More Funny D&D Stories

[dehro]

I'll copypaste something I submitted quite some time ago to "tales from the table" a section of the website for the webcomic tabletitans, which is dedicated to collecting such stories.

Spoiler: The Naked Flaming Dwarf

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Protect the junk!
Meet Kruk, 6th level Dwarven Cleric of Fharlanghn, busy rushing to the aid of his employer/protegée who is under attack at her mansion.

Watch as he gets ambushed along the way by a party of bad guys; a sneaky Assassin, a Monk with extra helpings of acrobatic feats that allow her to jump behind one or the other of her friends and do a crapload of damage, and a few goons armed with alchemist fire.

Being one of the two melee-oriented characters, Kruk doesn't waste time trying to extinguish the alchemist’s fire that is slowly consuming his clothing under his armor, but chooses to cause some damage instead.

In the following rounds I, the player, keep forgetting that Kruk is still on fire and is getting fire damage, which eventually brings him down to only a handful of hit points.

In the meantime the Monk is doing some serious damage of her own, causing several of Kruk's friends to spend most of their time using wands of healing. She jumps behind one or the other, strikes and then manages to take very little damage in return.

Finally I remember to ask the DM if I'm still on fire. He says,"yes, and your clothes have all but gone. if not for your armor you'd be naked."

After checking that she's in range (because the Monk is standing next to Kruk), I tell the DM that, "Kruk uses his last energies to embrace the Monk, flames and all."

One fiery grapple round later Kruk's friends finally manage to slay the Monk who is pinned down by a pile of flaming Dwarf (clad only in a scanty breastplate) and douse the flames that were consuming him, leaving Kruk pretty much on the brink of death, but victorious.

Afterwards, the other players told me it was the most Dwarf-ish thing they had ever seen.

[Harbinger]

While trying to get a plane ticket to Germany in a modern high fantasy game, my players decided to engage in some petty theft. One of them, a changeling sorcerer, distracted the crowd while our githyanki rogue pickpocketed their target. The distraction in question was turning into George Clooney and handing out autographs. When he was finished, he attempted to whip the crowd into a frenzy by transforming into "the ugliest thri-kreen in the world". After they were chased out of the airport, they went to the Empire State Building to "steal the big light".

Another time, same game, they were in the abyss. Two new players had joined. One was a goblin urban druid named Crack Johnny. He was a homeless crack dealer with an Animated dumpster that followed him around. When threatened, he turned into a dumpster himself. This didn't help much, as his Constitution was at 5. He had several vile feats, which led to in-combat phrases such as "I unveil my true legs", or "My mouth opens, revealing the spiders living in my skin". The second player was a pixie paladin of slaughter. This player was not especially active. She just knitted and would occasionally look up and say "I shoot him". Literally every single time she said this she rolled at 20, crit, and killed what ever it was with her tiny AK-47.

Much later, Crack Johnny and several new characters were exploring underwater catacombs. One of these characters was a ranger with a pet T. rex. Crack Johnny decided to make it his mission to get the T. rex hooked on Devil weed, a drug he found in the BoVD. The ranger did not take kindly to this, and spent the rest of the campaign trying to get back at Crack Johnny. He never could, however, because both he and his animal companion were reliant on Johnny for more crack.

Another campaign, but the same players. This was a Star Wars Saga game. The players were in search of an artifact stolen from a crime lord called Quintus. Since Quintus didn't trust them, he sent with them a protocol droid called C3-Q5 to monitor them. They didn't want Quintus monitoring them, so they decided to deploy an electromagnetic pulse to prevent the droids signal from reaching him. So far so good, right? They then decided that the most prudent course of action at that point would be to commandeer the droid's leg. They spent the next two hours of game time coming up with increasingly elaborate schemes to steal its leg. They never quite managed to do it, and eventually they just decided to toss the droid out of the ship.

[Bobb]

From Star Wars Saga Edition:

The players had just discovered the Bad Guys research facility, inside of which they fought enemies who injected themselves with newly developed and highly potent adrenaline and battle stimulants, which I explained to them had serious side effects when they wore off.

Anyhoo, they cut a swath of destruction down to the research and development area where they get to the supplies of said serums, in many varieties when they hear enemy reinforcements coming. One of the players looks for the most powerful serum. He reads the label, which says, "phenomenal boost to reflexes and strength (+10 to attack, damage, and fortitude defense, +2 movement), all subjects died within an hour of the formula being administered."

