Nerd Poker - S4E3 Verge Overkill

Episode Date: September 29, 2020

Our band of companions begins to consider their path to the mainland of Davenglaven, and it looks like they'll have to consider the trustworthiness of a snake-headed creep named Verge. Will they float or will they spelunk? Those are the questions any sea monster survivor must ponder.

Hey everybody, it's time for our September drawing for our Stargoyle and above Patreon supporters. This month our winner is Gamorian Orc. Thank you Gamorian Orc and thank you everybody who supports our show. Here it comes. Hey everybody, I'm Brian Poussin, comedian, writer, actor, nerd. I've been playing D&D with my friends for a long time. I decided to do a new podcast where we play Dungeons & Dragons in my very own dining room with my wife, kid, and my noisy dogs.

So meet my friends Sarah, Kev, Dan, Clay, Chris. Now it's time for another episode of Brian Possehn's Nerd Poker. Season 4. Hey everybody, I'm Brian Pocine And you're listening to Brian Pocine's Nerd Poker

It's episode 3 Of season 4 Is that right? Yeah? And uh, wow And uh, we've got some new characters Uh, we're already into some shit Uh, let's uh Say hi to my friends Uh, hello Sarah And we've got some new characters. We were already into some shit. Let's say hi to my friends.

Hello, Sarah. Hello, Brian. Chris. Hello. Hey, buddy. Blaine. Hi, Brian. Ken.

Hi, welcome to Nartpicker. And Dan. Why, hello! And he's center square today. Hello, Sam. Hello, beautiful angels. Oh my goodness. Wait, is my camera not on?

No, it's on. Oh, okay. Dan, how are you? Oh my god, I'm so good. You want to do some catching up are you feeling thankful i am the the crisp bottom spirit is upon me and here comes my thanks so first of all uh this is we're entering the fourth quarter of the year so it's time to thank some patreon supporters uh from the very top once again so these are all folks who have supported us at the stargoyle

or hey boss tiers over on patreon and they go by usernames like terry's turtle watcher shit gets wild thank you terry's turtle watcher shit gets wild i believe that is a reference

of course, to your character, Terry, Sam, I thank you. Id response. Thanks, Ed.

Thank you, Mike. Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Mike. Thank you. Big audio.

Dolomite. That's a great one. Thank you. Sam's creep pe Peeps While Queep Sleeps. Thank you, the B. Arthur Baracus Experience. Oh, that's a good one. B. Arthur. Thanks, Alley Valley Bo Valley.

Alley Alley Bo Valley. Excuse me. Banana Fowl Valley. How to get Sam's Creep Peeps While Queep Sleeps right, but I couldn't get Alley Alley Bo Valley. miles to the roar shack uh thank you lucan 541 thank you very much lucan thank you michael burge thank you thank you i like this one twinkle cherry thanks tc thanks clannan Ice Crushner. Thank you. Thank you, TikTok Super Fun Clock Slot.

Oh, boy. Thank you. Well, if you thought that was great, wait till you get a load of Bodhi's Farting Penis. Or if you like that, how about Gago's Rough Pillow Talk? Zach Moad Dweep. Or if you like that, how about Gago's rough pillow talk? Zach Moad Dweep.

Thank you, Swift the Reaper. Thank you, Kyle. Thank you, Smells Like Halcine Spirit. Thank you, Joshua Kasson. Thank you, Bex Richards. And of course, how could we possibly forget? Thank you, Flatty Dangledong.

Thanks, Flatty. Heyong. Thanks, Flatty. Thanks. Hey, Blaine, who are those Patreon supporters brought to us by? Those Patreon supporters brought to us by spiders drinking from the corner of your eyes while you're asleep. Spiders falling into your mouth while you're dreaming. Spiders with a big ear full of eggs. And the big mouth Billy Bass fleshlight don't worry be happy while you

don't worry you'll be real happy with the big mouth Billy Bass fleshlight Dan wow I don't like how that last ad felt like it was directing itself directly to us it's like when you get those Facebook personalized ads and you're like this should not be based on my browser history no thank you oh i just got i posted about this on social

media i got a fucking it was a it was like a terminator robot cyborg that holds your wine bottle but it was only the size of like a baby so it was like a baby terminate it was like a if a baby was a terminator in body type like so like so it's just like a little little big headed rotund terminator and it's holding upside down the wine bottle like it's putting it in its mouth using its hands and feet it's the most fucked up

thing I've ever seen it was on sale at Wayfair best known for its uh QAnon theory of selling children so like I was like why is fucking Facebook trying to sell me a Wayfair best known for its uh q anon theory of selling children so like i was like why is fucking facebook trying to sell me a wayfair terminator wine chug baby this is you said it's on wayfair it's on wayfair.com search well don't don't don't don't don't buy it please sorry i just don't want anything to get corked trying to keep all my corks wet anyway i i really appreciate you targeting that ad about what was it spiders and fucking spiders it was an option that was a fleshlight big mouth billy bass go go fuck yourself playing

that was not for me how dare you say dan the way you did it i would never direct any of my ads towards anyone just that segue just spider was a little bit for Sarko. That was. I hope Sarko listens to this. I'm going to email it directly to him. I thought of it because I saw a spider on my desk today. They need somewhere to go. There's rough

air pollution outside here in Los Angeles. How's your spider? It fell out of my mask, Dan. It fell out of my mask. Jesus. God. Everybody check your masks before you put them on. angeles you gotta how's your it fell out of my mask dan it fell out of my mouth jesus god everybody check your masks before you put them on uh you know what else we should check what happened last time on nerd poker yeah here it comes after way too much crosstalk from dan he finally gets down to business our new crew in season 4 has well, had a very interesting experience upon a boat that their dungeon

master did not foresee because they got rid of their guard slash guy who would have guided them to their lifeboat, so things didn't end up exactly as many of us expected. Can you screw the pooch on Episode 1? We can!

