"What ho! Clear a space!"

Up in the sky was neither a bird nor a plane, but a man with wings. Not the feathery kind or the leathery kind, but the kind that were made of metal and attached to some sort of thruster. The crowds below cleared a space as the man landed, kicking up a frankly dramatic amount of dust around himself. The cloud parts as features of this man come into view: The unkempt brown hair and pale skin of a person who spends most of their time in a workshop. The dress shirt underneath a brown leather jacket, a combination that says "Adventurous, yet civilized". Cargo pants and a bandoleer-satchel combo that allows one an absurd amount of storage space.

The cloud fully dissipated, the man pulls up his green-lensed goggles and gives a smile. It's Zander Quinn, the famous inventor from the east! He's known for utilizing magical items, using them in conjuction with the power of science. Impressive for his relatively young age. What's he doing here?

"Greetings, fellow artisans! My name is Zander Quinn, and I've come to throw my metaphorical hat in the ring!" He says, as he presses a button on the thruster behind him, causing the wings to retract inwards. He continues: "You see, after my success with inventing, tinkering, alchemy, and several other crafts, I've decided to give good-old smithing a try! I've brought along with me several prototype items, and what better place for a market demand survey than this?"

Zander opens his satchel, pulling out a small capsule. He tosses it into the air above him, and it explodes in a puff of smoke. Falling out of the smoke, however, is an all-black morningstar, landing in Zander's outstretched hand. Amidst the crowd's assorted "oooo"s and "aaaah"s, he approaches the youth.

"Now, young lady, if I understand correctly, you're seeking an afforable-yet-high-quality item, are you not? Well, look no further! I present to you the |Revolving||Graphite||Morningstar||Of Consumption|!"

Zander brandishes the weapon, giving a couple of practice swings. Even in his wimpy nerd arms, the weapon still gives a fine woosh. He resumes his pitch:

"The morningstar itself is a fine weapon; Simpler to use than it's cousin, the flail, yet deadlier and spiker than it's sister, the mace. Capable of bashing AND thrusting, it's a great weapon for a newly proclaimed adventurer such as yourself. But, if you have arms such as mine, should you be having some trouble landing heavy blows..."

He squeezed a button on the hilt, causing the head of the morningstar to start spinning rapidly with a loud WHHHIIIIIIIIRRRRR, frightening some of the closer folk. Zander simply grins and he releases the button, the spinning coming to a stop immediately.

"If the sound alone doesn't end the fight, the next blow you land surely will. And, of course, the release of the button stops it, should you drop it or otherwise lose your grip. Safety reasons, you see."

Zander gestures to the graphite head with his free hand.

"Now, you might be wondering, 'Graphite? The stuff pencils are made out of? What kind of material is that for a weapon?'. Firstly, pencils are actually made out of a combination of powdered graphite and clay, but that's besides the point. Graphite is pure, crystalized carbon. Not only does that make it extremely sharp, but it also makes it an investment."

He turns to address the crowd.

"And what else is pure carbon?!"

"Coal?"

"... Ah, no. That's primarily Carbon, but also contains sulfur, nitrogen, et cetera... Anyone else?"

"Oil?"

"What? No, that's... hydrocarbon. It's hydrogen and carbon along with other miscellaneous elements, no, anyone? Come now."

"Oh! I've got it! Fullerenes!"

"That's a- Yes, that is pure carbon, but it's a nanocarbon! How'd you even know that?! I'd like a talk with you afterwards, but no! Guys, it's diamond! Diamond is pure, crystalized carbon as well as graphite!"

There's a collective murmuring of "ooooooh"s and "right"s. Zander gives a sigh and turns back to the teenager.

"Should you accept this weapon, go on a couple of quests, rake in the money, and return to me (or another smith that has an industrial pressure chamber), I can turn this morningstar into pure diamond! And for a modest fee, at that!"

He hefts the weapon in his hands a couple of times, preparing the final section of his presentation.

