Nerd Poker - Episode 85 - The Age Of Elves

Episode Date: September 8, 2020

The time has come for the Ice Five to make their play. Will they trust the elves that showed up at the doorstep of the altar? Will one of the Ice Five themselves attempt to ascend to the mantle of the Tenebrous One? Will everything get set on fire? Better listen soon before you read about what happens on the internet somewhere!

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, Blay, Chris. Now it's time for another episode of Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Season 3! Hey everybody, it's Brian Poussaint, and you're listening to Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker.

Uh, episode 85. My friends are here. Um, I see them. I'm looking. Uh, hey Dan. Hey, Dan. Oh, hi. Hey, Ken. I am Ken. Nice. That's important.

Sarah. Hello. Hi. Chris. Hello. A little bit of a reverb on that. Oh, really?

No, no, not there. Now that sounded smooth. Uh, blame. No, I'm Ken.

Ken. Ken. God damn it. And in the upper left with the dog on his lap, Sam. Hello, Sam. Brian,

that's not a dog. Brian, Brian. Oh shit. That's not his lap either. What the fuck is happening? Wow. Already.

Happy birthday to you. And all of a sudden, we're behind you in the Zoom room. Oh, God. I have a heart attack on Zoom. Dan. Brian. If only there were people that we could thank for our existence as a podcast. Holy shit, you better back the fuck up because I got a whole parade of folks you can thank.

You want to do this? You want to fucking go? We should go. We should do it. Here it comes. Stare deeply into my eyes, Brian as i across the internet communicate you uh some patreon supporters who go by names like jonathan wood thank you jonathan wood thanks jonathan thank you non-specific thank you non-specific thanks non thank you arrow land e-r-o land

thank you thank you thank you i wonder what this is a reference to lord brownington thank you lord brownington thank you want some rye course you do who doesn't uh thank you hobby lobbies homerobby robbery hobby thanks hl nice job dan yeah well done triple word score thank you manfred manthrax i'll take it yeah thank you gwilom thanks gwilom thank you jason sprouse thank you jeremy rossman thank you caca motherfucker exclamation point thank you chris scullies. Thank you, Sir May I Have Another. He likes big butts and he cannot lie. And he's knighted by, I assume, the King of Have Another.

Thank you, Gregory Dodds. Thank you, Brent. Thank you. Nigel's Not So Great Sword. Thank you, Barf Priest. Thank you. Thank you. Is that Barf Priest open for GWAR? Go ahead.

Thank you, Davin Applewhite. Thank you, Jokers LOL. Thank you. Thank you, DrunkenPixieMotherfucker69. Alright. That's all over the place. I saw him in Insane Clown Posse

or at the Gathering of the Juggalos in 014. There's a brag. Happy birthday. We got two more. Thank you. The almost audible eye rolls of Sarah. Thank you. Almost.

That almost triggered one. JK, it did. And of course, thank you. Sorry, Blaine. My name is Ozzyzy not arty johnson oh that's very interesting but stupid if you don't know what we're talking about look it up in your fucking wagnalls hey you don't have to cuss

uh there was definitely a point where i tried to like like, as an eight-year-old, figure out how to turn Funkin' Waggles into something dirty to amuse my friends. Hey, Blaine, who are those Patreon supporters brought to us by? Those Patreon supporters brought to you by Jack Daniels 2% milk. 2% milk. 98% Jack Daniels. Get your breakfast on with Jack Daniels 2% milk. 98% Jack Daniels. Get your breakfast on with Jack Daniels 2% milk. Woo! Dan?

Oh, for Jim Bean 2% myself. Hey, everybody. Here we are. It was awesome to watch Blaine lean out of his house so he didn't... He wasn't too hot in the mic. He went way back how are the wheels on that office chair they're fucking

yeah I'm like the old Amish guy in Witness I don't even get that but it's funny look it up in your funk and wagnalls god damn it quick cursor right under honey badger alright you guys well we're here it's episode 85

and it's time to talk about what happened last time on nerd poker that's right i'm trying to evoke some fucking chris tallman level shit here we go listeners he's in a darkened room with a gauzy drink yeah sure and a bluish red light in his face the ice five have found the altar of the tenebrous one and they're just fucking chilling you know how it is y'all

when you get to the altar of a gehenna goddess god like sort of mantle thing and you're all just hanging and cracking open a Pacifico and talking about whether you should merge yourself with the divine omnipotence.

Anyway, you spent a couple of days and you waited for Halcyon's father arriving from far away and you're deciding, should we trust Vincenzo Eberlo alright so that's about all I gotta say about that

you guys I assume have been spending some time just sort of talking you know intense Dungeons and Dragons strategy and like really getting into diplomacy like you know over text message and really just sort of deciding how to proceed why don't you

clue our listeners in on on your progress hmm go first yeah anybody we didn't do that dan to be honest that's exactly what i expected um but uh yeah so right now you are hanging out and of course you've been shown and i'll try and remind you guys as much of this as possible i understand things are a little tense so you're probably like hoping i will just like drop some big clues in your lap but uh you've you've just met vincenzo halcyon's's father, and the High Council of Vindaria. I'm going to go ahead and show you. Aaron English has given us updated art on them,

spending a little more time showing this off. So this is them. They've got with them a homunculus automaton who has been programmed to know nothing and do nothing other than absorb the mantle of the Tenebris one and then immediately destroy it as soon as that has happened using the power. We're just deciding whether we want this to happen or not. And I think where we left it was...

Yeah, go ahead, Blaine. You've been invited to inspect it. Vincenzo is over there on the left. And he's got an artifact in the book. And he told you that it's hopefully going to be powerful enough that you'll be able to merge this you know this being thing this homunculus with the the mantle of the tenebrous one but it's unclear like uh whether you trust and so you've been invited to inspect i'm now going to text this image to you guys so you can look at it uh whenever you guys feel like it just if you're

like super into this sort of art from aaron english gorgeous i just want to like look at all the fine details i i stand by my last week stance which is uh this is gonna backfire real bad like little rascals exhaust in our eyes and leave a little ring kind of thing. And I think you're probably right. But I think the problem was we were like, what else are we like? We literally don't have another plan.

