How to be a Dungeon Master

Chapter 1: "Coley, what do you want to do?"

"Huh? It's my turn?"

I glanced around the table with a look as though I'd just awoken from a power nap. I actually felt something like that - I don't know what it was about tonight but something seemed off. I wasn't the only one hovering in and out of drowsiness like a resting cat - I could see the same expressions on Leah and Fraser. How Maria could DM if she were feeling anything like this dumbfounded me.

Tonight was a tad different from any of the other sessions in our campaign. For one, we had clad ourselves in such a cheap form of 'cosplay' that we looked more like we were a rejected circus act than anything resembling any of our characters.

Leah, to my left, looked by far the most impressive. Her outfit wasn't anything to gush over - a cheap halloween 'knight' jacket with a cartoonish graphic of steel armour (which was way too big for her skinny 5'3" frame), ordinary grey sweatpants with silver-painted kneepads, some boots with bits of grey-printed paper covering them and a tennis racket for a mace.

Her makeup, on the other hand, was immaculate. She was always skilled but her look tonight was on another level. She'd managed to paint the symbol of her 'light domain'-cleric's god on one cheek: two crossed sickles with a sun in the middle. On the other were these gnarly looking fake scars and wounds, occasionally hidden by her shoulder-length blonde hair that was topped with a tiara (made from a Burger King crown).

Maria was also putting in her full effort. She'd dyed her hair purple for the occasion to match our resident BBEG, along with some orange-y feline contact lenses with dark eyeshadow surrounding them. She also had an adorable cosmic-themed dressing gown which was intended to add to the intimidation - though I couldn't help but crack a giggle when I saw her in it. She couldn't not look cute like that.

Fraser was wearing their signature non-binary coloured headband, above which their long, brown, curly hair was throw into a messy bun. Their outfit was much less complex - in fact I was pretty certain I'd seen their brown monk robes at the local dress up store - but it was still a more than respectable effort.

I was somewhere in between Fraser and Leah's levels of effort. I didn't quite have Leah's makeup skills (as much as I'd begged her to teach me) so I was stuck with just some basic 'American-football-player' eye black to add to my intimidation factor. I also managed to find some elf ears at the local Halloween store, which suited my now-curled brown hair really well - enough that I was seriously considering going back. My outfit was nothing to gush over; I was broke enough with all the instant ramen and delivery food leading up to finals that I was stuck with just my wardrobe to make an outfit from, which still hadn't gotten that big since I started transitioning. Still, I think my dad's old brown leather jacket helped sell the illusion of me having 'leather armour' equipped.

I could tell before we even got into the dining room at Maria's that Leah and Fraser must have also pulled an all nighter for their finals, mostly because I'd never seen them look like such zombies, even through the intense makeovers they'd undergone. Maria was lucky enough to just have to hand in coursework she'd been writing since the start of the year without any exams. She was just that much of a perfectionist about her work and it shone through just as bright in her DMing.

This was also going to be our last session of our campaign - or at least it was shaping up that way. After around two years, hundreds of goblins slain, dozens of dungeons delved and many more stories to tell, we were finally face to face with our ultimate rival - 'Prince Garloth Pescheour'.

For this session Maria had managed to convert her dining room into the lair of said Prince - ambience heightened by her blasting some epic-feeling 'Dark Souls 2' boss music through her speaker. In one corner there was a tall pot covered in black paper made to look like a witch's cauldron, filled with some bubbly blue concoction she must have made with god-knows-what. Halloween-store skeletons adorned the walls alongside flashing RGB fairy lights cycling through one of its presets.

The one standout among all the clutter was the huge crystal ball. We were baffled as to where she'd gotten such a thing, and the only answer she had for us was that she "was just digging through my grandparents' attic last time I visited; can you believe I found this old antique from my nan's old fortune telling days? Pretty beautiful, huh?"

And it was beautiful. There was apparently some way you ignited it through the bottom, but to be honest I was just distracted by the swirling clouds inside of it - constantly rising and falling, twisting and flowing around each other. It was so easy to get lost in it. I could also swear there was some faint sound coming from it, like the sound of a gentle breeze passing through a forest, but there was too much chattering and crisp-munching to clearly tell...

"Coley! Hello! Anyone in there?" Maria called out.

Shit, I zoned out again.

"Yeah! Sorry, uh, what's just happened again?"

Her head shook, with a light chuckle at my obliviousness. "Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you are - Leah's just put her Guardian of Faith down between the two Greater Zombies at the North-East, Fraser's just used their Flurry of Blows on Pescheour--"

"Don't forget you still have your Bless from me!" interrupted Leah.

"Yep, you've still got your blessing." said Maria with a nod towards the shorter blonde, "So, what would you like to do?"

I took a moment to think to myself - evaluating my options, my spell slots left, whether any of my class abilities could get much done... We'd been preparing for this fight for quite some time, stocking up on magic items and potions. I hadn't quite told the others about the one idea I had in the back of my mind though. Upon taking a hard look at my spell list, I decided.

"I'm going to cast Dominate Person on Pescheour."

Leah and Fraser's heads' both darted to mine as a sly grin grew across Maria's face.

