You're Not Allowed to Pun-Pun
If there were no God it would be necessary to invent Him.
- Voltaire
ORLY?
- Dungeon Master
YARLY.
- Voltaire (paraphrased)
OHOK.
- Dungeon Master
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This was it. The moment the young kobold had been waiting for. His race had long suffered the indignities of having a negative four racial modifier to strength. It was embarrassing, and most of all, it was unjust. Why should elves, dwarves, and humans be the prominent races? What makes them so special that they are chosen more often by player characters? Why did they deserve this, when the kobold race has done nothing but toil under the sun, acting as experience farms for aspiring adventurers? Were kobolds simply tools to help lowly adventurers leapfrog into fighting beholders?
It did not matter. In a few seconds, this young kobold would become the paragon of his race--and indeed, the paragon of any form of life in the entire universe. People laughed at him for having so many ranks in knowledge (the planes); they'll see who's laughing now! With a triumphant smile, or a grimace that looked like a halfhearted smile (given the lack of facial features on the kobold that looks like anything nice enough to prevent adventurers from killing them on the spot), the kobold raised his lawful evil candle of invocation.
"Sarrukh," croaked the young kobold.
Light sprung out of the astral backdrop, twisting and molding like clay. A very glittery sort of clay. It took only a few seconds, but eventually the light coalesced into the figure of a humanoid torso attached to the body of a snake. The lizard-like head only took a fraction of a second to manifest thereafter. It was not a moment later that the light wore off, revealing a very
real-looking sarrukh. It was frightening for the young kobold, seeing that this creature could very easily kill him for the experience. But he reassured himself, knowing full well that it would follow his commands.
The kobold opened his mouth to speak. Whatever he was about to say, it was cut short, as a brilliant ray of green light burst out of nowhere and struck the sarrukh, disintegrating the kobold's hopes and dreams in a fraction of a second. The remains of the sarrukh--amounting to a few particles of dust--quickly faded into the backdrop of the astral universe. Almost as quickly, the kobold felt a powerful force yank him in no particular direction, and his surreal surroundings began to fade away.
He was standing in a grassy meadow, and a bright sun was beaming from the cloudless sky. This wasn't the astral plane. He had been brought back to his native plane--and not just that, but his home town. Or at least, what had been his home town before a group of level five adventurers had decimated every single member of the village. The young kobold could only gape, but it slowly dawned upon him that something had brought him back to his village.
"We know your plans," said a calm voice. The young kobold spun around, hands up as if to defend--but the voice was of a human, and no unarmed kobold with an obsession of knowledge (the planes) could win this match. Even if the human was a level one commoner. Standing by the kobold, roughly twenty feet away, was a human wearing simple beige traveling robes. He had a worn wooden quarterstaff and a long, scraggly white beard. The upper portion of his head was covered by his hood.
"What plans?" croaked kobold, hoping to play innocent. "I not try anything."
The man laughed. "Did you honestly think you were the first person to figure it out? Easy ascension?"
The kobold looked down at his feet. Yes, he did in fact think he was the first to figure it out. After all, how many people in this world invested so many points into knowledge (the planes) at this level? How many people hoarded as many knowledge (the planes) skill check boosting items? But now that he stopped to think about it, any powerful wizard familiar with the sarrukh could've gated one in. And why hasn't any wizard tried to establish himself or herself as an overdeity by doing so yet? Is it possible...
The man sighed. He said, "You aren't the first to try. Many like you have tried before, and only one was successful--well, partially so. His name was Pun-Pun, and was a kobold like you. He had invented this particular trick a while back, and had ascended before any of us could figure out what was going on. Oh, how many of us died trying to stop him! He had wiped out entire pantheons of deities and established himself as the supreme ruler of as many planes as he could get his hands on."
"In any case," continued the man, "he became too arrogant at some point, and made the mistake of trying to enter the planar metropolis Sigil. He thought that he could defeat Sigil's guardian, the Lady of Pain. How wrong he was--for the Lady was not statted, and she instantly flayed the kobold to death. No saves. It was a brutal end to the illustrious career of Pun-Pun, the supreme ruler of half the explored universe. Some say that the Lady of Pain even caused rocks to fall and kill Pun-Pun. Whatever the case, he could not win. He had grown too arrogant to understand the nature of this universe. He forgot that the Lady of Pain does more or less whatever she wants."
"So," said the man, "the cowering deities who had hidden as best they could during Pun-Pun's aggressive expansion decided that enough was enough, and quite a few of them added all things relating to the spell
manipulate form to their portfolio. They wanted to stop the next potential Pun-Pun before it was too late. It was then that my Order was formed by the Council of Gods--the Order of Cheese Prevention. They would detect potential abuses of
manipulate form, and their clerics would go and stop the violator."
There was a moment of silence, as it dawned upon the kobold what his fate most likely was.
"The ironic thing," said the man, "was that violators of
manipulate form would be targeted themselves as victims of loophole abuse. We were told, in these mighty words by Thor himself, to go 'arseplomancer on their asses'. So, are you prepared for your punishment?"
It was a good thing the kobold did not have enough intelligence to know what arseplomancy was. Otherwise he would've screamed. Oh, who am I kidding. He screamed anyways.
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If there were no God it would be necessary to invent Him.
- Voltaire
LOLNOPE.
- Dungeon Master
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There's a moral to this story that you should apply to your D&D games.
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You're Not Allowed to Pun-Pun
