MIXED BAG. TABLETOP TALES. #3 FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC: THE BUDDY COP CAMPAIGN PT. 2 Unicorns and Zombies

TABLETOP TALES PRESENTS

FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC: THE BUDDY COP CAMPAIGN PT. 2 Unicorns and Zombies

Special Thanks to Terry Pratchett

 Make sure to read PT. 1 First.

#3 FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC: THE BUDDY COP CAMPAIGN PT. 1 Introduction

Our story begins with the two characters, Carrot (played by Chris Baker) and Vik (played by Nick Mawby) sitting at their desks at Central, the main police station of the Watch. Carrot is in the bull pen and is carefully working on his reports, ever diligent and thorough. Meanwhile, Vik's boots are propped up on his deck, and he sits in his private office, taking a long nap, a dog-end of cigar hanging from his lip. They have the station to themselves as  the other two guards on duty are busy walking the streets. Suddenly, a goblin clerk runs into the station, alerting Carrot to an emergency in the Garden District.

Carrot drags Vik up and out from behind his desk to go to the Garden District. Vik is a little ragged from a day of boozing it up in his office. Carrot has to keep stopping so Vik can piss or vomit out the alcohol drunking him up. Vik assured Carrot that it wouldn't be a big deal. Probably just a break-in. After all, the Garden District is the home of the Eladrin aristocrats that made their home in the city for a life of urban leisure. When they arrived to the scene of the crime, Vik wishes he had just stayed in his office.

As they rounded the corner into the Garden District they discovered a massive sink hole had opened up in the street, the front of one house caved in, and wreckage all about. At the crime scene, the other two guards were trying to keep the piece, putting up police tape and trying to get information from the witnesses. Carrot makes a quick deduction when he sees a large foot print.

"Giants in the city?"

Just as the Chief Samson arrives, they learn from witnesses that Fomorians, giant dwellers of the underground, had burst from the street and kidnapped several Eladrin. The Chief looks like he is about to have another heart attack over the concept of giant's bursting from under the city and kidnapping wealthy elves, so Carrot immediately volunteers to go down and retrieve the eladrin before they come to harm. Vik doesn't want to go but, with a little persuasion AKA a threatening look from the Chief, he follows Carrot down the hole.

It didn't take long for the two cops to run into a pair of Fomorian beasties, but with their skill and tough guile they made quick work of the beasts. Finding a pair of unconscious Eladrin, the elven maidens thank the cops, and tell the cops that they saw more Eladrin getting driven down into the caves. Carrot and Vik soon find a large cavern where an Eladrin, Samaria, riding a summoned unicorn are defending themselves against a pair of Fomorians. They help her fight off the big, ugly, purple giants and the Eladrin explains that she believes that the Fomorians have dark plans and that, being a retired knight, she leaped out of bed at the first sound of the explosive entrance of the giants and chased them down the hole. Now, with an eladrin knight and a talking unicorn at hand, they make their way down the caves until they find a dank bog in a large cavern and a grisly discovery.

The water runs red with slaughtered Eladrin and standing at the far end of the cave is a figure in a blue and gold hooded robe. Turning to meet them, the figure's hood slides down, and reveals the familiar face of a rather prominent Eladrin by the name of Alazar (can't remember his name so there's one for the purpose of this retelling). He tells them its too late for them and that they won't be leaving. Casting some dark magic, he raises the Eladrin corpses as undead, and they raise to attack our heroes. The Eladrin knight dashes forward on her steed to charge the magic user, while the cops fight the zombies. The magic user stabs Samaria through the heart but, seeing the cops making short work of the undead, makes his escape. The talking unicorn, wounded, tells them that they should immediately go to the Court of the Stars.

They follow the unicorn down to a group of caves populated by Eladrin. He asks them to stay the night as witnesses so they can accuses Alazar of his dark deeds.

To be continued...

To read my other Tabletop Tales, click the links below.

#1 YAMA HACHIYAMA

#2 THE STORY BOOK CAMPAIGN: THE LIZARD OF LOLZ Pt. 1

#2 THE STORY BOOK CAMPAIGN: THE LIZARD OF LOZ Pt. 2

MIXED BAG. TABLETOP TALES. #3 FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC: THE BUDDY COP CAMPAIGN PT. 1

TABLETOP TALES PRESENTS

FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC: THE BUDDY COP CAMPAIGN PT. 1 Introduction

I love Dungeons and Dragons. I have been playing, more or less, once a week for over two years and I don't ever plan to stop playing. Most of the times I've played Dungeons and Dragons, I have been the Dungeon Master. For those who don't know, a Dungeon Master is the guy who is in charge of telling the story, determining what monsters and characters the other players come across and, in essence, is the god of the world the players explore. As an author, it gives me a chance to flex my creative muscles.

