Dice Shame - 11 | 'The Shape of Things to Come'

Episode Date: December 25, 2019

A harrowing event forces the party to confront a larger question and decide what their role in all of this is... Dice Shame is a podcast that welcomes its audience to the gaming table. There’s nothing quite like getting together with your close friends on game night, getting the snacks out, and rolling some dice together. Right now we’re playing through Storm King’s Thunder, an adventure for D&D 5th edition. Like the games we play at home, we try not to take ourselves too seriously. The show is entertaining, inclusive, and irreverent, while still taking the rules (somewhat) seriously. As for the eponymous Dice Shame? When the rolls get cold—well, you’ll have to tune in to find out! Episodes are released every Thursday at 1:20 am. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hubris is coming home to roost here. She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, Morak. What are we about? 500 feet up now? Pts, p, p, p, p, p, p, here, kudgy, kudgy. Trickleweed. There's trickleweed over there. I'm very familiar with father wizard figures dismissing me. I'm jock. I'm a wizard.

This is not an intimidating bill. Hello, welcome to the darling, Judge. And you take 8D6 fall damage. Nice. Merry Christmas, Joe. Merry Christmas, Harlan. This week we're on episode 11, the shape of things to come. That's right.

And for this Christmas season, I am happy to announce MVP goes to Brendan Tang. Woohoo. From Brendan Gets a Hobby on Instagram for giving us a shout out while painting some minis. Thanks, Brandon. And thank you so much to everyone for joining us this year and making 2019 so wonderful. Special thanks to our Patreon donors.

If you're not one of them, consider supporting us. Just go to www. www.dyshaimpodcast.com for all the details. I'm ready to see some D&D action. How about you? Bring it on. Let's do it.

Guys? Yeah. Yeah. It's episode 11. Woo! Yeah. One-one. So exciting.

That whole scene I remember. That was where you, it was like the song. sort of funeral scene and you were doing your whole thing about the undead does a hand reach up

and like right at the end well see I don't know if I actually prevented against that so we might have an army against it but at least I think

an army of the undead yeah they'll just be following you through the wilderness for the rest of the game and they're good undead they're good undead that we say

we brought their bodies back home like there's no way they can be like negative you can use them as pack mules oh great tireless Tireless, a strap on some... Dad, about my grave.

Rearranged their bones like Lego. And, most importantly, we leveled up. Yeah. All right, so let's go around the table and talk about what we are most excited about for level four. Let's start with Alex. So Doran is now a level four fighter, correct? Yes, correct.

What are you excited about? Well, okay. You know what, instead of taking an ability increase. I've decided to go for a feat, and I've chosen to take the feet of Lucky, which gives me inexplicable luck. I've got three luck dice, and I can roll an additional D20, which means that I can choose to roll a D20 if I don't like my original roll. Before you hear the result of the roll, before I hear the result of what happens after the roll. So I can roll and say, I don't like that and make another roll.

I don't like that. Not advantage, right? You're talking about a separate rule. I can also roll a D20 on an attack. Rolls against me. If I don't like that roll, I can roll. You can essentially impose disadvantage on me. Correct.

Interesting. Yeah. And would you like to increase your hit points by the average, or did you want to roll for a point? No, I'm going to roll. I've been rolling and it's been really well. So I'm going to roll a D10 and add it to 38. And 10.

a 10. This has been working out for me really. Adaboy. Nice. So I'm at 51. Wow. Incredible. That's half of a hundred plus one. That's true. That's correct. Rob, tell me a little bit about your favorite thing that Jack has to do a level for. Yeah, so Jack's level four is a little bit straightforward. He's who he's just taken, he's getting smarter. He's going with the plus two intelligence, which is going to help his skills and saves and tax and everything. He gets some additional spells. I'm going to roll my 1D6 for my hit points. Get a six. Oh, my gosh.

Nice. And I get a new cantrip and two new second level spells. So I'm thinking Misty Steppen's suggestion for the second level spells. So I'm going to take message as my cantrip for this level. Justin, Kraloth is now a fourth level cleric. Yes, he is. And, yeah, fourth level cleric, he gets to, instead of doing the ability modifier, I'm going to choose a feat, which affects my health.

Um, so instead of rolling, I decided to go with the average five health because I haven't had good luck with these dice. But then also I'm picking the tough feat, which gives me a, at this level, I get to double my current level and get that in hit points. I've done the math and I've met 43 hit points now with this new feat. And other than that, um, I get another level two spell to cast, uh, every day. Harlan, tell me about Red. What does Red get to do? I've taken the average hit points, so I'm at 28 hit points. I'm definitely the weakest, but that's okay because it's part of who I am.

And rather than taking the ability score increase, I have also taken a feat. We are feet heavy. What feet are you taking? My favorite feat. Sharp shooter. So from here on out, attacking at long range does not impose disadvantage for me. Ranged weapons, weapon attacks, I should say, ignore half and three quarters cover, which means no matter who is in cover anymore,

they're going to take my full damage. And before I make a ranged attack with a weapon, I can choose to take a negative five penalty to the attack roll, and if I do so, it deals an additional 10 damage, which means I can hit very, very hard, and, you know, with these cloud giants on the horizon, I think doing some heavy damage is going to be important. So I'm not sure if you could all decipher my very heavy, very good,

Dwarven accent. So the Zelbrins are Moroc's closest friends, or they were before they were killed by a boulder. And he wanted you to go to Golden Fields to break the news to their son, Miroz. He also said there's the matter of Rilix. She's a sweet little thing, but I think she belongs to Miros now. And though I'd love to keep her, it's not right. So morning has broken. Red literally wakes up on the bar floor where he fell asleep. And, like, Doran and Morak are, like, at the bar, like, totally fine. And, like, the bar is already, like, cleaned up. We're playing a game of wizard chess.

