Nerd Poker - Episode 36 - Mad Dash Through Monsterpalooza

Episode Date: October 17, 2018

Security was tenuous in the prison of horrors, but after their little nap in the archmage's spare room things have taken a turn for the worst. The goal is now to just get to another building before the group is overwhelmed and the timer on total annihilation ticks all the way down. Also, some real-world sips of moonshine are taken in honor of the moon mayhem.

Hey everybody, I'm Brian Poussaint 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, Blaine, Chris. Now it's time for another episode of Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker Season 2. Hey, everybody. It's Brian Poussaint, and you're listening to Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker.

My friends are here. Chris. Hello. Ken. Cha-cha. Is that your new thing? Cha-cha. Dan that your new thing? Cha-cha. Dan.

Oh, God. And Blaine. Sarah's not here, unfortunately. We were doing two in a row without our sweet, sweet Sarah. Two and two, back to back. She's in New York with her family. We all thought we were taking a couple weeks off I went away I was shooting a thing

I came back and then realized I'm only home for a couple of days And we needed to get a couple episodes done So that's why we're doing this without her We hate doing episodes without anybody Can you talk about the thing you just shot? I can't yet Sex with Trump It's a drama It's super cool Can you talk about the thing you just shot? Or is it still kind of hushy-hush? I can't yet.

Sex with Trump? It's a drama. It's super cool. It involves one of our friends of the show. I just wanted to plug it if we could because I like it. It's based on a comical book. Oh! Are you Captain Marvel? But I've been shooting it in Vancouver,

and I'm doing that for the next two and a half months on and off it's been a lot of fun and hopefully soon I can talk about it but I am on season 12 of Big Bang Theory I can talk about that no that's a real hush hush project in general

well usually but people know I'm back so I'm back and we're helping them wind up their final season. I only watch it for you and John Raspawi. That's it. Oh, he's the coolest. I love that guy. He's great.

He's really great. Go to Paris, France. What happened? Oh, let me think. Oh, there's episode 36, right? Yeah. Let's thank some patrons. Thank you, Peter LaCrosse.

Thanks, Peter. Thank you, Peter Leipzig. A lot of Peter L's. Thank you, Peter Long. That's three Peter L's. Thank you, Peter Lee. That's four. It's Paterls.

Oh, and we usually mention Sam, and I think we did two episodes in a row where we didn't point out Sam, but Sam's here. We wouldn't be here without Sam. Hi, Sam. And thank you most of all. You'd never hear any. It would just be us standing in a parking lot if Sam wasn't here.

Going, where's Sam? Yeah. We can't start yet. Okay, so I have to say this. Oh, man. So, Blaine, have you noticed people asking us stuff on Twitter, you and me in particular? About... About the body swap episode?

No, not the body swap yet. No, okay. Some people are mad at me on Twitter. I saw this. Chris knows what this is about. Do you want to tell them, Chris? No! Yeah, because he's going to be mad, right?

Yeah! Some people want to know if that was Blackie Green, who is the half-elf warlock that you could have body swapped with. Oh, and it was? Do you want to know? No, I don't.

Because I know it wasn't. Then we're never going to say. Good. I don't think anybody needs to know. Is that how you like that, listeners? Yeah. I actually have to pause. Sorry.

Oh, it's cool. You got that problem with your pee-pee? Yeah. Ah. It rings all the time. Sorry. So, let's talk about where you are in the game. You guys were just crashing.

Did we resolve that, though? Blaine doesn't want to know. He doesn't want to know. It will never be known. I'm sorry. I wanted to just give the listeners an idea of what it was like to be in the game and just have that be a part of the discussion just so it didn't sound like I was actively avoiding it.

Because Sarah pointed out to me on the car ride home last time we played, part of the discussion just so it didn't sound like i was actively avoiding it uh because sarah pointed out to me on the car ride home last time we played like did you notice did you notice that like someone was curious at the end of last episode when it was a warlock and i was like oh no i didn't see that tweet yet and then uh when the episode after that aired and Tweed didn't body swap, everybody started going like, whoa, whoa, whoa, can you believe it? I don't want to say who it actually, I don't want to say who it was. It was Hayley Mills.

The warlock was Hayley Mills. That's true. Weird. Now I kind of wish you an extra freaky. Yeah, me too. Now I think about it. Freaky deaky. But that's where we're leaving it, dudes.

All right. And boom! People are happier about my swap. What is your fucking problem? You want to fight? I'll do that all day. I've had moonshine. I'll fight you now.

All my inhibitions are gone, man. Ha ha! You're having some moonshine and damaging our brains. I've had more moonshine. Yeah, I've had two sips. Moonshine. It's like drinking a season of football. I guess I've had enough.

Yep. I love this moonshine. Yeah. Count your teeth when you're done. Yee-hoo-hoo. That's just a dragon. She's great. Them dukes, them dukes.

Strawberry moonshine, by the way. It ain't Deliverance. It's DiGiorno. Oh, man. I don't know how redneck it is. I got it at Gelson's. And there's strawberry. And it's strawberry.

It's strawberry moonshine. I thought you got it from my common road or something. I've had legit moonshine on the road. No, this is a company that brews it. You left it in the kitchen. Oh, I didn't know that. Okay, never mind. You're fine. It's with all the fancy whiskeys at Gelson's.

It's not officially a whiskey. You might as well open a can of kerosene, too. It's like that bottle of mead I got at Ralph's. Right. No, the legit moonshine I had in Nashville. That's crazy making. Which made me see things.

Yeah. Or not see things. It tasted like gasoline. Is that the one where you wanted to fight vampires? No, that was all just regular over-the-counter alcohol. And that was New Orleans, where the vampires live. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, yeah, and rice.

You can't help it, Barry. You know what's wrong with this moonshine? Is it ineffective against the color yellow? The necessary impurity in this goddamn moonshine. Blaine has been taking tugs straight out of the bottle. Blaine and Ken are the only ones who aren't. I know. It's the three of us who are tipsy.

