Dice Shame - 117 | 'Life or Death'

Episode Date: January 6, 2022

A terror arrives on the battlefield and the party understands the true odds they face... Comedy, action and a whole lot of shaming come together in Dice Shame, an Actual Play Podcast of Storm King's Thunder by Wizards of the Coast! Join our GM Jo; her partner Harlan, his brother Alex & their best friends Justin and Rob as they tackle the daunting world of Faerun in this legendary adventure module! Dice Shame is a podcast that welcomes its audience to the gaming table. Like the games they play at home, they try not to take themselves too seriously. The show aims to be entertaining, inclusive, and irreverent, while still taking the rules (somewhat) seriously. Join us every Thursday morning for brand new episodes available on all major platforms including; Spotify, iTunes, Google Play and more! If you haven't checked it out yet... what are you waiting for?!? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Goodbye healer. Look, nudge the table, will you? Enderza! Enderzah! What is it? Come on, Joe. Fail at least one of these roles. Doran, come on! We gotta go! Run! Run now!

Take another shot red! Come on, buddy. Come on. Jesus, what the fuck is this thing? Jack's got a tiny, tiny bit of magic left. Joe's not fucking around. Can you please fail a wisdom-saving throw? I'm gonna try for you.

Very important. I bet you, the second part of that. Welcome back to Dice Shame, episode 117, Life or Death. MVP this week is Sparisco, who's just joined our Discord server and who listens on their daily walk with their Golden Retriever Bernie's Mountain Dog mix. Thank you for joining us, Sparisco, and if you want to join our community, Come hang out with us on Discord. We would love to say hi. Is part of your New Year's resolution to read more?

There's no better place to start than with our friends at Briar Book Lane. Liz Wilcox, from our friends of the Dimension Door podcast, and her amazingly talented sister, Mary Jensen, have built a wonderful, cozy little home at Briarbooklane.com, where you can join their book club, check out some of their fiction, and get acquainted with the sisters. Happy 2022, and here's some more reading. All right, should we play some D&D?

Yeah, let's do it. The body of the giant The body of the final stone giant crashes to the ground, part of it splashing into the swift stream nearby. But there's no time to celebrate your victory. For a new threat emerges, something leaking dark mist taller than the stone giants and whose form makes your mind spin with its otherworldliness. It scans the dark forest with intensity, its powerful-looking claws clenching and unclenching in the new cold night air.

Its face is a blank mask of shadow, cut through by something like a dozen holes, peering like eyes, down towards you. Jack, it's your turn. Jack's eyes go wide. He can't quite get a perfect look at this creature all the way up the cliff. He sees the giant got swept up and brutalized, and he could just barely make out Kralath, and an idea springs to mind. He'd been reading all these books from Endrazar,

and he found one about these weird creatures in the south, these massive birds, covered in feathers flightless but with jaws and claws and teeth that that might do something. He points to Zan's wand at Kralath and says the word and Kralas starts to grow. What is going? What? What? I don't know.

Goodbye healer. Yeah, what am I? What am I now? You're a T-Rex. Oh. All right. Jack then stays close to the cliff but dives as deep underwater as he can, moving sort of around the edge of this thing.

Doreen kind of looks around with frightened eyes and he's like, do we know when to quit? Endazar screams, run, run now. Oh shit. Kralath. Make a constitution saving throw. Okay. I'm going to use my inspiration for this. Good.

But I didn't roll great. 13? You fail. You take 17 necrotic damage. Okay. You feel an aura of necrotic damage just from the creature. It is your turn. And Kralov tries to say as much to Jack and it just comes out as a roar. As he rears his head back,

Rha! Turns towards this demonic monster and tries to take a big bite out of its arm. Go for it. 18? Uh, yeah, you hit. Hey, okay. 24 points of piercing damage. Nice.

And I'm going to try to bite it again on the same arm. Just kind of double down, you know? Okay. No, you make multiple attacks, one with your bite and one with your tail. Gotcha. Okay, never mind. Then that's my turn. Oh.

Looking at that now, it would have been better with more folks. I sweep my tail around and smack Doran. Oh, no. He goes flying off into the wall. Billing the cairn left and right, bones in the air. Doran, it's your turn. Make a Constitution saving throw. Oh, no.

