D&D is For Nerds - Zombie Plagued Chult III #20 Hags

Episode Date: February 20, 2021

Need inspiration for your next game? Check out dScryb.com and use NERDS coupon code at check out for 10% off!Sign up to our newsletter here. Join our facebook group here or join our Discord here.You can now physically send us stuff to PO BOX 7127, Reservoir East, Victoria, 3073.Want to help support the show?Sanspants+ | Shop | TeesWant to get in contact with us?Email | Twitter | Website | Facebook | RedditOr individually at;Adam | Cass | Tom | Jackson | ZammitTheme music by the wonderfully talented Mia (AtomicCupcakes). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you're a DM, I can guarantee you've found yourself in this exact position. You've introduced a very obvious quest hook, but also, at the same time, offhandedly introduced a goblin named Coconuts. And now all your players are interested in is where is Coconuts going? But you've not got anything planned because you came up with the name on the spot, possibly after seeing a coconut. And so all of a sudden you've got to come up with a whole bunch of content out of nowhere. Oh no. Well, Describe, spelt D-S-C-R-Y-B, offers over 1,400 scenes of places, monsters, and spells to help you out. They work just like the box text from your favorite adventure book, but they're designed to be read aloud in your campaign. Where does coconuts live, your players might ask? Well, all you've got to do is flip through Describe's easy-to-browse index of scenes to grab a place

and read aloud the description written by a professional writer with decades of experience. It's a seriously invaluable service for DMs both new and seasoned. Players will always throw you a curveball, so having access to spells, places, and monsters pre-written that you don't have to think about is such a boon. So if you never want to be caught with your pants down, if you want to be able to provide deep lore on coconuts with a click of your fingers, visit dscribe.com slash nerds. That's d-s-c-r-y-b dot com slash nerds, and use the the code nerds at checkout to save 10 percent welcome to season 3 episode 20 of zombie plagued chult previously it's lucana's time every moment

you're asleep is the moment your wife is choosing fight over you does it make you love her more or less yes fucking stop! She has no chill. I pull the chalice out and just chuck it at Pop and say, you're welcome. Wow. We can keep going. I've got them all. I walk up to Pop and I say, you're so lucky, Pop. Why?

For most people, the most important things in the world aren't something they could just hold. And I walk away. You did more damage to Pop just now than any of the enemies. Did I take any damage? You take. No sooner has the last orc fallen

than one of the five red gems above the portcullis lights up. Oh. Horse. Every single member of the party stares at that with literally the same expression. Four lights appear around you pop bro electricity launches from them to you i'm immune to electricity

and i weighed up my wife's safety versus yours and i deemed yours more immediate i have left nothing behind i've played every card I have and I played it not for me, but for us. You are one of the most selfish people I have ever met and I know Valindra Shadowmantle. I cannot believe how rude you have been. Having just given Pop a thorough verbal beating, Artis gestures for you to come with him, Tiffany.

Um, I take Artis's hand as we walk. I'm so sorry. Artis Simber just doesn't say anything. You continue through the archway. You feel yourself walking through an area of heavy magic. Oh, I drop my bag as well. You drop your bag? Yeah, with all the metal stuff in it.

Do you drop your leather armor? Yeah, anything with metal on it i take off as you pass through artist simbra's wooden bow begins to rot decay and then becomes dust your clothes begin to rot and decay as well they hang loose off you it looks like anything non-magical or non-living is just destroyed in this hallway you would have lost everything if you walked into this hallway i'm glad i took my whole bag off at the other end of the hallway you see a yawning archway it has a keystone adorned with an iron bull skull which bites down on an ivory ring beyond which there's a a room you can see.

You can also hear, like, the faint whirring of mechanical something-something. Do you reckon this is a god? I doubt it. I think we've gotten all of the gods. Ardus Simber approaches the iron bull skull, which is biting down on the ivory ring. He looks back at you with uncertainty and says, can you give me a leg up?

Sure. You give him just like a little bit of extra height so he can reach up to the bull. He grabs the ring and yanks. As soon as the ring comes out of the bull's mouth, you feel the magical field in the hallway dissipate. I think it's safe for everyone else to come through. Is the ring like a wearable ring or is it just something in the bull dissipate. I think it's safe for everyone else to come through. Brilliant.

Is the ring like a wearable ring or is it just something in the bull's mouth? You could put the – it's big enough to wear as a ring, yeah. You could if you wanted to, but the magic of it does not seem to – it no longer feels magical. Cool. Well, we head on back, grab all our stuff and – Artisembre borrows a bow from – Hey, Adam. Yeah? I have have a bow he doesn't ask you he purposely does not ask you and if you say anything he actually ignores you oh i don't tell him about

the but i'm not speaking to anyone i'm just sitting on the floor with my best friend my thoughts shorts. Fun fact, they're not my friends. Oh, poor Bobo. He can't borrow Flosk of Wine's one because Flosk of Wine needs that one. He borrows, Lucanu had one. He borrows Lucanu's. Then you progress onwards. I'm sorry about your bow, Artis. It wasn't special to me.

It was just a bow. Don't know why that hurt me so much to hear. I'm at the back of the group. I don't know what other order people in, but I'm at the back. You're up the back, I'm going to say, with Biff and Lucanu. No, actually, Lucanu's up the front. She's been up the front whenever possible. You're up the back with Biff and Tlad.

