Dice Shame - 31 | 'In the Line of Fire'

Episode Date: May 14, 2020

A formidable foe stands between the party and their destination… 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.

Doran, this is just like that legend. He died. Oh! But I won't. You had some awful luck today. Coward, you retreat like a scared child. Jeez, I better get inside. You're ridiculous.

You've got fire out of your mouth. What are you even doing? We are adventurers? Where do you need us? I feel suddenly empowered. I am the cleric. It's my birthday. All right.

One birthday cake, Maurice. Doren, now a stone door. Where he used to be the brass door. Iron. An iron door. It's your last name. Welcome back to Dyshame, Episode 31 in the Line of Fire. This week's MVP is Rob on Twitter at Crack and Jacked for his kind review and awesome appreciation for what we do here.

Thanks a lot, Rob. Thanks, Rob. This week we want to give a special shout out to our patrons at the undefeated tier that contributed. contribute $10 and up every single month. Their support has been immeasurable, so thank you so much to Alexei Ozoroff, Bjorn Richard Peterson, Brandon Sassoli, Brianna Weber, Christopher, Colin Burkhart, Eric Johnson, Jessica Orrett, Joseph, Katie Poupornthong,

Kellan Holman, Marvin Tanner, Megan Shepardson, Mitchell Caldwell, Nighttide, Rob Donaldson, and Terry Erickson. so much, everyone. All right, let's get down to business. Let's do it. So, guys, there's a fire giant striding confidently toward you. It's got some creature trotting along in its side. You're a little bit too far away to determine what that is, because, again, 250 feet.

Hmm. I would love to roll a perception. Okay. Two. Ooh. It's a fire giant. Krayloff is also going to squint his eyes and see if he can make anything out. 18.

As the creature continues to walk toward you, you note that this fire giant has something long tucked into its belt. It appears to be gray in color. You would estimate that this item is probably about four feet long, and it has two prongs on one end. Two prongs on one end. What kind of prongs? Talking like a fork prong? Yeah. Does it look like a digging implement?

No. Maybe it's a fork. Maybe it just came back from lunch. It's about 220 feet away from you now. So you guys are starting to move back while it continues to walk forward towards you? Yes. I think we're going to keep 250 feet as far as we can. In a big booming magical voice using minor illusion, Jack's going to shout out,

hold friend. Is this bridge going to be big enough for the both of us? In giant, I presume? In giant, yeah. Key words being here, friend. Seeing what Jack is doing, Krayloff is going to cast guidance on him, and they'll roll a 1D4 to any charisma checks. The giant stops moving forward for just a moment, and you see it peer at you from your distance, and it shouts back at you. This is a giant-sized bridge, big enough for me.

And it starts walking again. Maybe just tell it we just want to pass without any interference. We don't want any trouble, but you seem a little threatening. Do you mean to hurt us? Can I roll insight on his reaction? On the fire giant's reaction? Yeah. Yeah, sure.

If it is the will of Surtur, you will come with me. Oh, he's trying to take us captain. Interesting. Surtur. What was your insight role? 21. Yeah, you get the idea that he's interested in either murdering you or taking you hostage. It's got this tool on its belt that has two prongs.

it might be something to capture things with. Could it be something that's used to capture humanoids around the neck? Hard to tell. You know when Planet of the Apes can we fucking guide those things? A man catcher. Exactly. Hmm. New plan? Well, if you kill us, we won't tell you

where we saw fire giant bury something. He just walks towards you. Oh, yeah? Look, I think we want to find out what this giant knows. Why don't we attack it until it's within an inch of its life and then question it? I like that plan. Roll for initiative.

Oh, honk. Red. 17. Doran. 14. Jack. 23. And Kralath.

14 as well, and I'll go after Doran. So kind. I am the cleric. Jack, it's your turn. I feel it's tingling all over my skin, and I look around and land on Doran and have an idea. I walk over to him and touch him. And first, this, it's this feeling. It's not an arcane spell like I've cast before.

It's this tingling from beyond. And at first, Jack's skin turns to stone and, like, gets chalky and ashy in granite. And then as he touches Doran, Doren's skin turns to stone. And you feel yourself just armored as if made of granite resistant to non-magical attacks. Wow. So you take half damage for all physical attacks. Nice. And then bludging or slashing.

Excellent. What spell is this? So it's stone skin. And I think at the same time, as that flows out of Jack and onto Doren, he says that little prayer from before about making your, you know, being hewn from stone, but keeping your heart soft that prayer that he remembered from this stone giant temple. That should protect you a little bit. Thank you very much, Jack.

I feel suddenly empowered. I don't move 30 feet back. And Doren steps right in the middle of the... bridge and stands his ground. Now a massive stone door where he used to be the brass door. Iron. Iron door. It's your last name. Brass.

Iron fist. It's not very hard. Whereas I used to be the iron door, I am now the stone door. The fire giant's turn, he starts running. 60 feet. Red, what do you do? You see this fire giant just start pumping his arms and legs taking these mighty strides. He starts running at you, still far away, but gaining. Red pulls out his bow and pulls back. And then he turns over his shoulder and says,

Jack, magic arrows on these guys. Um, what's my gut feel? Do I think this thing is going to have a magical defense? You don't know. Would you like to roll? I'd love to roll, yeah. I have information on Giants too. Well, then why did you ask Jack? I'm going to roll for information then. I got two-fifteenth. Nice. So what's that? A 14. Oh, okay. Um, with a four. On your information check? Intelligence, yeah. There's no reason that you think that you would need to bypass

any kind of magical resistance. And then I'm going to pull back and I am going to fire. I guess it has taken a round in combat so I do not have advantage on it. Correct. I'm going to use ash on this one. I'm going to take a penalty to it as well.

