Our group has an out-of-town guest tonight, to our delight and confusion! Also a quiet member of the group is sitting so far away from the microphone he has been dubbed a silent protagonist… Furthermore, a regular has made a character for this name, using a website that returned the unlikely offering of Augustin Cripplersteel. He just went with Augustin, sadly.

Angel: “My name is Angel Raven Serenity. I’m in touch with nature.”
Desmith: Oh my god.
Augustin: “It’s good to meet you. I’m a thief. I’m like a modern-day Robin Hood. I rob from the rich and give only to me.”
Angel: “In a past life… your karma? Allowed that. You did some things. And now your karma is letting you steal without repercussions. That’s the way the universe works. Everyone knows that.”
Augustin: “Oh. See, my repercussions, not having them, is because I’m so good I’ve never been caught.”
Desmith: “I sense a challenge to my Lawful Good alignment. I’m afraid we’re going to have to have a long discussion on property rights.”
Angel: “Property isn’t really a thing. Property is this man-made concept that somebody can own something, and I don’t like that word ‘own’.”
Augustin: “I like her.”
Desmith: “Speaking as something manmade myself, I see no problem with the idea of things being manmade.”
Angel: “But they’re unnatural.”

Silence.

MAUL: Roll for initiative!
Augustin: Roll for impotence!
Desmith: I don’t have it! I’m a warforged, not a pornforged!
Seth: I thought you were a sexbot, repurposed.
DM: Repurposed sex-bot. Not while I’m drinking. Otherwise Augustin’s going to have a shower he doesn’t want.
Halfdur: (questionable merchant voice) “Warforged! I got yer warforged here!”
Desmith: “Some a little too violent, some a little too pacifist. Some know too many languages, some don’t know any at all.”
Halfdur: “This one here needs to be repurposed. Breaking too many hips.”
DM: The Fruit-fucker.
Desmith: “I am programmed to thrust until thrusting is no longer necessary.”
Angel: “Well that’s just natural, I think sex is a beautiful thing.”
Seth: Have we… met them yet?
DM: No, we haven’t met them yet. She just launched into her character, it’s great.

The town, which is now named Agrastic, comes into focus. Desmith is making armor. Good for him. The DM demands to know what the other characters are doing.

DM: Well I know what you’re doing…
Angel: Getting high. I mean in touch with nature!
Halfdur: I’m bringing myself closer to Moradin by drinking myself into a stupor. Or at least trying to.
Desmith: “Damn me Constitution.”
DM: Seth is out looking for a puppy.
MAUL: What, are you turning into Puppyman now?
Augustin: I’m hanging out on the rooftops. I’m Batman.
DM: I think you’re here to lay low.
Augustin: Yeah, I’m waiting to get the heat off.
DM: Tell me, MAUL, what are you doing?
MAUL: Probably chopping down trees.
Angel: “WHYYYYYY?!”
MAUL: Oh crap.
DM: You have opened the door. You are chopping down trees and you hear this.
MAUL: We’re in town, they need supplies. There are only so many options a death-machine has to contribute to the community.
Angel: “What community are you contributing to? You’re contributing to the human community, hello!”
Desmith: I’m sure you have useful skills. (peering at MAUL’s character sheet) Go climb something!
MAUL: Yes, I run the town’s climbing wall on my days off.
DM: You’re cockblocking their roleplaying. Shut up.
Halfdur: There’s a big wall in the middle of town… He keeps climbing it.

Somehow, Chef’s removal from South Park due to Scientology becomes the topic de jure for a bit.

