"I Can Set Fire To Drunks With The Power of My Mind!"

[Dr. Mercury]

So says hidufel.

With half the players gone, I'm running a low-level pickup game. DaiOni has a ninja who moonlights as a bar wench, Detritus has a cleric/rogue, and hidufel has a psion.

In case you haven't guessed, the party has some evil tendencies.

[TinSoldier]

Is this a pickup PbP game on this forum? Or tabletop in real life?

[Dr. Mercury]

This is an ad-libbed tabletop pickup adventure in my house rules-heavy D&D. The three PCs rolled into town and decided to cause some mayhem.

Det plays Mara, a fighter/cleric/rogue who owns a deck of many things and is immune to its effects. DaiOni playes Ryosei, a ninja who scams off of drunk bar patrons. hidufel plays Malkavian, an evil psion with a sadistic streak.

Mara sets up her own game of three-card monty, charging a half-crown per card drawn, while Ryosei gathers info on the town from overheard conversations. Meanwhile, Malkavian sizes up bar patrons, looking for someone to set on fire with the power of his mind.

Mara's clients fare as per the law of averages. A couple of clients come away from the table with new outlooks on life, one gets thrown in the clink by the sharif's men, another gets knifed by his best friend for allegedly sleeping with the guy's wife, and one guy, counting cards, decides to go for broke and draw a half-dozen cards. He gets a shower of gems (half of which Ryosei scoops up), a deed to a keep, a mook patron who offers services as a man-at-arms, and a dire wraith. The mook man-at-arms tries to defend his new boss, he gains a dire wraith of his own to fight, and the two patrons run out of the bar with dire wraiths on their ass.

In the other corner, a drunk's hair erupts in flames, the hard liquor he was drinking catches, the drink tips over, the table ignites, and patrons rush to put out the flames.

Ryosei snatches up the dropped deed and rushes it to a town elder to sell. They reach a price within the allotted time limit, and the elder offers Ryosei a job. Mara and Mal join her later, and the elder explains that local cultists and bandits might have taken his three daughters. He offers them a tidy sum, and even throws in the hand of one or two daughters in marriage to Mal if they succeed. The elder seems interested in regaining the oldest daughter, and he thoroughly creeps out the trio.

The three adventurers take the job offer and decide to carry out the job in their own unique way. While resting up at a local upsacle inn, five thugs attack and are dispatched quickly. Their wealth is disproportionate to their manner of dress, which sets off a few alarm bells. Since the thugs were locals, the sharif, as Joe Strummer once sang, don't like it. The innkeeper moves the adventurers to a different suite, and one of the elder's daughters sneaks in to give her and her sisters' counter-offer.

The trio meets with the sisters outside town, where it is revealed that their father most likely hired the thugs to capture Mara and Ryosei to sell into slavery. The sisters reveal that the same fate befell many of their siblings and many townsfolk, except that their father has created an image of himself as a hunter of cultists and bandits.

The trio agrees to the sisters' counter-offer and sneaks into the elder's new keep. They interrupt a cult ceremony, eventually killing everyone in the cellar, but the eldest daughter arrives to complete the ceremony and tell the trio to get out.

Mara says, "Wanna draw a card?"

The girl draws three cards. Two are The Sun and The Skull. The adventurers stand by and watch as the girl, hyped up on eight new levels, goes toe-to-toe with a dread wraith. They try to clean up after the girl gakks the dread wraith, and they barely succeed.

Right now they're levelling up, and hidufel and DaiOni are taking draws from the deck of many things.

Ah, the corruptibility of players....

:go:

[Detritus]

Mal was the only PC who wound up drawing from the deck. Kind of an indifferent set of draws, though he did lose all his (small) collection of magical items. The deck of many things truly is the gateway to adventure. It certainly makes playing a CN character a lot easier.

In the battle with the daughter, I forgot that my character had a +1d6 sneak attack that was active during the whole battle. I also forgot about Mara's Luck domain power. Nor did I buff before either battle. I need some practice playing Clerics and Rogues, I guess.

[Detritus]

By the way, even thinking about it now, that was a really, REALLY satisfying wrap-up to the pick-up game. Having already encountered the morally ambiguous nature of prospective employers in Doc's homeworld was one of the reasons I wound up choosing CN for my alignment this time around, though the Deck certainly didn't hurt.

[hidufel]

yeah i had lots of fun that encounter too... It was fun playing an evil to the bone pasonic... Cutting off the orcs fingers in interrogation was fun too. And of course dropping the slapdown on that snobby runeweaver chick after she hired us to kill her father was so satisfying too... even though we almost lost to her, even without the dread wraiths help, it was nip and tuck.

'Course i dont think i could play an evil character on a continous basis but I am really attached to Malkavian, NE (oh sorry, DoMT requires me to say N...) Psion. "I set fire to that drunk with the power of my mind!"

[Dr. Mercury]

Well, we played another session of The Antiheroic Trio last night. I'm enjoying running an amoral game setting. The WLD is definitely Good vs. Evil, with some of the heroes being the scariest psychos ever assembled on the side of Good. With The Antiheroic Trio, which started as a pickup game and took on a life of its own, the world has a certain bent to it--i.e., it's just plain bent.

