D&D is For Nerds - Barovia V #9 A Momentary Diversion on the Road to the Old Bone Grinder

Episode Date: September 12, 2026

Over a year ago, an argument outside the old bone grinder. Two voices. One coaxing the other. Soothing assurance that whatever they might find inside will be no match for the two of them. It’ll be fine Paul, it’s only hags. The other voice, less sure, less certain, providing a laundry list of reasons they should probably turn around. The first voice lower now, more gentle. Trust me, I’ve got you. The second voice acquiesces.Inside, the pungent odour of rot and the throaty chirruping of an enormous toad. A collection of rags and bones coalesces into the floating form of a wretched old woman. Her voice like shattered glass. You’re fucking dead you rat cunts! Fuck you! The sizzling sound of magical energy. Run! The first voice, panicked and self serving. It’s got me, I’m trapped. The second voice, fearful and strained. The first voice does not respond. Pip? The second voice pleads. Pip.But he is gone.If you supported the Jarren's Outpost Board Game, check your emails to manage your pledge manager! Of course you can still grab a copy right here and we insist you do xx o. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, did you know that Plumbing the Death Star is touring the UK this September, as in next month? That's right, starting September 2nd and finishing September 11th, never forget, plumbing the Death Star is going to be performing alive. It has been seven years since the three of us have set foot on your Godforsaken country. So come to see our Godforsaken shows. Go to Sanspansradio.com forward slash events. Plumbing the Death Star cannot buy a tour.

Go grab a ticket and get some freaking... That's right. That's right. Cannot buy tour. Please. come join us when we make fun of our good friend for his slightest mistakes and we call him the biggest fuck we're alive what a dig head

since puntratia forward slash and then a backslash why not our friend's an idiot do you see no water for miles around you are like me nonetheless maroon we are castaways in this terrible

bare 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 die. Maybe by being eaten by a wolf, let's say. As we march, I say, hey, um, pop, sort of cleaned me out of materials. And I, for the fight that's coming,

going to need them. We're going to divert the old bone grinder's wealth of material and we'll catch up with you in a couple of days. So what is this bone grinder again? They call it that because it's full of children's bones. What? You

head towards the old bone grinder. The path that you have been following, that your host has been following up until this point, has been leading down into the valley of Borovia. This if you can imagine the entirety of the valley has kind of, you would say, like a three tier drop puddles.

Okay. The first one being Barovia, the township of, the second one being Valakai, and then the third one being where Krezik sits. This, hector, perhaps, while you know the land, the lay of the land is something a little bit unknown to you. This is like a third, a fourth, I should say, off-shoot little valley, something much tinier and not big enough for a city to be built

within, but certainly big enough for, as you can see, rounding a corner, the trees give way, the thinning trees of the Slavich wood, give way to this fourth tiny valley. Sitting within is this huge three-story

windmill, slowly rotating in the distance. It's like looking at it. So this is, so there's three hags, they eat children, Yeah. What kind of hag are we dealing with the each children hag? What kind of hag is it? Because I've been here before, I'm sure I would just know.

Pip, from your first foray here, you would have done some research into these hags. You know that it is Morgana, a night hag. And then her two, as you, the terminology you would use, her two wretched children. Bella, a morrow hag And Alessandro Another Nighthag Okay It's a morrow and

What, yeah, Morrow and two nighthags Morrow hag and two nighthags Which I believe we've tussled with before But again, ideally we don't I mean we should Yep, they eat children Do they not? Yes

Of course You were what, want to either steal from them Or just bargain? Bargaining was never really on the cards I was just saying. But stealing, really. I mean, again, three morrow hags, we're, you know, accomplished fighters,

but unnecessarily wasting what little, you know, in Borovia where one slashed, I mean, maybe not to you so much anymore, but one slash to the guts, knock you out for a week. I just don't think, you know, they're bigger fish. You need a fry.

That's all I'm thinking. If we're here, I mean, bones over the children, I gesture to the windmill, bones of the children. Hector, if you try and stop everything in Borovia that's eating children, you're going to be here the rest of your wretched life.

It is a worrying statement in so many ways. Yeah, well, let's, so, this is why I didn't want you to come. So, you, you, you would sort of argue for an all-out attack to, to, to, to vanquish the three hags? I think, yeah, I think that is perhaps, it is. once everything else is sorted out. You don't want to chuck it on the docket. I want to take care of it now?

When I suggest you, we chuck things on the docket, I get yelled at and everyone points their crossbow at me. Okay. What? This is your mission. Great. I gesture to you. Okay, from my memory of the old bone grinder,

is there a kind of like a, like, and I know I didn't do the whole thing, but is there a way I can imagine where I can sneak in, acquire the materials and sneak out again? Like, is that a feasible, you know? So, the old bone grinder is, I actually told the lie before. I think I said it was three stories. Forgive me, it's four stories tall, including the ground floor.

The ground floor, let me give you a layout. Okay. So the ground floor is where it's, imagine it like a mill slash bakery. It's where they bring their victims. Where they grind. It's where they grind. It's also where they make a, a meal called Dream Pastries, which are

pastries that they will then try to ply and sell to gullible adventurers who come to Barovia. The pastries, while you are in Borovia, which is very funny. You may be on a mechanical, magical level, know that this curse only happens while you're in Barovia, but leaving Borovia is so hard for adventurers that it's essentially for the rest of your life. You will have terrible nightmares if you eat one.

