Nerd Poker - Episode 63 - Flayer Season in the Abyss

Episode Date: April 7, 2020

The Ice Five must take out the Juggernaut that has come to dispatch them, but even if he is defeated there's the matter of scaling the massive drow pirate vessel before them. Oh, are we're continuing to master our remote situation, thanks for bearing with us, nerds.

Hey everybody, I'm Brian Pussain, 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, Clay, Chris. Now it's time for another episode of Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Season three. Hey, everybody.

I'm Brian Apocalypse Poussaint. You're listening to Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. It's episode 63. All my friends are here. I see them on the Brady Bunch screen in front of my face Brady Bunch was a TV show Sam's going to do the recap at the end I'm going to go out of order

I'm going to go in the upper left I've never done this First, Sam Hey everybody Sam's here everybody Hi And then we've got Chris. Hello. Ken. I am Ken Daly. Sarah. Hello. Blaine. My connection is unstable. Isn't it always? And in the center square, Dan. Hey, buddy. Hey, honey. What's that? This is my microphone.

You got a huge-ass microphone. It's a big, big, big snowball. Yeah, this is a big bopper. It's episode 63, and it's our second time recording on Zoom. And because something happened in the news news i don't watch the news anyway dan what's uh you want to say uh thanks to some people supporting us through these trying times i sure would like to you know if you're supporting us on patreon you get things like bonus episodes with tom lennon who recently called in and did a zoom episode with us

that was an absolute delight. He is a delightful idiot. I love Chris. Love him. He's like evil for kids. What I like about Tom is he acts drunk all the time. He's a little imp. So thank some friends.

I will. Hey, friends. I'd like to thank a whole lot of you. I'd like to thank all of you, but I'd like to start with Patreon supporters who go by usernames like JustSomeAnonymousMartin. Thanks, JustSomeAnonymousMartin. Thank you, VoodooBeef. We all know VoodooBeef.

Hey, who doesn't know VoodooBeef? Thank you. Mine's full of pins. Thank you, NordicVikingName. Thank you. Thank you, NewTans. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Todd Rollins. Thank you, Nordic Viking Name. Thank you. Thank you, New Tans. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Todd Rollins. Thank you. Thanks, Jeremiah That Kid Blaine Incinerated Dudek. He's a good friend of mine. Thank you, Snaginthus' Blue Tentacle Beard. Yay. Thank you, Brendan Smith. Thanks.

Thanks, Nick. Nick Vukul Yay. Thank you, Brendan Smith. Thanks. Right. Nick Vukalich. Thank you. Dwayne loves your last name. I was just trying to think about a Voodoo thing and I couldn't remember the Voodoo thing

so I just jumped it. Thank you, the moderator of NerdPoker's subreddit, Mike Cribier. Thanks, Mike Cribier. Thank you, Mike. Thanks, Jim Price.

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Mike Cribier. Thank you, Mike. Thanks, Jim Price. Thank you. Thanks, The Southern Dandy. Merci beaucoup. I do declare. This one's a reference you'll all enjoy, but you may remember I didn't understand for a while. Thank you. Smack dab in the middle. Thank you. Smack dab in the middle.

Oh, God. Remember smack dab in the middle. Thank you. Smack dab in the middle. Oh, God. Remember smack dab in the middle? Smack dab in the middle. Thank you to this username. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

You're welcome. Someone typed that all the way out thanks Jamie Swedler thanks Stephen Keller thank you Stephen thanks Keller and thank you finally Klompetty and the Shartmakers

Klompetty and the Shartmakers Shartmakers are really great because they've been together for so long say Blaine um that's who this episode is brought to us by who are those patreon supporters brought to us by uh you know what uh it was uh brought to you online by paladinos.com where you can catch such acts online as elton skelton shiraon, and the CBGBs. Like paladinos.com. Check it out. Live stream and all

your favorite cover bands from their house. Dan. Thank you, Blaine. It's time now to get into what happened last time on NerdPoker. It's sort of back. I'm putting my phone up to the microphone. Hopefully it translates a little bit. Who the fuck

knows? Anyway, the Ice Five engaged a monodont, also known as a member of the Path of the Vaunted Tusk. A juggernaut burst forth from the water and attacked the party. The party sort of attacked him, sort of tried to drown

him, but he's a sea creature, and we are, after having whooped his ass for quite a bit, going to continue the final battle, because everyone's probably about to die. That's a lot of editorializing from the narrator. Everyone's about to die?

Spoilers. I'm more about like lacrosse and stuff like that. I will say, I was looking at my notes notes and I tried to listen to the episode. I couldn't figure out who went last in the turn order. So that screwed me up. I think I just re-listened, but I didn't get fully to the end. But I think I had just, I'm still in the water. I had like stopped the thing and I'm still in the water.

I had like stopped the thing and I'm still in the water. You'd stopped the whirlpool. So he was about to break free of the downward pull and you turned it off. So you would not get sucked into it. Right. Right. Well, I do know the turn order in general. So how seen,

if you went, that brings us up next to tick tock, uh, still climbing, right. Or wait, no, it's carrying me.

