I've been running a campaign for two years now, and one of the biggest trials the players had to overcome was stopping the cruel experiments and workings of a wizard possessed by a spirit obsessed with pain - turning him into a sort of arcane Count Rugen.

He had launched a massive raid on the metropolis the PCs had set up headquarters in, and after seeing him abduct 150-or-so people for his experimentation, my players decided to chase him all the way across the country to his glacial mountain fortress - where they were promptly imprisoned and tortured as his test subjects. The wizard of the group, bombarded with illusions of his friends and daughter being murdered, muttered "May you know the pain you cause," and he responded that this was the whole point, before scattering the PCs randomly across the globe...

>>16585547

The mage had shaken their resolve, badly injured them, kidnapped and tortured their friends, and made them question their purpose in their quest at all, but gradually they came back together, and after strengthening themselves and devising a plan to free his subjects, set out once more for the fortress. The party (and their players) hated him; it was as much a journey of vengeance for the players as it was for the characters, it seemed.

When finally they reached his fortress, they found that the doors and archways within could ONLY be passed through by someone who was in great pain. They figured it made sense for the home of the pain mage, and realized it made sense as to why he kidnapped so many - he needed "keys". Regardless, through some carefully made self-injuries, they made their way through the fortress slowly, found the prisoners, and made their way back to the foyer where a series of portals were installed... and found the pain mage waiting for them.

What followed was a lengthy battle, the party divided between protecting the prisoners, ushering them out of the portal, and fighting off the pain mage's minions and agony-inducing spells. The battle was only concluded by the self-sacrifice of Lamp, the party's wizard, whose death is chronicled in some other jpeg floating around /tg/, I believe. It was cathartic for all the players to finally defeat the one villain that had caused them the most anger and sadness, and for all the characters, it was a pivotal moment in the quest.

Afterwards...

>made your players HATE them

I once had them encounter a Sleazy-as-Hell Gnomish Merchant who sold them a ton of malfunctioning or downright cursed magic items for a 90% discount.

After they figured out what had happened, they all clamored to make him the new BBEG.

The player's thought processes were pretty funny to watch, though. "A +5 Dancing Sword for only 2000 GP? Something's fishy here... BUT HOW COULD I RESIST A DEAL THAT GREAT!?"

Several months IC and OOC after the battle, the party had returned to the central city - the one raided by the pain mage, now returned to normal daily life.

A noblewoman, having heard of the group's influence and power, came to them with a request; Her husband had been wandering for months, and before his departure, had left her with instructions to retrieve a lock of his hair from his safety deposit box, and from it, resurrect him.

The party, after a couple trials and tasks, eventually gained access to the deposit box, finding in it a lock of hair, and a portrait of a couple being married.

The noblewoman and the pain mage.

The party was at a loss. To revive the man they hated, and who had caused the death of one of their number was unthinkable, but so too was keeping this woman from her husband. Eventually, dreading the outcome, they returned to the woman with the lock of hair, and prepared the ritual...

>>16585797

But the ritual failed. No body sprang from the lock of hair. They immediately felt a sense of unease, unsure as to why the spell had failed, but the noblewoman breathed a sigh of relief. She told them this could only mean one thing -

- that he was still alive.

As the party processed this, she pulled out a brilliant white mantle, folding it neatly and offering it to the group as payment for their services, saying "He made this for me, but... I suspect you would be able to use it better than I could..."

They were hesitant to accept such a gift, but asked what it was regardless. Her response was as follows.

>>16585856

>chatlogs from session

"It's called May You Know. It's - It's a bit silly, really." On his birthday, I... wrote my husband a poem. And, um. That was the title."
"And he told me -" she laughs, embarrassed - "He told me he was so inspired by it that it brought him to make this for me."
"He knows I work with the hospitals and temples, you see... I, ah, end up spending a lot of my time healing."
"And he told me that one day... if I were in danger and he were not around to help me... this would give me the power I needed to help everyone."

"It - it's more magical than it looks, you see. He said it allows me to use a healing spell of great magnitude... and then, if I take a moment to concentrate... I can take all the hurt and pain that I've healed from those around me... and send it back to the person that CAUSED them pain. And the only time I ever came close to using it was on that day - the day of the raid. Our townhouse is a spacious place, and many people came in for shelter - somehow, our house managed to completely avoid the attackers' attentions... gods be praised."

>>16585920

After she had left, there was a long silence before the party's cleric finally spoke.

"I suppose now we know how he passed through those doors unaided."

>>16586007
>>16585920
>>16585856
>>16585797
>>16585700
>>16585547


All of that awesome story with no further info.... damn you anon.

I created an original world, that was very different from your average fantasy fare. There were humans, but none of the other standard races, metal was heavily restricted, and other things. I figured that amnesia would be a great way to explain why the characters had as little knowledge as the players, so I had the game start out where they were captured by slavers and had their minds wiped for slave programming.

Anyway, a couple of sessions later, they get into town, and one of the players tells me (OOC) that he wants his backstory to be that he was a bloodsmith: A person who infuses their blood into his work to make it better. I say sure and write up the adventure: All the bloodsmiths say that they use their own blood, but they actually use the blood of others. A lethal amount of blood. His character tried to join their order before, but ran away when he heard the price, and now was on their collective shit list.

As the players are wandering around town, they run into one of the blood smiths, who was the friend of said character. He said "You bastard! I convinced the smiths to forget about you as long as you never came back, but you have been seen! If you cared about Suzy so much, why did you come back?" Suzy was the character's daughter, and as part of the ritual to join the blood smiths, he was supposed to have sacrificed her. According to the smiths, you can't be trusted to forge a person's life away unless you personally know the cost. The player had to decide what to do: Go through with the ritual, or run away again, and likely let Suzy die anyway.

