Nerd Poker - Episode 17 - I Have No Mouth, and Cannot Argue

Episode Date: August 9, 2017

Our heroes are departing Count Bariss' castle with some gifts they love and one in particular that they DO NOT LOVE AT ALL. They must also make a choice of heading Southeast through a halo of ghosts and a mysterious gate (spooky), or Southwest through a murky mountain pass that a map labels as covered in skeletons (scary). Will they finally engage a beast beyond their means? Will they recognize that the gross new NPC in their party is somewhat of an homage to some stuff? Only time will tell.

Hey, it's Brian Possehn. I used to have a podcast where I played Dungeons & Dragons with a bunch of my friends. I missed it, so I decided to make a new one. It's called Brian Possehn's Nerd Poker. It's myself, a couple of my buddies, Blank and Patch, Dan Telfer, Ken Daly, an occasional guest or two, and we're gonna be playing in a new setting, my dining room. Each week you'll hear my wife, my son, my dogs, and we're gonna be playing in a place that I love and playing the game that I've loved half my

life, Dungeons & Dragons. We've got 5th edition and we're ready. So are you ready? Here's Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Hey everyone. It's Brian. You're listening to Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Hi friends. Hi Brian Poussaint and... Poker. Hi, friends. Hi, Brian Poussaint and...

This is a late record. Yeah. Ken, Dan, Blaine. Bing, bang, bang. Mavis. Mavis. Mavis looking pretty. Mavis licking my fingers.

Hey, shout out right away to Elderwood Academy, you guys. They're our first real for reals official sponsor for the new independent nerd poker. Yes. Elderwood Academy sent us the coolest shit ever. I am digging the fuck out of my dice tower that they specifically gave me because I was

whining on Twitter about how hard it is to roll dice behind the DM screen and how I couldn't reach the communal one. If you fucking know anybody who needs anything D&D related, this is lovingly handmade wooden stuff with

extreme detail. Yeah, and leather. Oh my god. We all have our own boxes now. We have so many boxes and dice trays now. If you've got just a little bit of love to spread dice trays uh they've if you if you've got a uh just a little bit of love to spread their way they've got these uh hex chests that'll hold a bunch of your dice that again are really intricate carvings and magnets built into it yeah that cthulhu thing

is really really looking cool yeah and the cthulhu designs i have are great we should we should ask them to if they would do like a nerd poker like like design on these things that we could do but um yeah uh if you buy anything from them I guess just mention us in the in there's like a notes section on their website elderwoodacademy.com and uh they didn't tell us to have a script or nothing so this is all just like not even talking points they asked us to hit. I just love this shit. We've been using it for six episodes now.

Oh, did we just do an ad? I think we just did the fucking shit. Oh, wow, wow. We just did one. This is a for real ad on the indie... That's not like the ads I've done before. Well, I tried to say fuck as much as possible to give it a true endorsement. It's so

big, it's fucking great. I love when you quote Mr. Show. Did I even get it wrong? I probably did. It's so good. It's fucking great. And so

yeah, should we talk about where you guys are oh yeah um i actually had a couple of uh oh yeah you met some fans that you want to chat um this uh this guy sent me this uh this dice tray which um and he sent me a 20 it's really really gorgeous. Yeah, it's really nice. It's really, really neat. Yeah, what would you describe the... It looks like a snake skin, leather, lizard skin bottom. Yeah. And an uneven hex...

How many sides is that? That's an octagon, I think. It's an octagon. Sort of uneven-ish or maybe even-ish from some directions. Septagon? Oh, you're right. Yeah, hey, thanks, Dan, for making me sound like a fucking dick.

So it's a septagon. Duh. No one has ever seen a septagon before. No one makes odd numbered polygons. That's impossible. Yeah, and he gave us a 20 that he says in the note here, I'm a role-playing woodworker, and I made you guys a dice tray. It may not be as annoying of a sound as Blaine would like,

but give it a try. The enclosed E20 rolls especially well, exclamation point. This tray has a twin that I made at the same time. If any listeners are interested in commissions custom work for me, they can contact RoyToyCowboy on Twitter or Nuclear Exchange on Reddit. It rhymes and rhymes again. Yeah. Casio is my favorite cast member.

Roy or... In West Michigan. So I'm going to roll this 25 times and see what happens. 20. Wow. 20. Whoa. What are the odds? 20.

Hey. 20. Oh, man. Never mind. Keep it moving. Keep it moving. 20. What are those odds

better 4 damn that's a throw off yeah you gotta oh you gotta gotta bounce it yeah

the eye in the sky you know but 20 came up a lot whoa that one that one that like rolled back went in slow motion

it looked like get smart had a pen that made it move it should say boing when it lands on a 20. Boing. That's fantastic.

Boing. Even without the shit that would get your hands and your hand bones broken in Vegas. They're not rolling a lot of 20s in Vegas. Thanks, man. Roy, that was really cool yeah it's really really beautiful

and I got my Roy Ort in West Michigan I got roads to look up from Roblox because I got like five 20s in a row and I was like oh wow the fifth 20

he's like really how and I kept doing it. And he actually didn't look at a video game for a minute. I'm an old grandpa with a son. And then we got one more. Alec Fritz

is a graphic designer. He sent us these. I really like this. I'm already did. But he did these nerd I really like this. I'm already did. He did these nerd poker bingo cards. Holy shit. That we'll put up on the

somewhere online. I want to see this. That looks awesome. Are they both the same? No, they're not. There's enough here for patreon plug music reference burp into the mic video game reference movie reference roll to attack reference vin diesel roll botch kill a monster tv reference chew into the mic. I wonder what that's for. I don't know, man. Dex check.

