With the end of the midquel to the first Birthright game, the players elect to begin a new Birthright game with that most unusual of creatures, the level one PC. The five of them have all focused their resources on maxing out one realm in particular, each of them taking on a role most suited to their class.

Tywin Steele: Cleric of Cuiracaen and head of its holy order within the land.
Thanatos Stormrisen: A fighter dedicated to Cuiracaen, and ruler of the land. The fact that both the ruler and the populace of this prosperous land is dedicated to the god of battle has not gone unremarked.
Hjalmar: Rjurik wizard, who fled from the north only to find himself suddenly in control of the magical energies of this southernmost land.
Lance: A bard and King of Thieves, or at least head of the Perfectly Legitimate Guild. He has an alter-ego which lives in poverty as a disguise and cover identity.
Maevreen: Elven swordsage studying to be worthy of someday gaining the guidance of a spirit (in other words, enter the Eternal Blade prestige class).


Thanatos: Who’s the god we pray to?
DM: Cuiracaen.
Thanatos: Like Clay Aiken, but different.
Hjalmar: It does not sound like that…
DM: We will name this the Potions Classroom.
Hjalmar: Harry Potter…
DM: I am Thanatos, the Potions Master.
Tywin: You’re just like your father. Lazy. Arrogant.
DM: Strutting about as if you own the place.
Tywin: Your father was a swine! That was the best thing he said in the series.

Angrily, the DM demands his soda! And is denied.

Tywin: How am I the head of this church at the age of 21…
DM: Inherited! After all, the way Birthright works, if you are the chosen heir or if the land itself has chosen you, upon the death of the person who was previously the regent or ruler of these holdings, you were the heir and thus they passed to you.
Maevreen: Oh, that gives me an idea for how my character got roped into all of this.
Tywin: Oh, I could have possibly usurped the seat from my father, taking it instead of my brothers… Kywin… and Dywin… and Jack.
DM: Who are you, Barack the Second?
Tywin: And one of them will try to poison me!
Thanatos: My backstory’s gonna include that I was the squire, the thirdborn. My father and two older brothers were murdered and assassinated.
Tywin: Murdered AND assassinated! They just couldn’t catch a break!
Thanatos: You know what I mean… Once he was dead, he killed him AGAIN!
DM: “We were hired to assassinate this guy, but he’s already dead!” “Have him raised.”
Thanatos: In any case, they were killed, and when I came home and I started raising our defense because I didn’t know… but the reason I’m so tough and I have no Diplomacy skill is because I was the third in line, I was not in any place, I was just looking to become a knight. But sure enough, I became king…

The players continue to banter amongst themselves regarding their backstories, or at least, with as much focus as they ever do. (“Hey, it’s Jesus!” “Fastest horse in the galaxy…” “Please don’t break my arm.”)

DM: Death! Despair! Assassinations! Have stalked the land of Diemed over the course of just the past few days. It would seem to be the act of conspiracy, as across the nation, numerous leading lights are snuffed out, in the hopes that a great power vacuum will form. However, such has not occurred. From either the ranks of the church, the most feeble of the noble sons, or simply wayward people, somehow you all have been selected to rule.
Tywin: Crono… Crono! Wake up, Crono!
Hjalmar: You’re gonna miss the faire!
DM: Thanatos, you awaken in the morning, realizing that a surge of power has shot through you in the midst of the night. You’ve awoken somehow feeling stronger, more powerful, more vital, more capable.
Thanatos: “AH! AAAAH! AH HA HA HA HA! Oh my god I feel GREAT!”
Hjalmar: “I gotta beat my meat real fast.”
Thanatos: I beat my meat furiously!
DM: There’s a rapping at your chamber door.
Thanatos: “GO AWAY I’M BUSY!” (clearing his throat) “Who’s there?”
DM: “Sire, it is I!” You recognize the voice of your family’s chamberlain.
Thanatos: “Mmm… ENTER!”
DM: The aged man enters and bows to you reverently, as one would bow to the lord, rather than a third son.
Thanatos: “What brings you here this late hour?”
DM: “Grave news, sire. It pains me to say this, but your father has been murdered.”
Thanatos: “Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.”
Tywin: “Hmmm, did I order that? I can’t remember… Mmmmmm.”
Thanatos: “What do we know of this? What do we know? Who did it?”
Lance: A whore in the night.
DM: “An assassin, m’lord, snuck in, dispatched your father as well as your elder brothers.”
Lance: I didn’t hear that right. Pre-patched? He just patched him.
DM: He just patched your brothers! ..to death.
Thanatos: “In all the power of Diadem, one assassin killed Hans AND Frans?”
DM: “Sire, the kingdom is named Diemed, not Diadem.”
Tywin: “The kingdom henceforth shall be known as…”
DM: Frans.
Maevreen : Gunter!
DM: Hansandfrans.
Tywin: We rechristen it Ghoere.
DM: Ghoere II.
Tywin: New Ghoere! We will wipe out Old Ghoere, and then there will be but one Ghoere.
Thanatos: “So both my brothers and my father.”
DM: “And it falls to you to take the throne. My lord.” And he bows again.
Thanatos: “This is a heavy day indeed. Come, we have no time to lose, we must begin.”
DM: “Right this way, sire. Let us see you garbed and ready for the day. I’m afraid there’s much in store for you.”
Tywin: Yes, don’t forget pants.
DM: Tywin! This night you have had a dream.
Maevreen: You’re Martin Luther King Jr.
Lance: (assassinates Tywin)
Tywin: My dream involved a lot more heavy-step marching.
DM: A figure in full plate mail appears before you. Storm wracks all your vision, below and above as well as around. Lightning crashes! Thunder rumbles. As the figure raises its hand to its helmet, lifts the visor, only to show that he has no face.
Lance: That was anticlimactic.
Maevreen: Nightmare fuel!

