Grandma's love for 'Dungeons and Dragons' kept her inspired during her battle with cancer

People bond with their loved ones through different things. While some may find joy in shared experiences, for others it may be traveling or adventures. However, no matter what activity you may partake in, the most important part of it is having the opportunity to spend quality time with someone who matters to you and getting to know them in ways you never could otherwise. Recently, Antoine H.—who goes by @AntnHz on Twitter—shared a similar heartwarming story. He said that his late grandmother started playing "Dungeons and Dragons" quite late. One random day when she was 75 years old, he asked her if she would like to play this board game and she agreed with enviable enthusiasm.

Not only did she play this game with her grandson but also enjoyed doing so. Antoine's grandmother chose to be a forest gnome because they seemed the most happy of the races and she really liked the fact that she could talk to small animals. In fact, she then went with Druid in order to double down on the animal friendship theme. While choosing the character traits, when Antoine asked her if she'd like to be a boy or girl, she promptly replied: "I've been a girl my whole life, it'd be fun to try being a boy for once."

While making the character sheet, she rolls her stats and gets a 17 which she puts in WIS. When he asked her what name did she have in mind, she without missing a beat said, "I do know, I'll find one by tomorrow." And then something wonderfully different happened that night! Antoine wrote on Twitter, "That night, she does something that even I never expected: she goes on the Internet and reads every piece of lore she can find about gnomes. She barely knew how to Google, and yet here she was, browsing Wikipedia articles and D&D fansites." The next day right before the beginning game, she reveals her name to the party, Terminatur. And the cutest part? She drew him as well.

While she knew nothing about the Terminatur, she came up with the name from 'termite' because she liked the idea of gnomes living in burrows and 'nature'. Finally, they started playing the game. Antoine did everything he could to make this a good experience for his grandmother. He explained, "They (the characters) explore the house a bit, and in the night, get attacked by the kitchen table, who turned out to be a mimic. My grandmother's genuinely scared by the (light) horror movie vibes, but she's smiling through it all."

He says that his grandmother actually lives the game. Wonderfully so, she also did a great job in her first attack which made the whole table go wild. Eventually, Antoine also invited Terminatur to become a part of a multiplanar ecology group, the Circle of the Green Hand. He said, "She was ecstatic, and she answered in the same way by sending me a letter written entirely in character. She covered it with old stamps representing trees and dragons."

However, she hadn't been keeping well. "The last few months were rough. She'd been fighting against pancreatic cancer, and things had taken a turn for the worst. Sometimes, the pain and exhaustion from chemo were too much to bear and she couldn't play. She still did it when she could, though, and updated her drawing," he said. "The colors of Terminatur's outfit were inspired by the comic book character Bécassine, whom she had loved since she was a kid," he said showing her drawing. She was also the one to come up with their party name: The Fanciful Jewelers. Antoine thought it was extremely funny and unexpected, which made everyone love it at once.

Less than a month later, the cancer took over her whole body. She was hospitalized and stayed there until her passing. The last thing she told Antoine was, "Never change, never lose your family spirit and keep on playing Dungeons & Dragons".

He added, "So the BF will go on, without their druid. And in all my future campaigns, players will hear of a legendary planar-traveler gnome with a goose on his head that gives out strange fruit, cracks his whip and disappears. Here's to the best grandma in the world. I miss her already."  A year and a half later, to celebrate her birthday, Antoine and his party made and sold "#Terminatur" shirts for charity.