It actually can cause death through a lack of sleep. Did I eat one at some point? Maybe. Maybe just a little bite. Yeah, just a little... You know that this area is sometimes protected by a demon known as a dretch, which is summoned and controlled by the hag family. The coven, sorry, that's what I was looking for.

The hag coven. You also know that they will sometimes trap that ground floor with toads. Okay. There are just toads like an alarm bell put around the place. If a toad spots you, it'll start croaking really loud. Okay. The second level is the mill proper where, like, the mechanisms for the mill exists. This second level is mostly just mechanics.

mechanical in nature. The third level is their actual bedroom, where you stand a decent chance of finding materials. And then the final one is an attic, but you don't know what's in there. Hmm. What kind of land is it built on? Like, what's the land that the windmill is sitting in? It's a valley. Grass land.

Gross. How dry is the grass? Right now, probably not very. It's almost definitely. raining right now. Remind me again what they, what we've dealt with these before. Yes.

Morrow hags, if you'll recall, they're the sort of crossroad sort of devil of hags. The ones you bargain with. That would be the one like up in Cochery that was making all of the hag children.

Dirt causes it pain, so remember that. The morrow hag, if you'll recall, has a bail fly. So if you're spellcaster, look around, yeah. It's going to disrupt the weave and don't stare at the Morrowhag's third eye or you'll be fucked.

Perrin did the... Yes, you've got to eat it. Remember? If you get fucked by it, you've got to eat the ETI. I remember. You're going to make it poison. I remember the taste. It's immune to frightening and poisoning attacks and it's resistant to getting, you know, whacked, slashed, frozen

or burned, except only non-magical. If you're doing it with magic, you might be all right. To stab that eye, that's the main thing. But, I mean, hopefully we won't go up against them. It could also curse you, so be careful of that as well. And then midnight... So mad stab eye.

Yeah, exactly. Pretty simple stuff when you get down to it. And the midnight hag, I'll read the full thing here. Manyth, because there's two of them. So there's good stuff to keep in mind. Manyeth scholars who study the Fay Arts will tell you that the midnight hag exists only in one's dreams, and it's not a being of actual substance,

but it is the opinion of this author that such creatures not only exist but are among the most dangerous of hags for their ability to fool such simple scholarly minds eth. A midnight hag has it a physical being or body but rather exists only in the ethereal. It can be identified by a distinct odor of burning hair or in extreme cases rotted flesh. One could also tell when a midnight hag has existed within the space by detecting their gifts, in quotation. These gifts are warped and twisted copies of already existing objects in the real world. world eth. A beloved teddy bear might

suddenly have a twisted and hideous visage. A fatherly clock may choose to only scream instead of ring on the hour. The midnight hag attacks at its name's time. Once a chosen victim is asleep, it will hover, not straddle, over its victim and drain their life force. It's like the middle of the day, yeah? Yep. So that's a benefit

we have in our back pocket. It's like what's happened with the child in Valica. Bro. Yes. Reducing them to a wither. It sort of sucks the sort of essence out of you. The midnight hag is incapable of physical violence as an only ethereal being,

but it is an accomplished spellcaster, knowing much of the enchantment and illusion schools of magic. If confronted, the midnight hag will choose to slink back into the ethereal rather than engaging combat, so thy musteth beeth preparedeth, toeth followeth, itteth, intueth,

thai etherealeth as well. It is otherwise prudent for a wise hunter to fix a midnight hag in its place while it is feeding, I create a circle of power using chalk, sigils, and blood of the victim, etc., etc., etc. You trap it in the circle.

You remember this. We did this before. Arcane spells are shrugged off. Divine spell is rejoiced as the opposite is true. Bummer. Pointing to you, knowing that you no longer have divine spells. Bummer on that one. The Midnight Hag cannot fathom thy magics, but that's not an issue.

Radiant damage are the only exception to this. Well, this is kind of good. Because it supercharges them. So, yeah. Don't choose radiant. But again, hopefully we won't, God's willing, have to fight them. Now, I know the bottom floor is trapped at him.

Yeah. But do I know is the outside trapped? Not that you're aware of. Would you have climbed the outside or done anything there? Probably not. I think me and big football went in for like a pretty traditional approach. So I guess I don't know for sure. No, you wouldn't know.

I guess who we've got, Elaniel and I own. none of them. And tiny. And tiny. That's true. But I mean, you know, what's a fella to do? Because my thinking is that I just climb up the side, sneak in, raid the bedroom, climb out. I own a lenial.

Are you good trying to help with his plan of sneaking? Elaniel, I can be as quiet as the wind if I need. Yeah. I don't want to put you in. You know, last time I was. here, the person accompanying me got pretty fucked up, and I don't want that to happen again. Bigfoot Paul

she says. Yeah, exactly. I don't want anybody to come away with a big limb or worse. So I'm happy to take them, you know. Elennial shrugs and then kind of like puts, in a very, it gives you flashbacks of Esberalda. She leans,

she rocks from one foot to the other and says, I can be quite handy in a fight and full respect to Bigfoot Paul, but he is a lot slower than I am, even before the foot. Do I think she's the sneakiest member of the group? She might be. Iona can be pretty sneaky as well.

