Nerd Poker - S4E40 Shaman On Ice

Episode Date: June 15, 2021

After a fierce battle with a notable casualty, followed by a uniquely Nerd Poker instruction to an NPC that they should go complete an entire dungeon all by themselves, the Castaway Cuties are left with one big question: what the hell are they supposed to do with this evil fish shaman? And will they kill him, or ACCIDENTALLY kill him as they preserve him?

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, Lee, Chris. Now it's time for another episode of Brian Possehn's Nerd Poker. Season 4. Hey, everybody.

I'm Brian Possehn, and you're listening to Brian Possehn's Nerd Poker. Episode 4-0. We did it. The big 4-0. Did you know 4s to know anyway uh i love making chris laugh that's one of my favorite things yep anyway uh my friends are here you guys look at them dan's already disappointed with me i'm not i'm excited about the adventures we're gonna have don't Don't do that. Don't project.

But good to see you. Hello, it's good to see you too. Chris already mentioned him, but there he is. Look at him. But you can't, but I did. Sarah's here. Hey, Sarah. Hello, Brian.

It's very peaceful where you are. This is Mega Lake Pangadon. Nice. And then we've got Blaine of Dallas Town. What's up, Blaine? Oh, hey, hi. This is Mecca-lecca-hi, Mecca-hiney-ho. And we've got Ken Toody.

Hi. Hello. Blaine said what I was going to say. Oh, no. Oh, really Oh no, I'm sorry Is that from fucking Finding Nemo? Sounds like it Michael, like a hi? Yeah, sure

Oh yes We've got Sam in the middle What's up, Sam? Hello, sweet children Can I say hi to him there? He can hear me. No, let me turn the speakers up. All right, go nuts. Robin.

Robin. Hey, buddy. He jumped. I didn't mean to scare you. Hey, buddy. The cutest. He probably just sees that ghost behind Sam. Oh, God.

Oh, man. Mavis was staring at the door the other day for just a couple seconds too long, and it totally made my hair stand up on my arm. I got creeped out because they look at shit all the time, but when they look too long, you're like, what are they fucking looking at? My daughter, when I used to change her, when she was on the changing table,

always looked in one specific corner of the room, which I just tried to ignore and never think about. But when my mom was visiting, she was like, she's looking at the angels. And I was like, she's what? I don't want to talk about this. No, you're the mama duke. Babies do creepy shit the whole time.

Constantly. And they say terrifying things all the time. Yeah. You know what's even creepier is beloved elders who think it's charming to talk about angels. Yeah. She thought it was. My same daughter also asked me once when she was like two, she looked in the mirror and she's like, is that the same you in there?

And I was like i don't know i hope so why would you say such a thing is it the same me in there it better be wow it was mark river said his daughter was sitting in a cold room and said there's the moon man oh no no no no no no no yikes terrifying oh no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no that bed oh yeah oh hey from the handle was a bloody hook let's take a look at that clip uh we should we should thank some people for letting us do a show where we do this i knew it was coming and i hear here comes my gratitude thank you to every single you know what every single patreon supporter is is very generous to to take the time to just sign up for an internet thing thank you so much but uh in addition to all

of you there are those tears but i am going to thank they go by names like we made our constitution save yay thank you thank you What a delightful username that is. Also, thank you, Hayashi, the magical raccoon dog. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Richard Humphrey. Thanks, Richard. Thanks, Matthew Edwards.

Thanks, Matthew. Matt Longo. Thank you, Matt Longo. Thanks, Matt Longo. Thank you, Trilly McGinest. Thanks, Trilly. Thank you, the most modern dick tracing of the modern age the one with Madonna

I'm sorry to bring that up again the most intricate dick tracing of the modern age brain crossover moment dick tracing not dick Tracy oh I thought you were talking about the thing where you outline penises

I can dig it thank you Callum Kennedy. Thank you. Thanks, Grim Bacon. Thank you. Thanks, Keith Harton. Thanks, Keith Harton. Keith Harton.

Thanks, Elonk, the walking cryptocurrency. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you, Bojangles. Thank you, Vance. Oh, my gosh. Thank you, Bojangles. I'm not a man, Bojangles. I'm just talking about Bojangles. Thank you, Dance. Thank you, Bojangles.

I'm not a man, Bojangles. I'm just talking about Bojangles. Thank you, Brent Crinop. Thank you. Thank you, TikTok's Copper Clock Cock. That was a little on the nose. Thank you, Roast Beef Dustbuster. Thanks, Foot Locker. Thanks, Doc. Thanks, Doc Roxo. Thanks. Thanks.

Footlocker. Thanks. Thanks. Doc. Roxo. Thanks. Eric score. Thank you.

Thank you. Dr. Wieners. Thank you. Uh, thank you. Smack dab in the middle. Smack dab in the middle.

And finally, thank you. Billy's asmr mixtape do you think we could hear a quick sample of what it sounds like in billy's asmr mixtape i'm gonna put all these dice in my mouth and they're just gonna go here there's dice in my mouth Critical hit Back to you Blaine Yeah Blaine who is that

ASMR tape brought to us by That ASMR tape Brought to you by Gradual Dawn Get your dishes clean The old fashioned way Slow Gradual Dawn Also brought to you by Get your dishes clean the old-fashioned way. Slow. Gradual dawn.

