It Could Happen Here - CZM Book Club: Pathfinder: Dawn of the Frogs, Part Five

Episode Date: November 30, 2025

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This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc. And send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one-page business plan for you.

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Enter now at iHeartPodcastawards.com. What up, y'all? It's your boy, Kevin on stage. I want to tell you about my new podcast called Not My Best Moment, where I talk to artists, athletes, entertainers, creators, friends, people I admire who have had massive success about their massive failures. What did they mess up on? What is their heartbreak?

And what did they learn from it? I got judged horribly. The judges were like, you're trash. I don't know how you got on the show. Check out Not My Best Moment with me kept on stage on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Cool Zee Media. Dawn of Frogs. Don of Frogs.

Don of Frogs. Don of Frogs. Don of Frog. Frog of Frog. The Frog of Don. Don of God. I'm front of John. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Cool Zone Media Book Club,

the only dawn of frogs that frogs at dawn. And I am sort of your host, Margaret Kiljoy, but not really, because I'm not Margaret Kiljoy at all. I'm spite. And I'm just trying to survive and also overthrow as many governments as possible. But who I'm not trying to overthrow is our game master, who's Jason Bowman. Hi. Well, not yet anyway.

Hi there, everybody. I'm Jason Bullman. I'm the director of games at Paiso, and I am the game master for this amazing group of adventurers as we play through, Dawn of Frogs. Wait, I've tricked you to get in your own module's name wrong. Dawn of the Frogs. I knew that.

It's a birding you. I am going to hear about that. Anyway, today we're going to be picking up the third night of Dawn of the Frogs. This night is called the Dirtford Dunmire, which was actually the original name. original working title for this adventure. Yeah, we're going to get right to that.

When we last left, our intrepid band of adventurers, four, well, I would call you heroes, but I'm not sure that's appropriate. But to the people of Bog Bottom, you are certainly heroes. The four of you washed ashore near this tiny swamp village where you were dropped off by a ship's captain because you couldn't pay for passage, and you found yourself penniless in this small,

swamp town. There, you learned of their plights. There are many plights, including missing villagers, where you first earned a name with these folks. You ventured out to an old ruined windmill and saved a pair of villagers that had been taken captive by a pair of boggards, boggards being sentient frog people. These boggards, however, seemed to be rather evil, and were capturing people and feeding them some strange form of fungus mush that muddled their thoughts. Because even when you brought

the villagers back, they did not seem to remember their life in town and only wanted to return and help the Boggards with their great work. In the past couple sessions, you ventured out again, into the Dunmire Swamp, to find three ingredients needed by La Drusa, the town healer, to purge these villagers of the clouded memories and restore them to health and vigor. So you ventured out You treated with a fungus lushy to get some mushrooms. You battled some flies atop a hill to get some berries, and you destroyed a bunch of skeletons to retrieve some rare flowers. But on the way back, you were assaulted by Tutusk,

a legendary predator of the swamp. A giant slurk, which is a giant monstrous toad covered in slime and giant fangs that nearly sank your boat and dragged you down into the depths. But through your heroic actions, you were victorious and made it back. to town to cure the villagers of their plight. Ladrusa went to quick work, brewing the potion to save the villagers, and after giving it to them, they quickly calmed their fever breaking, and their memories slowly returned. The only thing that they seem to remember is that they were being asked to go work on something called

The Great Work. You don't know what that is, but it certainly has the town's folk of Bog Bottom worried. That's kind of where we left off. At that moment, the town was celebrating, the town was celebrating, was celebrating. And before we get started with the game itself, why don't I toss it around the horn and let everybody introduce themselves and their characters? We'll start with you, Hazel. Hi, my name is Hazel, Acacia. I use them. And today I am playing a sister merger god a beau, who is a half-oric cleric. She's the soup nun. Fantastic. Iyo, you're up. Hail and we met, all you noble heroes out there in Audio Land.

My name's Ayo, and I am very sick. I've got big pox, but I'm being really brave about it. But today, it's not Ayo you're talking to. It's squash. He's a squash buckling little guy pie, and he loves crime, and we love him, don't we folks? Yes, we most certainly do. Margaret. Hi, I'm Margaret, and I am playing the role of Spite, who's fresh from the crush, and is just looking to try and do what's best by her very strong moral code

that pretty much means that every prison should be exploded as quickly as possible. But if along the way I have to raise money in order to do that, then I will do that by sticking to my values and helping everyone out. Indeed. Robert, round us out. I'm Robert. I'm playing Trant. I'm an alchemist and expert bomb maker. and I'm just now realizing I left like three alchemist fires on a long wick in that guy's boat

before he dropped us off. But I, you know, it was a pretty long wick. I'm sure he got back to shore before anything happened. There was a fire offshore. You saw the smokestack, but you're sure it's nothing. Probably unrelated.

That's fine. Yeah. So it's catch on fire all the time, right? In my experience, yes. That's why I wanted to get off of it. Constantly. Notes are famous for catching on fire. So I've only been sailing once

in real life and the mast broke. And so I am convinced that the mast breaks 100% of times you go sailing. This is the way that math works. Anyway. That does explain why so many boat rides end in tragedy. That's the way the mass works. All of them.

Well, it's been two days since the captured villagers were cured and their memories restored. The villagers report, having heard their boggared captors talk about building some sort of great work. But there are a few clues as to what that might be. In response, the town elders sent scouting parties to try and uncover the truth, but none have yet returned.

Now, a more immediate problem faces the village. The swamp waters are rising. The people of Bogbottom are no strangers to rising waters and have built their home on stilts to weather the rainy seasons. But there has not been heavy rain for weeks, and yet the water still rises. Just this morning, some of the wooden walkways between the stilted homes have become submerged. Inevitably, villagers have begun wondering if these rising waters are somehow connected to whatever it is that the boggards are up to. Perhaps the answer will come soon as one of the scouting parties has finally returned to bog bottom, looking both worried and wounded. You know, I bet this sounds like I'm cursing, but I think they're building a dam.

there are some folks who have wondered whether or not such a thing was even possible swamps are notoriously difficult to dam in that way but with enough work and effort it is possible maybe a great work it could be a great work yes indeed so the scotting party heads to high hill which is the village's kind of gathering place where the town elders await them everyone is kind of going to hear what they have to say i think we should go and hear what they have to say. What do you all think? I'd love to hear what they have to say. I am thrilled that you're following the obvious clue that the adventure has given you. All right, you go up to the hill. Well, now I have to be oppositional. Hold on. Yeah, I know. Forget it. But what's that over there? What if we steal a boat?

Some sort of an unnamed NPC, you say. I have to go serve soup. I'm sorry. It's my weekly service. That's fair. Yeah. A dam! That's what the boggards are building. A massive dam made for mud, wood, and Stone, reports the scout. I know it sounds like they're cursing, but actually Dam has two meanings. That's right.

Grave looks passed between the village elders before Amelia Erthrona, the oldest member of the council replies. Do you think that's what's causing the waters to rise throughout the swamp? She asked with no small amount of trembling in her voice. We do, replies the scout leader. It appears they've clogged up

most of the estuary and built a dam at the largest opening. There's something more. A lot of the folks who have gone missing look like they're helping them. A hush falls over the crowd. Elder Othrona's cool, compassionate eyes studies her people intently. She looks over to the four of you. Seems we may need your help one last time.

