D&D is For Nerds - Stories of The Greyhill Free Company I #16 Famous Historical Dwarves

Episode Date: August 21, 2021

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Sans Pants Radio. Australia's happiest podcast network. Previously on the stories of the Greyhill Free Company. I'm gonna keep running further in then. Can I peek at what that glowy thing is? As you approach it, you can see that it is a dwarf. When you get around to their face, you can see they're like pallid and cold. It looks like a corpse. Oh, no, Guy. You've been killed.

Little bolts strike at the hole as if there was a door there and just bounce off Yeah, that's great The words of a powerful person They carry more energy than people realize Yes, perhaps you're right You know it would be very sacrilegious if you were to pick up the crown Adam, you have answered the question I had You probably come in just as Love is Blind is thanking her for forgiving him.

Yes. Oh, that's very sweet. That's good. Don't talk about it. Perhaps after we have cleared out this room. Of course. Let's investigate everything and have a wonder. Are you going as a group?

I think probably best we stick together. Or Ficklem for the healing or Queen of Guard for maybe the armour you're looking for? Queen of Guard first. Yeah, the healing. Yes, we're all pretty wounded, or at least some of us have belly wounds. Okay, Fickle. Ficklim. Was that the Ficklim? Yes. Sorry. Sorry, I had autocorrected Ficklim.

King Ficklim broke from old traditions and made peace with the elves, so he's kind of a counter to King Anoth where King Anoth is like the war with the elves god King Fiklim is like the peace with the elves god I don't understand why they were so fighty with each other, they're both such a very dry race but that's the thing

it's tricky because one's very low and one's very high and it's very hard to get along with someone when your face is in their knees. I mean, I guess so, but they're so dry. Oh, no, I understand. So dry. I understand, but you're very wet and I don't mind you.

Exactly. There is an altar here as well as many bookshelves. You do not know enough about dwarves to understand why there are a lot of bookshelves here. All of the bookshelves have books on them, and they're all written in dwarven text. I see the bookshelf and think, oh, that isn't for me. Sorry, the altar has a band, a golden band around it, and that golden band has dwarven text on it.

What would you like to try to decipher first? Look, if there's a band with text on it, that's a lot less daunting than a book. All right. So, band with text, it, that's a lot less daunting than a book. All right. So band with text, please. It's a prayer. A prayer to restore the dead to life. Can I say it? Oh, no.

Do you say it out loud? Well, yeah, I'm sounding it out. Okay. No, no, no. I mean, like, no, no, no. As you're going, you can realize what you're saying and stop. Can somebody write this down for me? Because this is for bringing that back.

And I don't know who's dead in here. And I'm scared of who's coming back. Do you think the king will help us? Is it to bring the dead back to life? Yeah. Like as a zombie? Or are you saying it is to bring like a person who has died back to life? Like perhaps one of our good friends, the big T.

You said they were a god of healing? Yes. Okay. What else? Am I able to answer these questions? What do I know? Do we need the body? This is a spell of resurrection cast upon the altar.

Do we need a body? Yeah. Part of the, well, you don't know magic so someone else has to take it up from here look uh so this is this here is a actually no you know what actually this is a religion not with a single spell to discharge. So in a important event, a body would be laid out on this stone altar. The prayer would be said. And then if King Ficklem deemed it worthy, they would bring the dead back to life.

And do we need the body? You do need the body. Yes. Yayola? Yayola has been like silently just listening very intently. What? What is the spell? We just need to say it.

Well, you say a prayer. And if they deem it good enough, then you might bring it back. I feel bad about my choice of words. Yayola is already trying to remove Chantel's body from your back. I forgot she was trapped on there. Yeah, well... Oh, God! I had a dead guy on me!

This whole time! Help me! Yes, yes, yes! I know I feel bad about putting that shield on it, too. Well, it probably was protecting. It was good. Yes, yes, yes. I know I feel bad about putting that shield on it too. Well, it probably is protecting. It's good. Yes, we all help get Stormbender Chantal down. Tell me,

Yaiola says. How do I say it? Can I guide Yaiola through the process and just sort of explain that they need to say the prayer, you know, put a little zhuzh in it so the king's like, okay. You explain it poorly. Can I get someone to write it down phonetically for her?