Iona's very good at being a jack of all trades. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Or just trying to think, again, to do this with, like, the least, like, risk to anybody. I'm kind of like, yeah, basic. As you're thinking, your thoughts are interrupted, and maybe your plan is as well, as you approach you can see the entrance to the old bone grinder, the set of doors a lot better now.

And you can see the outside, the doorway itself. There's a door there. It's this decrepit, flimsy-looking thing that any moment now it could fall over. And now that, Hector, you're a lot closer. You can see the old bone grinder has this awful haphazard nature to it. Like, it looks like no part was meant to be.

there. It looks like it could fall over at any moment. It's crazy to you that this thing is designed to catch the wind, because the wind looks to be its number one enemy. Sitting out the front, both of you, in addition to the rest

of your party, you both spot that there is a figure, almost like a bundle of clothes, but you can tell there's someone or something underneath it sitting out the front on the little stoop in front of that. Does it strike? me is hag like Adam? Because I mean, from your description, yes, but...

Pip, you can't get a great look at them. It took you a moment to realize it wasn't just clothes. Yeah. Hector, you can see that the clothes, even at this distance, Hector, you can tell that those clothes aren't actually touching the ground. The hags, they float, yes? The morrow hag does. I think that's one of the morrow hags right there.

Damn it. What is your plan? And they get if things go south. Do you have a way of alerting us? I was rather hoping they'd all be inside. I say, what's the Morrow Hagg week to? Stabbed in the eye. Yes, no, no, that's the midnight.

I mean, no, that is the Morrow Hag. Well done, Hector. Yeah, good on you. You're learning. Pay attention to you. Yeah. I might not realize it, but you're a pretty good teacher. That's the first time I've ever heard that.

So the morrow hag, okay, which one was the mom? Or the, like, the leader. One of the midnight hags. Morgana. The midnight one. Yeah, Morgana. Morgana and Alessandro are both midnight hags. Bella is the moro hag, one of the children.

Yeah. So the ethereal ones, if anything, they are probably. Yeah, inside. Not quite here. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's kind of maybe to our advantage. Maybe if we are to distract the morrow hag, Elaniel, you can sneak into the bedroom and acquire, you know, the necessary ingredients and alchemical reagents and sneak out without being identified. Elenial nods.

Can I spend this good boy card? What is it? Vatic gaze. You can sense magical oras similar to detect magic spell for 10 minutes. This must maintain concentration. I just want to spend that so I can just look at the hag hovel and see if we can, I see if I can sense it in night hags that might just be also sitting with their sisters or slash sister and or daughter.

You can see the stench of the Shadowfell and the Faywild suffuses this area. The morrow hag or that person sitting on the stoop does not in any way, detect via detect magic but if you relate that to PIP whether or not the book says it Moro Hags are actually immune to divination magic so that would track. That makes sense.

Trying to search for either of the midnight hags is hard to do you will need to make a arcana check because this is actually technically a strained version of that. Do you have

anything for an archa chick? It's got it for a saving throw No, it's not a saving throw, unfortunately. It's a skill check. No. No. Unfortunately, you roll to one. Nah.

It doesn't blow up in your face, you just can't detect them. That's right. You can tell they've been here, but you don't know if they are here. Hopefully as well, I say, you know, if all of us are sort of concentrating our fire on the morrow hag, maybe the midnight hags will come out to see what all the commotion is. and we'll have all three of them distracted. And Elaniel, once again, seriously. If you get up there and things are too hairy,

get out of the tower, drop down, head for the woods. This is not the kind of fight where we've not come here, might I remind you, to defeat the hags? We've not come here to destroy the old bone mill. We're just here to get what little ingredients they might have and then get the fuck out of here. Does everyone understand? Elaniel looks at you and you can tell shit,

Her expression doesn't change. But you can tell there's a lot going on behind the scenes. And you, at first, you get this aura of, like, someone's about to snip at you. Yeah. You got this defensive. I mean, it's also kind of an innate thing. Yeah. Okay, here it comes.

Yeah. But then she says, she just says, all right. Okay. I just kind of, like, put a hand up. And I, if I could use my inspiring leader. feet to give us all 15 temp hit points. Sure. That works. I feel we're gonna need it. Yeah, probably. Potentially.

And have we like, are we back to like, you know, full health and stuff since? It's been quite a few days. It's just been a week. Actually, I've not been keeping track of that. Hang on. Let me check the days till long rest. So you have currently been traveling with your host for about five days already. Okay. That's pretty good. So when was the last time I noted how many days to long rest? long rest. I'm not that wounded.

Yeah. Like from prior, I'm just just curious. I also have quick siesta. The best card to have in Barovio. Long rest, long rest, long rest.

Hector is evil points 11. 11? Out of a possible how many, Adam? Out of a possible how many? If it's out of 100, that's not too bad.

But if it's 10. Wow. Has this been the longest day on record? It's taken me a while to find my... Oh, here it is. Okay, you have had a long rest. Hell, yeah. You're currently two days into the week.

Okay, fabulous, dude. And you get a long rest at the end of each week. So, yeah, fully refreshed. You get those 15 hit points. And yeah, I just like, again, inspiring. I understand that, you know, but... I don't want to do it, give a full 15... How many minutes I have to talk at this?

to inspire everyone? Ten minutes! My word. But something like this, I understand, Pip, you know, but you are a leader of men, and it probably goes to show how much that we care about you and that we are here to make sure that you're safe. And that, well, look, I understand that you don't want this to be

unnecessary violence, but from what you were telling me, these people here are something that shouldn't really be here, Especially, like, if they are feasting on children and maybe, like, gesture to, like, Elaniel's heavily pregnant stomach there. How far along is Elaniel, by the way? It's hot. Oh, no, wait, that's right. Pip Mandarin pregnancy, no, or I can't we wrote that on seasons ago at this point. Just like how Hector understands fashion.

