Nerd Poker - Episode 2 - The Goddess

Episode Date: February 21, 2018

Hail and well met! Our heroes may not have stopped an assassination, and they may have melted the face of someone in the royal guard, but they can probably get out of this sticky pickle, right? This episode has everything from creepy monsters, to interrogations, to good old fashioned looting. Oh, and some really close dice rolls that the lousy DM just won't let slide.

Hey everybody, I'm Brian Pouss. Comedian, writer, actor, nerd. I've been playing D&D with my friends for a long time. I decided to do a new podcast where we play Dungeons & Dragons in my very own dining room. With my wife, kid, and my noisy dogs. So meet my friends... Sarah. Ken. Sam.

Lee. Now it's time for another episode of Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker Season 2. Hey, everybody. Really? It's Brian Poussaint. Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Sarah, Ken, Dan, Blaine. That was close.

Hi. You made it. Yeah, barely. Took a break after the last one. Amazing full work. Season two, episode two. Crazy. I know.

It's happening. Crazy beautiful. And it's all because of Skeletor's dick, really. Everything is. Sam, by the way. It's the Alpha and the Omega. In addition to Skeletor's dick, thank you

Groknar Twohands. Thanks, Groknar. Twohands. Skeletor's left nut. Skeletor's left nut. It's almost like he's being parted out on eBay.

Jock Warren. Thanks robotic hand in glove. Thanks robotic hand in glove. And thank you evil Lynn's resting bitch face. Thanks evil Lynn. That's a good one.

That's a He-Man reference. I don't know if you remember He-Man. It's a good one. That's a He-Man reference. I don't know if you remember He-Man. It's a cartoon with Skeletor. Evil Lynn was one of Skeletor's, I guess, buddies. She had that weird hat, right? It looked like a batwing armpit. Yes. Just like the fan thing.

Yeah. A batwing armpit. Batwing armpit. So, last episode you guys uh were in a castle having a nice friendly meal and um an assassin it went south real quick yeah like well i and i think of particular note after you witnessed an assassination um uh tom immediately melted a guard's face until the man was dead. He was trying to arrest me. I will not be arrested. I didn't see it. Okay. I wasn't in the room

for that. Well, I think you guys could catch up on that pretty quick. I think he might mutter under his breath, oh, P.S. I melted a man. Right. And you chased the assassin. The guards should know we're ultimately on their side even though... They should! They should ultimately on their side, even though... They should!

They should. And in fact, there is a... That's on them. You know what? That really... There's three guards who were webbed downstairs. Probably won't stay webbed for much longer. And there is a guard...

Should I go down instead of on fire? Or it's too late? There's a disarmed guard watching you as you interrogate a drow that Bodhi's got in his arms And there's three cooks Kind of watching everything It's too many Broth spoiled

Too many cooks And the cooks have all kind of backed up They're all looking for an exit They're not too happy with the turn of events They're not going to throw a Fieri ball at us, are they? It's like in an action movie where guys start to have a martial arts fight in a kitchen

and they all fucking scatter. Let's go. Spurry of Van Damme. Or even Seagal. Seagal is what I was thinking, yeah. The guard in the room says, you're all under arrest. No, we're not.

No, we're trying to help Thane. Yeah, someone murdered the Thane. This guy, the guy that I have, turned invisible and murdered him in front of us while we were having a meeting with Thane. Do a persuasion check. I mean, didn't he just hear him say the goddess is coming to destroy

the world? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alleged. And then you get a bonus of zero. I got a one on here. Oh, you do? Oh, that's because it's a charisma. Well, no, it's not your charisma. It's because it's on paper

and not computer. Right. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's still not charisma. It's because it's on paper, not computer. Right. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's still not enough. What am I talking about? I want to give it to you, but he says, Fine, he's clearly the assassin, but you all can't leave this room. Nobody move. Fine.

Does anyone want to fight that? No. Okay no I do actually oh really I don't want to fight it I just think I need to get to the Thane's quarters to get any papers or notes that he has he seems like he might have been involved in this so

so if you were to leave you'd have to go back into the Great Hall and back down or go up. But you get the feeling this floor is mostly for storage. And maybe there's some other kind of functional room. This doesn't feel like a place where the Thane himself would go. You probably need to go back down the stairs that the guard is sort of standing in front of right now. Okay.

I say to the guard, you come with me. We need to check the Thane's quarters for additional assassins. Persuasion check. Difficulty 10. New game. It's 5th edition that you're getting used to. That's what it is. Oh, I needed

one more. He goes, uh, just a second. I need more backup. I need more backup. And I say, I'll meet you there and then just keep going okay do a dexterity check difficulty 10 he's gonna try to step in front of you you gotta wriggle under his arm

he kinda thuds an arm in front of you and it's it's awkward it's gonna be painful and awkward in a minute. You hear some noises coming from the bottom of the stairs. Bodhi, do a dex check, please. That's a 15 plus

I'm looking up your bonus, and it's a nothing. But that's enough. He tries to wriggle away. Well, I have a plus two on there, right? I don't know where you get these numbers. You gave me that. Yeah, I need to... Maybe it's because you got a ability improvement

that I didn't put in the system. You guys just leveled up twice. My athletics is really high. What's the difference? Yeah, you added a point that I didn't put in my machine yet. Either way, you're fine. You made your role anyway. You're just cranky because you had to take the heat for this murder.

