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Although I haven't PLAYED rolemaster Recently, I usually Run rolemaster. Many years ago, I was playing in a Rolemaster Campaign of a friend of mine with a few other players.
Anyway, the story...
I was a Human Sorcerer, We all started out at 1st level, a pretty normal party with myself, a couple of fighters and a thief, plus a healer of some sort.
But the funny/interesting part of the story was my Sorcerers apparent ineptness with magic. It's not like I generated my character badly or anything. On paper he looked pretty good. But for some reason, magic seemed to elude him.
It all started pretty much from day one. I wanted to test out my new found spells, so I thought, I'll just cast a low level spell on a small creature to see how it works.. So, I selected I think a Sleep spell from one of my lists, and did a search for some sort of small animal.. Eventually, I spied in the distance a sort of small prairie dog, SO....
I roll the base spell casting roll and fumble... I roll again since it was open ended down, 97, roll again, 96..and so on I end up rolling something along the lines of minus 300+..*sigh* I end up frying my brain and disabling magic use for 3 MONTHS!!.. Fortunately, I manage to get some sort of poultice from a herbalist to decrease the time down to about 1 month)
I take this in my stride and depend on my Longbow use for the next month. (Which ended up being about 5 or so gaming sessions)
1 months later (gametime). I get my magic back. We get into some sort of combat with some Bandits somewhere. So I ready the Same spell again.. Make the roll. Lo and behold. Fumble. A few open ended roll down later. I've fried my brain again...*sigh*
So in my Magical career I managed to fail the casting twice and blow myself away..
At this point I decided that fate was trying to tell my character that Sorcerery was not good for my health. At which point, I started making arrangements with the GM to change my Character class to a farmer.
I guess for that character...Evil just didn't pay..
This had to be my weirdest and shortest lived character I've ever had in 20+ years of gaming. But it sure made for an interesting series of adventures.
The character is Archer Spotted Tail Elk. He is of half elvish/half indian heritage. He was kidnapped at a young age by bandits who killed his family he was forced to watch many mutilations of his family and he was but a young child. This sort of scarred him emotionally anyhow. Further he was enslaved by these people and let me tell you they were perverts. And of course one of them turns out to be a mage. Slowly as things develop Archer discovers a hidden talent and manifestation for magic. However due to his emotional and psychological problems he doesn't have the discipline for magic, merely the aptitude.
He manages to slowly develop on his own his wild talent and becomes an arcanist. He escapes his tormentors but they follow. On a rocky promotory over looking a stormy wind swept ocean he is cornered as they come down on him in an act of desperation he calls on and receives dark powers. he kills them and escapes but now his soul is no longer his and is merely borrowed. He has gone completely insane and hears voices or so others speak. But of course the voices are the demons who now own him. Well it so happens that our intrepid adventurers including Archer must find and reclaim a stolen item from a haunted house. As he enters the voices attack and he has a fit. slashing paintings on walls breaking down walls etc. The voices cease and he continues up the stairs with his fellow adventurers. Who now watch him as they are convinced he is cracked.
The voices attack again and Archer is gone completely and hopelessly insane, he dashes off then comes back yelling for our valiant but naive warrior to join him. He suckers the warrior to lead the way and of course immediately attacks from behind with his tomahawk. Roll orders the GM *100* again I roll again its open end. Finally crit *100* again and our warrior brave but naive is dead with Archers tomahawk buried in his head.
Quickly throwing his body in a secret area between walls he returns to the others with blood all over him. He gives a story about a ghostly attack and I don't know where the warrior is we need help. The rest of party immediately follows me as he attempts to lead them to their doom. But the fates intervene again.
The warrior unknowing of his death keeps trying to talk to rest of party, who quickly now unravels the mystery and turns on Archer, unloading a powerful dark bolt he then scampers off with party following. But now Archer is controlled by the real owner of the house a vampire/lich who shows him the altar where he makes a desperate last stand.
The other warrior of party fails a RR and becomes enslaved to Archer and then the tides turn, Archer goes down hurt but not out. At this point the house owner shows up and finally growing brain cells the rest of party flees and manages to escape with Archer firing arrows out a window at them.
Archer is no longer a player character but he is still out there somewhere waiting for someone else to come back. The spirits which so tormented him now have him and his soul is destroyed but he exists yet as a NPC Someday someone will come back to the house and Archer will then reappear.
