Dice Shame - 2-197 | 'Chasing Shadows'

Episode Date: June 4, 2026

The final battle to secure Silverymoon is afoot...______________________________________________________________________________________________________________Imagine your best game of D&D. The shocks, the twists and turns, the moments that can’t be caught because you just had to be there. That’s Dice Shame.Join our DM Jo, her husband Harlan, their brother Alex & their friends Nic & Timm as they experience those unmissable, gut-wrenching, heart-aching, joy-filled moments.This legendary AP releases a brand new episode every Thursday morning at 1:20 am!Content Warning: animal death, swearing, violence, claustrophobia Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Now it's kaiju battle. Do you want this creature to die? Heat signature incoming. I'm right there with you, though. He's like doggy paddling. I'm not understanding which ball. He calls his cowards right before he dives. You've got this.

Yeah, well, what was the one that hyagin? Oh, yeah. The mythel falls out, thunk. Oh, I got my mouth. One point shy. Dumbest look on his face. You know, it could have been so easy you. Jack!

Yeah! Welcome back to Dyshame. This is Season 2, Episode 197, Chase Shadows. MVP this week is everyone who attended the first annual Malevolent conference here in Toronto on the 30th of May. It was an absolute blast getting to see everybody and a joy to meet so many people in person for the first time. Thank you, everyone who came. You are this week's MVP. All right, shall we play some D&D?

Yeah, let's do it. So I know we're all just a bunch of nerds, but did any of you guys play sports in high school, like intramurals or like, or in university or something? No. No. Nope. I did do cross country. You did? You know what?

So you did some running. As a nerd, you got to learn how to run. Yeah. Wow. Tell me I'm wrong. Alex, you seem like you would probably be the sportiest of all of us. No, I actually didn't do anything sporty. high school especially.

You did theater sports. Oh yeah, yeah, theater. Well, don't you play like hockey? Wait, if theater counts as a sport, then yeah, I did sports. Yeah, wait a minute. I did theater also in college, and I feel like the theater people would disagree with being labeled to sports. No, no. Our high school was called theater sports, and it was like an improv, like, lunchtime.

Yeah, it was a lunchtime performance. It was just a, oh, it's like a math lead? Is that what we're talking about? Is that the kind of normal thing? Yeah. I got you. I'm a fan. Like, e-sports is sports.

Okay. E-sports is sports. That's different. Joe. Have you seen StarCraft 2? Believe me. We've been watching enough StarCraft 2. That shit's tough.

I have to say that that theater sports was pretty amazing. I was like a celebrity. It was like Friday afternoons in the in the dingy, quiet auditorium. You know, this is like an auditorium from the 70s. It was so. He was a celebrity. Cool. and like just cozy.

I got his autograph. He still made you pay for the tickets as his brother, but got his autograph. My minute claim to fame. Oh my God, is that Alex Gatsy? Is that why they call you the Minuteman? That's odd. Another story.

But really? So cross-country, Tim, did you go to like regional track meets? Yeah, we, that was a big, I did a lot of meets. That's how I spent a bunch of weekends in high school and college and stuff. But there was like a lot of the teamwork because even though you're running on your own,

and I like that part. I'm not responsible for anybody else's game. No one's responsible for my race. It's a very solitary sport in that sense, and I think I appreciated that. You can go on super long runs in cross-country, and I found that very meditative. That's right.

I would be like, what if the Starcraft guys and the Warcraft guys had a fight? And I would just be, and I get a lot of, like, my dungeon mastering world building, just throwing scenarios together while on, like, super long runs. That's great.

Do you still run? I do to some degree still, which I'm very grateful because I busted my knee when I was 26. Oh, no. That's a good, you know, it's something I've never enjoyed. But I would love to. There are some people that enjoy it. Alex is the opposite. He doesn't want to be alone with his thoughts.

No, I'm talking about the running part. I can walk. That's what running is good for is outrunning your thoughts. Yeah. That's what I was doing today. Yeah. What? I was running today and I was like, I'm just going to run faster than I can

think and then I won't have to think anymore. That's what alcohol's for. I don't drink anymore. That's right. That's why I don't need to run. You just obliterate your brain in another way. Cheers. Exercise is a great substance to be on, I got to say.

Yeah. Listen, the chemicals are real. Is it a sport, though? Let's be real. Come on. What is a sport? I'm staying out of it. I have no horse in this race, I assure you.

