Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Part 6: Sewers Run with Blood | Starter Kit - Advanced D&D

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

Careful planning pays off, until an unlikely encounter with a creature from one of the Inquisitors’ past threatens to destroy the case, and the Inquisitors themselves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Do you know where the sewers empty into the river? We're going to go do some recon. Official inquisitor business. You guys move forward? stealthily into the sewers. Welcome back to your starter kit. I'm David Nett, your dungeon master for this D&D adventure.

The most important thing to remember when playing D&D, or any role-playing game for that matter, is that it is a game. It's at its best when everyone is having fun, especially when the story's stakes are high. Sometimes you triumph, sometimes you fall on the battlefield.

But so long as we all have fun telling the story together, we all win. We're in the sewers below the free city of Greyhawk, moving along quietly, surrounded by a shroud of mist and darkness, thanks to Shywin's spell. You do have light, it's held a lot, it's a little bit less bright than it would be under normal circumstances.

Now, you know that while this is a magical, hiding this magical stealth check, the light isn't helping you. If you'd want to go completely incognito, you'll need to extinguish it, but that will leave a few of you in the dark of the sewers. So you're going to need to make that call when the time comes. You move through the sewers with a little bit of light, moving quietly, slowly to make sure that you stay in the shadows, rats. scurry. You don't hear any other sounds except for the dripping and running of water and a little

scurrying of tiny feet everywhere. You move through twisting around corners. Liam has given you a pretty good idea of where the turns are, but you can tell from the map that he's drawn for you that his mind isn't working to scale. It's actually a good deal farther than you, than you expect it as you move to the sewers, twisting and turning, taking a good deal of time. And in fact, you feel the minutes ticking away. It's a good, solid, almost full hour. before you find yourself nearing the river's layer. Oh, yeah. So you feel your spell starting to fade,

you guys kind of press yourselves against the wall, and you believe that the fissure that enters into the river's layer will be around the next corner, just as the spell fades away. So what are you guys going to do? I would like to change into a bat. All right? What? I have not done this.

Yes! I haven't had the years enough been the opportunity, but... How many years have I worked beside you and not know you to turn into a bat? You didn't know about the whole bat thing? I didn't bring that... It just doesn't come up. in normal conversation.

So the way that Wow Shape works. You can take the shape of creatures that you've seen before. Right. But technically at level five, you can't yet fly. So it's just basically regular beasts and you can't assume the shape of anything that flies. Got it. However, because this is fun and because this is our final session, let's do it. Yes!

That'll mean is all of your physical statistics, your hit points, your armor class, all of that, become the bats, hit points in armor class. Right. Now you're not in combat now, so you're not really worried about being attacked, but should you be attacked in this fight? You mark down the hit points you have right now as you leave and then make it is a little space I think for additional hit points or temporary hit points there. So I would put the night or whatever the bat has, it's not, it's a very few one two. One hit point. One hit point in that temporary hit points.

If you are damaged and revert to zero hit points as a bat, you will change back into your other form but you'll go back to whatever hit points you had. If something does massive damage to and it carries on past that one, you'll take that damage to, we'll deal with it if we get there. Got it. Okay. So how long can you stay in the wild shape? I think it's a little wild.

Half my druid level, rounded down. Okay, so in that number of hours. So you're at level of five, so you can stay in your wild shape for two hours. For two hours. You don't have to say that, you can transform back. Right. Can he go in and out of it?

No, once he transforms, you can transform twice per rest. Twice per rest. So you've got two of those. So you transform, you see him, his whole form kind of shrinks up. Now you can choose to leave your clothes behind or transform them into the creature with you.

Obviously more convenient for them to move. Yeah, I take it with me because I need my armor, too. All right, sure. So you just do it. You see him suck up into the form of this little fluttering bat right in front of you. Yes. Can you go do some recon?

That is exactly what I'd like to do. So I'm going to recon into the fissure as a bat. So I need you to roll your stealth. Now you look at the bat statistics for me. The bat statistics. So that's a dexterity roll. I don't know if there's any bonuses for stealth on there, but I'm going to give you some pretty significant ones if there aren't.

Advantage on wisdom. No. So I'm actually going to give you a plus five. So you've got your dexterity bonus, which is... Plus three. plus two. Plus two. I'm going to give you another plus five to your stealth.

You're tiny, you're dark. People expect you to be down here. So you'll be a total plus seven to yourself. So I'm rolling my stealth roll. It's a D20 plus seven. It's a two. All right, so it's a nine. So you hear him flapping as he kind of flaps around the corner.

However, he is just a bat. So it's like he's a dude flapping in the air. He's just a bat. Flaping around the corner, you get him flapping. You go around the corner. So you do round the corner and you can see about 100 meters down there is on the left-hand side a crack in the wall of these sewers. And there is one person standing outside of that crack.

You can see some light coming from the crack. There's one person standing right there. Just sort of lazily leaning on a spear, just kind of hanging out there. So that's the guard. It's like it's a guard on the outside. Got it. Yeah. So I'm going to try to go past the guard and just get a little more recon.

You flap down the hallway. He hears you, and he kind of looks around, they sees you. And as you swoop in, he takes a half-hearted swing with his spear, just to see if he can smack you. And he can't. You're pretty fast. So you fly inside. What a dick.

