Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Part 2: A Terrible Transformation | Starter Kit - Advanced D&D

Episode Date: November 10, 2025

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In the name of the city watch. Welcome back to your starter kit. I'm David Nett, your dungeon master for this D&D adventure. When playing an urban adventure, it's easy to dismiss traditionally nature-based characters like druids, barbarians, and rangers. But while these classes truly shine in their traditional environments, there is a place for them in an urban setting as well. Every class has something to contribute,

even in unlikely circumstances. And it can be a fun challenge for players and dungeon masters alike to discover new twists on these old archetypes. All right, when we left off, Ignius, you were wrestling on the ground with a young person dressed all in black young man who was crying, said that he's sorry he didn't mean to, and then his mouth opened wide and mandibles came out and tentacles

and you were locked on the ground there with him. That's bad. So in this moment, the two of you, Narlak and Araviel, are also running down the stairs. You're lying outside the servant's door on the ground, rassling with whatever this thing is happening. As you're running down the stairs, you hear Igneus make a little bit of a startled noise.

I'm just not going to put that in your mouth. Oh, no. It's definitely a startled. Startled noise sounds right. So we ran on the stairs. We're going to say Araveal is just slightly ahead of Narak. Raviol's dexterity is higher, so a little bit faster, even though you roll the same thing for initiative.

So, Ravio, you see the struggle happening outside, and then you hear this sound coming out of Igneus, the startled sound, and you see like a weird thing, like waving up around him, a couple of tentacles like waving on either side of them in the moonlight outside. You're halfway down the stairs. You've made your movement already because you said you were running after him. So the first part of your combat round is movement in this case. You ran. Now when you reach the endpoint, you can take a standard action and that action

can be, you can cast a spell, you could attack, you could move again. That's called a dash. You could leap forward and try to grapple with these two if you want to. What would you like to do? My training and all of my experiences make me want to protect by all means my people in my squadron. So I will actually attack whatever it looks like is attacking. You're welcome. Ignius. And so that will be first. So now they're outside the door and a little ways down the stairs.

If you're going to make an attack, it has to be a ranged attack from here because you can't reach them unless you move further and that'll take your action. Okay. Awesome. Then what I will do is as an action, I will toll the dead. the dead on his face. What is Toll the Dead do? So you've got a spell called Pull the Dead. Yes, it's a cantrip, which means it doesn't take up a spell slot.

You can cast it as often as you want to because it's a cantrip. And it's a range of 60 feet. So I point at, you know, tentacle boy and I, the sound of a dolorous bell fills the air around that creature. The target must succeed on a wisdom saving throw or take 1D8 necrotic damage. If they're missing any of their hit points, it takes 1D3. So he hasn't taken any damage yet. Okay, but yes, a wisdom saving throw

and my DC is 13. So 13 is your spelled DC based upon your charisma, right? Because you're a warlock. Based on my charisma. Gotcha. So he's gonna roll a wisdom save, he'll add his wisdom bonus. You told the dead and because they're kind of wrestling on the ground and he's screaming and crying and you point to him,

you don't know whether you just can't see him well enough or whether you can't see what's going on, but nothing, you see the sound of the bell, but nothing else happens. Great, okay, so I, but what I do here is a disappointed, cha-cha, in my head. You're on the stairs there. You're right behind her, Narlaq.

What are you doing on the stairs? Well, my first instinct was perhaps I was going to cast some sort of spell to hold the boy in place. But now that I see this other creature coming out of his mouth, I'm going to cast firebolt at the creature. Just trying to fling a firebolt, even though Igneus is wrestling with him, you're going to fling a firebolt. Yeah, I'm going to him.

He can take it, right? We have different priorities. Okay, okay, sure. So you're gonna roll to hit. And what you do then is you're going to roll your D20, that's your attack die, and you're going to add your magical attack bonus. This is a magical attack, you're casting firebolt a spell.

Right, this is a sorcerer spell. Sorcerer spell, so you've got a sorcerer attack bonus there. So roll your D20 and add that. I get a total of 17. All right, and you hit his armor class is lower than that. I'm not gonna tell you what his armor class is, that's a number you'd have to hit, but it is lower than that, so you hit him.

Okay. So, I do, Nine points of damage. What? Nice. So as you're resting on the ground, over your shoulder, this arc of fire just smashes into... It misses you, right over your shoulder.

