Your players are faced with an ancient Sumerian curse! However, since the early ancient Sumerian language was only used for recording tax debts, it turns out to actually be an ancient Sumerian bill.
and therefore they need to get hold of some ancient Sumerian coinage and bring it to the ruins of the ancient Sumerian tax office, because the Sumerians had a pleasingly direct way of preventing tax evasion, namely horrifying curses.
well I don’t have any coin but I have these copper ingots, lovely copper ingots, from a very reputable merchant, never heard a word said against him, very thorough with his paperwork, anyway they’re guaranteed pure copper and proper weight, so can I pay my tax with those?
I just want everyone to take a step back for a second and really think about how we’re using the most powerful knowledge tool in history to make jokes about a specific dude who lived almost 4000 years ago.
god outta nowhere i just remembered the time i was in a game where the dm didn’t read one of the character’s backstories carefully enough and allowed someone to make it all the way to the final session with the hidden ability to turn into a motorcycle
lydia you cant just say stuff like this and then not explain exactly how this was performed
k so. one of the first big games i played with my current meatspace gaming group was a really excellent post-apocalyptic homebrew game. really excellent. but it was also wild as hell, had a lot of players, and was the dm’s first big game, so it was at times a real exercise in controlled chaos. and my good bro willie…my bro willie was kind of at the brunt of it. both in that he always to this day plays really chaotic characters that can’t avoid trouble, and also in that due to that and other misfortunes he died like every other session towards the end. he went through five or six characters by the time the campaign was over. one didn’t even last a full session. it was remarkable to witness actually.
but anyway, towards the end, the dm was fairly overwhelmed and dealing with a lot of other characters doing epic-level wasteland nonsense, and kinda threw reading willies backstories to the wayside. which was unfortunate for him, because willie hails from the ‘3 pages or more’ school of backstories, and by this time in the campaign was coping with his characters’ constant deaths by planning backup character well in advance, to the point where they all had intricate, complex connections to each previous character. so when he dies due to circumstances out of his control before the very last few sessions (the first but certainly not last character death he had due to betrayal: willie im still sorry) its not too suprising that he comes back as this brooding edgy darth vader guy with a five page backstory about how he had obtained a horrific nanosuit cyborg body, and the dm approves it, but sure as hell doesn’t read the whole thing bc he’s planning the final confrontation at this point.
cut to the middle of the incredibly serious final session, where his character and my character and my character’s children are fighting for their lives to escape the facility where they are currently caught in the crossfire between a raging, dying artificial intelligence and religiously zealous psychic juggernaut (long story). the dm is giving us a very bleak countdown of how long we have to get out before the whole place collapses but his character just turns to mine with a “don’t worry, just trust me” and willie smiles, looks up at the dm, and is like, “i activiate my nanite body and turn into a motorcycle”, which unfortunately was completely street legal with what he’d detailed in his backstory, so that’s exactly what he fuckin did, as the dm put his head in his hands.
end result: we survived.
this is my favorite 3 paragraphs ive ever read thank you lydia
so I’ve got this headcanon that Guardians of the Galaxy is really the Avengers playing a table top roleplaying game, where Bucky’s the DM who suffers through heaps and loads of trolling
Mostly from Steve
Especially from Steve
Which means Natasha was the one who sat down and wrote out the long, comprehensive backstory for her kickass space assassin Gamora, that Bucky keeps trying to work into the campaign but they keep getting sidetracked by –
Tony who just created what he sees himself as – the suave, wise-cracking space vagabond.
Thor who needed a lot of help building his character and decided on a couple easy to remember traits (Strong, honor, doesn’t get metaphors)
and Bruce who’s actually too busy to pay full attention so any time Bucky asks what he wants to do he just says “I am Groot” and lets Steve decide
Oh my god.
Headcanon accepted so hard
now in light of GOTG2
Sam joined in last minute so Bucky gave him a pre-rolled NPC That no one really cared for just to mess with him. Sam actually put a lot of thought into it though and managed to turn Yandu into a loveable character. (imagine Sam throwing a critical saving throw then excitedly yelling “I’M MARY POPPINS Y’ALL”)
Bruce, after making a sacrifice play at the end of the last session (hoping this would get him out of future game nights so he could focus on work) had to star over even though he insisted on keeping the same character. Baby Groot was the compromise.
Clint, who at first refused to join in something so ‘nerdy’ was convinced (forced) to participate by Natasha. Since he had no experience Bucky set him up and gave him Nebula. Clint then proceeded to screw with Natasha the entire night.
Wanda, wanting to reflect her experience of coming to america and suddenly facing unknown culture, plays Mantis.
1) beautifully constructed, thoughtfully named, you’ve had this character for five years, and it is only now that you have a medium to express them through. twenty pages of backstory and lore, you probably lovingly crafted a costume or a token to fully bring them to life.
2) it’s you, but you’re now a warlock or a paladin or some shit.
3) Its Joke (ex. Boo Boo the Chaotic Good Barbarian, Dio Brando but as a dryad, etc.)
4) Real Ass People (ex. Hatsune Miku, Barack Obama, Hulk Hogan, etc.)
Steel Phoenix Studios 