Dice Shame - 92 | 'A Mountain to Climb'

Episode Date: July 15, 2021

The party struggles to make their way up the spine of the world and towards their goal... 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.

So we're hiking through the Valley of Cadruna. Everyone brace themselves. Hurry, hurry, hurry hard. Oh, I mean, we've seen weirder. Right in the face. Hey guys, coming down. Oh, you are curling. No, absolutely.

Keep going, red. We had some fun in yada. What if we combine tuna with pepper? Whatever metaphor works for you. The eye of the all father is hidden under the peaks of the spine. Natural 20. Hey! No way.

No dice to be ashamed. Welcome back to day. Welcome back to Dice Shame, episode 92, A Mountain to Climb. MVP this week is James from Kentucky, who took some time to send us an email. James is also a DM who had some very kind words to say for the show, and we absolutely loved hearing from him. Thank you so much, James. Thanks, James. If you want to send us an email,

you can find a submission form on our website. Or else you can just skip the middleman and directly email us at dice shame at gmail.com. Skip the middleman. Now that's an idiom we're going to have to use for a future episode. No. If you're looking for even more ways to see here

and interact with us, join Joe and I every Monday night at 7 p.m. Eastern as we stream S5E, a new actual play superhero campaign run in part with our friends at Sigil Entertainment. You can find them on YouTube or at their website, sigil.info. It's a blast. We hope to see you there.

Absolutely. Check it out. All right. Shall we do this? Yeah. Let's play. I am in no way taking for granted my youth. Or what's left of it. I'll be 34 this year. But I'm kind of looking forward to being retired. Oh, yeah.

I love my job. But think about having as much. time to play d and d as we want oh man nine to five new d and d job i'm rolling nine to five i feel that a lot because we had last week off or i took it on vacation but it was everything's locked down so it's really like a staycation stay at home kind of thing so that to me that models retirement life in some level where it's like yeah okay i'm at my house this is just what normal is so okay you get up maybe you go for a walk outside go to a park or something did you play any games i did just civilization Oh, such a good game.

No, I didn't play Siv. I did run D&D on Friday. Oh, nice. So A D&D is Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, right? Yeah, we're not there yet, Alley. So would that be R D&D? Retire Dungeons and Dragons? Hey, Advanced Age.

A.A. D&D. No, but you know, it's really interesting because our generation is so much more into this stuff than previous generations. And it's funny because I see a meme often where it's the Back to the Future scene with Michael Fox being like, you guys aren't ready for this, but your kids are going to love it. And it's like Gary Gygax talking to the generation with the D&D. But it's interesting to think that, yeah, I mean, as we get older, the 60 plus year olds are going to be playing D&D.

You know, when you're 80, there might be D&D meetings around, same with video games too. Well, yeah. People aren't going to go to fucking Bingo Hall. They're going to go and play D&D. Way fewer shuffleboards. Yeah. For real. I mean, there's no reason that I'm going to stop playing video games unless some physical

ailment, you know, well into my. fucking 80s. So it's so interesting to think of land parties like, gosh, Star Shittesians finally out,

let's play. Virtual reality in nursing homes. I mean, yeah. But I mean, now it's so funny because the rare times

that I have given VR to my parents or someone older, you know, they're so disoriented. Blown away. Blown away, disoriented.

You know, even dad has a tough time sort of trying to navigate what I would call like the simpler games. And that's totally fine. I get it. But we have so much

more experience in that in practice, you know? So as we get older, it's going to be really interesting to see what kind of games, you know, will there be games catered to like older people, you know? Of course they will.

When you think about it in 20 years. Yeah, like the AAA titles are for like, you know, 70, 80 year old plus. For real though. And like the advertisements, it's no longer going to be like exciting. It's going to be like, great for Alzheimer's.

And like, let's you pause to use the bathroom. I mean, it's, it's all about who has the buying power, right? When that demographic of us gets older and, you know, is the, oh, it's the 60-year-olds who are buying all the video games, that's going to be who they market. Yeah. What are some of the games going to be like in those ages? I could just picture of stuff like...

