Adventuring!, Thursday, Period 3

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Hopefully everyone enjoyed playing dressup last week because once again the Danger Shop was set up to look like a giant costume closet. There were fewer clothes for both men and women, because men's costumes seemed to mostly involve long cloaks that could go sweeping behind them dramatically, while women's costumes tended towards corsets. Lots and lots of corsets. He went with fewer costumes in the name of making sure all his students were comfortable with their options. The weapons were also more limited, variations on small blades, knives, daggers, and throwing implements, but there was a whole shelf of poisons they could look through, neat and tidy in small glass vials. Other shelves held alchemical potions with titles like 'smoke bomb', 'toxic cloud', and 'pitch.' The bottommost shelf held jars of bees for some reason, that buzzed angrily whenever anyone came near. In another corner was an armoire filled with blunderbusses and old-fashioned black powder pistols, ranging from the utilitarian to those with elaborate scrollwork and chased with gold or metal.

"'Sup," Hardison said, his greeting period-appropriate. "After last week, it seemed like there were a lot of y'all interested in the kind of class that favors speed an' dexterity over brute strength. So this week, we're learnin' about rogues, a must on any adventurin' party. Now, most rogues ain't big on dealin' out damage or suckin' hits the way your fighters are. Naw, instead, the real value a rogue brings to her team is her ability to get folks into an' outta places they ain't supposed to be in. Your standard rogue can pick locks, disable traps, an' use magic devices when there isn't a mage or wizard around to do the honors. They favor stealth an' cunnin' more than anythin' else an' can do a great deal of damage when they getcha from behind or when you're otherwise unaware. A fighter will wade into battle an' hit an enemy until it stops movin'. A rogue will sneak around, wait for the perfect opportunity to strike, and use whatever nasty tricks they have handy to make their hit count."

And if Hardison sounded a little fond of the rogue archetype, well...one only needed to look at the company he kept to figure out why.