The greatest recurring group of characters I ever made for Dungeons and Dragons originally started off in a one shot. The party first met them on the road. A group of 5 individuals each equipped with a great helm, a weapon, various types of armor, and riding on a donkey. One of them had a banner depicting a face of agony and despair on a decapitated head replacing a scarecrow’s head. Their armor each had a fist holding straw as their insignia. The party was very weary of them and kept their guard up. And then they started talking. They each spoke of themselves with humility, but boasted and bragged about each other. They talked like they were each legendary heroes. They called themselves the “Knights of the Round Hay Bale” and mentioned that they were brothers.
The cleric asked some more questions about them cause nobody ever heard of them. Turns out that they were sons of a farmer, and that farm got raided by bandits, and they successfully defended it at the cost of their father’s life. In his memory, they vowed to defend all farms from evil doers. They had gotten their armor and tools from around the farm. And indeed, upon closer inspection, the great helms were all heavily modified buckets. The one speaking introduced them all, himself first:
Sir Comfrens the Round. He had a round shield made from a barrel and wagon wheel, and a morning star mace he looted from one of the bandits. He wore half plate armor, also stolen from one of the bandits. His great claim is that he “slew a necromancer who blighted the crops of a town.”
Sir Comvent the Elusive. He had daggers made from iron spike, and hammer to drive the daggers deeper. His armor was leather made from his favorite cow that was slaughtered in the bandit raid. His greatest deed is that he “made it all the way to a noble’s bathroom before being spotted.”
Sir Comnavegate the Hunter. He had a spear that was pretty clearly just a hoe that he reshaped the blade of, and a crossbow he took from the bandits. He wore a standard breastplate that was made of melted steel dinner plates. He said he once “found his way into and back out of the feywild, shadowfell, and the realm’s largest corn maze.”
Sir Comstans the Lucky. His only weapon was literally just a cane with a steel handle that was his grandpa’s that he used like a war hammer. He didn’t actually wear any armor. Instead, it was just wool that looked like chain mail. Apparently he’s “never been struck by a worthy blow.”
Sir Comsishun the Brutal. He only carried a single weapon. A pair of large garden sheers. He wore full plate armor that he apparently stole from a knight he beat to death. The only other thing that was said about him was that he “somehow tortured a succubus to death using a pair of wet socks.”
With that, the party quickly left after meeting the last brother, and came to the conclusion that they were just a bunch of nut jobs. And that was that for that one shot. But in another one shot later on, I mentioned rumors of a band of knights who slew a beholder that was terrorizing the farmlands. Immediately one of my players perked up at that and asked if they wore buckets, and the man confirmed. This was just intended to be an Easter egg, but the players became infatuated with the Knights of the Round Hay Bale. They started hunting them down looking for any information. 3 of the players just wanted to expose them as liars (yes, one was a paladin), while 2 of them just wanted to meet them again. This side plot continued through multiple one shots and eventually became the driving force that propelled the one shots to happen and the characters to travel the lands.
Eventually, they finally caught up with them. In the middle of a fight. The knights were fighting an adult red dragon who had thoughtlessly burned farmland one his rampage to take the kingdom’s King hostage. The party witnessed the following happen in a single round before joining the fight.
The dragon started monologuing.
The monologue was interrupted by Sir Comnavegate shooting the dragon in the foot.
The king taken hostage pleads for help.
Sir Comvent uses his entire turn ending up on the dragon’s head.
Sir Comfrens uses his shield as a frisbee, hitting a pillar and dropping part of the ceiling on the dragon’s wing (and almost on the party rogue).
Sir Comstans lands a critical hit on the dragon’s tail.
Sir Comsishun uses that critical hit on the dragon and snips off its tail.
The dragon sets held the room on fire in response, hurting 3 of the 5 knights and 2 party members.
The aforementioned rogue reaches the king, the king rejoices, then the rogue takes the king HOSTAGE AGAINST THE DRAGON, stating that now it has no leverage, and if he kills the king an entire kingdom will declare war on the dragon.
The dragon calls him an idiot for thinking he cares, then kills the king and injures the rogue with a claw swipe.
Eventually the party succeeds and kills the dragon, but the ranger died so the cleric is busy reviving him and the rest of the party are trying to come up with excuses as to why they couldn’t save the king.
And the knights? They vanished after the fight. They didn’t even take anything from the dragon’s hoard. The only thing missing was the dragon’s tail. The party concluded that they were just doing it because they wanted too, and that while they were nut jobs, they were honest nut jobs. It ended up with a really roleplay moment where the paladin absolutely refused to believe that they were regular people and not some kind of divine intervention in humanoid form, with the Wizard agreeing saying “There’s not a single chance in all the planes that that barrel shield is just made of wood, that shit has to be some kind of artifact.”
Since then, the Knights of the Round Hay Bale have been mentioned in passing in almost all my games as a staple of lore in the realms. Additionally, some of my players immediately look for farms when they enter a new town, trying to sniff them out. God bless those knights and their stupid bullshit.
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