Ravings of a Textual Deviant

C’est tout amusement et jeux jusqu’à ce que quelqu’un perde un architecte. (It’s all fun and games until someone loses an architect.)

Or so my new character, Marie-Veronique Gabrielle Thaïs, the Marquise de Bois du Grenouille Chantant, wrote to her contact in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Special Services Section.

Our Sunday gaming group recently finished up “The Red Hand of Doom,” and our GM of the past 2 years or so is taking a break. In the mean time, we’re playing a Seven Seas campaign, in which my character and another player’s are a seventeenth century French-analogue Mr. and Mrs. Smith. (Both of them appear to be charming, ornamental, and so lacking in intellect that the two of them together could not fill a demitasse spoon with gray matter.) For reasons I can’t begin to explain, I cannot help but channel a bit of Edina Monsoon into the Marquise.

So far, it’s been more Get Smart than Scarlet Pimpernel.

The game is set in an Italy-analogue, where the Marquis and Marquise have been sent on a minor diplomatic posting. They have rented a modest palazzo in a tasteful-but-fashionable quarter, and moved in a large amount of heirloom furniture, matching, monogrammed luggage, a small army of servants, and a very small, yappy dog. The Marquise’s cousin is the main diplomatic representative in the area, and it was he who invited them to their first official function.

In honor of the occasion, the Marquis permitted his wife to wear more lace than he himself had donned.

One of the prominent Italian-analogue aristocratic families was having a soirée to celebrate the opening of a new temple that they had sponsored. Said edifice was built by one of the most talented and fashionable architects of the day. Coincidentally enough, a very similar party was being given by a very similar host for very similar reasons, right across the piazza.

Quel rivalité!

Naturally, the only diplomatic course was to circulate through both parties, so as to avoid a show of favoritism. Unfortunately, the evening only got more gauche as it progressed. The hostess of one of the parties, who had recently been sculpted by the very same architect who had designed her family’s temple, was mortally insulted by her thoroughly unrefined intended…an individual who had previously mistaken the Marquise for his own fiancée. Having had the dubious pleasure of his acquaintance, the Marquise was quite willing to feign ignorance as to the hostess’s true whereabouts, despite the fact that she had been conversing with the young lady mere moments before.

The Marquis, oddly enough, was also mistaken for another individual, and was able to avoid both a duel and the unfortunate effects of the accuser’s overindulgence. Trés interessant, eh? One wonders if it could possibly be a coincidence.

As the hour grew later, unabashed displays conspicuous consumption (although, one must say, delightful and lavish ones ) and curious confusion descended into undisguised brutality when a band of hired ruffians crashed one of the parties, seized the architect, and stuffed him into a nondescript waiting carriage. During the upheaval, the Marquis valiantly defended—well, himself, mostly,—with a degree of skilled swordplay that one would not normally expect from a gentleman of his reputation. This did not escape the Marquise’s notice, either, though she has chosen not to comment for now. Furthermore, she was fortunate enough to have her contributions to the melée pass unobserved. (A gentlemen may indeed be lucky in a swordfight on occasion, but how often is a petite, ineffectual lady so favored by fortune as to fling a large, heavy, ornamental urn with deadly accuracy?)

And so, we have an unsolved kidnapping, blood on the floor, fuel on the fire of an already-bitter rivalry, the displeasure of at least one ecclesiastical Eminence, and the unfortunate loss of the Marquis’s fine linen shirt, which I am sad to report did not survive the brawl.

In 25 words or less…Tiamat’s plan foiled, at least in our area. Plans foiled, hoards looted, icky minions dead. Earned gratitude of Lord of Brindal, for what that’s worth.

Reports are still coming in; apparently, four other areas on the continent suffered similar circumstances (Tiamat may be superntural and super-evil, but she’s predictable.) There’s still a town where the hobgoblin followers of the Happy Butterfly god are enforcing law and order (I’m tempted to give into my occasional Novelist’s Syndrome and let that situation devlop just to see what happens). And the Ghost Lord still wants dealing with; I did promise Cedric. Good-aligned clerics are so particular about the disposition of the undead. We’re going to have to recruit an overwhelming force of them to take out His Extreme Deadness.