Also brought to you by Ape Shit. When you gotta go something, go Ape Shit. For the people who brought you Jump in the Lake and Fuck Yourself. Ape Shit, Dan. It's time to talk about what happened last time on NerdLogger. Oh, my God. Oh, here it comes. The recap at the beginning of the episode. Anyway.

Listen. Still getting used to that Sacramento pollen. pollen you guys decided to send princess Caspia on a dungeon crawl by herself she is of course a fish princess

she's a little hunched over fish person with bipedal legs holding a dagger of venom and wearing a cloak and she's going to attempt to rob her entire kingdom of the legendary hammer of Bahamut

that just sounds silly when you say it that way why did we do that because you guys don't try to get you were you actually were the person who made that decision I can't believe you don't remember that but you Brian were the one who was like I have a great idea let's send her out alone and then multiple people said that's definitely my favorite idea you insisted we were like that sounds crazy brian

we were like brian posain i mean it's brian posain's nerd poker if you insist we'll do it we tried to see things i smoke a lot of pot and I sleep a lot. And then the third thing is I don't listen to the show back. So you could be right, but I don't think so. It was, you guys did agree to do this very unanimously. I did not think that, I mean, like you thought about it for a long time, but there was no way. No, the rest of us didn't want to, but Brian, that's how I remember it.

You guys, isn't that what you remember? Oh, man. That Brian was like, let's do this. We're going to be in a courthouse in Van Nuys in four to six months, and that is what I will swear to. I didn't realize this podcast was on. Yeah. I'm still trying to come up with a California Dreamin' podcast

for Sacramento Pollen. yeah i'm still trying to come up with a california dreaming podcast for sacramento pollen won't stop playing in my head i need some need some help yeah princess is off doing this and you guys just spent the night sort of healing up jelf did some recon and realized what the giant creatures were to the west that you saw the silhouettes of a few nights ago. Grazing things. I would assume long legged cow things. And nobody from the fish people have come to collect you, but yeah,

Bahamut's fury is somewhere in this, in this castle. And you've entrusted this little fish person to yes. Nathan whiskers. You have a question. Jeff, you said you saw a spire from the castle sticking out of the water, right?

Yeah. I would think that the spire would be something that they would know is exposed, right? And that they would protect or have an eye on. Perhaps a guard tower. Yeah.

But do we know if that spire leads to a if the building is like a dead building or if it's an active city or if it's ruins or it was too far out in the water for you to get like a good look at it unfortunately but

you wouldn't be surprised if it was something like a guard tower it does seem like it was not like an you know if they've been here for years and years they would know about it and it would it would only still be there if it was helping them somehow or you know they could have easily knocked it down so yeah i don't know if it was like a fake windmill like pea soup anderson's or something oh yeah but uh i definitely did have

our wonderful cartographer Sean Bryant represented a little bit on the map of Dave and Glavin. So if you guys or listeners would like to zoom in, you can see, not that different from what Jelf saw. Oh, I see it now. Especially, like, that's

how small it looked to Jelf in the distance. Right there in the middle of the network. Right next to the letters. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so what is on the... You guys are going to have some breakfast as you all wake up.

You notice the shaman uncle is still tied up and you've been dumping water on him to keep him alive. The bodies are buried. Yes. As I'm looking at the rules for this crystal ball of mind reading, it says once I'm attuned, I can just do it as an action. That's right.

So maybe as we wake up, I would just sort of real quick, just kind of tune in and look and see how she's doing. Cool. I'm going to do a roll for what's happening to her because i know what's happening but i would like to let the dice decide how well it's going so uh you see uh again there's that moment of connection where you feel her relent and allow you to experience her surroundings and you you see her swimming through open water and it looks like uh no one is like following her but but she's definitely like swimming through open water

um you wait for a while you you do see some fish kind of swim by her uh and uh then the vision kind of goes she does kind of like raise a hand at one point, but she's not carrying anything. All right. I will report that to the group. Uh, I would like to attune some more, if I may. Great. Roll an Arcana check.

I shall do it. Attune with the staff, correct? Mm-hmm. Cut to the princess in a new car car like selling the dagger and buying a chevelle that's a 21 also she's in love with Nathan true uh okay Tootie

so at this point you're like oh I think I could use this but um I'm not sure what it is there appears to be some sort of legendary curse on this staff in addition to my being able to use it it seems to open a portal to an unknown place

but you could open it if you wanted it is definitely a portal to another fixed place and it might be a portal to another plane of existence um but you can't know that simply from attuning with the staff all you know is you can open if you concentrate uh after about five minutes you can open a portal um and if you hold on to this

staff for much longer you believe it will have unintentional side effects the clock is ticking do i know if it's good or evil it's cursed but uh it's it's got negative connotations to it unfortunately fifth edition dungeons and dragons good and evil is very different than when you guys might be thinking of it so it's much more about like good or evil intentions yeah like like there's really much more about like good or evil intentions yeah like like there's really like two kinds of good and evil in dungeons and dragons now there's like either you're from the nine hells and you're like a fiend you're like demony that makes you evil or you have evil intentions like you could even be a lawful good character but your intention is like suddenly evil uh but but they they've kind of done away with characters or npcs being

automatically one or the other so uh maybe nathan could try to charm him again and find out where the portal goes to and you should just set it down for now yeah i don't think we need that thing i mean like set it down but we might need it but you could ask if he'll tell it maybe if you charm him into telling us i will you don't have a way to talk to him at the moment unfortunately right so he speaks a language called Aquin

and if you guys had maybe tongues or one of those similar spells we have tongues Dan the spell you freak you could potentially talk to him across the language barrier, but unfortunately, you do not. He would not count as

an animal, right? I'm sorry, Brian, what did you say? Tongue to tongue, tongue tongues. Yeah, I thought so. He's a humanoid. Does he speak thieves can't? No. Does he speak thieves can't no does he speak thieves can Chris you're a caution

