//------------------------------//
// System Post: A Differing Opinion 
// Story: The Krastos Logs 
// by Sinderen7 
//------------------------------//


Sir Gambrial


By Jade Fimoreal 


By now everyone is aware of whom Stratos Lucid really was. A lot of people have come forth and offered personal testimony on just how bad it was to know this guy. Anyone who reads his reports is shocked to find the extent to which Stratos glossed over his own personality. On the other hand, given all of the nasty rumors going around about Stratos I feel compelled to give another side to the story. I too had contact with “Doctor Lucid,” as we were apt to call him due to his know-it-all disposition. Before I do that I think I should quickly explain who I am.

As you know from my claiming of authorship of this piece, my name is Jade Fimoreal. I am a medical android, model OI-37, designed to assist Health Incorporated with treating Armor Incorporated employees. For this story the most important fact about me is that I found out I enjoy playing tabletop games.

A little over fifteen years ago I became friends with a man called Nickolas Endeavor. I can agree with Stratos that Nick was perhaps one of the most delightful humans I ever had the pleasure of knowing. With our group of friends, we had some of the best games of Dungeons and Dragons ever. I owe much of that initial enjoyable experience to Nick. I could always be a monk while Nick was whatever the situation needed him to be, though never the Dungeon Master.

It was easy to make friends with Nick. It was much harder to understand how he could have ever become friends with a man like Stratos. The two were practically opposites. Nick was always friendly and willing to go out of his way to help you even if you were a stranger. Stratos never felt sympathy for anyone and would go out of his way to complain. Yet Nick and Stratos were the greatest of friends. Nick never explained why but I could tell it was more for the person Stratos used to be than for the person he currently was.

I was more than a little concerned when Nick asked our group if Stratos could join us for a game. We agreed only because of our friendship with Nick but our worry proved to be more than unfounded. After some awkward introductions, Stratos got right down to business. He was a completely different man from what we knew elsewhere. It was practically his mission to learn about each of us and our playing styles. He always offered to help us min/max our characters and work with us through any issues. That could be annoying but he knew that and would back off if his presence became intruding.

For his own playing style and preferences, during these games Stratos was a wholly different being. Stratos was always a lawful good paladin. He got into his role perfectly. If nothing else, it was entertaining to see his reaction to each event. You could tell it was his mission to do the maximum amount of good for the maximum amount of people, even if it was all fictional. That could and did get us into trouble, however he always found a way to make sure we all survived and prospered. And so whenever he asked to be the leader of the group, as he often did, we agreed. 

Perhaps that sounds weird given how much everyone hated the man outside of these games but you must understand Stratos earned his reputation as a genius. He was the most brilliant tactician I have ever met. He utilized our abilities and devised ways around each problem, coming up with multiple contingency plans if needed. No matter how many times my matrix was ungraded I never came close to his level of ability. We always had our reservations about who he was but soon learned to separate the aggravating misanthrope “Doctor Lucid” from the glorious legendary hero “Sir Gambrial the Paladin: The Great Defender of Elantria.” As crazy as it sounds, our group came to love Stratos. We met any challenge, confident that Sir Gambrial would lead us to victory. 

But you cannot always separate the person you want to be from the person you are. Finally we ran into a problem. One Dungeon Master tried to test the extent of Stratos’s ability to out-plan anything. He made it his mission to beat Stratos. To be honest, it was a dickish thing to do and we really should have called him out on it but Stratos managed to pull through like he always did. That was until our DM finally, by fiat, put Stratos into a no-win scenario. It would take too long to explain but Sir Gambrial would have to compromise everything about himself or go into a battle that was frankly unwinnable because we all knew the DM would pull whatever he wanted to win. 

Stratos complained but came up with the best plan he could and chose the path of death. It was a brilliant plan and should have won us the fight many times over but our DM did not care about anything other than beating Stratos. Halfway through the battle, when it was obvious there was no hope of winning, that was when Stratos finally gave way “Doctor Lucid.” He flipped the table over and threw what could only be described as a tantrum. He called out our DM on his ********, physically assaulted him, and left. Except for Nick, we were all stunned. He had never acted like that before. Many of us never wanted to see him again.

When I later confronted Stratos about this behavior he showed absolutely no remorse. I got what I expected which was another misanthropic rant about how much, “Humans can never be satisfied with someone trying to be good and are only happy when others were as miserable as they are.” Then he said what I had to admit was a good point. He told me D&D was supposed to be a game where we lived out our fantasies and he could be that paladin that lived by his holy ideals. The DM was supposed to work with the players to give that sense of challenge and accomplishment, which was why he went along with that campaign up until then. It was supposed to be a challenge, not impossible. He stood by the belief that nothing was impossible and making impossible challenges only served to stroke our DM’s ego. He was just as angry at the DM as he was at the rest of the group for letting it happen. Though I will leave it at that, rest assured there is more to Stratos’s reasoning than I am saying. This is just what I found stood out the most. 

Nick was able to get the DM to apologize to Stratos even if Stratos never really forgave him in return. We continued the campaign from where we left off. Our DM did not make the battle easy and in fact Sir Gambrial did die but we were able to win because of it. Luckily, it was D&D so unlike the Stratos in real life, after this final encounter Stratos rolled up a new character. This paladin “Saint Treme: The Reclaimer” was built in memorial to Sir Gambrial and came to be just as great if not even greater than his predecessor.

This was the Stratos that Nickolas knew. This was the Stratos that became my friend. He was a man that never compromised his ideals. You can probably now understand why I am a little off put but the negativity displayed towards this man. Honestly, he was not likable as a person. Still, there was more to him than his hatred of others and his insufferable contempt for this world.

I am not surprised Stratos did what he did in Equestria. Creating groups of warriors, defending the weak, righting wrongs, impulsively helping others even if he knew there was no reward or even punishment; he was always like that whenever he role-played with us. I knew that if he ever got the change to be like that in real life, he would take it regardless of the risk. That was the kind of man Stratos was and the one I know he wanted to be back on Alpha Earth.

Perhaps unfortunately, it was the exact kind of man he became here on Equestria and why he is no longer around.