Nerd Poker - The Cavern Campaign - Episode 5

Episode Date: September 17, 2026

Will Brian enlarge AND/OR reduce himself while murdering a sleeping NPC? Time to find out! For 3 bonus episodes a month and more, subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/nerdpoker. For merch, social media, and more, be sure to head to nerdpokerpod.com

It's Brian Posane, Nerd Poker. We're calling it, The Cavern. My friends are here. Chris, Blaine, Ken, Engineer Sam, and of course, our kick-ass DM, Dan Telfer.

Welcome to Nerd Poker. Hey, everybody. It's Brian Passame, and you're listening to Nerd Poker. It's episode 5 of the Cavern Campaign. Blaine's doing some crazy shit. Ken's here. Yes, I certainly am.

How about that? We're here at my table. Yep, all right. Here it is. Yeah, that's a table all right. It's full of candy. I'm full of candy. Covered in candy.

Covered in candy. Well, not covered, but there's candy on the table. There's a partial candy area. That was Chris. Hi. Dan's whispered about candy. Candy, candy, candy, candy, candy, candy. Blaine is here.

Sorry about the plan. I'm talking into a bowl of starbursts. And running this show, as always, from the cool part of this table. It's Sam, everybody. Hello, sweet children. Hey, pal. Is your dog sitting in the car? Nope.

I was in Chicago this weekend, and I got back yesterday and haven't picked them up. I'm going to get it. I'm going to get him after this. Are you guys going to go to Del Taco? Yeah, we are. Nice. He's been good. He can drive.

That's the best question. Sorry. Dan. I will thank some people. First of all, I want to thank Sam for the jokey made right before we went on the air today. Real home run.

I said Ken was anti-Semitic towards himself and then Chris said Let's not get into what I said. A pun. You said a pun. And then what did you say? Sam said it sounds like a Jeff Donovan of it. Antisemitic.

Antisemitic. The timing too. You came in right when we thought we were done with the bad pun. So it was like, oh. Yo, yo. I'm going to wrap at you some names. Okay.

I see how it is. My name is Dan. I'm pretty excited about the last name. I'm about to thank. And Chris, I hope you're excited when you hear it. I am. Okay. So first of all, if you're at our top twos of support on patreon.com slash nerd poker,

you get a shoutout. If you are even listening, we love you. If you can support us even as like a free subscriber, it's a delight. But hey, y'all, we want to give a special shout out to ork in a sheer nighty. Thank you, ork in a sheer nighty. Thank you. Gripping on to sanity with failing fingers, never knowing true. freedom till released by the crushing and then it ran out of the crushing fingers of a life givers

and then it's I think it's lyrics that I don't know anyone no thank you Zach moaddeweeb it's probably avenged sevenfold well I'd be able to understand event sevenfold if I didn't see avenge sixfold yes avenge sevenfold is just evidence with six fingers up here the The next one is Tyler Carter. Thank you. Tyler Carter. The party starting? Maybe.

Next is, see if I can do David Cross, in a megaphone voice. Thank you. Oh, money machine. Kind of fit money machine. Baby loves a money machine. Thank you. Thank you. Friar Jolly's Cweep Show next to the Cloaca Pub and Gris.

in the Dilldo District. Hmm. That's all of them. We've really mapped out every corner of the Dildo District at this point. Oh, you guys, you're not here? It's expanding.

It's going to go on the other side of the highway, I think. Is it GTA? I'm just going to say that. Damn you. Funny thing about the Dildo District. It always stretches out for more room. That hurt to say aloud.

Thank you. Larry Biednell. Thank you. My Cat Bandit goes into attack mode when your podcast music starts. Cool. What did I call the other thing, the BDafsleeve?

Jirko-off sleeve? B-off sleeve is a different thing. B-off sleeve. That's the weird Lever. Snuart. To be-off sleeve. Snort. Thank you, Sparky, the unicorn of woe.

I love that guy. Thank you, Bob Zeus, of Bob Zeus's discount hammers and hammer accessories. These are all long-timers. Yeah, thanks. Is Etern and Dave coming up? No, not yet, but soon. Because he's always here.

Thanks, they turn him, Dave. Out there in Northern Ireland, I believe. God, I hope I get to say hi to him one day. Meet him in a pub. That'd be so fucking fun. Yeah, I'm sure he'd love to say hi to you. Should get in one of his Zoom D&D games. Yeah, he's great.