He has a website, alecfritz.com and Patreon is patreon.com Oh, listener shout out is on here. Alec Fritz. He just made himself a part of his own bingo. Yeah, bingo. These are great. Holy mackerel. It's not a bingo. Nice. Yeah, he does good stuff and uh those uh those bingo cards are really cool i think that was it laminated and such hey when life hands you lamins

i did a really bad oh man man i did a really bad I did a really bad Twitter joke that I deleted I tweeted When life gives you promins Make promenade And then I did a Twitter search for it and it had been done Like three, four thousand

Times before I did not feel great about that tweet. I don't think anybody did the laminate. No, never. Never. I thought I came up with omelette. Omelette you finish. You know, Kanye West saying omelette you finish.

I thought I was so brilliant one day. I was like, because I was thinking of like dumb names for Portland restaurants because there's a fried egg I'm in love or it's fried egg I'm in love which is such a It's what?

It's fried egg. It's fried egg. I'm in love. Yeah, that cure song. I almost crashed my car when I drove by and I wasn't driving. That was like a Blaine joke right there.

My friend's mom used to have a knitting store out here in the valley. And it was called The Knitting Bag. And they sold shirts that said, whoever dyes with the most yarn wins. So stupid. It's probably going to be Edna. She bought a lot of yarn last week and she didn't look too good. This is my favorite thing on the news.

But then that I came up with for a breakfast joint. I'm going to let you finish and it was going to be Kanye West with an omelet pan as your logo. Blaine, what's on the bingo? This is my favorite bingo card thing right here. Should we call it?

It's been an hour. I missed that one. Awesome. Should we play? Should we call it? Let's play Dungeons and Dragons. Should we call it? Should we play it?

All right. Thanks, guys. Good night. Which episode number is this? I didn't say. This is going to be 17. 17. Welcome to episode 17, halfway through.

Almost legal. You guys did something. Gross. Well, now we know who started those Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen countdown websites back in the day. Definitely not legal in metric. I'm the only non-parent here. Yeah, fucking be ashamed of yourselves. That's what this is. is to showcase for us the time of our children.

One time, John Ennis, beloved Mr. Show cast member. Yes, my former roommate. He had children a long time ago. They're adult children right now. They're in their 80s. Yeah, like ones on Veep. Yeah. children right now. Yeah, like ones on Veep. He said to me one time in my old house,

he goes, I made some joke that he was just like, oh, Pope's saying that's too much. And I was like, ah, it's never too much. He's like, you're going to have a kid one time someday and you're going to see. And I was like, shut up dick. I will never know.

He's totally right. There are taboos. Anyways. What happened in episode 16? Episode 16, you guys blew my mind a little bit and you did not engage an aggressive

NPC. I know. Every now and then I get a little bit and you did not engage an aggressive NPC. Turn around bright eyes. Yeah, I know. Every now and then I get a little impressed when you don't stab a vampire. I guess I realized this vampire was too powerful for us. Well, I mean, we'd had a rough go with some of the other ones and we went

in like guns blazing and I realized he was probably going to smush us. There was a pretty good chance he could have smushed you. There was something about him. He also, well, I mean, I think... And then he just started being pretty forthright and let us know what was going on. I think I mentioned this last episode

but of all the vampires, he is the one that is native to Amina and he is the one who has the most regret about his undead life. So he threw you a couple of rhetorical questions, and Ken reminded me of his charisma, so I did a couple of little rolls. And yeah, he started talking,

and you started asking questions he was interested in answering. And after seeing what you had been capable of in combat had to do a little bit of soul-searching himself and decided you know what I will cast my lot with these guys and you did definitely get a sense he was sincere and that at least in the moment he meant that he would help you destroy the Demoliths and bring an end to the darkness here. I like it. And he gave you a little bit of backstory. The Demolith made a deal with Monona McLear

so that the slaves would be brought here for the vampires. And explained a little bit of his Dr. Moreau reasoning where he was trying to bring sentience to the creatures here by mixing... Making everything really creepy. Making all the animals capable of human consciousness. And he suggested a path to take through the mountains. He gave you a few options,

and the one you guys settled on was, you know, there's a few kinds of elves hiding out in Amina that have not been turned on bed or anything. And you and Count Barriss agreed the lunar elves were the shittiest. They were the grossest. I don't want to say anything, but yeah. The highborn elves are the most pretentious and less likely to help you, you just sort

of decided, at least compared to the wood elves who, you know, they're good in nature. And although their numbers are small, they're in the woods. They're nearby some drow, so you might be passing a drow stronghold on the way to the wood elves. You might not encounter them. You're not sure yet. But you're going to take a path due south through the mountains that he gave you a little map for um patreons will see this but we have a little map sean bryant sketched up for

you guys yeah i emailed you guys and uh here's some of the main features i will walk you guys through so count barris hands you this map. Here's his castle, his garden, his drawbridge, all that fun shit. Here's the path you're gonna take. And... Close those porn windows before Sam takes his picture. Oh no! Oh god!

