The Tail of Chik-Tika

(This story is a bit foggier, and I may have to have help fleshing it out.  Anyone who was there, please feel free to correct my memory.)

Robin invented Chik-Tika.  Hamelyn made him legend.

I'm fairly certain that the name came from the ABBA song "Chiquitita".  Robin tended to have music playing during games, or while planning games.  

Our party (and I can't remember which characters) first met Chik-Tika during an ocean adventure.  We were on a ship, and the cargo was (I shit you not) blow-up sex dolls.  Only the captain of the ship was embarrassed to admit that aloud, and used a euphemism: "floatation devices."  

Somehow, this anthropomorphic, talking raccoon found its way on board, in the middle of the voyage, and began, well, acting like a curious raccoon.  Asking questions.  Poking its nose everywhere.  Stealing.  

Here's one of the places my memory gets fuzzy.  I seem to recall a battle, and I seem to recall one of the players being a butt with the magic system, pumping way too much mana into "create water" just for the fun of it.  Anyway, the ship sank, and the last we saw of Chik-Tika was him merrily sailing off on one of the "floatation devices."

We had a few encounters like that, just a mischievous theiving anthro trash panda, popping in and out whenever Robin felt like having some fun with us.

Enter Nicodemus.  

I rolled up a London wererat.  This was a heavily psionic character, whom I made a mage.  Robin told me  my character background: he was rejected by the London wererats for being too weak.  Naturally, I chose to play him as evil.  Naturally, this got him into trouble.  He was in the midst of being devoured by a shambling mound, immune to my level one psionics, and I had only one spell left to me:  Find Familiar.  

I cast it.

Robin handed me a character sheet, and told me that I may NOT play this familiar myself.  I must choose another player.  By now you know that this was the character sheet for Chik-Tika.  (otherwise, what's the point of this story?)

I seriously considered three people to play Chik-Tika.

Kyrie.  She was beginning to develop as a roleplayer, and handled animals well.  But she didn't always want to play.

Anita.  Definitely appreciated a quirky character.  I wasn't quite sure she would appreciate being forced into a particular role.  

That left Brandon, or as we knew him, Hamelyn (it was actually quite an adjustment for me to call him anything else).  And he took to it like a fish to water.  Or, if you prefer, like a trash panda to...trash.

The relationship between Chik-Tika and Nicodemus could best be described as...Pinky and the Brain.  Except Chik-Tika was not that stupid, and Nicodemus was not that smart.  C could have been anyone's familiar, really, so long as that person had plans that provided opportunities for mischief.  And Nic was fine with whatever mischief C got up to, so long as it distracted everybody else but him.  It all just sort of...worked.

One of the most memorable stories involved one of the elder gods in Robin's universe, named Mithras.  (Yes, I know that this is from actual mythology.  So were most of her deity names and game plot points.  You should have seen the grin she got whenever somebody arrived at her game all excited to "discover" something like this.)

At any rate, Mithras showed up.  I suspect it was via one of the Tarot cards, or maybe we just bothered him; he was easily bothered.  And Hamelyn decided that this was a good time to use a "time stop" token.  

These little tokens were sometimes given out in the early days of Robin's "game vouchers."  They were good for 1, 2, or 3 rounds of free action while time was effectively stopped for everyone else.  Usuable for any character, any time.  

And Hamelyn used one for Chik-Tika.  In the presence of a god.  

Round 1. "I...steal Mithras' underwear."

Round 2. "I...put it in my mouth and chew on it."

Round 3. "I don't like the flavor.  I put it back on him."

When the time stop is over, Mithras is wearing soggy underwear, and, being a god, he easily figures out what has happened.  He gives Nic and C a stern warning that This Shall Not Happen Again and that Nicodemus is to control his familiar Or Else.

Nicodemus sighs.  "Chik-Tika.  What have I told you about stealing?"  (I have told him nothing about stealing)

"Not...to get caught...doing it?"

"That's right."

And that's the Tail of Chik-Tika.  Or, one of them, at least.  Other players, please feel free to add and correct.

(I just reviewed the lyrics to "Chiquitita."  It feels like a personal message to me from Robin.)