13. Fail. You take 16 necrotic damage. What do you do, Dorn? You've got a healing potion? I do. You've got second wind? I do.

Mist churns around your feet. It's just rolling in waves off of this creature, and it turns its terrifying visage down towards you, almost as it hadn't even considered you before. Just darkness itself is looking down at you through these perforations in its face. Okay, so as a bonus action, I'm going to use my second wind, just to give myself some health back. Smart. Nine. Okay, that's better than nothing.

Could be the difference between life and death. I'm a little bit concerned here that maybe we should retreat. What do you guys think? Yeah, I think we should We got the action economy on this thing So yeah it's a big awful baddie But there's four of us that get turns It's one turn

I think we could push it I'm kind of in agreeance that I think we have to fight it I mean getting away from this thing One of us at least is going to go down My thinking is we should retreat I'm with Doran on this I think the worst thing we can do is fall on attack I think the second best option

Is to try to get the boulder and run I think the best option is just to run. All right, Dorn, what do you do? Doren is going to use his mobile feat and he's going to attack this thing before fleeing, which will allow me to do so and not give the creature an opportunity of an attack opportunity. So that means hopefully I hit with a 19 swinging my axe once.

Hey! You do. Nice. And 13 points of damage. Great. And two attacks because it's still always two attacks. 25 to hit. Yep.

And 15. Another 15 points of damage. Great. And then I flee the scene without provoking an attack of opportunity. Okay. So Doran, you hustle through the mist, through the darkness, and jump into the stream. Well, at least I'm sliding down the hill. But yeah.

Red, what do you do? Red hears what's happening. He can hear the roaring and he sees the creature standing before his friend as the mist is still sort of just tumbling in. Red sees this creature for what it is

and he pulls back on his bow and he fires. With a natural 20. Whoa. There we go. This is the time to crank him out. First one of the whole combat. 36 damage.

Well done. Yeah, that's a good number. I'll attack it again. Oh my God. I'm going to take a picture of it. Because it's so close, it's basically a cracked eye, but you tell me. You know, if we say we're going to play generous on this map, you know, we might as well, we might as well call it.

Play generous with the crack die. Look, nudge the table, will you? Genuinely, though, and I'm saying this because it is so... That's pretty good. That's totally a 20. That's not. Yeah, I'd say that's a 20. Call it.

That's a 20. The 14 is more over than the 20 is. Yeah, that's fair. Call it a 20. All right. Natural 20. Whoa. No doubt about it?

I cancel it. Kralov cancels it. No, you're a T-Rex. You don't have that ability to right now. He can't do that. 33 damage. All right. And Red whispers under his breath.

Come on, Kralath. Come on, buddy. The creature is going to attack the T-Rex that's right beside it. You're getting attacked, Justin. He's being attacked. Zog, zog. All right. Natural 20.

Oh, shit. I cancel. No. No, you can't. You take 54 points of necrotic damage. Oh, that's like one-third of your health. He's going to attack you again. Oh, shit.

That's only a 24 to hit you. You take 25 necrotic damage. Okay. Jesus, what the fuck is this thing? Jack, it's your turn. What do you do? Jack swims away from this cliff face to try and get a better look at this creature to figure out what the fuck it is.

He's racking his brain. He's going through everything he's ever read. He's trying to look this thing up and down. Yeah, you've never seen anything like it. This is a totally new creature to your brain. Is it a goblin? You've never seen anything like this before. All right.

I'm going to take a shot in the dark and assume it's not going to like radiant damage. And so I pull up the spellguard sphere and fill it full of every bit of Lathander's light and with a little bit of my mastery of these spell secrets, I flip that damage over from fire to radiant and this ball of light streaks through the air and explodes, catching this thing, stopping just short of Kralath's massive face.

Massive face. What kind of save would you like? Dexterity save. Sounds good. Yeah, that's what this is. 17? Yeah, so it'll get half of 8D. which is 29, so 15.

Did not like that. Yeah, didn't love that radiant damage. It just didn't like you attacking it with magic. I take the rest of my movement to get underwater, hold my breath real good. It's Endazar's turn. Perhaps red hears the stumbling footsteps of an old man trying to run through the snow as he approaches your position. Enderzer, what is it? Run!

Run! Not until they're safe. And Red turns back towards his friends, watching anxiously. Krayloth, it's your turn. Make a Constitution safe. 19. Nice. You fail.