I had a second plot arc going on during the session, so I took the spotlight away and gave him time to think. Half an hour later, he still hadn't made a decision, so I finished up the other plot line. Finally he handed me a note.

>>16586147

Eh, not sure what more info there is to give there.

>>16586147
As the player of the wizard who sacrificed himself, I can provide his side of the story, if you like. A goodly anon compiled it into a storytime image.

>>16585489
Are you hacking stephs computer daily to try and freak me out?

You keep posting things she sends me specifically. (And just me, she says)

It's been going on for over two months. Stop. I lost count at 32 images you've started threads with images she sends me. This must be like 40 by now. Just stop.

>>16586231

That comes up on a google image search of "holding hands", dood.

ACTUALLY I AM SECRETLY STEPH

bump, I'd like to see some of these

k'bump

You don't know hate until you hear the mage's guild ask you for an appointment.


EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TIME YOU WENT IN THERE.
WHICH WAS EVERY GODDAMN SESSION BECAUSE TELEPORTATION

I'm kind of a pussy for drama so I tend to make most of my people get into these big emotional situations, but I try to play them well so everyone's having a good time with the scene. All I've got is Dresden war stories, though, so I won't bore you with them. (Unless you ask.)

Still, I was planning to have a passive villain in my game, but fuck it, I love the morally complex guys that get people fired up, so I'm probably gonna tinker with that some more.

I have a love story of incest and mindfuckery. Anyone want to hear?

>>16586884
If its character incest, then yeah. If player incest, then no.

>>16586959

Dont worry, character incest.

I was DMing a Campaign based of Stuart Hill's book 'Cry of The Icemark'. Long story shot, a pseudo-Viking country gets invaded by pseudo-roman empire. The Manly-King of Redbearded manliness goes down in a battle of flaming glory and leaves what's left of the war effort to his children. The PC's.

The Notable PC's for this story are:
Raginhilda (Or Ragn), the youngest, a seventeen year old girl, first level Ranger.
Derek, A twenty-one year old man, 2nd level Fighter.

Before the game I asked each player to come up with a huge secret for their character. Most were ok, Ragn's player turns to me with a trollface and slides a note across.

"Ragn is in love with her half-brother Derek."

I looked across the table and knew this would become an epic tale.

WELL HEY THERE.

If it's story time, then I've got some new material.

The last time I did a campaign writeup, I was piss ass drunk and the campaign was not that great, and I was leaving it soon. A friend of mine (Jay) was starting up a new campaign (pathfinder), and I wanted to be there for that one instead.

Jay's campaign had a Faerun setting, and I don't know shit about Faerun so I just ran with it. Since they already had a session before I joined, he told me about the party:

The Rouge Bandit: A human rogue that dons a costume of crimson when burglarizing. His decidedly less interesting normal-person alter-ego was the elder brother of Alphonse and the son of Tim. The Rouge Bandit would make a point of running away in cowardice before secretly transforming into his bandit costume and returning for heroics.

Alphonse: Alphonse is 12. And he's a dick. A life without rules has turned him into a bitter twat of a child, and he constantly belittles and complains about everything (The player does this in a high pitched mocking voice. It's hilarious). His trademark line is "Fuck this, this is HORSE SHIT". Alphonse idolizes the Rouge Bandit, but hates his older brother (unaware that they are the same person), and hates his father (Tim) for leaving him alone most of his life. Alphonse is also a rogue.

Tim: Tim is the munchkin of the group, known for playing broken as fuck characters. This time around, he's made some super-rogue-wizard hybrid character. He plays his character wholly self-serving, and never fights if he can avoid it. Most of the time, he travels with the team in secret, taking alternate routes and hiding the entire way. If a situation seems too dire, he has no qualms leaving everyone else to die.

So basically everyone's playing a rogue, and the party is pretty evil.

But then I got the idea of making Captain Falcon as my character.

>>16587041

The campaign progessed with many other moments of emotional importance as the royal family galavanted around the countryside recruiting all manner of crazy monsters to the war effort. Ragn befriended a Werewolf king and Derek proceeded to overshadow the eldest sibling (A twenty four year old Valkyrie-chick who's player has since left) in all manners of leadership.

Ragn was constantly close to Derek, she was his confidant with his own secret (Unlawfully raiding a neighboring friendly country due to bloodlust) and she spent many battles by his side.

During one battle, Ragn was dropped into negatives. Derek completely raged, and with no regard for character safety, proceded to murder an entire formation of roman pikemen with his best bros all to save his sister.

>>16587083

Oh shit, it's happening again.

Bracing for awesome.

>>16587083
>But then I got the idea of making Captain Falcon as my character

Oh god yes.

I'll spin you a tale Gentlemen.
The tale of Marshall Bishop.
Mr.Bishop was a simple man with simple thoughts.
Philosophy was not his forte.
Yes, Bishop was a problem solver.
What sort of problems, you ask?
Well, Practical problems. For example, how are you going to steal that dragons prized jewel right under his nose?
Stealth and cunning.
If that doesn't work, betray someone. Betray anyone.

I was part of a party and had the pleasure of traveling with Mr.Bishop. The half-elf seemed like the scum of our dragon occupied realm. He honestly came off as the worst sort of player charter you could imagine.

Until the Castle of Bermon.
Our BEBG had laid out such a carefully planned trap. So detailed, so well engineered for each of us that it would have been our downfall.

If not for Mr.Bishop.

My mage had spent many an hour deep into the night talking with Bishop, learning about him, slowly building trust with a character who had never been trusted, never been loved, never had someone to look out for him.

