Tales from the Table 1

Today's tale is about a Kender, specifically one of my Kender. For those of you who are not familiar with the Dragonlance setting, a Kender is basically their version of a Halfling. My favorite way to describe a Kender is a three year old kleptomaniac with ADD. They are known for being rather flighty, easily distracted, thieves and generally comedic relief. They will pick up anything that isn't nailed down (unless they have a claw hammer) and will often forget that they were doing anything and end up pocketing said item. This leads them to have many knickknacks and small items stashed about their person with no explanation as to how they got there. Many humorous explanations can be made, and will be made, when a Kender is asked to defend this practice. The game in question was 2nd edition D&D. The group was my long time group from back in high school. This was the first time I had decided to play a Kender, who I unfortunately cannot remember the name of. Playing a Kender meant that my character was nearly useless. I further built upon my uselessness by playing a Bard. The first fight we ended up in pitted us witless adventurers against a troupe of goblins. Obviously we won; we are the players after all. When we went about looting bodies, a glass eye was found in one goblin cranium. My kender already had a bag of marbles, shiny rocks and similar bits. To this collection was added a glass eye which immediately became his favorite marble. This marble caused the eventual downfall, or at least severe maiming, of many party members. As a Kender Bard, the party had already deemed me useless for most things, an opinion that my dice roles were glad to support. They did however find one particular use for his 'talents'. The Kender became our party's trap detector. This was often against my will, or the Kender's since I was laughing OOC. When the party encountered a room or hallway that we were sure was trapped, the kender would be upended until a menagerie of tidbits went tumbling to the floor. Among the resulting pile was always a glass goblin eye, aka my Kender's favorite marble. Said marble would then be tossed down the hallway in question leaving the witless Kender scrambling after 'his precious' (yes I went there). The general idea was that the Kender would set off the traps in his mad dash for the marble; great in theory, not so much in action. This was usually the only time my rolls for this character would work for me. Most of the traps were bypassed without any harm coming to my little one. As the party was now sure that the hallway was clear, they would set off after him. This would result in them being greeted by the many traps the kender somehow failed to set off. Needless to say, it was funny for all of us even if some characters were a bit worse for wear.

#geekery #RPG #TalesfromtheTable #DnD

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Stephen Mayo lives in Montana with his wife, daughter, and three cats.

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