His teammates had to convince him not to take it.



We did a free-form, roll a d20 if it seems impossible zombie apocalypse game where we were all normal people at an elementary school. I chose to be a janitor. A lot of the children got zombified due to our incompetence but I do remember knocking over a lot of zombie with my push-broom skills, allowing at least some of the people in the school to escape to a later demise.




The first RPG I ever played was a pre-generated StarCraft setup with pre-generated characters. I was some sort of zerg/human hybrid lady (here-bye known as zergan) who could shoot spikes out of her hands like a hydralisk. A good friend of mine was a protoss zealot, best melee damage hands down.

The second part of the adventure featured protoss ruins. We came upon a metal stand or statue with three claw marks in it. My zergan puts her claw fingers over the marks in the statue. Nothing happens. The GM wonders out loud what would happen if the protoss character put His hand over the marks. He does, there's a boring vision. bla bla.

Now the good part. We go inside and there's a computer console with three buttons: red, blue, and yellow. In front of the buttons is some item we need surrounded by a purple force field.

We spend twenty minutes arguing over what button to press. At which time I say, "my character, tired of waiting, pushes everyone aside and presses the blue button!" Everyone in the room takes stun damage from the force field for an incorrect command. Then protoss player says I press the blue button! (because of course it will work for a protoss)

One of our characters is knocked unconscious by the second stun wave (and yes, you did have to press the two buttons that made the color of the force-field together). Good times.

[dehro]

One should never trust a succubus, no matter how grateful she might be.
Near the end of our previous campaign, we had to free the queen of the succubi, in order to gather intelligence on how to defeat the bbeg demon Prince, who happened to be her ex.
After a hard fight we manage to spring her out of her personal pit of void dimension/cell and she reveals to us what we need to know.
The session is over, we start packing up and when we're almost heading towards the door, the master throws at me "since you've got the highest charisma, the queen addresses you and offers to give you the night of your life, in gratitude for putting an end to centuries of imprisonment ".
Thinking it's just a final gag to have a bit of a laugh, I bite.
A dozen Wis and Con rolls later, I stumbled back to my mates, with 16 levels drained, all of my gear and clothes stolen and an unflattering comment on my sexual prowess branded on my forehead.
My DM is a cruel master, also, I'm a dunce

[GuesssWho]

I'm in a game where half the characters are monsters and several of us are evil. Currently, we have a paladin that worships an animated troll skull, a magical girl, a young illithid ('that squid kid'), a nymph druid AKA Poison Ivy, a male drow and a female drider.

At some point we decided that the drow and the drider are in love. A lot of female spiders eat their mates during sex. So the drider is saving up for a resurrection spell so they can actually go on a date. In the mean time the drow spends most of his time finding 'lovers' for his girlfriend and/or cowering in a kind of delighted terror.

[AGCIAS]

Years ago I was in a PBP 2nd Ed. D&D game, Return to the Keep on the Borderlands, on some site or other. There were days and even longer when we had all acted but the DM was too busy to deal with us. So, in order to amuse the players – and myself – I came up with little humorous comments describing things happening elsewhere in the Greyhawk world. They all began with “Meanwhile...” and ended with “This has nothing to do with our adventure, but I thought I'd mention it.” The party found it amusing but the DM never commented on it or took the hint. Most of them I just made up, some I took from games and the rest I converted from jokes. Here are a few.

Spoiler: Meanwhile....

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Meanwhile, in the village of Arumpit near Wooly Bay, Graknel the half-hill giant, half-orc (orcs are a fecund race) plays mumbly peg with Knak Nikneez, the hobbit thief, tossing him into the air in an attempt to get him to stick headfirst into the ground.

This has nothing to do with our adventure, but I thought I'd mention it.


Meanwhile, in the Lair of Snord, the Midget Frost Giant, Lettie, a newly minted and rabidly aracnophobic 5th level mage, casts her first (and last) fireball. Sadly, it is targeted at a tiny spider scuttling across the floor in the midst of her party. The spider, which made its saving throws and survived, was eaten by a vole a few hours later.

This has nothing to do with our adventure, but I thought I'd mention it.