I personally think that's why he trigger his own trap. A spring loaded lock with a trap for a lock-pick. A poison needle waiting to strike on the end of a spring. Knowing that the poison that entered his veins would kill him. He saved every other member of our party.

In the end, Bishop was a greedy, backstabbing, little thief who traded everything for nothing more than the thanks of a young and foolish mage.

While he lay dying in my mage's arms Bishop gave to my mage a ring with his insignia upon it.

A few campaigns later, A mage wearing a green robe showed himself to new travelers, new heroes. It had been many a year. And so, an old and wise mage aided the heros. And even as the mage died for his cause he carried with him a silver ring, with the markings of "M.B." upon it.

>>16587083
So here's how you make Captain Falcon. First you ask the DM if 3.5 material is fair game. He allows it. Then you can move on to step 2.

Complete Adventurer gives the feat Ascetic Knight, which lets you stack monk and paladin levels for purposes of unarmed strike damage and smites.

Next you replace the flurry of blows feature with something called Decisive Strike, which is a full round action that gives you a -2 on hit, but DOUBLES DAMAGE when you do hit.

THEN you take power attack, and multiclass into monk and paladin (but we were evil, so I went the route of Blackguard base class--it's on the pathfinder srd, legit).

So everything then reads like this: Falcon Punch- Full Round Action, make an attack at -3, If it hits, you deal (d6+[STR]+[3]+[SMITE])*2.
This averages to around ~21 damage a round (at level 2) as long as you hit. (Which makes sense because it's bound to miss because its the fucking FALCON PUNCH).

So into this wierdo party enters F. Zhaero, a former racing boat captain turned evil monk-paladin of hextor. He lost his racing boat after losing a race, and now he's here to impose awful law upon the denizens of this city.

>>16587091

Finally it happened, Derek was eaten by a T-Rex. I love random encounters.

Ragn (and her character) were torn up. Ragn broke down crying on the field of battle as the dinosaur thrashed in its death throes.

And then, Derek promptly cut his way out of it with a spiked fist, like a baus.

Ragn ran up to him and in full view of everyone else, kissed him. Not as a sister either.

-=-=-=-

Ragns character looked so proud of herself as I pointed out to Derek's character all the hints throughout the campaign.

He had be oblivious. His brain melted.

I lol'd.

>>16587146

pfffhahahahaha wow

>>16587146
The story REALLY begins as I meet the party because we are all working for a crime boss called Barney.

Barney is basically a New Jersey mafioso who used to be a lot more powerful than he currently is. He talks like this: "The fuck you want me to do about it? That'sa what I pay yous for. Eehhhyyyy, I'm Barney!"

At any rate, Barney has some territory problems. We're currently in the market district of town, where Barney has his shithouse of magical crap (DM's description: "It's Faerun, everything is magical"). Across the way is Reektown, where it stinks like an open sewer, and goblins live there. Next to Reektown is Orctown, which is populated by (you guessed it) orcs.

The orcs have a regional leader based in the city, name of Buzzgrob, who commands them. The goblins have no formal leadership; but EVERYONE in the city pays tribute to Gaston, who is the crime kingpin that runs the place.

So Barney's got problems with goblins and orcs on his territory, and tells us to get the fuck out and take care of it.

Alphonse starts arguing with Barney:

"Fuck you Barney, you ain't paid us for last time. This is HORSE SHIT. I will ROLL you for your organs and not even GIVE A SHIT"
"Ehyyyy, you little turd, get walkin I ain't got time for your today. I'm Barney!"

This continues for a while, with Alphonse having a witty retort to everything Barney says. It gets to the point where Barney says he's going to take a shit, and if anyone is still here when he gets back, they're getting stabbed.

So we all make our way to Reektown, to enforce some protection on Barney's turf.

>>16587178
Not bad, though was half-expecting a torrid love affair. Props for not going into ero-rp territory.

>>16587199
>but EVERYONE in the city pays tribute to Gaston
Because no-one's slick as Gaston?

>>16587199
So we make introductions on our way to Reektown. The Rouge Bandit tells me he's an aspiring baker. Alphonse calls me a big dumb muscly fuckhead (+5 strength baby). Tim slinks off into the shadows and follows us in secret.

So we get down to Reektown, and spot a storefront being ransacked by goblins. There's a dead human corpse hanging out of the window with a knife in his back. The Rouge Bandit runs away, feigning tears. Alphonse and I hide, using barrels and other shit in the market square as cover. Tim is not with the main group, but across the square.

Alphonse quips "TYPICAL. MY USELESS BROTHER IS RUNNING AWAY LIKE A GIANT PUSSY AGAIN"

We see two goblins are posed as sentries (not very good ones because they were looking into the shop), each with torches (It's dusk now). They have not noticed us. Alphonse creeps up behind one, when out of nowhere the Rouge Bandit appears at the back of the other goblin.

They both double team the goblins in a surprise round and catch the torches before they fall to the ground. I run up to them and hide behind the door.

A goblin walks out of the shop's door, carrying a box of stolen goods. He sees his two dead comrades, Alphonse, The Rouge Bandit, and then Me.

FALCOWN.... PAWWWWWWNCH!

I deal about double the goblin's health in damage, and knock him twenty feet backwards into the shop. We hear shocked chattering coming from inside.

>>16587247
No-one swindles peasants like Gaston!

>>16587268
>No one steals like Gaston!
>No one shivs like Gaston!

minotaur barbarian found his tribe, and fought for control of it.

By the end of it people were in tears, and I had chosen to stay, to make my tribe strong as they should be.

If we had been the Captain Planets kids, I would have been the fuzzy angry one who embodied "Heart"

I am terrible at telling stories, so that's all you get.

