Dungeons, Dragons, Ducks: It Ended With An Earthquack
The mighty power of mallard magic
I grinned at the adventurers from behind my dungeon master’s screen. “The orcs spread out. There’s at least forty of them on the other side of this cavern. They seem to be waiting for something.”
The players were my brother Gordon, our friend Ernie, my cousin Brian, and my girlfriend Nicole. Gordon, Brian and Ernie were regulars in the game for about 8 years running. Nicole was new to it, and like most nerds, we were amazed and excited to have a girl in the room. It wasn’t the first female to play with us, but they never stuck around for the long haul.
I had the standard cardboard trifold screen, with all of my most needed charts and tables on my side. My prized stash of dice were in front of me. On the side facing the players was artwork of a dragon spraying fire, a castle, and adventurers in various dangerous situations.
We were at my kitchen table, which was covered in maps, books and character sheets. Ernie had his home made wizard’s tome in front of him. Gordon had empty beer cans stacked to shield his area. Brian was playing with miniatures on one of the maps. Nicole was carefully studying the character sheet we helped her to create. Colored dice littered the center of the table like gems.
The game had been running for hours.
It was late, and we were all tired. Everyone had to work in the real world the next day, too. I wanted to find some way to close for the evening. But the adventurers were trapped deep underground and about to fight against overwhelming odds. Things didn’t look good for our heroes. They should have made a left at that last tunnel intersection, where they would have had an easy time finishing off those giant rats before escaping up the ladder at the end of the hall.
But no, they wouldn’t take the hint. Brian thought that my clues were a trap, and they instead went right. Following his hunch, they ran right into the lair of some well organized orcs. Orcs that wanted to kill them real bad.
“What do we do?” Ernie said. “I’m out of magic. I going to hide behind the statue on the left.”
“Fengus draws his sword and gets ready,” Gordon said as he grabbed another beer.
“I search for secret doors,” Brian exclaimed. That was going to be a waste of time.
“I cast my Earthquack spell,” Nicole said.
We all stared at her.
“It’s right here on my spell list.” She pointed at her character sheet that we helped her create. Her cleric did indeed have the spell Earthquack listed. Oh well. I shrugged and ran with it.
“As you chant the words and summon the energies of your god, it starts to swirl around the room and the ground gives a little shudder. You draw forth the rubber duck from your satchel and hold it over your head. When the energy is all around you, you toss it up in the air. There is a mighty QUACK! The ground shakes and you all need to roll to see if you stay standing or get tossed to the ground.”
They all roll and deal with results. No one in the party suffers damage, but most get knocked off their feet.
I use this opportunity to let the players off easy. “You look across the cavern to find that a huge crack opened up between you and the orcs. They’re really mad now! They run toward the crack and start looking for a way across.”
The players took this chance to retreat to safety and get back to the surface as fast as they could, retracing their steps to exit this underground layer. Another miracle, their henchman and horses remained where they left them. They lived to grind through dungeons another day.
The Earthquack went down in history as the worst magic induced natural disaster in all the land. Wizardly scholars came from afar to study the area. A duck cult sprang up and started trying to convert the surrounding villages, only allowing their members to speak like Donald Duck.
And we fixed the spelling mistake on Nicole’s player character sheet. Oops.