I did eight years of cross-country and I do not care whether it's a sport or not. I genuinely don't. just being funny. Is horse racing a sport? I don't know. I'm so out of it. Are the horses a sport? I mean, listen, I do feel like sport has, like does have a competitive nature, but then I guess

is cross-country? I mean, you're against other races. It's a race. Yeah, it's got to be the fastest. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fair. And you get points for your team. What was your favorite distance? Oh, the longer, the better, to be honest.

I was more an endurance runner than a speed runner. I'm very constitution-based, not dexterity-based. So I would just like, the longer the run went on, the better I was doing generally, which turns out has a limit. I did a marathon once in my life, and it turns out that my, like, long-distance affinity caps out. It, like, does stop stacking after a certain point. I'm like, the matrix is not working right here.

They need to fix this part. Once you hit 24 miles, or realistically, 20 miles apparently was the limit. Once I hit, I've like, I've done 20 miles before. I hit 20 miles. Every mile after that was like I've never run in my life. That was a revolutionary experience for me. I did not enjoy that too much.

I follow some ultra marathon runners on Instagram, and they run for like 100 miles or kilometers. I don't know. They run like 20 hours, 25 hours in a row. It's crazy. You're following Forrest Gump? I have friends who do that. Yeah, right?

It boggles my mind. I was talking with somebody, just like a colleague, and they casually mentioned that they just came back from, like, they were like a little out of breath. They just came back from like a 75 kilometer bike ride. I was like, what? I'm like, what? What do you mean you wrote 70? Foggles of mine. I guess it depends how fast you're going.

I guess, I get, whatever, whatever, you know, I have no internal metric for biking, like how long that was. That's the tricky thing for me. Yeah, I can't really transit. If they're going 75 kilometers an hour, I guess it'd probably take them about... One hour. I want to say it was something absurd. I'd have been hundreds. I don't remember, but it was like...

What? They travel about 30 miles an hour, give or take, depending on, like, if you're going up or downhill. What's that in Canadian? That's like 50K. Here's the other question. Here's the follow-up question, right? Comometers.

Camometers? Comometers? What's that word? Cabobometers? Ammometers? Camelmators? Well, here's the follow-up question. Carbopolis. You're not, you're not in, like, you're not in a car traveling on a highway. So are you just taking back roads for 75 kilometers? Like, that's also, like, where are you traveling from and two? Do you just go,

you know, 37 kilometers into one direction and then turn around and come back? Have you never heard of the bicycle highway? Yeah. I mean, yeah, you just, you find a road that's relatively friendly to bikes and you just go until you're done and then you come back. And there's some trails sometimes. That's what I mean, but like to go 75 kilometers, I suppose my point. Tim, did you prefer an out and back or a circuit?

I guess when you're doing really long, long trips, it's easier to go out and back. I would have for interest's sake always prefer a circuit. I actually cared about that a lot and you're triggering something emirizing out of it because out and backs were 90% of like what we would do. It was just much

easier to plot out and out and back at the end of the day. And a circuit just had other like factors you had to kind of take into account. So usually we do out and backs. But I'm like, oh, now every step I take, I know I'm going to be seeing this again. And I would rather be fresh and interesting. Treadmills were abominable to me because the idea of not seeing more stuff as I'm running was like, that defeats the purpose. You got to watch a movie. What about a treadmill with a VR headset?

God, at that point, go outside. I mean, yes, I think it took me a long time to imagine a TV, like, is an obvious solution to it. I was running on the treadmill when Harlan and I were on our cruise, and that is something else. Like being on a treadmill, on a ship at sea that is rocking back and forth, because you get to see, like, the waves and, like, the clouds going by and stuff. But also with the... Yeah, it does kind of, like, run.

rock you side to side, you kind of had to get your sea legs all over again. I thought you were going to say that you felt like you were powering the boat. You know, like you're running and that's why the boat is going for. Yeah. Yeah, kind of. Because the gym was at the front of the ship, right? It very much does feel like you're making it go.

Hell yeah. This was an idea I had that I also saw in a Black Mirror episode. Great start. That was like, okay, if people that go to the gym, right? Like, why don't they just hook every single bicycle at the gym, why don't they hook it up to like a generator? Imagine. Have you seen...

Black Mirror? Have you seen those? There's a sidewalk in Tokyo, I believe, in Japan. They have a section of a very populated, like high foot traffic area. Yeah. And it's constantly generating kinetic energy. That's cool. What do they do with it?

I think that they put into hamster wheels to power the hamster wheels. Yeah. It's reverse. Yeah. We power hamster wheels. The hamsters, they just relax and go round and round. I mean, it's not really relaxing. They're pinned to the outside of the hamsterness.