Of course it does. I would never be able to you, smashes into this creature. And there's like a weird harmonic stream, like four or five different vocal cords vibrating at the same, ah, as the tentacles crawl. And that's all three of you who've acted as well as this person. So the first round of combat only included the three of you

and this thing. because you guys were doing investigations, but now we're in the second round of combat. So what I'd like you to do is I want to have the two of you roll initiative so I can add you into the initiative. You hear these blood-curdling screams up in the rooms where you're investigating. So both of you roll and add your initiative bonus? 10 plus 7, 17.

I rolled a 1. Okay. So Shywin, you got a 17, and you've got a big initiative bonus as well because you've got a dread ambusher is one of your powers, so you've got a really serious plus. We're just going to say you were, like, deeply, you were throwing over the mattress on the bed, making sure that this room is empty.

I really wanted to make sure the room was clear. Yeah, so the muffled scream takes you a moment to register what's going on before you step out of the room. You're further away. I do like that you yelled out, clear. And then what we didn't hear was, and yet. So Ignis, you still have the 20. You roll the highest initiative.

So you still go for it. Now this thing is underneath you, is the boy's face is peeling open now. His jaw is out and this thing is coming out. This skin is peeling open. Oh, boy. And underneath it, this is kind of pink, pulsy, kite-ness thing kind of crawling out of him.

What do you want to do? You handle this. Oh, boy. During your combat round again, you can move, and then you can take a standard action that's cast a spell, that's attack, that's disengage. If you want to get off of him and get away, you can disengage. I'm going to try to move for, I'm going to try to get away.

So there's two ways that movement works here. If you just try to use your move action, theoretically, and you don't know whether he will or not, he can take a reaction and try to swipe at you as you move away from him. But there is a standard action called disengage. And what that does is it kind of lets you fight your way away from him.

Yeah. And then you can move without him taking an action against you. Right, but I can't take an action. But then you can't take an action. I definitely want to take an action because this seems like an apparent threat that we should probably take care of. So you're just going to try to move away? We're trying to move away, get a little space. So he's going to, as you move away, he's screaming and his body's kind of pulsing open, but those tendrils lash out at you nonetheless and swing toward you as you try to move away.

What is your armor class? Uh, 12. All right. So as you try to back away, the thing lashes out with one of its tendrils and just the tendrils kind of wraps right and that can pulled at you as you kind of try to scramble away. It does five points of damage to you, but as it wraps around you, you feel this sort of like sizzling burning into your skin.

And I need you to make a saving throw for me. Okay. So you're gonna make a Constitution saving throw. What this means, you're gonna add up in the left hand side of your sheet there, you've got saving throws next to your abilities, right there, thank you. Now, a saving throw is something when, sometimes when a creature attacks you or you attack that creature,

they need to resist an effect. So that's when somebody's doing something to you. Okay. If you've got a Constitution saving throw bonus, you're gonna add that to your roll. Okay, and you're trying to hit a 13 or better. 13 or better. Come on, igneous.

Oh. So you rolled a one. This is one of those times when you don't want to have rolled a one. So as you kind of try to get up off of that, that tenderer rapture on your neck, just slams you to the ground and you feel this sensation going into your body

and your muscles are paralyzed. What? You just held there for a moment, just stunned and paralyzed. So that action that you are going to take, No good. You really can't. Because of his stupid reaction?

Now you're paralyzed there on the ground. Now at the end of your turn, you're paralyzed right now. When this condition hits you, at the end of your turn, you can try to break free again. Okay. So you didn't get to take your action, but it is now the end of your turn. You can roll that saving throw again against a 13 and try to break free. I'm gonna try to break free. Ah, 10.

Not enough. You're just, you're shaking on the ground. You can feel these, like, this weird energy coursing through your muscles as this tentacle is sort of snake it's way off of you and you see this thing continuing to transform next to you. The next person in the initiative is actually this creature. So next to you on the ground, as you lie there on the ground shaking, you guys are up on the stairs, you can see the boy's chest like bursts open and out of his chest crawls this like giant sort of centipede looking thing, tentacles and mandibles and I'm going to show

you a picture of it because it's fun. You can turn away Leon if you want to. I'm going to cover what it is and this is what you see crawling out of it. the boy. Uh, it's about, as it crawls out, you can see it's eight or nine feet long, it's big eyes in the sides of its head, this mandibles and all these tentacles around it.

And that's- That's what you see from where you are on the stairs. Now, in initiative order, Shywin, you are up next. So you're upstairs, you hear the screaming, you're yelling from the stairs, you hear like sizzling a fire bolt. What are you doing? Is there a window facing that direction?

Unfortunately, the stairs went down the opposite of these wombs. There is a window, but if you jump out of it, you're on the other side of the house. Okay, I guess I have to run down there. Okay, so you take your move action to run. You can get up halfway down the stairs with one move action. You find yourself right near both Narlaq and Aravelle.