This was a sick and twisted character. But we all agreed that this was one of our most interesting adventures. He may have only lasted 4 adventures but his impact will remain campaign long.
It was a while back, at my first game ever of rolemaster. I was playing a ranger half-elven, the usual for me. We were in a trail infested with orcs, if I remember correctly. My character was on her horse, bow loaded and ready to shoot. My dm asked that everyone make an observation test. I failed miserably at -236. So, my character though she saw something really ugly in a bush beside the trail. I decided to shoot. On making my test I got 395. So, I made the best score on my dices ..... I shoot a tree, believe me, that tree was sooooo dead after my arrow pierce it, but, it wasn't an orc, just a simple tree that did nothing to me.
As a long time GM and avid Rolemaster fan, one of my favorite moments was being GM to a small group of mixed race adventurers. They were investigating a tunnel carved in to a mountain side, when the Dwarf fighter, Gorgi stops dead and proclaims " I smell Gold." He then runs (wobbles) off down the tunnel, with the rest of the party in tow.
When the others catch up with him he is standing by a crevice about 10ft wide and apparently bottomless. The half-Elf thief believes he can clear the gap with a running jump, so he drops his backpack, takes a 12 stride run up and clears the gap with a yard to spare.
Seeing this Gorgi decides anything old pointy ears can do, he can do better. So while everyone is unraveling a length of rope to use as a safety line, Gorgi backs up and with his battle axe in hand and still wearing his chainmail armour, he then trots headlong toward the crevice.
I gave Gorgi a situational awareness role which he promptly failed and continued his run muttering "gold, gold" under his breath.
He reached the lip of the crevice and made his jump roll .....Massive fumble. Gorgi seemed to stop mid jump as he suddenly became aware of gravity.
Gorgi is often remembered and a toast drank in his memory in many an alehouse, as well as the question of " do you think he has landed yet?
Well, it is always a sad moment when your beloved character dies, but this one is the one that stands out the most...I shall tell you the story of Umil Toadstool, a brave little hobbit who hailed from the Shire in Middle-Earth...
Umil was becoming quite of a crackshot with his beloved shortbow. (a family heirloom which was nothing out of the ordinary, yet he would not trade it for anything in the world). Anyway, He traveled with a bunch of good companions as they crossed a little river in a lightly wooded area. It was a lovely summer day with high sun and only a light breeze. Everybody was talking joyously to each other, and did not notice the Orcs lying in wait on the other bank. Suddenly, and without warning, a hail of arrows covered the sky... everybody ran to safety. It came to a long and tiring fight, and all of the combatants paid with a lot of blood, and some paid with their lives. But not our elusive hero Umil, who took down two of the orcs single-handedly with his bow! Umil began to feel safe (he had been unharmed, despite that many of the orcs had focused on this little menacing threat), and he courageously drew his short sword and stepped out into the shallow river (all of the orcs and some of Umils companions were dead). He thought that the day was won as all of the orcs had been slain, so he climbed the other bank to loot the corpses. He thought wrong.
There, crashing through the bushes came the leader...As Umil was searching through one of the orc's belongings, a grim shadow fell on him. He looked up, and there stood a large, black frowning orc, wielding a HUGE scimitar. Umil was quick on his feet, and leapt back into the river. But he was not quick enough. He was grabbed by the neck by that big orc, and lifted out of the water. Umil was terrified. (And with good reason, this was the closest he had ever been to an orc. And so big too)
Now this was where the Gamemaster got cruel... He could have spared me some of my heartbreak by just telling me that Umil was no more (Umil was my very first Rolemaster character, and I had played him for over a year). But no, he had to paint it out. The most horrible memory of my entire roleplaying career. It haunts me to this day.
As Umil hovered above the water, all he could see was the tiny little water drops flying through the air, which all reflected the grinning face of his assailant... and down came the scimitar in a violent assault.
Umil was hit square in his neck, was paralyzed from the neck down, and fell flat into the shallow water, lying face down and couldn't move. (a moment of silence)
Umil's companions made quick work of the orc preoccupied with killing off Umil, one came to Umil and lifted him to shore, but it was too late. There on the bank of the river, the beloved Umil Toadstool exhaled his terminal breath as he gurgled his famous last words; "perhaps I should retire..."
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