Yeah, they cleaned around me. Like, the floor swept and, like, get off the floor. And there's, like, an outline of the dirt of the rubble from last night underneath me. Morak, tell me about Relix. Oh, she's the tressum that the Zellbrins keep. I think she must be around here somewhere. Can't imagine that she got caught by a boulder. She's too fast for that.

Was she human? No, no, she's a tressum. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm misunderstood. Winged cat. You know the type. Oh, yes, of course. What? Red jumps up.

Hello, no. What winged cat are you talking about? Did you want to go over and look at the place? Yes. Let's take a look, shall we? And Jack, where are you this morning? I think Jack is in the study in the keep. He's had some inspiration over the night.

He's busy scrolling some new things into his spell book. And he's looking at that scroll. Sure. And I found there's the rules for adding a spell from somebody else's spell book involve money. The rules for adding a scroll to your spell book are on DMG 200. They involve a roll. But no money. When a spell is copied from a spell scroll, the copier must succeed on an intelligence check.

Arcana. Yeah. DC equal to 10 plus the spells last. level. I believe that's a first level spell. Yes. So go ahead and roll. There's my 12. We're good. I got a 20. So you successfully copy the spell scroll into your spell book. And as you write all the arcane symbols into your book, they unwrite themselves from the scroll in front of you. The chromatic orb spell just gets into his spellbook and he turns the page and he keeps writing as he's got more ideas for how magic can work together. He's sort of on a roll here.

Cool. So Doran and Red, you head with Moroc to the Zellbrun's house. This isn't one of the houses we looted, was it? No. Thank God. As Doran and I walked through the town, we passed by the Tieflein house as they're cleaning things out and shyly look away and I'm like, those goblins are terrible things. The Zellbrun cottage is on the southern end of Nightstone.

It's actually the one that you were on the roof of, Red, when you were trying to attack the Zentorum. I remember this roof. the roof is greatly damaged by the boulder that has crashed through it four days ago now and there are two corpses underneath this roof two elderly humans are lightly decomposing the zealverins i'm sorry for your last morak yes well it's not the first people i've lost in war and i'm sure it won't be the last that's right so you mentioned that you want us to take their tressum yes sir Just a minute. Pts, p, p, p, p, ptie. Come here. Relix.

Pops, pz. And this beautiful, slinky, siamese-looking cat with gorgeous wings crawls out of a space in the attic and, meow. What a cute little animal. Is this a beast, Pichens? It is. It's a tiny beast. Yeah, I mean, Red's going to walk up to it.

And he's going to pass. Morak, and I'm going to use my primeval awareness to communicate with it and recognize it as a kindred spirit. She winds her way around your feet, and you can tell that she's hungry. And I reach into my pack, and I pull out some lovely rabbit jerky and feed her some. She scarves it down. Of course she does, and I pet her, and I pick her up, and I say, she's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, Morak.

Yes, she's really something. I'm very allergic. Of course we'll bring her to Golden Fields. We can do that. Doran, it shouldn't be too difficult to convince Jack and Trayl off to go to Golden. What is Goldenfield, anyway? It's the city, not far from here, about four days travel. I think that would be okay. I mean, ultimately we came here to help Jack's friend, but unfortunately she's passed away.

Maybe the city will have some work. Who are we supposed to be talking to in Goldenfield? Miros. Meroz, Elbrin, their son. Sorry, I was very drunk last night, and I must have been slurring an awful lot. We were both slurring. But I appreciate your willingness to go on this journey for me. Of course, my friend.

And should we go look for Jack at the Keep? Do say goodbye before you head out of town. We'll do, Morak. I wouldn't dream of leaving without saying goodbye. You're a good one. Thank you. And we'll head towards the Keep, towards Jack. What's Jack doing?

I mean, Jack is still in the library. He's furiously writing in books. He's updating his journal. He's preparing a couple of letters to send. Drawing rude drawings on top of. Yeah, scratching his name into the table. So is the keep empty now? Like, obviously the people who owned it are no longer alive.

Yeah, it's empty. I think as Doran is heading towards the library. Did you just mouth loot? Looting? Yeah, well, I mean, I don't know if Jack in character would be okay with that. So I'm thinking this might be something Red does sneakily. I do want some loot, though. So I'm thinking as we enter the Gorge's Keep,

red sort of gets distracted and notices like beautiful, you know, tapestries and stuff. He might just slip off and poke around a little bit to see if there's anything of value. I mean, ultimately, the people who live here are no longer alive and we are going to a city. So Doren, you can convince Jack. I'll catch up with you in a minute. Uh, red. Yeah? This is the keep of a townspeople that now reoccupy the town.

I'm just going to use the bathroom. Do that, and I'll, uh, I'll find Jack. The giant attack left Nandar keep in a sorey state, and the occupation by the Zantaram did nothing to better its situation. The whole main floor is littered in rubble, and you pick your way through up to the staircase, that leads to the second floor. You'd been here briefly when you were discussing

with Kella and Zulkin about what to do when the orcs approached, but you didn't really get a chance to sieve through the belongings of this keep. You make your way to the master bedroom. Tapestries and oil lamps

are mounted to the walls here and there are some wolfskin rugs that have been rolled up and set to the side. You presume that, maybe the Zentarm had rooted through here a little bit. There are four wardrobes that stand against the walls. There is a four-post bed and a wooden chest at its base.