The dam must be destroyed. Before the rising waters flood us all. I hear it's good for the salmon, too. We destroy the dam. Yeah, those delicious swamp salmon. So the townspeaker gathered here, the scouts are here, the four of you are kind of ushered up to the front and the scouts are currently being tended to by Ladruza

being given bandages and ointments and soothing balms for their wounds. They look to you and the leader of the scout says, well, I can give you a map that'll lead you right to it. It's on the far side of the swamp, though, will take you more than a day to get there. Well, who attacked you? feel like the path that you took, I'm sure you all picked the best path possible, but it clearly

led to you being attacked. The bargards spotted us and immediately gave chase. We managed to lose them in the swamp, but not until they managed to hit us several times with their slings and spears. It was a close thing. There are a lot of boggards there. I don't know, guys. Are we sure we want to trust a scoutmaster? I thought you could trust all adults who aren't imprisoning people. Good sir, I am a master scout. It's not a scout master. Oh, that's a different story. Yeah, that's a real different thing. Yes, quite. And spite, we will talk about that later. Wait, was it Amelia was talking to us? The Amelia Earthrona. Amelia Earthrona is one of the town elders. You've spoken with her a few times over the past couple of days.

most of your dealings have been with Ladrusa, but Amelia has been kind of leading the town as kind of the senior most town elder. Okay. I like reach up and put my paw on Amelia's shoulder and I say, don't worry, we'll go get everybody back, we'll blow up the stam,

and we will choke the rivers with their dead. Let's go. Amelia says, well, if you feel that is the only way forward, I would hate it to come to violence. The pockets have always been our friends, but... Trust me, man. Whenever we get involved, we're choking the rivers with somebody's dead.

Look, it's going to get damned one way or another. It might as well be on our terms with corpses, you know? I mean, it is likely. They seem to be intent upon flooding us all and causing us great harm. Right? The harm, et cetera. Yeah, that means it's nobody's fault, certainly not ours. Let's get to work, gang.

So we shouldn't try to talk to them. We should just... What if they let us blow up the dam? now that's interesting I heard about these festivals where people build these elaborate sculptures that you think no way would they be building that just to burn it down or blow it up

but then they burn it down or blow it up themselves and so maybe they want to blow this up and maybe we'd be out of them oh like a wicker man up in Scotland yeah I love that shit yeah the master scout looks at you and says I doubt it they're building it out of mud and stone it looks like a more permanent edifice

but it also doesn't look complete. So I'm going to wager that even if you just opened up the sluice way, the entire thing would erode and crumble. Trank, can we light mud and stone on fire? Absolutely. All right, that's all I need to hear. The master

scout says, ah, I knew we had the right man for the job. We're heroes. I suppose we are. Now, we spotted at least four villagers working the dam. It seems they come and shifts, so there may be more.

And we also spotted at least six boggards. We kidnap the villagers, and we bring them back here. La Drusa, do you have enough of that potion remaining to help four more villagers? Also, I feel like you probably know

how many villagers are missing. How many villagers are missing? La Drusa says, grand total there are eight missing. I have enough of the materials you gather to make six more doses of the antidote. I will send them all with you. What are your six

favorite villagers? I will provide you a ranked list of the six that I suggest you saving. The other two just gently drowned them in the swamp. Thank you, Lajusa. She does not say that. It's just what squash hears.

We go into Squash's mind, like there's like a cow playing a jug. And like a chicken playing a washboard. Can we get back to the jug band? That's just what's going on inside that Shoney's head. Okay, well, so there's at least six, probably enemies, and then four, we sure hope they're not enemies. We have to somehow knock them out or kidnap them while they're sleeping,

but for their own good. Yes, some of the bargards are guarding a bridge that leads up to the dam itself. There was at least one down on the dock. there's a dock at the base of the dam in the deep waters of the swamp and we saw a few more that were perhaps in a, looks like a guard tower that's in the middle of the dam itself.

But to be honest, we couldn't get a precisely accurate count. There were too many, and the guards near the bridge spotted us and gave chase almost right away. What if we get the guards to give us chase and then we ambush the guards? That may work. Trent, you can throw bombs

at them. Well, we could also, we could set explosives. There's this thing you can do where you bury explosives in the ground where you know some soldiers are going to walk by and then you set them off right as the soldiers walk by. And it works really well. Kind of, yeah. So Trantz invented landmines.

IEDs. Sure. You see there's a dock at the bottom of the dam. Yes. Sounds like a perfect opportunity for what I like to call a boat bomb. Let's build a bomb out of a boat or vice versa. Let's sail that baby up there. And bang, bang, boom.

We're all home by supper time. Where will we be if the boat's going to explode? Oh, we'll be elsewhere. How does the boat get there? Oh, okay. Without us. Look, I'm more of like an ideas guy. Just what the adventure needs.

More ideas guys. Ladrusa says, I can have the antidote ready for you in just a few hours. if there's anything else you need to buy or procure from town before you go, I suggest you do so. It will take you quite a while to get there. Lajusa, I have a really important question that's absolutely related to the mission. Is it policy here in Bog Bottom that there's no returns on items? Ladrissa looks at you and says, yes, you bought it no returns kind of policy towns.

That's how we operate. Okay. Well, do you have a receipt? No. Well, he didn't give a receipt. Yeah. Some merchants do offer it to have an exchange policy. Oh, interesting. Okay.

All right. So should we just wait for this potion, go up there? I go into a town and anyone who wants to come with me will do like a fashion show montage. I'm getting a new cloak and everyone's standing outside of the stall and like shaking their heads. No, no, no. I come out with a big purple feather boa. No. I come out with like a king's cape. no and then I come out with just basically the outfit I was on and everyone's like yes big thumbs up hell I am I'm very excited that this happened you can return to the shops that are in town the mudfly supplies or the sinking pony you could also just go and while away the hours at the moss pig having a couple pints I am going to go try to get more bombs sure yeah you can make your way back to

the sinking pony where alivinia still has their shop open and alivina will gladly sell you, Lesser Alchemist Fire for three gold apiece. Okay, I will go ahead and get two more of those. Do you want these bug bombs? Sure. How many of those? I have two of them. They're for bugs. I probably should have thrown them at the bugs we fought.

But I think at the end of the day, I just really like hitting things with sticks, with spikes. You know, my grandpa told me, if you really love something, do it all the time and never wonder if it's the right thing. to do or not. Just keep doing the thing that you like to do. And I've lived by those words ever since. So, that's

my advice to you. That does explain the constant use of explosives. All right. So you've went and bought some Alquist fire. Does anybody else want to pick up anything else before you leave town? They do have some healing potions, elixirs of life for three gold each. Yeah, I'll take a couple of those.

Do I have time to, by the way, remake device thing? So, it's been two days. since you last return from town. So that would have given you plenty of time to move a ruin or anything like that. Okay. Oh, okay, yeah.

So everyone now has a plus one weapon. Yeah, everybody should have a plus one weapon. So your spoon can be plus one now. Oh, sick. And that's plus one to hit? Yeah. We also, it's a ladle, please. Oh, I'm sorry.

So there's a difference. Spoon. All right. So you've done a little bit of shopping. You bought some healing potions. You've bought some alchemist fire. You've spent a bit of your time over the past couple days, transferring some ruins from plus one weapons over to your weapons. So everybody has a plus one weapon now. And yeah, you're pretty much just waiting for La Drusia to give you the antidote, which she does later that evening. You're told that if you leave now, you should arrive in the morning like a day and a half from now. Oh. You're going to have to camp out in the swamp. I'm going to go to a boggart in town and be like, are you all crepuscular? I'm not sure if that's a thing I'm supposed to ask strangers. Hold on.

Allow me to Google. What did you say? Squash is tucking at his collar. A crepuscular means awake, like not during the day or night, but at the sunset and sunrise. That's your crepuscular. He's like, mostly awake during the night. day. Okay.

Well, I guess if we're trying to ambush them, we should go during the day. That makes sense because we should do it while they're awake because we're not sneaking up to attack them while they're sleeping, which would be fine and morally justifiable because they're doing bad things. But I don't know. What do you all think? Should we ambush them while they're sleeping or should we get them while they're awake so that they chase us?

Well, let's ask him, what would be the best way to kill you? No, fret, people like you. People like you. Also, if anyone's mistreating you, you should let us know because, you're not. people shouldn't make assumptions. But if we were going to kill you. I didn't do anything. I mean, I did sell you those bug bombs and I'm not taking it back.

Oh, that's fine. Oh, that's fine. And then he closes his shop again. Oh, brother. Same boggered. Yeah. You'll have to excuse my friend. She was cursed to have no sense of humor.

But we're all just joking around here. But, yeah, but like, not, if we were to try and kill someone of your disposition and, you know... The polite word here is ancestry. Yeah, I'm sort of dancing around it, but let's just, you know, ancestry of your ancestry, that Pathfinder found a way around that one. Took us quite a bit of workshop in that. Well done, like genuinely, positive direction. But anyway, yeah.

