A Ballad I Ran

A Time or two ago there was a man who traveled afar
He traipsed across the countryside and frequented inns and bars
Through his travels and adventures he gained fortune and fame
A bard, a hero, a scoundrel, Ran Dansin was his name.

For a time he had not been seen in all his home lands
Twas rumored he was in other worlds or simply relaxing on the sands
The world was still young, not all places had been traveled
One merely had to seek out beasts to quickly be unraveled

One of these creatures awoke and sought out destruction
none can recall what it was called, just that it caused great disruption
needless to say it was of an evil way, terrorized and slew
a few tried to get it to die, but none knew exactly what to do

The beast had been sighted near a hamlet, the folks shook with fear
but over the crest of a hill, a merry tune being sung, they did hear
a tall hat with checkered pattern and wear, atop a man with great stride
an overlarge nose, odd cape, boots with red fringe and a rapier at his side.

Turn away traveler, the townspeople warned,
a beast most fowl and its company you should scorn
HA! cried the man, a good song it will make
Bring me your strongest willing bodies and, perhaps some tea and cake?

so assembled, the few of the village who were true
they wondered at this odd man and wondered at his world view
as to the creature, what does it do he inquired after tea
it tears and bites and knocks down walls, none has returned that did see

The crumpets were delicious, he said, but use creme instead of milk
as for this creature, i might be wearing one of its ilk
do you have any remnants from an earlier attack?
why yes, some piped up, our old great uncle, carl and aunt jack

they brought forth a pretty thing of lace and set it below Dansin's face
ah, mayhaps were they tailors and this was their last piece
no it was jacks, the two were lost in the last attack
oh, eheh, gimme a moment to inspect the item, in the meanwhile, have any sack?

so they brought for a jug a few went glug-alug and dansin sat in thought
he turned the fabric this way and that and sniffed it an awful lot
after the booze had been drunk up, he suddenly jumped
i know this creature, ive fought one before and have a trump

he flipped off his hat and placed it upside down and began to dig within it
he cursed and hooted and jumped once or twice, the bottomed seem to have no limit
till finally he pulled out a bottle as well as a fishing pole
and to the questioning looks he replied, im not getting close to it would any of you souls?

he set out to the hillside where the monster was last seen, other brave townies in tow
he hooked the bottle to the pole and set it in a tree, and said, watch how we do this just so
they waited in quiet, they waited in fear, the suspense was great at the time
then it got late, and a few yawned and graped, but then, there was a tug at the line

all of them sweated and strained to see, but the dusk confused their sight
they knew it was the beast from the snarls and teeth against bottle, its bite
Ran just held the pole, line slack and limp, he didnt real or tug, just sat
then the line went taught, the bottle went crash, and the villagers froze where they were at

coughing and wheezing and howling and screaming came from the beast
then slowly but surely the ruckus got quieter and the it made noise the least.
Ran waited an extra moment then said that should do it and just strolled towards the bait
and the people heard him say we live but for this thing, its too late

it took a few minutes for the truth to sink in, but at last the people knew
the thing was no more , they were safe now, for Dansin had slew
but they heard knife against bone and grunt and slash and feared for Ran's life
one brave went to Dansin, but found him knee deep in its blood and in his hand a new bone fife

my companion got the last one, he said with blood on his brow
i only got this belt, but balls to him, i have the set now
the creature was unrecognizable, what it was only Dansin knew
but the leather was supple and its meat made a great stew

at the banquet that morning many inquired what the bottle was
Dansin told them truthfully, it was no more than dandelion and suds
they were dumbfounded, and stunned, to believe many were loath
Ran calmly explained, that that creature was fiercely allergic to both

A Time or two ago there was a man who traveled afar
He traipsed across the countryside and frequented inns and bars
Through his travels and adventures he gained fortune and fame
A bard, a hero, a scoundrel, Ran Dansin was his name.

WHATS?! with the blog name?