Sorry. Just ignore the fact that I like to fuck people in a snackle-tooth costume. Donkey pussy. Donkey pussy. Donkey pussy is my favorite shush. And then, so, the big thing you notice here, because down here is the woods. Stage butt. Here's the wood elves are in this forest.

Right, okay. And here's the mountains. You're going to take this path through some kind of blackened area and a gate in the mountains. You're going to take this path through some kind of blackened area and a gate in the mountains. That is unavoidable. And then you've got a fork where you can either go through this halo of ghosts around Misery's finger

or through this path of skeletons to the southwest. I saw a halo of ghosts open for Misery's... So I sent you guys the map you can pull it up on your phone if you want to zoom in on how are you out which episode is this i think it's uh 22 okay five cents sam is downtown uh but ken is zooming in and he's definitely uh got a chance to

notice some details that i uh because i what i see on the lettering on the bottom, too? Like, what's that all about? Oh, you know, if you want to try to translate it, Sean's put some special coded messages at the bottom. Some people say, I'm just sitting here rolling 20s. Really? Yeah, so what I've been doing with Sean

is giving him the secret, full of spoilers, Dungeon Master version of these maps and telling him don't put labels on everything because I don't want to give away the secrets to these guys, but draw your interpretation of these secrets. I've got to decode this shit. Yeah, decoding it might be doable. But you've basically got a choice coming up first you're

gonna i don't have it do you have it playing on your phone the map here you can yeah just borrow my laptop for a couple minutes if you want to see your email click and drag you can go up and down and now it's sort of in the middle um yeah so you're gonna have to go through... That's some good arting there, Sean. Are those heads on pikes up top there? He's a good drawer. Yes, there are elven heads on pikes to the north. Jesus, why'd that happen? How do I get to the very bottom of this?

Which elves are those? You're not sure. Count Barriss actually had one of his children hand you this map so you're unable to interrogate him. Did you see that? The heads of the pikes? As you walk out of his gates, you look to the north and you see what could very well be

soldiers, likely elves, on pikes to the north. What the fuck? Oh, okay. That's problematic. So that right away you do notice matches up with the map. Yeah. They're skeletal, but you see armor on bodies and heads on pikes. And you begin to understand why he suggested perhaps the highborn elves were not the best choice.

As you're not sure what kind of elves are on those pikes, but they're definitely to ward off the elves in that direction. Can we look at their teeth? Do you want to? Yeah. Sure. I want to see if they're vampiric. You trot up there and sure enough you notice there are sharpened teeth

on those elves. We tried to burn them already. They chopped their heads off. They chopped their own heads off. No, Barriss clearly won some sort of battle with elves that have sharp teeth. And you don't know that the Lunar Elves were

vampiric. They had really weird sharp teeth that were not just canines. Or wolf-vampiric. Yeah. They were weird elves. You mean Lycan or something like that? Sure, Lyc Pyrrhic. Lycanthropic?

Yeah, sure. Lycan Pyrrhic? That's what you say? They wear... If life gives you Lycan Pyrrhic. Faux leather bodysuits. Lycan Pyrrhic? And use automatic weapons.

Faux what? Faux leather bodysuits. Yes. And they jump off buildings. And they're super hot. And are they Kate Beckinsale? I can only hope. Lycans versus werewolves, dudes. I mean Lycans versus vamps.

Do people like that movie? I'm back! I'm back in town! Alright. So Barris' children kind of hasten you away from the pikes as they notice you're staring at them with a little bit of focus. They're also sort of treating you guys like some step-siblings. Right, because I killed a couple of them.

You killed some of their brethren, and then their father forgave you. So they're feeling a little antsy around you, kind of angry, sad. I give them a nice, honest, my most honest, firm look. They're lucky I didn't throw all of them off. To make them like us. They're lucky I didn't push them all off a ledge. Charisma. Do you? They're lucky I didn't push them all off a ledge. Charisma. Do you?

They're lucky I didn't push them all off a ledge. Is it coming? I give him a charismatic wink. One of the badgers with a human face scurries up to you, Bodian, makes eye contact and says, I'll remember what you did. Yeah.

And it scurries away. Maybe not. Dude, you're going to get so late. Dude, you're going to get so old. Dude, you're going to throw me into your wall. As it scurries away, its haunches look really gross and it's covered in mud. It looks like it burrows under the earth. I'm not going to kill it.

But you're escorted over to your steeds, which you have to kind of walk up a cliff face to climb onto. They are reindeer with huge antlers. And long, like 20 foot long stilt legs. And you notice

there's some saddlebags packed on these things and they're full of stuff. Nice. Are we Santa Claus? there's some saddlebags packed on these things and they're full of stuff. Nice. Are we Santa Claus? You are, except you're the kids too. Bodhi, I need your help. Tom, you look through your bags and you discover,

in addition to some water skins and some rations, which you think are probably pretty hard to come by around these parts. As you find the water skins, all three of you go, oh, we haven't really seen any running fresh water here. This is good. Isn't everything dead? Yeah, everything's pretty dead.