Angel: “I have auburn brown hair.”
Desmith: What, is it only one color?
Angel: “No, of course not, why limit yourself to thinking of only one color when the world is full of so many colors?”
MAUL: “I only see in black-and-white.”
Desmith: “One moment.” (miming an adjustment on MAUL’s head)
MAUL: “Ah!”
Desmith: “So many colors, I’ve learned pacifism now.”
Angel: “Now do you feel bad about all the flowers you’ve killed?”
MAUL: …I haven’t killed any flowers, have I?
DM: “I am incapable of feeling sorrow.”
Desmith: We haven’t killed any flower, although we did do a number on that, uh, FLOUR in the golem.
Angel: …where’s the pen? (marking off the bingo board)
MAULS: Puns are just like carrots on a stick to you. As soon as we push it within your reach… nom.
Angel: “I hope you said thank you to the earth before you ate that carrot.”
Desmith: “I didn’t realize I was supposed to. Thank you, earth.”
Angel: “The earth forgives you.”
MAUL: “Is the earth a meatbag?”
Desmith: “I believe it is neither composed of earth nor a bag. It is in fact more of a sphere.”
MAUL: “Meat can be round, can it not?”
Desmith: “Meat can be round, but round does not mean meat. This tree is circular, does that mean it is made of meat?” (pausing) “I’ll chop it down and find out,” and that brings us to today.
Angel: Okay, so I’m high as shit right now…

Angel hurls paint onto the tree MAUL is chopping down, screaming at the top of her lungs. Out of character. The group immediately prepares for incoming noise complaints or the police accusing them of butchering a girl.

Seth: “Oh my god, checks out this puppies, I have puppy now.”

Everyone mocks Seth for using Sargassas’s voice. MAUL takes Angel into town for the others to deal with, giggling OOC all the while.

Seth: Did you take my dog?
DM: No, he picked up Angel Raven and is carrying her into town.
Seth: Oh. “What are you doing with that woman?”
MAUL: “What am I doing? I am uncertain what to do with her, that is why I brought her here.”
DM: And he’s covered in red paint.
Seth: I would assume he just killed a lot of things.
Angel: “Yes, he was killing trees.”

MAUL attempts to force Seth and Angel to converse in midair. Seth wearily apologizes for MAUL’s behavior, claiming he doesn’t like ‘meatbags’.

MAUL: “I do not dislike meatbags. I merely enjoy the opportunity to slay them. Such is my programming.”
Angel: “The usual artificial construct BULLSHIT that keeps all of us oppressed.”
MAUL: “Bullshit?”
Desmith: “I’m not here. Stop looking at me.”
MAUL: “I have never expunged cattle’s business.”
Angel: “Well because you’ve never expunged it, that’s why you’re so full of it.”
MAUL: …oooh. “This one’s logic is perplexing.”
DM: You can’t keep looking at Desmith! He’s not there.
Seth: “I told you, we only killed the bad people, and she is not a bad person, she is the druid.”
MAUL: “You have already ascertained?”
Seth: “I made an assumption. Her love of nature goes beyond even that of a ranger. We just keep an eye out for people burning the forest down. One or two trees, is okay…”
Angel: “He believes in acceptable loss because he’s completely blind to all the massacres that go around in the lumber business!”
Seth: “Whoa, whoa, whoa there, Poison Ivy, calm down…”

Seth and Angel squabble loudly and angrily over forestry, while MAUL goes to report to Desmith about how a strange woman assailed him for chopping down a tree.

Desmith: “Of all the hobbies you have, I’m surprised that’s the one that got denounced.”
MAUL: “My list of hobbies is not long.”
Desmith: “My point.”

Seth attempts to bluff Angel into believing the piece of paper he’s produced is magic and not made from trees. Her untrained Sense Motive defeats him.

Angel: “Well I guess the robot’s not the only full of bullshit here.”

Seth delivers a long rambling explanation of extremism, contrasting rangers with herbalists and druids with Poison Ivy, to explain the contrast between rangers and druids.

Angel: “Well, I think we should overthrow the rangers. Is anyone with me? You, robot-man?”
MAUL: “Kill ranger meatbags?”
Angel: “Yes.”
MAUL: “I will do as you say.
Desmith: “Hoooold on there…”

Desmith, in a certain amount of despair, goes to the tavern to see Halfdur.