And you can see through the door some struggle happening. This giant weird centipede thing is outside the door kind of crawling out of the body of this boy. And next to him on the ground, Igneus is just frozen there on the ground. So you can take another move action, you can take an attack action. What do you want to do? I will cast Hunter's Mark. Okay, so Hunter's Mark is a bonus action. So this is a spell that you have.

that's a bonus action. So on your turn, there's a thing called a bonus action as well, and some of your powers are activated this way. So you've got a standard action and a move on your turn, but you also might have a bonus action depending upon your martial skills or bonus actions. Some of your other spells might say bonus action on them. Hunter's marks a bonus action. So you can cast that sort of for free before you do anything else you've run. You cast Hunter's Mark as a bonus action. Will you read from me what Hunter's Mark does? You choose a creature you can see within range and mystically mark it as your quarry. My range is 90 feet. Okay. Until the spell ends, you deal an extra 1D6 standard.

to the target, whenever you hit it with a weapon attack and you have an advantage on any wisdom perception or wisdom survival check you make to find it. Basically, so you've marked this thing, this is your quarry, anything you do is going to give you extra damage against that. So now you've marked it. What are you doing now? Then I'm going to shoot it with my bow.

All right. So you're a fifth level rangers, so you have two attacks with your bow. To make the attack, you're going to roll a D20, and then you'll add the attack bonus that's listed next to your bow to your bow on your weapon sheet there, right in the middle of the page. So you can see you've got, uh, there you go, plus eight. Yeah, yeah. Again, you've got crazy attack bonuses.

Your dexterity is super high. You're a very, very skilled ranger. Let's roll that. Nice. Thirteen plus eight. All right, that is going to hit him. So now you're going to roll damage. The damage is listed.

The dice is listed right next to the weapon right there. So it's a D8 for a long bow. It's the pointy one. It looks kind of like a two pyramids. That's it right there. Greetings, adventurers. Spring has sprung here in Los Angeles, and that means it's a brief period

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And it makes this weird, hissing, screaming, harmonic noise again that you heard before, because it thunks into it. And then you have a second attack, so you've got one more attack. So let's hit it with another arrow. Yeah, all right, do it. Damn damage. That's good. Wait, yes, the D20 and then the...

Yeah, D20 plus whatever that, I think it's plus eight your bonus. Ooh, 16, plus eight. So the total is 24 that definitely hits. Yes. So one other damage for your other arrow. Okay. You go. Four plus seven.

Okay. Eleven. We forgot your hunter's mark. The hunter's mark does extra damage to the bad guy when you hit them. Right? So each time you get an extra D6. Yeah. Oh.

So what I want you to do is I want you to roll a D6 for each of those. So for the first one and then the second one. The first one. Okay, four. So there's four more points from the first one. And then five more for the second. So you're on the stairs there, fire two arrows that thunked into it. The thing screams.

You can hear the thing screaming next to you. screaming next to you, you can't do anything about it. You can look up to the side, you can't even really see it, but you can feel this transformation happening beside you. Then we've got Araviel, you are next. Now the three of you are kind of crowded on the stairs. You're basically filling that stairway right now. So you can fire from here, or you can move.

What do you think you'd like to do? I think it's time for me to summon my flail. Okay. It's named Gail Lash, which I shortened to Ghalash. Galash? All right. So she appears in my hand. So you reach out your hand and this magic

flail appears in your hand. Yes, and it is the color of my dice. It's gray and blue and a little bit, a little bit ethereal, but still corporeal. But that's an action, actually. So you take an action to do that. Take an action to do that, but I do move closer to the monster.

Okay, so you're gonna then run down the stairs, the flail in hand, run down the stairs. And then, it'll put you right in front of this monster. And then because I can, as a bonus action, I'm going to hex that tiny little mother, multi-legged beast. Well, it's about nine feet long now. Tiny is not the right word, but I get what you're doing.

I'm trying to patronize it. It's just a mission. So you cast hex. Now this is one of your first level spells, is that right? It is a first level spell, but I can cast it at a spot of third level or third of, yeah, third level. So I shall. So you are a warlock, so you have two third level spell slots. You cast this first level spell.

This isn't one that improves by being cast as a third level, I don't think. It does. It does. It just means I can maintain the concentration for up to eight hours. So maybe I won't. So it's fine. It's so long as you remain hexed this thing, if it does get away, you have eight hours that you are still, that this thing is still hexed.