Well, it's one of us or that thing. Right. Yeah. I can last somebody else. Vincenzo senses that you guys are a little nervous and offers to explain more of why there's urgency to do this yeah also we can sorry but just as a sidebar to us if there's concern about the um their artifacts not being strong enough we that's

also what we could contribute would be like the telekinesis eye or something that might work, you know, but, um, we have three druidic artifacts. If we really want to juice this thing up, you could pop all three in. Right. Is it too much? I don't know.

Do we all trust Sarah's dad? Well, Vincenzo would like to, yeah, say like, okay, well, here's why I,

it took us two days to get here because we weren't sure how we were going to get here we knew the location i'll try and get a little more into character excuse me uh this is what we tried of course to get here as quickly as we could but there were magical traps strewn all over clodenheim to keep us from ever returning from the feywild you'll remember the archmage of Vanzervale was once amongst our number in the High Council, and he set magical traps to prevent anyone from getting to the altar. So we wanted to make sure they were deactivated so we would not fall into them before we met you here at the altar. But all over Cloddenheim, he set these traps to keep

people from reaching places of power, and it turned out that he has been slain. He set these traps to keep people from reaching places of power, and it turned out that he has been slain. The Archmage of Anzervale is now dead. Unfortunately, the being who slayed the Archmage is the Violet Fang, who we do not trust. We believe she may definitely on the way, a dragon known as Zetagog, who possesses in his own being his sort of cloud-like dragon-nesses flying this way. He possesses an artifact that is more than capable of merging him with the mantle.

And unfortunately, all he really needs to do is stick his head through this portal. His power over the wind can easily part the cloud of insects that hovers around Pandemonium's fang. And his artifact is more powerful than I'm sure any we have. It is the tear of a god named Valkyr. It is this crystallized orb believed to be one of valkyr's tears what he plans on using that to merge himself with the crown of the tenebrous one my valkyr oh shit that is that is the impression you're getting from what it sounds like is that this

is sort of like the we have to make the best of a bunch of bad choices sort of like if there's like an election or something and like none of the choices seem like your first choice and yet something very terrible will happen if you don't just compromise there's a clock ticking and put a faceless homunculus in the position of power to prevent it definitely feels like this decision will be made for you if you do not make it um they they also make it clear there's no way to shut the portal behind them once it's been opened should we show them our artifacts and get an opinion on what they think is best and they they say you know they're very like graceful powerful upper crusty kind of folks they're they're older elves so they've been around for a long time they're wealthy

and but they they you know are very calm seeming despite all the tension they're trying to convey to you they're saying just you know we hope you'll trust us you may inspect the homunculus you may ask us anything you want just know time is of the essence if the homunculus doesn't do what you want it to do what is your plan well we really don't have much of a backup plan um unfortunately we have at least spent years perfecting this homunculus we've been trying to attune other automatons to magical objects that are imbued with high levels of power. And we've had a lot of success, so we're hopeful that this is going to work. Hopeful this is going to work. This is our best idea, and we believe it is safe.

And we invite you to tell us if you have a better one. Unfortunately, we believe this is the only way to prevent someone from being corrupted with the inherent evil of the power. This is a being incapable of any sort of good or bad alignment, any good or bad intentions. It can only do two things, accept and destroy the thing that it accepted. And so you're saying, were we hypothetically to say, no, no, no, no, no, I'm going to become the Tenebrous One, not that homunculus, a being that did that would become corrupted by the power. They would have to fight impulses to commit great acts of chaos

and destruction. Whether or not any of you are capable, we all doubt. We're skeptical that we ourselves could handle such power. None of us want to do that anyway, right? Halcine was pretty keen on me doing it.

Everyone's joked about in particular TikTok. Halcine, you don on me doing it. Everyone's joked about... I just thought it'd be fun, but yeah. In particular, TikTok. Halcine, you don't want to do it? Last time you raised your hand, it was very dramatic. You definitely baited Halcine to do it also. I thought it would be very funny. It's been a little less of a common baiting than the TikTok thing.

I'm looking forward to something happening. And it feels like something will. I feel like our best choice is thisunculus because it hopefully it's neutral. They're saying it's neutral. It's much better than any one of us doing anything because we can. It's going to be bad, but probably the least bad of the bad. Let's do it. All right.

I used to consider myself a never homunculus, sir. But you got to do it. I used to consider myself a never-humunculous-er, but with current political situations, yeah, I'll go homunculus. Yeah, we can offer them if they think one will be more effective. I would like to hear Brian pronounce homunculus correctly. I think we all would prefer that. Intentionally mispronouncing it. Humunculus. Motherfucker.

It's spelled weird, right? It's like H-U-M, like human, and then onk, O-N-C. Homunculus. H-U-M-O-N. Homunculus. Homunculus. Homunculus. Like humming. Homunculus.

Homunculus. Homunculus. This word, by the way, is how I bonded with Paul F. Homunculus. And Greg Proops when I did a split 7-inch with them like 12 years ago. They barely knew me, and they were like, you said homunculus on this record. Good for you. We actually trust your abilities.

High homunculus count. Do you say homunculus or homunculus? Put that faceless thing in there, and let's corrupt the world. All right. Let's homunculate let me delete some pictures of my cat so that i have pictures to room on my phone for this all right so uh they nod and they say uh thank you uh we will we also are we're not sure you know um how quickly we'll have to make haste so we would like to present you with with some things to say

thank you from the city of vendaria we we're hoping how seen you'll be able to help vendaria come back to cloddenheim um as as someone who is of course related to us uh and they they they open up um one of the one of them has like a belt pouch on their robe and they open it up and they take out a series of necklaces with gems on them just five of them but they all have like a glowing sort of orangish gem

embedded in them and they start the two women start carrying the homunculus and they lay it down on the altar alright okay what do these necklaces do and start carrying the homunculus and they lay it down on the altar. All right. Okay. What do these necklaces do?

