Nerd Poker - Episode 75 - Stepped In It

Episode Date: June 30, 2020

The Ice Five head into the steppes surrounding Pandemonium's Fang in the hopes of destroying the altar of the Tenebrous One. But it wouldn't be Cloddenheim if there was a clear path between them and the big event, would it? As long as they are careful, and they always are, how could things go wrong?

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 Possein's Nerd Poker. Season three. Hey, everybody.

It's Brian Possein, and you're listening to Brian Possein's Nerd Poker. Episode 75 of our regular campaign here. I'm looking at all my friends on my computer. I see Chris. Hello. Hello, Chris. I see Blaine. Hi, Chris.

Hi, Blaine. I see Sarah. Hi, Blaine. Oh, hi, Sarah. No, it's a good bit. Let's keep going. Hey, Sarah. Oh, hi, Sarah. Brian also. No, it's a good bit. Let's keep going. Hey, Ken.

What happened? Hi, Sarah. Hi. And our DM, Dan Telfer. Hello, Dan. Hey, Ken. Hey. And then in the upper left, wearing the Billy Joelel shirt not just wearing it just owning it rocking it living it well brian's flirting with sam today we've got sam what else

is new hi mavis yeah there we go there's the bit by the way my uh stiletto uh came up on the shuffle from uh 52nd street by billy joel and my son liked it and he kept playing it over and over and my wife got very frustrated oh i get it uh what's going on anybody uh you want to thank? Let me go. You feeling thankful at all? I'm feeling thankful. As everyone knows, it's mid-November and everyone's thinking about cornucopias and gourds. And mine's turned to Patreon supporters who go by names like Vortaspin. Thanks, Vortaspin. Thanks, Vortaspin. Funny name here. Thanks, funny.

Thank you. Thank you. Say my name. Say my Here. Thanks, Fun. Thank you, Funny. Thank you, Say My Name, Say My Name. Thanks, Dracula. Thanks, Jamie Swedler. Thank you. Thanks, Jamie. Thanks, Swedler. Thank you.

Thank you, OSE. Thank you, Glenn Altman-Betridge. Thanks, Glenn. Thanks, Glenn. Thank you, Paquito Torpedo, which I believe is a reference to bowel movements

thank you Ice Fives Venus member yeah that's a Venus one that would probably be me

because I'm very Venus if you will we'll do a quick Venus check in during the intro of the podcast who's got the most veins

Venus thank you also venus thank you also carrie marsh thank you also tim bates thank you thank you also devona up you rock thank you adrian bundy thank you ted glinka aka ted tris uh thank you thank you of course can we trace dicks again please no and thank you finally how seen is the smartest yes true everywhere true story hey blaine who were those patreon supporters brought to us by uh they were brought to you by banana doritos finally the great taste of banana and a quart chip take it to the tropics banana doritos banana oh boy who does it i love banana flavoring and you know who else does nobody no it's the worst yeah you're wrong it doesn't taste like bananas it tastes like if lysol was slightly sweeter uh i love black licorice black jelly beans are the best, so I know your pain. Yeah, you're right.

That is also a cursed candy that you will get no love for. They're the best. They're 10 times better than any other jelly bean. Which one about Mike and Ike's? Mike and Ike's are great. Do you mean good and plenty? The high chew grapes taste like real grapes. It's bizarre how much they taste like real grapes.

I remember they had high chews on the at midnight craft services table and no one would eat them. Yeah, I would. Oh, man. I have something here. Holy shit, check it out. He really does. He's been sitting in his messenger bag since at midnight was canceled in 2017. He really just can't go home.

But he loves grape Hi-Chews. Yeah, we'll go near grapes. Speaking of Hi-Chews, let's talk about what happened last time. grapes but he loves grape high chews well speaking of grapes speaking of high chews let's talk about what happened yeah we took a week off so i i don't really remember what happened last time uh well here here that actually comes please tell me what happened last time i was about to do you actually love guys recording right Do you actually want me to do it? I was going to do it in two hours. This is my whole episode.

Everybody talk like this for the entire time. I dramatically lit myself and it had never been undercut faster than it was in this episode. Hey, you guys doing a bit? I tried. Didn't go so great. Anyway. Crimmie's crying. Didn't go so great Anyway

Please carry on Excuse my interruption I'm so sorry My voice hurts from trying to talk over everybody So we're just going to skip the rest of that No Don't dare I'll stop

No more bits you fuckers that no don't dare I'll stop I'll stop the bitch over no more bitch you fuckers damn I'll do I'll do an approximation of it so I don't blow

my vocal cords but uh the ice five mounted their war donkeys and headed east away from Dame Island

where battles were about to ensue between the people of town and forces like the Vaunted Tusk. Uh-oh. The Violet Fang is headed for what might be a final showdown with the

Archmage of Anzervale. But does the Ice Five give a shit? They don't. They're completely giving up on this whole fighting bosses thing and going to destroy the altar to the Tenebrous one in pandemonium's fang will there be a portal to gehenna will there be otherworldly powers to tempt them to their own omnipotence who the fuck knows here come the war donkeys so you guys are

headed east if we all check in on roll 20 and look at the world map, you're headed east from Dame Island, and the rusted mountains surround Pandemonium's Fang, the highest peak in Cloddenheim. You have a lot of ways you could go, but I'm going to draw what I would say is the most obvious route to go kind of around these hills and to the foothills of Pandemonium's Fang.