>>16587263
(The Rouge Bandit is now in costume, by the way)

The rogues and I enter the shop, and we make short work of the goblin burglars. Alphonse attempts to collect the organs of the dead goblins, but I remind him that nobody fucking wants goblin organs.

The Rouge Bandit sets about exploring the busted up shop. It appears to be some kind of antique store, with most of the stuff having been removed. Then he gets an idea: "Let's take this place over and make it our base of operations. I can finally open that bakery I always wanted!"

Tim shows up and we start clearing out the shop to make room for lots of baking equipment. Over the course of the next few days, we open "Boats & Oats", a bakery which combines the Rouge Bandit's knowledge of baking with my knowledge of sailing, my only applicable skill.

We also find a hidden passageway behind a bookcase in the shop, which leads to a network of underground tunnels under the city (used for smuggling shit, Barney knows of them). We clear out the tunnel area and put a door in the tunnel so nothing unwanted comes our way from underground.

As for the goblins: we mounted their heads and organs on entrails and put them in the middle of the market square, to let them know that we mean fucking business.

So fuck you goblins, do not fucking mess with our goddamn bakery.

Now on to the orc problem.

>>16587306
(mounted goblin heads and entrails on SPIKES, sorry about that!)

>>16587287
No-one lies like gaston or cheats like gaston or mugs like gaston!

>>16587306
So next we gotta take care of the Orc problem.

Now, it appears as though the Orcs are unionizing. Before, they were just dumb laborers and mercenaries, but now they're turning into conniving businessmen under the leadership of Buzzgrob. They've started to push over some lesser crime operations and in the process, have pissed off the wrong people, including Barney.

So I want to attack this problem by going after them legally. I want to expose some fault that orcs have overlooked and bring down the wrath of Gaston, without getting our own hands dirty in the process.

As we all argue about how best to deal with the orcs, Tim sneaks off and disguises himself as a half-orc. He enters Orctown and does some crafty diplomacy rolls to learn more about the area from other orcs (who don't see through his disguise).

Tim then exits Orctown, disguises himself as a human, and finds the nearest guard. He tells the guard "Come quick, some orcs are beating up a guard!"

Tim then lures the guard into an alleyway, kills him, steals the clothes, and dumps the body. Tim infiltrates an Orc inn and plants the clothes in someone's chest.

Then he calls the tip line, and suddenly Gaston's guards are swarming Orctown.

Tim returns to us, who are still planning how to solve the orc problem. He sits down at the table and says "It's taken care of."

question. does decisive strike stack with critical multipliers?

>>16587385
So we spend the next couple of days building our Bakery brand, going around selling sandwiches, and repelling whatever goblins come our way.

We become known around the district as "Those goblin hating guys that run the bakery"

Having solved both of Barney's 'problems', we returned to him and demanded a reward.

"Uhhhh hey guys, wonderful job on those goblins, ya really showed them, but we got issues now, see. Goblin shaman, very dangerous, just moved in and heeyyyyyy I'm Barney!"

Alphonse explodes "Fuck you Barney I don't work for free! Get your hands out of my pockets before I roll you for your organs! Where's our money? This is HORSE SHIT."

"Heyyy hey! Looks the goblin shamans' the real deal here you take care of him I'll give ya LOTSA GOLD, ya hear? Eeeeehy I'm Barney."

We collectively give Barney the finger and decide to go kill the goblin shaman.

So in plain daylight, we make our way down to Reektown, and it's like a scene from the wild west. People know who we are. They know we're the goblin kills. Goblins are running into houses, locking doors, and shutting windows. The place is now deserted once we're on the scene.

I say "We're never gonna find the guy this way." I walk up to the nearest house and say "Open the door."

"RAAAHGHGHRRHGHHGARLLRLLRLRHG!" is the noise from the other side

"Speak common or the door's coming down."

"RAAAHGHHRRLLLRLGHRHL FUCK YOU RHALLRHRHLG"

Wrong answer.

FALCOWN... PAWNCH!

Mr. STORYTIEM, I love Alphonse. And Tim. I love them both.

>This is HORSE SHIT I will roll you for your organs and not even GIVE A SHIT

The Falcon Punch is just gravy on top, seriously.

>>16587414
Yes it does. That actually happened too.

>>16587437
I blow the door off it's hinges. Tim decides that this is the time to not be with the party, and runs off to take cover across the empty street.

As I walk into the room, I see a goblin mother and her two children huddling in the corner, when suddenly I'm jumped by the father, who was hiding on the opposite side of the doorway. He starts stabbing me in the kidney.

I wind up another Falcon Punch and decapitate him. The mother goblin screams and comes at me with a knife.

Alphonse and Rouge Bandit enter the room and start attacking her.

BUT NOBODY CAN HIT HER. IT'S A FUCKING AVALANCHE OF 1-5 ON D20 ROLLS. HOLY SHIT WE FAILED.

After four rounds of us being unable to roll above a 6, and taking multiple knife wounds from the goblin, the Rouge Bandit points a crossbow at her children and tells her to stop.

That.... was not a good move.

The goblin mother goes ballistic, and CRITS him. The Rouge Bandit falls unconscious, but I finally manage to hit the mother and kill her in one hit.

The two children bolt for the door, but I manage to grab one.

"WHERE IS THE GOBLIN SHAMAN"

"RAHGHGHRHGLLGAH!"

"FUCK THIS."

I spike the goblin child into the ground like a touchdown, and start assessing the damage.

Alphonse looks out at the running goblin child, and sees a mob of goblins coming down the street, led by what is obviously the Goblin Shaman.

>>16587471
Alphonse yells: "THIS IS HOOOOOOOOOOORSE SHIIIIIIIIT"
and takes off running down the street out of Reektown.

