Because of the highly-variable nature of the players of our game, the DM of one campaign has elected to attempt a game consisting entirely of chained one-shot adventures, like an 80’s cartoon! Minimal continuity, one session per adventure. Who are our characters?

Bellrill: A half-orc, apparently the victim of an orc wanting a smart kid and achieving it by kidnapping. A Pathfinder alchemist.
David: A bard. A human, not a gnome.
Karmus: A dwarven martial adept of some sort, I forget exactly what!
Krenalket: A gnome conjuror with aspirations of malconvokery in the future.
Leo: A mighty swordsagin’ man, to quote.
Peregrinus: An acolyte in the temple of Heironeous.

DM: Growing up as the half-breed in the family, you’re pretty much an outcast from day one, since your older brothers looked at you as an outcast. But none worse than your eldest brother Bellagor.
Krenalket: Stop rolling that die!
Leo: Sorry. (rolls it again)
David: You know that die is actually drowning out the DM.
Leo: GASP!
Krenalket: I’m gonna slap you so hard your glasses fly off your head.
David: I would pay good money to see that happen.
DM: In your resolve to one day leave your tribe’s village and strike out into the wide world beyond, you chose the day, bid farewell to your parents—
Bellrill: “GET OUT, DUMBASS!” “…thanks, Dad.”
DM: Your father’s always shown you a kind of stern approval, if not any kind of real affection. You get the sense that you more or less turn out the way he wanted, although I guess he wishes you would’ve been an overpowering smart guy—
Krenalket: God damn it, Bellrill, I just told Leo to cut that out!
DM: As you strike out upon the road, no sooner have you gotten out of sight of the huts and the homes of your village that you see before you… Bellagor, stands in your way, in the road. As you identify him, he approaches you, not speaking a word but not breaking stride in the least. He gets to about this close to you and finally speaks. “Well, runt, where do you think you’re going?”
Bellrill: “To travel. I have things to learn.”
DM: “What can’t you learn here? You learned all you needed to about being a ninny sissy beat-‘em-up doll.”
Bellrill: “Make more potions. Make our clan strong.”
DM: “Strong? How will you make our clan strong? You just think you’re better than us, leaving us behind.”
Krenalket: Vial to the face, he’s asking for it!
DM: He’s fingering the studded club at his waist.
Bellrill: “Strong… like this!” I’m gonna waste one of my extracts today, purely just to show him. I use my extract of Enlarge Person.
DM: Make a Listen check.
Bellrill: Now that I’m taller, I can hear things farther away!
Krenalket: You’re picking up radio waves.
DM: You hear footsteps on the road behind you, and you hear the creaking of wood. As you turn to look at what’s making the noise behind you you see several orcs holding bows.
Krenalket: This was his plan all along! Have us make new characters and then take them out one by one!
DM: How many hit points do you have?
Bellrill: 11. Better quaff my mutagen at this rate…
DM: As you turn to face the archers and surmise the odds are hopelessly against you, you hear the whistling of a fell object through the air behind you. You’re not quite sure how, but now you’re staring up into the sky. It’s getting hard to hear, and you’re feeling very sleepy.
Bellrill: Uh-oh. Oh. Dart.
DM: From very far away you hear the sound of another orc’s voice. It might be your brother’s you can’t be certain. Things turn black.
David: And you wake up on the moon.
DM: You open your eyes again, you’re not sure how much later—
Karmus: And your ass hurts.
Bellrill: Damn, my brothers are assholes. And gay.
DM: You feel someone’s touch upon your shoulder.

Bellrill cheerfully molests Krenalket’s shoulder, as a female voice calls his name. A valkyrie or a setting equivalent thereof has come for him! David is up next!

DM: David’s a wandering man! He walks the road, and every so often, the sad music from the Incredible Hulk can be heard as he tries to hitch a ride to the next town. However, on this evening, you’ve come into a well-to-do sort of city and you’ve landed yourself a gig entertaining none but the wealthiest in town, as it happens. You use the day trying to gather hearsay and the goings-on of the town and its people here, and you’ve composed what you think is quite a clever little number to play for the assembled nobility. Night falls and you’re ushered into the court of one wealthy Lord Phineas. His guests have eaten, they’re all logy and satisfied from eating too much while the peasants go hungry, yadda yadda…
David: Not a surprise.
DM: And your escort bids you begin the entertainment.
Karmus: Ooh! Armpit farts!
DM: As you launch into the number you’ve prepared, it’s kind of a… uh… what’s that word?
Krenalket: Flop?
DM: No, not a flop.
David: Inappropriate?
DM: Most of your work is a little inappropriate, but this is a lampooning sort of number, not meant to be taken seriously, but it casts several of the assorted number in—
Krenalket: You’re dead.
DM: Yeah.
David: My character has died before I get control of him. Next!
DM: Well some of the assembled nobility, the ones that aren’t being characterized by your ballad, are having quite the great time. But Lord Phineas seems unduly displeased, especially concerning the sort of rampant order produced by his gaseous discharge, which is the talk fo the town, especially after he’s had cabbage.
Bellrill: Jesus Christ, are you describing Krenalket?
DM: He has you thrown in chains and taken down to the dark depths of his estate. Aside from a feeble cup of water and a bit of rotten bread that was in your cell when you got there, no one’s come to check on you in what you’d guess has been at least three days. Finally, dehydrated and starving you figure you’ll take yourself a little nap and hope someone comes to check on you when you awake. When you open your eyes the dungeon seems much more well-lit. In fact… your jailer seems to be a woman! A blond-haired human woman carrying a spear and wearing a cloak of falcon feathers!