A long pause.

Tywin: …is this the part where I should say something?
DM: Or stare in horror!
Lance: Roll to prevent yourself from pooping yourself.
DM: “I require a face, young acolyte. You shall be it.”
Tywin: Do I get to put on the armor…? “Lord Cuiracaen? Can it be you?”
DM: (miming the drawing of a sword) Whoever this figure is, he offers you the sword. As you take the sword, it seems to shock you, as if a lightning bolt has raced through your body. Suddenly you awaken as the bells of the mighty cathedral clang.
Tywin: By the power of Grayskull! “I said… NINE… a.m…”
DM: No, there is nothing physical. However, you feel a great strength surge through you, as if the land itself now bends to your will. And just as you feel this there is a knock as your door, though without waiting for your reply, an acolyte hurriedly dodges in and throws themself on the ground in front of you in supplication.
Tywin: “Rise, my son. What is the meaning of this?”
Lance: “I had sex with a whore!”
DM: “The high priest… is dead.”
Tywin: “Ohhhhhhh.” Oh wait. “Hmmmmmmm.”
DM: “Grrrrr!”
Lance: Why’re we all talking like pirates?
Tywin: “How? When? Who?!”
DM: “Someone struck at him. Bled him of his very life in the night.”
Tywin: “Bloodtheft?”
DM: “We know not. Obviously we can’t examine the body that thoroughly to determine if his blood is still in it…”
Lance: “Is the blood there?”
Thanatos: “I’m not a doctor, damn it!”
DM: Hjalmar?
Hjalmar: Ja?
DM: On coming to this strange land you found yourself drawn to a place high in the mountains on the southern coast. Lured, as if by a magnet, you ventured through deep thickets that seemed to part for you, great cliffs you found an easy path up…”
Hjalmar: “I kind of like this place.”
DM: At the very height of the mountain, you found a deep, dark cave, and passing inside you felt the mebghail of the land flowing around you. With but a night’s rest, you woke the next morning and came to understand that this, and many other sources of power throughout the land are now yours. Why, you cannot say. Surely this was owned by someone, but yet, you can feel it.
Hjalmar: “UNLIMITED POWER!”
DM: It’s very limited.
Hjalmar: “SOMEWHAT LIMITED POWER!”
Thanatos: “NEARLY PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER!”

A very long pause.

