Dungeons and Dicks Ch. 01

"Hordes of what?" Craig asked, his exasperation speaking for the rest of the party.

"Kobolds!" I thundered, throwing my arms wide. "There are suddenly Kobolds... everywhere!"

They all just looked at me.

Kobolds are nasty little bipedal brutes with barely sentient-level intelligence. They are disgusting, and sleep in their own excrement. They crave the flesh of humans.

And they are among the easiest of first-level monsters. DMs use them as cannon-fodder, even for introductory parties. These fairly high-level characters had not encountered Kobolds since shortly after we first created the crew for this new campaign. Kobolds are so worthless, they are not even in the manual for the D&D variant we were using. I had had to import them.

And Tess hates the damned things, since I get so gross talking about them, usually.

"Really, John?" my wife complained instantly. "Kobolds?"

I just looked at her evilly. "There are rather a lot of them," I said good-humoredly.

"I punt the first one of them that even gets near me," Tess grumbled. I should have punished her for using the first person when she meant her character, but instead I didn't even make her roll.

"Shanora boots the first little creature that approaches her at a full run. Even though she is a mage, and not a martial fighter, given her relatively high level, the little guy shrieks in pain as he flys backward over the heads of his companions. He falls with a sickening thud, and a few of you note that several of the Kobolds in the landing zone instantly fall upon him and finish him off. Kobolds love the taste of Kobolds almost as much as they love the taste of human," I intoned.

"Sir Tyrian unhooks his mighty mace from his belt, not even deigning to draw his sword," Craig laughs. "He bends his knee and beckons at the advancing beasts. 'Come on, little ones,' he intones, 'aren't you cute?'" He looked up at me. "He swings the mace in a huge arc through the crowd."

"Sir Tyrian's mace smashes its way through the wave of onrushing Kobolds," I declare. "At this level, no need to roll to hit, just damage." I rolled some dice. "You hit twelve of them in the first blow," I said, to a loud 'Ha!' from Craig. "Roll twelve d20's and add four to each roll," I instructed.

Craig didn't own 12 twenty-sided dice, so he borrowed three extra from Mark to let him roll all in one go. "Any ones?" I asked.

"No!" Craig replied triumphantly. "There is a four, but most are over ten, and those are all before adding the plus four."

Kobolds have up to six hit points. Most have two or three.

"The four you rolled means that one is merely crushed to death," I say. "The rest kind of burst like water balloons filled with blood. The nasty brown goo sprays everywhere behind your arc, all over the Kobolds coming up behind. Renault's perception lets him notice that a number lick the blood off their own faces." That got a grossed out laugh.

"I move to cast..." Tess began, but I held a hand out low and shushed her. "In a minute," I said, refusing to turn toward her. I had other things to do, and it wasn't her turn.

Frenoria and Mark's Renault were both, for different reasons, more useful in combat against bigger, nastier, individual-type targets than crowds of individually weaker nasties, but they still were ten levels above these little shits, and they both slaughtered several, each with similarly gory results. Frenoria's kneeling shot with her bow and a heavy hunting arrow skewered seven on a single shaft like a shish kebab, three more than Renault killed in his first attack. Geri lorded it over Mark.

"Oh, let's get the shit over with," grumbled Anne, who hated my gross descriptions of Kobolds only slight less than Tess. "Gala forgets the clearly not necessary Blessing, and drops a Holy Burst into the middle of the oncoming critters." As a Cleric, Holy Burst was the most powerful of her few offensive options, but it was an impressive one. I was clearly reveling in overkill descriptions and she had decided to oblige me. I smiled at her gratefully, which earned a tongue stuck out in my direction.

"With a loud plea to her patron Feyrth, the God of the Hunt, Gala directs a cloud of holy light to form over the Kobolds and then collapse downward. As it strikes the ground," I said gleefully, "it bursts outward in a thunderous clap. The expanding ring of power rips outward, catching..." I rolled some dice, "78 of the little creeps in its effect." Anne whooped. That was a lot of targets. "Don't bother with damage," I laughed. "Every Kobold in the area of effect utterly disintegrates above the waist. 78 little pairs of charging legs keep going for one to three strides before collapsing to the ground." That got me another laugh.

"How many are left after that?" Mark asked, triumphantly.

"Roll a Perception Check," I said with bland good humor.

