As Veldrina and Wrecan board the Mechane, Belkar helps with the tiger wrangling.
Cast
- Roy Greenhilt ◀ ▶
- Belkar Bitterleaf ◀ ▶
- Vaarsuvius ◀ ▶
- Mr. Scruffy ◀ ▶
- Blackwing ◀ ▶
- Veldrina ◀ ▶
- Wrecan ◀ ▶
- Little Whiskers ◀ ▶
Transcript
- Panel 1
Roy: Hey gang, I’m back and I have great news.
Belkar: Count No-neckula fell on a fencepost and dusted himself?
Vaarsuvius: I also have a positive occurrence to report.
Roy: That’s a one-shot teleport orb that you were able to buy at the magic shop.
- Panel 2
Vaarsuvius: Yes…Yes, that is exactly correct.
Blackwing: Did you become an oracle? And if so, can you tell me if I’m going to ever play the lottery?
Roy: Well, my source does have divine inspiration. I think the two of you have already met our new guests.
Veldrina: Come on, Little Whiskers! It’s just a piece of highly complex physics-defying machinery that makes loud scary whirring noises. I don’t see what the big deal is!
Little Whiskers: mrrrwww…
- Panel 3
Veldrina: Just give him a little nudge.
Wrecan: You know I don’t do tiger wrangling.
Veldrina: A nudge is not a wrangle.
Wrecan: They’re the same general sphere of activity.
Belkar: Awesome, just what we need. More NPC panel-filler.
Roy: You should be happy. They’re going to help us get Durkon back in time for the final showdown.
- Panel 4
Belkar: Wait, you actually found someone who can rez him? I take back 80% of the bad things I said about you in the last hour.
Roy: Sort of. We’re flying them to some secret cleric meet-up in the mountains tomorrow.
- Panel 5
Roy: We’ll drop them off, get Durkon raised by one of the clerics, and then use V’s teleport orb to pop right up to Kraagor’s Gate.
Roy: We’ll get there faster than our original plan of flying all the way north, and we’ll fix our friend in the process.
- Panel 6
Vaarsuvius: That seems to be an eminently efficient course of action. I approve.
Roy: All this is assuming that she eventually gets her pet tiger on the ship.
Belkar: Leave that to me, losers. Step aside, high-level ranger coming through!
- Panel 7
Belkar: All you need to do is look into the animal’s eyes and let him know who really calls the shots around here.
- Panel 8
Belkar stares at Little Whiskers.
- Panel 9
Mr. Scruffy chases Little Whiskers across the deck of the Mechane.
Mr. Scruffy: hiss!
Little Whiskers: Mrrrrrwwww!
- Panel 10
Belkar: See? Works every time.
Veldrina: I think I got a defective tiger.
Wrecan: Does that trick work on elves? Asking for a friend.
D&D Context
- Rangers have the ability to use Wild Empathy to influence the behavior of animals if they are given a minute to study each other.
Trivia
- The title is a pun on John Philip Sousa's magnum opus, the 1897 military march The Stars and Stripes Forever. The song was made the National March of the United States of America by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1987.