Hjalmar: Oh, we’re still on me, right?
Lance: He’s just sitting there… “Man, I have a lot of power.”
Tywin: It’s unfortunate there’s no one to storm in and…
Hjalmar: I guess my ranger could get us there and be like… “Hold up. Yes, this… this is where we shall build a big tower.”
DM: It’s not wise to build a tower on top of your source.
Hjalmar: “Or nearby! Perhaps I should introduce myself to the lord of this land and see what he has to say. Maybe I can provide my services to him. Come Udulf, let’s go.”
DM: Off you go. Back down the cliff that presents no challenge! Through the forest that parts for you! Across the stream of many convenient stepping stones!
Hjalmar: “Wait, hold up. Let me go back up, tap into this. Ahhh, there we go. That feels good. Jaaaa… ja, ja. That’s good. There we go.”
DM: Lance! Times are hard in the city. Seems no one has a coin to toss a street busker any more.
Lance: Damn these people. Time to move on to the next city.
DM: Vowing such, you spend your last coins in a cheap inn and prepare to take the dirty room in the stables they offer you.
Lance: I’m not that fucking poor, god damn it!
DM: I thought you were in your disguise, man!
Lance: Oh that’s right. I forgot my disguise, he’s pretty poor. My disguise’s name is Will.
Tywin: That’s right, you’re a schizo!
Lance: A second identity, is a better term.
Tywin: Oh. I could’ve sworn when we were rolling these characters it came up that you were, like, a schizo or something.
Lance: I kinda want to be that now, but it’s not what I originally planned.
Tywin: Then you can have two different alignments! One that doesn’t suck.
DM: And so reluctantly bemoaning the lengths you go to to maintain the charade, you head to bunk down in the stable, trying to beat some straw into shape so it’s comfortable when suddenly, with a soft fleshy thwack, you realize you’ve punched more than straw.
Lance: A rape victim!
Hjalmar: Ugh, so soon to rape.
Lance: Huh, let’s see what’s in here…
DM: A CORPSE! You brush it inside and find a finely-festooned body—
Thanatos: The corpse?
Tywin: You pushed the corpse aside!
DM: As soon as you touch the body, looking for something, you gain more than you bargained for.
Lance: Oh my god, the AIDS!
DM: It’s like static electricity in a massive volume just flowed into you. You feel electrified.
Lance: Oh man, I wonder if I can die. …No! This is amazing! I feel slightly better than I had before, in ways I can’t really describe!
DM: As you wrestle with the evil tendencies that appear to be going through your head, as you cackle with power—
Lance: “Ohhh yeaaaah.”
DM: And stand above the corpse wondering what you should do now that this odd turn of events has happened—
Lance: Well, first I’m gonna get all his good stuff! What’d I find on this corpse?
DM: I don’t know, what’s your starting equipment?
Lance: God damn it. What a crappy event. You could’ve just said it was stripped of all its valuables.
Tywin: Ragged shirt.
Lance: He had some studded leather, a rapier, a shortbow…
Hjamlar: Now to get rid of the body. Omnomonom…
DM: I’m sorry, you found the one way you can die: cannibalism-induced food poisoning.
Lance: That would be an awesome one way to die. They have to force it down my throat. “Okay, he’s dead, I feed him.” “We can’t feed him ‘cuz he’s dead!” “Oh now he’s awake, make him open his mouth.” “Mmm mm! Mmm mm!” “Well cut off his head and shove it down his neck.” “It doesn’t work that way!”
DM: I’m sorry, it worked that way.
Lance: I lost my head, I don’t think I care at this point.
DM: As you’re debating what all has happened, you feel a soft breeze. The door to the stables have opened, though you didn’t notice them, and a cloaked figure is approaching you, hands palm-open, nothing in them, indicating he comes in peace.
Lance: “And you are?”
DM: “Your servant, my lord,” and he bows before you.
Lance: “Most intriguing. I assume you served this lord before.”
DM: “Yes. Congratulations on… your successful bid for power.”
Lance: “Bid for power? By simply touching this man who was left dead in this stable I have gained his land?”
DM: “Yes, you simply touched this man who was left dead in a stable.” (winking broadly)
Lance: (heaves a massive sigh) “It is quite peculiar that you would happen to arrive just only mere moments after me finding this.”
DM: “I know who I serve. And now I serve you.”
Lance: “Oh. Lead me to better quarters, then.”
DM: What’s-her-name, whose sheet I don’t have!
Maevreen: Pfft. Maevreen.
DM: Maevreen! Your story is a bit simpler than the others, for you see, this morning you simply awoke and found yourself… charged.
Maevreen: Okay, now I have batteries.
Lance: I have the power!
Thanatos: It keeps going and going and going…
DM: As you walk through the town, guardsmen salute you, where before they would sneer or eye you with suspicion given your heritage.
Maevreen: ELF! ELF! ELF! I’ll salute them back, not that I understand any of this.
Lance: You realize you’re nude. Ohhh yeaaaah!
DM: They salute with their THIRD arm. Even the women? ESPECIALLY the women!
Lance: What weird land do you have?! We gotta move out of this place.
DM: Diemed, home of the Chick-Dick Six.
Hjalmar: How many trannies are in this land?!
DM: I just said six! And they’re all the most skilled guards in the land!
Lance: Oh, I thought you meant they’re all six inches.
Maevreen: Land of the pervs!
DM: And against your knowledge, not even your realizing it, you realize your thoughts and your feet are leading you to the palace of Diemed.
Maevreen: Okay…? I’ll just keep heading that way, I suppose. Clearly it’s a sign of some sort.
DM: And so on this dark and dire morning, the five of you find yourselves converging on the throne room of Diemed, each of you having gained power in a manner most mysterious, for reasons you may understand too well or not at all.
Tywin: Oh yeah, after he told me the high priest is dead, what’d he say after that?
DM: “You’re in charge, go for it.” There was more explaining than that…

Lance quickly hashes out what exactly information he got, along with certain other critical details.

