Have you ever had an interesting experience in a game with skeletons...

Have you ever had an interesting experience in a game with skeletons? The closest I've had was meeting a librarian who was a floating skull.

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Players ran into an old castle. The skeletons, when undisturbed, continued their eternal waltz.

Ran a one shot where enemy insurgents used tunnels to smuggle barrels of bones under an important royal ball/state dinner was being held and then animated them. Fun enough for a one-shot.

>Floating skull librarian
How did he turn pages?

telekinesis

I was a skeleton focused Necromancer once.
I played him as a conflict avoider who just sent the dead back at the one who sent them in the first place as shock troops.

Skeleton civil rights oneshot. A crack team of experts fighting to free their homeland of Skeleslavia from the brutal oppression of the dread empire of Tyrannia.

It was cliché and dumb and great fun to run.

Oh holy christ. Allow me to tell you about my experience with skeletons.

So first, a bit of backstory. Our DM was weird, and always had been. He was an aspie, and was generally nice and surprisingly smart, except he just sucked at social cues. This isn't very important to the story, but it just helps knowing what kind of mind could conjure up the things that went on. For a few years, he had been a player in our group of friends' D&D get-togethers, and was usually fairly helpful in all campaigns. Then one year, he decided he wanted to try being DM. We agreed. What happened next drove us to the point of insanity and constantly filled us with unfathomable rage.

About a week later after the DM tells us he wants to run a campaign, he calls us all over and says that he's ready to start. Eventually we all get together and roll up our characters. We had a balanced team, with a group of six people and every role filled. At the time, none of us had any idea what kind of campaign we would be running. In the past, they would usually build up to a climactic battle with us controlling vast armies to oppose the forces of evil, usually led by a demon lord we would have to fight. We expected something different, as the new DM had never really liked those. However, when we start playing, things seemed to be going in that direction. Demons have returned, want to conquer everything, kingdoms being threatened and all that cliche stuff.

Will cont. if interest is piqued

Go ahead.

Just keep goin'.

Tell us more, you slut.

Type faster

This is interesting

Plz deliver

Ok.

The party sets out to go and track down a demon lord, i forget which one, in an attempt to take him down before a war breaks loose. We encounter resistance and NPCs of importance along the way, but before long we're almost at the demon fort. It's only been about 3 sessions at this point and we're already almost at the (seemingly) BBEG. We just chalk it up to an inexperienced DM. But when we arrive at the fort, we are treated to a surprise: There are no guards, no noise, no traps. The place is completely quiet. After must discussion("It's obviously a trap, guys!" "Naw, I bet he wants to fight us one-on-one.") we decide to enter. And are treated to the sight of a few hundred demons... all butchered violently, dead for a few days. Needless to say, we're confused, even more so by the lack of any non-demon bodies or any evidence of who had done this. As we investigate, we theorize that the demon lord must have done some sort of sacrifice or something, and slaughtered all his troops to get stronger.

I'm working on it. This was years ago, so I have to remember it all.

Sadly, no

Cavalry with skeletal steeds fucked our shit up one time. It was brutal out of proportion with what their CR suggested.

>And are treated to the sight of a few hundred demons... all butchered violently, dead for a few days.

I'm honestly excited for this story

I'm intrigued so far

>telekinesis
>Not cursed to forever care for a vast library of knowledge he can never read

Missed opportunity desu.

It is not you who are excited for tales of skeletal triumph, it's the bony overlords lurking within your meatiness!

Okay, the suspension is killing me. What happened next?