Right? Yeah. Brian's like, yeah, and also I'm going to kick your ass. But yeah, you hear some noises I'm going to kick your ass. But yeah, you hear some noises coming from the bottom of the stairs. Tell your friends we're not the criminals here. This asshole is.

We were here to help. Do an intimidation check. Oh! He goes, he goes, all right, all right. From a one to a 19.

He goes, I don't want any trouble. I don't want any trouble. He shouts down the stairs and he goes, it's a misunderstanding. It's all just a misunderstanding. We got the killer.

We got the killer. Three more guards run in the room. They're soaking wet. And, they're like, who, what happened here?

What happened here? This guy killed Thane. As you say that, they advance on you and try to take him from you. Where are you taking him? He's going right in a torture chamber. Right. Well, we want to find out information because we want to still help Thane. We want to find out who this guy is and what he...

You're calling him Thane. What's his name? Chris. It's his title. He's Chris the Thane. Oh, the Thane. His name's Chris. I don't know what...

The Thane Thane. No, no, no. I actually thought it was charming. We want to help King. He's respectful. The Thane. Yeah, yeah. What do you want us charming. We want to help King. He was respectful. The thing. Yeah, yeah. What do you want us to do?

We're taking him to the torture chamber. You want to come with? Yes. Yeah, I'm coming with you. So two of the guys take him from you, Bodhi, unless you put up any kind of resistance. No, I'll let him go. Tell him to take me to his chamber.

Well, and then another, one of the three guards realizes the drow is under control, and he turns to Tom and says, you're coming too. Sorry, you just killed a guard. We're not letting that go. He was going to arrest me. Look, we're not going to torture you, but you're going in a cell until we figure out what's going on.

All right. You can't take our friend. I'm going to do the Jedi mind thing, but I'm going to use my charisma. Do a check, won't you? Sure. Four. That's with a plus six.

He kind of blinks and goes, I think I'm going to take the guy who killed my friend. Uh, me and the saints. So, yeah, do you cooperate? Sort of. Define sort of. Not at all. Define sort of. Not at all. Define not at all.

I will try one last time to convince them. Okay. You can do it friendly like or for real serious all. Friendly like. Okay. Okay. Fine. But I am not leaving your side.

You are under escort. All right. I don't think you understand. Royalty is dead, and you immediately killed one of the royal guards. I don't know what happened. I was there. Very persuasive. Are you drunk, they say?

I just have a mild speech impediment. I was born this way. Okay, is part of your speech impediment spraying acid? Like physiologically. How is that happening? I know. I once tried to do it, and I was like, oh, I'm making a horrible mistake. Trying to do what? What are you talking about?

I know, it's like his uvula is doing a dance. Yeah, there's something going on in there. I'm just doing what Vin does, baby. Okay, they also realize this, Meralda, you're trying to say something about the quarters. They're like, what? What do you want?

The very fate of the world is at stake. The Thane brought us here for a reason. He sought us out. The fate of the world? What are you talking about? Please allow me. Sir.

Can I speak to your manager? Okay. Do a speak to the manager check. Maybe I need one of these towers? No, no, no. We will get you one of these towers. No, no, no. I just meant this is...

Okay, so that was a 14. Is this an intimidation or persuasion? I think that's intimidation. Talk to the manager is more intimidation. You've tried persuasion. You're intimidating. Okay, so that's 14 plus 4, so 18. Oh, wow. And if that's the case, he says, fine, let me take you to my manager, a.k.a. the captain.

It was more of a metaphor for really just, okay. That's fine. So you guys all head down back to the Great Hall, and it's pouring rain, but there's like 40 guards in here doing a bunch of busy work. There's a few people who aren't in armor kind of milling around, and one of the guards in kind of fancy armor is motioned over, and he comes over, and he says, What do you want?

I need immediate access to the Thane's chambers chambers he has papers and vital information roll 20 again um 13 uh he says you can go to the thanes quarters if six guards come with you that's absolutely fine okay so um wait... Wait, which six? You head back to the stairwell and you go down. This time you head across an armory. You see that there's some doors with a bunch of just armor. Just all sorts

of crazy armor. And then a bedchamber. Once you get to the door of the bedchamber they say, okay, the captain, you know, walks up to you and says, okay, these guards are all going to stay at the door. You are not allowed in the Thane's quarters.

You can go in, but I'm standing next to you and watching everything you do. And if I tell you not to touch something, you're not touching it. I wouldn't have it any other way. Okay. They're not very nice. So uh as you go in there you notice there's a big hearth with a roaring fire in it there's actually three beds there's like a big bed and

then there's looks like there's two guest beds, one on either side of the room. What's the porridge situation? There's four different closets that kind of branch off and like some sitting tables and chairs. Okay. What you want to look at? I guess I'll just start with the closets. Closet number one one do an investigation check now is there a workspace of any kind does he have like an office attached yeah like one of the there's two there's two like padded uh upholstered chairs and like uh what is it called like a desk that opens up roll top

i said a roll top He said a Divan. It is a Roll Top. I don't know if what you said is the proper name for it. No, that's like a Chez Lounge. I'm just saying everything. It's not a Chez Lounge. It's not a couch.

A break front. A break front. I'm telling you, those are synonyms for... Oh. Yeah, I have no idea. Hi. Hi.