They say, well, these will be able to teleport you to the city of Vindaria. Oh, cool. They're one-time use, but perhaps if you're looking for a next adventure, this will be the catalyst for it, if you will. Interesting. So they lay the homunculus down. They place their artifact in the sort of basin,

and they say, have you told them at all that you wanted to offer your artifacts? I think you guys discussed it. I think we did, right? Which ones do you want to offer them? I think you guys discussed it but you we i think we did right yeah which ones do you want to offer them i think you have three so what do they think whatever they think yeah right yeah we want this we want this to have the best chance of working i think they'll they'll sort of look around at each other and are like like relieved like they kind of like go and they're like this will virtually guarantee it will work it will at least too many stamps on something it's exactly right he's he says this

is this is like putting a few forever stamps on a very important package support the post office by the way they're just like whatever you can offer it's going to amplify the druidic artifact we're placing in here so it's up to you do it they're your belongings all three of them what do you what do we want to keep we have the coral the eye and the necklace the time travel necklace the goblin the goblin your necklace um i feel like the coral is the least help well no the eye is kind of not that helpful because technically we've been carting it around so and i think it's only got one shot one charge left so maybe the eye and then we keep and the coral probably too i think if it's a lemans tiny hut is a spell that we can get

yeah otherwise you know it's also once a week yeah yeah i think that time travel thing is like we should hang on to even though it's once a year i feel like that could be a useful could be useful right after this well i used it to unpetrify yeah well um okay i'm just if we have a charge on the eye maybe we want to save that to defend ourselves but it's just telekinesis right i mean i feel like i don't. I think we put all three of them in. Like, let's light this thing up to make it work, right? I'm okay with that, yeah. Okay. Goodbye, necklace. Throw away all that shit.

Bye, necklace of ears. No. Goblin ears. I kiss one of the ears gently. Lay it down. When you do it, Vincenzo kind of like raises an eyebrow like. Ew, I don't actually kiss a goblin ear cross. Well, not you

but hal seen would hal seen do it i mean she did drink a whale fat stout so i wouldn't put it past her that was to get drunk well you don't know if you'll get drunk from kissing a goblin your necklace let's probably a lot of fumes yeah okay here we go you give you give the three artifacts over there they're very grateful um look it give you a dollar and the other male elf do do say you know we should perhaps step just outside the portal we're not sure how dangerous uh this is going to be oh okay sure but don't you want to see what he does so leave those two elves and that homunculus alone and just hope it all goes right? That's right. Is there a way we can watch?

Do you have a spell, perhaps, that will allow such a thing to happen? It's just fun how you showed up. Okay. All right. Is there a window in a Jiffy Lube where I can sit in the waiting room with my coffee but still watch the work being done on my car? You're welcome to try and stay but we're recommending

that only these two elves stay. And why those two elves? Just simple questions. Why these two elves? Well, we need someone to try to make sure they have to cast a spell to destroy the artifacts and then

they will try to escape but there's a chance that the sequence of events will happen too fast. All right, well, I think we should leave. One of the elves leaves. I mean, it's going to happen either way. The male elf you haven't met yet has already exited. Vincenzo is waiting with you to see what you want to do. Hey, praise Valkyr. Hope Valkyr protects you guys.

Good luck. The two women nod and say, praise Valkyr. Is he super charismatic? Who, Vincenzo? Yeah. Halcine's dad? He's very handsome.

Oh, he's pretty handsome. Yeah, you could tell from the art. He's a looker. Guys, it's my dad. Would you cut it out? This is weird. Your dad's hot. Does he look like a Goblin Ear licker?

No. In fact, you noticed he placed the Goblin Ear necklace in the basin and didn't touch it with his mouth face once. No tongue action on the Goblin Ear necklace. All right. Enough of this. Let's get out of here. Have a nice transubstantiation are we okay we're sure all right sure let's go stand on the ledge near the bug swarm if we can't watch if we could at least be adjacent might be good well they said sure we actually recommend you know we just to again to be

slightly in control of the situation let's all wait on that little alcove rocky outcropping by the portal um and so you step through and i'm gonna leave my gopro in here vincenzo uh leads the way you all kind of back into existence um the other elf introduces himself. He says his name is Frederick and he says this is hopefully going to be a good day. There's a lot we can do to thank you should you ever come to Vendaria. Right now, we're

just hoping Zetigog does not arrive. Oh, right. The dragon with the tear. And how? So, you know, like a minute or two Passes and one of the women elves Exits and says Alright, we're about to get started The spell is being cast, she introduces herself Her name is Karen

And she says, thank you Everyone For what you've done here today You've saved all of Claude and I'm surely I whisper to Hal's scene hell scene welcome is that karen oh remember was karen the name of arthur threxshaw's house karen is that karen it was was that the name of his wife that's a name uh that you jokingly pulled out as someone when you made an intimidation check against Arthur Threxhaw. Do I actually think it's his wife, though?

Do an insight check. Oh, no, guys. That doesn't seem good. Does anything right now? Well, my insight check was no good either. Ask Congress. What did you roll five plus three so eight i mean you're you're you're not i mean he definitely arthur flexhaw recognized the name

karen when you said it so uh you and you do remember there being someone named karen in the vendaria high council so whether those two things are directly connected you're not sure do you know freder. Do you know a Frederick? Would you know a Frederick if it was from the High Council? She might. I'd let her roll another insight check. Here we go. Natural 20 plus 3. Oh, natural 20 plus 3.

Frederick Hexend was a member of the Vendaria High Council, and he passed away about 25 years ago. Uh-oh. A-guh-guh-guh. Hey, Dad. So I turned... We've been so focused on the whole apocalypse thing. Uh-huh.

What happened? I thought you were killed, assassinated. He kind of shifts uncomfortably and says, well, we all had to make some sacrifices to keep Vendaria standing. Are you dead? I'm here in front of you,

and that's all that matters. It is me. Is that portal still open? So, the last elf comes through the portal and says, brace yourselves. It is time. And she says,

everyone, I recommend going to the sides of this alcove away from the portal. What do you guys do? I'm going to go away from the portal to the sides. Alright, I'm going to need everybody to do the dexterity saving throw difficulty 20 oh great

I got a 19 plus 3 lovely I gotta restart on my D&D month 15 cool what'd you get dark oh wait i'm wrong uh

23 dark safe dr it would safe uh anyone else got a dick saving throw number for me um i got an eight 21 what's your bonus do you have

good bonus yeah tick tock what you got 15 21. What's your bonus? Do you have? Creeps good? Is that including your bonus? Yeah. TikTok, what you got? 15. 15? Okay.