And did you throw, I don't remember if queep successfully landed us up on top of the boat in my notes i have that queep dropped you oh never mind then uh am i wrong i'm sure you're right i mean it sounds canonically i'm sort of like that's what i have in my head is that queep was like i remember that he he found out towards the end, Ken discovered this whole time he's actually been proficient in athletics. And so then he rolled again and then he got like a 20.

Yeah, that's what I remember. But I don't know what happened as a result of that. I'm probably looking at... Yeah, this is probably a leftover note from when... Shit. Sorry, listeners, we suck. We cannot remember what happened. There's been some stuff going on.

I haven't listened to one of these episodes since the first season. Also, I can't tell you guys how hard it's become for me to remember some of the battle geography without the minis laid out in front of all of us. Everything from you guys moving your own minis around to help me get a sense memory of who is moving where to like just having the battle layout I had even made like a little cardboard

Dratlana boat that is just cool can you use it will you be able to use it once like if we are doing this again can you just make your own so that it's easier for you yes or no yeah i mean that's yeah just draw it on a piece somebody play the last minute of that that episode i played it but i couldn't remember where everybody was exactly um because it was a

lot going on i think it's safe to say chris is still uh or was still climbing but he's still in queeps loving embrace um but i don't think that you had escalated all the way up to the boat yet okay so while queeps carrying me can i get off a couple arrows yes towards the juggernaut that's what i will do uh you are about to get into pretty distant range right now i have that you are over 100 feet up the side of this boat. All right, my long boat... Halfway up. My, uh...

I have a... I have a good range. My short range is 150 feet. So I can still... If we're only 100, I can still hit him fine. Yeah, yeah. You can hit him fine.

Okay, cool. He's right below you, so you gotta kind of do one of those, like, careful aims. All right, so I'm gonna do that. Long boat, plus nine. Uh, 18. Ooh, that is a hit. so you got to kind of do one of those like careful aims all right so i'm gonna do that longbow plus nine uh 18. oh that is a hit great i'm gonna make this a it's one of my new level seven things i'm making this it's called a shadow arrow so this is one of my arcane shots um so it does an extra 2d6 and i think the regular one the arrow itself

is d8 plus 4 okay so the arrow by itself does 6 plus 4 10 damage and then because of the shadow arrow it does an additional only three but the shadow effect is his vision like the arrow when it hits him kind of like launches launches arcane black shadows into the creature and it occludes his vision so he can only see things within five feet oh shit does he get to do any kind of saving throw? Or is he just like automatically... No, no, no. He does. A creature hit by the arrow takes an extra 2d6. So that's psychic damage. That's what that three was.

It has to succeed a wisdom saving throw beating a DC 13. Okay. It's called a shadow arrow. He got an 18. Okay, so he beat it. So, never mind then. Ah, fuck that. 19 minus 1. Sorry, folks.

That's okay. It's one of my new little things. Thank you. Does he tip his hat to me? Yeah, he takes a little top hat that suddenly has been produced from under his armor and he pops it, puts it on his head, tips it, and then flattens it again, and then tucks it back in his armor.

I call out to everybody, beware, he's a gentleman. He has a little cap. Up next is the Juggernaut. I get two. I get two. I get the second shot. Okay. Yeah, I'm going to take the second shot.

Same deal, Arrow. Six plus nine, so 15. juggernaut i get you i get you i got your second shot okay i'm gonna take the second shot same deal uh arrow uh six plus nine so fifteen that is also a hit oh great okay so this is just uh yeah you know what i'll try it well actually i think i can only do that once per turn. So this is just a regular arrow. So it's six and I think that's another four. Yeah, so that's another ten arrow damage. Alright. That's it. Cool.

Alright, so he is first of all going to swim towards you, Halcine. Alright. First he's going to try to hit you with his tusk. That is a 17 to hit.

Okay. Is that a hit? My armor class is 17. Oh, balls. Okay, well, my regrets. So that's going to be do-do-do-do- do uh nine points of piercing damage okay well i'm going to use my reaction because when a creature within five feet of me hits me with

an attack i can use my reaction to cause the creature to make a deck saving throw or he has to take this is my uh my ability called wrath of the storm so uh he's going to take, this is my ability called Wrath of the Storm. So he's going to take damage if he fails and damage, half damage if he succeeds. He rolled a four. Awesome. So he's going to take 2d8 thunder

damage. Oh boy. So, by the way, after he hits you with his tusk, he's bringing his big fucking halberd i know i know uh get ready um okay well he takes nine points of damage thunder damage now okay um do i if he hits me again do i get a reaction for both hits no i think you only get one reaction per turn. Okay. But I have good news. How would you like to see

this juggernaut die? Oh, awesome. Got fucked up by that whirlpool. Really, the wrath of the storm. Thunder damage, I guess. I don't know. Somebody whose brain is working better than mine

should describe it. TikTok. Well, I'll say, cinematically speaking, for our listeners as well as you as sarah and perhaps uh chris i don't know if you want to tag team this visual but yeah like the tusk just is like hitting your armor and the thunder just sort of like goes up through the tusk into his skull it reverberates yeah if you want to yes and that either of you yeah it turns his skeleton into a tuning fork and it shakes all the skin

and muscles off. I love it. Awesome. His body shakes violently like an NC-17 version of a Tex Avery cartoon. All the skin just goes flaying off.