Slower pace. Easily walking up the stairs. No, see... It's a fallacy to think that the games will be really different because it's the stuff you like now, you're still just going to like that. Yeah, exactly. You know, it's not going to be... But Rob, that doesn't go with the funny joke part.

Well... Well, I think, I think, like, the idea is now, because if you were catering to an older demographic that doesn't understand video games, then yes, that would be the joke to be like, okay, well, now we'll make a game for an 80-year-old person about something simple because 80-year-old people right now haven't played these games. But for us, it's going to be the opposite. We're going to be like, no, we want to relive the adventure. It'll be like, it'll be Skyrim. Let's be real. Yeah, it's going to be the 13th remaster of Skyrim. No more Elder Scrolls games.

But, you know, this is interesting because it's... Elder Scroll for... Elders. The elders scroll. Oh, nice. A joke right there. When I was a music therapist working in nursing homes, there's like playing old songs from back in the day is a thing to do.

Play the theme from Moro Wind. Play a Zelda medley. Do you remember when you go to the Doku Palace in the sands of time? Could you please play that track? So true, though, Jess. I hear exactly what you're saying. All right, everybody pull out your orchorinas. Let's play this.

The conversations are like, oh, you used to multi-class. Me too. I was a blade singer. Yeah, yeah. Wap, whap. Wap. People are going to be into that. Yeah.

All right, G2G. Well, that's more our generation. G2G, Gladys. What do you say when you have to? Everybody's going to, everybody's names are going to be old again, though. When you turn 75, you get a... AFK, Mabel, AFK. You get an old person name, you graduate.

Everybody having to repick their handle at age 65. You get your new gamer handle when you go to the old folks home. We're all going to for the... Good night. At Edna. Are there nursing homes in D&D, do you guys think? I mean, we have old... There will be soon.

Look, I've already got an orphanage. I don't think adventure. The Baker's going to start an old person anytime now. We've already got an orphanage, Jack. to establish the precedent of their being homes to care. I don't think people live that long. No. Certainly not in our game.

Don't be friends with Jack. Speaking of which, let's play some D&D! Hey! So you're leaving Mirabar. It's the morning of the 25th of Uctur, getting late in the year. So even though it's hot outside right now, Everyone, imagine

freezing cold, snow on the ground, mountains in the distance, and you leave the city gates of Mirabar out into this cold weather. Crunching snow beneath her feet. Absolutely crunching snow. It's okay, little guy.

Red, just like, putts shale on the bum as he's up against my fur. And again, he's so attached to me that it's, you know, I have a little bump between sort of, you know, above my stomach that I do keep him close. But he doesn't really impede my travel too much. And you hear some gusts of wind and a little creature lights on your shoulder. And Jackson starts like sniffing down and is really curious about Shale.

No, no, no. Jackson, this is your brother Shale. It's okay. And like, show his little face. And then the eyes, w pwbubo, towards Jackson. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. And I cover the eyes. It flies away, hides in my pack. Anyway, how far is it supposed to be to the spine of the world, Jack?

To the spine of the world itself is a bit of a trek here. We're sort of just at the bottom of it, but we're, hopefully we're going to find this giant friend of ours pretty soon. Where's Harsh Nag? Jack's wearing cold weather gear and he's got some matching, like, a little jacket made for Kieran in his golden retriever form and like a, some kind of cute cap. I'm not sure how effective it is, but it definitely looks cute as hell. We've got little snow boots for his paws.

Absolutely. He's walking like an asshole. Yeah. And then Doran is just like shyly looking to his pocket. We're like, what's up? He's like, nothing. He's got like a pet rock. Yes.