22 to hit? Yes, you hit. 20 damage. All right. Do you do anything else? I'm going to talk again. Same hit. This time I'm going to do Colossus Slayer damage

since it is below its max HP, I assume. And I'm going to take this out of penalty as well. No, that misses. And then I'm going to use my feline agility to move 60 feet back. Your arrow flies off the bridge. And some farmer, a mile away, is just like out in his field. And he's like, oh, rain and arrows again. Oh, I'm so ignorant.

I like that. It's the danger of living near this bridge, eh? Raining arrows again. It's the medium-sized quadrupedal creature's turn. The giant whistles, and this creature runs 100 feet. Whoa, it's going to come up. All right, so you can start to see now that the creature is gaining on you guys. This is looking like a wolf-type creature, but it's dully smoking.

What do you do, Doren? Doren with his thick skin, stand still. and, well, I was going to fire his crossbow, I guess. I mean, there's not really much I can do from a distance. And so I will, with a nine to hit. You miss. Sorry. The farmer's like, oh, geez, I better get inside.

Kralath, it's your turn. What do you do? Kralath is going to cast aid as a level three spell. Three creatures within range, I'm going to increase hit points. So because I have a feeling that red is going to be the furthest away, I'm not going to cast it on you. I'm going to cast aid on Doran, myself, and Jack, which means that we are all going to get plus 10 to our hit point maximum for eight hours. Cool. And you get those extra 10 HP?

Yeah. Cool. So you guys each feel rejuvenated and bolstered. Wow. Thick skin and plus 10 HP. Jack, it's your turn. You're standing in the middle of this bridge, the wind buffeting you as these two creatures charge.

Jack's got one more trick up his sleeve. Just one? Just, well, he's got one more he's going to use right now. He looks at Doran and sees this, like, giant trundling forward and thinks, man, if he gets tossed off, we're in trouble. And so he pulls out the orb and spins it a little bit. Doran, so long as you're willing, you begin to hover. You can levitate.

You can move up a day. down at a certain amount. So if you get tossed off, you're not falling to your tombs. Oh, look at this. I'm like the ultimate warrior. Thanks to my teammates here. And what's best about all of this is

this is on the bridge where Morrigan fought the hill giant. And here you are, Doran, versus the fire giant. Actually, I'm sorry, but it's a little, you got the history bit wrong. It was Torild that died fighting the hill giant. So Red's like, Red's like, oh, Oh, Doran, this is just like that legend against the guy. And Doran's like, he, he died.

Oh. But I won't, thanks to my companions. I screwed up because Stone Skin requires concentration and so does levitate. Oh, can't do both. Yeah, I wouldn't have done levitate had I known it would fuck up Stone Skin. I think I'm going to ready an action to as soon as that that wolf gets within, you know, a reasonable distance. I'm going to hit it with my magic missiles. What's a reasonable distance?

Let's call it 70 feet. What's the range on it? 120. Maybe so once it gets into range? Sure. Okay. Red, it's your turn. Should I be continually targeting the giant or should I try to peck off this little runner?

To me, I'm thinking giant. If I keep going on the giant, but what do you guys think? If you, yeah, if you keep firing on the giant, then once the little guy gets up close, then we can... That's my thinking. You guys focus fire the giant. Let's do it. Focus your fire on the giant. Oh, right.

Then I'm going to roll again. I will do it with my penalty. That is a 21 to hit. You hit easily. That is going to be 21 damage. Okay. And I'm going to attack again. Do it.

Again for a penalty. Oh, I do not get to add my Colossus slayer to this next attack. 22 to hit. You hit? How much damage? 25 damage. Okay, nice. And I'm going to move 30 feet back.

It's the hound's turn. This hound. runs forward 100 feet. You see it now, Doran, clearly, as it's only about 40 feet in front of you. Yeah. This hound has fire in its eyes, literally. Literally fire. As it opens its mouth, this bright orange tongue lulls out and smoke pours out of its nostrils as it pants running towards you. We've got, we've got a fiery one here. I holler back to the group. So Rob, I think that triggers your action, right? Yeah, so we're going to light this thing up with magic missiles. I think we're going to goose it with the little bit of extra force, and we're going to change them.

They're not force missiles. They're ice arrows. They're these beautiful, pristine arrows of ice reflecting this beautiful, brilliant light across the bridge sailing towards this ridiculous creature. Ridiculous? I don't know. Yeah, ridiculous. You're ridiculous. You've got fire out of your mouth. What are you even doing? Ridiculously scary. So the first one, 12-19. damage from the first one. Okay. The second one, seven damage, and the third one is 12 damage. The hound yelps in pain. Yelp! Does it look like when these bolts of ice slam into this thing, does it look like that's done anything special? Or is it just...

Roll a perception check? I would love to. 17. You don't think that it suffered any extra damage. Cool. Doran, it's your turn. I'll move back. How far are you moving? My 25 feet.

Coward. You retreat like a scared child. I see what you're doing there. I'm not affected by it. It's okay. I've got thick skin. In fact, it's stone skin. I'm going to shoot my arrow, and that's going to miss.

