Ranting Fool
2012-04-24, 01:47 PM
Since a very large part of my campaigns borrow from or pay homage to popular fiction or recognised tropes (And let's be honest folks a lot of DM's do this too) I'd like to share with you all a character that brought a lot of laughs to the table but will now just remain a "Remember in that game" type of memory.
Unless of course any of you feel like taking on the idea and giving any of these beloved NPC's a new home with new heroes to quest with/teach/taunt/fight/run away from/confuse or downright amuse them :smallbiggrin:
Small Disclaimer: I've never been good at naming characters and since people rarely remember the randomly generated names I sometimes pull out of my rear my campaigns often become a case of Spot That Reference (40K Players will notice a fair few names if I post more than one on here)
How the Players met this NPC
Our brave heroes first found Corki in an old crypt crushed under a 5by5 stone slab that had fallen from the ceiling (Clearly whatever poor soul was under there had triggered a trap) upon having a closer look at the body parts that were left sticking out they noticed movement! "Arg it must be something Undead!" but after a quick discussion our heroes decided to move the slab and see what foul beast needed slaying.
They were shocked to see before their eyes the crushed form of a small humanoid regenerate from a state that must have been -413421 into a cheerful looking Halfling who thanked them for their aid as it "Would have taking him AGES to dig out of that rock using his fingernails" The Halfling introduced himself as Corki the Legendary Immortal Adventurer... after a quick huddle and a few knowledge checks our heroes said "huh?!" and thus began the Tale of Corki the Legendary Immortal Adventurer and his band of merry Disciples
A few examples of things he did
Corki is a skinny little level 5 Halfling Bard with rather low stats and no real aim to being Optimised... he was of course totally and utterly un-killable... Or rather he wouldn't stay dead. He died quite a lot, in fact upon meeting our heroes he proudly told them he had died 434 times so far! Being Stabbed/Slashed/Crushed/Eaten/Burnt/Drowned/Choked/Kicked (He was rather small)/incinerated.
The rather less trusting members asked how come no one had ever heard of him, well "I've only been at this adventuring lark for a few months now"
When asked how he came to be immortal he would tell a long tale about being the Chosen One of the Gods or some other random story. After a bit of bullying the found out that on his first day after he set out to see the world he was hit by a rather large flaming asteroid that leaving a large crater with him in the middle.
You'd think that having a member of the party who couldn't die would be very useful (and many a trap was sprung by Corki) but with his healing factor being rather random in time lapse he tended to be more of a pain then anything.
Once after our heroes had killed a Black Dragon who had been attacking a nearby town Corki bartered away part of his share of the loot for the rights to the Dragons Skull, he HAD tried to fight the dragon and managed to shoot it with his xbow doing a whopping 1 point of damage. Though his bard song was still nice to have. Once our heroes got back to town Corki used has rather high bluff skill to convince the townspeople that he solo killed the dragon and the rest of the party had helped out a bit and managed to get the towns people to make a statue of him in the main square.
Well long story short he kept stealing their thunder until they (worried that his power to heal could be used by the BBEG) convinced him to stay in town and "Spread the tale of his good deeds" and they would pop back in town every so often to see him raise in fame (And forming his own Adventurer Training Guild)
That campaign ended.
But that's not all
I couldn't help but bring back this impish little guy in a later campaign, our new heroes have been in a city in isolation for over 500years, big magic barrier type deal, well being the heroes that they are they managed to get out to the "wasteland beyond" where while searching for the Mcgruff of I forget they came across a small ball of molten mithril floating in a ball of force guarded by/being attacked by a bunch of Devils.
Devils slain. Ball of force dispelled and they are left with a very melted skull that started to regenerate... up to the neck. Which then started to scream in pain until a calm emotion spell calmed him down enough to find out that the last thing he remembered was "leading a band of trusty heroes that I trained myself into one of the lower levels of Hell" so started a little side quest (And they "killed" him by keeping a dagger through his head to stop the screaming once they calm spell had ended, and then had to keep getting new daggers as his healing would melt anything jammed in his head) and after finding his body parts being melted in various horrid magic traps that held the rest of him they managed to put him together... though heading in time the warning sound to run off the island where they found the last part before it exploded in a volcano.
@Big magic brains like Trippy: I think I gave some vague reason like "I always end up being brought back to this land" as part of his regeneration to say why he wasn't on his own little demi plane.
Feeling they had done good work they set him on his merry way and only heard about him when talking to random NPC's in the future.. something about an inevitable (the All Things Must Die) guy looking for him
So this little side NPC, a bit of odd comic relief ended up becoming a major plot and spawned a whole host of random side quests for our heroes.