Oh, wow. For a moment, he lies motionless and then you realize all the skin just goes flaying off oh wow and he uh for a moment lies motionless and then you realize all the skin and blubber has sort of separated from his body enough that his armor sort of slips off and sinks to the bottom of the bay sweet disgusted you chris made a disgusted face but he's the one who described it you You brought it, Chris. No, TikTok looked at Halstein and go, no! No! Yeah, and

Halstein dops her cap, I guess. But yeah, you guys. Halstein's in the water. I believe Dr. Uwit is scaling the boat like Tic Tac was. Oh, with his claws? Yes.

He's got these sort of purple chitinous digging claws that he's using to sort of assist himself up the side. And it's technically your turn, Blaine. However, you're kind of out of combat, at least seemingly for the moment. You were ambushed. So I would say just passive insight amongst the party. You feel like there could be, like,

some tension left in the air. Like, there's something about just the way you spent all that time trying to get on the boat, and then all of a sudden this big motherfucker just appears. You feel like there might... You might have set another trap in motion. Uh-oh. Can I use my brain to talk to gut to gus and go hey buddy how you doing there's a giant creature another after we killed this juggernaut another thing showed up this guy's even bigger of course no nothing

showed up no nothing showed up i think he's saying that uh it feels like we set it off a trap because the juggernaut was a trap or is that what you're saying? You all just have an ominous feeling after that guy died. There's nothing else showing up. Okay, cool. They know we're here. Let's get us to the top as fast as we can. So do you think the vaunted tusk took

Dralana's boat? Is that what happened? Why don't you roll an insight check? How about everybody just roll that sweet insight? Blaine's gone. Blaine's gone, but I rolled a one. Uh-oh.

All right, so Halcine, you just kind of go a doy, but everybody else want to give it a shot? Yes. I also got... I rolled a 19. Thank God. I also got an a doy thank god I also got an adoy what? three of us rolled ones?

no way you got an adoy also holy shit but I did roll a 19 folks that's what we call a triple adoy I'm so worried about where's my boss guys I haven't heard from my boss in a while I'm worried about my boss.

I know he went after him. Let's see. Where's Blaine? We're still waiting for Blaine to show up. We're trying to reconnect. We'll fill him in in a second. Let's see if we can maybe keep the action going a little bit. Yeah, of course. You check in with Gus. He's still out of range.

So you're not sure. He feels like he's at least a few miles to the south. That's where you last left off your telepathic connection with him. But as a reminder of the party, Gus went to follow the Violet Fang, the winged drow with pointy teeth and a bad attitude, who went to head down to Dame Island. Dame Island is a bit of a nexus of your adventure these days. You're also planning to

meet up with your time boat there and the crew who were planning to sail back in that direction had you not shown up after a week which is about to come and go so if they're not already heading to dame island maybe if blaine just does audio it might I apologize. Yeah, let me try. Can you hear it? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, now we hear you good. Yep, I think you're good. I think we should plow ahead.

Do it, please. I apologize. I don't know what's going on. Can you roll an insight roll? Yeah. Hey, Dr. Udvan, you roll insight. 13. Okay. Well, you feel like, uh, you may as well

keep climbing, Dr. Uwe, as you don't see or feel anything uh, coming your way, but you do get that sort of hair on the back of your neck vibe, like maybe you want to keep at it, so. And what did Queep feel? Oh, we're going to get keep at it. And what did Queep feel? Did I get anything more? Oh, we're going to get to Queep.

Oh, yes. But before we get to Queep, I will say, hey, Dr. Hood, you're actively moving, and you would be next in the turn order. Why don't we, if you want to keep climbing, have you do an athletics check to try to get higher up on the boat? Oh, my God, we've lost Blaine. Oh, bully.

All right, yeah, let's pause for a second. Alright. Hey, Blaine, you're climbing up the side of the boat. I actually should have just had you do this originally. Will you roll with advantage an athletics check? Because y'all got

close. Oh, that's a natural 20, please. And my athletics is a plus 3 and then whatever the advantage is. Okay. So you're going to get pretty much all the way up. Great. But before that happens, you're kind of ascending with a tick tock in your loving embrace.

And, um, and I think dark there too, right? Like it's like a little, It's like the three of us. Is he still holding Darther? I don't think he can really hold two people at once. He was holding Darther. What I remember about him rolling that natural 20 is that the three of us were kind of like almost like the darling kids

and never like Peter Pan. It was like the three of us sort of in a toe line. I play Barrel of Monkeys. Well, you're going to Barrel of Monkeys it up, but Kweep, as you ascend, you do have kind of the spidey sense go off. Your barbarian

sort of affinity with danger makes you kind of like question all the difficulty you've been having, how long you've been spending ascending this, there's a solid chance there might be more baddies up on the top of this boat. Sure, why wouldn't there be?

As you ascend, you have the option to confer this to TikTok and Darkthor or change your mind, but you're getting up to the top. I have a feeling there's some baddies on the boat. Let's be ready to fight.

