Tales From the Past - Lightsabers and other things

In the many stories I've been apart of this one always makes me laugh every time I think about it.

My best friend and I were in a D20 future campaign together. I was playing the rebel-hacker-mecha engineer chick and she was the proper big time officer in of this fleet of starships.

Somewhere in the story, my character was captured and taken aboard her ship. During one part of the game, we got into an argument over something and started fighting each other. Partly because of the late hour we never said any of the damage we were doing was non-lealth so our DM (her husband) said we killed each other.

Of course we both were like "WTF?", because of our fail we died before we even really started. We did what all women do. Pouted, whined, and finally got our way. :D Well, sorta, he said we didn't die but instead because of the way they brought us back to life our minds somehow got fused together. In other words, we shared each others thoughts. I'm not talking like, we could read each other's minds, no we could hear each other thoughts, everything.

It was annoying, and at times we had to roll a will save every so often so our characters wouldn't go insane. Needless to say, we never fought through our characters again.

Past Tales - Miself

She awoke from her journey and in her hand she held a large two-handed sword. Master Chen stood over her. "Did you find what you sought, young one?" 


The young warrior looked over the sword, puzzled she read the engraving on the blade just above the hilt  "Miself?" she questioned


"Ah child, this is the treasure only few find. One's self." the old man replied


"But I already knew who I was.." Maggie protested 


"Nay. If that were true you wouldn't have found it." Master Chen replied helping the warrior to her feet. "Come child." motioning for her to follow him. 

 I didn't even have the feat to wield a two-handed weapon without taking a huge penalty. I had made an archer who used only light blades. So after completing this epic dungeon, thinking all the while I was going to get a bow. My DM gave me a two-handed sword I couldn't use.  


 I was upset but to be honest I had it coming. During the campaign, I (the player) was being difficult (okay I was being a jerk) about my fellow party member taking on different aspects of a dragon. I had declared my character a hater of all dragons and sworn to slay them all. My counter part (who was playing a cleric) decided to mother a pair of dragon eggs we had found after finding their mother slain. Because they contained great magic and her care of them (and the DM allowing it) she started taking on different dragon traits one of them being a hunger for metals. Yes, she tried to eat part of the gold we had stored up. 


 In being difficult and refusing to see past my stubbornness, my DM took us on a mission to find as he put it "Great power". We were put into this dungeon with none of our gear. We managed to make crude weapons and how we were able to solve some of the puzzles I have no idea. 


 After all this, she got a cool dragon ability and I got a two-handed sword. When I questioned my DM, he basically said he could have just killed my character and made me start over. Instead he wanted me to, one stop being a jerk, and learn to adjust. It was okay for my character not to like dragons but my party member was someone my character was friends with (and also my best friend in real life) and to instead refuse to change my (or my character's) outlook to look past it that not all dragons were bad. My friend didn't turn "evil" because she was becoming a dragon. 


 So as it turned out, the sword wasn't a bad thing at all. Once I stopped being difficult the sword was actually really sweet. It turned out to be an enchanted intelligent sword that my character learned to throw and catch. Which came in handy, a lot. 


Just remember that sometimes your idea of how the story should be maybe different than what the DM is intending which is cool but don't forget to have fun. And if you do get the "Miself" treatment like I did, it doesn't  have to end badly. You can end up with something far more epic in the end. 

Past Tales: Ordered the Chicken

 One of the top funniest moments we had during a game session was late one night. My fellow party member and myself had tracked a wizard to a large tavern. We both hadn't ate anything so we settled down in the dinning area with a good view of the upstairs entry way where the wizard and his traveling buddy were staying. We were pretty sure he had information about an attack that was being planned on one of the major cities we were protecting.

 My traveling companion, being a halfling, thought she could climb up into the dumbwaiter shaft and spy on him. As small as she was it didn't take much to meet the hide checks going into the kitchen area to where the dumbwaiters were. Getting lucky, she managed to find the one that (she hoped) connected to his room.


 Dusty and dirty she peered through the crack in the little door. The wizard wasn't there and the room was empty. Thinking she had just missed him, she suddenly heard a soft squeak above her. Before she knew it, she was greeted by a pointed nose and two red eyes staring directly at her.(The wizard had a rat as a familiar, which we had spotted earlier that day riding on his shoulder.)  Knowing that she had been "ratted out" she made her way down the dumbwaiter and made the trek back to the table where I was still sitting. 


Out of breath and still dusty, she said " The rat squealed on me." Deciding to finally order food, we settled down to eat when my friend felt something near her foot. Landing a perfect natural 20 she managed to step on the rat's tail trapping him under our table. 

