Nerd Poker - S4E4 Newt in Town

Episode Date: October 6, 2020

Our new crew has a bottleneck ahead of them, and it's infested with deadly firenewts. Hopefully their morally suspect guide will lead them down the best path without too many surprises, and maybe they'll get a cool finishing move or two on these creepy, glowing jerks.

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, Blaine, Chris. Now it's time for another episode of Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Season four. I once had a cat named 44.

I once had a cat named 44. Hey, everybody. It's Brian Poussaint. And you're listening to Nerd Poker with Brian Poussaint. Or Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. I forget. But it's been a lot of things This is gonna be a fun one, I can already tell

Episode 4 of Season 4 Nobody slept I fucking love Chris Tallman so much Here he is, everybody Hi everybody, it's me Hey, it's Chris We've got Blaine Hi Brian Sarah Hello Brian Ken everybody. It's me. Hey, it's Chris. We've got Blaine. Hi, Brian.

Sarah. Hello, Brian. Ken. G-g-g-goy. I actually didn't have you in the mode where I could see all your faces, so I was just yelling them into the darkness. Who have I not? Oh, Dan.

Yeah, hi. Did I get you, Blaine? Yeah. I'll do it again. Hi, Dan. Yeah, hi. And did I get you, Blaine? Yeah. I'll do it again. Hi, Brian. And up in the upper right this week, we've got Sam. Hello, Sam. Hello, sweet, blessed angel children.

I think that would be the Rosemary spot. You know, I'm glad we got Blaine twice because it's his birthday. What? Happy birthday. Making because it's his birthday happy birthday making him record on his birthday i wish there wasn't a pandemic because i would have hired a bunch of people to come in and dress like cheesecake factory employees to stand behind me and sing just just for the joke but if there's a pandemic we wouldn't be doing it on zoom and that would be there's a loop this is our first time recording since we've actually published an episode of season four so we've actually got a lot of new listeners and i just want to confirm because i've i've gotten at least three people three nerds have

asked on social media if we record remote and i would just like to make sure because i don't think we've said it in the first three episodes this season we remote. We're all doing this over Zoom. Eventually, I hope to get us all back at this table. Yeah. Who knows? How would that happen? We all want to. I don't know. I know it's awkward because we're not scared of each other. Yeah, exactly. There's a vaccine for your fart.

You guys are the right people. I'm most looking forward to actually hanging out with again, but at the same time, it's tough because I think a lot of people are like, why don't you just do it? It's just because we're being extra careful in Los Angeles. Are they? I think maybe people in other parts of the country. Yeah, exactly. It's very different here. It feels very different. Los Angeles is having this weird thing where we have, I think, the highest or at least in the top two

highest counties in the country uh as far as infection rates and it feels like everyone is just sort of shrugging and going but it isn't right that's fake news and there's a lot of people running around without masks and just going back and going to mass parties and it feels like uh chaos a little bit yeah and in parts of the city it already feels like the end of the world too it's like a fucking weird thing right everything's closed but everyone's trying to party anyway so it's yeah so they're on the streets now because they're not in buildings so they're out on the sidewalk fucking drinking margaritas and yelling it is on fire and shaking so there's that right

there's also the fires and the earthquakes yeah it's great when you go outside and the air is purple, but the sky is orange somehow at the same time. And it's weird to have that level of dissonance as the ground beneath you rocks back and forth six inches to each side. Yeah, the whole world's like a Frank Frazetta cover. California dreaming. We're all on the side of God's van. So I said episode 404.

Do we have people to thank? It seems like we do. Oh, of course we do, Brian. We've got Patreon supporters to thank. And I would like to thank ones who I go by names like TheSundanceKidX. Thank you, TheSundanceKidX. Thank you. Thank you. You're a delight the Sundance Kid X. Thank you, the Sundance Kid X. Thank you. Thank you.

You're a delight, Sundance Kid X. Just like Sean Miner, another Patreon supporter of ours. Thank you. I've got a whole list of folks. These are all, of course, at the Stargoyle or Hayboss tier. This is a perk of that. Thanks, Sparky, the Unicorn of Woe. Ooh.

Thanks, Sparky. Thank you. Thank you, Fooshface.. Ooh. Thanks, Sparky. Thank you. Thank you, Fooshface. Thank you. Thanks, FF. Thank you, Roll for Diabetes. Thanks, Roll. Or if you're Will for Brimley, Roll for Diabetes.

Yeah, like a cinnamon roll. Am I right? Where am I? What camera am I doing this in? Over here, Blade. Three. Okay, I'm on three. Hey, we'll be right back with L uh lyle alzato and charlie

pride after the oh i was gonna say earlier that uh with your birthday you're now officially as old as your references oh my god i'm hoagie carmichael finally i'm in the hoagie carmichael tier sorry dan yeah we're about 10% of the way through. Thank you. Jason Robards' Jockloot. I get that one. Thank you. Jonathan Zinger. Thank you. Bob Zeus of Bob

Zeus' Discount Hammers and Hammer Accessories. Oh, thank you. That's where I got my hammer. Thank you. And this is a play on an old saying. Thank you, Moist on his own petard. Nice, Moist. Gross. Thank you, TikTok's exotic dancer pet Emporium.

Now in Tustin. Thank you, I Heart Sinbad. Who doesn't? Thank you, Wallace Shawn's hot dog and grilled sandwich shack. Thanks. Open all week. Thank you, Joker's LOL. Thanks.

