A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Bandit Camp

[Matthias Blackthorne]

Things I never expected to say in the Kingmaker AP: 'Well that sounds like the best plan we got. We are sending the Faerie Dragon and the Hedgehog in as an NPC Scouting Montage. They are NOT wearing Red Shirts.'

[pennywit]

IMC, I've passed out the kingdom-building rules from UC so players can look at them in anticipation of RRR starting.

Me: "You might notice a brothel mentioned a few times among the buildings. During rules revisions, they changed it to 'dance hall,' but didn't change all of the occurrences of 'brothel.'"
Players: (Chuckle)
Me: "When you think about it, a dance hall is nice and generic. It could be anything .. "
Player (of a Calistria-worshiping elf): "Oh, it'll be a brothel."

[Orthos]

My group collects quotes. Here's a few of our gems.

Elegy (Ruler, LG Oracle): "You know nothing about manners...."
Errol (Magister, CE Eldritch Knight): "I know plenty about manners, I grew up in one!"

----

Errol: "Elegy don't you know about the scientific process? You stick your nose where it doesn't belong, that's how you find out stuff."

----

Errol: "One of our teammates is a horse who turns things into a bloody pulp and I'm no longer trusted with doing any of the talking due to a certain incident involving a hat shop."

----

Takeshi (Warden, TN Samurai): Do I hear any noises?
DM: ...You've heard lots of noises.
Errol: NO. BAD LIZARD.
Takeshi: ...I go to help. WALKING.

----

Elegy: "What do I have to roll to give Lilith (Spymistress, CN Hunter) an 'are you serious?' eyebrow."
GM: "Nothing, Elegy auto-succeeds at those checks."

----

Elegy: "I lost a perception roll to a pet rock!"

----

Takeshi: (to suggestion'd Jaekah [General, TN Cavalier]) WEAK-MINDED FOOL!
Errol: I HAVEN'T EVEN DONE ANYTHING!

----

(After Elegy was reincarnated as an Aranea)
Elegy: Wait when you say Svetlana's going to think she's the cutest thing
"No Mrs Leveton, you cannot pet the Duchess"
GM: Svetlana's a country girl, spiders don't bug her
... dammit I did not mean to do that

----

Errol: "We should do something with Candlemere tower."
GM: "It is a ruin, you can turn it into something."
Elegy: "But can you turn it into a Brand New Car???"
Errol: "Oh for..."
GM: "Well sure, I guess, if it's a Flintstones car."
Elegy & GM: ♪ "Flintstones, Meet the Flintstones, they're the Modern Stone Age Family...." ♪

[pennywit]

My group is discussing their vision for their kingdom on email right now. I think they want to build Las Vegas. The barbarian just asked for a white suit.

[pennywit]

Rogue's PC (who's previous character, a paladin, was killed by a owlbear, as an owlbear grapples a bandit): "That doesn't end well."

Stag Lord's Fort:

After our group's young rogue successfully executes a coup de grace against the Stag Lord (and the GM made a face after the Stag Lord failed a Fort save), quoth the barbarian: "He got killed by a 17-year-old girl!"

Dwarf druid (Str 7): "I brandish my mighty warhammer"
GM: "Your warhammer is heavy. It clunks to the ground."
Druid: "I brandish my mighty warhammer in two hands."

Player (reviewing notes from past session): "Johd Kavken: sexist and annoying."

Kesten Garess: "I say we do a frontal assault."
Players: "NO!"

Player to barbarian player: "Svetlana wants somebody to comfort her during the storm. Now's your chance!"

[Orthos]

Errol: So Elegy gets a mentor/mother, Errol gets a wife, and Lilith gets... Puck
GM: heh
Errol: Lilith gets kids
GM: Though I can see Akiniyi occasionally getting Cesca [Errol's wife] to help with the harpies [chicks found during a sidequest].
"Call it practice."
Elegy: Jaekah seems to have turned to Eranex for a mentor
GM: yep
Elegy: Takeshi has his friends Beam, Daniels, Cuervo, and Morgan

[pennywit]

I pre-roll a few months worth of weather in my campaign. Last session, I asked the druid to make a Survival roll. He made it, and I told him there was a big thunderstorm on the way. I tossed him a copy of the storm rules and asked the group what they wanted to do.