Two down! The DM moves on to Karmus, who is not at all pleased to be up next.

DM: You’re kind of the toast of the rising dwarven warrior class, but you’re always rattling your – if this were an 80’s cop movie, he’d be a black captain with a very loud pair of lungs.
Krenalket: Is he a loose cannon?
DM: He is a loose cannon, and people don’t always appreciate having to clean up after him.
Krenalket: So let’s see, are you getting a dog partner, are you getting a woman partner… where is this going?
Bellrill: This is the modern day so it’s a dog female partner who is also gay.
Leo: And black.
Bellrill: It’s a black lab. Also it’s missing one leg, we gotta get the handicapped one in there…
DM: Gargeon Goldshaper. He’s launching at you with his usual spiel which you’ve learned to tune out instantaneously.
Karmus: Chirping of crickets is all I hear.
DM: He finally says something that penetrates your audio filter… he tells you you’re finished.
Karmus: “Excuse me sir?”
Bellrill: YOU’RE OFF THE FORCE!
DM: “You’re through here, Thundergrip! Go and clean out yer belongin’s from the guildhouse and leave out the back way! I dinnae wish ta see yuir bearded face around here any more!”
Bellrill: He immediately goes outside and shaves, comes back inside.
Krenalket: “Sucker!”
DM: “And if there’s any more trouble out of you this week, I’ll have ye thrown in the dungeon!”
Bellrill: With the female, with a spear.

Bellrill speculates that this is a Bethesda game, while Karmus fumes.

Karmus: “I will rue the day when you regret this.”
Krenalket: Did you just tell him he’ll rue the day when he regrets this?
Karmus: I ruin the day when he regrets… this or something like that, I don’t know.
Krenalket: “You’ll be sorry you regretted this!”

Oily Pringles Dwarves seize Jarmus and hurl him out the janitor’s exist into the dungheaps. Krenalket speculates that at the beginning of each episode, the montage of all of them dying or suffering will play under the theme song. The floor abruptly falls out from beneath Karmus, and after a sudden deceleration at the end of a long fall, finds himself in bad shape.

DM: You’re having trouble feeling your arms.
Karmus: They were broken off.
DM: You feel your legs but you can’t move them.
Karmus: We can fix him. We can rebuild him. The Six Million Dollar Dwarf.
Bellrill: I can make him out of sunrods…
DM: You look over at your shoulder and you notice something growing out of there that wasn’t there before. A great big spike. You’ve been impaled in a sort of tiger pit.
Karmus: Oh.
Krenalket: Damn, that captain HATED your ass.
Karmus: Yeah!
DM: You know how much he’s COST?
Bellrill: I dunno how many carts you destroyed with that axe, Karmus!

The valkyrie shows up again, though the DM bitterly refuses to describe her since the players are already joking about her.

Karmus: “You’re pretty for a lass without a beard.”
Krenalket: Roll for initiative!
Bellrill: No, I think she says, “No, my beard’s between my legs.”
DM: (sad, feeble groaning)
Karmus: Aww, that hurt the DM.
DM: Krenagul… Krugapost.. Kibble-kobble… Krenal… krenal… Krenalket!
Karmus: Crenellation cop-a-feel.
DM: You say your master has revealed to you the secrets of Malconvokestein?
Krenalket: (face down on the table, with his hands on his head) That’s right, officer.
DM: No one comes to arrest you. You’ve displeased your master in no way whatsoever.
Krenalket: But his treacherous fellow apprentice...
DM: (gleefully) Yes!
Bellrill: But as you walk on the door, you slip on a stairwell.
Krenalket: That could be how it’s going, considering my treacherous fellow apprentice could cast Grease on the stairs of the wizard tower.
DM: No. No, your fellow apprentice Mxyzptlk —yeah! Yeah, you wanna give me a ridiculous name, jackass? Here’s one for you! He leaves in a huff.
Krenalket: Well I can do him one better, I’ll leave in a day and a huff.

