# More Thoughts About Black Leaf and Implementation tags: #thoughts/dark-dungeons #game/rpg/dnd > [!quote] > ![[black-leaf-noooooo#^cfec14]] > ![[black-leaf-noooooo#^3c8ce5]] > > -- [[black-leaf-noooooo|Black Leaf, Noooooo]] You know, this has been kicking around in my brain for quite a while. Decades. And yet I have never really sat down and worked out exactly what this party must look like. We can't really do anything else until we take care of that, can we? I suspect that we won't have a full party but… We'll work it out. ![[Dark Dungeons Panel 1.png]] ![[Dark Dungeons Panel 2.png]] Two things that we know right up front: There is a Wizard in the party who can cast a Spell of Light which causes blindness, there appear to be six players plus a DM, and Black Leaf the Thief is played by a chick. In fact, there are a lot of girls at this table. Beyond the killer DM, we have Debbie who responds to the DM demanding the Wizard cast their spell, Marcie playing Black Leaf (both sitting next to the DM – absolutely no favoritism going on here), and what very well could be a fourth female in the far left corner. That's a lot of girls at the table for the mid-80s. ![[Dark Dungeons Panel 4.png]] Unfortunately, inconsistency kicks in right about panel four, when the DM specifically refers to *"your cleric has been raised to the eighth level."* She's talking to Debbie who is the only girl with pigtails at the table but who previously responded to *"okay, Wizard, cast your spell!"* Maybe she was finishing up with the Wizard in the previous turn who was the guy with the book out, looking it up. We'll take it under advisement. ![[Dark Dungeons Panel 5.png]] From this, we are going to assume that Debbie's cleric is named *Elfstar*. Debbie has been a little bit of an asshole at the table and so the DM has determined she has the personality to have the real power. *"The real power"* is apparently the ability to rent a really large open space and do it up right. Look at that pentacle! But the witches' coven is kind of crap since they already have 13 robed members and are recruiting Elfstar to be a fourteenth. Unless they plan to immediately execute one of their own, this is bad thinking. After joining up, Debbie casts her first spell, Mind Bondage, on her father who was trying to stop her from playing [[Dungeons and Dragons|D&D]]. As a result instead of stopping her, he bought her $200 worth of minis and books. And here I am thinking to myself, "$200? This just proves they aren't playing **[[Warhammer 40k]]**." Later, Debbie is over at the DM's house when Marcie calls… ![[Dark Dungeons Panel 9.png]] No party visible, only fighting a single zombie – this looks like duo play. Definitely not co-op with this DM. I swear, if this tract had been written 15 minutes later, it would have been all about the evils of lesbianism, and we can probably still work that in here if we work real hard. Believe me, I'm working it real hard. Debbie goes over to the Anderson household to see Marcie, whom we are told is very depressed since her character died, which brings up an interesting point. For sane and normal people, we would have already created a new character to get back into the action with. Debbie's obviously already doing some play with the DM, it's weeks later, so there was obviously opportunity. Marcie's just been hanging around. ![[Dark Dungeons Panel 11.png]] Pithy. What jumps out at me is that she had a huge dragon macroture as well as what looks like a set of several minis – why didn't she just set up her own game? She's got the gear, she's got the poster, why are you leaving us hanging, Marcie? ![[Dark Dungeons Panel 12.png]] Oh. Right. She wasn't that bright. I forgot. The next panel gives us the DM's name, Ms. Frost, and I have to admit that a violently crazy occult-obsessed woman old enough to be referred to as Miss by D&D-playing teens in what's clearly a house big enough to have its own sunroom to game in of pretty high quality and real occult power? I'm more than a little turned on. Ms. Frost, call me. Elfstar, however, is a far better witch than Ms. Frost and totally bungles saying "and it harm none, do what thou wilt," attempting to use proper doctrine against an obviously heretical mad dog that needs to be put down. Frost, of course, gets a bit more nuts and tries to appeal to the greater shared insanity. ![[Dark Dungeon Panel 17.png]] Debbie hauls out and meets Mike, who appears to be wearing a letter jacket and who appears to be trying to sell her on a different cult. She does have some nice hips so I see his motivation. This ties in with the actual goal of this piece because he looks like the guy with the book theoretically playing the Wizard at the beginning of the tract. Same coloration, different hair possibly. Maybe it's not the same guy. Maybe they're just on the same team. Team *"Bang Debbie."* Blah blah blah, sell some of that Christ, though I have to admit – we did see Debbie theoretically use Mind Bondage on her father effectively, so she really *did* achieve power. That's more than this guy has done… Unless, he came out of witchcraft as stated and is using his black powers to manipulate the mind of the easily swayed using Christian ambassadorship as a front! ![[Dark Dungeons Panel 19.png]] Holy shit, burn all your D&D material? This motherfucker works for *Wizards of the Coast*! He knows that you'll be back in six months when the new edition is released and have to buy all new stuff! ![[Dark Dungeons Panel 22-1.png]] That is some serious occult shadiness. ## What Do We Know? Time to go back to the top and revisit the whole point of doing any of this. Other than my own personal amusement and the opportunity to talk about something that has been stuck in my head for decades. - We have six players plus a DM. - Three classes are called out up front: - Wizard - Thief - Cleric - Enemies include: - Zombies - Dragons - What looks to be some sort of Warrior And that's about it. If we assume the traditional D&D adventuring party and that the players are seated around the table in a rough order of initiative, making the the Thief first and the Cleric last – perfectly reasonable, then we can make some approximate judgments. Black Leaf the Thief is really, really fast. Which we should expect. The guy we've assumed it is playing the Wizard is still quite speedy. Maybe he's a Gnomish Wizard? That would explain the possible jump on getting ahead of turn order before Black Leaf. The guy next to Debbie has to be pretty slow so we can assume some sort of heavily armored Fighter. That leaves two. The girl in the corner strikes me as the kind to play a Monk and that would make sense in initiative order. She just looks like a Monk player. Maybe it's the lack of sleeves. Which leaves the guy at the far side of the table who can only be one class: a Ranger. Probably one who saw how stacked the party was with high-speed initiatives and decided to put a few more points in Charisma as the party's face. He wore a collared short sleeve button up to his D&D campaign; this is the kind of nerd who would definitely buy high Charisma. ## Party composition - Black Leaf the Thief - High DEX, High AGL, low WIS -- really low - Solomon Ix the Gnomish Wizard - High DEX, High INT, newbie - Sora Tenzin the Monk - Never wears sleeves - Rowan Thorne the Ranger - High CHA, High AGL - Or Hardland the Fighter - STR, you need other stats? - Elfstar the Elven Cleric - Low DEX, Low AGL, High WIS, High INT This actually looks like a fairly balanced collection of characters who could be out there buggering up the *Forgotten Realms* every Sunday afternoon as long as the chips and Coke hold out. This is very doable. Maybe it goes on the list of inspirations for [[Character Creation Challenge|the Character Creation madness]]. If you get inspired by this, let me know. The world is full of insanity; we can only add to it.