I'm a rogue half full kind of a guy really it seems as far as you know he only speaks Aquin okay alright well we're just waiting alright why don't everybody do a perception check uh

uh 13 21 5 11 cool 21 5 11 cool uh you guys feel like you've attracted a few scavengers um looking around you see there's some birds

circling overhead that look raptor sized like large hawk sized birds are kind of circling over you and um uh attacking rats that they're pulling out of the jungle and you even see a couple of rats coming out of your camp and scurrying away looking for junk like food scraps that you guys may have dropped um and there's an increase in bugs and you just sort of feel generally like uh yeah like this is this is a this jungle scavenging thing like the longer we stay camped here we could be attracting this stuff and you kind of make a note of it

this might be just a part of being on the continent if you guys camp in the wild for too long this stuff might start to creep up on you uh luckily being near the lake you're kind of in a neutral territory where it's not thick jungle. It's not marshland. There's nothing that can sneak up on you. But yeah, that's sort of what you feel. And then you see a ripple on the surface of the lake. Oh my God. And a hooded figure begins to rise from the lake.

Are we hidden, though, from it? Yes. Right now, you guys are sort of in the bushes behind iva paperbarks masterfully hidden encampment with branches and leaves kind of stopping anyone from walking outside the woods or along the shore from seeing where you are oh is it her we're watching i believe it's her. Yeah. Uh, you see the form kind of like look side to side. It's hood is covering its face. Um,

and, uh, is the hood familiar? Yeah. It looks like it's probably the cloak that you gave princess Caspia. And therefore it's probably princess Caspia. I lower my flaming magic arrow. Uh, Caspia. I lower my flaming magic arrow. She begins to like tiptoe like towards the tree line,

not right where you are, but like, you know, 50 feet away, like presumably to look for you guys. Can someone very quiet and very sneaky go see who that is? I can send Agatha out to both see who who it is and also if it's her to flap you know to circle and bring her back to us

um if it is her if agatha believes it is her yeah bring her back uh please roll an insight check for agatha oh yeah i guess she's the fish person now but so she doesn't have a ton of experience otherwise i'd give it to you as a freebie but you've only really encountered her in passing yeah seven yeah i guess it kind of like pulls back and just is like oh like you get the sense that she's kind of confused and doesn't know if that's the octopus right she would recognize agatha probably so i have agatha like circle and then come back to us so that she would if she recognizes that bird indeed the hooded figure kind of acknowledges it and follows agatha who remains more visible and as they're approaching i'll pull up my wand and cast message okay and think to her and be like hello is it you? Oh, my sweet babies.

It is I, Princess Caspia. And that's her? Yes. Great. I'll turn to everybody. She's back. She's back. How did it go? It went quite well.

Now she's got this new hammer. About as well as it possibly could without me actually retrieving the hammer which, if I may, not possible. Not possible? Why? Not possible for me, a wanted royal criminal. I'm considered a treasonous traitor you know, and my uncle was going to do me a favor

by not having me just instantly executed. Some people in the city would like to see me executed. I snuck around and I believe I found us a way in. Unfortunately, it's still... Listen, I did very well and you should be very proud of me. I'm quite the adventurer. So far, so good.

Yeah, tell us about this way in. quite the adventurer. So far, so good. Yeah, tell us about this way in. The Hammer is located in a prayer area that is behind the Royal Hall. And I managed to destroy an outer wall of the prayer area.

This is an old city. The city was a city we borrowed from another aquatic race that has now long since moved on from dave and glaven either through death or whatever i don't really know i'm too fancy to care anyway uh it's a crumbling city right it's not the strongest of walls and i went through an underground like an underwater like cave where there's a pocket of air. And I went up to a wall on the outside of the prayer area and I smashed it. I smashed it very well.

And now there's a hole in the back of the prayer area that I believe I can get us. A prayer area. It's like a prayer area, you know. But it's definitely preferable to say swimming right in which is what we would have had to do otherwise yes so how do you suppose us non-water

breathers would get there well Tootie that is the rub we will I think have to either hold our breath for about two minutes while holding, say, something heavy, or use one of those magical means of holding breath.

I could, of course. Again, I proposed this and everyone said, Oh, you just go on an adventure for us, princess. I said, we have my uncle cast a spell. You're like, no, turn into a fish person. By the way, the whole time she's like going on, her hood is still over her face. She's being very modest

and like her little fish hands poke out of the cloak, but she seems very glad to be covered in this cloak still. Should we ask her to translate, try to do the thing with the guy to find, because maybe we can go she's more than willing to translate the other dimension plane or whatever to get the portal it's possible to travel

yeah like maybe it's possible to travel to that that's cool um so she asks uh her uncle um wait we have to try to charm him first right because i don't think he's going to give us the info. What do you guys think?

Yeah, I agree. Charm him. All right. Is this with a spell or is this with a bunny? This would the bunny uses a spell. It's a charm person. DC 13 wisdom. It's a 13.