Meanwhile, in a dungeon near Lake Quag, Bruno the 15th level fighter, after enduring years of verbal abuse by his unpleasantly intelligent sword, snaps and uses a boulder to smash it. Generations of dungeon-crawlers to come will wonder at the miles of green-glass-lined corridors and the huge, spherical amphitheater to which they all lead.

This has nothing to do with our adventure, but I thought I'd mention it.

If anyone likes these, I’ll post more.

[Flame of Anor]

Please do, they're quite good.

[AGCIAS]

Okay….

Meanwhile, in the dungeon of Dweft the Nearsighted, after nearly an hour of searching by his party, Tom “Backstabber” Millican the thief is found behind the door which was smashed open by the Minotaur hordes' charge. The wizard Dweft, laboring under an reasonable misapprehension, later hangs an ornate gilt frame around him and holds a wine and cheese party to display his newest acquisition. No one comes -- which is why wizards normally do not let orcs address envelopes.

This has nothing to do with our adventure, but I thought I'd mention it.


Meanwhile, in the Spoop Marsh, on the island of Krik Snewer, south of the Hold of the Sea Princes, a young black dragon is overheard telling his friends of a discovery: “No, really! It was incredible. No horns or hooves or fangs or anything! Just soft and pink!”

This has nothing to do with our adventure, but I thought I'd mention it.


Meanwhile, in Greyhawk, Bo the Paladin and his party are saved from almost certain death at the claws of a ravening werewolf by the timely intervention of Bo's aging and somewhat senile Aunt Mehidabel. Wielding a rolled-up newspaper and with cries of “Bad dog! Bad dog! DOWN!!!,” she wades into the fray and reduces the creature to a cowering mass of fur. Years later, when he writes his memoirs, Bo will somewhat gloss over this incident.

This has nothing to do with our adventure, but I thought I'd mention it.

[Phoenixguard09]

They are brilliant. I think I'm going to have to start pulling some stuff like that out for my group.

[illyahr]

Those are amazing. I especially enjoyed the arachnophobic mage.

[kingtiger13123]

I have few funny stories (Mostly creepy ones), but a couple in particular stick out:

A Lesser Drow Rogue who for almost a whole session, rolled loads of nat 20s right before our eyes. He was rolling them out in the middle of the table, so we all knew he wasn't lying about them. He used this to: Win initiative in two fights, Kill an Ice Elemental with raw damage from his crit, and INSTAKILL A BOSS BY ROLLING 2 20s IN A ROW. We were stunned. DM rolled his dice a couple times to make sure he wasn't cheating, and we decided he wasn't.

Same campaign, another guy playing a Gnome Bard was in a tavern, fooling around like the CN SoB he was, decided to light a crossbow bolt on fire and then fire it in the tavern. He hit a barrel of whiskey, and the whole place went up, and then half the town burned down due to this. I ask the DM if I can roll a spot check to see if I know who did this, DM says sure. One 23 later, everyone knows it's him. That was swiftly retconned out.

Same campaign again, I'm playing a Paladin of Freedom, worshiping Kord, when our party wizard gets turned to stone. I tell the gnome bard to play the ballad of Kord so he could help, and the bard just barely makes the 30 required to get a god's attention. DM doesn't know what Kord looks like, so I pull out Deities and Demigods to show him the picture. Based on the illustration, he decided that the best voice for Kord was... Macho Man Randy Savage. Good thing laughter wasn't in character, or I would've lost my powers for disrespecting my god.

[AGCIAS]

Mmmmm ... "Special" mount....

And been there, seen that with the 20s. OTOH, I had a series of games full of rotten rolls recently; including one game where I hit three times and think I saved twice.

More Meanwhiles.

Meanwhile, in The Sovereign Municipality of Orz (whose name is longer than it is), Chip, the were-squirrel/thief discovers the lengths to which a lich will go for vengeance against someone who stole his nuts.

This has nothing to do with our adventure, but I thought I'd mention it.


Meanwhile, in the Lortmils, Horst the Rogue is given the terrible choice of abandoning his recently gained treasure to return and free his friends from the band of goblins who captured them. Later that year, in Greyhawk, Horst endows a small shrine to their memory.

This has nothing to do with our adventure, but I thought I'd mention it.