I don't think we're quite gathering that. I guess we could try and write it down. Yeah. Can I get someone to write down the spell phonetically so that Yayola can actually say it? Yayola reads it out phonetically from the from the paper and now you say a prayer for what what you want and why it's like a job interview oh i feel bad again yayola does that with like a hurried excitement like she's she getting like, as towards the end, she starts stumbling over her words. She's like,

you can see sweat coming down her brow. She finishes and then nothing happens. Maybe. Is there anything I'm forgetting or missing? A hand on her shoulder. You think maybe King Ficklim just didn't deem this worthy. That would be the result of what happened just now. The spell is here because it hasn't been discharged yet.

Oh, Mr. Ficklim, excuse me. Maybe you didn't understand. Can I translate the prayer Yael has said? You could try doing it yourself, yeah. Can I try and sort of do the spell and then say the prayer Yael said? You could try doing it yourself, yeah. Can I try and sort of do the spell and then say the prayer again and then at the end say, please? Oh, the spell is the prayer. Sorry, the one and the same.

Oh, I thought she had to say something that she wanted and why. Well, as part of the prayer, you are basically saying that you want this person to be resurrected. Well, then I simply do the prayer. Okay. With my flawless accent nothing happens at the end of it yayola holding the piece of paper shoves it into your chest and says write it down write it down on the on the band so that i can see where it goes and where

yayola gets like an ink gets an ink pen out of her pack and starts furiously scribbling on the band, the phonetic over the regular spell. Oh, okay. That's what they mean. Yep. Well, I can't do that. Yayola's like slowly trying to go through it. And with your help and Love is Blind's, when she's got like the band covered in ink where phonetic is over the actual written word, she goes around again. And reading, as she goes around the thing, she tries to read out the spell.

Is it, sorry to interrupt, is it like, because it's a band, is it like a chant? To do it over and over. Do you have to put chant over and over again? Yayola gets to the end of it, nothing happens, and looks at you, and then she turns back and starts going around once, twice, three times, four times. Does Chantal have to go in the middle? I think it takes an hour each time. No, surely it can't. Hang on, let me quickly check.

I did a lot of mental load today. Maybe I've created a demon. I'm so sorry. Is Chantal in the middle of the band? Yeah, it takes an hour each time. Alright, so anyway, sorry, go on. Is Chantal in the middle? Chantal is lying on the altar. In the middle, yeah. Okay, good. So you've done it maybe like three times and then you suggest that it's a chant and that you need to do

it multiple times and then Gaiola just starts going around. Can I join in on the second one? I'll help. Come on, guys. Love is Blind joins in. I'll join in. It's apparently written. Yeah, well, I'll join in on the prayer.

Okay. You go around once, you go around twice, three times, four times, quick break. Come back in. Anything? Is there anything around the altar? Like, is there anything we've missed? Can I inspect the altar again? You have a close inspection around the altar? Like, is there anything we've missed? Can I inspect the altar again? You have a close inspection upon the altar.

It's just a simple slab of stone with a gold band around it with words engraved on it and now ink on top of those words. Love is Blind and Yayola haven't stopped. Do you stop? I feel like after my maybe, yes, after the bath. I've had a go by myself, right? Yeah.

Is there anything in these books? I look terrified. Do you know if it's a has it not gone off or is it one of those things where we need to wait? It seems like it just hasn't worked. It seems like King Ficklim doesn't

Do we need to say he's done the altar or do we need to go to where the king was? Is the king related at all to this? I don't know. Well that's not King Ficklim I don't think. It isn't I don't know. Is there any like burial rites or any

kind of other rites that we need to dress up Chantalian? Yeah is there any like burial rites or any kind of other rites that we need to dress up uh chantalian yeah is it like is it is it uh yeah you know a little bit about you've rolled like three times now for dwarven funeral rites you know that yes there are there is like a ceremonial robe that a dwarf is dressed in when they are interred you don't you know you would know that the resurrection rites and the burial rites are not related if you are buried you well actually you know that they're related in that if you are buried dwarven custom says that you should not be resurrected the buried should not come back you could only be resurrected or you should only be resurrected if you haven't been buried. Well, tick. That's good.

