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In the same vein as the Obituaries threads, here's place to talk about your character's greatest moments. I'll begin...
Edition: D&D BECMI Red Box
Name of PC: Beowulf (Yes, I know, very creative. I was 12.)
Class/Level: Male Human Fighter 1
Adventure: Your First Adventure (the single-player adventure included in the Player's Manual)
Catalyst: Bargle + charm person
Story: While Beowulf was distracted fighting a goblin, his Cleric companion, Aleena, was killed by a magic missile spell from the evil Magic-User, Bargle. Beowulf dispatched the goblin and charged Bargle, who cast charm person on Beowulf. Beowulf was able to shake the spell off and ran his sword through Bargle, killing him. With Aleena dead, it felt like a hollow victory. Beowulf gathered up the treasure and Aleena's body, and escaped the dungeon with a pack of ghouls hot on his heels.
Thus began the long, successful adventuring career of Beowulf.
-Skeld
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Game System: AD&D 1st Edition
Name of PC: Haladir
Class/Level: Ranger 12
Adventure: a bring-your-own-character tournament adventure at Simcon VII. (I forget the title-- it was something like "Trial of the Heroes" or somesuch.)
Catalyst: Being asked by a god, "What would you fight to prove your valor?"
Story: The heroes were assembled from across the multiverse for... I forget what exactly. Five gods summoned them: the God of Justice (LG), the Goddess of Magic (LE), the Trickster God (CE), the Goddess of Fortune (CG), and the Spirit of Nature (N). The characters were put to three tests by each of the gods.
After surviving several tests, the PCs were called before the God of Justice one at a time... and the GM pulled each player into another room one at a time. I was the last of the four players to go; the other players each went into the other room and were there for 15-20 minutes each, and then returned saying that they couldn't tell us what happened... other than that one of the characters died and the others were in single-digit hit points. Finally, it was my turn. The GM said, "You are standing before the glory of the God of Justice. He says to you, 'You are one of the greatest heroes of your world. Tell me, what would you fight to prove your valor?'" And then the GM looked at me. Without skipping a beat, I said, "To prove my valor, I would fight an ancient evil dragon." The GM noded and said, "The God of Justice smiles at your answer, nods, and proclaims, 'You are indeed a brave warrior. You have passed my test.'" We then returned to the other game room, after having been sequestered for maybe 90 seconds.
Later, the GM told us that to pass that test, you had to name a monster that you would have absolutely no chance of defeating one-one-one (e.g. a dragon, a pit fiend, a demon lord). If you named something you could actually beat in combat, you had to fight it, and then you were asked the same question again...
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Playing Boothill, the wild west game from the back of the 1e DM's Guide. My character was a famous outlaw and had been tracked down by a bounty hunter. The bounty hunter had placed his shotgun against my face and said, "Clem, you're worth 10,000 dollars alive and 5,000 dollars dead. I'm not a greedy man." Then he pulled the trigger and fumbled. The DM ruled the gun jammed and my character yanked it from his hands and beat him to death with his own shotgun.
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Game System: Pathfinder Society
Name of PC: Myrlan Dai
Class/Level: Sorcerer 10
Adventure: The Refuge of Time
Catalyst: Party being overwhelmed by creatures conjured with multiple Summon Monster IV
Story: I try to behave when playing Myrlan. Nobody wants to just sit and be along while a summoning specialist steals the show. But when our party of intrepid Pathfinders was about to be overrun by dinosaurs summoned by Runemage Naroth Balam my local VL, who was playing with us that day, turns toward me and says, "Bring the pain, Myral."
"Ladies and gentlemen, elementals of all ages, follow the spotlights and see what fills the center ring! Release the hounds!" Ten lantern archons, 4 medium earth elementals, 2 large earth elementals, 3 large air elementals, and 3 hound archons later Balam lay dead at our feet. It took about 7 round to summon everything, but it was glorious. Glorious. I finally got to be my own one man circus show.
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Game System: Pathfinder
Name of PC: The Grisgol
Class/Level: Duergar Necromancer 4
Adventure: The second one of Serpent's Skull.
Catalyst: Idiots climbing a cliff.
"WHO NEEDS MAGIC!"
The shout from Dovret, the warrior, echoed in The Grisgol's ears, breaking through the rushing winds. She looked up and watched the dwarves ascend, and waited.
