Nerd Poker - Episode 52 - South Sea Succession

Episode Date: January 21, 2020

The Ice Five head south on the river, away from Dame Island and towards a difficult fork in the path. And of course, one option in that fork is the fabled country we've hinted at for 51 episodes now. Yes. We speak of course of Donkeyland.

Hey everybody, I'm Brian Poussin, 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, Kev, Dan, Blaine, Chris. Now it's time for another episode of Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Season three. Hey, everybody.

It's Brian Poussaint. You're listening to Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker, episode 52. All my friends are here. Hello, Chris. Hello, Brian. Sarah. Hi. Ken.

Rolling some dice. Dan. Hey. Blaine. Hi. And to the table as always, our friend Sam. Hello, Sam. Hello, everyone. Hey, buddy. It's very Disneyland announcer, that hello, everyone.

Which, hello, everyone. Which, hello everyone. Yeah, hello everyone. Just keep your arms inside the tram. While we look. Hold on to your hats and glasses. What? Bring it. Bring it.

Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it.

Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it.

Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it.

Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it.

Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it.

Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it.

Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it.

Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Bring's Copper Clockcock. Thank you. Thank you.

Ding dong. Thanks, Joseph Zabigan. Thanks, Joseph. Thank you, Roast Beef Dustbuster. Wow. Thank you, Dr. Rhinoceros. Thank you, Jason Wegner. Thanks, Blackwater Jack.

Thanks, Todd Voss. Thanks, Carlos Delicioso. Thanks, Jeremy Rossman. Thanks, Todd Voss. Thanks, Carlos Delicioso. Thanks, Jeremy Rossman. Thanks, Wittu Fingers. What? Thanks, Brent. Thanks, Jonathan Wood. Brent?

That's my brother. Thanks, Eric Score. Thanks, Brian Stop with two Ps. Thanks, Keith Dishon. Thanks, Breeze Ladrian. Thanks, Scott Goki or Gekki. Breeze Ladrian. Thanks, Dr. Wieners.

BDS. Thanks, Outdoor Nerd. Outdoor Nerd? There's no such a thing. Thanks, Michael Ashburn. And thank you, anatomically correct warforged. That is our Patreon supporters. Thank you.

Hey, Blaine, what were those Patreon supporters brought to us by? Brought to you by Bluflamptom. When you have the symptoms, it gets rid of them with Bluflamptom. Side effects may include eyes and heart issues. Bluflamptom. Ask your doctor if Bluflamptom is right for you. Dan.

Thank you, Blaine. It is now time to really quickly check in as anyone else we got to thank brian anything else going on in your life you know got anyone you want to curse out yell at spectrum good spectrum guy like fuck up your cable install lately you want to go on a rant oh no i'm good cool Here we go. Nope. Instead, let us get into what happened last time on Nerd Poker. Is that with my Spectrum guy? Hang on. Hang on, everybody. The Ice Five managed to not only kill an Abolus, but, you know, get some cool shit out of it

and get their timeboat souped back up. They decided they would get some crew, not just go skeleton with it. They got Fegmaw, their weapons master back, but decided Jonko was a little too annoying. So they replaced him with Gruckus.

You know, Tiefling guy, who's a little more of a sailor and knows how to cook on the sea. The current goal is to actually help out Dame Island and sail to Donkey Land where they hope to get

the army of halflings to back up Dame Island in their battle against the giants. They're now sailing east-southeast past Blue Bog and towards the Trident Coast. So, you know what it is. Getting off an escalator.

You guys have your boat restocked. Fegma checks in with everybody and lets you know that you don't have quite as many cannonballs as you previously did. Your cannons have been reinstalled. Unfortunately, there was quite a lot of them and they had been sold off and could not exactly be

salvaged because they had actually been used against giants in the time before you got there. Somebody sold all our balls? Is that what you're saying? The Path of the Vaunted Tusk sold your balls. Okay.

How do you like that? They used cannonballs. The Path of the Vaunted Tusk, the fish cult, sold them back to the island city, and the island city used the cannonballs. You guys had so many cannonballs gotcha you're welcome you now have 20 cannonballs which is far fewer but a reasonable amount it was the most the city could salvage back and sort of gift back to you in in in thanks we should be able

to that's your fetus for a week right uh so that's just your weapons master checking in all right was that no that was fegma i hate fegma yeah yeah no problem and then uh the motherfucking gruckus gruckus makes you guys some beef stew thanks gruckus salty no problem for gruckus everybody um and then uh you're heading southeast the way to the southeast is a little unique in that you are indeed going past a small port town called blue bog uh and so there's going to be a little bit of a moment where you're approaching that before you approach the sea itself. I believe your current plan is to decide once you hit the open South Ocean, whether you will go on foot or continue to take the boat east towards Donkey Land. I think we were saying we'd stick to the coast. And then once we found an appropriate place, we would dock and then hoof it.

Yeah. There is a lot of giant war activity happening directly east of the river stick to the coast you've been told okay which is why we're gonna stay in the water yeah so you're you're taking it south i'm gonna have our uh maybe once we're in this there's sort of like a it's mc kind of. Maybe once we're in here, then we can cut wide. I love the isthmus. Is there something we can do? Like how close to the shore are we going to be?

Could people be shooting us from the shore? Is that a concern? Well, why don't you bust the map out? So you're not sure if people will want me to show you, Brian and then brian you can you can share as admiral with your crew uh like sad moral you're you've got a little bit of a ways down here there's a small town called devonshire it's about the halfway mark it's going to take about two days right and you're that's you had made am i wrong and last week could you said this was going to be semi-dangerous going in? Okay.

But what are the dangers? Enemies. People in the water or people on the ground? Monsters and giants. Okay. If we go too far out in the water, we will for sure encounter more of the people. If we went the sea men.