Lance: Does that mean I get to wear the big hat?
DM: Yes, you may!
Lance: I’m talking like brushing the ceiling from me sitting here.
DM: The power of the pope-phallus is yours to command.
Hjalmar: Giant penis hat!
Lance: There IS a scepter, is there not? There will be multiple phalli!
Hjalmar: “I shall thrust these into the enemies of Cuiracaen!
Maevreen: And don’t forget the large ball.
Lance: Oh yes, the scepter comes equipped also with…
DM: A miter!
Lance: I should have the scepter be a flail with two balls swinging from it.
Maevreen: Your reverse double-phlanged flail?

Thanatos takes the throne on his chamberlain’s advice, to make a show of a smooth transition of power, confidence, and the proper protocols observed for mourning.

Lance: “I will mourn my father as he would’ve wanted: with seven whores on my bed.”

Thanatos gives a powerful speech to his courtiers, though the players are cheerfully jerks, demanding to know why assassins hadn’t come for Thanatos, or Tywin, or Lance…

DM: All right, deaths for everybody! Roll initiative!
Tywin: The attempt.. “The attempt on my life… has left me… damaged and deformed…”
Thanatos: “The attempt on my life has left me PISSED OFF!”
Tywin: “But my soul has never been stronger! So Diemed will be reorganized… into the first Anuirean Empire!”

Like any good gathering of geeks, it turns into a brief chat over Star Wars. The DM cheerfully emphasizes how unsuited Thanatos is generally considered to be an unfit ruler, ungroomed for the position, too low in Charisma…

DM: And his name is THANATOS, would YOU put him in charge of a kingdom!?
Hjalmar: God of the dead, yes, yes!
DM: That’s auspicious!

Lance is announced by a herald, and quickly comes up with the name of Perfectly Legitimate Trading Company to explain his new interest in Diemed’s politics.

Lance: And trust us, we ARE perfectly legitimate. The name says it all. All of our dealings are… perfectly… legal… somewhere.

The chamberlain whispers a word to Thanatos about Lance, who promptly rolls a Listen check which he fails to succeed at. The chamberlain advises Thanatos to work with the criminal scum rather than against him, for now.

Lance: This guy knows nothing about me!
DM: Everybody thinks that you killed the last guy!
Lance: I’ll just get out the knife I used – oh look at that, it hasn’t spilled blood.
DM: “Good wiping, sir. I mean you’re right, it hasn’t spilled blood at all, sir.”
Tywin: Is there a halfling in the court?
Thanatos: “As I hope that the people of this land look past my past, I too shall look past yours, but know this…”
DM: …why are you looking at me?
Thanatos: I’m just looking in general, you just happen to be over there.
Lance: You’re just reiterating what he just told you!
Thanatos: “But know this! Run your company with ut—due – and respectful… ‘legitimacy’, but if I do hear of you breaking our laws, pillaging our towns and raping our women…”
Lance: “Sir, we don’t trade in rape and pillaging, it’s not good business.”
Thanatos: “Lance Velgar, of Perfectly Legitimate Trading Company…”
Tywin: Whaaaat?
DM: A lone cry of protest rises from the priest!

Someone starts cursing at the football game. The DM paints a picture of the players abandoning the throne room, before pushing in Tywin’s introduction.

Tywin: I have to walk slow. All high priest figures walk really slow.
Hjalmar: But you’re of War, you should be strutting with confidence!

Tywin plans to either sharpen his pope hat or charge the throne. The DM attempts to convince him to adopt Macho Man Randy Savage as his character voice, with moderate success. Thanatos and Tywin immediately find common, vengeful, and hammy cause. They immediately begin planning the details of their tag team match. Maevreen is heralded next; Lance bemusedly criticizes the DM’s rendition of some sort of horn that is played on these introductions. Maevreen extends her respects in a formal way that is kind of boring to relate.

DM: Tywin, out of the corner of your eye you believe you see what appears to be a stormcloud gathered over this elven woman’s head. You look more closely, clearly there was nothing there, but you’re certain you saw something.
Tywin: Would a Knowledge(religion) help me determine what sort of omen that may have been?
DM: Absolutely!
Tywin: Well, then I roll… are there any on the table?!

Tywin finally finds a d20 and rolls.

