Nerd Poker - S4E53 Bitey Rabbit

Episode Date: September 14, 2021

The curses worsen as the Castaway Cuties struggle to shakes off the after effects of their fight with the demon. Speaking of which, weird how something smells like smoke!

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 Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Season 4. Hey, everybody. I'm Brian Poussaint, and you're listening to Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. It's episode 53. My friends are here.

I missed them. It's been a little bit since we recorded. We're going to head into Dave and Glavin. But first, let's meet my pals. Sarah's here. Hey, how are you? Hi, I'm good. How are you?

Good. Chris is here. Hi, Brian. How are you? I'm good. You're looking purpley. Oh, my favorite. Blaine. Oh, hi, Brian. Oh, my favorite. Blaine.

Oh, hi, Brian. Hi, purpley. There you are. Ken is here. Hello, Brian. Good to see you. Good to see you, my friend. Dan Telfer.

Brian. Thank God he's here. Oh, it's good to be your neighbor. Yeah, you're living in the valley again. When are we going to hang out? You invited me and my girlfriend to play board games today. Let's do this shit. I got Goonies, and I want to try it first before we do it on the show.

So I know they did a version of Goonies before, but this is one I found in Target and it looked cool. What is it, Board Game Geeks or whatever that big board game site is? Got a pretty good rating. It looks like it's decent. And Sam and also Raman are here engineering the show. Hello, sweet children. And speaking of engineering, let me use my time on the mic to say, did everybody press record?

I forgot to ask. I think we did. Yes, I did. Yay! I appreciate it, everybody. Thank God Ramen's here behind the board, too. Ramen on the knobs!

Oh, God, coming in hot. Hey, Dan, should we thank people? We should. You know what I'm gonna do i'm gonna go ahead and thank some patreon people who support us at those uh wonderful upper levels we're gonna go ahead and thank patreon user for rubbing my dimension door nipples thank you for rubbing my i don't know what that means i don't uh the sentence structure is a little baffling on that one i get that they're being dirty i know i feel like that

reminds me of an i think that might have been in a bonus episode that was that sark maybe there was some bonus episode i feel or maybe i'm just fully making this up nipples on it sounds like something he'd say sure sure. Maybe I did dream it. Alright, well, I've manifested this paper. Don't dream it, be it. Thank you, Mark Strandberg. Thank you, Mark Strandberg. Thank you, Kevin Hitt. Thank you,

Mother Brain Posein. Mother Brain. Thanks, Beta Ray Bill Nye the Science Guy. Thanks, Beta Ray. Thank you, Wild Garlic. Thank you, Wild Garlic. Thank you, Napoleon's Festering Piles. I saw them open for...

Oh, well, no. I was going to go for Ned's atomic dustbin thing. Just to say it. Oh, well, you know what? You killed that joke and your television. How do you like that? Good. I have nine shirts made up

i they they need the merch money right now uh thank you also ian buckley thank you dankey land which i believe is a donkey land reference thank you robert jenkins thank you the other Gus, uh, think fistula anus or a feces, or I think it's fistula and anus in a mashup and then orifice and feces. So it's fistula anus or a feces. Hmm. Nice. What a thing to have to say. Congratulations.

Person who made me say all that stuff. That tracks. Thanks. MC. Hoo-ha. Thanks. Congratulations, person who made me say all that stuff. That tracks. Thanks, MC Hoo-Ha. Thanks, Dorian Ericos. Thanks, JustSomeAnonymousMartin. Thank you, Captain GoodTimes. Thank you, HulkHogi420.

Thank you. Sure. Thanks, Michael McAvoy. Thanks, PaleoDan. Thank you, Andrew Gerald. Thanks, Michael McAvoy. Thanks, Paleo Dan. Thank you, Andrew Gerald. Thanks, James DTJ, which of course stands for Down to Jabberwocky. Thank you, Grima's Ovarian Fortitude. And finally, thank you, Pam at Peace. Thank you, Pam at Peace.

Thanks, Pam. Thanks, you guys. Blaine, who are those Patreon supporters brought to us by? Dan, it's a very exciting day over here because today's Patreon supporters are brought to us by AdClassic. I need something to put in his lunch. Reach for an oyster.

I need something to add a little crunch. Reach for an oyster. I need something I like to crunch. Reach for an oyster. I'll have one, but I'll have a bunch. Reach for an, Oyster! Oysters! It's the best we have! Oysters!

Dan. That's beautiful. What a classic ad. I know. My mom used to sing that to me. I didn't know what it was until I saw it. Did she sing you the full, like, 30-second jingle, or did she just sing you like...

She would make them up. It was really sweet. Oh, could you give us one of her improvised oyster jingles? I wish Blaine would go to sleep. Reach for an oyster. I wish his sleep was really deep. Reach for an oyster. Don't come downstairs and wake up your dad. Reach for an oyster don't come downstairs and wake up your dad

reach for an oyster he's real drunk it'll turn out real bad reach for an oyster stay in bed seriously he's hammered yay so much better than I thought it might oh delightful

I was making it up my dad didn't drink. Okay. My parents had their shit together. Good luck. Instantly felt bad with my improv on that one. I should... Yeah, did you want to say something, Brian?