I've got to be honest, Dan. If I can take tugs straight out of the bottle. Sam fell out of his chair. If I knew it wasn't real moonshine, I'd be with you boys. You guys are in the basement of the Archmage's keep. Totally. And you all flatten yourselves out. I'll turn into Greg Preeps. Huh? Maybe we all just turn into Greg. Totally. And you all flatten yourselves. I'll turn into Greg Proops.

Huh? Maybe I'll just turn into Greg Proops. Could you? Or a valley girl. I wish. None of you are well-dressed enough to be Greg Proops right now. But yeah, you all tried to rest

in the Archmage's basement. You're on the moon. You're trying to help out with a prison riot. Find Jyn Radin, a cosmic being that is somewhere in the prison. No one knows for sure. And you didn't agree to some blessings from some suspicious warlocks

that the Archmage offered you as a sort of agreement. You said, nope, sounds too wackadoo to me. And while you were resting in a basement dormitory room... I feel like some of my other characters might have just gone, yeah, let's do it. And Bodhi is a little more careful than some of the guys I've played. have i have to say one thing i've i've dug about bode is like he i i was curious like he's got a better bullshit detector than

he should for a wit for the wisdom deciding you would actually take on like i'm not role playing him that well if i'm well no you took on that he is he worships a barbarian god which i feel like has like actually made you care about alignment more than any character you've really played before yeah well and i like cord and i have at the top worship cord so that reminds me every morning you wake up and give a little shout out to your brother in the sky yeah uh who we decided is more macho man randy savage than the hulk if we're gonna get technical with it i'd hate for somebody to call me out other than you because that would just make me sad. But yeah, you guys flattened yourself against the wall when you heard some thud, thud, thud coming down the hallway.

And we didn't see him, but our listeners heard. Our listeners know. These guys took a break without being filled in. Ken saw something. So Ken's cloaked and on the ceiling. Ken's got an invisible cloak, and he spider-climbed up to the ceiling. And you can't tell these guys yet what you see, but you see something as Bodhi whips the door open,

and all of you hear, in what sounds suspiciously like the voice of a child, it's you. Oh, this is creepy. But you can't see what it is. The voice of... You can tell me if you're doing something, Ken, but I don't want you to communicate what you see

unless it's through action. No, what is going to happen? I'm going to cast Mage Hand and close the door. Awesome. Oh, this is worse! So, as you close it, I want everyone to do a dexterity saving throw, please. Dexterity?

Or remember. 19. You get advantage on your dexterity, don't you? I do. Danger sense. I do. Your danger sense is spideying all over the goddamn place.

I got 24 with my That new PS4 game by the way. You're not That new Spider-Man game is fucking insane. I recently beat the story mode

on the new Spider-Man game and I've unlocked most of the costumes. It fucking rules. How about Sexy Nurse? Did you unlock Sexy Nurse? As an employee of DC Comics I shouldn't say it but it fucking rules. Did you unlock Sexy Nurse? As an employee of DC Comics, I shouldn't say it,

but it fucking rules. Did you unlock Sexy Handmaid's Tale? I just saw that. That's unbelievable. Yeah, on Mad Magazine, we just did a... It was as gross as when they did Sexy Harry Potter for a girl. But it wasn't Hermione, which would be creepy, because she's very young.

No, Harry Potter. It's for hot ladies to dress up like Harry Potter and make my wiener confused. We did cartoons of sexy Mr. Rogers. We did sexy Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And we did sexy Thai Cave, which is just a woman in a giant map of the sea. I thought you were saying

Thai Cob. Sexy Thai Cob is actually my real life here. That's why I'm going this year. The one I always want to see is Sexy Popeye. With the big forehead. I love where this is going. Roll your decks. Saving throw. Sexy Popeye, baby.

Sexy Danny Trejo. You could just say Danny Trejo. So you get an advantage, and that's a 19? Yeah. Roll one more time just to see if you get a 20. What the fuck? You what the fuck? Nope.

All right, so what's your bonus to dex? I can check, but I'm lazy. It's zero, I think. You got creaky joints, usually. No, danger sense, but it's... All right, so... The point is, you're all fine except for Tom Nettie. Okay.

Tom Nettie... Wait, I got an 11. I have a plus 5. You are all anticipating it so much, the difficulty level of this was not that high. Okay, good. Unfortunately, you rolled a one, right? Right.

Ooh. I mean, I have a plus five to my dex. So it's a six. Yeah, okay. Still, you needed a 10. Yeah, okay. You needed a 10. Right.

So... But you know what's coming. Well, he doesn't, he doesn't. I think this will still surprise him a little bit. Yeah, I don't know what's coming. You take 21 points of bludgeoning damage as the door rockets off its hinges and slams into you, as well as what looks like a giant fist. You guys all see a sort of body-sized fist and arm

slam through the doorway, connect with Tom Nettie and the door on the ceiling, and you see the arm kind of fall dead as if it was never alive to the ground. And you hear a voice say more excitedly, it's you! The fuck?

Same thing, a kid's voice? I would like to perform an uncanny dodge. Alright, so you get to have the damage. So what was it, 20? 21, so you're at... Are we in Russia? Because door knocks us. None of you see what's happened yet,

except that a giant fist... And so the fist is gray in color. And as it hits the ground, it almost looks like the flesh on it is starting to turn into dust. Oh, shit. Okay. This is somebody super magical.

Is the door still open? Everybody roll for initiative. What the fuck is going on? You'll see. 15. Just 11. 17. Say them again, everybody.

Yours is 15. what's everyone else 17 I rolled only 17 What did you roll 17 I rolled You don't even know You're drunk go home

Oh wait you're home Nettie what did you get 13 You go sleep in my yard and shut the fuck up. Oh, that sounds very comfortable. Esmeralda got a 13. Great. Tweed, you're up.