The circle above where I just drew that path is, of course, the Archmage of Vanzervale's Keep, where the Violet Fang is already flying for some sort of confrontation or lead up to a confrontation. So those two forces are likely going to clash without you. You're going to be heading, if I'm not mistaken, past the Glen of Remorse where you were talking about maybe having a booby trap showdown

with the Violet Fang and you kind of bailed on it. The Glen of Remorse. I feel like I pitched it, but people wanted to destroy that altar. So we took a vote and that's what happened. What I like to do first is uh just an overall perception check from everybody as you mount your war donkeys and start heading east i got a 20 i got a 20 oh perception you saying yeah was that a natural 20 plus yeah natural 20 plus jeez seven hal seen's just thinking about that patreon compliment she got and is slightly distracted i was actually thinking about what to name my donkey that's right not everyone has named their

donkeys of course gus got naming rights to tiktok's donkey so that is named finkel dink dinkle shank i got a 20 a 12 whoa shit on the on the automatic roller digital that's right uh dnd beyond has like a its own built-in dice now uh brian what did darkther get oh uh 12 plus uh is it a three perception right yep yep 15 not bad tiktok what'd you get? 22. Wow, well, we got some high twints. So, you guys are all sort of jogging along. Everyone but Halsey notices this, but your

war donkeys have leather pouches that four of you have time, sort of an awareness to reach back, and you can all shout this to Halsey. There are caltrops in the leather pouches of your war donkeys so there's like metal road spikes that you can throw uh behind you in case there's a high speed pursuit also you know you guys have not really headed in

this exact area before this is a little bit east of how you originally came down the river. You're kind of going around some foothills, I assume trying to take the quickest route to Pandemonium's Fang. Last episode you talked about wanting to really book it so you could get there as quickly as possible. Is there anything you guys would like to add about how you're getting

to Pandemonium's Fang? I'm going to leave early and take the 210 before everybody leaves work. Smart. Just get straight out 210 before everybody leaves work smart just get straight out there before everybody gets out on the road one thing when i looked at the map that came back for me is that early on when we first woke up i don't know if this will still apply dan sarah had some kind of role about remembering stuff on the map and she never used it so i have written on the back of my map it says sarah has four questions about the map so i don't know why is this night different at the very the very beginning of you guys i think

emerging from the the tunnel towards bozor i let you roll a sort of map memory check and sarah never cashed that in so that's like from episode four right um sarah if you like, yeah, we can cash that in for the path to the pandemonium's fang. Sounds good. And she has four? That's what it said. It being your notes. Yeah, my notes. I wrote

down, Sarah has four questions about map. I wrote on the back of the map. All right. Ask for more questions. Ask for more questions. Sorry, 14 million? A lot. I'll give you the following things. There is so that path I drew the sort of long

ish part of it that I will point an arrow at right there is called the Valley of Dust and you guys can take the Valley of the Dust for the final leg. You're not quite there yet. Also, with F4, I'll say,

Halcine, you know there is a path you can take from the Valley of Dust that's sort of like a stone stair that sort of encircles Pandemonium's Fang and you're not sure where it goes uh not really anybody uh of in the common folk knows who it is you only know about the stone path because of your sun elf heritage we'll just say that is something that you would have learned through the libraries of vindaria uh before you moved off to blue bog to live with your mom uh and then you're going around these hills here

that i'm drawing a squiggly line on uh these hills here are kind of in your way and they form like a sort of cliff to the west and they were sort of you know uh guiding the river a lot of travel along the river and so you know you've got to go south along that um the final thing i will add is that you've heard stories when you were in blue bog which of course is pretty far down the river but you've heard if you had gone farther north along the river there were going to be giants uh sort of up in this area there might be giants yeah um the area around where the archmage is and you think this might have sorry oh that's yeah you know what um that's really not uh your business or anyone's business but the turks uh but the the the giants are sort of you think they're maybe

as a part of taking over queeps homeland You know, they might also be there stalking the Archmage because they hate the Archmage. But there are probably going to be giants after a couple days travel that you'll have to evade somehow. Okay. But there's like an encampment.

And I'll draw a little house where you think there might be an encampment of giants. And they fit in that little house. Well, it's not a little house where you think there might be an encampment of giants. How do they fit in that little house? Well, it's not a literal house. You just think there might be a building or a shelter. That's the scale, Ken. Hey, can I ask something a little aside, Dan?

Sure. How close do you think as a party we are to leveling up? You feel like you've got at least one major battle between you and there as you guys get to higher levels it's harder to level up and you've been doing quite a lot of slaughtering but also it's been in quick succession and you haven't used necessarily all of your new abilities that you got with the last level so your characters are all still sort of feeling it out milestone wise okay all right just just checking yes all right all right well uh your first day of travel means you're going to be headed around these little these little squiggly foothills here uh the place that you're going to end up

at the end of a full day is where i'm drawing this circle unless anyone likes to do anything else i'm gonna have you do a general check to make sure you're not tailed by anybody and you're not encountering any monsters what kind of check dan uh i will let you decide between a perception or a survival oh you're trying to book it so yeah um the i will say this if you do a survival check you've got to make a 15 if you've got a perception you're pretty focused on going fast as far as you've declared so you need a 20 to really find anything special with a perception check got it no i will go That's a no from Sarah. Which did you not really pass, Sarah?

They're the same, so it doesn't matter. I'm just trying to figure out how to have this affect your character, but okay. I don't like to play Dungeons and Dragons, so this is really hard for me. I got a 12. Cool. Back to Star Wars. Chris, if you could just pick up the Dungeon Mastering Duties. I'm going to just mentally check out.