Yeah, we didn't want to go species. It sounded too technical. How does your ancestry die best? I find that if you hit them with a spiked stick. Yeah. We die pretty much like most soft skins, right? I mean, you don't have any particular weaknesses. Yeah, if you were going to be lit on fire or electrocuted or frozen,

which one of those scares you the worst? What energy type would you say That you're the most vulnerable to That's the most painful death You guys are kind of slippery If you were to rate your saving throws Which one would be worse? Can I also offer this frogman soup

And say I apologize for my friends But I would also like this information, please He's like You'll have to excuse me if I decline Any soup or food you're giving me After asking me what kills me best It does heal shop closed he closes the blind again no well we tried so after a bit of time the raft is ready the antidote is ready

you've bought your supplies and you're ready to go okay so the boat's ready and we have the potions what's our plan again well i think mostly we're going to go and figure it out but there was some talk about a distraction team and an explosives team. But I think we should probably get there first. Okay. Yeah, the scouts have given you kind of a vague notion of what's going on, but until you see it for yourself, you don't really have any way of knowing exactly what's going on there. You know there's a dock, you know there's a tower, there's a bridge, but you kind of don't

know how it all relates other than just kind of a vague notion from these scouts, who frankly sawed and ran away. So I'm trying to figure out a way to roll my lore warfare. at some point during this adventure. So that's part of why I'm really excited about this plan. It's coming. It's coming. Don't worry about it.

All right. Leaving Bog Bottom behind, the journey to the dam takes a little more than a day. So you travel. In fact, you can probably wait till the morning because why camp in the swamp? So you go for an hour and then camp. So you leave the next morning and make your way there. You camp once in the swamp, which is fortunately uneventful.

The main danger of this part of the swamp has been taking care of. of by the four of you. No tutusk to threaten your sleep. And as a result, you arrive to the spot indicated by the scouts a few hours after sunrise. The dam is a massive edifice of mud, stone, and timber, stretching between two squat hills. One hill has sheer sides covered in brambles, but it's hard to see due to a massive tree blocking the view. The other hill appears far more approachable with a gentle slope leading down to the swamp waters. A bridge leads from the hill to the top of the dam near a crude watchtower. Near the base of the dam, there's a small dock with cages and a door that leads into the dam's interior.

Even from a distance, boggards and villagers can plainly be seen toiling away to complete the gigantic structure. I'm going to let you see the map here. Trent, do you think you could blow up one of those hills? Oh, yeah. We could just redirect the water around it. I'm going to need a lot of urine. But yeah. It's going to be several weeks.

Peeing into jars. So I put this map down. The map kind of shows this large dam structure across the top of it. In the middle of the dam, there is a watchtower kind of on the back side, on the opposite side away from you. That dam is pretty sheer. It doesn't look like you could climb it on the side very easily. It's probably doable, but it would be very hard, especially for all four of you to make it. It looks like the easiest way to get up would be to take the hill.

There's a hill kind of to the southeast, and that's what leads up to the bridge. Now, before you get too far ahead of yourselves, you can see some boggards. And I'm going to show those to you here on our map. So, you can see a pair of boggards up on top of the dam near the dam near the. bridge, you can see a third boggard across the bridge with a pair of humans who are working to gather mud and stones into like giant wicker baskets, probably to take over to the dam and continue working on it, because it's clearly not finished. Yeah, but you're not beating the wicker man allegations here, Jason.

No, that's fair. That's fair. In addition, there is a boggard down on the docks with another human, who is currently working on the docks, like working to reinforce the docks. There's also a cage on the docks that looks like it has something in it, but you can't really tell what it is. It's definitely not a human, but it's kind of a dark shape

inside of a wood cage. Now, the tower that is on the back side of the dock clearly has some boggards in it, but you can't really see from this angle. It has a thatch roof over it, and as a result, it's kind of dark up there and you can't really get a good view other than the fact that you can occasionally see some movement.

So there's definitely some boggards up there. Now on the other side, this other hill, the other side where there is land, there is a very large tree that goes up about 40, 50 feet, and is in fact taller than the dam. Could you climb that tree to make it up onto the dam? Possibly. Doesn't appear that there's any boggards over there, but there's something strange about the tree. It looks like it has a fog cloud inside of it. But from this distance, you can't really tell what's going on with that.

Okay, I have two questions. One, do I know if Boggards have night vision or dark vision or? Yeah, dark vision is what you're curious about. Yeah, they do. Okay. Two, those eight missing villagers. Sure wish I'd asked if any of them were Boggarts. Is there any way that I went picked up or gleaned that information?

Do you think that maybe like a list was provided or some names and some of them are clearly froggy or like frowning. Problematic. I'm going to go ahead and tell you that they did give you a list and a description for all of them. And none of them are boggards. This makes this part way easier.

Wait, are you holding a blade to their neck? Wait, are you a good bongered or a bad bongered? I don't know. We're not doing that. I think we can declare every member of this group, the enemy. See, Trent, I think that that's actually the basis by which a

is built. I know it seems okay when we're not the ones with systemic power, but if we became the people systemic attack. What if the bomb chooses? Let Malani sort it out? Yeah, if that's what you want to call the bomb, sure. What if the bomb chooses?

There's the party's slogan. Let the bomb choose. So currently you are pretty far away. I know it looks like on the map that you're right on the edge of the map there. You are not, as of yet. You are more like quarter of a mile away kind of hiding. You've gotten your barge that you were on, kind of up on a small island, and you're currently just hiding in a bush, you know, behind some plants and kind of taking a look at the scene. Now, if you want to know more,

if you have specific questions about what's going on, we can investigate some of that, or you can formulate a plan based on what you know right now. We know those three are pretty close in terms of exploding. So, Trant, only one of those is one of the enemies. The other two are the people who are trying to get potions into. Technically, they have potions. How is the potion administered? You have to eat it?

You have to drink it, yeah. Soup. Oh, bro, soup. Soup is good food. You know, we didn't even promise, you know? We said, we're going to try. and get six of these bad boys back to the village out of the eight and what is two minus eight four you know exactly i think we should try to rescue all the villagers what oh uh okay

okay sounds like a who okay i'm just thinking about all the work that's going to be yeah okay but If we get them on our side, then they will also help us do the work. I love that. Us plus six, that's 10 people. We can keep two people captive. We could probably even bring some bodies, you know? I'm like counting on my paws. I'm like, by God, she's right.

Look at that tree, though. Can I roll a perception on the tree? Sure. Go ahead and give me a perception check. Malani does ask us to always go the hard way instead of the easy way when the hard way is what's necessary to get work done. Your Melani speaks in riddles. It's an 11 plus 5.16 perception on the tree.

Boy, you can't be certain, but looking at the tree, you're like, why is there fog in the tree? That doesn't make any sense. And you look closer and you realize it's not fog. It's webs. Oh, brother. Bug bomb. The bug bomb might work. That's possible.

I would like to look at the size of the fortification and use my lore warfare to determine the size of the garrison. Okay, go ahead and give me a lore warfare. Okay, can I have magical guidance on this, Bernie? Sure can. You get a plus one for that. That's good, because I did not roll well. I rolled a nine plus three, plus one is 13. Well, you can't be certain, but looking at it, you can tell that there is an entrance into the dam structure itself on the waterline.

You would suspect there's probably an entrance up above as well, because otherwise, none of the boggards could get inside unless they took a raft out to the dam. So there's probably a second entrance. And looking at the size of the dam, and the fact that it, I mean, it does get wider and wider the further down it goes. Boy, if there was barracks or quarters inside the dam, there could be a fair number of boggards in there, maybe as many as 20. I think there might be as many as 20 boggards here. And so I think we probably shouldn't try to fight them all.

You'd also, you shouldn't try to fight. The desire to purchase ads, no, the desire to purchase the things that the ads advertise. Yeah, you've got it. You wouldn't want to resist that. It's irresistible. You're going to roll a one on resisting these products, unless they're bad, in which case, rolling that 20.

