D&D is For Nerds - Barovia IV #35 Dracula Flow Chart

Episode Date: April 4, 2026

Dracula: Sometimes known as a vampyr or Lesser Greater Vampire (or just vampire if thy savvy hunter wishes to be seen as uncouth as well as (or in addition to (or instead of)) savvy) this book thinks it foolish to contend with such a creature so don’t worry about it. Thy shall know to avoid thou dracula if they are in a region where a faint or minor trace of that magic known as necromancy is undercurrent wherever they travel, animals of the house and farm keep together at nights for fear, and voices not of thy own sometimes whisper thy savvy hunter (or others!) name when thy is alone and beckon thy further (do not listen to them for thou voices shall lead thy astray!) If thy is forced to worry about it though it should be important to keep a cool head as that might be a method for the dracula to control the un-savvy hunter. Savvy hunters all know this one truth, and as they all know it I shall not bother to repeat it here but rather assume you already know one of the most critical and important things about fighting thou Dracula. Instead this author shall furnish thy with what is considered lesser informations, that thou Draculi placing of death shall affect (or effect I can never tell) the powers and unpowers that it shall possess. But first you must answer some simple questions.Does the Dracula live outside?If yes, congratulations! You have stumbled upon a City Place Dracula. While it can teleport through doors and turn into rats, it cannot leave the city.If no ask yourself does the Dracula live near sea level?No? Well okay then, does the Dracula live above or below sea level?Yes? You’ve found yourself face to face with a Tall Places Dracula if thine answer waseth no, you’re dealing with a Negative-Tall Places Dracula.Now if the Dracula you are facing does live near sea level I’m afraid more observation from you iseth needed. In particulars thine nature of thine environment, where the Dracula is most often stood and where or not it yearns for wide open spaces. Good luck out there savvy hunter.If you're still wanting to pledge for the Jarren's Outpost Board Game you can right here! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

O'y, lads, did you miss out on the Jaron's Outpost Kickstarter and wish you weren't such a big doofus? Well, fear not. Late pledges are now open and they'll be open for a little while, so just head to Kickstarter search for D&D for Nerds or Jaron's Outpost and slam that late pledge button. No, you see no water for miles around you, you are like me. Nonetheless, Maroon. We are castaways in this terrible bad dream somebody decided to name Barovia.

To switch up the metaphor, we are imprisoned, and the fog is the bars of our cell and our jailer, is Baron von Straar. As far as I can tell, there's no way to escape other than possibly by dying, maybe by being eaten by a wolf, let's say. I lapse into a silence and try and think of places that the dusk elves could conceivably go. They require a place somewhere along one of these lines, their home, their heart must exist. These are the heart lines of Ognot. They have one other need as well. On a spiritual level, they must drink from the well of kindness.

They need a cause, something wholly good. We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. After some meditating on the subject, Casimir, Elaniel, Iona, and Mark Quillet enter the temple. I always forget about Mark Quillet. You always do? He makes no impression on me.

Somehow. They enter with a sense of awe, and the dusk elves followed swiftly by Iona. A little bit quicker than last time, bow before Elaniel. This time when Thastriel, sorry, they don't bow before Elaniel. They bow before Thastriel. This time when Thastriel tells them to stand,

she broadcasts it kind of for everyone. Please, you do not need honor me like this. I just let everybody sit down, and then I'll take a seat. Not at the head of the table. That's presumptuous. But I'll just sit at the table. Casimir in his deep purple furs sits down at the head of the table.

I, first of all, I say, would like to apologize to everyone that this responsibility falls to me. Obviously, there's some kind of poetic justice to it. But I imagine, for a lot of you, I'm not the kind of person you want to see right now. Nevertheless, this is the situation we find ourselves in. Let's find you a new home. Casimir speaks. He looks at Thastriel as he speaks, but when he speaks, you could tell he's trying to choose his words carefully so that it doesn't upset Thastriel. I too know not why you have been chosen for this task, but it is apparently important.

Yeah. This is the situation we find ourselves in, so we're just going to have to roll with the punches, I suppose. I have a holding list of requests for the way you choose to bring us. Okay. Let me have them. He snaps his fingers and Mark Willett produces a list which he hands to Casimir. We would need legal protections. Yeah.

Whatever we leave. Whatever we roam. We must, this place must be wholly ours, ours to own, ours to cultivate. we do not need our own country, but we must have legal protections. Yes, okay. We request additionally that it is somewhere near trade routes, somewhere where we have access to either a seaport

or some sort of high-trafficked road. Okay. Is that it? No, sorry. would continue. We wish threes I figured as much. Wherever we go, we would want

the heavy foliage of the forest which we may hide in if we need or live amongst when we want. My people, our camp is not how we would want to live. We would want to live as many elves do in communion with nature.

Okay. We also have a perhaps odd request. I'm listening. We wish not to live near any connections to the Faywild. Frightened to falling back in. Dusk elves. He nods.