Really? Oh, fuck. Joe's not fucking around. She's not. Oh, my God. You take 18 necrotic damage. Okay. Kralath is going to take a bite out of it.

Okay. Roll to hit. I mean, 17 to hit. You hit. Okay. And so 28 points of piercing damage as my bloodied mouth wraps around its arm. And then I'm going to try to shove it back. And so that's going to be a contested strength, my strength, versus its decks or strength.

Let's see how this goes. Okay. So then, okay. What did you get? 19. I got a 21. Ha ha! All right, you shove it back.

And then I'm going to run. I'm going to run north and let out a bellow. Okay, how far do you run? I run 50 feet, exactly. No more, no less. I calculated out perfectly with my giant T-Rex steps that I will move exactly 50 feet. Excellent. So 52?

All right. Doren, it's your turn. Doren is sliding down the bank and turns around and fires his crossbow at it. That's cute. Meanwhile, I was thinking badass. seven with an attack of seven. No. But still, he screams over his shoulder,

Take another shot, Red. All right, buddy. And Red's going to take another shot. 11. Damn it, Red. Sorry. Good try. Oh, thank you.

Red, it is your turn now. Red is watching this all play out as Observer again, watching everyone's back. He sees Jack halfway across the river. He sees Doran with him, and he sees his friend as a T-Rex, moving across the field towards the bow. older, I'm going to give him cover.

If that idiot isn't coming back, I'm going to help him every step of the way. And I'm going to fire at the creature. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I miss. Red. Isn't that, like, the worst? When you have, like, a great, like, heroic comment, and you're like, in a movie, it would hit, and it'd be this great moment, but a D&D doesn't work like that. But you know what? It's Red. He's so, he's like

emotional. He's like, come on, come on. Run faster, you idiot. And he's, like, firing, but he's, like, shaking a little bit as he's worried. Maybe that's why you miss. That's literally what I'm saying, yes. Oh, okay, okay, okay. I'm saying that I'm emotional. Yeah, yeah.

That's why I'm missing. Maybe you're, like, emotional, and the reason that you don't hit is because you're so emotional. Oh, but if I'm, like, shaking because I'm so emotional, that's why I'm missing. Oh, I forgot. Rob, do you understand, though, what we're saying? You know, I wonder if it's just like those, those, like, emotional, like, angry cries and you can't hold it in and you're just trying through like these blurry eyes,

trying to take a shot. It's like that. It's like that. I like that. Yeah, let's go with that. I can't hit it. Like if you're emotional, then... Yeah.

Now what's the awful thing going to do to us? It's a creature's turn, and its terrifying face swivels on his shoulders as it follows the movement of this T-Rex running up the embankment. It points at this animal.

Kralov, make a wisdom-saving throw. Twelve. Okay. Is it bad? It's very bad. Oh, shit. I need more dice. Oh, no.

I don't like that at all. I don't like the way that sounds. You take 170,000 hit points damage. Okay. So the first bad news is you take 25 necrotic damage. Oof. Don't love it. Second bad news is you become frightened.

Okay. Until this end of this creature's next turn, you are paralyzed. Oh, no. You cannot move. Then the creature closes the gap, terrifyingly by lifting up off the ground and hovering towards you. Its feet may be six inches above this crunchy, snow-covered plan. It gets to within striking distance of you Kralath, and then it attacks again. And it's got advantage.

No, it's a crit. actually. Any attack against you is an automatic crit when you're paralyzed. You take 44 necrotic damage. So the first 22 you're a T-Rex for,

the next 22, you're not. Make a Constitution saving throw. 20. 30. 20. Fail. Oh. Your hit point maximum is reduced. So how many hit points are you at right now? I'm at 11.

11 hip points. That's not a good number. Jack. it's your turn. Huh. I don't know what to do. I feel like this is now a rescue mission. Shit.

Doesn't have to be. Well, that's the thing. This might just be the end of Kralov. Yeah. Like, I can thunderstep an awful long way with a little bit of alchemical jazz. And I've got just enough spell slots to do it once to get an awful long way out of here.

But that leaves Kralath on the island. Alternatively, I could go up there to get to Kralath. We couldn't escape and we'd both die. You've got to make the tough call. You could grab me and we could both face the demon together. Then Andresar and Red would go on adventures without us, and we would haunt this island for a while. What do you do? What do you do?