Eventually we enter the throne room, and there we see the demon lord, covered in blood and reclining on his throne. We hear him shout out to us "Warriors... this is where you meet your fate. I have taken the souls of my brethren, and gained UNFATHOMABLE POWER!" Speech goes on for a while, it is very cliche. Eventually he stops talking, but doesn't get up to fight us. He just keeps sitting there motionless. At this point we are definitely suspecting something. We draw straws, and the paladin goes up to investigate. He gets close, looks the demon lord over, and then shouts over to us "Hey... he's dead." And indeed he was. The blood covering him was his own. And just as the paladin says that, just as we're wondering who it was we were talking to, the grand doors that guarded the throne room swung shut with a boom. The voice returns again. "Ah well, jig's up. Now we might as well get to the fun part. Then, slowly but surely, all the dead in the room rise up as various undead, mostly zombies and a few skellies. We fight through them fairly easily, as we are high level, but then the demon lord starts to rise up, reanimated. At this point, we're certain DM is just making stuff up as he goes along. We brace ourselves for the fight, only for all of us to feel a slight prick on our necks as we turn to face the undead demon. We all turn around as we start to lose consciousness, to see one of the skeletons we thought we had killed rise up, with a crossbow full of tranquilizer darts. As our vision goes dark, he cackles in the voice we had heard speak to us earlier "Howdy there. You'd better strap yourselves the fuck in, because I have one hell of a ride planned for you..."

will cont, this is only the beginning

>I have one hell of a ride planned for you...

>"Howdy there. You'd better strap yourselves the fuck in, because I have one hell of a ride planned for you..."

I'm audibly laughing right now

It's just Mr Bones? Eh.

...

...

Eventually, we all wake up... tied to a palm tree on a fucking desert island, our gear nowhere to be seen. The first thing to assault our senses is the sound of someone swearing violently at us. It's the skeleton. "Finally, you dimwitted bags of shit are awake. And guess what? We're on a surprise vacation, motherfuckers." He's leaning over us, sitting back and poking us with a stick. We have no idea how he got us to that island, and we really never found out. This will be a recurring theme. "Who are you, and what do you want with us, you sick bastard?" Our bard yells at him. The bard promptly gets a bony pimp-slap across the face. "Silence! This is boot camp, and you speak when spoken to, maggots! As for who I am, call me Larry. What I want is simple: to giggle with sadistic delight as I fuck with you." We're all sitting there, more than a bit dumbfounded as Larry (yes, that was actually his name) waltzes off, leaving us there to eventually struggle out of our ropes.

Naw, this guy was on a whole other level. You'll see what I mean when we get to the house where literally fucking everything was a mimic.

What noises should skeletons make?

Even you guys were mimics?

*rattle*

Just gonna give you guys a bit of my own description of Larry: he really did only want to mess with us. Throughout the entire campaign, he never showed any sort of ulterior motive, he just enjoyed our pain. As for his tactics and personality, he was somewhere between Jigsaw and Wile E. Coyote. He also verbally abused us whenever possible.

After we get out of the ropes, our first order of business was to find our gear, as we were left with nothing but our clothes. We searched for a while, until we spotted a small dinghy floating a ways away from shore, with a big bag resting on it. We had our answer. The only way to get to the boat would be to swim, so our thief and the paladin set out in the water to bring the boat back. It was smooth sailing. Then came the dire sharks. Apparently Larry had either picked a spot filled with them to anchor the dinghy, or somehow herded them there. Remember, we were high level and the dire sharks weren't, but we had none of our armor or weapons. A ton of damage taken later, miraculously without any deaths, they managed to board the boat and bring it back to shore. We all rush over and our cleric starts healing, but most of us just wanted our stuff. We opened the bag... to find six shovels and a note that read "Get digging", with a picture of a skeletal middle finger below it.

A long time (in-game) later, we found a big chest buried that had all our stuff in it. We then came to a solid agreement that we would kill the bony asshole on sight. This was easier said than done.

From here on out, all the horrors Larry put us through didn't have any relevance to the "main plot", so I'll just recount some of the best moments in no particular order. Such as the mimic house.

...

>dire sharks

>six shovels and a note that says "start digging"