Dusk elves, we are, as we are planes walkers, we see ourselves as connected to Eladron more than many other types of elves. Yeah. And we fear the Fay Wild does. not do well for those who have moved on from it. Sure. Yeah. Slippery feet, you know.

And there's always a chance you'll end up back here and no one wants that. I say that, but then I'm like, this is their homeland. So I bite my tongue. I believe we can find somewhere for you that fulfills all of those requirements. You said you want legal protection. how quickly will you require that legal protection? By which I mean, if there was a location that would be suitable in every other respect but might require some additional finangling when we get there,

would that be amenable to you? I understand that it would be, as you cannot communicate right now, with anyone outside of Borovia, that might be difficult for you to acquire in the moment. So we understand that there will not be any immediate legal negotiations, but we would need within a human lifetime some agreement. Well, I say that because one of the locations, I point to the ironwood forest in Candle.

Now this, as far as I can tell, it's fairly suitable for you. Right near the King's Road, which is a point of trade. It's quite forested. Is the fairy map of like spiritual connections still on the... The Ironwood Forest is a very dense network of it. Who lives in the Ironwood Forest? It's pretty much exclusively the realm of candle. But I mean like are there settlements in there?

There are smaller villages dotted throughout, yes. Cool. But they, the Cantonese don't tend to live, quote, unquote, as you would say, in communion with nature. No, no, no, no. We tend to, like, log that place as well. Yeah. Yeah. It is, yes, logged. Not at the sort of industrial scale that we might know of.

Like, Kandor isn't for the next little while going to notice the reduction in trees. Yeah, not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Yeah. I... But I guess, well, what I'm saying is, Pip would not know... No, Pip would not know. It would not be like, that's going to be devastated by an industrialized logging industry in the next...

We're probably within these elves' lifetime. Yeah, he doesn't know that. So it suits all of those requirements. The land is sort of, Hector, sort of led me to believe that the land is in some kind of danger, that possibly there is a, well, not a dark lord like the devil, but somebody who might be a threat. However, Hector also told me that he's quite good friends.

with this person's daughter, who I imagine would have some kind of political sway. So assuming everything goes okay there and she enters some position of power, then we might be able to make the legal side of things very smooth. But, of course, there is the downside of, you know, this sort of cycle. You know, you don't want to leave Borovia to enter,

we do not wish to Yeah We do not wish to shuffle the deck And play the same hand Exactly Exactly So that's one of the options The Elven Wilds would be a great place for you

But unfortunately the elves that Live in the Elven Wilds Are fairly hostile to other elves And we are aware of this We To be honest Had hoped You may know of some corner

Of the Elven Wilds That might be amicable to my people I just don't really have that. Like, if I rack my mind, can I think of any part of the Alvin Wilds that would suit them? They'd be most welcome in the cities,

but that's not what they want. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I really wish I had better news, but unfortunately, I think anywhere you go, it's not the same deck of cards, it's not the same hand, but it's, you know, equally unpleasant, so

probably not the place. I would potentially accept these terms. It was less than 24 hours ago that I still believed my people were doomed to extinction. And in this time, I have learned many things. Not just that Thastriel, the guardian of my people, has come to tell us that we are not to die, that we will go on. Not only that we will go on in another place, but the implication here being, you have a way out of Borovia. I mean no special way out of Borovia, the same path everybody takes eventually. To kill the devil.

Yeah. I will admit we had in our zeal to close ourselves off from the rest of Borovia. We had, we have neglected our information gathering. What news do you have of this upset? Well, the tricky question of the load stones. As you might be aware, scattered across Barovia, there are various nodes to which stride is connected. The lodestones.

Yeah. And pretty systematically, ball. Elaniel's fists ball up. And you get the impression that she maybe is digging her nails into her hands so much you could, you can smell the blood right now. I like glance down at her hands and then glance back up. Pretty systematically we've been going through and in one way or another deactivating them, which in turn is damaging strad, weakening him.

So we're hoping that this is going to make, you know, any kind of. kind of assault on him and his keep, far easier from our perspective. What's more, we've been, you know, going through the various towns and sort of acquiring, I mean, I don't know how good they'll be as allies, but acquiring allies that might help us in some kind of final assault of the castle. And once he's dead and, you know, his corpse staked and his ash buried and all of that stuff, then hopefully whomever wants to leave will be allowed to leave. One year ago, Arami joined yours.

Yeah. And I don't ask you to do it again. Well, he looks over at Thastriel and he gives you a big shrug. I would not believe you. I would not believe Keening. I would not believe this godson, Hector. None of you I am willing to follow. But I will admit that, uh,

Our daughter, Elaniel. He says that in like a Our daughter, you know, not a literal sense, of course, of course. Our daughter Elaniel has chosen to follow you. And before Thestriel, she was the future, the last future of my people.

As the last future of my people and they knew he just used to Thestriel, follow you. I have no choice. as much as I still despise you. Fair enough. I will begrudgingly follow you into battle once more.