I got a 21 survival. Fantastic. 21. Yeah. I got a 22. Go ahead. Six. Six what?

Perception. Go ahead. Six. Six what? Perception. What'd you get, Chris? I got a 22 perception. Great. And Blaine, what'd you get? 14 perception. Got it. Okay. So I'm going to say leading the pack is going to be Dargther and Tick Tockok the rest of you guys are just

gonna sort of lag behind uh tiktok you notice actually pretty quickly there are some weird sort of beings to the south you guys have to kind of cut south and sort of along the horizon you just sort of see these things kind of like they're they're very large they're bigger than a humanoid but they're moving at sort of like with a mechanical gate and they're like really far away so you're really seeing movement more than like evidence. Giants? Huh? Would they

do they seem like the same size as the giants we encountered before? They're about the size of giants but they're moving in a strange way. Not like a giant. What about that weird beholder thing we saw when Terry... Undead giants? Oh, sorry. Remember when Terry, like, sacrificed himself, or became, like, a river god or something?

Wasn't there some deal? Oh, yeah. The beholder, like, the looker giant. Is it like that? Or a watcher? Too far away right now. It's called a watcher. You guys are going to find this about midday

when you're kind of like the curve of this path in the circle. You're not quite at the end of your route yet. You're not sure if they see you. They're about five miles away. All right, stay low, everybody. Dark there. Stealthy. Dark there, your flashy cape is going to attract attention.

I wouldn't call it flashy. Let's do a sour stealth check from everybody. 13. 16. 20. Okay. 17 total. Nine.

Hi-Chews, oh my god. Alright, so Blaine is eating Hi-Chews. I'm not going to do it on the air. I'm not going to do it on the air. Thank you for not chewing Hi-Chews. Except it's brought to you by Hi-Chews. No, that would be real. And the mix is a low-chews.

I'm so bummed we lost Sierra Mist as the sponsor. You know what? Honestly, that was in Rhodes' hands. He's our head of ad sales. I don't know what happened. Well, between homeschooling and the iPad, I barely see him. What's that like? It's like having a teenager already.

He acts like he's 17. Since you guys have seen him, he's physically growing because he's like me. So he's getting growing pains he's probably going to be a foot taller than when you saw him and uh and then he's already like acting like a 16 year old at 11. it's fun let's keep going we'll summon him in front of careful so yeah the uh we'll summon him in front of careful so yeah the uh you all you all manage to kind of like duck but you have to slow down because queep you know he's just got these big wings and you're not finding a ton of cover and on a war donkey he's just fluttering and um you're not sure you're

seen but uh you do have to come to a complete stop at one point and they're getting closer the shapes you're not sure if they're they've seen you though because they're so far away it could mean they're just moving in your direction already but you're kind of trying to duck behind just you know some real light tree cover there's there's not a whole lot here as you're approaching the south end of these hills should we spread out just in the in case they are coming at us so we're not we don't all get hit by something at once there's no cover around you're saying there's not much like trees you can do um you think one more stealth check uh before they're for sure just going to be either on top of you or within basic visual range right now. You feel like you might be covered,

but you've had to stop to do it. There's no more cover other than where we are. There's a little bit. So there's like a large Rocky outcropping. You can try to head North kind of off the path you're intending to, to find more trees. But yeah, let's do that.

Okay. Let's go for cover. Let's get another stealth check from everybody, please. This, let's do that. Okay. Let's go for cover, guys. Let's get another stealth check from everybody, please. This time you are going off the path. Yeah. Yes. Eighteen. Seventeen. Queep manages to fold his wings

this time. Twenty. Bless you. Bless 20. Bless you. Bless you. Bless you. Thank you. The pepper giants, they're getting close. Who's left? 17.

Okay. 17. I got a 17. Oh, great. Everyone did fantastic. You all managed to go north a little bit, and you see they're not coming for you, but they're going to be real close.

So they're kind of hooking into the path and they're now moving themselves into the tree line a little bit. If you'd stayed where you were, they would have just stomped right on top of you. Yeah, good move. But they're like these big sort of mechanical armed and legged eggs that are like the size of giants. And they've got little like glass windows in the front of them. And they're all just kind of like thudding to the north along the river.

Can we see inside the windows? Do a perception check if you want. Have we encountered these before? Maybe. Have we ever? Mechanical murder eggs? Does Darkthirt remember? Or does either one of my characters remember these things?

Nobody in our current party has encountered these before. I just rolled a 21. I rolled a 19. Okay. Do I remember perception? Yeah. Are they familiar to me at all? No no nobody in this party has encountered these before so

there's nothing that's gonna jog a character memory or anything like that so okay cool cool okay this is purely a reference if anything and i've written on the back of my map they're like little knows what that is they're like little atsts right yeah kind of They're like little AT-STs, right? Yeah, kind of. They're not chicken walkers. Do we think different aliens inside them? Or not an alien.

Those of you who beat an 18, you see there is some sort of aquatic life inside. Yeah, one of those things that came out of the ocean. Oh, fuck yeah. Yeah, we fought them in a different game. The fish in the... Yeah, there's fish inside of maybe or maybe they're narwhal folk uh but there's definitely some kind of aquatic life floating in the water and it looks like there's there's one one each how bad like if these things were like brian said they're adats

or are they walker size or put it in there's there's there's 25 of them there's just they're only two lelegged. They're all about giant. They're giant-sized. And yeah, they're all stomping up towards Dame Island. 25 of them? Yeah. But they have big legs.