This is one of my favorite stories. It's long, detailed, and geeky (insert wang joke here). You have been warned.
I have been playing Dungeons & Dragons in all it's incarnations since . . . '97? maybe '98, definitely before 2000, as I started in AD&D. One way our friends would find each other would be to yell "What's a THAC0!?" But, I digress. (watch out, these parenthesis, and tangents things happen a lot.)
With my very fist gaming group, Mjerk, Jjerk, FeetRcold, and a couple others (nicknames are be covered in another blog, don't worry) I rolled a Bard named Ran Dansin. Mjerk, was the DM and this was a Alice in Wonderland-centric game. We ended off in a Battle of wits against the American McGee's version of the Mad Hatter, and through our exploits, my bard acquired a Mad Hatter Hat. This hat was awesome because not only could our gnome walk its brim like a turret(magically, of course) we could dangle him into the hat and had a 65% chance to pull out any mundane item, 23% chance to pull out any uncommon item, 10% chance to pull out any truly rare items, and 2% for anything ridiculously rare, but there had to be more than like 2 of it in the universe.
Fast forward about four years, I begin gaming with The Blave, Epyon_Avenger, Jubbles, and a couple others and The Blave is our DM. I ask if I can resurrect my bard and more importantly his signature hat. The Blave approves, but because he is a stickler for rules and our group was full of power gamers, he "neutered" or more precisely set rules for the hat with random tables. I blindly agreed, thrilled my hat would make it into the game (we started fairly low level and this was effectively a wondrous item) little did I know what horrors this item would visit upon us. The two most common items we pulled out of the Hat were shards of broken glass, which dealt about 1d4 damage to your hands, and really smelly cheese, which would cause -1d4 temporary charisma damage. Mundane annoyances weren't the only things we pulled out of the hat, to The Blave's credit, over the course of a nine month campaign, I pulled out two wee genie's which helped me meet the preq's to be a duelist(these were mostly to accommodate my lack of power building skills and allow me to be more useful in combat) as well as a jackalope named Plot Point who was originally our sorcerer's new familiar, but became this unmitigated ball of dragoon brokenness run by The Blave as his harbinger of doom in his game world. Later, I would pull out a flock of giant, cat sized mosquito's that literally killed me(I have been constantly reminded by The Blave how because I was his favorite character he was constantly smudging damage to keep me alive. great, I was his personal stress ball). As well as lesser jackalopes, males, so that Plot Point could defeat them in single combat and then devour their glands(this was how he leveled) and female jackalopes, so that he could mate with them, defeat them in single combat, and eat their glands, you see the pattern? Apparently this increased his charisma, whatever.
At one point, as I was reaching into the hat, something grabbed me and pulled me into the hat, I was terrified, after all the things I had pulled out, this was not a good idea. Turns out, a giant version of me in another dimension pulled me out of HIS hat. I stood there in shock, and he stared at me for a few seconds, and said, "I wish for a plus two keen, fiery rapier." I replied, "That sounds awesome, but get Vicious and keen if you've got a healer." To which he replied, "No, you're a wee genie and you're gonna grant me a wish, although you look really familiar." Me,"sorry dude, but I have a hat on the other side and you pulled me, I can't grant wishes." Him, "you have a hat too? Isn't it great, wee genies and gold all the time? and a healing jackalope? I pull out the genies all the time!" Me, "really? all I keep pulling out is crap!" He seemed to take pity on me at this point, so he sent me off with a copper piece, which to me was about five feet in diameter, we lugged that thing around till we found a forge to break it down. It was miserable.
Later on, it became a tradition between some of the more screwball members of the group (it fluctuated from he original 5 up to a total of fourteen, technically, over the summer, and everywhere in between) that any new members of the group were greeted with "It's Time for everybody's favorite initiation! WHATS?! IN THE HAT!?!?!?" One of the more memorable initiations was -Brad Again-'s warrior. Not the sharpest shovel in the drawer(yes, I know) he actually managed to pull out a cockatrice, which is an undead chicken that can turn things to stone. Fortunately this warrior was too dumb to be turned to stone, so he pulled it out of the hat, made his fort save and the chicken crowed "bwuahhah!" Me, "what is it?" Jubbles moved his pointer finger through a ring of his other fingers and made a squeaking noise, "his name is herbert." me, " if it wasn't before, it is now." and coincidentally, that's how my rubber chicken got his name. Herbert became the warriors drinking buddy, and one morning after a night of too many ales, the war grabbed the cockatrice and yelled "HOW DID YOU SLEEP CHICKEN!?!?" too which it replied, "KROAWAH!!"
So, there you have it, since the H47 sits on my head, you're reaching your hand right in, be careful, you could get stinky cheese, or hopefully, wee genies.