I... Maybe we like sitting across from each other. I like very gently gesture out my hand for a handshake and I say, thank you for giving me a chance to make up for it. He reaches out, shakes your hand. I hope this time either you do what you say you will do

or we are just wiped out I cannot stand to bear this slow death anymore you and me both brother you and me both I sit back and then just because even though they've said like maybe the iron wood in can't or I will go through the other options

obviously the iron wood is probably the most optimal place for you assuming we can sort out the Sir Grace whatever that is and the T-Fling with a funny name gained some level of power and she can you know help you out Also, there's Zem Jada, which is the sort of cultural province of the gnomes. They'd be very happy to take you in.

They'll take anyone in. Unfortunately, it's not as sort of wooded as perhaps you would like. It's more mountainous as a region. But you'll be able to, I mean, the legal side of things, be a breeze. He asks questions about Zemjada and gets answers from you of your knowledge of Zem Jada. And you can see he shares your uncertainty as to how likely or how hostages. spitable Zemjada will be, not like as a people, but as an environment. Yeah.

There's the Ford Rock Isles. There is one particular island which belong to my mentor and, I mean, it's not huge, but that would be pretty easy to get you to as well. Unfortunately, there's basically no trees whatsoever. And in terms of its proximity to any kind of trade, I don't know how good that would be. It's just an inn, I suppose, that I have. He asks you some questions about the Ford Rock Isles, about your old, the ancestral home of the hard castles.

Yeah, the hard castle. He seems very keen on the description you give of the place makes it sound very like defensible and that they could just move, like a hermit crab, they could just move in right now. And that is very engaging to him. But then you describe how disconnected it is from any trade route. I think describing the like wrong.

rocky barren coastline buffeted by like sea and wind. It's not very appealing. Fair enough. Additionally, in a similar vein, there's Dragon's Peak in the city of Reachcliff. Sort of like an island that is itself a mountain surrounded by forests, but it's perhaps maybe too tropical for you. Additionally, I would say there's more city than there is wilderness, and I have to assume that's going to sort of rub you the wrong way in a sort of spiritual sense.

probably that's out of the picture too. He probably doesn't ask you. Reachcliff does not seem very appealing, even from a base description. So he doesn't really, he's quiet on Reachcliff. And then finally, there's Teagely. Now, Teagely is a sort of, again, the cultural homeland of the halflings. Very, in terms of a sort of environment for you, I think it's very sort of antithetical to what you're currently living in.

But it is a place of quite dense sort of magical, I don't know what you call it but it's a gesture to the map where it's like concentrated so in terms of a connection to some kind of you know spiritual whatever

then that would be a pretty good place plus I imagine that the halflings would be very happy to take you in they're an amenable people in my experience but once again no trees he asks you a bunch of questions

about it he seems very keen you describe maybe like the Kings Road which goes through Tegalai and he stops for a second and you see him like consider a paved road that goes an entire continent and then he asks you like a million more questions he's very curious about that then you describe because he actually didn't know until you tell him yeah you describe a desert and then he immediately puts up the hand just saying he's like oh no trees like there's not many trees

none and it's hot they have this thing that's like a tree called a cactus and it's like a I don't even know where to begin, but it's not what you're looking for. You have this long discussion. You while away into the late hours of the night discussing with him. And occasionally Elaniel or Thastriel might pipe up. Mark Quillet the entire time is sitting there taking notes. Maybe even marking the, with permission, he starts marking the map as well. And you see Casimir at several moments becomes like very animated.

And at no point you ever get the impression that he doesn't still harbor a heavy resentment towards you. But you get this slow building idea that perhaps he like respects you again. Yeah, okay. All right. At one point, tea is brought out. Astriel like a nettle sort of tea with sweet honey in it to give it like a soothing sort of property. It's all right. and honey.

Yeah. It's always nice to have. As that's how, Cribut, in his excitement, because Cribut, I don't know if you know this, is like the only person here

who hasn't had honey yet since arriving in Borovia, kind of like launches himself at the kettle and knocks the first kettle over, Thastriel then makes a second, but knocks the kettle over onto your lap,

we'll say. Okay, Cribbid. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Hey, it's fine. It's fine. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk. Hector, coming in and out, in and out, you feel your arms. That's okay, it's fine.

It's what you have to do. It's understandable, ow, ow, all right. You feel your arms and upper body being bound. Oh, this again. You are in a dark place. there's uh oh you are in the basement you can tell immediately there's some torches lit around you you can see that you are at you know how i described you coming up up a hill to get to the church in that hill you are in the hill if it weren't i mean obviously you know something sinister's going on

down here but even before something sinister was happening you could see the foundations of the church A brief part of you is like, why? This place is so inherently sinister. What possible use could the morning lord have had for this? But yeah, you see that the foundations of the church slowly snake their way down to this. It feels like the rock like dripped, like liquid dripped down here and staked itself. into the ground. You hear a something

thrashing about nearby. You can, from the thrashing noise, you can hear wood and metal. It sounds like chain specifically. In the dim light, you can see the series of switch back stairs that take you back up to the church that

you were just dragged down. You get, you're tied to one of the foundations. You get the impression that someone else is tied here with you. It's Presumably Gretchen. You can hear, you can't see, but you can hear him shuffling about,

sorry, sorry, sorry. It's all right, you have to do what you have to do. I cast light. You cast light. Yeah. The room brightens a bit for you, and then with horror, you realize you are in a mausoleum.