Exactly. Pip understands Alvin pregnancy. Yeah, dude. In my mind, it was always just pregnancy. Just broadly speaking. You know, like, the difference between an elephant, a human, an elf. So, elven pregnancies typically take, it depends as well if it's like a half elf or a full elf, that sort of stuff. These things can affect the duration.

But typically for an elf, a pregnancy will be maybe like anywhere between nine to 18 months. Okay. Wow. That's a quiet... It's quite a diverse. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A good variation there. But, yeah, gesture, like, I understand.

I mean, not sure how when your child is true, but I know if I was to be a father or a in charge or protector of any sort of child, I would know, I would sleep much sound and knowing that this would not be anywhere near where I raised them. You would guess her to be in the fourth to fifth trimester. Woof. Thanks for love.

Thank you for laughing. Thank you. No worries. Thank you for laughing. So really, she's going to pop soon. Any second now. God damn. Don't do anything, as people said, don't do anything rush. We're here for one reason, and one reason alone is to make sure that you are heavily stocked.

But, well, if we happen to get rid of these three hugs, I suppose that would be a nice thing we are putting into the world. Iona nods. You can see between Iona and Elaniel, there's a clear line that matches the two of you. Elaniel, Pip, quite clearly, sees the logic in what you're saying and is probably, like the, yeah, if this becomes too hairy, let's fucking bug out.

Iona, though, Hector, you could see is very clearly on your side. Iona, ever the defender of children back at Coutre here as well is like, yeah, You can see maybe even, if anything, Iona's further than you, Hector, where Iona kind of, you get the impression that she's like, yeah, we're going to, we're going to stop this. Of course we're going to stop this. Like we're going to not, like we're going to let kids keep dying as if grow up. And then Tiny's just there.

Tiny's voice, tiny. Yeah. Remind me, Adam, just the thing with the way the Moro Hag works. Yes. And I say this to everybody, but I just need clarification. So Emmanuel says that any weapon that removes its eye is cursed. Now, does that mean any weapon that destroys its eye? Or only if I, like, scoop it out with the knife, does the knife become cursed?

So any weapon that destroys the eye... A piercing attack made to its baleful eye will cause extreme damage to the hag, though any weapon that removes its eye will be cursed and deliver cursed. So does that mean, say I fire my crossbow into it and it pierces the eye and explodes the eye, does that wreck my crossbow? Or if only I go in there and pop the eye out? And another question from that, if I use, say, my pack magic to create, say, a long bow and pierce her eye with that, what happened? Any weapon that damages the Morrow Hags third eye will become curved. Doesn't have to pop it out, just has to damage it.

But that prevents it from using its third eye attack, at least for a little while. How long will it take me to make steaks? Oh, right. I'm hungry. It depends how you like it. This episode is sponsored by Omaha Steaks. Use code beef. Use code hag beef at checkout to get 10% added to your order.

How long will it take you to make some stakes? Not too long. I mean like... I literally just pointy sticks. Yeah, if you just need a pointy stick, not long. Then I do that and as I'm doing that, I explain... I don't want anybody... I mean, you know, again, I'm trying to go as low impact as possible.

I don't want anybody permanently wrecking their weapon because of this. Yeah. Yeah, so how does it work with a pack magic? Like, if I can summon a weapon. It curses the magic itself. So like, A, then from then on out, every weapon is cursed. Well, whatever your pack weapon is is cursed. To pull the veil back a little bit,

the curse lasts for 2D4 days. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Just wondering if it's like that. Then it wears off. What if you destroy it? We say an Eldrick blast. That's, oh, it has to be piercing damage. Otherwise, it isn't actually targeting the eye.

Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. I hand the stakes out to everybody. Look, if it comes to it, I mean, we want to destroy the eye, but you don't to wreck your weapons. So if it comes to it and you're close enough, you can pierce a bail fly with, with a steak. And then you've just got a, I mean, yeah,

a shitty cursed steak, but it's not going to wreck your main weapon. The bear for eye, is it, don't look into it. Yeah. Keep away from looking into it. Don't look into it. And also, like I said, hitting it or slashing it or freezing it or burning it,

it's kind of going to do nothing. Poisoning it even less. You want to pierce every bit of its body. But if you pierce the eye, cursed weapon. That makes sense. Makes sense. Everyone nods. Except tiny.

Tiny, you just hear that that noise again, the slow, low thumb. All right. Thrum. Dumb. Wish I had a shitty crossbow right now, but that's fine.

Oh, the bad boy. You sat on your weapon. Not my crossbow. Be careful what you wish for. A crossbow I can rack. A crossbow I can rack. All right. When you get, are you just in, what's the plan here?

My plan would be to sound Elaniel off into the woods to basically do like a... There's no woods. There is grass and Elaniel does, just so you know what is around you. Sorry, I don't mean to rules lawyer you. No, please. Just so you know what's around you. It's grassland all around, but Elaniel does get low, slips into the grass, and she does a decent, you like lose sight of her after a little bit.