Desmith: “Friend Halfdur, I have a proposition for you. Friend Seth is engaged in a mighty argument with a random woman. If you use the wisdom of the gods to resolve this argument so that it no longer occurs outside of my shop, thus scaring off my clientele, I will buy you an ale.”
Halfdur: (utterly silent)
Augustin: I’m going to get up, I’m going to leave the bar quietly, I would like to Move Silently to move past them to get out, ‘cuz I’m gonna go rob his shop.
Desmith: “I sense hesitation. Therefore I will sweeten the pot. Two ales.”

Desmith threatens to put Humanbane on his crossbow if Augustin goes through with this. Captain Delwick spots Augustin, though. Desmith returns to his shop to find them talking outside.

Desmith: “Good evening. I would doff my hat to you but I am not wearing one. I have interpreted the human custom of hat-doffing correctly, have I not? Observation suggests this is what people do as a greeting. Perhaps I should obtain a hat.”
Seth: “No, no, it’s part of a bow so your hat doesn’t fall off.”
Desmith: “I see. So that is a circumscribed version of the bow. Perhaps I should still get a hat in order that I may circumscribe effectively.”
DM: “Or you could just bow and forget the hat.”
Seth: “Some people tip their hat even though they don’t have a hat.”

The group begins furiously debating tree-chopping once again. Desmith storms off to look for an adventure; Augustin tries to fade into the background but gets nailed by the Captain again. This becomes a huge argument; meanwhile, Angel demands to know if warforged eat a gluten-free diet, which turns into a debate over both the merits of low-sodium food and the value of salt. The Captain cautions Augustin that he can stay if he so desires, but not to cause trouble. This conversation cuts through the chaos and tumult…

MAUL: Is he hitting on the Captain?!
Augustin: No—
DM: Yes he is!
Augustin: My Diplomacy was a 7.
MAUL: Slap in the face and a night in jail, that’s what you get.

Desmith tries to drag the adventure back on the rails, while Angel talks about stripping and prostitution for reasons which… who the hell knows why, let’s face it.

DM: “So I didn’t catch your name?”
Augustin: ”My name is Augustin.”
DM: “Augustin CRIPPLERSTEEL!” I still think that would be awesome.
MAUL: Cripplersteel Augustin Menasor!
Augustin: “Apparently one of my ancestors was a warforged.”
MAUL: “But we don’t—“
DM: Turkey baster!
Augustin: “We’re elves, son, we’ve been around a lot longer than you.”

A discussion on the actual creation of beer leads to MAUL abandoning his tree-chopping ways to reap hops instead.

Angel: “Hmm. On the one hand that’s hurting nature. On the other hand I really like beer.”
Augustin: With a sith. With a sai, or… Scythe. Like a Sith Lord, use the Sith!
DM: Come to the Dark Side, we have stout.
MAUL: I have gotten the druid to agree to me butchering something in nature.
Angel: Well it does take some chops to chop hop.
Desmith: “I dropped these on the old man, I’m afraid it’s hops on pop.”

Regret food is merrily passed around, as someone chokes on the overflow from their stuffed stomach. MAUL explains the intricacies of the bingo board to Angel.

MAUL: This should be a free square – somebody, somehow, WILL annoy Seth, even if it’s Seth annoying Seth. Desmith WILL say this before the night is over… (then, pointing to Hitler) This one, I don’t know what’s taking it so long. Not that it’s a bad thing, but…
Angel: Do ambulances regularly get called?
MAUL: The ambulance and the evil pacifist one may need to go…

Desmith tries to drag the game back to the adventure. It mostly fails, so he goes back to generating random names.

MAUL: Dead babies, that could strike at any time…
Desmith: Blossom Macho Assassin Smedley!
Angel: So adventures!
Mat: Would you put that damn thing away?
Desmith: Lucifer Huffer Blitzwing!
DM: Halfdur. A young dwarven male enters the tavern, looks around for a moment, and makes a beeloin towards you.
Desmith: Beeloin?! (bursting into laughter)
DM: God damn it.
Halfdur: “Aye, kinsman, pull up a stool!”
Desmith: “Rest your loins a moment!”