But first, we have to clear a hobgoblin infestation out of our newly-notarized ruin castle. And meet our forest-giant neighbors. And deal with stuff back in our current home city of Tirandel. And track down Darya’s missing twin sister, Marika. Mom—you know, the elven mafia matriarch?—is no doubt vocal on that subject.

And before any of that, I need a manicure. Ichor is simply disastrous for the cuticles.

Gaming Buddy sent me this link regarding the demise of Gary Gygax, the original gaming geek.

My immediate reply was “How much would it cost to have him raised?”

City effectively under siege. Flew a couple of very daring and probably reckless night missions to deal with siege equipment and personnel (giants).

Urgon the Scout: I’ll be back in 21 hours.
DM: Unless he hitches a ride.
Darya: He knows better than to hitch in this neighborhood [behind enemy lines].

Urgon the Amazingly Silent & Invisible Scout: [The enemy] might have someone sneakier than me.
Darya: If they do, I haven’t seen them.

Anja: [Darya]’s taught me well; if you want to know something, ask an urchin.
Darya: Street, not spiny.

Medrin: “Cause Fear” [spell] is close range.
Darya: Screw that, we have enough fear at close range already.

Gnome scout’s owl incinerated by a very annoyed red dragon. He has to make his way home on foot. Fortunately, he managed to avoid the dragon.

Anja: Should we leave [Mr. Sneakypants] out there alone?
Darya: How the h3ll are we going to find him?

Having been separated from the rest of the group, Mr. Sneakypants ended up going after a lesser thorn in our collective side on his own. Persistence pays off, because if shoot enough crossbow bolts into a pool of darkness, some of them are bound to hit.

Darya: We didn’t know she was an evil shapeshifting b!tch at the time.

Constance’s player: I’ll bet that wasn’t in the script.

That left us the red dragon to deal with next. Red shoes!

Anja: If we can kill it, we can wear it.

Urgon: I can’t hit him from here, but I can p!ss him off.
Constance: That’s why I’m standing away from you.

Mal: I do need a shiny new man purse.
Anja: We’ll even get you a pair of f*ck-me boots.
Constance: There’s probably enough [huge red dragon hide] for everyone to have a pair of f*ck-me boots.

Urgon: I wonder if [huge red dragon] will make me a scream and a thud.
Constance: Probably. I would.

Anja: I made it to double digits!
Darya: But did you have to take off your boots to do it?
Anja: No, I had to take off my armor, but not my boots.
Constance: I’m not going comment.

Oh, and BTW, herding cats has nothing on trying to give directions to mages in close combat.

Constance: (To Medrin) Dispel magic!
Medrin: Backing up!
Constance: Dispel magic!
Medrin: I’m backing up!
Darya: Dispel magic, then back up!

Finally, the red dragon had the grace to collapse into unconsciousness.

Anja: Take a talon.
Medrin: Don’t do its nails, kill it.

Pineapple upside-down shots, if you’re curious. Thanks, Evan!

There’s nothing like a few days in town, attending all-day meetings with courtiers, to make defending a large town with about 500 trained individuals against an invading army of ten thousand fanatical goblins seem like a simple, straightforward problem. Speaking of which, we were bouncing ideas around to deal with that very problem, including the possibility of some biological warfare:

Medrin the Mage: All we need is a little poo in the pudding.
Anja: (to Urgon the Scout) You know that’s your job, Mr. Sneakypants.
Urgon: I can’t poo that much.

So much for that idea. And I’m not sure that evil gods feed their cannon-fodder pudding anyway. We had trouble getting beyond generalities for Mr. Sneakypants after that.

Darya: See gnome evil…hear gnome evil…do gnome evil.

So, we turned our attention to more important topics, like how to get ourselves and our stuff the heck outta here if/when the town gets overrun.

Medrin the Mage: What happens if you open a rope trick inside a bag of holding?
DM: End of universe—thank you very much, have a nice day.
Darya: Well, that does solve our hobgoblin problem, but the down side is, we don’t get paid.

When it comes right down to it, I’m just not a “destroy the universe to save it” kind of gal. I’m actually rather fond of the universe, flaws notwithstanding, and I’d like it to continue existing, thanks, if it’s all the same.

But I digress. Extremely.