Okay, fantastic. Well, then. God, I would ideally, from a distance, low, I mean, I guess I still can without, I just won't aim for the eye and hope I don't hit it. So you're just going to engage when you're at within? Pretty much. I mean, the moment Elaniel slips away, we want to make as much commotion as possible. If we can draw the morrow hag and even the midnight hags out to look at us, you know,

to the front of the old bone grinder, that would be ideal. Does that sound, you know, agreeable to everybody? I nod. Okay, fantastic. Well, no time like the present. I get down on one knee, bring up my crossbow, and thunk, thunk, fire two bolts into the hag. All right. And I'll make them, let's say, electric.

Electric? All right. Two bolts with a crackling static energy arc. As from your distance, I think your maximum range is like around 250 feet. So from about that range, you fire two piercing bolts. you watch as they they strike what appears to be true and then the form of rags

kind of billows apart the rags fly off as if like caught in a wind and underneath you watch as a dog falls over fucking damn I just kill the dog god damn

Fuck. What the fuck? Why? You told me it was a hat. They didn't know magic. It was floating. Yes. Okay.

Damn. Well, Oh. Can dogs? Wait, could this be magic? Can they appear as a dog? Uh, Oh.

It's been, like, as it still, as a bit, I still have the, um, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, what am I see. You see no magical aura The dog is a How was it floating? You said it was floating Is it still floating? Not anymore Well, it's not floating anymore

But it's still There's no magic around it By the way, that would make sense It's a dog Yeah No magical dog Dogg's not magic From memory

Yeah, dogs are not magic How is true Wounded is that dog Like It looks pretty badly wounded It looks like it might be dying I would like There's no saving that dog

So it's just, hey, I say, if I do not think that dog is, you're like, probably you should put the dog out of its misery. Okay. Out of my fire and other two balls. Put the dog out of its misery. Right, Adam? Is that what you're saying to me? Is that what you're saying, Adam? That there's no saving the dog?

Yeah. Thunk, thunk, thom, thong. They hit, the dog goes still. Okay. A cruel trick from the hags, I guess. I didn't want to do that. Everybody understands. That was not my intent.

Um... Iona, you can see, like, is clearly really distress. Like, could be... Can you put a head on Iona, like, a comforting? Like, almost like, we're just looking at Pip, like, shaking our heads. Like, you told me. Iona's not joining in on... You said this was funny.

Iona does not think this is funny. This isn't funny. This isn't a funny thing, Adam. You said it was a... Zaman. With a huge grin on his face. Zammett and Jackson maybe think this is funny. Yeah.

But seeing this happen as Hector and Pip and Iona, where we're not happy with this. And annoyed. And we're not like looking at Pip like disgusting. It's more of a comforting like, that was horridendous. These horrible hags. We're not blaming Pip. No.

They're blaming that. So do you get closer? Yeah. Honestly, yeah. Presuming the hacks are now aware of the dying dog. Yeah. They probably summoned them. They're trap or their...

As you approach, the dead dog, its head whips around really high up into the air, and then you hear a mocking voice. It was a hag. Keep maddened in, you fucking cocksucker. You shouldn't have come back in. Oh, they know you. What a stupid trick. The dog turns back into that.

What's the fucking point of that? Well, you're crazy. closer now. The hag casts a spell. Okay. We've like been got several times with the... God fucking damage. The old dead dog trick, she pulled on us. A mist. The old dead dog trick. Classic dead dog trick. A heavy mist descends on your entire party, save Elaniel, obviously, who is you don't know where. Is this a surprise round, Adam? Yeah. I have alert.

Okay. Well, You can still act then. Well, God, you bastard. All right, well, now I need to roll initiative. Got his ass. Which means I also have a plus, I believe, five. Yes. Holy fucking macaroni.

Worth a lot more in BG3 when they only roll a D4 for your initiative. That's true. All right. Hector, you're first. Okay, excellent, excellent, excellent. Okay. We'll say that the hag is still the dog with the really long neck that's snake dog. Like if a giraffe and a dog had a child.

Gross. So I could, Altric Blass, or I could just shatter them. Do shatter, dude. Yeah, yeah, that's all I got, really. Shatter. I just, as they're, like, laughing at Pip Mandarin, calling him, like, you know, a little dick, Dragonborn or whatever they said,

that you could never please any of his lovers. Yeah, I believe that's definitely. But you're talking to that effect. Little dick Mandarin, can't please his laugh at us. The other dick mandarin. Yeah, really nice. I cast Shadow, just all located directly on them.

Tiny dick Mandarin. Can't please his lovers. Tiny dick Mandarin. It's not even a thing I'm insecure about. Card please his lovers. It's a catchy tune. It's annoying, nevertheless. Okay.

She passes the saving throw, but we'll still take half damage. which will be 13 halft is she takes six points of damage God damn it she turns into the Morro hag again

and then goodbye you cock fuck fucker action surge okay what do you do Alrick blast Eldrick blast You the first attack will

Can I do hexplade curse So I get a Does that a bonus action? Oh, sorry. That would be... Oh, you're right. Sorry. I'll action search and then I'll just cast Aldrich Blast twice. Okay. The first attack

will miss and I'm checking the second one. Do you have anything for... Oh, no, both hit actually. Oh, cool. Oh, yeah, both hit. Both hit? Yep. Excellent. How many D-10? It's still a D-10 but it's plus your charisma mod, right? You have that thing?

Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. Okay, so it's just a D-10. I'm so sorry You deal one than two points of damage If I was to a Roll with advantage would that be good It's not

Oh I mean it could you could get a crit But that's kind of it Yeah sorry Too bad buster That's not Wow Are you Is that everything?

Then it's her turn Just thought I could distract her a little Just you know Small dick mandarin, time for you to die! And then she finally transforms back into the morrow hag. And then she quite clearly casts a spell and some sort of fog descends upon your entire party. Everyone in the group needs to make a constitution saving throw.

Whatever hack. Whatever hack. I don't even fucking care. Pip, no, you both fail. Oh, oh oh oh oh. And then, oh, no, Iona fails as well. Everyone but tiny fails. Is it a bad thing?

I should really not. It's a saving throw, yeah, you want to pass this. I really, this is bad if we fail. I haven't rolled damage, so it might not be that bad. All right. I'll let us, yeah, whatever. I'm just waiting to be like, oh, here's the mind control one. You know?

No, I thought a mind control one. That's a con saving throw. This is a constitution saving throw. Um, something is bad about this gas. Anyone who fails took 24 points of poison damage, half as much if you passed. God, that's a bummer. Thankfully, those temp hit points. Yes, thank you for those temp hit points.

So, 24, well, Tiny still has one temp hit point. Nice. And you would have only taken 15 minus 24 is, of course, nine. You only took nine points of damage each. Okay. Not too bad. Which points 71 for Hector and 41 for PIP. God damn it.

I forgot about that. Oh, wait. No. Long rest. Baby, he's back. He's back. He's back. He's back, baby.

The bitch is back in town. You're on 75, actually. Now, forgive me. The bitch is back in town. That's what Elaniel sings when she's looking at you and doesn't think anyone can hear it. All right. That is her turn. And then the rest of you are surprised.

Hector, it's back to you. Right. So I guess Eldrick Blast does nothing to... Well, you kind of just rolled shit. Yeah. It does hurt. It does hurt a little bit. And she does have a lot of resistances.

Fair enough. How far away are we? You would be currently 120 feet. She just needed you to get close enough for that spell. I guess I can't run and attack them, which is annoying. Okay, I will, yeah, keep moving closer to them. And I'll just see, as we're moving, I'll just like, yeah, Aldrich Blast. All right, you fire two more bolts, miss, I'm sorry, hit, critical hit.

Oh, nice. Phenomenal job. Could I, you have a cast of the Hexblade curse as well? Yes, that's an extra D6 necrotic, right? Plus four damage. Oh, plus four, okay. And your options are, Gey, guys. A guiding attack or magical barrage.

Ooh. A barrage sounds good. Cool and fun. But guiding might tell you where they are. Actually, they're not hard to sign to the mist. So yeah, go barrage. I keep thinking they're hidden in the mist, but they're not. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't think. Well, they might go invisible, but let's go barrage. Magical barrage. Maximum damage and three additional targets within range are affected at half potency. Damn. Wham. Wham. Damn.

Shit. You can target three additional things. Sorry? Toads. You can't see any toads. Damn it. Sorry. I guess my allies.

Actually, they're not close enough. That's so funny. Okay. Is there anything you'd like to hit? There's the door. There's features. There's windows. Is there anything that if I hit would drop and hit her in the head?

Like a sign? You might be able to do that with the windmill's turn. Well, do that. And it's forced damage, but it is a large object. Let me think. All right, it's at half potency. Hang on. So the first attack just rolled does two points of damage.

Then the second one does your full 12. Yeah, that's pretty good. And then three times you strike parts of the connecting central pin on the windmill. at half damage. Full damage is 14 at the moment. Oh, oh, no, it's because it's your you've only hex, which actually I didn't add that plus four damage, but you're not

hex cursed the windmill. True, true, true, true. But she, actually, should have taken an extra eight points of damage of necrotic. Is she resisting her immune to that? Probably. You'd be surprised. No, I don't think so. Yeah, she's not. No, it's an extra eight damage. Nice.

Mario hags aren't tough. It's the midnight hag, you should worry about. That's all right. I don't want two of them. Yeah. Yeah. Uh-oh. Good noises. Thank you.

Then, yeah, the... You watch 15 damage wouldn't be enough, but you watch as the wood splinters and cracks. And Pip, you could see it as well. And she could probably see it, too. Though, the... That huge fan starts sagging a little bit. You cock-suckers!

You fucking cunts! You dumb motherfuckers! What are you doing? What are you doing? We need that to eat, you dumb bitches. You bastards! How are we going to feed ourselves? Oh, my God.

Hey, relax. Relax. Relax. And then she... Why would I not? She throws a fireball. Oh, why would you not, dude? Hector, you're not in this area,

but everyone else is. What's Fireball? Half damage, Trump resisted to fire. It's raining. It's raining. It's cold. It's cold. It's kind of nice for five seconds before the booning kicks in.

Fireball is 86. 86. How bad? Would I even check? Would one more of attack helped? Would what say? One more of attack? To break the thing?

Maybe, yeah. I could make one more attack as part of an attack action. If you are... Okay. Yeah, you can do that. So you get two bolts. Mm-hmm. You still need to roll to hit.

Mm-hmm. Now, we'll talk... So you're targeting the windmill, the fan again. What's it called? What is that part of the windmill called? Center. The wheel? Sales?