If you want to, you don't have to. But already it's up to an hour, so I don't want to be extra. You only have the third level slots, so that's... Oh, okay, yeah, I do only have... Okay, so I only have two third level slots, and so I'm never going to not cast something not at third level. Yes, exactly. Because you're a warlock, so your spells will always be cast at this one level.

Cool. Everyone do the grammar on that sentence. Okay, so I've hexed the thing. I've hexted. I've summoned my blade and then I look at it and I hear, cha-cha, and my head kind of turns around and I glare at it and cha-cha comes forth and until the spell ends, I can deal an extra D6 necrotic damage to the target, very similar to Hunter's mark.

And I can choose an ability, they have disadvantage on ability checks made with the chosen ability. I shall make that. What is the skill that he's using for grapple? So Grapple would be a strength check. Can I do strength? Yeah, you can absolutely do strength. Okay, so now he has disadvantage. So when he ever tries to do strength things, he has disadvantage now because he's cursed.

So what disadvantage means is it's like when you had advantage earlier, when you guys helped each other do investigation. But instead of rolling 2D20s and taking the higher, you roll 2D20s and take the lower. That's disadvantage. All right, so he will have disadvantage if he has to make a strength save. It now moves to Narlak. What are you doing there on the stairs? What does the boy look like? Does he look completely ripped apart?

The boy is mostly gone now. Like he's some clothes on the ground, but the boy is, he's replaced by this thing. There would be nothing left for me to try to save him. There is no him as far as what you can see. It's the thing. Ugh, very well. I shall cast firebolt again. Okay.

So you're gonna roll to hit him? I got a nine. That does not hit. So the firebolt flies as it's kind of wring out of where it is and standing up, rearing. up tentacles flying, it just blasts past it, it kind of dodges, looks at the firebolt, looks back up the stairs at you with the tentacles, tentacles going. And then Leona, you are up now. So you're at the top, up in the room still.

You hear the sizzling of fire, you hear yelling, screaming, and you're up in the room. What are you going to do? Run at the sound? So you run to the stairway, you run down the stairs, and you can see kind of bulking up the stairs, kind of right in the middle. You see Narlaq and Shywin, Shain's got her bow out. Narlaq has just let off a firebolt. You see further down the stairs.

stairs, Eraviel is run to the doorway. Beyond the doorway, you can't really see what's happening except that this is shadow with a little bit of moonlight glinting off of it. This weird tentacles and some strange creature beyond Eraviel in the door, but you can't quite make out what it is. So that's your move action is getting you to there. Now, you can take a standard action here that is a you can dash, which is moving again, just moving to the bottom of the stairs. You could attack if you have a ranged attack to make. You've got a crossbow, but now you've got a pretty crowded doorway there. I'm going to actually give this guy cover against your attack.

You could call out or take another action if you wanted to. Is there anything that you'd like to do? I think I gotta get as close as I can, because most of my power is close range. Yeah, you're a close combatant, definitely. So you push through the crowd at the stairs and run right down, and you find yourself kind of right beside Oraviel. And what you see when you get there is this giant centipede creature

that I described, these big glistening eyes, huge tentacles, mandibles inside those tentacles clacking, and down on the ground beside this creature, igneous is just frozen on the ground because they're shaking a little bit right beside it. And then we are at the top of the initiative order again. So igneous, it is your turn. Now, you're paralyzed, so during your turn, you can't do anything, but at the end of your turn,

you can try to break free again. This is great. This is great. So it's another DC-13 Constitution save. All right. What does your face look like when you're paralyzed, though? Mm-hmm. 14.

All right, so you were able to, you take a big breath, you realize you haven't breathed for a full 12 seconds. Each calm out around is six seconds. You suddenly breathe and you kind of pull yourself up. Now, it's the end of your turn, so you can't actually get to your feet or anything, but you are now no longer paralyzed. You can turn your head and see this massive thing next to you.

That I am. I actually see it. Really pissed at. Now, it is the creature's turn next, and he kind of looks at you on the ground, looks at the two of you moving in the doorway, Raviel and Leona. It shakes its head a little bit, tentacles in the air,

makes it alone with these screaming sounds and just turns and bolts. Like all of his legs bolting across the yard. Now, the same thing that happened before when we did the reaction from the creature when you tried to move away, you guys get to do. You're close to him. So as he turns to run, he doesn't disengage from you

if he just runs. It means you can use your reaction if you want to to try to attack him as he goes. It's just one single attack with a weapon. If you want to do that, you can. I want guys with Leona. I'd like to take a swing with my magical sword. All right.