Am I able to look for the word symbol for resurrection or bring back and try and find it on books? Alright, you can try having a look if you want. Symbol match. Learning to read at the ripe old age of... Twelve. Goliaths Scrooge, Big. Yes? Love is blind. You spend another prayer looking at the books,

trying to work out if any of them say resurrection. You feel like you've been very careful and you've not missed anything and you've not gone through all the books. There's a lot of books here. All of the books you've gone through, though, do not gone through all the books, there's a lot of books here, you've gone through, all of the books you've gone through though, do not have any mention of the word resurrection. Not at least on the cover, unless you want to flip through the book as well. If you flip

through the book, it's going to take you a lot longer. Oh yeah. While you're doing that, I might go and look at the old king to see if there's anything like markings on him that have similar in terms of the resurrection his armor has the sigil of a dwarven house a dwarven clan i should say they're not houses they're clans and it it's a the insignia is kind of like repeated again and again dwarves don't put

animals or faces or items in their insignia. They are patterns. So the pattern kind of gets repeated again and again in motifs throughout the armor. And I guess you could tell if this dwarf is covered in their house pattern and not a god's insignia, this is probably not necessarily a religious thing. This is not all right. Well, yes, I guess too not related. You can also tell, actually, having inspected this

for quite some time, their armor, their shield, their crown, and their hammer are all independently magic. That is not the same magic as the magic that's affecting this room. But that magic is still coming from this dwarf, just none of his equipment. And you can tell that his armor is not the armor that you're looking for.

I forget the name of it. Yeah, right. Well, I think the mission brief for this one was to get any magical items. But I feel this is what is holding the gate closed for the kibble. So that's, I'm guessing there is something here of all of them working in tandem to help us out in a very positive manner.

I think this one stays. Oh, you don't think? Sorry. What I'm saying is that the magic in this room comes from the dwarf themselves, not from their equipment. Their equipment are independently magical items. Ah, right right and the dwarf this dwarf hasn't been buried have they adam well this is obviously not a bear as i said before this is not a burial so perhaps i mean this could be a outside box thinking but we could try and bring

that dwarf into the resurrection room and see if it works on them and they might be able to help us with Chantal but I feel if it is a one-off use which it is and I told you yes

you know this spell will it's like an emergency it's just like a King Ficklem will determine at some point that someone is worthy spell will it's like an emergency no no even an emergency sort of thing it's just like a king ficlim will determine at some point that someone is worthy of this spell and when it happens the altar will be broken and need to be completely redone can we please all say please can i teach everyone the dwarvish word for please sure uh well please well this is all happening as well Yaiola bumps they're both speaking the spell of the prayer

so they can't really properly talk to each other but Yaiola bumps Love is Blind and gestures at you Big T and then at the books and Love is Blind stops chanting the prayer and comes over to you and is going to help you try to decipher the titles of these books

thank you everyone's walking the right way right what do you mean oh yeah yeah okay good you've made sure of that don't worry you decipher one of the covers of the books is the sea of white maritime laws 7602 to 7608, let's put this in the maybe pile. You start deciphering the books. All of them are legal texts. Every book that you've been translating so far, and maybe at a certain point you're like, maybe we're just in the legal section,

so you jump somewhere else. Still just legal texts. This is legal. Can we try and go to the opposite end and work backwards? Every book you do is a legal text, no matter where you grab it from. What is happening? Does this make sense to me, a friend of dwarves? You don't know everything about dwarves.

Yeah, but I know a fair bit. King Ficlim, in your understanding, is a king of healing. You don't know what this is. But that's not to say that you know everything. Your knowledge of the gods other than the major god is spotty. So you also think that you could just not know something about this god. Okay, so we got the god of war and the god of law. Yes.