After a period of confusion, then silence, Krenalket angrily informs the group they can’t blame him, it was a Marx Brothers joke originally. They continue to blame him. Krenalket’s master treats him to a feast of fried mushrooms (his favorite).

DM: As you dig in, do you even care to make the Fortitude save?
Krenalket: Hey, I have a good Fortitude save… NATURAL ONE! BOOYAH!
DM: Could you guys BE more helpful to me or what?
Karmus: Instantly collapse.
Krenalket: I didn’t even have time for the poison to take effect…

The valkyrie (Freya) awakens him. Next on the plate is Leo!

DM: One evening you retire from your training and discipline…
Krenalket: Forever.
Bellrill: You sleep for the last time!
DM: You’ve taken a bit too long—
Krenalket: He worked himself into a heart attack from his training.
DM: No, I don’t think Freya would come for him if he was that dumb.
Krenalket: I shoved a chicken bone down my throat and she came for me, I dunno…
DM: Mxyzptlk could’ve just hired a troll to come and step on you, I suppose, but he thought the mushrooms more artistic. Anyway, after you’ve finished cleaning up and stowed your training good for the evening, you walk the streets of your town. The sun has gone and it is dark, and as you step into the alley towards where you live… there doesn’t seem to be anyone there, but a moment later you’re surrounded by hooded, masked figures wearing robes.

Leo attempts to ‘pop away’, despite having no ability to do so whatsoever. He ponders how to oppose them.

Leo: Blehh… nyaargh…. I make noises at them and then they stab me to death. I’m just kidding! I summon Distracting Ember and then try to run!
Krenalket: Distracting Ember just summons a little fire elemental who sits there.
Leo: Oh. Okay, never mind. I don’t know… aren’t I gonna die anyway?
DM: (chuckling) Yeah…

Determined to go down swinging, Leo avoids two of them! The other seven kill him. Off he goes, and we’re on to Peregrinus!

DM: The high priest of the temple sees much promise in you and wishes to raise you to the priesthood as soon as you prove yourself able.
Peregrinus: Okay, that’s cool and I’m very excited.
DM: The high priest bids you to go down to under the main level of the temple to fast and meditate for one day, and then return to the top and tell him what vision Heironeous has bestowed upon you. You lose track of the time because you’re still on the ‘omm’ stage down there, but it’s definitely been a few hours at least, and you hear… at first you think it’s maybe someone walking into the room? But you open your eyes and don’t see anyone around. But then you hear a voice. “A member of the council will NEVER ascend to the priesthood!” As you look about you for the source of the voice, out of the darkness and the columns of the temple, men in black robes or they look to be men, or humanoid anyways, slowly coalesce as they step into the dim light. Beneath their breath you hear them chanting some sort of invocation. Not the sort that you’d hear at the Temple of Heironeous, anyway.

One of the robed figures fires off a Finger of Death spell and promptly snuffs Peregrinus.

DM: That’s it for the night, guys.
Bellrill: Is every campaign like this, we make a new character and then get killed?
Krenalket: That’s why it’s only one night per adventure.

The DM cheerfully informs them that alone one will stand, blade and staff in hand. The group is brought to the Halls of Ysgard, there to feast and serve, by cat-driven chariot. Countless others feats and brawl around them, while several gods looks down at them from a high table. Leo spies Yondalla!

Karmus: Are they playing snooker or something?
DM: Krenalket! You see also at that table—
Peregrinus: Gaaaaaaaaaaarl Glittergold.
DM: Thank you Peregrinus.
Krenalket: I don’t give a fuck about Garl Glittergold, I worship Boccob!
Bellrill: Bob!
Krenalket: Not Bob, Boccob.
Bellrill and Leo: (like chickens) Buck-kob! Buck buck buck buck-kob!
DM: H the Alone…

Pelor, the Burning Hate, also sits at the table, along with Moradin and several other gods. Odin rises and thumps his staff on the floor!

Karmus: We all burn alive.
Krenalket: All right, I sit on the chair, which House am I sorted into?
DM: HUFFLEPUFF!
Krenalket: Nooooooo! Noooooooooooo!
David: We get sorted into the Janitor House.
DM: “All of the planes are in danger like never before. Not in centuries have we seen such an orchestrated advancement of evil! Normally we are able to deal with the overbearing threats to all the many sundry planes of existence, and to maintain the balance. But alas, things have come to such a point we are overwhelmed.”
Peregrinus: After 10,000 yeaaaaars, it’s time to conquer Earth!
Bellrill: MORTAL KOOOOOMBAAAAT!
DM: Bellrill, you get Sub-Zero, good luck.
Krenalket: Throw water at him.
DM: Oh wait, that’s perfect, you’re the alchemist.
Karmus: “Don’t worry. We’ll meet again.”