You're going to take a swing with that sword as he goes. You're going to roll a deep. and then add that plus eight that I've written next to the long sword there. 15 plus eight. So 23. So you swing your sword down and you definitely slice this thing as it tries to move away. So you're gonna roll your damage for your long sword now. And the damage says 1D8 plus seven.

Plus seven? This is eight. Yeah, so that's a D8, that's a point you on, yeah. Six plus seven, 13. So 13 points of damage as you slice this thing. That's good. It screams and horror and anger as it tries to get away. And in Ravi'el, you can take a attack to one, two, two.

that my flail has been summoned, she's gonna do some work. Now, normally on your standard attack on your round, you would both attack twice. However, this is a reaction, so you just get one attack. Oh, darn, that's fine. But I still get my hex. I still get my hex. You do so if you hit, you'll do more damage.

Okay, let's do this. Oh gosh, I'm so sorry, guys. That is a nine. Nine total. The owner leaps forward and slashes at its back and it screams and just with a burst, a speed bursts away, and as you swing the flail, you just swing in the,

the empty air is, the thing is, and it's trucking across the lawn, digging up chunks of grass, and it's heading toward the bushes at the perimeter of the house. Just like crashes into the bushes. You can hear a scream, and because it's entered the bushes, you don't see anything. So now, Shaiwin, what are you doing? I want to get closer to it. Okay. And then, well, shit, because I can't see it.

Basically, the bushes are at the far end of your movement. You can race all the way across the lawn and try to look into the bushes if you want to. Yeah, I'll see if I can see anything. So you use your movement and then you dash as well as your standard action to race all the way across the lawn and you peer into the bushes and you can see beyond the bushes the thing is gone. You don't find it at all. It's the poor ground in bushes. The thing is gone.

What do you want to do is you can call out to them when you get there if you want to? Yeah, definitely. So you call out that it's gone? Yeah. Okay. So we're going to drop out of combat rounds now because there is nothing for you guys left to fight. At least in this moment, but you can choose to still try to pursue it and find it if you want to. You can try to follow it. You can go back upstairs and investigate more.

What do you guys want to do? We should probably... We have to follow it. It's a danger to society. Okay. Our job is to protect the people. I know. We're still in the city, right?

We're in the heart of the city. So he's crashed through the bushes into the neighbor's yard, so you're going to try to follow it. So the way that you will try to follow it here is you are going to... You're going to make another one of those observation roles. When you're tracking something, the role that you would use is survival. So survival lets you find tracks and try to track the thing. So you guys kind of run up to the bushes all around Shywin, and who's going to try to track this thing? It's gone. Ranger.

What about doesn't Hunter's mark and or hex help us here? Actually, well, does, and you have advantage on any wisdom perception or wisdom survival check you make to find it. So yeah, so now, look, that's great. So now that it's marked, you actually are going to have advantage, so you probably should be the one trying to track this. You're also a ranger, tracking is one of your specialties. Can we give her double advantage if we help her?

No, unfortunately, damage doesn't stack. So even if you helped her, she would still only have advantage. So you're going to try to find the trail of this thing, yeah? So you're going to roll with advantage. You're gonna roll a survival check that is indeed a wisdom check, as the Hunter's Mark says. Wisdom or survival. So it's survival.

You should have a survival skill, and you have a bonus there. Plus five. Plus five. So you're gonna roll that die, add five to it, but you get to roll twice and take the higher one because you have advantage. Shy one MVP. 17 plus five.

So you have 22 to start. 22 to start. So at least 22 is what you've got to track this thing. Or 25. Or 25. So do you scramble around in the bushes pretty quick for a little bit? you're able to find, you know, the trail.

This thing was pretty big, and even though it looks like it's crawling through, was crawling through the bushes, was that scrambling that you heard, you can totally follow it by the broken branches and stuff. You force your way through the bushes. Do you guys follow her? Yeah, yeah. He's kind of pushing through the bushes and everything. It's a pretty thick hedge.

You force your way down about 30 feet, and then you come to, it looks like the trail of this thing curves downward, and you look down, and there's a sewer grate that has been pulled aside. So inside this hedge grate, there's a sewer grate, been pulled aside, and the thing looks like it went down into the sewers. Yeah, see a little jerk. Sounds like we're heading to the sewers then. Yep.

That's right. That's good for this guy. Yeah, so there is a ladder. Yeah, yeah. I spent a lot of time in the sewers. You guys lower yourself down. What order do you go down the sewers and do you keep the marching order you had before

or are you gonna change this up now? Well, I mean, since I have a ranged weapon and you're better in close combat, do you wanna take the lead and then I could take the rear? Yeah, we put you in the back. Always wanted to take the rear here. You have that very impressive long bow. I think maybe we put it.