Yeah, right? Some people are just dicks. That's right. Come on, I wasn't doing nothing. So you flap in little bat wings flapping into the space and you open into like a kind of a large 20 by 20 sort of space. It looks like maybe an entryway. This is a natural cave, whereas the sewers are very constructed

and nice to tightly fit stone. This is a natural cave. It looks like there was a crack in the wall and somebody's made at their home. There is a passageway straight ahead, one to the left, and one to the right. You can hear some voices coming from straight ahead, and some voices coming from the right.

Hmm. I'm going to go to the right. Okay, so you kind of flap down this hallway, just the bat flapping. You actually, another bat flies the other way as you're flapping in here. He says, hey, wave a wing, he doesn't acknowledge you in any way. A little squeaks to hurt your ears for a second, and then he's gone. So you fly down the passageway to the right. And what you encounter as you're flying, actually a couple of people coming toward you.

There are five of them. They're dressed in full armor carrying weapons, and they're moving at a pretty significant pace. And as they come toward you from another side passageway, three more people join them. And one of them is talking pretty loudly, and this is the voice that you heard. She's sort of a middle height, mid-30s,

sort of a nondescript-looking woman. Brown hair pulled back in a tight bun. But she's wearing like a chain mail shirt. She's carrying a sword and a mace at her waist. She looks fit for battle. And she's talking to the others. She says, we're going to go take some more of what's ours. Those harpies, they killed how many of them?

our men had they killed and one of the other ones says they've killed five now and she says five in one day we will not stand for that we're going to go take back what is ours and he says well shiren are we supposed to just fight them face on and she says no we're not going to fight them head on we do what we do best we slink in the shadows we take them one of the time we hurt them until they leave us alone until they give us what belongs to us and the other guy says well there aren't many shifters left ma'am and she says that don't worry about that that. Grantoc is already in his lab. The sun will be down in moments and he'll begin his ceremony. There will be more of us to join you. But for now, you go to the surface, we take what is ours.

She claps that person on the back and then she stops and he continues walking. At this time she's kind of reached that main, the first room that you saw again, you're flying around by them. They leave, go out the door, past the guard, a couple of them clapping the guard in the back, and they head the other direction in the sewers. Not the way you came, but another direction kind of... They're heading deeper into the city, it seems like. So a group of about like seven just left. Yeah. And so she stands in the doorway for a moment. She nods, and then she heads down the middle passageway,

one of the ones that you didn't take. Okay. Hmm. I feel like I want to follow her, but I also want to get back up. Okay. Before we go any further. I'm going to follow her a little bit before you. So I'm making sure that she's going to Grand Talk.

So she actually goes down this passageway. The passageway is pretty short and opens into a room. The door is kind of hanging open. And inside there's a big, burly guy in armor. And she comes in and she says, Will, will you go and check on Grontok, make sure the ceremony has started? The sun must be down by now and we want to make sure that the ceremony has started. And Will sort of grunts at her. She comes over by her bed and she kind of takes off a couple pieces of her armor, puts them on the bed.

This is clearly her chambers. But Will goes out the door and back down the time. Flapping around the ceiling, just a bat, no big deal. Just a bad, hey, nobody. Nobody, nobody missed. Will kind of hurries back down to the main room and then back down that passageway to the right that you first went down. And he follows it for a long time, and it curves way around, probably a quarter of a mile away from where you started. And as the tunnel starts to get narrower and much more natural, less footsteps on the ground,

and he gets the passageway curves around, and there is a door set back into the passageway. And he knocks on the door two wraps. Someone inside says, you hear a voice say come in. He opens the door and steps in. He begins to close the door behind him. I'm slipping. Oh, no. Because if he closes the door, I am shit out of luck.

So what are you doing? The door's coming closed. I turn around and go back. The door closed. I love the door closed. I'm so nervous. So you fly back out to your companions. Fly all the way back out to them and say, okay. So in the bat form they can't understand you, of course.

I return to human form. Okay, so by the time he flies back, you guys are getting kind of nervous. He's been gone like 25 minutes, 30 minutes. So you're kind of getting nervous when you hear the... As the bat comes flying around the course. bat comes flying around the corner. I swipe at him. No, I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding. Not again. That hovers in the air for a moment, and Igna sort of spills out of where the bat was onto the ground. All right, you guys. So here's the deal. There's one guard there.

When you go through that door, there's a big room. Last I saw, Sheeran is in that room and she's taken off her armor. Because he's in her bedroom. She's in her bedroom on the other side of that chamber. Seven armored guys just left to go after the heartbees. We don't care about those guys.

There's a long time. long tunnel to the right and all the way at the end of that is where Grontak is and he's probably starting the ceremony pretty soon. So. Yeah, let's go. I should cast Pass Without a Trace again. Do you want to try to do that? Oh, that's great, yeah. Because we gotta take out that first guard. We'll take out the first guard. Oh, Longbow? Well, can I do that right now? I mean, you can peek around the corner and see that guy if you want to? Can we kill him while we're in Pass without a Trace? Can we like...