Oh. The walls all around you. So, I need you to understand. You are in like a, a, a cylinder that has been scooped out of this hill. You were at the bottom. You're pretty sure the fucking bottom of the hill of this scooped out cylinder. The walls are filled with little spaces,

and those spaces are filled with corpses. What came first? The church or the, I guess, the mausoleum? Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. The old priest shuffles back around so that he's face to face with you. You see he has a dagger in one hand. I just mean to say,

is the church built upon the hill and then the mausoleum was dug out. Or was it more for the... Had to have someone to inter the dead and there was a lot of dead. Well, the church was built on top of that. I'm curious. Tears are streaking down his eyes

when he looks at you and he... Looking at you, he doesn't really... He seems shocked, actually, at your reaction. Donovich, Donovitch looking at you with shock in his face, says, I am sorry, I must have hit you too hard. No, that's okay.

I understand the things you must do. Worship the morning lord, yes? Try to do it what you can. No, no, no anymore. I want to, like, maybe start, like, talking, maybe in a lower registry, so maybe he has to come closer to, like, listen to me. He gets right in. I headbut him.

I just clunk. I'm going to make that at disadvantage because you're bound. You, oh, you might still. Well, I mean, he's not hard to hit. You, yeah, you clobber him in the head. Cool. Hang on. His health, your strength.

Yeah. Okay, you don't knock him out, but he's bloodied. Cool. Can I try, how bound am I? I'm like, arms, legs, everything. I'm going to say, if this is how. happening? I'm going to say initiative. Hang on. I'm just curious because I was like, am I allowed to

wrap my legs around him? You know what I mean? You do have your legs free, but I'm going to say initiative. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You got a surprise attack on him. All right, it's your turn again, though. So yes, what would you like to do with your legs? Oh, awesome. I want to just I guess, yeah, grapple him

if I, if I can. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Um, Great. Cool. That is your action? Uh-huh. What else would you like to do?

Okay. Can I then, um, is Gretchen awake or is she also? She's not, if she is awake, she's not reacting. All right, so I can't be like, wake up and hit him. Um, okay, I just, I guess hold him and, and, I guess I just hold him. Just, uh, yeah. You just hold him? Just hold him there.

Snap him and off with your legs. He, it's his... Yeah, maybe just so like, you can let me go at any time. It'd be nice. Is it, am I... Hmm. I'm like, information so much to be like,

is there a... Is it a lock and key? Is it, like, ropes? Is it... Whatever it is, that it is holding me to this foundation. It's just, like,

thick, heavy ropes tied around you, okay. And around the... The foundation, Yeah. So I don't, it's not a key or anything.

Cool. No, there's no key, yeah. Right, right, right. He is... Okay, and he's got... Let me check to see if he held onto that dagger. How's the Loz? Oh, let's go with Loz.

Loz? Yeah, he still has the dagger. He tries to stab you. No, you can cut the rope. That'd be great. Okay. He fails to stab you. Oh, he misses?

Fantastic. Can I repost him? Sure. You absolutely can. That rocks. I guess that'd be with your head? Yeah. Head repost.

Hector? He Donovich tries to stab you, but you manage to slide in such a way that his dagger actually hits the foundation behind you instead. You instinctively, some part of your like training kicks in. And as a reaction, you slam your head into his. You had been in the past, something like a repost had been a known sword-fighting maneuver to you, but this idea that you would use your whole body as part of a romewold. repost, that feels like

you don't even know. It feels like something that you just did in the moment. You, yeah, you hit him. Yeah, um, yeah, he, do you want to knock him out or kill him? Non-lethal. I've been non-lethal. It's a classic non-lethal headbutt.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I do love the decision. Non-leather. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ideally, Hector wants to be not lethal, but, you know what I mean? It's like, it's hard to be just like, I'm punching you right in the face. Yeah. I imagine Hector's going to be able to get out of this,

but the idea that there's something out of sight rattling around the unconscious priest in front of you slapped in this scenario. Funny. But yes, Donovic, you hear, when you headbut him, you hear a cracking noise and then Donovic falls back over,

hits the ground and lies still. As I'm holding him with my legs, let him like gently place. I don't want him to, like hit the back of his head. Yeah. You know what I mean? Just like just gently.

Why would you put that in my head? Lay him down. I didn't even thought of that. All right. Next check. Donovan. Donovitch. No.