If anyone else feels like sharing a character for other DM's to pinch (or players to build for themselves) feel free and let the sillyness flow.
Unless of course any of you feel like taking on the idea and giving any of these beloved NPC's a new home with new heroes to quest with/teach/taunt/fight/run away from/confuse or downright amuse them :smallbiggrin:
Small Disclaimer: I've never been good at naming characters and since people rarely remember the randomly generated names I sometimes pull out of my rear my campaigns often become a case of Spot That Reference (40K Players will notice a fair few names if I post more than one on here)
How the Players met this NPC
Our brave heroes first found Corki in an old crypt crushed under a 5by5 stone slab that had fallen from the ceiling (Clearly whatever poor soul was under there had triggered a trap) upon having a closer look at the body parts that were left sticking out they noticed movement! "Arg it must be something Undead!" but after a quick discussion our heroes decided to move the slab and see what foul beast needed slaying.
They were shocked to see before their eyes the crushed form of a small humanoid regenerate from a state that must have been -413421 into a cheerful looking Halfling who thanked them for their aid as it "Would have taking him AGES to dig out of that rock using his fingernails" The Halfling introduced himself as Corki the Legendary Immortal Adventurer... after a quick huddle and a few knowledge checks our heroes said "huh?!" and thus began the Tale of Corki the Legendary Immortal Adventurer and his band of merry Disciples
A few examples of things he did
Corki is a skinny little level 5 Halfling Bard with rather low stats and no real aim to being Optimised... he was of course totally and utterly un-killable... Or rather he wouldn't stay dead. He died quite a lot, in fact upon meeting our heroes he proudly told them he had died 434 times so far! Being Stabbed/Slashed/Crushed/Eaten/Burnt/Drowned/Choked/Kicked (He was rather small)/incinerated.
The rather less trusting members asked how come no one had ever heard of him, well "I've only been at this adventuring lark for a few months now"
When asked how he came to be immortal he would tell a long tale about being the Chosen One of the Gods or some other random story. After a bit of bullying the found out that on his first day after he set out to see the world he was hit by a rather large flaming asteroid that leaving a large crater with him in the middle.
You'd think that having a member of the party who couldn't die would be very useful (and many a trap was sprung by Corki) but with his healing factor being rather random in time lapse he tended to be more of a pain then anything.
Once after our heroes had killed a Black Dragon who had been attacking a nearby town Corki bartered away part of his share of the loot for the rights to the Dragons Skull, he HAD tried to fight the dragon and managed to shoot it with his xbow doing a whopping 1 point of damage. Though his bard song was still nice to have. Once our heroes got back to town Corki used has rather high bluff skill to convince the townspeople that he solo killed the dragon and the rest of the party had helped out a bit and managed to get the towns people to make a statue of him in the main square.
Well long story short he kept stealing their thunder until they (worried that his power to heal could be used by the BBEG) convinced him to stay in town and "Spread the tale of his good deeds" and they would pop back in town every so often to see him raise in fame (And forming his own Adventurer Training Guild)
That campaign ended.
But that's not all
I couldn't help but bring back this impish little guy in a later campaign, our new heroes have been in a city in isolation for over 500years, big magic barrier type deal, well being the heroes that they are they managed to get out to the "wasteland beyond" where while searching for the Mcgruff of I forget they came across a small ball of molten mithril floating in a ball of force guarded by/being attacked by a bunch of Devils.
Devils slain. Ball of force dispelled and they are left with a very melted skull that started to regenerate... up to the neck. Which then started to scream in pain until a calm emotion spell calmed him down enough to find out that the last thing he remembered was "leading a band of trusty heroes that I trained myself into one of the lower levels of Hell" so started a little side quest (And they "killed" him by keeping a dagger through his head to stop the screaming once they calm spell had ended, and then had to keep getting new daggers as his healing would melt anything jammed in his head) and after finding his body parts being melted in various horrid magic traps that held the rest of him they managed to put him together... though heading in time the warning sound to run off the island where they found the last part before it exploded in a volcano.
@Big magic brains like Trippy: I think I gave some vague reason like "I always end up being brought back to this land" as part of his regeneration to say why he wasn't on his own little demi plane.
Feeling they had done good work they set him on his merry way and only heard about him when talking to random NPC's in the future.. something about an inevitable (the All Things Must Die) guy looking for him
So this little side NPC, a bit of odd comic relief ended up becoming a major plot and spawned a whole host of random side quests for our heroes.
If anyone else feels like sharing a character for other DM's to pinch (or players to build for themselves) feel free and let the sillyness flow.