When everything falls apart
My home group is currently dealing with a gnoll incursion, so they’re going from raiding camp to raiding camp. That gets old fast, so I wanted to spice things up. I created a caster who can merge a bunch of gnolls together into a chaotic gibbering Voltron. I grabbed some STLs from MZ4250 and mashed them together to form the Amalgnollmation!
It took 3 days for my 3D printer to finish the print, and it finished just hours before the session.
The combat began, and the party witnessed the Gnoll Bonemelder chanting in gnollish weaving its allies into a mass of claws, fur, and teeth, towering over the camp! The rogue assassin had the highest initiative (of course) and unleashed a barrage of arrows at the Bonemelder, who needed to retain concentration on the Amalgnollmation. 3 crits later, the Bonemelder was running for cover as even its concentration save of 19 barely failed, and the individual gnolls suddenly tumbled apart!
That was not the plan. It never even got to take an action! I had to grab extra dice to account for enough gnolls on the battle map! (This is why you can never have enough dice!)
Does your life ever fall apart like that?
You make all the plans. You prepare. You get everything in place. You’ve come up with something amazing.
And then it crumbles.
Maybe it’s medical. Or relational. Or financial. Or something else. But somewhere, somehow, a few unexpected crits completely change your plans. Because life is swingy like that.
It sometimes seems like I have Mario Party dice — lots of high and low numbers and not much in between. And I’m rarely the one rolling.
But even though nothing went as expected, we still had a great time. We had to stop before the battle finished, and we added three more players by the next session! Even more unexpected changes! It required some adaptation and last-minute adjustments (and just for flavor after the combat, a gibbering snouter — a gnoll gibbering mouther, complete with voices), but the people made the difference!
When your life doesn’t go as planned, it’s a lot easier to adapt and overcome when you have someone to help. Whether it’s a Fang of Yeenoghu fighting for you or a shoulder to cry on (depending what you need at the moment!), we’re strongest together. |