He, yeah, I'll say you catch him well enough. Yeah. Okay. All right. Okay. It's not gentle.

Maybe you don't like catch him, catch him. You put your foot so that he hits your foot instead of this cold ground. If that makes sense. Okay. You just rest there for it. Moment crazy fucking priests

You can hear like I said something rattling and rummaging around What am I wearing feet wise What were you wearing when you were upstairs So he hasn't like Take anything off you I mean you're probably disarmed

But that'd be it Oh hang on Oh I summon A knife or something in my hands Can I summon something in a way That I can just cut the rope? I would make it possibly another dexterity check.

Either I was going to try and pick up the knife with my monkey-like feet. You got anything for a dex check? I have anything. I can ignore damage from one attack. I got re-roll a dexterity-based check with advantage. I'll use it. I'll burn it for my dear friend.

Thanks, fam. Do you have anything else for a text check? Never mind That's okay Hey I can do it again Yeah exactly Well what I was gonna say No you want something

Because what I was gonna say is you summon it And it's in your hand But it's positioned in a way That you can't cut with it It's like jammed into your hand But unable to be moved Right Okay

So it's summoned Yeah yeah All right All right Where I look over at Gretchen You can't You look around Gretchen is

If she Well you can't see Gretchen Oh wasn't there was on There's someone else tied, well, yes, you can tell there's someone else tied behind you, yes. Oh, so I can't even get them. All right, right, right, right, right, all right. Okay, all right. Damn it. Fine. Kyle, desummed that. Can I try and use my foot and grab the knife? Yes, that's another dexter. Yep.

All right, yeah, you slide the foot over underneath you, and I'll say you can grab and you can start working with that. Okay, it's not the ideal, but it is fine. How's the Lowe's? Let's go Lose. Help me last time. Yeah, Lowe's is good, dude. Lose? Yeah.

You sure? Yeah. You sure? Oh yeah, brother. My client is sure, Adam. I am so sure, Adam. Okay. The rattling gets louder and more intense.

That's all right. You feel like, yeah, you feel like there's definitely an intensity to what's happening there. I just calm down with it. You start cutting your words. way out of your ropes and then you hear something breaks free you free yourself.

Cool. I grab Gretchen. All right. You whip around. Gretchen is tied to the other side? Yes. You grab Gretchen. So she also tied or if I'm cutting my I guess binds as I cut her binds? Yeah, you're both free now. Okay, fantastic. She slumps forward. You turn around, you grab Gretchen.

You can see in front of you There is, this is like a, like a secondary ritual or secondary altar is here. All right. It's not, it's very simple compared to the one upstairs, but it is neither. There's no like destroyed or messed up pews here. There are, by the way, pews here. It's like a, like I said, a second altar deep beneath the first one. You get the impression that funeral rights are in worship of the morning lord.

Funeral rights are handled in a different manner. Okay. The altar, next to the altar, there is still a coffin. The coffin has been swaddled in chains, but something that was inside the coffin just broke itself out. Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool. Dealing with a vampire. Excellent news. All righty, can I see where that vampire is now?

You cast a look around, and no, you can't see. Okay. There are many, even with your light and dark vision, the darkness of this place seems supernatural. It feels like your light doesn't penetrate as deep as it should, and it feels like the shadows are bigger than the light should allow. The shadows being cast, I should say. But was it something that was a direct connection to me,

direct connection to me, direct connection to Strad. Somebody, Strad turned, okay. Hunger. You're hungry. I want to pick up Donovan. Father Donovan, yeah. So I got Gretchen over my shoulder. I want to pick up Father Donovan.

You turn around to grab Father Donovan and you hear bare feet sprinting across stone. You look back and there's nothing. Right. Then carefully, they start heading towards the stairs to lead out of this. place. Right. Strad turned this man into a vampire or one of his offices turned this man into a vampire. Father Donovan kept him here chained. Why? Why is he? Bringing presumably both of us down here to feed you because he couldn't kill

you. Lava or son. Lover or son. You turn back. You grab Father Donovan by the hem of his robes. You hear it again. Running across, with bare feet

across stone floor. You look back, nothing. You start dragging them. It runs along your right hand side. You look over your right hand side. You can't see, but you realize in a split second it's trying to get to the stairs before you. If it gets to these stairs, is it free? Do I think, do I think if it gets to the stairs, it's out into the wild, or do I think that it's also track, like, you in this moment can't tell if it's

leaving or trying to trap you? Probably this, yeah, well, you have a split second to make this decision. It's either going to try to leave or he's trying to trap, either way, that's bad. Yeah, I mean, yeah. But one of the, man, I forget that you're not PIP, but one of those ways means it won't hurt you. Yeah, you're Pipp, you go, Brovi's already fucked? Let him go.

Okay, can I cut Donovan a little? Brother. Yes, you can. There's already blood, presumably, from when I... He's got a bloody nose, yeah. From the nose, but I'm guessing he's not enough. Yeah. Can you tell me where you cut him?