Any of them speaking to me? If you talk to them, they speak. No. Okay. Well, Tlad and Biff are having a casual conversation, but hushed. They don't want to make too much noise. That's our own business. Artis and I are at the front, yeah?

Yeah. Yeah. Their casual conversation is just like they just are basically the equivalent of how's the weather yeah it's a very small talky type conversation so hot wind tinged with the smell of burning oil blows down a 40 foot diameter vertical shaft stone balconies protrude from the holes on opposite sides of this expanse with the west balcony 15 feet higher than the east one so you're on the east one the 15 foot one is higher is 15 foot higher than you and there's just like an open expanse between them two thick chains rattled the gulf between the balconies

one ascending 200 feet before disappearing into a cloudy vortex lit by arcs of purple lightning while the other wrapping around an enormous metal gear floating 100 feet below another 100 feet below the second gear a second vortex rages so i'm assuming it's like a pulley system yeah yeah so we walked past the stairs going down cool tiffany Tiffany, you recognize what this is. Both of these vortexes look like entrances to the plane Mechanus, where the monodrone came from before. The iron chain here presumably goes into Mechanus, which is kind of like a giant plane of gears and pulleys and stuff,

comes down here to turn this cog. This entire thing looks like the powerhouse that operates this level. All the different cogs that turn, it looks like this is where they get their power from. Tiffany, I cannot explain to you how incredibly scary this is to see. incredibly scary this is to see. The Lich Aserak has harnessed the power of an entire plane just to power some funny cogs in one of his many dungeons, on one floor of his many dungeons.

This is a level of casual power that astounds you. You have never seen someone. It would be like capturing a thousand dragons just to have them heat your oven. Oh, fuck. That's Mechanus. He's using Mechanus for the cogs. There is to your left a set of stairs going down as well, just before this archway, I should say.

Sorry, I should have mentioned it before. Is it maybe a good time for a rest? Do we feel safe here? You could try to make your way back to Valindra if you wanted to. Here does not feel very safe. You are quite near an open portal to another plane. Can we gauge that if we keep going past the portal? To the other platform?

Yeah, would that take us? It looks hazardous. So the jump looks very difficult because you are jumping 15 feet and it's also up. Could you ride a chain up? Yeah. So you definitely believe you could ride a chain up. That is several jumps though

there is alternatively oh i don't think anyone in your party can fly no i'm gonna say off the top of my head i don't think anyone in this party can fly flask of wine could just climb along the walls though so he's fine hey so can nang nang so can nang nang but i don't want to put anyone else in my head and get in trouble you You could give it to another party member. At least they would be able to cross safely. Yeah, all right. All right, we get it. I might for the moment, because, yeah,

we passed some stairs that we should have checked out. I just want to see what's down those stairs and get out of this room yeah can i go back and just like peep down the stairs can i see anything yeah sure down the stairs uh these stairs descend into darkness for a little while you'll have to get onto them and walk down if you want does anyone does anyone want to come with me does anyone i mean if you start going down them i will follow you yeah the the party kind of is going to take that as the hint that we're going downstairs instead. Yeah, we'll have a look. You want to head that way? We just want to have a look what's there.

Can Starfallen talk to Valinda and tell her? Starfallen, you can assume, has been updating Valinda of what's been happening, with the exception of a conversation that happened very recently. Hang on, hang on hang on with the combination did we work out before that there's a combination that she can make where she can have a clear walkway to where we are no unfortunately there's no set that allows that okay never mind someone needs to be in the control room to get all the way through can we get get to her at all? Well, you know that if you go onto the lake, one can navigate their way into the cogs from there.

It's a difficult climb, but it is theoretically possible. So if one of you wanted to brave the lake, you could get in. Or several of you. A group could go. It might be clever to go in a group. Or it might be stupid to go in a group. Can't she get her own way in on the lake? She could.

Yeah, you could ask her to make her own way on the lake. Would she do that? She could. You don't know. Star Fallen. Yeah. Would you mind asking Belinda if she can maybe take one of the boats? She needs to be careful, but honestly, she's so powerful,

I reckon she'd be fine to take anything that she saw. Belinda's fine to do that. That means you'll have no one in the control room if you need to change the gears. Do we need to change the gears? Hang on, hang on, hang on. Let's think. Okay, so the way forward is down, right?

Yes. So maybe let's not go in the stairs now. Let's suss out what's behind the gears. Okay. And finish exploring this level so that we know all the things that are on this level and then we call Valindra over because then we know we're just going to go down to the next level.

Cass, this is some good thinking and I like it. Okay. We're not going down the stairs. Flask of wine and someone else who has Nang Nang if pop so chooses to share. I'm not really paying attention to anything that's happening so someone would have to bring it up. Artisember thinks it's a bad idea, although I guess he hasn't said that

so you don't know that. And Flask of Wine, yeah, just wouldn't think to bring it up. Artisemba thinks it's a bad idea, although I guess he hasn't said that so you don't know that. And Flask of Wine, yeah, just wouldn't think to bring that up. This looks dangerous. Well, if we fully explore this section and make sure there's nothing left that we might need the gears for, we can finish exploring it, get Philindra to come here

thank you Starfallen, and then go down to the next level together. What about Flask and can I borrow the Pearl of Power? We can climb across. That way it's less dangerous. I just hand you the Pearl of Power. I do not say a word. I just give it to you.