I sling The Rouge Bandit over my shoulder and go to see what all the fuss is about. As I exit the doorway, I see the mob of goblins about 30 feet away.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

I attempt to Forrest Gump the fuck out of there, carrying the Rouge Bandit. Tim is still hiding, undetected, across the street. In this time, he has disguised himself as a half orc.

I start being pelted with spears and rocks, and finally: "Roll a will save."

"Uh... 9.... Shit."

"Shit is right, the shaman hits you with Enfeebling Ray."

I can no longer bear The Rouge Bandit over my shoulder and move freely.

Then we're both hit with Sleep.

Tim attempts to run out and say "That's The Rouge Bandit, there's a big bounty on his head if he's turned in alive!" but the goblins do not heed him, and tell his dirty orc ass to get the fuck out of Reektown.

When I wake up, I'm tied to a stake in the middle of Reektown, as goblins are laying kindling around my feet. Opposite me, similarly tied up, is the Rouge Bandit.

The crowd parts, and the goblin child who got away earlier emerges, carrying the body of his dead brother. He lays it at my feet and lights the kindling.

As for The Rouge Bandit, the eldest crone of a goblin unceremoniously beats him to death with a cane as he's tied to the stake.

>>16587515
>The crowd parts, and the goblin child who got away earlier emerges, carrying the body of his dead brother. He lays it at my feet and lights the kindling.

WHAT THE HELL? YOU DIED?

>>16587515
Now you'd think that my comrades would have ran to get help.
Perhaps the city guard...
Perhaps Barney...
Perhaps a dashing rescue attempt...

But nah, they just chilled back at the bakery. Tim quietly mourned the loss of his "idiot son". Alphonse, however, believed that The Rouge Bandit escaped alive: "He's The Rouge Fucking Bandit! Goblins can't kill him!".

Alphonse also believes that the Rouge Bandit did a good deed by letting his brother die, because his brother was "useless".

So now me and the guy formerly playing The Rouge Bandit are out of characters. Because I didn't have another character prepared, the DM let me reuse my Captain Falcon character for one more shot (but it had to be different).

SO ENTER GANONDORF, THE NEXT MONK SENT FROM THE MONASTERY TO IMPOSE AWFUL LAW ON THIS CITY.

The Rouge Bandit ended up making a fighter with a ridiculous AC. I forget his name, so we'll just call him Arthur. Arthur is a former city guard that has become alcoholic and destitute after his wife left him and he lost his job. He does odd jobs for Barney.

So my new character (Daniel Gorf) arrives in the city, and starts asking around if people have seen his predecessor, whom he is supposed to meet and team up with.

Danny Gorf's search leads him to Boats & Oats bakery, where a local man informs him:

"Yeah, I seen that guy. He works at that bakery over there what hates them goblins."

At this point we all fell into hysterical laughter at the fact that we were recognized around the city as "Those goblin racists from that bakery." At any rate, our party met up AGAIN and I learned about how poor Captain Falcon met his fate.

>>16587596
Now we meet up with Barney again, and after Alphonse and Barney have it out, we conclude that he'll pay us once we kill the Goblin Shaman.

So we head to the bakery for the night, resolving to take care of it in the morning. Alphonse, Arthur, and I sleep in the street level room, while Tim sleeps in the hidden underground tunnel (which Arthur and I don't know about because Alphonse and Tim decided not to tell us).

Suddenly our windows are broken in by torches, and we hear chattering outside. A posse of goblins, and the Goblin Shaman have come to kill our evil bakery.

A goblin attempts to rush through the broken window, and gets WARLOCK PUNCHED... but I happen to CRIT. This goblin gets his fucking world rocked for 60 (15*2*2) damage from my level 3 self. Alphonse wakes and immediately opens the bookcase to run down into the tunnels; he screams "THIS IS HORSE SHIT."

Arthur however, comes to my side and we begin fighting the goblins together. Alphonse runs past the sleeping Tim, and he continues to yell "THIS IS HORSE SHIT!" Tim is roused, but takes his time getting up and out. Alphonse runs through the tunnels and exits in the alley behind the bakery.

Meanwhile Arthur and I are punching and slashing our way through the goblins, but the goblin shaman is kicking our asses pretty hard. Alphonse stealthily heads around the fighting, and sneak attacks the goblin shaman. Three years later, Tim FINALLY gets out of the basement, and contributes to combat with a magic missile.

As we get the Goblin Shaman low, he drinks a potion of gaseous form, and drifts away.

We all collectively go "OH NO YOU DON'T." and chase the gas through the streets of the city, like idiots.

We encounter more goblins along the way, and finally fucking kill the shaman once he re-materializes, but I get knocked unconscious during the fighting.

>>16587690
Now this next session, Tim wasn't there, it was just myself, Arthur, and Alphonse.

When I come to, we decide to run up on Barney and demand payment.

He still won't pay.

I take out my glowing purple Ganondorf fists, and slam them into the ground, issuing a challenge to Barney; Arthur has my back.

Barney's goons charge us, followed by Barney himself. I oneshot a goon with a punch, while Alphonse and Arthur take out another goon. I land a Warlock Punch on Barney, but then he walks over to me, and crits me in the fucking face. I'm three points away from death, and try to make a stunning strike on Barney; but fail.

It's looking like Barney's going to kill the party. He hits me one more time, and takes me past negative 10. Thus ends Daniel Gorf, I'm dead again.

Barney nearly kills Arthur before Tim and Alphonse miraculously take him down.

Alphonse immediately cuts Barney's head off and goes around collecting on Barney's debts (Barney's severed head being a powerful intimidating factor). Arthur then decides to command Barney's estate, and releases Barney's remaining guards from servitude (Guards are expensive).

When Arthur and Alphonse meet up again, Arthur begins chastising Alphonse for being a rude little chickenshit child.

