A phrase sure to send people scrambling for the doors! But... since this is my gamer blog, I'm going to post things like this here, so if ya don't wanna read it, don't! I'll do my best to be entertaining.
Though I somewhat cordially loathe D&D and D20, I am nonetheless playing in two D&D Home campaigns. Go fig. It's what the GM's (both men I respect enormously) and the other players want, and I am having a great time.
On Sundays, I play in a Forgotten Realms campaign. I have two characters in this game currently -- for story reasons the group of characters split into two groups, and for the players whose primary character wasn't in the group, we created lower level characters. The GM suggested at the beginning that our 2nd character might, in time, be a cohort or henchman for the primary character. So, we alternate weeks -- one week we're with the Southern group, cleaning out baddies from the Spiderhaunt woods to make travel on the road safe again; the next we might be with the Northern group, negotiating with refugees from Zhentil Keep to get them to side with our patron, Randal Morn, in the fight to take the Dalelands back from the Zhents.
My secondary character is Adrian Montrose, a Sembian rogue/mage (mostly mage), a younger son of a successful mercantile family. He's also a devotee of Sune, and practices her tenets to the best of his ability as a lay worshiper, especially that part about "perform a loving act every day". The group has been negotiating with a group of Tempites driven from Zhentil Keep (seems Cyric wants to be the only god in town...).
The visit to the Tempite camp has been very trying for Adrian; most of the women there are perfectly capable of snapping him in half with one hand. (I made some very poor rolls when creating Adrian -- 7 str, 9 wis.)
However -- he discovered in the course of the negotiations that a Tempite cleric/soldier named Sergei was deeply enamored of one Deacon Lt. Catherine, and so Adrian became determined to see if he could smooth the path of true love. This led to things like sneaking around tents at night spying, as rumor had it that Catherine was seeing someone on the sly. That turned out to be Catherine sneaking out to spend time with the Monseigneur/Commander -- her father! (Which had to be kept secret as that sort of nepotism -- children serving under parents -- is frowned upon. Adrian, btw, has kept that secret from his companions -- he didn't see that they needed to know, and felt he should respect the lady's privacy.)
In part as a result of the negotiations, the larger group split into two. Both Sergei and Catherine went the group that is going to ally with Randal, so Adrian figured he'd take a shot. He maneuvered the two of them together around the evening fire... and Catherine turned nervous as a cat, like a schoolgirl terrified of her first date. Thinking that he might be able to get her to relax, the following evening Adrian plied her with wine and turned on the charm. Unfortunately, that worked too well, and Catherine began flirting with him. Which, of course, Sergei saw. So now, instead of helping the lovers to get together, Adrian managed to drive a wedge between them. He extricated himself from Catherine (managing to offend her in the process) and went out to drink, think and pound his head against a tree. Finally, he decided he needed to come clean with Sergei in desperate hopes of saving the romance.
Sergei, understandably feeling betrayed by someone he'd thought a friend, wasn't overly welcoming. (Did I mention that I made some horrible diplomacy rolls?) Adrian made every argument he could think of, growing increasingly desperate, and finally gave Sergei his last bottle of fine wine, with instructions to use it in his pursuit of Catherine. He went away sad and discouraged, convinced he'd done a disservice to the Lady of Love (and his two friends)... but wait -- what should he hear later but that Sergei and Catherine are off taking a walk together, hand in hand! It seems that Sergei took his wine and advice, and now the two are on the road to a relationship.
Score one for true love!
Evidently Lady Firehair was pleased with Adrian's efforts, because he managed to charm one of the other women into a very energetic dalliance. (Good thing he's got a good constitution, and my dice finally decided to be kind to me, or she probably would have inadvertently killed him. Ah... but what a way to go!)
A side note: Silveran (an elven monk) seems to have absolutely no sense of decorum whatsoever when it comes to discussion of intimate matters (he offered newlywed Carenza a potion of Enlarge with the suggestion that it might improve her marital relations). He spotted Catherine flirting with Adrian, and concluded that the charming rogue was, well, being a charming rogue. He was prepared to read Adrian the riot act (but couldn't find him at the time).
I can't remember the exact circumstances, but when Silvaran found that Sergei and Catherine were together after all, he concluded that Adrian had been noble and spurned Catherine in favor of Sergei. So, instead of a lecture about his profligate ways, Adrian was treated to a somewhat bizarre lecture of congratulations upon his rising above his baser nature. Adrian was unable to completely stifle guffaws of laughter; I laughed so hard it induced an asthma attack -- always a sign I am laughing well and long.
Since I as the player in the persona of Adrian had been working all summer to get Sergei and Catherine together, it was indeed triumphant.
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