No, it's... Yeah, it's like a Roll Top desk. Okay, I'm up in this man's closet, right? Yeah, you go... You open the first closet, roll a dice. What am I doing? See if you find anything in that goddamn closet. I know, I just wanted to know what I was rolling for, Dan.

Look at the credenza. Whatever it was, I failed at it. Yeah, you see a bunch of robes and slippers. Closet number two. Is anyone else here? Am I the only one who's here? Am I the only one? You're the only one they're letting in.

These guys are stuck in the hallway. This closet, I rolled a 19. Okay. In this closet, there's a bunch of little drawers. There's jewelry everywhere, and you realize a lot of it is magical. Magic jewelry. You don't see anything that looks like it was recently hidden in here. How closely are the guards watching?

He's standing next to you. Okay, okay. I hold up a couple pieces and examine them. Because your character is new, I'll also say you have a sleight of hand bonus of plus two. Yeah, I was going to say. So I'm going to hold up a couple pieces and be like, mm-hmm. And I'm nodding to myself. And then with one of them, I'm going to frown at the guard and be like,

I need to take this immediately to be studied. Is it just going to be a random one that you notice is magical? It's going to be the one that I think is the most magical. Okay, do a persuasion. 15 plus two? He says, all right. while he's watching me do that I use my sleight of hand to grab one more okay roll your sleight of hand

18 plus 2 shit okay yeah you get another one and a flat screen both of them are amulets you have two amulets in your pocket right now perhaps we can chat more about them when you've got your hands more free Amulets. You have two amulets in your pocket right now. Perhaps we can chat more about them when you've got your hands more free. So there's, yeah, more closets. Closet number three.

Do you need to go to other people or do you want to? I'll let you go. I assume you're just doing them right in a row. Let's just keep moving real quick and then we'll come back to them. Definitely a no one closet too. Okay. This one's all slippers all the time. Okay. So many slippers

And then that one was a ten You see a desk with a bunch of maps Inside a closet? And there's a little desk clamp Oh I thought you It's like got a little bit of gas in there It's been lit Oh okay so I need to further investigate this closet desk.

So I do so? As you step closer, the captain says, this is the Thane's private workspace. Well, then you understand that it's the most important for us to immediately... Ten? He says, I'd prefer we wait until we find out exactly what happened

with the prisoner. Well, I'd prefer that the thing still be alive, but it seems that somebody was incapable of keeping him so. I'm not sure whose job that was, but... He says, maybe we're done here. You need to investigate those amulets that you're so suspicious about.

Say investigate. No, I'm not. He kind of steps between you and the desk. Okay, can I try to do a quick sleight of hand while I'm exiting to try to just grab some of the papers? Yes. Okay. I just want it to be known

that I don't have a great feeling about this right now but we'll see oh 16 yeah you grab a very small sheet of paper from a there's like a little bowl with like a little rolled up scrolls it's just this Verizon bill why does it have my

social security number on every page the three of you guys see her escorted back out of the room with the captain. You are now standing in a hallway where there's an armory on one side of it. And you are surrounded by guards. They say, well, we're going to take the prisoner down and torture him immediately. I'm going to take copious notes. All right, so you guys head back down the spiral staircase

I love spiral staircases this time you are in just a large empty room got like dirt and gravel and there's what looks like just a series of pulleys

and wooden beams, and they strap his arms up. He's resisting really hard. It's hard for them to get him in there, but they get him in there. And it looks like it's one of those old-fashioned Braveheart machines where he's just going to get ripped in half. The rack? Yeah, the rack.

So, they say, if you don't mind, we'll give you a turn, but we'd like to ask a few things first. So, the captain steps up, says, who are you? Guy won't talk.

He says, what is your, you you know what is it what is it uh yeah like he's he's asking the guy doesn't talk i mean he keeps he keeps asking basic questions he gets all tough guy none of it pays off he gets he gets tired of playing bad cop and walks away clearly it's an opening for you guys well what else do we want to get from him this guy's right out in front of you yeah didn't he say what was the clues that he said about the is there like the Thane was in the that he said about the...

Is there like... The Thane was in the way. He was naive. Yeah, but there was a female power that he was... Oh, the goddess. The goddess, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, you can ask about Luolven again. Well, it wasn't Luolven. That's what I was guessing.

See if that name rings a bell. Who is this goddess? He just hisses at you unless you want to make a roll for it. Yeah. You playing good cop or bad cop roll? Mean cop. Okay. So plus four.

Yeah. He says, I'd never speak her name to you. Well, you're going to. Her name is Priceless. You're going to have to at some point. I'm going to Google the goddess Priceless. Anyone else want to? I crank on the thing. I grab the thing

and I manipulate it to make it. That'll lower difficulty for whatever happens next, but these guys might want to chime in. You familiar with the name Revolving? You just see nothing in his eyes when you say it.

He just kind of shakes his head. He's like, what? Can I use my knowledge of arcane history and religions to guess what if it's a drow you said it was a drought right yeah do an arcana roll won't you okay you get a nice big old plus three well no five plus five plus three uh you put together that um there's a lot of dead drought gods

the drought drought god politics is actually very complicated and so it could be any number of drought gods that he's talking okay i start like lazily listing some no really but i'm not but i'm like so which one of your goddesses did you fail today and then i start like listing a few of i do a perception check you don't get a bonus you looked excited what did you think it was it was it was all 17 and then it was a seven oh okay yeah he he manages to hide whatever he's trying to uh tweet tom you get a crack and then i think bode really wants to get back in there how can we stop this do an intimidation. Everybody. He goes, you mean stop my dick from having sex with your mother?