You see Artisember does not look comfortable with this, but he doesn't say anything. You grab the Pearl of Power? Yeah. Well, you actually don't roll because without being attuned, you can't use the ability. So Nang Nang enters your mind. You don't share well with others, but you can climb on walls

and you're no longer brave. Oh, no. So are you going to go with Flask? Yep. We're going to climb the walls and see what's there. On the other platform, you see a narrow passageway that leads you to the next room. You head down there with flask of wine. There's a pathway.

We're going to check it out. Be safe, artist says. Thank you. Maybe artist and staff will and say it at the exact same time. Thank you. Pop can't say anything because he's too busy thinking about how he was rude. This chamber contains a bronze apparatus centered on a hinged arm, slowly rotating within the arm is a 100-foot, sorry, 10-foot diameter globe

decorated by a topographic map of landforms and oceans. Concentric rings of brass constrain the device, all rotating and bearing their own lesser spheres. One of those spheres has sharp points and appears sun-like. Carvings of tall, headless humanoids decorate the walls of the room. Seems like a fun room. Seems like a fun room. Seems like a fun room. Tiffany, you do not know what this sphere, sorry, this device is,

but you can tell that it's, what do you call it when you've got like a moon and it's got all, sorry, a planet? Solar system? Not a solar system. Planetarium? No. It's got like a word. It's like a mobile, but it's got an actual word.

A solar system mobile, an observatron. Let's have a look. A space. I want to try and guess it. The book here refers to it as an armillary sphere. No, I'm thinking of the one that hangs from the roof, which I think is a mobile, but it's got like a name of like the solar system.

You can see all of those rings, though, have a specific sphere that is travelling around on those rings. It looks like a planet, and it's... Well, you do not know that this is what it is, but it looks like a planet, and it's orbiting moons and such.

Are they moving? Yeah, it moves, slowly. Are you approaching it? It dominates the room, so to enter the room, you kind of will be approaching it. Okay. I stick to sort of, I try not to touch it. Sorry? I try not to touch it. Okay.

But I sort of creep in. As you creep in, the apparatus suddenly swings around, its rings rotating out of the way as the surface of the globe peels back to reveal a dark, hollow interior. Inside this cavity is a padded bronze chair with levers built into its armrests. Hey, Cass. Sit in the chair. Do you reckon we should sit in it? I think we must.

Oh, my God. This is the best sleepover ever oh my god this is so bad do you climb in yeah i i start going in first you add a flask of wine you you you fight flask of wine to be the first one in the sphere closes in front of you flask of wine gives a gasp and when it shuts shuts, he says, I did not expect that to happen. We're trapped. Neither did I. Can you hear me?

Yeah, we're both in the sphere. You are crammed in up against flask of wine. I didn't realize we got it. We are both in the sphere. It's dark in here but you can kind of still through like dim light see the rings circling around okay well you've got left arm i've got right arm all right let us do this okay so i really i softly tug on right lever. The spheres going around you move in one direction, or some of them move in one direction. I have left lever.

He presumably pulls the left lever and some of them spin in another direction. Is anything happening? It does not look like it, but I cannot tell. I push right lever. You can tell that your right lever corresponds to several of the rotating spheres. They like move in the specific direction whenever you push or pull.

Is anything happening outside of the spheres that we can't see in that room? Can we sense anything happening? No. Well, you can hear a distant laughing. Presumably the dungeon master. Oh, no. So, Tiffany and Flask, what are you doing? So, it's just the two levers, yeah?

Yeah, just the two levers. Let's try both push them. You both push. You try all sorts of pushing and pulling together. You can tell that there doesn't seem to be anything to both of you move. It doesn't look like the levers are meant to be used in conjunction with each other. If there's anything special about this device, it might have something to do with the circling moons. I try and get out.

How? I just try and sort of push on the door a bit, try and pull the thing open. Just some casual non-panicky ones where I'm like... Your breathing's at a normal level. Yeah, I'm just trying to slide it open. Your pits are at a regular sweat. Yep, I rock back and forth a bit. If you give a bit of pressure on the door, it opens.

Oh, okay. Do you climb out? Yeah, I climb out. It closes back on Flask. Flask, do something else. Flask starts making all of the circle, the moons and suns and whatnot, rotate in different directions. You hear muffled from inside.

I'm going to try to make them all line up. Good idea. Flask of Wine attempts to make them line up. The largest one of the rotating orbs, the one that looks like a sun, splits open and 5,000 gold pieces land on the floor. Oh, my goodness, Flask. What? What happened?

Cass, think about it. Who's in your head? It's 5,000. How can I hide them all on my person? Could I? Could I hide them on my person? If you stuff them into your bag real quick. Guys, just...

Okay. The mental... Cass, you did an incredible face as you wrapped your brain around that morality problem. It was incredible. At the start, all Flask wanted was a share in the treasure. All he wanted was share, and I can't do that right now. So when Flask asks what happened, one of them broke.