No, I just thought. Carps and boogly eyes on it. Yeah, he's like trying to be including with the pet squad. Actually, Doran was feeling a little bit weird last session, right? I remember there was a little bit of strangeness going on. Doren is still struggling with his own. guilt and the decisions that he's considering in his head to involve his friends in kind of what's happened and what came up at Jallanthar. But Doran is he's got his hood up and he's

tying his straps and everything tight to keep the cold out. So I guess we're hiking into the mountains. One of my favorite places to be. But we just have to stop over here first to catch up with hash nag. And I imagine that I've done my primeval awareness to find find out where he is. And I'm sort of leading us towards him. Absolutely. So it takes maybe, you know, 15 or 20 minutes to travel through the hilly landscape to where Harshnag has set up camp to meet up with you. Since you saw him last, Harshnag has crafted the skin he gathered from that giant elk into a new fur cape. And as you crest the hill, you see him packing up his camp. He doesn't do like a tent or anything,

but he was eaten something. He does bushcraft. Yeah, yeah, exactly. He's got like a lean-to. Sick new threads. Well, met, little ones. Are you ready to seek answers from the All-Father? Yes, we are, and nice to see you, friend.

Was your travel up here pretty good? Yes, I was met with fortune. I killed a pair of stone giants two days hence. Their evil will grieve Faru no longer. Dorn kind of puts a fist in the air. We haven't killed any giants in a while, actually. Well, welcome back to the general arc of the story. Oh, yeah.

Thanks, Harshnag. We had some fun in Yada. Good to be here. The season is late, and we will have to cross into the mountains to find the eye. The cold will surely kill you if you're not prepared for the journey. We all have cold weather clothing. I'm glad we did, because it is frigid out here. Oh, yeah.

I was assuming Harshnag is speaking giant. No, he's speaking common. Okay. I just wondered how Kraylath's a giant was coming along. Oh, that is a great question. You've been at it for a little while. I would say you are haltingly fluent. Haltingly fluent. All right. Yeah, quasi-fluent. Now we have a new one to teach red gestures to his chest. He's trying to teach

Shale common. I looked up, and they are intelligent enough, more than intelligent enough, to learn common languages. And in fact, the history of these creatures is very sordid and exciting. but basically there is a good chance after enough time this little creature can speak. Part of me enjoys the idea of Red going off to the woods to teach Jackson and Shale languages just to be like, I'm going to teach these two creatures because Jackson's also a tressum. They're smart. So there's no reason he's like...

More intelligent than I am. Yeah. And Kraylon. Teach these animals to talk. Find them. Absolutely. No, it's really exciting. Apparently they can learn Taryn as well as deep speech and they have their own language,

Which leads me to believe that if they can learn languages and they have the ability to communicate, why wouldn't they be able to learn other languages? No different than Justin learning giant. Deep speech is like gross common. That's what I mean. Well, Kralov learned giant. Justin still is not even haltingly fluent. You're doing great.

Harsnag, before we head out, what can you tell us about the trip that we're going to be taking? Should we be preparing for certain beasts in the area or what can we expect to run into? He stands to his full height and stretches and then looks out toward the horizon where the mountain peaks are cresting high into the sky, almost touching the clouds and covered in snow. The eye of the all father is hidden under the peaks of the spine and can only be reached by way of a mountain pass that starts somewhere in the valley of Kedroon. I have never visited the temple But I know the way All giants do Well, lead the way, big guy

I think we're all on board Ah, so we're hiking through The Valley of Cadroon That's right, have you been here? Never have I been here But he was a legendary dwarf And he used his axe to carve out the homeland For the dwarves of the north here

To protect everyone from wolves, orcs and goblins and the likes. Maybe we'll come across something that will remind us of what he did up here. Incredible. Oh, I'm excited. This is going to be so exciting.

Dora's just, his bum cheeks are probably blushing beneath his trousers. No one sees it, but Doren knows it's happening. You just generate a little bit of heat. I'll never tell. The warm feeling. Your trek to the eye of the All Father is challenging from its very outset.

