Palladium Fantasy

Let's Bury the Hatchet

Submitted by Rick Stump

In the only Palladium campaign I ever played in, we had a pretty good party going. I played a stern, arrogant elven knight among a party of archers, rangers, and thieves. The sole spell caster was a witch (rather limited spells) so we were looking for a new player; a new guy wanted to play an elementalist, so we welcomed him.

Big mistake.

The next series of adventures after he joined were our quest for a lost jungle city. The elementalist made the journey much more difficult; looking for fights, insulting natives, insulting characters, etc. We took it in stride and continued. We finally find the lost city, packed with cannibals. While scouting around, we encounter a tribe of humanoids living in sewers under the city. They speak Elvish so I begin negotiations. It is soon obvious that they hate the cannibals and are willing to sneak us into the city so that we can raid the temple if we promise to kill the high priest. About that time the elementalist realizes he has a 42% Speak Elvish ability so he runs up and begins 'negotiating', too. He starts demanding to know where the treasure is and soon devolves to threatening our almost-allies if they don't pay us. Soon, we're walking through the city, hot and mad and with no guides.

Before long the cannibals ambush us front and back in the street. The numbers begin to overwhelm us and, by the time the attackers fall back, only 5 of us are up, three grievously wounded. Only myself, the witch and the elementalist are relatively OK. The fleeing cannibals regroup and charge again. I ask the spellcasters if they can stop them; the witch is out, but the elementalist has saved a spell. He casts a Cloud of Steam that envelops the cannibals - and our wounded comrades. All die. Stunned, we all look at the player, who smugly says, "Fewer ways to divide the treasure, now."

My character spins and hurls his battleaxe, instantly killing the elementalist in a (very lucky) shot. I smile, "And even fewer divisions now."

That guy never played with us again....

"No, you can't kill your friends!"

Submitted by Sakerson

This happened during a Palladium RPG. There was a Diabolist, an Elven Assassin, an Elven Nobleman, and a Dwarven Gladiator in the group. I was playing an Elven Thief.

We were in an impossibly high tower looking for God know's what (we ended up being teleported near by and decided to check out the tower). Inside we found a room with a weapon floating above the floor. The weapon, obviously magical, was behind several magical wards (they consisted of chain wards which included several Death and Mystic Energy Drain symbols). The weapon was the real prize. We managed to determine that this was a weapon similar to a rune weapon (as powerful, but not the same, the GM wouldn't elaborate). The weapon would whisper to each of us, trying to tempt us into wielding it (we found out later it was very evil). We each had to make saves (and succeeded), but the Dwarf was inspired by the weapon. The Dwarf was a pure fighter and loved to kick butt. The sword took a particular liking to him. We could only hear the Dwarf's side of the conversation, but it was enough:

"What? No, I'm not supposed to touch you. Rule the world? I don't know... What? No, I don't think I should kill my friends."

At that point I put the kicking and struggling dwarf under one arm and we left the room, and the tower, as quickly as possible. That was not a conversation I wanted to continue.

"Where's the dwarf by the way?"

Submitted by Mark

Some time ago we were playing a palladium fantasy campaign with 4 characters and me as DM. Unfortunately every now and then Tom, a friend of mine had no time to play and another gamer took care of his character (a dwarven priest).

The group of heroes had landed in an unknown dimension where they were searching the tome of mystics, a magical book of great power. They made their way to a strange dungeon that seemed somehow hairy and soft inside (they were inside the stomach of a giant worm actually) and decided to let Tom's dwarf guard the entrance, because nobody wanted to be responsible if he died in combat inside while his original player was not present.

The characters discovered, after long hours of exploring, that the tome was somehow linked to this dimension, like a pillar to a ceiling. They decided to use magic to open a gate to their homeworld, grabbed the book and got the hell out of there. The dimension, actually a magical bubble in the Etheral plane, collapsed. All were happy and got their Experience points.

Only next session did they realize that the poor dwarf had been standing outside the dungeon as the dimension collapsed...oops...