And then I'm going to use Commander Strike. Red, let one of your arrows fly. Go for the giant. And you're going to add eight. Nice. To that maximum damage to me. All right, buddy. I think I might use my inspiration on this.

this one. It's got eight extra points of damage. I get to do my Colossus Slayer, so I'm... Yeah, don't let it go to waste. I'm going to use my inspiration. Laity Trot. Make it hit. Make it hit. Here we go. I'm rolling ash along with one of my old boys. 21

to hit. Nice. 21 hits. That is going to be 37 damage. Thank you, Don. The arrow screams past everyone's heads aimed perfectly over the hound directly into the Giant's neck.

Sing! A spurt of hot blood launches into the air. Like fiery hot? Yeah. You know what I think of when that happens? Like, I can't even think of what would make that. What am I? I don't know what you think of.

Good sentence. It's almost like, okay, when the arrow goes in to his neck, it's almost like a magma, like a little volcano. Ew, mini eruption. Mini erection. Craylon. I got to cast a bless on Doran, Jack, and my son. And that's going to give us a 1D4 added to our attacks.

Oh, my God. Is that a concentration spell? It is. So I'm going to be sacrificing my bull's strength enhanceability so that Doren can have this ability. That's nice of you. Wow. You guys are like, oh, doing me all sorts of.

Okay, good luck. So it's, you better not get thrown off the bridge. So is this a plus four to my attack roll? D4. So whenever you roll a D20, you roll a D4 as well. And then you add that to the result. To the attack roll, not the damage. To the attack roll, yes.

Okay. Yeah, I'll move back. 15 feet. Jack, it's your turn. Jack reaches into his backpack and pulls out the decanter of endless water and pulls out the stopper. And is standing five feet behind Doran and is looking forward down this thing, got it pointed. And as soon as that, whatever creature it is comes running gets within 30 feet, he's going to blast it with a gusher water. Cool.

All right. It's the Giants turn. going to be stupid and run 60 feet forward. I mean, it doesn't seem to have any ranged weapons, so it's just charging you guys. It's getting close. It is getting close. I have an idea. What about if we just use rope to tie me to someone or something? Is there anything on the bridge that could be tied as smooth? Smooth as a dwarf's bottom. What do you mean tie yourself to the... Well, I'm looking at Krala thinking, I've got a 50-foot rope in my backpack. If I tie high it to my waist and your waist,

Krayloth, and I get thrown. You mean like anchor yourself to a person? Anchor myself to Kralat. You don't even have to tell Kralat. Just walk up behind him and tie it to his belt. Well, he's 20 feet away for me right now. I'd have to toss on the rope. But DM, you tell me, would that be fair? I've got a 50 feet

of rope, five feet to tie around me, five feet to tie around him. That gives us 40 feet distance. Certainly. So interacting with an object that you have, like getting an object out of your backpack, that's an action. What's the likelihood that I'm going to get tossed. It's not very high right now, I don't think.

And if I am, and I am. And if you are, you get a 1D4 as well to your saving throw. That's true. Let's screw it, forget about it. I do like it, though. And you'd be funny, too, if you did tie it around, like, Creeloth's waist and you got thrown, he jumps off the other side of the bridge. I was thinking that.

You guys follow each other around the bridge. And then we, like, high five in the middle. Yeah. I love the visual idea of it. Red, it's your turn. I am going to fire up a giant. Wait, I'm going to a giant at the fire. Wait, I'm going to shoot a narrow at the fire giant.

All right, I'm going to fire with my sharpshooter penalty. 18 a hit. That hits. 24 damage. Dossum damage, for sure. And I'm going to attack again. Okay. Same dealio minus Colossus Slayer.

No, that does not hit. And I will move 30 feet back. Okay. So the hound races forward, and when it gets, 30 feet away from you, Jack. What happens? So Jack's staring down the barrel of this bridge at the thing, and he shouts

Geyser from at the top of his lungs, and this decanter just starts pushing out gallons and gallons and gallons of water. And this thing needs to make me a strength saving throw. Okay. Geyser sounds. That's a four.

So it will take 1d4 bludgeoning damage, which is one and fall prone. Should tie yourself to it. Now they kick it off. Oh, shit. I'm going to finish taking my action now. That was one of its move actions. The hound stands up for half of its movement, shakes itself off, and closes the distance between Doren and itself.

I picture it's like steaming. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Steam bath? Yeah. It's a dark black, medium-sized wolf-looking creature. It's pretty big for a wolf, and it's got this unruffly fire burning in its eyes. Doran, it's your turn. Doran attacks the hound.

Does Doran recognize what this animal is? Would you like to roll a nature check? Is that going to cost me an action? Nope. Yeah, let's roll a nature check. That's going to be a nine. Yeah, you're not really sure. Nine!

It's probably a fiend of some kind. This is not like a mundane creature. I don't really hesitate, and I attack it using my D4 add-on. Let's see, that means it's 11. You miss. Obviously. Obviously. So I attack again.

So that is. And 19. You hit. Okay. Excellent. Doing 13 damage. Nice. My axe collides with the neck.

Yeah. It starts bleeding all over the place. Kralath, what do you do? All right. So I am going to cast spiritual weapon behind the wolf. This radiant scythe appears out of nowhere and swings at the wolf. Okay. So that's going to be a nine to hit.

No, sir. Nine. And I'm going to, can I help Doren as an action? Yeah, you can. You have to be within melee range of the creature you are interfering with, if that makes sense. I'm going to move next to Doren. Okay, and you're going to help him? And I'm going to help him.