No, just to reiterate how much we appreciate the Patreon people on all levels for keeping the show going. Yeah, well, as long as we're just really getting into that gratitude, we have some belated thanks for some of our Patreon supporters. That top tier gets entered into a drawing and due to an audio mix up. And also because we've been banking some episodes and didn't catch this as early as we would have liked, we have a July winner, an August winner, and a September winner to announce. So our July winner is Talon Shade. Congrats, Talon Shade.

All right. Congratulations, Talon Shade. Our August winner is MC Hoo-Ha, who you just heard thanked. Thank you. You just heard thanked for being in those upper tiers, which are, of course, the Hey Boss and Stargoyle tiers.

And finally, thank you very much. Of course, my birthday month and Blaine's birthday month, the September winner Manfred Manthrex. Ah, nice. Thanks, man, for decades. Thank you, all of you, for allowing us to keep doing this when otherwise I think we would all be ditch diggers instead in this economy.

Who knows? Mm hmm. But now, Brian, I think this is this is what I would like to do now is what I think you were about to prompt me to do. Right. Yeah. You're you're going to you're're gonna tell me to to to talk about something else right yeah like what happened last time last time i got you all in on a pyramid scheme that's right i got lots of tupperware who wants to buy some each container costs 300

dollars uh they hold 16 ounces of fluid or plasma and uh yeah i just need you to get it on the ground floor if you could buy 20 to 30 containers it's a great investment plan we have we have what i call a tupperware party where you come and you give me a lot of money and then i change my address and take a really long time to tell you what my new address is. Also, I'm going to tell you what happened last time on NerdPoker. The castaway cuties finally vanquished the fish people and their demon and swam across the river to discover

Princess Caspia had indeed delivered the hammer. A vomit. Unforged, they all decided to camp out and it didn't go so great cause it turns out they drank some cursed canteen water.

And three of the five cuties are now cursed with some weird abyssal shit. They're mulling over what to do about it. Some of them not sharing their particular demons whilst staring over a cliff. Will they rappel down the cliff?

Will they head east towards the shore where they'll have to swim through rocky waters? Or will they head west where basically the cliff peters out after a while but then it's a really long fucking walk to where they were going to go and bling bottom. All right, so we're at everyone's favorite intersection in nerd poker, and that's time to make multiple

decisions. Dan, I also want to remind you that when we left, you cliffhangered us with Tootie attuning to his hammer. Oh, that's right, because you rolled successfully, didn't you? Yeah.

So, okay, you've attuned to the hammer, and you now feel that you have a special line with Bahamut. And you are now able to hold the hammer without bad consequences. I like that. So you can take whatever doily you are using to hold on to whatever oven mitt you're using or something yeah cape um i liked of course to imagine you were doing it with you know like this this badass bandana that like 1978 gangsters used to wear but um you're gonna go huh yeah like i'm trying to envision that right now i was thinking you know

like kelly yeah well nascot would be great that's more 2d style like mr furley oh boy yeah yeah yeah there you go what is this criminal bandana you're talking about well when i said gangster i meant like the kind in the warriors they would like wrap around their forehead. But I think you, none of you heard me say gangster. So you just heard 1978. We're like, Mr. Furley. I thought it was like mobster.

I was thinking like that kind of gangster. No, 1978 mobsters were just Chicago dudes and dirty white polos. That's, that's pretty much all that was. Uh, any way. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. You, you can now touch the hammer and not have negative consequences to the unfortunately everyone else will this is this is merely a blessing of bahamut that you have also you feel like you can uh speak more clearly to bahamut than before you're not not sure what this means, but I would just say intuitively, if you were to make a religion check, maybe the difficulty number is going to be a little lower. Maybe Bahamut will have more to say to you,

that sort of thing. However, unfortunately, the hammer still weighs 250 pounds and it's pretty unwieldy. You think you still need help from Bahamut worshippers to do something about that. Right.

Well, that's good. Yeah, nothing wrong with a little divine connection. Yeah. And now you can carry it. And it's not 250 pounds to him? It is. It is, but it's no longer

going to kill him. Oh, right. And it gives you a direct line to Bahamut. Right. Yep. Yeah. And I have a,

he won't answer every time he'll still be kind of vague, but maybe he can fix either fix you guys or fix her hand and, or all of it. I mean, he was responsible for her hand. So that might be a good, true. I was, uh, I was her hand and or all of it I mean he was responsible for her hand so that might be a good true that was her hand

did we cut it off or no no she said it was no big deal it didn't seem to be spreading we marked it to see if it was traveling right yeah no time has passed since you did that really I don't think

did you do before or after the long rest that you attempted and and had uh not go great i don't know i don't remember when you marked it like a chalk on a tire but uh yeah we'll just say not quite no quite like as soon as we saw it we probably marked it it. Yeah, yeah. So nothing to see here, really. You have, however, tried to long rest and it didn't go great. So you guys are still kind of, you know, you were able to learn new spells if that was part of what you were doing. But your hit points are not looking great. You guys feel really restless and shitty.