And perhaps that is why the fire in the woods caught so quickly. It hasn't rained, but the ground is muddy. You know, there's some kind of moisture here, but the land does feel a bit poisoned. So you're hoping this water will last you quite a while. But, Tom, you discover some fingerless gloves in your bag. in your bag. And when you try them on, you realize there's something real nice about these gloves.

I like these gloves. You think you're going to have to play with them to kind of figure more out. But you notice if you focus, you're able to create an illusion with your hands where it actually delays up to five seconds where your hands actually are and where they appear to be. Oh, wow.

So these gloves are going to come in pretty handy, you think. Also, you get a plus one to your deception. Nice. There might be other stuff going on. Where did you find that? Huh? Where did he find that? They gave it to me.

It's in his sound bags. I would like to thank our new friend. Again, he is not here. He's... We got a chance. Oh, he's got the meeting. He's performing funeral rites on his child right now. Funeral schmooterel.

But Tui, you look in your bags and you discover a series of scrolls. Sure. You look in your bags and you discover a series of scrolls. You pop one of them open. You've got three scrolls. One of them you can't quite make out yet. It's going to take you a while um the other one is a a powerful healing spell that uh you can cast just once uh and the potion burns up but you feel like you could heal uh all three of you potentially with this wow um one time use though okay uh the third spell is a very special spell that you are going to have to spend some time learning. It's going to take you three resting periods to learn this spell.

You're going to have to call out that you're studying it and spend that time doing it. But once you do it, it's a spell where you spend three combat rounds playing a song. It's a spell where you spend three combat rounds playing a song. And when you play the final note of this song, it will create an eldritch spell inside your target that will disrupt their vital organs. Wow. It is a spell called the Final Countdown. I wonder what the melody would sound like

one of the creatures one of the children notices that you're reading this it's got a man's body and the head of a whoop whoop if you remember those hyena creatures it says

be careful with this spell it causes even more harm to beasts than it does men you be careful then my friend doesn't like you Bodhi you notice

there's only rations and water skins in your saddlebags and you kind of feel like left out nobody left you presents in your saddlebags but as you get on your

steed one of those giant 10 foot tall grey katydid soldiers with the human faces flies up to you and presents you with something in its

hands. What is it? It looks like a big segmented thing. It's kind of holding towards you like this. I'll take it. So you take it and you realize it's a neck piece and shoulders armor that's built from what looks like a giant katydid. It's like chitinous kind of exoskeletal armor.

Okay. And that's going to go ahead and bump up your AC by two points. It's also going to give you plus two damage to the undead. So is that up or down? Up. No, up. Is it? Yeah, because people got to roll against

your AC so it's 14 now yes and then what was the other one plus two damage towards undeads you're going to want

to write that I don't know in your proficiencies or something like that or next to it's it's it comes with the shoulder the pauldrons of dis

is what we're calling it. And so... Pauldrons of dis. Pauldrons of that. All right. Somebody talk. Another one of the katydid soldiers flies over and distributes amongst you guys some hide armor

that you can put under your existing armor so all of you get another plus one to your AC with some hide and the message that Count Barriss was concerned when he encountered you that you would not

survive against one of his brothers so should one of his brothers. So should one of them hunt you down, hopefully you will be better prepared to fight them now. Just as a reminder, in a couple of days, his brothers are due to come hang out with him. There's still three living, uh, vampires besides count Barris. There's count Zellor, uh,

count Dian Dell and count Fenzin who are going to, at some point meet up. And, uh, Barris is going to say that, you know, you attacked his castle and he survived, but he can't outright kill his brothers.

Right. Um, because of his, his blood connection to them. So please, uh, send back a message of gratitude for all of this help that he's providing us with. Great.

And the Katie Did Soldier also tells you, a message has been sent via one of my sisters to your friend Lekas amongst the wood elves. I can't promise that the, not the wood elves, the lunar elves. I can't promise the lunar elves won't destroy the messenger or alter the message, but we will honor our agreement

that we will attempt to help you build an army to lay siege upon the Demolith. And should you succeed with the wood elves, we will attempt to make, our people at the castle. And should you succeed with the wood elves, we will attempt to make our, our people at the castle attempt to make peace with the wood elves as well. Did we get all our hit points back? Yeah. And so I'm going to say,

you're going to go ahead and get your hit points back. Cause you're about to do enough traveling before you have an encounter that you can just be casually resting and healing up. Also some creatures come over and you know help you bind wounds all that stuff so i prayed a cord to to um guide me in our uh adventure pray to cord uh i'm going to take advantage of that um and cord has a message for you. Oh, yeah? You've decided to pray to him, and I've been kind of waiting. Is it watch your alignment, asshole?

Is that the message? Here's the thing. This isn't like an HR meeting with your god, is it? Yeah. Well, I just... Well, Brian, here's the thing. I asked Ken and Blaine if their characters have a god, and they don't. And I was like, well, that's kind of cool, because...

I don't know who my god is. Don't ray me! Because then that's something unique for your character, that you've got Kord, this badass Conan-style god. that you've got Kord, this badass Conan-style god. So, I am writing you a note that Kord delivers to you

when you pray to him. Kill the skinny one. What? So, as you pray to cord for guidance this washes through your mind flavor Flav's got

problems of his own that's weird. What's this? I'm so cryptic. You got a rip in your couch. Yeah, I don't know. Okay. Where are we at?