Personally, I think the town’s probably going to get overrun; whoever laid that place out was thinking “picturesque” rather than “defensible.” Cute may occasionally save an individual’s bacon, as I know full well, but not so much with real estate. On the other hand, at least those godsawful all-day strategy meetings would come to a definite end, rather than just adjourning for the day. And being the only one in the room who’s able to notice the subtleties doesn’t help.

DM: (to Mal’s player) Spot check.
Mal’s player: I don’t spot.
DM: Listen check.
Mal’s player: I don’t listen, either.
All the other players: We know.
DM: (to Mal’s player) You suck at this game.

Finally, after much wailing and moaning and gnashing of teeth, we came up with a reasonable plan that might work, and managed to get Lord Whatshisname and his backup group to go along with it, more or less. Not able to resist making a bad situation worse, Darya went the extra mile to make things more difficult for the enemy. She made contact with the local underground got the inside scoop on the remaining warlord’s personal security setup (lots; he must’ve beeen paying attention to what happened to his coworkers), and recruited herself some help with trapping the killing zone, a la Draelin’s Ferry (the Platonic ideal of pretension is surely being an overconfident, French-speaking elf; I love that!), as well as issuing an open invitation to sniper “practice” after the fighting starts. And just to be sure, Darya did specify the sniping should be at the evil army only please, we need all hands on deck right now. You can always kill anyone who does survive later. Mal also put in a little extra effort…sort of. His answer to “Where have you been?” was “I was getting information. And laid.”

So, we have a plan. Fortify the town as much as we can. Raze some buildings to create a killing zone. Get pikes into the hands of everyone who can manage one; find other jobs like message-running and water-carrying for those who can’t. The surviving strike teams (us, and half of one other) will spend the next few days causing strategic mayhem. Siege equipment must burn, giants must be slain, blah blah blah.

But before all that gets started, Darya is going to have do do something about her nails. And those split ends simply must go. Constance could use a trim, too, come to think of it. Especially that back hair. Yeah, I know, but hey, half-orc and all.

Medrin: (to Darya and Constance) I don’t want to know what you two do in your tent.
Mal: Each other’s hair, apparently.

DM: I need d20 rolls from you three.

Housemate: Not us? Why?

Me: Because your conscience is clear and I don’t have one.

So, you’re flying your wounded selves on your giant owls from the Ghost Lord’s lair back to a city that’s about to invaded by ten thousand fanatical goblins and hobgoblins. What do you on the way? Stop to save some peasants whose farmstead is ablaze, of course. Except it wasn’t that simple.

A fairly hefty force was waiting for us, including those awful barghast things we’ve run into before. They have this habit of teleporting away instead of letting themselves be decently slaughtered.

I hate that.

And this time, it was with ominous purpose. As they were leaving, one fo them made a remark about knowing what they needed

I hate that part even more.

When it was all over, we discovered that the peasants had been dead for some time. We’d been set up; the force was there to gauge our effectiveness.

Words fail me when I try do describe how much I hate that. On the bright side, I felt a lot better about the group being wounded, down on spells, and tired, after that. I can only hope that they underestimate us.

Mind you, I don’t expect that, but it would be nice if something went in our favor.

So, as we head back to our probably-doomed employer, we have removed from action three out of four field commanders, and gained the neutrality, if not definite absence, of one of the opposition’s most dangerous allies. There is one more field commander, and his dragon, and his siege equipment, and his battle mages, mind benders, giants, and, oh yeah, the aforementioned ten thousand fanatical goblins and hobgoblins.

I am beginning to wonder if perhaps I have a head injury I haven’t told me about.

In which our merry band makes a great deal of trouble and no friends.

Yes, we were stupid enough to into the Ghost Lord’s lair.

Twice.

Urgon was of a notion to rid the world of the Ghost Lord; Darya was happy simply to keep him on the sidelines. Urgon got pretty insistent, though, causing Darya to throw up her hands and exclaim “Give him a lich and he has to scratch it.”

The reptilian receptionist turned out not to be a blue dragon, but some sort of intelligent, magic-using, and eminently cranky forty-foot-long demon with far too many legs and a spine like a slinky. It took some doing—

“If you can’t reach the back, bang the hell out of the sides,” someone suggested.

—but we dispatched it, and only two of our number were swallowed whole and had to cut their way out. Needless to say, we took its stuff and proceeded further into the lair. Blue shoes, matching blue handbag, and full set of blue luggage, YES!