It doesn't change anything. Your stealth, I mean, he's gonna, if you shoot an arrow at him and don't kill him, for instance, he'll know where the arrow came from and probably see you. Sure. But it's not invisibility, it's just be, you know, cloaking you in shadows. Maybe we just creep up to him while cloaked in shadow and then just stab the fucker. We could do that. Yeah, we need to. I'm a good stabber. I mean, these two guys are your main, you know, they're your main offensive tools and, and Shaiwin is pretty good with that bow. Yeah. Again, Leona obviously up close is gonna. So either of them are a good option.

What do you guys want to try to do? Yeah, it's up to you guys. I'll do it. I will follow you. I say take the shot. Okay. Well, so I cast pass without a trace. Okay, so you cast past with a trace.

Again, you're all drenched in shadow, so you'll be plus 10 to your stealth check when the time comes. And you're gonna just kind of lean out in the hallway. I'm not gonna make your role for this because you're around the corner. You're just gonna lean out just enough to get eyes on this guy.

You're cloaked in this shadowy mist. And you can see him just kind of lounging there by the door. He's not really doing much of anything. He's not even really paying attention. very well. You're going to put a couple of arrows in him? Is he young, too? It's hard to tell from here.

It could be anywhere from late teens to mid-20s. He tried to kill a bat. He tried to kill me. That's true. All right. No good reason. Okay. So you're going to roll to hit him.

You've got two shots right away before anything else would happen. So if you can take him down with two shots, that would take him down before he can react. Okay. So you've got surprise on him. Wait, Mark. Yes. Thank you. Just so we know, the reason we're not rolling initiative right now is you're attacking from surprise.

Right. act two yet. Okay. If you leave them alive, things will change. Right. So I should cast Hunter's Mark. Now, how many spells are you at now? Oh shit, okay. You've used a cloak of shadows twice now. Pass with out of trace, sorry, twice now. But Hunter's Mark is a level one spell. Okay. And how many of those do you have? I have four. Okay. So you've used, this is, you're out of level two spells, but you have four of these level one spells. If you want to mark him, you can. Leave it all on the floor. Hunter's Mark. So you take a moment and mark him, you know exactly where he is. You're going to take the shot at him. Okay.

It's been so long. It's a long. Natural 20. Oh. So explain to me what happens with this single arrow how you kill him. He's leaning off to the side and I take aim and I just get him right through the heart.

He doesn't even know what hit him. And you guys just hear a thp, off the bow, a thump as the arrow hits and then a slut you can hear like a little bit of scrape as he just slides to the ground. Very merciful, painless, I'm sure. A terrifying, still very terrifying. A painless arrow to the heart.

Yeah, he's gone before he can even blink. So you guys come around the corner then? Yep. Yes. Yes. I have thought of many other things that I have not used. Yes. Because I also have the cape of the mountebank.

You do. Which allows me to teleport. Oh. What? What? Can you take other people with you? Can I? You can go to places that you've seen.

Unfortunately, because your cape lets you go, you can't take anybody with you. We can take anyone with me. We could get an inside man. But I can go in, while they're coming through the door, I can go into what's her name, into Shearin's room. Right. So if you wanted to go into Shearin's room, you could do this. You haven't seen inside of Grontock's room, unfortunately.

Unfortunately, I've not seen inside of Grontock's room, but... If you wanted to take Shearin. I can take... I can get in... I should be Shearing, Grontok. She's between us and him. So the way it works is the main room here. Straight ahead is her room.

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So he doesn't get the whole. Right. We have time on Sharon. If we can pass. her and leave her while we go to Grand Talk. Like the mothership. And you're not our strongest fighter. I don't want you trapped in a room alone with her.

All right. I mean, I want to be able to protect you. It is really cool. That's really cool. You won't be able to use it. There's plenty of time. It's gonna be time. You don't know we're getting out of here.

We have got out of here. Yeah. All right. Let's go for ground talk. So you guys move forward, moving a stealthy kind. I need a stealth check from everyone. So you're gonna get plus 10 to your roll. Now you're wearing full chain mail armor. That's gonna give you a disadvantage to stealth checks.

You still have a plus 10, though. and roll twice and take the lower roll. For everyone else, just a straight, stealth check plus 10. I rolled 15 both times. Oh, great, so 15 total both times. 11, so 21. Natural 20, so 32.

Oh, a natural 20, you couldn't be quieter anyway even if you wanted to be, but the 32 is appreciated. Nice. So I rolled a 17 plus 10 and then, plus whatever your bonus is for stealth are. Plus eight, 35? There, perfect. 14.

14, all right, so you move around the corner and out into the passageway, you see the body slumped by the wall. Do you do anything with that body? We could hide it. Can we put him in the water? Is there? You can push him into the little canal in the center of the room.

Yeah, I want to see his head. Food for your frame. So as you kind of push him over there, he does not have the scar on his head. I think we should put him in the water as a snack to our crocodile. So you put him in the little stream. He doesn't float very far.

He's kind of big for this. He kind of gets wedged in there and the water moves around him. But he's out of sight, certainly. That's good. Out of sight. You move into the main room. There's nobody there as there wasn't before. It's pretty empty and quiet.

You can hear a little bit of rustling from straight ahead where you indicated that Sharon's room was. A little bit of talking, some mumbling conversation. You move down the passageway toward Grontock's chambers. Oh, I forgot you guys. He's got a huge guy named Will in there. But I left, there's a huge guy named Will. Okay.