What's up with our hit points? What do you mean? what's up with our hit points what do you mean I thought I mentioned this on the last episode but the long rest you know was pained I think you said we were at full are we not at full let me check my notes because that one I did

pull from memory I did not read that off my notes mine are at full maybe that's yeah you know that says to too. Yeah, you know, that says to me I probably told you guys that it was a full. And I'm just misremembering.

It's been a while since we played the main campaign. It's been a while indeed. Been a while. Can you ever hear that phrase now? It sucks. I hate that it happens. I tried to not do that. Same thing with One night in bangkok oh okay yeah yeah you guys have fine hit points but um those negative effects i told you uh don't

feel great the only people i have that managed to avoid them are jelf and iva uh danny nathan and tootie you all you all bear an abyssal curse. And I believe only Nathan has shared exactly what's going on with him. And even then it was just sort of in a jokey way. Well, yeah, I think it was like, are we supposed to tie up Nathan? Because he said he wanted to gouge my eyes out or something like that. I want to eat your face, but I'm able to control it but you need to know that I feel as though the tethers of my

control are not my own. So yeah, I feel like you should ring a ding ring a ding ding your dude, your sky dude, Bahamut man. Bahamut. Yes. Yeah, why don't you go. I will pray to Bahamut. Ring a ding yes yeah why don't you go I will

pray to Bahamut with the hammer you can call him direct right yeah yeah well by which I mean you can say a prayer to Bahamut and rather than a DC of 20 with maybe if I'm feeling generous I'll give you something at 18 I'm going to give you a

DC 15 on the religion check let's do it. I reach for an oyster. And basically, Bahamut's now waiting to hear from you. He knows you've attuned to this hammer.

And one second. Sure. Okay, religion check. I like to rap. Rap about religion. Rapping, rapping. Rap about religion. Singing about chess.

That's a 20. Rapping along to the chess song. So Bahamut, his deep uh we want to do a canon uh Jerry Duggan esque voice that I used a couple seasons ago now you won't remember when I had Jerry B Bahamut's voice that

was fun anyway uh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you hear his gravelly dragon voice say to you, Tootie, what would you have of me? I'd like to clear myself of this affliction. For you, I will allow another charisma check.

For your friends, I'm afraid there is little I can do until they rest again. But when they rest again, they can try to break free of the curse. That's good to know. Let's try it. Yep, go do another charisma saving throw for me. I'm going to need you to beat a 10. This is just a 10.

It'll always be a 10. That was a 13. Oh! Well, I have great news 2d uh you feel your mind clear hey because i did not want to work against you yeah you're you're beginning to wonder if you were to say go to the the temple of the bahamut adjacent god at bling bottom if you would do uh something rather unseemly when you saw the donation tray but clear is what you said

yes exactly yeah yeah now now you know you have thetans but uh yeah you're you're you're feeling good and you can tell your friends yes if they try to rest again they could try to shake this but there's not much

who is afflicted Nathan and who else that'll be Nathan and Danny Danny you and I we're haunted men I don't feel so good buddy

and it's warning go ahead Chris I had nothing else to say I was just I don't feel so good, buddy. And it's morning. Go ahead, Chris. That's right. I had nothing else to say. I was just going to throw that in. Would lesser restoration help that? Let's see. That's a great question.

A lot more. I don't believe. No, no. And lesser restoration is not going to help. This feels like it's um because it's a curse from another plane uh it's it would be one very specific spell that can they just try to rest again right now do another long rest can't they just try to snooze again go back to sleep let's see yeah they could, they could try. But I mean, they're gonna

spend another eight hours, the rest of you, sort of camping out by this cliff while they do that. What was that, Ken? Didn't we get afflicted by resting here? No, it was from the water. It was poisoned by the demon.

You put that together. We should dump out our canteens and get fresh water. Oh, that's true. So, this is where things do get tricky. Oh, God. He peed in my canteen

so I pushed him and busted his head open on a bunk. He peed in your canteen? He peed in my canteen. Right after a hike, he handed me a canteen. Whoa. With pee. I got very mad and I pushed him.

Did you drink some of it? I did. I cut his head open on the bunk. Good. And I fainted because I felt so bad that I cut his head open. Okay. And we both woke up in the infirmary together. I'm proud of small Ken.

