#folks were talking about ''what if your guy won the prize and became a god'' so yeah..

[mothmandibles]

Limbs as a God: Harbinger of Happiness! Bringer of Joy!

[higglety]

The (somehow, improbably) Ongoing Adventures of Bibigul and Gurgle

Ok guys, I gotta tell you what happened in our game last session, because I have never in my life had a plan go SO COMPLETELY OPPOSITE of the way I intended, and yet, somehow, still work.

Ok so quick recap:  the campaign concept is “One of you is the Hero of Legend; the others are not. Go out there and keep killing bad stuff until I dunno, one of you proves yourself or you all die or something.”  I’m playing Bibigul, a wildly impulsive halfling rogue/favored soul/swashbuckler, whose patron god is Olidammara, and who adheres very strongly to the idea that “whatever happens is destined to happen and it’ll all work out fine cuz I’m the hero of legend”.  We also have an elf Warlock whose whole schtick is knowing things, who has proven in actual play to know next to nothing, yet still be able to figure things out via sheer luck, a human scout who is extremely laid back and go-with-the-flow, and whose major character quirk has been a poorly-taxidermied snake with extreme sentimental value which he wears as a stinky belt, and Gurgule, my main man, an enormous bug-man who is a Barbarian (and, as of our last level-up, a summoner), who didn’t really dump Int Wis and Cha, so much as completely annihilate them.  

As you can see, our party is completely terrible, and that we’ve survived this far can be chalked up to sheer, blind, stupid luck.  It certainly couldn’t be attributed to any real skill or strategy employed by either we the players, or our characters.  In fact, the player who plays Gurgle and I have had backup characters made and ready to go for MONTHS now, because literally every session we almost die, and are absolutely certain that next session is when we finally kick the bucket.  The only uncertainty in our minds is whether we’ll accidentally force a TPK or not.  But I digress.

The session before last, we were offered a choice:  go kill the rest of the goblin horde who had been harassing a nearby town.  One relevant detail?  We had just come back from the neighboring town, which had been dealing with a zombie problem, and ran into the goblins on the way out.  We killed their leader, and a good chunk of their fighters.  This would be a mop-up mission, since we’d already accidentally done a good chunk of it.  OR, we could go help a halfling monastery that was being attacked by giants.  Because we’re idiots (and I, the idiot halfling who does not fear death, will take full responsibility for this), we pick the giants.  We pick the giants, by the way, because I talked the squad into accepting the result of a coin flip to decide the question.

So anyway, off we go to the monastery.  It’s a few day’s journey away, so we have a few random encounters along the way.  One of which happened on a bridge we had to cross.  As you might have guessed, we encountered trolls.  Now, they didn’t immediately attack us - they were gathering tolls, rather than dinner.  I felt confident that I could have talked our way through the encounter without having to fight, except - - - well, except for the fact that Gurgle had some past.... negative experiences with folks collecting tolls.  Long story short, he raged, they raged, we fought, it all got rather hairy there for a bit.  Fortunately I was able to talk everybody down and convince them to accept the human’s horse as a toll, and they let us go on our way.  This is very fortunate, because it became rapidly clear that there was no way we could have beaten these trolls.  (This doesn’t bode well for how the encounter with the giants is going to go, of course).

So then, as we travel along, we come to the next town.  We get a cordial welcome, which becomes even friendlier and more excited when they learn we’re the Heroes of Legend come from the Citadel.  The excitable halfling I had pulled aside to chat with informs EVERYONE that holy cow look!  It’s the Heroes of Legend come from the Citadel to save them from the problem they’d reported!  Hooray!!!  What was the problem, you ask?  TROLLS.

