Just posted this to the subreddit so I figured here too for posterity:

>Be me

>Be CN catfolk bard.

>Be stuck in a nation that isn't too kind to beastfolk.

>Passing through village with Adventurer's guild.

>Go to adventurer's guild for work.

>Only job they have for me is 'rat extermination'.

>Job offers 5 copper. Not per rat. Just 5 flat.

>"Job with a free lunch!" says guild clerk with a sneer.

>WellFuckYouToo.jpg

>"Fine I'll take it."

>Get to home with rats.

>Old lady lives there.

>She's nice but poor.

>Apparently she's a hoarder because a cursory look inside shows over 200 goddamn rats!

>WTF! 5 Coppers for this?!

>Fine.

>Use Minor Illusion to throw my voice into the cellar to mimic a lion's roar.

>Roll 19 Performance, not bad!

>RAT TSUNAMI FLOODS OUT OF OLD LADY'S HOUSE INTO THE STREET!

>Not a single rat left in the home.

>Lady looks nonplussed but is grateful the rats are gone. Signs my completion document to get paid.

>Strut to the guild for my 5 coppers feeling like the most dashing motherfucker around while the entire rest of the village now has a rat problem.

>Buy cheap wine with the easiest 5 coppers ever earned.

Post taken from Reddit, made by u/love61x57rh whose account is suspended so I can't link to it.

Transcription

\>trying to teach a girl how D&D works

\>makes half-orc rogue

\>I'm loving the concept

\>first fight starts

\>Okay, DM. I spray the enemy with water!

\>What? You can't do that.

\>Why not? Aren't I half orca?

A few days ago, 3 players from my old 5e campaign reached out to me to see if I would be open to reviving that game. Henceforth, I will call them Lynnea, Warlock, and Druid. There was unanimous support for the game to begin. However, when we started arranging for session 0, I got a message from one of them:

> Lynnea: So something happened between Warlock and I. I may not be able to play if she does. I have proof that she said something not okay with me if you would like to see it. > > Me: Oh absolutely. Tbh I didn't really like them much. What did they do?

Now, before I tell all you wonderful readers what evidence was presented, I should explain my enthusiasm to kick this player out. Warlock was not exactly a pleasure to have at the table, although this was made less obvious by the fact we ran everything online through discord. I have written horror stories back on the alien site starring them, but since I deleted all my posts during the API apocalypse I will have to retell them from memory as best I can.

The Cardinal Sin of Apathy

Every session (until they introduced Lynnea to the party) they would spend nearly the entire session playing a videogame instead of rping or listening in general. The only time I had their full attention was combat. It was easy to forget that we were a secondary task to them, but every once in a while I would be in the middle of describing a scene when their game would get loud enough for me to hear it. Warlock also did not put any effort into role-playing. I have very low standards for role-playing; I don't need a voice or custom art, I just want to see you immerse yourself in the game. They couldn't even clear that bar outside of combat.

A good example of this happened when we were getting excited about the new campaign. I was trying to find a reference point for my players for the survival horror vibes I wanted, and settled on one session where they had to clear out a haunted keep to reclaim it. The plot went something like this:

As they entered the keep, they would explore each room after room, discovering fun lore things like dwarven hardtack, a mimic being used as a talking door, and steel bars from bad guy land. However, each time they entered a room, they would experience things which implied that something material was following them. Claws gently scratching at walls behind them, bodies would be found disemboweled and partially eaten, and every room had a shattered mirror. Rogue, at one point, felt hot, wet breathing down the back of her neck; she whipped around to stab the menace, but there was nothing but clicking and scratching sounds retreating down the hall behind her. At the end of the day, they decided that food stores in the basement were defensible, locking themselves into a lightless room with only one door in or out. They were assaulted that night. Warlock and Barbarian successfully held the door; as hard as the monsters tried, all they could do was scrape and gouge the edges of the door. Eventually they relented. The next day, Rogue decides to try something new: she picks up a fragment of a broken mirror, looking through it over her shoulder to see an emaciated humanoid with steel claws for fingers, which immediately grabs her by the legs and sprint-drags her to the other room. It is a quick fight. However, after discussing with each other for a bit, the players remember that there were at least 2 of these things assaulting them last night. Their hackles did not go down for the rest of the session, working together to scan each room with their mirrors.

It became apparent in the chat that the only one who remembered this session was Warlock:

> Me: @warlock, would you like to tell the newbies about the keep with the invisible monsters? I have mind-of-god knowledge about what was actually going on, so I’m not the best person to tell this tale. > > Warlock: basically was filled with creatures that could only be seen in a mirror or reflection and almost killed the entire party while taking a long rest by swiping through the broken barricades door. > > Warlock: every mirror in the building was smashed and burned

The Lesser Sin of Sloth

Warlock was often a bit inflexible. Sometimes it seemed like they didn't want to listen with their ears. For example, during the party's session 0 where everyone met each other, I explained that the local area uses a gift economy and what that means. My setting was a sort of Studio Ghibli post-apocalypse, where the world is just barely getting out from under the collapse of my Roman Empire analogue, so establishing a standardized currency system wasn’t a priority and most of their part of the world had decided it wasn’t worth it. Warlock refused to understand:

> Warlock: this is so stupid. You're saying I can't buy things? > > Me: Well, trade on a local level is simple enough that barter works for many day-to-day functions, but like I just explained, if you don’t have something to give them for the thing you want, you do them a favor. > > Warlock: You said there’s a tavern over there. Are you saying we don’t buy the drinks at the tavern? > > Me: Technically what I am calling a tavern is what inlanders would call a “hospitality fort” and it’s a grey area I wanted to address later, but I feel like you are confusing trade in general with, you know, money. Think of it this way: In situations like this where there is no obvious standard of trade, people will find something ubiquitous to use as a currency: sea shells, precious metals, flint arrowheads, you get the idea. We’ve settled on favors as the currency. The community is absurdly small, so if someone owes someone else everyone is going to know about it by the end of the week. It’s like a social blockchain system powered by gossip. > > Warlock: But what if I want to buy something? How am I supposed to pay for something if they don’t take cash? > > Me: (sigh) I just explained, you need to talk with the person who has your thing and either find something you can do for them or get them to agree that you just owe them a favor. I’m going to be keeping track of your reputations in the community as a sort of credit score; if it gets too low you won’t be able to pay with IOUs anymore. > > Warlock: I thought you said this was going to be a high-realism campaign. > > Me: Fair, we probably have different ideas of what exactly counts as “realism”, but if you look at the player handout I do specify that I spent a lot of time thinking about how this new age of chaos has impacted the way people live their daily lives. I understand it is a bit of a mindfuck to try and navigate a culture so different for our irl culture, but I did a lot of research on what contexts different economic systems arise in and a gift economy fits the local area best. > > Barbarian: Um. We were going to go deal with those goblins? > > Rogue: (turns on mic) Right, I was just thinking about how we don’t have a healer. I’m going to go ask Calabash if we could get some potions of healing— > > Warlock: How are we going to buy potions of healing if no one takes money around here? > > Rogue: Mmph. (leaves the call) > > Me: Calabash has a number of potions of healing for you all. It’s emergency resources for times such as now. The band looks after itself. > > Barbarian: And what money are you trying to buy things with? How do you have money on your character sheet?

For context, I made homebrew backgrounds that each of them had to pick from, representing their social station. None of them come with money, unless you include the Noble’s gold ingots. Barbarian had noticed this during character creation and asked about it, so he already knew everything I was telling Warlock now and had been sitting patiently this entire time. I want to say that he must have been holding onto that question with the patience of a boulder in a river, but since he was my only IRL friend at this game I already know his patience was and is rivaled only by the Buddha himself.

> Me: (pulls up Warlock’s sheet on Roll20, which I had sat with them to make, and begin checking it. There is indeed no money on it.) > > Warlock: Well, I thought one of you would have been a noble. Anyway, what if we find money in the goblin camp? > > Me: That’s a good question, and ties back into the tavern being a Hospitality Fort. Merchants do pass through and stay at the hospitality forts, and when you are elsewhere you will be staying at hospitality forts. So, our tavern does in fact accept gold, and merchants accept gold as well. However, most trade is done in gold ingots, as explained in my description of the noble background if you haven’t read it. Gold pieces are only worth their weight in gold. You’ll hear the tavernkeep calling them “specie” instead of coins because of this. > > Warlock: You promised a high-realism campaign. I should be able to— > > Barbarian: I think we have prepped all we can for our first quest. Are we going? > > Me: I’ll message Rogue that Calabash gave them (rolls 3d4) 7 potions of healing and that we are starting the quest.

