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This past weekend I was fortunate enough to participate in what will probably be the best and most amazing birthday party I’ve ever attended.

Not to outdo miss Panda, but I feel the need to detail the awesomeness. Videos under the jump as well, so make sure to read this one. For those who attended the party, please let me know if I missed anything!

The birthday boy arrives to a houseful of people yelling “SURPRISE!” Little does he know upon walking in that he is standing in a treacherous lava flo, and immediately dies, having to start over again. The floor is covered with lava-colored fabric, complete with rock-colored stepping stones of fabric. Each time he starts over, the household yells “SURPRISE!” again, and it takes two or three times to make it to the save point. The save point consists of a glowing string of lights under a piece of cloth, on the stairway. He will be spending a lot of time coming back to this point. Save often!

Jack then introduces himself as a grizzled and hardened veteran adventurer, and will be acting as a party member of his for the extent of his adventures. Jenny and Lillyxandra play the part of helpful faeries, reminding Matt to save, and providing him with periodic health potions (small vials of straight rum).

After getting a chance to quick glance around the house and see that it was done up completely, he is given his pair of default weaponry, which consists of two ‘crappy plastic swords’ with dozens of thumbtacks taped to them, making them look ghetto as hell. Upon asking the shopkeeper for better or different weapons, he is informed that he can not get anything until he returns with more gold.

The grizzled Jack now leads Matt to the beginning of his adventure, the tutorial. (It’s important to point out that every landmark/room/area has a paper with a blue final fantasy-style menu with things like “Start tutorial? Yes/No” on them.) He is told that he will be indulging in one of his greatest fantasies, but will also have to face a humiliating fact. Upon accepting the tutorial, he opens a door to see…

…a room filled with balloons. Filled. Filled filled filled. Hundreds of balloons of all shapes and sizes; big fat ones, thin wiener ones, water balloons. He’s given the instructions to pop EVERY. BALLOON. Every single one. He looks down at his newly-acquired instruments of ghetto thumbtack pointy destruction and unleashes pure balloon-popping fury. Seconds turn to minutes, and he gives it his all, whittling the huge roomful of balloons down to a scattered hundred or so. In between pants, he is informed that he did, indeed, need to pop all of the balloons. So he finally does.

Once he is finished he discoveres a pouch in the room. Inside, is a lone Mona Lisa action figure. It’s revealed by Grizzled Jack that Matt harbors a secret crush on the cartoon character. Humiliation. Matt is given a gold reward for his success.

Then, he works his way to the castle (livingroom), where he’s given time to to search it for any random coinage. Tiny chests filled with gold and gems are scattered around the room. While he is searching the room, NPCs periodically come up to him to talk to him, and also stand in his way, obstructing his passage for a few seconds until they move out of the way and let him by.

With his newfound gold reward from the tutorial quest, and his new-found plunder from searching the castle, Matt heads back to the Natural 20 Tavern. The tavern is fully furnished with all make and manner of weaponry and magical items, as well as a full feast of ham, chicken, breads, cheeses, and POTATO SALAD! With his awards, the shopkeeper deems his currency enough to get a small plastic fishing pole with a magnet on the end of it, which he will soon find to be necessary.

With his new fishing pole loots, he wanders out to the back, where he finds a stream made from some blue acetate, and a bridge over it made from a sort of wood-panel fabric/cloth. On either side of the bridge are assorted fish to fish up. He stands on the bridge and fishes up all of the fish. Back to the shopkeeper in The Natural 20 Tavern! The shopkeeper sells him more miscellany, like some armor, and upgrades his spikey swords to a baseball bat.

On his way back out to quest, his is stopped by the most beautiful of fair maidens, Princess Maryssa. She is distressed, and tells him how her village has been corrupted, a dark shadow has fallen over it, and it’s citizens have been corrupted. He agrees, purchasing a potion which will lift the shadowy veil and heads to the village.

Upon heading to the village, he is surprised to find the bridge that he was just on fishing has now been destroyed, and the river is impassable. What to do, what to do. Heading back to the Tavernkeep, he furiously barters and is awarded with a pair of magical (inflatable) wings, which will allow him passage over the river.

