Thank you to everyone who submitted their characters for this competition. It wouldn’t have been possible without your efforts. Below is the summary of the tournament, as played, with the results therein.
I shall be contacting the winner of the tournament shortly with a request for a PayPal invoice for $100.00. If you’re the winner, congratulations!
***
A Pixie in a bar ordered a huge ale which was about ten times bigger than him. Beside him sat a man-sized pig wearing a tuxedo and a human carrying a beehive and half a dragon’s den of gold and jewels.
The man ordered a few drinks and passed one to his crazy old mage. The pig acted gentlemanly.
The doors to the bar burst open and a tall, blue alien walked into the room. He was clad all in a black mantle and wore a cloth over his left eye with a swirling pattern emblazoned into it. Two, double-barreled pistols rested on his back.
“You can’t have an ale,” the bartender said to the fairy.
“Oh yeah?” the fairy’s wings crackled with electricity. “Just try to stop me, punk.”
The alien walked over methodically and Zane Darkstar, the man, shoved a chair in his way. He mechanically hopped over it, showing no signs of emotion. “I have a mission for a few good men,” said the alien. “My name is Lenoir, and if you accompany me, it will go well with you.”
Everyone stared as a book and a set of gauntlets flew into the room. The book was huge and clearly magical. It muttered, “What the heck happened? Who am I? Where am I? Oh yes, my name is Alden, other than that, I don’t know.”
The alien gave him a calculated look. “You can come.” He pointed at the fairy and the man with the dragon jewels. “I’m impressed with you two as well.”
Echo, the fairy, burped as he drank his ale. “Okay, I’m in.”
Zane Darkstar folded his arms. “How much will you pay?”
“The quest,” said Lenoir, “Is for the Holy Grail. It will be well worth it.”
“I seek only my identity,” said the floating book.
The fairy nodded his agreement, “I need to find out who my parents were. It seems we’ve both lost parts of our minds.”
“More than that,” the book flipped its pages to illustrate the point.”
“Come then.” Lenoir led them outside to his waiting spaceship and they all flew to an impenetrable chasm before the Holy Grail. It was guarded by a frail looking old man who was exceedingly ugly.
“You must answer all three of his questions,” said Lenoir. “Or he will cast you into the River of Death.”
The fairy was the first to fly over.
The bridge-man smiled. “What is your name?”
“Echo the Earthshaker.”
“What is your quest?”
“To find out who I am. Also, who my parents were. I seek the fairies to do this.”
“Who are your parents?”
“Some people, I expect.”
The bridge-man nodded. “Go ahead.”
Zane Darkstar was the next to approach. “Ask me your questions, bridge-man, I’m not scared.”
“What is your name?”
“Zane Darkstar.”
“What is your quest?”
“To find the Holy Grail.”
“How many gold pieces fit into a bag of holding considering that each weighs 1 tenth of a pound?”
“1 billion.”
Zane Darkstar screamed as he was flung into the river of death. The bridge-man fell asleep and Lenoir and Alden the book made it past with no trouble. On the far side they threw down a rope and pulled up their ally, Zane Darkstar. He was soaking wet and none-too-happy. “Silly old man, I know my gold, that’s the right amount.”
The four heroes gazed with awe and greed upon the Holy Grail atop a steel pedestal before them. Their heroic beliefs were temporarily warped by the need to claim the book first.
“Mine,” screamed Echo. His mother had been a Rarair Thief and his blood was hot with lust for this great treasure. He reached the cup first and laughed. He tried to pick it up, but it was ten times his size and he couldn’t even make it wobble.
“Out of my way,” said Lenoir. He smacked the fairy into a wall and held up the cup like he was winning a quidditch championship. “I will now use the power of this chalice to rule the universe!”
***Zane Darkstar Vs. Echo Earthshaker***
As Alden rushed to stop Lenoir, Zane Darkstar confronted Echo. “It’s time to roast a greedy little fairy.” His eyes blazed as everything around him ignited. He started to suck in the fiery power.
“A pyromancer,” gasped Echo. “I must use all my skills.” He broke out several crystal globes and released several will-o-the-wisps. Next, he chucked his bag of fairy powder about himself. His shadowed form resembled a huge angel with twin lightning bolts he’d just created in each hand.
Zane Darkstar was stunned for a moment. “How did he get so big?” He continued to feed off of the flames in preparation for roasting the fairy.
Echo tossed both his lightning bolts with struck Zane true. Zane faltered but kept his concentration. He blasted a huge mass of flame at Echo, but the small fairy flew directly upwards at incredible speed, managing to barely survive the singing attack.
From on high, Echo fired a tiny, sigil-tipped arrow which struck the pyromancer on the top of the head. Zane Darkstar fell over, unconscious.
Echo pumped his tiny fist in victory and grunted as if he was a huge man. Using his newfound experience points he taught himself a new attack called Nova, unbeknownst to anyone else.
***Lenoir Vs. Alden***
Meanwhile, Lenoir and Alden had not been sitting idle. The book started to chant an eldritch combat magic as Lenoir pulled out his twin pistols.
Lenoir took aim and fired on the book. The shots struck true. What would have killed any normal man merely caused the book great pain.
Using herculean strength of will, Alden maintained his concentration and let loose with a fireball. Combined with his ancient magic and the extra focus of a spell blast, it knocked Lenoir to the floor at one blow.