Alright, I'll try and be stealthy as I land. Alright, well, TikTok and Darkthor, how are you going to prep for what's about to happen? I'm going to actually cast Dread Ambusher. Can I do that on the initiative roll?

Because it helps my attacks. Yeah, I got to look that up because it's not like a spell. I don't think you cast it. Well, not cast, but I mean, I want to take advantage of it. Right, I'm looking it up. I get a additional weapon that deals an extra 1d8 right

at the start of your first turn of combat you increase your walking speed and if you you can use an additional weapon you can have dread ambush ready also I feel like I need to remind you Mr. You can use an additional weapon. Yeah, you can have Dread Ambush ready. Okay. Also, I feel like I need to remind you, Mr. Dark Thirstury,

your sword has some abilities that allow you to aid your allies when they're nearby. Oh, really? Yeah. I got to look it up. Yeah, it um triple A my long sword yeah you've got this runic sword um that you've

attuned to and gotten some abilities so like you have a plus one bonus to your attack and damage rolls with this sword nice immediately after using attack action, you can enable one creature within 60 feet of you to use its reaction to make a one-weapon attack.

Wow. Great. Also, after you take the dash action, you can enable a creature to use its uh, to use its reaction to move up to its speed. Uh, and after you use dodge, you can enable one creature within 60 feet of you to use its reaction

to gain the benefits of dodge. Um, this is something I will, uh, actually re-text to you, Brian, um, because I think you're gonna find this is gonna come in handy a lot. And I told it to you brian um because i think you're gonna find this is gonna come in handy a lot and i told it to you like you know 50 episodes ago so i just want to make sure that like you know these are your options yeah i've never really taken advantage of that

no and i i feel like there could have been some big fights where this would have helped you guys out so it's a little tricky uh I've given you some math, but if you remember, the main thing is, once on each of your turns, you can make a choice if you're holding this sword. Okay. So

the sword doesn't automatically do this. Right, you gotta pick. And that's kind of what's tricky about it. You gotta remember, like, oh, this turn I'll do this, this turn I'll that and what's it called when i when i want to do this you can call it your uh your runic sword action i guess okay or your runic sword ability action might be a little misleading for those of our listeners who are uh focused on what an action means i'm gonna but for this i'm going to be prepared to do a range attack i'm going to have my longbow ready okay uh tick tock what do you want to do same thing yeah i think i i would be ready to possibly

have to like tumble or something like that but shy of a a good landing bow bow bow bow unless i'm on top of somebody okay and creepweep your arms and legs are kind of full trying to grab both these goofballs barrel monkey style how seen marinating and blubber right pretty much I mean

but you see that everybody's starting to ascend up the boat you're kind of stuck in the water at the moment alright I mean I sort of feel like I need to starting to ascend up the boat. You're kind of stuck in the water at the moment. All right. I mean, I sort of feel like I need to fly. I was going to swim back to the shore or to the pier or the dock or whatever. That's what I was trying to do

when all this happened. So was anybody else over there? They were flying? I thought there were people on the shore. No. Dr. and TikTok are both getting flown up by queep and dr ewitt is climbing up the side of the boat so they've kind of abandoned you in the water a little bit okay um well as i recalled i was trying to get back to the dock that's the last thing so i guess i'll do that because i thought we established i can't climb up the boat because it's going to

take forever so i will it was tough yeah yeah so i That's what I'm doing right now and I'll try to figure out what to do once I get there, I guess. I would say, Kweep, you in particular notice how Seen is swum to the shore and is kind of waiting on the dock. I think I will try and get her after I drop these guys off.

Cool. Kweep, you roll a stealth check as you pound your Aarakocra wings sort of up to the top of this boat. Are you proficient? No proficiency. Nice.

Fuck. So. Okay, so you sort of steal yourself and you manage to get your wings into silent owl mode as you kind of pound up uh and the three of you quietly just descend and peek uh tick tock and dark they're hanging beneath you both with their arrows drawn making this weird little archer chain um and uh the three of you uh

i'm gonna have do a perception check, please. Perception. Uh-huh. 19. Damn. 17. Also pretty good. What you got, Darkthor?

Low. Okay. How low? Perception? Yeah. It's just an 8. A 4 plus 4. Okay. uh how low perception yeah it's just an eight four plus four okay so uh dark third and creep you both see a strange looks like an old mind flayer uh sort of like leaning on a cane and looking away from you um but uh tick tock you notice he appears to be talking to uh some sort of it's like a monodont

path of the vaunted tusk creature but it's like a ghost like it's kind of just like kind of like a weird translucent smoky one uh in front of it neither of them seem to notice the three of you when you say monodont i don't know what that means. Yeah, it's a path of the Vonne Tusk, like Narwhal folk, the Tusk folk. Oh, the Narwhal folk. Okay, the Tusk folk. But it's not huge. It's not a juggernaut. It's like a humanoid-sized one. Maybe it's a hologram.

Flayer. Say again. You cut out for me. Oh, sorry. So a monodont sort of specter and a mind flair yeah yes yeah now last time i remember mind flayers were our buddies right the locals sure seem to yes um why don't uh since you're the only one who's kind of seeing this why don't you uh though this whole this whole scene i'll let you do uh your own insight check okay

insight is only close to using my special die thank you preston and i got a six okay you're not sure what this means beat shit preston no thank you no Okay, you're not sure what this means. Beat you up, Preston. No.