[goto124]

So... did Horst save his friends or the treasure? Did he set up a shrine for his friends or the treasure?

[illyahr]

Meanwhile, in The Sovereign Municipality of Orz (whose name is longer than it is), Chip, the were-squirrel/thief discovers the lengths to which a lich will go for vengeance against someone who stole his nuts.

This has nothing to do with our adventure, but I thought I'd mention it.

[Sir Rom]

To situate the readers, we are in a 3.5 campaign that uses the corruption rules from ravenloft or elder evils if I remember right. With most of the player having common sense, well i might have been the exception, but you'll find out in the story why that is.

players :
GM-
player 1 : half-gaint/dwarf cleric with inquisitor prc
player 2 : elf druid
player 3 : human(more of a native type of human) binder
player 4 (me) : silverbrow crusader

So the story begins with the gang ending up in a the place where the lethander olympycs would take place in honor of the god Lethander(healing god, hates undead and most evil things) himself. In the first day of the olympics we have to swim upriver and our elf druid almost drowned with me just getting him out of the water ( hooray for massive strenght and that rank in swim). In the ended well, but we would have lots of fun. But the olympics didnt end up as hilarous as the main plot did.

Over some time we found out that the lord of dread from ravenloft was trying to destroy the world of fearun with these wierd rocks that emitted negative energy. At one point my crusader after having just defeated a cultist who sacrificed a solar angel on the NE altar ( BTW only my crusader just heard her saying that we had the power within to save the world, basicly chosen ones, the rest didnt.)

So after we killed the female cultist, I on a whim said guys we have to gather the remains of the solar angel ( whom we had grown attached to), so i plunged my hand in the remains of her dust to put it in a holy pouch. this is the conversation that followed.
GM : make me a will save
me : 1
GM : you think its absolutly safe to touch them, go do it ( as he chuckels)
me : i touch the remains and try to put them in the bag
GM : make me a will save
me : 1
GM : roll another one
me : 1
GM : again
me : 1
GM : well you just got multiple personality disorder and hear whispers that your friends want to kill you, oh and you became CE.
me : well damm,( OOG : guys might have made a big mistake )

As time went on we had to retreat from the forrest because the undead were popping up evrywhere but my character ran away to them and let himself get taken. And got turned into a Death knight template. Only after babbling about hearing voiced to a ravenloft god that told him not to join them. And well, between dying and becoming undead he didnt have many options after that.

But the best thing starts here, in a previous session the NPC head druidess had somewhat insulted my crusader after the took responsability for killing a tiger ( boo-hoo greenpeace druids ). And in a blut of word he said : hey big evil boss want me to kill that druidess, kinda feel like it now. And thats how a druid grove got animal entrails all over the trees as decoration and a sliced of tongue and fingers from that same druidess. Who was taken back and turned into a anti-druid. I did also leave behind 'bitches need stiches' on the druids grove wall in blood.

In the end my crusader was caught by the party and put on trail by the city for murder of a druid and defilment, that and turning to the dark side. In the end i got free after a huge dip check and proving i was under mind controll, that and how bad the public secruity was of the place ( there is proof of gaint/huge spiders, and the city gaurd sends in only 4 adventurers ). And thats how i got a halfling and two possibly incestous druid siblings( not our druid ) to hate my character.

[Slarg]

Game of Vampire the Masquerade

Spoiler: Setup

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Group is as follows
Myself: Malkavian. That Crazy Bastard with a bum leg.
A Vampire Stripper Toreador
A Hulking 7 foot tall 300 lb Brujah (Fighter) (He has someone tracking him down to kill him, as per his backstory)
A British Ventrue (Bard)
A Tremur (Wizard-ish (What passes for one))
DM

So our first session was being introduced to the general story, finding our Vampire Overlord, and getting into a gun fight. Someone (We won't discuss who) decided it would be a smart idea to listen to the voices in his head and start feeding in the middle of the street. Pictures were taken, but due to the cops showing up, we needed to make a run for it before they discovered us in the middle of a bunch of dead bodies covered in blood.

So we get approached by a Nosferatu and told to A) Burn the bodies of our victims because "Certain people" will know that they were vampire victims, and B) Find and deal with the person who took pictures; we had two nights to do this before being deemed too dangerous to the Masquerade to live

We make up a plan; we start a riot (Brujah had a biker gang he was a part of and I had a bunch of Hobos I have as "Legitimate sources of Info"), pretend that I with my bum leg get injured, we go into the police station, find the bodies, burn them, and delete the police records.