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since the son of Sam, available now. Listen for free on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Robert Smith, and this is Jacob Goldstein, and we used to host a show called Planet Money. And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History about the best ideas and people and businesses in history. And some of the worst people.

horrible ideas and destructive companies in the history of business. Having a genius idea without a need for it is nothing. It's like not having it at all. It's a very simple, elegant lesson. Make something people want. First episode, how Southwest Airlines use cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way into the airline business. The most Texas story ever. There's a lot of mavericks in that story.

We're going to have mavericks on the show. We're going to have plenty of robber barons. So many robber barons. And you know what? They're not all bad. And we'll talk about some of the classic great moments of famous business geniuses, along with some of the darker moments that often get overlooked. Like Thomas Edison and the electric chair.

Listen to business history on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What up, y'all? It's your boy, Kevin on stage. I want to tell you about my new podcast called Not My Best Moment, where I talk to artists, athletes, entertainers, creators, friends. people I admire who had massive success about their massive failures. What did they mess up on? What is their heartbreak?

And what did they learn from it? I got judged horribly. The judges were like, you're trash. I don't know how you got on the show. Boo, somebody had tomatoes. I'm kidding. But if they had tomatoes, they would have thrown the tomatoes. Let's be honest.

We've all had those moments we'd rather forget. We bumped our head. We made a mistake. The deal fell through. We're embarrassed. We failed. But this podcast is about. that and how we made it through. So when they sat me down, they were kind of like, we got into

the small talk and they were just like, so what do you got? What? What ideas? And I was like, oh, no. What? Check out not my best moment with me, Kevin on stage on the Iheart radio app, Apple podcast, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. My name is Evan Ratliff. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co-founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Aldman. There's this betting pool for the first year that there's a one-person billion dollar company, which would have been like unimaginable without AI and now will happen.

I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award-winning podcast, Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people. Oh, hey, Evan. Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small to medium businesses. Listen to Shell Game on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back. God, I've bought so many things. I'm ruined.

Gold is doing really. well right now. It is. It's great. I fought a lot of gold and some tactical wipes and some ready-made meals. I blew all my money at the Chimba Casino. It was too good. Yeah, it's

a better call. I mean, too many websites on Squarespace. I remember when the ads were going to the forest. That was a great. I miss when that was our advertiser. Go into the forest. Go into the dark forest at night alone. It'll be fine.

Anyway, should we? Yeah, okay. Our options are we go in the front easy way, which has the bad way, or we go on the dock, but then there's a boggart and a person and we'll be very seen. Or we go in the spider web tree. I'm very good at climbing trees. I was the best of climbing trees when I was a kid. But it's not a competition. Malani reminds us that it's not a competition. But if it were a competition, I was the best at climbing trees. But it wasn't a competition. I just was at the top of the tree faster than everyone else, and that has no moral value. And or we could also try and sneak around and, like, come around the back of the dam. We could also wait till night and then, like, kidnap some of these people and feed them potions. I don't know.

I'm just spitball in here. Trent, what's your stealth at? Pretty good. I am at a five. Okay, I'm at a six. I mean, what if we were to set up some bombs on the way and then try to lead them out and then detonate said bombs and then fall upon them in ambush after they've been exploded.

So my worry is that if the kidnapped villagers are also part of the crew that follows us, I was thinking you could throw bombs into the midst of Boggerts rather than having trap bombs that you can't pick who they affect. Sounds good to me. Okay. I know it's not as fun. Are we sure that these villagers are even good at all? We've only been in town

like a couple of days These guys could be... Yeah, what's good and evil, even? What is good and evil? Tell me... We have literally never tried to talk to that. We don't know what their deal is. Listen, we got rid of alignment in Pathfinder,

so don't worry about it. See? We don't do that anymore. It's all shades of gray. Yeah, but some things are just evil, like fascists and frogs. Absolutely. And landmines that are indeterminate

about who they... Yeah. So there is something a little odd that you notice. It looks like the boggards all have some sort of red sigil or symbol on their foreheads. You have not seen this on any of the other boggards you have encountered. Are they also being mind-controlled? Do I have to feel bad about killing these fucking frogs?

I mean, you don't know what the symbol is, so I don't know, maybe. I have cooking Lord Jason, does that help? It doesn't look like a cooking symbol. You don't see any notation for how many cups or teaspoons of flies to add. Does anyone have Arcana or occultism? I could give you plus one. I've got one to Arcana, but that's it. Do you want to roll an Arcana?

Does nobody have Arcana or occultism? You can try religion as well. I do have quite good Arcana. Oh, yeah. Well, I have plus seven in religion. And I'll take an Arcana. And I'm taking guidance from Arastel. Thank you.

All right, that was a 10 plus 7 plus 1 is 18. All right. And then for Arcana, that's an 18 total, 13 plus 5. So from both of your areas of expertise, you converse with each other, ruling out some possibilities talking about what some things might be and that's when you kind of figure it out the symbol that you see on their forehead

is a fiendish room one belonging to Gugunta Gagunta is a demon lord of swamps and a patron of evil bonkers well so they're evil we can Markham.

They are definitely not good guys. These are cultists. These are boggered cultists. Okay. It's not surprising that the ones you saw out in the swamp weren't showing off the symbol that would kind of give away that they were part of this cult. Those ones were kind of hiding. But the ones here at the dam are not hiding.

Their allegiance. So let's get some of them to chase. Mertie and I will walk up and ask if they want soup. And then when they chase us, we'll run. And then once they're in the wall, woods. It'll only be a couple of them. Squash and Trant attack and any of the villagers who chase us, we will knock unconscious instead of killing. Right, Jason, that's a thing you can do in this, right? You can do non-lethal. Yeah, you can attack people and deal non-lethal damage. If you

reduce them to zero with an attack that does non-lethal damage, they're just knocked out. Yeah. I might have a spell. How does that sound of folks? Okay. You can throw bombs at the people who chase us. Okay. I appreciate the defeat of like, well, I guess we could do that. I have a spell called Command, which does have a range of 30 feet so I can hit a bunch of people. I can command a target to approach, run away, release what it's holding, or importantly, drop prone or stand in place.

It does have to make a will save, but they're already under effects of like a mushroom, so I would hope that that effect. their willpower. So I should note it will only affect one target. It only affects one target? Yep. Jason. Jason. Jason, look more friends.

The Game Master is no one's friend. You have made a terrible mistake assuming that I am your friend. Jason, have you considered the rule of cool and that's cool when my character gets to do a thing? And it's even cooler to have these

frogs chase you through the swamp and murder you so let's do that. That doesn't find cool to me. Well, you'll be able to command if only one, like you'll be able to command one of the villagers or something to drop or something. What if we get one of them to come on over and give us some tasty little secrets? The command doesn't

do that. It doesn't like make them your ally. Oh, rats. That's a more powerful spell. And it only has 30 foot range and we're a quarter mile away right now. Well, at this point I've kind of assumed that you've moved at least a bit closer. You're now probably only a couple hundred feet away. You couldn't have seen the ruins without getting somewhat closer.

Mm-hmm. Do you have another plan besides? My only other plan is we go up that webby tree and we use some bug bombs and we blow up the whole fucking damn. That's a lot of spitting plates, maybe. And I don't know how big these spiders are, but I would love to use those bug bombs. I don't know. I like this plan. So you've got two sides. You can either try and climb this tree or you can go up the land bridge. It's really up to you. What approach you want to try? I like your plan.

Yeah, let's do it. All right. So we're going to offer them soup. You all are going to lay an ambush and we're going to take care of some of these fools and then we'll go and get the rest of them. All right, so it sounds like two of you are laying an ambush that's going to be squash and Trant. Correct? Yes.

Yes, I'm and it sounds like Spite and Mertie are going to kind of approach more out in the open to attempt to lure the bargards away. Is that correct? Do I got the shape of it? Yeah, we're doing a modified L-shaped. I've got a bowl of soup that has potion in it prepared.