Appreciate that. Big Duce. So you curve around the outside following this path. We're under the spell. You're all close together, kind of mass in the shadows. You're moving close to the shadows. the wall as quietly as you can, you're all actually doing very well there. I want to keep an eye on behind us too.

Okay, you're gonna walk behind you. Let's actually make a marching order for this as you move through the hallway. So who's in front? Probably. I'm still the strongest fighter. Okay, so the strongest fighter. You're in front there.

I should probably be second because I've been this way. Okay, so you're right behind her telling her where to go. You should be in the middle so you can cover all of us. Okay, shall I went right in the middle? I'll take bank. Bank? I don't know what bank means. I don't either.

I just said it. I'll take up for you. I'm taller than everyone. and cast spells over tall. All right, so you guys move down. Drink is clearly it means four. Second to last, that's a, yeah.

Obviously. Fourth or second to last, it depends on how exactly you want to get. All right, so you're moving down this hallway, stealthily, quietly. You curve all the way around and find yourself in front of the door that Igneas had described. The door that Will, Will went in that you believe leads to Grontoc's chambers. Yes. Question. Yes.

I have sense magic or something, don't I? So it's called primeval awareness, and you can sense certain things. Undead you can sense. you can sense, dragons, fay, fiends, devils, and stuff like that. I kind of wanna know if Grontok is sort of one of those things. I think that's a fair thing to wonder. So you focus yourself, kind of reach out

your primeval awareness, feeling in your area. You can reach about a mile. These things again, undead, fiends, fay, dragons, you don't find any of those within the mile. Okay. You seem clear of at least those things that you do. Maybe he's just a dude.

Maybe. So what do you guys? You are outside the door? What are you guys doing? Wait, I would like to cast... I know I want to see if I can do it. Bless upon three. The three companions in the front. Okay, so what does Bless do?

What Bless does is you bless up to three creatures of your choice within range whenever a target makes an attack on attack roll or a saving throw before the spell ends. The target can roll a D4 and add that number rolled to the attack or saving throw. So, for Leona and Igneus and Shywin, will you take a D4 and just put it out in your diatray so we remember that? Because it's easy to forget these kind of things. How long does this spell last? The only lasts for a minute. Okay, so for the next minute, you've got that D4.

If we go into combat rounds, that's actually ten rounds. If we don't go into combat, that might dissipate before you use it. It's a good thing to do regardless. Anybody else? I'm definitely getting my flail ready. So you call your flail right now, so you don't have to take an action to do it. Your flail peers in your hand. Perfect.

They'll stand outside the door there. Is anybody to open the door? Who's going to open the door? I'm gonna throw the door open. Okay. Very quickly and suddenly. You step aside and just fling the door open. The door crashes open and you find yourself staring at a little ante room.

It's about 20 feet deep and about 40 feet wide. It's lit by two braziers burning in the room and nobody's in here. There's a door however right on the far side. And I think since we just made some noise we quickly crashed through that second door. What you see as you move through this room is on one side of the room. So on the left side of the room there is a table, like a nice wooden table with a a bunch of weird-looking instruments laid on it. On the right side of the room, there are six more tables laid down with little pillows on them.

There's also a barrel of water near that table on the left-hand side, and then these two braziers burning brightly. You move across the door right across the room. Do you kick that one open as well? Yeah. All right. Leone, you rush across the room and you kick open that door. And I'm going to pull open one more map here.

So we'll put this right in the center of the room. Oh, boy. There we go. And I'm gonna come around, and grab these guys and come around. All right, so, Niona, you have just kicked open this door. You are standing right here.

Behind you in order right away was Igneas and Shywin. Behind them you have in, what did you call it? At bank. At bank. Behind them you got a rabial. And bringing up the rear, you have Narak. You kick open the door to this room. What you see is this expansive cave.

In the middle of the room, there are a couple of stalagmites and stalactites that have grown together. That are these two right there. To the left side of the room, you can see a bunch of metal cages filled with weird animals chirping and squawking and making noise. There's also some crates. The brown ones there are just crates.

Can't really see what they're filled with. Some barrels, you can't see around the corner yet. But off to the right there, you see six tables laid out. And on each of those tables is lying a figure. Oh, boy. Animal cruelty, too. Damn, this guy's the worst. These figures are just sprawled out on the tables.

They have blankets covering them and they are unmoving. Oh, poor babies. Oh, man. If you'll put the other three on there for me. And then at the far end, you can see there's a barrel at the far, and you're not exactly sure what that is. There's a small table in front. There's a figure hunched over the body in the far,

upper right-hand corner. You throw open the door. You hear a voice say, I've just begun the ritual. Why have you disturbed me? And you realize two things. The first one is, that voice echoes, you hear that sound, and then you realize you didn't hear that. It was in your head.

Oh, boy. And the second thing you realize, and you realize this, Narlak, that the voice you heard didn't speak common. It was translated in your brain to something that you understand, but rather it was speaking an astral language that you've heard your entire life, as what turns around is this figure with this large octopoid head and four tentacles leaning down from its mouth. Its hands are bloody, it's got an operating instrument in one hand, the other hand is just sort of covered in blood,

and these octopus tentacles, these four tentacles open to reveal a beak inside and these beady, beady eyes, that turn to stare at you. And you can see in the moment of recognition, Leona, you see that it recognizes you are not one of the rivers, and from the back, Narlak, a chill goes down your body as you see a mind flare standing on the far side of the irracial enemy. Your whole life your people have been enslaved by the mind flares when you escape. That's why you fled to limbo. Being face to face with one chills you to the bone and its initiative.