After this session, I talked about this with Barbarian. Barbarian agreed with Warlock that the gift economy was frustrating to deal with as a player, but they did say that Warlock was “being really weird” and didn't understand why they were so upset. I decided to quietly move the gift economy out of view after this, but never quite fully removed it because it tied into the law vs chaos theme of my setting. It was a blow to my dming confidence that I allowed session 0 to get so off the rails, but Barbarian (who also dms) was able to talk the bad thoughts out of my head.

In addition to not being the best listener, Warlock also could be quite hidebound. For example, at the climax of the quest mentioned in the last story, the party managed to stealth their way to the main chamber of the goblin warrens, where they saw 30 goblin warriors being given a rousing speech by their warchief Bogan Redcap, Lord of All Goblins.

> Warlock: I have an idea. Can I use my yuan-ti ability to turn into a snake and sneak up behind the warchief? > > Me: There's a lot of visual clutter in this room for you to sneak through, but there's a lot of goblins. Give me a Stealth. > > Warlock: 16. > > Me: Okay. There's a couple close calls, but you are a ghost in the dark and you get there unseen. > > Warlock: I'm going to transform back into my humanoid form and decapitate the war chief. > > Me: Sick. Roll to hit, then let's roll initiative.

They end up actually being able to take Bogan Redcap, Lord of All Goblins down in one hit, but it was a cool enough idea that I would have let them decapitate him anyway.

> Warlock: I hold up the warchief's head and tell them to bow before me or die. > > Me: Fuck Yeah! Roll Intimidation and I'm giving you an inspiration. Let's see what happens.

Warlock gets a 23, and I describe the entire room of goblins dropping their weapons and running in fear. However, this commotion catches the attention of every alert goblin in the warrens, and the party braces to fight the oncoming waves. When the first set of goblin reinforcements arrives, the players have decided on their first actions:

> Barbarian: I rage and hit the nearest goblin. > > Rogue: I'm hidden under a table. Sneak attack. > > Warlock: I raise the warchief's head and tell them to surrender or die.

Warlock rolls high on their Intimidation roll, so the goblins decide that they are the most dangerous threat in this room and prioritize taking them out, much to the amusement of Barbarian who was literally pulverizing the goblins by hitting them hard enough that their bodies took on the consistency of rice bags. When the next wave arrived, each player declared their actions, and guess what Warlock chose?

> Warlock: I raise the warchief's head and tell them to surrender or die.

Warlock rolls poorly, so they effectively entirely waste their turn. So, next round they try again.

> Warlock: I raise the warchief's head and tell them to surrender or die. > > Rogue: Why?

It doesn't work. This continues until I pause the game and explain to Warlock a psychological principle called the Law of Diminishing Returns. They react to this by trying to find other ways to use the head to intimidate the goblins, which I allow but it still has no obvious effect on the goblins. By the end of the 12 rounds of combat, Rogue and Barbarian are exhausted both in and out of game, whereas Warlock is just frustrated. There were many other times Warlock started acting this hidebound, one of which nearly caused a party wipe, but from this point forward I knew to be on the lookout for such behavior and correct it before it became a problem.

The Sin of Greed

Warlock was only motivated by acquiring new and better weapons. Whenever we were doing anything that did not lead to cool weapons, I could feel their eyes glazing over. This contributed to the campaign fizzling out in a fairly direct way.

The way I did quests was that I had a main list of quests on the Quest Board text channel, which the entire party could see. However, if a player had their own ambitions or a patron they answered to, I would create private text channels for them to receive quests or rp with their Patron. Since Warlock had a Patron, they had one such channel for their patron to send them on quests. I like to use warlock patrons and cleric gods as ways to yank the players around the map to see all the cool things I made, so their Patron had an interest in ancient lore and lost technologies.

Their first quest from their patron went fine, mostly because I included a hint that there would be a sentient magic sword in the proximity of the cheese recipe they were ordered to retrieve. They were very excited to find this sword, and only remembered the cheese recipe because I and Barbarian reminded them of it. (The cheese was like blue cheese but with penicillium mold, making it work like a potion of Cure Disease. Barbarian thought this was funny.)

The second, and ultimately last, quest commanded them to rescue several hundred records from a nuclear reactor finally going critical after sitting unmaintained since the second age of this world ended. Since the fallout from the meltdown would inevitably end civilization as their character knows it, they also had the option of traveling to the sea where some cephalopods had finally entered the bronze age using nuclear power instead of fire, where they could recruit one of their specialists to go with them to the reactor to help them figure out how to shut this effectively alien technology down. I made it clear that their patron did not give a single flying fuck about the oncoming apocalypse as long as the records were safe.

Clearly, Warlock cared even less. They did not respond to their patron, and did not address it at all until I poked them about it during a session. I do not remember their wording when they reiterated it to the other players, only that their tone made it clear that this quest was a pointless chore. The other players picked up on this and decided to put it off until they had no other choices, and once it was the last quest no one took the initiative to start it. This put me in a bind, mainly because I had fairly explicitly stated that if they put it off any more they might be too late to stop the nuclear plant from going kaboom, but I knew if I gave them any other quests they would definitely push it to the back of their queue, and I am fairly certain they wouldn’t like to have a very high chance to accidentally destroy their own civilization. And after Barbarian and Rogue both got busy and couldn’t make the sessions anymore, things just petered out.

The Cardinal Sin of Lust

Now, you may have noticed that two of the three players mentioned at the beginning of this very, very long story have not appeared so far, namely Lynnea and Druid. This is where we will begin to sketch out the real problem with Warlock, that being that they are a terrible, very horny person irl.

I met Warlock through a poly friend of mine (an ex that I was able to keep as a completely platonic friend; polyamory really trains those emotional boundaries) and they are poly themselves. This is relevant because I am going to accuse them of cheating on very little evidence in a few lines, and I feel that it is my responsibility to let you come to your own conclusions on this subject while presenting my opinion of them.

The thing that Warlock did that annoyed me the most was that they kept inviting girlfriends to the campaign right before their relationship with said girlfriend collapsed. I was quite sad each time their girlfriends did the responsible thing and bowed out instead of staying and creating tension; each one made an effort to make a unique character tied into my lore and worked with me to find a good way to introduce them smoothly in the next session, only to leave before their first session started. Going back over my logs, I found 3 different girlfriends who left in the span of 6 months, and that’s not counting the one that stayed (Druid) or the fact that they were clearly lining up Lynnea to be their next girlfriend at the end. Speaking as a poly person myself, I think churning through about one partner per month is a bit of a red flag. Even assuming that these were long-term partners who all happened to leave at the same time, this simply does not happen unless they did something to drive them all away. Considering that each of the 3 who left sounded like they were still in the honeymoon phase when I first met them, I think they did in fact get a new girlfriend and then drive them off in a month.

I did notice that Warlock stopped playing videogames during our sessions after Lynnea joined, which should have been a hint to me that something was different. Lynnea has informed me that Warlock had broken up with them a few years before, but at the time I met them they were apparently trying to win them back. As profoundly stupid as this seemed to me, they apparently did get back together some time after the campaign ran out of steam, but Lynnea was unaware of their ongoing relationship with Druid.

For those unaware, polyamory REQUIRES open communication between all partners. Keeping secrets is generally considered cheating. Poly people tend to have a surprisingly wide category of things that count as cheating, and having a semi-secret fuckbuddy is absolutely one of them. This discovery led to a breakup.

Of course, I had no idea about any of this at the time. The next thing, however, is the thing Lynnea shared with me, and is the thing that got them kicked and banned.

The First and Final Nail in the Coffin

Quick extra context: Warlock owed Lynnea money. Because of this, Lynnea would speak with them weekly to get the money, which was given in small payments of $40-$90. At this time, she had found a new partner who is as loyal and reliable as Sam was to Frodo. This did not stop Warlock from trying to win her back by writing poetry for her and other romantic gestures. She and Druid have also been trying to worm their way back into Lynnea’s good graces, since she wasn’t able to cleanly cut irl ties.

This finally brings us back to where our story began. Lynnea sent me this screenshot: !

Shitty transcription is as follows:

> Warlock: Can i ask a wierd question > > Lynnea: Sure > > Warlock: ik you do t have an OF but can i plz get content equal fo what I’ve paid for and given money for

Lynnea explained that nudes had not come up once before now. Apparently, Warlock and Druid had excused this behavior with “they were drunk when they sent that”.

I didn’t need any other reason to ban and block them.

Druid reached out to me after this to ask why Warlock was banned.

!

Once again, transcription:

> Druid: hey so may i ask why Warlock got kicked? > > Me: Hey. Short version is that they were on thin ice with me already for how they were behaving at the table. Lynnea reached out to me to express that they wouldn’t feel comfortable playing if Warlock was at the table, and she had receipts. So the decision was not hard. > > Druid: What did she do at the table, if I may ask?

I gave her a civil but curt summary of my grievances.