I want to try and cut him Like, I want to Like, maybe just on like What bleeds a lot? Any artery? Not an artery. Jesus Christ. He's not wrong.

They bleed. I know ear bleeds pretty badly. Yeah. But like, and then hopefully more than me to hear it. I guess like I want to try and like I cut him so he doesn't bleed out but I am trying to basically entice that vampire to come over. I'm making a trap.

Yeah. Because I know that that thing is hungry. I want to be like maybe on the face. Across the cheek, yeah. I'm so sorry to take a very cool cinematic narrative moment and apply numbers to it. But you deal. Let me finish. Let me finish.

Let me rephrase, actually. Let me re-restan. You can deal up to six points of damage. You rolled, you got a three plus your strength, six. So, I will allow you to, I've done this in the past, and I feel like this is the best way of doing it for some reason. Yeah. And then for some reason I think this.

But you have a cap now of six. Tell me how many points of damage are you doing? And so gamifying this, I'm guessing. So the more points means the more blood. Yeah. But that means that the more likelihood of him dying. Now, there is a number that you can tell me that kills him. Okay.

Is that number six? I'm not going to say. Presumably. He's hungry. This vampire's hungry. I honestly would be maybe like a one. A one? Maybe a two.

if I think it needs a lot more blood than the blood coming out of his nose. Like I think a one would probably not be would be equivalent to his nose bleed, right? One is pretty much his nose bleed. Yeah, so I'm assuming it needs to be more than that. So I'm going with two. Two?

All right. So I'll let you know that the number was five. If you'd said five or I guess six, I would have been like, you kill him. But yes, you do not kill him. You cut. Where did you say you cut again? I reckon like around the, like,

On his cheek? That would kind of bleed a decent amount. All right. You do a long, but not that deep cut on his cheek. And blood starts welling forth and streaming down his neck and onto his robes. The footsteps stop very suddenly. And you hear that. I want to like, I guess you know, like put Gretchen down.

Put the priest down. summon like a spear be like, mm-hmm You're wearing basically nothing I'm aware I'm aware You're unarmed

Stepping out of the darkness The frail thin as a skeleton figure of a young man He would be in his early 20s Mm-hmm Okay He has long

matted brown hair Which sticks like clings To his head And you realize it's from moisture He is covered in sweat, heavy moisture, which soaks into, he's wearing like threadbare, torn up, disgusting shirt and then underwear and nothing else. He steps forward. His arms are wrapped around himself. He stares at you with a terrible hunger in his eyes. And you can see when he, his mouth is slightly open. and the long, thin piece of drool is dangling out of his mouth.

Every time he steps, that piece of drool goes up and down, up and down. And through those slightly potted lips, you can see the fangs of a vampire. He does not move like vampire spawn, you think. When was the last time you ate? Hungry Is there a resemblance to the priest Or

He bears a striking resemblance To the priest Yes Son Not lover Okay He takes a couple steps forwards

Very quickly Like suddenly he takes Four steps forward And in those four steps forward You like tense up Because he moves So So

Fast Okay Okay Okay Okay Okay And he's noticed his dear dad bleeding. Yeah, he's not looking at you.

He's looking at his dad. Excellent. Okay. Okay. It's going to be risky. I'm guessing. If I could have managed it in a way, so Gretchen is behind me. So there's no way that he could get to her without, hopefully, without me noticing.

I want to be besides the priest. Dorovich. So that when. Donovitch. Donovitch. Donovitch. So that when he rushes, I can then try and stab him in the heart. Okay.

Well, let's go to. addition. Hector, it happens so quickly. Hector, it sprints forward. You level your spear, your intention to stab him, correct? Yeah. You attempt to stab him. One of his hands whips out and grabs the spear, turns it aside.

Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Do you have multiple attacks, so you're going to get more. Did you, are you gonna, I'm just seeing you shuffle through your cards. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just having a look.

I'm just having a look to see what, what I got here. You got the heart of the cards, my friend. You try to wrench the spear back under your control. But he, despite his frail form, it's like trying to, it's like your spear is stuck in solid stone right now. Okay, so that was both of my attacks? That was both of your attacks. Okay, I guess, ooh, okay. Action.

search. Yeah, that's probably a good idea, Bola. Oh, wait, is it worth? It's up to you. What do I know about vampires? I'm trying to, I'm getting to my entry for it. Not to read it out to you, you should have remembered. Just to have a look for myself.

Okay, I can do a fainting attack. It could be useful. It could be useful. It could be useful. All right. Okay. Or I can just, you know, do that, you know, that radiant thing that I can do now. That's not my wings.

You could, yeah, blasting with your laser with my laser face. Let's go with, yeah, I want to put it. So this is action surge? Action search. Can I put a bit of spice on this now, the attack, the, the, a fainting attack? Oh, so how does the fainting attack work? It's a, use my bonus action to gain advantage on attack. Okay.