Thank you, Minnie Pearl's After Dark Special. Oh. Add it. Thank you, Gabriel Jimenez. Thank you, Dustin Bowen. Thank you, Jason Yarn. Thank you, Davin apple white thank you thank you tiktok sensual pinky lock fake name thank you oops i stepped in shaving cream oh no thanks

and finally thank you my wi-Fi in Borat voice. Blaine, who are those supporters brought to us by? Brought to you by Jack Daniels Tide Pods. The power of Jack Daniels in your laundry. Get them clothes clean with the power of Jack Daniels. That's fresh. Jack Daniels fresh. Jack Daniels. That's fresh. Jack Daniels fresh. Jack Daniels Tide Pods.

Dan? Thanks. I myself am already using a competitor, so I can't do that. I've got, of course, the Johnny Walker Black Label dryer sheets. You can just do them both, and we call it the one-two punch. It's a little Johnny and Jack having a party in your laundry machine. Not like that time you threw up both of them in your laundry machine. All right.

Listen, sometimes you can't make it to the toilet. Is this a George Thurgood song? Come on. It's, like, efficient to throw up directly into your laundry machine, though. Right? You're just skipping the part where you puke on your clothes completely. And you picking the thing where your clothes will go yeah you know i threw up in my laundry hill josh gondelman has the world's best joke where he says that uh you can replace the phrase bad to the bone in that song with kind of a dick and it fits perfectly it just completely fits perfectly genius jokes are kind of a dick and it fits perfectly it just completely fits perfectly genius jokes are kind

of a dick yeah i am a dick i'm mad at josh godelman for both being the world's nicest man and the possessor of the world's funniest joke he can go fuck himself how many chooses that guy have he's like an also in addition to being the world's nicest man and possessor of the world's uh best joke has this fucking custom shoe collection follow Josh Gondelman on all your social medias folks he's a writer for late night TV shows and a very funny stand up

alright folks Gondelman Gondelman is the sound Jerry Lewis makes when he accidentally rolls a 20 sided dice and on that note here comes what happened last time on nerd poker when he accidentally rolls a 20-sided dice. And on that note, here comes... What happened last time on Nerd Poker? Our ragtag crew has ventured beneath the ocean

after having kind of a weird little, we'll call it goofy times, mix-em-up, where the guy who was supposed to let him know, like, what to do in case of an emergency just sort of happened to get thrown off the side of their boat before they went to sleepy times. And they were stranded on a lava rock with a small cave on it. Now beneath the ocean, they are headed towards the continent of Davenglaven. A suspicious guide?

Halfling with a snake head named Verge leading them through the caves. Excuse me. Got some fucking foam in my mouth because I got too excited back there about Blaine's birthday. Anyway, I don't know. There's fucking too much saliva, whatever you want to call it. It felt like it got three-dimensional.

Could have been other gross things. Who knows? Maybe I was just eating a fistful of spinach earlier because I wanted to get strong for the next earthquake. I'm just fucking... Dan, Dan, quick, Dan, quick. Draw more attention to it. So, the party is now with Verge at a narrow cave,

which has been scouted ahead of time by some of our party members. It is filled with fire newts. Will our adventurers be able to get through the caves without being slain by fire newts in episode four? Who knows? Let's find out. All right, guys. So here we go.

I somehow managed to panic my way through the last portion of that. We're going to go ahead and do a couple of points of order. First of all, oh, I've got it in my hair right now. Let's get to roll 20. Are we all in roll 20?

Totally. Yes. Beautiful. What are the dots? They're just sort of to roll 20. Are we all in roll 20? Totally. Yes. Beautiful. Where are the dots? They're just sort of pores in the lava cave. Nice. Like extra big ones. Listen, I hand drew them just for you.

They're my custom dots. Nice. I drew stubble on the cave. I'm trying to use a website now. I don't have it handy, but a website to like hand draw this. It's pretty cool. I know I sent it to, but a website to like hand draw this. It's pretty cool. I know I sent it to you, Chris. Because you dungeon master fairly often, but

it's really fun because you just click and drag. Like a map drawing program? Yeah. And you can increase the distance. I'll share it on the social medias or some junk. But at any rate, for all're all in Rule 20,

you can see just sort of the general layout. I still need a better token for Jelf. Everyone else selected a D&D Beyond portrait except for you, Blaine. So right now you've got this sort of vague silhouette for Jelf. Well, I keep sort of like a vague silhouette, just sort of like my egg on Twitter, so that I can make political commentary and reply to uh women that

try to speak out oh okay uh i was gonna for a second there i was gonna say you mean like what ken does because ken doesn't put his name on his social media but uh then you started saying that other stuff about men's rights activism and i was like let's not pin that on my friend ken by the way i would i would never do that i don't want to be a tech absolutely not on your main but you know it's great i always find it funny when you because remember they stopped letting you have an egg avatar they have like a silhouette avatar now when you have an account without an avatar i think it's funny there's still some eggs that have survived like you can still see some people put eggs those are thousand year eggs and those are delicious. Pretty smelly though. My point, I suppose, bringing this up is, yeah, I would like to actually, before we get too into what's likely to be some combat or at least some sneaking,

I feel like we could describe our characters a little more. I think I kind of put it on Ken in episode one to say what he looked like i think we got it we got a vague sense of like how there's some uh rhinestones or bedazzles and iva's armor uh and we we know uh we've got like a couple of other folks here we got a little bit into what everyone looks like i especially think we should have our wood elf and our half wood elf tell listeners what they are and what they look like a little more people really want to know on patreon and social media blaine and brian what you uh y'all look like well i'm a yop my name is jelf and here's a bit about myself my skin is copper not too much my hair is brown and there's too much i live in trees like i said before and uh i spend some

time on the forest floor uh i like to rhyme not all the time i don't feel that i have to i saw there's also been debate about how long blaine will commit to this bit before he starts to half-ass it and i like to see that uh i believe uh nipsey russell was also a yop now i know you're a yop like like like officially but uh to to our fellow adventurers here you appear to be a wood elf is would you say that's generally accurate yeah it's more of a local slang kind of a thing. I, uh, I, uh, a yop's a thing that likes to sing.