The book flew over to hover over the alien. “Thank goodness, I guess I’ve just saved the cosmos from whatever this guy was planning.” He looked down and saw the smoking harness worn beneath Lenoir’s suit. It was beeping as if about to explode. “Uh oh.”
Alden flew over to a rock and climbed under it. He then laid protective sigils to protect himself from nuclear bombs.
There was a huge blast which obliterated everything in a hundred miles. The book crawled out of the ashes and pet the sweet earth with its pages. “I’m allliiiiiivee!”
Sadly, Echo was nothing but a burnt crisp on a wall.
The Will-o-the-wisps flew into the tiny fairy and revitalized him.
The book cast a few spells to heal the bullet holes.
It was time for the final showdown. The winner of this confrontation would be the champion of the tournament.
***Alden Vs. Echo***
“The Grail can be possessed by no man,” said Alden.
“Hey, I’m a fairy, bub.” Echo flexed his piddly muscles. “Besides, it’s way too sparkly for me not to steal it.”
Alden became a little worried. He’d already used all his most powerful magics, leaving him drained and weakened. He came up with a quick ball of flame and shot it at the fairy.
Echo darted out of the way and started to surge with electrical power as he flew into the sky. With each passing second, more and more lightning was absorbed into his tiny body. The very air fizzled with the power of the awesome nova to come.
Alden quickly put some rune sigils of lightning protection on himself.
Echo didn’t notice and kept building up his immense power.
The book tossed a ball of acid and melted Echo’s left wing.
Echo finally unleased his massive lightning bolt. After the ringing stopped, the book was still floating there.
Alden chuckled. He tossed another ball of acid which the fairy dodged.
Echo drew his own magical sigil upon himself and transformed into Muhammad Ali, then punched the book.
“So that’s how you want to fight?” said Alden. “Fine.” He flew over and whacked himself into the great fighter’s head.
Echo returned to his normal form. He screamed and shot his tiny bow.
The arrow stuck in the book with little effect.
Alden flew over and slammed both sides of his pages, sandwiching the small fairy between them.
From within the tome, Echo cast a rotting spell on the pages.
Alden spat him out and rammed him into the dirt.
Echo felt the wind knocked out of him, but there was still fight left in him. The electricity surging in his bones was the only thing still keeping him alive. He quickly scrawled a rune of metal control.
As the book pressed him into the dirt, grinding out his life, the metal pedestal of the Grail flew over and slammed down hard on the book. Echo wriggled free at the last second.
The book sighed. “At least tell me who my father was.”
Echo shrugged. “His name was Bob.” He glanced down at the melted puddle that was the Grail. He sighed. “Well, I’m off.” He hesitated. The bodies of Zane Darkstar and Lenoir were gone. He’d known all along that Zane Darkstar was only knocked out, but how had Lenoir managed to move his spaceship when he’d been vaporized by a nuclear explosion?
As the fairy flew off into the sunset, rune-encrusted gauntlets flew over to the metal pedestal and heaved it off…
***
Congratulations, Mr. Bowden and Echo the Earthshaker. You have just won the 2013 Challenger RPG Tournament and one-hundred dollars. If you’d be so kind as to send me a PayPal invoice to challenger_rpg@hotmail.com I will attempt to send you your winnings ASAP. Please forgive any delays, as I’m a little new to PayPal.
Everyone else, thank you for the hard work you put into your characters. I and my playtesters really enjoyed reading and playing them. I hope they have many great adventures beyond this one, and a chance to achieve their lofty goals.
I apologize if anyone’s character was misrepresented in any way. This was just how we ended up role-playing these characters. I, as referee, attempted to keep the battles fair with small advantages given to well-developed characters. It may not appear this way in the text (i.e. missed turns, etc.) but some of it was edited for reasons of length and clarity.
Again, thanks for contributing to the tournament!
All the Best,
--David L. Dostaler
Special thanks to Zane Darkstar for having such a cool list of equipment. I think everyone enjoyed at least one part of it: whether it was the instant kill sword, the asthmatic +2 horse of speed, the half a dragon hoard of jewels and gold, or the evil socks (?).
Equipment:
5 deadly shrooms
A bee hive
1 whole, cooked pig
Half a dragon's den of gold/jewels
35 magic enhancing rocks
2d10 wand of healing
Evil Amulet (does +7 passive damage against Good-aligned characters. Always on.)
Socks of Evil. ?
Black, steel longsword (Thorinsgaet, Bringer of Storms)
Bobo the Hobo (Possesses a dagger which literally drips with evil. Extremely dangerous)
Brown horse of +2 speed (slightly asthmatic)
Crazy Old Mage (specializes in explosive runes.)
Enchanted Wooden Sword (+5 Attack, +10 damage.)
5 exploding Shurikens (d12 damage each.)
Sword of AllDamage (100% chance of instant kill. 50/50 chance to kill self.)
Cookies
5 pink potions (cause the drinker to grow a long, luscious tail)
Gentleman Pig [Henchman] (Wears a Tux and Top hat. +1A, +1D, 3HP and +12 diplomacy)
30 pieces of Horse Jerky (restores 1HP each)
1 Awe Inspiring Gem.
Large Bag of Iron Nails.
Ring of Magic Concealment.
Background: (as rolled up)
Outlaw, destroyed his village in a bar fight.
Good at starting fires.
Very unhealthy (-1 to max HP)
Character Traits:
Sarcastic.
Difficult to earn his trust.
Unfailingly loyal to those he does trust.
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