Give me two moments. I'm just going to clean it up. All right. That's a deception check. Against Flask of Wines. Passive. Yep, you deceive him. How does it feel to lie to a friend?

You know what? Actually, you should have advantage. He wouldn't think you'd lie to him adam you didn't have to do that yeah i know question adam yeah fuck cass you're evil no i'm not right now you kind of are i am so you you scoop up the 5,000 gold coins. Flask of Wine is none the wiser. He hops out of the device as well. And do you search the room otherwise? Yeah, I want to inspect those headless men.

Wall people, yes. You find that one of them is quite clearly a false door. No, a real door. A secret door, not a false door. A false wall. Thank you. You find a secret passageway, a small crawl space. When I find it, I go,

Flask. Yes. Look. Yes, I know. I was right there when you found it. I was just excited. You're crammed up against each other in the sphere again. Oh, right.

Just keep zooming out. You're right next to each other in the sphere again. Oh, right. Just keep zooming out. You're right next to each other. I go in first. I'm no longer brave, but what if there's good things that I want? Okay. You crawl your way for several feet until finally you find the, like, the back, I don't know, a little bit the front side of another passageway or door.

There's, like, a mechanism to slide a trap door off you do you want to open it yeah you slide it off i say okay we're gonna be really quiet you find yourself in the control room velindra's shadow mantle is sitting on a chair she has presumably conjured out of nothing. She is reading a magazine. She looks up as you approach. You realise she wears spectacles. Oh. Hello.

Hello. They suit you. Good boy, Kai. She takes the spectacles off and puts the magazine away. Well, I suppose we've seen everything there is to see. Want to take the boat back with us? Could we not go the way you just went? It must be hard being so, so easy to fall.

Can she? She probably is pretty skilled enough to climb and jump and stuff. It's going back the other way. It's a very easy jump. Right. You're jumping down. Yeah. Can that not have happened?

Could I have actually. You've not embarrassed yourself in front of mum? Because like when I'm looking here, my intelligence is 16, and as my character that's bigger, I personally as Cass am at a disadvantage. So I say, come with us. All right. She climbs in after you. We go back and meet everyone?

Yeah, you return to the rest of the party. Look who we found. The party is reunited. There's not, like, a lot of rejoicing or anything like that. It's not like anyone necessarily missed Valindra. Although you can tell probably a... Well, there you go. Well, a couple of party members probably feel safer now, at the very least.

So some party members flad the drow and maybe feel safer. Good. I lock eyes with Pop in a threat. You can just tell from that look that I'm not going to do anything. Yeah. You are not going to do anything. Whatever fight was in Pop Mandarin is kind of missing. So the key is honesty.

We go down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, there's a doorway that opens up into a room. Who is going first? Me! All right. Art December is backing you up. Yep. I'm doing it out of spite.

I'm no longer brave. I'm just mad. I'm at the back. Lucanu is also up the front as well. Green smoke billows out from a bronze cauldron in the middle of this 20-foot-high vaulted hall. Barely visible through the haze are three rocking chairs, several workbenches heaped with haberdashery,

a spinning wheel, and a rusty iron cage containing a prisoner. Galleries stand 10 feet above the floor to either side of the room. That's creepy as hell. Yeah, no, that's upsetting. You cannot see a lot of the room through the green haze. But we can see that it's a big room with a scary lounge. Does anyone try to position Valindra specifically anywhere in the group?

She can do what she wants. All right, she's about in the middle. She has not entered the room then. Oh, dear. Tiffany, I'm going to say you, Lucanu, and Artisan Brilla are the first three people into the room. Can I take a cautionary huff of the of the haze i want to know if it's poison um yeah sure that is a dumb as shit way to work out if something is poison what else am i

meant to do you don't think it's poisonous it's like i said it's coming out of the cauldron you understand what's cooking in the cauldron it smells unpleasant but it doesn't seem poisonous it it's just obscuring sight in the room. Okay. Does that help? Would you believe no? I might. It does not. We need to have a rest.

When can we rest? Oh, my God, we really need to have a rest. You're running on fumes, as it were. Should we jump back up and rest in the – that might be smart because – We're near a portal. What I was going to suggest that – now, it's going to require some thoughts on your part, but flask of wine. Yeah. Goes over with someone with Nang Nang in their head.

He takes the pearl of power back across, gives it to someone else. They go back up. And we do that for every member of the party. Problem. Yep. Every single person who holds the pearl of power does not share. Well, it depends how strong their will is. True.

True. Very true. Or we sleep in the hallway upstairs. Valindra doesn't need to sleep and she's with us now. She can literally just keep watching the entire fucking time. She could. I think we really need to have a rest. Cass, I have one spell slot less and I'm on like 50 health.

Okay. We dart back up the stairs. Mm-hmm. And we're going to have a rest. Valinja's going to keep watch. Over the course of your rest, the star fallen softly hums a tune. It invigorates everyone's spirits. You are all fully healed.

Thank you. Thanks, Adam. You're very welcome. No, it's just an ability she has. Yeah, but thank you for letting her do it and not letting us get attacked. Oh, yeah, no stress. That's fine. After the long rest, I make my way head first.

