MAN RIDER MASK

Go on. You know you want to.

Setup for Tabloid 11x17inches.

Click here to download the PDF.

Return of the Man Rider

Previous adventures retold in gripping wordplay here!

Haven't played man Rider in a couple of years. I think there's a bit missing after the last session report above, that I will call Missing Session Twelve... but basically Man Rider survived pregnancy.

ANYWAY.

Session Thirteen (Vaults of Vyzor): Joins cadre of powerful warriors summoned across space and time. Definitely felt out of place. Dusty too. Have been frozen in carbonite for last two years. No princess to kiss when woke up. Sad, but woke. Have joined party exploring Vaults of Vyzor: Slovenia Troll plus Dog of Awesomeness +1, Barnie the well oiled muscletron plus One Eyed Otto, and one armed Yareh. She's cute. See much potential in her, especially after her one handed crossbow loading maneuvre. Convinced Muscletron to be mounted into battle. Still have oily thighs. Explored Vyzor. Found: Wolves, Hungry Like the. Wanted payment in meat. Think Slovenia made deal to feed them Man Rider. Think they would not like it. Found rope pulley thing. Pulled it. Summoned orcs. Killed orcs. Yareh hot. Corridors. Lots and lots of. Killed ghouls. Otto hurt. Otto healed. Otto blessed by Akayle Ozph. Now Otto of Prehensile Eye. Dog of Awesomeness finds secret door in back of shower. Forced to have shower. Door leads to stairs. Stairs lead to Orc lair ruled by Orc bard. Orc ambush. Have buzz saw arrows. Shear Man Rider's buttock clean off. Had worse. Win fight, healed, butt grows back in right place. More orcs. Slovenia perpetrates ruse that convinces orcs to worship Man Rider. Man Rider happy. Slovenia and rest of party kill Orc worshippers. Man Rider sad. Mandolin smashed. Yareh accepts the blessings of Akayle Ozph. Cuts arm off big Orc, wants attached to arm stump. Try to make it happen. It happens, but Akayle gives her Crows Legs as well. So hot right now. Took unrequited love and share of Orc treasure to bar. Got drunk. Lost all money, got new quest from God. Find the Unimaginable Star of Yragnnngrelfffzzzikkrraxxllarrrgghh. Oh great. All Man Rider wants is true love. Too much to ask for? Flowers for Yareh. Must remember.

And Now a Few Words from our Monster

to everyone who has voted thus far to get Man Rider in the new Dungeons & Dragon movie!!!

MAN RIDER TEESHES!!!!!

Cause who doesn't want the little guy all over their chest.

Go get'em here!

The Further Adventures of Man Rider

Session Seven: Cobalt Reach: Man Rider spends first weeks as avatar of Akayle Ozph wisely: sleeps in Manning's backpack. Wakes up to find covert mission to rescue a goblin child stolen by gnolls. Man Rider infiltrates gnoll fort. Mission goes horribly wrong. Discovered. Chaos ensues, but Man Rider in his element. Manages to grab child, give it Potion of Cloning, and leave the copy behind before finding tunnel open up beneath him. Slides down escape shaft. Saves the baby. Saves the world. Man Rider considered great hero by local goblin leader. Introduces leader to cult of Akayle. A good day.

Session Eight: Cobalt Reach: Man Rider wakes up mid-trajectory. Has been hurled from Manning's backpack into room full of enemies. Not a great start to the day. Flails about ineffectually, but able to distract the enemy enough that fellow adventurers are able to flee from the demilich that Manning accidentally creates. Man Rider is trapped. Hides in fort. Chums up with goblin slaves. Escapes several days later. Pleased to be alive.

Session Nine: Cobalt Reach: Man Rider running late. Big battle: siege of the gnoll fort. Shield of Missile Attraction proves awkward around ballistas and catapults. Man Rider commands goblin detachment in "flanking manoeuvre" feint. Attempts to lure foes behind walls to far side while main force does what it's meant to do. Man Rider and the Nameless Mount get bored. Order goblin detachment to circumnavigate the fort while the two infiltrate the fort for planned mayhem. Plan fails miserably. Man Rider and Co pinned down, while main force breaks wall on far side. Yay! Bad guys run away to fight real enemies. Man Rider survives. Is rewarded with a scroll of mutation from General Gustav. Tempted to cast on Captain Manning. Casts on self instead. Gains six tentacles. Three heads. Rearranged face. Massive torso. Beak. Terrible smell. Man Rider pleased.