It should be noted that my character, The Crazy Malkavian Bastard, is spoken to by voices in his head (The GM hands me notes of things that may or may not be true) It is also to be noted that he's a conspiracy theorist, afraid of Them taking over the world. That's going to be important.

The Brujah and Toreador stay behind as back up (They have the most combat skills in the party) and the Malkavian, Ventrue, and Temuire head inside

So everything goes entirely according to plan..... up to the point where we walk in the front door. I'm screaming my head off bloody murder style, to which the police officers react accordingly; two of them come to help and then (strike one) call an ambulance (Yes, we really didn't think that was a possibility of happening). Then, as I am screaming my head off, my fellow party members aren't doing anything (Strike 2). So I'm waiting for SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING I'M DISTRACTING THEM, when the DM hands me a note: "The Guard who is tending your leg is giving you dirty looks. He's one of THEM!"

I bolt up in my chair and shout "I punch him in the face!" DM's eyes get huge. "You sure?" "Yes, he's one of THEM!"

As the guard standing over me is knocked out, the Ventrue dominates the other cop into finding out where the bodies are, and the Ambulance shows up with the medics crashing through the door. The Malkavian, thinking on his feet, asks the DM if they can see his legs from where they are standing. On a No, he punctures a hole in the dudes leg with his finger and says that he has been injured and is bleeding out. The Ventrue and Temuire understand what Malk is doing, so the Ventrue dominates the cop into thinking he shot him and the Temuire tells the medics that they were the ones they needed an ambulance for. The story sells, and we find ourselves in a now hostile police station (They heard us fighting and barricaded rather than come to the rescue).

Since we realized we were in it, we signaled the other two to join us and suddenly see Toreador flying towards the door because the Brujah just wanted to throw something.

The Malk, the only one with any sort of computer skills, finds the police records database during the firefight and hears his voices again; "The police know about THEM!" The Malk proceeded to be useless the rest of the fight as he typed Them into Search and was flabbergasted as 1,200 individual hits popped up as he tried to read them all and connect the dots.

So, after the fire fight we find the bodies, grab some sort of flammable chemical, douse the bodies in it, create some Molotovs, and proceed to light the entire precinct on fire. As we are running out the back door, the guy hunting our Brujah shows up with his posse.

The Brujah took Max Ranks in his Hunted Flaw, which meant this guy was a serious threat, Brujah knew it, the DM knew it, the rest of us didn't. All we knew is that the Brujah Noped, grabbed everyone (His strength was as high as it could be), and pulled us back through the burning building and out the front door, with the Malk going absolutely insane because of the fire (One of the very few ways to permanently kill a Vampire).


The absolute funniest thing was that the DM was telling us afterwards that we completely did exactly the opposite of what he had planned; we were supposed to either use the Stripper or the Bard to distract that guards while the rest of us took care of business, in and out in five minutes, to have the epic story driven fire fight he had planned with the Hunter. We spent an hour and a half purging the police station, and then ran away in five minutes from the Hunter XD

[AGCIAS]

So... did Horst save his friends or the treasure? Did he set up a shrine for his friends or the treasure?

I guess you pays your money an' you takes your choice.

[goto124]

I don't get all those 'This has nothing to do with our adventure, but I thought I'd mention it' stories. Why are they particularly funny? All they all references to certain DnD adventures? Or something else entirely?

[AGCIAS]

I guess you pays your money an' you takes your choice.

Just like any "good" thief, he kept the money and used a little to set up a shrine to his dead friends' memory.

[AGCIAS]

I don't get all those 'This has nothing to do with our adventure, but I thought I'd mention it' stories. Why are they particularly funny? All they all references to certain DnD adventures? Or something else entirely?

As I posted before, these were the result of a PBP game where the DM regularly left us hanging for long periods. I did it to amuse the other players (it worked) when nothing was happening, drawing from my imagination, games and jokes converted to D&D. Sorry you didn't find them funny.