So Doren, your next attack action gets advantage. Nice. And Kralov has this moment of hesitation where he, He wants to help Doran in this combat, but as he moves beside him to get within range of this wolf or this hound, he just briefly glances over the side and immediately is hit with this, this wooziness, just looking at the amount of space between him and the ground. And he wonders how many D6s he'll be taking if he falls. You have that like jaws shot? The vertigo. Maybe your foot goes near the edge and just a pebble.

It disappears in like seconds. Jack, it's your turn. Jack blast the thing with the geyser again as a bonus action. So let's see if it can stay on its feet. Oh yeah, that's a 16. It stays on its feet. So then Jack uses his other hand that's not on the geyser to sort of try and call the soul out of this thing.

He tolls the dead. Wisdom safe? That's the one, yeah. 20. And seeing both of those, he at least feels, he can feel this connection of the magic he's doing to maintain Doren's skin safely and like steps carefully back 30 feet. Did you almost do a curse word? Nah, that's all I got. The giant races forward 60 feet.

Red, it's your turn. I am going to attack again with Ash at a negative five penalty. No. which is fair because I've been rolling really well so far but that does not hit and we'll do it again same deal you

Natural 20 I did it and that was on Ash I did it good son of a bitch I'm so good I'm so happy I'm so happy

I'm so happy okay give me that dice so we have 37 damage you hit the giant in his hand and he shakes it

out of this wound and a shower of hot blood rains over this bridge, much like maybe it did centuries ago. So I have a move, but before I move, I just want to know if I can roll a perception on the creature to see maybe how damaged it is. The reason being is I don't think we should kill this creature outright. Okay. I think when we get it low enough,

I'd love to try to find an opportunity to question it. Non-lethal? Exactly. Yeah. Do some non-lethal damage. Roll perception check. We won't know that until. Nope.

But I shout out to the other guys. It's down quite a bit, but we want to make sure that we don't kill it just yet. I want to question this bastard. And I'm going to move another 30 feet back. Sounds like a good idea. I holler back to Red. So the dog, this fiend, lays its ears back against its skull, opens its mouth wide, and exhales a cone of fire. I want both Kraloth and Doran to make a dexterous.

dirty saving throw. Now a cone. It's like a thing you put an ice cream in. Okay. Sweet. What did you guys get? I got a 20. Wow. Whoa. Good job. I know. That's minus one. Dirty. So dexterous.

And mine's an eight. Doreen, you take 16 fire damage and Kralov, you take eight. Now, because this is fire damage, unfortunately, you were taking all of that damage, Doren. You answered my question before I got it. Yeah, you have resistance to

bludgeoning, piercing, slashing damage. Physical. Yes. Are we on fire, though? No. Not actively. That'd be cool, though. Do you guys want to be on fire?

Well, he has the decanter endless water that you can just spray all over. No, we don't. We don't want to be on fire. Doren, it's your turn. Doren attacks. And he says that out loud. You have advantage because I'm helping you for this. Oh, right.

That's right. Doren attacks, he says. Yeah. Oh, fuck. I hit 18, 22. 21, 28. Nice. That'll do it.

And then I attack, my damage is that. Seven. Seven. Do I add anything to that? Yeah. You wouldn't think we played 30 episodes to this. So seven, but I'm not really. You don't add your proficiency modifier to your damage.

No, I didn't. Well, I'm doing my attack. How much damage did you do? Seven damage. Seven. Cool. 14 to hit? No.

The beast in front of me? Nope. No, it dodges out of the way. Kray Loth. Kralov is going to move. He's going to disengage from the wolf and move 30 feet towards Jack away from the giant, wishing Doren the best of luck. And...

Crying for his mommy. Then as his bonus action, he is going to use his spiritual weapon, make an attack against the hound. That's going to be a 16 to hit. Oh, yeah. All right. And it is going to take four points of damage. Yipe!

Jack, it's your turn. Jack pulls out his magic orb and goes to throw it at this fire giant, charging up the bridge, and the orb never leaves his hand, and yet this giant ball starts growing in the air, not one of fire, but a ball of ice and snow and slush that slams, hopefully, into the face of this thing and a big explosive bunch of shards as he throws a big ice ball at this thing. I get to make a deck save. You do make a deck save. You're looking for 15. I got a 16. Well, you're going to take half of this and there's an awful lot of ones there. Don't love it.

I love it. Uh, so it's 20, but half of that is 10 ice damage. And after I'm done throwing this ball of ice, I move 30 feet back. Okay. It's the fire giants turn. It's going to use this full movement to get up right behind where the fiery. hound is. It cannot share space with its friend. So it's going to just be directly behind this dog friend. Dog friend. Rof waf! Wraff! Wra! Friendly dog. Thanks. Thanks, Alex. More like a fiery hound. Red, it's your turn. The giant is about 100 feet away from me now. I'm going to move up so that I'm within 90 feet and I'm going to cast as a bonus action my hunter's mark. Lovely.

Then I'm going to roll again with my sharpshooter penalty. Miss, miss, miss, miss. 18 a hit. Yeah, you hit. That was my spell. Your prayers were not answered. 24 damage. Wow.

Good. Good stuff. I'm going to talk again. I am looking to see when this giant is about to go down. If you deal enough damage to kill it and I say, oh, it's dead, you can just be like, oh, sorry, that was not lethal damage. I'm never going to make you kill something. Excellent. Okay.