And also, Oh, I'm sorry, Chris, would you like to chime in here about yoptum? I wanted to ask a question. When you say that you like live in the trees, does that mean sort of clothing wise?

Are we thinking like Peter Pan Lost Boys kind of a thing? Is it sort of like foresty clothing? Oh, Rufio. Or nothing at all? Well, I'm a fighter, but I'm quick, so I wear armor that's not too thick. I see. And you were firing off some arrows in the first episode. You are an archer, primarily.

I am, I am are an archer primarily uh i i am i am an archer fun hey brian tell us a little bit more about danny we know he's a monk uh yeah um we know he's quiet well yeah he's a quiet dude dude. He lived alone for a long time. You might call him a hermit. He is a wood half-elf. He is trained in martial arts. And did we ever figure out, Dan, it's not cord, who would be a god that Danny would be maybe familiar with? Or is there a religion that Danny would be more... Like, what color is his hair?

Dark. Dark hair? Yeah. What about his eye color? I didn't write that down yet, but... Just make it up you know hazely but hazely i like it i get hazel jokes well uh i did i did find there is like a philosopher god that i might i thought might be fun for a monk. It's not necessarily like a popular, like all the monk, monk would elves do this,

but it's a, it's a, it's a chaotic, good Elvin deity. It's called labilis entereth, or you could just say labilis. So I thought that might be cool. I'll link a little bit about labilis in the chat.

If you want to kind of skim it while we go. Cool. filled out i had filled out the character appearance and beyond but i didn't print up the one that has well he kind of looks like if uh if i'm not mistaken like if donnie yen had pointy ears yeah yeah that's what i'm going for yes exactly are you thinking more like it man era donnie yen or rogue one no it man classic and that's how he dresses too he he Ip Man, Eridanian, or Rogue One? No, Ip Man. Classic. And that's how he dresses, too. He doesn't wear his robe from the monastery, but he wears loose pants ready to run up a wall or kick somebody in the face. And kind of a lightweight kind of gi with a hood. Cool. So he can also kind of

disappear into wherever he needs to disappear into. And you're the way of shadow, correct? Yes. So that'll be a fun path to follow for you. And we're also going to be keeping track of your ki points because being a monk is a little complicated because you get to do a lot of your moves by

spending them and then you got to rest to get them back. But I am full key now yep and uh i would love of course if uh sarah chris and ken have anything else they'd like to say about their characters i know chris specifically i think someone wanted to do some character art or cosplay they're asking about like the markings of yeah i posted a i did a drawing uh that i'm using for my little token i posted that on my instagram if you want to look at that yeah i think he again like humanoid three feet tall like a i'm picturing gray furred rabbit um green bow tie yeah like a little rabbit in a suit with a carrot as a wand so god i love it so much and you haven't told us

what the name of your wand is yet have you i know you do do i don't you did put it in oh that was when he was something else i don't know if yeah i might oh you're you're still thinking about that that's fun don't worry about it then pretend i didn't say anything got it that's right you were playing with classes before we got started um when i had a mace my mace had a name iva 2d anything else you'd like to throw in well i'm gonna get a a mini so which i'm gonna attempt to paint at some point so so i will post that when i do but or send it to be posted but um yeah i was you know small forest gnome so she's got that kind of forest style i guess like uh jelf the yop she's never heard of a yop before so um very intrigued and uh yeah like red reddish

hair green eyes kind of dark uh very tanned bark skin uh from that forest jam um and yes she really likes uh sparkly stuff uh so her leather armor is kind of studded with uh gems but she's a champion yeah i bet bet bet bet bet bet bet bet bet bet bet bet bet bet bet bet bet bet i don't know what that was that just happened it's a it's uh uh fred flintstone had a gambling problem and whenever uh he got around gambling he would go bad but bad bad bad bad he would go into a weird fugue state and lose all his money i just wait is that true is that true yeah oh my god stones had a lot of weird i assume jesse gleason did that at some point too on the honeymooners oh he must have just to be clear i've felt a lot of judgment towards had a lot of weird. I assume Jesse Gleason did that at some point, too, on The Honeymooners. Oh, he must have. Just to be clear, I've felt a lot of judgment towards Iva.

A lot of gambling problem has been thrown about, and I just want to say, like, I feel like she has a gambling solution, and I don't know why everybody thinks that it's such an issue, so. Oh, my God. That's the best thing ever. I'm okay with it as long as you pay a little forward always do the man nice yeah ken is writing you about money is my favorite thing it's so great i'm looking forward to you getting to civilization so we can talk more about the in-game card game

uh of bent that we have yeah and we're in a short party i think you're a short party i feel like this is a very nature inspired party um you guys have a i love how much like last time where we had three half elves of different varieties though uh we have some strange coincidences in that we have a forest gnome a wood elf and a half wood elf and on top of that we have nathan who's like you know rural and foresty in nature and on top of that we have this good uh chummy paladin iva and tootie both have red hair uh there's all sorts of just it feels like like you guys live in the same canon coincidences that i'm enjoying right now 2d you're a dwarf right yes i'm short and stout and full of clout it's fun isn't it on twitter or i do it around the house what if

you're actually with a mouse i do it in my car i do it near and far i can't stop doing it please help me stop doing it oh my god the other point of order i sort of wanted to bring up is we only went into it a little bit but chris had mentioned this to me off air like a little over a week ago before episode three uh is the map the map uh we we checked in a little bit on the map before episode three um and a little bit on the air during episode 2 but for the most part we've only really talked about bling bottom where you're headed and Faka's wrath where you're coming from