The what? The sea men. I knew it. But you're not going to really find any major civilization. It's going to be small towns. Stuff like that.

Pick houses. And actually Devonshire is a little bit far inland so you might not even see a town or a dock until you reach the ocean. However, I would like everybody to do an insight check. Just about what's ahead. Whoever gets the high roll will get the most

information. What were we doing? 16. 9. Natural 20 plus 2. 22. TikTok's in the lead. Yeah, I got a 17 plus three but he went pretty good yeah so tiktok based on all the information you've gathered so far especially on board this boat you feel like once you hit the south sea there's a strong chance you will hit another sort of checkpoint

oh sort of the same way we met uh the mind flayer community up top. Yeah. And you don't, with a 22, you think it's going to be pirates probably, but this is because you've already looked at a map that had sort of trade routes that pirates were scouting in the south. Right. And so. So maybe we need to pirate it up. They're expecting the Ice Five and their wily band of brigands. So that's what I was getting at.

Change into our outfits. Are we either going to make the ship look more menacing or more stealthy? But menacing is what we're thinking. It's in the middle right now. I mean, yeah, you've got a big... Do we have a flag we can raise? To hoist high?

You don't currently have a flag. We can make a flag. Well, we have a big, beautiful red bird. Let's make a nice five flag. You don't mean to a flag you can make a flag well we have a big beautiful red bird let's make a nice five flag you don't mean to be the fly you could make a nice five flag i think we should you could do that it's a big number five made of ice i feel like you owe our listeners a pretty detailed visual description even if it's a simple flag like what are we flying up. It's a frozen skull with five bones. Like a quintuple crossover? Yeah, but then one coming out of the top.

So it's ice five. It's like a beautiful snowflake. Or an asterisk. Asterisk? I love it. Asterisk? With the icy skeleton face in the middle. Have you been thinking about this?

No, I just off the top of my head. Just fucking, you know, just riffing. I like it. Brian's a born graphic designer. So I've learned. So you guys, I'm going to have Brian do for Darkthor a performance check. All right.

To determine how this flag will look. Performance. Starring Mick Jagger slow eight so it definitely looks like a skull with five bones coming out of it

but you feel like you might need another like detailed pass okay at some point another one at some point first that's day one

so I'm gonna have it takes you a day. You make a basic flag. Did we not hire someone to do this for us? Oh, you want to be doing this back in town? Oh, I'm sorry. We're already on the water. I mean, narratively speaking,

I felt like you're at least an hour down the river. We can say that you did this in town. I'm not even sure that this is a good idea to begin with. Why don't we just paint a giant five on our sale? Yeah, like the gum eight or five. I would I would allow that also. All right, that's fun. Do you want to paint it? Just not advertise? Yeah, I'm also thinking we shouldn't advertise that were the ice five because okay, people will try to kill us for money. We could talk about it.

I just I like it. We think you decided on a logo. I'm just the Admiral and that's all that's I think you decided on a logo. I'm just the Admiral and that's all. Sarah's face when you say that. I'm not a fear to them knowing who he is. I think it's a great idea. I think we should hoist it to fly when we begin to battle. Okay, yeah, that makes sense.

So that we don't just roll around. Yeah, right. No, well, I was trying to get the overall plan. I mean, do we go in stealthy and then throw up the battle thing? I think we were trying to do sort of middle ground, because right now we're just trying to get from point A to point B and not be bothered. So it seems like if we kind of split the difference,

then we are neither too warish nor too easy pickings, right? Sure. Sounds good to me. I don't know. right? Sure. Sounds good to me. I don't know. I mean we know we're gonna meet pirates next at the next sort of gate

threshold so we might as well be pirates. There are no right answers in Clottenheim. One thing that occurs to me, maybe you guys would have an opinion on this we found out that the Tenebris one is the god of mind flayers. we have a mind flayer

guy oh we forgot to ask venus yeah we gotta check in with venus and get some plan yeah so as we're as we're rolling and he's making that that flag we do want to um talk to venus about okay and he is he's staying underwater to so as not to freak people out as you guys go. So we need to talk to him about the god. Okay. Well, and also, does he want to come with us? I think he is coming with us, right? He sure is. Isn't he?

As far as you know, he seems to be sticking side by side with the boaties. I think TikTok should talk to him about the guffle god thing. I feel like he remembers the most details. So you walk to the side of the boat and you see his silhouette. You just kind of wave him up. Again, you see his big kind of bright pink albino eye kind of like. Hey, we're coming up on another pirate area. Is this attached possibly to the mother brain's pirate area?

One of his little mouth tentacles comes up and uh he's creepy it's he's gross looking if you remember um he says uh uh yes um it's not gonna be the uh you know mother brain it's not it's not former thixit clan it is it is to be another pirate clan. Do you happen to know who? Yes, the Smote Socket. The Smote Socket. And are they friends?

None of the pirates really get along. They'll probably just tax you and not attack you. I would maybe not tell them that you're with a pirate clan. Copy. They won't know that the Ice Five is already allied? If you give it away. Like with a flag? Just don't give it away.

Oh, if you have a flag, you're known. All right, I have shitty ideas. I get it. We'll bring that flag back down. He would have said this regardless. This was not a dig up for him. I like the flag. Yeah, he warns you that this is probably going to be

like a checkpoint you could fly on the radar. They're probably going to ask you for money. Of course. It's not necessarily a bad thing, he tells you. He says there's a chance you would just have to parlay if they found out you were the Ice Five. But you would be considered a competitive pirate clan at the very least. And they would just get an easy pass. Yeah.

Hey, have you heard of anybody named Manzikorian? Oh, I've heard of Manzikorian. Yeah, what do you think about that? Manzo. I'm gonna roll for him. Do his wisdom check.

Not that great. You know, I just kind of got birthed into existence recently. I do share most of my passive knowledge with some other brain, but I don't know if I can really retain that much on my own. Not so much what you know, but like Manzikorian, like that's a known god for you. I've heard of it before.

I have some things I could tell you about, but not a lot of people know who that is. Yeah, we're just trying to dot our I's and cross our T's. Manticorian is believed to have been dead for hundreds of years and was slain on the plain of Gehenna. That's basically information you already know. That's all he can tell you about that role. If Manticorian was around, how do you think the mother brain would feel like?

Would that be like, oh, we better that's our god? Or maybe they might have some questions? Do a persuasion check for me, Tic Tac. Persuasion. Not good at that. Thirteen. It would be very interesting.

I don't know. The Mother Brain's many many many years old and retains a lot of knowledge of extinct races and uh yeah you know could be good could be scary okay well why are you asking about the like i said dot in our eyes crossing our t's where i'm what is it what is the relevance though what is has it come up no this is like an old uh wizard just an old wizard we're trying to learn we were talking back there with the the alchemist or what's his name the archivist the arcanist he threw that name out and i'm trying to understand i finished my winter village set cool buddy oh groovy oh that's great Looks really good Love it

Oh it's gingerbread It's really difficult too Yeah he's getting awesome 500 pieces Nice Yeah Amazing Alright

Thanks for showing us bud Yeah you're welcome Also looks like we're gonna Sierra Mist We're gonna have a big fight soon So get ready Lego and Sierra Mist you guys We got some big sponsors

Sierra Mist Lego Who are we fighting? The Spoonsocket? fight soon so get ready go and sierra mist you guys we've had some big sponsors sierra mist lego who are we fighting the sputsocket yeah well after them i think there's gonna be giants you know we're heading to donkey land okay yeah so just get ready pal i'm gonna pass some of this along that you that we were talking about mads acorian and all and uh see what mother brain thinks yeah see if she was you see what she thinks. Sounds good. Thanks. Yep. So I'll go back to them. We're in trouble. Because that's a god of theirs.

Yeah, well, you didn't give the game away. No. No, but I'm just saying now Look, better to know than to not know. We gotta figure out stuff. If they're gonna flip on us, we should. Right. We need to know sooner know than to not know we got to figure out stuff if they're gonna flip on us we should right we should we need to know sooner rather than later yeah all right i'm gonna have you guys um do a perception check from uh tiktok who has traditionally been your uh navigator and

a survival check from the admiral to see how good time you make you You mean the sad-mural? Brian, if you could take a brief moment from drawing the flag, which is very beautiful, to do a survival check for us. Okay. I got a six. I got a bonus. Perception is 11.

Not good. Well, that's good. Crit, and then we got a three bonus, so 23. Great. You guys make great time. You make it more than halfway down the river on the first day. Flags looking great, Brian. Flags looking great.

Not done. Doesn't look like ice yet, but there's a skull with five bones, and you'll be able to hoist something should the thing occur. But you would need another day to get detail based on how low your first performance roll was. With that low roll, the sky is very hazy. So you don't really get a good look

at what's ahead of you. I thought I rolled high. Not talking to you anymore. Oh, that was funny. He went back to draw on his flag, tuned out everything except the two words. Well, you said you're not talking to me, so see you later.

I was not talking to you then either, so. All right, go. It is my show, though, fuckface. New Year, New Bride. Oh, my. Whoa, dude. uh it is my show though fuck face new year no brian oh my god dude uh yeah i'm just i'm sorry brian i need to lean on you as a head of show i'm gonna drink some diet coke for a second can you please tell me narratively exactly what darkther is doing from 6am to 7pm? Watching, sleeping. Day or night. Doing some flag work.

Sure. Working on the flag. Probably rehearsing some glares for the rest of us, right? A lot of eye rolling. Like Dan's doing right now. Some pouting. Dan's doing right now. Some pouting. Dan's not even drinking. He's just using his tongue to hold the Diet Coke at the same level to make Brian talk longer.

There you go. I'll probably cut all this out. What happened in the afternoon? I took a shit. Took a nap. Sour shit? Sour nap? Jerked off into the ocean. I took a shit took a nap sour shit sour nap jerked off into the ocean

like from the open deck yeah we're all up here take that fish I'd find my part of the shit find a porthole I'd find a little part of the boat it was kind of like

the opening of Prometheus all right so we'll just call this back corner the dark through special private corner all of us because you and Brian are fighting

every holiday daddy stop it so the yeah this guy what I was trying to say before Brian thought everything was about him again on Brian Posehn's narrative description was the with the low perception

role you can't quite see you know what next day's journey is going to be like. There's too much fog. There's too many low-hanging clouds. You're about two-thirds of the way down the river. You guys rest at this point, right? You're just going to leave TikTok

for the overnight. Gus can be here. He can help me out. I'm assuming you're going to do a proper long rest overnight, so let's just go ahead and learn your spells if you haven't already. If you need to heal up. I'm going to sleep in the cabin next to that

trumpet player! Get some shut-eye. So I'm going to be doing a bit all night where I'm being awakened from a deep sleep by a trumpet player. Tick-tock, I'm just going to have you do three perception rolls for the night. it let's see if you notice things uh first one is a 19. okay let's get a second one go ahead uh 17 and the last one would be see that uh 14 okay so as you get farther down the river the sky starts to clear up but um it's it's pretty uneventful as the evening goes that's good okay

with those roles that is all you see and so the sun rises everybody is healed up um your slots are available uh quick quick uh thing i want to check in with on a couple of you guys who are not Spellfolk. Brian, I was talking to Chris last week on the phone, and we were trying to figure out what the mystery is of how many attacks you get, because I feel like you have been getting shortchanged. And Chris, back me up on this,

because we did talk about this on the phone. We did. Ladies take a breather. Basically, you get two attack actions, and then for each, right, it's like he gets a bonus action with his offhand weapon. So you could be doing four stabs per turn. Yeah, your onhand and your offhand, you are both good attacks. So if you attack, because you're a two-handed combat,

that's the specialty you pick. So when you attack, you get to go righthanded combat, that's the specialty you pick So when you attack you get to go right hand left hand that counts as one attack and you for your action you get to Attack so you get to do a second round of right hand left hand. So do I roll twice for right and one wheel roll? Once you roll, yeah, basically you get four attacks. Okay, you get so you have the potential to do At least twice as much damage okay doing cool that's good that's great uh and then so the daggers in one hand and the long swords in the other you just have to kind of so you get both yeah you could just say i always go sword dagger or you can change it up right uh and creep i was gonna say does that apply to me as well

well you have uh frenzy, right? You're not really doing frenzy. Frenzy and rage. You're mostly just raging as far as I know. You haven't done a frenzy lately. Right. But one of the things that we, I think, keep forgetting is you can't be frightened or charmed if you go into mindless rage at level six. Okay.

So there's certain stuff we can't retcon there. But if you go into mindless rage at level six okay so there's certain stuff we can't retcon there but if you're in mindless rage somebody called that out for bode in it uh yeah exactly so like same thing if you listen for if you're being charmed or frightened when you're raging okay and we i i've i've also told you recently there's certain kinds of damage that you you know take half damage from damage you're immune to when you're raging definitely keep that in mind for me too because i'll try to remember that stuff okay but uh it's i think gonna make combat a lot more exciting for you guys if we remember those little things cool we'll see what happens indeed we will as we approach day two you guys are now getting where am i who are you people you're close enough to the open ocean where you can see it in the distance.

Really? There's still a lot of cloud cover, but there is, as the sun rises, you notice almost like a second sun to the west. Okay. What? Behind the cloud cover. So the sun comes up in the east, and as it rises, you notice there is some sort of weird kind of yellowish tint in the cloud cover to the west.

Yellowish tint? It's almost as if there is a second sun. You've never seen it. None of you have ever seen anything like this before. Is there a second sun? Has anyone mentioned that? Nope. It's never come up it's in the sky it's very it almost seems like a fiery orb hidden by cloud cover is somewhere

to the west is it getting bigger is any of us aware of that being a thing let's get insight checks from everybody uh hal seen you you get to roll with advantage on this one yeah there's a reason that will be that will uh i'll explain after everyone rolls well it didn't really help um 14 16 20 damn okay uh ken wins i got 18 20 okay so so you notice this is right on the map where this thing is uh over blue bog and so uh i would i was giving halcyon advantage on that because

she has some history with blue bog and she might recognize so it looks differently from an actual sun or a star it's it's more well one spot you know what what's what's different about it is it seems like it must be weaker and it's hanging in the same place in the sky but it seems like you only found it because the clouds parted a little bit and like the the day kind of got some of the

you know moisture in the air like warm heated up and and evaporated away or blown away by wind and so it's it's strange it's almost as if the sun's rising in the east has made this weird second west sun hovering over blue bog slightly more visible what the f it definitely seems magical in nature or or unnatural it does again none of you recognize this it doesn't sound like anything you've heard stories about. But it's just a yellow glowing orb or we don't see it that much? Can't really. It's just like a yellow glow.

It seems centered in an orb-like place. You don't know what shape it is. You don't know anything. Blue bog has a sun, I guess. And blue bog is a little too far away for you to really see. Blue bog is not on the river. It's on the coast. Kind of like out past the river.

So would we think this has something to do with, sorry if I just missed this because I was just looking at something, but with the cities being like disappeared to another plane or something, like would that have something to do with it? You're not sure. What about Dr. Ud? Is he sure? Am I sure of what ask specifically sorry you you two need to talk don't look at me sorry tell blaine i don't think blaine knows i'm

wondering if dr u will feed it to him for dr that would you know if this weird light or sun or whatever has to do with the city being disappeared to another plane of existence, which is... The Sun Elf and the Moon Elf cities have disappeared. Can I do some sort of... Can I take some time and expel maybe some sort of imaginary energy that I don't know if I have and sort of do some sort of detect magic on the sunset and see if it's...

Use my... I think it's too far away. Use my Feyy elf powers to feel if I can tune myself. Is this a magical thing or a celestial thing? You can do... Yes. Do you have proficiency with Arcana? How about 28?

No, it's 5. I do. So 18. He can do this. I got an 18. Okay. You think that there is a very strong chance it has something to do with what happened? Yes. Interesting. Are we close to where those cities were?

Are we close to where those cities were? Yes. You're closer than you've ever been anyway. Everything got into a sky ball so Vendaria and Vonderon were both right on the southern coast you guys are starting to approach

well I guess do we want to solve that mystery now or do we want to go to our friends in donkey land I mean I don't want to get sidetracked but it does seem does it seem is this something we're going to have to come back for I mean, I don't want to get sidetracked, but it does seem... Is this something we're going to have to come back for? Yes.

We're going to come back this way anyway, though, right? Probably. Unless the abyss dwellers have an underground way back. We should go sailing and check it out? All right. TikTok says he thinks we should check it out. It's going to slow down our donkey land adventure. Sorry, Sam.

I'm out. Sam, we're just going to scooch over to Blue Bog and check out this weird sun. Fucking love this game. You head towards the south edge of the river. It takes you a few hours. Do you want to anticipate what is likely a pirate checkpoint in any way functionally i should if we're trying to maybe avoid being identified as

the ice five anything that seems ice fivey for example the metal man and feather friend maybe we should amscray downstairs that sounds good good. Right. Wrap yourselves in the flag. Huddle up downstairs wrapped in our Ice V flag. Don't forget where you came from. Yes. All right. Bye. And the rest of us will dress like little old ladies.

