A Long Time Ago...

Before MMO's, before good video RPG's (well, not all of them, but the bulk), we used to sit around with pens, paper, and a slew of plastic in various geometric shapes and role play. We had books by the score for reference, multiple character sheets detailing the complete history of the characters, Mountain Dew by the case, Cheetos, and rich imaginations.

I wouldn't trade today's MMO's and modern RPG's for those days, but we did manage to have quite a bit of fun.

I've been thinking of writing some of those adventures down in web comic form, and I might sometime, but some are worth sharing here and now.

Once, a band of intrepid adventurers found themselves trapped within the nefarious realms of Ravenloft. This is known by my group as 'the place where characters go to die'. As DM (GM these days, I hear), that was certainly not my intention, but I always did enjoy providing my players with a bit of a challenge. First, they found themselves on the isle of Dr. Moreux (sadly, I didn't even make that up--it was an honest-to-God store-bought module). Things progressed steadily with our cast of characters. First, was the priest, who upon being brought to Ravenloft (and was directly responsible for our cast of characters going to Ravenloft), was turning evil. Next, her bodyguard, a monk of intimidating physical prowess. On the team were also an intrepid warrior with an equally intrepid appetite; a ranger with a dubious wisdom score (reflected by his player), a light mage (he only used powers that worked with light), a greedy and highly aggressive dwarf (although, I'm not certain there are any other kinds), and various and assundry supporting characters.

Things began going wrong with our adventurers almost at once. Shipwrecked in a foreign world, they were greeted warmly enough by the inhabitants of the island they found themselves on. The one thing they were warned of was to stay in their rooms at night. While most had no problems with this, our always-hungry warrior made the mistake of being caught in the kitchen at night (he was so tall that while raiding the fridge, he hit his head on a bunch of pots and pans hanging on overhead racks, alerting the staff). Thus, our adventurers were taken to confront the Dr., where he offered to make them part of his half-human, half-animal staff. Needless to say, they had no desire to become permanent residents. Fighting their way toward the shore and their almost-finished boat, the ranger stayed behind to 'cover their tracks'. Mind you, the rest of the group is running flat-out, the stronger ones carrying the weaker under their arms running like their heads were on fire and their asses were catching, and the ranger stays behind to cover their tracks. Did I mention the Dr.'s half-human, half-animal staff was pursuing them? Well anyway, as he swept their tracks aside, the ranger was caught and eaten. The rest of the company made it to the boat and got away cleanly - sans all their gear.

Next, our intrepid adventurers stumbled into the realm of a death knight, Lord Soth of Dragonlance fame. First, one of the original sailors who survived the shipwreck decides to join the group (in lieu of the ranger, who died a horrible death). Surviving many bands of roving bandits (and stealing all their loot to replace their own), our band of adventurers set off for the mysterious castle they'd heard so much of from the gypsies (who warned them to stay away), the townspeople (who warned them to stay away), and the bandits (after being defeated, warned them to stay away). Bravely, they stormed their way to the retirement home of Lord Soth.


First, as you can imagine, it's hard to get good help for a death knight, so the place appeared deserted. The location of the castle didn't help. Placed atop a high cliff separated by a yawning chasm, allowing egress only across a rotten, wooden drawbridge, Soth apparently didn't want a lot of visitors anyway. Intrepidly trekking across sed rotting bridge, our surly dwarf and ex-sailor-ranger-replacement get into a fight. The dwarf quickly grew annoyed and threw the sailor off the bridge into the mist filled chasm below. Thus ended the career of the sailor-who-replaced-the-ranger. Luckily, we had another sailor who agreed to join the party in his place. So, our party, evil cleric, monk bodyguard of evil cleric, hungry warrior, surly dwarf, light mage, and clueless sailor-who-replaced-the sailor-who-replaced-the clueless-ranger enter the castle (who they still don't know belongs to LORD FREAKIN' SOTH!!!).

The first floor of the castle appeared completely deserted, with the exception of a doppelganger who had turned cannibalistic and would eat anything that crossed its path. Fortunately, our hungry warrior had enough food to share and quickly turned the doppelganger into a pet (as long as the food lasted anyway). So, to the second floor our brave group went. Finding nothing of interest here except a rather large overgrown indoor garden with a strange, open winding spiral staircase going up through the center, our group decided the action must be upstairs, so up they want. On the third floor though, they met up with the stuff of nightmares.