Same deal. Wiggling Mendoza is like, do you want to play a game with me? Wiggling my tummy at him like I'm ramen, but I'm not. But I think I am, but I'm not. It just sort of like toothily makes a gurgle at you. If he were a faun, this would be great.

We would be besties right now. Okay, I light a flame and I bring it close to him to start to like dry him off. Intimidation check. Here we go torture i'm going 24 that is a natural 20 plus oh okay he starts just like at first he seems very like he's keeping that sort of weird cocky face that he had and he's quivering within a few moments he's just absolutely frightened for his life he realizes how long he's been out of the water uh but you haven't asked him anything yet so to caspio i'm like he needs to tell us everything about the sphere scepter really

yeah it's a staff yeah staff about the staff uh so she uh she gurgles to him and he gurgles back she says well he says it opens a door to an aquatic plane where demons come out that uh he and the other high shamans know of and he's never tried going through because he doesn't want to get eaten by a demon and he's never taken the step none of the high shamans have ever gone through it with the staff there's no get no guarantee the staff will continue to work and when you're on the other side and he just doesn't feel great about it okay last question to summon demons demons to fight us okay i still i'm waving the flame back and forth and i'm like where are there water breathing amulets or potions um again gurgle gurgle there are uh there are water breathing

amulets in his private quarters he says he owns uh a couple of them uh he's not sure how many they're buried he's he's he makes a comment uh princess caspia says about how why bother with something like that when you're a proud fish person he's stole them from humans years ago uh but he says he has multiple of them in his private quarters, which are of course near the Royal hall, heavily guarded, no current way in. Um, but she says,

I could go back and try to sneak into his private quarters, but I didn't spend that much time indoors. I spent most of it casing the joint and trying to find the sneakiest way in. I don't know how to easily pull that off without invisibility abilities. You know what I am saying? Can he cast water breathing on us somehow? Do you want to ask that? Ask back and forth.

And yeah, he's heavily intimidated right now so i i am going to give you this he does say yes he does have the ability to do that but he's like he he rolls his eyes heavily and you can tell that he's very reluctant to do this that's too bad what do you think got him in a pinch i feel like-wise, it's not a good idea for us to split up, but realistically, we probably should send one or two people with her to get the hammer. A strike force. And half of us need to stay here and guard him

so he doesn't go warn everybody, right? We could really use a SEAL team at this point. Unless he can cast on all of us and we all go together who wants to go let's see I'm checking out and how long will the water breathing spell last I say

waving my hand over the flame like this yeah I'm checking it right now who has the spells he he does he does yeah uh he can he can cast it on up to 10 creatures at a time and it lasts uh here's the here's the fun part 24 hours oh my gosh well well that's like lakes Lakes 11. How many of us are there? Wish we could leave a non-player character here with him. But we can't.

That's also a bit of an issue, yes. I will definitely stay with him. I don't think in the water I would do very well. So I definitely feel comfortable staying here and keeping an eye on him if that helps. I feel like your invisibility and your spells though might be really useful it does feel like this could be quite a fight that you would be uh leaving nathan uh out of just basic intuition from y'all's What if we, I confer with my fellows, what if we open up a portal? What if we have him cast it on us and we tell him someone's going to stay here with him?

Then we open a portal and we shove him in the portal to the demon land. Why not just kill him? I don't know. She didn't want us to. But yes, but open the portal and shove him in. I mean, he's in there. Also, if he's yes, but open the portal and shove him in. I mean, isn't that. Also, if he's dead, then the spell won't work anymore, will it? And he won't be able to change her.

He can't change her. That's the whole point, right? I have a suggestion. Yes. What if, and hear me out, we drag him all the way to outside the chamber and then we bind and gag him

so he just has to lay there near the prayer area on the ground on the rocks but he's underwater like he's in an air pocket so you don't want to leave him there for more than like a couple hours he should be fine but we can sort of know he's nearby and then we're gonna have trouble swimming period whatever what we're gonna have trouble

you'd have to drag him because we're already gonna have a tough time swimming period let alone dragging a fish person behind us if you tie tie him up real good, I bet I could drag his silly ass. Okay, maybe you can make I don't know how many people you can make invisible. Two. Definitely. Well, you could, it could make the dragged body invisible

at least. True. I don't know. Okay, alright. Who thinks this is a great idea? Since she is... Well, I guess we'd all raise alarm. Yeah, it doesn't ever where all of us are gonna... So who thinks this is a good idea? That we all get

water breathing? I don't think we should drag him with us personally. I'm trying to think of what we could do. Well, the other choice is tying him up somehow and making sure he's secured. Mm-hmm. We can bury him. Oh! Put him in a bowl.

Bury him up to his neck. Yeah, the water is part of the problem. How about that at the edge of the water? Like Creepshow. Can we tie him up in a net, like in a bag? We have that flesh bag. Yeah, what if we... I mean, give him room in the bag, you know, like a little walking around room.

Like a nice bag. But, you know, breathable fabrics. I mean, we can we could put him in one of those plastic bags like uh like you want him at a at a fair yeah is there like a we don't want anyone to be able to get to him is there like a pool a stream like a little pond or anything nearby that we could store him in, like a mini fridge? Jelf? Jelf would have seen on his scouting that there is like a small inlet

about a mile and a half west of where you currently are. And we could go in there and sort of like rock it off or something or dig a little cauldron or something. Tie him up with rocks. I just don't want it to be.

