Uma answers the phone, and it's the standard "We have your boyfriend!" ransom call.
For a second she just stands there with a thoughtful look, like she's doing mental math. "Uh-huh..."
"Now, if you ever want to see him again-"
"No, shut up for a second, I'm tryna think."
"You...What?"
She thinks for another second and then gives up. "Alright, you're gonna have to tell me who you have. If it was Ben, you'd have said you have the king; if it was Harry or Gil, I'd be impressed..."
"It's not me!" Gil calls out helpfully from another room. "And Jay's sitting on my lap."
"And it's not Jay," she adds. "So, who'd you catch?"
The voice on the other end of the phone grunts in annoyance. "You know, the blond guy."
"The blond guy's here; that's what I just said."
"No, the-! Cinderella's son. I forget his name; he hasn't been on the news in a while." There's an offended noise, ostensibly from a gagged prince of Cinderellasburg who didn't appreciate the comment on his diminishing spotlight.
"Oh my gods," Uma groans. "You got Chad? He's not even my boyfriend; he's my girlfriend's boyfriend. Did he say he's my boyfriend?"
"He said we should think twice about holding him for ransom because the queen of the sea was going to destroy us."
"Well, yeah, but only because it's the cool thing to do." Uma is putting on her sword belt and jacket at this point. "I mean, Audrey would be pissed if I just let him be kidnapped. Is there a reason you called me? He told you I'd destroy you, and you thought 'I have an idea, let's call her?' How'd you even get my number?"
"Listen closely! We took him because we thought the royals of Cinderellasburg would pay a hefty price for his return. But now that we know he's valuable to the queen of the sea as well, we'd like to make a deal. If you sink the ships of our enemies, we'll return the prince to you with all his fingers."
"Dude, I don't even know who your enemies are. Do you have nautical coordinates?"
"There are five ships we'd like you to sink. I'm sending you the first set of coordinates now, and if the ship is not destroyed within the hour, the prince loses two fingers."
"Got it," Uma muses, glancing across the room at Carlos, who gives her a thumbs up.
"And before you think about attacking us, you should know we're landlocked!"
"Yeah, for sure. I hear you." She's putting eyeliner on in the mirror.
"The first ship, now! When you're done, we'll send the next coordinates."
"Great, yeah. Okay."
The phone hangs up.
"That was long enough to get his location, right?" she asks over her shoulder.
"Yep, we got him," Carlos answers. He's in bed, but he pulled his laptop onto his lap as soon as the matter of hostages was mentioned.
"Cool. Guess I'll go get Chad and...I don't know, kill that guy?"
"No killing. Remedial Goodness."
"Oh, like the crown isn't responsible for-...Whatever. I'll just break his knees."
Another thumbs up. Jane, sitting next to Carlos, looks slightly bewildered, but she hops up to grab Uma's hat for her as she heads out the door.
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WEAK! Why are you pushing your whole face into her hand bro?
This is how you do it! The eye contact, the soft intertwining of hands, the way his lips caress her knuckles. Kiss Uma's hand like the queen she is
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Conscript - CR 1/4 Commoner
Armor is too expensive for these troops. If you want them to last longer, just conscript more of them.
Artwork by mannequin-atelier on DeviantArt.
In much of the middle ages, an army's composition heavily relied on untrained soldiers, recruited from the normal commoners in nearby towns. These men were often armed with only the weapons and armor they brought from home, or possibly with a simple helmet or wooden shield. The weapon of choice for such conscripts across most of history and most of the world was polearms, due to their ease of use, superior reach, and cheap manufacturing compared to a mostly-metal weapon like a sword.
I was pretty surprised that I couldn't find a stat block for a level 1 commoner in the NPC Codex or any other official Pazio book that fit this kind of idea. The basic CR 1/3 foot soldier from the Gamemastery Guide is a warrior, not a commoner, and has chainmail, three backup weapons, and a healing potion. There are some other level 1 commoners, but they have improvised weapons, aren't human, or are otherwise not really appropriate for a conscript. This stat block should better represent a soldier that was literally just grabbed off the farm and handed a spear and told to fight.
The longspear in its stat block has the broken condition, but it's not literally broken; it's just such bad quality that it functions as a broken weapon.
These might be appropriate enemies for a level 1 party to fight, but mostly I personally use them as friendly NPC soldiers when the players are elite special forces working with the military. You can have a unit of thirty conscripts like this, and a group of level 3 or 4 PCs will still be the heroes who have to actually do everything, without it feeling like they're literally fighting a whole war by themselves.
Conscript - CR 1/4
This man holds a spear and shield, and fights for his homeland wearing the dirty clothes of a peasant.
XP 100
Human commoner 1
N Medium humanoid (human)
Init +0
Senses Perception +0
DEFENSE
AC 12, touch 10, flat-footed 12 (+2 shield)
hp 4 (1d6+1)
Fort +1, Ref +0, Will +0
OFFENSE
Speed 30 ft.
Melee broken longspear -1 (1d8-1)
Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft. (10 ft. with longspear)
STATISTICS
Str 12, Dex 10, Con 12, Int 9, Wis 10, Cha 9
Base Atk +0; CMB +1; CMD 11
Feats Endurance, Skill Focus (Profession [farmer])
Skills Craft (woodworking) +3, Profession (farmer) +7
Languages Common
Gear broken longspear (cannot be repaired), heavy wooden shield
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*Uma, watching Harry from afar*
Gil: "Harry, don't look now, but I think Captain is checking you out."
Harry: "She better be. Why do ya think I've been bent over my car for so long?
Gil: "Because your car broke down...?"
Harry: "Nah, the car has been good to go for half an hour now."
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