The dwarf has brought news from the Church of Moradin! A dwarven ruin has been discovered some days’ ride to the west, and they wish for Halfdur to investigate. The game almost goes somewhere until the DM wanders off to rage-poop.

Desmith: Headcharm Silverfeather Ultra Biceps Fitzgerald. Ultra Biceps Fitzgerald! What a great name!

The DM returns and explains that a legendary smith was reputed to have found a great deposit of iron in the area. These ruins seem to correspond to what he located.

Desmith: “If you are willing to accept company on this mission, I will gladly—“
Halfdur: “Are you readin’ over me shoulder?!”
Desmith: “Yes. Should I not have?”
Halfdur: “Well it’s kind of moot now, isn’t it? Some would consider that rude, lad.”
Desmith: “I assumed if they didn’t want me to read it, they would have written it in dwarvish and not common.”
DM: Actually, it was written in dwarven runes…
Desmith: Whuh-oh! (clearing his throat) “I assume if they didn’t want me to read it I wouldn’t have gotten a 19 on my Decipher Script.”
Halfdur: “Aye, yes. Accompaniment would be nice.”
Desmith: “Then you have my crossbow.”
Angel: “And my hemp.”
Desmith: “Who invited her?”
Halfdur: “Why not?”
Desmith: THAT’S THE WORST REASON EVER, HALFDUR!
MAUL: (suddenly) I missed the chance to say, ‘And my axe!’
Desmith: Yes! Yes, I set you up…

Halfdur invites Augistin along, and the rest of the PCs heckle him mercilessly about his belief that Augustin has nimble fingers. Augustin muses that a pimp with a spiked gauntlet would be the worst pimp ever. The group realizes it’s too late to leave, and so elect to spend the night quaffing ale. At least, those of them capable of doing so.

Augustin: I have got to start robbing some people, because I am BROKE.
MAUL: We’re going to a ruin. It’s a dwarven ruin so there’s bound to be treasure everywhere! Unless it’s a dwarven ruin from Elder Scrolls, then you pick up two things and you’re overburdened.

The next day, they set off! It takes them several days – they miss the kobolds somehow, and only deal with handwaved little creatures.

MAUL: Dire weasels.
DM: The little critters of nature. They don’t know they’re ugly.
MAUL: That many days together and no one has tried to kill each other. That’s amazing.
Desmith: At least until he steals from us.

As they approach the mountain, they see a thin stream of smoke rising from it, and a narrow, winding road going up its face. Halfdur senses that the path was once concealed, but its strong construction has outlasted that concealment. Seth makes a tracking roll.

DM: There does some to be tracks from four humanoids that have come down the path more recently.
Seth: “Humanites. I knew it.”
MAUL: Humanites?
Augustin: The Inhumanoids!

MAUL gets distracted trying to figure out who hates the Banana Phone. Confronted with the choice between following the trail and continuing up the path, they elect to follow the trail – but after a half mile, it vanishes/

Desmith: Damn you, Ultra Biceps!

A modified 20 is not enough to pick up the trail. They abandon this lead and return to the trail. It gets bad.

Augustin: She’ll be comin’ around the mountain when she comes! She’ll be comin’ around the mountain when she comes! She’ll be comin’ like a mountain -- (cracking up) She’ll be comin’ like a fountain when she comes… (cracking up again) I can’t sing it with a straight face.
Desmith: She’ll be riding six white honkies when she comes—
All: (groaning)
Desmith: Oh we’ll all come out to beat it when she comes…
DM: How’s that handbasket slide down to hell working out for you?
Maul: Without even any mention of Hitler.
Desmith: We’ll be beating it to Hitler when she comes…

The path leads up the mountain to a carved door. Desmith scrutinizes it to see if it’s been moved recently.

Augustin: Natural 1 on my Strength check to kick the door in. I break my leg!
Desmith: “Leave him for the vultures.”
Angel: “Vultures need feeding too!”
MAUL: “All part of the circle of life.”
Augustin: …Man! You guys SUCK!
Seth: Hobble him!
Angel: “The Hobbled: An Unexpected Journey.”
Augustin: Whoa, don’t talk about hobbling.
Desmith: Yes, how do you hobble a horse?
Augustin: You break its legs.
Angel: So how do you hobble a baby?