It's an inlet. Is it connected to the mega lake? Because I'm looking for something. Yeah. I'm looking for something that isn't connected to the mega lake. It gets its water from the mega lake through some rocks. Like there's like rocks that lead into the sand. We just don't want him to be able.

If he does break free, we want it to be tough for him to get into the lake and send off the alarms, right? So, oh man, I've seen so many water things. Sorry, yeah, don't really, I have a handful of these purple mushrooms. We could make him eat those. Can I ask Agatha to do a

scout and see if there's any kind of non-connected to the lake water within a mile of here? Even just like a ditch, a swimming hole or something. A ditch. We're not going to vote on Nathan's

idea. Mushrooms? Yeah, make him confused for a while. An insight check, check Dan you said or perception looking for like a mini like I'm gonna I'm gonna use a luck point

okay 10 boy so let's see what can i tell you my friend so um uh she does a quick scout and she says it's very uh far away um if she thinks that she sees sort of secondary lakes but it's like northwest up near the up near the peaks of cray cray where are we on the shore are we near the bushes where if you look at the map you are like on the very bottom tip got it so near the jungle area yeah and so there's this jungle outcropping that your camp is sort of

in and the big combat you had two episodes ago was on the beach like in the water a little bit all right can we sort of hide him near the shore in the in the water as the hours go by you think he will begin to like you can talk to princess Cosby and figure out he can survive out of water for without any water for about like

four hours and to get back and forth is going to take about four hours. So like he might not die, but he's going to be in rough shape if you leave him without water. Okay. So we could do it within four hours, the swimming and everything.

You'd have to like really like heist level timing bust in and bust out. Okay. I wonder if we dig a hole and fill it with water. I was thinking that too, but how are we gonna bring the water? What about if I ask a... Dig a channel. I mean, you can just figure out what's... I'm a dwarf.

What kind of animal could bring water to just spray on him? A pelican? A pissing bird. An elephant. Yes. let's see you feel like a waterfall

you feel like you could convince like like a rat would do it it wouldn't be able to do much but like you could you could train a rat to like like slurp up some water and spit it on him what the hell that's it that's it like you haven't really you haven't like other than what looks like hawks which you think would much rather eat him right like like a rat would be at least be like oh i'm

too scared to take a bite here's what i'm looking for like a raccoon type size animal that's very fluffy. And then I'm going to ask it to roll around in the water one time in this four hour period, get really wet, and then go back to the guy and give him a sponge bath with its body. But mainly let it in his mouth.

That was 50 bucks at the Tropicana in the 80s. This is absolutely... I'll let you choose. You can either do a perception check or a nature check That was 50 bucks at the Tropicana in the 80s. Yeah, this is absolutely a nice tip. You can either do a perception check or a nature check to try to find a raccoon fluff animal in the jungle

in a reasonable amount. Nature check. Nature or what? I did nature and I got 15. You don't have to go home. You find in the trees like you walk around for a while to the point where the rest of the castaway cuties are like what are we even doing right now uh and there's your idea this there's this big like kind of it looks like a

sloth clinging to a tree and it's got these huge eyes and this little teeny mouth and it just kind of like clings and stares at you from the top of this tree. Teeny mouth scares me. I give it some of the nuts and foods that I give to Agatha this season. Well, you know what? I'm going to have you roll now.

Let's get that animal handling check. As you try to friend this fantasy cuss cuss i definitely do not want to get any weird animal diseases so i am gonna re-roll that one um since i botched it um oh now i got a 10 thanks for giving me the idea that i can give you uh dungeons and dragons worms um you got a what i got a 10 on the re-roll uh it it sort of it takes a long time to the point where like again everybody's i think starting to get a little uncomfortable and it's come up with another idea but you feel like you've at least got it interested in the nuts and it's like eating nuts. I can talk to it. As a rabbit folk.

Yeah. As a rabbit folk, I can communicate with animals. So I can do it once a day. So I will use it now. It's speak with, it works as speak with animals. So for 10 minutes, I gained the ability to comprehend and verbally communicate with beasts for

the duration. Knowledge and awareness of many beasts is limited by their intelligence, but at minimum they can give us information about nearby locations and monsters, including whatever they can perceive or have perceived within the last day. We might be able to persuade a beast to perform a small favor at the jam's discretion. That's what we need to do. Yeah, so this thing, you don't know what it's called but it looks like a sloth except it has like very bushy fluffy fur uh and it has like a little lemur's face and no tail uh and it's just very like cautiously has started eating the nuts and it looks at you uh nathan and waits for you to communicate with it. Hello there.

We are a bunch of obviously strangers to your exotic land. My name is Nathan. May I call you by a name? It says you can call me Floofer. Everyone, Floofer, Floofer. Castaway cuties. Floofer. Everyone, Floofer, Floofer. Castaway cuties. Floofer, can you soak yourself and keep our fish friend alive, please? Y'all got more of those nuts? Oh, yes.

