Kobold Quarterly Presents - Funny Friday: R.A. Salvatore

Now I've heard tales before, second, third, and forthed handed about a Wand of Wonder story that some would say is one of the best, the funniest, and it is known as the Wubba Wubba Story, however I've never heard the full story told by R.A. Salvatore until, thanks to Kobold Quarterly, tonight.

While the audio quality varies, I found it better by putting the headphones into my audio jack on my laptop, the story is quite audible, enjoyable, and worth hearing several times, as it is good gamer schtick told by a fine storyteller with a Massachusetts brough in his voice. The audience loved it and, although it make suck KQ's bandwidth dry, it is definitely worth a listen to what is, perhaps, one of the best Wand of Wonder stories that I've ever heard.

But, of course, it inspires me to share my own Wand of Wonder story, from my tragic misspent youth when I was a much more comedic role-player, in the world of Krynn upon the lands of Ansalon, where there was a kender named Friadoc (this was the third time I used that name, by the way, all other times was for, and has been since, a halfling) who had...issues...to put it lightly.

Friadoc the Kender wanted to entertain everyone, by everyone I mean the party, their foes, and anyone or thing that happened to be within earshot. As players many of us were young, our ages ranged from a youthful eight to a venerable twelve and our dungeon master was an adult, the older brother of one of the players and in community college. He was a kind DM, in hindsight he put up with a lot of the oddest stuff, some of which was my fault and by my fault, I mean Friadoc's.

Derek, that was the DM, placated to the younger crowd, often throwing in some oddities that you'd have found in the Dungeons & Dragon cartoon, such as a pool that saw into the "real world" and stuff like that, which is what put Friadoc on the path to insanity, as he looked through that pool once and something stuff. The Kender saw a spaghetti western on a television, as well as an unshaven man wearing an odd blanket, talking husky, and people feared this man. Friadoc thought it was cool and set about to mimic this man, Clint Eastwood, as only a weird kender with delusions of grandeur could.

Eventually Friadoc, dressed as a spaghetti western cowboy, with an amulet of theme music that played a very familiar tune, and with a Wand of Wonder in a sheath upon his hip found himself in front of the dragon who had captured the party, save for Friadoc who had been off finding coins that someone had misplaced in a very disorganized pile. But, he was helpful and put them into a more orderly sack, which he stowed away until the owner was found.

Friadoc walks into the room with his friends, who are caged by the dragon, who is now trying to menace the kender, who is tough now, as his theme music tells him he is, so he wipes out his Wand of Wonder and points it at the dragon and just as he dragon's maw goes to bit him, the kender presses the activation button.

Butterflies rushes from the wand into the small space of the dragons mouth, which was now closed around the wand and Friadoc's hand.

What do you think happened?

Yeap. It was very messy, very weird, and very funny to a bunch of tween gamers, downright the best moment of our young gaming lives, at that time. In adult hindsight, which can suck all the fun out of things, I know there was no rules to really cover that, but Derek was cool like that, very cool.

If you've Wand of Wonder stories of your own, why don't you fly them over to Kobold Quarterly's Forums and share them with the folk there, I know Wolfgang would love it.