Tywin: It wasn’t a one. It was a 2.
DM: So what was your total altogether?
Tywin: Seven.
DM: Storm clouds are good!
Lance: He doesn’t get reverse knowledge, he just doesn’t know!
DM: He got the five-point version! Storm clouds are good!
Lance: Oh, so they are good….
DM: It is SOME sort of omen.
Tywin: Hmm, perhaps I can ask one of my temple officials who is not so unversed in the ways of these things… did anybody accompany me? Do I have a retinue?
DM: You have a couple of acolytes, but it would be demeaning to ask for advice for religious matters as the high priest. Unless you can do so cleverly, otherwise you’re looking at a loss of face in public as the high priest turns to one of his acolytes and asks what a sign from the gods means…

Tywin, vowing to ground his die to powder, begs for mercy on the roll, and is allowed to know that his god has marked this elven girl as someone to watch. Hjalmar is heralded, and this time the entire group starts fake-playing instruments, except for Hjalmar, who mimes the casting of horrendous doom on the guy.

DM: I’m sorry, this guy was seventh level! He’s a seventh-level expert trumpeter, all his points are in Perform(fucking trumpet!)!
Hjalmar: So my magic missiles go into his horn, he turns it around and fires them back at me.

Hjalmar explains in less meta terms that he’s the new wizard regent of the place. He and Thanatos banter a bit.

Hjalmar: “Even the jaws of death could not keep me—“ I’m sorry, I said a J, oh my god!
DM: The yaws of death.
Hjalmar: “Not even the yaws of yeath – death could stop me…”
Lance: He’s getting too much into his character, he’s getting a speech impediment!

Thanatos attempts to appoint Tywin as his official voice of the throne. As the RP flurry winds down, the DM calls for them to begin a domain turn. Lance weeps openly. Thanatos plays saxophone music for no reason at all. The domain turn opening takes a while, as the group reviews the rules and their available actions.

Tywin: …we need to invade.
DM: Ha ha, we’re off to a great start.
Tywin: My kingdom was overburdened with military at first, so I just invaded shit.
Thanatos: Okay!

Tywin and Thanatos immediately go into a huddle over a map to discuss a battle plan. Maintenance is paid, court costs allotted, and the domain turn moves into actions. Tywin, who can sway opinions once per turn as a free action, itches to do so.

Tywin: I agitate the people against… the nasty Spider that lays across our border.
Lance: I don’t think there’s people that LIVE in there!

Thanatos is outright deluged by messengers requesting diplomatic meetings with him, a sign that his ascension has been noticed and marked well.

Hjalmar: Things are coming up Thanatos!

Hjalmar and Maevreen make no money off their holdings, so the group quickly huddles to see if they should be allotted any from the massive, massive take Thanatos and Lance have.

Lance: All these other people are discussing what to do with their gold bars, I’m over here Scrooge McDucking it in my money bin!

Province loyalty is quickly explained. The DM foolishly uses ‘a big fire’ as an example of an event which has the potential to lower loyalty.

Tywin: “How much would it have cost Thanatos for smoke detectors?! Yet he sits on his throne—“
DM: His throne of smoke detectors! None for the people, all for him!
Tywin: “His throne built of smoke detectors! Any time the royal pipe is lit it can be heard for miles!”

Thanatos gives Hjalmar five gold, but his lieutenant immediately runs in bellowing about a fire atop the mountain, threatening his source! Lance makes very evil-sounding offers of aid.

Hjalmar: “Are you constantly out of breath…?”
Lance: “No, that’s just my player, apparently, who apparently got too excited about being out of breath and just kept going with it.”

Lance offers the classic ‘just a favor later’ line. Thanatos is zinged five gold from his tax haul. The chamberlain informs Thanatos that a messenger has come many miles on a mission of urgency.

Lance: I put on some light background music, from my lute.
DM: So you’re LUTE-ing the place!

Silence.

Lance: …son of a bitch.
Tywin: Now you know what it was like to be me!
Lance: I should have played saxophone.

Thanatos obliges with that saxophone music again. It is horribly inappropriate! Tywin plays a dramatic reveal stinger.

DM: A haggard messenger, looking as if ten miles of trail dust has taken up entire residence on just his clothing, steps in. Though he is exhausted and practically wobbling on his feet, he takes the time to make the proper bow to you… wobbling as he does so.
Tywin: Why don’t you wobble wobble?
DM: “My lord… a vast… incursion. From… our north… northeastern border. From the forest of the Spiderfell. Many of the spiders that live within have come forth from that… horrible place.”
Tywin: Fucking spiders, really? (plays dramatic reveal)
Lance: I love this trumpet guy, over in the corner! And his dramatic music!
DM: (death glare)
Tywin: Won’t happen again! Okay, one more time. (dramatic reveal)
Thanatos: “How long ago?”
DM: “About a few days.”
Thanatos: “And their numbers?”
DM: “Many. Many indeed. We couldn’t count them very well, they were spiders.”
Lance: Also, none of your soldiers can count. “There’s like nine of them!” “No! Nine MILLION!”