Spoiler: More Meanwhile

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Meanwhile, in Lama Süd, Coriz the Infallible makes his first mistake when he hires the lowest bidder, an oscish catering firm, to cater the party celebrating his ascension to 18th level. An hour, and several appetizers, into the party, Coriz discovers the answer to the twin questions of why the caterer's bid was so low and where his guests are.

This has nothing to do with our adventure, but I thought I'd mention it.


Meanwhile, in the dungeon under the Temple of Candor in Flax, Jarrd Nebble the wizard, reaches for his Wall of Force scroll to stop the horde of charging Death-Vomiters ™, (Pat. Pend.) only to hear from behind him Dibly Lightfingers pushing his way forward from the rear of the party, shouting “Sorry, I think I have that, my fault, my fault, here it is, just fell into my pack, sorry, sorry.” After drinking twelve healing potions and receiving a neutralize poison and a cure disease, and spending three days cleaning his magic books, robe of eyes and component pouches, Jarrd begins researching how to permanize an itch spell on a hobbit.

This has nothing to do with our adventure, but I thought I'd mention it.

[Lord Torath]

I don't get all those 'This has nothing to do with our adventure, but I thought I'd mention it' stories. Why are they particularly funny? All they all references to certain DnD adventures? Or something else entirely?

Looks like they're just silly stories. I don't think they generally reference specific places on Greyhawk, just made-up-on-the-spur-of-the-moment locations and characters doing silly things. I especially loved the half-orc/half-hill giant playing mumbly-peg with the halfling!

[GuesssWho]

I did spot a Far Side reference, though!

[Drake2009]

Ok so its the final boss showdown. We've managed to trap this God/Super AI (like, actually able to cast divine spells) into ONE robot scorpion. After nearly an hour of combat, its pretty low health, and trying to talk us down. Telling us how a DIFFERENT GOD/ Super AI is worse than him. So i roll sense motive.... With my +13, i can tell hes lying like a b*tch. So i walk towards him slowly.

Meanwhile, our gunslinger is grappled, in the air as a meatshield, but slowly pouring gunpowder in the arm. Our sorcerer was prepping a fireball too... I walk up, playing with my sling and say "Oh well, maybe we should sit and tal- ROCK. I hit him.... in the face....with a rock. A magic rock SURE but a rock none the less. He croaks. "Oh yes now thaaaa......" Needless to say, the gunslinger is pissed. Course we cant just have it that easy, so the place is gonna blow. Long story short, we book it (I GRABBED A SOUVENIR) and were running out a tunnle, and through an exploding colloseum, our gunslinger doing a spider man with two spike guns, and me carrying a giant laser scorpion tail (thank you bulls strength, and Ant haul)...

We get out unscathed, and stop in front of a crowd. I point out my button, which i made with stone shape, proudly displaying the words "I killed a God.... WITH A ROCK." Our ratfolk allies walk up, point at me and say "Yeah! Were with him! Anyone wanna mess with us?!"
About a 100 miles away, and two weeks later, the head priest of the village is reading a report of the incident. Flipping through the pages he looks and sees the same thing... over and over. "I killed a God.... WITH A ROCK". *sigh...* GROCKOOOO!

Ps: Oh and i forgot to mention, my construct monkey was standing guard in my pack.... I sent the goblin sorcerer to grab some potions. "Ok fine i can ge- AAAHH" Seeing a goblin attacked by a robot monkey is a sight to see...

[AGCIAS]

Looks like they're just silly stories. I don't think they generally reference specific places on Greyhawk, just made-up-on-the-spur-of-the-moment locations and characters doing silly things. I especially loved the half-orc/half-hill giant playing mumbly-peg with the halfling!

That one is my favorite, too. It just popped into my mind and started the whole thing.

Meanwhile, near the entrance to the Valley of the Mage, Corin, the Anti-paladin, hears a rumor that the Master Wizard Bertum the Flatulent is seeking the Cuddly White Mouse of Death; described by local peasants as having wickedly sharp teeth, terrible, beady eyes and tiny, prickly claws that tickle horribly when it runs up your leg, “but it's just so darn CUDDLY!” Sadly, Matilda, the party wizard, loves mice and befriends it before Corin can slay and skin it, unknowingly saving Corin from a horrendous death by asphyxiation.

This has nothing to do with our adventure, but I thought I'd mention it.

[AGCIAS]

I did spot a Far Side reference, though!

And good catch, Guess. When I steal, I only steal from the best.