I think they have big crane legs, so they are built like AT-STs, Blaine. So I think if we figure some way to, yeah, start being Ewoks. Well, they're going for Dame Island, which... I know we're not playing Star Wars anymore. It's your only frame of reference.

Check out our bonus episodes on Patreon, everybody, but they're... I only know Star Wars and Jaws, so if it's not about a shark... If you could just yell that a little louder, I'll understand. I'm all about car sharks. Was I hot in the mic like Blaine? Yeah.

Were you what? Hot in the mic. What? Hot in the mic. I can't. Oh, I'm mentally tuning you out. So you're all hiding and they're coming from the south, right? You're all hiding, and they're coming from the south, right? And they're starting to hook along the tree line to your right,

up towards Dame Island, but they're only going in the tree line for their own cover, so they can be seen a little less easily. They're ignoring you for now. Right now, you're about 100 yards north in thicker trees. Let's just move fast, right? Yeah, I mean, I think we have to let Dame Island deal with

the Dame Island stuff for now if we want to get to the Fang. Yeah. They know that stuff is coming for them. I mean, if there were a way to get them a message about these things, that'd be great, but if not, we need to, I think, just keep going. Where's Gus? I mean, you all beat a 15 on your stealth this last time,

so you can stay hidden and just let them pass if you like. Gus is with us. I'm good with that. Yeah, Gus is perched on TikTok's shoulder for now. That's right. Boss, what do you think about those egg things? Ah, I don't like them. No.

Not at all. There's fish people inside. Do you want me to scout them? Yeah, do that. Is there a way to see if they have weapons or anything? If they're like missiles or harpoons or anything on them? My concern is if we... And then draw their fire to us.

Yeah, if we scout, if they come to us there's 25 of them I think they're an army going for Dame Island right that's what it seems like yeah so it seems like we gotta have our eyes on the prize here there's always gonna be some weird

fucked up monster for us to get distracted by that's just that's called Hollywood executive produced by fucked up monster for us to get distracted by it that's just clotting that's called hollywood uh executive produced by a monster so you're gonna go ahead and hold out um it takes about you know half an hour before you feel like there's no audible sign of them anymore um do you bring the war donkeys out a little more and and are you cautious are you gonna hit the path again and try to speed as quickly as you can before night falls

let's hit it right yeah i think so all right so it's gonna take you you know a little closer to midnight given the delay that you encountered but you're gonna get to the stopping point where that circle is on the map you can try to power through the night uh just a reminder i do try to keep track of points of exhaustion if you go too long without sleeping which would probably occur midday tomorrow if you powered through i don't yeah no right break short rest does a does a short rest avoid the exhaustion points depends how many hours i mean if you if you do a short rest that's one hour not really if you do a short rest that's four hours i'll take it into consideration because we could do that because we don't need spells back or anything right we didn't do anything today so just in terms of saving time we could rest for four hours instead of eight or whatever okay that works let's do that yeah okay so you're gonna all set up camp uh it's not too hard to find

just what seems like a quiet spot other than those weird mechanical things you haven't really encountered like any sign of monsters or anything like that. So you just try to get like up into the Hills a little bit. That's already been dark for a while. So you've already kind of been trying to be careful. Let's get a perception check from my presumed watch, Mr.

Tick tock, because he is of course half awake at all times. I have a satin black sleep goggles on. Oh, nice. Do you have a wee willy winky cap on as well? Nah, it's not weird. I just don't. And then I go around, I have black tape,

and I black out all the little lights on the electronic stuff in the room. Right, of course. I sleep in the nude, and I sleepwalk a lot. Like 80% of my sleeping, it's walking. You have those cute little dimples right above your bum cheeks. Is this Brian or Darkthor? Oh, shit. Brian, are you setting it down?

I don't know about Darkthor. Genuinely, I don't know who we're talking about right now. 22. All right. So, you know, you think you hear explosions in the distance at one point, but they're pretty far away and they're from around the hill behind you. So you think you know what it is. It's Dame Island. Good luck, guys.

so you think you know what it is. It's Dame Island, but... Good luck, guys. Well, maybe if they had let some non-humans into their city, they would be so goddamn fucked. Maybe it's just some asshole in Van Nuys shooting off their fireworks. Oh, my God.

I hear it every night lately. Oh, my God. I am so done with that shit. I've heard it every night for 30 nights or so. It's not even the 4th of July yet. Yeah. Not even close. I don't know why it's happening.

People are just bored. You've heard it too? No, I'm in Westwood so we don't hear anything. Oh, okay. I thought you were a valley guy. I am, but my mom's all the time now. I'm a nurse the sassy look on Ken's face

when he said he was a nurse you guys nurse nurse nurse it's his nurse face alright yeah that's about it the sun does not yet peak up it's you know 4.30h in the morning as you rouse each other

and stare into the darkness ahead okay it's like having to go to the airport so off you're gonna go um Now you're attempting to head north. It's getting a little hillier at this point. And at the end of the day, you think you're going to probably be near the giant. So I'm drawing another circle where you think you're going to end up. So you're all just trying to play for speed, yeah?