I am going to roll again. Same penalty minus Colossus Slayer now, because I just used it. 19 a hit. That'll hit. That was max on my damage die as well. 31 damage. Almost down, but not quite. It is this dog's turn.

Woof! He's going to try to bite Doran with a nine. That's a miss. This is how Doran talks to it. Doran, it's your turn. You missed. And then Doran, I'm going to attack it straight up. 20 to hit.

Yes. And then eight damage. Okay. I'm going to attack the hound one more time. Okay. With a 20. Yeah. And doing 12 damage.

Okay. You chop off the head of this fiery dog. And the head goes off one side and the body flops lifeless in front of me. Yeah. It's like smoking and puffing. You want to do anything else? I'm going to attack the giant. You know what?

Using my action search. Cool. Okay. You run up five feet. Hey, yeah. I say. And I rolled shit, so I'm going to re-roll that using my luck. Doran, this is your moment.

This is you get to redeem yourself on top of the bridge here. All of Dwarfkind is watching you. Moradin is looking down. This is your moment on top of the bridge with a giant. I rolled a one. Oh, no. Oh, no. And how did that moment go?

I dropped my axe. Historically, it definitely went the same way it did historically. The giant throws his head back and laughs at you. I like, yeah, Doren takes a step forward and drops his axe. Like, he goes to swing and it's like, pling, pling. Are you going to shame that die? It shamed you in the best way. I mean, this is the motion.

It was the pressure was on and it screwed up. Oh, you're shaming the deep four as well. Krayloth, it's your turn. You see your companion dispatch this fiery hat. and then as he approaches to deal a final blow to the giant, drops his axe. Ooh. What do you do?

Seeing that, I'm going to, as the giant is laughing, I'm going to transform my spiritual weapon into an exact replica of Doran's axe, and then I'm going to swing with it at the giant. Oh, cool. That is a 1622 to hit. Yes. It's going to be five points of damage. Did you want to kill this giant?

Oh. I feel like the consensus was that we're going to keep it alive to question it. So I pull the blow at the last second and leave this giant alive. And the axe pulls back. The giant falls to its knees heavily. And despite the fine craftsmanship of this bridge shakes the floor. beneath you and you have this giant at your mercy. Doran, you, you almost had this really victorious moment, this champion moment. Key word here being almost. How is Doran feeling right now?

Depressed. He leans down to pick up his battle axe, which he dropped. And it's lying beside the fallen great sword of this giant. And in comparison, it looks almost toy-like. He pushes the gray sword and it just slides with a big shing off the edge of the uh and then a few seconds go by before you hear a very distant splash jack walks up behind dorin and sort of puts a hand on his on his shoulders and says uh giant what's your name he opens an eye just a slid and looks at you this fiery orb is caios you had some awful luck today eskaios you picked the only bridge with the four folks who were charged by the heavens above to redo the ordaining, and that's why you failed.

That, and we tried to be nice. I'm going to walk over. I want to look at that pole, too, while we're talking. Just kind of pull it away from him, just in case it is something very powerful. As you touch it, you feel magic course through you. This is a magic item. Oh, yeah. I'm going to pull it off and walk back over to us.

It's very heavy. I'll help you. So you have a problem with this. Kralath. Creelhoff, give me a hand with this. Sure thing. And Krayloth and I both carry the item back. It weighs about 100 pounds.

You dig this thing out of the ground? No. Don't be stupid. Where to come from? What is it? This is a rod of the Vonendod. Does that mean anything to me? Ooh, roll a history check.

25. You recall a legend of something called the Vonendod. This was a tale that you'd heard. a long time ago and was spoken of almost as a fairy tale but it references a colossus built by giants

by all giants or just fire giants fire giants? The Von and Dodd, that fire giant colossus, it's a fairy tale. Not so. So that's your plan to get on top of the ordaining? You know nothing of what you speak. You said that you were going to take us somewhere. Who sent you to take us?

You small folk know nothing of what you speak. And he starts trying to pull himself to his feet. I'm going to pull out my bow, draw back on the string, and just like aim it at his eye. Kill me then. This Vonendod, this colossus, its parts are buried about, I imagine? He starts to stand. Do not do this. He gets to his feet.

He stumbles. first to one side and then to the other as he regains standing position. Give it back. Never. This von and dodd, tell us, and I'm going to try to persuade him for a second. Look, you can walk off this bridge. You can continue your life. Or I can drop you where you stand and you can fall into the abyss below.

Life gone, extinguished, like a fire, some would say. Tell us, this von and dodd. Where are they building it? Where are you putting it together? I will never tell you. And he walks forward to where you have this magical rod. And as he steps forward, I will let the arrows sing true, cleanly through his skull. He spins for a second with the force of your arrow,

and then slowly his body topples from the bridge into the deep water below. What do you think this thing is, Jack? It's got to be a piece of that colossus. Is this magic similar to the magic you saw that was residual at the site? My thinking is, whatever they excavated is another piece of the Von and Dodd. I'm really not so good at that side of magic. Yeah, can I try an Arcana check to see if there's anything more we can learn in the time being before we have to haul it off the bridge and do it around a campfire?

How do you put 20? Probably crafted by a powerful wizard. It's got a handle that looks like it would fit comfortably in a fire giant's hand. It requires attunement. It's probably made of adamantine. It's definitely nothing that we could wield. More than 100 years old? No.

I guess it's not an art object either, but... I'm going to slip it long ways into the bag of holding. It's only 100 pounds. Well, that was a bit of... And I look over to Doren. Dorn, are you okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm fine. I'm fine.

