KB: 165, Rooms: 68, Objects: 317, Tasks: 787, Events: 6, Characters: 40

Introduction

Much has changed…

The only important thing being that you are now no longer a mere farmboy dreaming of marrying a rich and beautiful princess. You are now a rich and powerful noble, the Lord of Stroppenheim Castle, with more money than you know what to do with (although your parents, who decided to move in with you (much to your dismay) have had little trouble in disposing of your money themselves…) Your dreams of marrying a beautiful princess are still with you, but moving further and further away with each passing day; rumour has it that Princess Isabella is to be married to the Black Hell Prince of Chaos Island and given her own slave farm to manage. You hope she'll be happy...

But you haven't the time to worry about what might have been between you and the princess, you have your own problems to deal with. Not the least of which is the massive dragon threatening to destroy your castle and everyone inside it (yourself included).

It all came to a head not long after your arrival in Stroppenheim Castle. It was not a nice place. Wights in the basement, goblins camping out in the master bedroom, even the odd clump of devil spawn to banish… and a large egg you found in the upstairs privy. It was a strange egg, being about the size of a football, and completely spherical in shape, red in colour, and weighing at least four times as much as it should have.

"What do you suppose it is?" you asked Rancid, a man from the king's court who was soon to be your butler.

And Rancid, ever on the ball with a stupid answer to a stupid question, replied, "an egg."

To which you replied, "oh, you arse, it's a rhetorical question!"

"No," said Rancid. "It's an egg."

Despairing of the argument, you promptly flushed the egg down the toilet.

It disappeared without trace and, you decided, that was an end to the matter. After all, you had more important matters to deal with: getting the castle houseworthy (or castleworthy) for a start, and the nasty business of rulership: taxes, flogging the natives, passing laws, flogging the natives, expanding your boundaries, flogging the natives… It was all looking to be quite a challenge.

Several months passed…

(and were broken by nothing more than the occasional tap of a key)

Then, one day when you were least expecting it, Stimmons (formerly the lad who mucked out the castle privies but now your elite bodyguard) came and informed you there was a dragon at the door.

"A dragon?" you replied.

Stimmons nodded.

"You're sure it was a dragon?"

Stimmons nodded again and indicated his left arm. It was on fire.

"Ah," you said. "A dragon indeed…"

The dragon in question was slouched outside your castle, munching on a couple of your servants who were looking a little the worse for wear. It regarded you indifferently when you announced yourself and asked what it wanted.

"I'M HERE FOR ME BROTHER," it grunted, sounding at the same time whiny and petulant and intimidating and furious.

"You're er… brother?" you asked.

The dragon spat out a partially-digested servant (who saw this as a golden opportunity to make himself scarce) and loomed over you. It was very good at this sort of thing what with being fifty feet tall.

"YES, ME BROTHER," it said. "ME MUM WAS 'ERE THE OTHER DECADE AND SHE ONLY WENT AN' LEFT ONE OF HER BLEEDIN' EGGS IN THAT THERE CASTLE OF YOURS AND THEN BUGGERED OFF AN' FORGOT SHE'D EVEN DONE IT. NOW SHE'S REMEMBERED AND SHE WANTS OUR SAM BACK. SO 'AND 'IM OVER BEFORE I LOSES ME TEMPER."

Sam? you thought. Visions of the large egg you flushed down the toilet spring to mind. Followed by the words oh bugger…

"Er, it might… er, take a while… to er, retrieve, er, Sam…" you said.

"I'M NOT IN ANY RUSH PERSONALLY," roared the dragon in a friendly-ish sort of way. "I PASSED A CONVENT ON THE WAY HERE AND I'M QUITE PARTIAL TO THE ODD NUN SO I MIGHT JUST 'EAD OVER THERE AND HAVE MESELF A NIBBLE OR TWO. I'LL BE BACK IN A WEEK. YOU JUST MAKE SURE YOU'VE GOT OUR SAM READY FOR ME WHEN I GET BACK."

And without further ado (aside from taking a bite out of your favourite serving maid, Doris), the dragon launched himself into the air and flew off for desserts.

"Rancid!" you called.

"Sir?" replied Rancid from his current vantage point which happened to be two hundred feet away behind a rather large wall.

"Find out where that privy goes, Rancid. We've got a dragon egg to retrieve."

And that's the background to ONNAFA - Oh No Not Another Fantasy Adventure. Maybe not the best fantasy adventure you'll play this year but certainly the only one that begins with you flushing a dragon egg down the privy.