They're going pretty fast. And when there's a lot of foot traffic, the centrifugal force is just outrageous. Hamster jam. But the nails that keep them in place don't hit any bones. There you go. There you go. Just through flesh. Most of them, you know.

Most of them survive. Most, but definitely not all. They're never the same, though. Listen. They have that look. You know that look that those hamsters get? Yeah, that thousand yard stair. A thousand yard hamps, that a thousand miles stair.

That's good. A hamster's been broken. It doesn't matter because it's a hamster and therefore not valuable. That is not valuable life. Oh, it deserved it. It was racist. It was a racist hamster. I'm a detective.

I've been working this case for a long time. Nothing like our anti-Semitic gerbil, but woo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Damn. Anyway. Speaking of racist, let's play Dungeons and Dragons! He can't be out to spendycasters.

You are in the dock ward in pursuit of the drow thief who has stolen Silvery Moon's mythal and having come across her hiding place, you are interrupted by the entering of a fire sign. Oh boy. Wittitt's helmet is.

like heat signature incoming and like he turns and sees the thing heading his way and like you see the infrared of his helm first this bright thing heading toward him the fire salamander slides quickly through the streets and right up to you witted and then tries to slash out at you with its tail whips at you with this fiery appendage uh 21 to hit you 21 is one point shy of hitting Widdid's armor class of 22 in all. Look at that. Just being like all arms going off as you almost pierced the arm. Yeah, yeah.

And then sort of coming back around on the other side with this wicked looking half moon spear tries to skewer you through the top. This is a large creature. 16 to hit, no. The spirit clangs loudly against the cobblestones underfoot. Witted, it's now your turn. Okay, this changes with his turn immensely. He had been charging up the gravity gun

when this guy came racing around the corner and slammed into him. The gravity gun just depowers again. it's been fairly charged up. And his other steady sidearm, the other arm instead kind of pushes at the chest of this salamander. And just as I would be, even with my heat resistant, taking like a point of damage, instead I launch a thunderwave spell at this guy point blank into his chest. Yeah. Saving throw. Yeah.

I'm trying to throw him backward. Get at it. I'm rolling. nonsense tonight. So, badly, I rolled up two for the concept to total four.

Do you want this creature to die? And that was not a melee attack, right? You don't have to touch the salamander for the thunder waves. Not at all. It was purely aesthetic

to like even put my hand near his chest. Fabulous. Fabulous. How much damage do we take and how far away are you pushing him? It was 10 points of thunder damage and in theory,

I believe I am pushing him back 10 feet. Yeah, the salamander is rocked. It slides back across the pavement and almost into the drink. As soon as I'm out of melee with this guy, assuming he has never reached of like 15 feet, I just sort of jet up into the air and start hovering above Duren over here. Take Reggie with me.

Ten foot reach, so you are good, yeah. Yeah, I was just barely 15. 15 feet away after the 10 foot push. Nice, well played. Wow. And that'll be the end of my turn. Tamil, you are up riding a spider. Tamil is wrestling with the spider.

She's trying to figure out, you know, all she wants to do is keep this drow in whatever form she's in. So I think that what she does is she raises a fist. She kind of leans back a little bit. She bangs her chest twice, and I'm going to cast enlarge on myself. Nice. To give myself. That's great.

Yeah, to take away the size advantage of this large spider. So cool. Power Ranger battle. Okay, okay. Yes, it is a power. Yes. Oh, it is very happy. Make a morphine time.

Make it morphine. Wob, wub, wub, wub. Now it's kaiju battle. Now it's kaiju time. And Joe, I rolled for the, you know, that like the athletics to stay on, can this reinitiate the grapple? I'd love to just kind of get this spider's speed down to zee. zero again. Let's do it. Absolutely. Amazing. Fuck. I gotta show you guys these fucking rolls. It's outrageous. I rolled a five, so literally

whatever you do, you win, I'm sure. And I think that totally makes sense. Temeel, you are enormous, and Spider, although big, is not like a heavy dude. Spider, although big. Spider. While big, spider. Not heavy. Dude. While big, spider. Spider big. Spider no dense.

I'm right there with you, though. Glad that we have the chance to really appreciate my vocabulary tonight. Yeah, you are able to resume grappling this spider. Eight legs versus four humanoid appendages. You are the clear Victor here. Victor? Enlarge was an action. We're grappling for free because fun.