Mounted above the door, there is a long sword. Oh, wow. Couldn't the long sword be taken? It's just a weapon? Potentially. I recognize in a previous episode you mentioned that armor when it's used from a body has like... This is like sitting on its own decorative mount on the wall.

Does it look like a regular long? sword or is it ornate? Why don't you roll perception? Happily. 12. You don't know a lot about melee weapons. True. I will go to that chest and I'll open it up. As you do, the sword pulls itself from the wall magically and attacks you. Roll for initiative. Oh, shit. Damn it!

14. Sorry, guys. So, Red, this sword pulls itself off of the wall and flies at you. What do you do? I don't know. What do I do? I can't attack a sword. Yeah, go for it. Oh my God, I take out my bow and I fire. Ooh, 24. You hit it. How much damage do you deal?

Is it humanoid? No. What? No. Seven damage. Okay. Seven damage. Okay.

The sword flies at you and strikes you with its long blade. 16 to hit? It matches, yes. It hits. Eight slashing damage. Oh, my God, yeah. Your turn. Does it look like my first hit did anything against it?

Yes. Like it hurt it? Yeah. Oh, okay. Then I'll attack again. a natural one yes oh my god what is going on chester hubris is coming home to roost here oh no additionally are you using your bow oh fuck because now it's in melee range of you it's a disadvantage oh my god guys i'm gonna die by a magic sword 14 misses you yes it does your turn

oh god i drop my bow and i'm going to pull up my short sword and i'm going to attack it with my short sword okay sword against sword sword sword against swords against swords with a 13 you miss It tries to get you back. Clang, clang! A metal upstairs. That's a dirty 20. Five points of slashing damage. Oh!

Red, it hacks at your arm. Your turn. Does Doran hear anything about this? Yeah, you hear that metal meeting metal. I begin to travel towards the clanging I hear upstairs. I jump on the bed and I strike the sword again. Hazzar, you'll not get the best of me, long sword. Nine?

No. Oh, no. That's a five, so the sword also misses you. Doran, you travel closer. Next round, you will be in the room. But for this round, Red, what happens now? Ha! And, like, I try to picture, yeah, we're like parrying back and forth, like, swashbuckling.

You're dueling with an invisible opponent. As I'm, like, moving across the bed and, like, everything in the room is kind of getting fucked up. And I'm, like, tearing through a tapestry. And I'm going to attack it again. With a 19. You hit. Now it is hurt. It is.

So I'm doing Colossus Slayer damage. Oh, yes, you are. It's under its max hit points. Yes, sir. Nine. Damage. You hack off one of the pieces of the crossguard on the tilt, and it shivers. And I intimidate it.

Don't you try ghostly weapon? It sort of seems to lose its resolve as it quakes in the air. Dorian, you burst through the doors, and you see Red fighting a sword. Join me, Doran. It's good spot. I'm laughing at this point. He's also bleeding. What am I looking at here, Red?

An enemy. Help, friend. Pull out your axe. And I do. And I retrieved my axe from behind me and... Do you want to make an attack? Yeah. Okay, do it.

Oh, natural 20. How much damage? Nine. Roll that dice again. 14. 14 and 10. You cleave it in half and both pieces fall from the air. Ah, ha, ha, ha, well done. And Red, like, jumps up, bleeding, slaps you on the back.

He's like, oh, that was good spot. He got me good. Look at this. And I show you my arm and there's, like, blood matting in my fur. What the hell you're doing up here? And now, to loot its riches. And I walk over to the chest that I originally started with and I flip it open. You find some trege, little treasurer.

What do we find? You find a velvet sack containing 180 silver pieces, a silk pouch containing four gemstones that you would value at 100 gold each. And you find a silver jewelry box containing three beautiful gold necklaces. You would probably guess that the jewelry box is worth about 25 gold and each of the gold necklaces are worth 250 gold. I take it all. And I'm like, this was a well-fought victory, Doren.

And I start putting in my sack and I say, and look, Lady Nandar is no longer with us. At the very least, we should return this jewelry box to Jack and he can send it back to water deep with her body. Red, that was the only reason I'm not telling you to put this stuff back because we are going to send it back with Jack to water deep. Of course. So for expediency's sake, unless you want to set off any more traps, Fred?

No. Let's say that you go with Doran, you tell Jack. The three of you go, you find Krayloth. Everyone's all on the same page. That's right. Is there anything else you want to do before you leave town? I don't think so. We looted.

I gave, I stopped at the inn, and I gave Morak another big, long embrace. And I said... Your beards intertwine, like Velcro. And I say, until next time, good friend. And we shake hands and... He claps you on the back. And Moroc gives you a tube with a scroll in it to give to... Right.

The sun. Miros. I think Jack leaves a letter with the water deep guards who are heading back that way to deliver for him. All right. I think we're ready to go. Let's do it. Is there a bus or something? As we're walking, he'll pull up an illusion of a map in front of us that sort of walks with us.

And he'll sort of show where we started, where we started, where we're Waterdeep is, where the Ardeep forest is, and then the path from here on to, from Nightstone to Golden Fields. Every time you do that, we're brought back, like, Doran and I, to, like, magic? It's like, you just have this map. Yes, we go north around the Ardeep Forest, and then we catch the road here, and we're in Goldenfields. That's easy.