did you guys as a party want to sort of retroactively ask Verge and by way of that ask me the dungeon master anything else about the map that we can say you did on the way to this confrontation so if you check out the map over uh in your files of course is a possibility but i would be happy to re-text it to everybody would that help i'm looking um the questions that we have about the continent for when we get there you mean yeah like i i feel

like you guys would have as a party kind of looked at this map and had a discussion about, oh, what is that? Oh, what the fuck is that? And I'm happy to retext it to you so you can all kind of zoom in and pretend this is what you asked Verge after first receiving it, because I feel like you would do that to an extent. It looks like you're going to be on this continent for at least long

enough to go to Bling Bottom, but perhaps longer. Yeah, I feel like maybe we were probably emotionally waiting to see if we got through these fire nudes or managed to fuck that up that's fine so what so once we get rid of these fire nude guys what'll we find so that we're not surprised so he you know tells you the immediate area that you're heading to around bling about the cave is going to he believes exit the jungles a little northwest of bling bottom the cave is going to he believes exit the jungle's a little northwest of bling bottom he recommends not going into those jungles in fact he kind of wrings his hands and says you don't want to go into the jungles that's where cronk treads cronk oh man i'd see cronk

treads when i was in school man we should stick to the beaches to avoid Kronk. Okay. And he points to the map and says that that is Kronk peering through the trees there. These all sound like early Genesis song lyrics. What is Kronk? What or who is cronk cronk is an immense stone animated statue it has no arms and two very small stubby legs but it is large larger than a house and it has a terrible maw they call it it Kronk the Walking Economy.

It devours. It wanderers, adventurers. And it grinds their bones into small little bone coins. That it ejects from itself. And are used as a currency in Bling Bottom. What the fuck? Daniel. It eats people and shits coins.iel eats people and shits coins it eats people it's like an easter island statue it's like an easter island statue with little legs and it

chases people and devours them and i throw my hat at it when my hat lands on and i become it uh this is not super mario odyssey this is dungeons and Can we use it as like a grinder? Like a disposal type situation? You definitely get like a vague sense of that. Would you like to do an insight check about how to abuse Cronk the Walking Economy? Yes.

That's a sentence I never thought I'd hear. It's a sentence I definitely enjoyed making up as I said it. Perhaps we can make smoothies. So that's 15. All right. So you definitely feel like somebody gave it that nickname as like a sort of snide reference to what it does.

It also feels like, okay, it ejects coins made of bone. Like that's a little fucked up. That seems like definitely like a series of powerful spells that were done for a purpose it seems like uh this was created a while ago if he's warning you about it and he's been in the caves for a long time so it seems like probably some sort of ancient thing that's been there for a long time maybe it was not originally called cronk the walking economy but has been sort of nicknamed that by the people of blingbottom and yeah you could probably if you wanted to get rid of a body you could probably throw it to cronk it seems like that's definitely sort of the the the the positive after effect if

he's if he's telling you that they use this as a weird kind of creepy currency it's probably a part of the criminal underworld or at least a part of like what bad news folks exchange things for yeah that the entire culture has adopted as their day-to-day currency not the entire not the entire oh some people do use it it seems like they it seems like they probably also accept gold another currency but the way verge tells you about this and the way you sort of use your insight check of 15 is like there's like there's certain people who use this bone coin thing as currency i was gonna say verge like if i throw anything in there will it come out as coins like you know well he'll spit it out if it's not a creature with bones

oh okay so only bones a creature the blood and gristle drips from its maw the bones come out of the coin slot where does the coin slot eject from the gas from the other side yeah this sort of other flat part yeah where the where the coins are made all right well this is great and the people who use these coins, it's sort of like the underground element of the city? Unsavory types. But there's a lot of unsavory types in Blingbottom. There's also many nice types in Blingbottom. It's a thriving port city with a large seafood economy

because it's a port city. I'm starting to see why because money comes out of the guy's ass it's also the only currency that a local population they're usually butting heads against will accept so sometimes it's used in diplomatic negotiations with a local group of we we'll call them creepy types. Does he just leave these coins around for people to collect? Usually someone runs in to collect them whenever. They're highly

sought after, these leavings. Hmm. Interesting. Probably dangerous to gather. Dangerous to gather, but highly valuable. Yes. The bigger the creature creature the bigger the coin yeah exactly you get the impression if you were to say like i don't know drop 12 prisoners off this thing would chase them around if they were already dead it would gobble them up but it would

pretty quickly make bone coins and although cronk would try to eat you while you collected them you could go in grab them and take them home within a short amount of time okay well that sounds like a fun day trip maybe but it seems like verge has never been in possession of these coins he doesn't have like a ton of like practical advice for how to use them he just says we should avoid cronk he will devour us all okay thanks Verge sure you know fire nudes yeah

is there a way to get the fire nudes and throw the fire nudes into the mouth well no that's gonna be way far away so like

you would you're still gonna have to travel for probably at least another day to get all the way to the shore it's been a couple

also I assume you guys are tracking your rations but I'm sure you've burned probably at least another day to get all the way to the shore. It's been a couple. Also, I assume you guys are tracking your rations, but I'm sure you've burned through at least half of them. Well, let's just power through if we're on a ration clock. Well, yeah, you are and let's head over to roll 20. So if you

guys look right now, no one's rolled initiative yet, but Danny has been sort of peeking around the corner and i'm gonna sort of pick the narrative there up with danny so you have been looking and these guys are sort of like squawking to each other in this language that you've never heard before we talked a little bit about that and it seems like they're having a quick meeting but then they're probably going to part ways into different parts of the tunnel okay i run back stealthily to tell to tell my new friends cool well uh we're definitely gonna