So this is all law books. They're all legal texts is there a is there anything here about resurrecting no none of these are magical in any nature these are literally laws just laws i mean it's magic it's not necessarily like laws of the wars should not really govern them it is magical like one of these is just about local fucking. Local fucking. No, about like ordinances concerning pets in one of the cities of the Dwarven nation. And this isn't like a magical bookcase. Like pulling on the books hasn't done anything.

No. I'll head to the other one. The other altar that we haven't looked at. That would be for Queen Agard. Yes, Queen Agard. Perhaps there's anything in the other rooms that we haven't looked in yet that might help? There is another forge here and in addition to the forge there are

three iron chests, all of them locked shut. There's no altar here, just the forge and the chests. I look at the chests, give it a bit of an investigation, have a look around, see if. Just the forge and the chests. I look at the chests and give it a bit of an investigation. Have a look around and see if there's any keys to these chests. There's no keys. They're all locked.

Can I try chucking my helmet out of the room? Sure. I forgot to mention that each of these have a depiction of the god in them. Although, I will let you know that with King Fiklem, the healing one, you've investigated, at this point,

I assume you've investigated the statue, and you find nothing unusual about the statue. Correct, yes. I want to try chucking my halberd out of the room, or just keeping it outside, because I know that this god... This is probably also just really frustrating for you, because King Ficklem is like an old

dwarf, sitting in his little alcove with just simple robes and he's smiling. So it must be like, you piece of shit. Yeah, and we're not saying it at all, correct? Not that I know of. This makes sense to me. You're saying it as well as you know it.

Yeah, perhaps Once again, I'm doing a perfect job. It's not like one where you have to do it backwards? You don't think so. Yeah, okay.

We can give it to go, of course. Well, we'll investigate. So there's three chests. Anything around the

three chests? Any way to open the three chests? Or is it all just kind of... You have an

investigation around? Queen Agard, her statue is a motherly-looking dwarf with a silver hammer in one hand. Oh, no, that's it, yeah. And just with a silver hammer in one hand. That silver hammer is probably actually made of silver.

You can see that there are, as part of the statue, there are gemstones. She's standing on a small pile of gemstones. And those appear to be actual gemstones set there. Wow. That's very impressive. And no other way to... You could try picking the lock.

That's it. That's about it? Yeah. Okay. And now a quick word from our sponsors. Also, do you know we do far too many things? Like, we've gone and adapted one of our campaigns into a novel. So if you're sick of listening to us and want to instead enjoy your own voice narrating an adventure,

just head to SandsPantsRadio.com and grab your copy of The Auticus today. Print run is limited, but it is available as an e-book, or grab them both in a bundle. Once again, that's SandsPantsRadio.com. Um... What was she the god of again? The goddess ofandspantsradio.com. Good to know. All right, well, any other places we haven't investigated in this? No, at this point you have now been to all of the alcoves, yeah. Okay, and there's another place further into the... Yeah, so back in the main room, there were two doors on the other side. One of them leads to the market. The other one has no insignia on it.

It's just a metal door. And then there is the giant stone and metal doors at the other end. Okay, so we haven't investigated the marketplace. Yeah, you haven't investigated most places. and then there is the giant stone and metal doors at the other end. Okay. So we haven't investigated the marketplace. Yeah, you haven't investigated most places. You just came straight to the chapel pretty much. I can come with you. Just in case me asking for help from the other king who doesn't like this one made the mistake, I'll come with you.

Yes, we'll try and investigate a bit further around, see if there's anything here that can help us. During that time, could we have had a bit of a short rest that we're pottering around? I.e. heal me up. I'll allow it, yeah, you can, the two of you can take a short rest, though Love is Blind and Yay or Love are definitely

not having a short rest. Okay, well I'll have a short rest and get some health back. Do you want Love is Blind to come with you? Lovers Blind seems to want to stay here and help. Yeah, Lovers Blind, you stay here and help as much as you can. See if there's anything in this particular room that we might have missed using your tabaxi eyes. We'll try and see what we can find.