I'm going to cast fly on myself. F for fly thing. Take off. Well, the ceiling is eight feet high, so where are you going to go? I'm just going to be able to... I'm just doing it so that I... You're more hovering high.

I'm more hovering high. All right. And that's pretty much it. I'm going to just sort of drift back and just get ready to do something. Tyfer, you're up. I don't know what to shoot at yet. The thing is lying there on the ground?

An arm and a fist is sticking through the doorway to your right. You're still flat against the doorway. You can't tell what's happening. He says it's already deteriorating. It's turning to dust. What size of an arm and a fist? It's probably a one-shot magic thing. The fist is about five and a half feet tall,

and the arm extends out of the doorway. All these guys can see. You can't see anything else because you've been knocked silly, and you are on the ground. Tweeting birds. Yeah. I guess I charge the door and fucking swing my sword. Through the door?

I charge the door and swing the sword. All right, so you're gonna roll to attack with disadvantage because you're going blind around a corner. That's an 18. Alright, so... Wait, 18 was your low number on two rolls? Holy shit. Yeah, man. That is a hit. Cool.

As you round the corner, you see a child, a human child. Oh, God, no. With its head on backwards. It's facing away from you except for its head. Oh, then this is good. I'm fine. And it's missing an arm.

And as you're about to strike down with your sword, it looks you in the eye and says, it's you. All right, well. Nice fucking face. Bye-bye, fuck face. Roll for damage. It looks at you and then says It's you and then attacks you So I do 11 slashing damage

And this is with the sword of umberling So now for the ice damage I was invisible and it said it's you So that's 9 And his body is facing the other way Oh god So a total of 23 damage Yes So you cut this thing in half And his body's facing the other way. His head turned around to look at me. Oh, God. So a total of 23 damage?

Yes. So you cut this thing in half, and as you cut through it, it feels like paper mache. It just crackles as your sword sort of bisects it. And it turns to dust. It just kind of goes poof. Do a charisma saving throw. Oh, God in heaven. 11.

So your sword suddenly feels like white hot and it pops out of your hand and slams against the wall and you take 12 points of psychic damage. Oh.

As your sword blasts out of your hand ouch we had healed just before this mm-hmm you're out of combat you see a pile of dust the sword claimed against the wall and is sort of laying next to the pile of dust the arm and the fists are turning to sort of a powder so I guess the only question is, do we want to play this was an escaped convict and this is a random act, or did the Archmage

just send a monster boy to kill us? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know either. There were mages... But were we wrapping up our sleep anyway? Yeah, we were just getting up. You guys are basically done. I say get out of this room.

Yeah, Esmeralda just runs out in the hallway with you, Typha. Bind my wound. Kicks your sword and binds your wound. She's like, yeah, let me wrap that up for you. Sure, sure, sure. That hurt. She says, let's get out of here.

We need to get the fuck out of here and by the way master gendy who's been with you and so far she's been pretty quiet she did she didn't really help much so far uh she's just kind of out of her element you just feel like she's not as useful as you were hoping yeah i mean uh i should have had her chime in more last episode but she was just not that's all right she was she was sort of like keeping her head down because she didn't want everyone to know how powerful she was. And she was hoping... Because she's kind of got acid damage, she was like,

well, no one's going to suspect me of being a powerful mage, so I'm just going to... But now she's like, I feel like this place is not even safe. I don't even know that the archmage is... How is she? Wasn't she really messed up? Is she okay?

She's healed up, Is she okay? Uh, she, she was, she's healed up, but she's scarred. I mean, she took a huge amount of acid damage that kind of left her with some permanent problems.

I know some people like that. Uh, yeah. Uh, but she waves her hand and does a little, what they call a detect magic. Um, and she says,

yeah, you guys, I think, I think maybe, yeah, you guys, I think maybe this building's not safe anymore. Like compromised. I think this building's been compromised. I think while we were having a rest, some shit went down. Okay.

Yeah, the bathroom is nothing but GoPros. Fuck out of here. Alright, let's move tactically. Alright, so you guys, what, head up to the main hallway? Yeah, but I feel like... Slowly? Yeah, let's move tactically. All right, so you guys, what, head up to the main hallway? Yeah, but I feel like... Slowly? Yeah, let's check our corners.

Great, everybody do a stealth check, and I will include perception in this stealth check. I won't make you roll twice. Excuse me. Four blasts. 14. 19. Anybody roll under a 10?

Anybody roll under a 10? So I'm rolling perception? You're all good. Stealth. Stealth, and we're going to... You're going to successfully perceive if you don't break this stealth under 10. No, no, no, no.

So because you all stayed stealthy, you managed to make it up and basically peek around the corner on the first floor. And when you do that, you don't see anything. But no little kid. The kid just sort of turned to dust after it got cut in half. He killed it with just slashing at it.

It's weird that it would be that easy to kill. I wonder if it was like an actual... I don't think maybe it was a creature. I think maybe it was... A projection of a... The creation of a... Master Genny looks at you and is like, yeah, I think that...

Yeah, exactly. I think it was some sort of... I think it was fucked up is what it was. It was a projection of some kind. It's you. It was sent here to trick you or something. Mm-hmm. I don't like it.

Sent here to hurt me. Yeah. She's like, whatever. Something sent that to come get you. It was like a trick. How bad are you off? I have two greater healing potions if you need one. She also says,

I can tell there's magic beings in the building. There's stuff moving around. As in, not the warlocks? She says maybe, but I'm sensing powerful stuff. Those warlocks, I'm not worried about at this point. I'm worried about whatever sent that fucking fist kid. I'm more and more thinking that this thud is our goal because based off the idea that it was here before the prison and I my now that

seems like it so my thought is I had thought that earlier just because of yeah it's age and she's supposed to be Zinzerina is supposed to be very old right or what I've been dead for a couple hundred years you're not sure how and she's supposed to be, Zinzerina is supposed to be very old, right? She's been dead for a couple hundred years. You're not sure how old the prison is. You haven't quite nailed that down yet. You know it's at least a generation old because people grew up here. I mean, we know it's going to take us a while.