Is that what you want to stop? Because it can't happen. I'm your father. I'm your biological father. I fell in love with your mother. We knew each other for decades. It was just a wonderful, naturally evolving relationship, and I fucked her. I punch him in the dick.

Do you really? Yeah. Roll. Roll 2D6. Critical dick hit? He just rolled a critical dick hit. Way to waste your 20. No, this will be interesting, honestly.

What a moron. Free. Why don't you try that intimidation check again? That you just... This time he goes, What? What did you just ask ask me Remind me How do we stop it

You can't it's too late There's outposts Everywhere Outposts Oh shit whoops What do you mean outpost I don't know what's an outpost, man. All right.

All my balls. Tweet. I'm going to change my appearance a little bit into a drow goddess. Okay. What are you doing? How, huh? I'm just going to... What are you doing? How? Huh? I'm just going to...

What are you doing, Bugs Bunny? What have you got up your sleeve? I'm going to run. Yeah, because I'm looking at your spells and I don't see it. I don't know what you're trying. Polymorph? Oh, you're polymorphing? Okay. I'm going to polymorph myself into a... And I think what

I'm going to kind of do is I'm going to use this spell to keep my drow goddess face changing around. So it doesn't really settle on anything. I look sort of vague and like I could be anything. But I'm going to... Sounds terrifying. Yeah, I'm just going to try to keep myself blurry in the eyes of this drow. Oh, God.

Do you ever just wonder, as a dungeon master, if you should remind a player of something? Do it. Roll a persuasion check against your own dungeon master. Ten. Roll an actual wisdom check. Eleven. You remember you've met a drow goddess.

Where do we meet the drow goddess? Was it wait? It keeps me in the tunnels. Was it wait, wait, don't tell me? Was it... Paula Poundstone. Was it in the tunnels? I think it was in the tunnels.

Maybe it was in the tunnels. I don't know where it was in the tunnels. You're like 13 years younger than us. You don't smoke as much pot as we do. Just remind your old stoner pals. It's your characters. I'm tying your memory to theirs. There's an ability that I can get that makes me remember everything that's happened.

Is there? Yeah. What is it? I'm going to have to get it. What is it? What's it called? It's called a notebook. Yeah, that's right.

Some D&D players do this thing. They write shit down. Jerry Duggan had a character, Knox, who was a detective. He wrote everything down in his investigation book. The good news is in two weeks, a lot of people are going to tweet it at you. You'll figure it out soon enough. Here's what I'll do. in his investigation book. The good news is in two weeks, a lot of people are going to tweet it at you. Oh, yeah.

So you'll figure it out soon enough. But here's what I'll do. I'll say that you do settle on what you think is the familiar outline of a drow goddess that you think you may have encountered. You don't remember where you saw this face. Okay. But when you cast Polymorph,

you're like, I think I got something. Oh, is it in the house with the dwarves? No. So. I have no got something. Oh, is it in the house with the dwarves? No. I have no fucking idea. That's the thing. At a certain point, I'm like, the wisdom roll, I can only tell you so much. As you do that, he gets real fucking freaked

out. I'm sure he does. Yeah, by the way, I got this. Do a charisma check. 11, and I have a plus 4. So yeah, you just, again, reveal it of pee on his pants. Ask him who you are. Who am I?

Yeah. Say my name. I'm so sorry. Do an intimidation check. I'm so sorry do an intimidation check I love making you guys related he says I'm so sorry Zinzerina

I'm so sorry was that in the house? yeah this is driving me nuts because I feel like you would have remembered if you had played with this was Zinzerina in a bonus or a regular? This is driving me nuts because I feel like I probably would remember. You would have remembered if you had played with this. Was Zinzerina in a bonus or a regular?

Regular. Okay. In the house with Doris. Everybody do a wisdom check. I don't know. Yeah, that's a five. I thought I was going to get it. 20.

16 or 14. Sorry well uh so you actually esmeralda after many uh frustrating roles this episode um you remember um zinzerina is a god um goddess that was slain a long time ago by lulth the uh spider sort of chief evil god. She was a sort of assassin god. And there are rumors that she survived, but she hasn't been seen in hundreds of years. She had those dwarf statues too. Okay.

All right. Zinzerina. You may be confusing Zinzerina You may be confusing Zinzerina with Zawin A drow woman A geeky wizard But maybe you aren't I don't know Fuck with my head man

Why would Whose turn is it uh yours actually all right um you probably want to do your own version of a dick punch don't you yeah i do uh dick punch dick punch the captain by the way is sitting on a bench smoking a cigarette and enjoying where this is going he's totally like he's oh, things got really good really fast. Tell us more about the outposts. Do an intimidation roll. 14.

Is that with your... Oh, yeah, so that's not just a 14. That is a... 18. So, he closes his eyes. He's very frightened by Twee's face.

