Oh no, it's salt water!

I imagine every now and again an ancient tome speaks to them only for them to roll their eyes and put it in a special chest their parents gave them.

Player 1's father is obviously the Warlord.

Player 2's father is also the Warlord. He killed the father in the same way Darth Vader killed Anakin Skywalker.

Player 3's mother sold their soul for the Warlord to fall in love with her.

Player 4's Father is the Warlord and Player 3's Mother. Except after they got together they settled down for a happily ever after.

This is exactly what I would do if I rolled god like stats

The Barbarian even has advantage on Dex saves!

My nephews thinks it's weird/gay.

They're good boys, they're also idiots though.

MIL is definitely the culprit

Ok, but if I don't then how will I reasonably justify being a chaos goblin?

That's Yamcha in the hole.

Honestly if you used Yamcha on the 2 Goku panels it would've worked better, on account of Yamcha looking awesome as hell at first.

The fact that it mentions others to begin with can't be ignored though.

Essentially by including that gate in the spell we understand that Self is a valid target, but if target is self then heal does not occur.

There's no need for the rest of the text to explain what has already been explained, it would be redundant.

It goes off but doesn't heal you because the text specifically says

The touch of your shadow-wreathed hand can siphon life force from others to heal your wounds.

Life will be fine, not sure about current life forms though.