Alphonse responds by calling Arthur a washed up old faggot that couldn't please his wife.

Arthur then takes Alphonse and says "That's it Alphonse. You need some discipline! We're going on some high adventure!"

I begin rolling a new character.

Archiving this shit for great justice.

>>16587761
Hey bro, when you're done posting your awesome-as-fuck-story, could you post a character sheet? I have got to try that shit out.

>>16587761
So enter Smokey: the middle-aged drug-growing ranger who lives on the outskirts of town.

Arthur tells Alphonse, "I know a guy who can be our guide to some HIGH ADVENTURE, he lives outside of town in a little hut."

Alphonse retorts: "Some fuckin' recluse lives out in the middle of nowhere and we're gonna trust him to guide us?"

So they arrive at my little drug hut outside of town, and Alphonse is being incredibly rude as usual. I invite him to mellow out and smoke the peace pipe, which Arthur says is a big no no. Alphonse doesn't want any of my "liberal bullshit hippie drugs."

So I tell them "Hey, I know a great place for some adventure!" and we set off on the road.

As we walk down the forest path, the DM suddenly says to me, "Roll perception."

I roll a natural 18, for a total of 29. "Sweet! What do I see."

"Nothing. Looks like a forest."

So I say to the party, "Check out these trees guys, these are some... (12 on Knowledge Nature) ...really old trees!"

Suddenly a giant fucking praying mantis jumps out of a tree, attacks me twice in a surprise round, then grapples me in its pincers.

It unsheathes its wings and prepares to fly away with me in its claws.

POST FASTER, DAMMIT.

>>16587471

>"WHERE IS THE GOBLIN SHAMAN"

>"RAHGHGHRHGLLGAH!"

>"FUCK THIS."

>I spike the goblin child into the ground like a touchdown

I love you. So. Fucking. Much.

Jared, I see you. Reading the archives. Why did I make you read this? Those lines. Right there. That's why.

>>16587809
I shout "ITS A MANTIS." (having confirmed it through a knowledge nature roll. nice.)

Alphonse and Arthur manage to beat the mantis back down before it can fly away, and it releases me from its grasp. It scurries up a tall tree, and we all take turns shooting our crossbows/bows at it until it fucking dies.

My delayed drug-addled reactions cause me to state: "DID YOU SEE THAT MANTIS! THAT THING WAS HUUUUUUGE!"

Alphonse then lays into me: "REAL FUCKING RANGER HERE! CAN'T EVEN SEE A FUCKING MANTIS STARING HIM IN THE FACE. WHY ARE WE LISTENING TO THIS GUY!"

Arthur's confidence in me is shaken as well. I respond by lifting up my shirt and showing a bunch of mantis scars: "It's no problem bro that shit happens all the time, sometimes they even drop me in the bushes!"

We finish the session by me indicating that there's an old abandoned Fort down the road that bandits sometimes use, and make that our destination for HIGH ADVENTURE.

That brings us to the conclusion of our current adventures, and we will be reconvening next week for more awesome shit.

Thanks for listening, and I'll hook you up with some character stats for Captain Falcon. I don't have a scanner so I can't scan the actual sheet... or the comics I draw as we're going through the sessions... but I'll get on that.

>>16587855
You are the best.

>>16587786
Decisive Strike, Player's Handbook II, page 51.

http://dnd.savannahsoft.eu/feat-126-ascetic-knight.html

Custom Blackguard Class for Pathfinder:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/extras/community-creations/blademaster0182-s-lab/blackguard

Basically you just multiclass between that Blackguard class and Monk. Alternatively you can take Paladin, but it was for an evil campaign so we just reflavored the paladin.

Be sure to jack your strength mod. The cool thing is that you can wear full plate (due to being a paladin) and not lose your Decisive Strike. So fucking don some fullplate and get to punching.

The full falcon punch is power attacking a decisive strike, and adding a smite to it. Your smite damage gets doubled as well because it's treated as part of the attack.

Well, until next time /tg/. I'll recount the campaign as it continues, probably in the next week or two if anyone's interested. Later.

>>16588009
You never cease to be fantastic, and your stories are the same. Adventure of the Chainshirts, Tyrone the Monk, and now goddamn F. Zhaero and Danny Gorf.

You are everything right with TTRPGs and with /tg/, and you're a huge fucking inspiration.

rock on, dude.

Marinefag, I know you're reading this in the archives. Sorry our evil campaign was nowhere near as fuckawesome as STORYTIEMS. I'll keep working on GMing while you're away, so when you finally get back we will have our own truly epic stories.

>>16588046
Do not apologize! Move forward and create something spectacular. If everyone is having fun, you've done your job!

Bump for fucking STORYTIEM

more bumps for the bump god

The not-quite-evil rebel forces need to outflank the slightly-more-evil loyalists during the vicious little civil war they're having. It is decided that a shortcut through a supposedly unpassable swamp would be just the thing. Since the PCs and their mercenary regiment they lead are closest they are given the "honour" of spear-heading the flanking maneuver. Luckily there is a local guide, Murt, who can show them the way through the nastier parts of the swamp.

Murt turns out to be an nasty human specimen; cruel, unwashed, foul-mouthed and with a never-ending supply of racist/lewd jokes. But at least he appears to be a competent guide so they tolerate him. Barely. That is until they stop by his home half-way through the swamp.

It turns out that Ol' Murt wants to have some "family time" with his wives on the way. Both the seven year old one and the nine year old. As a GM it was amusing to hear the resulting argument as the calmer PCs (for example the healer Cleric) finally convince the others to not kill Murt until he's lead them through the swamp. Even then the Ranger in the party spends XP on Survival:Swamp just to make that time arrive as soon as possible.