You're not going to react to that thought at all? Well, I don't know what to do. I'm going to keep it inside. You keep it to yourself? You're not going to... to that thought at all? Well, I don't know what to do. I'm going to keep it inside. You keep it to yourself? You're not going to... Bodhi for a minute. Yeah, I'm going to let it stew.

You're going to let it stew? You know Kort is not speaking of Count Barriss. He's speaking of someone else here. I don't know who he's speaking of, though. Maybe I'm... Franken-Barriss? Hmm. Maybe I'm frankenbearous?

Do you want to pray for more guidance? Yeah. So he said to me, I made a promise to a being here, and I'm asking him for more guidance or more clues. Well, you can ask the rest of the party or you can do a wisdom check. Wisdom check. You can dial a friend. I'm going to roll this 20 here.

No, Brian! Oh, 13. 13. You got to bank it. What's your wisdom? What's your penalty on wisdom checks? I don't have a plus or anything. Oh, well, what's your rating?

I have a pretty low wisdom. Is eight? So you've got a negative one penalty on wisdom checks. I want you to do a wisdom check difficulty 8. So what do I have to roll? You have to do roll a 7 or better. Oh, okay. No.

1. So that's your roll. It is the loneliest. So Cord does not specify what being you made a promise to. Wisdom botch. I do wisdom botches all day long. Cord does not answer another one of your prayers.

Do you want to ask these guys before you head out what Cord might have been? I can't figure out fellas. This is real extreme here. It makes me really happy when you remember to do the voice, Ken. I can't figure out a fella's... Yeah. This is real extreme here. It makes me really happy when you remember to do the voice, Ken. Cord says that I made a promise to a being here, and I don't know what he means. I don't know what he means in his life.

I don't really know. Something I can't recollect. I'm not sure what he's talking or referring to. Can we do wisdom checks to see if we can remember? Sure. Okay. Yeah. But just you guys, Gago has no idea what's going on. Gago.

Gago's listening. He's like, man, I don't know. That's why I don't make promises, because bitches be tripping, you know what I'm saying? My intelligence is 14. I have a plus two modifier. I roll a seven. Great. So you want to roll two?

My wisdom is 17 plus three. Should I give him some insanely good advice or something? So... I rolled an 11. Great. So, yeah. Should I give him some insanely good advice or something? I rolled an 11. Great. So, yeah. Blaine, you remember there was an innocent creature that you encountered.

And Ken, you remember it was in the tower not long after you first came in. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's the guy with the normal... You told it that you would come back for it and you would save it. All right. Which building was it in? The North Tower. When we were coming down.

Oh, before we got to Barrows. Yeah, you encountered a being that was just a torso and head. Dude, we talked to Barrows about that. Wait, that wasn't in Barriss' castle, or was it? It was in Barriss' castle. Oh, okay. I'm so embarrassed. You basically told it that you were going to save it.

Yeah. Oh, well, let's get it out of here. You want to talk to Barriss about that? Yeah, let's tell Barriss that one of the creatures, it's got a human shape, and one of the whoop-whoop hyena heads walks over and says, I hear you're discussing you need something from Barriss. What?

There was this creature in the North Tower, and I was concerned for his health. He wanted help. He snaps his fingers, and one of the badger people comes over. He whispers to it. The badger scurries off disgustingly into the castle to send a message. We don't need those stinking badgers. After about 20 minutes of the hyena guy kind of telling you to just wait,

you know, we'll get back to you. You see one of the katydid soldiers descending. Oh, no, she katydid. And again, these things are really huge, but you see bundled in its arm like a little baby. This thing has been brought to you wrapped

in sheets. Oh, jeez. And a leather harness so it can be strapped to one of your backs. No, I'm okay. Your deity told you about this. The soldier says, do what you want with this.

We were going to discard it. Count Barriss has done all it needs. Whatever you would care to do. And then we can't. You find a safe place for him. He says, as far as we are concerned, you can punt it into the pit. Wow. No.

But it has a spell cast on it where it does not need sustenance. It does not require food or drink. That's good. It just needs to be carried around. Jerked off once a day. Jesus. Only once? Oh, you can do it as many times as you want.

It seems to be awake. Its face only has eyes. Cass Sandusky. Face with all the eyes. It stares blankly at you. Oh, man. You know I'm going to wind up bashing this thing against a rock at some point. No, you're not.

Screaming, shut up, Schmoo. Does it look like a Schmoo? It looks like a Schmoo, right? Schmoo? Do you remember Schmoo, that 80s cartoon? No. Or Gloop and Gleep from My Friend the Cat, which is what I'm thinking. I was thinking that weird little white thing.

Oh, God, that thing. It's the new Shmoo. But it sounded more like a Howie Mandel. Hey, Shmoo. Shmoo has a mouth and legs, which this thing does not. It just has... Yeah, it's more like Glop. But it doesn't have arms, right?

