Journey to Brilidien: Valna

Maggie was the first to respond to Mac's skill challenge. This was awesome because, when we're doing this during our sessions, Maggie is usually the least excited about skill challenges. First, here's a little bit more about her character: 

Valna is a half-elf babarian. She's not too bright, and is happiest outside in nature (sometimes as herself, sometimes as a bear), stabbing bad guys, and sexing up the local hot guys and girls. She tends to act first and think later (if at all) and prefers to just charge into a room and start killing things. Oh, she also tends to fall into rages... but has learned to limit her anger to the battlefield. 

She's been with Stumbleduck and Kismet for a while now and is very loyal and protective of them in a big (very big) sister kind of way. She's pretty accepting of all these new folks - as long as they also like to kill bad guys they'll get along great.

And here is Maggie's response to the Skill Challenge:

The party started off the journey in good spirits - the Northern road out of Wellspring was flat and easy and the weather was warm and fine. However, as is so often the case in an adventure, things went downhill quickly - literally.

Wellspring's nearest neighbor was holding their annual turnip festival (not everything is about magic you know) and the road soon became clogged with farmers, merchants, and all manner of people who had traveled to see the Largest Turnip in the Land and take advantage of the town's market. In order to make better time, the party veered slightly west to a path that seemed to parallel the road, but quickly began sloping downwards.

By the time they realized the extent of their misfortune it was too late, and the party found themselves in the midst of a most unpleasant swamp. Everyone quickly became mired in the ankle deep mud. Each step required an enormous effort (and resulted in a loud squelching noise - which Stumbleduck seemed to find hilarious) while mosquitoes nearly as large as a full-sized Glitterstich hovered around them. Because of her great strength, Valna took on the burden of carrying much of their supplies and equipment and tried to help as best she could to get party through the muck.

Endurance: 19

Some DMs frown on players looking at their most powerful skill and trying to find a way to make it work. I think it's only natural for a character to try to play to his or her strengths. A barbarian like Valna isn't going to try Diplomacy as her first option, even if that's what the DM has planned. My usual solution to this in a more formal skill challenge is to say, "convince me." In a more free-form skill challenge, Maggie was able to set up a great scenario for her character to use her best skill. This definitely set a high bar for everyone else!