Tal-Findur's page

I have played an evil character in a standard "lawful/good/neutral" campaign. You just have to get very specific with the character direction.

My character was a Cleric that had an intense desire to become a lich, so that he might "live forever." In his case, the only thing he truly cared about was knowledge. He wanted to be a permanent "library" to Kings and Gods alike. His "currency" (i.e. his treasure) was any tidbit of obscure information of a historical, magical, alchemical, etc. nature. He was lawful evil. The lawful part of him was able to swear not to hurt the other party members as they were -- to him -- a means to an end. They were able to help within the bounds of the party to keep him alive, just as he worked to keep them alive. He typically did this in somewhat strange ways. For example, he had the Knowledge Domain and the Undead Sub-Domain. One of the powers of the Undead sub-domain is the ability to cause someone to take on some of the characteristics of an undead creature with a touch-attack. What he would do is touch a party member, then use his Channel Negative Energy ability to "heal" the character. Somewhat creepy and unorthodox, but perfectly viable. As there were no lawful good-types in the party, they got used to his odd way of healing.

Also, the whole point of the campaign was that the world was invaded by an outside race of beings. My character wanted the world to go back to the way it was, so he had very strong reasons to work with people of all alignments to drive off the invaders.

Where did you buy products? How did you hear about products? What hobbies did you do when you weren't playing D&D? What did you listen to to get you pumped for those dungeon crawls?

The older brother of a friend got the first boxed set with the dragon on the front for Christmas. He wanted nothing to do with it & he let me borrow it. We also had a hobby and toy shop in my hometown (outside Chicago) & the owner knew some people who owned stores like his in Chicago and southern Wisconsin (where Lake Geneva is located) He started stocking the stuff....everything he got, we bought. Got a copy of the original 3 booklets from him. We used a mish-mash of the rules until AD&D came out.....thousands of hours (and dollars) later - and 31 years of real time, I'm still playing

mazes full of rooms with monsters of every shape and size.....traps that had no saves.....running for your life at almost every encounter because you just knew you couldn't win.....link-boys with lanterns leading the party down creepy hallways and falling into pits so deep you lost the screams.....puddings that hide inside everything, like that innocent silver tea-set sitting on the table......gelatinous cubes from all four directions at once.....thieves with missing fingers from picking locks on chests that held hundreds of gold pieces.....never knowing if the magic weapon you were carrying was going to turn out to be cursed....changing the sex of my character twice due to cursed girdles and scrolls.....finally burying a hobbit thief after having brought him back to life 10 times with wishes and Raise Dead spells.....losing another thief to a Sphere of Annihilation fixed to a wall looking suspiciously like the way around a room full of trolls.....drinking a Potion of Flying and jumping off a cliff, only to find that it was a Potion of Delusion....staying up til 4 in the morning just about every Friday and Saturday having the greatest time of my life.....

Does that about sum it up for you? :-)