Okay. I reach into a truck. Roll to little old lady disguise. No. I've been watching a lot of Bugs Bunny. I will say you then do all that. No problem. As you approach, you see there is indeed a series of piers that have been built out.

And there is a wooden structure that boats will have to... Just so you know, I'm going to maybe have Gus sit with one of these guys so he can be our eyes. So Queep and I can still be alert of what's going on. And there's two large boats and some smaller ones and some buildings and it looks like boats bigger than yours. Not fancier, but...

Before I go down, because I have all the gold, how much do you think you'll... If you end up wanting to pay these guys, how much do you think? I can come down and get it from you, right? I'll just be like, I'm going to our... I think that's fine probably good even yeah yeah okay uh you yeah you you get up there and it's like they built a dam basically there's someone needs to do some sort of release to let this wooden structure open up and let boats

pass through um and they they're anticipating you. So as soon as you come around a small hill and this is visible, before you even have much time to register, you can see humanoids are getting in a little sort of dinghy and rowing their way towards you. Looks like five.

All right. So what's the cover? What are we saying we are? Pleasure cruise. Oh, we didn't. Yeah, I guess we didn't really. I mean, I don't know that we want to lie because I don't know if we want to lie directly because he said specifically like if they knew that we're the Ace Five, we could just say, oh,

we're heading to. Oh, yeah. specifically like if they knew that we're the ace five we could just say oh we're heading to uh um oh yeah we can just say we're heading to donkey land to um try to hire some mercenaries for help like protecting you know the city and then if more questions come you know we kill them no i think that because they said that even if they know we're the ice five vena said it may just mean that we need to like talk to them, but it might also mean that something happens, but I feel like better to not try to lie. Right.

We're all very, very bad at it. So it just sort of feels like, okay. Have you guys all seen knives out yet? No. Okay. Not everyone who has seen it who's listening.

Just know that I was going to make that reference. So you guys are, you know, just make it slightly closer. And this dinghy intercepts you. You see five tieflings are in this boat. They're all wearing studded leather armor. Yeah, they look like Tom Doretto there. A little mini came out. So

they immediately pivot directly in front of your boat to try to get you to stop your forward motion. And one of them stands up and says, Ho! Ho! It's time for a toll. What's the toll? It's for the smote socket.

No, how much is the toll? How much? It's going to be 100 gold for each of you. Jesus. How many are aboard your vessel? Tick tock and I am not here. We have a lot of money. Stop your boat.

He didn't say that to that guy, right? Did you? He's telling you to stop your boat. No didn't he didn't say that to that guy right did you he's telling you to stop everybody stop your boat how many how many of us can he see he can see just three of you three and then the cook and the and is it ma no three so yeah we'll take 250 gold and that'll be and that'll be the end of this. Good boy. All right. That'll be a intimidation check from Dark Thirstery.

Known macho man. You want me to tell you the difficulty on this in advance, Brian? No, I don't care. Never tell me the difficulty.

19. Well, well, well. Looks like we've got some pirates on our hands. I see you know a little bit of what it takes to get through one of these passes. What are you going to give us instead of just $250? Why should we be afraid of you? God damn it. I hate this game.

I know Sam loves it. He went from this is my show 10 minutes ago to I hate this game. Let's just kill these guys. I fucking hate them. Do you attack? No, I don't know. Somebody else. I'll go down.

I'm going downstairs. You guys take care of this. You guys see Dark Thirstery stomp downstairs. I'm done. How many of these guys are there? Five. I see Dark Thirstery stomp downstairs. I'm done. How many of these guys are there? Five. Brian, I mean, Dark Thirst... All right.

He's probably going down to get gold. I give it 50-50 odds. Brian is just shiving me on this one. Let's just keep him going and see what they do. They'll attack us. I mean, I feel like... Listen. Well, then you and I turn into birds and bomb them with something. They'll attack us. I mean, I feel like, listen. Well, then you and I turn into birds

and bomb them with something. Yeah, that one. How about we say, I look at the guy and I'm like, very good. You know what you're talking about. And you know what? We're impressed.

We will give you 400 gold for this ship. 400? Yes. And then we're going to sail on. We'll take it. Went from 250 to 400. Problem solved. Alright, so they...

Did you stop the boat, by the way? Yeah, we stopped it when they asked. You dropped an anchor. They pull up and... The doctor's just angrily jerking off. Hey, your bilge pump seems to be going crazy down there. The river is going to smell a little extra sour today. Everybody's up.

I went downstairs. I'm doing it downstairs. And then I'm going to... Thank you for clarifying. We're all down here. Into an old Snapple bottle. And then I'm going to take it upstairs and throw it into the ocean. A little medieval fantasy Snapple. Yeah. I'm going to take it upstairs and throw it into the ocean. A medieval fantasy Snapple.

Yeah. I look at Gruckus and go, this is new. We have not seen this before. Did that just happen? I apologize. Can't say I haven't seen it before myself. That was weird. It's the sea.

What'll you do? I've been watching Succession and Kieran Culkin's character. I'm inspired. Yeah. Oh, is Kieran Culkin now a new inspiration for your character? He is. He's so fucking funny on Succession. I just want to

be a dick like him. Awesome. I love it. Okay, so you're just a dick and it costs you another hundred gold, but they bore it briefly and you give them the 400. He's the ultimate sour boy. Do you know Succession? A little bit.

I haven't watched it. Oh, Kieran Culkin is so fucking good. I'll turn it up. I will. Yeah, he's an ass. It's an outrage that you haven't watched it, though. Can you, as our treasurer, mark down that 400 gold? 400?

Okay. You've watched it? I have not watched it. Oh, it's so good. I can't believe how many people haven't watched it. I thought it was. No, I liked him in that Norwegian metal movie. Everyone should watch it.