Hahaha oh Fuck

Ok, We'll start with the mimic house. At this point we had been tracking Larry for a while, and eventually we came to a village that reported seeing a mysterious skeleton about. It also reported having large amounts of lumber stolen, so it seemed that we had found him, and that he was well prepared. We searched the entire area, and it didn't take long for us to find the sloppily constructed mansion on a hill, with a big carnival-style sign on the front of it reading "Larry's House of Horror". Obviously we all knew we would be walking into traps of all sorts, as that was Larry's style. We entered through the main foyer, and predictably the door slammed behind us. The first thing we noticed was the abundance of decorations and furniture everywhere. The second thing we noticed was Larry hurling raw fish at us from a balcony overlooking the room. He taunted us as we looked for a way to get up to him, hollering "BRING IT YOU FUCKKNUCKLES", until we eventually spotted a ratty rope ladder leading up. Apparently he hadn't had time to build stairs. Just as we were climbing up, he cut the ladder and we fell. He sauntered away, but not before leaving us with some words of wisdom: "Did you know that mimics love the smell of fish?" We then slowly realized what was happening, as we all heard faint breathing coming from everywhere around us. Remember, he had been pelting us with carp a few seconds ago. Our mage said to us "Nobody... move." We held still for about a second before the entire room exploded into chaos, screaming and slobbering mimics. It is no exaggeration to say that not one thing in that house was legit. The bookshelves were mimics, and so were the books on them. The floorboards uprooted themselves, and the chandelier had teeth. The potted plants started biting us, and statues would try to molest us as we ran by. The only reason we survived was that some of the mimics went for the fish on the floor, and some of them bit each other by accident.

Next we will discuss one of Larry's favorite spells: Symbol. For those of you unfamiliar with it, the user draws a rune on a surface, and when revealed it casts one of a number of effects on all who see it. Larry's favorite was not, in fact, the straight-up damage option, but the sleeping and insanity symbols. He would use them whenever possible. Trying to fight off a pack of wolves? Well, now you're insane so good luck with that. Running for your life from an Indiana-Jones style boulder trap? It's quite hard to do that when you're suddenly fucking asleep.

Larry would formulate the most complex, convoluted traps in the history of mankind. And somehow, we always walked straight into them, or one of the dozen backup-traps he had in place. For example, when he led us to an underground crypt and disappeared, we came to a tall cathedral-like room with a strange altar in the center and the walls lined with candles, giving the place a dim glow. Across the room was a stone archway, seemingly concealing a door that could be opened somehow. Thankfully, our bard recognized the altar as one used in blood rituals, so we had our warrior give himself a cut and bleed a bit on top of it. The top of the altar slid off, revealing a strange carving underneath, which our mage translated to read... "It's the candles, you dumb fucks." At this point most of the candles had started to burn low. Now here's the thing: A stick of dynamite covered in wax with the fuse sticking out the top looks and acts remarkably like a candle... We booked it, and made it out seconds before the whole room exploded. Fucking Larry.

waiting for responses, because I really don't remember much else and i want to gauge if you guys think It would be worth it.

sing you magnificent bastard

If he had a legit backstory for hating you guys and was the only BBEG of the game I'd give him a 10/10 just for being a troll

Continue storytime. There is no other path.

Keep going it's hilarious

Jesus fucking Christ. Please tell me you enjoyed this, cause this is just brilliant.

Seriously, what part of did you not understand? Once begun, story time must be completed!

he literally had no backstory. He was an ordinary undead skelly who was just a complete mastermind and an asshole.

Ok, next is one of his most clever traps. The party hadn't seen any trace of Larry for a while, and decided to return to the main quest. After they had killed a minor demon lord, they were invited to a banquet by a local lord. Naturally, they agreed. It would be a fine break from all the fighting. So they finally arrive, in their best clothes and enter the great hall where the feast is held. At a long table are seated various noblemen and generals... with a familiar calcium-based dickwad sitting at the head of the table. All of the party members nearly have a heart attack and attempt to slaughter him then and there, but before they can move he pipes up. "Swanky place, isn't it? I'll admit I'm jealous that I can;t taste any of this food. No tongue. But I would advise you to keep your manners, as I have an illusion going. All these people see me as the fine lord who invited you, and they only see and hear what I want to hear. So, if you were to attack me, the entire kingdom would want your head." As the situation settles in, we all begrudgingly sit down and start to eat. Before we can take the first bite though, Larry begins an unfathomable torrent of profanity directed at us("YOUR MOTHERS KNOW THE NAME OF EVERY SCHLONG IN THE KINGDOM BY TASTE ALONE"). Of course, the other guests don't hear any of it, and were just wondering why we looked so angry. Eventually, our party remembered we had an anti-magic artifact we had been saving. It had about 10 uses, so we decided it would be worth it to reveal Larry, and maybe get the kingdom to hunt him down. So, our mage takes out the scroll, mutters the spell and points at Larry. But oh no, we should have just kept still, because instead of panicking, Larry realized what had happened, and let out a horrendous screech before going limp and clattering down on the table...
(cont)

(cont)

...making it look exactly like we had just cast a spell reducing a beloved lord to nothing but bones. The entire place went apeshit, and from then on we had to dodge agents of the law as well.

