Disclaimer: As I've stated before, I own nothing but my own ideas and characters, everything else belongs to their respective owners.
This version of Monalisa, as well as Pandora and Kemeko belongs to my good friend Bloodrayne666, we treat each other's stories as canon material.
Dungeons and Dragons belongs to Wizards of the Coast and their Illithid masters, who do not wish to eat our very succulent brains. Like them, I take no responsibility for any character that might get incinerated, dissolved, frozen, dismembered, possessed, transformed or any other things that might happen as they delve into the dark, monster infested areas that they know they should avoid at all cost.
Roleplaying Gone Wrong, Book 1
Chapter 1
An Adventure In The Making
Monalisa and the turtles walked through the sewers to the lair, returning after their first patrol for the night. It had been a very calm night, with only a handful of minor criminals to deal with, both the Foot and the Purple Dragons keeping a low profile. But there was one thing that had puzzled the mutants, the fact that they had found a few groups of criminals already dealt with, but no signs of by whom.
"Tonight was a let down." said Raphael. "I was looking forward to a good workout."
"Me too, honey." said Monalisa. "But I guess someone else beat us to it, but I wonder who. Casey perhaps?"
"Not impossible, but it seemed too… recent, and it was quite the distance between the different groups. My guess is that someone else might have dealt with some, if not all of the thugs." said Donatello.
"Great, more mystery vigilantes. Giving me a deja vu feeling." said Michelangelo.
"I think we should consult with master Splinter, hear what he has to say. But I'm hoping that we might be able to earn some new allies, rather than enemies." said Leonardo as the group of five entered the lair.
"Will you settle for some old allies instead?" a happy, female voice said right as the door closed. An intense green gecko mutant stepped out from around a corner, greeting the others with a smile.
"Sephie?!" the group exclaimed.
The lizard just beamed and ran over to the others, meeting Monalisa in a big hug.
"It's so good to see you again!" she said.
"You too, Sephie! It's been too long." said Monalisa. "But when did you get here? And why are you here?"
"We just felt like we should do a surprise visit, as for how long we've been here, we've been waiting for about fifteen minutes." said the large red dragon mutant, Tyroth, as he too walked in from another area of the lair together with master Splinter.
"Yeah, you guys seemed to take so long to get here, I was almost starting to get worried." said Sephie.
"No need to worry about us. We can take care of ourselves." said Raphael.
"That we know. Hope you don't mind that we took care of a few other guys on the way here." said Tyroth. "Well, I took care of them, while Sephie looked after the Geckolings."
"So it was you. Huh, that does make sense. You two can easily get around in a short time." said Donatello.
"Yeah, and that helped with our kids too, they could sleep for most of the way. Especially on the Ninjet." said Sephie. "But now they're done napping for the time, so they're playing together with their cousins."
"Pandora and Kemeko were very happy for the company of Freya and Loki. They have been playing in the playroom while our guests have been keeping me company while waiting for your return, my children." said the old rat with a smile. "They seem to have been looking forward to spending some time with you, so I recommend that you oblige, I will keep watch over the small ones. Your training can continue tomorrow."
"No arguments from me!" Michelangelo cheered. "So, what are we doing? Watch some movies? Go skating? Game tournament?"
"Actually, we already have something planned. If you're up for it." said Sephie.
"Now I'm curious." said Monalisa.
The dragon and gecko lead their friends into the TV area, where a table with several chairs around it had been placed. On the table were dozen sheets of paper, many pencils, several books, a small piece of crystal and hundreds of small pieces of plastic in various geometrical shapes and colours.
"What the shell is this?" Michelangelo asked. "Please don't tell me we have to do a test!"
"I don't think you have to worry about that, Mikey. Or, at least not, in the normal way." said Leonardo as he picked up one of the books, reading the title. "'Dungeons and Dragons. Player's Handbook'."
"Dungeons and Dragons? Ain't that a nerd game?" asked Raphael.
"I'll have you know, love, that I used to play that 'nerd game' in High School." Monalisa said, giving her lover a half stern look.
"Um… well… you see… um…"
"Just stop before you dig an even deeper grave for yourself, Raph." Tyroth said with a grin. Raphael looked very uncomfortable, but Monalisa just smiled and gave him a light pat on the head.
"It's okay, Raph. I'm not offended in any way." she said. "I didn't play it that much, just tried it a couple of times together with some of my friends. It was kind of fun, if a bit weird at first, but it just didn't work out with my schedule, self defence classes and such things were higher priorities to me."
"I've played an older version of Dungeons and Dragons, or DnD as it's also called. Used to play it with my siblings way back when. It was my brother Joshua that got hooked on it, so we played it every other weekend, at least until he lost interest." said Sephie.
"So both of you have past experience with this game, or game series I suppose." said Leonardo. "What about you, Tyroth? Are you in the same camp as the girls or the rest of us?"
"Haven't played DnD before, but I have played a Swedish counterpart to it, Drakar och Demoner. Translates to Dragons and Demons, and considering the heritage of the well, it's actually a little ironic. Didn't play that much though, just picked it up a few months before we emigrated from Sweden."
"Where did you find all of this, by the way?" asked Donatello.
"The paper sheets we printed from the web, simple as that, but all the books and dice we actually found during one of our scavenging trips to the surface." Sephie explained. "Someone had just thrown it all out, found it in a box among the trash. And that actually surprised me, for these books aren't cheap. All in all, these things, dice included, would easily cost a couple of hundred dollars."
