Splats Gleamhelm stood before the gaping mouth of the cave

The cave where the troll had been spotted the previous night by the anxious onlookers who now stood a good distance behind him.

Go on then, Splats, he thought to himself, what’s the worst that could happen, besides getting killed by a troll?

Upon entering the cave, Splats found it unusually well lit, for a cave that is.  He didn’t need to light a torch or an oil lamp, it was lit as well as the morning was, just outside.

“Boo,” said a voice ahead of him.  It was the troll.

Wasting no time, Splats took a defensive position as the troll strode toward him and proceeded to bite the young Mallard-kin.

“Ack!” Splats exclaimed excitedly, then realized that his armor had taken the brunt of the bite.  The troll then gurgled and spit up a tooth and some foul liquid that barely missed Splats, but did piss him off a bit.

Splats then took a couple of swings with his broadsword at the monster, connecting both times and visibly causing the creature some harm.

Another couple of sword strikes by Splats, and the monster spit up again, this time the stench of the troll vomit causing Splats to waver a bit.  The troll picked up Splats and hurled him across the cave, his armor once again saving him from serious harm.

Now Splat was really mad.  He picked himself up from the ground where he landed, charged the visibly weakened creature while yelling a battle cry, swung for a killing blow…

… and missed, his sword clattering to the floor between himself and his opponent.

Shit, good thing no one saw that, he thought to himself.

Before he could pick up the sword, the monster clawed at him, troll nails scraping against his armor, which protected him once more.

Splats recovered his sword, slashed at the creature once, then twice, and the troll finally fell.

Breathing heavily, Splats proceeded to check the troll for any treasure that it had, but found nothing but a rusty nail, which did actually poke and hurt him and later required a tetanus shot from the local healer.

***

And thus begins the epic tale with the Dragonbane RPG system.

Don’t touch that dial!