I think, well, what if we just... Why don't you pose that as a question and see if anyone agrees with you about that? Yeah, I mean, Master Jendi's like, It's one of, I would say, we don't know what's in that yard. There's a yard. This?

Yeah, she's like, she points at that on the draw orb if you'll bust that out, and she's like, yeah, like, I'm a little curious about all that. I feel like there's powerful beings there. I do think we can rule out most of the right side.

We can head through it as we head to. But don't we have to break in through one of the planar fail-safes? Well, the planar fail-safes are what they call the beings that are housed in the southeast building. Okay, so that means we have to break in through one of these buildings to get in there. We were told just not to go. Somebody just told us not to go through that

door who was that yeah don't go in the planer fail-safe building that's what uh bex has told you so we could go through this door which is also on our way to the southwest yeah you're just not sure what's there so either way let's head southwest let's get the fuck out of here and great so you're gonna just make a mad dash for that main door gendy's's like, I see auras, so three, two, one. Everybody make an athletics check. Don't get under 10. 23.

10. What's your bonus, Neddy? Because that's lower than a 10. I know. I got a natural 20. Fuck yeah. Well,

so Bodhi just does a double backflip. You got a what? No, I got 10 natural 20 and then a... Fuck yeah. Well, so Bodhi just does a double backflip. You got a what? No, I got 10. Oh. So you guys all make it to the door. And as you make it to the door, you see a hooded figure back where you came from at the stairwell, just sort of around a corner.

You gonna pop that door open and make a run for it? Fuck that guy. That's the summoner of Paperboy, right? Paperboy the video game? You just see a black robe with darkness under its hood come around the corner. All right, so you bust through that door

and as you go back onto the surface of the moon you once again notice the strange curve to the blue sky. You're not sure if the sun really rises or sets here. You can't really place where the sun is. Don't here. You can't really place where the sun is. Don't care. Yep.

And you spot that the squads are more actively fighting monsters now. There are more monsters. Chris Tallman just experienced a monster in his mouth. Oh, my God. That moonshine, baby. Somebody just lit his mouth on fire and then Godzilla pissed in it. That's what you... It's smooth.

It's real smooth. Well, speaking of Godzilla, you guys see something that looks just like a big reptilian chinchilla fighting about 70... Like, just more guards than you can even count. Back around the orange wavy barrier wall where you fought the Darth Vader over here?

yeah right over there sort of by the southeast building we're going to the southwest building right? they got Godzilla isn't that always good in the ancient tale of Godzilla vs the army? the army always wins right? we're fine

up from the depths so of Godzilla vs. the Army? The Army always wins, right? We're fine. Chinchilla. Chinchilla. Up from the depths. If you guys want to try to make it there without attracting attention to yourselves, this is going to be a very difficult stealth role because this is sort of an open plane.

You feel like this prison doesn't really have any natural plants other than some foot and a half tall coral coral like plants growing out of the ground. It almost feels like you're in a dried out coral reef with this pink moss on the gravel and these weird plants. I mean, I feel like given that the horrors of hell are just running around everywhere. I feel like guards seeing a bunch of people running aren't going to. We are lower on the list than Shinjiro. You're big, though.

And you look different. And I would think that it would be enough for some guards, hopeful that heroes might somehow fall out of the sky and help them, would look over their shoulder at you. And that would be enough to draw the attention of the monster they were also fighting.

You are just... All the guards are wearing white Bahamut armor. All the mages are wearing white Bahamut robes. It seems very religious around these parts. And you're not wearing white. You're wearing variations of mail and leather and

you stick out quite a bit. We're autos. We're a different season. So this will be a stealth check if you want to try to get there. There's other things you can try if you want to try. But I would say you are about... Where are we going from here? We're here. That's the building to get in.

But Chinchilla is over here. Yeah. That's the building to get in. But Chinchilla's over here. Yeah, and to get there, it's going to take you basically an hour of travel. And you see some mild skirmishes sort of running in and out of the open space between you and there.

Let's stealthily make our way as much as we can. All right, so everybody make a stealth check, and depending on your highest and your lowest number, we'll see how far you get before you have to make another choice. That's very good. Why don't you add your bonus then? Tell me what that is. 28.

28? Okay. 22. Very good high. Very good middle. What do you two get? 13, which is a real good high normal score. Nine.

Not so good. Esmeralda got a 19. Uh-oh. Finally, truly shaming you, Genndy got an eight. All right, so you guys make it pretty far, and then you see what looks like a crocodile with a head on both ends uh just kind

of from the flintstones yeah just uh it's it's cut a couple of guards up and there's no mage trying to protect it and this thing um it's its legs uh seem to be moving extra fast somehow and its heads are just carving up these guards and it just starts whipping towards you. Everybody roll for initiative. 22. 17. 14. Fuck.

5. I rolled a three Holy moly That ain't fun Alright Bodhi this alligator thing Just brings a head Right on up to you and tries to clamp down

On you So I'm going to need you to do a dexterity saving throw Please Do we know what my bonus is? We still don't the clamp down on you. So I'm going to need you to do a dexterity saving throw, please. Okay. Do we know what my bonus is? We still don't. On the danger sense. It means you get advantage on these. So you have

a plus zero to dexterity saving throws. So you don't get a bonus, but you get to roll twice. Is it... It's straight decks and not athletics, so... Correct. This is a saving throw. This is happening to you.

This is not something you're attempting to do. I got the same thing. 11 on both. All right. So this thing puts a jaw down on you and does... I just got healed, you motherfucker. 17 points of piercing damage, and you are grappled in its jaw.