So there is just a rocket of white light that fires out of this portal, like turning the whole thing into just sort of a cylinder that cuts through the swarming bugs that are circling the mountain. All of you instinctively grab the cliff face, which is roughly hewn in the sides of this alcove. Unfortunately, Halcine and TikTok, when you do that, your hands immediately slip away and the force of the blast starts dragging you

to the edge of the cliff. You're trying to grab and you've only got about a second before you know you're going to slide off the edge of the alcove. Do any of us see that? Can we help? You all see

it. You've only got one second to react. Can I throw a rope? Alright, Darkthor, I'm gonna have you do an athletics check. Alright. That's one of my... All right, Darkthor, I'm going to have you do an athletics check. All right. That's one of my...

Could have used that charge. Oh, well. Die and learn, I guess. Die and learn. My favorite James Bond movie. 18 plus 5 is that the one with french stewart uh

halseen um you see a rope fly right in front of you uh want to do an athletics check to grab it sure uh be a 15 i mean you know it's not dr. do you have anything you would like to do for tiktok

yes i will wait do i get to do something though i'm waiting for you to roll i'm giving them a while you roll your athletics check oh i failed the athletics check but i meant do i get to do anything to react to almost we're gonna see if they either either of them do something for tiktok and then we'll get to what happens next i have a quarter staff and i'm going to extend my quarter staff to tikt quarter staff to TikTok. Great. To see if you can slap it within one second right in front of TikTok, we're going to get an athletics check.

It's not a rope, so it's a little bit easier. I'm going to just say the difficulty on this is a 12. I got a 15 plus, what is it, athletics? Yep. 15 plus 318. And TikTok, you're grabbing it, right? Yeah, I would. Roll it. So what am I rolling? Athletics? Yep. 15 plus 3, 18. And Tick Tock, you're grabbing it, right? Yeah, I would. Roll it. So what am I rolling?

Grab a quarterstaff. It'll be a 15. Uh, what? Dexter? Athletics. Athletics. I'm sorry. Athletics. Athletics. It's actually a buck and a quarter quarterstaff, but I'm not telling him that. 17. Oh, perfect. Okay, so Halcine, you notice Tick Tock go, ah, and grab a quarterstaff staff you just can't quite

manage uh you start sliding back i said i was also throwing a rope by the way and your fingers are reaching the edge uh can i roll an athletics check don't i get it okay you're gonna get something yeah i mean you failed your dex check which is why you're slipping and you fail to grab at the rope so i'm giving you oh the rope you oh yeah you you there was one move you're now at the edge and if you miss this rope i will let you try to just grab the edge of the cliff but uh would you roll on that athletics check there queep 50 plus 6 or 21 beautiful the rope lands right across your hands hal seen why don't you roll an athletics check to see if you can flex those fingers out and grab it do it i mean okay i was gonna try to cast gust of wind away from me but oh that's a natural 20 plus you grab it i would have still let you cast gust of wind

for the record i was just uh if you're going to choose to grab at a rope you don't have to i would have allowed you to say i don't want to to do that. I'll go cast Gust of Wind. All of you should feel so bold as to say, Dan, no. And then I'll tell you if I accept your no. But yes, you managed to grab it. And you guys just are holding on real tight. I'm not going to make you do another check to see if you can hold it for now. But it is taking all of your strength just to like hold on to the ropes your friends are grabbing the edges of right now um all the elves are fine yes they're just i would help

since my rope failed i would help queep pull i'll i'll grab uh along with queep and pull how seen right now uh queep is, when I get a turn. Right, right. And unfortunately, right now, all of you are using all of your strength just to hold on for your own sake. If you were to let go or try to move across, you feel you would probably just get thrown off the mountain

and only have a second to save yourself. It's a lot of energy and force just pressing out of it. And then just as quickly as it started it stops so after only about 10-15 seconds of this uh everything is suddenly eerily quiet you notice the insects are gone it seems like like a laser that was like 10 feet in diameter just cut through the insects and they lost all interest as they just were getting sliced up by this laser for 30 seconds so uh yeah everything's very quiet and um we have any idea where the laser came from

the portal is just the port i mean it was it was oh yeah it was likely the uh that the mantle of the tenebrous one and vincenzo says uh it is done and the portal's closed how do you know it's done the portal is still open actually let's go we got to go see what happened right look in look in do we want to go first i mean i'm hanging off the mountain we're going to just make sure everything went well, but you're well-housed. Better make sure your super secret plan went the way according to your super secret way. Well, we also got to talk about the fact now that there's a bunch of dead people running this plan.

Yeah. So you all walk into the chamber through the portal. Yeah. Well, is he dead? You thought your dad was dead. He is dead. That's what he just basically admitted to. He was like, I was like, I thought you were dead, and he's like, a lot of sacrifices were made, and then the other dad was dead he is dead that's what he just basically admitted to he was like i was like i thought you were dead and he's like a lot of sacrifices were made and then the other guy was dead 25 years ago so i feel like they're all like necromantically still maybe they're

liches now are they liches dan uh well first you walk through the portal right yes do we want to go through this portal again well i got it i got to see what happened here so all right so you all you know we don't all have to but i i have oh well okay let's talk about it is everybody going through this portal or do you guys want to start a conversation first because the four elves are just like one foot about to go through it as long as they're walking in and they're inviting you to go with yeah they're going in first sure all right yeah okay all right they go you follow and uh do everybody do an inside check inside check feels don't nobody inside of me eight plus four twelve not a sentence i just tried to wedge on there. Sixteen. Twelve, sixteen. What else?

What else? Thirteen. Twenty. Oh. This many. Momp. Is Gus okay, by the way? Gus is fine. He's been clinging to TikTok the whole time. Okay. Quietly, just sort of like bug eyes staring around at

everybody and listening intently, waiting to be brought into the conversation. Hey, boss, this is crazy. Oh, boy. It sure is. I got lots of thoughts on this nonsense. Whoa. So you all step through.

And as you step through, Queep, you're thinking about it and you're like, oh, man, I've been betrayed by people because they wouldn't listen to me you know like i i tried to warn my people i tried to tell them the giants were a danger you know i still don't really even know what happened to one of my parents who got kidnapped and like here we are one of my parents is dead and like all my people pretty much got cleaned out of my home. And like, these guys got to be hiding something. There's something fucking that happened. And as you go through the portal, you all notice the crown is gone. And so is the homunculus. Did it work?