From the walls, tunneled a type of bipedal bug, dropping all around our group with intentions of evil, they came. Our brave adventurers quickly warmed to the fight, though. The warrior unsheathed his sword, the dwarf limbered his long disused axe, the priest cackled gleefully in the throes of her spreading insanity, the monk began protecting her, the sailor used his sword, and the light mage blinded himself casting a spell (spell failure). Tumbling back down the stairwell, the light mage ended up at the bottom both blind and with the breath knocked out of him. Up above, his team-mates did not fare so well. Quickly it was discovered that their weapons had no affect what-so-ever upon the man-bug-things.

Tired of not being able to hurt his opponent, our surly dwarf threw away his trusty axe, grabbed one of the bugs and jumped out the stairwell. Down below, the light mage was coming to his senses, when he spied a curious thing: a dwarf holding a man-bug hurtling directly toward him. Unable to move in time (failed saving throw), the dwarf and man-bug land atop the light mage, knocking him senseless once more. The positive thing though was that the trip down beneath an angry dwarf did seem to harm the bug. Noting this above, the monk and warrior turned to each other, shrugged, and grabbed their own bugs toward the edge of the stairwell. Below, the dwarf got up, seeing his own man-bug still was alive, began dragging it back up the stairs to have another go. The man-bugs struggled mightily, but our heroes prevailed, not before turning the light mage into tapioca by landing on him repeatedly and Dungeons and Dragons into professional wrestling, but they eventually succeeded. They did manage to lose the evil cleric in the process, but most considered this a small loss as she was probably only trying to get them all killed anyway.

With their mighty foes dispatched (and the light mage bandaged and ambulatory), onward into the tower they bravely crept. Oddly enough, the next floor seemed to be entirely made of sleeping quarters. They opened the first door to both the surprise of the party and of the creature on the other side: a banshee. What's the first response of a surprised female? That's right, she screamed. One of the party was cursed. Shaken but not stirred, our group continues to the next room. At the door, our brave sailor suggests listening at the door before opening it. Nothing. They open the door, surprising another banshee who screams and curses another party member before disappearing. This happens yet another time. Finally, at the third door the sailor listens at, the monk grows tired of him attempting to listen for something that has no corporeal form and can't make noise, so he opens the door quickly, shoves the sailor inside, and closes it quickly. The sailor was the unfortunate recipient of a death curse this time. The only good thing (I suppose) was that it was not immediate. Undaunted, our group continued.


Notified by the wailing of the banshees, a group of animated suits of armor show up. Unfortunately, our group really wasn't geared well enough for this and couldn't put a dint into the things. Running away and barricading themselves in a room, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth as the animated armor attempted to break the door down. Finally, the warrior cried, "If only I had a flametongue!". The dwarf looked thoughtful for a moment and began to dig around in his knapsack. Moments later, he produces a long sword and says, "You mean like this?" Struck dumb, the warrior nods and takes the weapon. The monk looks at the dwarf and asks, "Why did you have that?" The dwarf responds that since they gathered all this loot from the bandits, and no one else seemed interested, he took it all and kept it. He'd been using the flametongue as a tent stake and something to light his pipe with in the evenings. Using the newly acquired magic loot, they quickly made short-work of the invading animated armor. Bolding continuing on, they go to the next level...

...Where apparently Soth has raised himself a garbage disposal called a blood elemental. The group struggles against Soth's garbage disposal, but alas, it escapes out a window, but not before killing the hapless sailor and gorging on his body. Luckily, a gypsy boy that had been following the group at a discreet distance came forward to take his place.

It was here that our brave group of adventurers decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and that if the garbage disposal had kicked their asses, it was perhaps best if they did not confront the castle's master.

And that, my friends, is the tale of our brave group in Ravenloft. There are other adventures, other stories, but those are for another day.

As you can see, this is not exactly the sort of thing one would see in an MMO or other computerized RPG, and that's a shame because those were some really great times. I'm not saying that there can't be great times in a computerized game, but it is different. Later, I'll post about some of our adventures online.


Camp Taurajo, just a little south of Barrens chat