Haf

During Under the Bus, Haf played Dugan Lifebrew.

Dugan's greatest adventuring contribution might have been beer. While the rest of the party was busy adventuring, Dugan actually turned his brewing hobby into a useful skill, making and selling booze in Toreon and later brewing healing potions aboard the Sunchaser. In one memorable encounter with hostile halflings, Dugan talked them down with Diplomacy—and then handed out his beer while the party's clerics tended to the wounded. It was pretty much the perfect Dugan solution to an adventuring problem: talk to them, give them beer, and let somebody else handle the fighting.

Campaign Anecdotes

Deskin's Evil Mustache

Deskin had a particularly impressive mustache.

After the party killed him, they decided that the appropriate thing to do was to cut off his mustache and take it with them.

The severed mustache subsequently became one of the party's stranger trophies. For most of the campaign it had no discernible practical purpose.

Eventually, Haf found one.

The Evil Mustache vs. the Lich

Much later, the party found itself in a disastrous battle against a powerful lich. Several party members had already been incapacitated, and Haf decided that Dugan could at least provide a distraction.

Dugan rushed up to the lich, pulled out Deskin's severed mustache, and held it to his face.

The tactic worked.

The lich had absolutely no idea what Dugan intended to do with the evil mustache and apparently decided that allowing him to finish was an unacceptable risk. Rather than ignore the party's noncombatant brewer, the lich immediately used Baleful Polymorph to turn Dugan into a toad.

Later in the battle, the lich unleashed a devastating Cone of Cold. Dugan initially appeared to have been killed along with several others who were badly injured.

He had actually survived.

Being a Tiny toad lying among much larger objects had provided enough cover to save him.

Thus, the one time the party finally found a use for Deskin's severed mustache, it successfully distracted a lich, got Haf turned into a toad, and may have indirectly helped keep Dugan alive.

Things Must Be Bad — Haf Took Damage

The same lich battle began going catastrophically wrong after the creature unleashed a Prismatic Spray into the party.

Dew and Malachi were turned to stone. Kamal was driven insane. Demetrius was blinded. Bo was trapped in a magical grapple. Haf and Nate were struck by both fire and electricity, although both survived.

Faced with this disaster, Haf observed that the situation clearly “portended of dire things” because he had actually taken damage in a fight.

For the normally noncombatant Dugan, apparently this was a more alarming indication of danger than the petrified clerics or insane paladin.

Haf Tries Diplomacy

Haf had a persistent habit of attempting to talk to creatures that most adventuring parties would simply assume were hostile.

While exploring Godsmount, the party encountered frost giants.

Haf tried talking to them.

They threw rocks at him.

Later, the party encountered trolls.

Haf tried talking to them.

They attacked.

When the party subsequently encountered more frost giants, Haf had recently learned to speak Giant and therefore had an even better reason to believe diplomacy might work.

Haf tried talking to them in Giant.

One of the giants threw a boulder at him.

Haf also attempted to parlay with a Huge red dragon attacking the Sunchaser, this time addressing it in Draconic.

The dragon responded by breathing fire across the ship.

The repeated failures did little to discourage Haf from trying diplomacy again the next time.

Dugan's Riveting Story

When the party first encountered The Traveler, he explained that he wandered the world collecting entertaining stories and asked whether his new companions had any tales they would like to share.

Haf volunteered.

Dugan told him the story of how he learned to speak Ignan.

The contemporary campaign recap's assessment of the tale was:

“The story was…riveting…”

Afterward, Smah and Bo told the Traveler about the destruction of the wolf pyramid, with the rest of the party helping fill in the details.

That story was described as actually being pretty rousing.

Inventing the Dead-Magic Detector

While exploring Godsmount, the party had to contend with invisible areas of dead magic. Accidentally entering one could be disastrous, particularly while aboard the Sunchaser.

Haf devised a simple solution.

Dugan would send his Rope of Climbing ahead of himself at its full length. If the leading end crossed into a dead-magic zone, the magic animating the rope would cease functioning and the end would fall to the ground, warning the party before anyone walked into the zone.

The idea worked well enough that the party eventually adapted Haf's method for use aboard the Sunchaser.

The scaled-up version replaced Dugan's Rope of Climbing with Bo Duke.

The party cast Air Walk on Bo, tied 151 feet of rope to him, and had him run through the air ahead of the ship. If Bo crossed into dead magic, Air Walk would fail and he would fall until the rope caught him.

Thus, the party's eventual practice of using Ray as a piece of navigational equipment originated with one of Haf's ideas.

The Ones You Want Are Back There

During one of the party's magical journeys into the past, they entered a cave and encountered a woman tied up and calling for help.

Haf suspected a trap and ignored her.

Dugan continued around a corner and discovered three ogres waiting in ambush.

Rather than attack the ogres, Haf informed them that the people they wanted were back there, indicating the rest of his own party, and continued deeper into the cave.

The ogres were apparently sufficiently confused by Dugan casually directing them toward his companions that the party effectively gained the advantage in the ensuing fight.

Rescuing Magdala

During the battle against Cain and his vampires, Dugan had little ability to contribute directly to the fighting.

Instead, Haf focused on the chained angel Magdala.

Dugan worked his way across the room to her, verified that she was still alive, and used his Chimes of Opening to free her. He gave her a healing potion and signaled for her to remain quiet rather than immediately drawing attention to herself.

Magdala began to pray.

A few rounds later, golden divine energy began affecting the vampires. When one of them struck Dew with what should have been a killing blow, the power surrounding the vampire prevented the attack from killing him. Soon afterward, the surviving vampires fled.

It was a particularly appropriate contribution from Dugan: in a major battle, the party's noncombatant helped turn the fight without attacking anyone.