Oh God. I'll go around the table and ask you so don't call it out. Just roll it. So you just roll it and you add your initiative bonus at the top. Leona, what'd you get? Four. So you just, you see this thing turn and you hear this voice in your brain and you're just stunned for a moment. I'm only a human.

So what about you, Igneus? I got an eight with my bonus, it's a nine. Okay. 15. Okay, Raviel's 15. Shaiwin? Two plus seven, so I got a nine. Nine.

And Narak. Five. Five totally. You're just, you're stunned. Like, every bit of your body is on high alert. All the adrenaline rushes into your body. The thing turns and sees you and says, who are you? What is this?

And again, you hear it echoing in your brain. It's not an actual voice. He points a finger at you. and says, get out, get out now. And he raises with one hand, he raises this hand. And the bodies that are on these beds here start to rise up from the bed, kind of stumble off. And you can see, they've all been,

they're in middle of operation. They've been cut open. Their entrails are sort of falling out. And they all stumble off of their beds, kind of form a protective cord in here around him. Ah, he fell over. He's mid-surgery. And so the intestines falling out,

blood just pouring off of their bodies. And that is his, initial move. Now, Araviel, you are up first. Okay, I think I want to Eldridge blast him. Okay. And, oh no, those babies are awake now too? Yeah, they are all up as well.

Well, I'm going to get on him. Now, where you are in the order here, like the doorway is pretty much filled by Leona. If you want to blast him, you're going to have to move past Leona. Now you can move through your companions. They'll get out of the way for you. Then yes, I will. And I can still stay back pretty far because it's 120 feet. You tell me where you want to be. So we'll move you through.

You'll step through the door past Leona, Then where do you want to be? Can we count 120 feet from him? I want to be as far. Oh, you have plenty, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 40, 50. You've got plenty. You can be anywhere. Then, yeah, there's good.

Okay, see you have there right there? Right. So you step in and you're going to Eldridge blast him. Yes. So this little guy, I actually get to repel him and push him 10 feet as well. If you hit him certainly. If I hit him. So I get two beams.

Okay. And they both have to make their ranged attack. Yeah. So you have to roll a hit with your range spell attack. You're using your spell bonus there. It's gonna be a plus five. All right, you tell me. So does an eight hit?

An eight does not hit. So the first blast just goes wide. You're just terrified. You push through and you just blast. Yes, here comes number two. Oh, dang it, 11. 11 also does not hit. So you just, you blast it.

In fact, he waves his hand a little bit when the second one comes, and it's almost like the beam veers as he pushes it aside. It never gets even close to him. He sort of pushes it aside. Well, not this time, but I'm gonna gather my wits together and next time it'll be better. Okay, and then we've got, so shot

Shaiwin and Ignius, you have the same role, but Shaiwin's got a much higher dexterity. So she's going to go next. Got it. So Shywin, you are up. So I'm going to cast Hunter's mark on him. Okay. So again, the doorway is crowded. You're going to have to move into the room to really see anything that's going on. I will have to move in front of. I definitely get out of the way. So you move through everybody here. Where do you want to be ultimately?

What gives me the best vantage point? I mean, right here you've got a clear shot at him. You're also standing right in front of everybody else when the time comes from to attack you. I do want to go actually off to the side. Yeah. So this way or this. way. To the right. You can kind of come around here to get a little bit of... Okay, yeah, that's fine. So you step up. You can get to here. Here we leave you a shot still.

Sure, that's great. So you step right there and you're gonna do your hunter's mark as you're moving. So as you're moving, you clock him and cast your hunter's mark. So mark off that spell. Okay. And you can take a shot at him. All right. Okay, so it's 15 plus 8, 23. So that hits him, an arrow thunks. And you hear the sound of scraping metal as it thunks through his breastplate. He's wearing a metal breastplate. So that's gonna hit. So you're gonna roll your damage. Yes. Right? And then you're gonna roll a D6 as well because of the hunter's mark. And then you'll add your bonus that's next to it. Two plus seven, so that's nine. And plus the extra hunters mark damage.

11. 11 total, all right. So the arrow thunks into his chest and you have another attack because you're a fifth level ranger. Right. 10 plus 8, 18. All right, so we didn't use it last time but we didn't need to because you hit. So you can roll that D4 because you're blessed and add that to your roll as well. 18 plus 4, 22.

The 22 is your total roll. Again, the arrow flies through the air thunking into his chest. You hear it scrape through the metal. Roll your damage. All right. It's this, I get the D6 again. Yep, because he's marked. So every time until the hunter's mark goes away, you get that extra D6.

Eight, seven. So, okay, six plus seven, we've got 13. Mm-hmm. Plus four, 17. My goodness, all right. Those arrows thunk into him. He screams and kind of a psychic scream. You can see his tentacles cry and like this vibration in your brains.

It's just like your brains are like shaking in your heads from the scream of this thing. And then it is igneous. You are up. All right. With my cape of the mountebuck, I can use that. Yes. And does that count as my move or is that come? It would be an action. That would be an action. So you're going to take an action to do that. Okay. So then I'm not going to do that now. I'm going to move.