Jack, it is your turn. If you Justin are okay with us abandoning Kralath for a minute, I'm going to get Dorn and I out of here. I don't know. If that's what you want to do, If you were able to distract him slightly, then that might change. Like, if you were able to distract him until the end of his next round, then I might be able to do something as Krayloff.

All right. All right. Jack stumbles out, like swims to the far edge of the river and gets out and looks back to see Kralath, you know, small and afraid when cast against this big shadow between us. and he draws a pattern in his air and says a prayer both to Kellenvore and to Lathander and this flash of Lathander's holy light in the shape of a radiant sunburst shows up as this hypnotic pattern flashes before this thing's eyes, trying to distract it to give Kralath that moment to breathe.

Can you please fail a wisdom-saving throw? I'm going to try Very important that you The second part of that This is a third level spell And I've only got one left None left There's no teleporting

There's nothing left What's the DC? 16 You're 16 It's not this creature's best save I'm going to tell you right now 17 Fuck

Come on Minus one Is 16 Oh it's still goes to you Just passes Yeah, wow. Sorry. Nice.

She's rolling too good. Endazar, I mean, Red, you hear the footsteps of this man running through the woods. Enderzano! And Red looks back to the onslaught. Kralath, you are paralyzed. Kralath is back in this cathedral. And he's the younger version of himself as he walks up. a spiral staircase towards a tolling bell that's getting louder and louder.

And he just reaches the top, and the wind is blowing, and the clouds are dark in the sky, a crimson red, and they seem to close in on him as he looks at this bell tolling again. And he sees a crack splitting the bell. right up the center, getting closer and closer to the area. Doran, what do you do? Doran watches as the creature approaches, feeling so helpless in this situation.

Standing in the frigid waters, he watches as Jack clamors to the other shore. He looks back to see this horrid beast towering over his friend, For an instance, Doran considers following Jack to the other side and escaping nearly, narrowly with his life. Can't get out of his mind the fact that he literally just had this conversation with Kralath earlier that day. And he turns around and climbs back up the embankment thinking to himself, I have to redeem myself. Pulls out his crossbow. And using a goading attack, he fires once.

24 to hit. Holy shit. Doing six points of damage. But you have to make a wisdom saving throw. And because I've hit with the weapon, you are goaded into attacking me. And so roll a wisdom saving throw. Fail this one, though.

That'd be nice. Come on, Joe. Fail at least one of these rolls. 12. It fails. So now you have disadvantage. on all attack rolls against targets other than me until the end of my next turn. Red, it's your turn.

Red, leaning against the tree, he has his head against it, sweat beating down his fur, seeing his friends in the mist rolling in, he says, we've never needed you more than now. And he reaches into the bag and he blows the tree whistle. Nice. This piercing sound covers out across the land. This is the whistle that was given to us in the forest. forever ago that summons the guardians of the woods. The forest starts to quake and groan under your call, red,

as a large leafless oak tree uproots itself from the bank of the river just to the east of where this creature is standing over the body of Kralath, and it begins to wade into the stream. And Red says, come on, buddies, give him a chance. As all the trees begin to move towards him. It's the creature's turn. The creature looks down at you, Kralath, with this expressionless, dark face, holes of emptiness looking down through the darkness at you.

and it reaches down and tries to pluck your soul from your body and encountering nothing there it tries to kill you. 32 to hit. Holy shit. You take 34 points of damage. Kralov is down

and he's making death saving throws. All right. Feels like episode one again. Well, it feels like episode one. one, four, nine. Jack, it's your... Jack's got a tiny, tiny bit of magic left, but it's all he can do

and he's going to pull out some alchemical casting he hasn't quite used before. But if he spends an extra second-level spell slot, he can increase a spell that's got a range of 30 feet to become a mile. So he whips out DeZan's wand, and he points at Kralas' body, and he levitates it.

It flies 20 feet straight up. And so long as Jack's, within a mile 30 of that body. He can move it 20 feet straight up every turn. And so he moves Kraylath 20 feet into the air and books it as far as he can, making sure he's got eyes on this limp night. This friend, this shining companion,

trying to get it out of the way of this creature as he himself scrabbles up the far side of the cliff trying to get to the trees where Red's at. Kraloth, make a save against death. The bell tolls, natural one. No. That's a bad role. That's a really bad role.