Okay. You got some of the antidote mixed in with some of the soup. And you make your way up to the hillock. And frankly, the bargards, you're not sure if they're just not. paying attention or if they're you know busy focused on their work because they are like the humans are being there are basically on a work detail the boggards seem to be guarding them and kind of doing work but mostly letting the humans do it or i should say the villagers it doesn't look like they're all humans you just know that they're not boggards it looks that the guy on the dock

might be a dromar and the two people on the bridge are human but as you approach the boggard that is on the side of the bridge with the two humans, immediately kind of moves forward, drawing a club that he had tucked into his belt, shouting in Boggard. And I doubt any of you speak Boggard, but he's making a bunch of loud croaking noises, which is having the two guards on the other side of the bridge. One of them looks like he's about to come over and investigate, but the other one is staying behind. So not all three of them are coming to.

check this out. You also notice the boggard over on the dam, when it's not very far away, it's like, you know, 40, 50 feet away, is suddenly watching intently at what's going on. Do you want to try to engage the baggaret that's coming towards you, and I will skirt around and try to talk to

the villagers? I thought our plan... You could try to pitch them on joining the cult of Malani, perhaps. I thought the plan was that we're supposed to run at this point, so that we get chased into the ambush. Oh, we could do that too. and then it's funny because you're running with the bowl of soup like ah

soups sloshing here and about throughout the swamp okay so it's easy enough to do because as it turns out the barger if he can understand what you're saying you don't see any indication of that he instead comes charging at you with this club and the other barger that crossed the bridge kind of stays with the humans on that side as the two of you kind of run away now at this point in time Trant and Squash.

I'm going to ask both of you to make stealth checks. Oh, yeah. I will say that as I envision this plan, this does not really fit within the scale of this map. I was envisioning not running 20 feet back. I was envisioning running, you know, a little bit. So the whole point is that we wouldn't be seen because we want to kill these boggards and then move forward. Yeah. So for those of you listening, the map is a little truncated.

We'll assume this. The entire ambush site is, let's just say it's 50 feet away. We'll still use this part of the map, but we'll assume it's further away. Awesome. So that the Boggards that are still on the dam, maybe can't see what's going on. But for ease of play, we'll still play on this corner on the map. The map is only a 11 by 17 kind of grid, so it's not huge. Okay.

So, Squash, Trant, give me those stealth checks. I rolled a 14 plus 6 for a filthy 20. I also have a 15 plus 5 for another 20. Let's go. So a pair of 20s is going to be plenty to beat their passive perception DC. So the two of you remain hidden as that Boggard kind of runs past. So the way it's kind of worked out is one Boggard has kind of chased down this hill. Another one has kind of stayed with the humans, but he's moved in front of the humans.

Trant and Squash You're kind of between the two right now They're not clustered together One's kind of closer to the humans One's chasing Murdy And spite And assuming you plan to spring your ambush

At this point in time I'm going to ask everybody to roll initiative Should we use our stealth for the initiative Or roll another one? Yeah, you certainly can You'll especially want to do that If your stealth is higher than your perception Yeah

It sure is But it's a new role? Yeah, this is going to be a brand new role. I am going to turn to Trant and say, if we get these villagers out of the way, we could start just going fucking hog wild with bombs. So maybe we should try and pull them out first? What do you think?

I mean, I feel like we could go, well, there's only two of them, right, within range? Yeah. So I feel like we should start by just kind of sniping the two within range. although then we're not going to have much in the way of the advantage of stealth when more come out and it's thinking we get out there

get these villagers hand over the mouth pull them into the trees say calm down you bunk them on the head bang bang boom they're out of commission and then we start you know

firing it up we are in a fight right now you're in a fight we have not arrived yet before we start combat you know what else is arriving Is it the ads? It's time for ads. Oh, they rolled a higher initiative than any of us. They roll a Nat 30.

I hate when they roll 30-sided dice. All right, here's ad. A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers. But it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught. The answers were there, hidden in plain sight. So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, hunting the Long Island serial killer,

the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York, since the son of Sam, available now. Listen for free on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Robert Smith, and this is Jacob Goldstein, and we used to host a show called Planet Money. And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History, about the best ideas and people,

and businesses in history. And some of the worst people, horrible ideas, and destructive companies in the history of business. Having a genius idea without a need for it is nothing. It's like not having it at all. It's a very simple, elegant lesson. Make something people want. First episode, how Southwest Airlines use cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way into the airline business. The Most Texas Story ever.

There's a lot of mavericks in that story. We're going to have mavericks on the show. We have plenty of robber barons. So many robber barons. And you know what? They're not all bad. And we'll talk about some of the classic great moments of famous business geniuses, along with some of the darker moments that often get overlooked.

Like Thomas Edison and the electric chair. Listen to business history on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What up, y'all? It's your boy, Kevin on stage. I want to tell you about my new podcast called Not My Best Moment, where I talk to artists, athletes, entertainers, creators, friends, people I admire who had massive success about their massive failures. What did they mess up on?

What is their heartbreak? And what did they learn from it? I got judged horribly. The judges were like, you're trash. I don't know how you got on the show. Boo, somebody had tomatoes. I'm kidding. But if they had tomatoes, they would have thrown the tomatoes.

Let's be honest. We've all had those moments we'd rather forget. We bumped our head. We made a mistake. The deal felt three. through. We're embarrassed. We failed. But this podcast is about that and how we made it through. So when they sat me down, they were kind of like, we got into the small talk and they were just like, so what do you got? What? What ideas? And I was like, oh, no. What? Check out not my best moment with

me, Kevin on stage on the Iheart radio app, Apple podcast, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. just finished drawing up that quick one-page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. My name is Evan Ratliff. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co-founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Aldman. There's this betting pool for the first year that there's a one-person billion dollar company,

which would have been like unimaginable without AI and now will happen. I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award-winning podcast, Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people. Oh, hey, Evan.

Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small to medium businesses. Listen to Shell Game on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back.

Ambush ads. Take that. All right. So let's go around and gather everybody's initiative. Spite. What do you got? 22. Murdy, what he got?

12 plus 7 is 19. Squash, what do you got? Rolling stealth. 15 plus 7 is 22. And Trant. What do you got rolling stealth? I've got a 20. 20.

All right. You know, the one time I actually rolled decently well for my bad guys, and you still all beat them. That has happened this entire campaign. All right. So, top of the order, we've got squash. Now, you've got two options here, or two immediate targets. You've got one that's closer to the dam.

If you go to attack that one, the other boggards at the dam may see it. You've also got the other boggard that is chasing spite and Murray. If you go attack that one, the boggards back at the dam will probably not see it. I'm going to go up. I'm going to give this guy, uh, sneaky little stab. Sounds good. He is off guard to you,

so his defenses are going to be even lower than normal. That's right, they are. Ooh, and it's a 13 plus seven for a total of a 20. A 20 is an easy hit.

Unlike the boggards that you fought up in the tower, these ones are not as well armored and frankly aren't as buff. These ones look more like just workers. Maybe we should just storm in the place after this. Wow, that was like crazy easy. You can just stab these guys. Go ahead and roll damage.

Oh, I sure wish it was more than a one, but what can I say, folks? It's a one, but it's a plus two. So it's a three. All right. So you dive out of the shadows and stab the bargird. He screams in pain, but you still have one action left. You needed to take one to approach, one to attack, and you can attack again if you want. Can I twist the knife that's in him, or pull it out with a flourish?

That's sort of another, just counts as another attack? Yeah, I mean, basically you're making another attack, so go ahead and make another attack roll to see if it does damage. I'd love to make another attack. A swashbuckler specialty, oh boy, here I go with my other attack. and it's a 16. That's with the minus 5 and the... Well, with the minus 5, it's an 11, but plus 7.

So, uh... Yeah. That is going to be a hit. So go ahead and roll damage again. So you walk up and swing your blade left, swing it right, and carve some deep cuts into this bargard. How much damage? Nine total.

Huh. Well, the bargard that was guarding the two humans collapses in the flink of eye, your blade slices and dices and cuts down the boggard. That is the end of Squash's turn. Spite further down the hill. In the background, you can see Squashes come darting out of the shadows and just dispatched one of the guards instantly. So, should we just storm the place?