Hector, as this creature, as it moves. so quickly, you're, once again, it feels like your night training takes over. Rather than relying on magic, like you have thus far in Borovia, you feel like other senses have become heightened. You feel like the magic of your eyes have been cut away from you. And now you're hearing, i.e., your like nightly training has become keener. The world seems like it slows down a little bit. And you get a second series of blows. You're quick enough to at least attempt a second series of blows before the vampire makes its move. You, yeah, actually, you know what?

I say that the world slows down, but actually maybe it feels more like your body's reacting, once again, on instinct, actually. It feels like these extra jabs that you make, you're not even, you're not aware that you're doing it until after it's happened. Okay, it's kind of like, yeah, it's that thing where it's like, I want to do this, oh, I've done it, okay. Yeah, okay, interesting. So you get two more attacks, but only one of them hits. Okay. But you do get one hit.

It's with a spear, which you're using at a D8. Do you have anything else other than the spirit itself? No, just a D8. Sorry, just a spear, but I get the superiority dice, I think. Okay, yeah, which is a D10 at your level? I keep, I'm like, I feel like it's like shell shock from dealing with head, the paladin, I'm like 2D8. Are you out?

And I guess you technically are, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's funny. You stab the vampire, and it's a deep, I should stop saying vampire, you stab the mysterious monster. And it feels like it should do 12 points of damage, but you get the impression it doesn't. Oh, yeah. You did, you can see.

Even because I am using a magical weapon. That's why you're doing damage. Oh, interesting. Because I'm using a magical weapon, I'm wondering, like, is that negating that? It's immune to non-magical attacks. Yeah. Okay. But it's resistant to...

Magical attacks. Interesting. You drive the spear into its side and, oh, like, Jesus. Wow. And you see, water comes from the wound. He's trying to eat his dad. He's the prodigal son, dude. Whoa.

He is like, Jesus. Jesus. Hungry. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of you will betray hungry. Yeah, that makes sense. You stab the creature in its side, and you can see that your spear definitely tears through this creature's side, but it does not look like it did as much damage as it.

Or the creature does not seem to care as much as you frankly think it should. And then it begins to feed. Okay. Hey. It grabs Donovich, brings him up, and then... It's eating greedily. Greedly. It sucks, and you watch as it...

It's drinking like a liter a second. This thing's got... And its blood is spilling down its front. Is its stomach becoming distended by the... I was about to say... Almost immediately, you can see that through the mess, through the blood, its belly like, bro, bro, bra. You watch, you've never seen a vampire.

I mean, no, you've literally recently experienced a vampire feeding. But this is not the, when Strad, when Strad bit you, it was like almost a cultured affair. You watch as this creature tears chunks out of Donovic and, swallows them whole. Goodness. Can I be trying to rouse Gretchen? Well, that's its turn.

Before you have your turn, though, it gets a legendary action. Oh, and he's late. It continues to eat. Well, you're kind of lucky. He's been starved in a way. And then, yes, you act, you turn, and you can try to rouse Gretchen. Okay. Looking at this and being like,

Okay, this is a full-fledged vampire. This is not a vampire. This is a full-on vampire. Where I doubt, like... It was a great moment just now where you're like, oh, magical weapon, so I can do damage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can do damage, but it's not doing as much as I wanted to.

And... Because I was thinking, like, you know, it's like, you know, classic. In those, you know, I guess, those Alvin puppet shows that we all seen about fighting vampires, You get the steak, they run into it. Yeah, they're dead.

That was what I was like, ah, yes. Then I'm like, wait, no, we're in Borovia. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Vampires work differently. And I've, you know, I've worked with Pip enough to know that there is a whole rigmarole about vampires. And it's just, you know, it's, there's that poem. Yeah, the poem to figure out what's going on.

What kind of vampire are dealing with? It's actually a spread, it's actually a flow chart. It's a flowchart, sorry. And I'm like, is it up, is it an outside vampire, and up top of high, vampire in the water vampire, whatever it was. Yeah. I'm realizing that, okay, I don't, I maybe am a little bit out of my depth here, potentially. Let me tell you, look at the flowchart, I don't think it's going to help you here.

There is, there is actually, it's very helpful to know the vampire's weakness. Yeah, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's fire. I know from memory there was fire. I don't think I can. do that right now. Okay, how far away

is the stairs? The problem is the flowchart does not incorporate city Dracula. Well, it does, but... What are the flowchets? Let's see if I can I can try to maybe decipher it. Okay, so, does the Dracula live outside?

I would argue, no. It is currently inside. Does the Dracula live near sea level? Now, we are, the city of Borovia. Was that in a valley? It's all in a valley. Yeah, it's all in a valley. So I would say that's below sea level. And it is under a hill.

Okay. Does Dracula live near sea level? Will say no. Does the Dracula live above or below sea level? Let's go with below sea level. Okay. I need a yes or no. I'm afraid does a yes or no? I'm going to need a yes or no. I mean, the Dracula level of the level.