So where do the two of you want to explore? How much health do we get? Oh, right. Sorry, I forgot I rolled that for you. All right. So are you using two or one dice? I'm going to use two. Two?

I'll just use the one. Tree Stump, you recover four hit points. Oh, yeah. So excited for four hit points. That's all I'm currently on. Oh, no. And Crab Boy. You recover six.

You're right. Crab Boy. Crab Boy. Crab Boy. Okay. What you gonna do? And perhaps, just like,

we'll, while we're investigating, do you mind if we just take those, a couple of those, a bit more of those health potions just in case we come across something. Do you want to drink just one health potion?

Oh no, I was going to take them with us. Oh yeah, you can have them. We'll investigate the marketplace, I guess. The first port of call. Opening the door, you see a terrifying fucking sight. This place would have once been

bustling and busy. This is quite obviously where people would have come through to trade and to meet with dwarves and stuff like that. It was like a large meeting place where the outside met the inside. Currently, it is a mess. There are market stalls scattered and knocked about the place. This is all, this all feels hundreds of years old as well. There's like a sprinkling of dust upon everything it looks like some tremendous terrible battle took place here you can also see in the distance there is a stream of light coming down from above it looks like

there is a hole in the roof you can see that this place is just a chaotic mess there a battle once took place here uh there i'm assuming lots of similar like the front room with lots of bones there are indeed a great deal of bones around here but it looks more like a battle than anything else good do you want to investigate this place yes it would take you some time but you could start having a look around. Yeah, we'll look around, see what we can see. So you can see the pillar of light in the distance, where it looks like there's a hole that's been cracked into the ceiling. You can see where, quite obviously, the fighting was the densest,

and you can see the most glittering metal in that direction, where presumably combatants were. You can see rows upon rows upon rows of small market stalls and then you can see up against kind of the edges of this massive room there are uh fixtures proper buildings proper actual like dwellings where which would also be stores but just like permanent brick and mortar ones. Where would you like to begin searching? I'd like to investigate what kind of battle this was. So you want to go towards the combatants?

Yeah. All right. You're going with, I assume? Oh, of course, yes. I'm going to help. Have a flame in hand. You can see there are many dwarves here, all of them kitted out for battle, for combat.

All of the dwarves wear different types of armor. Their armor is tarnished with age. Tree Stump, I guess you're the one who would notice this sort of thing. You can see that these house sigils, many of them match the room previous, but many don't. And you can also tell that this was dwarf on dwarf violence. Two armies clashed here.

Oh, this isn't good. There were dwarves fighting dwarves. It looks like those with the symbols matching the houses here were fighting the ones that did not have houses here. Right. Hmm. Huh. Well, I guess we're safe because we're not dwarves.

If dwarf is the enemy and the perpetrator. Yes, but I'm just trying to wonder if, presumably they attacked the people that were living here for something did they get what they want or okay well usually what people want in war is the victory and one of them has to get it and the other one there it doesn't matter looking around you can see there's another exit so there was the entrance that you came through, but there's also another exit. There's a tunnel that looks like it goes deeper into the stone.

Okay. And you can see another little door as well that leads, it looks like it goes back the way you came from, but maybe in a different direction. Okay, so there's a door at the end, and then there's another tunnel? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, so this room has three exits. The one you came through, there's another one which is smaller.

There's another one which is about the same size as the one you came through, which would be enough for like a wagon, maybe? So the door you came through could have fit a wagon and the door, this other door on the same wall that looks like it could go back the way you came. Also looks like maybe it could handle a wagon, but it's

slightly smaller. Then there's a big tunnel that looks like it could handle quite a lot of traffic going, it seems, deeper down. Or at least away. Is there anything else in this room? So there was the combat, there was the stalls, what else was there in this room to investigate? There is

the permanent buildings, there's the stalls, and there's the pillar of light. I guess we'll guess the pillar of light, is it just light or does it seem maybe magical in nature? It looks like there's a hole punched in the roof. You actually know what it is. It's a hole punched in the roof. Okay, so that's a potential entrance for anyone wanting to come in here. Am I tall enough to block it off? Oh, it's high. It's high. Sorry.