Mirabar is looking. located in the frozen north, not quite as far as East Haven, where you visited with Dizan, but still closer to the rugged glacier than most of you are used to being. The land around Mirabar has been clearly mired in the grasp of winter for some time already. The hilly countryside is home to few signs of life. The wind is sharp and biting, and before long you're trudging through blowing snow, thick clods of it icing over your boots. Harshnag leads you north and east

through increasingly hilly and treacherous terrain towards the vast mountain range that makes up the spine of the world knowing he intends to take you up and over the mountains they look imposing perilous and bleak this is very much like Lord of the Rings when they're trying to avoid the minds of Moria by traveling over the mountains

the snow is deep it's super cold and the terrain is treacherous here in places, you end up having to use your climbing gear or even using Harshnag as a scout with anchored ropes in order to help you forward crevasses ascend steep slopes. Occasionally, he even maybe picks up one of you on his back when it's necessary. I kind of picture a situation where Harshnag is maybe like helping us to get around a really, really deep gorge. And there's really not a lot of space for us to walk, but he's able to kind of prop himself between two mountain faces.

And so we tie ropes to like his belt or something. And so maybe for one portion of this entire journey through the mountains, we, we're like dangling from ropes, from harsh nag, almost like one of those dangling chairs at the fair, you know? We're trying to hold on, but With every move, we go swinging and we kind of end up bumping into each other and, you know. Kieran's dangling at the bottom with their, uh, their ton, lolling. Woof. Yeah. And like a dog harness.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I think red during the quiet moments is again feeding shale in his little chest, little pieces of beef jerky. And he's like, Kralath, he liked that one. And Krayloth is like bending down next to him, trying different things. Oh, yeah. Offering different. Okay. What if we combine rosemary with two. tuna. What if we combined tuna? No, no, no, no, he didn't like the tuna.

What? Not the tuna, not the tuna. He didn't like the tuna, okay. How did I get this tuna? Oh, we got it from a lake over there. Oh, yeah. It's okay, little shale. Lake tuna. Mountain tuna. Well, I mean, we've seen weir. I love the idea that Kralath and Red are, like, feeding Shale. Like, Kraylats, like, leaning over him. And then they both sort of look up and Kieran and Jackson are sitting there, like, begging. Just go, sitting just watching with big eyes. Okay. Yes, you can have some tuna. I love the idea of just following behind Harsnag and just watching him like with his bare hands drive these pittins into the mountain side and tie a rope to them for us to all sort of hand over hand get across. I think in those moments where like Jack gets to the other side and we're waiting, he takes a minute to let Kieran poop out of existence and show up 30 feet up in the air again just to try and get a further, bigger look around as Jack inhabits his eyes to update the map as much as he can and then sort of brings him back down to the ground level to, you know, tread along beside us. And there is one night where we do find a big pile of snow that's kind of collected in one spot between two cliff faces. And Harsnag tests the snow, the density of it.

And then he begins clawing out a hole into it. And then in very little time, he manages to claw out a bit of a shelter within the snow. Oh, that's cool. He digs like a cave for you guys? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And the heat from the fire that you all light just kind of melts a little bit of the inside of this cave. It forms like a slick of ice.

Yeah. And that allows the light from the fire to kind of be reflected back in on you. And you all spend just kind of a cozy night in this amphitheater, this like half globe of ice. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good way of putting it. Yeah. So it sounds like a pretty relaxing journey so far.

I mean, yeah, I'm sure it's just going to be fine. Some of the mountain slopes are dotted with snow-covered evergreens. Some are steep and barren rock faces. The sun rises and sets on your party, steadily making its way higher into the mountains, north and east, except where the terrain forces you to retrace your steps, to try to find a more forgiving route. It's day four. You're traveling through these mountains still, and you're making fairly good progress.

Harshnag assures you when you begin to hear some cracks forming in the snow around your feet. Uh-oh. The ground feels hollow underfoot and you hear a slight gwumping sound as you walk.

Gwumping. I know that. Can I do a perception? Yes, you absolutely can. I mean, I always have a 20, so I'll just say 20. Or should I roll, maybe? Natural 20! No way.