Session Ten: Cobalt Reach: has been several months since hibernation spent in contemplation; emerges to find Man Rider especially useless in exploration of Echo Palace. Not very effective in combat against anything, including the jackal men disguised as dryads. Ignored by god. Causes Mutation on self: gets a turtle head. Jackalmen sorcerers dissolve Shield of Missile Attraction with Acid attack. Best news all week. Survives battle. Makes up for lacklustre fight by defiling some old guy's tomb. Learned that Heward's Mystical Organ is somewhere in tower. Everyone runs away. Man Rider sad. Organs made him the freak he is today. Promises to return.

Session Eleven: (Flailsnails) Joins cadre of powerful warriors summoned across space and time: wakes up in Hexenbracken. Vision from Akayle Ozph: seek out the mutating Insect skull. Heads south in vague direction if skull. Meets a knot of pennangallan heads, innards all tied up; Seyl, Knight of Chaos (and excellent mount) applies the Gordian School of knot appreciation. Rewarded by freed pennangallans with ritual to summon demons. Press on, meet red fire goblins. High fives all round. Press on, meets halfling caravan lost in the wild. Cheeky halfling calls Man Rider retarded. Man Rider mutates halfling, emancipating and emaciating him. Seyl suggests punishment not finished, advises Man Rider of mutagenic potion in backpack. Man Rider fails to resist sweet sweet mutation juice, drinks potion instead. Gets really fucked up: infested with mutation-inducing parasites that cause transformation for every round in combat. No need to seek out Insect skull now. Instead, now has ADD, Sense Good, Touch of Confusion, Enhanced Touch, Medium, and can Transform Shape for a few hours. Also, parasites will probably kill him in two months when they emerge. Good news: Man Rider is going to be a dad! Lastly, Summoned Mount in combat and rode Brad Pitt in Troy getup facewards. Felt great.

I cast Summon Man Rider!

SUMMON MAN RIDER

Can be summoned whenever any Summon X spell is cast.

School conjuration (summoning) [see text]; Level bard 1, cleric 1, sorcerer/wizard 1

Casting Time grab the two nearest dice, roll'em and subtract the lowest result from the highest. that many rounds. that or how ever long it takes for me to wrap up whatever I'm doing and plug in.

Components V, S, F/DF (an offering worthy of Akayle Ozph)

Range a party member close by (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)

Effect one summoned Man Rider

Duration until I have to get back to work or grab a kid.

Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no

This spell summons Man Rider, paladin of chaos and avatar of Akayle Ozph, to any location in the Flailsnailsverse. Maybe*. If he's available, Man Rider appears on the shoulders of any character within the caster's party that the caster decides, and that character must serve as Man Rider's mount for the duration of his summoning, which lasts until either the caster dispels him or Man Rider is required elsewhere in the multiverse. Once cast Man Rider appears and acts immediately, on the caster's turn. Man Rider's mount is treated as being heavily encumbered while they serve as Man Rider's steed.

If the caster can communicate with Man Rider they can ask him to attack particular enemies or perform other actions. While Man Rider will try to act in the best interests of whoever summoned him, he is an avatar of chaos and may prove somewhat unreliable and is prone interpret requests in strange and peculiar ways. He won't fuck you over though. Maybe.

As a summoned creature Man Rider cannot summon or conjure other creatures, nor can he use any teleportation or planar travel abilities except to return to his lair in the Snails Quarter when he's got to bail. Also, Man Rider can't be summoned into an environment that cannot support him— there must be shoulders available for him to mount, and no frickin' lava.

Man Rider is currently a 4th Level Paladin of Chaos, CN in alignment, has detect order instead of detect evil, and gets a cut of XP for any deeds performed while summoned. 

*Totally depends on whether I can spare 20 minutes when you message me, but if I'm free I'll drop in to whatever G+ game you've got going. The caster MUST announce they are cast this spell before checking to see if I'm available. If I can't make it the spell fails.

So how's your 4th Level Halfling Paladin going?

Man Rider says: Whatever you do, don't Flailsnail.

Ooops.

Man Rider had a rough session last night.

Carrion Crawlers.... WEAPONISED!!!

Carrion Crawlers. Fuck you, eight paralysis attacks per round... but what an awesome murdertool it'd be if you could weaponise them.

So I have. Research: "Ecology of the Carrion Crawler" in Dragon Mag #267.

Here's what you got:

1. You need elves. The jury's out as to which kind of elves, but certain D&D editions are vague enough about their immunity to paralysis. You need Vague Elves.  Elves that are vague enough to go along with your plan without caring really what you're up to. In fact the plan is wack enough that they might wake up from their immortal stupor and feign interest. What ever it takes to get their cooperation.