[BoardPep]

All this mention of Horst reminds me of an NPC by the same name used in multiple games I've run.

The funny part about it? Though he made it into three games (four if you count the game I didn't even play/run in), he was only included naturally into the first game. The other games, the players saw something that reminded them of Horst and just kind of... made him happen. Here's the story of Horst.

I was running an experimental campaign where we were doing Dual DMs. Me and another DM (let's call him Dee) both ran the game, with him focusing on the environment and story, and me focusing on roleplaying most of the NPCs and running combat. The game started with a Tarrasque attack on Baldur's Gate (at level 1) as all normal games should (kidding of course). The entire city, including the party, evacuated via boats into the ocean. After some other incident that I can't remember, the party and a few nameless unarmed NPCs (intended for death) ended up on a lifeboat. They floated into a deep mysterious mist and ended up in Ravenloft. Their first encounter? Two sharks that started circling their boat. The party fought them off easily enough, but the NPCs contributed where they could. One was eaten and another couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. But one of them had rolled a 20 and finished off one of the sharks, the attack being described as a punch to the head, cracking the shark's skull. The party decided this guy was awesome and asked his name. A bit of quick thinking and he was named Horst and described as a burly sailor.

They fought many dark and fearsome creatures upon reaching shore, easily losing the other unnamed NPC, but fought tooth and nail to keep Horst alive. It wasn't until 3 or 4 sessions in before anybody questioned why Horst's AC was so low, or why he was punching things. They had neglected to give him weapons or offer to buy him armor of some sort. He was used to fighting this way, being a sailor. Somebody boasted "Horst doesn't need armor" and tossed him a dagger, and that was that. Later, they came accross a town where children were going missing. At one point, Horst had gone missing too. Though we were going to use this opportunity to get rid of him, the party was adamant about finding him, almost being upset about his absense. I decided to leave it up to chance and rolled a dice to see if he would survive. Another 20. While searching near the docks, the party heard a splash as a grizzled looking Horst pulled himself up from below the docks, dagger in his mouth, his clothes in tatters, missing two fingers, and covered in more blood than he could possibly own. Out of breath he says "I've seen... I've seen...". One of the party members asks "What did you see Horst?". Horst takes a deep breath and then bellows...

"TERRRRRRRRIBLE THINGS"

And with that, Horst was cemented into the game as it's center point. Using his catchphrase any time possible. The player started making up more and more of his physical descriptions. "Horst doesn't bathe. He's covered in dirt and crusty barnicles from head to toe." When that game ended, I thought we'd seen the last of Horst.

Of course not.

I decided to start a grand idea of a campaign. A pirate game with 10 players at the same time. It was going well and eventually split into two 5-player groups on different ships (part of a fleet of pirates). Of course, it didn't take long before one of the players noted that a burly sailor NPC on the ship MUST be Horst. The player who did know him spoke of his greatness, and the players who didn't listened in awe. When the players found a new ship and decided to split parties, there was only logical thing they would want to name the ship...

The S.S. Terrible Things.

But such a ship wouldn't be complete without a proper figurehead at the front of the ship right? So they crafted a lifesize nude replica of Horst (barnicles and all) on the front of the ship with his "manhood" being solid iron and stretching 8 feet off of the ship. They liked to use it for ramming. Which they did a lot. Sigh.

[goto124]

That one is my favorite, too. It just popped into my mind and started the whole thing.

Meanwhile, near the entrance to the Valley of the Mage, Corin, the Anti-paladin, hears a rumor that the Master Wizard Bertum the Flatulent is seeking the Cuddly White Mouse of Death; described by local peasants as having wickedly sharp teeth, terrible, beady eyes and tiny, prickly claws that tickle horribly when it runs up your leg, “but it's just so darn CUDDLY!” Sadly, Matilda, the party wizard, loves mice and befriends it before Corin can slay and skin it, unknowingly saving Corin from a horrendous death by asphyxiation.

This has nothing to do with our adventure, but I thought I'd mention it.

But the lady wizard died happy right? -cuddles-

[Inevitability]

All this mention of Horst reminds me of an NPC by the same name used in multiple games I've run.

The funny part about it? Though he made it into three games (four if you count the game I didn't even play/run in), he was only included naturally into the first game. The other games, the players saw something that reminded them of Horst and just kind of... made him happen. Here's the story of Horst.