Did we try to make a plan when, in reality, we should just run up and kill everything? I ask while, while doing a day? defensive advance walking up to this boggart. I'm going to flank it by going on the opposite side of it as Mertie. Yeah, I was kind of chasing Mertie down. Yeah, and I just don't approve of people chasing my friends. And so I am going to swing my Morning Star with a 24 to hit. It's a 16 plus 8.

So, so with my reduced armor class, that's not only a hit. That's a critical hit. Your morning star bashes the thing in the back of the head. The Boggard cries out in ribbity pain as you roll damage. Yeah, I don't know if it's going to cry out much longer because I did 16 damage to it. 16! You know how many hit points it doesn't have? 16.

So you cave in the back of the Boggard's head. This Goggard cultist collapses into a pool of bubbling green blood. I yell. Let's go! Use my remaining action to move towards the dam. And with that, I'll literally just move you to where you are on the map right now, and we'll call that proportional. So the villagers, to be clear,

see the bargered guards just get wiped. And they both grab their heads and they're like, oh, no. But they don't really run. They just kind of cower. They frankly just kind of run over into the brush and just hide. They just look afraid. They don't know what's going on.

They look very confused. So, we'll move on here. Trant, it is your turn. Okay. Spite has destroyed the bugger guard. Squash has destroyed a bugger guard. The only bogger guard that's left is the one across the bridge,

and he has drawn his sling, and he looks like he's prepared to defend the bridge against all invaders. Okay. With his sling. I guess, can I move up to here and then hold the rest of my actions? You can move up to there and ready an action. So what you would do is basically spend two actions to say,

if something happens, I want to make an attack. Yeah, if something happens, I'm going to fire my shotgun across the bridge. Okay, so probably if anybody tries to cross the bridge. I assume that's the trigger. Okay. All right. In that case, Mertie, we are up to you. Yeah, I am going to...

How far can I get to those villagers? We'll say if you spend two of your actions movie, you can make it up to the villagers. All right, that's reasonable. Cool. I'm going to cower down in the bushes with them, and I'm going to lay my hands and say, I know it's been a really big day. I can understand your fear. I brought some soup. They're like, they're like, what's happening? The boggards. They're dead. Yeah, they are.

What are we going to do? They were the ones telling us what to build. That's okay I have some soup Just eat some soup Everything will be all right It'll all make sense Can you give me a diplomacy check Oh I sure can Jason

Oh that was a five I do have five diplomacy Bonafire those I would say because of ten I will say this as a reminder You all have one hero point I do have a hero point But if I send guidance does that help

You would have had to cast that you don't have the action to spare, but you can use your hero point, which does not require an action, to re-roll that die roll. I'm going to use that hero point, Jason. Sounds good. All right, going again.

Oh, that was a 19. Plus five is 24. I'm in here. I serve soup so well. At first, the villagers were like, I don't know that I just ate. I'm not really hungry for soup. And then they smell, they're like,

oh, you know what, I could go for some soup. So the both of them start chowing down on the soup. And almost immediately, their expressions start to change, soften. They don't look as frightened. They just look kind of confused as if coming out of a daze. That's all they're going to be able to do right at the moment. Can I ask the question? Are the villagers willing to help us fight in the coming rounds,

or should I tell them to stay on the side of the dam and to not get involved? To be honest, they don't really look like combatants at all. They're not wearing armor. They don't have weapons. Frankly, they look kind of malnourished. and I wouldn't call them sickly looking, but they definitely don't look combat ready. Right.

They look like bystanders, really. Well, I'm going to pat them on their shoulders, and I'm going to leave them with two bowls of soup and just, you know, tell them. I know you've had a rough couple of weeks. We're here. We're going to do our best. Just stay on the action, and you'll stay safe,

and we'll make sure we get you back. I'm just trying to be a calm and steady presence. So the boggard on the far side of the bridge is going to use his sling to attack Trant. So a rock comes flying across the bridge at you. Not very nice. No, and I didn't roll particularly well. I rolled a seven for a total of 13, which I'm going to wager is not enough to hit you. No, I may see 17.

Yeah. So he's going to then reload for his second action, and then he's going to fire a slingstone at you again. And even worse than the last time. boggards don't look too skilled with their slings. Both those stones went pretty far and wide. The boggard down below is going to go to the cage, and he is holding his hand atop the cage. That's all he does, right. Actually, the one down below lets out a rather piercingly loud trope, almost like a war. Perhaps it's trying to raise the alarm. Squash, we're over to you.

Would rolling a perception check be one of my of actions in combat? I mean, most of the time, a perception check is something that's kind of done for free when you might spot a thing. But if you're intentionally trying to see a thing or notice a thing, you're trying to focus on a thing or ask a question, that would be an action. Okay. Well, I realized when he went to go put his hand on the cage, I meant to investigate that

earlier, but I got caught up in all the podcasting magic. And I would like to see if I can sort of tell what's in the cage. Well, first I want to, like, run to the square that's closest to him across the river next to Trant and see if I can tell what's in the cage. Yeah. All right. That will take an action. Go ahead and give me a perception check. That's a 15 perception.

You're pretty sure there's a really big frog in there. Not as big as the slurk you fought. Looks more like just your garden variety giant frog. But the fact that they have it in a cage is a little odd. Clearly, it's not fully domesticated. Oh, that's a little bit odd. Well, I shoot him. You shoot the Boggart over there?

I shoot the guy who's got his hand out the cage. Yep. All right, so the Boggard down at the dock. Go ahead and make me an attack roll. It's a natural 4 plus 7 for a total of a need live. Okay. Your shot goes wide, hitting the dam, making no appreciable dam. image. For a minute there, when I thought you said natural, I was like, oh, it's going to be

sudden. Oh, it's a four. All right. Okay. That is the end of Squash's turn. He has spotted the giant frog and taken a shot, but otherwise that's that. Spite, we are over to you. You're kind of the furthest away from the bridge right at the moment, but that can be rectified with a move. Yeah. I can use one action to get right next to Trant, and then I can use another action to get right next to that bogger. Ironically, I thought I was going to stop there, pull a javelin, and throw it, but it is just outside my range, I think.

I think I can get there. Well, remember, range, anything that's beyond the first range increment, you can still shoot at it. You just take a minus two. Oh, okay. Yeah, okay. I can get there.

I'm running up there, and I am screaming, don't put people in mind cages. So spite goes charging across the bridge. Yeah, hopefully it doesn't collapse underneath me. It does not. It creaks a lot, but it holds your weight. Okay. I rolled a 8 plus 8, so 16 to hit. A 16 is a hit. You go putting your morning star directly into this boggard's chest

while he's desperately trying to fumble and reload his sling. And that is a 2 plus 4, so 6 damage. 6 damage. Reeling from the hit. This buggard looks very badly hurt from that. All right. That is Spike. Trent, we are back to you. Well, shit okay you've got a boggard in a down below at the docks that doesn't look like he's much of a threat

because he's kind of far away and i'm going to run up behind the boss and i'm going to hurl an alchemist fire at that boggart's face all right the poor boggard who thus far has fired two slingstones is desperately fumbling with a rock just got hit in the chest with a morning star and now i rule 16 plus five so 21 hit in the face with alky fire. And gets hit in the face with alchemist fire. Go ahead and roll damage. I'll teach you to not hit me.

That's going to be six plus, I think, plus one, so seven. Collapses to the ground, burning, ribbiting, and frankly, it's going kind of good. Okay, so. Cannibalism has entered. Is it cannibalism to eat these frog legs? No, we're not frogs. I mean, you're not a frog, so. Frog legs do.

Ah, yes. Answering the important, ethical questions. It's not cannibalism if they're evil. Sure. I think that's a rule somewhere. So you go up behind spite and throw the Alchemist fire right into that Barker's mouth. You do technically have one action left. You can move through Spite if you want.

You're not gatelocked there. You can move through your allies. Or you can sit where you're at. Do whatever. Because you are a quick bomber, you could throw a bomb down at the Boggart on the docks. I'm going to sprint ahead of Margaret up on the side of that hill. and I'll just kind of hunker down and wait to see what happens.