Druid: "'As a rule of thumb, assume one bolt per minute for a 1-hour period at the center of the storm. Each bolt causes between 4d8 and 10d8 points of electricity damage. One in 10 thunderstorms is accompanied by a tornado.' We're going to stay inside at Oleg's."

[pennywit]

Rivers Run Red:

GM (as Howls-of-North-Wind, a warg): "You have intruded on my territory. What reason do you give?"

PC Baroness: "How were we to know this was your territory?"

Howls-of-North-Wind: "I have left my mark all through here. How could you not sense it?"

[IcedMik]

In the PCs backstories, the current Baron has a son, named after one of the other PCs.

Early in the creation of the kingdom, I had Svetlana have a child. The druid went to her and had a mini-scene, acting as a magical mid-wife, and so Svetlana and Oleg named the daughter after her.

This unfortunately has led to the rest of the party ravenously helping anyone in town who might be pregnant, so they can get babies named after them too.

To appease them, Sootscale had four kobold children, named Eddy (after Edward), Kozer (after Krosis), Nana (after Ana), and Sammich (after Samurge).

[pennywit]

Interesting. Kobolds mature pretty quickly, so as soon as they're bipedal, Sootscale could (using medieval custom) send his kids to the PCs for fostering. So, each of your PCs will have a kobold mini-me following him around.

[IcedMik]

pennywit wrote:

Interesting. Kobolds mature pretty quickly, so as soon as they're bipedal, Sootscale could (using medieval custom) send his kids to the PCs for fostering. So, each of your PCs will have a kobold mini-me following him around.

That...that is an AMAZING idea! I am so doing that. Though they'll have to stay in town during adventuring; my players would be heartbroken if anything happened to a baby kobold.

[Orthos]

Bwahahahahahah! That's awesome. Crazy kobolds.

[pennywit]

IcedMik wrote:

pennywit wrote:

Interesting. Kobolds mature pretty quickly, so as soon as they're bipedal, Sootscale could (using medieval custom) send his kids to the PCs for fostering. So, each of your PCs will have a kobold mini-me following him around.

That...that is an AMAZING idea! I am so doing that. Though they'll have to stay in town during adventuring; my players would be heartbroken if anything happened to a baby kobold.

Or you could run a session with the players playing their mini-mes. Maybe use the rules for young characters?

[Philip Knowsley]

pennywit wrote:

Interesting. Kobolds mature pretty quickly, so as soon as they're bipedal, Sootscale could (using medieval custom) send his kids to the PCs for fostering. So, each of your PCs will have a kobold mini-me following him around.

Heh - I actually did something similar...but had already adult Kobolds be

fawning admirers of the PCs, following them around etc.
These young kobolds then modelled themselves on each PC, but all got it
slightly wrong. They even renamed themselves - but again similar to, but
not the same as the PCs.
My fav was the one who named himself 'General Trusk Barbarian Lord' after
the barbarian in our game. (But hey - what can you expect from a Kobold
fighter with an INT of 6... ;-p

[Orthos]

GM: "The Spriggan is cooking a whole cow on a spit over a fire. As Lilith approaches, he stands up and kicks the spit up to hold like a club."
Errol: "How appropriate, he fights with a cow."

----

Spriggan Guard: "Is he yours?" *pointing at Jaekah*
Lilith: "He is ally to the Summer Court and friend of the Trickster, yes."
Elegy-OOC: "Don't f@#% with the Puck."

[IcedMik]

GM: "The baobhan sith dances seductively, capturing your attention. Make a WIll save, and there's a clause you get a -2 on this if you're sexually attracted to women. Who takes the penalty?"
Ana: "Oh, I didn't think I would have to answer this kind of question about my character yet."
Edward: "I think my horse does too."