Mark rolled. "A 20!" he declared triumphantly.

"Critical success!" I said loudly in congratulations. Then said nothing else.

They all looked at me.

"How many?" Mark asked again.

"A lot," I replied.

"I got a critical success! Renault should be able to see the whole room, plus any left in the halls."

"He can," I explained, my bland grin growing nasty. "He can tell there are... a lot. They are literally everywhere. The huge hole Gala just blasted in their number is filled in in literally seconds, and they are lined up down every hall, still pressing to get in and at you. Renault has no formal education and literally could not count that high."

Everybody shut up for a moment at that revelation.

Tess leaned forward and began, "Well okay then, my..."

I raised my hand just little toward her and said quietly and quickly, "Hang on. I'll get to you."

Our eyes met for the briefest of moments, and she shut up. I love my wife. She can instantly tell when I'm doing something stupid or douchey for a reason, and she usually will back my play. Unless it amuses her not to.

No one else even noticed, as they were all, in slightly confused and just barely concerned fashion, shouting at me what they did next.

Gala went back to prepping that Blessing again.

Sir Tyrian went two-handed with sword and mace, and started atomizing Kobolds at a clip of about twenty per round of combat.

Renault and Frenoria were keeping a tally list of how many each killed. You'd think they were Legolas and Gimli.

After a round or so, Craig asked, "Wait, are they even attacking us? Or are they just running around?"

"Oh they are attacking you all right," I said. "In fact, this round they score... 21 critical hits on the various party members fighting them."

"21?!?" came an incredulous chorus.

"Yep," I said. "They are literally piling up around you to get at you from various heights. There is a metric shit-ton of little clawed hands and sharp teeth coming at you guys from all sides. All those critical hits means that so far, there are 42 whole points of damage spread between the party. 12 to Sir Tyrian. 14 to Renault. 15 to Gala (They really didn't like that Holy Burst she cast). Oh, and one whole point gets through Frenoria's mighty chainmail bikini."

They all laughed, and began to declare their next attacks. That amount of damage was trivial to these characters at this level.

"Tess, are you going to thin out this herd a little?" Mark asked my wife. "It's going to get little boring if we don't step up the winnowing."

"You mean Shanora?" I quickly answered for Tess.

Mark narrowed his eyes. "Where is Shanora?"

This was perfect! "Roll perception, minus two," I snapped. Everyone else, including Tess, was suddenly interested.

Thankfully, Mark rolled well.

"Renault peers down one of the corridors. It's easy to see over all the Kobolds, of course. He can just make out a struggling Shanora, being carried away by one pile of Kobolds while a second pile is jumping around on top of her. "

"Guys, we need to help," said Mark excitedly. Finally, I was giving them something interesting.

"Everyone else is largely immobilized right now. They are killing every Kobold they touch, but two more take the place of every one they kill," I said, handing out some more minor damage. "Only you, with your dexterity, have any room to maneuver."

"Then Renault leaps over the front line of the bastards and high-steps it after Shanora," Mark said.

"Cool," I said, pretending to look at my notes. "Let's deal with that for a few moments. You pick your way through the crowd, killing about twenty of the bastards along the way before you get into the corridor."

"Are there more coming ahead?" Mark asked intelligently.

"No, not from this corridor," I replied. "All the traffic in this passage seems currently one-way outbound with the captured Shanora. Several other passages were still disgorging Kobolds merrily, last time you saw before entering."

"I close the door to prevent more coming after me," Mark said quickly, forgetting to talk about Renault and using the first person. Again, that was supposed to be a no-no, but I let it ride with a disapproving eyebrow. "Renault sneaks down the hall after the beasts, using all his stealth," he said, remembering.

"That's better," I said in sternly mocking tones. Then I turned to Tess finally. She stared back at me, glad she had not interrupted my flow before and could now be the center of attention. My wife is a bit of a spotlight hog herself when it comes to RPGs. Well, she would have her glory now...

"The little bastards may be stupid, but they ain't dumb," I said to her. "They must have recognized Shanora as a mage of some kind and put special effort into swarming her. She was draped in Kobolds instantly, with several wrapping their whole body around her arms so she could not make the gestures needed for most spells."

"But she could still..." Tess started to object.

"And two more climbed all the way up to her shoulders, where one jammed his little hat into Shanora's mouth, so she can't say words of power either."