Where's the homunculus, guys? Are you asking me or are you asking them did it go to its plane of existence where it now rules with an iron monkey fist uh well they say you have well let me let us put it to you this way um we can explain here or if you like to use your necklaces now, we can discuss this in Vendaria. That's what these will do. These will just transport us in a friendly-like way to Vendaria and not, like, disintegrate us or whatever.

Why don't you give us the TLDR right now, and then we can go over the details later? Very well. We were not completely honest. Oh, it was bruised. Shocking. That was not a simple homunculus. we were not completely honest. Shocking. That was not a simple homunculus. That was King Valix in disguise.

What? We did what we had to do. We're so stupid. We said that we had no other choice, but I feel like that was not on our list of possibilities. Okay. The good news is King Valix now has the power to bring vindaria to claudenheim himself and we believe that he is doing so right now he also has the power to destroy the warforged army waiting for it with but a swipe of his hand yes uh mechanical

man you have a question yeah going back to that shit we talked about before, when you said a regular creature could be corrupted by this power. What about that? And we have a follow-up. We may have exaggerated our concern based on our trust in our king. Say that in regular talk. We believed that we were making the correct choice in helping King Valix ascend. So when you asked that question, we were reassured that our choice was correct. But we still believe that none of you would have been able to handle the transformation.

But he would. Yes. And he's not corrupt. For many reasons but he would yes he's and he's not corrupt for many reasons he would is he alive no none of us are unfortunately we have been in the feywild for centuries what seemed like only a little over a decade for you was centuries for us very few of the sun elves are still what you might call flesh and bone um most of them are undead but we are hoping that by bringing them

to cloddenheim we will be able to nurture a respect between the immortal sun elves of vendaria who are undead so to speak and the living Elves and repopulate Clottenheim with the two of those kinds of Sun Elves living in harmony. So you're trying to bring back an army of the undead. Undead Elves. Not an army,

a civilization of the undead. And why destroy the Warforged? They came to kill us. It's the only reason we became undead right and why destroy the warforged they came to kill us it's the only reason we became undead those centuries ago is to protect ourselves through necromancy we could really use we could really use that goblin ear necklace right now you guys so what you're saying is if you guys if you just brought the city back with the warforged army immediately wake up and attack is that what you're saying? Yes, that's exactly what we were saying. They're like programmed to wait until the city appears.

And we should be more than powerful enough to wipe out the war forged army as soon as Vendaria appears, which should have already happened by now while we're having this conversation. Oh, dear. Hey, what about the other? Yeah. hey uh what about the other talk yeah tick tock i i look to tick tock and i'm like uh hey can you uh uh yep have a a penny for your thoughts i say wink wink a penny for your thoughts i make a like a penny for those thoughts of yours I'm hoping that he will check in with the Baron Everybody do a perception check Oh my god

No I did not perceive I botched my perception check Which means I just tripped up some steps In front of a bunch of people. 17. You were about to go to prom.

17 also. 18. 18 was what you needed. Good job. TikTok and Darkthor, you notice the three elves who are not Vincenzo, their eyes are darting back and forth quickly, which you recognize as a sign they are beginning a spell. Well?

Do something. I don't see it. Use the necklace? I don't see it. These assholes are starting to spell. Hey! Vincenzo says they're merely returning to Vendaria. Well, we didn't...

agree to that. They go... And Vincenzo is the last one remaining. So you think we should come with you now to Vendaria? I recommend it. I would merely like to introduce you to the rest of the royal court. We develop our relationship from here and enter the new era of Clottenheim. I'm like, dad, this sucks.

I'm really disappointed. I'm not so much mad as I am disappointed really in what you've become it was not my choice to become undead and i had to do something in the centuries i was gone or you'd go crazy right you need a hobby you need kind of an outlet so there's really no piano or garden or something basically claudenheim is just sort of fucked no matter what it's just yeah and he says um you no longer need those necklaces in fact i don't recommend uh that you use them they do teleport you to a holding area in vindaria which you're welcome to go to but we will open our gates as soon as you head south to Vendaria. There is no need for being teleported to a holding area. In fact, the holding area might be where we have to put Warforged.

So it might be dangerous to use those necklaces now. You're welcome to keep them for strategic reasons as a gesture of trust. Aye, aye, aye. Well, guys, this is kind of fucked see tiktok should have become the tenebrous one

uh well the crown is gone now yeah well yeah but now this i feel like you being corrupted would have been better than uh the undead king of thousand year old king of the angry sun elves who hate the warforged um is there anything else i can do for you before i myself return to vendaria a little iced tea in the check i guess you know i i'm so carried away by the emotion of you being reunited with your daughter i'm having such a hard time speaking because it's how great it is to see a father care about his daughter oh do you have a relationship with your father i'm different i'm magic you're a prick. Difficult choices will, of course, happen to you again.

You seem brave and powerful. I'm sure at some point you will have to make a choice as difficult as the one you made today. And at some point someone will tell you that you let them down because of the choice you made today. I think you're misunderstanding me. You're standing in front of your little girl, but you're just like, see ya. I can take care of myself. I assume at this point she'll want to

return to her mother who will need protecting of her own. Wait, I thought everybody was dead. Okay, hold the phone. First of all, is the Archmage really dead? Yes. Arthur Threxshaw is dead. Was he on your side team?

No. So what's the difference between that lich and you guys? What was his deal versus you guys? Well, we're hoping to bring about an era of peace. He sought only chaos and selfish power. We presume that if he had ascended to the mantle of the Tenebrous One, he would have brought death upon Clottenheim and we will only bring death when necessary okay well guys maybe this will work out death when necessary what have we got to lose they can't be any worse than the nightmare

crystal dragons i mean they could be but yeah congrats you elected joe biden everybody what about uh zetagog we assume he'll be here shortly oh so we should go hey maybe can can we how because we got to get where is vendaria is going to be pretty far from here it is to the south i will say if you want to use your necklaces now it will get you away from zetagog into a pen. Into a holding pen where we will immediately release you. We only had them go to a holding area because we were concerned of what you might do to stop us from helping our king ascend,

which is already done now. But will they hold TikTok if we go to a holding area? We, of course, have already had High Council members return who will explain the uniqueness of your friend TikTok. He appears to not be a part of the same network of warforged and would not be held accountable for their crimes we understand the hive mind of these you know sentient beings but they are summoned here by