UPDATE: Actually it looks like the elves aren't that necessary cause no one can find any specific deets, beyond that their immunity only applies to ghouls. What you need then is a Vague DM, and just say it's in one of the editions he doesn't have. "Elves are immune to paralysis."... and just don't mention the "attacks from ghouls" bit. Totally Legit. Trust Me.

2. If you can't get elves, or your DM is a lert, you need slaves/hirelings/tribe of oppressed goblins sewn into envirosuits. Full body, head to toe no holes breather units, basically so they don't get stung by the tentacles and launch an involuntary stopwork meeting. Or, if you have crap manufacturing facilities on hand but lots of slaves, weaponise the slaves with mancatchers. Or in this case, crawler catchers. At the very least, give them really big gloves and pitchforks.

3. Once you've got your team of wranglers sorted (for later editions make sure they've maxxed out their animal handling skills (and their craft bodysuit skills for double usefulness), you need carrion crawlers. At least two, and of each sex. Yeah, there's boy crawlers and girl crawlers. Dragon Mag told me so:

TOO MUCH DETAIL.

The important bit is that you need both. Fortunately for Man Rider there's carrion crawlers by the thousands in the Cobalt Reach being worshipped by the goblin tribes, so the following numbers are waaaay conservative, but for argument's sake let's stick with two adult crawlers getting jiggy with it, and that once they've done their long distance loving you'll end up with roughly 100 eggs.

4. To get these eggs to larval form you need cadavers. THIS IS D&D. If you can't find cadavers GO MAKE SOME. And if you can't do that you're doing something very wrong. Like being Lawful Good.

5. Here's a totally arbitrary attrition rate over the first year: 50%. You'll probably need to replace those hirelings, so bank on that in your original budget.

6. Throw that rate on the crawlers, and after a year you should have 25 girl crawlers and 25 boy crawlers. Breed them; you'll get 2500 crawler grubs. A year later, same attrition, you'll get 625 breeding pairs. Breed them; you'll get 62500 crawler grubs. By the fourth year you're looking at 1,562,500 give or take. That should be enough to paralyse the Earth. Certainly enough for The Plan.

7. Setting some aside for continued breeding, you've still got half a million grubs. Of that group, set aside 100,000, take the remainder, then find a city full of alchemists:

(that last para looks intriguing, I'll have to look it up later)

Ballparking 1 crawler=1 unit of potion, order:

• 100,000 units of Potions of Paralysis Protection

• 200,000 units of Paralysis Poison

• 100,000 units of Contact Paralysis

8. Find an army of 20,000 able bodied fighty types.

9. Equip them: each gets 5 Potions of Paralysis Protection, 5 Contact Paralysis. They'll get more stuff in a sec.

10. Aside from your army of 20000 Crawlerites, you'll need ninjas. Strong ninjas. Say a Potion is what, half a litre, you'll have this much Paralysis Poison:

11. Apply paralysis ninjas to enemy water source. 

12. Let's say that doesn't work and the ninjas get eaten and you have to go to waaaaaaagh!!!!! You've got your army of 20000 soliders sitting idle waiting for the ninjas to get back. Keep them busy making these, 3 each:

Cage-On-A-Stick

The cages need to be about one to one and a half feet long, with a lockable fliptop grill on the end. The bladey bits are for sticking into people.

13. Having built 60000 of these, insert these:

Grub-On-A-Stick

14. Remember to shut the lids. Remember to have your troops drink one of their Paralystop Potions before hand.

15. Now you got two options; you can make 

Paralysis Clubs

(the Man Rider Weapon of Choice™):

or these:

Paralyspears

(have a new pole-arm, Gary)

The smart money is on making both kinds of weapons and giving both types to each soldier. And short swords. They now have Reach Weapons, that if they hit forces the target to make eight saves vs paralysis. If the enemy somehow manages to break through a paralyspear formation and gets hand to hand, they then have to make another eight saves vs paralysis every time they get hit by a paralysis club. 

As for that 100,000 crawler grubs you set aside way back in Step 7? Just add catapults. Even if 90% get wiped out on impact, you've still got 10,000 grubs crawling round behind the enemy's walls. That'll keep 'em busy.

CARRION CRAWLER: WEAPONISED.

(no idea how much it'd cost though).

Man Rider: A Love Story

3d6 in order: Str:12 Dex:4 Con:8 Int:6 Wis:9 Cha:7

1st Level Goblin, reskinned DCC Halfling.

Occasionally updated with new adventures.