To me, what else? Then once she feels. like she's got this thing still or still enough for the moment. She will look over at Doran and she'll shout, you've got this. I know you're close combat, but you can kill this

last one here. I'll give him a bardic inspiration as well. See, my vocabulary also sucks. Um, cool. Red, it's your turn. Red looks the drow in his eye and says, you know, it could have been so easy you. Jack!

And he goes invisible. It's a bonus action. Red uses nature's veil to go invisible. Hell yeah. He will use his feline agility to appear 45 feet away on another pillar. And then he'll spin around and invisibly attack. Now, I don't want to rain on your parade, Temeel. Yeah. But I probably would try to hit that drow that you're riding unless you want to keep her down.

No, no, no, my whole thing is getting her in a position where we can take her down easily. So if you've got the shot, take it. Is this pillar blocking line of sight? Now you're good. If they were smaller creatures, yeah, but these are big boys. Come on, kaiju battle. You can see them? That's what I'm saying.

Tamil's a giant lady now. Wait, did they get closer? Or are they bigger farther away? Additionally, I want to get her down to one HP. I don't want to kill her. I want to question. Sounds great. We're doing non-lethal damage.

Non-lethal damage. For the killing blow. Yeah. For now, let's attack. Wow. With advantage, that was a natural one and a three. Finally, someone else. Maybe there's like weird juju in this room.

I don't remember if this, I don't know what your modifier is, but you do have a bardic inspiration for attack rolls. Oh, let's do it. Okay, so I'll take the three. My modifier is. She's humanoid. Yeah, I mean, she's transformed into a spider, but she's still classified as a humanoid. So that's a plus six, brings it up to, what, nine, and then what's the bardic? And D8.

So if I roll eight on this, maybe, no, you know what, I'll save it, and I'll just attack again. Okay. I get two attacks. I'll call that a miss, and Red will attack again. 30-20 to hit. Absolutely. Nice. And she's been damaged.

Yes. I'm going to use my Colossus Slayer again. Do it, Red. Wow. Okay. 35 damage. Fuck yeah. Nice.

As the arrow sinks into the back of her. Yeah, Tamil, you're sprayed with like a plume of spider juice as Red's arrow finds its home. Oh, I caught my mouth. Oh, and I remain invisible until the start of my next turn. Beautiful. Very cool. Let's see. This spider is grappled.

She could just give up and give over the thing. And go home in peace. We won basically. She's going to pee. She has to pee here. Go home in peace or go home in pieces. She's got some spells. Nice.

Or go home and pisses. Her spider legs twitch and she utters a mouth full of arcane hatred. And she is trying to cast witch bolt on you. I make a ranged spell attack. against you, which I will do now. And then what? Which bolt? This bolt.

I'm not understanding which bolt. That bolt. That bolt. Which bolt? Please, please, please, please, please don't roll bullshit. God damn it. A 12. If only those numbers were reversed.

No, 12 does not hit. Wow. Yeah, this arc of lanced blue energy just fires off into the sky and the spider screams in anger. Just smit and this can all be over. Her huge hairy legs just scrabble around on the stonework underneath you and then she turns her arachnid head and looks at you. and she turns back into a dress.

And there you are, huge Temeel, pinning down this drow woman. And she says, maybe you're right. It's the drow warriors turns. Doran, one of them is menacing you. It is going to attack you with a short sword. What that? Fucking 11. Okay.

Doren's going to use a reaction. Fabulous. When you miss. Uh-huh. Get it. 17 to hit. Oh, I'm going to use Bartik Inspiration for this. 22 to hit.

Yeah, absolutely. Oh, yeah. Thank you for that Bartik inspiration, Nick. Yeah. That's going to be 28 points of damage. Nice. Nice. Yeah.

Executing is. Fear tactical error. The drow gives it like an all-in lunge with a short sword, exposing his side. And as you dance nimbly away and chop back in with orc splitter, you get him right in the liver and he goes down hard. Doran does the same spin he did on the same guy the first time the guy stepped into his space.

You just did the exact same thing. And he hacked him like right now. half, this time hitting his spine as well as his liver. He needs those to live. Not the liver. And you took them away from him. Sensing that the battle is sort of turning, not in his favor, the drought warrior that was standing on top of the cart who jumped up there to attack Red is going to do a classic

hero maneuver called Create a Ball of Dark. and then escape. Classic. Yeah, yeah. So casting magical darkness, he creates this sphere of magical shadow, impenetrable from

everyone's eyes. And, yeah, you're not sure. Then we hear a large splash. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not sure where he goes, but it's probably in the water. He calls his cowards right before he died. I just see him swimming away

in the background. She's like doggy paddling. That's pretty much it, right? Seltie, salty. That's very funny. It's back on the dock further out and gets in a boat. Cowards! I'll get you next time.