Yeah, he's awesome. Thank you. Basic Botch Energy. G. That's a new one. Thank you, Jason Yarn. Thank you, Deborah from HR. Thank you, seriously, thank you, Deborah. You've had to feel the log these last 15 years. It gets rough sometimes. And finally, thank you, emergency billy.

Uh-oh, I hope we can break out some emergency billy from this class case. Are you guys having a candy party? What's going on over here? I listen to hot tamales. Just take one, buddy. I got to eat all of it No, just take one Hey, did Blaine do a voice Into this to a bowl of some

Sharper? Give it for everybody else Blaine Do that voice again Oh Of this one Into the bowl Classic Blaine

Damn Blaine Snort Oh, Supporters Brought to us by Michael's hearts And crafts

Home Dekore Framing art supplies, crafting essentials, yarn, holiday decorations. Everything you need for your husband to die in a hot car is at Michaels. He's not coming in. Hurry before we go out of business, Michael's. Hey, Blaine? Yeah.

Do you have any moist supplies of Michaels? I think Michael's has everything for moisture. Oh, God. I'm going to start eating pizza into the mic. It's never too late. Why don't you start eating some pizza into the Michaels? Ew. Oh, no, when you think about it more, it hurts more.

That's my new YouTube series. You know, they do a really cool open Michaels night. It's all stand up about craft. I quit. No, let's talk about what happened last time. Oh, John W. Six, baby. Oh, let's talk about what happened last time on.

Sex. No, that's what you said. You implied, that's what I'm supposed to say. The Cavern campaign. You guys walked down a very narrow stone walkway, a very 10-foot-wide, creepy over a gigantic expanse walkway. You think there might be water beneath. Moisture?

It's very moist. It's dripping in the distance. It's a huge open expanse, Mines of Moria-esque here. And behind you, there is a corpse of a beholder that may or may not have exploded in or out of the tower you left. And you teleported in the tower to get so far down in the underdark, you could go beneath it and find a lost city full of treasure, perhaps. Hopefully you've been taking notes, right? You're already. Oh, yeah.

You're just taking notes. So many notes. Well, one thing I can tell you is although there is a fork behind you, you've been focusing on one path in front of you because you're pretty sure it goes down, and that's the main thing you need. You tried to make a map. And what happened, Ken? I rolled off.

It rolled off. But you reminded me there's an aspect of this map case that I forgot, which is if you roll a perception check 15 or higher, you can dig around in it and find a map for anything. Last campaign, you used it to find the exit or the best place, but you can actually create maps. Just cool. Now, ahead of you, we'll say about 20 feet ahead of you,

is this cavern opening in the wall of this cavern. Like not on the path? It's on the path, but like, see how I have the, it is flush. So, boob, boob. Actually, can you move all this candy that is taking up the formal tile space? If you not played D&D before, it's mainly about a table full of cans. Hey, I'm not saying what I'm doing.

doing is good. What I'm saying is it's necessary. Sam, I'm going to put all these recess peanut butter cups by you. Sorry. This is the wall of the cavern, Chris. So like, oh, so basically the path goes through, is the wall in front of us completely sealing it off? There's no doorway then. That's not.

No, that is a doorway. That's an opening to the cavern. Oh, got it. Okay. Is there anything written? Um, just a reminder, I was still just trying to paint the scenery. Oh, sorry. There is heavy breathing coming from this.

So because you're about 20 feet away from it, you would have to get closer to know if there's writing. There's no obvious writing. Who's my number calling here? Perhaps it's a guardian of sorts. Someone might be using a beat off tube. Mr. Bites, you can climb, yes? Mm-hmm. I wonder if it's worth checking the sides of this very bridge.

You know, the old tale of the troll under the bridge? What if this thing is coming at us from beneath? Do you think you could take a rock? Do a perception check, blink. You peer over the side. Six plus five, 11. Okay. You're pretty sure that the heavy breathing is coming from the cavern ahead.

Yeah. But as far as like looking over the sides, you can't really tell. Okay. Sorry, I wish I could help. Well, assuming there's a thing that wants to kill us, it should die then, yes? Can I, uh, if I hear the breathing, can I, uh, can I, can my whiskers twitch my nose flare? Get a, get an animal kind of whiff about what's going on. Sure. Um, do another perception check.