And he says, just look where the calamities have started. Just look where the calamities have started. You need to give me more information than that. I have this information. He must be talking about the colleges

that have all been stricken with this. And then finally collapse. So how do we stop him? I'm going to just knock a Coke can over for the sixth time. He just keeps repeating, you can't stop, you can't stop it. It's too late, it's too late. The wheels are in motion, the wheels are in motion. Nah.

What else should we get from him? I don't know, a coupon? A coupon? I feel dumb asking where the headquarters are. What's happening to the colleges? The schools, I mean. Haven't you even looked? No.

He laughs. We'll get to that. He starts gritting his teeth really hard and closing his eyes really hard. What's he doing? He's not biting a poison tooth, is he? Don't you bite that tooth. Don't.

Don't you do it. You see him go, nah. Don't you bite that tooth. You see his Adam's apple. Don't you do it. Don't do that. Don't you bite that tooth.

He starts to go unconscious. You're biting that tooth, aren't you? Let's go check out some magic he goes limp I'm no longer interested in him damn it okay so I I said to the guards

can I play a little song of rest that will maybe cure stop the poison from killing him. Sure. I will give you a hint, though. He's super dying. So it's got to be a real good song of rest. Celebrate.

Roll. Roll to see what it does. What's a good poison song that I should sing? There isn't one. I rolled a nine. Good bits. He very dizzily kind of like regains consciousness. That Belle Biv Devoe poison song is better than a poison song.

Poison. Puh, puh, puh, puh, poison. I'm going to say, hey, I stopped you from dying with my goddess powers. And I'm going to look at you guys. He thinks I'm a guy. It's crazy. I'm going to say, I need you to tell my friends here where we can start to stop this thing that you've started. And I have a follow-up.

He says, as long as we have Roke you'll never stop us and where's Roke he starts going conscious again it's my alma mater so I punch him in the nuts roll to punch the unconscious drow in the nuts so with your bonus

that is an 18 roll for damage what 18. Roll for damage. What do I roll for damage on that punch? 2d6, please. Okay. Yeah, that's both of them. You feel two pops as you do it. I didn't want to do that.

I just wanted to listen. There are now two fewer hard-boiled eggs in this salad. So much doesn't bother him. The visceral, like, group scream that just happens. I know. And it's fun because once you've had testicular cancer, it just doesn't scare you as much as it used to. So.

It pops your nuts? Well, one of them listen there have been incidents at colleges all over and there was a huge incident at Roke which is my school which is why we were here to meet with the thing they were having these weird

parties where people would show up for like a fortune telling party and then everybody who showed up would die at Roke the college collapsed show up for like a fortune telling party and then everybody who showed up would die. At Roque the college collapsed. Yeah, yeah. I mean it's no longer functional. It's boarded up.

So it's not even worth investigating. No, it's worth investigating. There are probably still survivors in there. The same thing happened to DeVry. Yeah, like there's hundreds of people who studied at this school. And Dootson. You know, she knows a good chunk of them died, but not all of them. Let's go to Rope.

I thought it physically collapsed, but it turns out it just. No, I mean buildings collapsed. Oh, it did, yes. Okay, all right. Okay. So it seems that that's our, that's where we need to head. That makes sense. All right.

The guards seem amenable to what you're talking about um and the captain says i'm still going to insist that you know you take one of our guards with you uh listen yeah as it as an escort to watch what you're doing i mean sure i'm fine with that sir absolutely anyone you want to send, we are working in defense in your Thane's honor and at his request. Now, before we go,

you're going to need to let me go back and see the rest of the paperwork on his desk. As you can see from this conversation, this information is vital

to our success. Yeah. Can we back her up? What she said. He sits down and takes out another cigarette and just waves. Like, just go. Just go. So, you know, one of the guards follows you up.

And he sort of waits at the door, but he doesn't stand next to you. He just sort of lets you have free reign over it. You guys can go in with her if you want and just ransack his quarters. That sounds like a plan. They can do whatever. I'm going to look at the papers and look for any information about it. Magic jewelry. All right, everybody roll a 20.

15. All right, you find a magic amulet. 17. Oh, sorry. You find a magic amulet. You find a magic amulet. Thanks, Oprah. 10.

10. I got 10. You've got two. You got a good close look at it. What else are you looking for? While these guys compare their prom jewelry. Oh, yeah. No, so I rolled.

What'd you roll? I rolled a 10. Oh, okay. Yeah. So where are you looking right now? I'm looking specifically through the paperwork, like the papers on his desk. I'm looking for, oh, does anyone have, because I, is this a, can I call the rogue over to, does he have a good, like, false bottom type detection on? Yeah, I can check for traps. Not, he has a good false bottom type detection on?

Yeah, I can check the traps. Not do you have a false bottom. Yes. Investigation. I'm thiefy. Hey, do any of his writings, books, scrolls, anything like that give off a magic vibe to me? No. Okay.

No, you don't sense any. False bottom. I mean, I can try first i guess so i'll check out the desk and i will do that all right looking do an investigation check okay uh no five plus one no you don't see anything go for it tom uh you find that when you um you you lift the rollout multiple times, you hear a click noise in the back of the closet. You don't know what it is exactly, but just by playing with it, you're like, oh.

I say, thank you, that'll be all. And then I go. Do another investigation check as you go to the back wall where the clicking noise is happening. God. Here we are again. What was it? I don't want to talk about wall where the clicking noise was happening. Here we are again. What was it? I don't want to talk about it anymore.

Let me help you. It was a two. Okay. So you definitely feel like there's something going on. And Tom, you discover that if you do two short ones and then pause and do it again, what is that noise? Dark sleeping. Oh, okay.

Dark nightmare. Doggy dreams. Sweet dreams, doggy. That you've managed to get a passage to open up. The wall separates. A crease appears between the brick. I give him a nod of grudging respect. I said grudging.

Okay. And yeah, back there, there's another desk. And this one... This is the land of desks. This one has an anti-roll top. No. But this one

has a slice of cake. A slice of cake sitting on a plate and one map sitting on top of cake. The Trushka desks. A slice of cake sitting on a plate and one map sitting on top of it. Does the cake say, eat me? Is the cake a lie? Do you want to roll to investigate the cake? Yes, I am.

Really? Yeah. Go for it. Okay. Okay, there's something wrong with my dice. What was a two again so that's oh my god yeah you need new dice here here here i'm gonna hey what's going on with that cake here enjoy your new uh wizards of the coast 20 sided it's so big what's the problem it looks like normal cake and then you check it again look i rolled an 18 on my first try. Wait, what is it? An 18. Is it the

ampersand though? No, no, no. Okay, because you know that's a 20. I only learned that from your dick punch earlier. Alright, so you look at the cake a second time and you realize it is indeed very good cake. Okay. I like good cake and I cannot lie.

The map does look really... Yes, obviously. I'm checking out the... It's clearly got a bunch of occult markings. There's old fairy language in runes all over it. And it looks like it involves astronomy somehow. All right. Well, I'll have to study this at length. Yes.

And between now and the next time we record i will get you a an actual drawing that looks like what this is and then i will study it at length how much time we got left sam we have 20 minutes great so um you guys now have what looks like an astronomy chart and some cake. Nice. I walked out of the room for half a second. What the fuck? Where'd the cake come from?

The desk. I heard a dog barking. I went to check on the dogs. And you jerked it off, and now it's happy. And Ken rolled it. Look, this is just the way you normally do things, right? Female dogs. They're sweethearts.

They have needs. But he rolled a 20 and figured out how to open a passage in the back of the closet. And there was a cake. Slice of cake. Slice of cake. A slice of good cake. And an astronomy chart. All right.

Yeah, Sarah rolled two investigations on the cake. Yeah, you all laugh until suddenly the cake is the key. Hey, cake, yummy. All right, so I have the cake. Yeah, you all laugh until suddenly the cake is the key. Hey, cake, yummy. Alright, so I have the map. We've gathered everything else. We're going to set out for Roke. Okay. Right?

As soon as you get to the Great Hall, the guard that's been tailing you says, Hang on, I have to check with the captain. And he says, Don't go anywhere. And he waves another guard over and he runs away and he comes and uh comes back with the captain the captain's rolling his eyes and he says uh uh this this fucking guy doesn't want to go with you so i guess i'm going with you fantastic glad to have you aboard so um what's your name sir

huh what's your name uh my name is Ken Wald uh nice to meet you does he actually roll his eyes

like you just did at me yes so uh Ken Wald is he a millennial yeah yeah yeah he's like sorry I'm just

I'm a 90s baby um but uh he's put out by everything. But Canwald says, okay, so here's what we're going to do. We're going to walk to the Skull Roak, and we're just going to go through the main gate, but we have to be very careful that we don't let anyone

kind of know we're doing this, or people will start investigating. We've put the word out in uh in tinette that nobody should try to explore the college and uh if we're not real subtle about this wait till it causes a ruckus well it's good that everyone here has subtlety as one of their major gifts yeah i'm gonna drop my symbols into a wedding cake a seven foot half orc he says well it's

right now it's dark and it's raining honestly now's as good a time as any I'm going to try to light a fart and shit my mom's wedding dress as you walk through the streets this time without a dainty parasol um you uh you hear the wind is really strong and um you uh you notice the streets are quiet uh there's a few gas lamps and windows of some stores but otherwise just no sign of life and then you get to what looks like it should be an alley and there's just

giant wooden planks blocking off the alley signs saying no trespassing by order of the Thane and he starts just really sloppily like pulling some planks apart with his bare hands he's like no one is supposed to go

in here like you guys don't have any idea how bad this is we were gonna send in like an assassin or a scout or something but you guys are giant like i don't know what the fuck like this is we're not afraid of nothing wait say it again we're not afraid of nothing say that again i'm not afraid of nothing yeah what he said yeah and and with that he pulls off a third plank and he motions for you guys to get on through he kind of leans the planks back up behind you

and says I ain't got a hammer or a nail that's what we're doing I look askance at the captain Kenwald I thought his name. Ken Walt. Ken Walt? I thought his name was Ken Walt. No. Do I get a sense of his...

What's his deal? You feel like he's true neutral. You get a pretty strong true neutral vibe off of this guy. You feel like he uh he respects sort of the law and other people's business but he's not impressed by whatever you guys are trying to do he's just trying to like maintain he i mean like he's he's he feels like he's doing his duty and he's that don't impress me much yeah yeah yeah um and as soon as you he closes up the behind you uh you notice it's kind of louder

here the storm sounds a little louder and you hear the sound of the the wind uh kind of whistling through um the buildings and there's what looks like a fire on the other side of this alley there's kind of like a what looks like almost a a courtyard with something burning in it you see some shapes moving around and do i have a sense of where this is in the campus like what this area would be yeah um up ahead is the triangle it's where a lot of the students would meet and socialize um it's sort of supposed to be the welcome area for people to play hacky sack. Kenwald says, oh, well,

when we boarded this thing up, we'd beaten back the monsters into the buildings. It doesn't look like they're staying in the buildings. You can see there's something wandering around the triangle right now. Monsters dancing around a fire? You're not close enough in the rain to quite make it out. Buildings. You can see there's something wandering around the triangle right now. Is there a monster dancing around a fire? Is that what we see?

Monsters dancing around a fire? You're not close enough in the rain to quite make it out. You're going to have to walk to the end of the alley. Yeah, I'm going to go closer for sure. Once you get to the end of the alley, you see what looks like 10-foot-tall beings in the rain. 10-foot-tall beings? They're hard to see. Or 10-foot-tall doings.

More than a silhouette in the rain, but they do look like they're kind of slowly circling a big pit fire. It looks like there's a big pile of garbage in the middle of the triangle. How many are there? Three. Three figures? Ten feet tall. It's kind of a ritual dance. Are they wailing their terrible wails and gnashing their terrible teeth?

You can make all sorts of assumptions. What shape? Are they assumptions. Which shape? Are they like humanoid shape? Almost. They seem like humans with extremely long arms and legs. Weird. Can you hit them with your scarab? Yeah, I'm looking through my scarab.

Do they look like giants? Do they look like Slender Man's? Actually, you know what? They kind of look like Slender Man's. Wow. Do they look like Slender Mans? Actually, you know what? They kind of look like Slender Mans. Wow. Do they have suits? No. Somebody talk while I look up the scarab.

Poorly dressed Slender Mans. Because I do have a scarab answer for this. Is there a... Should I maybe get invisible and maybe fly up there and see what's going on. I like that. I like that plan. That's a good plan. I have an idea.

What? Spit it out before it dies of low leavis. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah really quick recap for you Sarah the scarab of farseeing is a small like sort of scarab looking jewel that when you kind of pull

its wings apart you can see through it and see the magical properties of things represented by an aura you guys are loaded I decided I would just throw really big monsters at them and justify overpowering them. So, orange. You see three really, really gangly orange glowing figures. What does orange mean?

Oranges. Wait, I don't know. Wait, what? We keep forgetting. We've seen white. Somebody wrote it down, right? No. I'll tell you the ones that you have figured out on your own.

You have figured out the presence of a god usually means blinding white. Red usually means undead. Gray means alive. And blue means some kind of blessing you have seen orange before but you don't know what it is I'm just glad it wasn't banana you fuck a single gunshot sound effect

I'm guessing Orange is some combination of undead And whatever yellow is Like a demon or something Yeah Probably evil And yeah they're just pacing around Just pacing around the fire

How long are you going to watch I want to know Give me a time limit 14 seconds I want to throw. Give me a time limit. 14 seconds. I want to throw an oil pouch at the fire. In the rain? Oh, shit.

From a distance? Well, I would go closer. From a distance. Blaine, I heard, was going to try and go invisible and do something. Did you have a plan? I just wanted to splash them with fire somehow. It does sound fun. They're just sort of wandering around the fire not doing anything they're kind of just like dragging their legs

as they walk so Blaine's going to go invisible and fly close to get a better you play a little invisibility song and scoot over there you can't see me do a stealth check and I'm going to give you an extra bonus of two,

but this is a difficulty of 18, and you've got a nine bonus already. So you need to... 15? Great. So you kind of go over there, and you see three really weirdly familiar shapes. They look human, but it's almost as if muscle tissue had just stretched out of parts of their body to form new legs and new feet and new hands. So their torsos look normal. And then there's just this pink and red stuff sticking out of the rags of robes.

And they're kind of walking along, dragging their feet. One of their necks looks broken and they've all got strange shapes kind of jutting out of their heads. Are they undead? These are those weird homemade assistants that those vampires were making, right?

Like they would have the hot-rodded horses with the long legs. There's an Island of Dr. Moreau vampire in the last campaign. There was also this, weren't there three guys we met on a bridge? I don't remember what that was about. I don't know what you're talking about. I remember the weird Dr. Moreau reference Blaine was talking about,

but three guys have been on a bridge. I think when he used to do heroin with Anthony Kiedis. There were three cowardly guys. Or maybe two cowardly guys. I'm joking. Yeah, pause while Ken dies slowly.

What I'm talking about. Well, it's not good, whatever they are, right? Are they chanting right are they dancing why do they look familiar their eyes are kind of dancing around and their heads are just kind of like cocking back and forth scanning they do have kind of a possessed

look about them they look like nutso's so we take them out yeah I think so Blaine do you go back and report all this information then? Oh, yeah. Sorry, we didn't actually know this yet. Yeah, I'm going to go back and go, hey, these guys are bad news.

Do you guys want to take cover? I'm going to go and blow my cover. Take cover and give me five seconds. All right. Okay. go and blow my cover. Take cover and give me five seconds. So I'm gonna when they get out of the way, I'm gonna go right in between these guys and do a thunder wave straight down. Into the fire? Yeah.

Into the fire. Alright. Roll for damage. It's gonna be different because the fire doesn't have hit points, but I'm gonna kind of judge different because the fire doesn't have hit points but i'm gonna kind of judge how big the fire explodes uh by how you roll on it and i'm gonna i'm looking up the acoustical effects right now to translate that as well because thunder wave does all sorts All sorts of fun shit. 2d8 thunder damage. Sure. Thunder, thunder, thunder damage.

Thunder. So that's 10 on one of those guys. 9 on one of those guys. And 5 on one of those guys and five on one of those guys all right so all of a sudden thunder cracks into the fire and fire sprays all over all three of these guys and you guys have to kind of duck back into the entrance alley to uh not get hit by the log that just kind of goes flying at you uh and you hear very loud screeing noise as these three things duck away for a moment and then wheel back on Twee,

who is sort of in the middle of them. Everybody roll a 20. I did. I rolled a 20. Nine. Is this initiative? Oh, it sure is. So do we have bonuses for that too? Yeah.

Okay, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's having it. Yeah, so I have 17 plus two, so 19. I got a 24. I'm at 12 plus two, 14. All right, I'm going to need to get these all again because I still have the initiative table from the last campaign here I got to kill.

I'm going to do captain and then thing one, thing two, thing three. What you got again, everybody? Sorry, listeners. 19. 24. 19. 14. 9. Alright, so these things all turn on twee. I'm still flying, too.

Mm-hmm. One of them takes a swing at you. Oh, my. one of them takes a swing at you and does 16 points of damage as it rakes three muscular sort of thorn fingers across you shit it rolled a critical in addition to that

well you know what I was kind of asking for it to be fair thunder some flame in his face and he rolled a 94 Jesus so in addition to that damage

he's going to roll some bonus damage. See you later, dice. Your grandchildren will get that as a present. Take another six points damage. Jesus. As he digs his thorny, muscular thumb into you. And then we have... What did you guys...

It's Ken. I think it's Ken. Ken, you're up. One of those sticks up. I'll get it later. It's like in your wall basically. Go, go, go, Tom, go. I'm going to cast...

Shit. Darkness on them. Go for it. Edge 230. I can't see through it. Correct. 15-foot radius sphere of darkness around them Alright

They're going to attempt to save I don't think they can save Can I save Nope Alright so they just get engulfed And Tui you see sort of just a fog of blackness Underneath you Okay You're up So I can't see them anymore now? Nope And Tui, you see sort of just a fog of blackness underneath you. Okay.

You're up. So I can't see them anymore now? Nope. Oh, damn it. Well, that makes the attack pretty difficult. I know, but it makes them unable to attack us at least. Well, you do kind of like know that they're wounded. They're in that area.

Yeah. I mean, you've got a general sense of where they are. You're not going to hit Tweet because he's not in the darkness. I was going to cast Catapult on a... I only have... Because it's a low-level thing, I can only do up to five pounds. But I was going to grab one of the flaming

logs, ideally, but if there's not one available... Yeah, there's one right in front of you, the one that ricocheted off the side of the alley. I'm going to cast that and send it sailing into, I guess, the inky blackness and hope for the best. Alright, roll a 20. So this is a dex? Yes.

No. Roll another one. It's a fun damage though. It looks like it's 3d8 bludgeoning damage if it hits. So that's a fun spell if you're not casting it into a fog of inky blackness. So basically when you cast it, I have to roll like it's an attack? Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Bodhi, I'm going to give you a move before we call it an episode uh i'm gonna so i'm already raging you sure are uh fast movement and then i'm gonna go over there and uh swing herald of kalmar on the closest guy that i get to roll 20. oh that's a hit even in the he's he's obscured but that means it's a hit regardless with your bonus that's a 23 so eight plus uh three for damage and then fire on top of that so uh your flaming herald of Kelmar goes sailing in, and as it comes out the side,

the top stump of a big log of muscle tissue just falls out, and you hear more shredding aluminum sounds coming from the fog as something's screaming from being de-legged. Okay. Do I get another shot? Yeah, you do. I take another swing. Yeah, 19 again.

For fuck's sake, okay. Nice. And, uh, 6 plus 3, 8, and then fire damage. Alright. So, eight, and then fire damage. All right. So you just chop into what feels like the thigh of this thing, and you see flame kind of very dimly sort of flickering

inside the supernatural darkness, and you think you set its robes on fire. Okay, good. I think we're gonna call it thanks for listening to episode 2 of season 2 you guys holy shit any

plugs or any more thank yous just the usual thank you to all our listeners for continuing to be amazing. Oh, hey, we're pushing for 2,000 Patreons. Yeah. So keep an eye on patreon.com slash nerdpoker, and we'll keep posting new ideas of stuff that will unlock.

We're going to do a video soon, too. I want to do a video to kind of put out there and get people to join up. We should do a video. I would love to do an episode where I talk about all the secrets from the last campaign that you guys never discovered. Oh, yeah. I'd love to hear that.

Cool. We need to do that. And then, anybody want to plug anything? I'm going to plug Skeletor's naked. Gross. See, Sarah, it hasn't changed.

It hasn't changed. Brian for Sane.com for tour dates thanks for listening to another episode of Nerd Poker you can follow us at Patreon.com slash Nerd Poker and you get bonus episodes from there and you can also send us anything

at P.O. Box 16069 Encino California 91416. Thanks for listening.