Grinning from ear to ear she continued on eating making sure the rat wasn't escaping. A few minutes later, the wizard humbly comes to our table and after clearing his throat he said "I believe you have my rat."


And my friend smiles ever so slightly and replies "No, I ordered the chicken." 

Past Tales: "The Pan"

  My DM had guided us to this little man sitting at a table with a deck of cards and a town behind him. After a short exchange he invited us into the town.

 The surrounding buildings were in need of repair but the people there seemed happy. Everyone we talked to said they had been in this city for awhile and always seemed to have food to eat and water to drink. However, there were no wells or any crops or any live stock, nothing. Also, oddly enough there seemed to be piles of magic items, just laying around in the streets and along the sidewalks. In addition, the town's people didn't really bother with them and put them in piles so they would be out of the way. 

 A little concerned about this and slightly creeped out we tried to leave.  And it was quickly brought to our attention, and surprise, that the entire town was surrounded by an invisible, very powerful magic barrier. 

So needless to say, we couldn't leave. We tried confronting the man, and found him.  He was walking around near the entrance and we asked how we could leave.  He said he was waiting for something. 

 My character, to give you some background, didn't understand magic and more over  refused to use it. (unless of course it was necessary for a life or death situation.)  I was playing a human fighter, who had never really dealt with magic. So now that magic was holding her hostage, it didn't sit too well with her. She searched for hours trying to find a weak point in the barrier or something that would give her a clue as to how to make her escape. 

 The only thing she observed was the fact that all the town's people always had food but none was delivered or grown. When she asked the people would just say when they were hungry food would just seem to appear in the pan.

  In a desperate move, my character borrowed one of the town's people's pans and watched it to see where the food appeared from. For 3 days that was all she would do. I failed my rolls to stay awake and would wake up to find the pan gone and someone using it to cook bacon. 

 The other player that was with me spent her time talking to the man that let us in and figured out what he was "waiting on" for us to say "Thank you and goodbye." 

As a reward we got to chose one of the magic items in the town. And out of all the magic items I could have chosen, I took the pan.

Past Tales: "How's your mother doing?"

Our story began in a large city, we had been summoned together to work as mercenaries for the king's "not so nice errands" that he didn't want his direct guard to be involved in. There was six in our group, each of us an expert in our own field. I was the cleric. Up until that day, none of us had formerly met. The city guard had captured two of the thieves they suspected of being errand boys for a certain mage the king was interested in getting his hands on.                            

It was ordered for both of them to be separated from their jail cells. I requested the big dumb one to be put in the integration room. I had planned to go in first but one of the party members a female psion wanted to try to speak with him first. I agreed and watched from be hide the two way mirror. Maybe he wasn't into females in blue dresses but after almost an hour he wasn't talking. She gave it a good try, but now it was my turn. I walked in carrying a large leather bound book. The door eerily creaked open and caused dumb and ugly to jump. One of the guards closed the door and I stood there in silence. I motioned for my new friend to exit that I would take over from here. She looked at me and back at him. With the performance any seasoned bard would be proud of she begged the man to speak with her before it was too late that she could somehow spare him. When he didn't respond she moved and stood between myself and the prisoner and tried to beg for more time. Sounding overly polite I said I would take care of him and she shouldn't worry. Finally, seeing that I wasn't going to back down she left. 

I sat down in front of him dropping my book on the table. I asked him, with grin on my face, "How's your mother doing, my son?" He didn't say anything. I continued on "I hope she is well." I opened the book and turned to a page close to the middle. I had carried in with me a blood red leather bag on my hip. Placing it on the table next to the book I opened it and starting taking out various metal instruments. I paused at a large needle. Admiring its length I said "I know what you're thinking but let me put your mind at ease. You are going to die. " All the color drained from his face as he stared in horror at me. "How you're going to die depends on what you tell me. Now lets get to the point of all this, who hired you?" I asked pointing the tip of the needle at him. He started shaking a little and tiny drops of sweat appeared on his forehead. His eyes fixed on the needle I held in my hand. Never did a man unburden himself as this man did in that moment. Of course, he told us who his employer had been and a rough location of where he was hiding out at as well as all his other past sins that we weren't holding him on. (I ended up rolling some insane intimidation check and my DM at the time, being impressed with my approach, gave me a bonus to my roll and extra xp after the session was over) 


After he had given us all the information we needed my party members looked at me as if I had lost my mind and asked where that leather bag came from. I merely shrugged and said "It was my leather working kit I am a clobber, you know a "mender of soles." " Grinning from ear to ear.