> Me: I do feel it was immature for me to not give Warlock an explanation for the ban, and I am sure my dislike of them came out of nowhere. But even if they did want to come back, now they know that I was just tolerating them this whole time, which I am sure hurts. > > Druid: I apologize but im going to leave the campaign. Id feel more comfortable playing with somebody who’s NOT Warlock’s ex-finance, as I am her finance of recent. If you’ve gotten this many problems with her, let Warlock know yourself. She does not deserve to be in the dark with everything after all she dealt with.

Lynnea and I have talked, and we can’t come up with anything that warlock could be “dealing with” right now.

So, this left me with one player who is very excited for a new campaign. I have been reaching out to IRL friends of mine, but frankly none of them have as reliable attendance as Warlock. (That is, of course, why I kept inviting them to things.) Message me if you are interested in a player-directed low-fantasy survival horror dnd campaign that most likely will run one session per month (I am going to college and essentially keeping my head above water, which is my priority). It would be very sad if kicking the problem player out is what killed the campaign.

Edit: Kicking the problem player out is not what killed the campaign. My school schedule did. I was getting my gen eds done this semester, and when I wrote this I didn't understand how much of my life that would absorb. That, plus financial problems, is what killed the campaign.

> Be the party, a ragtag bunch of misfits living in a small town near the border of a peaceful neutral good Kingdom.

> Do not be the Dark Empire, ruled by an Undead Wizard for the last 500 years, on the other side of the border.

> Rumours of war, armies passing through, we sign up to fight.

> At first the campaign goes well, skeleton armies show no tactics or strategy, but their numbers start to tell against us.

> Demoralised by fighting our own, raised as undead, running low on hope and food, we end up retreating.

> Decide to stay behind and form a resistance group in the Dark Empire side of the border.

> Infiltrate a settlement of miners, get jobs in various associated service industries e.g. smelting, entertainment, whoring - stuff the undead are no good at.

> I'm playing the bard, so I'm in entertainment for the miners. It's about 50/50 living/undead in the mines. Undead for the grunt work, living to instruct them on how to. Some vampires in town as well, adding to the number of customers.

> Singing songs, playing the lute, learning some local mining songs from the days before the Evil Empire took this town.

> Little bit too good at appealing to nostalgia, miners riot, crucify the vampires, trap the undead in the mine and explode it with oil barrels and naturally occuring gas.

> Run for it with the rest of the party, find another settlement.

> Try to fit in as a bard, but my fame preceded me, captured.

> Dragged in chains to the nearest prison, which is in a grim black stone castle.

> Lightning nearby, followed by thunder as the doors slam closed behind me.

> Beatings, interogation.

> Resist all the attempts to get me to spill what I know, eventually they send me to the capital city called Rumwun Owone, to be tortured by the Lich himself.

> They lock a cage around my head, with a starving rat in an adjoining cage, and threaten to let the rat eat my face if I don't love the Undead Wizard lord.

> Lich-erally 1984.

Post taken from Reddit, made by u/Zagorath who is likely @Zagorath@aussie.zone here, and transcription taken from u/flippant_gibberish OCRing it on Reddit.

Transcription:

Have you ever watched Animaniacs? Have you ever seen any of the "Chicken Boo" episodes?

We had been playing a campaign for quite some time, allowing us to become high level. During the course of our game, our druid Onar took the Leadership feat after earning the respect of his peers in the Gatekeeper sect. He awakened his animal companion and took him as a cohort. We were somewhat perplexed by Onar's decision to have the bear take all his PC levels in rogue, especially by the amount of money that Onar spent buying his cohort magic items that boosted the disguise skill.

During a timeskip, Meatfists the awakened bear rogue had resurfaced as Mr. Bearington, a gentleman of high society wearing specially tailored bear sized suits and a monocle. A dandy of few words, he was a respected patron of the arts, medicine, and a known connoisseur of gourmet cooking. His attendance at upper crust functions was expected and though his thick accent often obscured his meaning, it only added to his mysterious allure.

Occasionally though, there would come one of those rare moments when Mr. Bearington's disguise was prepared below his normal impossible level and a random party guest just happened to have a rare moment of impossible insight.

"Oh, my god! That's a bear! That's a giant bear!" Silence would roll through the ballroom. "Don't any of you see it!? That is a giant bear in a suit!"

The mayor swiftly steps forward: "Mr. Bearington is a pillar of our community and he will not suffer the slander and mudslinging of a nincompoop! Methinks, if you cannot handle your wine you should not partake! Guards, remove this man from the grounds!"

"Why won't any of you listen! He's a bear! He's a beeeeaaaar!" He would yell as he was dragged kicking and screaming from the premises.

"I'm terribly sorry about that Mr. Bearington."

"Rar. Rararar."

"I assure you I do not tolerate that sort of behavior."

"Rar! Rarar."

"Why don't we retire to the dinner table? I've had the chef prepare an extra rare steak, just the way you like it. Let us dine, we can forget all this unpleasantness, and get down to words on the new opera house.

"Rawr!"

Transcription:

> This thread reminds me of one I saw a while back. Mainly just brainstorming material for making the players sad. Well, the DM in the campaign I'm in apparently also saw that thread, because something similar to one of the ideas that got thrown around ended up as a quick, one shot encounter that we happened across while traveling between towns. > > We were approaching a frontier town and ran across a pair of statues by the road. The quality and expressions made it obvious that they were people who had been petrified. A group of similarly equipped people a short distance away confirmed that their party had been attacked by a medusa and they had lost two of their number before they fought it off. We tracked the medusa to its lair, an old ruined temple. > > We found what had obviously been its home, but no medusa. We also didn't find the collection of people-turned-statues that we thought we would, which meshed with what the residents of the nearby town later told us. They had never even heard of there being a medusa in those ruins, and had certainly never encountered one. Only the group that we had run into on the road had. > > What we did find was a large collection of letters. Apparently the medusa had started writing letters to a man in the nearby town. At first pretending to be a girl who had spurned him, then after a while as they grew closer she admitted who (and even later what) she really was. They eventually agreed to meet.

***

> We also found a note, addressed to whoever might find and read it, explaining what had happened. The man had arrived at the ruins at the same time another group was exploring the ruins, investigating rumours of a monster hiding out there. And while the group nosing around in the ruins didn't find her, he did. He startled her, saw her, and turned to stone. The note went on to say that she was leaving the ruins to find some way to cure him. There was one more note after that one. At that point the DM handed each of us a piece of paper, which read: > >"I'm such a fool. Of course a lone woman traveling the High Road would look like an appetising target. I got two of them, but I took a bad hit. Even with the supplies in my pack I don't know if I would make it, and I lost it in the fight. Without it I won't last the night. > > "At least I'm not alone anymore. > > "I'm such a fool." > > After a short while longer exploring the ruins, we found a solitary statue of a man, looking startled. The statue had been decorated with wreaths and flowers, and curled up at the statue's feet was a dead medusa. > > We went back and found the group from the road. They asked us if we had found the monster. We replied that we had, and proceeded to kill the lot of them.

***

Transcription includes some very minor spelling and punctuation corrections, and changes it to conform to regionalised spelling that stops making my spellchecker yell at me. Is otherwise word-for-word accurate.

“-2 Full Hendersons: The action has somehow set in motion a chain of events that’ll fix every problem previously thought of by the GM for all future campaigns, so much so that not even That Guy can screw it up.” ~ The Henderson Scale of Plot Derailment

Obligatory not D&D. PF2e. Also sorry for not making it a greentext. I don’t know how. I’m basically copy/pasting this from Reddit, because I didn’t know Lemmy existed before now.

This is going to be quite the story. It was with a large party, and there’s a lot of events that informed the decisions that eventually led to the moment. There’s some Out of Character activities and discussion involved as well. I’ll do what I can to show when we swap between IC and OOC.

First of, the setting was Wildemount, reflavored to work for Pathfinder. We were on a small, homebrew island called Petalita, which is somewhere The Dwendalian Empire occasionally sends death row prisoners. Something important for this story is that Petalita has no contact with the outside world, other than a monthly sky ship that drops off beforementioned prisoners (and even that is a one-way contact). The island is overrun by undead, and only a single small city, Toit, remains standing. But with the situation as it is, it won’t survive the winter. And our group were meant to fight off 1 or 2 zombies, and then die.

Now for the main characters:

The GM

William/Zynqur’s player

Olaf, the Bloody (Human Barbarian) - A schizophrenic barbarian with a love for torture.

Sena (Fleshwarp Cleric) - A follower of The Raven Queen, and the only character originally in the party that went to Petalita voluntarily, rather than as a prisoner.

William (Human/Tiefling hybrid Psychic) - A 10 year old who grew up in Toit. Hated by everyone because of his tail and his pitch black eyes.