After the long rest, I take Maura out of my head and I put Shigambi back in. Why after the long rest? You take three points of damage. Fuck. Would you like that to be before? Yes, Adam, I would like to have that have been before. Just before I go to bed, I swap it over because Moa's telling me truths and I don't want truths.

I've had too many. You make your way down to the bottom. You see the same room before you. It's, I guess, Lucano, Tiffany, and Artis Simba again in front. Do you slowly fan out and enter the room? Yep, I'm going to climb on the walls. Oh, you still have the Pearl of Power? Yeah.

All right. You begin to climb on the walls. Well, I guess you don't then. Artis Simba approaches the cage with the prisoner. You see him, like, crouch low with his bow and arrow. He leans in to get a look at the cage. And maybe as he's approaching as well, he's like, hey, hey, are you okay? And the prisoner in the cage stirs to look at Artis Simber.

Artis Simber gasps and falls backwards onto his ass. At about the exact same time, the velindra shadow mantle also enters the room velindra gestures towards the cauldron and says i can see you you might as well enter the material plane now three creatures appear around the cauldron who the fuck's in the cage tiffany while you climb the wall, you see that five wooden doors are set into the walls of the gallery. So there's like a gallery going all around the room, each carved with a geometric symbol, a triangle, a square, a pentagon, a hexagon, and an octagon.

Now, the three creatures who appear below you, you see that one has tarnished gold coins covering her eyes and ants nesting in her skull oh fuck the ants scurry about and around her as she walks away from the cauldron towards you the second one wears a string of chattering children's teeth that thumps about on a heavy peg leg. As she laughs, yellow gas billows out of her nose and ears. Around her neck, she has a pouch made of gnome skin, inside which you see or you can hear something jangled around. or you can hear something jangled around. And then the final one has a squirming leather sack sewn over her head.

Oh, they're fucking bloody gross. In turn, three different creatures appear out of that squirming, struggling sack. A cockerel, a viper, and a terrier. They talk as though they were her mouth. Oh, welcome, little dearies it's like one says one sentence the next says the next yeah yeah yeah welcome we are the sown sisters the one with tarnished gold coins covering her eyes says iow Grote. The one with the chattering children's teeth and the peg legs says, I am Peggy Deadbells.

And the final one with the squirming leather sack sewn over her head says, I am Baggy Nana. Please come. I am Baggy Nana. Drink from our cauldron. Artisembre gets to his feet and fires his bow and arrow. Who the fuck was in the cage? Let's go to initiative.

The fight has begun. And now, a word from our sponsors. One of my greatest fears as a DM is that one day my players will just decide to take to the sea and I'll be caught with my pants down because that's just not where the story was going. Thankfully, if I ever find myself in that position, I can turn to Describe, spelt D-S-C-R-Y-B. Describe is a service which provides descriptive text of places, monsters and spells and other observations, commonly referred to as box text, meant to be read aloud by DMs to players. There's currently over 1,400 scenes written up by a team of professional writers with more coming out every

day, so you'll never be caught unawares again. That's basically bottomless content for you to throw at your currently ocean-bound players. So if you never want to be caught with your pants down, if you want to be able to provide an ocean of content with the click of your fingers, visit dscribe.com slash nerds. That's d-s-c-r-y-b dotcom slash nerds that's dscryb.com slash nerds and use the code nerd to check out to save 10 artist simba uses action surge to oh wait artisan uses action surge and you see that it begins glowing with a blue light all of artists simba's hits are criticals. Oh yeah. Holy shit.

Um, what are these things, Adam? Besides which monsters? Oh, uh, let me roll for both of you. Well,

pop, you know quite a bit about them. Tiffany, you are aware of them in passing. Maybe it's another racism thing. Oh yeah. That checks out. Uh,

they are night hags. This is presumably a coven of night hags as well. So a coven of any type of hag is way more powerful than the regular type. They can cast spells together, which increases their potency and increases the amount of spells they can cast. First off, they like to eat children. Okay, good. None of us kids. Got that from the teeth.

That's just a given. A night hag carries two very rare magic items that she must craft for herself. If either object is lost, the night hag will go to great lengths to retrieve it, as creating a new tool takes time and effort. The first one is a heart stone. This lustrous black gem allows a night hag to become ethereal while it's in her possession the touch of a heartstone also cures any disease so they can turn ethereal kind of at will unless you can take their heartstone for them where is the heartstone you don't know does it always i've

given you descriptions of the hags it's not always the same no i've given you descriptions of the hags on your turn if you, you can ask for further descriptions, and I'll try to elaborate. You've got to look for the heart stone. If you can get rid of it, becoming ethereal is kind of a big deal. It means they can move through objects. They become like ghosts, so you can't hurt them, but they can hurt you.

Can a heart stone be anything? Does it have to be a physical stone? It's a black gem. Yes, I could say that. You'll know it when you see be a physical stone? It's a black gem. It will be... Yes, I could say that. You'll know it when you see it. And the other one is a soul bag. When an evil humanoid dies as a result of a night hag's nightmare haunting,

get to that in a tick, the hag catches the soul in this black sack made of stitched flesh. Gee, maybe that's a thing on old mate's head. A soul bag can hold only one evil soul at a time and only the night hag who crafted the bag can catch a soul with it and the soul bag does not confer any special bonuses if you take it off them they just use it in some of their hexes and rituals it just annoys the shit out of them. Yeah, they'll just be mad. It's not going to really harm them if you take it from them. Additionally, they are obviously spellcasters. They are resistant to magic. Sorry, not resistant to magic, but they get advantage

on saving throws against magic. They are resistant to cold, fire, non-magical or non-silvered weapons. fire, non-magical or non-silvered weapons. They can't be charmed. They can change shape. They can make themselves a to look like a not hideous woman but like a regular woman if they want to.