It's not too bad. It's not the most well-traveled road, but it's not alone. And it's actually really exciting. You know those salt and pepper shakers? Yes. Made by Claire Safetz. They're over 100 years old. and she's from Goldenfield.

No shit. Yeah, it's really fabulous that we found them here. I'm sure we can find someone who would love to give them a... Actually, speaking of that, I should admit this because Doran knows. I did find this, and I pull out a small silver box and open it and reveal three gold necklaces inside. Are they worth anything? They were inside the keep. Are they over 100 years old?

No. They look like fancy jewelry, yeah. I won't lie, we did take it from the keep, but also, I mean, they're worth quite a bit of money. Perhaps we could use them to buy ourselves some armor and things once we're in town? Lady Nandar is not around to need the money. Jack doesn't have a problem with it, Doran. Jack doesn't have a problem. I don't care then.

And let us travel. On this note, you know, I'll also mention that I did acquire cartographer's tools with my last level up. Maybe that was just through. Maybe you and Jack, he's teaching you some tools of the trade. And so, you know, as you build this magical, you know, map, I'm sketching it and using a compass.

Oh my God. I love the idea of like Doran seeing Jack. His hand-fisted version of Jack's map. It's like a kid like following their dad and being like, I'm a businessman too because I'm carrying a suitcase type thing. He's got all of this unique knowledge about like the mountain ranges and what they actually look like like a level down. And so the two of you as you're traveling sort of sharing knowledge about geography.

Yeah. There's almost like, here's the shorthand I use to keep all the details in mind. So when I go to make the actual paper map later, it can be accurate. Here's, you know, so I'd like to note how long we walked in that sort of thing. I'm keeping my notes here. Oh, was the set, maybe an old set that Jack didn't need anymore? Oh, I love that. Sure, yeah, yeah.

It's got a little JP engraved on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you, Jack. Very nice. You're very welcome. Here begins our first travel montage. We're going to be traveling for a couple days over land. And I'd love to know just kind of snapshots of your first day

and night what happens when you set out who goes first red are you scouting i definitely agree with red sort of taking the lead naturally it just seems very him despite all of the in-town and social you know aspect of his character when he is in nature he is very much a ranger you could see it from a mile away so yeah i think he's in the front with his hood up and the cloak billowing behind him but he is definitely sort of you know guiding through rock faces you know it's It's very Lord of the Rings when you see them cresting a hill type scene. And, I mean, for the most part, when they're traveling during the day, that's Red's position. I see Jack and Doran stopping every now and then pointing out landmarks.

And then, you know, they'll stop and chat about it, pointing off in the distance. And then you'll see Doran jotting and seeing what Jack jots. Yeah, and there's the on time on one of those stops where Jack will actually embody Kieran and go fly up and get the bird's eye view of what's going on and sort of come back with a few more details or a few more, oh, it curves up this. way or, you know, we'll better let Red know he might want to go check that out or something, just to be like, oh, it looks like maybe there's a meadow over there we could camp in that's not obvious, keeping all those details that might not otherwise be really readily available. And I think when he's not doing the cartography mapping of the area, Jack's spending a lot of time with Relix sort of just trying to study this winged cat, trying to understand what makes

a trussim work, how they are as a pet, like how they exist in nature. Yeah, and I love the kind of the idea that Red having sort of the B-side of him is like very easy with it you know he'll walk by and it's like it's it loves him already because he can he can understand it he can talk to it and you're like studying this thing like trying to understand it putting that almost analytical mind whereas red almost the same way he treats magic where it's like just part of him doesn't really appreciate that connection he has he'll just walk by and the cat's like looking at him and he like talks to it for a second and you're like how how did you do that I love the image of red scouting ahead and then relics being the second one to appear

on the horizon, like poking our head up and taking to the air above you? Kralath is not paying too much attention to what's going on around him. Since the ritual, this is the first ritual that he's done since he arrived in Féruin. And he's kind of going through the past rituals that he's done in his head.

And he's thinking back to his squad, back when he first started exploring the mists and fighting the undead, he remembers the first ritual that he had to perform as the cleric of the group when the first member of their group died and then there was the second ritual for the second person of their party

then the third ritual then the fourth one and then the last one he's doing it alone and the whole world around him is kind of getting darker and he's getting more and more depressed his shoulders are starting to sag and all of a sudden he hears a noise from up front and he's startled out of it

and red is at the very front of the group and he's spotted something and he's shouting and he's jumping enthusiastically and Kralath doesn't know what it is but there's just an ember of this remembering oh yeah that's not where I am anymore

things are good as you're like fading back in you know I'm running up to trickleweed it's trickleweed there's trickleweed over there I didn't have seen it in Fair Root you gotta come come come come come out Oh right show be red show me It's just like some mundane root

that doesn't do anything No, it doesn't taste like anything. You can't use it for anything, but isn't it pretty? My goodness, you found this yourself. Yes. My God. And then these cinturations are obviously intertwined by, you know, montages of us stopping and collecting firewood and setting up a camp for the night.

I'm looking at my own, my own stuff here, and I've got a dragon chess game set. So, you know, I pull that out. And maybe Crayloth and I played strategically, you know, battle movements. And I'm just like, why don't I just go straight for your king? Well, if you try to do that. then what about this? And I move a piece and you realize, wow, you can really be blindside easily, right?

