Evil DM stories

[tulebast]

My favorite evil DM moment was in a 2e game years ago. The campaign started with the characters tasked with finding some artifact that a wizard wanted. He never said why he wanted it, nor why he couldn't get it himself (despite being powerful enough to have teleported each of them from random sections of the world to start their quest), just some vague comment about how they were the ones fated to retrieve it. As payment, he promised each of them one wish.

Well, after sending them off with a prophetic rhyme to guide their way and several interesting and wacky adventures later, they managed to find the item and got teleported back to the wizard, who did indeed grant each of them a wish/boon. Some of the most memorable:

• The Half-elf that wanted Storm Giant strength. The wizard transformed her into a Storm Giant, and she retired from the party ('cause, you know, Storm Giants have better things to do than hang around with PC losers...)
• The Halfling that thought Storm Giant strength was too greedy, and asked for a belt of Fire Giant Strength. However, the belt was "always on", meaning the Halfling would exert full strength at every opportunity. Made the first tavern interesting when he kicked the door off the hinges and broke every glass/mug that he attempted to drink from. [Eventually, the party managed to figure out how to remove the belt, which seemed to resist most efforts to take it off.]
• The leprechaun (NPC they'd picked up on the quest) wanted a pot of gold, if only for the novelty of understanding why all the humans were so obsessed about it. He was given a small chamberpot, made of gold. He still couldn't understand what all the fuss was about and buried it.
• The cleric that wanted a Staff of Baldur, which the wizard casually handed over. For several months, the cleric would laugh at the party for being too greedy with their wishes and getting hosed, although the player was occasionally concerned that he might have gotten the personal Staff of Baldur and that the god was somehow tracking him down to get his item back. But no, it turned out that he did indeed have a Staff of Baldur, with exactly one charge remaining and it turned worthless the first time he used one of its special abilities. [Though I did point out to him he was right, he was the only person in the party who didn't get hosed by his wish--it was not my fault he neglected to determine how many charges remained before using the staff...]

My second favorite time was when Tiamat granted everyone in the party a boon. Ah, good times.