have you do a stealth check uh pretty good 16 then plus whatever bonuses i get you're gonna make me look that up no i'm looking cool are you saying stealth or uh five for stealth perfect great yeah you managed to we'll even say run stealthily back to your friends as you uh had hoped so you guys go back you confer there's eight of these guys and as you go back they drop out of vision so I'm going to go ahead and hide them from you you're not sure where they are now okay but I'm gonna whisper and

tell my friends did I saw I saw eight right yep do I know exactly what they are I think you did a history check and you got as far as just knowing that they're fire nudes they're fire nudes fire verge told us fire won't work well against them because they've become immune to it so hey you also said that there's some sort of uh that there's a cliff or

a ledge or some sort of situation going on when we get out of this the other side of this tunnel right is this is it just more tunnel or is there some kind of a drop off or or something going on in the tunnels ahead uh verge tells you that once you go ahead in the tunnels there is sort of a big drop off and a cliff um but it does there's more you're going to be underground for at least a day so there's there's another at least one more big hazard before you get to the beach uh it's not an immediate probably traffic right it's on the other side of these though is there any way to flank them can we can someone sneak through it's no the way i saw them uh they were blocking both ways um do an insight check.

I feel like Danny would definitely have some specific thoughts on this. Okay. Yeah, maybe there's some sort of pattern where they might both be gone where both ghosts are far away from the power-up dots, right? 16 again, and this time it's plus three to insight. Great. So with a a 19 which is great you're able to sort of put together these guys came from opposite ends there there's probably only one or two that are going to stay in this main chamber the rest of them are probably going

to split up you could try to stealthily take them out one at a time i feel like let's just go and attack them all so we can get through this. Let's just surprise them. Yes. Danny thinks with how many of us are the party? Do you plus Verge? Yeah. Five plus Verge.

We can take these eight very easily. Do we want to use the tunnel to our advantage? Yeah, definitely. The thing is, if you want to not attract the attention of all the fire newts at once, that is a possibility based off of your insight checks.

You would just have to quietly kill these guys and Verge did tell you they could be taken out in one hit. It's just that when they swarm you, they could be taken out in one hit. It's just that when they swarm you, they become extremely dangerous. I have studied for this. Oh!

I know what... Head, follow me, and I... I know what to do when we get there. Okay. Alright, stealth up to where you were before, Danny, and we'll do another check for there. Okay. All right, stealth up to where you were before, Danny, and we'll do another check for you.

The difficulty check is going to be, I'm just going to say lower this time, and you'll find out why afterwards, but this is only going to require of you an eight. All of us? No, just Danny, if he's going ahead of you, because he's saying follow. He just said follow us.

Yeah. And I rolled low, but luckily I have that high stealth stealth i still got 11 i got six plus five like i said you just needed an eight so you man go ahead and go up as far as you what did i do to like what kind of noise did i make uh you just sort of you did a little like like a like a little popping hip noise your hip kind of just ground like like a little like uh and then you hip kind of just ground like a little like uh I say shush to myself. And I look around but I'm really only saying it to myself.

Bring your token up to the edge of the tunnel there Danny and give us a um a perception roll. Here? Yeah go ahead and drop them. Yeah, right there is great.

And we're all following, yeah? Yeah, so you guys can go ahead and pull up somewhere behind Danny in the tunnel if you want, or you can stay where you are and we'll just do like a chain of whispers back to where you're already standing. It's up to you.

Chain of whispers. Chain of whispers. Chain of whispers. Chain of whispers. Yeah,ispers chain of whispers yeah do we yeah do we i'd like to pretty low at nine nine plus three all right so you just see this one guy uh there is one guy right there with a nine you can also just because you decided to go up a little bit farther than the tunnel i'll give you this um there is a little bit more of the tunnel you can see down that way is it back to me his back isn't to you he's kind of like look inside

he's actively like kind of looking around can you see which way leads to the food court how dark is the tunnel it's actually very dark the thing is these guys glow with like a sort of bioluminescence. It's their conditioner.

It's fantastic. Can I cast a spell on you? It's got both shea butter and tea tree oil in it. Oh, my God. Can you imagine? Especially with like just being nice and cool underground all the time. What did you want to cast, Ken? I would like to cast Sanctuary on Danny.

Tell the listeners which this paladin spell does. You ward a creature within range against attack. And I just lost it. Hang on. Oh, sure. Okay. You ward a creature within range against attack. Until the spell ends, any creature who targets the warded creature with an attack or harmful spell

must first make a wisdom saving throw. On a fail save, the creature must choose a new target or lose the attack or spell. This spell doesn't protect the warded from area effects such as explosion or a fireball. Basically the way it works is you're blessed by Bahamut,

the patron god of 2D, and a villain who attempts to attack you when you're sanctuaried Danny will feel a holy sort of diversion and unable to complete it if they can't make that wisdom saving throw

and so yeah what do you want to do now you see this guy looking around how far away is he he is about 10 feet away And so, yeah, what do you want to do now? You see this guy looking around. How far away is he? He is about 10 feet away. Okay, well, I'm going to shoot a dart at his neck and then run and catch him when he falls. What kind of dart does Danny have? That's why he's one of my specialties.

I have short sword and dart, and then I also have a crossbow well let me i gotta look up your dart yeah so it's uh plus five plus five and then at d1 d4 plus three piercing okay and is this this dart is not poisoned right uh do i have poison no i'm just you said he's gonna fall i mean like you're going to, you're, you're assuming this is going to kill him. Oh shit. Uh,

or knock him out. I will remind you that although darts are a cool, uh, ranged weapon that you, that you, uh, crossbow on him. Yeah.