And the Red's like, can I play again? And you guys are like, no, because I don't play right. I'm like skipping the piece. You're like trying to build a tower. Yeah, I'm like inventing my own game in it. That doesn't make any sense. It just frustrates everybody. I'm like in the corner.

How many days are we traveling for? You're going to be traveling for four days. Jack, what happens on the first night? So I mean, I think Jack's staying up late to sort of update his journal. He's sitting beside the fire. he said he'll take first watch and really that means he'll let kieran watch around well he you know reads books and writes in his journal morning breaks it's a beautiful day again this is the month of elaint so it's autumnal there are leaves falling all around you it's a gorgeous morning

the first frosts are crusting long blades of grass as you break down your camp for the day and prepare to set out on the road you see something on the What is that? That's the sun, Doran. No, no, no, no, no. Not that. That. It's an enormous bank of clouds,

and it draws close to where you are very swiftly. Jack, what? What is that? Have I ever seen or heard of clouds like these? Yes, you did in Nightstone. Those are giant clouds. We need to find some shelter. As this bank of clouds swiftly approaches your position,

you see atop it, there is a tower. This is a huge, tower, but not a castle like was described to you by the citizens of Nightstone. The tower must be hundreds of feet tall, and its spire looks strange, its conical and painted blue and yellow. As the tower drifts closer to your position, stairs made of cloud stuff begin to descend toward you. Interesting. This sends a different sort of message. What's going on? Are they trying to Speak with us.

Doran is crouched on one knee with his battle axe in hand, still looking groggy from the night before. Yeah, Kralov is standing there with his shield out and his holy symbol in hand. Yeah, I think from where Jack was hiding, he sort of launches Kieran off into the air and then closes his eyes and becomes the owl to sort of fly around and see what's happening at the top of these stairs before. Can I ask, are they human-sized stairs or are they giant stairs? They're human-sized. Good question. How far can you send Kieran in order to see through his eyes? A hundred feet in his eyes, and if it gets to the range of that and it's not near the top of the stairs,

I think I'll come back to my body and instruct Kieran to go sort of do a once over and come back. Kieran travels up into the air 100 feet and returns to you. You know that the tower is much higher than that. So I'll send them all the way up and, but, you know, I can't embody them to do that just to go see what's going on. Let's picture in our minds as if we can all see through. through this owl's eyes, as Kieran flaps his wings and gains a sunny thermal in the morning, he travels up in these wide arcs circling the stairs. He climbs for a thousand feet until he sees this tower. The tower entrance is big enough that a giant could certainly enter.

The tower is hexagonal, and there are two side tiers on it. The spire, I can only describe it as a wizard hat. It is blue, cocked jauntily to one side. There are stars and moons painted on it in gold. So like Fantasia wizard hat. Yeah, dude. I think the minute those stairs revealed themselves to be sized for us, Red would begin moving to them. He wouldn't go all the top.

He'd take a few and then turn back and wait for the others. But, I mean, giants are like anything. You know, they can be, to Red's understanding, good or bad, and stairs shaped for us mean that they want us up. And I think he just says, come on, boy, this is time for adventure. They obviously want to talk. Let's give them our best. It's certainly apparent that if they wanted to throw the first stone,

they could have. Oh, I just think that's a lot of stairs. You look a bit worried, friend. Yeah, because if we get up there, there's no telling how we're going to get down. I can think of at least two ways. Oh, come, brother, it'll be fun. I promise you.

And I hold out my little paw to, like, take your hand. Jack. As Kieran gets back and reports what he saw... It's a real big tower boss! So Jack sort of psychically grills Kieran for all the details that you'd just given us and... Full of stop. Mars, boss!

Well, let's go! There's no firing arrows at us. I'm excited. Come on. Get ready for a thousand feet of climbing stairs. I love it that the tallest person in the party is afraid of heights.

Yeah. What do the stairs feel like walking on clouds? They feel... Like really high price running shoes. They feel as firm and as safe as solid ground. Cool.

I think Red is really excited about this, honestly. I think he's like bounding at this point. Yeah, of course. Because it's a fucking cloud road to a city in the, I mean, that's, how isn't that exciting? He's giddy. It's huge.

Totally. And he really wants Krayloth excited. And he's like, come on. And he like, hangs back and he's like, come on, aren't you excited for the, this is all the dreams? Just taking one step at a time, Red, can only be so excited. Oh, wow. What are we about?

500 feet up now. High of them, that. Look over the side. Here, look, look down there. Look at that tiny little tree. You see the beautiful autumn colors stretching as far. as you can see. I guess they couldn't have put a cloud railing up here.

Oh, you're going to be fine, Kraylob. I've seen you face much scarier things than this, like dying two times. You're right, let's go. You reach the top, finally, after maybe 10 minutes of climbing, and you find yourself atop a cloud that feels solid underfoot.

There is this tower, and ahead of you, an open archway leads to a huge open room. Yeah, I mean, for sure, Red is just barreling forward. I think he, like, stops in the doorway and, like, waits for the others and, like, waves them in, like, like, Willie Wonka's chocolate factory. Like, come on, you're going to miss it. Can I do a perception check on the front of this place?

Of course. 15 plus 5, so 20. The walls of this tower are pristine and white, whitewashed. with some kind of magical substance that shows no texture, no crack, no sign of its masonry. Beyond this open vestibule, there is a room that is 20 feet by 20 feet

and 80 feet tall inside of which red looks like some stuffed animal. And beyond him, through this open vestibule door, there is a massive blue curtain made of some shiny fabric that flaps gently in the wind. I think Red would, like, clear his throat and call out in Giant because Red speaks it, too.