arthur threkshaw and he clearly has managed some sort of reset is that right tiktok i don't know what do you mean like he took control of them with the reset is that what you're saying well he brought the comet here to klottenheim and you you traveled here on the comet unless you teleported here separate from them um i don't know how i got here i do know i got here well before the comet interesting well then perhaps arthur threxshaw never had dominion over you regardless all the more reason to trust you you've done a lot here and you have not attacked or slain me despite the fact that you easily outnumber me now so your plan is to go back to vendaria which is now in claudenheim and then

you come with me now if you want to avoid zetagog i mean can you teleport us with your magics uh i can teleport myself unfortunately i can try to teleport you but it it's going to cut things a bit close the spell will take 10 minutes to teleport all of us. And the dragon's going to be here in what, six? Not sure, but possibly within 10 minutes. So we use the necklaces? All right! Do we want to wait until the dragon appears,

and then when he charges us to eat us, then we blink out with the necklaces and he hits his head on the side of the cliff. We do like a funny escape. Is this a happy ending? You see Vincente's eyes dart back and forth and he says, goodbye, and he teleports

himself. Alright, should we go to Vendaria? Should we go to the Feywild? should we just all kill ourselves in a mess well kill each other right now i'm assuming the bugs are clear outside right now is that right still dan want to go see could we go there and kill them could we go kill uh the guy the king that we just to be fair they haven't done like they are undead which is problematic i guess but they're not they haven't done like they are undead which is problematic i guess but they're not they haven't actually done anything right they were like they lied to us they're

they're they're big crime yeah their big crime is that they shoved us out of the way everybody do an insight check for me will you thank you this is about the necro didn't they do something with the necromancy that was bad? I can't remember because it's been too long. Ugh, that wasn't it. Oh, man. I got a 14. If you get over a 20, I will allow you to have heard a rumor about the necromancy they cast to protect themselves. 14.

I feel like we knew something about it, though. I think we already know this rumor. I'll say that, too. What if you get a 13? Could you... Is the highest we got a 13? 14. That's what I got. 14.

Boy, oh boy. Those are some unfortunate low rolls. What about Gus? Maybe Gus? Did everybody roll? I will let Gus roll. And also what about the Baron? I will let Gus roll

and I will let you contact the Baron. First, with that insight check, all you remember is what you already know, which is that yeah arthur threxhaw got them involved in some shit so there were like flesh golems protecting the city of vindaria uh people were turned into ghasts uh so there were people turned into these undead beings in their own homes just citizens to protect from the warforged a lot of really fucked up stuff and people cast out the archmage for uh committing those crimes um but but you know the the fact of the

matter is he he also summoned the warforged and uh you know he he did a lot of horrible things yeah the the there's a lot of crimes that happened the actual like thing you're teleporting into I don't know with a 14 the best I can give you is you know you would be teleporting into an undead kingdom with beings who are incredibly powerful entirely on their terms so

you're not sure whether you will be powerless after you arrive do you want to travel by foot? That's why I was asking about them bugs. Maybe we can real quick get down and get off the side of a mountain when Storm...

And you'd also discuss wanting to call your dad. Yeah, I'll say, Hey, so, Star 6ix9ine, what'd you think about that? And of course, this is a reply to the sending

that you never did because you don't actually have sending uh yeah he he he what exactly was your message it was so snarky and i was thinking about sending rules what'd you think about that what'd you think about uh he goes ah think about what right now i'm a little worried that we're being chased by a dragon. What is it? Is it Zetagog? We know Zetagog's on the way. He said chased by a dragon and they're on the boat. Correct.

So it's a dragon. You could inquire about that. So I'll go update. Vendarian elves now liches. Now the Tenebrous one. Stormdragon chasing you? Should we go to Vendaria?

Yep, Zetagog chasing me. Vendaria hotbed of war right now don't recommend it so that means it came back and they weren't able to immediately get rid of the warforged so that means the warforged are now assaulting

vendaria could also be that everyone is planet is a shit show everybody's assaulting Vendaria? Could also be that everyone is assaulting Vendaria. Everybody's assaulting Vendaria. There's no place like our real planet. Oh, God. Well, so if we use the necklaces, we're going to teleport in a holding pen

in the middle of... Yeah, we can't do that. So let's climb. Let's get the fuck out of here. Maybe we can find... Maybe we can start rappelling down. Or Queep and the doctor can so you go through the portal flying us down uh when you go through the portal you notice the insects are all gone okay so we can run let's just run down the mountain then right well rappel could queep path could queep carry helsine down and the doctor carry dark they're down and like all start climbing. A good old Queep carry. Well, he can do it now, right?

I mean, if there's no bugs, we can just run, right? Well, no, it's repelling. I mean, you still have to do an athletics check. The plants, yeah. That's fine. There's a jungle gym covered in bugs. Let's repel down. That should be easier because I assume Queep and Dr. Ewitt are

flying down so they don't have to worry about athletics checks probably we could do that if we want I would love to give you an opportunity to fall and then turn into something maybe keep an eye on us a snake shaped like a spring we will if there's a problem I'll come and

I'm flying down in a way where I'm keeping an eye on my friends. Let's get athletics checks from the three of you who can't fly. This will be a broad... I mean, you have to go down like 300 feet, but I'm going to say, like, with your friends helping you, this is just one athletics check. Sidestep slide.

13. That's a pass. 17. That's a pass. Doctor, I feel like your athletics bonus is over a 10. You should be fine. Four is not a 10. 18.

Hooray. Yeah, you know, with your backup and the fact that you guys are not currently being chased and there's not bugs, it takes a little bit of time because none don't have you rolled over a 20, so to speak, but you're going to, you get down to the little outcropping where the brambles are. And, uh,

the bugs used to be nested. The bugs are no longer nested in the brambles. So it's just a mountain path down. Quick thought while we're here and on the side of the mountain, we could slap it on over to the feywild real quick and that way storm dragon can't attack us on the side of a mountain storm dragon appears to be currently chasing time boat north in the river he thinks we're on the boat oh man my stuff is on there let's just let's just remember that we can do that at any time if we need to, and let's just book it. Jump out.