I was just going to say like, uh, a crossbow. Um, well, let's, uh's danny's gonna look into poison darts let's table that you gotta start by dart mark put it on a card or actually start making things verbally i think i have something where well yeah you we can definitely get you into alchemy and you can start making poisons like that is a very real thing so i'm gonna i'm gonna do two things here brian

um one i'm gonna tell you start every time you're in a new area looking for weird shit to collect and i will start giving you some like you know like abilities to recognize poisonous mushrooms and shit like that maybe you can start making poison yeah does that come with the ancestry and that kind of thing no no but we can work on it for your character from the ground up anyway um would we have advantage if we attacked him right now because he doesn't see us yeah. Okay. I mean, if Danny, if it's cool, I can sneak attack him, which means I get like double damage. So Danny is fine. Yeah.

You go first then. So, yeah. So I think I can use my sneak attack once per turn, deal an extra 2d6. So I have to hit him but and you do have to stealth you haven't done a stealth check yet so if you're moving up up here to the edge of the tunnel we need a stealth check from iva uh-oh too much pressure this pressure got to stop

18 fantastic yeah you make it right next to danny and it will be very easy for you to make it to the fire nude they're about 10 feet away um okay i was just gonna use a uh a short bow on him okay you could definitely like i said uh split the or complete the distance to the fire newt. Okay, well then I'll just go ahead and short sword him. How about that? I would love to see you try. Okay, I'm going to try. You ready? I sure am. Okay, I'm just trying to figure out how I

do, how I get, I want to make sure that I get the this is my first time using my sneak attack, so I'm going to be patient. Let's see. Sneak see sneak attack okay once we deal an extra 2d6 damage okay so i just roll i guess i just roll for the regular damage see if i do it and then sneak okay so that's a 22 to hit that is a hit wow you Wow. You guys need a... Unexpected high number from Sarah. These guys are...

They are because they're so live. They're hard to hit. They're an armor class of 16, at least. Oh, wow. However, they don't have a ton of hit points. It's just enough that you might have to hit them twice, but that's all I'm going to tell you. Okay, well, I got a 4 damage,

but then I get an extra 2d6 because it was sneak attack so wow all right so seven points of damage on him all right so yeah you just like suddenly pop in front of him uh shoving your what is your weapon iva that was a short sword your short sword like really guts him but he doesn't die and he kind of only looks down at you and hisses and we're gonna have everyone roll for initiative he doesn't die and he kind of only looks down at you and hisses and we're gonna have everyone roll for initiative he did not die unfortunately that is unfortunate uh does anybody have an initiative between 20 and up i meant uh 20 and 25 nope all right wait i didn't roll hang on roll your goddamn initiative you goof sorry I'm drunk got it morning who had a you know you should see the Duke 15 and up

who's got a 15 and up yes me hi let's hear it 16 for I rolling even though I just had an action? No, right? No. Yeah, we're putting you at the top of the next turn order. Who's got 10 to 14? Who's got 25 or 64? Danny's 12. Danny's 12. Great.

310 to Yuma. And then... He's got Turk 182. Nathan, what you got? Three. What'd you get? A three. A three?

Oh, boy, oh, boy. He's got 10,000 maniacs. Whoa. All right, so Verge got an 8. And this Fire Newt got a 7.

Ooh! So. Luckily, there's not a whole lot of roughness going on. Jelf, what's your dexterity it's something that I really try to keep track of I work out I stretch

a lot I jump from tree to tree a lot well you and it's a 19 I have a 19 dexterity 2D what you got not a 19 right my dex is a 13 alright so we're going to have Jelf go before you Jelf what you got not a 19 right uh my dex is a 13 all right so we're gonna have jelf go before you

uh jelf what you want to do uh this guy is right in front of us well here's the thing you see darting forward uh and i'm gonna move her token for her you see uh iva run up here um so let's do trying to get it to let me move i was talking all right so iva runs up there um you're still in the tunnel okay nathan and nathan virgil are way in the back i'm very very fast i would like to run up uh i would like to run... Sorry, I'm going to try to move here. I would like to run up here and just sort of lay into this guy with a short sword. Wow.

Please do it. Roll to attack. How about a two? That's going to be a miss. Yeah, that'll be a miss. Anyway, I'm up there. Great. Two to Europe.

I am also going to approach. And I will whack him with my hammer. Roll to attack. Alright. That is a 20. That is definitely

a hit. Not natural. No, but I'm glad to hear it. Where's my hammer? Okay. Congratulations on your 20. Thank you so much. And I hit him for seven points of damage. Badass.

That's, I think, the same amount that was done by Iva. So, you know, he's starting to go, but he's still not dead, unfortunately. He's looking rough. I will say he's looking rough. Up next, we have Brian.

Are you available? Brian is currently looking away from camera. Danny is up in the turn order, if you can? Brian is currently looking away from camera. Danny is up in the turn order, if you can hear me, Brian. I think he's on the phone. Hey, Blaine, what was this phone call brought to us by? Brought to you by a woman witch. A woman witch is a woman witch, but a man witch is a me. Also, hey, Chris,

what are you and Verge talking about back there in the tunnel? As you see, you're starting to hear the sounds of like in the cave. I'm sure you'll get a chance to fight. Oh, I mean, yeah, I'm thinking as soon as we hear fight sounds, I'm looking at him going, we should go help. Oh, I suppose so. But I do feel safer back here, don't you? Well, yes, but

we're all going to do this together, aren't we? Sure, yeah. We're going to do this as a team. We're a team. I can't wait for this team to receive our bounty in Blingbottom. Yes, and you know, if you like bounty,

maybe the more you do, perhaps the higher your bounty could go. You're saying like a, there's like a payoff of me working harder? You said you would help us for ten gold pieces. I imagine if you helped even

more, maybe it could be eleven. Let's get a persuasion check. I'm so sorry. You're up, Danny. Danny is back and ready. What is the current situation? What does Danny see? I want to hear the result of Nathan's persuasion

check, and then I'll tell you. Oh, okay. 12. You just see him go like with his tongue. He's uh you've got his full attention when it's his turn that might uh mean something uh yeah danny uh you see that jelf and iva have been stabbing at this fire newt um right in front of you and 2d just smacked it with its hammer so uh yeah you've you've definitely got a dog pile happening.