Therein, we found goblin guards (now deceased), Madame Stormcaller (also now deceased), a recently-used sacrificial altar, complete with handy-dandy in-floor blood drain, causing much discussion;

GM: The room smells of decay and death.
Urgon: What an interesting smell you’ve discovered.
Darya: I’m going to call it “Jersey.”

And, in reference to the aforementioned oubliette

Medrin: Keep watch and make sure that nothing comes out of the hole.
Mal: What hole?
Darya: ANY hole!

We also found a shrine to Tiamat, strength-and-stamina draining feline ghosts (guess who found that out the hard way?), and a room full of fog, really unpleasant undead with screechy voices, a dire lion apparently content to stay at the bottom of a glowing pool, and some predictable art. Our mages had just long enough to look at the floating stone cube that displayed pictures of increasingly-agitated feline ghosts before we decided that a strategic retreat from the undead was in order.

Having already taken some damage from the ghosts by the time we reached the screechy undead, (”Take backup that isn’t me,” Darya muttered before they entered the room) we spent some time hiding in an extradimensional space in order to heal up and restore ourselves to our complete faculties and strategize. As undead don’t provide any decent footwear material, Darya suggested a simple, straightforward method; “beat it until it stops moving and then we can set it on fire.” Then, we went back in to confront the Horrid Tabernacle Chorus. We managed to hold them off long enough for one of our mages to attempt to destroy the floating cube. Mind you, this is the same mage who’d earlier said that he needed “boots of screaming and fleeing,” but nevermind that now.

That got the Ghost Lord’s attention, which was a damned good thing as all we’d wanted to do was talk to him in the first place. He wasn’t feeling terribly chatty, but we did manage to get him to listen to our offer. He was willing enough to stay neutral in the war in return for his phylactery, and Darya remembered to include safe passage for the group in the deal. That last part was agreed to only grudgingly, particularly as it applied to the mage who damaged the cube. Still, mission accomplished, and we left without further delay. We could hear extremely unpleasant things beginning to happen to deceased goblins and Madame Stormcaller on our way out. Darya’s not convinced that the Red Hand’s army is going to see that as remaining neutral, but hey, confusion to the enemy. So long as big, bad, and deadly leaves her allies alone, she’s happy to look the other way.

Cedric, our halfling priest, had some serious qualms about dealing with the undead that he hadn’t voiced strenuously until the critical moment. We managed to convince him to go along with it for now, but Darya owes him a postwar return trip to the lair in order to Deal with the Ghost Lord Once and for All.

Fine, whatever. When the time comes, she’ll go in, but she’ll go in with every priest, mage, and warrior that she can beg, borrow, beguile, bribe, or bully.

All we have to do now is survive the war. Or, as Anja said to Darya, “We’re off to kill red shoes!”

Anja: I’m NOT going down the oubliette.

Medrin: Why not?

Darya: Because it’s full of eeeeeuuuuuuw.

Business concluded with dwarves, our happy little band resupplied, gathered up their owls, and took to the air once more to go and deal with the Ghost Lord and his creepy minions.

Naturally, there were some obstacles along the way, and not just the discussion of the relative merits of a nonstick coating for armor (Don’t ask. Really.)

We bedded down in the barn of an abandonned farmstead. As usual, the attack came in the middle of the night. Constance and Mal were on watch, and while Mal does have decent night vision that comes with being half elvish, but he doesn’t seem to notice things until they’re practically wiggling on top of him.

GM: Roll a spot and listen check.
Mal: I don’t spot anything. I’m distracted by the half-orc’s ass.
Constance: I could break you, little man.
Mal: (Excited) Oooo!
Medrin: He might pay for that.
All: He has.

In addition to the hobgoblins we’re used to seeing, there were some sort of magic-using, Infernal, goblin-wolf hybrid things (”bargasts,” or somesuch; Urgon, our gnomish scout, keeps track of that sort of thing, not Darya) we’d never seen before, and frankly, that I could be perfectly happy never seeing again. Fortunately, the watch heard the attackers in time to warn the rest of us. However, we had camped inside a Rope Trick, so getting out was…well, something of a trick. Constance waded into a tussle with a pair of hobgoblins crouching behind a wall, and this began the Battle of Bad Die Rolls.