It's so, so good. It's one of those shows that it's tense and it's different. And whatever your impression of it is, the writing is just so good and the acting is so good. Once you get to know the characters, too, like the shit they pull. It's just really creative. What a family battle.

They're a poker recommendation. I'm in. Well, I got excited, too, just when you said it inspired you for the character. I was like, oh, that's great. That's going to give me some ideas, I think. So you pay him 400. And Halstein, you definitely get the impression that you did maybe head off a little extra hostility at the pass because of that failed high difficulty intimidation deck. What was it, actually?

20. Oh, okay. So you missed it by one um and because of that he probably was going to ask for like another 50 gold and you gave him 100 and he was like all right uh as opposed to the 300 he originally asked for so you managed well we're already low balling well yeah we had more people on the ship he was like one per person and we just we don't want him going downstairs yeah we saved a bunch of money and this stuff is always so funny to me because you guys are so fucking loaded right like you guys this is this is like that's how you stay rich

oh is it yeah yeah take it on keep it yeah you keep it i do feel like i'm watching elon you don't pay taxes you don't yeah yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to stop paying rent. Actually, pay attention to succession. Whoa. I didn't think anyone at succession looked very happy, so I didn't emulate any of their behavior. What does it benefit you to become wealthy? I'm pretty sure that show's not a manual. I was under the impression

all those people are going to die alone and sad, but all right. Yeah, you're right. And rich. Well, it would be nice if I could pay my health bills, but yeah, what are you going to die alone and sad but all right yeah you're right uh yeah rich well that that would it would be nice if i could pay my health bills but yeah what are you gonna do you uh managed to get you know through this whole exchange this whole thing just goes in and over pretty smoothly at at this point and they open up you know they they go take their dinghy to the

dock no one else threatens you no one even addresses you you'd see more tieflings those looks like a very tieflingy little pirate clan so from down here for potential future reference as we go by from down here out of the little for listeners he's pointing someone take a picture he's pointing to the door below i'm down on time boat and i wing my bottle of Snapple. My jizz jar, I wing it over the... Jesus. No, I don't. You knew I was going to make you roll for it. That's why you said, no, I don't.

You say, take my seed. While we're going by. I'd botch it, and then it would go all over me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'd be cut and full of my own jizz. It's like your last vacation. Hooray. I asked Gus, try and get a number, Gus. Don't fly

around, but just using your eyeballs. How many of those tieflings you see? So Gus has not revealed himself too much. He's fine around. But yeah, he's going to have to do a stealth check. Then don't worry about it.

It's not worth it. I thought he was just perfectly located. You can have him do a higher DC perception check from just the, you know. We can do that. He's flying like a little circle. Okay. If you wanted him to go over their camp, he could get a better number. No, you know, I'm no longer in the business of, if he wants to do that, he can.

But no, I thought he was just from where he was if he could just give us an eyeball of how many guys he sees. We can ask them, too. You get the impression Gus would do it if he wanted him to. Eleven. Yeah, boss. I think it's about 30 or 35-ish.

Hard to tell. Just out and about. There's a lot of them. Hard to tell. Just out and about. There's a lot of them. It's good to know. So don't attack them. Okay. But they weren't all... What's up?

Was it mine? I think it was mine. Oh, okay. What on earth? Everyone's on their phone. You were right to assume it was mine. Well, I was looking at you when I heard the noise. I don't know what you guys are doing,

but I'm watching Succession right now. Once you get past this blockade, there's only a little bit more river towards the open ocean. They've kind of nestled it. You get out to the open ocean, you guys. We should still stay towards the coast. With a boat your size, it's easy to stay pretty close.

It's not big, so it doesn't cut that deep into the water, but you will have to stay a few hundred feet off the shore because this is a beach into the ocean. It's not like the river where it actually got a deep middle. You actually get the slow gradation at this area. So you can stick pretty close. got like a deep middle you actually the slow gradation at this at this area so you can stick pretty close to the coast in general

but yeah yeah yeah we attack the sleeping village of blue bog everyone is dead well here's the thing blue bog is to the west and your donkey land quest would lead you east. Right. You have a choice.

Donkey Land. I think we were saying we were going to- Lest we forget the capital of Donkey Land is Clompity. Clompity. I enjoy saying. Is there a sister city, Clippity? No, but there are smaller towns in Donkey Land that I look forward to revealing. Okay.

Look at Frosty go. Oh, that's not fair. He and Pa. Wow. Fat Sal's showed up, and because Blaine ordered a shake, he's getting his sweet pit. The rest of us got to wait. So I was losing my mind there for a second. What flavor is it?

It looks so good. Can you pass me the munchkins? I need vanilla. I'm a vanilla guy. I need some Dunkin' Donuts to satisfy how jealous I am right now. Thank you. It looks terrible. Can I get a portrait of you too?

There's no cold pie in it or anything? Yeah, there's an ox haunch. It's just vanilla. I think it's got some graham crackers things or some sort of toffee deal, whipped cream. Straight up vanilla shake. I'm a vanilla shake guy. They can't leave it alone. Can't just make a vanilla shake at a friend's house.

Just like, fuck it. I just want a vanilla shake. I like malted and apparently that's weird. Yeah, that's not weird. It's good. It is good, right? Someone told me recently like that's the weird part. I was just curious. Is the Duncan part of the game? Yeah. And so you guys

sail past the giant box of monster donuts. I didn't see that get put up there. It was genuinely. All the donuts have eyeballs. I've ruined them by making them grotesque. The jelly ones are little beholders. Yeah, you have a choice. You can go east or west. You can investigate this sort of blue bog.