Yeah. Can't let that stand that was awful of him it would have been a great time for a spit take he split his head open on a bolt was that kid Johnny Lawrence I'm still waiting for the phone call by the way why am I not on that show rude

so are we resting but you know what you can do is enjoy a delicious shamrock shake yeah Dan said this is where the problem comes in it's not a problem it's just a consequence of like you can do a long rest but really it only like makes sense if uh you know the two characters who have a rain cloud

floating over their head are the ones who actually try to sleep while the rest of you protect them or scout you're kind of like yeah i mean you can it just means also like you're you're you're offsetting each other's rhythms, your bio rhythms. So the rest of you guys are going to get tired at 11 o'clock midnight while these guys will have just slept until 8 p.m. Well, how far... Do you feel like keeping an eye on them

and making sure they don't do anything terrible? I mean, we can do that. How far are we, if we book it, how far are we to some type of civilization? Okay. So if you guys let's just say throw the hammer off the cliff or whatever the fuck and like rappel down the cliff and it all goes great you do it at top speed uh you run around up sea pine z you don't spend

any time in any magical area uh you can make it to bling bottom in two days if you're like just running um so that's that's two days is here's the thing uh you do not see fresh water in your immediate area the area you just came with was a saltwater river going into the ocean you're not sure uh where in davin glaven in southeast davin glaven there is fresh water you don't see any um and yeah it's about two days from bling bottom so you can make it without water but it's it's gonna you know if you get slowed down be an issue so Caspi and I both have some so we should start that is untainted right you're the only two

and then yeah I guess maybe let's just try to go I don't know Nathan you tell us what I was gonna say Jelf are there any secrets of the forest ways that water collects that might help us? Well, if we find ourselves getting too thirsty,

I'll look it up, get back to you Thursday. That almost rhymed. Yeah, I'm sorry. It caught me off guard there. I would think that, yeah, I would maybe have some survival. Oh, you would think, why don yeah i would maybe have some some survival oh you would think why don't you do i let you pick survival or nature check jelf you specifically get to do this you can also make it two days without without water from our help and like

quick bit of bad news uh princess cospia says oh i i'm sorry i i've got salt water in my canteen i can drink salt water wouldn't you know well uh how much do i have left uh you've got salt water in my canteen. I can drink salt water. Wouldn't you know? Well, how much do I have left? Uh, you've got, let's see. When was the last time you would have refilled it? Um,

I mean, yeah, I would say a canteen holds like a week of water and you're about halfway through it. Oh, a week of water in a canteen if you're cutting it yeah what like rope rope and all okay so yeah okay so then we've got work we're

fine let's let's worry about it if we need to worry about is what I say let's like go let's just try to get to somewhere Caspia and help you guys i'm assuming you all have big adventurous canteens i'm assuming there's enough water left that you're not you're you know you're in the wilderness you're you're refilling it often and and i have one of those hydration packs with little like a little straw those little camelback things yeah uh sure but like yeah you you know everybody combined will go through it quickly

so if you guys want to book it yeah just tell me how you want to get down this cliff this cliff is many many many feet down you do think with your basic rappelling adventure gear stuff you could give it a go just like rappelling down don't we have better than basic because we got it for the duck penis place uh-huh from the duck penis place? Uh-huh. From the duck penis place. I say let's do it. Although, so Nathan, let me know if you feel like more or less like ripping my face off and we'll go ahead and tie you up. It's not you specifically. Oh, that's helpful.

Thank you. We should get him down first. Yeah, with a guard. And then we can, if we need to like, you know, restrain them, we can do that. I don't know if they just are thinking they're going to do that or if they actually are maybe going to go for it.

It's true. He has some devastating. So, what I'll let you guys do is roll a survival check with advantage to get down the cliff and his wand yes that'd be all right i will say i think that's a smart idea and hand it over to tootie are you asking for it yeah i'll put it away i'll sort of like flip it and give it to him leaves first uh i uh you guys all get to roll with advantage uh the only thing is 2d the hammer you have yeah

2d you have two choices you can tell me tell me a special way you're going to do the hammer or roll with disadvantage on the survival check huh okay survivalist Should I risk it? Yes, I can. Why don't you tell listeners what your survival bonus is? To roll. Folks, this means he'll roll a 20-sided die. I do have a plus five to survive. A plus five is very good.

Very good. That means if you roll a one you'll roll a six Nathan could also shrink it right shrink it the hammer is not the issue or no yeah well how long does reduce object or whatever that spells called

one minute it'll take you more than one minute to get down this little cliff okay forget it I mean I could tie it off and just lower it down. Right. Like there's a lot of ways you could do this. I just need you to say it so I can decide if I'm going to make you do an extra role or if I'm going to change the narrative that's coming up.