No, the center bit. Oh, the center bit. Well, that... Do you have anything for an attack roll? You just roll to one. I do, Adam. I do, I believe it's all attacks. advantage.

Okay. Well, you spend that now. All right. You hit it. It's not a critical hit, but it's not a critical fail either. Which is what I love to hear. That's another three-force damage. It's still standing. So you're going to have to hit one more time.

But this attack is with advantage. You get a critical hit. Nice. All right. It's funny to critical hit the central spurt. All right. Blast of power or surge of power? Which sounds better to you.

Oh, Serge sounds fun. Surge sounds like it's going to happen to you. Blast sounds like it happens to the windmill. But I don't know. Yeah, no, no, I think you're on the money there. Serge does sound fun, but let's go with blast. I would have gone surge. Let's go with Serge.

Sorry, did I say, I started? No, you're picking blast. Yeah. Surge your power just would have been funny because you could make another spell attack. But yeah, double damage. Okay, hey, that's good. Probably going to be enough. Not probably.

Well, yeah, anyway. It's not important. You destroy the central spoke on the wheel. The wheel, Bastards! Punts! Awful fucking shit! And then crunch, it falls down upon her.

How much damage could this be? I'm going to call it... Well, it's pretty big, but also a lot of it is canvas. Yeah, is what I'm thinking. Yeah, so it's like kind of... It's wooden canvas, but there's a lot of it. I'm going to say I'm going to say 5d6

I'm going to call it back pierces are ahead you're a cursed windmill 5D6 damage 12 16 points of damage Okay Shucks no one has done that before

There's a brief moment of blessed silence As the that wheel is just lying on top of her And then Trunks Crocus And she explodes

out from under and then she casts fireball. Man, she loved casting fireball. She doesn't cast it yet. Yeah, this is her first time. Oh, that's right. I keep interrupting them. Yeah, I know.

I was there. 10, 20, 26 points of fire damage. Damn. Deedle, deedle, your companions are not doing well. Okay. Uh-oh. Hector, you don't. get hit by this, but Pip, you just took 25 points of damage. Oh, but it's half. So it's 12 points

of fire damage instead. And then your ally, well, Tiny takes half damage regardless because of being a monk. But Tiny goes from healthy to bloodied. He's at least half health. Okay. Iona goes from healthy to are exposed, she when the dust settles on the cloud kill and the fireball spells, I don't know if you know the cloud kill was the first spellcast. As the

dust settles on both of those spells, Pip, you look around, tiny is like you can see parts of his shell are cracked and open and exposed, and you can see this clear fluid leaking from him, but Iona is like

prone. She's crawling on her hands and knees to the side of the road to get out of the line of fire. Okay. That's not good. And then it is, Pip, your turn, finally. Okay. I'm going to fire two shots. I'm going to make them precise shots, so I have advantage.

And I'm going to make them... I'm going to do more damage. I'm going to make them acid. Acid? Okay. She's immune to poison, but not acid. Yes. Hit.

Hit. You hit twice. Acid plus your heavy shot. You deal. Plus your deck. Six, ten, 21, 22 points of damage. Okay.

Press your two shots. Pretty good. That I didn't get a crit. I should have gone for another kind of shot. But hey, the meticulous shot is always so tantalizing. You know? I'd say try and like scatter and move. and get out of the cloud.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, in addition to, like, firing those shots, I go, it got hairy. Get out of there. And you're running away? Yeah. Well, where's everybody? Well, Iona and Tiny actually haven't acted yet.

They're both still standing on the road. You can see Iona means to get into the brush to try and, not brush, the grass. You see that she means to get into the grass to try and hide and lick her wounds. Tiny is just, Just as always standing there. You don't, you know tiny well enough to know he's not going to just die. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But right now, before he has acted, it looks a little bit like he'll just stand there until he tells him. Yeah, okay. And where's Hector as well? Hector is running ahead. Yeah, that's correct, yeah? Yeah, Hector's running ahead. Full speed. Well, yeah, I tell everybody to scatter, and I'm going to just, I'm not going to go backward, but I'm going to try and get out of the line of fire.

like strafe kind of, get out of the line of fire. So, assuming, let's say, the old bone grinder is to yourself, what cardinal direction are you going? Let's say east. East? Okay. So you had East, Iona, you see, Iona heads west into the grass, and you can hear her singing a song.

It doesn't sound like, it doesn't sound like the song that you would sing. It doesn't sound like a song from your childhood. But it does have that ring of like... Could be a song from her childhood. Yeah. Yeah, okay. You get the distinct impression she heals herself. Okay.

And that is her action. Cool. Tiny. Hector? Tiny moves past you. He moves so quickly that he is next to the morrow hag. The fuck you want. That is his turn, though.

Hector is yours. I'll keep moving forward. Am I in spearing distance yet? You're 60 feet away. Okay. I guess I will... I'll use commanding strike... Okay.

As a bonus action so that my ally can use an attack instead of me. Okay. Tiny, go for it. What do you attack... Oh, wait, does that... Do you actually attack with Commander Strike? I think you do. I think you attack with...

with commander's strike and then you direct someone else to also attack, I think. I've never used it, I don't think, unfortunately. When you take the attack action on your turn, you can go one of my attacks and use a bonus action to direct an ally that can seal here you to strike using its reaction, adding superior, he dies to the damage roll. Do you have any ranged attacks that could reach out? I have a stake. I could throw.

