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Rolemaster Moments for May 2002 - page 4
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A little background on the campaign world and plot....the last known clan of dwarves was forced into hiding in the caverns under Dark Mountain by the orcs (who were particularly strong as a civilization in this world), where they were trying to fulfill a prophecy that would return them to their former glory and a new Golden Age of dwarven technology and prosperity.
My character, Nelsbad, a dwarven warrior who was prophesied to be the harbringer of the return of dwarves and the downfall of orcish superiority. He was the 11th son of an 11th son of an 11th son, and had been trained in the arena by the best of the dwarven warriors for hundreds of years before being sent off to fulfill his prophecy. Accompanied by a fearful and annoyingly hungry halfling (played by a friend of mine who fits those characteristics to a tee) who had been a ward of the dwarves for some time, he set off to earn his reputation. The dwarves were both happy to see them go, both for the possibility of the rise of the dwarves, and because they hated the stubby little half-man.
Anyway, a day into the journey, we're accosted by a pair ogre highwayman. Drawing my my war mattock, I charge into battle, calling out the names of the ancient glorious warriors of dwarven lore. The ogres win initiative, and first attack ever on this character, rolls a 00, and for the critical rolls a 00 and then a 95. Needless to say, this great warrior of dwarven prophecy was smashed into a greasy wet pile the very first time he got into a fight. How sad.
(The halfling, by the way, finished off both ogres with a couple rounds of bow shots and laughed as he raided my backback for my rations before going on his merry way).
This Moment is from when I first started to play Rolemaster and joined in my fellow men after much debating. In this adventure I was a manservant/bodyguard to the eleven ranger. Since my fellow men had been adventuring for a bit before me, their.... shall I say, "habits" were a bit more refined then mine.
Notably, the human fighter who felt the need to go out flirting whenever he was in a big city. Well, one of those times he flirted with a "princess". The fighter didn't find out until the city guards found him and told him the royal seers pointed him out, but that is another story.
Anyway, after being away for a while it was discovered that the princess had been kidnapped. The fighter (not sure if he was a better lover then a fighter) got huffed up and went looking for her. After much searching and dealings with notorious thieves guilds—and many near deaths for me, —we found out that a group of orcs had kidnapped her. So we sent a messenger to see if we could barter to get her back.
We were waiting for the messenger to come back, but instead only his head arrived with a message stuffed in the mouth asking that we trade a recently acquired item for the princess. We had no problem with that request, so we went to meet the kidnappers at an old ruined keep. When we got to the center of the keep we were suddenly surrounded by about 15 orcs. We started to defend ourselves when we heard an orc call to us from above. We looked up and through the rotted-out floors above us we see the princess dangling above us on a rope with an orc holding a knife to it.
Well...our loving fighter goes up to trade the item for the princess and he disappears. After a while we see him up top grabbing the princess and we see the rope go slack as if cut. Suddenly the princess goes hurtling off the side of the keep towards us. As my friends fight off the attacking orcs, I'm the only one left to save her. Luckly, I make a successful catch and saved the falling princess, but very unluckly I died from the impact of her falling on me. Well now...that doesn't seem very funny until you find out what really happened up there...
As it turns out, the other party members were told that the fighter goes up and sees 5 orcs up on top of the keep: the leader, a shaman and 3 guards. The fighter edges his way over to the princess and pulls her in after kicking the item to the orcs. But then he takes a good look at her and discovers she's actually an orcess casting an illusion to look like the princess. In his disgust he tosses the orcess "princess" off the keep and being the fellow that I am, I died saving her.
From that point on, no matter what type of characters I played, they were always know as "John Doe the orc catcher".
Once our party had to fight its way across the haunted island of Urulan. They had to find a way to rid it from the horrible Shards (which we strangely enough never encountered). On a quest for some unique artefact for some terribly important ritual to fend off the Shards the following little incident happened.
One of our players prefers strong warrior-like characters. They are usually excellent fighters, good pals, and always the first in line to fight against an opponent. He thinks fast and acts even faster. This time, however, for once he wanted to try something different and play a character that was more "common", some "real-life" guy. So, he decided on playing a Sage!!! For purpose of combat this character was not really fit, although he had a quite powerful spell which allowed him to cast a blade of lighting forth from his hand. Now…
This one time at band camp…well, when the band of adventurers camped
near a small pond hidden in a forest, when most of the party-members were
out looking for firewood, a loud cry went out from one of them. As usual our
friend was the first to react and sprung into action:
His character charged into the woods, found the mortally wounded party-member called for the healer, cast his lightning blade spell and followed the dark clad assassin that was just running further into the forest.