So like the, the hammer is 250 pounds. I've mentioned this and you might have thought I was joking, but it would have occurred to your character. All of you would have thought of this. What if we just shoved this thing off the cliff and caught up to it? What if we hit it or made it invisible somehow and threw it off? Like you,

you, you all would have racked your brains for that. Cause it's just so fucking heavy and it's a cliff. Like it's, it's, that seems like it should make it easy somehow, but I'm not going to, you know,

hand feed you any solutions what do you guys think down a rope go for the roll it's magical you could just drop it right and like be okay what was the thing about the bag of holding did it it has to be shrunk to get in there right and then 50 pounds is right okay um yeah so i i'm fine if you nobody has invisibility otherwise we could just... I have invisibility. I could cast it. Should somebody maybe go down first and then have

the hammer thrown down? And then maybe be crushed by the hammer? I think that sounds awesome. Yeah, well, I just mean... Just in case we're throwing it down a cliff into a... How about this? How about I send i bet i send agatha agatha can go check it out

see where it will land if we drop it yep yes yes i ask her if she'll do it as a favor to me uh punches for the fuck of it do an animal handling check this will apply to how well she'll scout in the future for this nine she understands

she'll do her best will she with a nine i don't think so should listen she's she's a little unclear on how important the job is, but she'll do it. The scale of the danger you're trying to convey to her might not be clear. But, uh, yeah. Why not to get hit by the hammer? Right. Well, I assume what you're proposing is you chuck it and then Agatha kind of dovetails down

literally and then scopes it out. Oh, okay. I was thinking she goes down, sees where it's going to land, comes back up and lets us know. Oh. And then we drop it.

What would it be if the crew wasn't extremely careful one moment and insanely reckless the next? Yeah, yeah. Okay. She scouts. She flies down down this is with your nine roll and uh she comes back up and what is how does your animal talking work communicating basic ideas yeah and nathan you have like a different animal yeah i can actually talk to i can uh if's complicated, I can talk to her for 10 minutes. I would like to do that. I've never had a conversation with Agatha.

Well, I mean, if you have a conversation in game, it's that's all Sarah. But Agatha would would tell you both, know it seems safe there is a creek at the bottom there's a lot of bugs in it and there's a lot of mud there's no creatures

but you can hear this jungle noises so she thinks there's creatures probably nearby okay we don't really want to throw a So she thinks there's creatures probably nearby. Okay. We don't really want to throw a 250 pound hammer into a mud swamp. It'll just disappear into the muck and we'll never. Yeah, I was going to see if anybody has somewhere to mark the hammer. I think maybe we just lower it down.

Doesn't one of you have like detect magic? I do as a ritual yeah that would work I mean if you were down there and you cast it I got it it's not gonna make it invisible mud yeah we'll make it invisible and then drop it and then hopefully find

it in whatever it takes us to find it down there maybe we don't even need to use the magic um we'll spell a war off eventually right to get down there? Maybe we don't even need to use the magic. Um... We'll spell a war off eventually, right? I can cancel invisibility when we get down there.

I'm going to need my wand back, unfortunately. Should I give him his wand back? I mean, let's just keep an eye on him, I guess. Yeah. No funny business. I can make it invisible. I can cast the ritual and give it right back to you.

But to do those things, I need my wand. Okay, let's all stand behind him. Okay. All right, I'll give him his wand back. I do stand behind him. I don't know if anyone else is going to. Yeah, we will. I will stand behind him. Do you give him his wand back. I do stand behind him. I don't know if anyone else is going to. Yeah, we will. I will stand behind him.

Do you give him his wand back? Great. Hey, Chris, will you do a charisma check for me? A check, not a saving throw. It's a straight charisma check. Copy. Ten. Alright. Alright.

Roll an unarmed strike will you oh who's handing him the wand i am okay uh 11 okay uh what's your to hit bonus did you include that plus 2 okay yeah I did I rolled a 9 and I added 2 what's your armor class 16 so you've got your

like plate gauntlets on and when you hand the wand back Nathan you just compulsively just bite his hand as hard as you possibly can and it hurts your teeth really bad you're like ah did I chip a tooth Nathan, you just compulsively just bite his hand as hard as you possibly can. And it hurts your teeth really bad. You're like, oh, did I chip a tooth?

Oh, my goodness. Tootie, I'm so sorry. It's all right. I understand. Let's do that invisibility and then just get that wand back. All right. So Nathan casts invisibility and the wand disappears. Or the hammer disappears. What if I knew what words meant?

My ability to speak disappears. May I have the wand back, please, Nathan? I hand it back to him the same way. Cool. Will you do another charisma check for me, Nathan? And the carrot turns you into... I'm going to need you to do another unarmed strike please yeah what's my bonus

yep nine alright so this time Nathan it feels like oh I'm just trying to be casual I'm trying to be myself I'm just trying to make this a chill handoff with the wand back. And as soon as he takes the wand, there's this moment of calm where you're like, I did it.

And when you let your guard down, you compulsively kick him really hard in the shins. And again, it just hits his armor. It doesn't do anything. Your rabbit foot just kind of goes bang off of it. But it's clear that you're compulsively just sort of attacking people who interact with you. Tootie, I'm so sorry. I understand, Nathan. Sorry.

Good thing it's not Danny. As all this is happening, Danny, you definitely get this feeling in your gut of like, this feeling in your gut of like, would have been real funny if that bite had hurt Tootie real bad. And then you shake it off and you're like,

no, no, that's not good at all. Danny doesn't like those evil thoughts. Yeah, they creep in unnaturally. It's pretty gross. The invisible hammer sits in your hand, Tootie. All right. I will drop it.

