The Nature of the Beast (celestial fight training)
12-03-2017, 09:15 AM
Winter brought with it cold and snow, even in Celestial's territories though it didn't tend to stay like in cooler climates and the deserts not far from them didn't usually get any at all. It wasn't a great time for travel, so it seemed likely that much of the pack would be sticking close to home. That made this an ideal time for gathering and socializing, as far as Gwen was concerned. It was also a good time for learning and practicing new skills since there was little else to do. The coming of late winter would also mean a lot of hungry predators, wolves and others alike, thar might find Celestial's easier lands a temptation. It would be good to sharpen their skills now as winter was barely begun in preparation before it came to that.
Finding a good spot took some time. Gwen wasn't interested in it being a clear area, but rather a rough place with plenty of nasty little pitfalls like ice, rocks, sticks buried beneath the thin snow covering. It wasn't a fatally treacherous terrain, but it provided many opportunities to stumble and trip up for the unwary. It had snowed in the night and hadn't yet warmed up enough to melt the snow, so the footing was a heavy, wet snow over a layer of bent-down grass and beneath that slick mud. It would make for an interesting, and probably not entirely pleasant, place to spar. Well, and after the raid wasn't it clear that the pack needed more practice fighting when the conditions didn't favor them? They had held their own against the invaders last spring despite the lack of experience many of Celestial's defenders had, but they had sustained too many major injuries in the struggle. Celestial simply was not the sort of pack that tended towards aggressive types, and many of their warriors had been either elderly or quite young, or not actually warriors at all. If the numbers and fairly good terrain not favored them a little, she could only imagine how much worse off Celestial would have been.
Clearly Celestial would need the practice and to gain more experience for the younger wolves to begin to take the place of the elderly among them on the front lines if something untoward were to occur again. She had been pleased with the performance of Celestial's youths in the raid but they simply did not have the experience she felt they needed, and she was not going to risk the pack to the fickleness of beginner's luck. Hopefully one of the trained healers would see the benefit and since winter was even more of a down time for healers hold training of their own, but that was far from Gwenevere's sphere of responsibility. She could only hope that her own initiative galvanized some in other portions of the pack. Perhaps if she had done this a year ago rather than allowing herself to withdraw into her grief for Lanse there would have been fewer injuries. But perhaps not, either. Hindsight was always clearer, and it was not in Gwen to dwell on the past. They knew better now. Time to move on.
Satisfied with the choppy, icy, snowy area she had chosen, lifted her head to call the pack together for fight training. She could hope that those outside of the fighter ranks would see the merit of learning as well, especially since Regulus required self defense training for everyone, but it was the Warriors who were her specific purview and they would be the ones she would be watching for. Any who didn't show up she would have to make it a point to track down later and have a quiet word with. The pack needed to learn responsibility.
OOC: for the sake of this thread assume all wounds from the raid including major ones have healed. This is a good time to have your character learn to compensate for any maims taken, etc, and since the spars are not going to be officially judged there is no reason we shouldn't be able to work through this quickly and get everyone some skill points before the holidays consume us.
What we are going to do in this thread is play a fun little dice based game to decide winners. Wolves of the same skill level will have an even chance of winning each round based on a roll of the dice. Higher experience levels will have a higher chance of winning their rounds because that makes sense but it is by no means going to go that way for certain. The character with the most rounds won will win their spar. Spars must be at least three rounds and preferably be odd numbered rounds to prevent ties. Remember that we need a clear winner to claim points for non-judged spars so we don't want ties if we can help it. But ties will be decided by a single tiebreaker round so don't worry too much!
Normal defaults WILL apply but defaulting a round will simply mean that round will be won by the other player rather than ending the match, and the next player may post the next round. I will explain more in Gwen's next post in THREE DAYS (that means on December 6th ). Be there, or GWEN WILL HAVE A VERY SERIOUS TALK WITH YOU AND MAKE YOU FEEL TERRIBLY GUILTY and also I will be very disappointed in you! Late arrivals can be worked in so don't think you can get away with not posting just because you miss the first deadline!
Finding a good spot took some time. Gwen wasn't interested in it being a clear area, but rather a rough place with plenty of nasty little pitfalls like ice, rocks, sticks buried beneath the thin snow covering. It wasn't a fatally treacherous terrain, but it provided many opportunities to stumble and trip up for the unwary. It had snowed in the night and hadn't yet warmed up enough to melt the snow, so the footing was a heavy, wet snow over a layer of bent-down grass and beneath that slick mud. It would make for an interesting, and probably not entirely pleasant, place to spar. Well, and after the raid wasn't it clear that the pack needed more practice fighting when the conditions didn't favor them? They had held their own against the invaders last spring despite the lack of experience many of Celestial's defenders had, but they had sustained too many major injuries in the struggle. Celestial simply was not the sort of pack that tended towards aggressive types, and many of their warriors had been either elderly or quite young, or not actually warriors at all. If the numbers and fairly good terrain not favored them a little, she could only imagine how much worse off Celestial would have been.
Clearly Celestial would need the practice and to gain more experience for the younger wolves to begin to take the place of the elderly among them on the front lines if something untoward were to occur again. She had been pleased with the performance of Celestial's youths in the raid but they simply did not have the experience she felt they needed, and she was not going to risk the pack to the fickleness of beginner's luck. Hopefully one of the trained healers would see the benefit and since winter was even more of a down time for healers hold training of their own, but that was far from Gwenevere's sphere of responsibility. She could only hope that her own initiative galvanized some in other portions of the pack. Perhaps if she had done this a year ago rather than allowing herself to withdraw into her grief for Lanse there would have been fewer injuries. But perhaps not, either. Hindsight was always clearer, and it was not in Gwen to dwell on the past. They knew better now. Time to move on.
Satisfied with the choppy, icy, snowy area she had chosen, lifted her head to call the pack together for fight training. She could hope that those outside of the fighter ranks would see the merit of learning as well, especially since Regulus required self defense training for everyone, but it was the Warriors who were her specific purview and they would be the ones she would be watching for. Any who didn't show up she would have to make it a point to track down later and have a quiet word with. The pack needed to learn responsibility.
OOC: for the sake of this thread assume all wounds from the raid including major ones have healed. This is a good time to have your character learn to compensate for any maims taken, etc, and since the spars are not going to be officially judged there is no reason we shouldn't be able to work through this quickly and get everyone some skill points before the holidays consume us.
What we are going to do in this thread is play a fun little dice based game to decide winners. Wolves of the same skill level will have an even chance of winning each round based on a roll of the dice. Higher experience levels will have a higher chance of winning their rounds because that makes sense but it is by no means going to go that way for certain. The character with the most rounds won will win their spar. Spars must be at least three rounds and preferably be odd numbered rounds to prevent ties. Remember that we need a clear winner to claim points for non-judged spars so we don't want ties if we can help it. But ties will be decided by a single tiebreaker round so don't worry too much!
Normal defaults WILL apply but defaulting a round will simply mean that round will be won by the other player rather than ending the match, and the next player may post the next round. I will explain more in Gwen's next post in THREE DAYS (that means on December 6th ). Be there, or GWEN WILL HAVE A VERY SERIOUS TALK WITH YOU AND MAKE YOU FEEL TERRIBLY GUILTY and also I will be very disappointed in you! Late arrivals can be worked in so don't think you can get away with not posting just because you miss the first deadline!