---

Speaking of those kobold wards of my PCs, I've started up an email minigame called Koboldmaker, based off of wards in Crusader Kings II. Each week I email them about what the kobolds get up to, and get them to tell me how they deal with the kobold.

My first one, the kobolds were caught playing tricks on other noble children, including the Prince. The tricks were pretty much harmless, but there were a few skinned knees and bruises.

King Edward took Eddy aside and told him it'd be more fun to play tricks as a group, and told him to invite his son.

Samurge, the gnome, chose to teach Sammich a bunch of new tricks to play.

[pennywit]

Setup: Barbarian player is out for the session, remaining PCs are exploring. They're up against an upconverted mythic Howl of the North Wind. The PCs aren't dying, but Howl is getting the better of them.

Wizard casts a spell. Due to saves, results are underwhelming.

Rogue: "OK, now cast something big."
Wizard: "That WAS something big."

Two rounds later, druid wild shapes into a bear.

Round 1: Dice roll: Whiff, whiff, whiff.
Round 2: Dice: Whiff, whiff whiff
Druid: "I can't get a good roll out of these."
GM (me): "Would you like to use my lucky die?"
Druid: "Sure."
Round 3: Dice: Hit, hit, hit.
Druid: "This is the murder die!"

[Orthos]

Jaekah's player: (Reading Rogue Genius Games's "Mythic Options: Missing Core Feats") "This [Mythic Brew Potion] would be a good feat for Cesca or Elga if they got Mythic tiers."
Elegy's player: "I think being married to Errol counts as a Mythic Trial."

[Captain Sakhbet "The Sandman"]

GM (Me): "Ok, from now on, Ewan [CG Male Human Fighter 7, who pretty much solo'd an encounter] can roll for 1d4+1 wenches whenever he gets back from fighting something."

[pennywit]

Barbarian buys a locked gauntlet.
Me (GM): "This requires a full-round action to lock in your axe. I AM going to enforce that."
Barbarian: "Can I just have it always chained?"
Me: "While you are riding your horse?"

[pennywit]

Player: "Our military advisor said we need more watchtowers and forts. But we can't afford it!"
GM: "Well, he is your military advisor ... "

[Mr. Grogg]

While relieving his bladder onto a prisoner being interrogated, the party sorcerer waxed poetic: "I dream of building a kingdom based on the premise that nobody shall ever be pissed upon again. Unless they really deserve it."

[Lloyd Jackson]

"This is why I am the King!"

Hoid, bard ruler of the kingdom, as he prepares to leap from the back of Tenzekil's Giant Bee animal companion to, hopefully, land on the back of the wild-shaped, bee form, Tenzekil who is engaged in an aerial dog-fight with the Tyme, the party druid wild-shaped as a air elemental, involving call lightning, at 300+ ft above the ground.

[Talking Skull]

Lloyd Jackson wrote:

"This is why I am the King!"

Hoid, bard ruler of the kingdom, as he prepares to leap from the back of Tenzekil's Giant Bee animal companion to, hopefully, land on the back of the wild-shaped, bee form, Tenzekil who is engaged in an aerial dog-fight with the Tyme, the party druid wild-shaped as a air elemental, involving call lightning, at 300+ ft above the ground.

Okay, this? These balls-to-the wall, (N)ucking (F)uts actions PCs end up doing? This is the sort of stuff I live for, and want to see crop up in my games.

[Orthos]

+1 to that! How'd it work out?

[Lloyd Jackson]

With a final push, Hoid buries his sword in the insect's head, and dives towards the fight below. A last second jink and a desperate grasp finds the King clinging to one of the druid/bee's legs. After a few moments of dodging the gnome's stings, our hero has had quite enough of being stabbed at... and drops the remaining distance, suffering only moderate injury. Retrieving his sword from the goop that was the druid's companion, he watches with interest as the Tyme blasts the madman into oblivion, though it was probably the unconscious plummet that actually did the gnome in.

Starting position: 300+ feet.
Grab bee: ~200 feet.
Release position: ~150 feet. Takes somewhere around 25 damage.
Yes, he rode a giant insect above the fight, coud-de-graced his ride, and jumped. And then jumped again.