The gods call the assembled forward in groups, giving each of them tasks. The threats grow smaller and smaller as people are chosen. The party prepares to be insulted.

Bellrill: “You all. This young girl has lost her cat. If she does not have the cat in future years she will not rule the kingdom with peaceful hands! You must find the cat and bring it back to her.”
Krenalket: “There’s an unhappy fwuffy bunny, oh he’s vewy sad…”
DM: Yes, Durr the taxedermist has no supply of boars that he can offer to the township. Go kill and skin four boars.
Krenalket: We’re the last, aren’t we.
DM: You’re not the last.
Krenalket: Who’s the last, the gnome adventuring group from the Adventurers’ Guild campaign?”
Bellrill: It’s a bunch of adventuring babies.
Krenalket: (singing) Half-orc babies, they make your dreams come true!”

The PCs are told of grisly murders in Tarrytown, all of them with severed heads. Heironeous attempts to call Krenalket’s name, botches it, and has to get help from Garl. The PCs dub him “Cop a Squat”. Odin’s thumping staff banishes them from the halls and sends them on, leaving them on a worn dust road. They see houses in the distance!

Bellrill: Did he give us a mission before we left?
Krenalket: We’re to investigate the murders, I assume, it was implied.
DM: You were sent to detect the murderer.
Karmus: I cast Detect Murderer.
Bellrill: There’s the town over there.
Krenalket: I hope that’s the murder town.
DM: Odin sent you some other place, just set you up to fail.
Karmus: We get there, and are all, “Hey, where’re the murders at?” “What are you talking about?”

David rolls Bardic Knowledge. Terribly. Krenalket speculates on what might happen if they just took off and did their own thing, but they all agree it’s probably not best to tempt divine wrath. A peppermint patty fight erupts, nearly killing Leo (from asphyxiation). Krenalket rolls poorly on Knowledge(geography), and thus has no idea about anything. After significant arguing over the virtue of rolling Knowledge checks for information on the town, they finally advance on the town.

DM: As you get closer…(swearing, then speaking with the utmost scorn) Krenalket…
Krenalket: It’s a legitimate name!
DM: Sure it is. I just can’t remember it unless I look at the fucking thing. After you’ve covered a little better than half the distance, you can make out what appears to be a windmill symbol of heraldry on the post above one of the larger buildings.
Krenalket: This is the Lord of Quixote’s land. What does it mean?
DM: Give me a roll.
Krenalket: …natural 1.
Bellrill: “DEEEEH, dat’s a windmill!”
DM: Quixote it is.
Bellrill: Is he rolling a new character already?!
DM: Don’t stop, this has been so good. You helped me by rolling a 1 to resist poison mushrooms!
Bellrill and Leo: (singing) Don’t stop… believing!
Krenalket: Pretty soon I’m just gonna crossbow myself in the face and that’s it for me.

A guard calls out a challenge as they approach. Bellrill, of all people, steps up to answer.

Bellrill: “We are but travelers!”
DM: “You are butt travelers?!”
Bellrill: “…Sure, sure.”
DM: I’m sorry.
Karmus: “It’s a town of smartasses!”
Bellrill: “We have heard your pleas and come to aid!”
DM: “Aid? What sort of aid do you bring?”
Bellrill: “This town has troubles. We wish to help.”

Silence.

Krenalket: Are you deliberately phrasing that as generically as possible to see if he misinterprets?
DM: Arrows begin to fly!

The guard bids them advance as he descends the ladder from the guard house. Everyone starts rolling oddly well on Sense Motive to determine that they’re not quite what he was expecting. They move forward, are snared by a stretching trap from Donkey Kong Rapes the Mississippi and hurled back out of town, then advance in again.

DM: As you approach the hall, the sound of music can be heard inside. There may just be a minstrel playing.
Krenalket: You hear that, David, someone’s muscling in on your territory already.
David: Amateur music.
Bellrill: Are we gonna enter 13th Warrior Great Hall?

Inside, their peasants are assembled in their Sunday best, the idea of which renders Bellrill catatonic. Some are cavorting, others merely chatting.

DM: One man looks up at your entrance, raises an eyebrow, and slowly approaches you.
Karmus: And I hurriedly approach him with my axe up!
DM: Whoa boy!
Karmus: “I’M the murderer!”
Krenalket: That’s how we’d solve this if we’re evil. We keep murdering people and taking the credit until the REAL murderer got fed up. Or we murder people really incompetently… “Yes, we’ve been doing all the murders, look how great we are!” “NO! IT WAS ME THE ENTIRE TIME!”
DM: As he approaches, he looks left and right, then says, “Well, if there’s a stranger group that ever walked into Tarrytown, I’ve never seen it. Who be you, and what are you here in Tarrytown for?”
Krenalket: Party faces?
Bellrill: “We have been sent—“ well, I’m not the party face.
Peregrinus: “Blessings of Heironeous be upon you.”
Krenalket: (dramatic gasp) The inn goes silent, as everybody immediately reaches in and grips their holy symbol of Hextor.
DM: He spins on his heel and walks his way to the back of the room.
Karmus: Ties a noose!