Ryosei, Mara and Malkavian fled the village after the big score from the previous session. Since none of them were experienced in wilderness survival (i.e., no Survival ranks), they ineptly camped near a nest of giant scorpions. Malkavian faced two of the scorpions alone, because of his draw from Mara's deck of many things. Wacky thing is, due to good die rolling and strategic use of psionics by hidufel, he beat both vermin.

When a third scorpion showed up, the trio dog-piled on it--well, as best they could on a Huge monster--but it was touch-and-go. Fortune favored the scorpion, but the trio's numbers carried the day.

As the trio recovered from their fight with the scorpion, a passing merchant caravan offered assistance--and, despite Malkavian's best efforts, the trio joined them. Ryosei hid in the trio's wagon, sizing up the merchants for a possible next score. After traveling together for half a day, the caravan set camp and started preparing dinner. Ryosei noticed that the caravan master drugged one of the wineskins, so she stealthily switched the order of the skins.

Combat ensued when the caravan started dropping from the drugged wine. Mara and Ryosei ended up facing a raging grunt whom drugged wine couldn't drop, Malkavian cooked someone's animal companion with the power of his mind, and the caravan scout began making a deal with Ryosei. Twisting the scout's words, Malkavian finished off an incapacitated companion of the scout, jeopardizing the deal.

The caravan had their own ace in the hole, a dancer who cast spells off of scrolls from the safety of the main wagon. One spell almost killed Mara, and was especially painful for the northern elf Ryosei. Eventually, the rager drops, Ryosei and Mara salvage the deal, and the trio raises the female barbarian fighter that the scout lusted after.

Of course, the scout's motives turned out to be as pure as the yellow snow where the huskies go. His business proposition entailed pimping out the dancer and the barbarian, getting them hooked on drugs in the process, while he and the trio would rob the clients. The trio modified the business plan so that they would make house calls, and target nouveau-riche nobles who would not have enough capital to raise a revenge squad.

After arriving in a major city, they cake-walked through a mercenary captain's mansion but have run afoul of the Taxidermists' Guild. Or, rather, due to smart uses of their hats of disguise, they have caused the scout to draw some very deadly heat. They have acquired even more wealth, and knowledge of the whereabouts of the mercenary guild's payma$ter caravan.

[Detritus]

I am shocked, absolutely SHOCKED, that you would assign such base motives to this party. :sagrin:

A good, clean, maraca-shaking time was had by all. I just need to remember that Mara has the Luck domain, that granted power would have been really handy on that failed Tumble check in the attempt to flank the half-orc barbarian. That AoO was really what turned the tide of the caravan battle against the PCs. Well, along with Mal gutting the dancer that everyone in the caravan seemed to want to protect.

[Starhawk]

....the side of Good? :signs006:

[Dr. Mercury]

....the side of Good? :signs006:
With the exceptions of Puck and Whatzisname the Druid, the WLD party are mainly good. The Antiheroic Trio? Not so much.

[hidufel]

hey Mal heard the deal... not to harm the bitch WHEN SHE GOT UP! She wasnt up, yet, and i wanted to keep her DOWN. I figured a Coup De Grace would do just fine. After all the deal said not to harm her when she got up...

Man i havent had that much fun in a long time... though it was nip and tuck vs those scorps... i expended ALL of my available psi points on that encounter, and took a bit of damage myself doing so... but the deck of many things was specific, defeat the next monster or monsters you encounter to gain a level. All By yourself. I thought i was in for some dm backstabbing when one scorp went for mara... but all turned out well.

I dont know if i could play a full on campaign as a bad guy... but the unfettered motivation was cool... swindle and backstab whomever you can and move on to the next city. Make as much money as you can in the process.

[Detritus]

Man i havent had that much fun in a long time... though it was nip and tuck vs those scorps... i expended ALL of my available psi points on that encounter, and took a bit of damage myself doing so... but the deck of many things was specific, defeat the next monster or monsters you encounter to gain a level. All By yourself. I thought i was in for some dm backstabbing when one scorp went for mara... but all turned out well.
Yes, they nearly rocked you like a hurricane.

When the one scorp came after her, that was right about when Mara whipped out her maracas (Wands of CLW and Lesser Restoration), as I recall. She was willing to take a sting or two, for the good of the party.

[Wook]

I dont know if i could play a full on campaign as a bad guy... but the unfettered motivation was cool... swindle and backstab whomever you can and move on to the next city. Make as much money as you can in the process.

It's not for everyone or every time but it can be done. The key is A) Not to be a vile evil out the gate but to start out just mildly mercenary, or even as a doubting do gooder, and play the slide into darkness and evil and B) to play an evil that's willing to play well with others. An evil invididual can be stopped. And evil army not so much so necessarily.

[Detritus]

I could totally see playing a campaign as an evil or CN character. Just look out for #1, by any means necessary. The party excluded, of course. Usually.