Closing statement, Hoid: 'Friends, Lady Luck herself watches over us.'

Closing statement, Player: 'Oh... um. I feel special.' Everyone, 'Why? That was awesome!' Player 'Turns out I know Feather Fall.'

This campaign is full of gems. One phrase in particular has become synonymous with eminent insanity. It is, 'I have a plan!'

[Aldrius]

We had a kingdom event. I decided that the event (disaster) should be more memorable, so I said that a necromancer secreted into town and tried to raise a zombie army out of the freshly-built graveyard's residents (all victims of the owlbear attack). Of course, my players succeeded their stability check against that. In response I told them that the warden (Akiros) and Peacekeeper (Munguk) both handled it.

Queue an image of a hill giant using his greatclub to punt the necromancer clear across the Little Sellen. "Team Rocket's blasting off again!"

[Orthos]

Lloyd Jackson wrote:

One phrase in particular has become synonymous with eminent insanity. It is, 'I have a plan!'

For one of my old 3.5-era campaigns, it was "Hang on, I think I have something in my pack/bag/pockets that can deal with this."

[pennywit]

Similar to Aldrius.

I rolled a kingdom event. I announced, "Monster attack!" My party has a thing about owlbears, so I added, "Owlbear attack on a farm." The farm in question belongs to the barbarian's family.

GM: "You can take care of this yourselves, or you can roll a Stability check."
Players: "What's the DC?"
GM: I gave them the control DC.
Baroness: "What do I need to roll on the d20 to get that?"
Druid: "7."
Barbarian: "No, I'm not trusting my family's farm to your ability to roll a 7. Besides, we need the experience."

Later, after owlbears are trounced:

GM: "You notice your dad is missing more teeth than usual."
Barbarian: "Dad, have faeries been stealing your teeth?"
GM (as dad): "Uhh?"
Barbarian: "Wizard, get over here, detect magic."
GM: "You do realize that the wizard is going to have to look in his mouth for about a minute, right?"
Barbarian: "Yes. But it's funny."
Wizard: Detect Magic, dental exam on Barbarian's dad.
GM: "You detect no magic."

What the players do not know:

The fairies used pliers.

[pennywit]

From a side adventure involving new third-level characters adventuring within the kingdom:

Rogue (currently inside a gelatinous cube, paralyzed and invisible and taking acid damage): I play a plot twist card. "An unexpected ally appears out of nowhere."

GM (me): "A very confused kobold charges at the cube with a spear."

Context:

The party had just gotten into the first level of the dungeon and hadn't met anybody aside from some semi-friendly kobolds on the surface.

[pennywit]

Player: "What positions do we have left to fill on the council"
Another player: "Consort and heir."
GM: "Auchs could fill either of those roles, you know."
Baroness: "NO!!!"

*****

Baroness: "I want to buy Auchs some new toys."

*****

Round 1:
Wizard (Calming down and distracting an Auchs charmed by tooth fairies): "Let me tell you about a magical land ... "

Round 2: (Players inside a house, killing tooth faeriies."
Auchs: "What going on?!"
Wizard: "Let me tell you about a magical land ... "

Round 3: (Players continue waling on tooth fairies)

Auchs: "Tell me about the rabbits, Wizard?"
Wizard: "Well, Auchs, there's a magical land ... "

[pennywit]

Redcap encounter:

Player 1: "Oh, no ... "
GM: (Redcaps speak in Southern accent)
Player 2: "Could we at least have some banjos?"
GM: (Obliges with duelling banjos from laptop)
Player 1: "Are they carrying banjos??"
Player 2: "No, the banjo music just follows them around."

[Orthos]

In Varnhold's stockade.

DM: "The Spriggan is cooking a whole cow on a spit over a fire. As Lilith approaches, he stands up and kicks the spit up to hold like a club."
Errol-OOC: "How appropriate, he fights with a cow."

-----

After killing The Cinderlander, most of his fellow hunters, and the Blood Hag "Cinder Witch" they'd picked up to attack the Nomen camp with.