I was running an experimental campaign where we were doing Dual DMs. Me and another DM (let's call him Dee) both ran the game, with him focusing on the environment and story, and me focusing on roleplaying most of the NPCs and running combat. The game started with a Tarrasque attack on Baldur's Gate (at level 1) as all normal games should (kidding of course). The entire city, including the party, evacuated via boats into the ocean. After some other incident that I can't remember, the party and a few nameless unarmed NPCs (intended for death) ended up on a lifeboat. They floated into a deep mysterious mist and ended up in Ravenloft. Their first encounter? Two sharks that started circling their boat. The party fought them off easily enough, but the NPCs contributed where they could. One was eaten and another couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. But one of them had rolled a 20 and finished off one of the sharks, the attack being described as a punch to the head, cracking the shark's skull. The party decided this guy was awesome and asked his name. A bit of quick thinking and he was named Horst and described as a burly sailor.

They fought many dark and fearsome creatures upon reaching shore, easily losing the other unnamed NPC, but fought tooth and nail to keep Horst alive. It wasn't until 3 or 4 sessions in before anybody questioned why Horst's AC was so low, or why he was punching things. They had neglected to give him weapons or offer to buy him armor of some sort. He was used to fighting this way, being a sailor. Somebody boasted "Horst doesn't need armor" and tossed him a dagger, and that was that. Later, they came accross a town where children were going missing. At one point, Horst had gone missing too. Though we were going to use this opportunity to get rid of him, the party was adamant about finding him, almost being upset about his absense. I decided to leave it up to chance and rolled a dice to see if he would survive. Another 20. While searching near the docks, the party heard a splash as a grizzled looking Horst pulled himself up from below the docks, dagger in his mouth, his clothes in tatters, missing two fingers, and covered in more blood than he could possibly own. Out of breath he says "I've seen... I've seen...". One of the party members asks "What did you see Horst?". Horst takes a deep breath and then bellows...

"TERRRRRRRRIBLE THINGS"

And with that, Horst was cemented into the game as it's center point. Using his catchphrase any time possible. The player started making up more and more of his physical descriptions. "Horst doesn't bathe. He's covered in dirt and crusty barnicles from head to toe." When that game ended, I thought we'd seen the last of Horst.

Of course not.

I decided to start a grand idea of a campaign. A pirate game with 10 players at the same time. It was going well and eventually split into two 5-player groups on different ships (part of a fleet of pirates). Of course, it didn't take long before one of the players noted that a burly sailor NPC on the ship MUST be Horst. The player who did know him spoke of his greatness, and the players who didn't listened in awe. When the players found a new ship and decided to split parties, there was only logical thing they would want to name the ship...

The S.S. Terrible Things.

But such a ship wouldn't be complete without a proper figurehead at the front of the ship right? So they crafted a lifesize nude replica of Horst (barnicles and all) on the front of the ship with his "manhood" being solid iron and stretching 8 feet off of the ship. They liked to use it for ramming. Which they did a lot. Sigh.

Ah yes, PC's adopting NPC's. I once had to deal with something like that, too.

Then I had said NPC get killed by his own hand. Yeah, I'm a cruel DM.

[AGCIAS]

For I have seen TEEERRRRIBLE THINGS. (To the tune of "Sing to the Lord a new song.")

Wonderful tale. I have never had quite that problem but often had NPCs the players trusted more than some of the other players, but that was just good judgment.

[AGCIAS]

Meanwhile, in an underwater cave near the Keep on the Borderlands, the fighter Roderick, having tied his rope around a rotting corpse that he recently found, gives three tugs on the rope; the sign to be pulled out. JJ, the "expert treasure finder," expecting to see a hale and hearty, or at least living, Roderick emerge from the river, finds himself hauling in a totally different catch and expires noisily from a tiny hobbit heart attack. Roderick picks up the easiest 87 XP he ever made.

This has nothing to do with our adventure, but I thought I'd mention it.


Meanwhile, in Tansatler, near Thoom, the recently vested cleric Moria Gundy receives a baptism in fire when he discovers the not unalloyed horrors of the zombie bimbette lapdancers of the Moulin Noir.

This has nothing to do with our adventure, but I thought I'd mention it.