Decades ago, at the University of
Minnesota Duluth (UMD) gaming club, I played in a Dungeons and Dragons
(D&D) first edition campaign. This campaign was set in a magical
version of the high medieval period in the Kingdom of England. In the
kingdom, magic is commonplace. While elves, dwarves, and other good
species are accepted in the human population, while becoming trusted advisors
to the royal family.
In the spring of the year 1044,
King Edward the Confessor, along with most of his adventurers and soldiers
focused their attention on his eastern coast; due to raids by Scandinavian
pirates and plunders that pillage and then burn every settlement they find.
It was then that outside the city
walls of the southwestern seaport city of Plymouth; isolated farmsteads and
travelling merchant caravans of mixed bipedal species were attacked and the
people disappeared with no trace of where they were taken. A small
village of elves, and then a copper mine crewed by several families of dwarves
also disappeared.
The latest attack by the unknown
enemies was discovered when a wagon caravan carrying tax payments for the royal
family was attacked. All the tax money,
the tax collectors, the mules that pulled the wagons, along with the guards,
three armored knights, and their horses disappeared. This time, King
Edward lost more than people, he lost his money.
While enraged by this report
about the robbery of his tax collection caravan, King Edward hired our
party. One day earlier our party had stopped a dockyard fight between a
gang of drunken sailors and a gang of drunken teamsters. King Edward gave
us a letter of introduction, two wagons full of supplies such as food, camping
gear, and expendable items such as arrows. The wagons were pulled by two
mules each and each driven by an experienced (non-player character) teamster
who knows how to drive and care for the mules.
Our party’s adventure started the
moment we arrived at Plymouth’s eastern gate. We didn’t spend our actual
time or our game time travelling on the road between London and Plymouth.
We had a short talk about
the abductions with the local lord - Prince David, a younger brother
to King Edward. Then, we walked to the city’s market hall
where the farmers were selling their produce. We gathered
the heads of the farming families to talk about the disappearances of those
missing people, what we could do to stop these mysterious abductions, and then
return their missing family members.
It was then that our smart aleck
bard asked the elderly farmers this question: “My good sirs and ladies,
have you seen the giant rats that eat people?”
The elder farmers told our bard
that they hadn’t and then asked our bard to describe these rats.
Our bard replied, “These rats stand
about three feet tall at the shoulder, wear hard leather helmets and what look
like soft leather horse blankets. By the way, these rats speak English
with French accents.”
Our bard was so persuasive that
most of the famers were panicked, with several farming families packing up
their goods and then leaving their farms for cities in the east.
After three days, Prince David’s
city guards found us and then brought us to see him. Prince David was
furious with our player characters.
“Quit frightening my peasants!” he
growled, keeping his attention on us, most of all on our bard. The bard’s
player never stopped smiling, loving all the attention that he was getting from
the game master, his fellow players, and a few people who were watching us play
our campaign.
Then, a week later our game master
graduated from UMD. He moved back to Minneapolis soon after that.
So, we didn’t get to conclude that D&D adventure. If I were to
restart this adventure, I would have the villains who are kidnapping these
people be Minotaur adventurers who are infected by lycanthropy and could turn
into werewolves.
And now you know the raison d'être or justification why some D&D players look down on bards and the players who play them.
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