Elegy: *preparing Nomienn bodies for cremation*
Errol: *juggling masked severed head of the hag* "Hey, Elegy! I think it's time we found out who the murderer was!"
Elegy: "...Not now, Errol."
<beat>
Errol: "Hey, Lilith!"

-----

Out-of-character discussion between sessions.

Jaekah's player: "So I guess Akiniyi (Arachne sorceress and kingdom Diplomat) is Team Mom."
GM: "Well, she does have six kids."
Elegy's player: "Twelve now!"
GM: "Oh right, harpies." (Adopted the six chicks the party found on a sidequest.) "Twelve. Thirteen if you count Elegy."
Elegy: "Not really, since Elegy has her real mom in town now."
Jaekah: "But yeah, Akiniyi is the most maternal character the party really knows. Though Lilith also has kids."
Elegy: "But Lilith also reminds us that in the wild there are animals that eat their young."

[pennywit]

In the Tomb of the Lonely Warrior (who, for the record, landed ONE HIT during the battle because the GM's dice were cursed:

GM: "So, you've beaten the Lonely Warrior, and you've cleaned skeletons out of one room. Want to go to the other room full of coffins?"

Player: "Nah. We'll move on."

GM: "Of course. And if your citizens wander by and run into a skeleton ... "

Player: "Oh, God, the guilt trip. OK, we'll go in and kill the skeletons."

GM: "Let the record show I did not railroad you."

===================
Barbarian (at around -40 or so hit points after a redcap critted with a sickle): "Well, I'm dead."
GM: "Does it help if I tell you this wasn't an ordinary wandering monster encounter?"
Barbarian: "Umm .. no."
====================

As players confront a room full of tooth fairies, GM has chosen "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy"

Player: "Shouldn't the Sugar Plum Fairy and Tooth Fairies be enemies?"

[pennywit]

OK, last one for now. I promise.

===========================
Barbarian: "We need a bard to tell people about our adventures. Spread the word."
GM (me) (distracted): "Look at your 'People of the Kingdom' handout."
Wizard: "I think there's been an update!"
(General shuffling of papers)
Rogue: "Let's talk to Grigori when we get a chance!"
===========================

For reference:

I maintain an online list of notable people in the kingdom, similar to the appendices in A Song of Ice and Fire or Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. Since my players run a kingdom now, not everyone comes in and introduces themselves when they move to town. I figure that some people just move in, pass through, and so forth. So ... even though my players haven't encountered Grigori yet, he's still passing through town occasionally and doing performances.

I can't wait until they actually meet him ...

[Orthos]

Takeshi the samurai has just leaped-swung into Krukjalfvir the Colossus Crag Linnorm skeleton's mouth, killed the Elder Negative Elemental inside, pulled free one of the teeth, and used it to surf down the Colossus's spine.

Jaekah-OOC: "I think Guile's Theme still fits Takeshi's stunts best."

[Orthos]

Lillith: *after being flown back and forth across the river by Vordakai's lair by Jaekah* "Not one word about mounting the dragon or I will kill you in your sleep." *in general to the party*

[Orthos]

After seeing an astral projection of Vordakai.

Errol-OOC: "So he just stuck a fist-sized ruby in his face? Why on earth would you do that?"
GM: "He's a lich. He wasn't using that socket for anything else."

[pennywit]

IMC, Auchs and Dovan have very much become an Of Mice and Men duo. With the Stag Lord's men dispersed, Auchs is the only real friend Dovan has left.

In a recent scenario (referenced above) tooth fairies charmed Auchs to stand guard at a house where they had laired. Townspeople tried to get in the house, Auchs stopped them. Townspeople tried to take out Auchs, Dovan responded by killing a few townspeople.

When the players arrived in town, they found Auchs guarding the door and yelling, "No bother little friends!!" and Dovan (the kingdom's spymaster) standing next to Auchs, rapier out, holding off a gathered crowd, and several dead bodies in front of them.

So ... after my players pacified Auchs and chased out and/or killed the tooth fairies, they came back out in front of the house and told everyone to disperse. The party was getting ready to head back to the capital and take Dovan and Auchs with them until things calmed down.

