Once Upon a Game Night

I was just browsing some of the blogs, much in the way I channel surf with the TV and happened to see the Monty Haul post over on Underworld Cleaning Service. That got me thinking about an AD&D group from back in my highschool days.

One of the characters in the large group was a ranger that happened to be amassing quite the collection of magic swords. The player couldn't bear to have the character part with any of them so the joke soon began that he would need a caddy with a golf bag following him around.

While that was goofy enough, this character also had a habit of refusing to leave his horse outside the dungeons and went to all sorts of trouble to make sure his horse was able to come with him everywhere he went. The party had to make some excruciating detours to accomidate our sword and horse happy ranger.

That's not the craziest part.

Somewhere during adventuring he managed to get a very powerful magic sword with what most of us considered the ultimate mixed blessing of power. The weapon perpetually projected a 5 foot radius energy field that did 2d6 damage to anything living or undead passing through the barrier. More than one character got zapped at some point when the ranger, astride his horse would suddenly charge past the front line and into the enemy lines of a battle. More than one horse also died during the career of this by now lonely and psychopathic sword fetishist.

Despite a couple dozen other weapons to choose from (or sell), Lone (as he was called) chose to maintain this weapon and torment his horses and adventuring companions.

One notable event happened during the party trip through White Plume Mountain. Anyone that has run or played it likely remembers the disks held by chains over the chasm where scalding steam geysers would randomly erupt. Horses aren't likely to make that trip. Lone dismounted and followed the party. As he stepped away from his beleagered steed, the energy field maxed out slaying the beast.

Crossing the chasm Lone reached the last of the hanging platforms as it swung wildly. He jumped and rolled poorly. The DM ruled he fumbled his sword, but managed to hang onto the nearby ledge by his fingertips, thus saving his life, but losing his treasured weapon of mass annoyance.

The player sent up quite a fuss and despite lots of note passing to the DM from the other players, Lone got to recover the sword from the ledge just below providing the field of nastiness didn't do enhough damage to kill the character or knock him out causing his fall into the boiling mud below. He got it back.

Good thing for Lone that my lawful good gnome illusionist didn't suddenly suffer a change of alignment and stomp his fingers. Oh, the temptation . . .