 Yet, while Dungeons and Dragons can breed a lot of original ideas, it doesn't hurt to fall back on familiar ideas, tropes and characters inspired by works of sci-fi fantasy. I find myself borrowing/parodying from all masters of the imagination; from L. Frank Baum to Walt Disney to Jim Henson and on. Yet, if there is on author that has had an effect on my dungeon mastering, story-telling and humor it is Terry Pratchett.




Terry Pratchett is my favorite author. Out of all the worlds I've visited in my reading, Discworld is the one I want to revisit again and again. Despite the fact that Terry Pratchett is a great satirist, poking fun and adapting everything from Hamlet to Conan the Barbarian, he is also the creator of some of the most endearing characters I've ever read. Somehow he managed to take the best parts of so many iconic characters, inject them with his own personal wit and insights, and create a world of characters that shine.

There are two things I learned from reading his work: anything is possible through the power of imagination (sound cliche, but it takes quite a lot of nonsense to make one believe in what most people consider to be nonsense) and the power of fantasy. He is a defender of fantasy, the oldest genre of fiction, and its power to bend reality around a story. I try to bend my fantasy world, The Wold, around every story I create. Perhaps no campaign has ever been a better example of this concept and a better homage to Pratchett's works than my 2010 campaign that, as of today, will be forever remember as FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC as a reference to the Ankh-Morpork's City Watch's motto (which cannot be translated to "Make my day, punk!" That would just be silly.))

In terms of pure improvisational story-telling and role-playing, few of my campaigns have ever been as successful as the Buddy Cop campaign. I don't remember how it all got started, but it began unlike any other story I've ran. First of all, there were only two player characters and both were originally created as an homage to two of Terry Pratchett's characters, Carrot Ironfounderson and Angua. I made the characters on a lark.

First, up we got Carrot Ironfounderson. Pratchett's Carrot is the perfect model that we would all hope a cop would be; honest, diligent, trustworthy, kind and generous etc. An orphan raised by dwarves, he came to the city to become a watchman after he discovered he was human, and has quickly become one of the most well-known and liked figures in the city of Ankh-Morpork. He is considered the "most linear thinker" in Discworld, and is so naive that he doesn't even realize that he has been living above a brothel for several years, but one must not confuse being "simple" with being "stupid". Carrot is a great detective, a great problem solver, and if someone crosses his honest nature will find themselves in trouble fast. In my campaign, he was played by my friend Chris Baker who, despite never reading a single Pratchett novel, plays Carrot just as Pratchett intended. I handed him the character, which I made a paragon paladin, and he gave one of the most likeable role-playing performances I've seen from a gamer. Chris managed to play a goody-good character that was hardly boring and hardly incapable of solving problems. When it came to making the other character, it easy to say that things got a little bit more complicated.

The other character I made turned out to be a composite of two Terry Pratchett characters. Initially, I made a longtooth shifter dual-blade ranger based on a female character. The character was based on Angua, a werewolf cop who joined the force after escaping the land of Uberwold. Only problem with using her in my campaign? I needed another male character instead of a female. The solution was to combine Angua with the main watchmen character of Ankh-Morpork, Samuel Vimes. The end result was a gruff werewolf cop by the name of Viktor "Vik" Von Uberwold, the old drunkard bad cop to Carrot's goody-two-shoes cop. Vik was played by my friend Nick Mawby. Nick is great at playing characters that are anti-heroes, villains, and cowards. He played Vik as an old beatcop in the body of a young werewolf. His character often acted on instinct and he uses his werewolf powers to take care of business. The end result came out like an insane mix of Wolverine, Dirty Harry, and McGruff the Crime Dog.

How well did these two different characters interact and how did the adventure play out? Well, you'll have to check back later this week with Part 2: UNICORNS & ZOMBIES


To read my other Tabletop Tales, click the links below.

#1 YAMA HACHIYAMA

#2 THE STORY BOOK CAMPAIGN: THE LIZARD OF LOLZ Pt. 1

#2 THE STORY BOOK CAMPAIGN: THE LIZARD OF LOZ Pt. 2