A man named Balthus introduces himself and inquires if they are here to see to the murders, which they agree they are. He gets them drinks, and then gets straight to business.

DM: “So will you contruck—bleh-blechume—aaah, aaah…”
Krenalket: …Someone roll a Heal check!
DM: He faints before your eyes!
Krenalket: He’s strokin’ out!
Karmus: “The next murder!”
Krenalket: The food was poisoned! I should know, I have experience in these matters!
Karmus: No you don’t, you choked on the bone.
Krenalket: It was still poisoned!
DM: He’s fine. Merely old. The DM just sucks. He asks you, “Will you be confronting the Horseman directly then?”

Balthus relates that the decapitated victims are caused by the Horseman, who comes at night to kill and will not stop till he gets his own head back. The players glance at each other.

Karmus: “All right. One of us goes under the guise of Ichabod Crane, a schoolteacher.”
Krenalket: “I’ll hide in a hollow and cast Sleep.”
David: So what’s the condition?
Krenalket: He wants his head back. “Horseman? Headless Horseman? Hah! That’s a mere fairy tale. I think you have someone far more sinister on your side, simply using this as a cover!”
Bellrill: What’d you roll, a 1 on Grand Storytelling?
DM: Yes, you’re actually looking for Cristopher Walken.

Krenalket demands to know what common thread links the victims. Balthus reports that the Lord van Garret and his son Dirk were slain openly as they traveled by chariot… err, wagon. Sir Killian and his wife were murdered in their home. No one has seen the Horseman clearly, so Krenalket continues to harp on about trickery, but Bellrill insists their own presence as divine interveners speaks to a true monster.
 
Krenalket: “But a Headless Horseman? Preposterous. What are the odds it’s actually a Headless Horseman as opposed to someone making a fiction of it?”
Bellrill: “What are the odds of a group of together being pulled just as they die and gathered together to research the murder—“
Krenalket: “Considering how many people were in that hallway with us, pretty damn good.”
Bellrill: “Not many of them were on a journey to solve the murder crimes.”

A priest insists the horseman was once alive but was killed decades ago as he fled justice! They ponder this tale and seek more detail on it except for the skeptical Krenalket. Leo suggests they exhume the corpse. People immediately sign on to this plan.

Krenalket: Excellent. Grave-robbing is our first solution!

They spend a while trying to figure out the relevance of an old lady that was also killed, and what connection might exist between the three murders.

Bellrill: We don’t have a large enough group. Let’s split up.
Peregrinus: Don’t you know, you never split the party!
Krenalket: Two rounds later…
Bellrill: What could be the worst that could happen? We die again?
Krenalket: Eventually it will stick, you know.
Bellrill: And then what, we’ll get new adventurers.
Krenalket: We don’t know that in-character. So the gods are Thrallherds, that’s what I’m understanding. That’s the premise of this campaign. Odin is a Thrallherd.
Karmus: So that’s what they’re feasting on up there!
DM: You see the man who first spoke to you as he entered standing by the main entrance, the man’s hand on the door even as he shouts, “The Horseman has killed again!”
Karmus: I brush him aside.
Krenalket: “To the corpse!”

They head to the path up to town, seeing a decapitated corpse just a little way down from the gates. It’s the guard from the gates, which seems to kill any hope of a pattern existing. Nevertheless, they examine the corpse!

Leo: “Duh, there’s a dead body.” I got a 4. Oh, it’s an 8… “Duh, dead body!”

Others roll better and spy prints leading away! They bemoan their lack of a ranger, but find in his coat pocket a seal! Everyone automatically and deliberately assumes it’s the animal type, to the DM’s amusement-slash-annoyance.

Bellrill: It’s not WoW, we’re not collecting seals to get equipment.
Krenalket: This guy’s the Black Knight, killing people for daring to quest in the Argent Tournament.
Bellrill: Come on guys, let’s queue up again, I need to get that Horseman mount!

The seal is that of the murdered Lord van Garrett. This gets Krenalket thinking entirely too hard, as he speculates on the relations between everyone… and the other PCs question who the hell he’s talking to. The guards approach!

Krenalket: I call to the guards.
Bellrill: I quickly ask about this seal before he has a chance to say anything!
Krenalket: I cast Benign Transposition and replace myself with you!
Leo: (seal noises)
DM: “First Horseman, now seals!”

