Ravings of a Textual Deviant

Things had been a little slow since we killed the pyrohydra. We were making our way toward a castle or fortress or whatever the appropriate name for such a structure is at this point in time in order to conquer it. Or at least, defeat its current resident, one Lord Garlac. Delta is a little bit unclear as to why we’ve undertaken this particular objective, but Demetrios assures her that it’s a good idea, so she is willing to go along for the entertainment value, if nothing else.

Skulax-and-Diogi (Kerberos’s two-headed little brother) also thinks it’s a good idea, but he thinks that about anything that presents him with an opportunity for food or killing things.

We stayed a few days in the town so that Demetrios could work in the forge a bit and Timandra the nymph could have a “festival” (about which the townsmen were far more excited than the townswomen). Demetrios made some nifty weapons and armor for all of us, including magical, leopard-hide bikini armor for the nymph. He still can’t believe he actually consented to do such a thing, and probably blames Delta for introducing Timandra to the concept of “bikini”.

Well, how do you explain the concept of “tanning” without mentioning a bikini? Frankly, Demetrios should be glad that Delta doesn’t mind a few tan lines.

Distractions and fashion statements aside, we are now making our way westward. Things were fairly uneventful until we literally stumbled across a bear trap. Fortunately, most of us were flying at the time and nobody actually fell in, thanks to Demetrios’s quick reflexes.

Things went far less well for the hunters who had dug the bear trap. Delta was about to launch into a stern lecture on maintaining safe thoroughfares, but before she could really get going, six of the seven were incinerated by Demetrios and the last one was snuffed by the nymph’s lightning bolt. That pretty much put an end to her spiel on the importance of infrastructure maintenance, as what’s the point without an audience. Apparently, Delta was the only one who had realized that they were more-or-less harmless normal humans, which led to the following discussion:

Delta: What have we learned about hasty incinerations?
Skulax-and-Diogi: It’s fun!
Timandra: It’s easy!
Demetrios: It works.

Delta spent the next few minutes quietly chanting what will probably be her favorite mantra for a while, “It’s not my karma…”

After finding the trap, we did get to go talk to a bear for a while, (and as an editorial aside, our DM’s ability to role-play animals is both exceptional and amusing) to do our bit to promote peaceful human-ursine relations. Given that the only bear hunters in the neighborhood had recently been exterminated, Delta is optimistic on that front, at least.

Shortly thereafter, we found the village from whence the bear hunters had departed. Turns out that the very Evil Overlord with whom we are planning to do battle forcibly recruited half the men from the village for his army a while back. The other half, of course, had met an unfortunate fate whilst bear-hunting…not that we bothered to convey that particular fact to the remaining villagers. There was a long conversation with the lone remaining adult male villager that Delta missed out on, as she’d transformed herself into a two-headed cat and led Skulax-and-Diogi on an extended game of chase-tag, in order to keep him distracted from the fact that villagers are both eminently killable and edible. Fortunately, some squirrels and a deer made the ultimate sacrifice instead.

So now, Demetrios has a major case of the guilts; Timandra has used up all of Delta’s suntan lotion; Skulax-and-Diogi has eaten a few squirrels and settled down for a nap; and Delta has discovered that if one is going to eat raw squirrels in two-headed cat form, it’s probably best to remain in that same form until the digestive process is complete.

Fiancé and I have started a new game, run by a longtime pal and GM, in which all the players are in a Hercules-and-Xena type universe, although it’s being run as D&D 3.5. All of us, for one reason or another, have been kicked out of our home planes and can’t go back. Our cast of characters includes Deception; a dragonkin dwarven smith, Demetrios, who’s the demigod of organized labor; Alcion, the Dark and Eldritch Redistributor of Wealth; Kerberos’s little brother, who only has two heads, but drools fire; a naïve nymph; and my character, Delta, who is the Fates’ younger half-sister, a bard/sorceress and the semi-goddess of anachronism. (“Anyone can be a demigoddess, sweetie, but who wants to be just another roadside shrine on the road to Delphi? A semi-goddess is new; it’s different; it’s a marketing strategy!”) Delta has an ergonomically-correct lime-green hiking backpack that occasionally produces things like velociraptor claws, or a sheet of Hello Kitty temporary tattoos.

So far, we’ve gotten everyone introduced to each other, and I have had great fun confusing everyone. The group’s general intent is to become heroes and, more importantly, do enough good deeds to be able to get back home. So far, Demetrios has healed an orphan and gotten him an apprenticeship at the local forge, and Kerberos’s little brother is currently depleting the local wildlife. Delta’s goal is a little different; she wants to travel, become a performance artist, and find herself. Her main accomplishment so far is confusing everyone, and she really misses margarita night with Kassandra, as they understand each others’ problems very well indeed.

Oh, and we killed a 12-headed pyrohydra. It was pretty nifty, actually, and Delta wrote bad haiku about it.

Hammer from the sky
A taste of winter’s fury
Hydra is no more

[Translation: Demetrios pummelled the stuffing out of it and Alcion finished it off with an ice-storm spell, while all Delta managed to do was break a nail]