Above or below sea level. I don't need a yes. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't live at sea level, therefore it has to leave either above or below. It does. And then I need to the question. Yes? Okay.

Right. And surely. I think that has given you a mountain, Dracula. Try again. All right. So I'm guessing yes meant high and no meant below. Uh-huh. So let's go.

With no. You know how yes is up and no is down? I do. Okay. Well, you've got to... Wow. Okay. What Emmanuel refers to is negative tall places.

Okay. Yeah, which makes it a sort of cave vampire. Well, that makes sense. A cave vampire. Yeah. All right. All right. Yeah.

Okay. My favorite thing, start. Does the Dracula live outside? Now, I would say this Dracula, you go, no. and you're off, you go, yes, it's a city vampire. I don't know how. To me, outside is not the city. To me, if I'm finding a Dracula and a city,

in a house, he lives inside. Well, he lives in the house, but they had a house. It might be an era on Emmanuel's place, do you think? Maybe. So, here's the thing, however. You could be finding a cave vampire or a city vampire. Or a city vampire. My gut says you're in a city.

Yeah, but you're in a cave in a city. Is it a church on the outskirts of the city? Hard to say. Now, is there a much difference between a city vampire and a cave vampire? Yeah, infinitely. That was so wonderful. In terms of what they can turn into, what they're hurt by. Okay, okay.

Countless differences. That rules, that rules. You need to use the flow chart, but remember, the flow chart does not help. Or work. I think it is a cave vampire. I'm going with cave vampire. I just don't know anything about, said cave vampire. Either way.

Okay, how far away? You can get there. Okay, so you can wake up Gretchen or you can get to the stairs. Those are your options. Okay, can I pick up with Luzzing. You can pick her up yet. Yeah, yeah. I'm getting the stairs with Gretchen. You're pretty strong. You can carry her, yeah.

Okay, I'm going to do that. All right, you get to the base of the stairs. Now, Hise or Lowe. I'm sorry, I hate doing this to you. Hise or Lowe's. Go Lose. Loz. Okay.

So Donovich. So like I said, this creature is drinking a leader a second. But Donovitch has more leaders than the average man. Oh, he was a heavy set. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

Good, good, good. So you have another round. You have actually, you did real, you did real long. Good for picking loads. Thanks, man. Thank you. This thing's so much faster.

Oh, yeah. Initially, it's like, oh, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a vampire, you know, it's, oh, maybe it's a vampire, but it's, he's a little vampire. No, this is, he's on the same level as like, his. Clover, basically. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you are experiencing, well, to be fair, I gave, I gave, I gave it like half hit points because it's very hungry.

Yeah. Yeah, but now it's, well, yeah, I mean, now, now, no, no, it's not half anymore. No, of course. It's, it's, it's been eaten. He's had a good meal. But also, yeah, you're not doing the paladin stuff anymore, which was really helpful for the undead, you know? Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. All right, you get two whole turns of just sprinting upstairs. God, I wish I had my wings. Oh, I've never wished to have my wings before. Speaking of wings. Oh, it has wings. Let me quickly check. Hmm.

Hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. Hector? Yep. Hector, you look over the stairs. Do you still have the light spell in one hand? I would assume, yeah, like either either in one hand or I put on the spear or whatever guiding our way.

At one point, as you turn the switch back on, you're just looking down. As this creature finishes drinking, Donovich finishes drinking every drop of blood out of Donovic And then to get at any last bit of moisture inside his body Starts tearing him open Taring him apart and is licking at the flesh and sinew and muscle Just cracking open bones, just slurping up that marrow Trying to drain every last drop of moisture out of Donovich. You turn that switchback.

The switchback, it's just the way that this one specifically is positioned, It's one of the foundations blocks your view for like a couple seconds. And you watch this happening, then the foundation, then you just see Donovich's body. Yeah, great to hear. Okay, okay. You keep sprinting up the stairs. And now instead of feet on stone, you can hear scrambling, a skittering noise. And you get the impression that if you, you get the impression that if you,

You don't have to necessarily stop, but you probably want to slow down when you do this. If you looked straight down the switchback, you could see where that noise is coming from. Now, if I was to do that, would I see a, say, a vampire climbing the walls on awful fast, or maybe a bunch of rats? It doesn't sound, it sounds more like a bunch of rats, but it's a vertical climb. And how far away from, I guess, the top am I? I don't want to slow down Yeah, don't slow down You're not close enough

Yeah I think slowing down It would be a bad idea So I want to keep running All right You just keep running Shit Shit

Shit Shit Is this all I mean in the back of my head I'm like That that that muscle I got Yeah You can probably shut him down

If you wanted to I don't know yet Yeah I don't want to risk that right now You're about to reach You're past the whole halfway point. You can see the light spilling from the trap

door above you. You're about to hit another separate switchback and then a spider the size of a horse-drawn carriage clambers up onto that switchback

turns to look at you and then says hungry Three!