Blue bog. Sun fireball hovering in the sky that you can't quite see. Or. Or you can head east to Donkey Land. So do we want to just check out the sun ball and then head on? That sounds more exciting. It doesn't seem like something we're going to just check out the sun ball and then um head on it sounds more exciting it doesn't seem like something we're gonna just check out i know well tiktok seemed very interested in looking oh i'm fine it's the most a or b quest direction you've had in a while the reason i brought it up is because i'm worried if we go do it it is gonna now blue bog is where i stay on quest oh okay

yeah that's my vote my vote is that we check it out because it's where my question mark where I lived. Sorry. You didn't. You lived there. Your mom lived there. You have some resources there. So I'd like to maybe just swing by. It's not one of the cities that disappeared.

I will say let's check out the thing in the sky. Okay. How many? Doctor. Chris, that's what you were feeling too. I could go either way i i do feel as though we're going to go there ultimately okay before or after don't even go there doctor what do you think literally i feel like this thing is going to reveal itself to us no

matter what we're doing so let's just stay on target all Uh-huh. All right, well, then the nays have it, so we sail on through. Yeah, that's fine. No, no. Did Chris also? I could go either way. Oh. You're the tiebreaker.

I feel like whatever we're doing, this thing is going to intrude if this thing is anything at all. Right, so we don't need to pursue it. Yeah, it seems like there's not a clock ticking on it. I'm convinced. Let's not check it out. I maintain my belief that we should check it out,

but I'm fine being in the minority and just going in your face when I'm right later and we should have looked at it. Okay, here we go. Cool, cool, cool. Hell seems right. We should check it out. Cool.

Wait, now the void just changed. No, we're going to Donkey Land. You should, he says, but he was downvoted also. Oh, got it. Okay. You sail east and... Go to Donkey Land. Yes yes as you approach donkey land you you you know you you're only gonna get a couple hours of sunlight before this day ends as well

but you're heading east trying to hug the coast you don't see much you're sailing away from the lost elven cities where you know all those war forged are as well as blue bog so a lot of the civilization history you know is to the west uh donkey land looms on the horizon like a series of jagged spikes of earth that just jut out of the ground there's some sort of magical or violently created rift in the earth that seems to be separating this sort of large chunk of land. Is it like the Fortress of Solitude? Like sort of these just spires of earth?

It's earth. Yeah. Yeah. And it's difficult because it's still very far away. It's going to take another day of travel to actually get near donkey land, but as the sun sets, you notice this this land you're headed towards looks like very isolated

and I will have everybody do a perception check just for just a little bit of sauce on that visual. I botched no Alcine furious about the blue bog conversation stomps below deck got a big fat seventh thirteen for me. Can I roll for twenty one? Never mind. Oh shit. All right, dark

there. It's your it's your time to bounce back from your tantrum earlier and notice some important plot details. You you know you're you're kind of looking out on the horizon like an admiral would with his leg up on the edge of the boat. Just just fucking hanging out. And you are pretty sure you see giant sized beings in the distance engaged in some sort of combat. It's difficult to see, but it looks like if you look inland, there's like fists and clubs above the trees. You think you see something giant sized fly out of the trees and then like go down. Just like a violent shatter fight. Cyclops fight.

What looks like a tree getting shattered by some sort of violence. How far away? Miles and miles and miles away. It's very far away. Yeah. Well, that's kind of what we expected. So I definitely see giants fighting on this land.

Darkthorn, can you tell, did they have bat wings? He saw them fly. Bat wings is a little... It's so far away they look like ants, but like... So did we understand that this was just an ongoing conflict? Yes, you do. Okay. So basically what would help us kill two like kill two birds with one stone,

is if we can figure out a way to just destroy the giants. Oh, sorry. So sorry. You know what? That is on me. Yeah. I will do better next time. Thank you.

Thank you. So yeah, we just basically, if we could knock out all the giants at once, then we're going to help Dame Island. We're going to help, right? Yeah. Then what are we going to do with the donkeys? We're going to free them from the shackles of being constantly war donkeys. There might be war donkeys.

I want to meet a war donkey. I hope it's not a weird donkey. I don't want to give anything away. We've been misunderstanding this whole thing. There might be war donkeys. a weird donkey. I don't want to give anything away. We've been misunderstanding this whole thing. There might be war donkeys. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to tip your hand. There's some kind of thriving halfling civilization

in Donkey Land that remains. You're not sure exactly what the level of happiness is in Donkey Land. I feel like if we try to talk to the halflings, also the Violet Fang has to be involved somehow. But if we can figure out a way to just basically permanently defeat the giants right that'd be great maybe as we approach we could ask our friend doesn't hoshenka i know she's not from here but could hoshenka sir talk us through here's what to expect when going to donkey land she could try uh warning

brian she has an accent um so you talked to the last three times I have done her voice. You've been like, does she always have? Oh, okay. Cut that off in the past and it was still weird. Yep. So, Hoshinka,

what do you want to ask her? She's just hanging out. Is it always a war zone? Yes. In fact, it has been going better for the halfling since the Violet Fang

offered her assistance. Now, you're scared about that Violet Fang, though, right? I'm glad to have you as allies, as a primary ally. Rather than be indebted to her. Yeah, now, is she... She's just shady, you know? Like, I don't trust... Now, weren't you supposed to kill uh dratlana yes and didn't we

ultimately all as a group kill dratlana i suppose that is true so can't you actually go back uh triumphantly and be like look not only did i kill dratlana but i have amassed more that's a bit too far to point out but i was looking to follow your lead. I do what you want. If this is what you want, yes. We have to be careful. You've cautioned us about getting into friendly league with the Violent Fang, right? Listen, we can do it. I think that is a good,

if there's any reason you have to talk to her, I would think of that in advance also, because I think, yes, saying we killed killed dratlana i killed her with your assistance even completes my mission from a long time ago and at least i have that going for me but what do you want of this she will ask maybe maybe we can use her or or like sort of have a temporary allyship to defeat the giants permanently and then you know break away since she is like an evil being from another dimension that we think mark and we think she's in league sketchy yes yes we think she's in league somehow because it's violent fang and the crimson

fang and we've been told that is not accidental crimson fang what's so many crimson fang is where the tenebrous One lives. Right. So there's just a rainbow of Fang. Pandemonium's Fang. Pandemonium's Fang, I'm sorry. Yes, there's Pandemonium's Fang and the Violet Fang. Okay, so yeah. So maybe if we just,

if she's already helping the halflings, what do you guys think about that plan? We can figure out a way with her to, you know. If it stops her from trying to kill us for a couple days, that's good. That's what they say is like, fighting giants makes strange bedfellows. So we can just bed up and then, you know, take down the giants and then break up.