Doren, it's your turn. Robs are so wet. All right, Doreen, it's your turn. Dorn very dramatically runs up to where Tamil is holding down this drow and sort of stands there panting and waiting for the rest of the group to join. Cool, yeah, you dash up, ready yourself

for whatever comes next. Stephen. Stephen jumps out from the side alley and faces down the salamander with a look in his eyes, as if this goat has killed a thousand salamanders in a previous life. It bows its head ever so,

lightly and the salamander has never seen something so terrifying. I want to roll intimidation. The salamander looks down the alley towards the goat and like this alien puzzlement crosses its features. I rolled a 15 plus. What's goat charisma? Listen, Stephen's got at least a five charisma for. Can you even use Reds-Bardick?

Yeah, yeah. I'm going to add Reds-Bardic inspiration to this role. That makes, Stephen. Rolls a 22 Intimidate. And he just stares down this salamander. What's Stephen's bonus?

The salamander's tail whips once. And Stephen's tail flicks in response. And after a tense moment, Stephen barrels forward towards the salamander at full speed. screaming at the top of its lungs. Yeah. It's the salamander's turn. There's a moment where we're not sure

if he's going to stand resolute or not until Stephen comes within like bleating range of him. And then he turns tail literally and slithers away as fast as he possibly can. And all we see is this projected, low angle shadow of the two of them in an alleyway. Yes.

And sound effects. And then five minutes later, Stephen just trots back blood all over. I was going to say he's like chewing on a finger. Dumbest look on his face, but man. Oh, so stupid. Bloody. So dumb.

Yeah. Different directions. Red's invisibility fades away as he walks up to giant Temeel. Oh. Hey, hey. Hi. You really are this big up close. Temeel, without really saying anything, she's still pretty big.

She's going to grab this drow woman by the ankle. by one of her ankles. She's going to lift her up and she's just going to start shaking until the thing falls out. And then when the thing falls out, she'll kind of like catch it. And then Tameel sets her back down on the ground,

roughly. Yeah. I told you it was going to end this way. You should have talked. Now we're in a bad mood to talk. What do you need to know? Obviously, Duke Zaltow hired you to get rid of this thing, but you said there was another client.

And it wasn't the kind of client I was excited about. There are many factions interested in silver and... Yeah, well, what was the one that hired you? What do you know of the outer plains? Outer planes? Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Well, we know a bit.

Red shoots a nervous look to Temeel and then to Witted. She smiles up at you through like... She's got like some broken teeth from where she hit the ground hard and like some blood leaking out of her mouth. when she was like, there is a place where only shadow exists. And the queen of that realm would have Fyroon for her own. And I am one of her prized lieutenants. If you do not let me go, she will send her wrath to you. And you, you would have thanked me for death.

Red draws his bow. Bring it on, and he loses an arrow between her eyes. You all saw that. She had a gut. She was going to shoot me. The mythel falls out. You put a dagger in her hand and close her palm around. She was coming at me.

You all saw. You know, I can't help but feel like reading the names of the Patreon supporters is becoming longer than the episodes themselves. So, I'm gonna try something a little different here and use some magic. We would like to thank our Patreon supporters. Lita J. Christopher, Colin Burkhardt, Merlin, Adam Frey, J.D. Liz, Merrick's Moon, Rithan Reed, Trin, Lorelei Feltman, Scotty, Haley, Haley, Haley, Haley, Kass, Nicky, Brooke, Bendinelli, Nerd Fairy, Luna Demaria, Sray 96, Moon, Shannon Robinson, Pan, Mizra, Abby, Gareth-Bratch, A-Manderer Pan's,

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Bein-Boay Gavre, Dead Pixelfish, Sugar, PogarMil, Pogarmi-San-Kahooney, Don Patricklose-Coooo-Koo-Kee-TRew, Me. Mitch, Nat, Jeruski-Septic, Mildly Chaotic, Valentine May, and Loma, Crafty Plans, Just a bunch of rats, Pred Jinji, Corgi Blu, Worm Priest, Bronwyn Moore, Ravicle Raven, Lina, Jonathan Lepensky, Sunflower, Librarian, Libran, Taylor, Zean on Hexa, Jules, Robin, Tony, Joel Lyft, Benny, Berger Valentine's, Dan Melchimer, Ere, Ere, Erena, possibly Eden. Oh my goodness, I don't know if I could have done it much faster than that, so

I'm gonna go lie down. We'll see you next episode, bye-bye.