So that counts as two failures. Holy cheeses. We needed a little more tension. That's all. Doran, it's your turn. What's going on? Doran, come on. We got to go.

You watch as Kralath's body is lifted into the air. Come on. He hangs limp. Doran turns from Krilloth. I'm sorry, friend. Slides down the embankment across the water and dashes up towards Jack. Quick, let's get out of here. Redd, it's your turn.

I see the trees closing in on the creature. I see Kralov's body floating away, and desperately I fire again at the creature, tears streaming from my eyes with a dirty 20. You hit? 19 damage? Yep. And again with a two. No, you fail.

No, that misses. Come on, buddy. Come on. The trees begin to shuffle through the water, making their way up the embankment towards this heart-wrenching scene. As Kralath's body floats in the air at Jack's magical behest, Kralath, make a constitution saving throw. That is a southeastern throw. No. That's the wrong number. I refuse.

Kralath, as you take damage from this aura, just being too close to the creature, it uses up your last death safe. And your body loses life. However, the shield that is still trapped to your arm begins to pulse with golden energy. You picked up this shield long, long ago, in the hump rat house. Do you remember? Mm-hmm, in the basement. This is a shield of revival.

If you die while wearing the shield, you are instantly revived with, 1HP. However, this is also a cursed item. As you continue to float born on Jack's magic,

you feel your body corrupted by something terrible. Maybe influenced by your proximity to this creature, or maybe the magic was lying dormant in this shield all along, just waiting for the moment to pray on your energies. You are forever changed.

Kraloth, so you are hovering, barely clinging to life. What do you do? I open my eyes and I can feel something is strange. The shield feels heavy. The wind feels cold and biting and the sky. has a tint of crimson to it, which wasn't there before. And Kralov hears the shouts of his friends and their footsteps as they run. And he wearily looks down at this creature below him that stares up at him with these black, soulless eyes.

And with his last ounce of strength, he casts his last level four spell of the day, banishment. Okay. You attempt to send one creature that you can see within range to another plane of existence. The target must succeed on a charisma saving throw or be banished. If the target is native to the plane of existence you're on, you banish the target to a harmless demiplane. While there, the target is incapacitated. Whoa.

Good call. Fucking good call. Because I'm almost sure this shit ain't from this plane. What does it look like when you cast this spell, Kralas? It looks strange. The creature begins. begins to flicker almost, and it begins to fight, and its head begins to turn and twist in a million different directions seemingly at once,

as if it's trying to convince something to keep it here. Here we go. Let's do it. I rolled a seven. Fuck yes. Oh! Hail! This creature is banished.

It lets out a howl, something that will haunt you for a long time. And then it is gone. There's a minute where nobody breathes. Doran and Jack are clambering up the other side of the bank, and all of a sudden we hear this scream we turn around, and there's just Kralath alone. Krayloth can feel his consciousness waning as he stares up into the crimson clouds. And as the last of his consciousness fades, he senses that this creature will not be coming back.

Kralath, you are looking up at the night sky. The stars are unfocused, fuzzy points of dim light, impossibly far away. The sound of the river is a dull buzz. You died just a moment ago. You're sure of it. Sickly pain aches deep inside you in your bones. And as you hang suspended in the air, you feel your human body start to grow cold. Oh boy, thank you once again to our wonderful Patreon supporters.

Christopher Ryan Evans, Merlin, Mitchell Cadwell, Michael and Brianna Weber, Colin Burkart, Daniel, Doug, Jessica Orrett, Jonah Goldman, Mary Shian, Lars, and Mary Kaniski. See you soon. Man, what do I want to do? Man, what do I want to do? Man, what do I want to do? Oh, man, what do I want to do? We can find it so all of you. Man, what do I want to do?

Where do you find a sound of rules and her? Well, what do I want to do? When do you find yourself a girl, oh, man, what do I want to do? We can let's him over there to run. Demon is the slaying now. It'd be raining blood. Cray lot's going down, but he's never given up. The fool became the king.

Became a fool now once again. A curse upon our boy. It still may lead him to the end. Man, what do I want to do? Do I want to do, man, what do? I want to do, man, what do?