Let us. You thought everybody could have a real weird screw the pooch on the season finale of season three. Well, episode one things really just kept interesting. However, they have befriended someone after crashing onto a small island with a small cave that has promised to lead them through the lava rock caves. Oh, here, I forgot

to, I had a light show I was gonna do this episode too, but I'll do it just for this. Has promised to lead them through the lava caves back to the mainland of the new continent, Davin Glavin.

So, yeah, you guys are being led by a snake-headed little person named Verge. And he doesn't seem especially trustworthy. He doesn't seem especially cooth. But he does claim all his friends are dead because

they were killed by monsters in these lava caves. So he was just not strong enough to make it back to the mainland himself. One little bit of business i will say upon re-examining the last two episodes i think i should throw you a bone danny i think i should say you spent so much time trying to build a raft outside that you do at least have this like chunk of driftwood that's like shield sized i don't know that your character would be especially good at using a shield nor do i think this shield would last if it got hit once but you've got kind of like a plank that's big enough for one person to kind of sit on uh could float probably

but you you know you spent a couple of couple of rounds at least a solid hour out on the beach while everyone else was talking to Verge. And I'll give you that. You've got like a little makeshift square of driftwood. Okay. So I hope that's something you're aware of. I'll hold on to it for a minute and see what it... You should make some dream catchers out of it and sell them out of your Chevy love.

Does anybody use a shield? I have a shield. You have one? Or you use one? So Nathan and Danny, you can compare shields if you want. You can go ahead and see who has the more artisan shield. Danny, I think

yours is going to be more special. Mine's just from a shop. You made yours out of death trash. Death trash. i love it oh man not to not to be a snitch but there's nothing in the the player's handbook about monks using armor of any sort so i think no i know yeah exactly what i that's what i meant by his character wouldn't be especially figure that out maybe somebody could use it as a spare shield maybe i just thought i would go ahead and let you know it's in your inventory by his character wouldn't be especially good. Maybe somebody could use it as a spare shield. Maybe. I just thought I would go ahead and let you know it's in your inventory because you guys don't have a whole lot

in your inventory right now. And who knows? You might be able to use it to get yourself out of a puzzle. Right? Who knows? I was trying to make a boat. We had not enough time. But here, if anybody wants to use this as a shield, it would probably stop a couple of arrows.

And you guys haven't really gone super into the cave yet, so we can take a minute. I know, Sarah, you were about to say something. I was just going to ask, I noticed when I, in the second episode of the first one, you said that the guard had like a weird deck of cards on him, but then you described it as just like cards for a game a normal game that's played so what made it so i then i wrote it off but what did you mean when you said it was weird oh it's for an in-world game of cards right so but what's weird about it well what's unusual is you feel like it could be played as uh both solitaire or against other players. It's got its own set of rules, and the rules seem very complicated, and you haven't tried playing it before.

Oh, okay. But if you want, you can do a history check and see if you can figure out the basics. I mean, if it's any kind of gambling game, I feel like I would. You could definitely gamble playing this game. History, no. God god damn history check 12. all you really can figure out is that the name of this card is a card game is bent it's called bent and uh people just sort of like travel around the countryside collecting these cards and adding to their deck and you can uh play is this similar to gwent i don't know what you're talking about i asked uh you asked the sky well i asked the dm but yeah

um okay great the narrator like pops out from behind uh a cloud briefly and uh sighs very deeply and says well uh seems like you didn't enjoy the reference as much as i thought you would and retreats back into the cloud enjoyed the reference i did not i was like the only person who did not enjoy gwen so that's all oh i hated it which so if you try playing this in game it might reflect that your dungeon master hated it but uh but it's definitely that and there are definitely actual rules to it you just haven't been able to figure it out yet. You might need to explore the in-world game of Bent, if you want to really. But yeah, what we should definitely do

before I kick off the cave sound effects and we start a dungeon crawl, which is actually going to happen, we should talk about the map a little bit. You just got it at the end of the last episode. And we only had some of the locations added here there's a lot going on here that Verge

your little snake headed companion can explain so if you go ahead and pop out over to that sucker you'll notice there is a whole lot going on and I am happy as your dungeon master to explain exactly what you're looking at. What would you like to talk about?

Where are we again? We're on the south. If you look at the bottom, here's where I'll start you. It's where you're headed and where you are. You're at Faka's Wrath, which is at the bottom left corner of the map, a distant volcanic island, and you'll notice you're not that far from the volcano, all considered it's going to take you a few days travel to get to the

mainland through this bay and also as many medieval maps go it's not a perfect to scale map so you're not sure exactly how far off the coast fakas wrath is but verge tells you a couple of days travel through these lava caves should get you to the mainland and he is suggesting you skip past those islands between you and the mainland and just try to get to Blingbottom which is in the far

south side of the continent it's just it's like a little port town he tells you they would love your gambling tricks down in Blingbottom Iva. And you're all just sort of being guided in that direction. He tells you Faka is the god who cursed his people. He also says it's the god who created Mount Vescus, the volcano there.

And he tells you there is great treasure on this continent. And he's already eager to talk to you about what you're doing here. Are any of the things he's saying true? Do an insight check, why don't you? I would... Maybe I have a message as a cantrip. So maybe I'll sort of silently say into the heads of my companions, one at a time, like, Should we trust this horrible thing?