No dice to be ashamed today. 25. First natural 20. Wow. Way to go. Well done. With your knowledge of nature, even though being in the snow is not your natural habitat, you are clever enough with being able to interpret the signs that nature gives to you that you recognize you are standing on dangerous ground. Everyone brace themselves.

Everybody roll for initiative. Red, you actually get to roll with advantage for this role for your initiative because of being able to find out that there's an avalanche going on. I mean, that there's something scary going to be. I'm rolling rocks today. All right. What did you get? 21.

All right. Jack. Nine. Doran. I also got nine. Who wants to go first? Pirate Dorn? Go ahead, Dorn.

Crayloff? Two. Oh, classic Crayloth rolls there. Classic Crayloff. You hear a booming, thunderous sound as a sheet of snow cracks off from the peak of the mountain above you, and it begins to slide down towards the party at great speed. So this is going to be a little bit of an interesting encounter as you look around yourself. and you see the snow underfoot begin to give way.

You can't fight an avalanche. Watch me. But here's how it's going to go down. Using as much creativity as you can, consider how your character might combat or survive an avalanche. The avalanche is moving about 600 feet every round. It's going to be almost impossible to simply outrun. So start by inventing environmental hazards that you might overcome

or circumstances that you might use to your advantage. Top of the order, we have Red. Let's hear what happens when Red tries to survive this avalanche. Red turns to the others and says, Scampa! And he turns and runs towards a tall tree on the edge of the avalanche, which is already starting to move along with the earth. He starts climbing it as it slowly begins to bend with the weight of the snow.

He's like holding on for dear life and for a moment as it shakes, he kind of falls loose, but his claws just stick in. He's got one hand on the Umberhawk baby in his chest as he's like, ah, and he keeps trying to get to the very top. And as he reaches the top, he's like wobbling back and forth. So roll athletics with advantage. Natural 20. Whoa!

Wow. Unbelievable. Is that your same dice? Gives me a 19. Excellent. So yes, Redd, it happens exactly as you describe. You run to this. This tree, it's like one of the taller ones in the area, and you just scamper up and cling onto it for dear life.

I feel like as it's wobbling, I'm like, guys don't climb a tree. It's Harshnag's turn. I think he's going to assist Doran with Doran's check by picking up Doran, who's got kind of short legs and tries to like run with him to the edge of the avalanche. Oh, my God. Yeah. It's kind of like you've read my mind here because I've got this plan in my head of how I'm going to help overcome this. Okay, so Harshnag succeeds at his effort to help you and you gain advantage on your next check. Nice.

Doran, what happens next? So Harshnag grabs me as he watches Doran pull the 50-foot hemp rope off his belt, being that we're in the mountains, Doran's kind of got this prepped. Oh, yeah, it's handy for sure. So Harsnag happens to grab Doren and pulls him to the edge of this crevasse and Doreen quickly fashions a lasso, a lasso around. Lassau? Lassau. I like the way you first said it.

Lassu. It sounds very fancy. It's a Dwarven Lassou. Around a pointy exposed rock. Cool. He has secured ultimately a point against the mountain where one or many. could hold onto this rope. And then what I'd like to do is use my athletics ability. And with the other end of the rope that's not secured, I am trying to run across this gap and give everybody

sort of like, you know how like when people are rescuing people out of a river, they kind of, they put a rope right across so that people have something to grab onto. That's, that's the ultimate idea. So I'm going to try and dash across this gap. I'm picturing the intent is to sort of like have a rope that's like a net. So if people get swept up in the avalanche, there's this rope, they might hold on to this rope. Yeah. And you've got Doran and a rock and you're,

hopefully Doran's going to hold onto that rope and the rope won't break. Between a rock and a Doran. Great. I love it. So with Harsh Nag's help, you can roll athletics with advantage. That gives me a 17. No, you fail, Doran. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.