The chamberlain insists that can’t be a coincidence. Thanatos confuses the terms “lich” and “awnshegh” to hilarious effect. The players furiously attempt to pass responsibility for dealing with this situation to each other; it ends in sax music. Some Knowledge checks are rolled.

DM: Your arcane knowledge, Hjalmar, indicates much the same to you as the priest relates. In addition, you feel fairly confident that, if such a connection has occurred, if the awnshegh has a deeper tie to the land, then almost certainly… um. Lost my train of thought. I had it going really great, too, and then all of a sudden it went clean out of my head.
Hjalmar: Blame the saxophone.
DM: Yeah. What was I thinking? What was I saying? Oh god, I rolled a natural 1 on Performance(DM).
Thanatos: (plays the saxophone music) It has that effect on people.
DM: Yeah. Stop playing it.

The DM finally gets out that the Spiderfell may respond to the Spider’s unconscious thoughts as well as conscious ones. Thanatos consults his scout reports and determines he has the equivalent of 5 spider units up there, with a spider leader no less. Tywin and Thanatos sink into another war council, while the others discuss lighter matters such as war with the elves!

Hjalmar: In this world they are kinda assholes. They’re stuck-up assholes.
DM: Well, you would be too if a whole bunch of humans and their fucking gods showed up and start chopping down your forest.
Hjalmar: Yeah, yeah…

The entire time, Thanatos and Tywin plot without paying one shred of attention to the other players.

DM: Are you guys still attacking the Spiderfell or are you just deciding to attack everybody now?
Lance: No, they’re already on to year six of the total campaign. Our forces have moved across Ghoere, they’re planning the campaign on Elinie now. They’re already on turn 36, domain action 55.
Hjalmar: We’re still level one.
Lance: We decided to not go on any adventures whatsoever. Which at this point was very foolish, because they send a level five assassin in here, we’re fucking dead.

The other two FINALLY notice the other players are just staring at them and glance up long enough to acknowledge them. They plan an excuse for troop movement near the borders of a neighboring land, then go back to plotting maneuvers to get them to the leaders.

Thanatos: I think we’ve got our plan.
DM: Well?
Tywin: Well, you see…
Lance: “We’ve got our plan.” They both pick up their character sheets and tear them up and throw them away.
Tywin: We send an ambassador to the Gorgon’s thing. What’s it called?
DM: …The Gorgon’s Crown?
Tywin: The Gorgon’s Crown, tell him we wish to submit! Give him a foothold in the south.

After a brief flurry of further discussion, Thanatos lists his immense number of military units already in place, and proposes to move more in, though only planning to engage with three units of pikemen and archers, while the others reinforce along the borders… of a nearby nation. Even Lance is not fooled.

Lance: “I have many holdings in Medoere that are—“
Hjalmar: We’re not attacking Medoere.
Lance: I know, but there’s forces – he’s lined up a bunch of forces along a border that’s purely Medoere’s border, nothing to do—
Thanatos: I have, because the awnshegh is coming at us from the north with the spiders. We don’t KNOW what else could be coming out of there!
Lance: Out of Medoere?
Thanatos: No, out of Spiderfell!

The group breaks into an impromptu a capalla rendition of the Monty Pyton and the Holy Grail music.