Owies. All right. It's going to lose one of its heads on my next turn, so... Take some damage from Kent's owies. Do what it's got to lose one of its heads on my next turn. Take some damage from Kent's aowies. Do what it's got to do. That would bring us to Esmeralda.

She casts Witch Bolt on this thing. How big is this thing? It does 15 points of damage. Nice. It's big alligator-sized. It's bigger than a normal humanoid, and it's got heads on either side and no tail. Its legs are...

Both sets of legs are pointed towards the heads. Now, where does it poop? Out of its mouth. Oh, that's gross, Dan. Do you sit around thinking of this stuff? Yeah. Tom, Neddy, you're up. Witch Bolt.

Great. Witch Bolt. God, that was lousy. That'll be it. All right, so the Witch Bolt just kind of fires its green little energy blasts into it and rips into its hide some more. You're clearly doing damage with Witch Bolts against this thing, but it's got a really thick hide and looks like it can take a real beating.

So that will bring us to Twee. You still flying? I am I'm just going to kind of back up a little bit And let a couple of fire bolts go at it See how that goes Well they hit Yay

Four Fire bolts Twelve Nice Great So you launch into it. Are you going to take any other actions? Are you going to move around anyhow?

I'm just going to kind of stay out of range of this thing and make sure that if it comes at me, it doesn't get me. All right. So we're going to put you what? Like maybe 15 feet above the ground is how much I would say, based on its movement so far, you would want to. Yeah. Is there anything coming at me from above?

Not yet. All right. Good. But you can check. I'm going to take a quick Is there anything coming at me from above? Not yet. All right. Good. But you can check. I'm going to take a quick... Do a little perception roll. 12 plus 15. Yep.

So you see in the sky, there's definitely mages fighting stuff. It's mostly in the distance though. Okay. But it looks like there's aerial combat between mages, floating beings, flying monsters. A lot of stuff's going on. Casper? Is Casper up there? No, no. You actually just killed Casper.

Oh, he was friendly. Now he's going to be a ghost. He just wanted to make a friend in that Archmage basement. He did all that damage on Ken. He deserved what he got. Speaking of Ken, the other head flips around towards you. Guess what?

It gets an extra attack this round because it's got two heads. Wait, are we in the next round? I didn't get to attack? No. I didn't attack. That thing gets separate. It's in a monster prison. It's in a monster prison.

You're in a monster prison. Do your dexterity. It was a graveyard smission. Eat shit, Dan. Concernedly got the... Afraid not. So you take 19 points of piercing damage, and you are now in the other Maw grappled.

Typha, you're up. Whose Maw am I closer to? Tom's. I'll swing at that. Go for it. 15. That is a miss. You just smash your blade into its head, and it does no damage.

When's Esmeralda in the run? She already went. She cast Witch Bolt against it. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. She went first, I believe. No? Oh, wait.

Typha, you should have gone first. You rolled a 22 for your initiative. I did. I mixed up your initiative with someone else. That's my bad, listeners. So, do-do-do-ba-doo, but I'm going to just... We'll have you go up as

soon as... When we come around. We come back around. So now Genndy's going to go again. Thanks for doing that so I didn't have to. I'm glad I did it was so worth it Gendy pulls out a wand and starts casting some sort of

eldritch spell against it and does some more damage and kills it hooray that was close you guys let's go to Chili's Bodhi the head that's got you pinned tries to chomp down on you again. Do another dexterity saving throw.

Jump down. Roll your Skittles. My sweet heat Skittles. I'm going to take some moonshine. Sweet heat. It's the burning chemicals that makes them good. Sweet heat Skittles. 20.

Nice. You managed to roll to the side as this thing snaps its jaws shut again, and you're no longer grappled. Good. When's my turn? Now. Oh, wait. Yeah.

Yeah, now. Go. Frenzy. Yeah. Yeah, now. Go. Frenzy. Okay. What was that? Go away. Okay, go now. I just drank moonshine

and it completely altered my ability to... You guys are holding up a lot of fingers. Did I say there was a two-headed alligator? I'm a two-headed pink elephant. It's going to become the Moonshine D&D podcast. Poof, you're all dead. Good night, folks.

The D&D stands for drunk and disorderly. You're up. Attack. Frenzy. Three attacks. You'll potentially be exhausted after this, though. 16. Great. That's not going to hit.

Are you fucking kidding me? Sword crushes into this thing. It's hard to hit. Roll armored. Seven. I saw what you rolled. Yeah. A one.

I know, but I get a six bonus. Or no, it's a seven bonus to that. But it's a natural one. It's still a botch. It always has been. Okay. Roll a 100. I thought for some reason, no, not with that.

Not with your strength bonus. Why would it be? Because it's a one. Because you rolled a one on your attack. Oh, it was an attack roll. Yeah, it's an attack roll. It's like a dex roller. Right.

I know he's got a sweet bonus. That's why if it was a two, it would still have a good chance on a lot of enemies. Don't talk about my bonus like that. I've got the sweetest bonus. That's so gross. I've got the sweetest bonus. Uh-oh. That's the sweetest bonus Uh oh

That's the sweetest jinx Roll that one again That's zero six Okay okay okay Yeah but it was cockeyed The second one And then my third roll was a 19 Okay

I could go for some cockeyed fry chicken right now That would be great Yeah it's just a miss go for your third attack it was a 19 great that's a hit so it was actually 26 well 26 is most definitely a hit

so let's roll for damage finally and of course your sword is on fire yep the sword 11 alright so you just crunch into this thing's eyeball And of course your sword is on fire. Yep. The sword. Alright, so you just crunch into this thing's eyeball. You finally find some purchase on this thing. And it's not in its hide, but it's in its soft little eye socket. And it's gross.

I say you can't see me. You can't see me. Tom Nettie, it's going to try and bite down on you again. Roll a dexterity saving throw. Jesus Christ. Fucking 13. All right, so you are still pinned in this thing's mouth. Oof.