Yeah. Unfortunately, holy, that's a tough. That's a tough one. Okay. Yes. So you managed to get the rope around this first rock, but as you start running to the next tether point, you have misjudged the speed of this landslide and you are caught up in the snow. But I'm holding onto the rope, right? Yes. So you're like swinging down the mountain while holding onto the rope and it's like still tethered.

Maybe you go over an edge even. I'm like. So this is your first failure, which I've just marked down. and I've rolled... I'm sorry to let you all down. It's all good, Doran. You're going to be okay. Nothing untoward happens to Doran this time, so you're okay.

Jack, what do you do? So Jack's looking up at the face of this avalanche coming towards us. And I'm picturing it's not a uniform face. There's sort of like some parts of it are coming a little faster than others. So it's a little bit jagged. And he's seeing this one peek moving towards Doran to sort of sweep him and carry him further down the mountain. And Jack runs and is shouting, hurry, hurry hard, and pulls out the canter of endless water and uncorks it and shouts geyser

to try and form a path that's going to be a least resistance to turn this a little bit, just to have all this water sort of lubricate the path of the... Oh, you are curling. No, absolutely. That's trying to sweep the ground to make a really clear path for this that turns the edge of the leading edge of this like spike of the glacier, just a little bit further away from Doran. So he's like running down the mountain.

He's got Kieran sort of running at his. at his heels and he's trying to catch up to Doran and blast the first edge of this avalanche just to give Doran a little bit of time to catch up. For sure. So you're using something that you have at your disposal to benefit you, which gives you advantage. Cool. And what skill check are you arguing to roll? There might be a play for knowledge, nature, as knowing the physics of how all of this is going to play out would be a part of forming this plan. Yeah, I would argue definitely for either nature or perception, whichever you prefer. I definitely prefer nature All right 19

Beautiful Hey there we go Hey all right So Jack uses his action And his bonus action To say the word And point the geyser And blast the front end of this

Avalanche trying to steer the whole Peak away from Dorn a little bit As he's running full tilt Using all of his brain power To calculate the right angle To smooth this away Curling is a mental game after all It certainly is.

So the course of this avalanche momentarily diverts itself. And while Doran has a moment to struggle to his feet after his abject failure, this crushing course of snow rumbles off to the side. And Doran has a second to catch his breath and figure out what he's going to do next. Meanwhile, Kralov. Kralov is going to turn and see the rumbling and falling wall of snow that's coming towards them. and he sees his party take off and he has a moment of resolve

and begins to run himself and he's running along dodging boulders and bits of snow as he's going and he's trying to get as much momentum as possible and then when he gets to a certain point maybe there's a little bit of a there's a little bit of a crevice

in the ground he jumps over it and while he's in the air moving you know at a good clip he's going to pull the cord that is hanging from the front of his shoulder and this whistling sound happens behind his back and the balloon pack activates shooting this air elemental into the air and releasing it like a jetpack almost

and he begins to levitate upwards still carrying his momentum forward love it not straight up but like following the angle of the mountain Following the trajectory, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Cool. Go ahead and roll athletics with advantage because of your advantageous balloon pack. It's okay. I'm going to be using deception next turn.

Oh, good. I trick the avalanche. I'm going to tell the avalanche that I'm really in the way. I deek one way and dodge the next way and body check the avalanche. I'm just a little stone. In fact, I might try to intimidate it. That's a 19 for athletics. Hey.

Nice. Yeah, you succeed. So this huge chunk of snow just rumbles along underneath you. And at the last moment, you just pull the cord and launch yourself into the air. And, you know, like, when you jump downhill, you automatically gain more air than you would be if you were jumping on level ground. So you're afforded this extra boost of verticality, I guess. But as you look over your shoulder, you see that the snow is still advancing on you and your party and it's coming fast. And I'm going to just levitate.

myself high enough to be above the rush of snow. You're still going to be in danger and have to overcome stuff. Do you know what I mean? For now. But my kind of thinking is that I want to like get out of the danger, which I should be able to with my balloon pack because I can levitate upwards of 60 feet. It's not about actually putting yourself out of danger because Red could just run away. It's a skill check scene, really?