DM: After a long day—
Tywin: (dramatic reveal music)
DM: Of… (trailing off and crossing his arms)
Thanatos: Ah ha ha ha.
Tywin: War planning, and…
Hjalmar: (narrating for the DM) Crossed arms. Disdainful look. Quirky smile.
Lance: Roll for your disdainful look, see how strong it is.
DM: What’s my modifier?
Thanatos: Plus four.
DM: 22.
Thanatos: Oooooh.
Lance: Oh that’s pretty disdainful… what are you rolling?
Tywin: I’m rolling to weather the disdainful look. What’s my modifier?
Lance: You have many tattoos, you have plus five.
Tywin: …22!
Thanatos: Oh, it’s a staredown!
Tywin: We actually tied!
DM: (dramatic reveal music)
Tywin: No, I won’t do it. I feel bad about it.
Lance: You should never feel bad about fucking over the DM.
DM: I don’t feel bad about this: After a long day of war council, you prepare to march on the morrow, putting aside your plans of conquest, ruling, and so forth, for what you anticipate to be a short campaign against these foul forces of the Spiderfell. Most of your sleep is untroubled.
Tywin: Most.
DM: One of you, however…
Hjalmar: Awwwww.
Lance: Oh, man!
DM: Will unfortunately be experiencing quite a rude awakening.
Thanatos: The bard. Let it be the bard!
Lance: I don’t got any hit points!
DM: Tywin Steele!
Lance: You sleep well with many whores. It’s to throw us off.
DM: You have Weapon Focus: (points at his junk) You awake in the middle of the night in pain such as you have never known.
Lance: “My butt!”
Thanatos: Are you constipated?!
DM: Your heart struggles to beat. It struggles because currently occupying its space is the cold steel of a dagger blade.
Thanatos: Wait, he got stabbed in the middle of the night?
Tywin: I got astabbinated.
Lance: He didn’t even get a Listen check!
DM: Your eyes snap open and you see a figure retreating from your room.
Lance: It’s a good thing you’re Invulnerable, so this doesn’t matter.
Tywin: “Urrrgh. I’m… not dead? I’m becoming… radioactive!
DM: I want you to give me a Fortitude saving throw.
Hjalmar: Poison!
DM: No.
Thanatos: Acid!
DM: No!
Tywin: 14.
Hjalmar: Constipation!
DM: Mustering up every last ounce of strength you have, you rip the dagger from your breast and toss it aside, and then collapse, trying desperately—
Tywin: I was gonna try casting a healing spell first.
DM: Sorry, you’re at negative hit points, you have no actions.
Lance: It’s okay, you don’t realize you’re invulnerable yet.
DM: You try to muster the strength to survive, but you’re certain it’s a mortal wound. And then, over the course of about a minute, you realize you feel a lot better. Your health goes from -10 to 0 at one hit point per round, so after a full minute you’re at 0 hit points. From here, however, you are barely clinging to consciousness. You sense you can muster the strength to perform one action, though -- (belching)
Tywin: Well, there’s the action.
DM: If you overstrain yourself in any way, you’ll almost certainly plunge yourself back down into the black pits of death.
Hjalmar: Damn… masturbation!
Tywin: One action?
DM: One. Standard. Action.
Lance: Give him some healing music!
Thanatos: (reaches for his phone)
Hjalmar: No. No! No no no.
Thatanos: (sax music)
DM: I’m gonna keep a tab of how much experience you lose for playing that. Everybody else is gonna gain like 1000 experience at the end of the first adventure, you’ll gain two, and you’ll be like, “why, why?! What’d I do? Oh yeah, the saxophone.”

Tywin uses his standard action to wisely heal himself, and not commit scatological actions of various sorts. He gains very little health from this, but he can function again.

Tywin: So I spring to my feet, full of vigor, and… not being dead.
DM: Yes, you’re full of not-deadliness.
Tywin: “The spirits have given me another chance!”
DM: “What day is it?” “Whoi it’s Christmas Day sah!”
Lance: The reverse Scrooge, after all his lessons he’s still an asshole. “Little boy, come here real quick!” (makes neck-snapping motion) “Yeah!”
Hjalmar: “Buy me a fucking goose! I’m hungry, ya little bastard!”
DM: He buys a goose, takes it over, and beats Tiny Tim with it.
Hjalmar: He takes his dirty laundry too.
DM: He puts the goose over Tiny Tim’s head. “We’ve got to cook it now!” Throws it in the fire.
Tywin: “Someone tried to murder me.”
DM: Having been assassinated in your own room, you sit and ponder this fact for a while.
Lance: I wake up! I quickly write my friend Tywin a letter warning him about the assassination attempt he’s about to have!
Thanatos: “Thanks, dick!”
Tywin: Just in time.
DM: An owl bursts through your window with a letter for you.
Tywin: “The attempt on my life has left me scarred and deformed…”
DM: You look down and notice no scar.
Tywin: “Has left me shocked and upset.”
DM: Your bedclothes and your bedding, however, are quite ruined.
Lance: “Has left my bedding bloody and useless.”
Maevreen: And full of poo.
Tywin: And – Oooooohhhhh.
Lance: That’s right, for your few moments of death you lost bowel control and dropped your load.
Tywin: I think I ought to use this to my advantage.
DM: I’m sorry, your bowels void where prohibited.
Tywin: Whoever stabbed me in the heart believes me dead. If I show up for clergy the next day and look at the reactions I get… with my lousy Spot check…
Lance: (hurling himself forward to speak directly to the mic) Dead baby. Dead baby. Hitler killing dead baby. I just gotta get that out of the way, we went almost a whole night without that. Whew. We’re good.
Maevreen: Somebody farted!

This goes on for a bit, hitting the usual levels. Tywin mutters for a while to himself.

DM: Tywin IMMEDIATELY begins planning how to turn this assassination to his own ends.
Tywin: Well, yeah!
Hjalmar: What’s your alignment?

Tywin examines the dagger curiously, and the DM calls for a Search check. Lance starts singing the sax music, before realizing he’s doing so and cursing. Tywin determines that the blade has a maker’s mark, an ornate “D.”