That's Iva. She is the nut queen. Give me. Oh, God. Give me all your nuts and I will soak your friend floofa you drive a hard bargain

half now and half yes half now and we'll show them the pile and then this half when we return if you've done such a very good job I should warn you, I barely have any short-term

memory whatsoever. I will try, but also if I see a predator, it's likely I will run away and forget I've ever met you. Do your best. I will try, for my name is Smoofer. Grandson of

Fluffer. Lson of Fluffer. Lover of nuts. I use my also my communique with small beasts to like send him encouragement and a general feeling

of warmth and excitement over the nuts. He's definitely at least going to do it once before his mind wanders and he sees like a

honeycomb or something. Okay, that should be enough. I can't believe we met one of the fluffernutters all right i believe you guys have got a system wherein a large furry sponge is going to expel lake water onto your captive fish shaman uh this is brilliant rube goldberg shit right now and we're making it work i do feel like we want to remind the guy before he does water breathing don't try to mess with us because if we don't return you're just going to dry out and become a desiccated husk uh i'm gonna give that last intimidation check uh a rollover he's so freaked out that he he nods

as well as you think he will unless circumstances change while you're gone it seems he will hold to it you ready yeah yeah all right uh so he casts water breathing on you all um and princess cospia says okay i know exactly where to do it we'll swim near the lake you should let me swim ahead slightly under the water so I can make sure there are no patrols of Galaxian guards that will swim and see us. And I believe I can guide us to where we just need to plunge straight down to the prayer area. To be more precise, it is to pray to the old fish god dagon that we we worship and you know it's basically a temple of dagon and so it could it could be tricky to get the hammer out of there but they believe they need to keep the hammer there because only dagon can keep the hammer safe from the forces of bahamut which is

us hooray hurrah off we go she leads you through and there's a couple of moments where she does have to stop and you guys are swimming and you're wearing armor and you're you've got packs. So like it's difficult. Right. And I'm not going to make you roll for it because I would just be like that episode where you climbed a boat for three episodes. But she takes you to the middle and she rolled over a 10 on her check so she makes it to the spot and says

alright off we go and she swims straight down you follow her to a small cave but like on the way you see as well as you can through the very murky water just the silhouette of this castle and it's a vast structure this thing looks like it's got many buildings that are connected

via tunnels there's walls smashed open it looks like there is definitely like air and water inside of this building and it's very ancient but you don't get like a great look at all that it's not like a big shining building because the water is murky with silt and detritus from all the life in the mega lake so you make it down to this sort of little rocky cave uh you kind of squeeze through it and the whole process takes you know only about 20 minutes but it's it's you know a long swim and you do have to again on the way down be stopped a couple of times you feel like there's a lot of patrols of these guys like hundreds of of fish soldiers and uh you pop up on a little spot of a map that i'm now going to say, if you want to see it,

head on over to roll 20. This is the back of Dagon's Temple. Which should look mostly black to you. Yes? So far. Your tokens are in the top left. Ah, there it is. Oh, yeah.

You've just come up through. And you see ahead, there's a small room and a door. And that's the wall she busted open? Yes. She knows that this wall has been weak for quite some time. And she got this kind of sort of sea anemone that can expand and contract put it in the crack got it to expand it cracked open the whole wall and crumbled and yeah she said uh no nobody really comes to the side rooms but it's not a very

you know vast temple so uh it's likely in the time that i've been gone they learned of this crack and they're keeping an eye on that doorway that you can probably see so by the way i'm whispering we should all whisper okay i should all whisper because uh this is Danny loves whispering yes Nathan whispering's fun right i love to whisper to be so quiet like a moth inside your ear. It's fun. I love it. Oh, Jesus.

I'm not going to make you all whisper in game, but yeah, you get the idea. What would you like to do? Check out this doorway. Cool. What do you like to do check out this doorway cool what do you mean check it out you'd like run right up to it and i would like to stealthily approach it and look around the through the doorway if i can all righty uh please roll a stealth check and then uh i'll let you know if a perception check is really necessary alright and the clock is ticking on our water breathing too so let's I mean you've got 24 hours so hopefully uh you're

good but it's true if you guys somehow get captured you could be in deep shit that's a 20 on the stealth so you very uh slightly sneak why don't you show me uh put your token over there you should have control of it

coming down along here great do a perception check and i'll reveal some of the map 22 oh me oh my alright you see a fair bit I'm gonna let you get kinda like

so it was a natural plus yeah that's beautiful you see there is some sort of likely royalty fish creature it appears to be praying

kneeling looking at some sort of like what is it called when it's the edifice like it's a carving of Dagon and it's not alone you can see at least

four Galaxian soldiers keeping guard at uh various uh areas and um it uh looks like it's going to be pretty tricky to sneak in um you can see there's also a giant creature oh sort of like rising and falling uh like it looks like it's just sort of like rising and falling like it looks like it's just sort of like in like a quiet state but it's very nerve wracking to see it and know you're going to have to relay it

back to the group it has fins and scales coming off its body it has very large hook hands and it's just sort of like still um and you're not sure what's going on right like you're kind of like oh no oh no uh what do i do what do i do uh okay so i'm gonna report this back to the group and ask uh what's her name? Cass, Cass, yeah. Caspia. Caspia. What the hell that giant thing is. Ooh,

uh, that might be a messenger of Dagon. Every once in a while, we do commune with some of the demigods and, uh, it's been a long time, but perhaps the shaman not returning, uh,

has caused a certain amount of uh concern and upset so there's a chance they're communing with the elder gods to find out what to do that beast is called a wastrelith uh we should be very careful wastrel if uh okay wastrel if wastrel if and the hammer in relation to this room is where uh the hammer is like on the other side it's in a it's in a like a little side room okay yes i wonder if there's some way we could breach this wall. It'd be too loud, though. Because there's another doorway down here.