Okay, so, Spain's Fisher for everybody. Squash and Murty are on the hill preparing to cross the bridge. Spite is on the bridge. Trant has moved atop the dam and is not too far away from the watchtower. Murdy. Yeah, I'm going to move as far as I can

onto this bridge with my one action and then with my remaining two actions, I'm going to cast Divine Lance at that last Boggart who's still outside. Sounds good. Go ahead and make me an attack roll. Okay. Oh, so that was a Nat 2 plus

7 for my spell attack. It's only a 9. Your blinding beam of light misses the Boggart Garden entirely who croaks out in fear before ducking back behind the cage. Its hand goes to open the cage And since it goes next, it opens the cage, hoping that the frog will be its ally.

We could have had a frog friend. Now we have a frogamy. Well, we had a lot of frogomies. Well, in truth, you have neither. You just have a frog that immediately turns on the boggars. I'll take it. All right. The first thing the frog does the moment it gets out of its cage

is leap upon the boggard and begin biting him viciously. So, that's what's going on down there. Meanwhile, up on the dam, there are other boggards. There are, in fact, three more boggards up in the watchtower. One of them climbs down the ladder. With its first action, with its second action, it approaches you, Trant. And with its third action, it's going to attempt to attack you with its club. Okay.

But I only rolled a 8, which is a total of 13, which is not going to be enough to hit you. Nope. Nimbly able to dodge out of the way of that. Meanwhile, up above, the pair of Boggards, one of them, is going to make an attack at you. So it throws a bag, a small sack down at you, Trent, that misses you only barely and explodes on the ground in a sticky, viscous substance that would have rooted you in place, but I missed.

I was afraid it was the mushroom spores that were going to turn Trent against us. Oh, no. Finally, the last bugger that's up there going to load his sling and fire at you, Trant, just because you're closest. Armor Class 15, I'm going to wager, is not going to hit. Nope, 17, baby. Yeah, no.

These poor bargards are having no luck today. I'm accidentally tanking. Yeah. So that is all the bargards. The bargards have gone. Squash, you're up. I'm going to run across that bridge to be amongst my friends. You can get right up to there for two actions, right up next to the boggard if you want.

I would love to get up right next to that boggard. All right. And these two boggards are up on top of the watchtower? Yeah, the watchtower is about 15 feet up above the ground. Oh, excellent. I'm throwing me alchemist's fire up at them. Oh, okay. So you're going to throw up into the watchtower.

watchtower. Yeah. I got the range for that. Yeah, sure. So Squash goes running across the bridge, passing Mertie and Spite, who are still on the bridge, getting up next to the Boggart,

and then tossing an alchemist fire up into the watchtower. Go ahead and make me an attack roll. It's a 15 plus, what would I add for an alchemist fire? It would be three plus whatever your dexterity modifier is. Well, that's great news, Jason.

Oh, good. That's a total of 22. A 22 is going to hit. Okay, so go ahead and roll damage. What a delight. And it's a four. Fourfire on these bad boys. All right.

We're going to do four fire or the one that you threw at. Actually, five fire, because you get splash as well. And then the other one's going to take one damage. The bogger that you hit looks like one of these kind of workers or guards that look pretty fragile. But the other boggart that's up on the tower looks like the boss. And it's given the orders to the other ones. And it looks significantly more sturdy than the frail guards. And that is the end of Squash's turn, Spite.

We are over to you. Okay, I'm going to use, I'm going to defensively advance immediately to the north of the boggart that's on the dam. Sure. And so that'll be a strike. And that is a 20 to hit at 12 plus 8. That is a solid hit, not a crit, but you do hit the buggered cleanly. Excellent. It's a shame that I rolled a one on damage for a total of five.

Five damage. That's still respectable. That bugger now looks very hurt. You do still have one action left if you want to make another attack. I'm going to attack it again. I'm sad because I mostly, I am very concerned about the well-being. of the civilian that is on the dock below. How far is it down to the dock below?

You're about 25 feet up. What would happen if I were to jump on top of one of the combatants down there, either the bogger to the large frog? So from this distance, you would probably take about 10 points of fall damage, but anything you hit would also take about 10 points of damage? I'm doing that. I am jumping on the boggards down below. So instead of attacking the boggart up here, you're going to jump down.

On top of the boggart down below. Yeah. So, boy, give me a reflex save? Athletics? Okay, fine. You can make an acrobatics check if you want. Not athletics. Not athletics.

Then I'm doing reflex. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you go slamming into this bargard. I'm going to make a check for the bargard as well. Well, let's just see how that goes. Terribly.

Terribly. So you crushed this boggard. You land right on top of it. And the bugger was already being attacked by this giant frog and had like half of its arm was in the frog's mouth and the frogs trying to swallow the boggard hole. And then you crash land on both of them. The frog freaks out and jumps into the water.

It's not here for any of this. The boggard is dead. He didn't survive that. He did not survive a full-sized human. landing on him from up above. Yeah, with a six bulk of gear, yeah. Yeah, yeah. You just basically dropped on that boggard like a ton of bricks.

You do take 10 points of damage from the ball. Oh, that's fine. I expected that. Yeah, I think I did it very WWE style. I think I drove down into it headfirst, which people's elbow. Yeah, people's elbowed it. You are spattered in green boggared blood from top to bottom right now. you are coded.

And I look up at the civilian, who is clearly I am aware still under the spell. And I say, don't worry, I'll save you. Also spattered in green bockered bits from head to toe. And that's my turn. And I probably take the rest of the battle to climb back up this fucking thing. Yeah, I mean, you're going to have to get on the raft or something. I'm very athletic. I think I can climb this damn.

That's fair. All right. Trent. All right, all right, all right. Well, there's this guy in front of me. Yeah, he looks pretty hurt. Hey, buddy, would you hold onto something for me? And then I'm going to throw Alchemist fire at his face.

Ooh, that is an 11. Not doing good. An 11. So an 11, unfortunately, is going to miss. The Bargard panics. He doesn't want whatever you're going to give him. And it goes over his shoulder landing right behind him. That is going to still do one point of damage to the Boggard,

as it does explode right behind him. But he is still up. And then I'm going to whip out my guitar and try to stab him. All right. So a little bit of knife work. Yeah. All right? Oh, nope.

That does not do it. Wait, did it roll twice? It did roll twice, oddly enough. And, you know, I'm a fair and benevolent game master. So I'm going to let you have the first roll, which I happen to know. It's the 20. Yes. It's a difference there.

So that's my one kind of. for the day. I'm glad I got that out of my system. Well, in that case, that would be a net 22, because minus 5, but I'm a plus 7 normally. Yeah, but it's because it's a Nat 20, it's still going to upgrade from a hit to a critical hit. So go ahead and roll damage and then double it.

Okay, that's D4 plus 3, doubled. So that's six doubled to 12. Oh, God, yeah. In his panic to avoid the Alchemist fire, he left his throat wide open and you just opened it right

up. He collapses. Every frog's weak spot. Yeah. Yeah. It was the distraction. You were like, look over there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is the end of Tran's turn. Mertie. You are still on the bridge. There are only two boggards left. They are up in the tower. One of them looks pretty badly hurt from the fire. The other one looks kind of like the boss boggered and does not look very heard of all. Well, Jason, I hear you about those two boggards, but I also see my friend. and comrade down on the bridge with a villager,

both of whom needs some healing and some antidote potion. So I would like to spend, how about this? Would you accept if I spend one move to get as close as I can to that bridge and then my next two moves to craft a police system for my climbing gear so that I can then my third move lower down a healing potion

and the mind control antidote? Sure, you know what? As you're walking over, you break out the rope from your climbing kit, tie it around the two vials, and you can lower it down as your third. That's fine. There's no risk of that going into the drink or anything like that. Spite on your turn, you'll have to grab them and use them, but other than that, you should be fine.

All right, so that's the end of Murdy's turn. So Murdy's doing that. The Boggards go. The chief Boggert's going to climb down the tower. That's going to be his first action. Second action is going to be to draw his Morning Star. I shake my fist. The third action, he is going to swing his morning star at Mertie.

