Fake War Stories

Our group, the Heroes of Vindale, had just rid the countryside of—not one—but several goblin tribes. With our hearts bolstered by our success, we set forth in our crusade against evil. When we discovered that a large tribe of Orcs had a slave-powered mining operation in the hills we decided to bring the fight to them.

The setup was elaborate: terrain depicting the hillside, decorated with tents, buildings, and towers.

And lots of Orcs.

Our party was set up on an overlook to size up the situation and form a plan of attack. Being the party’s magic-user, I was to lob fireballs from the overlook. I would be accompanied by Narn the Blade, a thief armed with a Wand of Lightning. Meanwhile the warriors would rush in from another direction to put the Orcs to the sword.

A viable plan. Save for Narn’s wand.

As experienced gamers we all knew that the wand’s command phrase:

“Wand of wonder, wand of light, smite my enemies within my sight.”

…means the wand is not what it appeared to be.

Of course our characters didn’t know that, so when it spit out a Lightning Bolt the first time it was used, our characters assumed it was a Wand of Lightning.

We prepared for battle, and Narn the Blade took up his position and recited the words.

The DM rolled the dice and…

Narn the Blade was surprised by the sudden appearance of the huge grey ass-end of an elephant right before it tumbled off the cliff. The fall only injured the beast, sending it into a rampage throughout the compound. It destroyed many tents, several more permanent structures, and drew the attention of the three ballistae crew that did their utmost to bring the damned thing down.

That distraction did far more damage than a couple of fireballs could ever have managed.

(Submitted by mikebrendan)

If you guys read my previous story—Magic Items save the day!—you heard something about an evil turnip killing me.

This is what happened.

So I was out the week before (or not paying attention) and we were on a small boat on the way to some desert where the final stereotypical Lich wizard was waiting for us. We decided to be good little trains and follow the railroad to the front door of the boss.

Upon leaving the boat our party followed a trail to a large 60 ft diameter clearing in the trees. Directly in the center of this clearing was a giant turnip/parsnip. It didn’t seem very active so I decided to slowly advance towards it.

(Editors note: this is why knowing about the deadly Gazebo is so important! Never underestimate your inanimate foes!)

After moving in a good 10 ft the turnip burrowed underground! My character had reached pretty much his max speed at this point and decided to take evasive maneuvers. He ran around the outside of the circle and reached the direct opposite side.

Upon reaching the other side of the circle the ground under my character’s feet erupted and I got swallowed by the turnip.

The next few minutes go as follows:

Me: “I get swallowed by the turnip?”

DM: “Yep.”

Me: ::Thinks back to previous situations:: “Ok I’ll use my cape next round and escape!”

DM: “Hold on there. You take swallowing damage first!”

Me: “Doesn’t that take effect next round?”

DM: “No.” (Yes, but I don’t like you foiling my plots)

Me: “Whatever.” (Has about 40 HP and 15 CON)

DM: “You take 37 damage and 4 Constitution drain.”

Me: ::math, math, math:: ”Ok. I’m still alive!”

DM: Great!

Me: “Wait………” ::math, math:: ”Nope. I’m Dead. Constitution drain killed me. -11.”

So my character was digested and sat in this turnip’s stomach waiting to be rescued by the party. Which again will be another story. (Yay series of stories?)

After the other characters killed said turnip and cut him open to rescue my body… (Did I say body? I meant magic items…) They discovered that all the virtually indestructible magic items I had on my person had been destroyed by the turnip’s stomach acid.

So remember kiddies: if you piss the DM off, don’t be surprised when a giant turnip eats you and steals your magic items.

(Submitted by mrevand6, submitter of Magic item saves the day!)

I had a character in D&D 3.5 named Marek. It wasn’t intentional at the time, but he was largely designed around completely fucking with the DM’s plans. 

Basically he was a psion who specialised in creating things. He also had a bag of holding filled with lots of random magic items, and a special magic item with the ability to create a large supply of mundane items (it was limited to something like 10gp worth a day, but other than that I was able to pull 10’ poles and climbing gear out of it to my heart’s content).

One of his most valuable skills, between his psionic powers and his decanter of endless water, was the ability to produce hot baths on demand whilst out in the field.

It was that decanter of endless water that first tipped off the DM that Marek might be a bit of a problem. We were doing a dungeon crawl (Marek’s first I believe) when we came across a problem: a closed room with a single point of entrance—a thing which we really needed in it—and two giant fire breathing plants. 

The plants looked pretty scary. I mean, sure Marek could throw lightning bolts if he had to, but he’d rather not. He was more into creatively overcoming problems in bizarre ways beyond boring applications of extreme force (I know, I know, what was he doing in a D&D game?).

So I had the following conversation:

“So, these are plants, right?”

“Yep.”

“And they’re rooted in place as far as I can see? Not mobile?”

“Definitely potted.”

“Ok then…”

At this point Marek proceeds to build a nice little brick wall across the entrance to the room with a slot for his decanter of endless water. He puts the decanter in there on full flow (not geyser mode - we didn’t have the keywords for it yet). Then the party sat back and waited.

At some point later we removed the wall, flood the dungeon slightly, and trot merrily past the now very drowned plants to our goal.

(Submitted by drmaciver)