Not thinking about being just a sage, he chased after the black assassin and was quite surprised when the assassin disappeared only to re-appear behind the sage, when he reached the spot of disappearance. The assassin had hidden behind a tree and had nothing better to do than to thrust his sword right into the back of the sage's head (who of course died immediately).
When the "real" warriors of the group arrived (with much care not to disturb and warn the enemy!), the sage was dead far beyond recovery. The only two things that were positive about this incident was the fact that due to the disturbance by the sage, the assassin was not able to finish off the other party-member, so that he could be rescued, and second that the player returned to play "warrior-type" characters, which were able to do actions like the one his unfortunate sage had just tried.
One of my Favorite Characters was a Warrior monk , by the name Noburo. At 1st level he left his monastery (he was a bit of a discipline problem) and hooked up with a small mixed party of Adventurers.
One day in the port City of Tarantus while in a local tavern, he became interested in a local barroom sport called PitWalking.
The premise of the sport was two contestants walk out on a narrow beam over a padded pit - each contestant armed with a padded staff. The idea was to remain on the beam the longest. There were monetary prizes as well as equipment from a local outfitter. Well...a monk doesn't have a lot to start with and Noburo felt he had the upper hand in this type of contest. He was trained in the staff and he was very agile. He did extremely well, downing his first two opponents with little effort,and by late afternoon he was undefeated in all 8 of his matches. The local Champion arrived and immediately set about unthroning this upstart boy. Noburo was 15 years old.
So the champion walks out on the beam and the match begins--and ends on the first swing when Noburo open-ended his roll twice with such a terrific blow that the GM determined that not only was the champion knocked off the beam but he was rendered unconscious from the blow.
When the ex-champion came to, he attacked Noburo in a rage. As it turns out, the Champion was a 7th level fighter, and Noburo and the party fled with the champion in hot pursuit. The next 3 months of gaming revolved around trying to lose the pursuer, his attempts to find and kill little Noburo. The team of NPC's that were hired by the ex-champion escapes, one rescue of a friend of the party from the pursuer, and the eventual conclusion with the battle between Noburo and the Champion.
This battle resulted in the final defeat of the champion, and the very near-death of Noburo, who had reached 7th level by this time--the champion had achieved 9th level.
None of this was planned by the GM as it started out as a way for the party to get some fairly easy money for outfitting, and became for a fair amount of gaming, the whole basis of the campaign.
Noburo was slain not long after his recovery.
I have been running Rolemaster since the first edition (blue character law booklet 10 pages thick). At the end of a long 2 year campaign the party of adventurers consisted of a Pech male Crystal Mage, a High Man male Paladin, a Mixed-man female Monk, and an Urlock Arch-mage.
The Pech was fond of using the beacon spell and spell mastery to make his own "bat signal" with a race appropriate hammer. The Urloc was fond of trying to get NPCs and PCs to sell him their souls. He was convinced all those pieces of paper would amount to something eventually. The Monk was suffering from endless incompetence (dice induced). She survived 15 levels with a CON of 10 after encountering 1 Wight too many. The Paladin was extremely normal and straight laced.
The campaign was a chase of a single vampire, who slew members of each characters family, through the underdeeps, through a Drow city, and into Hell (based on Dante's Inferno). At the last they cornered the vampire an slew him with ease. At 1st level the party found him highly intimidating. At 20th level he was a joke. When his master the Demon Lord of Undeath showed up things got interesting.
The battle was climactic, and if I may say so, very well managed by the DM. The Demon Lord fought the party using an illusion of himself and a lot of touch spells. The party was convinced that they were doing well and the minor but steady damage dealt to them was a result of their skill. When the Illusion finally gave out the chagrin was enormous. I decided that the collapse of the illusion was enough to cancel the Demon Lords invisibility. My thought was "Now let the true battle begin." The Paladin was next on initiative and proceeded to cast aside his sword and shield and with several expletives hurl himself into the lap of the Demon.
I had forgotten the long dormant and unused Retributive Strike spell. The paladin managed to roll more 9s and 10s on those dice than had been seen all evening. No more Demon Lord--no more Paladin. I have never seen anyone so happy to bury a character he had been playing for 2 years. He still talks about that moment with awe and pride. To date no one has come close to such a good death.
I figure if you have to go you should take 'em with you. As DM I could not help thinking:"The best laid plans of mice and men...."
Way back when, I decided to introduce a friend of mine to Rolemaster. We
whipped up a character and I threw him into a cave with some fairly innocent
cobwebs. I was expecting this to be a fairly successful venture—how much
hurt can a spider inflict?
Well, he wandered into the cave and came upon the spider—not a big one
mind you, and on his first swing he missed and pissed the spider off.
Needless to say, the spider let loose on the poor bozo and scored
a critical hit. Slicing an artery, our would be hero bled to death
running out of the cave on his first mission. What a start !!!
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