I got a six. Far be it for a rabbit to trust a snake so with a six yeah i mean iva already sort of i think would have like kind of like to you guys because she got a pretty high insight check off of him last episode it seems like he is partially responsible or at the very least not telling you the full truth about what happened to his friends that were killed by these monsters so you know definitely uh suspicious there but he does seem very eager to discuss davin glaven with you Davin Glavin yeah

Davin Glavin Davin Glavin you guys it's season 4 and I've started the continent with the first letter of the alphabet in descending order and I couldn't possibly have a continent that didn't start with D and I couldn't possibly have a continent that didn't sound like Jerry Lewis

would say it so we ended up on Davin Glavin can't wait to play Ziegfeld I have a continent that didn't sound like Jerry Lewis would say it. So we ended up on David Glavin. Can't wait to play Ziegfeld. Wait, what was the second one? What was the second continent? Bonkel. Oh, okay. Not our most memorable continent.

Well, what happened there was memorable, but we ended up on the moon, right? Is that the one on the moon? That's what I'm talking about. You lasted, I think, half the actual season on that continent, and then you're on the the moon and we skipped ahead to was that season 16 or whatever but uh say okay so i think the dragons i think we i think we agree that he's definitely concealing something and then i did an inside check or a never tell me the odds feature that said that the best our best bet is the tunnels, most likely. Yeah. Which doesn't mean that he's telling the truth

or that it's safe or that we should trust him. More just that that's our best option given the bad options before us. Yes. With Danny's raft, you'd all have to kind of be completely submerged and grab the edges of it and kick a couple of of it and like kick a

couple of miles at least possibly a dozen miles like it's really far away to get to the coast and it just seems like with tide currents you'd be potentially doomed uh and so you feels like maybe you could amass more driftwood maybe you could wait for someone to come and save you but uh right now if the quickest way to safety seems to be these lava caves whether or not you should trust verge definitely seems up for debate he seems very suspicious he seems honestly classically evil to most of you however he is like eager to talk he's got so so we do i think we do it but we just we don't trust him you know as we go uh did he say he was going to lead us or were we going to try to navigate he wants to lead you he says he knows the way he's just incapable of surviving it on his own yeah and how long do we think it'll be uh he says oh it'll be a few days at least i feel i've made it

most of the way once i made it past the islands along the coast and almost to bling bottom but then my friends died i was like look guys we got you got to roll the dice sometimes you know you can't you can't win unless you roll them so let's uh let's get going we're not gonna sit here in a cave and argue about it all day or one you know are you heroes because heroes definitely wouldn't stand around and argue instead of rushing towards danger all right well i'm going so i do not like this snake man but i think that he um has a point yeah i feel like it's our option our only option yes i am sorry if i wasted our time by trying to uh fashion a a boat but uh i thought it was worth trying danny i think you were helping thank you you would have definitely encountered a

different set of obstacles if you had tried and it wouldn't have been impossible you know what i mean i'm not trying to railroad you here but uh this definitely with with halcyon's check sarah come on let the court know that i'm giving verge the uh the the pointing at my eyes and pointing at his eyes and pointing at my eyes and pointing at his eyes thing so yeah uh you guys take off then yeah uh and as you head to the great white north it's a beauty way to go first of all second of all you you you get you know like a a full day without too much uh difficulty yeah there's definitely a narrow cave here and the lava rock is very porous and so there are times when a lot of condensation is coming down and you're a little worried like is there gonna ever be just like an impasse where we're underwater and we're gonna have to swim and hold our breath and you're a little worried like is there going to ever be just like an impasse where we're underwater and we're going to

have to swim and hold our breath and you're also like wondering about these monsters and ways time it's very dark so which of you have dark vision which of you are using alternate means so we've got 60 foot please verbalize it if you'd be so kind raising your hand makes it difficult for

listeners I am 2d I have dark vision great you are a dwarf, of course. Danny has dark vision. Iva has dark vision. I have dark vision. I'm Nathan. I have vision in the dark. Wow. Bunch of dark visioners.

What about you, Verge? Can you see in the dark? Yes, I can. We're in the caves now. You guys are going to start making a couple of days journey here. The first day, which of you have dark vision? I really was

distracted. Everybody. Is that everybody? The whole party. The whole party. I'm Jelf, and I can see in the dark in front of me. Great. I like to at least check in on that stuff so listeners also are getting used to your characters and their abilities because they're very unfamiliar at this point we're unfamiliar at this point right and while you're going verge really the first day is chatting you up about whether you're heroes or not he's kind of eager

to find out how powerful you are he's eager to find out what you're all capable of it definitely feels like like like just passive insight he's sizing you up a little bit for it you're a little suspicious but he does try to tell you something in particular about the glory that can be found in dave and glaven to try to how does he carry himself is he is he boisterous is he loud uh no he's very sort of like hunched over and like like like like uncomfortably like sort of like hey everyone like let's keep going um he tells you about the possibility that you could use this island to uh save the. He tells you about the heroic artifact that is on this island and also about

one thing in particular on your map. So if you look at your map, he tells you that Hell's Stair, which is just north of Blingbottom, is a place that demons occasionally come out of, but it's rumored that is through the other side where the lich king

keeps his phylactery i i don't know if you guys are familiar with chocolate phylactery do you have a golden ticket i have a feel if we find can we find one yeah a golden for ticket you can all uh definitely roll if you want to know more about that but also he tells you there is something called uh baal uh bahamut said uh two two gods at once um bahamut's fury an ancient hammer is hidden in davin glaven's jungles interesting yes so i almost said valkyr at the same time. So I almost said, uh, Bal helmet, which sounded a lot more like a metal band, but, uh, they would have talked about that online for years.

Uh, so I, I will, I will remind the party at this point, when you learn valuable information, uh, there's a couple of things you can do. You can ask the role of history check, or you can ask to roll an insight check.