To trick Snow White into eating an apple or eat some children in their gingerbread house. And then once a day, they may call upon their nightmare haunting. While on the ethereal plane, so they can only use it if they can become ethereal, the hag magically touches a sleeping humanoid on the material plane. A protection from good and evil spell cast on the target.

You are so lucky, by the way, because I was going to be like, you're taking a nap literally next to them. Valindra was watching. You are so fucking lucky. If anyone else had been watching, we would have died. Yeah, you would. No one else could have seen them coming. Your sleep, they would have gotten three of you.

So they contact you from the border ethereal. As long as the contact persists, the target has dreadful visions. If these visions last for at least one hour, the target gains no benefit from its rest and its hit point maximum is reduced by a d10. If this effect reduces the target's hit point

maximum to zero, the target dies, and if the target was evil, its soul is trapped in the hag's soul bag. The reduction of the target's hit point maximum lasts until removed by the greater restoration spell or similar magic. That's intense. This is very scary.

Cass, it's only the start. Watch out for their wicked claws as well. Oh my god, their claws? Yeah, well, in hag form only. If they transform into a not hideous female or whatever they can't use them anyway it's flask of wine oh no sorry artist simba is fucking artist simba saw something in that cage that made him open fire and use his once a week power oh Oh, Cass. It's going to be his wife. First one is shoulder jab. Maximum damage and roll the damage dice again.

So, Artis Simba's first attack deals 19 points of damage to, shall we say, the bag hag? Baggy Nana. Baggy Nana. The second one, right in the kisser. Maximum damage and the target cannot speak. That's pretty bad for her. Oh, that's good. Is that Baggy Nana as The second one, right in the kisser. Maximum damage and the target cannot speak. That's pretty bad for her. Oh, that's good.

Is that Baggy Nana as well? Yep. The target cannot... It hits her in all three of her mouths. The viper, the cockatrice, and the terrier. It hits her in her dog mouth and the bird mouth and the snake mouth. It hits her in a bitch, snaky, cock-sucking mouth. Another 12 points of damage,

and she cannot talk for nine rounds, which is functionally going to be the length of this combat. They'll kill us in nine rounds. Yeah, yeah. Find an opening. Maximum damage, and you have advantage on attacks against the target for 2d4 plus two rounds i'm not going to roll that it's just going to be functionally for the rest of this fight for

her maximum damage again would be another 12 so it's we're up to 43 damage total next one is in the knee maximum damage and roll the damage dice again another 6 plus 18 plus 43 is 50. 61 damage total. Then find an opening. Maximum damage, and you have advantage. He has just a lot of advantage. Then finally, poke in the belly, triple damage. He deals, on the final attack, 27 points of damage.

It is, she is still standing oh my god 88 damage total oh she's still alive yep how does she look at him she's pin cushioned she's got arrows all over her she's hissing at not hissing no she's cursing at artisimba. The curses have a magical weight to them, and you can see that Artisimba's skin is becoming sallow. Then it is Flask of Wine's turn. Flask of Wine doesn't know what's happening, but his friends have started firing, and he's nothing if not one of the crowd. He loves friends.

I think I'm funny. He hits twice. He's going to attack the same hag as well he's not sure that the other hags are enemies he doesn't know what's happening he's god bless that idiot he heals seven and then eight points of quotation marks damage then it is the star fallen's turn the star fallen knows what a fucking hag is and knows these creatures are not friends first things first she looks at you tiffany and she in her beautiful melodic voice she urges you forwards you have bardic inspiration then she waves a hand and you see, well, you hear a loud ringing noise, painfully intense erupts around the cauldron.

The cauldron explodes and the three hags need to make constitution saving throws. Pass. Oh, pass, pass. Unfortunately, all three of them are only going to take half damage.

That's right. One of them is absolutely fucked. True. three of them are only going to take half damage. That's right. One of them is absolutely fucked. True. Lucanu is going to charge, let's say, Peggy Deadbells.

I love their names. The best name, though, is Baggy Nana. Their names got better. Like, Widow Groat. I'm like, oh, yeah. Yeah. Let's give some of that groat. And then Peggy Deadbells.

Oh. Peggy! If someone gave me the nickname Peggy Deadbells, be chuffed i'd be over the moon it it's a cool name and then baggy nana lucano deals 10 then 18 then 11 points of quotation marks damage with three wicked slashes you can see that the night hag is resistant to non-magical non-silvered weapons it does not sting like it should but so you know how metal is really hard and if you hit like a sheet of metal with an axe you wouldn't expect to see much of a dent right yeah yeah now imagine instead of just a regular person swinging an axe, imagine instead you have devised a specific type of cannon that fires at high velocity an axe into a sheet of metal.