Thank you, Preston. No. No. All right. Well, are we... Preston. You definitely feel like you got the jump on these guys. They're talking to each other, seemingly, but they're almost inaudible noises,

and they're about 100 feet onto the deck of the boat. See, the mind flayer makes me pause. Is that stupid? Should we just attack them, Darkthor? Yeah, so the three of you see this very opulent deck. Darkthor, it's been a while since you've seen it, but queen drought Lana's boat is really decked out, finely polished and painted. It looks like it's seen some battle and that some of the wood is chipped,

but it looks like it's been refinished recently. Uh, a lot of the battle armaments seem to be either rearranged or missing. There's some, uh, you know, like, uh,

signs where things have been dragged off the deck of the boat. Okay. Darkthor, do you recognize... I point these guys out to Darkthor. You have a whole other insight roll now. Darkthor, I'll let you choose. You can do either insight or a history check.

Because you guys can pretty safely whisper to each other. I will say, do you want to land or keep trying to stealthily hover? That's up to Quist. I think we should land behind some cover. Okay. First dark throw, I'll

answer this question. What'd you get? Oh, nice. I got a 19 in the insight. Okay. Yes. So you try to rack your brain what's going on you you don't recognize either of these creatures um you do feel like that mind flayer is not one you've seen before uh and it looks like somebody has fucked with this boat significantly, like in the recent past. Oh, so they took over this boat, these guys, just like they did our boat.

Yeah. That's what it feels like a little bit. And so I'm going to have the three of you guys do a stealth check to try to hide behind some of the wooden crates and banisters on the deck of the boat. I think I'm going to try to fly and save Sarah. I mean, I'm fine. I'm on land. I don't know where, I don't know. All right.

I'm more concerned about you guys figuring out what this is, I guess. Well, we could use you up here. That's what I think Queep is saying. Yeah. Yeah. That's different than save me i'm gonna oh you know you're a girl you can list your amazing talents to save our asses that's what i mean we need you to save us yes um i mean i think tiktok or chris is on the right track with it's an interesting combo of people up there. So we should maybe think about that. I think what Darkthor said, just kind of realized, tells us that we would want this mind flayer to be part of the other,

the mother brain side. I don't think that's what this is. I think this is the vaunted tusk, the same way they took time boat. They took Darkthor's mama's boat. And I think. But what happens to the mother brain like you know what i mean why is she not here why is there other mind flayers that aren't

connected to her nobody knows there are well what we i think what happened before with the mother brain is that she absorbed all of them there are no from that group so the fact that there's this one you know what i think we got to take these guys down and if we can hopefully maybe not kill this guy and use them to talk to her afterwards maybe but i don't know man mine players are fucking dangerous uh i'm gonna have queep do a stealth role to try to dive off the boat without making too much noise to go get Hal seen. And I'm going to have TikTok and Darkthor do a stealth roll to try to hide behind stuff. I did that.

I got a 22 for stealth. Oh, sweet. So you're pretty well nook and crannied. How about you, Brian? Low. 11. Okay. Are you proficient?

Yeah, I am. Roll a second time. My sweet child. Oh, sweet Brian. Oh my. That's a good one.

Uh, 15 plus 7. Alright, well that's much better as you fucking fade into the shadows. Queep, roll that diving off the side of the boat stealth if you haven't. He ducks and fades into the shadows? I rolled a 19. I don't know what he said.

I made up some weird fucking stealthy shit because he rolled high. Alright, so Queep, you just fucking whoosh. TikTok and Darkter, the point is that you got behind some stuff without making a ton of noise. Whatever the fuck editorializing I did

was just for funsies. You know, I'm glad you think so. Show off that sponsor cup there, Brian. Did you get that from Weirdo McDonald's? The only McDonald's I know. Did you get that from Weirdo McDonald's? It's the only McDonald's I know.

All right, so, Queep, you arrive on the deck. Halcine is there. Hey. Hi. What's going on? Does he fill me in on what they thought? I'm going to grab you and bring you up there. Cool. So, I'm going to go up there and you up there. Cool. I'm going to go up there and hide

up there? Sounds like a plan. Tell her what's going on. We're all gathering. We're all going to gather on this boat. Then we're going to hide on the boat? Yeah. We're probably going to attack.

Hey, Blaine, we're hiding while we're waiting for you to attack. Blaine's not here. Blaine's been gone for a while. Blaine's not here, man. Alright, that sucks. Poor Blaine. Sorry, listeners. Sorry, Blaine. Okay, I'm going to say at this point, I'm going to

roll... have someone roll for Blaine his stealth. I'm assuming somebody is willing to take up the dr uid can we try getting him again where is he i thought we okay i thought we won for a while all right well then let's pause again and talk about it we're back and we've got blaine on the phone now all right it wasn't working heyaine. Look at traffic right now, Brian. Things are moving smooth on the 110 southbound,

but if you look at it, it didn't elongate before 4. Good fucking luck. Hey, Blaine. You're not supposed to say fuck. God damn it. Oh, shit. Fuck. Oh, fuck.

