Scene 1: Introductions

Music Bed: (Sylvius Leopold Weiss – Courante in F Major.mp3)

Rhomande: The curtain rises, and we are joined by a new group of ““Heroes””!

DM: I heard the quotation marks in there, Bard. These guys might be a little… unconventional in their approaches, but they’re still basically good people. Unlike your group of basterds.

((Sfx: d20 roll))

Rhomande: I– well… uh… Did you just correct me in my own theatre? Fine. No scare quotes. It is my pleasure to introduce you to a group of Heroes who have been tasked with the expansion and preservation of the Empire’s outer limits. Please join me in welcoming Ormr Ironheel’s Imperial Task Force to the stage! Led by Ormr Ironheel, Dwarf of the Clan of the Leaping Spears.

Ormr: By Vrassax! If we don’t get the Keys of Rilinkrena before that albino treefucker does, things are gonna be bad for the Empire! And Ormr Ironheel don’t let bad things happen for the Empire!

Rhomande: Portia Fireleaf, halfling corsair, though she’s still a bit new at it. Known more for her ingenuity with empty bottles than her skills at the helm, this ruthful pirate often forgets to hide her heart of gold!

Portia: Iiiii’m Saaaaaailiiiiiing Awaaaaaaaaay! Plot an open course…

Rhomande: Nope! Stop! Halt! Not one of my songs, nor is it a song that has been personally verified and covered by myself! You need to stop singing that one, dear.

Portia: But… But Ozz and Kal taught me that one about six weeks ago, and it’s been stuck in my head ever since!

Rhomande: I’m ignoring you and your non-Rhomandian music… Up next is Felicia Cattermain! A felis-sapiens who, quizzically, has spent most of her life ranging through the Cloaca Optima, the finest sewer system in all the planes, hunting the dread Sewercats of Sahn Daskaar!

Felicia: (cough, hack, hairball) Ach! Ugh. One heart, nine lives. Math isn’t my strong suit. Got any string?

Rhomande: Ozzrick Oddfellow, a gnome who is to gnomes what I, the Illikenable Rhomande Sorfinde am to Bards.

Ozzrick: You elided something important, Master Sorfinde.

Rhomande: Oh? Did I?

Ozzrick: I’ve got pale, almost translucent skin, which goes along with my bone-white hair.

Rhomande: Ah, I see! You’re an albi-Gnome!

Ozzrick: Yep! The most famous albi-Gnome in a music-based double-act alongside a half-dragon-elf in the whole Empire!

Rhomande: Well, I won’t promise that you’ll ever be able to lower the number of qualifying phrases, there, but keep trying! And while he keeps trying, I will introduce his partner: Kalindir Celebnaur, an elven bard of Argent Draconian descent. Their silver violin silver shines as brightly as their silver blood!

Kalindir: Yeah, Ozz and I met back when we volunteered for the Imperial Service Organization’s Morale Brigade. I’m silver; he’s white. It just makes a good color combination on stage, y’know?

Rhomande: I’m sure it does. Next up, we have Wank de Winky-Wonk SkiddamarinkydinkydinkskiddamarinkydooIloveyou-Smith. A half-celestial Gnome, whose aura is as golden as Portia’s heart. To be honest, neither of them is all that great at piracy, due to excessive compassion and mercy on their parts.

Wank: Yeah, but people love when pirates let them go! If we pirate people, and then we tell them we’re from the Empire, and then we let them go, won’t all of our victims learn that the Empire is actually a force for good?

Rhomande: You may be confusing “good” with “order,” but that’s a debate for another time. Ironheel’s Task Force is also joined by Ser Kallandriel Alastarthe, an elf from the empire’s middle-age. Having been infused with energies and potions of techno-magical origin, Ser Kal and his faithful steed, Vornorroch of the Star Pastures, were sent out to hunt the ancient and deadly Hungering End.

((Sfx: horse snort/sneeze))

Ser Kal: Well, Vornorroch, if those crystal things had turned out to be beds, then we wouldn’t have been frozen in time, and we wouldn’t be here at the edge of… of… I can’t tell what we’re on the edge of, but it’s something big and important. I can feel it in my technomagically enhanced blood.

((Sfx: Horse snort))

Rhomande: And, finally, Owen Dromeos! A human druid with cretaceozoological interests. He joined the Imperial Task Force Program with the hopes of cloning and breeding enormous, strange lizards, to bring their intelligent, loyal ferocity into our present day. Flanked by his faithful dromeosaur, this old man brings a somewhat antiquated sense of wisdom and perspective to this party of overeager adventurers.

Owen: Look. We’re all gonna die someday. If we’re lucky, someone will dig up our bones in a billion years, and they’ll clone us or cast true resurrection or something, and then things’ll get real weird. Isn’t that right, Lotty?

((Sfx: velociraptor sound))

Rhomande: Lords and Ladies of my beloved audience, please do recline upon your gilded seats, quaff your libations, adjust your listening devices to receive the full distribution of decibels, and please thoroughly enjoy your evening at The 20-Sided Theatre!

End Music Bed: (Sylvius Leopold Weiss – Courante in F Major.mp3)