Really the only time we ever got close to beating him was when we were all captured by a demon lord, as well as Larry, who had been in the middle of harassing us. The demon lord captured him too because of that castle full of demons he slaughtered(yeah, apparently he did all of that with a series of complex death traps, and even seat up them to be undead for his reveal). We were imprisoned in the dungeon, stripped of our gear, seething at Larry who was in a cell across form most of us. The guards hadn't taken anything of Larry's because he never had anything on him... or so we thought. As we,re all sitting there, Larry gets up, stretches, and says "This is boring. Tell you what, to save me the trouble of finding a new gang of chumps to play with, I'll help you guys escape. However, in return, you all will have to not try and kill me during our escape. Deal?" Against every form of better judgement to ever exist, we agreed. Larry states "Excellent!" and then goes to work. The first thing he does is bring out his concealed gear. He removes one of his legs and unscrews the top of the femur, taking out a length of rope from the hollowed-out bone. After reattaching his leg, he takes off his head and proceeds to shake out a huge amount of magical charms and spell scrolls from within. Larry is the nightmare of all TSA agents.

(cont)

>Larry is the nightmare of all TSA agents.

(cont)

Next, he pulls off two of his ribs, which we now noticed had magic runes carved on the inner side of them and were sharpened down to points for use as weapons. Finally, he takes off his pinky toe bone, which he had whittled into a lockpick. He then sets about freeing himself and the rest of us, bragging about how useless we all are the whole time. He then goes on a stealthy rampage that would make Big Boss proud, shanking guards with his enchanted ribs and scaling walls with his rope, even occasionally casting an invisibility spell. Along the way we grab our gear back and agree to try and end the bastard, our arrangement be damned. But when we finally get through the castle, Larry leaving a trail of dead demons in his wake, he fucking casts Teleport the second we all try to jump him. He had it ready the whole time, but just wanted to show off in front of us. Fucking Larry.

Anyways, I'm about done telling stories for now. Sure there are more tales, like when he lured us into a cave filled with invisible Mind Flayers, or when he randomly airdropped a Gelatinous Cube on us in the middle of nowhere, or when the DM showed up one time with a plastic skeleton he bought off Amazon and spoke through it as Larry for the entire session, or when he made us choose between killing our Bard's love interest or the Warrior's infant son only to reveal they were both fakes, but I'll come back again to tell more. I hope you all enjoyed reading these, as I sure enjoyed writing them for you. Good night everyone.

This is the greatest fucking thing I've ever read.

STOLEN

Good night, this is some good shit.

>Good night everyone.

Due to a combination of slightly imbalanced stats and unbelievably lucky rolls, what was supposed to be the skeleton bodyguard of a minor villain turned out to be the tankiest motherfucker ever. He survived a mountain-sized stone construct using his death laser at point blank and stomping on him repeatedly, in the end we kinda threw him into space to get rid of him.
Since then Mr. Bones the invincible skeleton has become a recurring in-joke, appearing in every campaign as boss encounter.

someone screencap all this larry stuff

Skeleton who was a combatant in a fight that included some other monsters and mindlessly attacked one. The skeleton triple-critted, so we decided it had become lucid and aware of its undead state and left the crypt to rejoin the city guard.

On it.

Done.

MY SIDES!!!

Only when ERPing.

youtube.com/watch?v=qaIOaE7Mg9Y

Skeleton riding a minecart that could open extra-dimensional portals to jump tracks.
Named Mr. Bones.
Wielding a shotgun.

"Hail, fine skeletons!"

I was playing a diplomancer Paladin in 3.5e a while back, and the GM seemed to have a hard on for mindless enemies that made my skillset useless. Didn't stop me from trying though.