Jyger’s Journeys In Dungeons & Dragons – The Most Intelligent Half-Orc Barbarian & Halfling Ball (WARNING – SPOILERS FOR ADVENTURERS LEAGUE)

Well, I did an article talking about the wizard in my D&D party a while back, so I figured I should talk a little bit about the other party member that’s been there since I started and is still there, our Half-Orc Barbarian, Genji, and some of the crazy moments that have involved him this past year. And because I like to refer to Genji as the medieval version of Beast from X-Men, I suppose there’s no better music to play in order to set the tone than the following:

So, why do I call him medieval Beast? Because, not only is he super-strong, but he’s really intelligent. And, right away, you’re probably asking how that’s possible. He’s a Half-Orc Barbarian, and a Berserker at that. They’re not commonly known for being that intelligent. Well, during our travels, at one point, Genji came across a headband that dramatically increased his Intelligence stat. So yeah, he’s a super-strong, super-smart, and occasionally rather swift killing machine, and just to boot, recently, he came across a talking sword that does necrotic damage. And, trust me when I say that there are few things more dangerous than someone who can brutally kill you and knows each and every way to do so and come out with hardly a scratch on them. Not to say that he’s the single most awesome ball of awesome ever made, as you may recall another story I told where something rather embarrassing happened to him, but those are kinda few and far between.

Suffice to say, Genji is the muscle of the team. And, as I’ve come to understand, following a recent D&D night where the person playing him couldn’t show up and my character had to take on that sort of role in the party, HE HAS A HARD JOB! I don’t wanna get into it TOO much, as I’ve been told that these articles largely spoil a lot of campaign and expedition scenarios in the Adventurers League, but there were snakes of all sizes everywhere, and 120 foot drops off a bridge covered in slippery moss, and one of our party members died, and we were even attacked by plate armour! Somehow, I managed to not completely screw it up, but it definitely made me a lot more grateful for Genji’s presence when he’s there.

A lot of times, he tends to be Mekeninzo’s sort-of partner-in-crime…for better or worse. 😛 Long story short, they’re both with the Zhentarim, which you can read all about here, and tend to pull a lot of stunts that the average “good guy” wouldn’t normally do. Theft, torture, murder, raising the dead, stealing baby dragon eggs, whatever it takes to get the job done. Granted, these actions CAN be justifiable at times. For example, there was one time we were travelling with this caravan in the middle of a rain storm. Several days in the rain and the muck, having to push the carts by hand because not even the horses alone were strong enough to free them from the thick mud spread across the road. And what do we find when we finally come across an inn? A bunch of self-obsessed nobles having a party and refusing to let us have even a single room. So, after Mekeninzo made himself invisible and scare them out (I think he was trying to make them think the place was haunted), ultimately gets found out, and was damned near stabbed to death, we ended up in a fight. And, in a moment that the lot of us have laughed about for a long time since, the fight ended with Genji hitting the noble that was kicking our asses so hard that his dead body flew backwards through the door to the inn and knocked it clean off. Pretty sure he hit him with enough damage to kill him at least a dozen times over.

…I would just like to preface the following story with the fact that I am not making a single fucking word of anything I’ve said in my stories up. All of these are completely true, no matter how insane, ridiculous, hilarious, or stupid they all sound. These things actually happened to us in D&D. And one of the funniest moments that we keep having call-backs to was the day we invented Halfling Ball. Here’s the situation: We needed to create a distraction for the caravan we were travelling with while Mekeninzo was searching one of the carts we’d been asked to keep an eye on by our guilds. So, Genji and a Dragonborn Paladin, who was part of the party at the time, decided to have a shoving contest to keep everyone’s attention. To further keep their attention, a Halfling Druid, who was actually played by the son of the guy playing the Paladin (which I only bring up because there’s few things in this world that I find cooler than family members that can get together and game), tried to “break up” the “fight”, only for him to get tossed between them in what they jokingly called “Halfling Ball”. At one point during it, our DM looks at me, and I will never know what possessed him at that moment to do this at that exact moment, and asks “Do you wanna try and run interception?”, and I, unable to resist, said “…Yes! I would like to try and intercept the ‘ball’!” So the Paladin threw his IRL son through the air, I rolled to see what happened…and, once again, I swear to God I am not making this up… … …I rolled a natural 20…For those that maybe are just one of my regular readers and have never played D&D, allow me to explain: In D&D, a lot of the things you do are resolved by rolling a 20 sided die, or D20, in order to see if you succeeded or failed and on what level you did either, all of which depends on how high or low you rolled. And, just to clarify, you know how in a video game RPG, let’s just use Pokémon as an example, when you attack something and it says you got a critical hit, which means you did exceedingly more damage on said attack than usual? That’s what happens when you roll a D20 in D&D. So, when I criticaled running the interception, in my mind, what happened was that, not only did I catch the poor bastard, but I then proceeded to do a touchdown dance…just because. XD

Anyway, that’s all for today. Got a funny D&D story of your own? Leave it in the comments section. Ja né!