Of course, this also led to the usually oh-so-vicious-and-edgy Ranger to voluntarily adopt Murt's two widows which was a nice little roleplaying touch as well. Camp followers to a mercenary may not be an easy life but at least he did his best to treat them as daughters.

>>16591631
So how was murt dispatched?

>STORYTIEM returns to /tg/
TODAY IS A GOOD DAY

I was running a 3.5 game in Eberron. The PCs had started at level 1, and we ran until level 21. The chief bad guy was a gnome mage. One of the PCs had been cruelly experimented on, as a student at wizard school (ended up being a Sorceror/Elemental Savant: Fire) by the gnome, Blythe, during his early forays into planar magic and manifest zones. As party goes along, standard adventuring at first, they eventually begin to cross paths with his agents. Since the party was pretty optimized, Blythe was a Shadowcraft Mage. Eventually, it turns out that he's subverted House Thuranni (which a different PC was a scion of) with power siphoned from Mabar, the plane of Shadow. So they end up having to murder the PC's mother, while his father sacrificed himself to but them some time. About this time, they run into the first of Blythe's 100% real simalcrums. They murder it, and it dissolves into shadows and melting ice. They go looking for the mage behind the simalcrum, and get stonewalled in Zilargo, the gnome kingdom. The secret police are on Blythe's side.

Then, he distracts them with Eradnis d'Vol (a powerful lich, and his 'ally') and while they're away, brutally murders the party's mentor, a Great Wyrm Silver Dragon. They arrive from killing the lich (and another simalcrum) just in time to avenge their mentor against ... yet another simalcrum. At this point, the party is /really/ starting to hate this gnome. An awful lot. They go on about their business, and then recieve an emergency call from one of the PCs House Lyrandar contacts. Rushing to rescue her, they are ambushed by a Shadow Elemental powered airship, and shot down from the sky. And then she's killed. They now go spend some serious amounts of time and money on divinations, research, and bribing people to /find/ this gnome mofo, before he makes their life any worse (with a brief interlude to defend themselves in court, based on a changeling assassin and a bard the gnome hired to besmirch their reputation). They avoid jail time, but between fines and legal fees, are out even more cash. Eventually, though Blythe himself is protected from scrying and other divinations, they discover his plan.

He's going to try to break the planes, such that Mabar, the plane of Shadow, permanantly overlaps with the continent, bringing on endless night (Which is what the Blood of Vol wanted, for their vampires) and bring House Thuranni to dominance over all the living who remain. After an epic battle through the plane of shadows, against all his gathered forces, they fnally fight their way to where interrogated prisoners (mostly via speak with dead) have said Blythe can be found. When they finally found him, he was a sad, broken, prisoner. You see, he'd suceeded a little /too/ well, and made a simalcrum that was more real than he was. As such, it had no more loyalty to him, and forced him to make more simalcrums, until he was out of XP, then murdered him and brought him back, and repeated, until he'd lost enough levels he could no longer be useful in making more simalcrums.

The party is astonished, and outraged, and utterly flummoxed. Like, they spent about two days chatting over irc and in person about what to do (since I left off on a cliffhanger). Eventually, they mercykilled him (as he begged them to do) and went to go looking for the real mastermind, Blythe', the more than 100% real Simalcrum. When they meet him, they find out that the entire gig, murdering the PC's parents, killing their mentors, the whole planar collision, was in fact simply to lure them there. Since, after all, a Simalcrum cannot harm it's master, he was, you see, forbidden to self terminate. So the Cleric blows some AP, and maybe a spell or two, in order to, for pretty much the first time in the entire campaign, win initiative. And he goes: "I cast Miracle with a capital M, spending the XP and invoking the divine directly." And I'm like "Sweet. What are you doing?" And he says "Making it so none of us can kill the gnome. His fight is not with us, and never was"

And so, having spared their worst enemy, and he, infinitely frustrated, but unable to selfterminate, nor cause them to kill him, now, does a rumplestiltskin. He curse the cleric for his mercy, and then plane shifts away, swearing to find the gods, and get /them/ to kill him. And the cleric just nods, and turns off the Eldritch Machine, and then pulls out an awesome parable, involving the God of Magic, and his Shadow, and ends the campaign without a shot being fired.

You know, I generally don't notice NPCs. But I remember one of 'em. The Voice of Genosus, essentially the Pope of some sort of sun worshipping religion (Genosus being the sun I guess) in the last campaign I played in.

See, one of the other PCs, called Dominique, had taken over the kingship of a country after we finished deposing its ruler. He had the highest charisma, he wanted it, so we let him have it.

Well, he fucking fucked up. Hard. The first thing he did was piss in the clergy's face. He enacted a series of taxes on the Genosian church, and the exact same series of taxes on the local whorehouses, at the same time. This was because one of the other PCs was a Paladin who worshipped said deity, and they had sort of a rivalry going. So he basically equated churches to this god to brothels.
He didn't even do this to the love goddess, whose priestesses WERE whores!

Well he doesn't stop there. Then he turns right around because he hears that our people are largely unemployed. The last king had a powerful military because so much of the country's industry and manufacturing and agriculture was done magically. So he passes new laws, stating that it is now illegal-yes, ILLEGAL-to do anything through magic that you could instead hire a human to do.

Now think about that. The mages all get pissed off and leave, to go join our rival kingdom, the Karthacks. This generically consonant heavy evil name kingdom hears that we've got no mages (because they're all there now) and invades us. We give as good as we get, but it's pretty obvious that we don't have a chance in hell of actually winning this.

So the King sends us, and the Paladin, to go request a Crusade. From the Voice of Genosus. The same guy he not so subtly called a pimp a few sessions earlier.