The fire nude has not had a chance to call for help yet, but there's definitely the sounds of squishing and slashing. Can I... How much room... Is there any room to get by them? That's the thing. He's pretty crowded, so you can do ranged attack without it.

The ceiling's about 10 feet high i'm gonna try to go over them and land behind him beautiful so you're gonna try to like uh just like uh sideways shoulder walk shoulder walk over him that is kind of definitely gonna be a cave do that it was awesome I did, of course, let Jelf get just sort of a fun free athletics check without me asking him to roll back on the boat when he shimmied up the mast, but I'm going to take a jump like this is going to be an athletics check

before you can. For sure. That should do it uh 16 plus uh 3 19 nice beautiful so you managed to just sort of like spring over fire new children land behind him you're gonna punch him to death now yeah let's see oh no no i'll uh i'm gonna sort them i'm gonna short sword them okay uh danny of course has a short sword that is plus five to hit wow wow uh 12 plus plus five so 17 that's a hit roll your damage sir okay cool 1d6 plus three is it like a crazy magic sword no i wouldn't let anybody have like a crazy bonus item this early i already let you be level three uh three damage three plus three yeah yeah oh three

plus three okay great that makes more sense so that is going to be so he's not taking 20 points of damage and uh as you stab him he's like He's still standing but he's staggering he's in really rough shape Do I get a second second if I may are not rolling very high on your damage You only third level Well, you get second attacks in very specific Situations you can do an unarmed strike as a bonus action, or you can do Fury of Blows if you spend a key point.

No, I'll do an unarmed strike. Great. So that'll be a plus five to hit. 14. That is a miss, unfortunately. No, plus five. Roll to 14. Okay, sorry.

I never know when you're making me do the math for you or not. No, I was kidding. Sorry. All right, so great. That's fantastic. So you punch him in the throat. Roll your damage. Hey, Brian, you should roll all of your dice for this damage.

Just roll all of them. Wait, who said that? My name is Billy. Hey, Billy. How are you? Guys, there's a crazy snake in the back of this cave. Can Danny hear Billy? Is this voice

coming from Nathan right now? Who is Billy? From a glowing blue orb around Nathan's neck, he's stolen his soul. Whoa! Dr. Theopolis. Yes. Three plus three again.

I can't wait to write how that was allowed to happen. So, okay, you punch this guy in the throat, Danny, and he just, like, rockets forth blood from his mouth that glows a bright orange. What would you like to say to him as he dies? You are yucky on the inside also. And you see just a moment he makes eye contact with you and understands the insult and flops to the ground dead. At least he got it.

I'll let you keep the turn order, especially because Nathan hasn't gotten a go yet, but he is going to have heard the commotion down the tunnel and might have the impetus to go. But right now you guys are technically out of combat and Verge is going

to curiously on this being sort of his turn, scoot up the tunnel inspired by the bribe Nathan sort of hinted at. And he peeks around the corridor and goes, oh, well done, well

done. One down, a bunch to go yeah you guys see two different ways you can go seven more so verge which way are we do you have a which way do you think we should go here uh let's see verge tells you there may be surprises to that way and he points sort of the direction that you would see on the map as north and then he says but I think the exit is to the south let's go to the exit

to the south yeah so we want to explore do we want to exit given that it took four of us to kill one of them and it took a while it feels like uh perhaps yeah do you want to do an inside check to see if he's lying or do you trust him based on your bribe oh right uh yeah let's check great anyone who wants to see if he's lying go ahead and do an inside check natural 20 plus 4 nice can anyone beat a 24 does a 9 ring your bell

great so Iva yeah you get a strong sense that his eyes are glowing from not just the bribe you made but something that he may have just recently realized hint it's what Nathan just did so he seems to be doing his best to guide you towards an actual exit.

Okay. So we do it, I guess. Yeah? So you head south. We go south? As you can see from my reveal, the tunnel starts to bend a little bit that way. Who is, uh,

what's the marching order? Let's say as you go down these narrow tunnels, who is in what order? Uh, like, Dani's say as you go down these narrow tunnels who is in what order uh like danny do you want to i forget or is your stealth really good do you want to be the scout ahead mine's pretty good as a rogue also so i can yeah yeah i can go up there too because i can and you do the wood off yeah yeah either whatever you think. Danny likes to go in the front. Then Danny should go. But I also like being in the back. I haven't been in the middle so much. But I don't think I would hate that.

Wherever you want me. So amenable. I feel like Nathan and Verge are... I don't know what that is. I don't either. Nathan and Verge are a little squishy, so they're probably going to stay in the back.

Tootie, would you go in front of Iva? Sure. Hey, there's going to probably be attacks from the back, so we should maybe stay in the back. I had also thought that. Well, I'm happy to stay either in the back or the front because I have the... Yeah, why don't I stay in the back Well I'm happy to stay either in the back or the front

Because I have the Why don't I stay in the back and I'm going to keep scouting behind us Okay but looking behind us Right Well then why don't we have What I'm sort of hearing Tell me if I'm wrong I would love for you guys to make these choices

Instead of me whenever possible But we're sort of figuring this out remotely. It seems like if you want to scout the back, maybe we put you in the actual back and we kind of have Mason and Verge, the squishy ones, kind of buffered in front of you a little bit. Yeah? Yes.