Fucking fuck. God damn it. Fucking shit. Sorry, I'm talking to my old professor.! Fucking fuck. God damn it. Fucking shit. Sorry, I'm talking to my old professor. Professor shit fuck. Professor shit fuck, get out of my trunk! He's going through my old costumes. Anyway, Blaine's back.

Hey, Blaine. I have a roll for you. Blaine, will you roll stealth as you climb on top of the boat? Yes, I will. Blaine, will you roll stealth as you climb on top of the boat? Yes, I will. 17 plus 3 is a 20. Oh, beautiful.

Okay. So Dr. Uwe joins you, sneaking up there. Kui, please roll athletics to get Halcine up onto the boat. All right, then. If only I had advantage. Oh, you do, though. Thank goodness for my weird proficiency rules. That's a good house roll. I like it. It's good.

So far, I rolled a 22, but I don't think I need to roll again. Whoa. Maybe if it's higher, I learn how to teach me to fly. Come on, Ken. Ken, roll a second time to teach Halcine to fly. Let's do it. I will, I will.

My flap fell off again. Oh, see a doctor about that. I believe I can fly. I believe I can touch the sky. Halcine, he rolled a 22 on his first roll, at least, so you do feel like you're at least learning the beginnings of aerial combat. Halcine, can you read my mind?

Okay, so I'm going to want one more stealth roll from Queep and Housine as you come up over the edge of the boat to join the rest of the Ice Five. Alright. What's our stealth? Yes, ma'am. Eleven.

Eighteen. Alright, so Housine, you What's our stealth? Yes, ma'am. 11. 18. All right. So, Halcyon, you do feel a little exposed, but luckily, neither of the figures seem to look over at you as you two come up over the boat, and Kwee, with his higher roll, is able to kind of steer you behind something. But it's a little noisier this time,

as you all kind of settle in. Let's get a group perception check unless someone wants to do something besides just spy on these guys. If you want to ambush him, Darkthor, now's the time. Perception first? Yep. Unless

Darkthor wants to just fucking go for I'll still let you roll perception as he does it. Are you guys ready? Well, I botched my perception check, so... The only thing I would say is spread out. Yeah, but we're for sure attacking them and not seeing

if they're good. No, we're... I was thinking I would cast Hold Person on the corporeal one. Okay, do it. On the mind player? That's a good idea. That sounds like a good plan.

Let's hear these perception numbers first. I'm going to go around the horn. Hey, Chris, what'd you get? Natural 20 plus 5. Holy balls. Ken, what'd you get? 19. Triple holy balls. Hey, Sam, what'd you get? It's a natural 20. Yeah!

Alright, so Terry, you're still off of Dame Island, but you get this weird tingling sensation. Oh, no. Those acquaintances of yours are doing something right now. I got a 17, Blaine. I got a 12. Nice.

Alright, well, TikTok, you observe a lot. So you guys can sort of circle them up knowing Hold Person and Dread Ambush are maybe what you're about to bust out. But you observe

a couple of things. This Mind Flayer, in addition to looking a little unlike the ones you've met before seems very old he seems like he's almost falling apart uh kind of like a mummy except without any wrapping he looks like he's been preserved somehow he's wearing very tattered robes like i said before he's got a cane he's got kind of a hood the only reason you knew he was a mind flayer from the side was his little mouth tentacles were kind of

undulating from behind his hood. And now that you've got a better look at him as you're fanning out, you see his face is very desiccated. Gives you kind of a Nosferatu mummy kind of vibe. And the rest of you, circle up. I would just share that with the group. I would just be like, I think that mind flayer is a zombie, undead, lichy thing.

Did you hear that, Blaine? I did. Okay, good. Hey, Dan? Yeah. I'm going to put a long strider on myself. Can I do that? That sort of increases my movement rate pretty fast.

Yeah. So long strider. I'm just going to look up real quick, the official description for our listeners is you touch a creature, which can be yourself, and your speed increases by 10 feet. Oh,

you know what? That also happens when I touch myself. I forgot to say that in the wrong line. I'm sorry, Dan. My connection's bad. Her being gay. Her'm sorry, man. My next is bad. That joke was really a lot more funnier. Okay, I'm back. Okay, and as you're sort of winding up,

I'm going to... You know what? Just for narrative purposes, TikTok, since you got such a high perception role, I'm going to let you choose. You can do one more role before everybody uh goes in you can either do uh your choice religion or history um history well i have the same plus for both so they're they're both plus two uh 17 total okay uh go ahead and tell me did you want to make a history or religion plus two. 17 total. Okay.

Go ahead and tell me. Did you want to make a history or religion? History. Okay. You feel like this mind flayer is either undead or some sort of lich. Okay.

Liches are undead too, but you know what I mean. Yeah. Maybe it's the Tenebris one. This will be exciting. Yeah, well, it probably is. This is our big battle. So, it's going to be swinging.