Okay. So remember you have six squares of movement. I have six squares of movement. One, two, three, four. I think that's close enough. Okay. I'll move one closer just to be sure. Okay. And I'm going to call the lightning. Bring in that cloud. Bring in the cloud of lightning on, on dude right there.

There. The weather underground. So the lightning crackles in this cloud, and he gets to roll a save versus it, yeah? That's right. He gets to roll a dexterity saving throw. Okay. The lightning comes crashing down, and you see if the lightning comes, he again waves his hand a little bit, and a lightning curves around him and crashes into the ground.

So he does still take half damage, I think, right? He still, yeah. So still roll your damage, we'll divide it in half. Take 3D10 on a failed save and half that much on a successful. So 3D10. So that's a 7 and a 5. That's a seven and a five. So, okay.

And a four. 12 plus four is 16, and it's halved because he made his say by pushing it out of the way, but he still takes eight points of damage. All right. And you moved and you've attacked now, so it moves on to Narlaq. You are up. You're shaking, like the adrenaline's coursing into your blood. You see this illithid across the room staring into your soul. What are you going to do? Narlack is first going to run at full speed.

Then I'm going to Misty Step, which uses a bonus action. Great, so you use a bonus action to Missy Step. How far can you go? 30 more feet. 30 more feet, so put it where you want to put you? Six. What are you doing? Right in front of the thing.

Yes. This is... This is what Narlaq would do, seeing a mind-flare. You guys don't know much about the history of the gift, but this is the enemy of his people. They enslaved us for literally thousands of years. Oh my gosh. Go get it.

So what are you doing, Narlaq? You land there, you run there. You misty step, you appear right in front of the thing. I'm going to use the most powerful spell I have, which is burning hands. Okay. And blast. It's a 15-foot cone, so I think it might hit those two.

I don't think you can get both of them, but you can get one of them and him there. So I'll pick that one. Okay, so the two, just blasting the fire, burning hands. Now he gets to make a dexterity save against that as well, yes? He does. Okay. So first, the guy who got out the table, he will roll a save.

Okay. And he does not. So he's gonna take the full brunt of this. Grontak also rolls, and he rolls in 19. So once again, he moves his hands and the fire kind of just... He'll take some of that damage, right? But not all of it.

Right, and that will be four of these. All right. Three, four, five, seven. Seven points? So half of seven, three and a half. Yeah, so the guy on the right, the guy who had the surgery who was crawled off the table, he's burning, he's sort of like on a,

His body's wet so it doesn't stay on fire, but it like burns in. But the illithid, you can see his robes taking some of the fire, but it doesn't take much of it. All right, so you've moved right up close, you're right there, and Leona, you're the last one there. My head is pounding. This has hurt my human brain,

but I finally shake it off, and I move up by Shywin so that I still have some cover, and I, from this distance, take a shot with my crossbow. All right, so your sword's still in its sheath and you're gonna fire with your crossbow. Am I still blessed? And I don't understand what that does.

You are still blessed. It lasted for a minute. So you've got that D4 sitting out there. When you rolled a hit, you'll add that D4 to it. 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.

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every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on YouTube.com slash the glass canon with the podcast version dropping the next day. See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark. Look, there are a lot of celebrity interview podcasts out there, but there's only one Happy, Sad, Confused. I'm Josh Horowitz, and yeah, I'm the host of the show, so I'm a little biased, but truly Happy, Sad, Confused is the place for nerdy and intimate conversations with all your favorite actors and filmmakers.

From Andrew Garfield and Scarlet Johansson to Christopher Nolan. casting what ifs, backstage stories, and much more. Listen to HappySay and Confused on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. 15 plus 5. And then plus the D4? So 21. So you hit with that crossbow bolt, so roll your damage. It's a D8, poor light crossbow.

7. And then you add the... Plus two. Plus two, all right? So nine. All right. So you've heard him badly. He's taken arrows and crossbow bolts.

He's staggering backwards. That's good. And then we are back to the top of the initiative, and it is his turn. So he draws himself up to his full height, facing you, looking you dead in the eye. And you hear in your brain the language, he doesn't even try to translate. It's the language of the illithid. And you don't speak it or understand it or anything. It's generations before you.

But you can hear the disdain in his voice, and he does use Githzerai as part of it. There's some kind of a curse. and his tentacles fly wide, and you can almost see the ripples in the air as a blast of psychic energy comes out of his head. And it blasts all the way to the doorway in a cone, and you all conveniently have stayed close to you got in line here. You're all going to take the full force of this blast.

Now, you can all make intelligence saving throw. So you can roll an intelligence saving throw against a DCF 15 to try to avoid this damage. And we also get to roll the bless. And you can add the bless to your role. Three of your blood. David, don't you think I'm a little far to be affected? You are not a little far to be affected.

Oh. Oh, no. I got a nine. We got a 20. 20, okay. I got 11 plus 1, 12, 16. Okay. 13 for me.