Oh, man. Hello! Or, hello. It like changes the tone, too. How did you do that? That'd be like me speaking like you. Hello. Oh, hello.

Hello. It's all in the vocal cord friend. So Red has entered the tower. Does anyone else approach? Yeah, I think Jack's falling behind him. He's a little bit wide-eyed and just trying to take it all in. It's a lot of new experiences for him, and he's trying to, you know, suss out all of the little details,

not letting his eyes miss anything. It's sort of a combination of all of his interests of, like, weird arcane stuff and buildings that he's never seen before. And so there's a, like, he's studied giant ruins and stone giant ruins and other places. And so trying to, like, put all these things together. Yep. Doren enters sort of in a dizzy,

way. And question, do clouds leave footprints behind red? No. No, they don't. So yeah, I call it. You hear no response. And I turn to those. Obviously, they invited us here. They specifically came to where we were in the woods and rolled out the red carpet. They did. Doesn't mean that we shouldn't be careful, though. No, fair enough. I think I'll carefully pull back the blue curtain. Darren and Jack are nodding. Darren. Darren. Who's Darren?

Did I say, Derek? Who's this guy? Let me restate. If I say Darren, I was thinking of Jack. What does that mean? I was saying Doran and Jack, and I got Darren and Jock. Darren and Jock.

That doesn't matter. That's great. Doran. They're a less good adventuring party for sure. Our rivals. Multiverse. Rayloff's Darren. I'm Darren.

I'm Jock. I'm a wizard. I'm Ked. Doren and Jack. nod at each other in agreement with, uh, you know, the observations made by Redd and yeah, and Kralath. I'm just gonna, I'll wait just so Kraylath isn't walking by himself, but if you, you and Red walk in first, well, yeah. You open the curtain. Like a horror movie. My hand slowly moves forward to the curtain and then I pull it back quickly. But that's like

pulling back a massive curtain. You're like, you're like the one center. Yeah, I like pull. Like a mouse on a shower curtain. Yeah, exactly. It's like really difficult. Hello. Behind the curtain, you see a 100-foot high room. It is hexagonal, and it contains some furniture that is sized for a giant. This is like FIFO Fum shit, where you are, you know, not even as tall as a... The golden goose. Yeah, not even as tall as a chair leg. You see a giant-sized table and a stone chair.

you see that dangling from the ceiling by iron chains there are crystal spheres larger than you are and they are illuminating the room brightly as if containing flame and as you look up at the room and around at everything that surrounds you you see a massive pair of sandals attached to a massive pair of feet that are slowly descending through a hole in the ceiling. I mean, how intimidating can a giant be who wears sandals, really? He's not wearing socks, is he? No, he's not. Okay, good.

He's like the dad of giants. Hey, guys, what you doing here? You want some popcorn? You like my tilly hat? Yeah, yeah, yeah. As you watch these feet emerge from the ceiling attached to this billowy purple robe, this giant who is fully like third, 30 feet tall, comes through this hole in the ceiling, touches down on the ground, and

starts pouring himself a glass of water. Floating down? He was. He was. He was. He's floating very slowly and purposefully. Okay. He has wind-swept white hair and a long, wispy white beard.

His robe is adorned with golden stars. He has one large scar over his left eyebrow. And he's got some seriously sick earrings. He has a vacant look in his eyes, and he busies himself about the room. Doesn't seem to be paying you too much attention. And I call out again. He turns quickly, surprisingly quickly, and looks at you.

Hello! Oh, I have company. Hello. Hello. Oh, one moment. and he takes two large steps towards where you stand, crouches way down and puts his hand on the ground. And I climb on and, like, reach back for the others,

come on, guys. Yeah, I take a nervous step towards the hand, but we'll, like, take Red's hand and climb on to, climb on to the Giant's hand. Like he said, he's got company, not he's got food. So I'm thinking, sure. He picks up Red and Jackson. in one hand and Kralath and Doren in the other hand and turns around you are whoosh through

the air like 80 feet and he sets you down on the table kind of ungently but not intentionally rough and he takes these massive strides and then pulls the chair up to the desk and sort of lays his chin down on the table so that he can look at you all in the eyes. you stand about as tall as the height of his head, these huge eyes bigger than your own heads staring out at you, milky, white, and you feel the exhalation of his breath as he speaks to you, small folk.

The odd sensation of being picked up by massive hands is only surpassed by the even otter sensation of being whooshed through the air at unattainable speed. Yeah, it's all very uncomfortable for Kralov. And Red's beaming. He's like, well, hello do you do? Thank you so much for inviting us in.

You have a lovely home. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Yes, it is quite. I must say I love the hat on the top of the building and your robe. They are both stellar. Why? Thank you. Oh, in common, stellar means

as the stars Oh, sorry No, no It's kind of a joke Because there are stars on my room Very good, very good Well either way it is very And I say the giant word for like

Wonderful Oh Your accent is quite good Thank you It's not as good as my friend Jack's here Hello Hello, I'm Jack Page What is your name?

My name is Zephyros. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. And my name, of course, is Red, and, um, Kralath. I'm a bit flustered from the height when I'm not used to being up so high, you'll understand. He smiles widely at you, each of his teeth as big as dinner plates. It must have been you that the deities have spoken of. What do you mean? The planar entities told me that I would come across the small folk that would shape the ordaining.