Well, somebody can go invisible and go in, right? Remember how Danny snuck around and hid that trunk in his trousers? He was really good at that. Very good at that. Maybe we could do something similar again.

Then you want to put a hammer in your pants? Can't touch this. Parachute pants. By the way, 2D, you realize you've got to go back to the group after a while. There's guards roaming around. I don't want to be seen.

Okay. But I, you know, when I, I went back when I went to talk to him. Yeah. And as you go back, like you even see like one of the guards like walk in the room you were just in kind of like peer around and everybody has to kind of lean back and avoid

it. And I'm not going to make you a stealth check, but like that's just because they're generally disinterested in what appears to just be a crumbling part of the temple in there double checking i could make daddy invisible yes what do you want me to do sneak in and grab that hammer go across this room uh is it liftable? How big is it? You know it's very heavy, and you would be able to lift it, but it looks like it's behind a locked door

that currently has a fish guard standing stationary in front of it. Will we attack? Yeah. Well, Danny can't get through that door, can he? Unless he had a master pickpocket with him. You could put us both invisible and I can try to pick the lock. I could do that. And if he can try to silently monk-like take out anyone who needs to.

Oh, yeah. And the thing is in water, right? Yeah, I think the middle of the room is the middle of the room it's like um it's about like a foot and a half of water okay i'm wondering if we could maybe get it out of the water somehow and get like burn it or something if separated from water maybe it gets strength from it the way she got transferred. I don't know. Maybe there's something magic in the water for him. All right. Start, though, with turning the two of you invisible, right? All right.

So you cast invisibility. Danny's game. On Danny and Iva. And you know, yeah, you're going to have to either take out these guards or you're going to have to lure them away somehow right yes so

uh Danny Iva what is your plan I think Danny was gonna silently monk like like tap out that guard just like yeah yep choke him out and then all right now they the two guards on the other side of the room will be able to see each other you feel like with the other roaming guards it will be tricky to time it uh but there will be someone like basically standing only 15 feet away from the guard you got to take out which is the top

one of those two on the other side of the room okay i'm gonna do a cast minor illusion of just an image a still image five feet tall of hopefully that guard's not moving too much it's just gonna be like you know like in movies when they do a repeat a video loop of the room that they play over the the heist or whatever. I'm just basically going to like do it. It has to be still image, but it's just going to be like that. Like a hyper-realistic life-size painting image of the door so that when he goes behind invisible and chokes out the guard, it will just look like a guard's escape. Okay, I think I understand.

out the guard it will just look like okay i think i understand so you're saying like you're gonna go up and choke this guy but um right before you do it you're gonna make it look like he is just standing there standing there got it all right yeah i'm gonna take a mental snapshot of what he looks like and then just replicate that so if you and danny can move your tokens across the room i'm gonna have you both roll a stealth check with advantage okay oh yeah danny likes it invisible you're invisible oh thanks nailed it okay so oh god when are we doing this the The top or the bottom? Top. Okay, sorry, I missed that.

Alright. I have Brian elbowed. How do I go? See Danny's token on the top left there, Brian? I'm getting there. Alright. I just gotta widen this shit out. There we go. Like that. Yep.

Sounds good. And of course you're tiptoeing past that shaman type fish. Of course. You're going to roll those stealth with advantage. Stealth with advantage. Iva and Danny they're all invisible right the two of them those are both beautiful I rolled a 17 and a 19

and then plus I have a plus 5 amazing you guys make it across the room and now uh so put your token sort of where i'm gonna ping right now like like right near this fallen pillar next to the guard you're going towards so one of you ping the dark which is amusing to me uh you guys are pinning it's funny see where i'm picking can you just show me where you want to be right around here i see it now yeah brian and uh i'm trying hold on all right blaine you were in an understudy in ping the dark for a while right i did uh i was in ping the dark in college

for a while until i got expelled for being in ping in the dark and then i was in spider-man ping off the dark oh yeah and uh i was there the night that guy died oh god yeah not the guy in the show just the guy in the lobby it was fucked up so now i'm going to have um we're going to get a strength check from danny to try to choke this guy. And a deception check from Iva to try to mimic a still image of him still standing there alone. Perception? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Fucking rolling high.

19. Great. 16. Great. That's what you both needed. This guy just goes like and Danny you become visible

when you choke him out Iva you're still invisible but he goes Danny should be behind my painting basically yeah I'm gonna so this guy I'm gonna put a little tag on him so we can tell he is sleepy

times Danny you're hiding now that you've done this and Iva you're picking the lock I'm gonna try alright sleight of hand to check please how long does the minor illusion last

uh it lasts one minute oh boy but it's a cantrip so i could just presumably redo it presumably um i'm gonna use my last luck point

to re-roll that sleight of hand alright that's a cool looking map so 20 except for the monster I have a plus 9 so I like the monster a plus 9

I just wish he was on our side oh I getcha I would just like to highlight that Sarah made a very difficult roll with exactly what she needed because she had a plus nine to an eleven. Perfect. And yeah, it's really difficult and it takes

you all your concentration for about a full minute and as soon as you hear a click, you realize you have to go cast minor illusion again. Okay. Roll another deception check please he's rolling against it um something weird

there's just a moment where it like just flickers because you have to concentrate and uh you know you click the lock but then the guard kind of like you see him looking over in your direction and he like slowly turns his head

I mean we're I'm invisible still so but he got a flash of like no guard I weekend atie's the guard behind bernie this but your spell is up well he doesn't see it if it flicker okay good well

as long as he hasn't turned it around he hasn't gone around it yet okay okay well we go inside the door uh when you when you start to open door, you do see he starts to walk around the pillar, so he'll be able to see on the other side of the illusion in a moment. Do you weekend at Bernie's now? Yes. No, I think... Okay, I weekend at Bernie's while Danny's going to also smother this guy. Yeah.