So you could either like know more inherently about the topic or find out if you're being lied to. you can do you can ask to roll a history check or you can ask to roll an insight check so you could either like know more inherently about the topic or find out if you're being lied to sorry history or insight history or insight from all of you if you like or you can just say i trust it who gives a shit to learn more of history yes yes sir or either i have a proficiency with insight too and perception good just just pick one or the other because we're kind of like spending this day doing one or the other 15 plus 520 of which insight uh they're both the same i'm gonna say uh i'm gonna say insight okay you're gonna get different info for each what's everyone else else got? And I got a 20 for history. Ooh. Yay!

12 insight. 19 insight. 16 plus 3. And the same in history, 20. Oh, great. Well, a 20 in history will get you this information specifically. You've

heard of Bahamut's Fury. so bahamut's fury is this hammer that was built by a platinum dragon that was a member of bahamut's tribe long ago wasn't exactly bahamut himself but it was built to honor bahamut's legacy and it was supposed to be carried by a dragonborn a platinum dragonborn in order to fight evil so it's this sort of holy hammer that is somewhere on Davin Glavin he just says it's in the jungle but he tells you if you go to

bling bottom maybe you can find more information on this holy hammer also hell's stare you're you've definitely heard of like a strange source of demons on the southern continent but most of you have never even heard of really Davenglaven Davenglaven is a very dangerous continent that most

people don't bother going to if they're just looking for adventure it's just more likely to eat you alive than actually provide much but you have heard of Hell's Stare and phylacteries in particular those of you who have rolled a 20 are able to sort of get a lot of information here if you've you got a you got a 19 brian so like you get danny's got a

pretty good sense of this but those of you who roll a 20 a phylactery specifically is what a lich uses to sort of like stay immortal it's sort of key to their unending life. So this could be pretty valuable. And this is the phylactery of the Lich King who now is on Clottenheim? That's correct. It's supposed to be King Valix's. So it's a jar or like a ceramic container. And it's got sort of the life force

of this Lich trapped within it. ceramic container and it's got sort of the life force of this lich trapped within it so if you destroyed the phylactery it would stop him from being able to come back to life it's sort of one of the the nice things about being a lich is often you can reassemble your corpse and just

start casting spells and being an evil motherfucker again what other nice things are there about being a lich? Well, there's a lot of spells, eternal life. In particular, King Valix is known to have attained some sort of immortal crown

in addition to his regular lich. Oh, did he? I wonder how he got that. You get in a lot of fancy restaurants. You just kind of... You're a lich king. Well, you guys rolled... You guys rolled high on both your history and your insight.

So with that information and that thoughtfulness combined, you as a group can sort of have this discussion in-game and your characters all start talking and you piece together that, oh, shit. If we somehow were able to destroy the phylactery have this discussion in game and your characters all start talking and you piece together that oh shit like we if we somehow were able to destroy the phylactery and get a hold of bahamut's fury there maybe we would be powerful enough to kill the lich king cool let's do it then but is that what we want to do well we guess what you could do instead is you could just sort of hang out and um talk about

whether or not you should take a short rest i mean our old characters definitely wanted to do that right due to their mistakes there's a lot to be discovered on this continent but right away you feel like well that we did just leave that shithole that was being ruled by a Lich King. This might actually enable us to do something powerful. Although all of you, I think, hear about the demons coming out of Hellstare. Maybe you think you're not powerful enough to just run right into Hellstare. You might need to acquire a few more abilities and amass some other artifacts before you go. In the meantime, it's getting to be the middle

of the night and you realize you've been pushed pretty hard. Brian, Danny has all of his ki points back from his half-night sleep back on the boat, but all of you are getting tired and Verge is kind of pushing you to keep going. So you've got a choice here. Either you can rest and try to set an encampment despite verge's encouragement or you can push through the night

and travel and potentially take a point of exhaustion oh i say we try to rest uh yeah does verge fight us on it so we stop stop and keep a watch on verge verge doesn't fight you on it but he seems antsy, and he tells you these caves are narrow right now, but if you keep going, there will be a much more safe place. Are you saying how much further? Oh, a few more hours, at least.

Nah, we'll stop now. Sounds good. So you guys set up camp. You've got basic survival supplies, but it is uncomfortable here you do think you're going to need a full eight hours in order to go to night sleep will you guys be uh sleeping in shifts yes yes great well verge uh tells you all that he only needs a couple of hours sleep and he's also eager to keep moving so he's willing to uh spend part of the night on both

watches well whatever you want man i want somebody else to be yeah someone else will stay up too but not alone all right i'll go first i'll stay up first sure should we do two should we do perhaps a couple people to keep I stay up also I will stay up no one's gonna sleep on the first four hours of the night well no you can split it in half you could do

if Chris and Sarah want to I'll take the second shift okay okay we'll take the second it's just funny because we were gonna end up with with what is it four people up and two people sleeping uh that would be funny i can tell brian you and i were on the same page there uh so you guys are going to do nathan and iva with verge well the other three of you sleep. Great. Why don't you roll? Verge can go away. Whatever. We don't...

Hmm. Whatever he wants. Why don't we get AI perception check from Nathan and Iva? I'm just watching Verge. Great. 19.

8. Nathan, you notice 19 8 Nathan you notice he goes through his bag a couple of times but for the most part he's just sitting around and following you two so the fact that you're keeping such a close eye on him just means you're sort of watching him watch Iva but he doesn't seem at all

interested in the sleeping members of the party Iva you sort of keep the general periphery. It sounds like there's a lot of white noise coming ahead from the tunnels to the northeast where you guys have been headed. Back the way you came, you collected some supplies from the boat. You noticed your supplies. You've got enough for everybody to keep up on rations for at least another two days.