Igne is right behind me in this case, though, because he's got an advantage down here. I spend a lot of time down there. This is where you've lived, yeah. It's closer to the bedrock of the city. That's right. Absolutely, that's a great, it's a great order. So you guys head down to the sewers.

You climb down the ladder one at the time, you reach down there. There's no light, of course, down here. You were in the sewers now, where before you had some moonlight, now you're totally dark. Some of you have dark vision. Shaiwin has dark vision. You can see in the dark, and you can see quite a ways

because you're a gloom stalker. Araviel, you have dark vision. You can see in the dark. I don't believe anyone else does. No, I could cast light on the end of my staff. Okay. Please. I could cast, I would cast the spell light on the end of my staff and use that to loomings.

And lights a cantrip, you got that however often you want to, so now you have a pretty bright radius of light and then a little bit off into the darkness. Thank you, Narla. As you were coming down, you're looking at the marks on the ladder and stuff, and you actually can see that this thing, it started down the sewers and then went to the wall and onto the ceiling.

And so by the time you drop in the ground, the ceiling's about 10 feet above you, and you can see like a little bit of a trail of slime that goes a little ways into the sewer. Duh, I'm still tracking it, I should have got worse. That's okay. I mean, you all went down the ladder, no big deal. So you see where the tracks are kind of going

in the sewers here. You're gonna follow it? Heck yeah. All right, so Shywin takes off a kind of like a loping run. You guys come along after. We'll move Shywin to the front of that marching order there because you're tracking. Just stop trying to get through the dark too,

so she can move out in front of the light. So you run down, take a couple of quick turns, You guys almost immediately are concerned that you're going to get lost here, but Shywin seems like she knows where she's going. You know, of course, Shywin that Rangers don't get lost. So you're moving through the sewers, and you're running pretty fast. You guys are kind of racing to keep up. You take a couple of big turns.

You probably run almost a mile into these winding sewers. So you take a good 10, 15 minutes as you're booking through these sewers. And you get to a crossroads that goes off like eight different directions, and you don't know. You can't tell there's rushing water in here. Looks like maybe the thing came down to the floor. There's a lot of muck and water on the floor, and you don't know where the thing went.

Did it smell? It did smell. When you were up close to it, and you can kind of see when you were tracking it, but the smell of the sewers of the Free City of Greyhawk and the off-castings of 250,000 people into the sewers. Okay, that's... The smell that you smelled before

has been pretty overwhelmed by this test. And you realize now, after the kind of adrenaline drains out of chasing this thing, or chasing shouts. shy when she runs down the sewers, you're standing in, you know, right here and like halfway up your foot deep of foul smelling, horrible water, rats scurrying in the corners. Not such a big deal for you. Yeah, no, they're my buddies. Are the rats running from a particular direction? They're not, they're kind of scurrying around, but... But I can talk to them.

You actually can. Oh. I can talk to rats. That's one of my, that's one of my things, is my jam. Okay. So I'm gonna find a rat. You have a little... Speak with animals. Well, speak with animals is a spell that you can use, but what? You also have, because you are a druid of the shepherd, your circle is circle of the shepherd. Circle of the shepherd, I can converse with beasts and fe. Yes, so you can converse with animals. Now you have to lure an animal to you to talk to it.

These are rats, they're not used to talk into people. You're a little skittish. But you can try. Do you have a skill called animal handling? I do, animal handling. Yes, I do. Plus six. So what I want you to do is I want to roll an animal handling check

to see if you can get one of the rats to come to you to talk to you. D20? D20, and you would add your six. 18. So it's a 24. Do you kind of get down on your haunches there and you motion for maybe do you have some like food in your pack? Always keep a little food because you know animals get hungry. You never want to serve the animals. The rats are pretty bold. They live in the sewer so they kind of come out to investigate. And two of them actually come all the way out to you and sit back and look at you for food. And I give them some, we'll give them a little food and then you know we have a little conversation.

What do you ask them? What have you seen? Because they know animals don't they don't like think like us. Right. They're not smart. Yeah. They don't remember a whole bunch of things. So like, yeah, you can ask them simple things. But like, have you seen, what have you seen recently? What's come through here recently? The rats kind of look at each other and one of them says,

Big worm, big worm? Big worm? Which way did Big worm go? They look at each other again and one of them points down a left-hand tunnel. The other one points down the tunnel straight away. And they start to just like squabble a little bit. No, no, no, this way. And one of them basically says, like, you not, you not, you, you, you, you, you, you, You hide. How do you know? You hide. And they kind of get into a little fight there, but they pointed in these two directions and they can't seem to come to an agreement there.

