It’s a tradition in the Bureau of Balance to haze new members by getting them to challenge Davenport to strategy games and then watching him annihilate them. Davenport seems to like it, and it’s hilarious to watch this goofy little gnome utterly destroy any sense of ego these newbies have. Sometimes there are accusations of cheating or rigging the game going around, but no, he really is that good.
Obviously, someone tries to pull this on the new reclaimers. Taako folds about two rounds in and just sits there buffing his nails, and Magnus loses pretty handily, but Merle and Davenport are… weirdly well matched? Like, it’s not that Merle is better at the game than anyone else, but he doesn’t fall for any of Davenport’s usual tricks or bluffs. It’s like someone handed him a cheat sheet of all Davenport’s tells, except that Davenport is reading him right back, so within ten minutes they’re both making these bizarre moves that no one could have predicted to counter these equally strange strategies the other one is throwing out, and Magnus keeps chiming in “helpfully”, and it’s really not helpful but it does seem slightly more in tune with how Merle and Dav are playing than anything anyone else who’s watching picks up on.
It ends up lasting five hours, with Davenport victorious. “You win again, C-” Merle says, before his train of thought gets unexpectedly derailed and he forgets what he’s gonna say.
“Davenport,” says Davenport smugly. They shake hands and meet up again a week later. Everyone in the Bureau is shooketh. The Director chugs another fishbowl of fermented grape juice.
One of my favorite categories of taz headcanon is “random stuff lucretia forgot to erase”
The classic “elves in Faerun don’t echolocate”
The one where Magnus jumps up behind Davenport as part of rogue training and Davenport yells “Magnus, stop doing that!!!” 100% reflexively
A fic I read one time where Taako and Magnus got into some lengthy debate about Fantasy Iron Chef or Fantasy Survivor or something while a local with no concept of television listened in like “How?? Were you watching these people??? Guys??”
Magnus stripping naked in front of Lucretia doesn’t twig as weird to anyone in the room
Davenport can’t hold a conversation, but he can and will destroy you at any strategy game you put in front of him
Addendum: sometimes he and Merle play some sort of elaborately house ruled poker with a tarot deck and no one else can figure out what’s going on but they don’t seem to be improvising and they never actually discussed the house rules before implementing them?
Magnus punches a plate of cookies out of Avi’s hands because those have hazelnuts in them and don’t you know the Director is allergic?? (He didn’t know. Nobody knew. Merle and Taako knew)
Merle starts up some drinking song that nobody on this entire moon has ever heard before but Magnus jumps right in. Taako rolls his eyes but joins in on the chorus. The Director can correctly identify it within two lines.
Lydia and Edward actually have no freaking clue what Dupree is (malformed dragon?) but Merle and Magnus are just “ah yes. A t-rex”
Barry Bluejeans is a fighter but that one mission involving a necromancer he recognized the ritual immediately and made fun of the guy for using an inefficient circle.
Content like that. I live for it.
Magnus getting naked in the middle of a meeting with the Director and receiving no reaction is my favorite not-canon-but-canon instance where Lucretia forgets that she’s not supposed to let on that she spent a lifetime sharing a home with these doofuses
You guys should go check out out The Day of Story and Thong. Its a Burlesque show themed after TAZ. You should express that you want to see them travel because they have full Mcelroy permission and are raising money for charity. https://www.facebook.com/events/1851537514905496/?ti=cl
this is nuts but it sounds like something you guys would like so??? go ham???
so i saw a bunch of people tagging this with things along the line of “barry bluejeans tho” and i realized i hadn’t looked at any of their photos and uh
YEAH MR. BLUEJEANS CAN GET IT
THIS GUY’S STAGE NAME IS FLRT VONNEGUT BTW
I LEAVE PHILADELPHIA AND THEN THIS COMES THERE WHAT THE FUCK HOW HAVE I DONE THIS TO MYSELF
im relistening to the Lunar Interludes for a school project and seriously why does the fucking hilarity of Johann’s character not dawn on everyone
kids last words were more or less “don’t let the world forget me” but fuckin everyone forgets about “do you work here?” “Yeah, what gave it away? Is it the fact that I’m like, here? No man, i just got lost and ended up on a moon base.”
his reaction to making three grown ass men cry is “Told you so”
Johann: There’s like. A LOT of syphillis.
Merle: attempts speaking-
Johann, cutting him off: An unconscionable amount of syphillis
So I finished running The Eleventh Hour for a party of kids today and they did really awesome for first time players. We got to the scene where one of the kids made a grab for the chalice and because none of them had backstories as fleshed out as the McElroys I decided to only tempt her and I made the chalice a little bit more confrontational.
Anyway we reached the climax of this scene of the two arguing and I had the chalice say something to her along the lines of “We could be partners, you and I. We could fix so many wrongs in the world. Don’t you have any regrets? Anything you want to change?”
And this kid looks me dead in the eye and says “I want to be the last pair of hands that ever holds you.”
people who draw lup as Extra™ as possible and barry as Average™ as possible give me life. how did this goth punk fashion elf with a fireball in each hand end up with this best buy employee??? cuz they love each other bitch!!!