Now remember, I believe in luck.  I believe in fate.  I believe that no matter where I end up is exactly where I should be, and by the way, my dude Olidammara’s got my back.  I even have proof - along the way, we’d met a mysterious old beggar man who was Not What He Appears.  He had offered each of us a chance to play a challenge of skill, wits, or chance.  Our Scout chose chance, and lost his snake, to his great consternation (and the relief of the entire party).  The warlock gambled the party in a contest of wits, and only won because the player who plays Gurgle gave her a hint on one of the riddles, and I used my luck powers to force a reroll when the GM decided to roll a die to decide whether to accept her answer or not.  I, of course, chose a game of chance, and the old man granted my request to invoke my god ahead of time.  No, there was no cheating - just a simple appeal.  “Yo, Olidammara!  Hey dude, can you help me out here real quick?  Just gonna do a couple dice tosses, and it’s kinda important.  If you feel like it of course - no pressure.”  I figure of anyone, Olidammara is probably a god who appreciates a casual, low-key approach.  And he must have, because the old man rolled snake eyes thrice in a row, and I rolled high on each toss. Now, I had made the rookie mistake of not specifying terms ahead of time.  He wanted the enormous glowing, necromantic green gem I carry strapped to my torso like an magical crystalline pregnant belly.  I wanted.... him to not have it.  So, by way of a prize, the Mysterious Old Man assured me that the baby would be MINE.  Previously, it would been Not Mine, and that would have been Bad.  So anyway, the point of that anecdote was to illustrate that Olidammara’s got my back.

So, riding high on luck and fresh proof of my god’s interest in me and what all I get up to, I agree.  “Sure!”  I say, “We’ll make your troll problem go away!  No sweat!”  And we party the night away.  But, while’ we’re partying, I’m also making preparations.  I talk with the local halflings to get that hot gos, and I also buy the worst horse in town.  I’m ready.  

Next day, we go back out to the trolls.  I call out to them while we’re well away from the bridge, and tell them I want to talk, so they don’t ambush us.  They’re confused, but send one out to talk with us.  He reminds us that there is a toll to cross the bridge, and I assure him that I know that, and I didn’t actually want to cross the bridge, I just want a chat.  I ask him how the toll collecting business is going, and he says it’s going great!  Every few days, merchants come through, the trolls kill their guards, and the merchants give them money!  It’s fantastic!  There’s no end in sight!  I probe to see if they’ve noticed the merchant traffic slowing, as the town has, and they have not.  As far as they’re concerned, this is a viable situation that will continue indefinitely.  I clue them in on a secret, that there are giants to the north that have just PILES of gold, but they’re not having it.  I took the wrong tactic, I immediately realize - the trolls don’t want big targets, they want easy targets.  In my desire to steer the trolls to the giants and so benefit by them fighting each other, I fail to motivate them in a way they will accept.  Even bribing them with another horse to eat isn’t going to get them to budge, I immediately realize.  Fortunately, Gurgle had another moment of inspiration (the last of which was making an enormous explosion, so I’m On Board), saw what I was trying to do, and was able to talk with them On Their Level.

“You know what I heard,”  he tells them very seriously.  “I heard there’s halflings in the mountains, and they have gold.  PILES of gold.  They’re pilgrims, so they take the gold up to their gods, and they just leave them there!”

“Really?”  the troll is intrigued, but wary.  “But the bridge is right here.  Why should we leave the bridge?”

“Think about it,” says Gurgle.  “Not everybody uses bridges.  Bridges are ok, but even people who have never used a bridge can name two, even three gods!  And people give gold to gods.  Look at me!  I don’t have any gold, because I gave it all to the gods!”  The troll finds this to be a very compelling argument.  “Besides, you can just eat the halflings, too!  It’s not like it’ll be hard to kill them, they’re all small and squishy.”  At this point, I voluntarily roll a will save to keep my mouth shut.  Fortunately for us all, I succeed.  “Good cooks, too - they always have good food.  Here, look!”  I’m ready for this, because I see where he’s going with this, and I produce a bucket of ogre slop I’ve been carrying around in case it comes in handy.  Whaddaya know, it did!  

The trolls LOVE the ogre slop, and they think Gurgle is talking good sense.  They are convinced.  They set off north to the halflings in the mountains.  The path to which runs directly through the town we just came from.  Crap.  I ride on ahead as fast as I can like a demented Paul Revere to warn the town to stay indoors for the next little while.

“But why?”  One man asked.  “You said you were going to kill all the trolls, right?”  

“We’re solving your troll problem”  I reply tersly.  “So the trolls are all dead?”

“WE ARE MAKING THEM GO AWAY NOW PLEASE GO INSIDE.”  I am out of time.  I roll Diplomacy, and crit.  They go inside.  A few minutes later, a parade of trolls trundles through the town, off (unknowingly) to do battle with giants.  What will happen if any of them survive the giants and decide to start eating halflings and looking for gold?  I guess we’ll figure that out when we get to it.  

HEROES OF LEGEND