This is more specific to the breathing. 19 plus 5. Oh, wow. 24. There's this scent of rotting as it breeds in and out. There's this short delay, and then there's this warm air, the exhalation coming out of this creature. And it's of decayed meat, almost exotic. What's your passive insight?

15. Possibly humanoid meat. Hmm. That's aren't good. We're a humanoid meat. Exactly. Yes. Let's kill it.

Can I get a vibe of how big this thing kind of feels? Do an insight check, not just passive insight. That's an 11. Well, I gave you such abstract info on the scent because you are 20 feet from the opening. There's probably at least other 20 feet around that corner. With that low, I mean, Big probably, but that's just based off the sound. Okay.

You can combine that with the knowledge of this scent however you wish. All right. I wish I could help. Well, we certainly just call it out. How close do we feel comfortable getting? 20 feet. I mean, that allows it to get close to us. Do we want to say?

I mean, do we assume it's more than 60 feet away because I can't see it? It is around a corner at least 40 feet away. It's a fudge maker. Let's get closer. Yeah, I'll peek in and look around. Oh, you're physically getting, oh, sure. All right, do a stealth check if you want to be careful. Oh, okay.

You don't have to be careful. You can just strut right up. I will stealth my booty off. Okay. I have advantage on stealth, too. You do? And a 13 bonus. So that's 27. The low. First row.

29, the second rule. Okay, you elegantly and silently, you just seem to sort of like almost let me. What if you done with can? In fact, he's like a blur, but how close do you want to get? So the cave mouth, you guys are actually this far back, right? Like 20 feet back. And then there's 20 more feet and then a corner. So I just want to get close enough to get a look see.

You'd have to peer around this corner. All right. I'll stay close to Ken. He doesn't have to... Okay. Do a self-check to you then. I'm bad at these. Can I imbuse them?

And also, if you've been close to him this whole time, I believe if that bonus you give as a paladin, can give him a bonus. It's for saving throws. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay, so with disadvantage, I rolled a 12, and my bonus is a 1.

So 13. I can also have a cantrip of non-detection. Okay, so what does that give him? Touch him and he is undetectable. That's a can'trip. Holy shit. Well, we're a noisy boy. That's very helpful.

That's great. You want to maybe remember that, Chris, because you're going to need it. Yes, we are friends. Well, because you have a disadvantage on stealth checks. I do, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. All right.

So you both silently are. are able to Because of my armor. Oh, gotcha. Yeah. So both of you do a perception check as you peer around the corner. That I'm not good at.

Oh, darn it. A total of 10. 13 passive perception. Nice. Did you roll? No, I'm just being... Yeah, you can take passive. I just make you say it before you roll.

Otherwise, I'm like, now. I'm going to take my... Otherwise, it's like free advantage, which isn't it? Yeah, you don't get a great look at it. You feel like without taking a big risk, but it looks like there is a sleeping ogre leaning up against a wall. Fucking ogres. Olga Corpett?

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. The Baltimore Orioles. Flint, flint, flint, flint, flint, flint, flint, flint. All right, let's see back I mean, let's bumrush him, yes? Let's run up and get a surprise attack on him. You're undetectable, but you do another stealth check.

I know you have a very high likelihood, but you're trying to get away. Oh, we're leaving? To tell, if you want to talk to them, you can't, you can't silently communicate. That's a. Well, if he's touching you and you're on the detector. 22.

22. Okay, yeah, you both glide back and tell them all this. Sorry, 32. Jesus. Offense. So is it just one? Yeah. Let's go kill it.

Some of us are better far away. Some of us are better up close. This is our first time as a group. I'm going to walk in and kill it. You're going up close. How are you doing it? I shall also go up close. I'm going to tiptoe up on my little cat, kitty feet.

Is that it going to sound like? Is he just memory of Jing and Jen cruises? Tee, te, t, t. So you're going to sneak up. I'm going to sneak up. I'm going to go around the corner and I'm going to get my eyes on them. And then I'm going to cut them in half with my great act.

Roll a self-check, please. 19 plus 7. 26. Completely silent. You get within like a few inches of it. You're just going to attack it while it sleeps? Yes. Okay.