Right. Yes. Picture it as clocks. there's a certain number of we need to succeed and there's a certain number of failures that lead to a bad outcome and we're watching them tick up. Got it.

How is that a clock? I don't get that. I didn't get it either. Is it a game called clocks? I don't know. It makes sense to Rob. It's, yeah. Think of it like clocks.

Perfect. It's your turn. I want to hear more about that after though. Clocks, yeah. Is it a game that you reference it? Lots of games use like countdown clocks for things. and so the number of things fill the bar and if it takes up fuller, I don't know.

I'm just using as tally. Tally, yeah, yeah. Whatever metaphor works. So, Red, from your perch at the top of this tree that's bending, you watch as Harshnag picks up Doren who's trying to tie a rope frantically and Jack is spurting water all over the mountain side and then Krala takes off into the air.

You hear the air element to activate. What do you do next? The tree begins to break with the weight of the snow and it begins to fall over. but across the falling avalanche. Red's like, hold on, little buddy! And he's beginning to fall with the tree, and it lands on the avalanche,

and Red stands up as it immediately starts spinning. All the branches break off, and it's like a rolling log along with the avalanche. And he's like, ha, ha, ha! And he's, like, moving his footwork so fast with the turning tree as it's like sliding and careening back and forth, barreling down the mountain. Perfect.

Smoke starts to rise off his feet. Can I roll dexterity? You can roll acrobatics. The log drivers waltz makes you. Yeah. And because I ignore difficult terrain, can I have advantage with all the branches that are breaking off around me?

Oh yeah, absolutely. So as the snow is just churning underfoot and the branches are snapping off of this log, you try to keep your feet. Roll acrobatics for me with advantage. I picture like the little branches breaking off and immediately like just turning to perfect size arrow shafts and landing in your quill.

He's grabbing them out of the air. That would be my third natural 20. My God. The first one was on the other die and the other two were on the other two where I was on a different dye. So that's my third natural 20.

This time it's 23. Excellent. Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, I think the thing that Alex said maybe happens with your natural 20 like these sticks are breaking off of the tree as it's rolling down

and you're just kind of like, that one's going to be good for my arrow or whatever. I'll take that. I'll take that. Like there's a real frustrating deafness with Red at how good he makes this all look. He like scampers up the tree with absolute ease, like literally swinging around branches as he reaches the top. And then as you guys look up, you see Red running along this log with such skill that there's almost a bit of like, what the fuck? Like, why is he doing it like that?

We're all struggling here and this guy is just like having no issue whatsoever. And Red smiling. Hey guys, coming down! Harshnag turns to see this huge clod of snow and ice hurtling down the mountainside, and it's coming straight for Jack. And Harshnag knows that this could just totally decimate the wizard. So he interposes himself between this snow and Jack, and he's going to take out his great axe and just absolutely try to.

to Babe Ruth it out of the sky. So he is going to make, unfortunately, just another athletics check, but I'm going to give him advantage because of his substantial prowess with this weapon. That's a 21. Hey, nice. Very glad for that advantage or else he would have failed.

All right, guys. So Harshnag breaks this giant boulder of snow into pieces overhead, Jack. as you turn and see how close you were to having been just totally clobbered by the snow. Doran, it's your time. Doran, what do you do? So Doran does climb back up the rope and now standing at the same vantage point he had before. He sees Kraloth kind of floating above and he hollers at you and he says,

Hey, Kralath, grab hold of this rope. And he tries to throw the rope to you. Yeah, you're seeing Kralov being pushed by the wind and towards another direction. Yeah, yeah. And I'm also thinking of like a couple of things. Like if that thing can hold you and me and a bunch of us, then we can kind of hold onto this rope as well. I'm going to call it maybe you could either make a ranged attack.

Yeah. Okay. Oh, and it's a failure. No. 10. Oh, no. Doren, bringing down the team. A dust of wind.

