Story Time | "Sir Percival Plays a Tabletop RPG"

He was the son of Lancelot, a Knight of the Round Table, and, above all, sole locater of the Holy Grail—praise be unto God. A drink from the Grail, he soon learned, bestowed unto one eternal life ere the Second Coming of Christ.  So, naturally, he drank it. What man had yet lived who would turn away an opportunity to never taste death? What the knight failed, alas, to consider was the heartrending weight of immortality. When Camelot finally imploded, he was left with little to do but wander the country and help wherever he could. His everlasting youth forced him to outlive those he loved and those he would come to love. Apart from the loneliness, however, he was bored. Very bored. What did one do when saving maidens, crusading, and jousting became boring? Over the following years, he tried myriad occupations, each granting some manner of diversion for a time, and yet he was always forced to eventually depart, lest death’s aversion to him become an object of suspicion and fear like it had that one unfortunate time in Worcestershire when they tried to burn him at the stake for cavorting with the Devil in exchange for long life.

Eventually, the world had no more room for knights, but a few boring and lonely centuries later, Percival received news of the discovery of an entirely new continent. What better place to start over than a new hemisphere of the world? He assumed his old nobleman identity and founded a colony in the Carolinas (now lost to history, but that suited Lord Percy Valentine just fine). It was called Tolemac and lasted about a month before the colonists became frustrated and emigrated to other settlements, leaving their incompetent “lord” behind to rot. Thusly did Percival disappear, and he started over.

Eventually, the world had no more room for rebels and pioneers, and the new continent was completely populated. A couple of boring and lonely centuries later, it was a new millennium. Things that would have been witchcraft in his day abounded. Men spoke and composed letters across unfathomable distances instantaneously. Feudal lords lived in brick towers and the serfs could leave whenever they wanted (or if they couldn’t pay their homage on time). Men (stupidly) denied the existence of the Lord God without fear of death. Women had transcended the established order and now occupied seats of knowledge and power. Everyone could read, and very few needed to farm for food.

So what? He had watched all of this happen over time and was able to adjust accordingly. There were still no more knights, nowhere else to explore. The globe was circumnavigated every day. Wars were fought not for God and Country, but for the whims and squabbles of weak men in formalwear. Supposedly great spiritual leaders were naught but Chaucerian charlatans seeking contributions from their congregations for their fourth flying metal tube. There was no more honor or chivalry left in the world.

Or so he thought.

He had been a young man when he drank of the Cup of Christ, twenty or so, and had learned to blend in amongst the youth of every new generation. He knew the slang and mannerisms of a thousand years, plus some. Eighteen or so years into the new millennium, Percival found that his current circle of friends included one Garrett, a bookish lad a year out of high school with a scrawny build, yet a distended stomach—another odd departure from his times. Garrett seemed to have an unhealthy fascination with monsters and assuming other identities, and one day invited Percival to do the same.

Well, not exactly.

“It’s like a game,” Garrett explained to him, “I know you hate math and numbers and stuff but it’s really not about that. It’s about chance and imagination and just having fun with your friends. You get to go on adventures and fight monsters and drink mead, then save the world. I’ll even help you fill out your character sheet. Doesn’t that sound fun, man?”

It did indeed. This was the first time anyone had seriously talked about these things to him in almost two thousand years. Apparently, Garrett and his friends gathered whenever their conflicting schedules permitted and sat around a—Percival couldn’t believe his ears—a round table and feasted and then commenced with their adventuring from there. But it was a game? He couldn’t quite remember what Garrett had called it; something about prisons and flagons. He had been too excited at the prospect of resuming knighthood to care. Percival asked for time off work (a humiliation he had long since accustomed himself to) and made sure to remember the exact time and date of their meeting, down to the millisecond. He would not be late.

That Saturday, he journeyed to Garrett’s apartment and ascended the fifty steps to reach the necessary corridor. The lights in the sketchy apartment complex were of a dim and eldritch cast, so Percival was forced to employ his phone’s flashlight to find the correct rune-inscribed doorplate demarking Garrett’s chambers. With his torch aloft and keys still clutched in the other hand like a sword, he ventured down the grim passage at a steady pace. Every door was the same, save for the occasional marker-inscribed vandalism transcribed in dark tongues he could not make out (as well as ones he could that were rather revolting, regardless). Where was Room 6D? They had started at Q and seemed to be moving backwards from there. Surely his voyage had not been in vain; he would reach the end and reclaim that which was lost so many years ago! The electric torchlight at last illumined the plastic placard bearing the inscription he sought. Heart racing, he rapped on the door three times. The bespectacled face of his friend greeted him, and they both smiled.