You're definitely heading towards more activity. You can just sort of tell from the white noise ahead. You also sort of peek around the corner of the cave coming up and it looks like there is a sharp fork coming up about a mile ahead. Just by pacing up and down the tunnel

for four hours, you put it together that you guys have got a choice coming up. Okay. Who's on next watch? Danny and I. All right. You two go to sleep. I feel well rested.

How about you, my new friend? I feel really good. I feel strong. Verge says he's going to sleep, but that well rested how about you my new friend i feel really good i feel strong verge says he's going to sleep but that he will be up very shortly and he sort of curls up i don't care tootie will you tuck me in you got it buddy it's so nice i'll give you a little peck on the forehead i have a little wee willy winky sleeping cap on oh my god this is the best bedtime story ever uh well actually i'm really well i'm tempted to make 2d roll uh to tell a bedtime story to nathan uh instead i'm not going to force that narrative and i'm going to have Tootie and Danny roll their perception checks for a while.

The rabbit looks very, very cute when he's sleeping. I got a 17. And then what was I rolling? Perception? Yes, sir. So 22. Ooh. Cool. Yeah, 22. Ooh.

Cool. Yeah, you know, you both rode pretty good. This time, while you're walking back and forth, you realize as soon as you start kind of like walking away, Verge wakes up. So, he's asleep for like maybe five minutes. And he's

following you. I trust him as far as I could throw him, and I could throw him very, very far, but I don't trust him. Does that make sense? I'm just learning. I like that. I see what you're going for,

and you're heading down the tunnel, and based off of what Iva told you, you get to the fork, and it seems like there's sort of a three-way divergence where you're going to heading down the tunnel and based off of what iva told you you get to the fork and it seems like there's sort of a three-way divergence where you're going to be able to pick three ways to go one of them more straight due north and the other two are sort of like a variation of right or left to go northeast towards either the mainland's bay or bling bottom a little more to the east. And the whole time Verge is following you, so when you double back, knowing that it's about time to wake everybody else up,

you immediately almost trip over Verge, who is sort of like creepily hiding behind some lava rocks staring at you with his big ass snake eyes. Dude, what's with you? I'm just making sure I'm useful in case you need me. Are you leaving the rest of the party? We're just walking and checking No, we're just exploring You're not leaving them behind, are you? No Why would we?

Wouldn't want to leave them defenseless here in the tunnels I might swallow them And he walks back to the camp with you where you wake up the rest of the party. Are you all ready now? Are you ready to go? Yeah, I really don't trust you. You make it the next day to the big three-way fork, which of course is not that far off as you scouted it pretty thoroughly. And you notice Verge is a little almost too excited

to tell you what the three tunnels mean. He immediately says, don't go to the north. That's those islands I told you about that you don't need to worry about. And there's a fire giant to the north. You don't want to go that way. If you go that way, the fire giant will snap you in half and eat you.

Have you ever met a giant? They can be a real big pain They can call more giants And before you know it, it feels like you're just fighting giants for a really long time So you don't want to go to the north If you go east, you don't want to go to the middle route The middle route will take you directly into the mainland If you look at your map here there's a river there there's

heavy jungle you'll be fighting jungle monsters before you even get out of the cave there will be jungle jungle monsters pouring in but if you head east there will be nothing but monsters who killed my friends and also bling bottom

the closest civilization I can offer you uh can I do an insight check on what are you Also, Lingbottom, the closest civilization I can offer you. Can I do an insight check on what he's saying? Absolutely. You can all do an insight check. Hmm. Oh, my God. I have a... 13.

21. Oh, wait. I actually have a cool thing oh so tell us about your cool thing do your cool thing what's your cool thing though snake liar it is about lying I have an ear for deceit so whenever I make an insight check to determine if someone's lying

anything under a 7 or lower I count as an 8 so I can't get with my with my bonus i can't get lower than a 12 on an insight check for lying basically um but still i just got a 12 so cool uh dan really dan really uh the last campaign really sent this character in a very specific direction did everybody get over a 10? I got a 21. Danny did not. Danny got 9. A 9.

6 plus 3. Danny, you kind of shrug it off. You don't really trust this guy, but you're kind of like, eh, what else are we going to do? And yeah, if you rolled a 21, that's a special number. So the rest of you for getting over a 10, you piece together he is 100 hiding something but 2d you get a feeling you know bling bottom probably just is the best place to go simply because it is

the closest civilization so you think you might not be wrong about the right path however at this point when he says yes the monsters that killed my friends are in that direction you get a sort of like a like a huge moment of clarity he is taking you there to get you killed because he knows how people die in that direction the other two directions yeah there's danger yeah there's no real civilization but he doesn't know how to scavenge things off of your corpse when you die this way he's he seems very clearly eager to pick things off of you after you get killed just like his quote-unquote friends so like you're just a hundred percent sure of. So like you're just 100% sure of this, 2D. You're like, you're like this.

This is a little bit of a rock in a hard place situation because I don't think the other two paths are better. But at the same time, he's taking us there thinking, oh, I'm going to get him. I will quietly share this information with the rest of the party. Do a deception check. Because everyone will hear you, but will he notice you

kind of whispering to your friends? That was a seven. Nice. So you sort of like quietly tell the group, but you notice as you finally tell Danny last that Verge kind of looks over his shoulder at you and kind of like nods,

like look at the big smile on his face. Not necessarily implying that he heard every word that you said, but that he's trying to reassuringly just like, yeah, we're doing this. I say, I'm saying to Danny. The guy is kind of a dick. Have you eaten snake before? It's not bad

You take the poison out first And then eat head I like to eat head so the eyes look at me When I swallow them I want to sound clip that last bit out Make that my ringtone I like to eat head that last bit out make that my ringtone I like to eat head the head of snake or creature

we just got one for you now Dan Verge what monsters what monsters are the path you want us to take what kind of monsters are those oh they're just special sort of volcano inspired lizard folk. And do you have any tips, tricks for us on how we would best them?