And ...

One of my players, playing a Chaotic Neutral Calistria-worshipping wizard, yelled, "There are dead bodies!!" He pointed at them on the map. "Dead bodes!! Does nobody else have a problem with this???"

Rest of the group looked at the map for a second.

Baroness: "Auchs was charmed, and they were acting in self-defense."

The wizard sputtered a little bit at this.

[Orthos]

Elegy-OOC: "Do you think [Vordakai] speaks Arachnid (the Aranea language)?"
GM: "Actually, probably not. His existence predates the entire race. Casmar fell before Arachne was even born."
Elegy-OOC: "Errol and I are going to have fun with secret conversations. Also wow he is old."
GM: "Yeah, yeah he is."
Elegy-OOC: "Well, we're not getting off his lawn."
GM: "That's pretty much what this is all about! He wants all you little people to get off his lawn!"
Elegy-OOC: "Yeah, well, we're here to get our friends' ball back, he took it but instead of sending them home he invited them inside for Creepy Old Man dinner."

... they have no idea how accurate that is.

[Orthos]

Elegy-OOC: "Should we heal Auchs?"
Errol-OOC: "I'm gonna say no, for reason of because he's actually the real final boss."
Elegy-OOC: "... so are you saying it's the DRAG Queen of Forgotten Time?"

[pennywit]

Barbarian player: "Always look at the handouts carefully when the GM is a lawyer."

====================

Alchemist player (playing a plot twist card): "The satyr is so impressed with the barbarian's manliness that he uses his pipes to counter the Dancing Lady's captivating dance."

(I had to allow that one. Resolved it as Perform (wind) check against the captivating dance save DC)

=======================

[pennywit]

Barbarian player: "I had her [Lady Gianna, a high-level fey) handled until we rolled for initiative."

[pennywit]

At a faerie party, my players encountered a fey who gave them visions of their greatest fears.

==============
GM (addressing wizard follower of Calistria): "You have visions of a life of celibacy and selflessly serving others."

Wizard player: "NOOOOOO!!"
==============

[xn0o0cl3]

In our Evil Kingmaker game, our grand diplomat has had to shout, on more than one occasion, "WE HAVE MORE TO WORRY ABOUT RIGHT NOW THAN A DEAD PROSTITUTE!"

"Scandal" shows up a lot on our event phases.

[El Ronza]

My players met Crazy Old Bokken last session, and he sent them on his quest for Fangberries. The elf ranger asked what they looked like, and after he rolled well on his Knowledge check, I told him they were "small, purple in colour, and grew in clusters". Since they were told this right after he mentioned that the thicket might be covered in spiders, they're convinced that Fangberries are actually spider eyes.

I'm inclined to indulge them.

[Orthos]

Vordakai: "Very well, ingrates! If you will not kneel before an emperor, then you will cower before a necromancer! Come then!"

The end result of my players commenting that V's robes made him look like he was wearing some Arabian styles, combined with the pseudo-Arabian part of my homebrew setting being very big on Necromancy and V being a Large Ham. I started using the Jafar voice for him the second session he was in, and I couldn't resist his final pre-combat jibe from being the obvious quote.

[pennywit]

Player: "Is it a mythic owlbear?"
GM: "How would you know that?"
Player: "Does it have a big 'M' on its chest?"

[BornofHate]

A massive spider like creature with a chest appeared after the invisible Zamas pleaded with the party to rid the standing stone of drunken xills.

My fiancée, playing the ranger:
"A spider! I HOOT it with my bow!!
::PCs 2,3, & 4 have stunned looks on their face::
ME: Roll Initiative! (Of course she rolls insanely high)

After her plugging Zamas a few times with arrows the aranea cursed them and left with the chest.

Even now at level 15 she still talks about HOOTING everything.

[The Shifty Mongoose]

Me, describing our group to an onlooker:

"We have one communist, one fascist, one anarchist, one neo-conservative, one crony capitalist, and one wannabe womanizer."

The other players:

"Yeah, that sounds about right."