Yeah, let's just go kill the giants. This sounds good. Do you, perhaps I can offer some more information on the Violet Fang as a person. Yes, absolutely. Beforehand. The reason I think she comes from another dimension are just rumors, but they say she arrived from some sort of boat

that drop out of the sky. Also, she has wings, which drow do not normally have. Also, she seems completely insane, and I don't exactly know how to communicate well with her one-on-one. I will find that interesting myself.

It's going to be fun. Yes. Dark, put on your dress whites for her, I think. So she's a drow-ish with wings who dropped in a boat from the sky. She arrived from some sort of sky boat, yes. It was many years ago, they say. Some kind of Tom Waits song?

And how many? Before the Comet or after? Oh, long before the Comet. Have I heard about her at all? Do a history check. You know what? Darkthor, you also do a history check because she's a drow.

Terry, you do a history check. You know, you could have Terry as as a chef but you turned him down he's not supposed to be around food but there's a chance he might be going to see a concert in donkey land he might show up again soon uh 19 oh shit 20 is that good like a dork what'd you get brian same as there oh really you both got 19s so you've both heard of the violet fang um so i'll try to cater this to both your characters uh separate bits of 19 information that's pretty good um weird that i wouldn't have realized this before but i guess well you know we haven't stuck on her much conversation wise not since the very beginning no like she every time she comes up we move on to something a little more pertinent so um yeah hold on i'm just gonna pull us up so

you would know hal seen that the rumors are she's actually very good like there's she's never committed an evil act and you never hear people talk about she's just very creepy okay and people find her very unsettling so there's that part of the the backstory that you will get uh dark sir you have been told she is some sort of a dark elf that is not a drow and that drow society actually doesn't accept her and they don't view her as a drow. Can you remind me again? Aren't was Hashinka also related to Dratlana? Wasn't that a backstory? There's some weird like.

Yeah, niece. Yeah, like because we found out she and Darkthor both were. I think she's Darkthor's niece. Or no, it was like different husbands. Something like that. Yeah. Dan is checking his notes right now. Yeah, because I think it was...

Maybe Blaine has something to say. Jotlana was her grandmother, and Darkthor didn't... That sounds familiar. Yes, Jot charlotta she is my grandmother yes okay that's what i thought something like that and ken you are not the father

however does not know that he is related to drat lana is the thing i wanted to look up so we never we never revealed that brian didn't want to do you want to now it's been a long time. No. Best eye roll ever from Sarah.

He couldn't see me because the boat was there and then it just made it feel mean because I was doing it dramatically on purpose and then he just didn't even see it. Yeah, you threw a little bit of shoulder into that eye roll. While they're talking about this, I say, is she a moon elf? That is a new thing I have heard about.

I suppose this is a possibility, but I do not know. Oh, did you know about the moon elf city? As a sun elf? Yeah, you would know about it. So maybe. Would I know if she's a moon elf? Yeah, you do. Sam was tickled at the idea a sun elf yeah you would know about it some baby would i know if she's a moon elf uh yeah you do but the idea you can pick sun elves and moon elves you can do an insight or a history check doctor uh insight no where'd you get seven i know under a 10 no so you have a hard time piecing together what she is exactly but that's the sort of new information you get

hey Sam what are we at we are at we're getting close 57 minutes sounds great to me so let's just say you guys as night falls find that you could either make the choice to you know settle up on the beach

here and try to hide timeboat or dock time boat somehow or you could get a little closer to donkey land but that will be what happens uh as the sun rises or sets on battle and combat who knows on the next episode of nerd poker hey sam hi what do you think happened today in episode 52 we're picking a flag for the boat. I haven't been this excited since we picked a new chef. It was only a matter of time before we all started saying, I'm not talking to you anymore to each other.

Brian's face absolutely lit up hearing the phrase, you could stab four times per turn. We have a classic Tucson situation. We've decided to sail east to donkey land, not to blue bog. A snapple jar could hold exactly 16 ounces of jizz. And I swear to God, if we encounter a war donkey, I will pay out of pocket for someone else to record so I can play and live in this game forever.

It's beautiful. Hey, Brian, you got any dates coming up you want to plug? Not really. No, I just you got any dates coming up you want to plug? Not really. No, I just don't want to do them, but you can come see me. It'll be fun. What an endorsement. Enjoy the surly comedy. BrianPassin.com.

Keep trying. People have been talking to me about doing a new album on the social media. Keep bullying me into doing that, and I'll maybe do another album. That's been fun. Oh, my album drops this weekend. It's called Deaf Leopard's Hysteria. Go check it out. You actually can preorder Poseine Grandpa Metal right now.

It's Poseine the band. When does that come out? February 14th. Oh, so not long after this drops. Yeah. Awesome. Check. Awesome. Check that out. 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. You guys see the image of Christ in the Mandalorian's helmet, right guys?

I see the image of Christ in everything, Blaine, don't you? I consider that Mandalorian my Christian right there. Christian right there. Grace 5, use your reason. Christ in everything, Blaine, don't you? I consider that an important question. Yay! Praise five, use reason. You have to. You have to. Yay! Look at that. Ken, not even thinking about it.

Yay!