And here you are. The ordaining? Yes, the ordaining. Can you give us a bit more of an explanation? What is this ordaining? Of course, and he leans back up and away from the desk and floats back up. through the ceiling. He's just gone from the room. You hear the sound of an earthquake as things are moved around in the room above you. And you catch a glimpse of a book, a giant-sized book

hurtling through the air, just through the hole in the ceiling. And then he comes back down as his sandals land on the clouds again. He's got this massive book in his hands. He points at it, the ordning. It's a caste system that the giants use tells us from long ago who are those who are worthy and those who are unworthy. Do you understand? So the rank like amongst all of the cloud giants, those who say float in giant castles are higher than those who float in wizard towers? No, no, little orc. Giant society is defined by the ordning. It is a system imposed upon the giants by Anam, the all-father, praise be.

Traditionally, hill giants are at the bottom of the ordning, with etin and ogres as being less than worth of mention. At the top of the ordaining, the storm giants stand all-powerful, and the other races of giants are arrayed between them, fire giants, cloud and stone, frost and the like. You might think of Storm Giants as his first kin. The hill giants, least respected, are the youngest children and the weakest of us. The ordering, if you will, of giant-kind. If that's the ordaining, ordering, ordering, ordaining, ordaining.

If that's the ordaining, uh, why would we need to shape it? Is it out of whack? Anam the All-Father has dissolved the ordaining as of late. All of giant kind is experiencing an upheaval. I myself do not understand why, but I have been contacting the intraplanar deities and beings to understand what is happening. I have been told that the small folk play a large role. And here you are in my cloud. Why have we been chosen?

Indeed. Indeed. I was hoping you could tell me. We're pretty awesome. I can see that. Look at you, so small. Well, perhaps that explains why. Some of your other cloud giants were throwing boulders at the city of Nightstand, or Nightstone.

I love you. We just left. That's awesome. I do apologize. Some of my kind are evil creatures and tend toward chaos and destruction. I myself love knowledge and travel. I'm headed to the moon Shea Isles They sound lovely

They are They are in the middle of the sea And I have written a volume about them Every year of my life Jack's looking like He's taking notes He's looking at this guy Like he's almost overwhelmed

With the amount of like stuff he wants to ask And stuff he wants to write down and record You said you contacted other planes And they talked about small folks Who did you contact? Who was talking about us? I was speaking with extra planar entities. Any specific ones?

Perhaps you saw Moradin up there. I have seen Moradin. Oh my God. What is Moradin really like? Let me tell you, little dwarf. He's pretty cool. He likes to party a lot. And he's got a side.

sick hammer that he likes to flash around he does tricks with it and dorin has this this big grin that comes across his face he can drink me under the table for sure i knew it thank you thank you

you you've given me oh so much excitement i think he would like you honestly really yeah i don't want to brag but I'm fucking cool. I was warned against taking a direct hand in the events of your destinies,

but I can't take you where you need to go. So let me get this straight. Your All-Father... Anam. He disbanded the ordaining, and these extra planar entities want us to bring it back together. It sounds like you don't know why, but it kind of sounds like this ordaining, this caste system.

How do you feel about it? Overall, it has created a sense of identity within giant kind. The ordaining, although perhaps oppressive, has allowed us to know where we belong. Now that the ordaining has been broken, perhaps it is true that those oppressed, Species of giants feel like they can make an attempt to seize power. You don't feel that they should? It is beyond me to know the way things should be. All I want is to understand the world, to research it.

And honestly, I'm very pleased to meet you. Tell me about bread. I have some bread right here if you'd like to inspect it. He holds out an index finger. The bread becomes a speck on the tip of it. What does one do? We eat it. He extends a tongue as large as a bed's bread

and touches this loaf of bread to it where it dissolves in his saliva. I like it. So do we. Okay. So to get this clear then, what you're saying is that the storm giants down to the hill giants have always had a particular order.

One day their god sends a message and say, gloves are off, new order, you guys choose, and now every giant is trying to be on top. All giants sensed the ordnings breaking. At the same time, and this happened recently. How recently is ever us? About three, ten day. Perhaps you have noticed its effects. As we have, we actually came from Nightstone where the cloud giants had taken

the nightstone probably to give them a leg up. The nightstone must be powerful. How certain are you that it's us that your extra planar entities have been talking about? I'm convinced that you have been chosen to restore order in whatever way is necessary. So we might not want to put the storm giants back on top. Maybe we want to put the hill giants on the top. Or some of these Frost boys sound pretty cool. I myself am rad.

You're pretty, definitely rad. But no, no, giggle on the cool frost. I thought that was worth it. I don't know common. Say, now you get it. Just need to explain. So I turn to the others and I say, so this makes sense?

I guess for some reason, we are destined to shape who gets to be on top and who's going to be on bottom and ultimately shape the ordaining. Sounds pretty cool. How the hell are we supposed to get involved with shaping an entire ordaining of giants? You already are.

I suppose just being who we are? There is destiny that lies ahead of each of you. Well, then I wonder if we should continue to Goldenfield and... Is that where you are headed? It was. Well, then I shall make haste and deliver you there. I suppose that not every giant is going to recognize us as those who will shape the ordaining. Is that not fair?

No. Many of them will recognize you as... dinner. Now that you know our true purpose, do you have anything that could help us? Maybe items or even friends that you may have made along the way that could aid us in our quest? The only items I have with me in the tower I use on a daily basis and would miss greatly. Zephras, you know, if you had, if you wanted to share your spellbook with a fellow wizard, perhaps there was something we could teach each other. I'm not... Roll persuasion.