We should probably go. Help you. Sure. Right? 13 plus 8. 21. Okay. Well, you don't need to roll because he's asleep.

So it's an automatic success and it's an automatic crit. So roll your damage and double the die damage. Nice. 10.20. Oh, plus 4. 24. Jesus. 24 points.

All right. So you plunge your axe. What part of him? I'm just going to cut him in half. kind of like a... That's not happening. Like a cantalope. But you're going to...

From where? Because that's not literally what's going to... You don't get to just call out. Oh, he's dead. So like through the middle. Yeah, through the middle. So you can take a chunk out of his midsection.

He goes, Oh! No! Everyone roll for initial. How many attack him? Did he... I get a quickest you guys have ever just attacked a humanoid. It doesn't Blake get two attacks per...

I get two attacks. Correct? Yeah. Two tax fraction. Finish. Oh, that's a close. Sorry. That one's not so good.

That's a three plus eight. That's 11. Okay. That'll be a mess. Now. Yeah. Don't tell me what the number is, or at least remember what it is, because I need to grab a minion stuff.

Wow. Now we get to see everybody's superpowers. Listeners, get ready. Brian can either enlarge or reduce himself. Not saying that's going to happen. That's just, oh? The band's here. Oh,

that's not, dang. Oh, look at the bang, bam, bam, boughs. This neighborhood, guys, we can't. Huh? We can't party. We can't party after 10. Oh, man. That's just because your dad's the preacher, Brian.

I'll dance if I want to My mom got killed by dancing You assholes Oh God I forgot I mean I guess I hate dancing too I like running

You know how you get to the Burbank airport Right Make a left on Lancashim And go until you hit Benverein It's for people who hate dancers And Benvareen I always like Benvarene We're Benvrain

Sammy threw him a ball all. Really? Passed him a basketball. At the Sammy tribute before he died. Oh. Carry on my tradition.

Oh, Sammy to Benvereign? Yeah. No kidding. I didn't know that. He was anointed. Well, hey, how's that dead air treating you guys? Yeah, sorry. Definitely don't do anything about it.

What movies is there we've been seen? I watched Night of Dark Shadows last night, which I'd never seen. It's a movie based on the series Dark Shadows. There's two movies. One is Night of Dark Shadows. The other is House of Dark Shadows. One is terrible because it's very edited and choppy.

And the other one is very entertaining. Do you have to have watched the soap opera? It would help, but you don't have to. Is it like the X-Files movies kind of in the way like, Hey, if you love the show, here's a movie. Yeah. Okay. And more happens in the movie than ever happened in multiple seasons of TV show

because the show's a little slow. How's the werewolf makeup? No werewolf. Here, pass this mark around. Write your initiative on here with your character name, please. What? But. The guy that played the lead.

Barnabas? What the hell is it? For Jonathan Fred. He's good. Do it like this or something close? to it so we can all read it. All right. When you roll your initiative.

Thank you, showing. Okay. Just your name and then a number. Name and then a number. Thank you, Fred. They did use the, they reused the makeup from Little Big Man because Barnabas Collins turns old.

That's the old. Little Big Man was a great movie. Absolutely. Oh, yeah, Dustin Hoffman. I love that movie. Please also give me those Oh, here you go It's not just to sit there

Oh, don't swallow them For the listeners, it's like little Hard Plastic tabs It's like a little denture commercials Your name and then your initiative number Would kind of pen I don't have to pass around

If there's one at a time And also Brian You used to write down the name With someone you have a crush on No Do you like me? Yes, no Kiss here

Can you pass that plane? Right? It's like when they would have a denture commercial and they're staining. Polydent? Yeah, but it's always a weird piece of plastic. Yeah, I'll take a... Chaudetian material.

Claude Aikins gets a... ...caroet under there. Ouch. There must have been an earlier commercial where they did have it be very authentic to looking like human teeth. And they were like, this is not okay. Throwing up everywhere. Yeah, people are like, mm,

don't remind me that my body's just a machine. Dipper commercials, are the blue liquid always? I always like when they, uh, when they had a piece of chalk and they painted it with that green fluid to show how the mouthwash or some sort of thing would protect your teeth. And then they would break the chalk in half. That was very satisfying. To see how much like how deep it permeated, right? And the deep fried bread for Western oil.