Silence.

Angel: Exactly the same way.
Augustin: Oh God. Please put dead babies down now, because she brought it up.
MAUL: She did. Welcome to the table.
Augustin: Welcome to the group!

Applause erupts. Desmith judges the door, which is ajar, to have been opened but not recently. As they continue to investigate, they hear a piggish grunt inside – and the door slams shut.

Augustin: “Orcs!”
Angel: “You mean porks?”
MAUL Or a boar. A boar in the door. A coward in the door from Ghoere?
Halfdur: It’s MEAT on LEGS!

Initiative! Augustin is up first, but the lack of opponents to immediately attack has him baffled and perplexed. All he can think to do is hide.

DM: You bought that battering ram, didn’t you?
Augustin: I DID buy that battering ram!

Augustin immediately passes it off to MAUL, then realizes that the support role on the ram takes no checks and grabs the other side.

MAUL: “You stand back there and grip the rear of the ram. Do not reach around, though.”

Angel attempts to fire a sling bullet through an arrow slit, and promptly rolls a natural 20, clocking an orc in the face.

Angel: In my defense I wasn’t talking about dead babies, I was just talking about crippled babies,.

The discussion trends towards the lethality of broken limbs in babies. Seth gamely attempts to shoot through the arrow slit as well.

MAUL: You just totally Angry Birded through the arrow slit.
Angel: It’s like stoner savant, here.
Seth: (rolling) …I’m gonna have to restring my bow.
MAUL: Bowstring!
Desmith: Bowunstrung.

Desmith fires in turn, with slightly better luck, in that nothing breaks. Halfdur casts Bless. MAUL rolls a mighty 26 to smash open the door.

DM: You see four stunned orcs going -- (shocked expression)
MAUL: Oh ho! Meatbags!
DM: That lasts a few minutes, and then they’re like ROOOOAR!
Angel: A few minutes, they’re just standing there for like five minutes.
MAUL: This is a rare look at the orcs in their natural habitat.

Angel gets grazed by a crossbow bolt, taking two damage. She then discovers she doesn’t have a camel animal companion and is crushed. Her abruptly-appearing wolf tries to trip one of them but fails.

Angel: Good job, Sparky, good job.
Augustin: Rolled up newspaper. “Bad dog.”
Angel: I get my oaken cudgel out. “And start being the shit out of people! With nature!”

She wallops an orc to death, grumbling about her failing buzz. Desmith steps forward and fires his crossbow for a mere 3 points.

DM: Meanwhile, the other two orcs are clambering down from the arrowslits.
MAUL: Oh good, bring your pretty faces to my axe.

MAUL immediately crits one of the orcs, although more pile out of the tunnels behind the doors.

DM: One of them tries to swing his cudgel, and gracefully lobs it over that way… yeah, none of them hit these guys. It’s like stupid orc ballet.

The wolf fails to accomplish anything again, and Angel whiffs on her own strike. Seth, however, deals out a crit with his newly-strung bow, but Desmith misses. Then hits, because as usual everyone has forgotten Bless. A flurry of misses erupts all around. Certain gestures are perfected in ways that shall not be discussed.

Halfdur: I take my warhammer, I pull it back—
MAUL: You throw it up in the air!
Halfdur: I slam it into the orc for six points of damage.
MAUL: Don’t kill the last orc with your hammer, then your god will be upset with you.
Desmith: It wasn’t begging for mercy and crawling away crying.
MAUL: Nothing begged me for mercy!
DM: So you are triumphant, and the great door opens. Full, finally. And you are in a large hall, standing on a narrow ledge overlooking a deep crevasse.

They search the bodies – Augustin trying to secretly pocket money as they go – but are promptly distracted by a pair of orcs standing guard on the other side of the crevasse, snarling at them. The party promptly ends that threat with a volley of weapons fire.