Fiery (Fire sprite Kineticist) - A fire sprite that was accidentally summoned to the Material Plane when a ritual went wrong (more about that in a moment).

Izumi Fan (Human Monk) - White bread weeb character, and also problem player (which is surprisingly relevant for the negative Hendersons).

Zynqur Whiskers (Catfolk Thaumaturge) - William’s second character, and a member of Cobalt Soul. The catalyst for the main event.

And lastly Rekiss Techat (Tengu Witch) - A disgraced cult leader of Vecna played by yours truly, and the main character of this story.

Of the non-PC characters that are important to the story is

Lune (Elite Elder Wyrmwraith and overarching BBEG).

Elriss Windshadow (Elf, and the guard captain of Toit).

Some Dhampires (Likely intended to be the BBEG’s for the first campaign. I forgot their names, sorry GM).

Grille (An undead raven who’s Rekiss’s familiar).

Now for the story. It’s gonna be a long one:

The first real thing that led to the main event, was that William had knocked down a building during our first combat encounter, in an infested town right outside of Toit. Rekiss, being an expert in undead, told everyone to flee back to Toit, due to the noise the collapse made being sure to attract a proper horde. Anyone who wasn’t out of their current predicament within a minute would be considered dead.

Back in Toit, Olaf began flirting with Rekiss. This took Rekiss by surprise (because she is, quite frankly, hideous for Tengu standards, and well aware of it. I faceclaimed Famine from RuneScape for her, if you want to know how bad it was). This led to Rekiss falling in love with Olaf pretty quickly.

A bit later on, the dhampirs kidnapped Olaf, and cut off his beard and one of his fingers, and sent it all in a box to Rekiss (who at this point was considered the party tactician), to force us into dialogue. Before they went, Rekiss asked Vecna (through Grille) how to handle the vampires. I rolled very high on my lore check, so Vecna answered through Grille with “The vampires are not the real enemy.”, and gave Rekiss a vision of Lune.

It turned out that they were looking for some freaky kid, who turned out not to be William. So they bothered us for literally no reason. And then they began provoking us, belittling us, berating us for mistakes.

Until they got to Sena. They asked her “And who do you follow?”, to which Sena replied “I am a follower of The Matron of Ravens.”

In this setting, the followers of the Raven Queen had committed actual genocide against the vampires. So now these dhampirs were vengeful, and needed us to die. The GM had to deus ex us out of that one, by having Grille off-screen provoke an ancient red dragon into following him, scaring both us and the dhampirs away.

I planned to tell the rest of the group about Lune in-character, but must have forgotten for one reason or another. Anyway, more time passed, and we eventually were sent to conquer a small homestead. We were all very excited about this, looking forward to turning this homestead into a player home. At this point, Rekiss had become the official group leader, and we were starting to give the people of Toit hope. Especially because we conquered half the homestead in, in-universe, 20 minutes. Then we retreated to the freshly conquered barn, and rested.

There was character interactions, both between the players, and between us and some allied NPCs we had gotten. Rekiss was promising William to teach him to better control his powers. And she was in a good position to actually do this.

When the party woke up the next day, Rekiss reminded everyone that undead are mainly attracted by lights, sounds, and movement, and that there’s a huge horde not so far from the next place we were gonna strike. Grille, who had been out scouting, also informed us that one of them was visibly intelligent, so we had to be extra careful.

We manage to sneak into the main buildings of the homestead, and start looking around for a way to get upstairs… …and Izumi promptly kicks in one of the doors. In moments our building is surrounded. Despite losing the tactical advantage, we managed to defend ourselves in the living room against wave after wave of undead. Finally we were exhausted but near victory, when Fiery panicked and unleashed a MASSIVE pillar of fire. Rekiss immediately ordered a retreat, as the homestead was now lost.

There was a lot of out of character conversation between the players between this, and the start of the next session. At first it was even considered a total campaign loss, since without this homestead, everyone would starve to death. But the GM managed to find a solution: We did three major fuckups (Collapsing a building, telling dhampirs that one of us follows The Raven Queen, and being very unstealthy during a stealth mission), so three of us, and most of our NPC allies would be killed.

The three that died were William, Olaf, and Izumi. Rekiss was emotionally a wreck. The closest thing she had to a family in 30 years was taken from her. And she got to look them in the eyes as they died.

Izumi’s player also got kicked from the group for refusing to learn from mistakes, and being a general OOC nuissance. But we got a new player, who unfortunately isn’t relevant to the story.

When the party returned to Toit, and we had informed Elriss of what had happened, and Rekiss finally telling the rest of the party about Lune, and how she was sure that Lune’s goal was to kill Vecna, take his position, then kill the Raven Queen, and then with all the souls in existence, move on to all the other Gods.

Rekiss also got a desperate idea at the same time: Send Grille with a written note to the airship that was dropping off prisoners. So she and Sena sat down to write together. A desperate plea for help, giving the outside world knowledge of the situation, as well as the knowledge that if Toit fell, the world would end.

First Sena rolled to write. Rolled a 6 with a +4 modifier. Then Rekiss rolled to correct it. Rolled a 19 with a +7 modifier. And Grille successfully got the note to the right person.

In character and out of character, I expected this to not lead to anything more than some supplies so we could survive the winter, and maybe a couple extra troops as well.

After a short out of character break to get some food, the new characters arrived. The only one important to the story being Zynqur. Zynqur was sent by the Cobalt Soul because of the note. And the rest of what’s important in the story happens out of character.

I was preparing for being in an awful situation. Everyone despising us and all that. Rekiss was retraining Intimidation into Warfare Lore, so to actually make us of that, I was studying medieval warfare out of character, while also considering how best to starve a kobold warren to strongarm them into aiding us.

Then me and Zynqur’s player had a call. In this call, he made me truly realise that the Cobalt Soul, a group dedicated to making information public, had information about an apocalyptic threat. I don’t remember what exactly he said, but I told that to the GM a bit later.

The GM was completely quiet for a full minute as he realised the implications. The entire world was going to declare war on Lune now. Already warring nations were gonna set up temporary truces. And Lune had no way of knowing, because she’d yet to expand outside of Petalita.

We have now been told that next campaign is the last one, and that even if we TPK, we still win. And we only get that session because the player that replaced Izumi was brand new, and we want him to actually experience combat.

Lune was supposed to have been the overarching villain of 5-6 campaigns, each lasting around a dozen levels. We are not even halfway through level 1 in the first campaign.

We apparently get to be level 2 for the final session. The GM has declared that he doesn’t want us to win it all at level 1.

Sorry for my bad English. It’s not my mother language.

Extensive background incoming

> Be all of humanity, sheltering from the howling devastation of weather and strange ghostly alien monsters outside the last surviving fort

> Be unsure how many years it's been, only know the number of forts because we call ours fort 16

> There may have been others, but the first we know anything about was founded by people who called it fort 5, so they must have known of others before them. That one, we remember only the name, and a vague location, said to be in the Winterlands north of where we now take shelter

> Apparently the ghost aliens of that time were fire based, and the snow was an additional barrier to protect our fragile civilisation

> forts 6 to 9, we don't know much more about, fort 10, though, is where the Cult that guides us really took shape. It's where Helena was born, and where her powers were discovered

> Helena, also known as Angel-Lena or An-helena, can regenerate, and her lymphocytes can be harvested and transfused into others to give them the strength to fight the ghost aliens

> It's wrong, to do that to her, to harvest her, but she allows it when it is necessary

> The process is now codified. If a fort falls, An-Helena cannot be killed, and she takes those few survivors her powers can protect to a new location, and there a fort is built. A judge is chosen, and given the name Nuncio - meaning speaker, or announcer, or herald. Nuncio is given sufficient white cells to become immune to aging and disease, and his watch begins

> The temple is set up, Nuncio sits behind the altar and observes the progress of the fort

> Once it is strong enough to survive without Helena suffering further, Nuncio announces that Helena will no longer be harvested, that the white cells we have in storage will have to be sufficient now

> It is said that in the far distant future a fort will be strong enough to stand forever, and Helena's misery will finally be over, the ghost aliens will be defeated, but how that might come about none can say

> But in these days of blood and horror, eventually every fort has fallen, and Nuncio's table at the centre of the strongest point is crushed under the collapsing ruins. By design, the altar is underneath the fort's central supports

> Fort 16 was decreed to be strong enough two generations past, and as always we started with hope and power, but now, the end seems near

> Be me, an acolyte of Angelena, with psychic powers enhanced by the Lymphocyte infusions

> Be my team: a robot sentinel with heavy laser, and a tech-genius scavenger human with cyber-enhancements

> Been fighting the ghost aliens since the day of our adulthood ceremony. Once we could push them back, but it's been a stalemate for a couple of years now as we start to lose more people than join the fight

> Discover a ghost alien mobile stronghold on a long range scouting mission - it's moving towards fort 16. Investigate as much as we can, but have to run when the robot's weapon is disabled, the tech genius is badly hurt, and I am out of energy to heal them

> Deliver the bad news, a strike force is assembled, the last hope of all mankind

> The strike force marches out, we are left to guard the fort and recover in so much as we can

> Be us, waiting anxiously

> See a vast light through the storm, a mighty fire... this does not bode well

> The shattered remnants of the strike force make it back just ahead of the biggest army of ghost aliens we have ever seen

> Have no choice but to throw all of mankind off Helena's cells and plunge 16th fort through the announcers table.

