Miscellany: Losing track of the weather

My buddies and I sat down for a particularly epic D&D battle last night, one that was waged far into the wee hours of the morning. At the risk of sounding hopelessly nerdy, I'll describe the scenario: a huge army was invading a sacred mesa, and our ragtag band was all that was stopping them from defiling the place and unlocking the door to unspeakable evil (yeah, that's how these things usually go). Thankfully, the party wasn't alone - a small remnant of survivors aided us, along with some wyverns.

The initial attacks didn't go too badly - we managed to take out nearly a third of the invaders with clever use of traps and the natural terrain hazards of the mesa. Unfortunately, the final battle became a desperate last stand - new enemies streamed in from the mountain paths, forcing us to a climactic showdown on the mesa top. When the enemy commander appeared on a boar the size of a house, we knew we were in serious trouble.

We fought harder than I ever thought possible. If you're familiar with Dungeons & Dragons at all, you know that Beholder-type monsters are a pain in the butt - they're floating spheres that can let loose a half-dozen debilitating ray attacks in a combat round. We fought two of them, in addition to the aforementioned boar and some other nasty surprises. Thankfully, our DM made many poor dice rolls and our characters survived. "Few stood against many," and when it was all said and done, we made it through with no real casualties. When we finally ended the game and walked out into the night, it was surprisingly pouring rain. Whoops - we forgot all about Tropical Storm Barry.