2013:

Session One: Cobalt Reach: Big Jim Hammercock, 1st Level Dandy, is torn in two. Roll up new character. Worst attributes in the history of D&D. Total ability modifers: -8. Can only be a legless goblin. Legless goblin joins party mid game. Quest from weirdo Snake Men Cult: defeat the Army of the Limbless Harlot. Rides into Goblin Town on the shoulders of a man, declares "I am Man Rider!" and gains a horde of pathetic goblin rabble he commands into battle. Jokes about becoming a paladin so he can Summon Man Mount.

Session Two: Cobalt Reach: Battle. Big one. Enemy: Army of the Limbless Harlot. Goblin army is destroyed. Decides best thing to do in middle of battle is loot. Grabs spear, loots from the shoulders of nameless man mount. First item found: Cursed Shield of Missile Attraction. Shield works remarkably well. Man Rider shot down. Dying.

Session Three: Cobalt Reach: Not dying, stabilized but not really awake for 90% of session exploring the citadel of the Limbless Harlot. Wakes up once to snatch some carrion crawler grubs and put them in sack as they may come in handy later; gets knocked out again. Wakes up again just in time for battle with Limbless Harlot. Thrown across room wielding paired carrion crawler grubs. Hits Harlot in face. Harlot paralysed. Job well done. Passes out.

Session Four: (missed a few sessions where ramifications of killing the Harlot are encountered. good decision. Now, first Flailsnails adventure) Joins cadre of powerful warriors summoned across space and time: feels somewhat out of place. Quest is kill the crystal meth dragon. Much planning rendered useless when Man Rider is swallowed whole. Lucky roll, survives, drinks Polymorph Into House Potion, and turns into a three room bungalow inside dragon's neck. Gets renovated. When he turns back, has a new red door in chest. Also, cloned. Clone has legs. Man Rider hates clone.

Session Five: Back to Cobalt Reach: rejoins party, storming another citadel to stop eeeevil elves doing eeeevil things. Fail completely. Horrifying god of chaos incarnate accidently released after honky tonk piano player killed. You can stop the music. God rises from prison. Casts Fear. Man Rider (wisely) afraid. Runs away. Loots body of fallen comrade. Comes back to help party, fights solo rearguard action against god while rest of party escapes. God proves resistant to carrion crawler paralysis. Man Rider, resourceful, tries to cut god's feet off. God amused. Spares Man Rider who cuts a deal. Man Rider is turned into a Paladin of Akayle Ozph. Looking forward to using Summon Man Mount. Also, convinces God to let him ride on his shoulders. Henceforth: God Rider.

Session Six: (another Flailsnails adventure) God Rider joins cadre of powerful warriors summoned across space and time: stop the floating citadel full of monsters from crushing city. God Rider does nothing all adventure. Loots trophy room full of monster parts. Eats a giant brain. Too full to act, watches as aspiring Lawful Good paladin-wannabe takes a gem from unusual machine. Absence of gem from machine causes floating citadel to stop floating. Citadel crashes. On city. Aspiring Lawful Good paladin-wannabe singlehandedly kills two and half thousand souls. Gains lots of XP. God Rider and company flee the ruins. Gets paladin real drunk. Paladin burns down the Blue Rabbit, most famous bar in the Flailsnails multiverse, and gets married. Good times.

Session Seven: Cobalt Reach: Man Rider spends first weeks as avatar of Akayle Ozph wisely: sleeps in Manning's backpack. Wakes up to find covert mission to rescue a goblin child stolen by gnolls. Man Rider infiltrates gnoll fort. Mission goes horribly wrong. Discovered. Chaos ensues, but Man Rider in his element. Manages to grab child, give it Potion of Cloning, and leave the copy behind before finding tunnel open up beneath him. Slides down escape shaft. Saves the baby. Saves the world. Man Rider considered great hero by local goblin leader. Introduces leader to cult of Akayle. A good day.

Session Eight: Cobalt Reach: Man Rider wakes up mid-trajectory. Has been hurled from Manning's backpack into room full of enemies. Not a great start to the day. Flails about ineffectually, but able to distract the enemy enough that fellow adventurers are able to flee from the demilich that Manning accidentally creates. Man Rider is trapped. Hides in fort. Chums up with goblin slaves. Escapes several days later. Pleased to be alive.

Session Nine: Cobalt Reach: Man Rider running late. Big battle: siege of the gnoll fort. Shield of Missile Attraction proves awkward around ballistas and catapults. Man Rider commands goblin detachment in "flanking manoeuvre" feint. Attempts to lure foes behind walls to far side while main force does what it's meant to do. Man Rider and the Nameless Mount get bored. Order goblin detachment to circumnavigate the fort while the two infiltrate the fort for planned mayhem. Plan fails miserably. Man Rider and Co pinned down, while main force breaks wall on far side. Yay! Bad guys run away to fight real enemies. Man Rider survives. Is rewarded with a scroll of mutation from General Gustav. Tempted to cast on Captain Manning. Casts on self instead. Gains six tentacles. Three heads. Rearranged face. Massive torso. Beak. terrible smell. Man Rider pleased.