Okay. So we'll do that. Alright. And it looks like Ivo is already doing that thank you sarah uh let's get a perception check from both of you in the front and the back that'll be danny and iva and a stealth check from danny perception would be oh go ahead uh perception is 17 plus 320 and then uh stealth get a plus five let's see oh wow nice uh another high number uh 15 and then plus 5, so another 20. Fantastic. Okay, what was your perception check back there, Sarah? 15. You don't hear anything yet behind you.

Danny, you manage to make it around the corner without tripping over anything. And you get to a fork in the path. This fork looks like this. Uh, this fork looks like this. Uh, what's it gonna do? And it's time, uh, to make another choice. I hate this fork and pass.

Does he see anything beyond that? That's all he can see? Without going farther down one way or the other, that's all you can see. I mean, Verge so far seems to be directing us to get out so he can get his money. Let's get Verge up in the front for us. Yeah?

You're gonna take the little snake man and nudge him to the front of the party? We can keep him between me and Danny. Nah. Hopefully he knows the way. He needs to tell us which way to... I mean, you know, he doesn't need to. Which way does he think from here? Also, if we're going to be attacked, he's going to be...

Either more south or... So he says, definitely could be fun surprises to the north, but south is the exit. Yes, yes, yes. Okay, so let's head south. Danny scoots in front of him and heads south. Cool. Do another stealth and

perception, both of you, in the front and back. Perception low this turn. Six. Yipe. Let's get that stealth though. Also not great, but okay.

8 plus 5. 13. Okay. Can't blame him. The music is like being at Burke Williams. Yeah, I was starting to nod. It doesn't take him. The music is like being at Burke Williams. Yeah. I was starting to nod. It doesn't take much. The music, uh, by the way, battle music, it's actually really great.

The battle music is brought to us by Patreon supporter known as new tans. It's good stuff. I'm certainly not down on it. I'm just saying it was a Burke Williams joke. Yeah. I miss being able to be touched by a person uh and feel uncomfortable enough to fall asleep yeah yeah i just wake up and everything smells like cucumbers wow hey well huh and my farts oh not uh what i thought you would get into at all So um Yeah definitely

Things get a little tricky here Uh Danny you and Verge It's tricky Are sort of in the front Uh you get to this sort of fork here And uh you because you got a low Perception check walk right past A chamber

With two fire newts in it Um They don't see you because you had a great stealth check uh they only needed a 12 and you got a 13 so that worked out well but unfortunately you uh get separated from the party and verge stops but you don't see him stop so you get to the other side of this before verge kind of like is able to get your attention and everyone's attention and you realize that you're on the other side and there are two fire newts in this chamber. Who are you talking to? It's just me?

Who am I talking to? I'm talking to everyone but especially you. Yeah. If you look at the map you can see you're on the other side of the entrance to this. Oh, okay. I was having trouble with the map. Alright. you're on the other side of the entrance to this. I'm having trouble. Oh there. Okay I was having trouble with the map. Alright. We got separated. Okay. Yep. Do those guys see us? Not yet. You did decent

enough on your stealth check. Alright well let's go in there and take care of them. And I think we will on the next episode of Nerd Poker. Sweet. Hey Sam what do you think happened on today's episode? This week, we took a little extra time to learn what our characters looked like,

confirming that we all separately picked very Woodley John Denver types. Chris, did you say you had a name for your weapon, but that's when you had a mace? Can you name weapons? Sure. It's the best game i've ever seen um we met a character named cronk the economy which is no more worse than our current economy thanks to congress i'm telling you what finally if you're new to the show enjoy that joke um we've entered battle with some light up jerks. Uh, in these troubled times,

I cannot tell you how good it feels to hear from Billy. This group's answer to the question, how would you like to see them die is very different from our last group. And we ended our, uh, battle still in the tunnels with, uh, our friend,

the snake man, who I don't think is our friend cool thank you sam uh well uh brian i believe you've got a streaming show coming up tonight that will be uh in the past by the time this airs you got any other gigs you want to promote, sir? Nah. Cool. No, I've got my regular radio show on Gimme Metal. And then by now, there will be a video for New Music Sucks coming out. Yeah, it already came out, and people like it. So watch it.

Awesome. Please check out my stand up on twitch everybody every friday at 8 p.m pacific i'm doing an hour on twitch i have over two hours of uh new material that i have written since pandemic and i've done for zero people in person so that's really weird but it's fun to do it on twitch and i do a lot of uh quote-unquote crowd work and there's canned laughter and all that kind of fun stuff. I would usually do all my practice at Burke Williams. Running on the masseuse.

Cue the flute. Twitch.tv slash Telford Dan. That's it. Thanks, everybody. Oh, what's going on with you and Hoagie Carmichael? I mean... Stacy Keach? Stacy Keach. You got a little ahead of it. Oh, what's going on with you and Hoagie Carmichael? I mean... Stacey Keech? Stacey Keech.

Funny, you got a little ahead of it. We're doing a tribute to Hoagie Carmichael at the Nashville Civic Center next weekend. And then you can catch us. We're doing a live read of The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh on Zoom. It's all going to charity to save the Pittsburgh Aquarium. Who's playing Dr. J in that? I don't know. Offer out to Andy Dick, but God knows whose yard he's in tonight.

Happy birthday, Blaine. Thanks for listening. Oh, happy birthday, Blaine. Thank you, guys. Happy birthday. I'm going to stick your name in when I wash my hands. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for listening to another episode of Nerd Poker. You can follow us at patreon.com slash nerdpoker, and you get bonus episodes from there. And you can also send us anything at P.O. Box one six zero six nine and Sino, California,

nine one four one six. Thanks for listening.