Are you going to aim or are you just going to boop? Yeah. I'm going to aim away from the creek. So you walk, let's say, 50 feet away and you feel like there's no wind that will push it in the direction of the creek. Agatha, you know, can I see the ground below?

No, no, push it in the direction of the creek Agatha you know it helps you can't where that is no no you can't the creek is too small to see from such great heights as Ben Gibbard might sing you really don't see where exactly that creek is must be very far down

the fuck of a cliff okay well then I'll drop it Must be very far down. It's a fuck of a cliff. Okay. Well, then I'll drop it. Boo! You hear just a whistle in the wind as this incredibly heavy burden disappears from your hand and you can't see where it goes.

Okay, we gotta go, go, go and then tie these guys up for sleepy times. Great. I keep my distance from the afflicted. No offense. No worries. Should they go down first? I also don't want to go see Alien

Ant Farm. Yeah, everybody roll a survival check with advantage, including you afflicted folks. Get advantage. I'm just going way out to the side of them. Neither first nor last. You know what I mean about like that they're not above us or below us sure was that a survival check dan yeah boss all right 14 18 15 11 no well are you gonna tell me what i need because i could use a luck point, but you didn't tell me. 15. You need a 15.

Oh, can I use my luck point? Yeah, you both can. I think normally I'm not allowed to do that, but since we didn't, since you seem very open. You know what? I'm a benevolent monster. Uh-oh. Using another luck point. I used two luck points as well.

I got a 24. Okay, I got a 24. Okay, I got a 21. Danny, what'd you get? Just scratched by a 15. It's grueling for Tootie and Iva as you feel like you need to ask the fates to intervene. It takes a long time

too. You all need to find a little outcropping halfway down the cliff and stop to reattach all this gear and you're going down. You're going it's it's it's interminable how long this is going. I've will you roll a perception check, please? I will. Your suspicion of your friends allows you a unique point of view 21 it seems as if rising off of danny and nathan's shadows there are smaller shadows at first you're not sure what it is but

with a 21 yeah right near the bottom of the cliff and and the ground you you're able to focus your eyes and get a really good glimpse without creeping your friends out or anything. And you can tell rising off of their shadows, there seems to be the shadows of thousands of flies that buzz around, head upwards. And they seem to be increasing over time. There's no flies. There's no flies. There's no flies at all.

But from the distance that you've created for yourself, you're able to see these and then get just close enough to verify that there seems to be clouds of shadows of flies rising off of your two friends. Okay. I had a thought, which I'm googling now to find out google no it doesn't in a fantasy realm i'll allow it sarah is googling ivah is racking her brain for knowledge of sleep potions um and what a sleep spell how restful that would be but um

yeah i think we've got to tie them up and then hope that spell how restful that would be but um yeah i think we've got to tie them up and then hope that they can rest and that's why like if i if i knock them unconscious is that helpful is that like fantasy ambient will that help them actually fantasy ambient is definitely like some sort of absinthe or something it's uh yeah you could get in bar but you're an apothecary there's just there's just if you punch them it's just probably gonna hurt um all right you could try to sleep or hold them but that could also kill them yeah you know all right guys well are you okay i mean if we how so how long has it been since they last tried to rest well it took you three hours uh to scale the cliff as quickly as possible i would have made it a slower dc if you guys hadn't made it abundantly clear that you were really trying

to speed your way to blend bottom um and yeah so it took three hours to get down this thing so we're still going you're yeah it's it's noonish okay did we i'm sorry did we find the hammer sure didn't you haven't looked for it yet toads i'm gonna need everybody to do a well first tell me are you casting detect magic no first let's look for it oh he said he can just uh i can cancel it i can cancel invisibility so at least that part of it is yeah cancel and then let's look for it i think right Oh, he said he can just... I can cancel invisibility. So at least that part of it is... Yeah, cancel it and then let's look for it, I think. Right?

You cancel it and it's on my foot. How many? Blaine! You cancel it, you do not see it. I can detect good or evil. Is that a spell? Just don't waste any... Oh, okay, yeah.

I was just going to say don't waste any spells, but if he can find it without a spell... You can detect good or evil. We haven't even used our eyes yet. It's very lazy. This is like my husband keeps making fun of me because I found out that you can use your Apple Watch to find your phone, to make your phone make a noise

when it's like, you know, if you can't find it in the house. And now I use that feature multiple times a day. And often it's like within arm's reach of me. And every time I do it, he's like, you could have just looked for it, though, like actually that time. So I feel like using a spell now to find the hammer is sort of like that. So I don't lose my phone. I got a bright construction yellow phone case. It's smart. So yeah, you cast detect good and evil. I'm going to use

divine sense is what it is. Oh, divine sense. That's very different. Trying to remind myself. We just looked this up in the last episode as an action you can detect good and evil until the end of your next turn you can sense anything affected by the hallow spell or know the location of any celestial you're also going to be fiend undead within 60 feet you're gonna get a lot of bad news about your friends yeah so what is Yeah, is there like a distance on this Divine Sense? 60 feet, he said.