Desmith: All right guys, rock-paper-scissors for the loot list—
Halfdur: Not it
Desmith: (more firmly) Rock-paper—
Halfdur: NOT IT.
Desmith: One, two, three –
MAUL: Wait, what? You don’t do ‘one, two, three’.
Desmith: What planet are you from?
Seth and MAUL: It’s “one, two, three”—
MAUL: (throws his symbol on three)
Seth: “Shoot.” (throws his symbol)
Desmith: All right, guys, d20, low roll does loot.
Augustin: Deal.
Halfdur: 20.
Desmith: You didn’t even roll…
Augustin: 11.
Seth: 18.
Angel: 11.
Desmith: …6. Fuck.

The loot isn’t impressive, and once it’s written down the group assembles up at the bridge, unwilling to cross it since it seems to be a dwarven defense mechanism. Augustin finds no traps on it, while Desmith believes it to be stable if it is negotiated carefully.

DM: If you are taking the bridge, I need you to make a Balance check for me.
MAUL: Aww man…

Desmith proposes they rope themselves together, though by the time he proposes this most of the group is already over. In fact, everyone makes it over without any trouble.

Augustin: 27 on my Bluff! There’s no traps – you go first!

They open the door on the other size of the crevasse and promptly surprise four orcs!

MAUL: Do we stare at each other for a few minutes, as is our custom now?
Angel: I share some wicked reefer with them.

The wolf actually manages to accomplish something, tripping an orc and mauling it to death. Meat is deemed to be back on the menu. The orcs and PCs exchange blows, though it isn’t actually very exciting, and they dispatch the orcs and loot the room.

Augustin: Hey, Desmith. D&D Encyclopedia.
Desmith: (baffled look)
Augustin: Didn’t find that as funny as I did…
Seth: (cracking up in the background)
DM: There is another door in the room. It opens on a small staircase. A short flight of stairs, the door at the top is large and ironbound. A human skull is fixed to the center of the door by an iron spike.
Desmith: Ooh, pleasant.
Angel: “Kind of artistic! I guess this guy didn’t get ahead in life.”
Seth: Ohhh! Desmith-worthy.

They hear orcs in the next room, so Desmith decides to dungeoncrash straight in – hey, it’s been working for them so far! But his 21 isn’t enough to burst through. Angel rolls a Listen check, and hears nothing – but Sparky starts barking, and something behind the door starts barking back!

DM: Are you going to try opening the door the regular way, since you couldn’t crashed through it?
Augustin: (subdued) Yes.
MAUL: Oh yeah, we shoulda tried the knob fist.
DM: There’s an ugly humanoid. An big, ugly, tusked, smelly humanoid holding chains on two wolves. He goes, “Vak! Thray! At them!”, drops the chains, and he launches himself at you.
MAUL: He’s feeding his dogs to my axe?
DM: Sparky’s like, you don’t even need to tell him to go.
Angel: Sparky’s already flipping his shit.

Seth attempts to push people into ragepooping for some reason. Desmith tries to provoke him in turn. Combat swirls, but it’s still not really interesting, just a bunch of attack rolls flying back and forth. Low-level games…

DM: Sparky manages to go for the throat again and take the ogre down.
Angel: Nice job, Sparky!

Another battle won! They assess their options and how they might get at the chest-ensconced loot.

Desmith: “I request permission to pet your dog and call it a good dog.”
Angel: “Yes, you may.”
MAUL: It’s trying to bite your fingers off.
Desmith: “Good dog.”
MAUL: You’re like concussing the poor creature.
DM: He’s scrubbing the dog underneath his arms for some obscene reason…

They pry open the treasure chest, which is not trapped to Augustin’s dismay (he rolled well), and start racking up their loot! Money and potions, and a magic rapier which no one wants, since no one uses them. But the hour has grown late and the game must come to an end. Angel regrettably bids the group farewell, which kind of weirds everyone out; why do people voluntarily associate with us again?