Athelstan, the skald, was the first to lose his grip, grabbing a loose stone and plummeting to his doom. The Grisgol waited for the dwarf to come within reach, then cast her spell. With a burst of feathers, Athelstan Twice-Dropped's fall was arrested. The dwarf drifted slowly back down to earth, then resumed the climb.
Ilisa, the cleric of Cayden Cailean, had been the only one with the sense to use a spell—fly—rather than climbing the cliff like a rock lizard. But the winds were too strong, and she lost her purchase. Exasperated, The Grisgol brandished her ring and re-cast the spell, rescuing the priest. But she could only do this once. She was a wizard, not some simpleminded sorcerer. Luckily, she had one more tool in her arsenal.
"Chester," The Grisgol said to the only other party member who had stayed on the ground, "can you set up that staff of yours? Right over there, yes." Chester did so, planting her living quarterstaff in the rocky soil and directing it to take root.
But the two dwarves made it up without incident. The Grisgol assumed they found what they were looking for—a feather from a mystical bird.
Then Athelstan decided he didn't want to make the climb back down and, likely not understanding the complexity of wizardly casting options, jumped.
Panicked by the idiocy of her non-mage colleagues, The Grisgol rallied her magic and created a burst of webbing between the cliff and the staff, catching herself, Chester, Ilisa and, fortunately, the falling Athelstan. He was knocked unconscious by the impact.
'Who needs magic?' Dovret perhaps thought again, ironically, as he realized he had just run out of rope.
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Game System: Pathfinder
Name of PC Animal Companion: Bruce Kender
Class/Level: Orangutan/10 ft.
Adventure: Exploring a creepy coastal town that turned out to have deep ones in it
Castalyst: Rolling a 20
Bruce is a normal kender who just happens to look like an enormous orangutan wielding a blood-encrusted scythe. He was ridiculously powerful for our group - imagine a party of four unoptimized martial kobolds and an orc barbarian that's constantly enlarged and enraged and has a 24 AC, and you begin to understand the degree to which other characters were overshadowed. So my long-standing rule was once Bruce got a critical hit with his scythe, he would be permanently retired from the game.
Finally, in his third (or fourth?) game, we were facing a small army of deep ones that had disturbed the party while we were trying to sleep. My PC, Dick Kender, buffed Bruce to the gills and sent him after the nearest deep ones. He dropped anything he hit (because deep ones are CR 1), and I was considering having him switch out his scythe for his claws when suddenly, suddenly, I rolled a 20. And there's no way Bruce misses a confirmation roll. He vaporized the deep one so quickly that the fleshy shrapnel killed five other deep ones around it. Alien ichor dripping from his orange fur and his bloody weapon, he soundlessly rose into the night sky, floated over the heads of the remaining fake townsfolk, and brought his scythe down on the head of the deep ones' leader.
After the fight Dick Kender took Bruce's weapons and armor away and shooed him off into the snowy wilds. But stories of a long-armed grim reaper have begun to proliferate among trappers and homesteaders . . .
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Game System: Pathfinder
Name of PC: Jim Kender
Class/Level: Halfling Occultist 5
Adventure: Investigating a doppelganger-controlled bank for some reason.
Catalyst: Incautiously-fired bazookas.
So, we kind of massacred a bunch of bankers.
By accident! See, a few of the bankers were corrupt and attacked us, and while chasing down the last, one of us decided to fire an explosive rocket at him. It...sort of blew up the whole hallway, as well as half of the room beyond, killing, like, ten accountants and badly injuring maybe twenty more. Believe me, we gave that party member such a scolding.
We ran through and took on the doppelgangers who'd taken the bank over, defeating them and saving the chief banker. But now we were faced with a problem: We were the Halfling FBI. How were we supposed to explain this calamity to the feds?
Luckily, Jim Kender had purchased a wand of sculpt corpse, knew the Psychic Curse memory lapse, and, most importantly, had totally maxed out his Bluff skill.
"Doppelgangers, officer," Jim later explained to the sheriff. "A whoooole lot of doppelgangers."
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Game System: Pathfinder
Name of PC: Chester A. Arthur
Class/Level: Cleric/Barbarian 5
Adventure: kill the snake lady
Catalyst: AND HER NAME IS
Is it alright to brag about a character someone else owns? I doubt the owner is interested in posting here, but this is a story that needs to be shared.