"You're probably thinking about the 'Of Consumption' part now, hm? Well, I won't lie to you: Graphite, while sharp, is a cheap, brittle material. Being crystal does that. But what if I told you that, should you keep slaying your foes, you will never need to repair this weapon? Why, you ask? Well, because it DRINKS THE BLOOD OF YOUR ENEMIES TO ABSORB INTO ITSELF!"

A collective gasp of surprise spreads throughout the crowd.

"That's right! Every living thing has carbon in it, and I've designed this weapon to consume it! Just splatter a bit of blood on there, let the morningstar DRRRINK up the carbon in the blood, and it's as good as new! I've effectively negated the material quality's drawbacks... for the most part at least. It'll still shatter when used against non-fleshy things, but hey, can't change everything. And, ah, try not to cut yourself with it."

Finally, Zander leans in a little.

"And, of course, as you can see... It comes in black. Very sleek. Quite fashionable."

This not only could not be any farther from the truth, as Briar is really nice and how she was treated by CoG was pretty unexcusable, but also really shows that average CoG people will seek to shame anyone if it means they'll win an argument.

Who's the real bad people here.

Once again:

W O M E N

WOMEN, am I right?

Pink is the problem player. Pink was a tyfling warlock (can you see where this is going?) that had every cliche imaginable. She constantly interrupted me when I was trying to speak, was on her phone till combat, constantly told people their roleplay was bad, spoke down to me and claimed her other DMS were better (I was 3 years younger than her at the time). I eventually spoke to her outside the group, which resulted in her trying to murder hobo her way through the campaign. Anyway, I eventually kicked her ass out and moved the father and son duo to a better game with more positive players. I heard recently she tried to run a pathfinder campaign which went awfully, with players dropping out because of poor quality.

That's very not cool. You were a new DM and the lady seemed to just want to powergame or something, from what you're saying she didn't seem actually interested. A shame that you had to direct the duo somewhere else, but I'm glad that you're doing better than that other lady. I am also glad that did not put you off DMing, because you're really good at it.

Basically one player’s girlfriend WOULD NOT LEAVE HIM ALONE. Ever. She’d call him every five minutes of the session, demand pictures of who he was with ect ect. Eventually we invited her to the session so she’d stop. Bad move. Basically she demanded an in game relationship with her partner and tried to describe flirting between them, which made everyone uncomfortable and is the reason I don’t do romance in my games anymore. Eventually she moved away after they broke up, but it was a weird few weeks.

I myself have never personally experienced both possessive relationships or extreme preferential treatment of significant others in DnD. The latter is because usually DnD couples are cool and both understand that becoming OP isn't fun, but I have seen em get a couple more magical items than normal, but it's tolerable. The former I have experienced secondhand happening to people I know, and that's probably one of the worst types of relationships to be in. Top 5 for sure.

But I DO know is couples making people uncomfortable. Get a different room. That's not allowed.

Not gonna lie, I also am kinda adverse to romance in DnD because of a bad experience, but it's sad to see that you've metaphorically closed of your heart to it. It can be a great character-building tool. Especially if you KILL the people they grow attached to.

Essentially a player (male) was really, aggressively into one female NPC that travelled with the party for a while. She was pretty timid, but I am not currently (confidence has come easily to me because I’ve realised I’m incredibly sexy). Anyway, he asked me out. I said yes because I am a people pleaser. We lasted one date before I realised he wasn’t into me. He was into the NPC. He wanted to date the NPC I was playing. Obviously I avoided him from then on.

Dang. While I am glad that you have a great amount of self confidence, it is sad to hear that someone only liked your personality because of your character. That's no good. I think I can relate, because I've played DnD with people who didn't really know me, and I guess they sorta thought the character I was playing was a self-insert or something. Whenever we hanged out afterwards, they would see that I was not a gigachad or smart guy or furry because I was playing a dragonborn druid.

Mixed feelings aside, this is a nice, quick thing that you did. Very timely. Good quality for how recent the source material occurred.