Just as a point of note, it’s better to leave the structure you’re sleeping (or standing) in before you set it on fire. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Darya dropped out of the Rope Trick, rapier drawn, and approached the unfamiliar creature.

Darya: This could end badly.
GM: For who?
Darya: For me!! Who else matters?!
Anja: Our elvish princess has spoken.

Most of the others follwed; Medrin and Cedric, one of the mages and our cleric, respectively, ducked into and out of the Rope Trick to fire off their spells. Fortunately, our mages had a couple of new spells they wanted to try out, and I must say that they worked pretty well. We had one of the three groups pinned down outside one barn door. Mal started that end of the barn on fire when one of his Scorching rays missed. Still, we were holding our own both in the barn and outside of it…even thought half of us could barely hit the side of the barn, at that point.

Then, one of the bargasts got a spell off…which completed destroyed Medrin’s morale [read, he seriously failed his saving throw]. Deciding that we were all going to die anyway, he flung a fireball at the other end of the barn (and, incidentally, Constance)…neatly trapping us inside of a burning building. Fortunatly, Cedric was there to drop-kick (literally) Medrin out into the barn, along with our packs. As the rest of us took the fight outside, Medrin and Cedric hauled our gear to relative cover. Constance had managed to dispatch most of the hobgoblins, and the bargasts opted for a strategic retreat. Darya, tired of Medrin’s wailing and whinging (after all, she is the group’s designated whiner!), stalked over, grabbed his lapels, and kissed him deeply.

Darya: Does that make you feel better?
Medrin: (Starts crying again) Noooooooooo.
Darya: Then quit whining, or I’ll do it again.

Fortunately for all of us, Medrin snapped out of it shortly thereafter. We shall never speak of this again.

After that, what could we do but travel on? We hopped on our owls and continued heading southwest. On the way, we saw a troop of thirty or so Red Hand troops heading for a village that appeared to still be evacuating. Medrin wanted to try out a new spell, called Vortex of Teeth, which is rather like an infantry Cuisinart in action. As the spell went off, a huge cloud of razor-winged, rainbow-colored butterflies completely pureed the entire troup, less one individual who was standing stock-still in the eye of the storm…and a great huge puddle of–well, you can imagine.

We landed our owls in a circle around him, and to amuse herself, Darya convinced him that he’d been spared by the Happy Butterfly God, who protected the village. She also convinced him that he probably ought to start rejoicing and spreading the word, because he wouldn’t want the Happy Butterfly God to think he was unhappy…would he? The hobgoblin nodded numbly, discarded his symbol of Tiamat, and wandered off into the wilderness.

Anja just rolled her eyes. “Can we get our owls out of the mess, now?” Medrin asked. Darya’s opinion is that if Tiamat is involved, it’s a reigious war…and why shouldn’t we fight it on all fronts?

Our Heroes arrived in the village down the road, apologized for the mess upwind, and began helping with the evacuation; mostly loading the wounded and infirm into wagons. In the course of all this, we discovered that some how, rumors of our activities—and those of the Happy Butterfly God—had preceded us. So far, the two remain unconnected, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. Our finishing touch on the strategic retreat was to set off a few large bonfires in the village, to make it look as though the troop we’d met earlier had arrived and accomplished its mission. Apparently, after finding all the booby traps we left in Draelin’s Ferry, the amry of the Red Hand isn’t taking any chances. With any luck, our feint will at least keep reinforcements out long enough for the villagers to get a good head start.

Finally, we arrived at the edge of the Thorn Wastes, and the Ghost Lord’s stronghold. Darya and Urgon stayed behind with the owls and the phylactery, while the rest of the group pressed on.

Let me tell you, the Ghost Lord takes his lion theme seriously. Ghostly lions flying around—and through—people and objects. A huge, lion-shaped fortress. Even a lion aroma. With more daring than sense, the advance team ventured into the fortress, where they had an entirely unsatisfying conversation not with the Ghost Lord, but with a very persistent, invisible reptilian(???) receptionist. We suspect, but did not actually see, that the hobgoblin bard known as Madame Stormcaller was there, eavesdropping. The long and the short of it is that Our Heroes were entirely unable to make contact with the Ghost Lord, and the conversation with what we’re pretty sure is a dragon hiding somewhere is about to get very, very unpleasant.

Tune in next time…