I think we should do like a full rest here so that we don't go into some sort of... Get as far as we can and then do a full eight-hour rest so that we're not... I'm just going to point out that the place we're talking about is right next to the Giants. If we want a long rest, maybe we should just stay another four hours here

and long rest it here as opposed to... Yeah, sure. You know what i mean that makes sense okay dr ewig needs his beauty sleep telling you is it okay you can carry bowling balls what was that mr tallman is that okay if we do that if we long rest if we just stay another four hours here and then move on to the giant's place sure okay so hang on you're you're doing a long rest before you well then maybe we could take a maybe then we could do this short rest thing next to the giant's house so you're talking about going back

to bed till eight in the morning i guess i don't know does that make sense or should we just good because then i can switch around my spells right okay so let's do it now a couple better ones for this we're hitting snooze so everyone hits the snooze button and uh yeah now the sun has risen you guys feel a little better rested your spells are a little learned you've had your coffee now uh let's get you on the road you're talking about just doing a short rest in giant town so uh you hop had your coffee now uh let's get you on the road you're talking about just doing a short rest in giant town so uh you hop on your war donkeys start blazing north i'm gonna get either a perception or survival check please call it out uh when we get there so roll, take a choice, and I'll go from there. I'll go through my Zoom gallery.

Hey, Chris, what'd you get? I got an 18 on perception. Nice. Going to keep swooping through that Zoom gallery in order. Blaine, what'd you get? I got a 14 perception. Ken, what did you get? Natural 20 plus four, that's 24.

Ooh. Of Perseppies? I perceive. Fuh, fuh, fuh, fuh, fuh. All right. Sarah, what'd you get? 20 perception. Jeez.

Jeez. Wheezes. Brian, what did you get? 11. You building Legos? What's going on over there uh 16 uh survival all right so uh cool nobody gets slowed down um as you start heading north uh uh queep you notice this too but because this is Halcine's map wisdom, I'm going to go ahead and give her the sort of alarm in her head.

You guys only get to a little bit past lunch when you notice there's definitely some signs of giants having been here. There's smashed encampments. There's dead animals left with their carcasses half eaten huge towels or slobs uh and you you know you make it a few more uh hours but as you get to sort of nighttime you can see up ahead there is some sort of like logs built into a wall kind of like over the path you were about to take like a gate or a fence like a gate well gate or a fence well can't quite tell yet it's about a mile away but it's very tall and you're like ah fuck i bet giants built that fucking thing definitely a gate and then if we sneak around it's definitely a wall

you don't know if they put it up there to block it or if there is a gate you don't know if giants give a shit about taking this path or if they're just trying to like own it territory wise so there's there's there's maybe uh is there a chance that mexico paid for it or uh you know kind of seems like they just went ahead and did it with no diplomacy whatsoever okay eminent domain so it's a gimme that

I think you guys would slow down a little bit as you realize you might be in visual range of some kind of being on the other side of this wall scouting let me send Gargo up there? Take a look? Yeah, do Gargo and Stargoyle want to go snoop around

Skies? Gus, what do you think? Do you want to go take a look? Yeah, boss. Let's do this thing. Yeah, I'm a different NPC, Ken Daly, you motherfucker. I'm sorry, there was a noise in my room and I got confused by everything. That's okay.

Who cares? Was it daily life? Was that the noise? Yes. So Gus flies up and over and you know, do a stealth check for Gus

and a perception check for Gus as he does his double scout duties. Stealth is a 15. He's feeling pretty sneaky. Perception is 21. Ooh, feeling even more eyeball-y. So he goes way up into the cloud cover and just kind of does a circle, comes back, says, a circle comes back uh says okay so i think there's giants pretty far away but they're not behind the wall behind the wall there is dead giants and some kind of weird dragon thing

which of the dragons what does it look like he describes to you some kind of it's purple. It's got big fairy wings and it's just sort of like fluttering around just sort of like behind this wall. It's a dragon. It's one of the Barrow Steps dragons. I remember that description. But there's a lot of giant

corpses. That's good. That means it's well fed at least. Maybe it'll be Logi. Yeah. We know there was a dragon that was bright purple with fairy wings. There's another black with beholder

stalks. We don't know the name of this one though, right? I'll let you do a history check. Maybe it'll take a nap. We can go stab it while it's sleeping. If anyone wants to try to know this dragon's name, the Barrow Steps dragons have been around for more than 10 years. They just were in hiding.

So they've mutated a bit. But maybe if you get a 20, I'll tell you what this guy's name is. Holy shit, I got a 20. As you said it. Hey, what'd you get, though? I got a 20 as you said it. How are what'd you get, though? I got a 20 as you said it. I got... Was it that loud?

It's these good quality mics. I'm not that... It sounded like me trying to get one of my jokes in. I was excited. I was very excited. All right, well, did anyone else get a 20? I mean... No. You can share in the glory. I actually just got a 20.

Hey! But you know what? I'm going to use that 20 to do my joke about I used the right of eminent lo mein to seize all the nearby Chinese food. Stepping back. Take it. That history check was brought to you by Lomane but Brian's you're gonna walk the zoom

that's incredibly specific reference yeah Brian, Dargthur recognizes this dragon, it's name is Hamf H-A-M-F it is also known as Feywild's Doom, Heaven's Clot, and Keeper of the Rivers. This dragon has often lived in the hills that you're about to kind of go around,

and you think at some point it mutated to resemble this sort of larger thing. But it was, you know, like a fairy dragon. And now it's giant. It's, it's... Hamps? Hamps. What's the saying? From the land of sky blue waters.

Keeper of the what? The rivers. Keeper of the rivers. Also known as Heaven's Clot or Feywild's Doom. Feywild's Doom. Heaven's Clot. Or the Keeper of the Feywild's Doom. Heaven's Clot. Or the Keeper of the Rivers, you guys. His name is Hamph.

