Fake War Stories

One of our friends was really excited about the adventure he had spent all week preparing. So we all eagerly sat down to play.

After a rather interesting intro we faced off against a group of hobgoblins in a cave and dispatched them easily enough. All of a sudden, on a cliff above us however, appeared a drow priestess in full battle garb.

She declares us her slaves and starts casting.

*roll for initiative*

The initiative order is Thief (PC) > Priestess > rest of party.

The thief, who had his bow already in hand due to the fight with the hobgoblins, fires an arrow at the priestess.

*roll to hit*

“20! critical!”

So the DM asks: “Ok how much damage on that arrow, no sneak attack?”

Player rolls the die, and says: “8 points of damage…”

As the GM starts to write down the damage on his sheet, the player then adds, “but it doesn’t matter because she is dead.”

DM: “What do you mean she is dead? She has over 70 HP!”

Thief: “Well, maybe, but that was an Arrow of Slaying: +4 vs Drow”

…pause, DM blinks…

DM: “Let me see that sheet.”

Player hands Thief character sheet over to DM… DM reads character sheet… Then the DM crumples up his 6 sheets of adventure notes and tosses them over his shoulder and says: “Well, that’s that then. Adventure over.”

He also mutters “bastards” under his breath; we all grin.

It turns out the drow priestess was going to Charm us all and use us as her pawns in a large political power game in the Underdark and she was the key character in the adventure. Without her: no game.

We never did remember where the Thief got that Arrow of Slaying from, but it was on his sheet.

And from that day on, whenever we face an obviously important NPC or monster, someone will invariably look over his sheet and say: “I think I have an Arrow of Slaying for that.”

(via Vindaloo on MetaFilter)

Some years ago, we were running a D&D game when a Player Girlfriend decided she wanted in.  It was a relatively high level campaign, around 15 and naturally, being a new player, she decided to roll a dual-classed warrior/mage.

It was a solid party and we carved a bloody swath through the land, despite our often unconscious warrior/mage.  Alas, the Player behind the Character didn’t have a knack for cleverly weaving spells and was underpowered as a pure brawler, despite her efforts to the contrary.  But we persevered.

Some time later we found ourselves on the trail of a Drow plot, taking us into deadly tunnels and caverns filled with devious traps and unseen enemies.  Eventually, the Drow emerged in clever choke and we had a proper battle on our hands.

The Player Girlfriend, however, had had enough of Drow, their poisoned weapons, and the Character unconsciousness that inevitably followed.  She asked for help.  A Meta strategy session ensued as the Party looked over her character sheet.  She had memorized a couple summoning spells: perfect.

“You can summon one of two things,” we told her, “a Celestial Lion or a Celestial Eagle.  They’re like the normal animals, only huge and vicious.”

“I’ll summon the eagle,” she said.

“But it’s a tunnel, like, six feet wide, the eagle will barely be able to move, let along spread its wings…”

“I want to summon the eagle.”

And thus a celestial eagle popped into the Prime Material, in a space so small it couldn’t move, a half-dozen angry Drow in front of it and a ragtag party of heroes behind it.  Not wanting to hack through the bird to get at the Drow, we reluctantly continued into the depths.  The dark elves were not so kind, hacking through our Wall of Hitpoints, though not quickly enough to continue their pursuit.

Some hours later, we reached the edge of the Underdark: in this case a massive, open cavern with no apparent bottom and thousands of feet between the walls.  And, once again, the Drow were upon us, scrambling up the cliffs from below.

“I’ll summon the eagle again,” the Player Girlfriend said.

“You can’t.  You already summoned it today.  Plus, I don’t think it would respond to your summons after last time, anyway,” replied the DM.

“Fine.  I’ll summon the lion.”

“The… lion?”

“Yes.”

“Um.  Okay… where would you like to summon the lion?”

“Over those elves climbing the walls.”

“In midair?”

“Yes.”

Somewhere in the Celestial Plane, a heavenly lion was relaxing on a golden savannah.  It had not a care in the world as it basked in the afternoon sun, absentmindedly grooming.  And then, suddenly, it was dark.  And cold.  And the lion was falling.  Falling into the blackness, but not alone.  As it fell, the lion collected strange little grey men and their swords and bows.  The men seemed agitated as the lion crashed through, shearing them from a nearby rock face, and they impotently slapped at him with their weapons.

And it was, indeed, a very long way down.  As he plunged into the inky blackness, just before blinking back to his own idyllic plane of existence, the lion shouted to the heights:

Never Summon Me Again…