Also available in image form:

!

Or in audio-visual form where someone animated it into a video.

Transcription:

27704093

I'm working on a fantasy world. My nod to being unique are the elves who all wear masks, regardless of gender.

Why? I think it's cool.

But I can't think of why they'd be wearing masks. Help?

***

27710531

>>27705744

The problem with it being a "cultural thing" is that the masks are intended to be a racial trait. A race having the same culture all over the world, despite geographical separation, surroundings, or history is not only lazy writing, it is downright bad writing.

There needs to be a reason the entire race does it. Like a curse from a god ...or this:

>"I have traveled across the world studying different people and cultures and everywhere I went, every civilization of elves wore masks. >Many of the different cultures have different beliefs and explanations for wearing them, but I believe I have found the core truth.

>There are millions of different combinations of human facial features. A human could go their entire lives without seeing another person that looked the same as them. >That is true of every race, orc, Halfling, dwarf, or gnome. Those the elves sometimes refer to as "The Unmasked." >But not elves.

>Those who have seen the face of an elf beneath the mask know that they are a uniquely beautiful race. >There faces are perfectly fair, proportional, and symmetrical in every way. >But that horribly limits the different combinations of facial features.

>This is compounded by the incredibly long lifespan of the elves. >Imagine if the first girl you kissed bore the same face as your grandmother, who looks the same as your daughter. >Elves wear masks because their uniquely beautiful faces are not, in fact, unique."

~ Excerpt from "Unmasking Elvish Society: a study of Elf culture" by celebrated anthropologist Nativea Godgraced.

***

527710565

>>27710531

>"Different elvish cultures adopt different customs regarding masks. >Some have a strict caste system enforced by the masks. >Many impart symbols on the mask, displaying information about the wearer. >Their title, role, gender, and even their history can be displayed on a mask. >One culture went the other way, the higher up in society an elf was, the simpler and more plain their mask. Their leader's mask was completely devoid of detail.

>Some tribes of feral elves incorporated animal aspects into their masks. >Warriors of those tribes wore truly fearsome masks when fighting, prompting rumors of monsters that never truly were.

>Almost all elvish cultures have a naming ceremony imparting simple cloth masks unto their young.

>I continue to be amazed at the complexity as I explore the varying customs surrounding the masks of the elves."

~ Excerpt from "Unmasking Elvish Society: a study of Elf culture" by celebrated anthropologist Nativea Godgraced.

***

27718540

>"I came to a revelation this morning. >As I have been staying with this particular tribe of elves, they loaned me a plain mask bearing the simple mark "guest" although I suspect there is another connotation to it. >This suspicion came from the way many elves who see me seem to chuckle and do their common head tilt and nod that is the elvish smile.

>I imagine the secondary meaning of the mask is something akin to "one who cannot manage to take care of his mask. >The only other mask like it I have seen was an ill-fitting one worn by a rather sullen elf child walking alone through the village. >Perhaps the child's own mask was lost or damaged.

>As I write this, I realize I have not once seen an elf wearing a damaged or worn out mask. >Whether this is because of continual upkeep or multiple masks, the observation is worth noting.

>On to the revelation: >Anyone who has met a number of elves can tell you that many, but not all, have a sort of arrogance to them. >They carry themselves with a form of disapproving stiffness at times and at other times it seems more of a dismissive casual disregard.

>As I wore my mask and lived among them, this apparent arrogance dropped away and I found them to be a very warm and inviting people.

>It occurred to me that covering one's face with a mask to an elf is like covering one's genitals to a human. >Imagine a drunken lout propped up in the entrance of a tavern waving his parts at passing women. >Now imagine your reaction to that drunken lout. >Would you not exhibit the same disapproving stiffness or casually dismiss them as a fool?"

~ Excerpt from "Unmasking Elvish Society: a study of Elf culture" by celebrated anthropologist Nativea Godgraced.

***

27718917

>"After much coaching from a matron, and a great deal of support from a group of children, I fashioned my own mask today. >It is a simple stretched leather mask with the typical cloth insert, but it fits quite well and I am proud of my work. >I was considering marking my mask with the "guest" symbol, similar to the one that was loaned to me, but the matron stopped me. >I did not want to mark it with anything presumptuous but at the same time wanted to feel included. >In the end we decided on a plain mask adorned with a symbol that means 'The Visitor.'"

~ Excerpt from "Unmasking Elvish Society: a study of Elf culture" by celebrated anthropologist Nativea Godgraced.

***

27719072

>>27719054

>Today I saw them in battle. >Two ogres had wandered into their territory, although I would be hard pressed to tell you the boundaries. >I held back in the trees while the patrol approached.

>A single elf, the squad leader, approached the two ogres while the others spread out into the forest. >I could not hear what he said to them, but one ogre responded faster than the other I thought anything that big could move. >A massive hand gripped the elf by the shoulder with a sickening snapping sound as a dozen arrows appeared in the bodies of both ogres.

>The second ogre turned to charge towards a nearby cluster of trees and was felled by an arrow to the eye. >The first ogre raised its massive fist up to bring down upon the elf gripped limply in its other hand. >Arrows peppered the ogre's hide as a horrible, wheezing, gurgling roar tore from the elf squad leader.

>The fearless masked elf brought up their sword and viciously stabbed the underside of the beast's head over and over again as the roar continued. >The two collapsed upon the forest floor. Ad when I saw the bodies, the ogre's stinking corpse had been mutilated by the sword strikes. >And despite the obvious fact that the elfish warrior had died from the wounds, in fact half of their torso had been broken, I could not bring myself to approach the fallen warrior.

>The masked warrior had felled a mightier foe after receiving a mortal wound. >I must admit that I feared there might be a true element of death weaved into those masks. >Even as the blood that flowed out from beneath the mask grew cold, the eyes of the Elvish Death Mask watched the forest and I was afraid."

~ Excerpt from "Unmasking Elvish Society: a study of Elf culture" by celebrated anthropologist Nativea Godgraced.

***

27718718

OP here.

Holy crap! Thank you.

***

27719203

>>27718540

I'm getting a little motivated

***

27719467

>>27719290 >>27719203 >>27718718

Glad you guys liked it!

Captcha: "and ucksock" Nice term for the inner cloth layer there captcha.

***

27719290

>>27710531 >>27710565 >>27718540

This is why I love /tg/.

***

27720326

>>27718540

THAT is some quality write-faggin'. Damn fine journal entry, 7/10, would play with.

I'm looking for a story, it was like a scifi setting with some space bandits or something similar. The main character was in a rivalry with like a space officer woman or something like that I can't for the life of me remember it

Be me, human sorceror with a level of paladin for the saving throw bonus cheese

Be the other guy in my small party, Borbo Butterbit, halfing rogue with a spiked chain for some fuckin' reason

Wierdo

.

Campaign begins... we're on a boat, sailing to the New World

A new land of hope for a fresh start, far from the stifling rules of the noble classes back home, here we can finally have Freedom

The mayflower didn't land on us, we landed on the mayflower? I dunno

Arrive in the semi-lawless frontier settlement

Robbers try to take the seeds, plows etc that the settlers have brought, we fight back and save the day

Borbo doing fearsome damage with his chain

Jokes about "don't yank my chain!" and "I'll chain you up" and shit... in fact, jokes might be too strong a word

Really loves his chain

Wierdo

.

Anyway, with small party size, DM gives us a cleric NPC to help out, he was on the boat the whole time, impressed by our bravery and altruism in helping the settlers, previously he thought we were scummy mercenaries

Little from column A, little from column B...

We escort the settlers to the Land Corp office, and they are assigned a parcel to work

Be me, asking for work

Be Land Corp, assigning the sorceror, rogue, and cleric a space in the fields

Be not much sense made

Head out there anyway, try to build a house, give up on day three, head back to town

.

Tavern.scroll

Buxom barmaid, cloaked figure lurking in corner, the usual

Find a notice asking for mercenaries to help guard explorer groups

Follow directions to Land Corp office... wait...

