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Ok...I was playing this low level fighter named Blotto who's troupe had met up with a pair of hobbits whose barge had sunk along the coast. We helped them out and pulled their somewhat large cask of ale out of the water as well as some tobacco and the like. Well, the hobbits were most cordial and quite happy we saved their ale, which they were taking to a great birthday party in a few days. In the meantime, one of our members was separated and all signs pointed to an abduction, so we loaded up and went looking for him. Blotto carries a large war hammer that he had to have slung by his side as he was carrying the large cask on his shoulder for the hobbits.
Well, traveling along the river's edge, one of the hobbits suddenly froze as he noticed a large, seven foot plus alligator-like creature eyeballing him. Just as Blotto noticed it too, the creature scrambled forward to gobble up the hobbit. Not having time to grab for his weapon, Blotto improvised and smashed the beer cask over the head of the alligator-monster, scoring impressively with two criticals and rolling better than 90's on both. The little hobbit screamed out a long and fearful "NOOOOOO", but we couldn't tell if it was in reaction to his own danger or the potential loss of his ale. The creature (7th level) lay vanquished as the hobbits shed a tear of both joy and loss. Needless to say, they never let Blotto carry their ale again, no matter how big the cask was.
A couple of years ago, as part of a side adventure to a larger campaign, a four character party found themselves attempting to collect an apparently stolen sword for a tavern owner. The party consisted of a dwarven fighter, a Dunedain paladin, a Dunlander rogue (or thief?) and a Dunedain fighter named Deornoth, whom I was playing.
In quest of the missing blade, the party set out following the leads that had been provided by the tavern owner. Their searching brought them to a stone building at the side of a path that led on to a modest sized tower further along (what we believed to be our ultimate destination). The events that were to follow should have been enough of an omen to cause brave Deornoth to rethink any manner of frontal assault that day.
After looking around as well as inside the structure, the party managed to rouse an eog reaver of a rather intimidating size. After being cut off from the building's entry, the only recourse was to flee down a stairway and a rather quickly discovered hidden doorway. Through the doorway and down an underground passage, the party made haste. The passage was a tunnel hewn from rock. Safe are we, thought the party. Dead are you thought the reaver. Through the doorway and down the passage cleaved the reaver, stone flying in all directions.
Around a bend in the passage the party went, not waiting around to be made into ground reaver bits. As the party approached another door at the far end of the tunnel, the characters realized that the maelstrom behind them from the reaver had stopped. Clearly the party must have escaped to a point outside of the range and sight of the disturbed reaver. Things were finally looking up.
Anyone who knows of the way that I play (seek treasure at all cost), and hence the way Deornoth was thinking, knew what was coming next..."Hey guys, what say we have a peak back and check on the reaver...wouldn't it be cool to have a piece of eog that could be fashioned into a weapon?" Of course none of the party could fashion eog let alone manage to chip off a piece to take in the first place. Sigh. Onwards we went.
There appeared to be silence and emptiness from beyond the door at the second end of the passage. After going through the door and poking around a bit, the party managed to set off some manner of alarm in what we discovered was the lower level of the aforementioned tower that we were looking to get inside of in the first place!!
As a small flood of tower occupants poured down the steps to the lower level I remember only too well saying that it wasn't too bad...about ten of them against the four of us. Keeping in mind the formidable fighting machine that we were (a Dunedain paladin, a dwarven fighter and a Dunedain fighter -oh yeah, and that common man too) all looked well. Deornoth, with an OB probably in the 150 range for a 3-4th level character was a tank in his +20 magic plate. Deornoth should have shut his Dunedain mouth.
...and for Deornoth's attack... Deornoth rolls down. OK how bad could this be, I'm in +20 magic plate. Deornoth proceeded to roll open ended in consecutive rolls with a net result of using his fine sword like a can opener, prying open both his armour and his abdomen. Deornoth fell to the floor in a crumpled heap with 12 rounds to live before expiring. First the reaver, now this.
That was it. It was all over. Well, almost. Cassius the paladin fought his way over to Deornoth and proceeded to basically stuff Deornoth's organs back into his abdomen with his boot while fending off attackers. Then he attempted to perform battlefield surgery with his single rank of second aid. Go figure, he rolls up open ended and successfully performs battlefield surgery.
OK, OK, the GM was probably so impressed? with the turn of events that he permitted it to happen. In the end, despite Deornoth opening himself up like a can of creamed corn and spilling his intestines across the floor in the middle of combat, he ended up none the worse for wear.
...then there was that time the party tried to have Deornoth raised by an ugly woman who insisted everything would be fine (what do you mean nobody noticed she was a half orc???), but that's another story.
In the old days, when legends were created, this story happened.
The party of the proud, but rather foolish Noldo ranger Prudens Celeriter was exploring an underground dungeon. As usual he took rash action and jumped down a small ladder leading into a lower passage to help an injured friend. The problem was that he jumped into complete darkness, where even an Elven ranger of his confidence couldn't see a thing.
However, having learned a few magical tricks, Prudens cast "Projected Light" resulting in a beam of light springing from his palm.
Now, when you don't know that your friend was hit by a crossbow bolt shot by a thing that obviously is even able to see in this dark, you better not use spells to make you an easy target. Before Prudens got used to the newly-lit environment, he was shot right through palm by the evil minion, who probably had the easiest shot of his short career, just aiming at the source of light. Well, as you can imagine, the shooter was slain and the injury in the hand tended to. In these days we were still arguing about rules and terms of game and as the damage hadn't announced a fracture, and the fact that Elves don't get scars, we ended up with an even more arrogant Noldo ranger with a hole in the hand, which was neatly healed around its edges and was used in conjunction with colourful gems to project coloured "Projected Light" beams through it.
