Don't drop it!

Originally posted on 2009.10.24

One of the sweetest and coolest tricks of my 7th sleeve is a scene, where heroes must act (be it fight, jump, swing, whatever) and do swashuckling style deeds holding something that must not be dropped.

The list is really big if you think about it - baby, gunpowder keg over a water / sewage, bottle of the best wine ever, treasure chest, The flower, a bottle of nitrogliceryne...

Out of experience I can assure you, that even the toughest of the teams needs to push to their limits to handle the basic adversary. And you can imagine the actions they perform!

Take a Montaigne swordsman, who can't use his dagger, because he's carrying a baby. And he needs to jump over the chasm or climb a scaffolding. Luckily his teammate is already on the roof so the baby can be thrown up... What? The partner needs to defend himself? So now he's hot to choose, whether he fends off the enemies, or throws himself to the edge of the roof to grab the crying bundle.

Oh! You think it's easy to balance on the roof beams, carrying a chest full of diamonds? Especially, when brutes are closing fast from front and behind? Or when you need to throw up a bottle of 1480' Don-whateverignion, punch'em in the face and grab the bottle back? Or jumping back and forth Vodaccian balconies, while carrying The flower she asked you to bring her?

Certainly brigns a LOT of fun!

One of my groups remembers well a variant of this trick -
They infiltrate San Cristobal Inquisition headquarters. Dressed as Inquisitors, they march through gardens imitating patrols. They manage "Mission Impossible" feats of agility to get into Inquisition's storages in need for The ultimate weapon that will help them to save the blablabla (you know the story). The only thing they know is that the thing they're looking for is known as "Needle of the Sun" and was requisitioned from the Castilian nobleman's house.
They search through museum's attick and storages, digging through priceless treasures and artifacts. They penetrate stacks of weapons without a clue for what they're after.
And suddenly, their gaze falls upon a large table, with an obelisk stuck right in the middle - a sundial, taken from the Castilian's holding. "The needle of the Sun" is the obelisk. 2 meters high stone, chopped into a pike. The only way to use it, is to blast it from some large cannon or machine! And while you could get your hands on a balista or a cannon of a proper size, carrying the thing out of Inquisition's HQ will be quite a feat!

The look on their faces - PRICELESS!

Well - the heroes are no weaklings! They grabbed it, lowered it on the ropes, carried through the gardens, sneaked with that through the patrol lines with ladies working out the distractions...

Seriously, this is one you should try! Have fun!