Be me, asking Land Corp why they didn't tell us this three days ago

Be Land Corp, confused and disorganised, different people doing different jobs

Be the Rangers of the New Land, seeking mercenaries for fighting duty, hampered by the Land Corp front office focusing on getting people farming

Be me, joining up with Rangers

Leader of these guys embraces the nature as divine power aspect of the Ranger class, worships the rising sun, the falling rain, the sturdy tree, the cleansing fire

Be me, calling him "Son" at every opportunity

It's funny because it sounds like "Sun"

.

First expedition, we follow a river up into the low hills inland

Attacked by Orcs, fight back, slay them

Tracking, stumble across a second group of orcs, take a prisoner this time

Tie up the prisoner, take him back with us to town

Be prisoner, refusing to talk at all, biting anyone who comes too close

Be us, locking prisoner in the closest thing this town has to a cell

Be prisoner, chewing through ropes and escaping in the night, murdering three people, and eventually being cut to pieces by the town guards, never surrendering even though he had no chance

Be us, waking up in the morning to hear this news, and receive some of the blame for bringing the orc back

WTF, not exactly our idea to let him escape... nice guarding, jackasses

.

Second expedition, Rangers being told to get us the hell out of town

Head further along the river, find more Orcs, try to capture more, but they never surrender, even when captured and tied up (or chained by Butterbit's kinkweapon)... always try to bite or headbutt, or whatever they can

Find only one settlement, no Orcs though, only Goblins

The Goblins are more curious than anything, approach with weapons ready, but try to talk

Can't speak the language but manage to remain peaceful

Be me, showing the Goblin an Orc head

Be Goblins, indicating a certain level of satisfaction that the Orc is dead

Peaceful is a relative term in DnD...

.

Leave, back to town, try to arrange for a translation spell or something

No one high enough level, but Land Corp says if we can negotiate with Goblins and get enough of them to tolerate the settlers, we will be richly rewarded

Diplomacy time, I guess... I can do that

Split into two teams... the Rangers to deal with the Orcs, and the diplomats to deal with the Goblins

Spend the next few in-game weeks finding Goblins, talking to them, trying to learn their language, giving gifts of blankets and glass beads and so on

Eventually Borbo gains a level and takes a rank in the Goblin language

Side quests now possible on behalf of the Goblins, turns out they are under attack from Orcs as well

Help out the Ranger groups, track Orcs back to some caves nearby

Caves are much deeper than expected, deserted at surface level, but once we get deeper, there are Orc strongholds

Little bit of fighting Orcs, get a level or two myself, can finally cast Tongues

Would have preferred Fireball TBH, but so noble, must find a peaceful way to coexist with the Goblins

.

Borbo... pretty quiet most of the time, but he's still with me

Give up on the Orc caves, it's a bit too hard for us at the moment

Find more Goblins to talk to

Several major settlements now located, as well as lots of small villages

Goblin nation, pretty much, not just random tribes

Manage to introduce the nearest ones to our settlement

Be DM, trollface for a while now

Ask him why... says he's doing a thing where he battles the standard racist assumptions of DnD... Goblins can actually be peaceful, but it's funny, because Orcs totally match the stereotype

This apparently is funny, because it's half woke and half... um... unwoke? I dunno

Ok, DM, whatever you need to keep entertained, we'll be over here...

.

Weeks pass, we arrange a meeting of the Goblin Council, 100 members, they will decide if they are going to ally with the settlers or turn them away

Be us at meeting

Ranger Sunny guy is here to report on what he knows about the Orcs at the same time

Borbo overhears some of the Goblins mocking his height

Not the council members themselves, just some bystanders

Be me, learned a little bit of Goblin, plus using Tongues spell, Charisma boost spell (Eagle's Splendour I think?)... give a beautiful speech about the power of sentient brotherhood across different lands and races, plus we can beat shit out of the Orcs if we team up

Almost persuaded them, vote soon

Wait though... Butterbit getting pissed, starts shouting at the Goblins who were teasing his height

One of the Council comes over, crowd gathering, everyone shouting

Apparently this council guy is the parent/patron/something of one of the Goblins who's now shoving Borbo

About to be a fight, Goblin pulls dagger, Butterbit stabbed, falling back, whips out his chain... flails it round into the face of the council guy

Be me, turning to the Ranger

.

If you're having Orc trouble, I feel bad for you Sun

I got 99 Goblins

Butterbit chained one

The story read on Soundcloud.

Here's a narrated version on YouTube. 16:46

Text transcription in the comments.

! ! ! ! ! ! !

Transcription:

A 4chan post with a picture showing the text "I'm not sure what's going on, but my asshole is in danger!"

\>Be concubine character \>High bluff but very basic combat skills and nothing for utility \>Supposed to be high level campaign but I'm adamant this is who I want to go with \>Have to be carried through every fight basically, party thoroughly annoyed \>Finally make it to dark lord's fortress \>Betray party and announce I love the dark lord and will do anything for him \>Party locked in dungeon while dark lord and me have wedding ceremony \>We retire to his chambers to consummate, at this point party telling me and DM to stop this is fucking stupid they just want to D&D not bear witness to our ERP \>The dark lord turns his back on us and I reveal myself \>Concubine opens her legs and epic level halfling rogue slides out of her ass \>This was my true character all along \>www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm#extremelyTightSpace \>I've been rolling to stay hidden up her ass the entire campaign to get close enough to the dark lord to assassinate him \>Concubine is just a hired NPC that DM agreed probably had an anal circumference of more than 2 inches and was willing to let it slide \>One last roll \>With his legendary armour removed and his back turned he never sees me coming \>Shoot up there like a flash before he even knows what's happening \>Destroy him from the inside like a whirling dervish \>Free party from dungeons and clean up the rest of his minions \>Entire group is speechless

and that was how I saved the land

Transcription:

A 4chan post by Anonymous with a picture of Mickey Mouse wet from The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Skeleton Star

\>Novice necromancer submits a spell to the DM. \>DM "It's poorly written but whatever. You can use it" \>As is the nature of a fucking weirdo the necromancer goes off by himself to perform his degeneracy \>A successful summoning \>Roll to control it \>fail \>The skeleton sorcerer summoned an additional skeleton sorcerer minion. \>Nervouslaughter.jpg by everyone at the table. \>Roll to banish \>another fail \>each of skeleton sorcerers then summon another sorcerer, 1 per skeleton sorcerer. \>Necromancer "oh god, this is getting bad...I'm gonna need some help" \>party is in an inn across the way \>necromancer runs for help. \>DM runs the calculations. \>in the time it took for him to get the party from the inn the skeletons have reproduced. \>There are now over 16000 skeletons and they're continuing to multiply exponentially. \>"oh god..." \>"Tha...That's too many skeletons guys, we need a high level NPC!" \>"DM, how many more skeletons can be created?" \>DM-"According to the spell submitted by Drenokan, there's no limit..." \>"FUCK!" \>The party bails from the town. The screams of the townsfolk can be heard in the distance as the skeletons continue to multiply. Everyone smacks Drenokan in the back of the head as they go \>As they run a tower of skeletons emerges from the horizon as the dawn breaks. \>Party arrives at a port town as a wave of skeletons builds in the forest behind them, Skeletons now tumbling over one another summoning more skeletons as they fall as skeletons summoning skeletons summoning skeletons summoning skeletons summon yet more skeletons. \>"we'll take a boat and just head off to another continent, problem solved guys. let's get out of here" \>DM's narration is perfect \>"As the boat departs skeletons are just beginning to tumble onto the docks. The panicked screams of the townsfolk generate an eerie melody as a precession of percussion drifts through the air. An untold number of bones clattering together herald the end of Swiftwater, the small port town at the western edge of the continent of Ed'hyak. Ed'hyak, known for it's [sic] bustling cities and vibrant merchant commerce was thus buried beneath a mountain of bones. In the coming hours millions die in this bonocolpylse, their bones merely acting as a foundation for yet more bones to follow" \>Mackleroy, a merchant character in the party is livid. He's real big into world building and he'd spent a month with the DM developing this place and it basically became a barren bone wasteland in a matter of 6 or 7 turns. \>Mackleroy "Okay, can we restart already? This is getting stupid" \> DM "No, Not until we finish the story." \> Boat is filled with weeping people lamenting their forsaken homes. Mackleroy is considering tossing Drenokan overboard. Other party members are actually trying to critically think things through. "How can we stem this tide of undead?" "mayhaps we can draw them into the void..." . \>captain of ship calls out "Gods alive! Protect us! Thar be skeletons head'n our way!" \>DM narrates further "In the distance a wave of skeletons roll across the horizon cutting the sea in twain. The rattle of their bones has become a deafening roar. The ship breaks out into a panic. People are screaming, crying, jumping overboard; complete pandemonium. The boat gets swept up in this skeleton tide. Skeletons appear from thin air tumbling onto the boat as they do. \>The party is fighting off skeletons on the boat in a sea of skeletons. \>The wave of skeletons gradually continues to overtake the boat and soon the boat itself is adrift in this sea of skeletons. Party takes turns fighting off the skeletons. Frantically making saving rolls that never hit 20 for some kind of divine intervention. At one point our sorcerer tries to reason them "PLEASE, STAHP, NO MORE!" \>nothing \>DM intervenes "There are countless skeletons now. Even if you could cut down one million with a single swing you'd never be able to overtake their ability to reproduce. This continues for a while longer and then...they reach a critical mass. The weight of the skeletons becomes so great that their combined mass crushes the innermost portions of the planet. The generation of gravity from the skeletons' ever increasing mass sucks them into a void of density instantly killing anyone left on the planet who wasn't already dead...or a skeleton. This starts a chain reaction with [sic] fuels the creation of a new star. A star born of death. The cries of many are lost to a burning blaze in the aether. Some say you can still hear the rattling of bones echoing around this star.

