(no subject)

Also, in Pathfinder this time 'round we ran into a half-spriggan half-troll with sorcerer levels. Just in case a half-spriggan half-troll wasn't enough of a challenge.

You know those relationships in D&D where monsters seem to have hooked up purely on the appeal of making kids who might some day really beat up adventurers? This guy has to have been the product of one of those.

SPRIGGAN: Whoa, someone call up the 66th layer of the Abyss and tell them they're missing a yochlol, 'cause she's right here in this bar.

TROLL: Uh, no. Just no. Must be this tall to ride. Hate to break it to you, but you just aren't warty enough.

SPRIGGAN: *grows to giant size* I figure if you get kids out of the deal, they'll really murder player characters. I'm talking TPK here. Big plans, you know what I'm saying?

TROLL: Oooh!

Pathfinder

The Pathfinder campaign we're in; we've found out that an NPC friend is actually the rightful heir to a province in Tien (pseudo-east-Asia), but to help her win her inheritance we need to travel from pseudo-Europe to pseudo-Asia over the Roof of the World. We're currently in the lands of the Limnorn Kings (pseudo-Scandinavia), trying to find the last guide who successfully made it there and back, and to find the ancestral sword which would establish our friend's right to rule as daimyo.

As far as we can figure out, a ninja clan has used forged documents to help direct a lot of unwelcome attention from large burly Norse types against us. So everything in Viking history? That was actually ninja. The looting of Lindesfarne Abbey? Ninja. Stamford Bridge? Ninja were behind that. The founding of Ulster and the battle of Clontarf? Let's just say there's a good reason you don't read about the ninja presence there. Longships sailing up the Seine to sack Paris? Ninja.

And right now both guide and sword are probably in the same imposing fortress the ninja have gotten from a batch of Vikings.

As far as we can figure out all the decor is this mix of Japanese and Scandinavian elements. Like those decorative wood and paper screens are actually modular and made of white pine, and in each room there's a telltale collection of allen wrenches. When we got to the room full of Scandinavian zombies, our joke was that they were all brightly colored and stackable.

The invariable crossover is that some of the ninja are actually Viking trainees. I can only imagine that having mixed success. They'd stealthily move into position and then crack open mead and start singing in deep baritone voices. And they'd brag.

The brave defender of the Geats used his Nine Dragon Gong Fu, Scyld Scaefing's son's style stronger than yours, Unferth, you whose Eight Lucky Tiger Gong Fu has only allowed you to slay your brothers.