Heartwarming / Spells, Swords, & Stealth

• When offered a place as Grumble's paladin, Thistle's agreement hinges on one condition, that he be reunited with his wife upon death rather than the afterlife reserved for paladins.
• When Thistle relates his past to his companions in NPCs, he describes how the gnome he fell in love with became infected by undead taint while they helped adventurers. When all conventional avenues of healing failed, the adventurers gave Thistle a magic item they had been holding on to in order to cure her. While heartwarming in itself, it's more heartwarming than Thistle realizes at the time because of the fact that their world's adventurers are people in our world playing a Dungeons & Dragons expy, meaning that these Tabletop RPG players gave up a valuable and powerful item to help an NPC in their campaign.
• Grumble's stake in the events of Split the Party are twofold. The first is to destroy an artifact housed within, which will also destroy a piece of the dark god Kalzidar's divinity. More importantly, and the reason Thistle is willing to forgive being manipulated into the situation in the first place, is that destroying the artifact also frees the trapped soul of Grumble's first paladin, who had been unable to pass on for millennia.
• While a good deed, Thistle taking on a task to help the impoverished temple of Grumble in Going Rogue is simply in-character and part of his job as a paladin of Grumble. Afterward, however, along with the material wealth taken from the masterminds of the harassment of the temple, Thistle is gifted with the armor of Grumble's first paladin. When Thistle questions why he can have it when it had apparently burned anyone else who so much as touched it, he's told it's because its original owner had been quite clear on who he wanted to wear it.
• Related, Russel's players come across a victim of the attacks on Grumble's followers, treat the victim's injuries, and go on to lay a mighty smackdown on the hired thugs doing the attacks out of simple goodwill on Tim's part. They receive a blessing of Grumble for the act, which serves them well later on when Thistle uses this to vouch for them to a Bridge-possessed Eric.
• The fact that Russel's players stick with him, even after they've seen some crazy things, and are willing to continue their journey with him.
• The fact that the other members of Thistle's group are willing to help him to rescue his wife's soul after she is abducted by Kalzidar. Given what they are about to go up against, that's telling.
• There's also the exchange between Gabby and Cheri's character, when Gabby hands them a healing potion to be used on whomever needed it most - her friends or theirs.
• Towards the end of Split the Party, Timuscor decides to pull a You Shall Not Pass! on the paper monsters coming after the party, as Thistle already has a god-given order at the time, but unless someone stayed, all would die. After Timuscor states why he wishes to be the one to do this - so that he can die a Paladin's Death - Thistle looks at him and calls him a Paladin.
• Timuscor's treatment of the pig, Mr. Peppers, which includes, among other things, seeing to it that he has a set of armor.
• Timuscor becoming a paladin in Siege Tactics. Given how badly Tim had wanted to be a paladin, it's heartwarming to see his character finally reach that goal. Makes one wonder what will happen if Timuscor and Tim, via his character Timmanuel, encounter one another again.
• In Siege Tactics, Timmanuel and his party help a bandit bury his band, who had been killed in a horrible manner by some priests of Kalzidar. Timmanuel had no reason to do this for a group of criminals, but did it out of respect for the dead anyways.
• In Split the Party, the majority of the party looks at the collapsed mountain, mourning Timuscor's apparent death, due to them having stayed behind to hold off the paper forces of Kalzidar's priest. Then he shows up behind them, which makes them very happy to see him alive.
• Eric's paladin father cared for him so much, he left him a blessed shortsword, which Eric has used ever since. Even more incredible, Eric's father was a player character.
• When Timmanuel (and Tim) encounters Thistle's party and find out that one of them is Timuscor in Going Rogue, Tim reacts a bit like he's met an old friend.
• In NPCs, an unnamed knife-thrower pulls off a Heroic Sacrifice to protect Gabby from a Demon attack. One would have to wonder if he was a Player Character, whose player thought that it would be a good idea to risk his character to protect an NPC, or if they were an actual person trying to protect another. Heroic and Heartwarming in either case.
• For Tim, and Timuscor, who both leave fairly toxic groups by the end of NPCs and join up with ones that are much friendlier.