Those of you who did not save, take 22 points of damage as this thing just rings in your brain. Like you rock back against this blow, and you're just stunned. Like your head is reeling, things are spinning around in your head. You have a hard time, concentrating. And so stunned is an official condition. In the stunned condition, you are incapacitated, you can't move, you can barely speak, you automatically fail strength and

dexterity saving throws, and attack rolls against you have advantage. So you're stunned. You'll get a chance to try to save at the end of your turns to get out of this, but you're reeling now. And you can't move? No, you're just staggering there, stunned. Which of you did not save? Or Aviel... What was the... What was the... Sorry, it was a 15. Oh, I didn't save. Okay, so the three of you are just stunned and reeling there.

Can you still take an action? So you'll still get a turn. So the first one up is actually a Raviel. Now you're stunned. You can't do anything here. You can stagger a couple of feet, but really your action is just, your head is ringing. At the end of your turn, you can try to save again

to shake free of that. I'm not going to be much help this fight. Wait, I got 16. You are okay. You are okay, you beat it, yes. So Raviel, you are up. So you stagger, you trying to find your head, and you can save again to try to shake this.

to try to shake this off. But I can't move forward or anything else. I'll let you take a five foot step forward if you want to. Yeah. Okay. So you should stagger forward there. Duh, duh, duh. Okay, so let's save again.

So this is intelligence. Yep. And I am unblessed, and that is an 11, so no. So you're still staggering there, stunned, and your turn passes you by. Next up is Shywin. You were not stunned, so you can take whatever action you want to. Yeah, I'm gonna hit him again.

Okay, you fire right in. roll the first attack. Okay, 18 plus 8. That's definitely gonna hit him. Yeah, and then. And then you would get your bless roll as well, but again, you're gonna hit him, so it doesn't matter. So, the D8 and the D6.

So eight, I guess it counts, right? Roll it on, roll it on the thing, yeah. There we go. Plus one, nine. Nine. So nine plus. Oh, yeah, nine plus seven. So 16 more points of damage to him.

He's staggering, he's badly hurt now. Good. Another arrow in his chest. And you can take another shot. Yeah. It's like I get another one. Okay, 16 plus 8. Okay, you hit.

All right. Seven plus two, nine plus seven, six, again. All right, so he staggers and drops to one knee and kind of pulls himself up in a roar, like tentacles flying, a roar echoing in your brain. And it is igneous next. What are you doing? Okay, so I can't move.

So you're stunned, you can't move, so you can't. But can I change to a bear? You can't take an action that requires you to concentrate. You are stunned. I am stunned. So, but you can try to save to get out of this. I'm gonna try to, yeah. I mean, if I can't really do anything, I'll try to save.

So it's an intelligent save versus a 15. I'm gonna save versus a 15. And I'm blessed, so I get to add that. You get to add the blessed roll as well. Six. Damn. I mean, I'll roll the blessed thing, but it's not gonna get me any eight. So plus three, it's still not enough.

So you're still holding your head, your brain is ringing in your head. You and me, bud. And we move on. to Narlaq, you are up. Are you stunned as well? I am stunned. All right, so you're gonna have to try to shake this off, standing right in front of him, kind of down on your knee.

Come on, Narlaq. Come on, Narlaq. Oh, it's too, it's overwhelming for you too much, and you fall to your knee, so you roll a one. That's a failure. You fall to your knee screaming. You can hear in your head the curse that he left you as well as the psychic blast,

and it turns around to Leona, it is up to you. It is up to you, Leona. You can do it, Leona. You can do it, yeah. Am I so blessed? You are so blessed. 13 plus, wait, what is, plus what for this? What am I doing?

Oh, what am I doing crossbow? I'm just doing, rolling. You're good. Plus five, so 18. That does hit him. Yes. So roll the damage for that, the D8. Two plus two, four.

Just four points of damage that thunks into him. Again, he staggers, he's screaming his psychic scream. Now you still got to move. You can move if you want to. Ah. You can leave your friends behind. I'm gonna put my friends behind. I'm gonna put myself next to Narlek because he's defenseless right now.

So moving closer there, reach over and... Oh, though, it just means... Stepping right up next to him. All right. And we're at the top of the round, it is the Mineflayer again. So let's see if he's still got his psychic blast. Glad I moved in there. He does not.

So, all right. But he steps forward. So first he sends his minions here forward. And they all move toward Leona. They're gonna try to take you on, because Narlaq's screaming on the ground. It's a choice I made. They move in toward you. Oh, God.

And they're just kind of stumbling, dragging their entrails behind. This guy has been burnt. He steps in and kind of moves toward this table. This guy can't get quite to you. He has to move through this difficult terrain here. He's able to just, thereby Narlaq. And actually, this guy, he tries to step around. He isn't able to quite get to you either.

And so a couple of them take swings. It says, those who fight beside me are worth dying for. There you go. That's one of your main principles. So those four guys who are on, you're going to take swings at you. Great. What's your armor class right now? 18.

Okay, so you have great armor on. And they're just kind of grasping at you with torn fingernails and bloody hands. And they're leaving bloody prints all over your armor, but none of them are able to hit you or hurt you in any way. Grontok, however, steps forward. He strides up and stands over you. And you can all hear echoing all in your brains, although he's clearly talking to you, Narlaq. And he says, your people escaped us a century ago. How fitting that you should bring yourself to me now.

And he leans down and his tentacles go wide. and they slap around the sides of your head. Oh my gosh. He rolls a 19. What's your armor class? 15. And he has advantage against you because you are stunned. I'm stunned, and he just wraps his tentacles around you.