Oh, like he's going to... I'll get this new guy. As he comes around, I'm going to be holding up this guy. Yeah. I'll get this new guy. As he comes around, I'm going to be holding up the guy. I'm going to make him salute as the guy gets close. Danny's going to try to hide and then get... Until the new guy gets here, and then I'm going to get the new guy. Okay, so that's

going to be a stealth check from Danny and a deception check from Iva. Oh, you know what? That deception check... I mean, that's gonna have a high difficulty. Well, let's try it.

21? Oh my god. Okay. Let's see. I got an 18 plus my 5. Sarah, he got a 16 against it. So he goes up and he's like, and he turns around. Danny, you get an arm around him.

Roll a strength check. Wasn't that what I just rolled? I'm sorry. Did you tell me? I thought you rolled a stealth. Yeah, i thought you rolled you did a stealth oh that was a stealth okay cool fucking a rolling high uh 19 yep choked out another guard so now there are two guards um unfortunately you feel like you've only got seconds because now there's two guards passed out and you know there's at least two more patrolling uh as well as the strange giant creature in the middle of the room so you guys go inside the door i take it yeah well we'll have to find out what's inside that door on the next episode of Nerd Poker.

Hey, Sam, what do you think happened in episode 40? Our 40th episode of season four. 40 episodes in. Lordy, lordy. Princess Caspia may or may not have come back. She did, but she did not get the hammer. We're going to try and swim on down. But first, we have to try and hide a body we're looking for an elephant or a rat or a raccoon to water the body

if you know anything about me and my feelings on animals this is this is the best this is true i i could do this for a whole season uh we did which is because life is good we swam on down whispering our way to a doorway it's going to be a tough sneaking in with all these fish scars but we're doing well with illusions and the old classic choking people out just so you know

the body is alive still okay my oh my all right Dan you got any thing you want to plug yeah I mean just keep an eye on talesofzadia.com for the dragon prince role playing book

it's going to come out later this year and we'll announce dates soon but there's been free content being released on the website like playable characters and stuff like that new ones that I made up that are in the world of the dragon prince so

not only that not only should you check that out if you have not seen the dragon prince this guy on the fucking podcast that you've invested at least 40 episodes of your time into spent a lot of time watching the show and learning it and stuff so it'd be really cool if you used your Netflix account to maybe check out the three seasons of that show which by the

way it's 10 set points but it's family friendly you could watch that with like a 10 year old it'd be a good time uh so uh that's all i gotta say brian what about you i think people should buy merch we have cool merch we just got new merch check out our new merch and uh where where would we send people uh sarah to find our new merch me poker merch how about nerdpokerpod.com thank you uh and then uh i've got justbrianpussain.com there's a picture of uh me and my dog mavis and then there's a picture of me if I had a skeleton face. So, uh, yeah,

it's, it's scary. Get it for a Halloween and you can wear my face if I had a skeleton face. Uh, and then, uh, it's a true thing. Bride for scene.com.

All my tour dates will be there. I've got so many comical books coming out. I've, I've written stuff by myself i've written stuff with joe troman i'm writing with rick remender uh just staying busy because of covid and those things will be coming out soon and i can make announcements but uh just stay tuned to brandpain.com for that kind of stuff. That's it for me. Blaine?

Oh, uh, Stacy Keach is getting the key to the city in Santa Fe, New Mexico next weekend. Which city? Santa Fe and then, uh, Alam... No, but I mean which key? Is he getting the key to the actual cities in i think

or is it confusing like that i think it's like a ceremonial thing he uh he saved their king so they're it's like yeah it's all a ceremonial thing they love him down there so and then uh he's gonna swing down and uh we're doing some stuff in alamogordo i think it's a triple a ball thing he's doing some national Anthem-type related stuff. Okay. He has a beautiful voice. He really does. What if I forced you to talk more about that?

What else? Well, he doesn't want to travel, so he's going to probably take his Airstream out there. Oh, I got you. And you fly with the Airstream in the back together? No, I follow him in a vet. Oh, okay. Yeah.

A Corvette or a veterinarian? No, a Korean War veteran. Yes, a Corvette, Brian. What year is the Corvette? What year is it now? 2021. It's 2017. Oh, okay.

Why is Korean War Vet the funniest possible? What does DC keep thinking of the Korean War? When I grew up back east, there was a chain of department stores called Corvettes with a K, and it was named after Korean War veterans. Oh, okay. Well, now it's less

funny. We didn't do any household cone jokes. Whenever I want to rent A Corvette I prefer a small one Like a child sized one And that's why I call

1-877-CORVETTES-FOR-KIDS Which also starts with a K I just realized I did not hit record For this episode Would anyone like to hear it? Yes of course Cool

Let me give you The uncut version This is about Five and a half minutes long Let me clear my throat real quick No i can't do this anymore 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 uh send us anything at p.o box one six zero six nine encino california nine one four one six thanks for listening also send us anything at P.O. Box 16069, Encino, California, 91416.

Thanks for listening.