Yeah, the metal is resistant to this, but fuck, it came at high velocity. Wow. You're not fair. So the Night Hag is resistant to this damage, but you can see that it hurt. The Night Hag has been damaged pretty thoroughly. Then it is... That was Lucano Pop. It's your turn.

Great. Adam. Oh, hags count as fiends, by the way. Holy Avenger? Holy Avenger does extra damage. I'm not going to use holy. I'm kidding. You're going to talk them down.

No, Adam. What I'm going to do is, can I see Tiffany? Yes. You're on the wall. Yeah. I could see Artus fighting. Well, Artus is just fire arrows at one. I'm going to go for Baggy Nana.

Okay. Because Artus is fighting that one. All right. So I'm going to go for Baggy Nana with Artis is fighting that one. So I'm going to go for Baggy Nana with Holy Avenger, Shigambi. I'm going to use a Zephyr Strike. One of my

attacks that hits just roll the Savage Attacker thing so I can just use the highest damage from the roll. And if I miss any of them use the Stalker's Flurry so that I get to have another crack. And as I run towards the Baggy Nana with the sword in my hat,

I look at Tiffany on the wall and I say I'm sorry. And then I go and fight. That is impolite to do in a fight. I can't attack now I would say I'm going to make you oh all three of your attacks hit the re-roll you're going to get

I reckon should be the one where you do an extra d8 damage from Zephyr's strike because you get to re-roll that as well let's do that Adam so your first attack kills Baggy Nano oh yeah I rip the sack off her head. That's the plan. I'm just going to cut all those little animals out.

The animals turn to smoke when the bag hits the ground. Baggy Nana collapses. You've killed Baggy Nana. Who do you want to turn on then? Oh, you've got your other two attacks. Peggy Deadbells. Peggy Deadbells. Peggy Deadbells it is.

Finish what Arda started, then turn to your wife and join her in battle. Join her in battle. Pop's best day ever. As I run up to Peggy Deadbells and raise my sword to fight her, I just say, you're really fucking ugly and I look like this. That's just rude. Yeah, that is really rude. I'm embracing it.

You deal 54 points of damage to Peggy Deadbells. Fuck yeah. What's her description again? Because I want to try to go for that leg because I reckon that's where the heart stone is. She's got the children's teeth though. Peggy Deadbells wears a string of chattering children's teeth and thumps about on a heavy peg leg. When she laughs, yellow gas billows out of her nose and ears around her neck she wears a pouch made from gnome skin oh no it's the patch

adam i'm going i'm going to kill her but i also want to try to get that fucking patch pouch pouch i will allow all right so is this a skill it is i will allow you to do this but she gets an attack of opportunity because you're technically taking two actions. Adam, I will let her do that. She claws at you. No. Okay.

No, she can't land a blow. You deal 54 points of damage. She's on the back foot. She didn't realize you would be this powerful. Yeah, I'm feeling real rude. To be honest, they genuinely did not assume you lot would be working so well in harmony together their intelligence has revealed the opposite yeah yeah have they been spying on us the whole time yeah they can turn ethereal they've been spying on you whenever they can yeah so basically they're like oh the big ones no one wants to help.

He's not going to help. Oh, no, he's help. You manage to grab that pouch, and within it you find a heart stone, what is definitely a heart stone, and five lustrous black marbles. You're not sure what their purpose is. They are not so – I know I said the heart stones are black gems. You're not sure what their purpose is. They are not so. I know I said the heart stones are black gems. They're not heart stones, though.

This is definitely something different. Yeah. They look and feel different. So it's one heart stone and five black marbles of some sort. Wonderful. That was your turn, Pop. Yeah. Would I be able to run over and destroy the heart stone?

Is that something within my. You could, but now that Pop has it. There's no danger in it. Won't she try and attack pop to get it back? She could. I'm also already standing in front of her. She's going to try and attack me anyway, I figure. But she could get it back off of you.

I mean, you could come and grab it. You could if you wanted to. You're not 100% sure what the smartest choice of action is, to be honest. Yep, I would like to run through, grab the... Hearthstone? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

No, I was... Grab Pop's hand and smash the Hearthstone in Pop's hand. All right. Was it also to secretly hold my hand? This is probably going to hurt you. I smash the Hearthstone with the hilt of my rapier right into Pop's hand all right was it also to secretly hold my hand this is probably gonna hurt you i smash the heart stone with the hilt of my rapier right into pop's hand you bring the hilt down onto the heart stone and you put a crack in it but you do not destroy it unfortunately that was tiffany your turn so sad nothing happened i put a crack in it. So it is Peggy Deadbell's turn.

She just tries to claw at you. She screams. She's so furious that you've killed one of her sisters. Oh, does that mean they're also less powerful? I need to quickly check, actually. Not in terms of their strength, but like you're saying they could do spells together. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm assuming a Covenant.