60? Oh, yeah, 60 feet, sorry. Yeah, the trick is it's mostly the way they've redone this in 5th edition is it's mostly about planes of existence or beings from planes of existence. So, Divine Sense is not... I can help with that no i would you don't know that though so you try it because i want to give you the bad news yeah um yeah as sarah hinted you know you're you're not quite able to sense it you just get a sense it's because bahama you know

didn't forge this hammer in the celestial realm he made it either in the material plane or his own did you call him bahama bahamut i? Bahamut that's what it sounded like maybe my zoom squelched it maybe I got so excited that I slurred my speech but I meant to say Bahamut I can cast detect magic as a ritual let's just look

first the bad news before I made a dum-dum with my mouth face the bad news much i made a dum-dum with my mouth face the bad news uh much as iva saw uh 2d you see rising off of nathan and danny this horrible aura of these giant black flies with like this like red dust kind of coming off of them except for you it's not shadows it's like floating motes of shadow that rise off of their bodies and they

seem to be collecting in this 5 by 5 foot wad of shadow a little bit to the west of where you are right now they're collecting

it's like this fiendish horrifying like coagulation that only you can see. Now what would you like to do, everybody? Let's look for the hammer

and right? Yes. Why not? That should be and then i don't know what to do about this fly person yeah it's turned off everybody do a perception check to find this investigation or perception to find this um god damn hanger i got a 19 plus six i just said hanger instead of hammer that's 19 plus six is amazing. 25. One plus six. That was my perception. I have a.

And nothing. I have a you beefed it. Sounds like Brian slash Danny. Also, do you not like that phrase? No, it's fine. Sarah seemed upset. Chris, what'd you get only a nine yeah Jelf

you go cavorting about and you're able to find it it unfortunately landed nearish the creek so it's it's covered in mud but it's just a thin layer of mud and it just looked like a rock so don't touch it okay the mud won't. So don't touch it.

Okay. The mud won't protect me if I touch it. Um, it might. Do you want to try? You know, like the way the mud kept the predator from seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger's. Yeah.

Is he, are you going to tell us that you found it? Yes, I will. Uh, who do you, who do you run over and grab it? Yes, I will. Hooty-hoo! Hooty-hoo! I will run over and grab it. Cool.

So you've got the hammer. You're now going to try and book it southwest towards Blingbottom. And who saw it? Did only 2D see the gathering flies? You had seen it before, no?

I saw the shadows, yeah. Yeah, only 2D can see it. flies you've seen it before now i'd saw the shadows yeah that yeah only 2d can see it he got it through his divine sense it's like an aura sense that he got it's not like a visible thing for everybody also i have a about it uh you got a 25 blaine yeah i got yeah 19 plus all right i i'm gonna throw you a bone. You smell ash on the wind. And you look up and your forest scent starts tingling. The jungle forest that I've set ablaze atop seems to have spread quite significantly. quite significantly and you see this massive like mile wide

plume of black smoke kind of rising over the top of the cliff wait I said it across the river though yeah oops oh no wealthy homes

guess what I rolled a 100 after you did that and I got a good old 99 and that meant to me this fire is gonna be a big old whoopsie daisy so i am climate change what are you doing this is yeah nightmare yeah uh so so if I may complete the visual, as it were, Jelf, so this big giant black plume of smoke, right, rising off of the cliff. You also know there are little embers, kind of like little occasional, very rare, and little bits of ash kind of falling from above.

And you kind of like look around, you smell again, you feel like there might be a little bit of burning jungle down here at the bottom of the cliff. Not man, not as bad. There's no giant plume of black smoke, but,

uh, okay. You can investigate further or you can just forge ahead. Can I, uh, sort of follow around like a bug's bunny following some carrot soup smell sure do you want to like climb a tree sure cool give me either nature or survival and i'll tell you what you bugs bunny discover i will do survival because i have a plus six which gives me a 10

um hard to tell seems like it's just coming from all directions. Okay. Well, I'm sorry. I mean, we... You know, they shouldn't have... We shouldn't... We stole a hammer. I'm sure it'll all be fine. What could go wrong?