Does big worm live down here? They don't know. They don't know. They don't know. Never seen. I don't know. Never seen it before. Never seen. Big worm. Very big worm. With worms on face. Worms, yeah. That's what we're looking for. Legs and worms on face. Food? More?

Here's some more food. Here's some more food. Okay. So they take a little more food. What else can I ask them? What else? What else? Anything else? See if there's anything else. As soon as I've seen anything out of the ordinary. Yeah, anything else other than big worm living down here? Us, lots of us.

Lots and lots and lots and lots. Angry log. Oh boy. And flying, flying us. Flying us down here. Yes. Bugs, little crawly. Crawlies, they're delicious crawlies.

Yeah, no, they're young. That's good. Sometimes you. Sometimes, yep. I've been down here a lot. More you, too. Oh. Oh, more, more of us like us.

Today? Today? Yeah, well, today, I don't, maybe. Okay. Today doesn't seem like a concept of the ration. Totally grasp. They don't have a lot of long-term memory. Before you came other direction.

Oh. So people like us came the other way? Yes. More food? Yep, yeah, more food. So the other way, which way? Which direction? The rats, an agreement this time, point back the way you came.

So some people like us came down earlier, and then Big Worm came this way as well. That's what the rat says. Rats are very known to be reliable. We're wearing the City Watch cloaks, right? Right now you are, yes. So your cloaks are black cloaks with red striped down the side of them. Can you ask them if they were dressed kind of like,

The other people who came dressed like us? Same sort of cloaks? You point to your cloak and they kind of converse for a second. Cloaks, cloaks. Same color, all black, all red? Dark, dark. All dark, okay. Which way did those?

Yeah, where did they go? Dark, and they point back the way that you came. Okay. So they came, where did they come from? They kind of conversed and they don't know. I don't know if we can get more out of these guys. Yeah, this feels like a dead end. It feels like we gotta either choose left or forward.

All right, thank you. I thank them for their service. give them a little more food and then take some more food and scurry off back into the darkness. So either left or forward. We're back the way we came to try to find. There is much at the murder scene that you guys didn't look. I mean, you were interrupted pretty quickly at the murder scene too. I mean, I'm guessing it was those guys that came through.

The guys who are like now dead. We need to see more evidence. We need to round up more cool. I will say that was very impressive what you did there, Igneas. Pretty adorable as well. There are lovely little creatures, really. I talk to animals. All right, so you guys decide

you're going to head back to the crime scene? So you make your way back to the sewer. A little slower this time again. Shaiwan leads you and seems to know exactly the turns that you made, which is good because none of you would have been able to move away back out. Back up the ladder through the bushes and back into the house. There's City Watch everywhere, like beating the bushes and stuff,

and you come out of the sewers smelling like you've been down in the sewers. And there's a couple of shouts and a bunch of City Watch run over to you. Is everything okay? What happened? We saw the creature and you were gone. What happened? We apprehended a young lad who turned out not to be a lad at all. There was a creature inside him. Enormous long centipede, like long tentacles off of its face.

It has powers. It paralyzed igneous. We gave chase. We lost sight of it in the sewers. Would any of us know what this creature is now? Okay, so now that you've had a moment to think about it, possibly. If you want to check, you would roll a survival check. This is another survival check.

Your hunter's mark doesn't technically count here because you're thinking of something more broad. So a survival check, if you want to roll, you can figure it out. I've got a 17. I have a 19. I've got a 16. 19 plus 3. 24.

7. Yeah, now that you've had a moment, all of you except for Narlaq. It makes sense. Narlax's not native to this city or this plain. I'm not from this world. The rest of you, however, there are always rumors of stuff living in the sewers. And actually, you've come across some droppings and things that you didn't really recognize. You think this was a carrion crawler.

They live in the sewers. Typically, they live in the sewers. They eat refuse and dead bodies. They're scavengers. Horrible, gross, monstrous things. Are they known to take control of human bodies? Not in the slightest. You've never heard.

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They disseminate some additional information to you, things that you didn't see at the crime scene before. So what they've gathered is they've got four bodies that have this harpy tattoo that you saw. Two of them are ripped apart entirely. The other two look like they've died of stab wounds. They've got three bodies that have that symbol that you know. that you knew to be the rivers, the one that you spotted on the wall over there on their elbows. One of them is also torn apart. Are they torn apart the same way that we saw the boy that the thing came out of?