From Herculoids. Yes. It was originally called the Lovin' Spoonful. However, Schmoo might just catch on as a name for it has no mouth and cannot argue whatever nickname you would like to assign to it. I love that book. Yeah, Harlan Ellison wrote a bunch of... I can't imagine Harlan Ellison ever writing a book called

I Have No Mouth and Cannot Argue. Gago, once he sees this thing presented to you, goes, What the fuck? Are you kidding me? Jesus Christ. Yeah, I don't really want to carry it. You made a promise.

Jesus. Everybody roll an intelligence check. Your word is your bog, buddy. With a difficulty of... Let's say difficulty check of 15. Intelligence check? No, a real one, Brian. With your for reals dice.

My intelligence is a 19 plus 5. Huh? My intelligence is a 19 plus 5. But? My intelligence is a 19 plus 5. But it's the plus 5 modifier you have to add to the dice, so it's not an automatic success. The difficulty would have to be under 5 for it to be automatic. 20. Roll a 20? Great.

I roll a 7. Oh, so, okay. You hear Ken in your head a very clear whisper in a different language than you know whispers in your head are bad can I tell where it's coming from it's definitely coming from

this being that's been brought to you you realize all it's really said to you in the past oh yeah earlier it was simple helps and all rights and you're and now that you're hearing in a different language you realize oh you're not sure you even heard a language you recognized before it might have just been a simple like affirmative kind of telepathic acknowledgement and you might not speak this thing's language at all can i try to understand it damn it um fucking hate this the only way you're gonna understand what language this is

is if you could compare it to other languages yes you'd have to hear other people speak other languages and do a mix and match and spend some time figuring it out i mean does it sound it sounds familiar romance language it's a romance language? It's a familiar language. You've heard this language before, but because it's not yours, it's like if I were to speak to you in Portuguese right now, you wouldn't know. Well, I sort of understand. Personally, it's a little like Spanish.

Okay, but do you know the difference between, say, Mandarin and Cantonese? No. It would be like that. You know it's, say, like an Asian language, but not. Huh. Because I would love to communicate with this you get the impression that if one of you keep listening you might catch what language it is

and figure out how to communicate you want me to take him? sure oh no I'll do it for my alignment it seems like it won't weigh that much because a lot has been done to it.

Gago suggests that this thing has been used for spare necromancy parts. And some of the beings here with arms and legs got them from someone like this. And some of the face was borrowed. Let's call him Yuck. But that it was probably once a being not unlike one of you.

Let's call him Blech. Call him Blech. Your name is Blech. Yicky Yicardo. It stares at you blankly with no expression when you assigned it the nickname of Blech. I'm sorry. Your name is me.

But he fits sturdily on your back. Great. So. Way down, though. Ain't no sound but the sound of feet. Are you going to head off down the path? Yeah. You remember another thing Barriss told you. These steeds

have a human level consciousness but cannot speak. Necromancy has been performed on them. A weird communication going on. Right. So if you ask them to do anything they will do every command you have but they will not speak to you. They're very submissive.

So you take off down the path and these things stride really long. So you're like, oh, we're going to make good time with these guys. This is great. And it's only a matter of ten minutes before the castle completely disappears behind the side of a mountain, and you're well underway. So, yeah, you're approaching a big gate and some sort of flattened, darker stone surface. And you know that once you pass that, you're going to have to make a choice of either heading southeast or southwest. Neither of which looks appealing when you...

Especially southwest. Southwest has the worst service. Can we fly Alaska Airlines instead? Another option. Definitely not Delta. As long as we're traveling, I would like to try to hone in on this voice. Oh, yeah. Try to understand. You think you might have to rest.

The three of you are moving really quickly. You've got to focus on the road while you're riding. You feel like once you've made it to... Within only a little while, you're going to make it to the gate and the flat blackened rock. You can stop and rest now. Now that you've already made it pretty far from the castle, or you can keep going. Let's keep going. Once you get to about where the gate is, you see it, and it's clearly what used to be the

gate to a dwarven city. It's very ornate. It looks like it used to have a lot of foot traffic in and out. How beaten up is it? It's crumbling. You're guessing a couple of centuries. Oh, yeah. We're approaching the gate?

We're at the gate? You're approaching it. You're making headway pretty fast. Excuse me boy and on the other side we see late night record guys oh my god uh you're yes you're going to say is that one of the big it is one of the big oh somebody burps into the microphone yeah sorry about that. That means we do it enough. So first you see the gate, and you start coming up to the gate because it's a very large gate.

It's meant to be impressive and to intimidate other races. Is it still closed? Can we still get through? You could get – it's open. It hasn't collapsed. You get the feeling that if you wanted to, you could explore. But once you get close enough

to really think about that, the ground changes. It becomes dark, sort of shale. Oh, is it? In nature. Yeah, and it's not tar, like you might think from looking at the map. I say we don't mess with it unless we need to.

But it starts to cover the entire pass. Oh, we have to go through it? Yeah, we have to go through it. Yeah, and you notice the beasts that you're on slow down a little bit, almost as if they could slip, but they don't stop. Is it like tar? Is it slippery? No.

Is it wet? Well, it's got a. It's got a very glassy sheen to it. It's a heat-blasted stone, maybe? Yeah. But it's not like hot tar or anything. Does it have that consistency?

