineup... HOPPIT DARTS!

[Zôrzimril]

Blinky, Injured but Victorious

The mountainside had grown quieter as Blinky clutched his mouse-shaped rock. The normal booms and grumbles of the volcano persisted, but the nasty hobbits and smelly orcs had finally retreated from the lava snake community. Uncurling his new, bulkier body, Blinky set about to restoring his rock garden to normal.

Within a few hours, each rock was back in its proper place. He was tired. This day felt like it had lasted a few lifetimes. And it had, in a way. He slithered toward his hole and tried to enter at the normal speed. Forgetting his new bulk, though, he rammed his head into the top of the entrance. He saw stars for a few moments and with a sssssigh, went to get a flat rock with which he could expand his doorway, hoping he wasn't too concussed.

[The Good Hunter]

Jorgy Underash, Confused Hob... Hob bit, Hobbit?

This was a very strange place. Why did he just wake up under a pile of volcanic ashes? Nothing made sense to poor Jorgy as he emerged, like a rotund phoenix. Being naked did not occur him as a bad thing, he only assumed it was his natural state. He also did not know how exactly to use his limbs, they were like stiff noodles with sausages attached for fingers. He was not a snake, of all the things he did not know, he at least knew that. What good would this do him? Given that he just woke up naked in Mordor, likely nothing. He felt like this place was his home, but nothing around here looked like a Hobbit Hole. Was that what he was? Was Jorgy a Hobbit? If he was, he should probably find a way to go home. Where was home though? Was it far? He hoped not, it was going to be hard to slither walk home with these limbs.

[Gwai]

Cronenberg Gazorpazorp, heading home

Cronenberg Zorp was right, the creature was most definitely not a typical Cronenberg Hobbit. Cronenberg Zorp slithered sideways straight up to it, but wasn't sure where to bite for a kill-shot. He was about to pick a random spot, when he saw the hold in the fabric of space/time he had fallen through. This was his chance, to go back to his Cronenberg Mount Doom! Where the lava flowed upstream as it should. He paused a moment. Should he? Although he had been here a very short amount of time, he was already settling in, and, up ahead, he saw a quite cozy little hole with a lovely rock garden that, judging by the For Sale sign which had quickly popped up by an ambitious realtor, had recently housed a lava snake who had met a gruesome demise just a few short minutes ago. Cronenberg Zorp nodded to himself. Yes, he would stay, at least for a while. After all, why not? Free housing, after he bit the realtor, of course.

(@Moriel, thanks for a really fun game!! )

[Elarith]

((@Moriel Just to say thanks, I really enjoyed killing my feeble orc off twice! Sorry I didn't get back to this, I got sucked into Rohan festival stuff))

[KingODuckingham]

Thanks for running this fun game, and also for the honorable mention shout-out! Happy to bring him back for sport in Hoppit darts, since he somehow miraculously survived this event. I don't know what the odds were for hitting zero DIEs, but they felt pretty low hahah!

Lava snakes took a well deserved win, there were some very high quality posts in this thread

[Moriel]

Thank you all again for playing, you had me in stitches at regular intervals!!
If you haven't signed up (or turned up as a victim yet) get ye over to Hoppit Darts!!

THREAD CLOSED