Not that way, not like exploded open, but like the ligature marks that now Igneus has across his face and neck. They have those going on. You saw that on the arms. It looks like claw marks, maybe some teeth that could be mandibles, and certainly those tentacle burns across all of these bodies that are torn apart, The tentacle burns have definitely torn them apart. You also see on them, you see one of them with the harpy symbol has lockpicks. They pointed those out, the city watch is laid out there like lockpick roll.

And then there's a bag that was laying next to one of the people with the harpy tattoo that is full of, essentially, lutes, a couple of gold candlesticks, a bunch of jewelry, some gold coins, that the city watch tells you they think was taken from the master bedroom. Right. Do you, yeah, you know these people, do you recognize any of this stuff? Do I? Yeah, you can roll an intelligence check to see. Let's see if you remember.

Just roll an intelligence, roll a D20 and add your intelligence to it. 17 plus 2, 19. Yeah, 19. You actually have a really good memory about this. In fact, one of the necklaces that's in the bag, you know that Madam Flagstaff, when you were here for the ball that you were guarding, was wearing this pretty impressive diamond choker, and that's definitely here in the back.

So why she wouldn't have taken it with her, maybe she's got nicer jewelry to go to her daughter's wedding, but there's definitely something to see. You can't wear the same necklace to two. That's my necklace. I would totally be the phone You're right, the engagement party and the wedding, that would have been so gross.

Okay, fair. How I was just going to say? So it's clear that they were here to rob the place. It looks like somebody was here to rob the place or these guys with the harpy on the elbow probably were here to rob the place. Is any of their stuff worth taking? Could we take the lock picks? I mean, the lock picks, I don't think any of you

are proficient in lock picks. I mean, the City Watch will gather up anything that's valuable. That's usually what happens here. You guys are all pretty well equipped for what you need. So the City Watch will take care of that piece of it. But that's sort of the evidence that they find here is these three rivers and four harpies. You know, some of them torn apart, some of them stabbed. Aside from the brutal murders, it might appear that two gangs worked together to rob a place,

or perhaps that two rival gangs both ran into each other trying to rob a place. But then this creature, what's it called? The carrion crawler. Carrying crawler seems to... So as you guys make your way back to the precinct. I have a question. Because we have fought this thing before, now after looking through the rooms and everything, can we tell how many carrion crawlers there might have been? The only markings that you see that are like a carrion crawler, you can take the time to do some looking around. Those markings that you saw on the wall that looked like dots,

it looks like maybe the same kind of footprints that you saw when you were tracking. They're the claw marks of this carrion crawler along the wall, just tracking blood along the wall. That's the only real evidence of the carrion crawler you see here apart from the mangled bodies. Now, do we know whether or not that could have happened with it just coming out of the kid's mouth a little bit? It looks like the full-on creature, the same creature that you saw before. But could it have been the same creature, though, because it just ripped the kid apart? It has the exact same, it has the exact same, you know, footprints trail that you saw before. So there should be at least two, right? Do you guys talk about all this stuff kind of as you make your way back to the precinct?

You bring your evidence in, kind of gather the things together, start writing. stuff down and bouncing theories off of each other. And as the sun comes up in the morning, you're talking about the nature of this creature, where it might have come from, who it might have been, these dead bodies, the four harpies and the three rivers. You see some of them are ripped apart and stabbed. Were they working together, as you said, were they fighting each other? You're not really sure, but as the sun comes up in the morning, smiles comes out of her office. And she walks over to the board that you've drawn on and nods a little bit and looks at each of you and says,

it looks like you've gotten a good start here. Very impressive, very impressive. I have many questions for you, maybe a few suggestions, but my shift is over and I'm going to go home and get some sleep. Congratulations on catching a case. I expect you'll keep working on it, and I'll go home and get a little sleep,

and I'll see you in a few hours. And she just turns and walks out the door. And you look at each other. Thanks. Looks like it's going to be a long morning. Oh, my gosh. And if you want to find out what happens in their investigation,

you can join us next time on Starter Kit. Next time on Starter Kit. I think we might have to head to the Thieves Quarter. You wanna talk to the head of the harpies. In disguise. The word is you're a fearsome fighter. How the hell did you know that? Tell her more.

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What are you waiting for? Expedia, the one place you go to go places, terms apply. The war is over and both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders, an army scattered like bones in the dust. Now the survivors claw to what's left. of a broken world praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight. But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins.

This is old school adventuring at its most cruel. Your torch ticks down in real time. And when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job. This is a brutal rules-light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make. This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s. And man, it is so far. good to be back. Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the Shadow Dark every Thursday night

at 8 p.m. Eastern on YouTube.com slash the Glass Cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day. See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark.