Nerd Poker - Episode 35 - The Dead God Below

Episode Date: December 20, 2017

Our heroes have narrowly dodged the fist of the Demelith, and as they enter the caves beneath the land of Amynna they meet a crew of drow they must negotiate with. Will Luovyn be super gross? Will Bodhi stab the wrong thing? Will Tom learn what his heart desires? 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 going to be playing in a new setting, my dining room. Each week you'll hear my wife, my son, my dogs, and we're going to be playing in a place that I love and playing the game that I've loved half my life, Dungeons and Dragons. We've got fifth edition and we're ready.

So are you ready? Here's Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Hey guys, it's Rose Poussaint from Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. What are you saying? Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. Here's episode 35. Here's episode 35.

Oh my god, there's a lot of episodes. Thanks, buddy. Thanks, Rhodes. Bye. Bye. Bye, pal. Hey, everybody. It's Brian Pessain.

That was my adorable son. Now he's dabbing as he's looking at us. Oh, yeah. Dab it up. Hey, watch this. I'm going to dab me. Oh, it's me, Buffalo Bill. That's all I got.

That was Blaine with a Dabney Coleman reference to start the show. Maybe I should have gone with General McRaney. Dan and Blaine are my friends here with me. We're happy to be here. We're talking about, should we say what we're talking about doing soon? Why not? I don't know. I'm not 100% sure what you're saying.

Making this a little one more person and a person that we love. Oh, yeah. We're really hoping. Brian, are you pregnant? Put it out in the universe. We really want Sarah Gazzardo to be regular here with us, and we're talking to her about that, to be regular here with us.

And we're talking to her about that, about making this a four-person team with our DM. Well, five total, obviously. She misses the crew. We miss her, yeah. And she misses being a part of the game. And her two kids that she left the podcast to go raise are now close enough to 18. They're all 18 years old, yeah.

Yeah, they have that weird disease that makes them 18 in a couple years. But yeah, this campaign is definitely on the back end, I think. Oh shit, don't say that. I hope we're not playing new characters with her,

but we hope to get her in here soon. We're at this fun part where you guys have experienced a giant chunk of the plot and it could go on for quite a while but at the same time uh you've witnessed at least one apocalypse so it's like right and we are trying to uh end this demolith uh which brings us to uh well before we uh do a you know a catch-up on where we are i have uh do you want to? Let me do some quick Patreon shout-outs. Thank you to Greasy Meats. The best kind of meats.

Thank you, Steel Stolberg. The best kind of Stolbergs. Steel. Thanks, Darren Ashdown. That's not funny. It's not funny. That's a great name. Although, right now,

there's like three major fires in the Los Angeles area. So we've all seen a little bit of ash down today. Yeah, a lot today. And thank you, Cheesy B. Cheesy B. All right. Well, you got some extra special shout outs you want to do, right, Brian? Yeah.

So a couple of notes I've been given. given one is from a guy in San Antonio English teacher comedy fan came to my show Zack so Kalski he's a listener to the show and or in a big fan anyway he gave me some cash for the show. And then we've got Jordan. How would you pronounce that? Fjordan. Aguirre? Aguirre.

Aguirre. Jordan Aguirre sent me a great note. It's like three pages. I'm not going to read the whole thing. But basically, P.S., what was that guy's name in the wheelchair with that big dick? Don't say anything. Don't say it. But thanks, Jordan.

Well, yeah, I'm trying to see. To Ken, your Vin Diesel impression cracks me up every time. I always enjoyed your laugh on the podcast. Please do your impression of a baby coming, I guess. No. No. Shit. your laugh on the podcast. Please do your impression of a baby coming, I guess. No. That's a baby coming. Alright, we haven't heard that one in a while. And now a baby going. Thanks, Jordan.

And so what happened in episode 34? You guys kind of raced the Demolith as he caught on to your location and you ran into an underground cave. You've got the intention of rewinding the clock of Aminah. Aminah is sort of isolated from Armageddon,

so it's existing on its own sort of independent timeline outside of time and space. And you know by going into these caves that the drow had sort of independent timeline outside of time and space and um you know by going into these caves uh that the drow had sort of created a long time ago that you can kind of go back in time right um you know you can go back in time that way you know if you try to leave the island and get to sort of the edge of the ocean um manan and mclear can kind of speed up time so there's sort of two ways you can affect time.

And you've got with you Forenmeyer and some of his wood elves. And Luovin, a lunar elf. A really creepy-ass looking piranha alien-ish kind of spin on elves. And we just had some elves die on us as we were running in, right? The Demolith manifested itself as sort of a black spire thing and slammed a hand down on top of some of your elven friends.

They went splat. Where exactly were we inside? We walked in and then we found a door. Yeah, you went down the tunnel and so you got them One-eyed? You got these drow to open a door and um the guy who was manning the door had two eyes but then you see a cluster of about 10 drow soldiers

they're in some what look like actually fairly normal drow armor but they're definitely soldiers um they're about half men half women and they've all got one eye. Okay. And Luovan says to you guys kind of in hushed tones, I have some experience dealing with drow. I don't know if you want to let me handle some of these negotiations. What about you? What about me? What kind of experience do you have dealing with uh

drow well uh you know what i can uh i'm gonna lay tongues on myself and go up to the window and start talking to them and or are we caught up you're through the yeah you're caught up and you're through the door okay i'm still gonna just through the door. I'm still going to do it. Just thought since we have a... That's not a bad idea. Sure. That's a bad idea. That way I can talk to these guys in their native tongue and they'll feel a little closer to me.

And then when I'm in there, zing, zoom, timeshare. Cool. So you cast tongues on yourself and you actually are suddenly able to hear what sounded just sort of like murmuring um and uh you hear uh they're speaking i thought i heard mavis whine but she's not underneath no it's a hate you hear one of them is speaking high drow, which is a kind of a more complicated ancient version of the drow language, but you recognize it because you cast tongues. And you now feel fairly confidently that if you spoke high drow,

they would all understand you. Okay. What do you want to tell these guys? Before we do that, I just want to say that our engineer, Sam, makes the show extra nerdy. He's actually reading comic books while he records a DM. He's actually got a book that came out at DC while I've been working there. So that's actually like fun to look at.

It's pretty amazing. This show is not nerdy enough for him. He has to read comical books while we go. And he's a Cylon. That's the Watchmen sequel. I hope you enjoy it. Written by Jeff Johns. Get back in.

Sorry. I just made an observation. This is literally as nerdy as it gets. So you know they're speaking hydrail. What do you want to do about it, Twi? Hey, we need to get off of this. We need to go back to a certain point in time, right? What did we tell them last episode?

I forget. Had we started to tell them that? All you had said is that you didn't want to pick a fight. You just wanted to kind of move through and come back above ground. Oh, okay. So we hadn't told them while we were here. Yeah. Well, vaguely told them. You didn't play all your cards.

Tom kind of used his high charisma to persuade them to open the door because they did speak common. Okay, so you're going to go and take a pass at high drow and see if they are endeared to you. I, yeah, you know, we would just like to kind of get through here without any sort of, any sort of problems. Has anybody ever come down here from the, from, from the top that has given you problems before? What's going on up there? They say, yeah, you know, they go ahead and send one of these over to you. A warrior named Tarek comes over and she says, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thank you for the sign of respect. We have raiders come down here a lot. You know, Amina's got a lot of really bad news bears. There's a lot of people who are sort of creepy and self-righteous, and that's why we've got to kind of keep watch over the cave doors. We're unstuck in time down here. So, like, this underground exists in a time separate from above ground weird so every time you come down here you could be encountering us

at a different time in our history but right now i can tell you this you know we're we see people come to this door all the time we don't let them all in sometimes we even banish drow to the above ground who's the last draw you banishes do any of those guys come back uh they try to come back but we have pretty strict rules down here we are allowed to exist out of time because we have our own god and uh they created a special set of rules that enable this section of the Underdark to exist after the world has been destroyed. Oh, a little gerrymandering. That's nice. Yeah, exactly. A little Underdark gerrymandering. Hey, what's the... Do you guys...

So you understand, like, where we can go and how we can control what time we go back to, right? They say, yes, yes. People try to manipulate time all the time. We have control over two caves. There's the way you came, which we heard some noise coming from the back of the cave as you came down. That was rather interesting. I'm not sure what condition you left that entrance, but if you stay with us long enough, it perhaps will open up again if it caved in uh there's also a cave that heads to the north that we have control over there are

other caves but much of our city collapsed during the calamity and so some of the the underground caves that the drow built many many centuries ago uh are isolated around Amina. But you've happened upon the largest drow settlement that's underground. We don't believe in going above ground. You guys can see the future, right? What happens? Actually, we don't. We believe that once you've gone above ground, you're not allowed to come back. Our God has allowed us to stay underground and alive. As long as you don't get stuck in regular time. As long as we don't go above ground, we're allowed to continue to exist in a limited way.

We don't know what happens. We've decided to sort of make our stand down here in the Underdark and keep a civilization as long as we can. And what do you know about what's going on upstairs? We know of the Demolith. We know he is responsible for a great many things. Our god is working on its own plan to counter the Demolith.

We're very lucky in that we have a, a drow God here among us, but it's a very, very, uh, weak God, a dead God. So it knows all,

but does not have much influence over the physical realm. Hmm. Good God. Does our wood elf, I can't remember her name. You mean the lunar elf? The lunar elf. Luovan, yeah.

Does Luovan know how far back we need to go and whether it's more important to unify the planet again? Or just go back in time and stop that guy. Luovan thinks you guys... What's his name? Horo. Horo, yeah. She thinks you guys have...

Been turned or sacrificed. Pieced together a good plan. Head back up just about a couple of weeks, grab Horo. And then her suggestion last episode was something along these lines. I'll let you guys sort of decide if you want to take this advice. But once you nab Horo to maybe take him either farther back in time or maybe do something about the Demolith around the time he arrived in Amina,

she thinks if you truly want to go home again, you're going to need to rewind the world about 1,500 years anyway. Yeah. Because that's when the Demolith came to Amina and shrouded the island in storm. You can turn the world on with a smile. That's when the Lunar Elves broke the planet? Right. Yes.

Crushed the sun. Yes. Crushed the moon into the planet. Crushed the moon. Yeah, but we haven't been here 1500 years. No. No. No, but the thing is, when word got out that there was adventure to be had

and a storm had just sort of risen over the island, you guys didn't know it was a magical storm, but as you sort of passed through the storm, it was like hitting a roulette wheel as to what time you would land on the island, and you hit 1,500 years in the future. And we're separated from our own timeline. Right, we had started this after that.

Yeah, yeah. It's all a bit convoluted, almost as if the Dungeon Master spent several months toiling away at the lore of this island, and then was just praying for an excuse to find an NPC that could communicate it. I was jet skiing, brah. Everybody do a perception check for me, please.

There's a lot going on and I just want to see which of you deserve to know what. I got a two. So, Tom, you kind of just fold your arms and you kind of high five yourself. You got 11 with your bonus? Yeah. I am Groot.

Brian, you're going to roll for real this time? Yeah. 20. Oh, for fudge's sake. You know everything about everything all of a sudden. Let's see. What's the most special thing I can tell you about the conversation? So I'm going to say that Tui, as you're translating things back and forth to these guys,

Bodhi, you pick up on something. You've all been kind of having a conversation with Luovan at the same time because she's sort of the most knowledgeable person in your party about the underground caves at turn back time. And whenever Tui relates back to you guys something about the dead god, you notice Luovin's ears have been perking up, and she seems kind of antsy.

Just antsy. She's got a really spooky face with big pupil-less eyeballs and sharp teeth. And she's got that pale, glowing skin. So you already are kind of like hard. It's hard to read her face. She's almost got like a sort of built-in difficulty communicating with her facial muscles. But her ears kind of twitch whenever the dead god topic comes up. And she kind of looks like conflicted about something.

But she's been very submissive since you bumped into her so she looks like she might be holding something back. You're not sure about it. What is she holding back? Oh, that's me perceiving that. You're perceiving that, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, what do you know about this god? I don't know for sure, but they seem to imply the dead god is here. If it's not too much trouble, I think depending on how far a trip it is, maybe we could see about talking to this dead god. Yeah. Thuy, you want to ask these guys if we can talk to their dead god? Yeah. Or do we need to ask them?

They can hear what you say in common, but Thuy has been kind of stepping up and getting you guys some bonus points by speaking in high drow to them. So they're all kind of nodding as you talk. But if you wanted to make a declaration in high drought, they might take it more seriously. Those are good cookies.

They're kind of waiting to see if Thuy says anything because he's been so formal. But if he doesn't, they might give you a response without it. We would love it if you would help us we would be honored and delighted if you could assist us in our quest to get back to where we're supposed to be because popping around like a cork in time. Eh. Who needs it, really? Come on, you guys know where I'm coming from. Do a persuasion roll difficulty 12. 17.

Hell yes. He rolled a 17. 17. So the one you've been talking to kind of nods and she says, yes, yes. If you spend about a day with us and then head back up, I believe you'll get to the time in question. The day is relative. You might want to stick close to one of us to be able to tell how long time has been passing. We're attuned to the way time passes down here.

It seems your friend there with the big gross eyeballs seems to be attuned as well. She might be able to help you. I also hear you had some conversation about our dead god. I don't know if you wanted to include that in your time down here, but if you do, we would like to know what you exactly intend. Yeah, what does she think we could learn from the dead god? She seems real bashful about it, but really antsy.

She just kind of wants to meet it. Tell her that we have to tell them what we think we can learn from it. You know, I think it would be, I think it would be an honor and a privilege to be able to learn from your dead god. Roll another persuasion. This one, difficulty 15. 16.

Well, geez louise. So they say, very well, our, you know, our dead god is in a chamber farther underground. It may speed time up a little bit to visit it. And we would ask that you be accompanied by some of us, as the god is very weak, and I don't know what damage you could really do to it, but we have a certain sense of pride. It's okay. I met Peter Boyle once.

Really? Yeah. I know what it's like. That's pretty awesome. He was a Second City guy. I saw him from a distance one time. He was a fucking young Frankenstein. Did you watch that over the last Halloween at all?

No. No, not really. We watched it at the Mad Office. Bill Morrison played it on a TV in his office, and we all gathered around in his office and just fucking watched Young Frankenstein at the Mad Magazine office. What a terrible job.

You know who's terrible? Madeline Kahn. Ew. It was so amazing. Kidding, she's the best. They made a parody of like a 30s movie in the 70s that was like note for note perfect plus fart jokes. Oh, yeah.

Because it's completely made with love and admiration for the original thing, I think. It was just such a remarkable effort to make it look that authentic. This black and white, slowly paced horror movie plus silly Weenis jokes. Like Borscht Belt, like Weenis jokes. Yeah, I watched it just in the last year again.

Love that thing. It still holds up. So, so holds up. There's nothing dated about it. You know, they're rebooting it with Shia LaBeouf. I think it's my favorite of Mel's movies. I have a soft spot for Spaceballs just because it was actually in theaters

when I was the right age. Yeah, a lot of that stuff doesn't... It doesn't probably hold up, though. I watched it with Rhodes, and he loved all the balls jokes. Like, boy, there are a lot of those. I see all Schwartz is as big as mine. There's a lot of

stuff he didn't get, thank God. I've always really loved, I mean, I love Young Frank and Summer, but I've always really loved the producers, just because of how everybody in the movie is fucking crazy. I think Blazing Saddles is awesome, but what's the one that's kind of overrated? Dracula, Dead, and Loving It.

Yeah. Oh, God. I'll put my hand up for High Anxiety. I love High Anxiety. High Anxiety is great, too. Very correctly rated. Yeah. No, High Anxiety is great.

What did you just say, Blaine? High Anxiety. It's all the Hitchcock visuals and stuff. Dick Van Patten. yeah no high anxiety what did you say Blaine great high anxiety high anxiety yeah visuals and stuff yeah Dick Van Patten I feel like I'm caught in the web

yeah if you love me baby tell me loud loud loud loud and then oh my god

so you know Kurt Weitzman, a comedian from San Francisco, had a world's best joke. Eight is enough. Totally unrealistic premise for a TV show. Who would fuck Dick Van Patten eight times? Kurt Weitzman, San Francisco. It's been too long since we had a good

Dick Van Patten joke on the podcast It's one of my favorite jokes of any one of all time Um Blakey, shut up We need a little more Cocker Spaniel also in this episode So, uh That's Joe Cocker Spaniel No, Joe Cocker Spaniel.

No, Joe Cocker Spaniel. Oh, boy. All right. So, two drow... You go to post friends. Two drow escort you down a spiral stone staircase down through the caves. Keksel and Vemin.

Meet Keksel and Vemin, your drow escort to the dead god um while you're headed down uh luovin kind of explains why she was so interested um she you know just pledged to a new god manana mcleare right her whole people uh did i mean it's a fairly recent development for her and she knows manana mcle leer is weak and so she doesn't necessarily think this is mononomic clear because they just said this is um this is a drow god and mononomic leer is not a drow god but she's like you know real curious because she's just like oh you know i haven't you know my part of the caves don't connect to this underdark city.

I've never really met these drow. I'm used to going back in time, but this is all very new to me. So I just want to absorb some information. Okay. Does anybody get in a vibe off Llewellyn other than what she's saying? She seems twitchy. But she seems pretty sincere. I don't know if you want to do anything about it while you're heading down the stairs, but I'll go ahead

and give you the opportunity if you want to pause and think about it. What can we do? Detect evil? Check my scarab? No, I guess not. Does one of them say stay close to the candles? The stairs

can be quite twitchy. No, there's no Cloris Leachman throughout. Right, that was Cloris Leachman's line? Okay, yeah. He was my boyfriend. God, that line made me laugh so hard.

She is amazing in that movie. If your knowledge of Cloris Leachman doesn't... Oh, my God. Her comic timing is... Get no fruit cup. No fruit cup. Nurse Diesel. All right.

We're going to pause really quick and go watch all of Mel Brooks' movies. We'll be right back. See you in eight hours. So what do we see? Are we down to... Oh, are you still worried about Llewellyn? I'll let it go.

All right. So Bodhi, just kind of go like, ugh, and keep going. Speaking of let it go How great is it that They pulled the movie Disney pulled that Frozen Oh they did Yeah 20 minutes

Because people were angry I haven't seen Coco yet It looks great But now that it doesn't have My kids are too skittish To see a movie about it That's good Oh yeah

Because it wasn't a short No it's 20 minutes long 20 plus, right? It sounded like the most manipulative marketing move in the history of movies. People love shorts, but that's a long time. They figured people loved Frozen.

Before Pixar movies. I mean, a lot of the Disney movies have Disney shorts. Well, there was another Frozen short already. Right. With the boogers. Yeah, she had a cold on her birthday. Yeah. She the boogers. Yeah, the one with, yeah, it was, she had a cold on her birthday. Yeah. And yeah, she kept sneezing

and making little snowballs. And this was Christmas. Just, the best part is the stupid fucking snowman, but even, he couldn't save this thing. It has like three songs in it,

right? Are you kidding me? There was like six or seven. Oh my God. Yeah. I'm so glad I didn't make it. Coco was sold out so I couldn't get to it. three songs in it right are you kidding me there was like six or seven oh my god yeah coco was sold out so i couldn't get to it oh you haven't seen it no okay because there's less show times because it has a 20 minutes extra but you posted on facebook about how they pulled it um yeah my son i mean not to it's boring or anything like that but he fucking hates frozen he's he hates that he doesn't like princesses and he's going the traditional boy way of of like no this is garbage and he hated

the singing i was worried that if i went with my daughters they would love that part and be terrified of coco because of all the death. And so we didn't go because I was like, oh, they're going to love the part I hate and hate the part I love. Yeah, everybody says it's a real. He really does Coco and wants to see it again. Not crying. He's ecstatic that the Frozen. I told him today, I go, buddy, they pulled the Frozen thing so we can go see coco the open and he was like yay

there's got to be so many parents in that position yeah a lot because those are also just diametrically opposed i mean pixar hate frozen does its own thing this thing just felt real calculated and and uh oh he heard us talking hey rhod Rhodes. He comes and sees you. He looks like Kylo Ren right now. Yeah, he's very spooky, serious. In his Star Wars pajamas. Hey, buddy. What's up?

What do you want to say about that Frozen short or that Frozen long that opened up? It was so stupid. And bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep. Thanks, buddy. Oh, boy. He went front flipstone on it. He's not my son.

I don't know where. Love you, buddy. Thank you. Love you. Let's get back into. Yeah, you make it to the chamber They open a big door With a bunch of magic locks on it

And they say You've got a little less than an hour Before you're gonna Miss your window And time will start slipping faster Into the future Yeah Shoe the children No shoes on the children so they open um the door and there's two magic

torches they are they're lit with purple flame they kind of look almost as if they lit up the second the door opened cool and in the middle of the room there's just something it just sort of looks like the absence of light not quite a shadow shadow, not quite there, but just like a rip in the air. It's kind of blinking and turning around. Oh, so it's moving? Mm-hmm. Interesting. It's about humanoid sized.

And as you approach, the two guards stand and say, you may approach. We don't recommend touching. Yeah, I'm keeping an eye on her. What's her name? Luovan? Yeah. Me too. She's just fascinated. She's not twitching anymore. She's like

wide-eyed and her mouth is open and she's kind of like reaching her hands towards it. No, no. No touchy. Make sure she doesn't do anything stupid. That's what I'm saying. We both have our eyes on her. We're keeping her from touching. Why don't anyone who wants to try to stop her from walking right up to it do it?

Hold person on her. Yeah? Yeah. She's going to do an attempt to save. She fails. She only just talked to her. She goes, rum! Actually, you cast hold person on her, and she goes, Oh, I'm sorry.

Excuse me. I'm just very curious. All right. Of course. Sometimes my emotions get the better of me. I'm very, excuse me. Well, he told us not to disturb the gods. I wasn't going to disturb it.

I just wanted to be close enough to commune with it. I'm very interested to see what will happen. What part of hold person don't you understand? The guards explain that they have a tradition amongst their people that they don't expect you to uphold, but they

are able to talk to this god pretty much any time they want, but several people have asked the god questions and gone insane oops so they are allowed two questions in their lifetime and each time that they ask a question they must remove an eye so they've all asked one question. Out of respect for seeing everything, they deny themselves sight in the physical realm.

So they say, again... Do one of us have to give up an eye? They say they don't expect you to follow the tradition, but that's the tradition. If you ask a question, you remove an eye. I would think maybe also the tradition would be he pulls it out for you. Yeah.

No, it's a sacrifice. They say, no, it's a ritual we do back in our own planes. The god won't reach out and rip an eye out. I would love to ask them

what their questions were. The two guards? Yeah. What they asked. And what they learned kexel said uh he asked what the meaning of life was and he he kind of laughs he says that might seem childish but he asked when he was very young it's important it's an important question and is to take it apart. Huh.

Okay. And Vemin says when she got to ask the dead god a question, she asked what the god's name was. And the god told her. And she prefers to keep it to herself. Huh. It's Jeff with a G. It's really pretentious.

Jeff. But they say they're going to leave. If you need anything, they're going to travel just outside the door, but they are not... The secret of life or the meaning of life is to tear it apart? Yeah. They say it was a little more complicated than that. I get the feeling that the God's name is Andrew WK.

Take it apart. Yes. Gotta party that the god's name is Andrew W.K. Take it apart. Gotta party, party hard. Party, party hard. What else do we know about this god? Well, the two guards are just trying to figure out the whole dead god thing. Like, why is it dead? Well, what's that about, Lovin?

Taking life apart? She says she doesn't know. If you'd like, she would be happy to ask the god. She wants to commune with this thing so bad. Oh, she wants to talk to it. She wants to talk to it, for sure. So she might give up one of her eyes. She says she's not going to give up her eyes.

She just wants to ask some questions. What about these guys and their ritual? Reminder, the guard said some people ask too many questions and went crazy. That is why they began the tradition to limit themselves from becoming too ambitious. I kind of like to see... I know I'm holding her.

I kind of like to see her ask something. I'm going to kill the guard. She says, whatever you want. I've got my own questions. I'll ask all the questions you want. She can ask without moving, right? I would think. Do you want to ask her to ask something? Go ahead and ask a question.

She says, do you want me to ask one of my questions, or do you want me to ask a question for you? Because out of respect, I'd be happy to ask one of yours, but I have so many questions of my own. I'd like to know what one of your questions is. Okay. She immediately turns to the rip in the air and says, what is your name?

I want to know your name as well. And you hear sort of a murmuring, and the woman says, oh, it told me in my mind. It told me in my mind. And what was the name? Zinzerina. Why do we know that? Wasn't that the woman in the hut?

The woman that owned the hut or not? The dwarves? With the statues that looked at us? Yeah. Jesus. Jesus. Please, if only there was a way to... You think that's true? I mean, the name rang a bell the second he said it.

Yeah. Your players are very old, and Blaine and I have smoked a lot of pot in our lives. I don't know what Ken's excuse is, but our brains. Zinzerino? Zinzerino. I will say Zawin was the old drow that he was at.

Okay. But where did we hear this name before? Oh. I will say this. You have definitely heard it before. Yeah, Cambodia remember. Why? I will say this. You have definitely heard it before. Yeah, can Bodhi remember? Mm-mm. Why?

These characters have not encountered Zin's arena before. What does that mean? But we've only played... It wasn't my date at the wedding, was was it no but the we were those characters we've always been these characters even in the oh so could it be not in this reality so it could be in one of our danger room games or uh perhaps another campaign yeah Another campaign, yeah. You mean back to old nerd poker? Yes. Shit. That's why it rings a bell.

Quick, write in and tell us. Oh my God. The answer's next-ish. All right. Were we not supposed to remember that name? You could, no. Oh, yeah, but. It's there for fun.

Okay. Yeah, we wouldn't remember it. It is a, I'll throw you this it. It's a, it is a, I will, I'll give, I'll throw you this bone. It's a drow god. Shit. I remember some drow gods going away too. There's like a nice solid

20% of our listeners who are like, die. Sarah's god. Oh, was it? Or no, your, your character.

It was your character's god. What was your character that you played? Nausicaa. Nausicaa, yeah. Oh, okay. Finally. All right, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why.

And so it was a drow god. Well, it still is a drow god. Yeah. Okay, cool. A dead one. Drow god to drow god to drow god. Cool. yeah okay cool a dead one drow god to drow god to drow god cool uh so

what else uh Lou Oven uh she says do you want to turn do you want to turn I'm afraid once I

I get started I won't be able to stop what is this the god of Pringles we didn't she was the one who wanted to meet him yeah

I mean mm-hmm Do we have anything? Hmm. I wonder if these guys can go back in time to a point when this god isn't dead. Is that what you want to know? Can... Well, how did it...

Do we know how it died? You don't. You have to ask. What? You have to ask. How did you die? Ask it, or do we want to have a better question than that? What do you think?

Do you want to ask yours? What do we want to ask this thing? I don't know. Who played Eddie Haskell in Leave the Beaver? That's on tip of my tongue. Who dies in Infinity Wars? Man, Moon Knight better be in that fucking movie. Is Oasis really going to keep fighting

or are they going to get back? I know you feel Disney trying to buy out 20th Century Fox in time to stick Wolverine in that thing at the last second. There's definitely going to be more than they're showing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Freddy Krueger is going to be in there, Iron Giant,

The Car from Back to the Future. That's a different movie directed by Mr. Spielberg. Ash versus Aliens versus Predator. Versus Kramer. So, Foranyer is with you the other elves kind of hovering outside the door because they're a little spooked

Forenmeyer says I would like to know a question I'm happy to ask without the help of this weird witch that you found in the woods he says I really only to ask without the help of this weird witch that you found in the woods. He says, I really only have one question. That is, what happened

to my people that were left behind in the woods? And you hear a murmur and Vorenmeier bows his head and says it seems that for all intents and purposes my people have been

wiped out. Well that's unfortunate. All the more reason to go back in time he says. Yeah. Alright. We got anything else for this dead god? Yeah. Do we want to ask it how it died? Or how to bring it back?

That's too many questions. How does this world end? Tell me, for the sake of being your dungeon master, when you say this world, do you mean the drow world, Amina, or the planet? The planet. Let's say, how does this planet end?

I mean, Amina is just part of this world and the drow world is underneath. This is all one world. How does this world end? Bodhi and Tom, you just hear sort of just like garbled noises, but in your head, Tui, you hear

the air will escape, the ground will break and crumble. There will be only a god where this planet once was, and it will be the Demolith. Oh. So there's no way... I covered my ears when Dan talked, so what did he say?

What did you hear? He said that Crispin Glover is going to come back from the new Charlie's Angels movie. He's going to play the guy that died. I don't know how they're going to pull that off. I didn't know they were doing another Charlie's Angels movie. That's what I just found out from this god. Wow.

It's been a long time since the last one. He said that at the end of the run of this planet, the planet's gone, the god remained, or the only thing that remains is the Demolith, which leads me to believe that there's a future that either we have to change or we can't change. Well, let's try. Still.

Any more questions for the dead God? We're going back in time. Bring my daddy back. You guys hear murmurs. Tom, you hear very clearly in your mind... Actually, when you say bring her back, what do you mean? The way she was before. The way she was before.

She says... The god in your head. God, what's the best way to word this because that's a great question and I have answers as the dungeon master yes you would have to go very far back and then you hear or

and then there's just a trailing off okay would you hear or, and then there's just a trailing off. Okay. That's the God. What did you hear? I covered my ears again. Then I have to go verify back. Or something. Then God went into a parking structure.

Hey, maybe you should ask it how we defeat the Demolith. Oh, yeah. Let's ask one more question before Leuven goes nuts. Yeah, Leuven was like, you asked that, and then just let me maybe ask one more. Just one more. Okay.

You asked that. Is this your second question, Tui? I'll ask this one. Yeah, I don't think you've asked yet. Once people start asking a second question, then something different is going to happen. Okay, I'll ask this one. How to defeat the Demolith?

Yeah. Again, murmurs for you two. But Bodhi, you hear in your head, right now the Demolith is invincible for mortal means. Were you to go back far enough, he would be no stronger than one of those vampires you have already defeated.

How do we know how far enough? Okay, so... I tell you what he just told me. We do. Okay. Well, thank you. tell you what he just told me. Luovan knows how far back we need to go. We do. Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you, dead god.

That's boogie. Luovan says... Zimzabadoo. Luovan says, I just want to ask... It's too dangerous. One more question. We can't... You can't...

Don't you want to know what happened to Nettie? Don't you want to know what happened to her? You're not going to ask that. What is she going to... I'll find that out on my own. Do we need Lou Oven for this? Lou Oven, we need you for this. Don't...

Let's just leave. Let's get out of here. Yeah, yeah. It's probably a bad idea. All right, off we go. First, Luovan's going to do a roll. I'm already doing a whole person. She's got to do a willpower. Saving throw type switch. Yeah, she's okay.

She really wants to help you ask about Nettie, though. I don't know. You told her that trailing off in the oar happened, and she's like, but there's more here. There's more. Well, you help me find out where to do this, but we've got to do it someplace else. All right.

So you're all leaving with just one answer in your pocket. Yes. You head out the door, and the drow guards say, did you get what you wanted? We got a lot of stuff. Yeah. Thank you. Say, very well.

We should probably head back the way you came. Hopefully the cave will no longer be caved in, but we can't guarantee you exactly when you're coming out. We do think it will be about 15 days have passed based on how deep we went and how long we've been here. Let's not tarry.

How many days did we want to spend down here? It's about that long. As long as we're here. We're the guys out here. So you skedaddle, and Kexil and Vemin walk you basically to the door and say, when you return, you may encounter us, you may not, for we are unstuck in time,

and it is our burden to remain in the Underdark. Best of luck with this whole Demolith situation. Should you need more of us, you should know there is more... How should I put this? There is more we could perhaps do, but certainly not this time. We can't accompany you above ground. We very much appreciate your help. So they sort of bolt the door behind you.

They shut the window for the eye holes. Thanks, guys. Where are we at with time, Sam? We have 13 minutes. Cool. So you head back up through the tunnel. It takes a while because you've got to wind up, and now you're going uphill. And I don't know if you guys have ever been hiking in the Hollywood Hills,

but boy, oh, boy, going uphill is just not as fun. Oh, my calves. So hope you all had a banana. I like to do it backwards. Got your potassium up so your hamstrings don't get all cramped. And you get above ground and yeah things things seem a little less apocalyptic there's an opening the cave looks like a pink berry wow how far do we go back and um you can see the spires that were sticking out of the ocean that came to

life and they're no longer swatting at you like a big old stone golem it's just sort of serenely poking out of the water you think you hear crickets uh you're doing my act you hear the wave uh the wave of the ocean uh hit the shore again and again and uh let's head towards the back blink a patch everybody, where you going? Vorenmeyer says, yeah, let's... I don't... I just...

I'm a little weirded out by all this, but if the time works the way they said it would, then I suppose, yes, let's follow the coastline back to the dock. We have all time to lose. We'll kill this guy before he eats his spinach. Formire recommends you mark this on your map. This is sort of an important spot,

and you don't have to literally do it, but I'll show you where it is. It is, yeah. See the rock sticking out of the water with a face on it you are right there right where see there's like a little black crease in the that's where the cave is so you're gonna have uh a big trip around the marshes of goldews it's gonna take you a couple of days actually so but i can't so you told our artist to draw those?

That's amazing. Sean Bryant rules. I sent him a version of this that was really ugly but had words and markings all over it, and he translated it wonderfully, yes. Wow. Yeah. He drew a big version of it and then zoomed it down. Crazy.

There's a lot of little notches in there that are actual things. It's pretty cool wow um so foreign while you're kind of traveling uh for amira says uh we could take a shortcut through the marshes of gold dues i don't like shortcuts through marshes of gold dues gold dudes. Gago says, well, that's where my clan is. See? You know, maybe we can bump into my clan.

The fudge pharaohs. What do we remember about the marshes? When was the last time we went through there? We were just there. That's where the Demolith's castle is. That's where Count Fenzen is. Okay, cool. But this is 15 days earlier. through there? We were just there. That's where the Demolith's castle is. That's where Count Fenzen is. Okay, cool. But this is 15 days earlier.

Let's see what it's like. Go through and see if Gago sees his clan. Yeah? Right? I mean, we're on our way. Let's give Gago a little tweet. Or should we go around it? Tweet? Tweet? You know, let's give gaga a little tour should we go should we go around it tweet let's

have a little fun listen let's throw a little bone to gaga we're gonna get ready to visit your fam we're gonna hang out no go up to the coast we gotta get to the coast yeah we're going to the coast yeah Go up to the coast. We got to get to the coast. Have a few laughs. Go to the coast, yeah. We got to go to the coast and have a few laughs, definitely. Does Gago think we're going to have an easy time going through here? Go out to the coast. We'll have a few laughs. He says, no, man, you know, if my crew's there, I ain't worried about shit.

You're so not helpful. All right. Let's do it. show you're so not helpful um all right i mean in that moment you do kind of like see this sort of uh you ever you ever meet somebody from um like uh how do i put this they just seem really dumb and like you've been hanging out with them for a couple hours and they've been it's been a good time but then suddenly like it hits two in the morning and you realize like they're a real dumb person you do kind of like when he says everything's gonna be fine you do kind of just see like a like a glaze over gago's eyeballs and you're reminded that he is evil and kind of carefree and chaotic and doesn't really give a shit all right right, let's not then. Let's go around. Yeah, all right, yeah.

Let's go around. I feel like that would be easy to see with him because he is very gregarious and doesn't give a shit, but also like... But that answer gave me all I needed to know. Well, Vorenmeier says, and he would have said this anyway, but I'm going to go ahead and tell you

since you're not going, he'll be a little more emphatic and says, yeah, you have said this anyway, but I'm going to go ahead and tell you since you're not going, he'll be a little more emphatic and says, yeah, you know, I mean, we could have cut through there, but if that's Gago's home, I mean, Gago's in there also. Right? I don't know how

a lot, I haven't seen a lot of Back to the Future sequels or anything, but yeah, yeah, yeah, like, I don't know. Well, Back to the Future sequels or anything. But yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. It all depends on what kind of time travel you're doing. Or what day it is. If Gago was traveling with you, you could be a couple miles away with him at this point.

Sometimes you can touch each other. Sometimes you can't. Sometimes you can help each other. Sometimes you've got to hide in the back part of the scene from the last movie. Let's see. You guys see just sort of a bunch of weird black crabs on the beach. Nothing really remarkable. And then you kind of get to the southern border of the Marshes of Golders.

You haven't been there before, so you really have to look at your map a lot. This is where you did cut through the marshes last time, so now you realize you're kind of between the Hills of Hope and the marshes, and there's kind of like a little bit of a claustrophobic vibe you get. There's almost a point where you guys have to walk single file to avoid walking in the marshes because they're up against these sort of hill faces, cliff faces. And like,

you're kind of like, Hey, want to keep seeing the sky, want to keep our eyes on the mist and not in the trees. Yeah. Um, so, uh,

let's say you get about that far and then you definitely, you know, start looking over into the woods. And everybody roll a perception check, please. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Six plus. Oh, wait, no, that's a nine. Six plus. Oh, wait, no, that's a nine.

