D&D One-Room Scenarios: A Drow Enjoys a Birthday Relapse Aboard a Pretty Skyship

Breakup Gaming Society’s Chief Mixologist, Skrrt_Vonnegut, offers up a character for sacrifice to Darkroast McFanticide, a hulking, rusty, armored murderer who makes sure D&D 5e sessions are short and bloody. Skrrt did a good job. Plus he got to prepare, unlike the first time when I ran Darkroast against an unsuspecting Hurricane 75.

I thought I could squeeze in some identity theft opportunities when we were sketching out the backstory for Skrrt’s PC, who was boring.

We clear up some confusion about his character’s name and then we’re almost ready for the scenario.

The scenario revolves around Pumpkin Hazelnut-Lose getting to take a morning pleasure cruise on an airship for his birthday. Skrrt’s into it.

We establish that the ship is pretty, the sun is a strange color, and that Pumpkin has a dumb cone hat and some Demerol. An excited party of sight-seers queues for the ramp and talk excitedly. Skrrt determines that they’re talking about the on-field exploits of the Gauntlegrim GrundleReavers, who are “second in college rockball.”

Skrrt announces that Pumpkin is getting into the Demerol early in the trip. Wine is being served in the prow viewing area, and a roll on the Party Table determines that Pumpkin Hazelnut-Lose knocks down seven glasses, to which Skrrt also adds shrooms.

Some pleasant conversation with other passengers somehow occurs and I walk into a zinger.

Skrrt switches up some location details, so we work that into the story in as things tilt toward ugliness.

Skrrt’s character gets cut off by an exasperated wine steward, who tries to mollify him with a 1/3 pour. Then we get our first indications that Darkroast McFanticide has stowed away on the ship. Soon Pumpkin will be dead and we can both go do something else.

Pumpkin Hazelnut-Lose has a hat full of vomit and Darkroast has begun his trail of carnage on the now-listing ship, murdering his way toward the prow and breaking things. Everybody on the ship gets booted over the side or is clotheslined to death. Pumpkin and one other character are the only ones who can summon their wits and face Darkroast McFanticide down.

Pumpkin’s ad hoc comrade-in-arms gets his face slapped off after the two assault Darkroast McFanticide. Pumpkin’s attack highly amuses the villain, who cracks his skull.

After Skrrt notes that the memory ends with a trip to “the good red lobster,” Pumpkin uses some magic object, which is fine.

Anyway:

Skrrt follows up by pitching a d60 for an ad-libbed funeral outcome and generates a 1.

The tragic day gets even worse with the funeral soundtrack.

And that was the end of Pumpkin Hazelnut-Lose’s magical skyship ride. Stay tuned for more innovations in roleplay storytelling.

D&D One-Room Sessions: The Unstoppable Depredations of Darkroast McFanticide

Hurricane 75 doesn’t even have a character ready and is burning daylight hmmming and umming through his decades-old knowledge of D&D character classes, so I make him an Assistant Crew Leader.

His character’s task? Track down Darkroast McFanticide, the hulking, rust-armored Butcher of Hasbronia.

The room: Long and rectangular, a dais or something at the far end that, for some reason, displays a single flask that has the character’s picture on it.

He announces that he’s going to break the flask, but we’re not doing any of that because the knives are starting: “More knives than you’ve ever seen in your life.”

First plot point: Determine how many of the initial volley of flying knives hit the Assistant Crew Leader. It’s something like eight.

“This seems pretty bad,” I tell him.

“Well, it doesn’t seem like I get to do much. It’s been all you so far.”

“Bro, do you even like D&D.”

I roll a quick grapple/surprise check for him, which he fails. Darkroast McFanticide has embraced him from behind in an adamantine grip and a wave of necrotic gum tissue odor. Darkroast is upset because not enough of the knives are going into the Assistant Crew Leader’s mouth, so I tell Hurricane 75 that Darkroast stretches his character’s mouth out so more knives go inside his mouth. He gets a three.

At this point, Hurricane 75 is starting to check out on the whole experience, but I tell him he’s doing fine because we still have to do the eye check. Darkroast now wants more of the nonstop flying knives from the far wall to go into the character’s eyes.

“He’s stretching my eyes out,” he says glumly.

“Yeah. Let’s do a d6 to see how many knives go in your eyes.” It’s a six.

“Great.”

“I made an eye hit placement chart. Do you want to figure out where the first knife hits.”

“Sure.”

Oof. Right in the lacrimal caruncle. Rough. I plot out the remaining five eye hits for him so he can learn more about eyes.

There’s one piece of detailing at the end that finally engages him: Rolling a d20 to see for how many minutes Darkroast McFanticide holds the Assistant Crew Leader aloft, shaking him and gurgling in triumph. 12 minutes. We both collaborate to sketch out the scene, which is wet and crunchy because I’m a good DM and I like players to have fun.

Anyway, for all you DMs out there refining your worldbuilding and agonizing about plot and interesting NPCs: you’re overindulging your players. Boil the process down to the fundamentals. Wipe these sons of bitches off the map so you can play something else.

There is some post-session nitpicking from Hurricane 75 about Darkroast’s prowess because the flying knife trap did all the work, and some speculation as to whether my villain is a bitch. He sort of has a point, so I’m working on a different session: It’s an elegant skyship, where Darkroast will slowly work the player character into an approximate ball shape using just his hands. I’m going to also design an option where the character gets to say something before they’re fatally compressed.

Keep your eye on Breakup Gaming Society to see what thrilling duel erupts next; wherever Darkroast McFantide appears, fun is sure to follow.

Preview photo is a detail of the Sin Eater character from the Trench Crusade tabletop game, which is supposed to jump off on Kickstarter in Oct. 2024. It’s actually more horrifying than this post, check this out.