“You made it!” said Garrett. “Early, too. No one else is here, yet, but that’s fine—that gives us time to fill out your character sheet. Are you ready to be a hero?”

Percival nearly shed a tear. “Yes.”

“Well, come in,” Garrett’s smile faltered slightly, perhaps at the profound joy he saw in the old-young knight’s eyes. He stepped aside and allowed Percival to enter.

 “I’m GMing tonight,” Garrett said from the dingy kitchenette as Percival approached the table, “so I’ll go easy on you since it’s your first time.”

The middling-sized table was battered, clearly secondhand, but it was lovingly maintained regardless. It was encircled by sundry chairs and cluttered with strange plastic dice, tiny figurines, and sheets of paper. A laminated cardboard screen stood like a monolith before the nicest of the chairs—a high-backed thing resembling a poor man’s throne. A few thick tomes were piled next to this chair, all bearing titles like BESTIARY and ADVANCED MAGIC GUIDE and CORE RULEBOOK.

“Are we really performing magic?” Percival enquired, a tinge of concern tainting his tone.

“Depends,” said Garrett, approaching Percival with two canned drinks, one in each hand, “did you want to be a mage? Darren’s gonna play a tattooed sorcerer for this one-shot.”

“No, thank you; I’d rather not muck about with things not meant for mere mortals.” Not again, anyway, Percival added mentally.

“Alright, if that’s the direction you want your character to go. Sit down, we’ll fill out a sheet. I think I know the perfect class for that attitude.”

Garrett proposed that Percival be a Paladin, a warrior of light in the service of God, with shining armor, sword, and shield, and able to perform holy wonders like the Apostles of old. Garrett was right—that suited him very much. They rolled dice, but not like men in taverns did, with coin on the line. There was nothing real at stake, he was told; but the numbers would either help or hinder his adventure.

Soon, the rest of his “party” showed up. First came Darren, the sorcerer who inscribed spells on his own flesh. His real-world arms—visible due to his graphic tee—were already sleeved with images of beasts, skulls, flowers, and other strange markings. He was even bearded, but not as impressively as Merlin had been. Next arrived Carla, the Bard. She was a slightly plump young woman, but fair in her own right. Percival had never cared for the half-starved women popular in this land, anyway. She seemed fond of dressing herself in black, contrasted by her neon-pink hair, and wore cat ear headphones that had prevented her from hearing Percival’s first greeting. Finally came Jacob, the Ranger. He was tall and scruffy and dressed in browns and blacks with a camo-print jacket, but seemed far too loud and jovial to Percival to make an actual hunter.

Thus assembled, Garrett sank into the chair behind the screen and began to speak to them like a master storyteller. Percival quickly lost himself in the words:

No, he was not Percival, son of Lancelot, Knight of the Round Table, sole locater of the Holy Grail; he was Orin the Bright, vanquisher of darkness, and he had assembled with his most trusted friends and allies with the singular purpose of delving into a horrible subterranean ruin to fight monsters, obtain treasure, and eventually foil the plans of a Demon Lord and his armies of darkness.

It felt strange to have to roll dice to be able to use his sword and shield, but he soon understood the necessity. If the Lord God did not play dice with destiny, it at least seemed necessary for a mere man to know if his blade was fated to rend the flesh of goblins and enormous spiders. The strangeness did not end with him, however. Percival did not recall bards being able to almost magically sway one’s emotions in any situation—let alone in the middle of battle—but it quickly proved advantageous. He had also never once met a man who could unlock doors with a tattoo, or a hunter who rode on the back of an enormous white wolf.

They were unstoppable. No creature of darkness could stand in their way, and certainly no Demon Lord—

Darren yawned. “Guys, it’s getting late. I gotta work early tomorrow.”

“Yeah, me too,” Carla conceded.

“I guess we’ll call it a night, then,” said Garrett. He looked at Percival. “Same time next week?

Though disappointed that the adventure was halted, Percival nodded, smiling. “I would be honored to quest with you all again.” He bowed his head and shed a single, joyful tear. “Deeply honored.”

It had been far too long.