Bellrill discovers the seal’s true purpose as a morpher, and becomes the Red Ranger. Krenalket aggressively interrogates the guards and discovered the slain one is John Masbith, who until recently served the Lord van Garrett.

Krenalket: “Ah ha! Tell me, this widow who was slain, what was her relation to Lord van Garrett? Herorherhusband’s!”
DM: …er-er-er-WHAT? You lost me!
Bellrill: Her. Or her husband’s.
DM: “I don’t know goat speak, milord.”
Krenalket: Apparently I briefly lapsed into a seizure.

The guard hints that the widow was linked to the lord romantically, while Sir Killian was knighted by the lord but associated more with the mayor. Krenalket speculates that Sir Killian faked his own murder to cover for his crimes!

Krenalket: “What were the details of his ‘murder’?”
Bellrill: They found a body without a head, I would assume—
Krenalket: (absurdly irritated) Details! You fucker!
Bellrill: So far all the details have been bodies without heads!

The guard reports seeing the Horseman on the night of the murder of the knight, riding away with their heads in a bag. Krenalket grows more and more suspicious.

Krenalket: “Who knew them well?”
DM: “Well, most every woman in town knew… Sir Killian’s wife, since—“
All: (bursting into laughter)
Krenalket: I did not think that was where you were going!
Bellrill: I thought you were gonna--!

The group laughs itself silly. The wife is a midwife, which explains that. Krenalket ponders that the corpse is fake!

DM: Krenalket sounds just like Aibghalien, he’s sounding more like him every minute.
Krenalket: The DM’s disparaging my crazy, “It was Sir Killian” theory, so I’m gonna make some popcorn. You guys work on this for a while.
DM: I’m not disparaging!
Krenalket: You said we were the worst investigators ever.
DM: Because of the wife thing!

They decide to go investigate the grave, Krenalket skeptical the entire way.

DM: You traipse off into the woods in the dead of night!
David: Because that’s totally something we should be doing.
DM: Frogs can be beheld against the reeds, making strange croaking sounds. “Krenalket. Krenalket. Krenalket.”
Krenalket: I suddenly have the desire to drink Bud.

They reach a lone hill in the midst of a barren glade, with one gnarled tree growing at the top. Definitely not ominous or significant. Leo rolls poorly on a Listen check.

Leo: I hear owls!
DM: You did hear owls, until you came close to this clearing in the path.
Karmus: But he heard them as… “…What? …What?”
DM: What you distinctly hear is the lack of night noises. No owls, crickets, frogs… Not even the wind seems to be stirring.
Leo: “Did you guys notice that it got a little quieter when we got to this place?”
Krenalket: “Can’t possibly be because we’re stomping around the forest, now can it.”

Everyone snickers at Krenalket’s complete incredulity and refusal to accept the obvious hints, genre-blind bastard that he is. They begin investigating the tree for clues.

DM: Around the tree’s base, you find what seems to be… coming out of the soil around the tree’s roots… Well, those look like they might be….perhaps an ear?
Leo: Hmmmmm.
Krenalket: Well, that’s eerie.

Silence.

Leo. Wow.
DM: The Horseman appears and slays you all.

They jury-rig digging implements, while Krenalket ponders the many uses of a celestial monkey. The other players mock him for needing an organ grinder to summon. As they dig deeper, their tools and hands become coated with blood from the ground; the earth is drenched in blood. The head is definitely that of the slain guard!

DM: He’s not as tall or as talkative as he once was.
Krenalket: Now I’m the tall one!
DM: Lightning from Asgard strikes Krenalket!
Peregrinus: As it should be.
DM: Maybe I‘ll just sprinkle in those signs of displeasure from the gods…
Krenalket: I’m not a cleric, what do I care? I worship Boccob, Boccob doesn’t give a crap about anything.
Bellrill: Boccob serves up good fried chicken!
Krenalket: “Keep digging! I bet the other heads are here. He’s gone to great efforts to keep this deception real!”

Incredulous disbelief as they keep digging. Krenalket goes to dig elsewhere, finding a hollow between two roots.

DM: You begin digging like a little yip-dog.
Krenalket: …I question my life choices.

He digs down to a hollow, which is ‘sleepy’ in the sense that a skeleton lays there. Krenalket gets a brilliant idea.

Krenalket: I’ll disprove this whole Headless Horseman thing. I’ll just take a femur here. If it’s really the Headless Horseman, how effective is it gonna be when it’s walking around without a femur?
Bellrill: “Where’d you get that femur?” “I took it from a grave!” “No, you are missing a leg!”
Karmus: Now he just takes the heads AND the legs.

The other diggers find a horse’s hoof spilling out of the gap they’ve dug, and as the horse corpse flies outwards, a black-cloaked figure is on it!