Session Ten: Cobalt Reach: has been several months since hibernation of contemplation; emerges to find Man Rider especially useless in exploration of Echo Palace. Not very effective in combat against anything, including the jackal men disguised as dryads. Ignored by god. Causes Mutation on self: gets a turtle head. Jackalmen sorcerers dissolve Shield of Missile Attraction with Acid attack. Best news all week. Survives battle. Makes up for lacklustre fight by defiling some old guy's tomb. Learned that Heward's Mystical Organ is somewhere in tower. Everyone runs away. Man Rider sad. Organs made him the freak he is today. Promises to return.


Session Eleven: (Flailsnails) Joins cadre of powerful warriors summoned across space and time: wakes up in Hexenbracken. Vision from Akayle Ozph: seek out the mutating Insect skull. Heads south in vague direction if skull. Meets a knot of pennangallan heads, innards all tied up; Seyl, Knight of Chaos (and excellent mount) applies the Gordian School of knot appreciation. Rewarded by freed pennangallans with ritual to summon demons. Press on, meet red fire goblins. High fives all round. Press on, meets halfling caravan lost in the wild. Cheeky halfling calls Man Rider retarded. Man Rider mutates halfling, emancipating and emaciating him. Seyl suggests punishment not finished, advises Man Rider of mutagenic potion in backpack. Man Rider fails to resist sweet sweet mutation juice, drinks potion instead. Gets really fucked up: infested with mutation-inducing parasites that cause transformation for every round in combat. No need to seek out Insect skull now. Instead, now has ADD, Sense Good, Touch of Confusion, Enhanced Touch, Medium, and can Transform Shape for a few hours. Also, parasites will probably kill him in two months when they emerge. Good news: Man Rider is going to be a dad! Lastly, Summoned Mount in combat and rode Brad Pitt in Troy getup facewards. Felt great.

Some time between 2015-16: Man Rider gave birth to a bunch of mutagenic parasites, and survived. During these lost years he also snuck in an unrecorded adventure or two.

2017

Session Thirteen (Vaults of Vyzor): Joins cadre of powerful warriors summoned across space and time. Definitely felt out of place. Dusty too. Have been frozen in carbonite for last two years. No princess to kiss when woke up. Sad, but woke. Have joined party exploring Vaults of Vyzor: Slovenia Troll plus Dog of Awesomeness +1, Barnie the well oiled muscletron plus One Eyed Otto, and one armed Yareh. She's cute. See much potential in her, especially after her one handed crossbow loading maneuvre. Convinced Muscletron to be mounted into battle. Still have oily thighs. Explored Vyzor. Found: Wolves, Hungry Like the. Wanted payment in meat. Think Slovenia made deal to feed them Man Rider. Think they would not like it. Found rope pulley thing. Pulled it. Summoned orcs. Killed orcs. Yareh hot. Corridors. Lots and lots of. Killed ghouls. Otto hurt. Otto healed. Otto blessed by Akayle Ozph. Now Otto of Prehensile Eye. Dog of Awesomeness finds secret door in back of shower. Forced to have shower. Door leads to stairs. Stairs lead to Orc lair ruled by Orc bard. Orc ambush. Have buzz saw arrows. Shear Man Rider's buttock clean off. Had worse. Win fight, healed, butt grows back in right place. More orcs. Slovenia perpetrates ruse that convinces orcs to worship Man Rider. Man Rider happy. Slovenia and rest of party kill Orc worshippers. Man Rider sad. Mandolin smashed. Yareh accepts the blessings of Akayle Ozph. Cuts arm off big Orc, wants attached to arm stump. Try to make it happen. It happens, but Akayle gives her Crows Legs as well. So hot right now. Took unrequited love and share of Orc treasure to bar. Got drunk. Lost all money, got new quest from God. Find the Unimaginable Star of Yragnnngrelfffzzzikkrraxxllarrrgghh. Oh great. All Man Rider wants is true love. Too much to ask for? Flowers for Yareh. Must remember.

Session Fourteen (GENCON EDITION): Gets legs. Bed legs. Not in useful positions. 

2018

Session Fifteen (Return to the Vaults of Vyzor): Deets coming. 

Session Sixteen (Return to the Vaults of Vyzor II): Deets coming.