Do a persuasion check. Isn't he a volcano inspired lizard folk? No, he's got like a python head on a little halfling body. 19. 19. Oh, so he kind of like gathers himself a little bit and like dusts himself off and tries to give you a proper pitch on how to survive them. Let's see. What does he know? What does he know?

He tells you that these guys don't even try to use fire on them. Their bodies have adapted to living in the fire. These guys are pretty scary, and you're likely to encounter at least a couple of them, but if you can get the jump on them, they're actually

not that durable. They're really good at dodging attacks, but once you hit them once, twice, they go down. They're just hard to hit. So if you can hit them, power to you.

You swing three times, Brian. Perhaps on three times lady, you could just annihilate them even if you miss twice. They're tough. He calls them fire newts. three times lady, you could just annihilate him even if he missed twice. So, uh, they're tough. He calls them fire newts.

Okay. Mighty, mighty. And how far until we encounter them if we go your way? We need probably one more day of travel, and I was hoping that we would be able to

Encounter them today But since we rested It's going to take a little bit longer So you know We could push through the night Per my recommendation And encounter them or You know one more day of travel

And then we can rest Again And then after that we'll be ready okay verge i'm gonna make i i'd like to offer you a a bonus as it were um we're not we are carrying very little ourselves we had very little when we started this um i'm pretty good at making money if you can get all of us alive to bling bottom i will give you 10 gold pieces when we get there. That's a persuasion check with advantage for you this time, Iva. 18.

He lights up. He says, really, really, very well, very well. I will protect you and make sure we make it to Blingbottom as a team. That's what I'm thinking. Am I a part of your team now, would you say? An integral one. Yes. Let's do this.

He snickers excitedly to himself. He's thrilled about this money deal. You feel like you got him. You got him by the hook. Fingers crossed. Yeah. And truly, like like passive insight you feel like you got it you got a good sense that you just bought him a little bit and you just he just sort of skips ahead saying ah this team will be a good team and uh you you

travel through the night again it gets to be what must be sunfall just based off of your biological internal clocks but you cannot of course see the sun because you're just in these blackened underwater caves uh you it it is a long day travel this time a lot of the cave has a foot of water that you have to slog through and you do start to worry about like disease and just the bad parts of sloshing through unknown water in a cave under an ocean. It must, must be some bad algae and disease down here and mold. But eventually.

And wet tails. When one has a tail that gets wet. You all, you all see Nathan. Does he shake it off? Nathan's little tail is just sopping wet and constantly twitching automatically. Achoo! Your tail does stick out of your robes,

right Nathan? i have like a tweed jacket yeah got it so it's right it's right where the part is in the back part of the jacket you are a wizard so i just immediately went to robes but you've got a tweed jacket i that was you know if i may uh presumptuous of me that's all right yeah i'm thinking like ice cream vendor in 1890 ff woody cooks crying so you guys finally get to about nightfall and there's this sort of elevated part where you you walk up for a while and verge tells you well this is a good spot as any to take up camp you know i am sleepy now just thinking about all this money i'm going to go ahead and sleep all night this time i'm gonna watch him and he very very comfortably just sort of curls up and sighs deeply and seems to drift off into very real sleep as he dreams of all the gold and he sits

down next to him i'm gonna watch him the entire fucking time his eyes are still open because he's a snake you're gonna risk a point of exhaustion just watching him, Brian. Well, let's take turns, but I'm watching him. We'll take turns. We'll do what? Happily take shifts, yeah. Alright, are we doing same shifts? Are we going to start with Nathan and Iva? No, let's switch.

Yeah, I'll do one. Yeah, I didn't do one last time. Brian wants to switch, so Blaine and I will go first. wants to switch. I'm sleeping. Blaine and I will go first. I'll sleep. 2D is getting the real plus side of this. You're taking good care of your party paladin

and just letting him sleep all the way through the night. Really treating him like a prince. He has to commune with Bahamut. Thank you, my dear friend. Yes, make sure that that dragon helps us murder this horrible liar. Oh, I can't wait to eat him. All right, roll a perception check.

Jelf and Danny. Danny Jelfman. What was that? A perception, did you say that's right boss uh i have a proficiency and a plus five but that's only an 11 oh that would be a 13 oh shabby how about you danny uh 15 plus 3 18 oh not bad at all so yeah you guys keep an eye i I mean, yeah, Danny, he seems like he is unconscious. You know, you look at him, and at one point, you and Jeff kind of, like, look ahead,

and you can stay keeping an eye on him if you want, but he seems zonked. I go to Jeff, and I go, watch this, and I whisper into his ear, into the snake's ear, I don't like you. And then I laugh. Hold on, I'm going to roll a perception check from Verge.