Dorn, you don't look fine. I start to walk in the direction that we were heading. I thought... I thought that I could do better for the Dwarvankind. It was here that Toral Flamedong fell, and it was here that I thought

I'd changed the course of history and kill a giant right where he stood. But I'm no better. I'm no greater. Dorian, that's not true. You are better. Where he fell, you didn't. I'm no more powerful than my

ancient ancestors and that's you're walking in that hero's footsteps you're living that journey and you get to go further maybe it's your fate just to understand what a shadow of what that defeat looks like and now to go forward and build Bacilmer up from there

this isn't the end for you Kralov steps to Doren and he puts a hand on his shoulders and says we as friends mean the best for you and we still see you as the hero that we know that you are

it's not defeat Doran. You, you weren't some king, some lord in a castle. You're with us, your team, your party. And together we vanquished the giant and you didn't fall where others fell. You should feel like you triumphed. You know, at one point, Morden stood up here and rallied all the dwarf and clans. And I look around now and I, and I wonder where, where, where, where are our clans now? Morden, where are you now? The wind whistles around you on the top of the Stonebridge. But you have a clan now?

Because, because you have friends. You're right. You know, Doran, I don't think anybody's ever peed off of Stonebridge. Do you want to pee off Stonebridge with me? You know what? And maybe that's something all four of us do, and we pee, and we pee into the wind. Let's all pee off of Stonebridge.

Come on. And we all stay on the edge of Stonebridge. You convince Jack to join you? Come on, Jack. It's your birthday. It's my birthday. Piss on this giant corpus. Yeah.

Orin's like, I'll pee with you. Yes. He's the one peeing into the wrong way of the wind. And so the legend was born that five heroes peed off of Stonebridge on Marpinoff the 17th. A trail leads off from the stone bridge heading east. Hey, we killed a fire giant today. Hey, that's right. Together.

As calls for a feast. As a team. I could eat. Yeah, me too. You come to see fenced fields surrounding the road here on both sides for several miles. The autumn grasses cropped short. There are no animals in the fields. It's eerily quiet.

As you travel the road, you see a piece of parchment nailed to a fence post, flapping in the breeze. Red pops off Vasta and tears it, reads it out loud. It says, adventurers wanted, 500 gold piece reward. What's an adventurer? What are the details? It says nothing else. They should have at least given a contact. Another 400 meters down the road, there's another sign very similarly written.

Written in common? Yep. The stone trail you are traveling intersects the desert and road and births a dusty market town. Picture cattle ranchers, a public well, a tannery, a smith, stables, an inn. Pretty small, but civilization nonetheless, something that the five of you have been missing for a while. It's been a while since we've come across one of these. As you enter the town, you notice several more pieces of parchment stuck to buildings and

hitching posts. All of them read, adventurers wanted. Are they all written in the same hand, assuming that these are all for one person? It's hard to tell. What's the name of the town? This is Belliard. So what does it say on the parchment other than Adventures Wanted? like, go here. 500 gold piece reward.

Exclamation point. That's it. Just like, hopefully you find where you, we're looking. There must be a place where all of them are layered on top of each other. The other approach is, whoever wrote this thinks it's so obvious to whoever would see this that they would know what it meant. Good thinking. I jump off Asta and yell out, we are adventurers! Where do you need us?

Really loud. Classic. A couple of townsfolk here and there raise up a ragged cheer. You, and I walk over to some old woman in a bonnet. Do you need us? Oh, yes, we need you. Ah, well, what's the mission? You should go to the watchful night. Oh, where's that?

No, just there. Thank you, lady, and I push past her. Is that a tavern or what, the watchful night? Yeah, it's a tavern. Oh, okay. Sounds good to me. Let's go, adventurers. We're adventurers. And we adventure.

Yeah, we're adventurers, right, Jack? Overpromise, under deliver, that's our motto. That's what we do. and we kick open the door to the tavern. Yeah, they're like saloon doors. They swing in and then back out and hit you. Yeah, they hit me again. I love that.

A time a day or two ago, you said we were giant slayers, and there was this poor lady with... Oh, I do. It was Krayloff. With the kid. We are giant slayers. We're not going to kill those giants. Right. To his credit, we have killed two giants since them,

and we are more adventurers than we are giant killers, since we have been literally adventuring. Do Etten's count as giants? Definitely. They're on the giant continuum. And a frog, frog heath. You know what? We're adventurers and giant killers.

Hands in. Frog hemith games too. There we go. And we enter the tavern. There's a dusty player piano in one corner. There's a man with an apron standing behind the bar. And there's a sheriff-looking motherfucker with his hat low over his eyes and his cowboy boots up on the table in front of him as he's drinking a glass of bourbon.

We're adventurers and we're here to do things for you. Well, howdy. Well, howdy? Hello. You've come because of the reward, I suppose. Well, I mean, we're on our way north, but we can help you out on the way maybe. It's more northeast. Yes, northeast.

We're traveling the lands and going to different towns and seeing if there are ways that we can hope. He stands up. It takes an unsteady step or two towards you. He's had a couple. Sheriff Care. I'm glad you care. What's your name? Kraloth.

I'm a cleric of Kallumvor. This is Red, the Ranger. We have Doran Iron Fist, you may have heard of. And, of course, Jack, who is our thinker of the group. Orin Yogle, the at your service. Oh, of course. Oh, Oren, yes, yes. Oh, you're still here.