Yep, you have deprived them of their hag coven abilities wow i forgot how powerful some of them are holy shit you literally just saved your own life what could she have done what could she have done i'm finally fighting good uh at the very least she could have put most of the party asleep no that's where they eat us yeah well that's one of them god they could have turned you into like a rabbit or something fuck that would have been yeah wow the end of the game yeah you were you were you're lucky all she can do now is claw at you which she misses as i say it could still be pretty dangerous but she misses she tries to claw at you but she can't land a hit artisembra

starts walking forwards and continuously plugs arrows at peggy dead bells uh peggy he deals eight points of damage on his first attack his second attack also a hit deals 11 points of damage. That downs Peggy Deadbells. Then he wheels about on Widow Grote. Twang, twang. And when he draws the third one back, there's a brief moment where you hear like a cracking of wood. And you can tell that Artisembre,

in his rage and fury, he is yelling. I don't know if I mentioned that. He just starts yelling. And in his rage and fury he is yelling i don't know if i mentioned that he just starts yelling and in his rage and fury he pulls back a little bit too hard on lucanu's bow which is not he is not used to its poundage um even yeah that's his turn then it is valindra's turn what's she gonna do really oh no oh wow did velindra just miss as velindra levels a hand she begins casting a spell a portal opens next to her you recognize this portal it's not the first time it's happened in this dungeon and you see a terrifying the terrifying visage of azurak

lean out it's not as actually azurak it is presumably some defense mechanism of the dungeon that detects when a lich other than azurak casts magic the trap just takes the form of looking like azurak it reaches out grabs her arm and channels energy into her uh velindra takes a step back and seems staggered you can see electricity surging through her and slowly dissipating at the ground around her you neither of you were knowledgeable enough about magic to understand what just happened but velindra looks shocked shocked. That was her turn. It's Thlad's turn. Ah, here we go, Thlad, you fucking drow. Thlad casts a spell of some sort.

He forces magical energy into the final night hag, Widow Grote's throat. She swallows it unwillingly, and you see that her flesh begins to turn to stone oh holy shit she is restrained as the condition she hasn't properly turned to stone yet but her speed becomes zero she can't benefit from any bonuses to speed attack rolls against her of advantage and her attacks have disadvantage and she has disadvantage on dexterity saving throws. It's her turn. Her attacks have disadvantage.

She claws ineffectually at Pop and misses. Wow, she would have hit that time. God, they have not landed a single hit on you lot. That's her turn. All of our good luck in this fight, Cass. Yeah, this is very bad for us.

In the next fight, we're going to have no good luck. In fact, we're going to have the opposite, what I like to call whoopsie luck. It's Biff's turn. He, Biff, sir, he hits her twice with his Morningstar, dealing nine and then eight points of quotation marks damage. Back to the top. It's Flask of Wine's turn.

Flask of Wine is pretty sure everyone is cool with him killing this hag. He's still, you know, a little bit unsure. His first attack is a miss. Oh, not a miss. It hits, but it bounces off rock. His second attack is a critical hit yeah he weakened it first yeah he just chipped away and then he put his arrow through between the shoulders maximum double damage he maybe has maneuvered himself around behind the night hag

he deals maximum double damage is uh it's only half so it's just maximum damage. He deals 12 points of damage. And then it is the Starfallen's turn. She thinks this is pretty in-hand. She doesn't want to waste any of her magic. So she's gonna delay her turn until... No, we need her. That's smart. Lucanu has no such

impunctions. Lucanu is very happy to keep wailing. There you go. Lucanu scores two happy to keep wailing. There you go. Lucanu scores two hits and one critical hit. Shoulder maximum damage. Lucanu just starts wailing upon the partially petrified

Nighthag. She deals 19 then 12 then 15 points of quotation marks damage. That is a lot of damage. It's your turn, Pop. I would also like to turn my attention to this final night.

How's she going, Adam? She's fucked. It doesn't look good for her right now. So I'm not going to even use Zephyr Strike. I'm just going to go just kill her. Just straight up murder this haggy, haggy fuck. First attack. Hit.

Second attack. Oh, wait. Roll with advantage. First attack. Hit. Second attack. Hit. Third attack.

Hit. Yeah, look, hey, fuck. Great. And just, I don't know, re-roll double damage. Re-roll the damage on the first hit. Yeah, you destroyed the last fuck. Great. And just, I don't know, re-roll the damage on the first hit. Yeah, you destroyed the last night hack. Smash? They all dead.

Yeah, you smash. You smash are good. Everyone all right? You all right, horns? Yeah, I'm fine. Artus? Artus leans against the wall and doesn't say anything. What's in the cage?

I go up to the cage. The green smoke begins to dissipate out of the room now that the cauldron has been destroyed. And in the cage? Yep. Who's the first one to get there? We both go to the cage. We are right near Artis.

I go straight to the cage. Who the fuck is in this cage? In the cage is a sickly looking creature you can tell it's a tiefling she has like curved back horn no no improperly grown horns actually her horns are small nubs no not nubs they're still slight you could definitely tell that she has horns there's no disguising that fact but her horns are like actually her horns look exactly like tiffany's just like they haven't grown right right she's curled in a ball facing away from you shivering hello hello

hello she says she turns around and both of you look into tiffany's face what foul sorcery is afoot here? And what has it done to Tiffany? Find out next time on Once Upon a Time in Zombie Plague Chopped. Thanks for listening. If you want to help support this show and all the other shows on the Sandspans Radio Network, just head to SandspansRadio.com and consider joining the Sandspans Plus community. sanspantsradio.com and consider joining the Sans Pants Plus community.

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