Okay. Here we go. Well. Oh, fuck. Shit. We can see the die roll as a dear audience. Well, I may have rolled a 18. Plus eight is going to be a 26.

Mertie, what's your armor class? It is 14, my fair liege. 14, so this is a critical hit God Fortunately for you I rolled minimum damage So you only are you did So you only take eight

All right Which is good Because had you followed unconscious You would have dropped the rope And the vials Down onto the bridge And possibly into the swamp That would have been really funny

That is the end of That Boggard's turn We have the bugger guard up above was going to spend their first action loading their sling, their second action firing their sling at Squash. What? Yeah, I know. It's unfair.

Fortunately for you, I rolled a one, so that's going to miss. And then I spend my third action reloading my sling. So that's it for the Boggards. Squash, we are over to you. There's two Boggards left, the Boss Boggard, and the Guard Boggard up in the tower. The boss Boggard is hanging out over a precipice. Yays? Yes.

Interesting. Uh-oh. I'm going to get a reverse of what just happened. It's going to happen to me. Uh-oh. No, I think it's going to be good and fun when I do a fun kick flip off of the tower and try and kick this fool off of the precipice. So you're going to move over to there and try and push the bargarde off the edge. A very acrobatic maneuver.

to plant my feet directly on this fool's shoulders and tip him into the drink. All right. Give me an athletics check. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I don't like you cackling. That's a natural 20 plus seven acrobatics, Jason. Oh, but it's athletics, but it's still not 20. It doesn't matter.

Yeah. Doesn't matter. Here's athletics. So you go shoving this bargard who falls all the way down into the swamp, bouncing down the dam as he goes, and he lands down into the muck, sinking beneath the surface. I'm going to be diving for find a loot later. I'm just going to go ahead and remove him from the mouth.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Spite, you can grab those potions and administer them. most of your turn. I think it'll be my entire turn, probably. So I'm going to grab the potions, give a big old thumbs up, and then I'm going to turn to the civilian. How is the civilian handling this? The guy down on the dock looks at you and says, what happened to my friend? He doesn't look so good. He's spattered with him. The answer is in this vial, and I try and see if he'll drink the vial willingly.

Okay. He does. Okay, good. Otherwise, I was force-feeding the file to this man. And I was trying to figure out the ethics of that. Yeah, the exact contours of your ethical beliefs are always fascinating to Tram. He doesn't understand them at all, but he goes along with it.

Same with spite. When I tried to climb this dam, is that a single action or is that a multi-action? Well, it's probably going to be a multi-action. We'll worry about it when we get there. Do you drink the minor elixir of life that was handed down to you as well? It depends. If I think I can try and climb up in one action, I'm trying to do that. You definitely will not be able to get up in one.

Then I am drinking the elixir of life. All right. You regain 1D6 hit points, so go ahead and roll that and give it to yourself. Okay. Meanwhile, we'll move on to Trance. I regain three. There is one boggered left up in the tower. Let's see.

How far up is the top of the tower? About 15 feet. All right. Can I get up to that staircase and then overhand try to hurl a grenade up there? Absolutely. All right. And that's what Trant's going to do, baby. Go ahead and roll me and attack.

That is an eight. I'm going to use my hero point. Fuck it. Oh. Neither of those are going to do the job. Yeah. Yeah. So what did you get?

Eight and then a six. Both are plus five. So, believe it or not, the eight actually hits. Oh, no, you're all good. So you lob the alchemist fire up there. Go ahead and roll me damage. That's an eight, nine total. Nine.

You toss it up into the wicker roof of this guard tower that immediately catches flame, burning debris, falling onto the bargard who dies in a fiery conflagration. Does he fall off the tower going, kind of like Saraman, but... Yeah, no, he even does the Wilhelm scream. Prant exaggeratingly shakes his head and says, it's a story I've seen too many times.

You can't stand the heat, stay out of the getting hit directly by a hand grenade. That's just how that goes. Uh-huh. So, with that, you suddenly come to realize that the outside of the dam, at least, is secure. The three villagers that you have rescued have all come to their senses.

The one down at the docks looks to you, Spite, and says, I don't know how I got here. I don't remember. Well, you got kidnapped by people that I don't approve of because you shouldn't put people in cages, whether mental or physical. And so it was these people who happened to be boggards, but that is not a defining characteristic of the decisions that they've made. And you got kidnapped by them. But fortunately, you got rescued by two. Team effort by the entire village. And don't worry, buddy.

You know, it's like I always say. If you don't remember doing something bad, it's the same as not having done it. He is always saying that. That's the worst part. I remember building their dam. I've been here for weeks. And then spite, he grabs you by the shoulders.

Their leader, it's terrifying. His voice screams and burns into your ears. He's cruel, he's vicious, and he's guarded by a deadly trap. Beware the frog skull! You do not know exactly what he means, but the passageway leading down at the dam beckons you to go deeper, to face the final bogger. But that will have to wait until next time, everybody. That is where we're going to wrap this session.

That's right, on the precipice, the edge, the doorway into dark, darkness. That's all we got here for today. That's bullshit, Jason. We don't want to wait till next Sunday. We demand that we get a five or ten minute break and then keep playing and then everyone else has to wait a week. Very well. Top of fair.

Thank you all so much for listening. And I don't know. Do folks want to do plugs? We didn't do them last time because I'm a fool. Starting with squash. In other world. I go by the name of Io, and by the time this comes out, I might have some new comics out. I'm bum-lung on social media things.

Oh, the person who did the beautiful art, I might add, for this campaign, Jonas Goonface, and I did a comic that you can buy on my shop. Legally distinct from Batman. It's legally distinct from Batman, but, But we are trying to get sued because we almost had a contract with them until they got a load of this guy pointing at myself. Oh, and I have a podcast called The Spectacle. Hazel. Hi, I'm Hazel, Acacia.

You can find my zine called How to Do It Anyway, a guide to self-managing an abortion at your house at tanglewilderness.org. And that's it. I'm nowhere else. I do not exist. I'm only the lovely voice in your ears. Jason. Hi, everybody. I'm Jason Bullman.

You can find all of my work by going to Paiso.com. That's where you can buy all the things that I make and all of my other genius, brilliant co-workers make. You can find me on all the various social media platforms, usually at the handle Jason Bullman. That's B-U-L-M-A-H-N. And Jason also has H's in it. It's always funny when people say jokes about people's name.

No, now that I say that aloud, it's never funny. Robert, what do you got? you can find me at this podcast and at Behind the Bastards and obviously all of the stuff about bombs is just jokes all jokes legally distinct from truth that's right i'm mary killjoy this is a podcast i'm on pretty regularly because it's a podcast that i do the voice for and i also have a podcast cool cool people did cool stuff and do a bunch of things you can find them probably i once wrote a book called escape from insul island it's a really fun book you're like adventure and shooting in cells and then getting really

complicated moral quandaries as you realize the complications of that you should read Escape from Insel Island It also includes an RPG That's true. There is an RPG of it. I have it Yeah, it's great. There might even be art by Jonas Goonface involved.

Oh, that's true. The cover of Escape from Insel Island was done by Jonas Goodface, our honorary sixth member. We'll see you all next week. A thrilling conclusion. Bye. Bye. It Could Happen Here is a production of CoolZone Media.

For more podcasts from CoolZone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for it could happen here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan?

Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finish drawing up that quick one-page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. I'm Evan Ratliff here with a story of entrepreneurship in the AI age.

Listen as I attempt to build a real startup run by fake people. Check out the second season of my podcast, Shell Game, on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. On this week's episode of Next Chapter, I, TDJ, sit down. with Denzel Washington, a two-time Academy Award-winning actor and cultural icon, for a conversation about change, identity, and the moment everything shifted. I mean, I don't take any credit for it. It's nothing I did as special, you know, did knock down a few pegs and recognize it, but I just didn't put me first. I just put God first, and he's carried me.

Whether you're rebuilding, reimagining, or just trying to hold it together, this one will speak to you. Listen to the next chapter podcast on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. New episodes drop weekly. Don't miss one of them.

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