>con't

>>16596381
So we get to the holy capital, and this place is bangin', it's huge, it's marble, there are these gigantic bronze domes on all of the towers and parapets that make the whole place bright as hell, and the Palace of the Sun is floating 120 feet up in the air, surrounded by singing angels. A bit tacky but, hey.

So we take a pegasus-drawn chariot up to the Palace, and we meed the Sky Pope or whatever, right? And the Paladin, who's always this rocky, stern bastard is all buddy buddy with the guards and gets a fist bump from the janitor, which is a Bearded Devil that he beat up earlier in the campaign and convinced to try to become an angel by doing penance in the holy city.

And then we meet His Holiness, who's on this throne of gold that's got intelligent faces on it, and they're all drinking (also the throne) wine out of a chalice held by some sort of angel. And he greets us, and tells us that he's heard stuff is getting a little rough down there. The Paladin requests that a crusade be launched, "to smite the infidel and reclaim the land in the name of the glorious sun god."

"I agree," the Voice says, "the land does need to be reclaimed. But I feel ill at ease about this."

"If you mean the former slights, all things can be forgiven, can they not?" the Paladin says, biting back his lasting irritation with the whole whorehouse taxation thing. The faces on the throne chip in and say that it is Genosus's will that all people deserve a second chance,

"Yes, I suppose you're right," the Voice agrees, "I shall declare the exalted crusade. Go now, and prepare yourselves."

So we head back, feeling pretty damn good about ourselves, and when the king hears, he is confident of his victory.

>>16595888
>>16595904
>>16595918
what the fuck am I reading

>>16595967
>>16595996
Oh I see. Welp, that's Miracle for ya.

>>16587936
storytiem, have you ever considered writing a roleplaying blog?

Or like... doing something more accessible than popping in once in a blue moon to tell a balls-out awesome story?

>>16596597
Well, the Karthacks arrive, and we forestall them at a river crossing with a glorious network of traps and floodgates, while we wait for reinforcements to come.

Well, they do. The next day, the sun rises on the Karthacks, with a second army next to them. An army of Paladins and angels in chariots and God knows what else.

The Crusade arrived on the other side, and joined them. Most of us jumped ship before the battle started, leastwise me and the Paladin did. (This was mostly because I had work the next day, but it was also the smart strategic move.)

Understandably we got our asses kicked. The King was captured, and after some brief pleading, threatening and ranting, was thrown into a great convex dome of polished bronze, to be cooked alive by the terrible heat.

I just sort of assumed that the DM was screwing with us until I looked back on how the Paladin had actually approached the conversation with the Voice. Looking back, it should've been obvious.

Anyway, the campaign continued and we fled over the sea to find employment somewhere where nobody knew us, but goddamn, fuck if I ever let another PC be my King.

>>16596381
>So he basically equated churches to this god to brothels.
He didn't even do this to the love goddess, whose priestesses WERE whores!

PALADIN, YOU SEEM UPSET.

>>16596743
Thus ends the reign of King Troll, I guess.

A tad extreme, don't you think?

>>16596828
When you pick the Sun theme, you get a mixed bag.

Bringer of life? Aye.
Bringer of crops? Aye.
Bringer of warmth? Aye.
Bringer of skin cancer? Also Aye.

>>16596743
Churches. Nature's Hell Sticks. They'll fucking burn an infidel alive.

bumps for the bump god

Not as heartwarming or amusing as many other stories on here, but a good instance of how a freudian slip can change a campaign entirely.

Back when I was still a starting DM, I was running a bunch of first timers through ropes, a really free, loose campaign in all. The party ended up getting a quest from the temple of Pelor, and on the way out, I slipped and replaced the "l" in Pelor with an "n". Laughs ensued for a couple minutes as people got over the initial implications of a god named "Penor."
...But it didn't even come close to ending there. Eventually, a friend of mine caught wind of the Penor shenanigans, and wanted to join the game as a cleric of the aforementioned god.
I allowed it to roll, and soon, we were drafting up stats for Penor, Pelor's lesser-known half-cousin, with his spell repertoire including spells such as "Penor's Lubrication" and "Penor's Grasping Hand"
The campaign itself changed as well, and finding the priests of Penor to aid the PCs in their quest became a priority..
Many shenanigans were had, feel free to use Penor in your campaigns as well, to at least get a reaction out of your PCs.

I don't have much in the way of heartwarming or well loved characters, but I do have one that provoked a strong NEGATIVE reaction.

She was a half-elven ranger, my first character in my first campaign. She was chaotic evil, starting at level 1, and with a negative wisdom modifier.

My crucial mistake was in allowing the party other than the DM to know she was CE. As a unit, we were new, and keeping OOC knowledge from affecting IC actions and reactions was not as easy back then.

Thing sstarted off decently enough, though they quickly went downhill as my character, let's call her Fey, was obviously very violent and volatile. Not a people person by any means, actively attacking NPCs and even geting into a scuffle with a PC at one point. (The scuffle in question had her in the right, not that anyone would or will admit it.) and she was generally hated and bitchy. On one occasion one party member let her be herself and didn't try to judge her or tell her how to behave, and she showed a slightly less psychotic side, this side of her was something I wanted to grow her into, marking character growth as well as experience.

I had made her initial state TOO easily unlikable though. She was killed off by party members before reaching level 4, and her corpse was looted and reanimated by our dread necromancer, and later given over to be an undead emmissary of a dying god.

From there she regained some sense of self due to the gods power. (By this point I'm on my second or third character and she is decidedly an NPC) and when the god eventually dies, her corpsebody somehow manages to stay working, his power not gone completely, and perhaps because of this there may be hope for him yet. Or perhaps not, it's not clear.

But anyways, I have more detailed stories about her, but that's all for now.