Disclaimer: If I owned NWN, do you really think I would be writing something like this?

A (side) note: In order for this fic to come to life, several things had to happen first:

Months ago, we finally finished a campaign we've been playing for well over two years and nice as it felt to actually finish something, it still made me kinda sad to have one of my favorite characters and the entire crazy party retired. Around the same time, Penname wa Silver B suggested I should write a humorous fic someday. The rest, as they say, is history.

And the history, as I say, is this:

At one point during our campaign, our party entered a big city. The DM asked what do we do now, whereupon a player replied: "Why, bash open all the crates laying around in the streets and take all the gems and magic items, of course!" Needless to say, we laughed our asses off, fondly remembering all those times when we strolled the streets of Neverwinter pulling out 8 feet long +5 halberds out of 2x2x2 feet crates or hauling out about 5000 GP worth of gems out of loot bags scattered around in the Slums (!) area… Which, for the thousandth time, reminded me of just how much I hate this absolute lack of realism in fantasy in general, and in D&D in particular. With pretty much the same to be said about depth and originality as well, it was only a matter of time when a cynic in me was going to explode.

When deeply developed characters include brooding tieflings, sexy drow and cackling villains and the originally plotline consists of saving the world yet again, something simply has to be done about it! Since Mel Brooks wouldn't bother, I had to jump in instead.

Hells, I need a break from the Shadows anyway.

Chaos AD(n'D)

Written as an homage to Terry Pratchett and his Discworld series, in memory of Douglas Adams, whose spirit, I believe, now happily hitchhikes throughout the galaxy, and dedicated to Pen for putting this silly idea in my head in the first place.

prologue

Once Upon A Time…

Once upon a time, on a prime far, far away there lived a hobit. Probably. Well, as a matter of fact, he must have – Ever since The Lord of the Rings was first published, you hardly get any game world that hasn't got hobits in them. So, once upon a time, there was this world and there was this hobit in it. And that's it. What? What did you expect? A hobit story! Well, I'm not a racist. I like hobits… especially well done and, if it's at all possible, with some garlic. But that's beside the point. …As is this entire thing I believe, 'cause I've started off at the wrong world. In the world where this story begins, THERE ARE NO HOBITS!

OK, so… Once upon a time, on a prime far, far away, there didn't live a hobit. And the poor sod is damn lucky he didn't, generally because many other things did. Like, for instance, humans. And we all know what humans think of hobits, don't we? They're all so tall, and rowdy and loud and they call all hobits "halflings"… Which must be a terribly insulting thing by the way. It sounds like you're something… well, more like half of something. And that's really not nice, is it? And then, there were elves. And unlike humans, they are not that big nor rowdy nor stuff, but they do look upon you as a lesser being nevertheless and, if you're not careful around them, you just might end up staring into some innocent looking pool and seeing all kinds of things that you really didn't want to see, especially 'cause you already got yourself stuck draggin' some trinklety ring around and everyone's out to get you for it and… All right, you get the picture. Bottom line – there were elves there too. And then, there were also orcs. But not your usual kind of big crackpot brutes you might find on, say, Toril. No, more like the kind you might run into after playing too much Warcraft 3. Which means they were not just big, crackpot brutes. They were also smart. And that's much worse. And you don't want to be a hobit around them. …Well, as a matter of fact, you don't want to be anything around them. And you especially don't want them to be around you! So all in all, the poor hobit was one lucky bastard for not living in that particular world and since the hobit has nothing to do with this story anyway, he's now going to leave this fic… And how did a hobit get here in the first place anyway!

Fine, so we're rid of the hobit. Now, there was this world, you see, and there were all these fantasy species living in it, and then there was this demon, or devil or something who got himself stuck in that world and couldn't leave. And so he got bored. And after being stuck on some backwater prime material plane for 2000 years, who could blame him? So, he was bored and he wanted out. Which was not such a bad thing really, because while he was in there, the gods couldn't reach that world, which in turn made many clerics quite frustrated. So the gods wanted in and demon wanted out, but the catch was that he couldn't. And he couldn't because there was this gate he had to use and the gate was locked and the key split into three pieces and there were undead guardians around it and… Well actually, he couldn't get out because the DM wanted the adventurers to do something other then sitting on their buts, and so he locked the gate, split the key and then let the PCs figure out what to do about it. And the adventure begun. And ended. The heroes chased after the key all over the world desperately trying to kill the demon… Well, at least one of the PCs did, the rest were just taggin' along. And in the end, they did find the key and they did kill… some sort of a demon. Only, it wasn't the demon. And the the demon merrily walked out and the gods came back and everyone was happy… except one of the PCs who was pissed at being fooled like that.

And that gate was still there. And it was open. And, for the purpose of this fic, sometime later, two PCs and two NPCs decided to see what's on the other side. But, as we all know, magical gates are very untrustworthy. This particular one was in habit of tossing you to a randomly chosen location. And so it came to pass that the party landed straight into the Undermountain, right at the end of chapter one, and they were approached by Nathyrra. And then they got geased by Halaster. All of them. And they got transported to Lith My'athar…

Now, the Seer was expecting heroes, she expected a trustworthy band of companions ready to risk their lives in a struggle against the Valsharess, she expected a hardy band of typical AD&D adventurers… Well, she expected pretty much anything… except that which she got. And what she got was:

-One warrior-wizard human female who developed a serious case of paranoia during her last adventure and was now seeing demons everywhere and while she wasn't looking for demons under her bed, she spent most of her time brooding or pouting.
-One paladin of Tyr and the fiancée of the aforementioned girl who didn't develop any particular mental disorder (aside from the ones the paladins, being what they are, have by default) and who did have nerves of steel… which is a must-have when you're stuck with this kind of a crew.
-One elf archer with a steady hand, face of stone and eyes of ice who had all kinds of disorders including fear of closed spaces and above all, fear of drow who, during his previous adventure, managed to catch him, torture him and, somewhere near the end, kill him.
-And last, but not the least, one human barbarian-rogue female who, although human by blood, had a heart of an orc and a mind of a… well, debates about her mind are still going on… like, can she be said to have one at all.

And so – Once upon a time, on a prime far, far away, a brave band of adventurers got themselves teleported into Lith My'athar.

And with friends like these – Who needs enemies?