He's a real asshole. I don't know what's happening. Is he related to the Honey Bake Hamphs? Yes. Sure. That's our response to every question about Lore for the rest of the episode. Yes. So if you want me to answer yes to something,

just now is the episode. Yes, Ant you want me to answer yes to something just just now is the episode yes and yes and yes and doesn't exist anymore all the improv schools are closed forever so you uh but you you recognize it is you know it's a fairy dragon you know it has uh the ability to plane shift you know it it has other strange abilities and it probably had help from other dragons to kill those giants. And it's like the one dragon left. And, and per Gus,

he thinks there might still be giants a little farther away. This seems like a recent battle. And Hamf is sort of just like left to keep watch at this wall. He also says there is like, there is no real gate on this wall it looks like the giants being as big as they are and many of them having wings just either climbed or flew over the gate like brutes and they didn't really use any kind of gate technology they just sort of broke some trees off and dragged them over here to build this wall.

It looks like you guys could get around the wall with your war donkeys. It's just going to involve kind of going in the woods and the hills a little bit. Ew, woods and hills. Let's do it. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Better than fighting a dragon that can plane shift.

Right. And he did say a dragon that can plane shift. Right. And he did say the dragon that can plane shift is sort of in the middle, like on the path. So if you will, it's like, here's the path. Here's the wall kind of intersecting it. And he's like right here. He's like right on the path behind the wall. He thinks he didn't see anyone else along the wall. And then if you go north kind of farther uh you

could stealth up around the wall great let's do it all right yeah let's get a stealth check from everybody as the sun begins to set on claudenheim and you sneak into the woods as the sun set on cloud and pine? Brian, what'd you get? I'm bad to roll it. Oh, Chris, what'd you get? 25. Blaine, what'd you get? 23. A three or a 23?

23. 23, hot damn. Ken, what did Queep get? 21. Hmm. I got a 15 plus five, 20. Jeez. Great. Sarah, what'd you get? I got a 19 plus 2 15 plus 5 20 geez great Sarah what'd you got

I got a 6 oh dear woof how dare you you just keep singing Valkyr's name over you know we

out loud we can hear you singing I'll see woof alright so you guys Buzz's girlfriend woof for a while you you pretty stealthily managed to like follow the hills off the path feeling like if this dragon hamph is peering

over the wall or through the wall at all it's not going to see you you make it past the main sort of path area of the wall into the woods you're kind of going through the woods and then um hal seen you know your war donkey just kind of like clomps right on a tree root and it kind of takes you a second to like adjust the war donkey while the rest of the party moves forward uh hal seen do a dexterity saving throw you're gonna land on your symbols and pots um that is a a 14. oh all right so you um are gonna get knocked off your donkey. You know, you kind of adjust your war donkey. Do you want to name it now as you get knocked off of it?

No. Not the right time? Not a good time. I dub thee Oscar. You get kind of like adjusted and you're like, okay, I didn't fall off. But you only make it a couple more steps when all of a sudden this unseen force wraps around you from behind and just like you just get yanked backwards into the underbrush. Everybody roll for initiative. Oh, shit.

Is everybody me or am I just not a part of this anymore no everybody you're definitely yeah yeah yeah i got a 19 and then a 19 7 17 never received a receipt or a bag and 24 all right i was not ready for anyone's stuff because I was rearranging for battle. We got a classic. Everyone calling out their initiative before Dan's brain works. 10. Darkthin, what'd you get? 24.

Thank you, sir. TikTok, what'd you get? 23. Thank you, sir. Halcyon, what'd you get? 17. Great. Queep, what'd you get?

I bet a nickel. 10. What the fuck? Dr. Uyghur, what'd you get I'd bet a nickel 10 what the fuck Dr. Uid what'd you get martini 19 19 hard castle

alright and then never see procedure back I feel bad for people who've been

listening for a little while but not enough to know all the things. And so sometimes I hear that 19, they're like, I know it's a bit, but what the fuck is going on? It's a song. It's an old song. And the never received a receipt or a bag is from a parody of that song.

So you got to know the song and then the parody. I don't even know why it plays every time in my head when I hear 19. It's because I have early onset dementia, I think. I have terrible memory. Google is 90% of my memory. Like, anytime I remember any reference, I'm like, wait, that's bad. Bing is 90% of mine. If you think that's bad, poor Jonah Ray did commercials for Bing.

Oh, man. I love Jonah for Bing. Oh, man. I love Jonah so much. He's amazing. In those Bing commercials, he's so, so funny. Just kidding. Up in the turn order first, we have Darkthor. All right, Darkthor, you're kind of trotting along. You and TikTok still sort of bringing up the front and all of a sudden you just hear uh this sort of whooshing sound after hal seen's donkey

uh clamps uh how soon do you yell or shout anything as you feel yourself get yanked off uh probably yeah i would imagine that i do being startled off a donkey by an unseen force that pulled me into the underbrush is that what you shout is that what yeah that's an interesting thing to shout very meta i if you're gonna let me shout whatever i want that's what i shout sarah taking no shit today uh so yeah uh darth you hear this extremely elaborate meta thing that hal seen shouts as you look over your shoulder you just sort of see your friend um get like like a like a like it looks like an arm um and then in a blur of movement this sort of black scaly arm just rips her and you see her kind of disappear into some sort of bushes

off to her left. You're right. I didn't know that it was actually visible. Like I thought you said unseen but it was just unseen to me because it's behind you. Yeah. I'm going after it. Okay.

