Chokmah (part 1)

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   "You can't seduce the Orc. The Orc does not care that you have a comeliness score of eighteen. The Orc only sees that you are a High Elf. From an Orcish standpoint, you're rather ugly."

   "Ugly?"

   "You're short, thin, pale, and have weird purple eyes. You can't be very sturdy, because you have no muscles to speak of, and your bones are as thin as a bird's. What self-respecting Orc would find that attractive?"

   "I have big tits!"

   "Which means most Elves would probably find you unattractive as well," Magister mutters, sotto voce. Fortunately, the High Elf mage in question is too distracted by his frantic rule-searching to notice.

   I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised that the new guy would want to play a character of the opposite gender from his own solely as an excuse to get his character laid and would want the character to be a stereotypical porn star, only with purple eyes, pointy ears, and enough magical ability to take down a balrog when she is not coupling with other characters in the adventure. So far, "Perditiel" has seduced nearly every non-player capable of consent, regardless of race or sex, or killed them, regardless of whether the NPC was even an adversary. At least the other player characters have so far been deemed off-limits. Small mercies.

   "Why do you want to seduce an Orc?" I sigh. "You're an Elf. Your race doesn't like Orcs any more than Orcs like yours."

   "I need to interrogate her. Where there's one Orc, there's a war party."

   This is one of the few things Lydia's cousin has said all afternoon that even makes a modicum of sense, although seduction is not the usual method an Elf would probably choose to pry out an Orc's secrets. Unfortunately, in this case, the Orc in question is not part of a war party; she's the rogue employer who is about to hire a band of adventurers to break into a powerful wizard's house and steal a valuable enchanted artifact. We already exhausted what was going to be a two-weekend dungeon crawl in a home-brewed campaign, courtesy of Lydia's cousin finding a loophole in the game rules that allowed him to charge up a jeweled golden falcon the party found in a treasure hoard, turn it into the equivalent of a heat-seeking nuclear missile, and slay the red dragon that was guarding the dungeon. Now I'm on my second adventure. I'm not sure I want to know how the cousin will make himself temporarily as powerful as a demigod and kill the rival wizard. It probably won't involve something as boring as cooperation with other players, though.

   I sigh again. "Fine, Perditiel. Have it your way. Make a charisma check."

   He rolls.

   "Terrific. It's a success. You seduce the Orc. You don't expect me to describe what happens in detail, do you?"

   "I want to know all the Orc's secrets. Where is she from? Who is she working for? What does she want? Where are the other Orcs?"

   This may be the only opportunity I get to get the game back to its plot, so I quickly launch into debriefing my characters on their mission.

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