Tongue in cheek. This short campaign is affectionately referred to in our group as "Mr Bone's wild ride"

Transcription

A 4chan post with a portrait of a masked wrestler looking off to the side

BROther Laughing Man !!6Ltud83uedY, 11/20/2010, 03:18

\>playing half-orc monk \>decide to play something beyond weeaboo 'i am master of martial arts' \>Spent 100gp on an inlaid mask with intricate tribal designs sewn on the sides with a 'fin' \>BECOME LOS TIBURON, THE SHARK OF THE LAND, MASKED WRESTLER. \>take feats revolving around grappling. \>grapple EVERYTHING. \>EVERYTHING \>EVERY. FUCKING. THING. \>including, but not limited to, a bear \>final part of the campaign \>OH SHIT DRAGON \>dragon acts like a faggot, ducking into the water and popping up to use breath weapon \>fuck that, I'm charging his ass \>brother, playing warforged fighter, assists my MIGHTY LEAP into the air, where I pose mid-air shouting about the HONOR OF THE MASK \>TACKLE A FUCKING DRAGON \>deal unarmed damage, latch on, take deep breath in preparation for the underwater struggle \>dragon goes up. forgot they can actually fly \>DM gives me the option to let go before he goes up. Fuck that, I'm still wrestling. \>200 FEET IN THE AIR, STILL WRESTLING A DRAGON AND DEALING UNARMED DAMAGE \>Dragon actually starts hurting me. Have to come up with a plan. BRILLIANCE STRIKES ME. \>"I roll to pin." \>entire table is silent. \>I roll to 'pin' the his wings behind his back, so he can't fly anymore. \>ENTIRE TABLE IS LEANING OVER SO I CAN MAKE MY ROLL OF DESTINY \>NATURAL. FUCKING. TWENTY. \>I pin the dragon's wings, sending it and me hurtling into the ground. I have six seconds to make my final statement. \>"I AM LOS TIBURON! And I am... a lucha!!!" \>Dragon's neck snaps on impact \>Through sheer luck or GM fiat, possibly both, I survive at -4 HP \>Cleric brings me back at one, picks me up, holding one arm into the air \>My brother immediately bangs his shield twice, making a bell noise \>Party's bard/diplomancer: "And the winner is... Los Tiburon!" \>high fives all around

And that was the story of how I made it to level four.

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Anon 03:22 [replying to an unknown post] Yes.

[replying to BROther Laughing Man] YES

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Anon 03:29 [replying to BROther Laughing Man] you win d&d forever

Transcription:

A 4chan post by Anonymous with a picture of a young girl with pointed ears cradling a large sword in its sheath

\>Group is having a party for cleaning a goblin cave that's been annoying the village \>Saved the lord's daughter \>BBEG shows up \>Says he has come to claim his virgin wife so that he may perform a ritual to summon a demon \>Obviously refuse to hand girl over \>Fight breaks out \>Bard grabs the girl and runs away \>Seduces the girl whilst the rest of the group try to fight the BBEG and are failing \>Has sex with the girl \>No longer a virgin \>DM is furious \>Angry that we completely destroyed this plot

Does the DM have the right to be angry that we poked a hole in the plot to beat the BBEG

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Anonymous 09/01/09(Tue)07:03 No.5677063

I recall a group almost ten years ago where "THAT GUY" was a relatively new player to our group and we'd agreed the game was going to be about mid-high fantasy D&D heroics - So he shows up with this drunken old man lout of a fighter. Meanwhile we're all playing young kind of weeaboo anime hero types.

We tolerated him and how often he'd talk about how drunk, smelly, and generally obnoxious his character was. He would use metagame knowledge to make fun of our characters in character, laughing at us when we'd get knocked out, calling us cowards when we failed our fear checks, and the DM would take pity on us and just kind of give us "let it slide" looks and let us take rerolls.

We'd bitch about it between sessions and we sort of grew to hate the guy as a player; His character would go into long diatribes about dungeons and gold and how useless we were and we'd get into hour long arguments where the DM would constantly have to remind us all to "keep it in IC." Anyway this campaign goes on for at least a year, and the storyline is kind of climaxing and a DMNPC gets kidnapped, so after another argument session we get convinced by "THAT GUY" to take a suicide mission and storm a castle, and he's basically yelling at us IRL we have to do it.

Anonymous 09/01/09(Tue)07:03 No.5677068

>>5677063

So when we agree, he leaves the room with the DM for a few minutes, and we assume this is all some metaplot how he's going to fuck us over and steal our shit. They come back in as if nothing had happened. Session continues but we're all on guard, assuming something is up. We storm the castle or whatever, and have a lot of fun, not really noticing that this guy has stopped being so obnoxious. He hasn't once mentioned how his character reeks of whiskey or onions or whatever, though he wastes a good five minutes explaining how his character shaved his beard. Whatever, we just assume the DM talked to him about how it was annoying us. Epic battles ensue and Fast forward to face off with the BBEG, some Lich thing, and the fight isnt going so well.

We're getting spanked, our Cleric is down, and Mr. Fighter has a haste and out of nowhere he goes, "I rush to Cedric (the Cleric) and slap him 'GET UP YOU COWARD'." At this point I groan but the DM is like "Cedric, you're back up with XX HP." Then Mr. "Fighter" goes, "I turn to the Lich and I smite him." And suddenly it clicked for all of us.

Fucker had been playing a Paladin the entire time. His insults were his lay-on-hands and calling us out as cowards were his Anti-fear aura. He wasn't "That Guy," \we\ were "that guy" and we'd just been absolutely out roleplayed for almost a year.

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A series of 4chan posts

Anonymous, 07/20/2011, 00:48

> Let me tell you about necromancy, /tg/. I played a necromancer once, in what I thought was a solo game over IRC. > > I went around to places where the economy was horrible, the rulers were tyrants, and the people were downtrodden. > > There, hidden in cairns and crypts, I taught. I taught the people how to use the dead in their defense--and when defense was not needed, in their fields. I taught spellcraft and surgery. I taught them to think for themselves. > > I overthrew tyrants, I saved civilizations. I left in my wake prosperous, well-fed democracies, populated by the living and the working dead. > > Eventually, I became old. Tired. I knew that lichdom was not for me--benefits aside, I was ready to move on. I had mastered this side of death--yet there was so much more to learn, that required intimate knowledge of the other side.

Anonymous, 07/20/11, 00:48

> As I prepared my final resting place, with a missive spell to go out to all my proteges, I used a simple scrying spell to view the places I had visited, once more. > > What I saw surprised and disgusted me. The living once again worked the fields, instead of the schools and libraries. So-called 'good kings' once more had tyranny over the people. Ignorance and fear ruled these lands again. And bodies were cremated, even the bones, and scattered so that no necromancer could use them, for good or for ill. > > I traced back the lines of fate to find what had caused such disasters, what had destroyed the lands which I had saved. > > Adventurers, So-called saviors, hunting down the most powerful necromancer in the world. The Arch-Lich, they called me. I wasn't even dead! The stories they circulated claimed I had lived a thousand-thousand years, spreading misery and the walking dead in my wake. Misery, most certainly not, and I was scarcely sixty years old, though my mentor had certainly lived a long time, and his mentor before him. I was not even a lich! > Not long after I discovered this, my body failing, one organ at the time, this group of adventurers found me.

Anonymous, 07/20/11, 00:49

> I lay on my deathbed. They were expecting a fight, some cackling, evil mastermind to kill so that they could have been called heroes. They did not expect an old, bitter man who had seen his life's work destroyed because of paranoia and bigotry. > > I told them what I had done, and why I had done it. I told them of my hopes and dreams, for a world where no living man would have to work, where all could spend time doing what they truely desired--study, advancement, even the simple pleasures of a small farm and family, if they so wished. A world free of petty tyrants, where each man could vote for the ruler of their town or their nation. > > In the end, I cried. For my proteges, good men dead at the hands of these heroes. For my plans, dashed against the rocks of hatred. For myself, an old, broken dying man with a wasted life. > > As it turns out, my DM was using me as the BBEG for another campaign he was running... and according to him, I succeeded beautifully.