Run. Yeah. Slap over to the Feywild and jam with the stones. Are you slapping over to the Feywild, or are you... No. We're using that as an option. I think we're running down the path. Alright. Well, why don't you tell me where you guys want to head

at the bottom of this path? Oh. Vendaria? we want to see an arcade around it takes you a full day but you get to the bottom of the mountain with no opposition things are eerily quiet from wildlife and you are encountering no bad guys so where's Vendaria?

Vendaria is to the south. I hope this wasn't like an Ice Nine thing where it just was a big ah-woom and now everybody on this world is undead. Well, we're not. Well, we could try and find the Violet Fang.

Yeah, or Hoshinka. Yeah, well, Hoshinka was with, maybe Hoshinka is back with the violet fang because the violet fang took out arthur threxhaw right weren't they going to be fighting up on the the the altar where we just were weren't they all headed there well they the violet fang might have been but she wouldn't be now because now there's a new tenebrous one so where would you like to go oh god um i mean like really genuinely now i have no idea what we should do we now the the towards water right maybe towards what about like the undead what what is the what

is the general plan now because now we don't really have a like there's now an undead city here killing the warforged there's really nothing that we can we just well that's why we say like is this a hat like allow me allow me to take over as narrator sure sure please uh regardless of where you choose to go next uh word reaches you quickly that indeed vindaria has reappeared and there are an army of armored undead elves uh waging war against the path of the vaunted tusk oh that's good uh the humans we hated them and elves of clodenheim and uh many many pardon me my someone is uh fighting with my light uh but uh the there's there's a great deal of beings all fighting the new elven presence um and the damage is vast the armies are vast and you will all have to go into hiding before making your next choice as the ice five now before uh we get to sam's recap and sam i hope you're

ready for your recap i have a couple of uh things to uh tell you well three things to tell you first of all uh welcome to the end of season three everybody that is the end of season three hey we blew it you guys we got the bad ending i really want to tell you i did not think that was going to happen but you truly chose one of the darkest timelines uh so that was that was what could we have done though lots of things and i want to i want to leave the floor open for that i feel like i don't mind going a little long if we want to have like a little bit of a thing but i've i've too well i feel like we were tricked by this guy you were 100% tricked yeah and i want to offer you two epilogue uh things first of all if you had gotten them to drop their disguises this is what you would have seen

oh no they all look like they're from some like crocus cover not so hot anymore guys a little heavier a little heavier band than crocus maybe like merciful feet yeah yeah like merciful feet or venom yeah venom pretty awesome uh that is of course more art from aaron english and that is king valix uh disguised as the homunculus uh he is a fucking lich king he's an arch lich yes he is a lich king for sure and that would have been quite a fight but you guys trusted vincenzo everlow and this is the way things swung and if i had had uh if i had uh forced it to happen it it would have definitely been a happier ending but i really wanted to see where this uh series of choices took everybody and this is where it went so now vindaria is this sort of uh undead elven city to the south the way we handle that will be told perhaps in another time but uh

i do have one audio epilogue i would love for you guys to listen to are you ready the ice five have steered the course of clodenheim for centuries to come but of course there are loose ends lands unex unexplored, lives in the balance, fairies unmet. Halfway through their quest to destroy the Altar of the Tenebrous One, the Ice Five learned that a hard-partying thudge fairy had been hired by the Halflings of Donkey Land to serve as their scout in their ground war against the mutated ice giants. However, the Ice Five were so intent to steer their destiny away from Donkey Land

that they never met up with this foul-mouthed fellow, a fellow who went by the name... Gago. We now take you to the western cliffs of Donkey Land, where a recent scouting mission has gone. Array. G-Glas. G-Glas. DRAAAAARGH! Suck to the... DRAAAAARGH!

Mother dickfack! Milk sucker! Digga! I think they're gone. Damn it! I knew I shouldn't have broken into their liquor cabinet! But what can I say? Fermented unicorn blood just sounded like too tasty of a wartime treat. Ah!

Nuts of molten salt. Just like my 38th wife. Or was it my 38th husband? I don't remember. I'm too lit, baby. I think he went this way. Oh shit! The halflings are looking for me too! Maybe they found out that I...

He made out with the princess. Balls. Look out, giants. Triple balls! They blew up everything in the forest except for this tree. They blew up everything in the forest except for this tree There that thing that looks like a cross between a moth and a fishmonger it's him Hello, I'll fly up into this cloud Well, it kind of looks like a dragon or face fucking donkey it is a dragon and that was a little epilogue with Gago audio edited by

Kaylin West who went ahead and did a little audio theater for you guys sounded awesome also very depressing this is really truly like you guys still better than real life choice that was a real fucking trip uh what do you what do you want to ask me uh what do you what do you what could what else could have happened you can vote in november everybody if you want to avoid i don't know you voted for for for somebody so to speak so what if tiktok had had become the

um well it would have been you guys all would have had to make a uh constitution saving throat difficulty 25 uh so there's a it would have gone down one for each uh artifact you put in so you know with all four it was like a 21 um the the arch lich had a very high constitution saving throw bonus and he made it um tiktok would have had to make the role uh had he become the tenebrous one it it would have been TikTok's choice, but he immediately would have gained the ability to teleport the entire party. His body would have disappeared. He would not have been TikTok anymore. But he would have had about half an hour before he had to sort of like make a series of saving throws that would like make him just sort of return to the plane of gehenna like conscious thought would have start to slip away pretty quickly um the arch lich is undead

so he has got experience and he'll he has a little more control over the powers than tiktok would have what is the best possible like was there any happy ending or is it just like like you could have tried to destroy the altar you could have tried to destroy the portal too if you destroy the portal uh device that went uh the little the little claw hand uh skull thing um that would have bitten your hand off if you had destroyed that no one could have gone to this pocket dimension ever again that was a pocket dimension that the altar was in so you could have sealed that off forever well we didn't think of that you could have destroyed the you could have destroyed the altar too the altar was harder to destroy but you could have done that um you could have attacked

uh you could have you know um done a religion check to valker you could have done and you didn't do any insight checks during the whole conversation um i failed i failed several insight checks as i recall yeah well and you didn't really you didn't really when when he was offering up the homunculus none of you really questioned it and it never like like you you were like other than blaine in the very beginning just kind of going i don't trust it there was no real stopping of the narrative so i never really felt like i should have offered you an insight check and uh it would have been tricky because they were using disguise self uh but you you could have unmasked them and seen that they were all undead um and yeah you know the they destroyed the altar so anyone could have

