Let me tell you a story about a warrior who never actually existed, named Brock Stonefist. One night recently, I was playing Dungeons and Dragons Adventurers League online, after months of not playing (scheduling conflicts). It was a relief to finally play again. The character I used was a High Elf wizard, similar to the one I retired recently, but more in the Conjuration school than Abjuration (plus the character was designed better with the benefit of hindsight). Meet Sael Teinithra.
Anyhow, Sael had one spell called Silent Image which conjures up an illusion that is visual only, but can be controlled to mimic human movement and action. It doesn’t do or say anything, but it looks cool.
During a fight against some fire monsters, I decided that my party members needed help, so I had Sael cast Silent Image to conjure up the image of a warrior in hopes that it could draw some of the monsters away. To make the effect more convincing, I decided to make the illusion look like a beefy combatant, and I tentatively named him “Brock Stonefist” for no good reason.
Needless to say, Brock Stonefist did nothing useful during the fight. The monsters were not drawn away, and I couldn’t maneuver Brock Stonefist anywhere fast enough to get ahead of the battle. So, it was a bust.
After the night’s adventuring was over, we joked about it the following day on the local Discord channel. One player quipped “you got problems? We got Brock Stonefist.”
To which I replied …
Turns out that someone else on the Discord channel was following Discord on their work laptop and right when they gave a presentation at work (i.e, in the meat world), their screen popped up a message during the presentation that said:
Brock Stonefist is a one-man solution to every problem.
I have been told that the other people in the meeting were confused but had a good chuckle.
For an adventurer that didn’t actually exist in any sense, let alone make any meaningful contribution, he made his mark…. Stonefist Style!! 💪🏼💥🎸🎶
Gleanings in Buddha-Fields 