Roll for Puke

[Telhawk]

Okay, it's getting on in the evening, but I felt that this had to be included, if just to show how brothers in the forty-three (me) to thirty-six (Jungger) range can turn into haw-hawing teenage goofs when the circumstances are right. Onward...

Last Saturday, me bros and I were squeezing in an unconscionably delayed C&C game - after a roughly three-month break (something that none of us wanted) we'd finally managed to patch an evening together. Major problem: I'm in the middle of a multi-weekend course that will fulfill my final requisites for getting into the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) and at last allow me to start earning something above the poverty range. So we had a mere three hours to squeeze things in before I had to call it a night, if I was going to be in anything resembling decent shape for Sunday's eight-hour class.

I don't know if it's a result of C&C's design, partly - maybe just good luck or, although he denies it, excellent CKing on Jungger's part. Even with the time restrictions that we had, things just fell together; the first couple hours were some tense and in-depth interactive role-playing, which involved our eight-person group (four for myself, the final four for Arkon, our other brother) managing to hole up in the Temple of Elemental Evil's ground-level ruins for a couple days and getting our full hits and spells back. After managing to take a side-route through the Temple's glyph-warded main door, we played it smart and took every precaution we could to avoid getting ambushed or running into someone. Finally, we started the final hour of our evening with a good old-fashioned crap-kicking, which resulted in every one of our characters giving just as good as we got. All I can say: Thank God for clerics, because when that horde of ghouls descended on us, it was Aramet's turning ability that managed to buy us the time we needed to take them down by ones and twos.

The crux came when one of the ghouls bolted and ran for a couple of rooms that we hadn't yet sussed out; Arkon claimed that my monk - Valameer - should make a beeline for the undead punk, as my boy was the only one not directly engaged with combat at the moment. I considered for a second, then refused; as I said to Arkon, "Look, we know that Jungger's not pulling any punches here - I send Valameer after that thing, I know he's going to get ambushed, and there goes the only character who's made it through from the beginning, without resurrections. Forget it! We go together!"

Arkon grumbled, but ended the debate there - BUT, when Gareth, his knight, had cleared the way, Arkon promptly sent him after the missing ghoul. Gareth stormed through the open doors to the unexplored rooms, came to one with no apparent exits, but with some kind of bolthole leading to the lower levels of the Temple...and that's where the fun began.

The stink that Jungger described was...fragrant, to say the least. Charnal houses, forgotten dumpsters that unusable animal parts are dumped into for disposal, outhouses in high summer...all of these things were brought to mind as Gareth looked into the passageway leading into the next level of the Temple. Jungger went through his description, grinning - and then told Arkon, "Roll to stop from throwing up - and I'm talking projectile-vomit here."

Arkon looked at me, brows drawn together. "You know what the hell these things are? More ghouls?"

A description from the MM/MT was going through my mind. "No. Not ghouls - ghasts." He asked for clarification. "Super-powerful ghouls. They give off the stink of death so bad that you have to roll to avoid throwing up."

Arkon did so, and failed - Jungger took advantage of this to go through great and sadistic detail about how our affected characters were reacting as we disgorged our lunches and dinners in bolts that looked like phaser beams and left abstract art and Rorschach blots on the walls and floor. Two ghasts leapt out of the bolthole and began wreaking havoc. Only Arkon's dwarf managed to make it through in one piece, and every round, as someone new piled into the room, Jungger's gleeful command was repeated and abbreviated until it became an echoing call: "Roll for puke. Roll for puke! ROLL FOR PUKE!"

Arkon and I began cracking up helplessly as the craziness of the whole thing started to sink in. As the barbarian dwarf went into his battle frenzy, Jungger gave a description that the dwarf was crazily vibrating his head like one of the hallucinationatory visions in Jacob's Ladder - and if you haven't seen it, rent that sucker quick. And still the call was repeated - Roll for puke! - until, finally, both our and our characters' stomachs aching - although for very different reasons - the ghasts lay on the Temple floor, dismembered. We decided that would be the best point to call it a night.

We talked and laughed about it for maybe twenty minutes afterward. Finally, we decided on the name of that evening's game; I give it to you now, in all its glory:
"Down the Ladder"

or
"Roll for Puke"

We haven't had such an evening in years...and all made possible through the auspices of Troll Lord Games and C&C.
That's all for now. Goodnight.

[Omote]

Roll for Puke rules.

-O
_________________
> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

[serleran]

And I was hoping this was about fleshcrawlers. But, yes, roll for puke rocks a monkey.

[Tadhg]

That is hilarious, Telhawk. I've got to try that on my young nephews in our next game!!
_________________
Count Rhuveinus - Lejendary Keeper of Castle Franqueforte

"Enjoy a 'world' where the fantastic is fact and magic really works!" ~ Gary Gygax

"By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes:" - Macbeth