Oh, he rolled a 14, so you just hear him go He's dreaming about sprinklers. You guys head together or are you going to keep an eye on Verge Danny I'm keeping an eye on him

right Jeff I'm going to say you're going to head up the tunnel again to just try to scout ahead a little bit because everyone seems for the most part like Danny's got it under control yes please and you reach this area that looks like it's going to go into a really narrow cave what do you want to do uh one person wide one person wide uh uh i'm one person wide can i go in there as far as i can see as far far as I can really quickly? Yes. I'm very quick. Why don't you do

a stealth and a perception check, please. A 20 stealth, plus 4, so 24. Wow. And a perception. That's super stealthy. 18, 20. That's a 20 with my stuff so you fucking crushed it you get

you so this narrows in and like a little funnel makes a hard left and a hard right in this tiny little narrow path and then you kind of like flatten your back against the cave wall as you see one of these glowing orange fire newts, you know, they're, they're, they're almost as tall as you very slender. You see it's rib cage kind of like pulsing with a heartbeat underneath its translucent skin,

but it looks almost like magma is like flowing through its body. It's carrying a weapon. like magma is like flowing through its body it's carrying a weapon it's got like a little shield of lava rock strapped to its arm it's got kind of like a scimitar and it's just sort of like like you know swaying back and forth very reptilian amphibian uh as it kind of goes down the hall and you it doesn't see you you. You managed to stay hidden, but this path ahead goes to the left or to the right. Okay. I'm going to, I'm going to shimmy back and,

uh, and I'm not going to drop my keys. Oh good. I rolled, did not drop my keys. And, uh, I'm going to shimmy back and tell these guys,

uh, there's a new to head. Can we try to figure out what, what, what we think would be effective against these guys? First do a stealth and then I'll give you an insight check. Oh, I rolled a 20

for my stealth again. Hell yeah. They don't notice you as you sneak back to the camp. Check in with Danny and do an insight check as you confer Danny. 17 plus 5 plus 7. So 24.

So as you switch off the next shift to Nathan and Iva, you're able to tell them you gather there's a few of these. You think you heard it whispering after it walked away. You also feel like because it's got a shield and they're so sort of lithe that they would be indeed hard to hit. So it seems like Verge's info tracks. It also seems like

Verge probably originally intended to lead you somehow so you'd be cornered by these guys. And as that path starts out with a real twist, you think he was going to bottleneck you all in there and that maybe it would actually be best to do a variation of what you just did have somebody scout ahead and wait for them to either

go by and sneak past them but definitely not to cluster in this bottleneck sure because it's such it's such a narrow path that that does a hard right and a hard left that it's probably best if one of you scouts ahead and like gets past the bottleneck before you come in as a group. Let's see if verge suggest that on his own. Now that we, now that he has better motivation for keeping us alive and then, you know what I mean? Like let's let him offer that and then see what he does.

See if he's actually helping. Yeah. A test of sorts. So Iva and Nathan, what will you be doing on your watch? I mean, I think we're going to play some dice. Oh, my instinct is to keep my eye on, what's his name? To keep an eye on Verge.

You can do that while you play dice. But dice. You can walk and chew gum. Let's do it. Why don't you both roll a perception check, a general watch perception check. It's hard for me to sleep because it was so exciting. It's a little hard for me to just go nighty-nighting. I only got a seven, probably because I was thinking about them dice.

Oh, not to worry. I got a six. Well, this is great. You're both very absorbed in your dice game, although you do kind of keep an eye on Verge. He doesn't seem to get up. He seems to be trying to get a full eight hours. It's time to play dice what kind of stakes we got here nathan you don't really have any money are you gonna barter with

something in this game i don't have anything how does it work can i win let's just play for fun then i give him uh i just give him a few coins and we just play for fun i teach him how to play lovely well why don't we go ahead and do a roll just to see who wins how many games over the course of the night. So let's see what's a good let's. Are you going to cheat at all? You can whisper me whether you cheat or text me, Sarah, but that will involve a sleight of hand check in addition to what I'm going to have you guys roll. So why don't you both do a performance check? Performance check. Got it.

Okay. Thirteen. Great. Fourteen. It's pretty neck and neck. You guys learn a game of dice. Do you have a favorite game of dice that you already play or would you like me to toss you an in-game dice game, Iva? Yeah, I think give me a, I'm not prepared with the name of the game.

Fizbin? Yeah, I have one called Chisels. If you want to make it Chisels, you play a game of Chisels. Iva, you rolled double Chisels. You're very good at this. You're doing great. I only got a half turnip. I'm learning.

A half turnip. That's some Animal Crossing love right there. And so you just stick close to camp. And as you get up the next morning with the rest of the party, Verge tells you his plan. He says, okay,

here's the plan. i will be your scout and i will stay ahead of the party and i will let you know when it's safe to pass through certain corners does that sound in keeping does that sound in keeping with what we had said we wanted to do how someone's got ahead a little bit of both it sounds in keeping with what you were going to do, but also it's giving him the ability to do it. No, I say cow manure. No. Cow manure.

That's what I say to that idea. I don't like that part of the cow at all. Yes. No. I will be in front. I will be in front with you. With me? Probably one person scouting, right, is less. Well, then I will be in front. I will be in front with you. With me? Probably one person scouting, right, is less.

Well, then I will scout. Okay. Sounds good to me. And I give him the complete lowdown on what I saw during my recon. Just to remind him of what's ahead and where to lay low and what I learned and when to crouch and when to jump, when to press triangle. Okay. And maybe right before he goes, I have message. So maybe what I could do is cast half an end of message to Danny. So that way he has the response in his pocket whenever he wants to while he's scouting. Does that make sense? Great. Yeah,

absolutely. So that basically will enable you Danny to send a telepathic message back to the party as you scout. Oh, that sounds fun. Danny, you can say whatever you, you could say a naughty word and I'll hear it in my ears.

We can talk just using our brains you can say a thing to me with your brain while you're scouting great I look forward to this I'm gonna go ahead and reveal a map to you guys hey Blaine who is

this map brought to us by this map brought to you by the 2020 Ikea Glurf fringy up map brought to you by the 2020 IKEA Glurf. Frenzy up the bladge with the 2020 Glurf. Glog. IKEA 2020. Beautiful.

Well, you can all go ahead and check roll 20 and you'll see the caves. Is this a screen from Kix? Yeah, I was going to say. What do you mean? Q-I-X. It's that game.