You guys start heading southwest. And after about an hour, again, you're trying to make a two-day journey as quick as possible, so you're jogging along, jogging along, jogging along. And it's getting to be like what would be essentially one, two

in the afternoon. You all start just realizing you're coughing. Oh, did we refill? I'm sorry. Redcon, because we obviously would have tried to refill your water. I will give you that you all refilled your water, sure. You've all got a fresh canteen, each. You can say whatever you want

about having boiled or cleaned your canteen to do your best to get the curse out. It feels fine. But yeah, you're all coughing and like, you just, you realize, oh,

the air is really like, you can smell the smoke. All of you can smell the smoke. Oh God. And people set fires all the time in battles can you guys forge ahead? it doesn't ruin entire continents hey Dan when we were up on top of the cliff

and we were looking down on creation and the only did we sort of were we able to say okay we need to go down find the hammer and then sort of take a take a left or there's a clearing over there or there's a uh there's yeah yeah outcropping over here that we can head to so if you would all gaze upon the map of dave and glaven there's a you can see like

a bunch of uh little poofs that sean bryant drew there that are meant to represent outcroppings of trees, right? Okay. Can you ping those, Dan? Yeah, one second. I just realized my Roll20 tab accidentally got closed, so I gotta hop in there. Okay. Do-do-do. But there's like, well, I can see it

in Zoom because our engineer so wonderfully has it going in Zoom today. But we I can see it in zoom because our engineer so wonderfully has it going in zoom today, but we see while we were back up there, that there's like a few miles, like miles, there's a couple hours of trees to get through. And then there's going to be some open planes.

So I'm going to ping sort of where the trees and can you see that? There's like poofs those poofs are like a few miles of trees a few hours of trees and you're just you're like hoping to get out of them at this point soon but it feels like the fire might be close or like it's starting to spread nearby is there a way to skirt around these trees to sort of... Can I send Agatha to do it? She should be able to see from the bird's eye view which way

we should go. Alright, the bird eyes! She flies up. She got them bird eyes. She flies down in a panic. Not good. You guys are only about You're about

like two miles from the edge of the woods. You're super close. But there's fire coming in from all directions. How is that possible? This little outcropping is just on fire.

It should have raised the forest. Perhaps we need to head towards the shore. You can head towards the shore, but it feels like you guys are going to have to do some kind of looking for an open area. Agatha communicates

there is sort of like an open glade nearby with a light amount of trees alright you guys can head in that direction sure yeah let's do it let's just try to get away from the fire

you guys get to this sort of glade and it just hits so I'm going to need all you guys to do a survival check if any of you have like an emergency idea that's great but you've only got about 30 seconds

as you see this thing going like just like this wall rolling 23 did this stupid fire jump over a giant river? Come on. This is terrible. I'm trying to think if I can use channel divinity. I gave it 8 hours.

17. I looked at my more detailed map. I'm very sorry. It's a jungle. It wasn't even supposed to burn that well because it's all wet and moist and damp and juicy. Earl in 18. Filled with innocent

monkeys. Let the monkeys burn, but I don't want to. Excuse me. Did everybody beat... Did everybody... Anybody beat 15? 23. Yes. Yes, 22. Brian, what'd you get? What was the check?

Survival. Oh yeah, I included that. Ken, what'd you get? 18. Oh, so everybody beat 15. Yes. Oh, okay. So you're going to take half damage on this. This is super unfair dungeon master shit

but uh 12 points of fire damage so have that 6 points of fire damage as this thing rolls over you guys found a glade uh agatha really helped you out here it's not too bad but um the smoke inhalation sucks, and basically

the woods just go up quickly, and then they don't completely burn. It's just the mass of the fire rolls over and doesn't light everything up, so the trees just sort of smolder. But oddly, as the fire sort of starts

to clear, you guys see something like black and like midnight black is just sort of starting to coalesce in the glade. And all of you see it, not just 2D. This wasn't my fault. No, this seems like it's a little bit more than the fire. And we'll have to find out what the fuck I'm talking about in the next episode of Nerd Poker. Hey, Sam, what do you think just happened hey everybody uh this episode we can hold the hammer now and also the hammer is some sort of telephone uh we went down a cliff and we might throw the hammer nathan bit tootie there's flies made of shadows which might seem not bad

but in this game shadows can kill you and the fire we set is now a bigger fire because there is no greater monster defeat than the consequences of our own actions hey uh dan uh jace you want to plug buddy um just watch the dragon prince on netflix because i'm writing a goddamn book about it. Oh, cool. BrianPersane.com tour dates for the fall and winter here. Cool. Comic book shops. Just say my name and they'll show you where my shit is.

I have a bunch of stuff coming out. Cool, cool. What else? Blame? cool cool uh what else blame uh if this is uh before the end of september i'm gonna be at the moon tower comedy festival in austin at the end of the month and uh uh i'm not with stacy this week he's got his hand on one of those uh new electric mustangs for a radio station, 46 hours so far. So, uh, it's him and him and another guy. He's going to drive home. And I know Stacy.

And, uh, what, what episode? He's driving home in it. Oh, that's unreal. Was this 43?

53. Thanks for listening to episode 53 with your ear balls. Happy ear balls. Thanks for listening to another episode of nerd poker. You can follow us at patrion.com slash nerd poker, and you get bonus episodes from there. And you can also send us anything at P.O. Box one six zero six nine. Encino, California, nine one four one six. from there and you can also send us anything at P.O. Box 16069

Encino, California 91416 Thanks for listening.