Dwarf cleric Chester A. Arthur is...quite a character. In our time as a group, she has eaten rotten seaweed, befriended a water mephit and used him as a surfboard, and sewn together a hot air balloon out of human skin. But by far her crowning moment of glory so far has been our fight against a serpentfolk woman who had dominated one of our group and killed another before we retreated. We returned in force, and what was meant to be a tough battle turned into a steamrollering none of us expected, partially thanks to The Grisgol casting web, but I will forever remember the killing blow - Athelstans summoned eagles lifting Chester high up into the air, and the dwarf dropping, delivering The People's Elbow to the serpentfolk, and then taking her broken, ruined body and wearing it as a Championship Belt.
I PARTIALLY count it as a great moment for me, since they were my eagles, but Chester has been amazing to adventure with.
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Game System: Warhammer
Name of PC: Kestrel
Class/Level: Noble turned Duellist
Adventure: Pursued by Chaos Lord on Juggernaut
Catalyst: fate points
Party was being pursued by a Chaos Lord on a Juggernaut whose intent was to run us down, destroy our cart, steal the contents and most likely kill us all. My noble does what anyone of high birth should do, and promptly hopped off the cart, told them to ride on in haste, and used my rapier to draw a literal line in the sand. Furrowed brow lowered... and bid the Chaos Lord to do his worst. Certain death of this type usually merits a fate point simply to spare my own life, but I argued that in this case I was using the fate point for an offensive action not to spare my own life, but to stab the Juggernaut in the brain through his eyeball.
In an odd twist, character lived on to fight several other days. Ended up taxidermying that Juggernaut's head. Achievement unlocked: trophy hunter.
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Game System: Warhammer
Name of PC: Kestrel
Class/Level: Noble turned Duellist
Adventure: Split the party... one on one vs a demonic version of General Grievous/Edward scissorhands.
Catalyst: Stratagema training courtesy of Peak Performance, starring Lt Commander Data
Speaking of lived on to fight several other days... Was raiding a church that had been taken over by demons and vampires when the bulk of the party went downstairs to investigate further. I arrived late and was prevented from joining the party (and presumably punished for splitting the party) by encountering a 4 blade armed demon. 4 Bladed arms vs my heavily invested defensive statblock meant that while it was incredibly difficult to damage the demon in any way, he was soundly and roundly unable to get past my own defenses... Our battle raged on so long that the rest of the party was able to finish their battle, explore the aftermath, and plot the next element of our adventure before finally coming up to assist in dispatching the demon.
I did not 'win'... I simply played 'not to lose'.
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Game System: Pathfinder
Name of PC: Qakisst Vishtani (ifrit) & Serren Soulseer (aasimar)
Class/Level: Sorcerer4/Oracle2 & Shaman6
Adventure: The Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Giant flying undead rodent in the basement
There were footprints all around, so no tracking Ieshia unless you were an actual ranger (and he was on the right, and on the right track). So Serren and I slipped into a narrow passage we found, expecting to find Ieshia eventually. Nope, we come out in the well under the yard and are immediately attacked by a giant ghoul infested dire bat. Fortunately I had come out of the tunnel spear first. I stabbed the bat with my boar spear (yeah, who else carries a boar spear) and backed into the tunnel pushing Serren back behind me. The AC bonus from hitting with the spear saved my neck.
The bat just didn't want to give up, having been trapped at the bottom of the well for weeks, so it squeezed into the tunnel to chase us. Bad move. I cast bull strength and made good use of my boar spear in the narrow confines with a few enhancements from Serren as well. Five rounds later we hear an alarm spell go off. Our party rogue had brought a magic monkey's head that had been mounted on the wall upstairs with him, not knowing what it was, and triggered it because we'd told him it had some kind of abjuration spell on it. It took me two more rounds to finish off the bat, it was a crispy and hole ridden mess now, so we could rush over to save the rest of the party from the remaining half-dozen ghouls that where swarming our party's paladin. Everybody else was paralyzed. Fortunately a few well placed scorching rays, and the fact that Serren was a Shaman built to channel finished off the pack of ghouls quickly. Score for the native outsiders!
Adventure: still in the Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: burning haunt in the attic
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Still playing this campaign :-), and it's pretty fun.
Game system: Trail of Cthulhu
Name of PC: Joseph Westmore
Class/level: Dilettante
Adventure: Investigating a cult in 1937
Catalyst: Wasn't allowed to come inside
During a stakeout at a mansion, Joseph was trying to figure a way inside. After whoever answered the door refused to let him inside, he drive his car straight into the door! He then got into a shootout with a guard, which he won!