Transcription:

A series of 4chan posts.

A picture of a girl in a red hood sitting on the ground, in front of a kneeling deer, with a tree in the background.

Anonymous 05/28/12(Mon)19:01 No.19278319

My DM and group decided to start an evil campaign, something I didn't really want to take part in and in hindsight should have not joined at all.

My character was in a group that contained a barbarian cannibal, a witch that poisoned wells on whims, and a wizard that wanted to take over the world. I was playing a rogue.

In our party's downtime, which was spent in a city the wizard wanted to take over, we each did our own thing. The barbarian started an underground arena where he ate the losers, the witch and wizard experimented on slaves, and my character stalked a young girl.

That's it. Just making hide checks and watching a young girl from a distance. Whatever my intents were, I didn't reveal them, and this made everyone feel what I consider unreasonably uncomfortable.

The barbarian, who enjoyed describing the different parts of the humans he ate as supple or juicy, was the first to tell me out of character that I was fucked up.

The rest of the group chimed in, but when I reminded them that no one said anything when the witch injected demon blood into a pregnant slave's belly in an attempt to artificially create a half-demon (and ended up just poisoning both the mother and the fetus), the grudgingly kept quiet.

Anonymous 05/28/12(Mon)19:01 No.19278326

The DM, as if to try and dissuade me from my chosen course, had the young girl's life be remarkably uneventful. She woke up, had breakfast, and went to the academy where she studied. After classes, she went home, had dinner, studied some more, and went to sleep.

After six months of in-game time, the barbarian had a small group of cannibalistic gladiators as his underlings, the witch had successfully started a part-demon breeding project, and the wizard had infiltrated the High Council of the city and had started secretly administering a highly addictive drug. My character had learned the young girl's name, knew her favorite foods, saw which students she got along with, and even had a pretty good idea of which boys fancied her.

At first, I had thought that the rest of the group was uncomfortable with me stalking the young girl because they thought my character was doing it for sexual purposes. Slowly, I realized it was because over the course of the game sessions, they had all started to care, in their own small ways, about this studious little girl. Though their characters did horrible, unspeakable things to people, those people were all nameless strangers that none of them saw as humans. My character, however, was getting to know his intended victim, carefully and diligently, with the rest of the group slowly getting to know her as well.

Anonymous 05/28/12(Mon)19:02 No.19278334

By the time the wizard had full control of the city, his player knew that the little girl wanted to study exotic plants, especially flowers. The academy that he now had complete control over was her favorite place in the world, and her worst fear was if something ever happened to it.

The witch had minor demos raping slaves in secret chambers within the sewers, with many of their foul progeny spilling out into the streets above. A few of these chambers were dangerously close to the roads the young girl took to get to school, though thankfully for her the monsters only came out during the night.

The barbarian had been tracked down by a trio of bastards he had spawned many years ago, each of them seeking to kill the father who had abandoned them. After the barbarian had killed and devoured them, in the end the player knew less about his character's own children than he did about the stranger that the party's rogue had decided to stalk.

Anonymous 05/28/12(Mon)19:02 No.19278339

By then, everyone had started to suspect that I had no ill intent towards the girl. I had done nothing to interact with the girl, nothing even remotely involved with her, besides being a stone's throw away from her as much as possible. The barbarian proposed a theory, in that my character's only intent was to hone his stealth skill during his free time and that I, being unwilling to actually commit to being evil, had chosen a "mildly evil-themed" approach. I didn't refute this theory.

After that moment, the group seemed to actually take an interest in the young girl. From a callous perspective, they were just using her to provide their characters with someone they could be good towards just to create a greater sense of depravity in the evil they committed. From a kinder perspective, the players were good people at heart and just couldn't be evil to the young girl.

The Academy was provided with extra funding, and a set of greenhouses were built for the exclusive use of the students. The demon blood experiments were now under close supervision, with nightly patrols to help eradicate the escaped specimens. The barbarian, straightforward as ever, simply approached the girl, gave her a rare potted plant, and told her that if she ever wanted anything, she could ask him for it.

!/jexuKnPKY 05/28/12(Mon)19:03 No.19278342

In the following months, she became a sort of mascot for the group. Though all of their methods were evil, they now justified their actions by saying they were for the benefit of this young girl, who they secretly (and not so secretly) doted upon. At first, only the barbarian was on speaking terms with the girl, but after the wizard took an official position as a governor of the school and the witch soon followed after him, they all came to know the girl, more than they had simply through my character's observations.

Our campaign was slowly, ever so slowly, shifting in alignment as the players began to question their character's methods. As they grew closer to the young girl, it became harder and harder to conceal their experiments and activities. At first, they only stopped the most obvious ones, but eventually the die hard evil group had shifted to a rather neutral, if not partially good, party.

Our DM, who loved character arcs and unlikely story progression, praised my character for introducing an element into the story that allowed a group of evil people to redeem themselves. As he described the young girl walking home from the greenhouses, the DM took a moment to also say that he suspected that I had always planned to eventually turn the evil campaign into an ordinary one.

Laughing, I told him I had never had such an intent, and then I told him how my character silently emerged from the shadows, stalked towards the girl, and stabbed her in the neck.

...In the early seventies, Ed Whitchurch ran "his game," and one of the participants was Eric Sorenson. Eric plays something like a computer. When he games he methodically considers each possibility before choosing his preferred option. If given time, he will invariably pick the optimal solution. It has been known to take weeks. He is otherwise, in all respects, a superior gamer.

Eric was playing a Neutral Paladin in Ed's game. He was on some lord's lands when the following exchange occurred:

ED: You see a well groomed garden. In the middle, on a small hill, you see a gazebo.

ERIC: A gazebo? What color is it?

ED: (Pause) It's white, Eric.

ERIC: How far away is it?

ED: About 50 yards.

ERIC: How big is it?

ED: (Pause) It's about 30 ft across, 15 ft high, with a pointed top.

ERIC: I use my sword to detect good on it.

ED: It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo.

ERIC: (Pause) I call out to it.

ED: It won't answer. It's a gazebo.

ERIC: (Pause) I sheathe my sword and draw my bow and arrows. Does it respond in any way?

ED: No, Eric, it's a gazebo!

ERIC: I shoot it with my bow (roll to hit). What happened?

ED: There is now a gazebo with an arrow sticking out of it.

ERIC: (Pause) Wasn't it wounded?

ED: OF COURSE NOT, ERIC! IT'S A GAZEBO!

ERIC: (Whimper) But that was a +3 arrow!

ED: It's a gazebo, Eric, a GAZEBO! If you really want to try to destroy it, you could try to chop it with an axe, I suppose, or you could try to burn it, but I don't know why anybody would even try. It's a @#$%!! gazebo!

ERIC: (Long pause. He has no axe or fire spells.) I run away.

ED: (Thoroughly frustrated) It's too late. You've awakened the gazebo. It catches you and eats you.

ERIC: (Reaching for his dice) Maybe I'll roll up a fire-using mage so I can avenge my Paladin.

At this point, the increasingly amused fellow party members restored a modicum of order by explaining to Eric what a gazebo is. Thus ends the tale of Eric and the Dread Gazebo. It could have been worse; at least the gazebo wasn't on a grassy gnoll.

http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/98/Jul/gazebo.html

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A 4chan post with a picture of a bear sitting at a table with humans, playing an RPG.

Anonymous 09/25/11(Sun)23:15 No. 16426614 File1317006946.jpg-(96 KB, 634x456, sir bearington.jpg)

\>Make a bear character in D&D 3.5 \>DM laughs \>Make bear a rogue, put every point I can into disguise \>Prestige class as a spy to get more disguise \>DM says I can't speak english \>Max out bluff \>By growling and gesturing, I can fake speaking a language I don't speak (english)

\>use money to hire a butler NPC \>Give him magical item to let him speak bear

"GROWWWWWL" "An excellent suggestion, Mister Bearington. We really should ask the group to investigate the Black Marsh

\>Over the course of the game, be knighted as Sir Bearington \>Queen holds a dinner in my honor. \>A guest becomes the first man to ever make a perception check that can beat my disguise \>Shouts out loud "HEY, THAT GUY'S NOT A GUY, HE'S JUST A ABEAR!" \>Man is escorted out of the castle while the guards apologise profusely for the indignity "We're so sorry, Sir Bearington, very sorry for this man's behavior" "ROAR" \shrug\