The Hitchhicker's Guide to the Dungeon

[Hedrin]

Magrathea Gaming Company

(Excerpt from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Dungeon, Page 6342344, Section 7b, Entry: Magrathea Gaming Company)

Far back in the mists of ancient time, in the great and glorious days of the Second Edition, play was wild, rich and largely tithe free.

Mighty adventuring parties plied there way between exotic cities, seeking adventure and reward amongst the furthest reaches of the Realms. In those days spirits were readily turned, Bohemian ear spoons were still on the equipment list, fighters were real fighters, clerics were real clerics, and small green creatures from the third level were real small green creatures from the third level. And all dared to brave unknown castles, to do mighty deeds, and to boldly split craniums that no man had split before—and thus were the great dungeons plundered.

A few adventures became extremely rich, but this was perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of because everyone else you met were NPC’s. And for all the richest and most successful adventurers life inevitably became rather dull and boring, and they began to imagine that this was the fault of the modules they played—none of them were entirely satisfactory: either the dungeon wasn’t challenging enough in the lower levels, or the adventure was too short, or the dragon was entirely the wrong shade of red.

And thus were created the conditions for a staggering new form of specialist adventures: custom-made luxury modules. The publishers of these modules were the Magrathea Gaming Company, where hypercritical game designers sucked ideas from old copies of Weird Fantasy Tales to form them into specially tailored modules—all gold dragon adventures, hordes of thousands of easily slaughtered orcs to breeze through, dungeons with massive harem levels—all lovingly made to meet the basest standards of the Realms’ most powerful adventurers.

But with the advent of collectable card games, the orders stopped coming. The Realms shut down, and a long sullen silence settled over the dice, disturbed only by the slap of card onto table and the scratching sound made when a card was tapped.

The Magrathea Gaming Company disappeared from Wargames West’s distributing list and soon passed into the obscurity of legend.

In these enlightened days of Print On Demand, no one believes a word of it.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Illithids' Gourmet Guide
Among mind flayer connoisseurs, wizards' brains are in high esteem. Their mental rigors needed to explore the arcane arts and remember vast amounts of magic lead to lots of mental fiber, which is most nutricisous. Barbarian (and some fighter) brains are considered a delicacy, small and tender. A special treat is the brain of a psionicist: charged with mental power, it is the illithid equivalent of steroids. Illithids found to have consumed the brain of a manifester prior to thinking contests are summarily disqualified).

 

[I'm A Banana]

Evard's Instant Party

Best spell idea in the history of everything.

Didn't planescape already effectively have hitchikers guides? Called mimirs?

Best use for Mimirs in the history of everything!

 

[Ovinomancer]

Ashanameer’s arch accomplishment is the ardent application of avoidable alliteration...

Genius, sir, pure genius. I applaude!

 

[driver8]

The 10 x10 room.

One of the most intriguing and baffling aspects of any dungeon is the obligatory 10 foot by 10 foot room. Paradoxes of logic, these small rooms often hold more danger than the rational dungeon delver ever thought possible. More than one hapless party has discovered, to their misfortune, that the same fire giant that was capable of hurdling entire mountain ranges was quite content to hide and wait for interminable streches of time in this confined space deep beneath the earth to crush the curious treasure hunter.

Because of these dangers, many adventurers have surmised that the 10 x 10 room is the work of evil deities, malign wizards, and inexperienced dungeon masters. The use of hex paper is advised to avoid the dangers perfectly square rooms present.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Paladins

According to The Guide, Paladins are the prototypical "Knight in shining armor." Defenders of the weak and oppressed, these knights are usually holy warriors dedicated to some god or other form of "supreme being". These beings often grant their paladins special powers to help the weak and to fight evil. One of these powers is the ability to summon a special mount upon which the paladin may ride.

Previous versions of The Guide reported that these mounts were powerful and unusually intelligent steeds, but otherwise normal. Recently it was noted that these mounts had undergone an amazing transformation in which they can suddenly appear and disappear when needed, much like the Wizard's Familiar. While this may seem to be a great advantage to many a paladin in terms of needing to feed, stable and clean up after his or her mount, for less experiences paladins it has become a bit of a problem, as the mounts also now appear to have developed the need to expire. One well documented instance of this occuring happened to Aramis, Knight of Poradas, whose steed vanished while in the midst of a full speed charge. When the tip of the suddenly airborne paladin struck the ground, Aramis was launched up and over the line of battle whereupon he was able to strike at the soft flank of his opponents. This maneuver has since been dubbed the Poradas Polevault.

