Grindler Deeprock, Don't Let the Meme be a Dream

[Mushroom Mushroom]

On February 2, 2021, my dad died suddenly due to heart failure, a combination of obesity, alcoholism, and drug use caused him to expire prematurely and suddenly. It was sudden, swift, and heart breaking. Grief and depression put me in a dark spot as I dealt with the sudden loss of close family. He was a man who adopted my brother and I brother after marrying my mom, a man who backed me in no matter what I did, even if he expressed his disapproval, and ensured I could lead a comfortable life. He was a role model and a upstanding man of principles who fought his own demons while being the best father he could, and I miss him dearly still.

When I made Grindler Deeprock, I wanted to find something to laugh at again, and EFU's environment and its own brand of absurdist humor appealed to me greatly. I wanted to bring Deeprock Galactic to EFU, a video game I've spent hundreds of hours playing as it truly is a thoroughly enjoyable experience. The premise of the game is that you're dwarves fighting back hordes of insectoid monsters in order to mine minerals for the Company you work for, and part of the fluff lore is that Karl, a missing miner, is well, missing. I transplanted this largely into EFU, a clan of dwarves who lived deep beneath the earth in the Underweald of Ring 98, wanting nothing to do with the world beyond, but forced to interact with it as the closest settlements were the Peerage Ward, the ponds, all human dominated wards.

I admittedly copy/pasted much of this lore/plot/fluff into EFU, and in retrospect, I should have at least changed names. However, in retrospect again, I didn't expect this to turn into a two month journey of Grindler and friends journeying repeatedly into the bowels of the earth, uncovering secrets of the Chitinoid Empire beneath and working beside alien allies to find Thane Karl Deeprock.

Grindler was a dwarf who hated the Peerage Ward but respected that the humans bled, fought, and died for this territory, and it was their place to set the rules and traditions within. He didn't want to rock boats, and sought to ally himself firmly to House Glitt, tantalizing and gifting relics of the King to them in exchange for a light shield of support from the antics of other Retainers belonging to other houses, if tossing the notion of clan fealty to the house in exchange for their aid in finding Karl Deeprock, their Thane.

None of it came to pass, of course, the Clan knew it couldn't fulfill the obligations of fealty to the Glitt, but the retainers of the House entertained it and protected them off and on, and that was enough to operate in the Peerage with little interference of the other Great Houses. He gathered supplies, met with allies, worked on behalf of the nobles, all to secure resources to find Karl.

The first break through came when they spotted a White Scarabi Titan after causing a Scarabi Swarm in the Infested Chambers, upon its chitinous head lay Karl's Axe.



And we met strange Scarabi Personalities...



But sadly, in the end, we failed our mission, but I am satisfied with the end of the story.



Thank you EFU for giving me a chance to laugh in grief and make a meme into a dream.

[Mushroom Mushroom]

In all seriousness though, don't make Papa Howlando mad, if you get inspiration, at least change the names a bit.  ;)

[SamB123]

I'm glad you had fun, Thomas. Watching this group from afar, it seemed like a hoot. Deeprock found Karl, even if they didn't save Karl. Good job!

[Poolson]

Aye lad.

[Jagged]

Well played! My condolences to all the dwarf and bug corpses we left along the way! Hehe!

[parthenos]

I hope you had fun, and wish you the best of luck in your future avenues.

[The Old Hack]

Alas! for Grindler, a marvelous dwarf I knew for all too brief a time. Thank you for the adventures and for the words of dour pragmatic wisdom.

[Vlaid]

Well done, an epic end like that is all can all hope for !  :D

[Dredi]

Man, Truely touching. - I only got to roleplay with you all briefly but it was a fun run :)

[HowlingLikeAWolf]

I've always enjoyed Spiffy's concepts because he just goes out and does things that are fun and interesting.

There's always a touch of absurdity to take the edge off any of the darker more dangerous stuff, and he's creative in his approaches to what he does, even if it's just a blatant homage to something as simple as another videogame. 

I can guarantee almost anything he does while not necessarily optimal mechanically, or aimed at attempting to climb the ever changing  hill of server relevancy, is going to be fun and interesting for all involved. 

He is effectively the meme-machine of EFU.

[Rey]

Can any Dungeons and Dragons player anywhere aspire to higher praise than meme-machine and always fun and interesting? Kudos.

I never got to run with Grindler much, he was from that older generation that taught my PC the basics. He was definitely fun and interesting though, and a couple of his lessons are, almost exactly word-for-word, how my PC passes them down to others today.

Well played.