Upon arriving back to the foot of the river, he starts to cross it when he is informed that he needs to make a Flying roll to see if he can make it across. The ninja clan of Dice, consisting of Oizys, Xenon, myself and a friend of Oizys, quickly deploy the ancient randomizing artifact, a very large metal D20.

His first roll is a 7. Not good enough! He makes his attempt and fails. Drying himself off, the dice ninjas and myself deploy the dice again, and he rolls, this time a 17. Success! He flaps across the river.

Reaching the other side, he drinks the potion (more rum!) which removes the dark veil (black sheet) from the village, to see a corrupted town of monsters, (a legion of about a dozen or so pinatas of various sizes, stuffed with plastic gold coins.) He immediately breaks out a furious attack.

This onslaught is depicted below, mind the dark lighting:

He spends a good five minutes defeating each and every last corrupted villager, some with weaponry, some with ripping apart with his bare hands. Every last coin was collected. It’s time to head back! However, right before he attempts to cross the stream again, A SLIME APPROACHES.

Periodically throughout the night, on the way to the save point, in the middle of an encounter, or even in the middle of a sentence, Matt was attacked by a Slime. More specifically, a jello shot. Little store-bought jello shots in little cups with rip-off lids, with googly eyes on them. Genius.

The above encounter is illustrated in the below video:

As you can see, after defeating the deadly JelloSlime, another roll is required to cross back over the river. Myself and the other dice ninjas, as you can see in the above video, deploy the die. He rolls an 18, and succeeded in flying back over the river.

Another trip to the tavern, another save, our brave and noble adventurer Matt is growing weary. He meets up with Grizzled Jack and is informed he’s now ready to face one of his greatest fears in battle.

The boss fight comes as a surprise, as it is revealed to be VEGI-TIBLES. Matt jumps the gun, catching the table of veggies flat footed, and ambushes them, slaying the various veggies and tomatoes instantly. One of the veggies however, turns out to be a tomato-shaped sippycup, filled with a vile noxious fluid in which Matt has has to bravely drink from. After many cheers, he downed a long swig of the concoction, (standing near him, he exhaled pure alcohol fumes after, so it was something really strong.) He is awarded for his bravery and heads back, once again, to The Natural 20 Tavern for the final time in the evening, making sure to save, of course.

With the rest of his treasure and rewards, he works with the shopkeeper to all but clean out the store. He purchases some ‘buffs,’ (a pair of fabric-stuffed cloth ‘muscle arms’ to wear,) some armor, and weapon upgrades. His last award at the tavern is the most powerful buff of all, a “Birthday Jedi” badge which he pins to himself. Quite the powerful buff.

The time has come. Matt has completed all the quests, has upgraded all his weaponry, is fully buffed, and has been deemed sufficiently powerful enough to face the final gamut of bosses. The crowd cheered cheers on, and the dice ninjas and myself asked him one final time if he was prepared, and told him that we had faith him. Stepping up to the garage…

He enters the final dungeon….

Opening the door, slowly, he is greeted by his most dreaded of enemies… his deepest, darkest fears incarnate. A five foot tall clown pinata, wearing a “Tiny Hat.” (Think of the Elegan Gothic Lolita ‘tiny hats,’ Matt hates them. Hates.) In the most impressive display of rage and fury I have ever seen, Matt quickly dispatches the clown, and then proceeds to rip it apart with his bare hands.

Illustrated below, in video. Please note that during this and all posted videos the ‘background music’… there was a portal iPod speaker system playing all kinds of appropiate RPG music throughout the evening, to help illustrate what was going on.

Roll credits.

The rest of the evening was filled with wine, women, song, and Matt sitting at his throne eating Trader Joe’s 4-cheese mac and cheese, drinking, ordering the wenches around and throwing gold at people to do his bidding. Quite the occasion. Let me know if I missed anything, or if any public pictures are available to link, and I’ll edit accordingly.

Like I said before, this is the most amazing birthday party I have ever been to, childhood ones included, and probably the most amazing birthday I will ever attend. Many thanks to all of those who helped put together such an awesome occasion. I was glad to be a part of it. Such an awesome group of people, and I’m glad to know them. Many thanks as well to Matt, for being such a radical dude and subject to so many peoples Bromance.