ascended it wouldn't have been good if anyone would have been like a positive heroic thing for anyone to ascend but you would all have had about half an hour of free will before it would have been to figure out a way to just to destroy the altar or to destroy the way to get to the altar but there was no way to like save claudenheim from like the ravages of what has already happened uh not like they're necessarily true i mean you couldn't have reversed time but there would have been ways to communicate with gods to bring more democracy to claudenheim stuff like that well i brought some you did we got one town they're probably dead all dead now but um not necessarily true you've planted the seat of democracy they've probably got like unions in bozor they've probably got like a certain amount of people who are fighting the weird racist human only spell in dame island and trying to like drop

that shield and make dame island's humans a little more open minded. But now they're next door to the undead city. They're not next door but they are definitely one of the bigger cities nearby. Also you have you guys have no idea what happened to the city of moon elves. So there's the whole

like sister city. You know Vendaria was one of two it was um i was trying to find the name on my notes i couldn't find it yeah yeah one second i got i i got it it's again you know uh von der an it's just it's uh near poxus uh the moon elves you're not sure where they are but they could provide a an element of hope who knows i doubt it you could have recruited them you could have found out also i will say there was like a one percent chance in my mind that like like i would say going from dame island on i was like we've forgotten about vindaria like we've forgotten about the sun elves completely

and when sarah called her dad i was like oh shit are you fucking kidding me so like i was like i mean we were just trying to go it's i know we're just trying to get more information is the thing and then they were power hungry so you kind of like kicked the door open for them all right it was fun more deets it was fun but unfortunately the the city's elders fell to necromancy a long time ago. I can't believe they were alive for thousands of years in the Feywild also. I guess we didn't really think about that because they did say time goes differently there. We never really considered that. You could all make the basic...

Based on your character's passive insights, when they teleported the city, they basically went back in time. On Feywild. when they teleported the city they basically went back in time on feywild so when you went to the feywild it was kind of like close to linear time but they they were following a much older calendar on in the feywild so it was like if you want to consider of course time is weird between planes and this is going to sound like nonsense to most people but i want to say it because i think listeners will be curious. But if you were to say the first time you teleported to the Feywild was like year zero or like day zero, that first day was like thousands of years had gone by for the city at that point. Hmm.

I know you all hate this ending, and what can I say? One thing I'm proud of is this feels very Dungeons & Dragons-y to me. This reminds me of the time that we played pre-podcast where we were tasked with saving the world, remember? Yeah, well, you guys honestly just blew up. We fully just failed. I feel like every season of Nerd Poker has had a happy ending. Both of the last two that I was DM for had a happy-ish ending

where you accomplished a big goal. And like you guys said, it could be worse. We're not dead. The bad guys... We only wish we were. ...are interested. We are the reason things got even worse somehow on Cloud9. Nurse Uid.

Hey, Sam, what do you think happened today i'm so legitimately impressed with myself i wanted to be clear that i'm never making fun of the game i love this game and i really am trying to understand it and after reading today's notes i genuinely truly have no idea what happened today you know a lot of people have been asking me on twitter at the end of this season will you give us like a big epic season wrap-up that just sort of sums the whole thing up my major season-long takeaways would be everything can be a door everything can kill you every new person we meet at a base level is kind of a dick um oh at some point queep will offer to carry you don't accept what do you think happened to terry i i would say terry's probably like you know hanging out in dame island the human city and just like sees this this like army suddenly

turns south and start fighting elves oh boy terry i I would say Terry witnessed that and then had one of those good life-changing moments where he looked off in the distance and he was like, you know what? I'm going to get my GED. I'm going to get my welding certificate. I'm going to get my kids back. I'm going to get a small studio apartment. I'm going to get my life back on track.

But then like at the end of a documentary where it updates you on what happened to everybody, we do learn that he did not do any of those things. And he did get COVID from attending a Smash Mouth show in Florida. Awesome. We did it. Season three on the books. Hey, good job, everybody.

Yay. Oh, I did want to ask one question. Will Timeboat be okay? Oh, I did want to ask one question. Will Timeboat be okay? As far as you know, Timeboat is... It's got the two crew members you assigned to it and Nibbin Dairy Waxel Puzzle Gig. With the Benny Hill theme being chased by...

By Zetagog the Dragon. Zetagog. Up and down the river. Yeah. How about just the ending credits and then all of a sudden we all get smushed to one corner and you can't see us and then they have uh upcoming uh events on the bottom 50 50 chance that a gog would attack vendaria also i haven't made up my mind yet on

that one coming up next on love island it's bikini night i just wanted to see who produced oh this is so tight uh i'll plug my stand up on twitch if anyone wants to troll me for my choices bikini night. I just wanted to see who produced it. I'll plug my stand up on Twitch. If anyone wants to troll me for my choices in tonight's finale, please head on over to twitch.tv slash telferdan. I recently made affiliate. You can tip

me bits on there and hopefully we'll figure out how to make Ken laughter. I have a live show September 19th. Brian Posehn, I have a live show, uh, September 19th, Brian Posehn evening with grandpa metal. Me and Johnny Taylor is opening. And then, musical guests,

uh, available tickets, uh, rush ticks.com. Anybody else? Hey, uh, Hey Blaine,

are you and Stacy Keech up to anything these days? Uh, Blaine, are you and Stacey Keech up to anything these days? We are taking the vet to Branson for the big ghost pepper eating contest. It's us versus the Osmonds. Nice. I hope they're okay. I don't want to mess up anybody's vocal pipes. Thank you again, Aaron English, for the art. Yeah, thanks, Aaron.

Thank the person again that did the dialogue at the end. I mean, the bit at the end, yeah. I'm absolutely going to thank Kaylin West again for the Little Gago epilogue. That was super fun. And check out her band, Tiny Stills. They're a pop-punk band. I've done the cover art for their most recent three singles.

Cool. Thanks, everybody. See you season four. Bye, guys. 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. poker and you get bonus episodes from there and you can also uh send us anything at p.o box one six zero six nine encino california nine one four one six thanks for listening