Go for it sir You're pretty far ahead Are you going to stay on your war donkey Yes Okay But turn around and go To the left after it Alright

I picture the war donkeys like those little tiny ones That Yosemite Sam would ride And they were there Their legs would go up and down really fast Like Nestor the long eared Christmas donkey tiny ones that Yosemite Sam would ride and they were there. Their legs would go up and down really fast. Like Nestor the long-eared Christmas donkey? Nestor. Do an investigation check.

Did you guys all do a Nestor joke? That name's ruined forever. Oh man. My son. What was I doing? Investigation check. Investigation. 17 and then uh plus 118 all right um yeah you're looking around you find tracks kind of like leading um farther into the bushes, you'd have to get off your war donkey, you think, to follow them. I do. Okay.

You start heading towards a path. Up next in the turn order, we've got Tick Tock. Tick Tock, you see all this happen. What would you like to do? I will mirror Dark there. I'll say, Fingalding Diggleshhings the other way and so

we come up behind i hop off and tell finkelding diggleshings to stay and then i will like dark remember maybe did you say it's along the path it's like through some bushes kind of like up a little outcropping okay i will spread out from dark thereur. So like he said, he went to the left. I'll kind of go to the right. But same idea. Moving in on Black Scaly Arm. Okay. Do your own investigation check, please.

Great. Investigation. Eleven. So you're now sort of assisting Darkthor. You don't find much yet, except that once you start going north on this little area, you're getting farther off of the little... It's like you're on a very small path

and kind of between the trees, and now you're kind of going up a hill between some bushes and it looks like there's a maybe like another path behind a couple more bushes into a rocky cliff face but you can't quite see on this turn the rocky cliff face or anything so

okay so maybe I'll just say to Gus why don't you try and get us a sky eye so whenever he can do that sure roll and if you're going to separate him please roll an initiative for Gus this check brought to you by Paladino's poo night on zoom

this weekend fart of noise mop the poople John Cougar shit your pants foster the poophole green bidet Frankie goes to the bathroom insulting poop but tooday and Palladio's poop night on Zoom John Cougar shit your pants that's incredible I should have landed on that one he got an eight no the avalanche I want the avalanche! That was incredible. Just for your

reference, Chris, he is going to go at the end of the party. I can't believe Kaja Pupu's not playing. Yeah, I think that's some contractual shit. Tootsie Collins? This shit writes itself. 38 special.

All right. Up next. Dr. Uid, you see... You see everybody they kind of drop back. They're going after Halcine. Halcine seems to have disappeared. You're going to have to dismount

your war donkey and such. OJ, you stay right hereount your war donkey and such. Hote, you stay right here, little buddy. I'll be right back as soon as we all get killed. I'm going to leave my donkey, Hote, and I'm going to run back and join my compadres in getting killed. You said one more time you did cut out a little bit. Oh, sorry.

I'm going to get off my high donkey, and I I'm gonna go run and follow these guys great do an investigation check please eight eleven okay I'm immediately lost yeah I mean you do kind of like run in a different direction hobbled by kathy bates you can kind of hear the other guys uh but you're you're in a different area slightly to the east is what i'll say can i do a uh norman fell turn the camera go great uh queep you're up i'm going to head in there towards your own investigation. Check, sir.

All right, then that is a 17. Not too shabby. All right. Uh, you actually do find the rest of the, you can either choose.

Do you want to kind of go off of Dr. Wood or do you want to get a little closer to this Rocky Crag you see the other two are at? Rocky Crag. All right. Just prepping the map for y'all. Rocky Crag. And before Halcine, we're going to get Gus. What's Gus going to do exactly?

I think he's probably most valuable to us to being kind of like an eye in the sky. So help. Yeah, do a perception check for the sky. Will do. God, even with advantage 12.

Okay. Yeah, you can't quite see much through the trees. Do you? With just a 12, uh yeah you can't quite see much through the trees you um with just a 12 though you can see uh hal seen uh has just sort of like lurched uh to a stop uh she's sort of by herself and i'm gonna with that 12 go ahead and drop a new map on you guys. So here comes this. Oh. Sorry, somebody just blew up a dumpster behind my apartment. Let me see what happened.

Oh no. Probably an M80. Halcine, you're up. You kind of have been dragged back like really fast. You went, you know, what felt like a really long period of time and then suddenly ground to a halt and got dropped on your butt. You're going to take just one point of damage,

a very petty amount of damage as you sort of get dropped in the dirt. You hear something and you can turn over your shoulder to see what it is behind your shoulder to try to get a look at what grabbed you. Do you want to go for it? Yes. Yeah. Okay. It's going to try to get you into its lair. Don't do it.

This is of course going to be a perception check. Ugh. For crying out loud. That's a 10. Yeah yeah you don't quite see it unfortunately so i can't even see it you see a motion of black scales kind of disappear into the rocky crag behind you so not a lot i can do i had all my spells were all ready to use when I could when it had its scales wrapped around me well I mean that's the thing

like it's about I mean if you look at the map it's like about 10 feet behind you so if you wanted you could try to do something to just the darkness and the rocks yeah to do something to just the darkness and the rocks. Yeah. How about the holy hand grenade

of Antioch? Okay, well I mean yeah, everything that I had prepared I needed to be able to obviously see the thing, so I'm just going to run I guess towards where everybody else is for right now. Okay.

And run back away. Because I was excited to fight this thing, but if I can't see it, I can't do that. So goodbye. Wow. Try again, bitch. It's not you, Dan. I'm talking to the dragon.