Actually, I've got a spear. Yeah, true. I think, yeah, you can throw the spear If you'd like Yeah, okay, I'll throw the spear The spear is piercing Are you aiming for the bail fly? No, not at all.

You can just not end. You're smart. You are at your maximum range With the spear, which means disadvantage with your attack But you can still forego the second attack To get tiny to start going. Yep, sweet.

You hit anyway. Nice, wonderful. You hit with your spear. Is it just a regular D6 spear? Or D8, actually, because you're throwing it double-handed. Spear, it is a...

I know it's a D-8, but do you have anything extra... Plus six, plus... That was plus 11 to hit. Yeah. You hit, and because you've marked her, you... God, plus nine. You deal 11 points of damage. Fucking shit, fucker a cat, bitch!

Yeah. And then, what do you say to Tiny? I just hit it. Hit her? Just... Tiny. As he... Very confidently.

Oh. Tiny takes a power stance. Legs spread wide, all four of his arms out. You watch, it looks like time slows for him, and he gets this shimmering aura all around him. Like a soft blue glow. Shut the fuck up, you! And then clock tiny punches her once. Twice, three times, four times.

He speedbags her mouth. Awesome. Thank you. Rock on, Tiny. He's so cool. Two, three hits Yowsers She takes 31 points of damage

Holy shit He rolled well Enough, enough She starts screaming She puts up her hands I'll keep walking towards them as well So I'm 30 feet now All right

So do you Are you making Well yeah You're 30 feet away Do you keep attacking? It's your turn Is it your turn? No, it was just his turn

Just might finish my turn. Yeah. Okay. Well, it's her turn. She puts up her hands. Enough! Enough! Enough! A deal! A deal! She says. This is this on you, Pip. This is your... It's your turn? Your turn? Oh, great. I keep fire. She spends her action, not attacking. Yeah, yeah. No, no. I'm going to make a...

I guess I'll just make another meticulous shot. Yeah. Okay. You're not accepting her surrender? No, no, no. I'm not making a deal. Adam, the optics. Hit. Only two regular hits, but two hits. I'll take it. 32 points of damage.

Damn. Hell, yeah, dude. Oh, is that her? I think that's all she wrote, folks. That's all she wrote. Do you want a cool action line as you do this? Maybe the opposite. Maybe it's like, I'm about them, like, I don't,

and then I just trip over a stomp or something. Both of your arrows Thonk Thunk hit her in the chest And she staggers backwards You see Tiny Goes to catch her before she falls Yeah But then

She collapses backwards Hits the ground Yeah Okay I swear to get nine hit points Nice I go check Iona Make sure she's okay

Hit points not temp, yeah? Okay Sorry, what did you say? I go check Iona to make sure she's okay Iona, you can see, is badly, not badly anymore, actually, no, she healed herself. She is doing a bit better, but she is pretty hurt. Okay. She, that being said, you recover, Pip, 10 hit points. You can see, she's about to start singing a song, and then instead, she tells a nursery rhyme.

Oh, much better, much better. I go pick up my spear, but holding the stake, I call that to, Do we have to stab the eye? You might as well. What do you need it for your harvesting? Yeah, stab it

because we'll keep it in our back pocket. I'll put it in, yes. Yes. Okay. Yep, you gain a hag eye. All right. Fabulous. Game three.

Whoa. And then I'll can I hear any commotion from inside? Can I loot the hag slash start doing like monster harvesting. I have proficiency.

Yeah, gosh, you do well. Let me get a list of ingredients. Are you holding onto them? No, no, no, no. Yeah, you pass them along. Okay, just check. And I have a pencil. Here you go. Oh. Thank you.

You find two piercer vine. Two piercer vine here for you. One blight skin. Blight skin. Slow down. One watery mass eyes. Lot of eyes on this one. Oh, yeah, a lot of eyes. Yeah, well, hags.

I hadn't thought that, but yeah. Hags typically. Maybe you find it as like a necklace. Yeah. I've got three hag eyes and then this massive, lots of ice. Hag guys are good. These are warm ones? You find six pinches of shadow.

And whatever this is. Those would be pinchers of shadow. This one. Pretty good. I mean, it's undead, Bain. It's always useful. And now without you no longer having. access to divine magic.

A Frankenheart? Frankenheart. Thunder and lightning damage. Weak to fire. Pretty good. You find 12 flumped spores. Clearly she was collecting them. Oh, that was a hobby. 12 flumpth? Well, I mean, that's poison. So I guess that would make sense.

Two elemental spirits. One of whom is in a bottle with James written on the side. They're not normally named. Lash this. A devil's horn? Neat. Oh, yeah, that's pretty good.

Devil's horn. Resistance to magic. Comes in handy. And then an agate. Ah, and then a precious stone. Something shiny. Yeah. Protection.

Ah. All right. All right. There you good. Yeah, that's it. Cool. And then, yeah, listen. If I can't hear anything,

really don't want to go inside for all the toads up. But maybe that's also a good strategy. alert the toads. Yes. What is the next plan? Sort of helped the midnight hags would come out when the morrow hag did. They are a theory, right?

Yes, but nevertheless, they would have surely made an... All right, I guess I'm going to open the door. Let's alert the toads. As you open the door, unbeknownst to your party, the rider pulls up at the tree line and watches you from a distance.