A quite fascinating (and unnerving) sight, I can tell you!
Without question my favorite role-playing experience was between a curious goblin named "Gib the prey maker" and a Dragon. Our group was sent to investigate a cave system. Well, to make a long story shorter we ended up sending Gib across a wooden bridge suspended over a chasm. Once he reached the other side he saw huge piles of glittering gold. His greed overwhelmed him and he failed to notice the huge dragon that was sleeping on top of the piles.
The Dragon just awakened and not too happy asked Gib, “Why shouldn’t I kill you for disturbing my sleep Goblin?”
“Because” replied a frightened Gib, "I can make you even richer than you are now”
Intrigued the dragon asked, “ How might a diminutive one like yourself increase my vast wealth?”
“Well” began a shaking Gib, “I know of a city that is near here that is full of gold, gems and other valuable things.”
“And which city might this be?” asked a slightly interested dragon.
“It’s the city of… Tristram, yah Tristram” said a hesitant Gib “The city of Tristram?
There is no such city near here. You lie goblin” replied an angered Dragon
“No wait! It’s a traveling city, an umm gypsy city if you will” replied a deathly terrified Gib.
“Very well goblin...tell me more,” said the dragon while he was busy thinking of interesting ways to dispose of Gib.
“Well” he began, “the city if filled to the brim with gold and gems, and it is all guarded by a bunch of helpless old women, who you could easily dispose of”
“Helpless old women you say? Then why haven’t you robbed them blind? You seem greedy enough,” said a now hungered dragon.
“Oh well, you see” replied Gib frantically trying to figure out what to say, “ the women are evil, they are sirens, yah, and they lure men into their city and eat their souls take all their money and leave the corpses behind.”
“Ummm hmmm” replied a slightly amused dragon. “Yah I saw it once I did, with my own two eye.s I in fact barely escaped with my skin intact” replied the Gib.
"Umm humm" said the dragon. "Yah, Luckily for me they disappeared after eating the souls." replied Gib.
“Disappeared?” asked the dragon.
“Yes...they have a big cloak of invisibility covering their huge traveling town” said Gib.
After Considering the situation the dragon told Gib, "You may live, but simply because you amuse me, but before you go you must eat all 8 of the mushrooms in your pack."
Meanwhile every member of our group including the GM are laughing to the point of crying and the greatest part is Derek (Gib) didn’t see anything wrong with his story. So in the end, Gib eats the 8 mushrooms, goes on into delusions, falls off the bridge, climbs up up the bridge, starts a fight, kills some sheep and meets a Sadistic elf...but that's a story for another day.
A short time ago, I was in a campaign with a stalwart group of adventurers. Most of us had dealt with combat in one variety or another even before the "Group" had formed. As usual though, there was one individual, Luna, who was slightly green in the group. I was a Paladin Knight named Valkius, who was a member of the Holy Order of the Cuff (Or the backhand of god in layman's terms). Being one of a heavy background in fighting, I liked to try and exploit any possibility to give an advantage to myself and then, if possible, the group.
We stumbled into a moderate sized town where all the children were afflicted with some sort of curse. The son of the Lord or Duke of the area was suspected to be somehow involved and the Duke had confided in us that his son had left the castle some time ago on less than friendly terms with his father. The duke also said he thought his son was holed up in a keep across the big lake that this town was on the shore of. So we set off by boat across the great lake and upon landing, made our way to within sight of the keep. Now this was a great monstrosity of a tower, tall, round like a turret and thick with many death holes and arrow slits all around it. The main entrance seemed to be on the 2nd level and you had to pass rows of arrow slits climbing the stairs to the main door, but there did not seem to be arrow slits on the ground side of the steps that ran up the curve of the outside wall.
We took all this information in from a safe and secluded distance and tried to formulate some plans of attack. We knew a straight forward attack would be suicide so I got the Brilliant idea to try a diversionary tactic. Luna, the young lady of the group, would run screaming "Help Help Save me" toward the keep while myself and our monk would chase her. I thought she might be able to make the keep and would allow her, a shaman magic user with no real armor to speak of, to make the side of the stairs where there were no arrow slits while it's occupants fixed on the chasers who were more armored. It would also allow our other magic user and his dwarf companion to flank them carefully and unnoticed. Luna started the run and we started chasing her when she dropped like a brick. A quick glance as the monk and I ran by her, revealed a well-placed arrow sticking out of her throat. The monk and I took cover by the steps and watched as the tower's occupants sniped arrow after arrow into her with colorful commentary coming along with each volley.
In the long run, the other mage and the dwarf gained entrance to the keep from the top and began killing off the orcs inside. The attention was turned away from us then and we were able to aid Luna, saving her life. It all ended with the dwarf discovering the son of the duke trying to escape put of a window on a bed sheet rope and the dwarf nonchalantly pushing a huge kingly desk weighing about a thousand pounds out the same window and down onto the fleeing son. Naturally, out of character, Luna's player expressed her misgivings of the plan and how it had gone so terribly wrong as well as how she would never listen to me again. She also mentioned something about it all being my fault she was so near death (this was not the first or last time I had heard that).
We have played many other adventures since with not only these
characters, but a few other groups now as well. I still come up
with ideas, Luna and the rest of the group often times opt to
run with my idea and often times end up injured or dead. When
this occurs, the above mentioned story is regularly referred to.
When those times arise, I still have to say " Who is more
foolish, the fool or the fool who follows ?"
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