Doren's like standing there. He's like throws this, does a really pathetic throw. Yeah. This, like, rope just kind of falls two feet forward. And Doran, while you have your back turned to the avalanche and you are focusing on assisting Kralath, you get absolutely clobbered by a flying chunk of ice. No. You fall prone and you suffer 10 bludgeoning damage. As the snow continues sliding towards you at this intense, terrifying speed, Jack, it's your turn.

Yeah. Jack sees Doran get clobbered by this ice and starts running towards him. Noting how proficient our giant friend turned in the way, Jack pulls out the spellguard sphere and starts growing as he's running and saying the words until he's giant ape-sized and he gets to Doran pulling out a tent from his backpack to try and scoop Doran up and like toss him out of the way of the next chunk of ice. Very cool. Yeah.

Oh, nice. I love that. That's great. How do we vote athletics for my giant ape? I'm good with that. Let's do it. Do I get any advantage for being huge? Yeah, and for using a cool tent.

Nice. Yeah. Why do you guys have tents? It's been strapped to my back the whole time. Why are we carrying a tent around with us? Speaking of tent, I looked out of the window, and we had a tent set up in the backyard, and it was in the pool, like upside down. No.

And then I was actually going to tell you guys when I came back up. So I ran down to pull it out, and then you know when you're, like, really tired and upset, and you're trying to do something, and then you get hurt? We were talking about it, like, two weeks. Oh, no. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm like trying to pull this tent out. And the freaking tent...

Did you say come off? Fuck on. No, yeah. Fuck on. And the tent pole was like stuck behind the... I'm like, I'm like, struggling with it. And then the tent pole gets stuck on the umbrella. And I'm like, come on.

And I like pull it. And it like, flap right in the face. So you just had a real life skill challenge and you failed. You're so angry at it. So go on. Level one. Giant size Jack tosses Doran in this tent. And it flies through the air in this perfect arc and hooks

on to a jagged piece of rock a couple of little ways up in the mountain and just lets him like nest there in this tent that's gathered him up sitting sort of just perfectly gently sitting here. I rolled a 28. Oh, excellent. Thank you, Jack. Kralath, it's your turn. How do you

contribute to this effort? Kralath is floating, floats above for a little bit and then he lowers himself back down to the ground as he gets over this crevice and he keeps on running and just out of the the corner of his eye, he sees a splash of red against the snow, and he veers towards his

buddy and puts a hand on his back just like glancingly, as we're both running side by side and casts guidance on him. And then Kralov stops. He says, keep going red. He's going to roll survival to just go with his instincts, his divine instinct, and he's just going to stop suddenly as the avalanche continues to move towards him and he's just going to stand still because it's what Kellenvore might be guiding him to do. Interesting. Interesting.

Roll survival. What are you doing? What are you doing? 24. As you stand steadfast, Kralath, a stone that you didn't previously see provides you perfect cover from the next wave of snow that if you had continued running you would have been swept up in but given this divine sense of survival you succeed in sheltering from this

wave of snow and the avalanche passes by so congratulations you have survived this avalanche together as a team and just working together whether you're suspended in the air or suspended in a tent hanging over a gorge or running with your feet on a tree trunk skedaddling down the mountainside together. You all manage to get away from this. All right. I love this picture of us all climbing up to wherever Doran's hanging from the rock and just watching the avalanche go by beneath us for a minute until things settle down. Absolutely. Yeah, I like that. I like that. Yeah. Holding onto that rope as maybe even just for a bit of guidance, not even any. Well, to help somebody else climb up, they can...

Just tell me the rope is used, okay? Just tell me that I did something good. You used the rope, Alex. Congratulations. Yes. Good job, everyone. Did you guys see me? I was fucking log rolling.

Well, that was a close call. Thank you once again to our Patreon supporters, Christopher Ryan Evans, Colin Burkart, Daniel. Doug, Jessica Orrett, Murray Canesky, Katie Orrett, and Merlin. See you soon.