"Dude, what the hell?! You know that he's gonna make that wisdom save!" came a shout from Leah to my left.

"Look, trust me, I have faith it'll work."

"Don't you still have your Turn Undead to take care of the zombies? Wouldn't that work better?" asked Fraser.

"I-I do," I started, unprepared for a practical objection, "But I really don't think that'll do enough. Besides, maybe I can make the ol' Prince fuck up a few for us?"

Sighs came from the two of them. That shit-eating grin on Maria's face seemed to have doubled in width since I last looked her way. She paused for a moment, drumming her fingers against one another, before asking, "I take it you're still wanting to cast Dominate Person?"

"I...", I started, with a quick reconsideration of my options. No, this had to be it. This had to work. "I do. Let's go for it." A sarcastic groan came from Leah.

"Alright," Maria rubbed her hands together in a devilish way. "What am I rolling and what's the DC?"

"Wisdom, nineteen."

"Okay, okay. Wanna hear what his saving bonus is?"

"Not really, but I doubt I get much choice in the matter."

"Fourteen." Maria said, drawing out the second syllable to let the pain settle in just that little bit more.

"Ouch..." let our Fraser under their breath.

I let out a laugh stained with worry, starting to feel I'd made a grave mistake. "Could you just roll it already?"

Maria flashed another grin at me. A hand rose up to her custom DM screen, hovering over the in-built dice tower towards the side that would shoot out the die to the rest of the table. A prismatic metal D20 hung between her thumb and index finger before entering free-fall.

The hard metal knocked against the wooden walls of the tower, each one drawing us closer to either prosperity or peril. The pressure was mounting. The die emerged from the bottom as I lay my head in my hands in fear for what might happen. Had I just ruined our almost two year long campaign? Would my friends forever hold a grudge on me for days? Weeks? Months? This was going to be one of our last hangouts before we all split for summer...

Whilst my anxiety was running along the start of a spiral, I heard a little 'chink' of the metal hitting the glass of the crystal ball. Shortly after I heard the die stop. There were a few moments of silence before a bellowing "Fuck yes!" and "Let's fucking go!" erupted from my fellow players.

I lifted my head to see a '4' facing upwards - eighteen total. Maria looked to the die with eyes wide open.

"Thank god you can't fudge that shit!" Laughed Fraser.

I was ecstatic - I looked down to see my hands vibrating as if I'd been fasting for the day and had another three cans of Monster. My eyes then caught wind of movement above the DM screen to see Maria desperately flicking through her binder, muttering something I couldn't understand.

"Right. Okay. Right... Right..." Maria was saying, more to get her own thoughts in order than to draw anyone else's attention. She gave out a long sigh before asking, "Coley. How do you dominate Pescheour?"

"Oh this is gonna be good..." laughs Fraser, rubbing their hands together.

"I... lemme think." I say, my thoughts racing faster than I could think them. I took a few deep breaths, gathered my thoughts, whilst the room remained silent. At this point I was far too nervous to open my eyes for fear of falling back into a bumbling mess, with a whole table staring right at me. I decided to let my character speak through me, to Pescheour. I steadied my nerves and began.

"You hear my voice, don't you? You hear it so clear, so true. It resonates throughout your head no matter how hard you try to ignore it. You hear me. You listen to me."

"As you listen each word makes its own impact. Each one echoing throughout your head, unavoidable, inevitable. After each word comes another, and you simply can't help but listen."

"And so, my words come naturally to you. And when they come to you so naturally, they feel so correct in your mind - so natural. Except with these, you don't need to make them appear. They just happen. You don't need to lift a finger. They are present, ever-flowing, always echoing. It's so easy to follow them. To listen to each little syllable, each inflection, and understand it all so deeply. And when they come so effortlessly, what's the point in thinking for yourself? You'd rather just relax, let your own thoughts drift, and allow mine to carry you."

"And it's so easy to follow my words. Follow them as they tell you what to think, as they tell you what to do. So easy to follow them as I tell you to look to the Eye, it feels so natural to follow my words. There'd be nothing wrong with doing it - it couldn't hurt you. You're just following my words, letting them draw your attention, and what could be so wrong with that? And so, you look."

"The Eye is so beautiful. The way the clouds run across the dome as the magic flows. They dance around one another, so tantalising. One goes left, another goes right. And it's so easy for your eyes to follow along. So soft and easy to stare at. You want to stare. And you find the clouds so relaxing. So therapeutic. Making it so easy for your thoughts to drift away, to get lost in the clouds."

"That's how you feel. Lost. But you have my voice to guide you. To tell you how to think. To tell you what to do. So simple to follow. So easy to accept. And when those are your only thoughts, it's so obvious to follow them. My words twisting and moving in your mind like the clouds of the Eye, running along currents of my will. You obey that will. You obey my words. You obey me."

A smile crept across my face. Something about that felt so... powerful. So empowering. I felt confident, energetic, even... domineering. I gave a half-laugh - more of a sharp exhale - at that thought. The reactions of the others must be priceless. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes and blinked as I saw three empty faces staring back.