Also Dan a little. All right, move where you would like to be uh sarah uh we i don't normally do movement here so i'm with the role this is the first time we've done roll 20 for this so i'm gonna put my shirt here yeah nice okay um you guys see that happen and then a bolt of energy is going to fly out of the darkness towards hal seen here so do do do is this because i called you a bitch absolutely um dungeon master confession uh this is going to be a dexterity saving throw for you halstein um 11 nope okay so so you guys see a sort of sickly brownish green ray of energy fire out of the rocky crags queep tick tock and dark there and just smack into hal seen's back as she runs away uh hal seen you start feeling stiff uh and you guys all see her body sort of slow and grind as she turns to stone what no um now i have advantage against being charmed uh was that a charm spell

to charm me into stone uh no You are now petrified. Holy shit. You're petrified. I'm not scared at all. Alright. It's a word that means more than one thing. Dark Thur, you're up. Shit. So what do I see other than her get turned to stone?

Where is this guy? It came from, and I'll ping it on the map. It came from like right here in this crag. But we can't see it. No. And as you look, it almost seems too small for you guys to fit in there. It must have been like almost like a worm. Oh, I have one question though i do have a feat that's kind of weird um we talked about it before with the where if an effect sorry

but if it allows half damage on success you can use it to take no damage but that's not the case here but it also says that i can add my shields ac bonus to any deck saving throw that i make against effects the target only me. That is exactly what happened. Holy cow! What did you roll again? What did I roll, guys? 11, I think?

I think I rolled an 8 plus a 3 sounds right, or a 9 plus a 3. And what did you get to add? I'm looking right now because I'm sorry, I'm trying to use the online thing and I'm not used to it my apologies Blaine what was this reference to an attempt to escape petrification brought to us by brought to you by paladinos poop night on zoom brought to you by searing abdominal cramps. Makers of hot farts and vomiting. Serial abdominal cramps.

Dan? Um, Dan? Uh, I don't have my... It's that special shield I have. My dragon scale shield. I don't have it online. So I don't know if you have it from when the Baron gave it to me.

You know what the AC bonus is on it, but... Yeah, what is... Yeah, one sec. Sorry, guys. It's okay. It's a magical item. And if it helps... I mean, it's probably plus 20. That's definitely it. I mean, the Baron is pretty good.

19. This check brought to you by D-D-D-Diet, Diet, Diet Beef. Like my regular shield, the regular shield I started with has plus two AC. So I just haven't entered my special Typhoon shield, summon storm when lightning damage,

1d8 plus force damage. Yeah, but I don't, I didn't write down. Maybe I never even knew. I think it's plus two okay all right so then it would have been a 13 or 14 i guess uh unfortunately you would have needed a 16 okay sorry that was a huge waste of time but uh you know forgive me it's worth it to try not to be petrified. Yeah, I did my best. Yeah, I would do that too. The look on my face on my stone statue is real pissed off. So when I turn out of stone again, this dragon better be ready. All right, Darkthor, you're up.

Or whatever it is. Well, I kind of don't know what to do uh is there any sarah's still stone right or no or she sure is and you know what actually since it is the top of the turn order i'm going to say you all see uh how seen just sort of like creak to a halt and incredibly pissed off look on her face as she racks through all her magical abilities, trying to think of what could save her. And all of you just sort of see, um, what looks like an eye stalk with black scales,

uh, around the eye, just sort of retract back into the shadows. And we will call the episode there. God. Uh, she is stock. Another beholder thing.

This is not a dragon. Do we know how to save Sarah? We gotta figure out how to reverse petrification. Do we know how to reverse this thing for Sarah? I bet you a clear could do it. Uh oh. We don't have one anymore. Maybe a druid.

Well, we have me and I have ten. Can you do it? do it okay well we'll talk about it uh sam hi guys how are you great can you tell us what happened i sure can uh it's very fun going from star wars directly to if you look in these donkeys bags they have call traps um you guys know i love a good rest i think it's important um i think i realized today a big reason why i'm having a hard time following this game is because everyone won't name their donkey so it's hard for me oh um i was mine's named ad rock oh okay i'm up to date then mine's hota donkey hota i feel like our poop run at paladinos only came up because sarah clarified that it's only diarrhea jokes

she doesn't particularly care for and in quite possibly our best passive aggressive dungeon master move sarah said i'm not talking to you dan i'm talking to the dragon and then was immediately turned to stone uh anything anybody wants to plug no uh all right well me and uh stacy keach uh we're in the bookmobile this week Well, me and Stacy Keech were in the bookmobile this week driving from town to town reading the book. This week it's

Dino by Nick Tosh's The Biography of Dean Martin. Wow, nice. Yeah, it's a good one. It's one of my favorites. And listening to Stacy puts his back into it. He didn't really drink that much. Well, you know, towards the end he has covered some stuff up. But it's all

in the book. I have a new DJ show on Gimme Metal every Tuesday at 10 a.m. Pacific. I play two hours of my favorite heavy metal. It's called Grandpa's Metal Stash. And then also my record, Grandpa Metal, is still available everywhere, and I have two videos coming soon. A Weird Al video I did with him, and the title track, Grandpa Metal. And that'll all be on YouTube at Posting the Band.

Now, Brian, do you put a lot of wax on your mustache when you do Grandpa's Metal Stache? No. I do have some grooming things that I use, but no rats. What kind of grooming things do you use, Brian? I have an oil and a salve that I put on my beard. You ever put barats in your beard? No, I do not.

You ever put rubber bands in it like Captain Lou Albano? I do. And then I have Melanie dressed like Cyndy lopper and i chase her around the house thanks for listening everybody 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.