And it does another... Oh, you got so lucky. Holy shit. You only take five piercing damage as it bites down on you again. You're still grappled, and it's your turn. You should fart in its mouth. Oh, my God.

Let's see. I'm going to fart in its mouth. I cast fart in its mouth. Nice. Yeah, I'm casting. Did you relearn that? Shocking grasp since I'm super in its mouth. Nice. Yeah, I'm casting. Did you relearn that? Shucking grasp since I'm super close to it. Here's your Venus.

Here's your fire. I failed a saving throw, so go ahead and roll for damage. Oh, nice. I like that. Okay, Popeye. Can we get it a little sexier, Popeye? I could also go for some Popeye's fried chicken. 14.

All right, so... This episode's a little off the rails. At least for me. Moon shine. All right. But first, a little Foggy Moon breakdown. When you do that, it loosens its jaw enough that you can do another dexterity saving throw.

Go for it. Go for it. Yeah, baby. Yeah, baby. Oh, you get the fuck out of there. Goodbye. And that brings us back to Esmeralda. What do you get, a 20?

Mm-hmm. Esmeralda stabs this thing. Rolling a 20 is like a get 20 second get out of mouth free card she manages to stab it right between its jaws and just a bunch of blood starts spraying out of one of its heads oh that's where we should be stabbing it

one of its heads looks like it's not really operable anymore that brings us to do do do do do Typha I swing at it with the sword of Umberlee that brings us to do, do, do, do, do, uh, Typha. I swing at it with the sword of Umberlee. Don't say that.

Uh, it's a 10, which is a miss. That's a miss. I'm going to attack one more time. You sure will. Uh, that did not look much better.

13. No, that is also a clack. If you add them together, it's a 23. No. Uh, so a clack. If you add them together, it's a 23. No. All right. He's right.

So, plain clack. And then that brings us to Twee. I'm going to do a cloud of daggers in his face. Get him. The functional face, I take it. Yeah, the one that's still facing. Functional.

Sorry, I have to do a thing here. Hey, did you guys see Blues Travelodge down at Palladino's the other night? It's a motel's cover band. With John Popper. Yeah, he's

a sleepy bear. He makes sure there's no chocolate on your pillow. My favorite Palladino's cover band is the Circle Jerky Boys. It's a Circle Jerks cover band where they just sort of prank people and then say the songs. They don't really sing them. They play the songs over the phone.

Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole and they just send it to you. Or they call you. I also saw who was there last weekend too I didn't get a chance to see him I've seen it before though the damed it's a all-female damned cover you know what they opened but the damed are actually a band they do all songs about toffee chocolate that you get at

Ikea. You know who I really liked when I saw them over at Palladino's? It was the Ascendants. They're a Descendants cover band, except they're all really nice because they want to ascend to heaven. Oh, that was great. What did you roll? Nine. What were you rolling?

I was rolling Cloud of Dag daggers damage on this thing. Great. So that's nine, and that head don't work no more. This thing stops moving. And Gendy says, let's get the fuck out of here. Let's go. Oh, speaking of go, we got to go see the French doors. As you guys are heading back towards the building,

you hear some guards shouting for help. I saw a banana dramarama. And it's actually a dramarama cover band, but they're all dressed in bananas. The giant reptilian chinchilla appears to have cut its way through a whole lot of guards, and

there's a couple of mages chasing after it, trying to cast containment spells, and it's not going great. Did you see a bandanorama? It's all a bananorama cover band, and it's not going great. Did you see Bananarama? It's all a Bananarama cover band, but it's all guys dressed like little Steven. Right now you've got a clear path to the fortress, but there's guys begging for help.

Okay. What do we see? Oh, I told you, but we were too drunk, I guess, to communicate to each other. No, you haven't been drinking. I heard help. I heard cries of help. Yeah, so three guards make it over towards you, but we were too drunk, I guess, to communicate to each other. No, you haven't been drinking. I heard help. I heard cries of help. Yeah, so three guards make it over towards you, and they're like,

we can't contain this thing. Oh. And you look, and it's gigantic. It's Ymir. Should we help with the chinchilla? Yeah. Oh, it's Godzilla? It's Godzilla the chinchilla.

I mean, it's like a reptilian rodent that is a couple stories higher. Let's fight it for the giant rodent next next episode because we're almost done with this. Are we almost done with this episode? We are at 40 minutes. Oh, shit. You wish we were almost done with this episode. What the fuck happened? Oh, my God.

You went down like a Palladino's K-hole. You're working on moonshine time. Oh, my God. We have 20 more minutes. I'm going to go see Adam and the Uncles. I thought we'd done two Let's fight that fucking Let's kill it

You ever see Adam and the Anteams Esmeralda draws her sword again Like she's ready to go fight Gendy says I think we should keep going I hate to say it but Things look like they've gone to shit out here Oh listener I wish you could have seen that gesture Things look like they've gone to shit out here. Oh, listener. I wish you could have seen that gesture.

So you're going all in on the giant? I don't know. What does everybody else think? What does Esmeralda think? She says shit. I know, right? We have to go help them. We don't want to help them, but we have to go help them.

She says... Fuck it. I don't know. Greater good. Well, the greater good is we get the... She kind of shrugs and goes, I mean, she's kind of right. I mean, everybody's dying out here. If we don't save the day, I mean, monsters are just going to keep eating everybody.

What if 10 more monsters show up? I don't want to get eaten by some dumb monster. Let's go. Let's keep our eyes on the prize, which is not getting eaten by monsters. Let's keep moving then. The guards kind of don't protest as you run away and in fact

kind of follow you sheepishly in a full sprint. They're like, they look over to their shoulder. All're like, uh, uh, uh. They look over to their shoulder. All their friends are dead. If I could quote Tom Lennon. All their friends are dead. And this thing is so big, it's not even registering you guys. As we're running, I'm like, do you guys

know Bexus? Yeah, Bexus. She's one of the mages. Yeah, tell her to join us. Do you have super telepathy or whatever it is? She's kind of fighting a planar horror up in the northwest. Alright, we'll see her.