We're not ready for that. I think we yeah, I think we should do your, uh. Well, then hold person should work, right? That's all we had to do all along. Hold the tenebrous one. Okay. Just make sure, whatever people are doing, just make sure it works against dead,

I guess, or do stuff that works extra good against dead. I don't know. Okay, yeah, I don't, I've actually never. Yeah. Well yeah well uh let's see hold person is a second level enchantment um so how how seen why don't you well while you're discussing with everybody well wait but i wouldn't be doing if he's undead oh that, that's what I'm saying. Um, a cleric. So right. Uh, I would turn undead. You want to do turn undead?

I'm just saying that if I'm, I wouldn't do, now that we have that information, I would, I would make a different choice. I think because yeah, you feel like I told you he might be undead. Yeah.

Well, that's a good idea. I mean, if you want me to, I don't know what, you know, I don't know what will happen if I do that. We're on a boat. And if he's not the Tenebrous one and he has a lower CR lower than the threshold for my level, then he's destroyed.

Oh, I think that's good either way. You know, I think... Yeah, let's attack. Okay. All right, so you're going to do turn undead. Halcyon? Yeah. All right, so as an action, you present your holy symbol,

speak a prayer censoring the undead. He's going to have to make a wisdom saving throw. If the creature fails its saving throw, it's turned for one minute. Uh, and then it must try to move as far away from you as possible. Uh, so here comes a wisdom saving throw from this mysterious Mind Flayer. Ooh, that's gonna be a 22. Okay, well. Gave it the old

college try. Yeah. Now he knows we're here. Yeah, you cast it and then all of a sudden he just sort of turns his head and Halcine, you get a really good look at him. I'm going to text you what he kind of looks like. I bet he's beautiful.

Sam Elliott. Is that something you can recast down the road or on him again? Or is that their one shot? Ooh, look at him. Yeah, you want to show him on your phone to everybody? Yuck.

Yeah, fuck him. He has beautiful blue robes. Yikes. Do you want to do your sneak attack-y thing while she's doing her thing? Does that work? Which thing? Your gloom stalk?

Well, I already will. I'm going to jet ambush, and then I'm going to fire a lightning arrow at the main guy. Got it. All right. Alright, well, Dread Ambush... Am I right?

I'm just going to look up exactly how this works. I get an extra attack, and the extra attack has another 1d. Okay, so you're just going to rush him. But also, the lightning arrow is pretty brutal. So it's...

The target takes 4d8 lightning damage, or half as much on a miss instead of the normal damage. Whether you hit or miss the creature, each creature within 10 feet of the target must make a dex saving throw. Each of these creatures takes 2d8 damage on a failed save or

half as much damage on a successful one. Okay, well... For a minute. Right now, Halcine's spell has gone off and alerted him. So, before you can... Right now, I'm firing on him. With your arrow?

Yes. All right. Go for it. Oh, nice. Brian, roll. Oh, sorry. Yes. Brian, rolling.

Brought to you by Dogshit Dash. If you're a dogshit We'll call us up, we'll come to your house Pick it up for you, Dogshit Dash Brian 18.7 Holy shit, that's a hit Roll your damage

I don't have a dogshit joke for the damage roll That's a 10 Plus that other I don't have a dog shit joke for the damage roll. That's a 10 plus that other. Hold on. Brian, looking for this is brought to you by Mattel's Barbie's Dream House. It's a dream about a big house she had while she was sleeping under a bridge. Barbie's Dream House. Brian. Seven, four.

Oh, man. Three and a six uh 20 so another 20 10 and 20 holy shit all right uh you guys see dark there let loose an arrow it fucking slams into this mayan player's chest and you just see electricity arc out of him as he explodes into shadow. He's completely disappeared other than these sort of dark, kind of cinder-like black chunks of opaque smoke

that whisk through the air for a moment before disappearing. The narwhal ghost he was speaking to immediately evaporates into thin air and you are alone on the deck of the boat. Wow. You do notice when he gets hit, his book

sort of tumbles to the ground. Let's spread out and check everything. Have a look at the book. Yeah, we should look at the book. But also be careful, kind of like the way they touched that glowing stuff at the end of time bandits his parents blew up yeah yeah let's be uh stealthy and and uh and kind of aware about

it looking around to make sure they don't pop back into existence behind us sounds good i think that would work that well I mean right now I need to get my second attack damn it I know little sneaky pants did pretty good with that arrow though how about everybody do an investigation check first and then I'll have you do

a stealth check alright investigation hey Ken you got a 19? yes sir Alright. Investigation. Hey, Ken, you got a 19? Yes, sir. Okay, great. Darkthor, what'd you get?

Investigation. So it's not... I would have loved it to be perception, but I just got a plus one on investigation, but it's 11. So 12. Okay. Dr.

What'd you get? I got a nine, nine, 19. Oh boy. Oh boy. Uh, how seen what'd you get? Sorry. I, uh, this investigation. Yeah.

All right. Oh God. This day. Uh, I got a five all right and uh hey tiktok what'd you get 15 fun um queep it dr uid you're kind of looking around uh you you pick up the book uh queep and you're kind of like, okay, I'm going to give this to someone.

Uh, like, I don't know what the hell this is. There's like a weird runic language on the cover that you're, I think you would immediately think to give it to, uh, you know, how seen or Dr. Um,

but, you are kind of looking around the deck, Dr. And you notice everything sort of magically locked. So you can't get below deck. Everybody do a stealth check, please. Like I can see that I've noticed that all the patches are sort of moving into a position or that they're just little.

