Polymer Chemistry meets Dungeon's and Dragons

Lalaith Va'lash · 12-06-06, 04:59 PM

Currently a graduate student for Art Conservation, I have the pleasure of studying Polymer chemistry. Recently we just finished a lab on the Identification of the protein binders for Albumin Photo's vs. Gelatin Photos based on the Amino acids present. I thought it needed to be spiced up a bit, so now it has a DnD theme.
I thought you might appriciate the lab report I wrote *grins* Enjoy!

A Quest of Chromatographic proportions:

Introduction: It is the year 611 CNS, in a world of heroes, enemies exist from the smallest goblins, orcs, or kobals to dragons and ancient evils (like polymer alchemists) that rule the lands. A party is gathered for hire from a small region known as Conservationous Labrotorious, their task, a quest to seek out and identify the most dangerous and elusive evils to determine which is at work. The hiring patron has narrowed it down to a brother and sister pair, an evil elven wizard named Gelatina Photographous or her older brother a cutthroat shadowdancing rogue, Albumin Photographous. The party must figure out who is at work before the next moon, for fear of something so evil, it cannot be repeated even in text.
Now, as the story goes, both of the pair are tricky, often in cahoots with their cousins from their mother Amino Acidilda’s side of the family. It is imperative to understand exactly which one is at work however, since the treatment of their demise, is quite different. Now it is true, due to the differences in their handy work, it is often possible to know who is behind the evil plot by looking on the surface alone, however, these two can be very elusive, so that is not always so. In these cases we result to other means, and so the quest continues……
Methods of Madness: The party gathers up and role call is taken, there are many present to aid in the search, eleven in total. A rogue elf specializing in pois—er, alchemy, a human paladin in shining (hand made!) armour, a halfling bard who asks too many questions, a red-headed elven illusionist, a dwarven druid: friend to nature, twin priestesses followers of the goddess of pleasure and pain, a wizard both knowledgeable and kind, a elven monk with both style and grace, a strange ranger from the north with a funny accent, and last but not least a sorcerer of epic proportions (played by the DM, of course).
With the party in place, they plan their first battle. Knowing that Gelatina is never without Amino Acidilda’s nephew Hydroxy Pro Lin, a very talented illusionist himself, it is almost certain that the two will be traveling together under the cover of invisibility. This is lucky however since Hydroxy Pro Lin is very noticeable and never without his flashy rose colored cloak of proteinacous protection +3. By simply casting Erhlich’s spell of see invisibility it should be obvious if Hydroxy and therefore Gelatina is present. Albumin Photographous, is a bit more sneaky though, and a simple see invisibility spell will not reveal him when he is hiding.
To further identify which of the two is hiding it is possible to track their movements in “phases”. By tossing an acid flask into The Miniert, a common hideout for these two and then “gently” heating the hideout at its source, the culprit is bound to leave hiding. It is then that a true seeing spell using the spell component, small bottle of Ninhyrdin, can be cast and the culprit revealed.
Results:
As the party approached the battle the wizard cast Erhlich’s spell of see invisibility, and nothing was revealed. This lead to the conclusion that it could not be Gelatina present, and Albumin Photographous was the most likely the culprit, but they had to be sure… They needed to track the culprit further.
After following to the hideout, cautiously the party rogue snuck in rolling an acid flask along the bottom of The Cave of Miniert. Then the sorcerer was asked to cook up a little bit of heat. Now, remember that sorcerer’s spells are based on the attribute of charisma, so when he rolled his wisdom check of 4 on a 2d20 die, that +9 Cha modifier wasn’t going to help a bit. He decided it was wise to cast an empowered fireball to produce the heat. Being a level 22 sorcerer he was able to use the full 10d6 damage dice when the fireball was cast, being empowered it was one and a half times as powerful! The fireball did 77 fire damage, doing a little more than warming the hideout… consequently the culprit was able to sneak out the back while smoke and flame poured from The Miniert!
Er… take two: Being the DM the sorcerer decided it would be okay to make a reroll on that one . . .
This time, after following to the hideout, cautiously the party rogue snuck in rolling an acid flask along the bottom of The Cave of Miniert. Then the sorcerer was asked to cook up a little bit of heat, rolling a 1d20 Wisdom check, he rolled a 20 this time, critical success! He knew that it would be wise to cast the cantrip flare to create the heat.
Following this the elven illusionist cast true sight on the fearless paladin using up the rare spell component small bottle of Ninhyrdin. The paladin looked and looked all around, but no tracks could even be found of either Gelatina or Albumin Photographous. It was a sad day in for the region of Conservationous Labrotorious to be sure. Some suspect that the rogue may have mixed up the acid flask a little under in its potency, but it may never be known.
The party determined though that this was most definitely the work of Albumin Photographous, despite not being able to confirm it with his presence they were sure that Gelatina was not there that day, and it could be none other than Albumin Photographous.
So the party went home empty handed, well, not quite empty handed the dwarven druid adopted a baby carrot along the way. Next time will be better though, so stay tuned… as The Quest of Chromatographic Proportions continues!
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