That's cool. Alright, you guys are going to need to do one more stealth check with pretty high difficulty to get to this door without attracting another monster. 18. Hell yeah. 16. Pretty good. Blocked access.

Gendy got a 20. I went to Paladino. Esmeralda got a 21. Oh yeah? I said Tony, Tony, Tony, Basil. It's three Tony Basils. And I rolled a 20. Three Tony Basils. And I wrote this funny. Weren't they at the S Festival with Terrence Trent and the Arby's?

The Arby's. Oh, there we go. Yay, 19. What did you get, Tui? 18. And what did you get, Typho? 16. Great.

Oh, perfect. You guys make it to this fucking door. Is this a stealth or? Stealth. Oh, so even better. Even better. Okay, great. As long as you all got above the 15.

You made it. No monsters. The soldiers, after you said about Bexus to come fight, they were like, do you want us to stay with you? I think stay with us. Yeah, sure. Okay. You go first. Open that door. I would say, based on

your previous experience with one of these fortresses, you guys kind of tried to break into the lock on the southeast one. You guys know these things are probably locked. Just the outer door, even. But these guys have keys. One of the guards says, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or a bell. Do you have one of those bells to ring? He's like, no. They only give the mages the bells. And we also don't have the benefit of telepathy, so we can't really call anybody except physically. Just use the key. Yeah, he puts a key in the door,

and he's like, all right, go, go, go. Everybody inside. Everybody inside. And you get inside, and there's like a little waiting room. It really quiet it's creepily quiet as you shut the door to the outsides all the roaring and screaming and explosions that were occurring out on the prison grounds goes completely silent i think we're trying to get you are now yeah so you know from looking at the map that those green boxes and pathways are underground. And you know from approaching that there's no secondary buildings.

So you kind of went in the ziggurat. And underneath there's more stuff. Right now you're in a small room. We know these are bad, though. Huh? We know these are bad. Right now you don't know what's in this building. We asked the guards.

We know the other one's a planer. Yeah, one of them. One of them they're all kind of catch your breath, and the guy with the key goes, yeah, yeah, what do you need to know? This is part of my patrol. What's in here? This is where we keep the godslayers. Have you heard of Jyn Raden, though? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do you know where she is? I mean, no one knows where she is. And I would say you would remember. This is the most shoddily run prison. You would all remember that no one would know. No, we know, but I still can't believe it. No one, even the Archmage was like, we're figuring it out. Maybe the Archmage is lying to you.

That's where the God Slayers are. Is it possible that the gods have done some kind of ultimate brainwash so that nobody knows? At some point, somebody knew where Jyn Raden was, but I kind of feel like it's such a uniform... You guys say this to each other? One of the guards pipes up. It's a shoddyly run prison, and I think Brubaker should come in.

Are you Brubaker? I look at the guards. One of the guards says, no, I'm not Brubaker, but my name is Ed. No, different Brubaker. All right. Am I thinking of Branigan? I'm thinking of Branigan.

Brubaker's that fucking amazing rocker. My last name is not Brubaker. It's Clevington. I love that movie, though. But he says, what is that about? What did you say? What were you just saying?

It seems like... I'm watching Esmeralda. It's one of the guards caught something you said. Yeah, but as I'm saying it, I have my eyes on Esmeralda in case she's giving me the, or any of these guys, just like to shut the fuck up. It seems as though every time we ask about Jyn Radina, nobody knows anything about it in such a uniform way.

It makes me feel as though maybe somebody does know something about Jyn Radina, but the gods have cast a spell? Right, and so the guard says, okay, so there's something we're not supposed to talk about even to each other, but I feel like shit's gone down enough

where I'll tell you. We all have a cycle we go through. A blessing? Yeah. We all have to have a blessing from the clerics put on us when we turn 18 here. And we only sort of experience life 36 hours at a time.

That's how long. That's like you, except with a different time thing. That's how long you can stay awake without your sanity starting to slip. So after 36 hours, we take turns going into a deep slumber. And when we wake up, we only remember select information. We forget much of what happened the day before. Who selects that information that you do remember?

The Archmage. Okay. But it's to protect us. It's because we see too many horrible things. Yeah, definitely. He kind of looks around and he's like, well, I mean, it clearly didn't work, but I believe in it.

He shrugs and the other two guards kind of nod like, yeah, we have to go through the blessing. We can't stay awake for more than 36 hours. We can't remember. There's too many dangerous things here. We can't. Because no one's supposed to stay awake for 36 hours. It's the only way you can run this prison

with the low amount of guards there. And who told you that? The Archmage. Who talks to the gods every day. Yes. You should be getting a solid eight hours of sleep every single night. Sleep is the most important meal of the day.

So Ed Clevington tells you, he can tell you a is the most important meal of the day. So Ed Clevington tells you, he can tell you a little bit about this corner of the map. Oh, yeah. But they're only allowed to know the virtual. The other two guys normally work in the mortal cell blocks, so they can't really tell you much about this area. But the southwest ziggurat is for god slayers. If you go through the door to your left,

you'll go down into the basement where you can see the prison cells. If you go through the door to your left you'll go down into the basement where you can see the prison cells if you go through the door to the right it leads to a hallway with some barracks there's there's places for the soldiers to sleep eat and if you keep going down the hallway you can get out onto the uh sort of the grounds the inner quad the inner quad let's do that then. Yeah, we tell him, we're trying to find Jyn Raden now. We're wondering if she's in the dome or in Thud. He says, well, she wouldn't be in the dome.

The dome is the entrance to the altars of the three gods. Do we want to try and talk to Bahamut? No. He says, the altar of Bahamut is underneath the southwest quad which is the one that's closest to us well the dome is sort of a sacred place that only the archmage and some select mages are allowed in right he says it used to be a farm before the but um but the southwest quad is uh is a is a it is a pretty rough place.