"Oh, disgusting," said Tess, looking like she might retch for real.

"Relax, his little hat was the cleanest thing about him," I told her.

"So, it's clean?" Tess asked, almost hopefully.

"Oh, hell no!" I laughed.

"You are disgusting," my wife told me firmly, but with a smile that admitted the humor of the situation.

"Immediately, you are being dragged away by the huge crowd of Kobolds," I went on. Dammit, I was the one blurring player and character now... "Shanora towers over them, of course, but they soon push her over off her feet, and are carrying her away. She is gagged, and everyone else is up to their ass in the little fuckers, so no one noticed her being abducted at first, until Renault sought her aid."

"Shanora is not letting herself be carried!" Tess snorted. "She fights. She may be just a mage, but these are two foot tall, level one-half monsters! She can put up a pretty good fight, even without her magic, dammit."

"Shanora fights," I agreed. "Periodically she struggles to her feet, usually killing a few of them in the process, but there are always more to take their place, and she is driven back to the ground again each time. You are not getting away from them."

"Am I taking any damage?" Tess asked interestedly.

"Not really, no," I said. "Your dark robes are thick and sturdy enough to protect most of you from all the little scratches and the bites they take here and there as they drag you along."

"Good. Then Shanora..."

"Of course," I added, overriding Tess, "I believe that we had a discussion, a Presentation even, last week about how her robes don't cover all of her." My wife was suddenly looking at me like she was going to perform some unelective surgery on my body. "Yes," I went on, undaunted. "One little guy, for instance, actually starts gnawing on Shanora's ankle, then scrabbles his way up between her legs under her robe. He starts biting his way up the inside of her calf, moving swiftly upwards."

"Fuck that!" yelled Tess, eyes wild. Anne was giggling but keeping quiet otherwise. Her character wasn't present, after all. "Shanora slams her legs together. Hard."

"Roll a d6," I shrugged.

"Five," she said triumphantly.

"She crushes his little body," I shrugged again. "It tumbles out from under her robe and two other Kobolds pause to take a good bite or two of his body before running to catch up. Shanora clearly looks like she would taste better than their fellows."

"Shanora keeps her legs together from now on," my wife glared at me.

"At least until she tries to stand again," I said agreeably. "The next two that crawl up under her hem go up the outside of Shanora's legs. But they seem content to just bite fairly ineffectively around her knees," I added hastily, before Tess could snap at me. "The bigger problem," I went on, putting on my evil DM grin, with an added touch of leer, "is further up." Tess's eyes flashed at me, but she didn't immediately stomp on me. If anything, I might have seen enjoyment, in the gaze. But the gaze had an edge. She was warning me against what I was up to, and simultaneously daring me to go on.

"Oh no!" she said, using Shanora's voice, adding a bit of damsel in distress to the usually haughty tenor.

"Oh yes," I laughed. I can't rest a dare. Not from her. "The ones who are half riding on top of you keep scratching and biting at that lovely expanse of delicious-looking skin, poking their claws into the soft flesh of your belly, scratching at your lovely long neck... and taking a bite or nine at the exposed, rounded curves of Shanora's splendid breasts."

"Hey!" Tess laughed. "Did I describe her breasts as 'splendid'?"

"No. I don't think so," I said. "But I'm the DM, and I say they are splendid." I waggled my eyebrows at her and she actually blushed a little, stealing a glance around the table, where everybody else was smothering chuckles... and staring at Tess intently. Character or player, no one was going to argue with the DM about 'splendid'. She clearly liked the attention, even if she was not going to admit it.

"Of course, you are only taking, um, three points of damage from all this."

"Well then, Shanora bides her time, until she can try to free her hands."

"They are being pretty careful about not letting her make any gestures," I said again, then paused. "Of course, they aren't content to just attack the cleavage Shanora's showing. A few are reaching inside her robe to attack."

"Hey, her robe has magic to..."

"Magic to keep it in place. That's still working," I overrode her. "But it doesn't keep it from being pulled outward and/or reached into. The magic is not that powerful, since it is just part of your costume's description."

Tess turned to Geri with a wry expression. "Great, now my tits are going to be all scratched up." They both laughed.

"Not badly," I hastily reassured her. I paused and looked down at my notes. Then I added casually, "Of course, not all of the Kobolds are even trying to cause damage..."