I don't know the game. The reference is lost on me. Oh, yeah. I love that game. Can we play Wizards of War next? I got really good at that. There's a Wizards of War machine at Turkey Hill. Spent summers there.

Foreplay. Well, you guys make it this far and Verge is going to, although he positions himself up front, he's going to go ahead and let Danny scout ahead. So Danny, you're going to go ahead and head up in here. Why don't you do Oh, I see. Yes, I just saw a picture of Nathan Whiskers

and it makes me happy. Oh my God. We have to share that on social media. Chris drew that Nathan Whiskers art and it is amazing. I am happy looking at his real face or just a drawing of his face. He's very, he's likable.

He makes me happy. Hey, on that note, as you have that spring heel jack in your step, will you please roll a stealth check for us, sir? Pretty good. 13 plus

5. Ooh, that isn't bad at all. 18. You make it up to the edge of here, and sure enough, no one hears you. Why don't you do a perception check, and we'll find out what you see. Not great. 11 plus 3, 14.

You know, you think you hear whispers, but there's more than one being in this tunnel. It sounds like some to the left and some to the right. Any idea of like how many numbers, low numbers? You feel like you're hearing at least one in either direction. But other than that, with that perception roll, that's about the best you can do. Okay.

So you're going to wait? Wait to... See what happens? Or are you going to wait? Wait to... See what happens? Or are you going to head back to the party? You're going to hold on to your telepathic message and wait for something else that you see? Yeah. For a minute, yeah. So you wait

a minute, and you stay pretty well hidden behind the corner, much as Jelf told you he did. And all of a sudden it looks like a meeting is going to start in this chamber in front of you a couple of these fire newts come from either direction and then a couple more so there's about eight of these guys all whispering to each other uh and you're not sure what's going on they're they're speaking this strange reptilian language uh what languages do you know danny uh common elvish and under common you don't know

what they're speaking uh but it's definitely alien to you and there's eight of them so you really have to kind of back up a little bit and tiptoe stay from being seen i lived with a fireman from college do i understand what he's saying uh my roommate from like out of state yeah they're saying oh you got a burrito the size of your head last night did you get it with rice or not that's a real burrito you gotta have rice yeah that's it i know how to say that i'm sorry that's just what people that's all people talk about in college that's i'm sorry that's my entire college experience is burritos um who can i communicate with uh using using my brain nathan oh nathan oh good you let him know yes hey buddy there's uh eight eight of these creatures here and they're having a meeting and being whispery

and but we maybe you should join me and we take them I'll tell the group all right well as you gear up to face off against eight or more fire newts I believe we'll leave that

or whatever I mean should we well we'll figure it out next week next week on the poker no no no everybody well i will of course allow a discussion a little bit but uh yeah right now we've got danny with his back pressed up against the wall at the end of that windy tunnel so i'm going to just go ahead and update the map if you haven't brian brian you do have control of your token if you want to show me exactly where you want to be hopefully you recognize we got a jelf we got it you gotta have you where are they some default art on dnd beyond so i'm not just using the elven silhouette my dad here that's you up top that's that's your avatar from dnd beyond no i know but where am i down here where oh you mean this tunnel here is where they're all lined

up yeah you're somewhere over there and testing show yeah you can be there that's great yeah all right tucked in around a corner all right well now that brian's tucked it in hey sam hi what happened today on episode three we're on a quick pit stop in Davenglaven, being led by Verge. Everyone in this group is extremely polite to each other. It is deeply unsettling. We're considering going into some tunnels. I guess I'm about to learn if you can light a tunnel on fire. Ha ha!

We told Verge that we were heroes, despite our only track record so far being that we attacked a guard on a ship because he was rude to us. We were right to not trust verge as he has sinister motives. It appears. And I don't know if we're ready yet for merch for season four, but I would like a phone case that says I can trust him as far as I can throw him and I can throw him far, but I do not trust him.

Pretty quotable. Cool. Anything else, Dan? pretty quotable uh cool anything else uh dan anything you want to plug sure if folks are so inclined i would love if you would check out the stand-up i am trying to do on twitch right now yes trying to do trying to approximate stand-up comedy on twitch i have jokes i prepare and then I try to do crowd work with folks in the chat. It is twitch.tv slash tell for Dan. And I actually make money off of it. So I love that people are coming to the show. And thank you again, Sark, for dropping 1500 people in my Twitch the other day. That was very cool. Sark's the coolest.

Cool. I'm this is a couple couple weeks out, right? Yes, sir. So I'm doing my regular radio show on Gimme Metal. Grandpa's Metal Stash every Tuesday. Check for other things at BrianPassane.com and merch. Nerd poker merch. Or there's Brian Passain merch. There's a T-shirt of my face with my dog Mavis' face,

and it looks like maybe I'm smelling her farts. But that's a T-shirt you could wear on your body. Anything else, Blaine? Oh, me and Stacy keach uh barn raising in lancaster pennsylvania next weekend uh come on out and there's going to be a concert from smash mouth it's acoustic oh good no electricity in that joke yeah yeah no. Except for, you know, the spark of the funny coming off of that one. Just the sizzle. It's sizzling funny.

So much better than the other things that have come off of Smash Mouth lately. Yeah. The last time they played a super spreader event that big was a bringer show behind Noah's Bagels. No. No. Cool. All right. Well, thanks so much,els. No. No. Cool. All right. Well, thanks so much, everybody.

Yep. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to another episode of Nerd Poker. You can follow us at patreon.com slash nerd poker, and you get bonus episodes from there. And you can also send us anything at P.O. Box 16069 in Sino, California, 91416. Thanks for listening.