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"The Great Queen" Copyright (c) 1997 Simon E. Phipp
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Glorantha is Copyright Greg Stafford and all rights are reserved.

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# The Great Queen

In the Grand Tradition of Super Villains everywhere, if one of his plans goes wrong, Ralzakark will abandon it. Also, every so often he will try one of his Great Plans again, convinced that it failed due to the incompetence of those involved or due to external factors. So, he will lead an army out of Dorastor to raid the surrounding countryside and will be forced back after taking heavy losses. One of his Great Plans is the re-uniting of the Scorpion Clans under a Great Queen loyal to him.

This never works for several reasons. Firstly, Scorpionmen are really stupid and ineffectual warriors so they are not ideally placed for organisation. Secondly, there are so many Scorpionmen in Dorastor that uniting all the clans is an immense task requiring HeroQuesting with all the risks that entails. Thirdly, any Queeen of many clans soon becomes very powerful amongst her people and starts working on her own agenda and becomes a rival to Ralzakark himself and has to be killed. Fourthly, even if Ralzakark does not kill the Great Queen, some enterprising and zealous Storm Bull or Orlanthi will do the job as they do not like the idea of uniting the Scorpionfolk. Pity really.

Anyhow, a while ago, Ralzakark tied again, but this time created the perfect Queen by HeroQuesting and careful breeding. He captured a daughter of Bagog herself and bred with her and her children until he had a worthy captive. He fed her to a pet Queen and she underwent Rebirth. Shortly afterwards, she consumed all of Ralzakark’s Pet Queens and started HeroQuesting in earnest.

She was powerful because she could only be harmed by natural weapons (fists, teeth, claws and stings) and also could only be harmed by magic. This meant that only the Ironhand could hurt her. Every blow she took was reflected back to the causer, doing damage to them too. That meant that whilst she could be whittled down, her opponents would be hurt a lot faster (especially as if she was hit by a club, the bearer of the club would take damage but she would not as the club was not a natural weapon). Also, Ralzakark gave her a poisoned Club and some warrior servants and led her on HeroQuests (although how Ralzakark gained access to Bagogi HeroQuests nobody knows).

After a year or so, she attracted the attention of the Party. This was, on reflection, unfortunate (for her at least).

The party sometimes had a soft spot for Chaos, having been on Krarsht Quests, consorted with Vampires and Thanatari, become bosom pals with Ralzakark and a few Ogres, but for some reason always hated Scorpionmen. They also thought that Scorpionmen were easy targets as they would stock up on Antidotes and Poison Purge spells before going in. As soon as they heard of another attempt to unite the Clans, they resolved to stop it.

With this attitude, they set off to the Scorpionmen Strongholds in the North of Dorastor. Brankist had special abilities against Scorpionmen and could easily outfight them. Derak had many weapon magics and a nasty set of spirits to scare off the shamans and Bolgar was a maniac "CHAOSSSSSS!!!!!" so they were fairly confident.

However, the Great Queen was prepared, with Spirit Allies and powerful Rune Lords around her. She tried so hard too.

The fight consisted of the party reaching the inner sanctum, seeing her surrounded by Rune Lords, bringing forth a Huge Shielded Salamander, mindlinking with Brankist and Teleporting to the Queen whilst the Salamander rolled over the Rune Lords. The Queen fought well, but once the PCs found that their weapons were having no effect they tried all combinations and realised that natural weapons worked. Well, imagine a Lead Fist with Crush 10 and Bludgeon 20 coming in at 400% - 500% against a poor Scorpion Queen. Imagine also Thunderbolts and Lightning spells pouring from Storm Artefacts. Then imagine a nasty Salamander with a Death Wish and you get the picture. Eventually she managed to escape and did a deal with the PCs as she persuaded them that she was more powerful than they were. (I think she had Lunar connections and played on them quite strongly.) She then cut a deal that they would leave her alone and she would not raid the Risklands, only attacking Chaotic Targets.

The PCs agreed.

So much for Storm Bull vows etc.

She kept her word and really pissed Ralzakark off to such an extent that he had to come to sort her out personally. Needless to say, he did not cut any deals, merely heads. So much for his Great Plan.

Having said that, the new Incarnations of Ralzakark include a Scorpion Queen and he has a few pet Queens left to eat, so don’t give up on the Great Queen yet!