I know it's really high for dwarves, but so am I. No, no, no. This is a cavernous room. Ah. This hole is maybe 200 feet up. Not that tall, Big T. When your back is turned, I reach. Yeah, well, I guess the-

That would be beyond. So to try and give you a layout, sorry, space is hard to do without with only being able to describe so imagine you're at that that line of combat where two armies clashed into each other it's a scattered kind of hellscape here you can tell that the non-local dwarves won this battle and kept pushing in. Because you could see their bodies, their armor and stuff like that littering this battlefield as you approached.

So you could tell they must have pushed the defenders back. Okay. You can see there were siege, there were like weapons of war here as well. There are like iron golems, creatures like that, made out of iron and stone, both on the defenders and the attacker's

side it looks like a war between dwarves basically then yeah past that you can see past the fiercest of the fighting you can see that hole punched in the in the roof beyond that there is a passageway that goes that that big one that goes like deeper into wherever this is. And then at your back, there's obviously the way you came. And there's the other path that maybe goes back the way you came. There is to either side of you, there is carved into the walls on your left and right are permanent brick and mortar stores and then kind of scattered all around the place,

there are overturned and disrupted impermanent market stores. Those ones seem to have like a – there's a lot of rotting equipment here. Yes. I want to look at the brick-and-mortar ones, if there's anything in there. I guess we'll go and inspect the permanent residencies, see what was there. Evaganda. Let's see what was there. Evaganda.

As you begin scuffling your way through, I need to find a monster. Oh. Yeah, I'm sorry. That's from fear. I wish you wouldn't. Well, I just will. Yeah, it's understandable. And I assume you're not really doing much stealthily because you've not really said much so far. Well, yeah, we assume this is like almost an abandoned building.

So it's, yeah, we assume that there's no one here but us. How foolish, how foolish you are. Yes. In almost the first building that you come to, it would probably, yeah, no, it would be, it would be the first building you come to, you open a rickety stone and wood door and you can see that there is a creature large about as big as a horse curled up it's kind of like a it's got a caterpillar like appearance

to it it's curled in a ball a little bit when you open the door it rise it rises up a little bit and turns to look at you. It opens its mouth. Its mouth opens sideways. So its mouth is like a line. And it has like plates that open up to reveal sets of teeth. There are many like feelers and tentacles all around its face. Like it has a mane of them.

And then it rides on many legs. Yeah. like it has a mane of them and then it rides on many legs. Ew. Is it an animal? Tree Slump, you're freaked out by this strange creature. You don't know what it is. Globble, you know this creature is a carrion crawler. By the way, the stench of death assails you you both are like oh fuck that smells like rotting dead meat carrion crawlers are kind of like a scavenger of sorts they live primarily in the underdark and underground they're well they just eat dead flesh. Oh, we're fine then.

Also, I do describe them improperly before. They're not really like a scavenger. They're more of a predator, but they prefer to eat dead flesh. Oh, we're not fine then. This one does not seem curious. Sorry, this one seems curious with you, but it's not attacking. Yes. Is it an animal to speak to? It's a monstrosity, so no. Not an animal. So it's curious.

It's not attacking you. Cool. Would you like to see a picture? No. Let's just close the door. Are you sure? I want to see. Hang on. Yes, you're right. Oh, it's cute. Okay. It's cute. Don't give it big eyes and a little mouth.

Little tendrils. That mouth could fit your head. Yeah, but look at the size to eye relation. And look at his little arms. That is a human. Okay. That's very big. You could ride this thing.

Will Big T end up riding the carrion crawler? Find out next time on Stories of the Greyhill Free Company. Adam here, resident dungeon master to the stars. Did you know that myself and Jackson host a show here on Sandspan's Radio where we create and show off homebrew content that we ourselves have created? It's called House Rules, and if you've ever struggled for making your own content, then it may just be perfect for you. Some episodes will come in with stories, classes, and abilities that we've already made and tell you about them so you can see where we've succeeded and failed. And sometimes we'll even make the content on air so you can follow along at home and make your own or even improve upon ours.

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