"What?" Tess asked flatly. Damn, she is sexy when she gets mad.

"Shanora can feel that at least two are just outright feeling her up. One is caressing and squeezing the under curve of her left breast, while another Kobold is actually pinching and tugging on her right nipple."

"Right. Those two need to die. Now," Tess growled, interrupting before I could describe any additional pervert Kobolds. Geri and Anne were in stitches. Craig looked fascinated. Mark actually looked a little outraged.

"In the press of attackers, it is impossible to even tell which of the little bastards are copping the feels."

"Nope! Nope, nope, nope! She stands up again," Tess exclaimed. "No way I'm letting this go on!"

"Sure," I said, shrugging. "She kicks, and struggles, and writhes scenically. Several Kobolds, including one of the ones feeling her up, go flying. She struggles to her feet. Most of the monsters who were attacking the opening in her robe fall off of her now, too. The one who was fondling your nipple is the last to fall and you can target him."

"Drop kick," Tess said flatly.

"That's my chance," Mark said in sudden eagerness. Without waiting for me to respond, he went right on. "Renault dashes forward, still using stealth. His dagger is too short, so he just grabs one of the fucking Kobolds and swings it through the mass of them in an arc like Sir Tyrian did with his mace!"

I rolled some dice and shook my head. "Your surprise is almost complete. Almost," I said, and Mark groaned. "Fortunately, the one Kobold who notices you before the attack is the one you use as a club. His little eyes go comically wide as you grab his ankles and swing him around. Let's see how you do... On the downside, you don't have Sir Tyrian's strength or skill, and the Kobold is a just little meat bag, not a metal mace," I said, dampening expectations. "But you do have total surprise. Kobolds go flying everywhere. You outright kill nine with the swing, and knock twice that many aside, injured. Um... the one you used as a weapon is now more than useless for another swing. He took damage equal to what you dealt to all the others combined..." That got a wince of almost sympathy from everybody, even Tess. "Your total surprise grants you at least one more action before they start to react," I added.

Mark pumped his fist. "There's still a ton of them, right?" he asked me. I nodded emphatically. "Then first things first. Renault reaches out and yanks Shanora free of the press of Kobolds to stand next to him. If I can, he tears the ones holding her hands and arms free."

"You succeed," I said. "Shanora stumbles but remains standing, now next to you and temporarily free of cling-ons."

"About fucking time," said Tess triumphantly. She stood up, indicating that she was really getting into it now. She mimed yanking the Kobold hat from her mouth. "Shanora yanks out that disgusting hat, spitting as she does so. 'Stand close,' she instructs Renault."

Mark shrugged and stood up next to her, miming kicking Kobolds. Tess kicked some too, for good measure.

"Shanora raises her hands, speaks a word of power, and casts Ice Sheet," Tess said triumphantly.

"Ohhh! Nice," chuckled Geri.

Ice Sheet is a fun spell. A wave of magically fridgid ice radiates out from the caster, coating the ground in a cold, totally frictionless surface. With the strength of monster that the spell is intended to be used against, the main function is to immobilize them, or make them slip and fall down. But the spell's cold does do at least a little incidental damage.

A little damage is a lot, with Kobolds.

"The ice spreads out," I described. "Renault is close enough to you and the safe center to keep his footing," I went on, and Mark sidled up near enough to my wife to press against her side, staring around as if at doomed Kobolds. "But every single Kobold in the room falls down. Most die from the initial cold, freezing before they hit the ground, but those that initially survive, die as soon as they fall and the rest of their body comes in contact with the ice."

A whoop of triumph went up from everyone around the table.

"The two of you are left standing there, in a five foot circle of stone, surrounded by a thick layer of hyper-slippery ice, with the bodies of hundreds of frozen Kobolds sliding aimlessly around on it. Finally, the sound of their incessant chatter is gone."

Mark pumped his fist again at Geri, then Craig.

Tess flashed me a grin, but then her eyes narrowed with an evil twinkle. "How long does the ice last again? Before we can move away without falling and hurting ourselves?"

Uh... Confused, I looked at the manual. "It says ten minutes." I looked at them and laughed sadistically, "Sorry, you took yourselves out of the battle for a while!" I love when players do something on their own to inconvenience themselves. It enhances my reputation as an evil genius thinking three steps ahead.