I just know. You kind of know. As you approach, you just get a magical aura, and you're like, oh, this reminds me of arcane locks that I've run into in the past. Do I get a feeling that we're on some sort of sticky mousetrap up here on this deck? It doesn't feel great.

It does feel like some sort of magical control is still being lorded over this boat, despite the fact that those two creatures are gone. Okay. What'd you get there, Sarah? 18. Brian? 25. Fuck. Blaine, what'd you get

on your stealth? Oh. 14. Alright. You're stealthy as fuck, you guys. I love it. Chris, what'd you get? 11. Oh, 14. All right. You're stealthy as fuck. I love it. Chris, what'd you get? 11.

And Ken, I just want you to know that that eyeball mask that you have on your wall briefly appeared on the boat behind you. And it was really funny. Ah, yeah, that's great. Ken, what'd you get stealth? 13. Okay. Y'all feel pretty quiet at the moment.

That's what I got to say about that. What would you like to do next? Take a nap. Well, let's investigate. Is there... You can kind of look around, but yeah. Why don't we go... None of us can make this magic disappear, right?

We don't have that capability. You're not sure? You can ask each other? Anything about the book? I'm not picking it up, but... What does Darkther know about the book? Does Darkther recognize the book? No, you don't recognize the book right away.

What languages do you guys speak? Check your character sheets, please. Common and Aarakocra. Gnomish? So far, that's a no and a no. Common, Elvish, Halfling,

Orc, and Undercommon. Okay, that's... Nope. Subvisible? Celestial? Orin. and under common. Okay, that's, nope. Abyssal? Celestial? Oran. Halcine, you recognize the language on the book as abyssal. Oh, I know it.

Abyssal. It says Gehenna Gateway on it. Okay. Oh my gosh. Okay. And on that note, uh,

let's call the episode. Wow. Wow. We got enough, uh, playing time. There wasn't all our connection time to, according to Sam in the chat.

Uh, we got the five minute warning about six minutes ago. Okay, cool. Blaine, um, where are you and and Stacy Keach during these trying times? We know that you don't want to go out, so we're going door-to-door with a little one-man show called Keachy Guy. It's his tribute to Gweedy and Geechy Guy with Stacy Keach.

What do you do? It's a one-man show. What's your part? Well, I open up for them. I'm doing my Kempatch Adams thing where I just go into affected areas and I cheer them up with clowning about death. Clowning

about death. Yeah. That's great. Dan, any dates to plug? Haha, you're funny. I have a couple things to plug, but they're certainly not live performance. But you're not doing stuff online? Comedy online? I'm doing

as much as I can. I might do more. It's really difficult to set up a fun Twitch stand-up situation, but I did do one the other day. My friend Taya came over and set up like a fun Twitch standup situation, but I did do one, uh, the other day, um, my friend Taya came over and set up like a whole, uh, live camera thing. So if you, if you look at my Twitch channel or I'll put it up on YouTube, maybe I have an hour of me doing standup and I did crowd work with people in the chat and it was a good time. I watched it. It's great. Sam, uh, were you able to, uh, listen to some of this? Do you know what, can you tell us what happened?

I listened to the entire hour. All right, Nerd Poker, episode 63. Today we climbed a boat. That's great. A couple of things I wanted to actually plug, besides the one that Brian prompted, was I did put out a little comedy EP on Bandcamp, so if anybody has a couple

extra bucks, dantelfer.bandcamp.com It's like five bucks. I'd love if people could afford to throw five bucks at me. Also, just check out our Patreon. It's really helping keeping this thing coming to you. We're trying to improve the audio as we go, and we really appreciate everything

that you guys have done to make this fun for us. I've talked to some big guests, too, about doing, you know, if we're in the bunker in April, I've got a good guy lined up. Tom Hanks is back in town. Can I plug something real quick? That's my favorite Thin Lizzy song. Can I plug something real quick? That's my favorite Thin Lizzy song. My son just came in with a drawing.

He drew a thing called a Beholder Dragon. Oh, nice. The Beholder Dragon has wings of fire, and there's a drawing of it. You can't see it because I'm on the phone. Very cool. That's awesome. Chris, what do you want to plug? Just real quick, I'm helping somebody design a sort of Cthulhu uh dnd 5e adventure so if you just look and check out a kickstarter the devil city it's set in uh chicago at the turn of the century it's

sort of a fusion of devil in the white city and cthulhu and if you like dnd wow that's awesome check it out on kickstarter the devil city i love every reference you just made. And then BrianPersane.com. My dates have been rescheduled, so if you think positively like I do and you want to schedule seeing me in the summer, let's do it. I hope I get to see you there. And then

the other thing is Grandpa Metal available everywhere. Please check it out. I'm really proud of it like it's my ken's holding it up it's my one of my favorite things i've ever done and we've got videos coming soon i will tell everybody when those dates are released and i i hosted gimme radio recently uh dj'd there and i'm going to be doing more of that i'm probably going to weekly show it oniddy Radio. So 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.