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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Korgoth" data-source="post: 4762768" data-attributes="member: 49613">I have visited so many cruelties on player characters I can't begin to remember them all! Lately (last week), I inflicted two, both of which ultimately involved unwanted additions to the party (this is Empire of the Petal Throne, 1975/OD&D rules):Less cruel thing: The DinosaurOne of the characters, a crone sorceress with a kindly attitude, decided to start worshipping the egg goddess of the reptile people (the PCs are all refugees from the destruction of their Polynesian-type homeland). She was recently given a huge egg by a reptilian hermit and told "hatch it well". So she has been carrying it around inside her clothes (making her look pregnant). Well, it finally hatched. Out of it came a dromaeosaur colored with red and blue spots (it has been named "Reef"). It immediately began eating everything, starting with her waterskin and eventually destroying the pews in the reptile shrine, etc. When she took it to market to buy it some lizard chow, it immediately lept onto a big (expensive) haunch of meat and started burrowing into it. The creature is growing like a weed and eating like a war elephant. She loves it, but the other party members can barely tolerate its presence! But some day it will be pretty powerful in combat, and it provides me a convenient way to bankrupt the PCs at the drop of a hat.More cruel thing: Thanks for taking one for the teamIn attempting to recover part of a key (needed to acquire a special artifact) the party had to raid a shrine in the underworld. The actual shrine could only be accessed by crossing a starry gulf that looked suspiciously lethal... they found a way to raise a magical/technological bridge across the gulf, but could only figure out have to have one person use it at a time (a puzzle type challenge). The volunteer to go across, an irrepressible youth who is amazingly dextrous, was faced with an immense idol of the shrine's goddess, looking as I explained like the Venus of Willendorf if sculpted by Praxiteles and having a crocodile's head! Well, the goddess was feeling pretty amorous, and so when the statue (inevitably!) animated, it managed to grapple the poor chap. Being what passes for a 'love' goddess on Tekumel, its magic did not allow our protagonist to "opt out" of the subsequent "Law & Order: SVU" treatment it forced upon him. But at least he survived (he could have fought it physically, but he did not do so and thus was not slain).Anyway, some time later, as our protagonist was reclining in his apartment in the city above, his door was pushed open and he heard a scuttling. Looking, he saw a small crocodile scampering about the floor. It looked up at him and opened its mouth: where its maw should be was instead a younger version of his own face, covered in saliva. It addressed him enthusiastically as "Daddy!" and that's where we left it.The player has insisted upon his intent to slay his character's offspring. We'll see if he can! I did, out of kindness, remind him that he is not the boy's only parent... he did not seem deterred by this warning.</blockquote>

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