Charmed, I'm sure. How is it that we could help you? We heard there was 500 gold pieces in it. Well, yes. We've been ravaged by giants. Hill giants, they've been coming. Whoa. Nile on every couple days now.

I bet you get a lot of people coming through here telling you they can fight giants. Not so many travelers, no Mr. Dwar. Sarcasm. They taken your cattle? Yes, our cattle. That's what they do. Sounds like mountain giants or hill giants. Well, Mountain is just the next step.

Just be happy you don't have them. I reckon we won't survive the winner the way this is keeping up. How many have you seen? Dozens. Well, it wants a day type thing. Every couple of days. Getting more frequent.

They say you can smell them on the wind. Their particular direction? They reek to high heaven. What direction do they often come in? They all head back south. They're heading south? And they come from. From the north?

They come from the south and then the head back south. Back to the south. You think they have some sort of layer there? Do you have any scouts that have checked it out where they're going? I reckon the head back south, yes. Yes. Do you have a layer where they come from? Has anyone followed them?

What? Following. It's sort of like walking behind somebody as they leave. Seeing where they go. Yes. Now you listen here, Mr. Cat. I'm a tabaxi. That is offensive.

to us, I think. I got enough troubles here in town, keeping the folk from slaughtering each other. I'm not a giant slayer. I have 500 gold, and if you can help us. Let's get a room and talk about it. I think this is worth investigating further. I agree. Can you cover us a room, please?

Well, I can sure talk to Maurice. Maurice! Room for these fine gentlemen. And how about a few pints of your brew? Now, you listen here, Dwarf. I'll pay you. It's my birthday. Just give me the beer.

It is his birthday. And we're hungry. All right. One birthday cake, Maurice. Wow. You ever been to one of those taverns or they've got a weird hat you have to wear? Oh, yeah.

Moose antlers. Don't push your luck. Don't push you. We'll get a booth. Around us. We started the morning off with some elderberry brandy, so we're a bit, and we killed a fire giant. He waggles his glass at you.

I know the feeling. It seems like a bit of a laid-back, drunk town. It's kind of something like that. Were we all drunk in that fight? I was. Oh, shit. I wonder, you did so good.

We'll be in this booth. Give us a second. Maybe that's why I... And Doran stares off into the... It's like why he dropped his axe. Yeah, and I think we're going to shift over to a booth in the corner and talk. Yeah. I think I'm with you, Jack.

Yeah, Jack pulls up the map on the table in front of us, projecting it. And highlights all of the things where we've heard of Hill Giants or where we've heard of them. They were talking about a high. A dozen of them. A center point of them. If we're getting closer to the center, maybe we're, you're pretty good at sensing these sorts of things. How far out? Let me see. And I'm going to close my eyes and I'm going to spend a minute. And I'm going to see if I can detect any giants or their numbers within five miles. There are three. They're all separately moving different directions south of you. There's one that seems to be hanging out in like a stationary position. The other two are moving south. And Red slides down the back of this booth and just disappears below the table for a second as you see him put his ear against the floor of the bar.

It's sticky. He slides back up. There are three close by. I think we should head a few miles south and let me check again. I almost promised you that we are in the area of a hill giant hive. So I'm envisioning Jack. You said there's three of them. So Jack makes three little giants appear on the map and sort of gives them a direction.

Are they all pointing, like, towards a point that's going to converge? No, they're all sort of moving around in different areas. One of them is staying still. There's one standing still right there. How far is that one? Is that the furthest one? Yes. You know?

And Doran pulls out his own diary notebook thing. He says, if I'm correct, and I've mapped this out properly, it would seem by my recollection here that Bissilmer is directly south of here. Now, this is an ancient Dwarven kingdom And, I mean, if we're looking for a giant, a lair, it's possible that they've taken up. Possible, but honestly, from what I know about hill giants, and admittedly, it is not too much information.

They don't seem much like the underground dwelling type. And most Dwarven ruins from what we've seen are underground. Hill giants, though? Yes. I imagine that most stone giants would definitely be in Dwarven ruins. Hill giants, I would imagine they would probably be in a hillside. They're mounds, yeah. If nothing else, if we can follow this hunch a little further,

just a little bit to see if we can find a bigger hive of them, we've got to at least let water deep know. I think we need to do more than that. I think if we find a hive, we need to take it out. I agree with you. I'm not... No, Jack, you're wrong. I'm sorry.

I'm just kidding. Thanks, Red. Just kidding. I agree. Let water deep know and then see what we can do ourselves. I definitely have the ability to sense a number of them. We know they congregate south of here. This is a town that has stocks, food, food, potions.

Water. I think it would be smart to take some time to stock up on supplies. I know health potion-wise, we could use something that does a little bit more of a pow. Yeah, we could, let's, I wouldn't mind taking, taking an evening, get some rest. Maybe Kralath can recoup his HP damage. Yeah, if we could wait, 24 hours, really prepare, keep an eye out, act out. as kind of guards for the town in case more Hill Giants come. That's a good idea.