I'm going to give your more prominent NPCs a real roll and just do the rest in an algorithm. Is 11 enough for me? No. No bonus? Yeah. Does Bodhi have a bonus? We have a bonus, yeah. perception right is that one yeah yeah

uh lovin says uh oh i believe we're being watched i don't know if we should stop but uh something in the marshes is tracking us how big how many um i see one at the corner of my vision. How big? Seems sort of smaller than a human. Maybe in the trees. Did Gagos leave us again and come flying at us and stab at him? No, he's still with us. I'm right here, man. Okay, good.

No, it's not me. It sounds like it's bigger than I am. I'm going to fly away and look like a beetle again. Okay. I mean, it would be pretty funny away and look like a beetle again. Okay. It'd be pretty funny if you did it a third time. If you think it'd be funny, then I'll do it. Not for you. A lot of comedic geniuses have said comedies in threes.

If you want me to go scout it out and take an episode to come back. They are right, but I don't want you to die. Let's keep walking. See if it does anything. It does. So you make it pretty far east. You're at the point where you're about to break the path between the marshes and the hills

into sort of a beeline for the dock. This is sort of from here to here. Um, a couple of football fields. And, you all this time notice at the edge of the woods, there's definitely like multiple shapes kind of peering from beneath, between the trees. And you've got,

all you guys got dark vision. So you can see pretty clearly that it's some kind of shadows, but they, they have like texture to them and like textured shadows there's magical oven uh know what area we're in or or who are these people yeah she's like you're you're real close to the docks but it feels as if there is some sort of dark magical creatures who is day well we can keep heading towards the docks or we can...

Yeah, let's keep going. They don't follow you out of the marshes, but you definitely get the impression that you've been spied on. You get to the docks and all is quiet. The mist is a little heavier at the docks. And you sort of just hang out for a while. It's not entirely clear what you should do. You notice you look kind of over a hill,

and you don't see... It's like before we got here, right? Yeah, and you don't see an encampment. You don't see any signs. I'll give you a quick refresher. The first time you went back in time, you didn't see any encampment. Almost as if there had never been one, so you feel time you didn't see like any encampment almost as if there had never been one so you feel like maybe you beat the most recent encampment um and also

when you fast forwarded time you came back the encampment had sort of been burned to the ground right but this we don't see anything you don't see anything at the moment um will you guys do a perception check and i'll let you know right now it's a difficulty 18. That is a high difficulty. 19. Me too. Yay! Cool.

Well, then I'll just let you two be the... I'm just wandering around. Once again, Tom, you just fold your arms and think about Nettie. Nettie. Ah, Nettie. Nettie. Nettie. Oh, Nettie. Nettie. The woven turns to you and says, What would you have asked about Nettie if you could ask the dead god one more question?

Who killed her? My baby. Watching you purse your lips for that last line. Watching you purse your lips for that last line. So, Bodhi, Tui, you think right in the mists you see a large shape kind of circling. Is it horrible? If you listen really closely, you think you hear kind of a... And I think we'll leave it at that okay oh could we be seeing the demolith who the fuck knows god if only we weren't gonna big bird if

only we weren't gonna play another episode in 10 minutes hey um i haven't given a proper shout out to our t-shirt shop. I said to look it up on social media, but everybody... Are those all up? So we have one up. Right now, go to near mint merch, as in near mint condition,

near mint merch dot com slash nerd poker. I don't think I've given the URL out, basically. I've just always said look at the social media shit. Near mint merch. Near mint merch dot.com slash nerd poker it's a really great place uh that rick remender hooked us up with because he sells shirts from his comic books to these guys we got our own shop right now it's just the uh the viking dude shirt but uh we've got the my face with brian posain's face. But we've got another design that's going to go up.

Brian just thumbed up. We've got a remake of the dice, just a big dice, and it says Nerd Poker under it. Our logo designer, Aaron English, did another pass at it, and it looks really cool. So keep an eye there. We're going to be selling that shirt hopefully by the time you guys hear this in a couple weeks. We're taping this a couple weeks

in advance. But please go check it out. The current Nerd Poker with my face is a great Christmas gift to a nerd. Is this before Christmas this episode? It's a week before Christmas. Week before. It's not too late. Also, ElderwoodAcademy.com

slash Nerd Pokeroker go buy some elderwoodacademy stuff and also buy the last christmas from image comics done by jerry duggan and myself

and rick right and rick a long time ago but the hardcover is available on amazon and it's awesome

it's got jeff darrow art dead elves tony and it's awesome. It's got Jeff Darrow art. Dead Elves. Tony from... Yeah, Tony Moore from Walking Dead did a couple of covers. Kieran Dwyer did a cover for us.

And it's hilarious. It is. Santa getting wasted and drinking syrup off his tits. That's just the... I texted you. I found a copy of Last Christmas in the Mad Archives.

It was like, I don't know how this got here, but it was pretty cool. Nice to see it. All pages stuck together, too. It was weird. And we're still trying to make a movie out of that thing, so hopefully I'll have news for that soon. Ooh.

But at this point, buy the book. It's a great Christmas reading. Read it around the tree and make your grandma not like you anymore. Thanks for listening to episode 35. Subscribe to Mad Magazine, please. Oh, yeah. Skeletor's dick. Oh, thank you, Skeletor's dick. Prince is not dead.

And also Skeletor's dick. It looks dead because it's bones. But it ain't. Thanks for listening. 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.

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