Maevreen: For DOUCHEBAG!
Thanatos: The guards, did they see anyone coming in or out?
Tywin: I don’t know if people guard my chambers when I sleep.
Thanatos: Why not? If you’re the head priest, wouldn’t you have acolytes 24 hours a day?
Hjalmar: They’re probably all dead. So, an ornate D, the lord of Diemed… uh-oh! Conspiracyyyyy!
Tywin: My very own murder mystery.
DM: It was a “D”warf, who was choked! I don’t know why I’m fighting it, you guys’ll turn every adventure into a ship murder mystery in your own heads.
Tywin: I said nothing but a ship.
DM: I might as well give you what you want!

Tywin arms and armors himself and steps out of his room. The DM describes the outside as a hall, with small chamber to the side for the acolyte who serves him.

Hjalmar: “Oh boy, boooy! Wake up boy!”
Tywin: “Daddy’s home.”
DM: “Being assassinated makes me horny.”
Maevreen: “Come here, my peach-bottomed boy.”
Hjalmar: So a spell that affects only wooden weapons, can that be used on an erection?
DM: “This tree grew over my father’s grave. When it was of a proper age, I chopped it down, stripped it, and shaped it into this staff you see before me. In honor of the memory of my father, I call this ‘Mourning Wood’. …WHY DO I ALWAYS GET THAT LOOK? Whenever I say that! Will someone please explain it?!”
Thanatos: “I was in mourning, and it is made of wood.”
DM: “Exactly! Exactly! Why do I always get the strange looks?! This is honoring my father! I honor my father every time I grip my mourning wood!”
Thanatos: Oh dear.
DM: That got so much better than I anticipated when I started.

Tywin goes to wake his underpriest, curious to see his second-in-command’s reaction. The underpriest’s acolyte fetches him, without any detected signs of deception or malice (thanks to Sense Motive!).

Tywin: “Underpriest. Dearest underpriest. Most valued underpriest. I have the most disturbing thing to convey to you. My heart is heavy with it. Literally. This night someone has tried to kill me.”
DM: “What?!”
Tywin: “I awoke with a dagger through my heart.”
DM: He immediately looks down to your chest, where you appear to be not having a dagger plunged through your heart.
Tywin: “Indeed, I have survived by the grace of Cuiracaen, it seems.”
DM: He makes the appropriate symbol, the equivalent of crossing himself, which for a Cuiracaen priest is probably… (miming waving a sword around) “All power to the father of war and storms,” he goes on in what you recognize is a familiar prayer. You might want to interrupt him, this one goes on for a while.
Tywin: “My son…”
DM: “Ah, forgive me father.”

Tywin plans to turn out the temple as a hard message to the assassin, then questions the acolyte about the dagger to no avail.

Tywin: Would Knowledge(nobility) come into play here, or is it just a D?
DM: You can attempt to roll it.
Tywin: I don’t have Knowledge(nobility).
DM: Then you CAN’T attempt to roll it!
Maevreen: I have it.
DM: YOU’RE NOT THERE!

Turning out the temple accomplishes nothing except pushing Thanatos to bring up the Holy Grail music again. The DM attempts to leave. Morning dawns, and the group heads for the castle!

DM: You assemble in the morning to see your priest compatriot looking grim of mien and set of jaw.
Tywin: This is the underpriest?
DM: No, you. At court. You go to court. They see you. Looking unhappy. As I presume you do look unhappy because you were killed!

Unable to find a suspect, Tywin instead steps forward to give a speech to the assembled court. He is promptly distracted by pictures of the Oily Pringles Men.

Tywin: “I wear this long face because I awakened from slumber in the middle of the night with a dagger plunged through my heart. By the grace of Cuiracaen I still stand alive before you know. But know this: ….the attempt on my life has left me…”
Lance: Annoyed.
Tywin: “Annoyed and ill-tempered.” Yeah, I’m just gonna be a curmudgeon from now on. This is what turned him into a bitter bastard.
Lance: “This sandwich has left me unhungry. This bed makes me sleepy.”
DM: “That poop has left me unconstipated.”

Af ter a brief spate of roleplaying, someone brings up the saxophone music. The DM attempts to end the game that second. Hjalmar rolls his Knowledge check, but has to wait till the players stop dicking around to get an answer on it. This, of course, takes a while.

Tywin: “Can any of you tell me… This was the dagger that was plunged into my chest.”
Hjalmar: Yoinks!
Tywin: “It fits in your hand so well.”

Hjalmar is unable to identify the crest, though, so the DM pushes Lance to use some bardic knowledge. He rolls a natural 20, and determines this is a mark of a local smith. Thanatos vows to have the smith summoned, despite the necessity of their marching, but as the hour has grown late, the game ends on this note.