"So these things are dice?" Michelangelo asked, picking up and inspecting a few of the pieces of plastic. "I almost thought they were some kind of candy."
"I'm rather curious about that die in particular." said Donatello, pointing at the lone crystal die, it having twenty sides and the numbers. "Haven't had the best experiences with crystals."
"We all remember the last time we ran into a magic crystal, Donnie. I even checked it for magic properties, but didn't find anything." said Tyroth. "It was together with the rest of the things, and as far as we've been able to tell, it's just a piece of quartz or similar."
"Then I'm cool with it."
"Okay, for those of us that don't know how this works, can you explain it?" said Michelangelo.
"I can't believe that I'm saying this, but I'm with Mikey on this. Got no idea what we would do." said Raphael.
"It's rather simple really, though it might sound more complicated than it is if I try to explain it." said Tyroth, gathering his thoughts before continuing.
"In short, you as the players will have your characters that are part of a story told by the Dungeon Master, or DM for short. The DM tells everything that happens, describes the surroundings, plays all other characters and monsters in the world, while you are free to act on your own, after what kind of character you have.
It's also the DM's job to adapt the story in accordance to your choices. Helping one character might give you something in return, but could also get you new enemies with others. Choices can have consequences that are not always apparent. As for the dice, the represent the underlying randomness and factors that decide a lot in life, so you roll them to determine if you succeed on certain things, such as attacks, persuasions and more, and you use different dice for different things."
Leonardo and Donatello seemed to understand Tyroth's explanation, but as the dragon looked at Raphael and Michelangelo, they just stood there like a pair of question marks.
"… See it as the origin from which many roleplaying video games get their systems and rules."
"Oh! Now I get it! Like their great grandfather or something!" said Michelangelo with a proud smile, receiving a nod from Tyroth.
"Even Mikey understands this? Now I really feel dumb." said Raphael.
"I felt the same way when I was new to the game," said Sephie. "but after the first few times, I felt that I had gotten a decent hang of it, and was enjoying it too."
"So are you guys willing to try?" Tyroth asked.
"I'm game." said Monalisa. "I might only have played it a little, but I kinda liked it, and had I had more time for it I might just have played more. And with our children playing together, under master Splinter's watch, we won't have to worry about them for a while."
"It does seem like it could be quite fun, and from what I understand it also have tactical aspects. If nothing else, it will be something new, so I'm in." said Donatello.
"Me too! This seems awesome!" Michelangelo almost cheered, getting excited.
"Don't know about this." said Raphael, feeling very hesitant.
"Aw, come on, love, it will be fun." said Monalisa. "At least give it a try for me."
Seeing his mate batting her eyelashes at him, with sweet and innocent eyes, Raphael couldn't say no without feeling guilty.
"Fine." he sighed in defeat. The other mutants couldn't help but chuckle at the hot headed turtle, earning them an annoyed glare. Monalisa gave her lover a quick kiss on his cheek as a thank you, which did improve his mood, if only slightly.
"Looks like I'm the last one then," said Leonardo. "and in all honesty, while I am rather sceptical, I am also intrigued. And quite frankly, it would have been boring not to join in if all of you are playing."
"Sweet! Then let's get started on making some characters for us!" said Sephie.
"I know this part! It's like this in many of my games!" said Michelangelo.
"Do we need to read all these books for that?" asked Raphael.
"Only the Player Handbook, and not all at once. It holds everything a player need to know, from basic rules to spells." said Tyroth. "I, on the other hand, will be taking on the role of Dungeon Master, so I have more books with additional rules, monsters and more. Luckily, I've read them all cover to cover, so I know where to look."
"Refresh my memory, how do we make our characters?" said Monalisa.
"We start with picking a class, such as barbarian or wizard, a race, like elves, orcs and humans, and work out a backstory to them. When it comes to the race, however, I thought that we might all use a variant of the Lizardfolk at first, just to have some familiarity."
"No turtle people? What a bummer." said Michelangelo.
"Don't worry, Mikey, I'll adjust the world for that. I also think that we should start with characters on a higher level, just to have a bit more of an advantage. That will also give us access to the class specializations as well."
"Hey, I just got a wild idea."
"Really? Do tell, Sephie." said Leonardo.
"How about we make each other's characters instead of our own? Just put our names on a few pieces of paper and the each pick one at random, and who ever we get, we make that person's character. We would probably just pick what feels most familiar, but this way, someone else will have to figure that out instead."
"I like that idea, it will be fun to see what others would paint us as in this game." said Monalisa. "And we won't tell who's got who until we're all done."
As the mutants started working on the characters, going over the rules in the books with the aid of the more experienced players, Raphael sighed in his mind.
'The things that I do for my mate.'
A bit of build up and basics explained, just to make sure that everyone is roughly on the same page for this crossover, which, in case you haven't figured it out yet, is with Tmnt 2003 and D&D Fifth Edition. Another first it seems, as of writing, no one else has published a crossover in this category. Here's hoping that this one is as popular as my other one, Mutants Misplaced.
As some of you might have noticed, the title includes 'Book 1'. This is because I don't want to get locked down with this story for too long, as it could continue indefinitely. By divining it into books, I can take breaks from it and focus on other things as well. And should it not be very liked, I might just stop at one book. We'll all see how it works out in the end.
So what characters do you think our heroes will get? Leave your guess your the review, if any, and we'll see next time. :)