Everybody do a perception check. Difficulty of 15. Five. What'd you get? You succeeded? Eleven. So you two guys go

but Bodhi looks down and he sees you're pretty sure you see something's face in the rock for just a second and it disappears I think I saw a creature in the rock

a humanoid face like one of barristers you're not sure but face. Like one of Barris's? You're not sure. But it had a ghost-like quality in the surface of this rock that you're passing over.

A ghost! A ghost! In the floor! It's a glass bottom ground. The creatures, the steeds you're on are now they're still moving they're moving towards the fork

in the road but as far as you can see in all direction including where you're on the ground is this heavy black shale with faces underneath it you haven't seen another one yet do you want to see what's one yet. Do you want to see what's down in there? Do you want to break through? It doesn't

continue. The Black Rock doesn't continue into the city, but it goes right up to the gate. Something obviously happened here. Something's trapped underneath the... Okay. Poor thing. Alright.

How would we find out what was trapped? I don't know. We'd have to crack in there or something. I have a feeling it's dwarves or something. What's this over here? A little fuzzy area. Well, that's not on our mission. It's not something Bear has told us to do so yeah yeah you're gonna you're you're you're gonna just keep trying to move i say yeah okay you're gonna keep moving great yeah we're already weighed down with this fucking schmoo on

my back schmoo i'm telling you it's gonna stick you guys are gonna call this thing schmoo um so you you you hit the fork in the road you are going to call this thing shmoo so you hit the fork in the road you get just to the other side of this blackened stuff and you get off of it and immediately the steeds pick up their pace but you hit a fork where they don't know what you want so they stop

there's a path through the mountains right from here from where you are right now you don't see anything suspicious in either direction embarrassing anything about any direction? No, but you get the impression that's why he left you with this map, so you can make an informed choice on your own.

What are you thinking? A bunch of ghosts? What is this? Ghosts scream? There is some sort of halo of spirits going around Misery's finger. So if you head a little bit closer... That's nothing terrible. You're going to head in that direction. But there are bones.

Can I see on your... Can I see the bones? Here. Also... That's where we came through. Upon further inspection, you notice if you go far enough to the southeast, there is some sort of gate under the mountain.

And you don't know what that is. Over here? To the southeast. Over here? Yes. Zoom in a little bit southeast. Over here? Yes. Zoom in a little bit there, and you'll see there's a gate under the mountain.

So there's definitely something treacherous about either the southeast or the southwest. And where do we need to get? To the woods! Those beautiful woods. Once you get there, you're... So we just go this way? Yeah. Southwest? To the woods. Once you get there, you're... So we just go this way? Southwest?

To the woods. Yeah, right? Don't you think? Right to the woods? Right to the woods? Alright. Farther away from the mountains? Farther away from the mountains. Just right through here.

Through the steaming black pits amongst the mountains. Just right through here. Through the steaming black pits amongst the mountains. So we gotta go through there. We can't go through here. You can, but those are your two choices. Well, why not go through here? Under the

swirling hell spirits. There's a gate there too. And pass that gate. But not go in the gate. Yeah, that sounds good. Let's do that. What's that face? It's me watching you make a choice and thinking about

all the things we're missing out on. What's the blackness over here? There's stuff in both directions. Is this the murky mire? Shitty DM wins either way. Is this the murky mile shitty dm wins either way is this the glurky glurkins what is this the glurky glurkins yeah the black area oh it's so weird how i forgot to write the glurky glurkins there wait a minute let me look at the

other map so you son of a there's not much you're gonna pick up there uh well but is that the the marshes of no no no you're way over here oh got. Well, but is that the marshes of... No, no, no. You're way over here. Oh, got it. Oh, there's the little... There's the thing, and there's a little tunnel. On the right side of the map. Is that the little tunnel? Different one, you think? That's a different one.

Yeah. What the F? So we're basically... Our map is basically this right here. There's a drow stronghold somewhere over here. And the contestant who picks it first will win a prize packet

for the $5,000. And you can either go through this pass, or you can go through here. So you gotta pick between Spooky's Spirit Halo in the gate or the black mountain with the skulls.

Glurky glurk. Glurky glurkles. Spooky? Spooky or scary? Let's go spooky. Spooky be scary. Now you've to get this far you've been traveling for about two hours.

Did you want to stop and set up camp, or do you want to keep going? Keep going. Keep going. Two hours is nothing. Sweet. You get going for about another 15 minutes to the southeast. We had a lot of construction. You realize it's starting to get very misty.

It's starting to get a little hard to see far in. Look at this. The clouds have already been a bit low set the whole time you've been in this. How's the winter sun? The mist is starting to get a little heavy. How's the winter sun? The mist is starting to get a little heavy. Let's keep plowing through it.

All right. Excuse me. I have a peanut butter pretzel in my mouth. I'll say. The steeds slow down a little bit as they realize they've got the same kind of night vision that you guys got. So they've been pretty good about scoping out how fast to go, how to go around turns, but they're losing their visibility.

That's them in the corner. That's them in the spotlight. Losing their alignment. And so you start moving slower and slower and the mist starts developing a sort of yellowish green

hue. Gross. And you realize you can barely see each other because of how long these things' legs are. Everyone's starting to turn into just sort of a dark silhouette. Can we hold hands or tie ropes between us? Yes. Yeah, I was going to say that would be a good idea.

