[net.games.frp] A Campaign Story

hakanson@orstcs.UUCP (11/05/83)

#N:orstcs:28500004:000:4062
orstcs!hakanson    Nov  4 15:48:00 1983


Yep, I finally found the time to write about an adventure that I may
never forget....

It was not a terrifically interesting adventure, just a group of
characters rummaging through a dungeon;  the average level of the
party was probably 4 (oops, sorry -- this is AD&D, folks), and we
were just winding down, searching a bunch of empty rooms with obscure
articles in them.  In one room we discovered a small box made of some
kind of thick parchment, with strange runes on the side which spelled
out M-A-R-L-B-O-R-O, a meaningless word in a forgotten tongue.

I was running one of my favorite characters, Sciata, a druid.  She
was doing her usual thing, which is trying to keep alive, as the
rest of the party checked the box for traps and opened it up to
discover some small cartons with tiny paper tubes in them.  At first,
we speculated that they were scroll cases for pixies, or something.
Most of the party had fun thinking up cute purposes ("Dwarf tampons!
THUNK -- Shut up, you &%@!!, etc.).  Then our brilliant magic user
made the statement, "I say they are miniature Wands of Orcus."

Dead silence.  The rattle of the GM's percentile dice.  A cry of
glee from his direction as he reached for the Monster Manual.
Sciata thought to herself, "Oh, brownies!" and began to compose a doozy
of a prayer (she does that in times of trouble).  The fighter mentioned
sacrificing the MU to the Big O, and we all started checking our meager
lists of magic items (mine was empty).

Needless to say, things picked up rather suddenly.  The room grew
very hot, and we couldn't open the door.  Sciata Stone-Shaped around
the hinges, and the door fell out into the Abyss, where there were
all kinds of flames.  Meanwhile, a whole pack of skeletons showed
up, and the cleric turned them.  Whew!  Then came the zombies, which
were also turned, and then came the shadows.  Oh well, my prayer was
effective enough that 'ol Silvanus enchanted my scimitar to be +1 and
+2 vs. undead.  Yay!  So the poor wimpy Sciata with armor class 7 had
to get in there and slug it out, but we all finally beat up the shadows.

Resting, healing, and then -- you guessed it -- vampires.  Out came
the garlic, and we thanked the cleric for that Protection from Evil
spell, so everybody without garlic hid behind him!  And through all
this, do you know what the poor paladin was doing, him with the 18/ugly%
strength and +2 holy sword or whatever?  The poor guy was dumbfounded,
just standing there, cowering behind the cleric.  It seems the player
was sure we were all going to die, and didn't know what to do.  Gees!

Somehow, none of us lost any levels.  And although Sciata got charmed
once by the vampire she was hacking on, she managed to shake it off
(high wisdom is good for something, after all), and even killed one
of those four nasty vampires.  Luckily, we finally got the paladin to
start hacking on them, and we somehow overcame the rest of the vampires.
Again luckily, the Big O was tired of toying with us, and evidently we'd
made a good enough showing of ourselves that he spared us from roasting
or slavery or whatever.  Perhaps some 1st level character showed up
for a Kill Orcus contest, or something.  Whatever it was, we were suddenly
returned to the dungeon amid thunderclaps, etc. which brought poor
Sciata from the 2 hit points she had left down to 0.  Boy, was that hairy!

Ever since then, Sciata has had quite an abhorrence of undead creatures.
They're so ... unnatural & all, you know.  At least nobody teases her
about not fighting anymore.  She's sixth level, now, and nobody much
teases her at all -- obviously you can see that our campaigns tend toward
the lower levels, with not much magic floating around.  In fact, she is
my highest level character (unless you include the NPC's in MY world).

Well, enough for now.  Perhaps later I'll tell you another druid
story -- I call it "The Battle of the Network Druids."  Stay tuned,
and keep those stories coming.

Marion Hakanson		{hp-pcd,teklabs}!orstcs!hakanson	(Usenet)
			hakanson@{oregon-state,orstcs}		(CSnet)