While paladins are supposed to be mighty and wise, many paladins suffer from a complex referred to as "Lawful Stupid." This complex often causes Paladins or Dungeon Masters to create moral dilemmas where none actually exist.

One last note from The Guide, regarding Paladins: it seems that for reasons unknown, discussions about Paladins are often initiated by Trolls.

 

[hafrogman]

Common:

The common tongue is ubiquitous, badly named and so mind bogglingly simple that even a half-orc with an intelligence of 3 can use it to communicate. The practical upshot of it's existence is that any PC can instantly understand anything said to him or her by any other PC or any member of countless other races. It is such an astounding coincidence that any single language could evolve that would be spoken by every single dwarf, elf, gnome, halfling, half-elf, half-orc and human that many adventurers claim it as the final clinching proof of the existence of the gods.


The arguement goes as follows:

"I refuse to worship the gods", says the athiest, "Because I cannot know that they exist."

"But," says the cleric, "What about the common tongue? It's a dead give away, isn't it?"

"Oh dear." says the athiest, "I hadn't thought of that." and promptly gets smited (smitten?) by an angry diety.

"Oh, that was easy." says the cleric who goes on to prove that harm is broken and gets nerfed in the next edition.



Meanwhile, the poor common tounge, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different adventurers has caused more and bloodier conflicts than any thing else in the dungeon.

 

[STARP_JVP]

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Dungeon has this to say on the subject of Dungeon Masters:

Dungeon Masters are a species from the deep dark pits of hell.
Dungeon Masters fall into two categories. These are loosely termed as the "Active" and "Passive" Dungeon Masters.
"Active" Dungeon Masters attempt to control every aspect of a campaign. They are reknowned for their long-winded flavour text and pre-published adventures or, more frequently, pre-written adventures. The average player, where an Active Dungeon Master is concerned, is essentially present to facilitate easier payment when the pizza arrives.
"Passive" Dungeon Masters are the reverse. In a campaign run by a Passive Dungeon Master, the players have full and total control over every aspect of the campaign.
Sadly, the species referred to as "Passive" Dungeon Masters no longer exists. Aeons ago they were all suddenly wiped out by the forces of logic when they realised that what they were doing was totally impossible.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Portable Holes

On the topic of Portable Holes, The Guide has this to say:

Portable Holes are generally thought to be gateways to interdimensional spaces that were created by Wizards. But a recent theory put forth by Sages at the Academy of Somewhat Interesting Thoughts has a different origin for these odd items.

It has been conjectured that these holes are formed spontaneously from a certain adventurer type commonly known as a "Monty Hauler." When these adventurers, bristling with weapons, shields and magical devices, reach a certain critical mass, they collapse upon themselves leaving a dark spot upon the floor where they stood. This spot can be picked up and placed in your pocket like a hankie and is useful for storing other items. The Sages beleive that the nature of the trapped adventurer is such that he or she will gladly take more items that are placed into the hole. When challenged as to why the items are then retrievable from said hole, the Sages say they have heard portable holes make comments such as, "Here, it keeps sticking into my ribs anyways," or "OK, but I want it back when you are done with it."

The Legendary Portable Hole Full of Beer, an artifact of immense worth to beings of Dwarven persuasion, has been reported to have been seen many times, but has not been examined closely. The editorial staff of The Guide have requested that, if found, the item be brought to the executive offices of The Guide for further study.

The Less Legendary Portable Hole Full of Wine is beleived to be nothing but a story fabricated by a few insecure Elves trying to prove they are as cool as Dwarves.

 

[AZNtrogdor]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Dungeon has this to say about the gelatinous cube. Oozes in general are obviously a sign that the gods had a sense of humor, but the gelatinous cube proves that they also had access to simple geometry. Whereas most creatures are possessing of bilateral symmetry, the gelatinous cube is a perfect, 10 foot cube. It thus manages to be the only creature that is perfectly adapted to graph paper, as long as this graph paper has squares 10 feet on each side.

the rest i hav taken from the book hitchhikers guide to the galaxy stuff in [ ] are mine everything else is douglas adams

Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly [geometrically perfect] could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the NON-existence of [the] God [who created it].
The argument goes like this:
`I refuse to prove that I exist,' says [the] God [who created it], `for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'
`But,' says Man, `The [gelatinous cube] is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'
`Oh dear,' says [the] God [who created it], `I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly disappears in a puff of logic.
`Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.