Krenalket: Does it have both of its legs?
Bellrill: I don’t think your theory’s gonna work, Krenalket.
Krenalket: Does it have both of its legs?!
DM: Sure does.
Krenalket: HA!
Karmus: Cynicism wins!
DM: Cynically one will stand, femur bone in hand. If nothing else, you’ve heard the neighing of this red-eyed horse.
Krenalket: Ha! Seems I’m not the only nay-sayer around here!
DM: That’s it.
Karmus: Kill him!

They start preparing for combat, which apparently involves the Chariots of Fire theme.

Bellrill: Heads flying everywhere in slow motion. Big smile on the horseman, holding six heads…
Krenalket: Instead of running on the beach, he’s running on the beach with the horse, and waves of blood are washing up…
Bellrill: He’s holding up six heads.
Leo: And even the horse looks happy at this.
Bellrill: Our bodies are falling to the ground.
DM: The Horseman’s thinking to himself, “Even the gnome party put up more of a fight than this!”
Bellrill: All the other adventurers have been trying to fight this guy and failing.
Krenalket: He’s level 20.

As the DM counts up the initiative scores, the party of first-level dudes is somewhat dismayed to hear the DM based this foe off the death knight template.

Leo: I’m the first to get murdered.
Krenalket: He’s not really out to murder us, he just wants to get a head in life.
Karmus: Wow, they keep coming.
Leo: He’s not going to notice any of us standing there, he’s going to go straight to the gnome and whack.
DM: Well funny you should mention that…
Krenalket: What AC bonus would the femur give me if I blocked with it?
Karmus: Nothing, you’re just boned.

The DM bitterly accuses Krenalket of being a combination of Glass’s inane babble and Aibghalien’s overbearing arrogance. The horseman, acting first, dramatically gallops forward to engage Krenalket. The characters ponder what possible hope they could have…

DM: I wouldn’t recommend taming the Horseman’s horse. That’s a freebie for you.

Bellrill hurls alchemist’s fire at the Horseman, vigorously splashing Krenalket in the process and claiming he didn’t see the gnome in the hole. Peregrinus attempts to turn undead! This earns him only a contemptuous glance, confirming it is above four Hit Dice. Krenalket casts Grease beneath him, but this does nothing. Kramus lunges in, whacking him with Sapphire Nightmare Blade, while the DM raises the question of whether the Horseman is even undead. David sings! Leo botches his attack and takes a faceplant right next to the Horseman thank to the grease.

DM: But it’s not like he has eyes to see how bad you just messed up.
Karmus: I saw it, though.
David: The bard suppresses a laugh.

The Horseman jams a pumpkin down on Krenalket’s head, dominating him.

DM: You hear a voice in your head.
Karmus: “I’m delicious!”
Bellrill: “Eat your hand.”
DM: It says in Common, “Put it back.”
Krenalket: That’s against my nature! I get an additional save!
DM: It’s against your nature to return the bones of the dead to their rightful rest.
Krenalket: When I believe they’re faking it, yes!

Since he’s not seriously making this argument, he begs the others to kill the Horsemen quickly. Bellrill lobs a javelin, which bounces off it. Krenalket slams the bone back into place, then casts Benign Transposition to swap himself with Peregrinus.

DM: Hold that thought. (heading for the bathroom)
Krenalket: RAAAAGE POOP! He didn’t get to kill me and he’s raging!
DM: Do you really want to die!? I get off a Dominate Person on you, the only thing I do is have you put back what you stole, and it’s like, “Oh, he didn’t get to kill me!” Good lord, all I had to do was make an attack roll and you’d be one skewered gnome.
Peregrinus: You should have!
DM: And half the work was already done by your own party member!

Peregrinus whacks for ten! Or less, as the Horseman seems to deflect some of his blow.

Krenalket: Kramus! Roll Martial Lore!
Bellrill: Shut up.
Karmus: I hate you.
Krenalket: You rolled a 1.
Karmus: I did.
Krenalket: God damn it, Kramus.

Kramus plunges his axe into it, only making it twitch. David misses with his crossbow and the Horseman casually brushes off Leo’s failed attack.

Bellrill: What happened? Who died?
Karmus: All of us, he whirlwinds.

The Horseman orders Krenalket to cast spells against ‘the woman’. Since there ARE no females in the party, this leaves him looking around in confusion, until he spies a woman at the edge of the trees!

Karmus: Somethin’ crazy is going on here.
Krenalket: How far away?
DM: Not far enough that you can’t make her out to be—
Krenalket: I need actual numbers.
DM: 30 feet.
Krenalket: Okay.
Karmus: Bigby’s Crushing Hand!