It's the submission yard. It's where we take the more feisty beings and we sort of punish them in a submission. There's a lot of public displays of torture. Jesus Christ. So we have to run through fucking Hellraiser in order to get there. Yeah. Yeah, Hellraiser in order to get there. Yeah.

Yeah, Hellraiser. You described him whatever the fantasy version of Hellraiser is, and he says, yeah, that sounds about right. Some of these monsters can't be kept sedated all the time, and we have to wake them into sentience, take them out into the submission yard, humble them, and then bring them back into the submission yard humble them and then bring them back into a state of stasis so into a stasis but when they come out

of stasis we take them out into the southwest quad the submission yard and we the three gods who built this place and the altar of Bahamut is underneath the submission yard but you have to enter through the dome to get to it. It's some sort of like a flux capacitor. It draws all the powers. Maybe that's generating them. He tells you the altar of Umberlee is to the north. And the altar of Lolth is to the southeast.

And they're all underground. And they can only be accessed through here. Through the dome. and they're all underground. And they can only be accessed through here. Through the dome. Well, I guess it's this or this, right? Yeah. And we're already here?

Mm-hmm. And he says, based on the fact that godslayers are here, I don't know anything about Jyn Redna that would tell me she's a godslayer. I don't know. I don't know. We thinkyn Redna that would tell me she's a god slayer. Do you? I don't know. I don't know. We think she is a victim of the gods. She's some kind of mischief spirit.

Is that right? Esmeralda pipes in and says, well, didn't she try to kill gods in the Drow Pantheon? I'm pretty sure she did. So she's a god killer? Well, she's like, I don't know if you guys, when you imprisoned her, if you knew she was Zinzerina. And the guys are like, oh yeah, right, right.

I don't think, maybe? I don't know. Do you not have a book that says who's where? Oh, we do. I mean, there's books, but they're all in code back at the Archmage's temple. Okay. Back at the keep. You guys are

like ice. So. This is great. So he recommends you make one of three choices. Through the barracks. Through the barracks to the dome. You can go underneath the ziggurat into the godslayer cells

and see if maybe Jyn Raden is imprisoned underneath. Or you could head over to Thud. He's like, you can head to Thud, but it's like another hour's run from here to the monitoring station. All right. I'll do what you guys want to do, though. Can you pray to your God again? That's so weird.

That's what Esmeralda said. Sure. I wonder if we should go to... I wonder if we should go to... I wonder if there's something that we need from Thud first, or if we need something we need from these gods first for Thud. Esmeralda says, Hey, Twee, you touched Jyn Raden's finger, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Have you tried doing anything else? Like to reach out to her lately? Or thought about that? What if you pointed your finger like a divining rod, and it was just like, hey, Jen Radin, speak up when we're... Like a divining finger? Kind of like a flashlight or something?

Well, maybe it lights up when we're pointing at Jen Radin. Like you could be pointing at the dome. Like E.T.? Yeah, like generating it. Can you hear me? Can I point my finger like a flashlight at the beginning of the CBS Mystery Theater? Boo!

Boo! You can do an Arcana check to reach deep within yourself and guess whether or not that would actually do anything. 14? Did you do an Arcana check to see if you remembered that shit? I think we all passed our Arcana check with that one.

Three of us did, yeah. That was a 20 with my bonus. With your bonus, that was a 20. Well, hello, Sailor. You raise your finger up. Fleet Week on the moon. You point it around.

And for a while, you're like, what am I even doing? Like, I'm just sort of thinking about. What am I, the finger guy? So you're going to succeed with something as you do this. But I'm going to have you do one more check. Do a religion check to see if Zinradana communicates directly to you while this happens. 18.

So you point your finger and you're not sure if it's due north, northwest, northeast, but it's definitely north. You get a pulse and you hear in your head, I'm here. Well, that doesn't help. And you kind of wave your finger around again and you hear in your head, I'm here. Well, that doesn't help.

And you kind of wave your finger around again, and you think it might be northeast. And we're southwest. So that's northeast. We're at an hour. So she's right there in the lens crafters in the middle of this compound. It's at least through the dome.

I would say it you know, it's either dome-ish in the yard between here and the dome, in the yard beyond the dome, or in the ziggurat in the far northeast. Is it a... Do I get an up-down

feeling, like underground, above ground? I think we'll have to talk about that in a little while, baby. But no. No, you don't. You can't tell. But no. Okay. That's it, you guys.

Boy, this moon really shone tonight. It's like a full moon outside. It's a crazy-ass moon outside. Yeah, there's some weird moon stuff going on outside. Don't care for it, I'll tell you. Well, Sarah's gonna be disappointed when I text her and tell her she's not dead.

You guys didn't get her killed. Congratulations. I think she'll be happy. She will be. Maybe just tell her she was to let her think for a little while. How long can I just fuck with her before she comes back from New York and she's like, Stop it! Thanks, guys. Episode 36, right?

Thank you. Thanks for listening. BrianPassane.com. I'm all over the place. I'll be in Portland, one of my favorite places ever, at the Helium there in November. You can see dates on BrianPassane.com. I'm not exactly sure. I think it's the first weekend.

And then I'll be at Powell's that Sunday. My favorite bookstore in all the land. Hell yeah. Powell's in Portland signing Forever Nerdy. Oh, I'm going to be at Ace Comic Con with Dan Telfer here in Chicago. It may have already happened by the time this episode drops.

No, I think it's this weekend. Oh, yeah? Oh, no, maybe it would be. Yeah, you're right. It might have been. It'll just happen. Sorry, you missed it. We'll have talked about it on Twitter.

So if you miss it, you're a goof. Yep. 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. And you can also send us anything at P.O. Box 16069, Encino, California, 91416.

Thanks for listening.