Title: D&D But… Everyone’s a Flumph!
GM: Johnny Chiodini
Players: Luke Westaway, Jane Douglas, Mike Channel (all as several flumphs)
Streaming Service: Oxventure YouTube Channel

In the world of Dungeons & Dragons, flumphs are small lawful good aberrations—a benevolent, psychic cross between a jellyfish and a mood ring. And in the latest Oxventure one-shot, the GM kills 107 of them.

The latest in Oxventure’s between-seasons one-shots continues in the “D&D But…” pattern. (See our review of D&D But… Everyone Has Amnesia for another example.) Two previous sessions cast the players as a series of easily-killed kobolds, defined only by a name and an adjective. This one is much in the same vein; except instead of chaotic lizard-people, our players are the aforementioned benevolent flumphs.

Primary Oxventure GM and occasional player Johnny Chiodini cites flumphs as “[their] most hated creature in all of Dungeons & Dragons” and “the epitome of fantasy twee for the sake of being twee.” Despite Johnny and the players being up front about the likelihood of this turning into a bloodbath, it isn’t solely senseless violence. Though the flumph deaths are frequent and (hilariously) graphic.

For the most part, this session follows in the vein of the previous “D&D But… Everyone’s a Kobold” sessions. Each player is equipped with a standard stat block for the spotlighted creature, as well as a name and adjective on which to build a (disposable) character. We start with Luke Westaway as Bluebelle the Inquisitive, Jane Douglas as Hawthorne the Anxious, and Mike Channell as Gillyflower the Trusting. But don’t worry too much about remembering those characters, because none of them lasts the session.

The story starts with a cloister of flumphs in the Underdark being invaded by a group of surface-dwellers. These above-ground types want to build some sort of luxury condos, for which flumphs have no frame of reference, and attempts to reason with them lead to swift death. (A flumph death results in Johnny dispensing a new name and adjective, which is popped up onscreen for audience reference.) With no way to fend for themselves, the flumphs decide to seek help from beings they refer to as the “Kindly Ones.” Because their route to the home of the Kindly Ones is blocked, the flumphs must go aboveground, braving oddities ranging from goats to badgers to a human festival full of balloons and hot stew.

All three players are on top of things and on brand. Luke takes every opportunity to throw out a weird creature voice, Jane manages to keep her disposable creatures alive for impressive amounts of time, and Mike somehow finds a way to get chaotic while playing lawful good. (Though long-time viewers of the Oxventurers Guild will not be surprised by this, as his character Egbert the Careless was a surprisingly chaotic paladin.) Johnny, as is custom, brings some seriously bizarre encounters to bear—though in this case, the encounters are bizarre primarily through flumph eyes. The story hangs together enough to get an ever-changing party from Point A to Point B. Because let’s be honest, this one isn’t about story: this is about watching players burn through characters.

The nicest surprise is that Johnny’s “revenge” on flumphs isn’t solely through killing them. Even if, yes, there’s a lot of killing. Their big win is right at the end, when it’s revealed who the Kindly Ones and their puppies really are, and what “help” looks like for our sweet little flumphs. Though if you know your D&D lore, you’ll likely know where this is headed, and it’s fantastic.

Highlights

The upshot of the session, of course, is the biggest highlight. Even if you knew since the beginning where everything was heading, the delivery is peak. The tonal dissonance of Johnny’s storybook tone with the absolute carnage taking place is magnificent.

Two encounters stand out beyond that, one being Mike (as a very cross flumph named Dockleaf the Scary) trying to ride a goat and instead killing it. Later, Juniper the Hungry (one of Luke’s flumphs) attempts to float down to a stewpot during a festival and gets inflated like a balloon and exploded. Don’t think too hard about the logistics of it; Luke already did.

Final Score (4 out of 5 stars)

Oxventure is always a good time, what with the group’s readiness to go off the rails and silly combined with their understanding of the games and systems they tackle. The players were top-notch, as was the GM. All of that is without question. They delivered the exact Oxventure energy we know and love.

Strangely, flumphs are too lawful and—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—just a little too capable for the same “dispenser” style game as kobolds. What really makes the kobold format work is what little gremlins they are. They’re exceedingly killable and have no sense of self-preservation. While flumphs only have two more hit points, they can also do more. It’s no wonder that the peak moments in the game came when the flumphs were more chaotic and less flumphy.

That said, this was great fun, and the ending was inspired. It would have been extremely easy to make the game nothing but a splatterfest, and with a lesser group this would have been antagonistic GM vs. player hours all the way down. The fact that the players are leaning into the desire to mercilessly murder them is what makes it fun. As a D&D session, it’s a mere star short of perfection; as Johnny Chiodini’s personal rage room, though, it’s 5 out of 5.

Image Source: Official Oxventure Tumblr

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