Four. Unfortunately, little human, there's not much you could teach me. I definitely don't think that's true, but perhaps you've got other things in your mind. Have you been to the moon? Shea Isles. I've heard a lot about them. They're definitely on the list of places to want to travel. I'm very familiar with paternal father wizard figures dismissing me, so that's okay.

Oh, it must be tempting for you. Here you have the people, the little folks who are deigned to be redesigning the ordaining, and you yourself are a cloud giant, and yet you do not wish to interfere with it. That is commendable that you don't want to step in and put in a word for the cloud giants to be on the top. I care not for my place in the ordaining. Cool. I like that. You're cool. Can I have any of a beard has? All right. Thank you.

And I walk up and I take on my dagger, and I take on my dagger, and I, cut a long strand of white hair and I wrap it up and take it. You're weird. I like you. I like you too. Well, I suppose then maybe if you can continue bringing us to Colden Field. I'll show Zephyros a map with a minor illusion just to say here's where I think we are. Here's where we're headed. Could you drop us off here? Oh, ho. Oh, little orc. One moment. I think he probably puts you guys all in the front pocket of his robe. It smells kind of musty.

He's got like, I picture he's got like a kangaroo pout. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's kind of like the dude. Getting the pet. Big Lebowski of cloud giant. Hey, come on up to my pad. His wizard's cloak is like a fashioned hoodie

with like the hoodie pockets. Yeah. So sick. Smells like, yeah. Smells like weed in here. There's a howling wolf on the front of it. Yeah.

Yeah, he takes you up to the second floor. And you see that there is a third floor. that extends beyond the second floor, but he puts the four of you in his pouch and you levitate through the hole in the floor and you see this 80-foot-tall room. There is a set of windows on either side of this huge room, panes of stained glass.

There's a giant-sized bed and a huge wooden chest. Stone shelves protrude from the walls at heights of 20 feet, 40 feet, and 60 feet, atop which there's more than 500 books. And on the right side of the room, there is an orb that Zephyro stands near, and he says, This is how I control my tower.

It is a navigation orb. And so, Jack, I appreciate your map. but I know where Goldenfields is well. And he puts his hand over the orb and you feel the tower start to move. Zephyrus, could you do me a favor? As Doran suddenly has this like childlike urge looking at Red, can you drop me onto your bed?

It looks very soft. What? I just want to like tumble from above. No, and Red's like, and me too, please. Be careful now. And he just tosses you into the bed. And you go flying hundreds and hundreds of feet through the air. And you take 86 fall damage now.

It's a cloud bed. Zephros, that was fun. You believe that we are here to shape the ordaining, obviously. I was wondering if you have anything, some sort of trinket that we might be able to show other giants to prove that we're here. Something that we can say, yes, we are here to help. Is there anything that would be specific? Maybe a piece of fabric. I don't know.

You don't know what I mean? I hold very little standing among my kind, unfortunately. Now, Jack, let me show you the countryside from here. And he descends, he brings all four of you back through the hole, back to the ground floor. And he takes you, Jack, on his palm, and he walks out on to. to this solid cloud stuff that is his back lawn. And he's pointing out this bird's eye view for you, which you've seen before. Kieran, I don't know if he's usually flying a thousand feet above the ground.

Yeah, I've only seen it from 100 feet. And so the 1,000-foot view is something else. So the two of you share a few minutes together as he points out different landmarks from this distance. And you're slowly just coasting across the sky. And Jack's taken as many notes as he can. he's trying to memorize the whole scene, find the landmarks he does note, and figure out the pieces that he doesn't to sort of sketch out the whole piece of the sky from a thousand feet.

Did you, um, build this? Is this all yours? Yes, I'm very proud. Zephyros, can we have a piece of a cloud? What do you mean? Just a piece of your land here, something that we could take with us. Nice memory. Funny little people. That sounds fine.

Thank you, and we'll put it in the vial that create a lot. that you had from the Holy Water eons ago. Perfect. Sounds good. I think he gets you guys all ready for bed. He tucks you in. He puts a cushion down on the ground. And let's not forget that I've got relics, the tresm. Yes, you do. With us.

It curls up at the feet. Yeah, I feel like Zephyros is really enamored by this little creature. What is this? Oh, it's a treism. We're returning it to Goldenfields. One moment.

And he flies up through the hole in his floor and comes back with a book. And he very reminiscent of Jack, sets it down on the table and starts scribbling notes in giant runes about this cat. Tress him. Cute. So you go to bed. You sleep here on the cloud with Zephyros. He puts down this huge pillow that the four of you all cuddle up on. He throws a tea towel over you.

which serves as a quilt, and you are buffeted gently to sleep by the winds high above Fyroon. You spend the next day marveling at the ease of traveling by Cloudbank, watching the ground pass steadily below you. Zephyros is a kind but distracted host, spending hours writing by himself on the second floor of his wizard tower, having seemingly forgotten your presence. Occasionally, you'll see a large creature half lion and half eagle take flight from the top floor of the tower, returning with some limp beast hanging from its talons. As the sun begins to set on the 30th day of Elyant, the four of you are sitting outside on the cloud lawn while Zephyros snaps upstairs when you spot some winged creatures heading right for you. As they grow closer, you can make out they are darkly armored riders atop massive

vultures. There are nine of them. and they wheel around you, closing into land. I can't imagine that's a good sign, but happy holiday from everyone here in Fyroon, and remember to give us a good review if you're enjoying. See you next year. Thank you.