The Horseman remains relentless in NOT attacking the PCs, which is the only reason any of them are still alive. Instead, it is intent on pursuing the Lady van Tassle, the mayor’s ‘lady’. Bellrill crits with alchemist’s fire.

Bellrill: “RUN, lady! I don’t know what you’re doing here, but he doesn’t like you!”
DM: Its cape is set ablaze as your firebomb hits it. That causes it to break its stride. It turns and now faces you directly.
Krenalket: Do I get a new order?
Bellrill: It’s not his turn! I don’t know how he’s breaking turn and turning!
DM: You hear the horse behind you. Now it’s very close behind you from the sound. You turn in time to see its hooves smashing the ground in front of you, and a jet of flame springs up around it.

Making his save, Bellrill takes 5 fire damage. Krenalket summons a spider next to the woman and orders it to web her, which it does! Peregrinis attempts to yank the pumpkin off Krenalket’s head, while the DM urges him to simply smash the pumpkin and his head both open.

DM: The pumpkin comes up about halfway and gets stuck—
Krenalket: On my mighty gnome nose!
DM: On his preposterous proboscis!

Kramus charges the horse and bull-rushes it, while David hides behind the meatwalls and shoots the horse! The woman struggles to escape the web!

Bellrill: You can’t see! Your head’s in a fucking pumpkin!
Krenalket: I’ve been seeing well enough so far…

The Horseman orders him to pull the pumpkin back on! The woman drops a round, light-colored object as she struggles. Very belatedly, the PCs recognize the foul horse as a Nightmare, and bemoan how incredibly over their heads they are. Krenalket and Peregrinus have a tug-of-war over the pumpkin!

Peregrinus: 19.
Krenalket: …8.
Peregrinus: “Whaddya think you’re doing?”
DM: You kick the gnome in annoyance.
Krenalket: Roll vs. whiplash…
DM: His neck breaks. Shaken baby syndrome.
Peregrinus: He’s a little shaken, not stirred.
Bellrill: I’m telling you, 2 points of Con damage.

The Horseman stalks towards Bellrill! Bellrill furiously eats his own alchemist’s fire to save himself a worse fate. Everyone just desperately scrambles, every man for themselves, as the weight of the encounter has definitely turned against them. Kramus and David at least try to help the lady… but…

Karmus: What is this thing?
DM: It is a skull. A grisly looking skull.
Karmus: Huh.
Bellrill: She had the skull the whole time!
Karmus: “Now what were ye doin’ with this trinket, love?”
DM: She yells at you in display. “No! Put that back!”
Karmus: “Put it back where it belongs, I take it?”
DM: Something else has turned its attention back to you, directly behind you.
Karmus: “I take it this is yours!”
DM: (miming taking it and placing it on his head)
Bellrill: “NOW I HAVE ACHIEVED ULTIMATE POWER! NOT EVEN MILK CAN—“
Krenalket: Hold on, he put it back on like that, and not on his skeleton where it belongs—
Karmus: You quiet your cynical ass up.
Krenalket: I’m just sayin’, it’s not right!
DM: You smashed the pumpkin?
Peregrinus: Yes, I smashed the pumpkin.
Krenalket: Good, I’ll steal the femur from it again.
DM: Roll a new character. The three of you right in front of it, it pushes past you none-too-gently, although not in a manner that would cause damage. It snatches the entangled lady by her hair.
Karmus: “I think we’re seein’ justice done.”
DM: And even as she shrieks in horror and defiance, it drags her back towards its mount.
Leo: Mmmm!
DM: Yes. It’s for the horse, yes. It clambers back up, and in the torchlight you can see the skull itself is taking on the form of skin and hair.
Karmus: Cristopher Walken!
Krenalket: I’ll sidle over and glance at the skeleton in the hollow to see if it’s got a skull now for some reason.
DM: You’re walking back to the grave?
Krenalket: Sidling. Just so I can get a look at it, I’m not walking straight up so I can go HEY! I’m just curious to see if a skull has appeared in there now that he’s donned it on his head.
DM: No skull has appeared.
Krenalket: THIS DOESN’T MAKE SENSE!
DM: And the skeleton is no longer there!
Krenalket: THIS DOESN’T MAKE SENSE EITHER!
Karmus: I’m living in a cuckoo clock!
DM: That’s what I was waiting for.

The Horseman and his victim plunge into the hole together, although not before the DM specifically notes that the Horseman’s appearance is not that of anyone Krenalket claims it should be.

DM: Because none of this makes any sense.
Krenalket: It doesn’t! My version was much more sensible AND logical!
DM: Logic! Like an undead gnome doing the bidding of the gods in Valhalla.
Krenalket: Hey, they said I could be alive, so I am. I have a Constitution score, so I’m alive.

It’s way late, so that’s the end of the game! Horray!