So we don't get separated. Tell me what you want to do. We go back around the other way. I want to... Should we back out? Get us together and tie ropes between us. Yeah, that sounds good. Okay.

So you stop and explain to me exactly what kind of contraption you're trying to make here with ropes. When we can still see each other. Uh-huh. We're tossing a rope to Bodhi and Bodhi's tossing a rope over to Gago. Okay. Yeah, we're not going to tie it around our necks either, so that if something happens. And we're also going to say, we're also going to... Six-year-olds in an aquarium. If we... Yeah, buddy system.

Gago takes this opportunity, by the way, to perch on your shoulder, Tom. Oh, hi, Gago. And say, hello, man. What's up, dude? I'm losing visibility, so I'm just going to sit here if that's cool. Okay. I don't want to sit on Brody's shoulder because he's got that creepy-ass shit on his back. Right.

Schmoo. Oh, man. Schmoo's fucking gross. Yeah, well, he's schmoo-ish. Can we kill Schmoo? I want to kill Schmoo. No, you cannot kill Schmoo. We're saving Shmoo.

Would you be sad if I stabbed him? Yes, I would be very sad if you stabbed him. Can I stab Shmoo, birdie? I don't think Kord would be happy with it. Oh, for fuck's sake. But if something happened where I wasn't looking, you know. All right, there's your bro, loud and clear. So, yeah, you set up a lead, three-way rope lead.

And we'll do some sort of a vocal check-in so that we know we're together the whole time. Maybe we'll sing a song. Yeah, let's sing a song together. One thing you guys notice while you're setting up this lead system is because you can't see anything, you can't see the ground under you, and there's no kind of boulder or cliff face

to get on or off these steeds. So you're kind of stuck on these guys for a while you think it occurs to you that uh you're gonna have to pee off the side of these things if you need a break um well they but they can't see at all what they're doing they seem to at least know what direction you want to go in and they're trying to navigate it okay their g Their GPS isn't working perfectly, but they seem confident. All right. So they're finding their way to the southeast.

You looked at the map and expressed you knew where you wanted to go, and you could see that the steeds were kind of looking at the map, too, and getting a sense of it. Keep slogging through. They were like a silent part of that conversation. Slogging through the pea soup. All right. Pea soup Andersons.

Sleepy and happy. Yeah. This is brought to you by... Oh, I think this is probably brought to you by Uncle Frank's Pretzels. Annie Ann has custody on alternate weekends. Aww. I like Annie Ann. She's Aww. I like Annie, Anne. She's cool. I like her.

You see a woman standing in front of you. Uncle Frank is alright. You see a what? A woman standing in front of you. A human woman is standing in front of you. Hello, lady. She suddenly takes shape in front of you and the steeds back off a little bit.

They try to walk around her. It's like five foot six. You okay? Does she look like a witch? She says, where am I? Yeah. Oh, this is one of the ghosts that we saw on the map. She's just wandering around the...

I think we're going to see a lot of these. I think it's like a ghost swamp or something. Alright, well... Just come back. Take me with you. You're okay here. You're fine. You're safe. As you walk away, she reaches out and

just misses grabbing one of the steed's legs. She disappears behind you in the mist. Good. Keep going. and just misses grabbing one of the steed's legs. She disappears behind you in the mist. Good. Keep going. Spooky, like he said I was going to be. A good girl. Should we have gone the other way?

Should we have gone with scary instead of spooky? Okay. This time, two children hand in hand. Oh, cute. Are they wearing little blue dresses? I think your mom's down that way. What? Where's mother? Yeah, she's down. They run off into the mist when you say that.

Elevator behind her. Actually, you know what? Before they run into the mist, why don't you roll a charisma, Ken? Difficulty check of, let's say, 15. What's your modifier? What's your modifier? It's all about that dice modifier, baby. Six.

Great. So difficulty 15. You got to roll a nine or better. One. Is that better than a 9? They say, take me to mother, take me to mother, and they walk up to your steed really quickly.

Let's keep moving, guys. You try to keep moving and they jump for your horse and just barely miss, or not your horse, your steed, but they almost grab its hind legs as they disappear in the mist behind you.

Hey, I'm going to play a little song on my guitar. Oh, yeah? Yeah. And it goes... How's it go? Come on, baby, do the locomotion. It's a song by Lil' Evil. It's a protection from evil.

I don't know, because I want very little evil on me. All right. Well, on that note, as you feel a little boost in your stamina, you feel a magical red bull in your veins, we're at an hour, you guys. Should we call it? Here hour, hour, hour.

Bingo. Fart burp. That was the 17th. Yeah. Thanks again, Elderwood Academy. You guys fucking rule. Yeah, man. Cool stuff, man. Look at their stuff and buy the shit out of it. yeah oh and uh yeah thanks again elderwood academy you guys fucking rule yeah man cool stuff look at their stuff look at their stuff and buy the shit out of it what's their site elderwoodacademy.com follow them on twitter fucking tell them on twitter that uh

uh thanks for listening, everybody. Donkey sheep. Thanks for listening to another episode of Nerd Poker. You can follow us at patreon.com slash nerdpoker, and you get bonus episodes from there. And you can also send us anything at P.O. Box 16069 in Ceno, California, 91416. Thanks for listening.