Additionally, if we're going to spend the next 24 hours in town, what I think Red would do is every few hours even do the primeval awareness. And with Jack, sort of map out roots that some use and some move and see what giants move through the area and really get an idea if they are, A, moving towards one central area, and B, see if any, don't move that far, i.e. if the one standing on its own continues to stand on its own for the next, you know, day. So you relax, you hang out during the course of this time read as you spam your primeval awareness every hour or so, you recognize that the paths of these giants seem unpredictable,

except for the one that was standing still. There are two times that you use your primeval awareness where that giant isn't in that spot. And then every other time there is a giant hanging out right on the periphery about five miles away from you to the south. And I think Jack and I both get to do this together. It's really neat to see just Jack and Red in the corner of the bar. We go around to some shops together

and stock up on supplies. Maurice ends up bringing you a birthday cake eventually. And most importantly, what we do during that time is we see if we can find someone in town who has any idea if there is any structure using Jack's map in that area where the giant is standing. Well, yes, there is. Says the lady in the grocery market.

There's an ancient tower there. Just south of town, about five miles. Interesting. Who built it? How long has it been there? I have no idea. Do I look like a kind of person who's going to know how Tower got there? These are simple folk, Jack.

These aren't watered avians. These are people like me. I get your sweetheart and I give her a salute. I'm a salt of the earth type, ma'am. Me too. You want a piece of fish and I pull out some fish from my bag. I'll try a small bite. It's quite good.

Thank him. Well, I must be going. Any chance? I've got a history check in here to figure out. You have never heard of this tower. So yeah, Jack and Red, I think, sit on a park bench under a tree in the middle of this town and are kind of like, so what do you think? Obviously a tower, a hill giant that hasn't moved that much. I think definitely that one where we've seen somebody stationed there at that tower, that's got to be a place to start.

Maybe it's something about the tower. Maybe it's just a convenient place for them to look out some sort of boundary between territories or something if they're trying to draw a boundary there. And at least, if not, I wonder if we go there, what's within five miles are there. I totally agree. I think we should wait here for the remainder of this day. I wouldn't mind spending some time looking at that fork. Oh, absolutely. Just to see if we can attune to it and figure out anything else that's going on.

A tuning fork? A tuning to the fork, yes. I think we should do it somewhere away from prying eyes, but obviously we'll get some private rooms. But yeah. Maybe what Kralath is doing in this downtime is he's sitting with Doren and he's like, okay, these are the spells that Kelimvor has told me about tactically. What do you think would make sense, Commander? So you're sharing a little bit of your capabilities with him, giving him some knowledge?

Well, let's hear about them. Well, I've got some spells that'll allow me to do more damage. I've got some spells that allow me to do like buffs of creatures. I mean, I'm going to keep bless because that came in handy for you. It was brilliant. That was actually super useful. I think what you've been doing so far, you've been doing a fantastic job. And I just have to say, really, I'm so proud of you.

And I take your hand and I give you a very firm, bold handshake. We've been in the belly of a beast together. We have. That's pretty close. Cheers. Cheers. Jack, you spend an hour caressing and examining this magical, rod that you took from the giant.

Jack, you learn that this is a rod of the Vonendod. It, like I said, is four feet long and 100 pounds, sized to be wielded by a fire giant with a handle on one end and two prongs on the other. It has 10 charges total. And regains 1D6 plus 4 charges. daily at dawn. As an action, you can grasp it by the handle,

probably using both hands as you are a smaller creature, and expend one charge to cast the spell locate object from it. Its range is the same as locate object, except when it's being used to detect objects made of adamantine. And when that happens, its range extends to 10 miles. Use it right now. Are you doing this alone, or because you and Red have been spending time together, we may be doing this together.

I mean, Jack had to get it out of your bag, so it's not like you don't know this is happening. I think he's taking a whole hour to do it. He's taking lots of notes. He's examining it. I'm imagining it's on a table maybe in some corner somewhere. Yeah, I'm thinking, I think you and I spent the majority of the day together because every hour I was also telling you where the giants were and we're both sort of obsessed with dislocating. So I feel like we're in one of the private rooms.

and both looking at this thing and you're doing your thing while I'm like chilling on the bed like fletching an arrow just casually. So it's a thousand feet for non-adamantine things. So it can detect things for 10 miles? Yes. So let's try it the first time. I think Jack's going to put both his hands on the rod as it's sitting on the table

and think about an adamantine weapon within 10 miles and see what comes up, if anything. Adamantine, Atamantine. You do not find anything. And we got lots of charges for today. Let's try a tool. We'll do it five times. Apparel, jewelry, furniture, tool, or weapon of adamantyne within 10 miles.

No. Cool. Yeah, let's put it away for now. I think we've sort of, we know within 10 miles of this town, we're not looking for anything, and we're five charges down for today. And I'll shimmy it back into the bag of holding. So Doran, while you guys are in the room figuring out of the adamantine, Doren is standing at the south entrance of this town, smoking his pipe.

It's nighttime. I don't think we've seen you smoke a pipe before. No, I don't know if I have around you guys, but now in the moment of recollection, standing there, looking out south, and the setting sun gives a nice visual as well. Before the end of the day, Jack's not going to go to bed with anything left in this bottle of wine, or this bottle of brandy, they opened up in the morning. So I think there's a moment as we're, I'm picturing one of those same rooms we're in where we're all sharing the same, like, four beds. Yeah, it's definitely a common room.

And so I think there's a moment, the lights are going out and you hear like a stopper come off a bottle and Jack takes a swig. The stopper comes out and that's when I come in the door. I'm like, I thought I heard that. Yeah, and just pass it around until we're all done. To your 53rd birthday. To your 53rd birthday. To your 53rd, Jack. You pass the bottle around, chatting and reminiscing, and the spirit is light in the room when all of a sudden, you hear a knock at the door. I hear you knocking, but I can't let you in.

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