And he's holding you there in this grip. And you can feel against your face, although you can't do anything about it. You can feel his beak open. It scrapes against your nose and his beak opens. What? Why is holding onto your face. You take 12 points of damage.

Right as he does that, I say, Zerthaman, I shall return to you. And I go unconscious. You do you go unconscious? Okay, you see Narlax slump in his tentacles and he's just being held there by these tentacles. What do you do, Araviel? I try to save from the psychic blast.

Is it still, is it still? It's still ringing in your ears, roll a save. Is that a concentration thing? No, it's unfortunately not. He just gets to freaking do it. Okay, come on baby, give it to me. An eight. Okay, so you're still stunned, you're just trying to hold on to everything.

Give me five feet, come on. You can stumble five feet forward if you want to. Yeah, I'm gonna sum up. And Shywin, you are up. I'm gonna move, uh, so that I can shoot him right in his tentacle face. All right, so you're gonna step forward. Boom, boom, you just step right up. You stay a little bit away so you're not by the zombies and you're just gonna plug one in his head.

Roll the head. Right in the tentacle area, yeah. All right, roll to hit him. Go get him. Come on, Shywin. Come on. 16 plus 8 24. Okay, and that hits him.

Yes. Oh yes. Roll your damage. Alright. Okay, six. And roll the D6. We'll call that one. What is it?

One. Okay, so seven. So seven, 14. The arrow thunks into his head and you can see the tentacles tense for a second, and then they let go. And Narlax slides out of his grip. Brontok staggers for a moment. All of the bodies that are standing around

all collapse to the ground, Grontock Stegers, boom, boom, and he falls. Yay! Yes! You guys lean against the wall. As he falls, those of you who are stunned, you feel his grip release, you lean against the pillar,

you lean up against the wall. Narlak has slumped on the ground next to the body of Grontok. Does anyone go help him? I rush right in to help him and use my healing word. Okay, we won't worry about rolling that. You kind of slide in on your knees and grab his body, holding it to you, whisper in his knee.

your eyes flutter open as you're kind of suddenly brought to life. You can smell still the breath of the illithid on your face. But you can see him lying beside you on the ground. You hear his words echo in your brain. As you all stand there, some do you hear footsteps in the outer room? Footsteps running toward the door. And as you turn and look, three crimson cloaks rush in through the door. They stop when they see you horrified at the bloody bodies lying all over on the ground. You guys clutching each other covered in blood. Some of you still are your heads are ringing your face is contorted and they move out of the way and into the room steps smiles she kind of strides in her glasses down on her nose behind her are two more crimson cloaks and they're bringing Sheeran with them in handcuffs and she steps into the room and kind of surveys the room appraises what she sees and she looks over at you Leona and she says well done well done we were able to catch this one back in

her chambers I assume this is someone that you'll looking for as well. She calls herself Shearin. Yes. By the way, we had a bit of a time, sorry that we were late. We would have helped you sooner, but we had some problems with some crocodiles. Do you guys know anything about that? Nope. It took some time to fight the nasty beasts away. Yes, we took time doing that as well. We obviously had a bit better luck, Captain Smiles. We didn't lose anyone, thankfully, but it did take some time to beat them away. And as she turns around with Shearin and marches Shearin out of the room, turns back to you, and gives you a little wink and the crimson cloaks kind of run around kind of gathering stuff up and you

sit back into yourselves and you think about this moment and you look around the room with these bodies and you think of all the stories that you have told each other over your tankards in the various taverns around town never have you told or heard a story like this this is something that you'll be able to tell your children this is something that you could go back and tell the people of your of your home plane this is something that you can pass down through generations it certainly is going to elevate your legend and your position inside. Now, my version of the story is that Narlaq died, but I would love to hear his version. Give me five minutes. And with that, that is the end of our adventure. Thank you guys for doing this with me. This was so much fun.

Awesome. I guess all that's left is to figure out how to help Liam. There's much more for you to do. There's much crime in the city, a little bit of recovery, a little bit of rest, and then there's still much for you to do as Inquisitors with the City Watch. So thank you guys for playing. And thank you for watching. We hope you enjoyed the story that we told and that you learned a little something about how fun it is to play these mid-level,

these fifth-level characters, and that maybe you learn something here that you can bring to your home game. That would make me very happy. So, I am David Nett, and this has been your starter kit. The world of Sonic the Hedgehog has been thrust into a not-so-dark, not-so-stormy, hard-boiled detective story

that probably nobody saw coming. Follow Sonic and the Intrepid Chaotic's detective agency as they take on their biggest case yet. This high-flying action-packed adventure will take them across the world, fighting for every twill they can fight. It's one heck of a tale, which is good, because this story might be the only thing that can save their lives. Well, if that's all, I can just dispose of you. Wait, what? All will be revealed in.

Sonic the Hedgehog presents the Chaotics Case Files. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. When the Chaotics are on the case. Ever open up your podcast app, scroll forever, and still not know what to listen to? And there are millions of podcasts, and most of them, they just don't grab you. That's why I created something you should know. Every episode is built around surprising, useful, and fascinating ideas. We're consistently ranked in Apple's top 200 with thousands of five-star reviews.

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