Fruitcake.
One guy I decided to take into my regular Dungeons and Dragons game ( to the horror of my players ) was called Fruitcake by the others at school.
We were your regular small town New Zealand 15 year olds secretly playing Dungeons and Dragons at home while pretending to be normal by playing rugby at lunch times at school .
We had a good thing going – 10 am to 7 pm Saturdays and Sundays and every moment of every holiday. Some of the kids rode for 2 hours on their rusty bikes through horizontal sleet along a gravel road to get to my house in the full blown wilderness. We had a good thing going…
Why did I invite Fruitcake?
Well many reasons… One, because he was a new kid and a weirdo and thus a potential friend and as a weirdo he was one of my own. He had heard us whispering about D and D and he was all up on it and had expressed his great interest in playing.
Two, because he would wear a leather tank top to school and had a blond mullet and muscles.
Three, because he was intelligent and creative.
Four, his nick name had permeated the school to such a degree that very few people could honestly recall his real name.
One kid made a speech as a class project about making fruit cakes with the sole purpose of embarrassing and humiliating the guy.
At the end of the speech after the teacher had left the room Fruitcake calmly walked over to the guy and unleashed a sudden flurry of face and head punches upon him. Then he dragged the guy by the throat over to the open window and forced him out of it, calmly ignoring the guys struggles and giving him a whack or two to get him out.
They half unconscious guy fell from the second story window and landed on his back in the playground.
I immediately ran to the principals office to tell him a story of a really intelligent caring guy pushed to the edge by one clowns callousness.
I was the head of the debating team and I should have got a cup for my efforts that day.
The principal took Fruitcake into his office and told him off and then sent him home for the day. But I think he was secretly proud.
I know I was.
Fruitcake had actually done what I had only dreamed of doing
On the merit of the eradication of one of our enemies my players agreed to let him in on the game.
He made a character for the game. And the character was female. This was so novel and unusual that my players were having second thoughts and they seriously doubted his sanity. I had to let on that he had a crossbow to bring them around.
We played at his house which was a medium sized tin shed situated downtown.
We all arrived and the first thing he did was angrily smack his dad around a bit which was just crazy. Then he went and got a bottle of Black Heart rum from his side of the room – poured him self a cup of it, added blue food colouring and downed it in one gulp.
Then he put on a plastic Viking helmet.
He was ready.
I got the game ready. The players were assaulting The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun . And playing in this creepy kids tin shed just added to the terror. He had a crossbow on the wall and a pretty cool looking homemade sword… which he was now waving about to punctuate his excitement.
The guys roleplaying was flawless. He cooperated fully, had most of the great ideas, was valorous in battle and generous with treasure. He saved each player at least once and the game was one of the best I have EVER played.
At the end of the game as we were heading off he took his crossbow outside and within 30 seconds had shot a feral cat through the neck at 30 paces.
So he was a LEGEND in my mind.
So cool.
SOOOO COOL.
My players thought differently though.
They just could not get over the fact that he was playing a female character. So they voted him out. His other behavior did not worry them much – I was their Dungeon Master, they had seen worse.
He and I remained good friends though and continued to share adventures and tales.
4 replies to Fruitcake.
Of all the many questions I have. And they are many.
Why blue food coloring?
*And yes this guy did sound awesome. If completely insane.
well it made his tounge go kind of black and he would scream and bright blue spit would go everywhere…
He eventualy became a drug addict and had a baby with a large maori girl.
I wonder if hes still alvie.
If this helps with my street cred at all – I once beat Fruitcake in a sit-up competition.
Once you beat fruitcake in anything. All you are is street cred.
Comments are closed.