Yeah. Brian rolled high. The listeners are going to have so many cool things to check on YouTube now. Oh, man. So Luther got a 24. Of course he did. Brian got a 22. Flint got a 22.

Why, they always cut the Irish soap. I like that one. Irish spring when he cut it over. What a waste of soap. It really makes me want to buy some. You know, when you cut open the soap and there's fudge in it? Oh, that's not fudge. You've seen the YouTube videos or things where people will crosshatch a bar of soap,

like cut it so that it's just sort of cubed, almost like a, a strainer. And then they run a knife on it. And just all these little cubes of soap will come off. Sort of like an ASM off. And then what you put in it like your salad dressing? Yeah, a little soapy cutoutes. You ever take that last sliver of soap, put it in a microwave?

No. If you take a last sliver of soap, put in the microwave, where it foams up and becomes a whole new bar of soap. Oh, wow. Wait, what? Yeah. You know, they tell you not to put metal in the microwave. Yeah, no.

But if you put a fork in there, it's fucking awesome. It's cool as shit. Yeah, it looks like Kyle Reese is coming to teleport inside your microwave. So like a stack of frying pans over there. It's really fun. You guys ever put CDs in the microwave? Yeah.

That's awesome. It makes this cool lightning effect on the back. Oh, wow. Do you guys ever put a bomb in the microwave? Oh, now we've really got off the deep end. Hey, hey, Dan, are we at MASH 4077? Sevex? Hollywood, Burbank,

Tokyo. Yep, so Lebeau is up first. That's Luther. Say it all. We're wearing an aluminum pants and a micro. Luther, what would you like to do? Brian, holy cow. That would be mean.

This is exciting. I haven't done anything yet. How far away is the guy? Every tile is five feet. All right. So I guess I'm already there. Oh, no, I came back to tell everybody. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then Blaine snuck ahead and just murdered. I'll come in there and shoot a crossbow at it. Okay. Roll the crossbow. Okay. That's a natural 20. Oh, there's a good. All right.

So that's 1B6 plus 5 damage. That's 8 doubled 16. Okay. Did you get a bonus to them? That's a hit. A damage bonus? Like a plus? besides the die roll yeah yeah i did one d6 plus five okay yeah but you don't you don't double the five

you just double the die and then add the five so then that's 11 sorry why i am i ruined it still hit uh well you want attack okay okay okay okay okay okay cool well uh up next in the turn order is flint Brian, you're going to get a murder. Do your thing. So I get double action at this level. I'll say. I think it started once at level six. Two actions per.

Yeah. If I pick action, I get double. Attack. Yeah, yeah. Two attacks for action. Yeah. Attacks, yeah. Great.

If I pick attack is my action. I'm sorry. How many feet of movement do you have? 30, I believe. Cool. So that'll be 5, 10, 15, 20. 2530 you get right

some weird stuff too where I can I have heroic action like I cool pick somebody to be impressed by me and when they're impressed by me that helps them too like I've got a bunch of cool

because my level of no my level of fighter is on my hero oh cool so coming your subclass yeah my subclass of fighter is a hero and comes with that.

That's a cool thing. And that Nickelback song I don't like from that Spider-Man movie plays. A hero. All right. See, you'll get right up to the corner. If you're like at that corner there, you can kind of peer around the corner and see the ogre being chopped pieces. And I have that manium javelin, but I can also use a battle axe. Can you help me?

Do I, I, I thought we had one, but how do I put it in that? Oh, yeah, you didn't equip it. So, how do I equip it? I know we got one, right? And then I have some, oh, I also have a, um, I have to pull it up, yeah, to, because I have proficiency in, uh, the small, um, finesse weapons? No, that the side crossbow. Oh, yeah.

Oh, the hand crossbow. Nice. Yeah, I think there's like a... Javelin and axe and crossbow. Oh, I have... Sweet. But I'll do the javelin for this, and where is he? How far away is the guy?

He is... Yeah, you have to do a range of attack because he is like 20 feet away. Okay, then I will use... The other thing? No, the... Crossbow? Crossbow.

Cool. Do you have a... on your sheet? I thought I did everything but equipped it. It would be your decks plus your proficiency.

Okay. Your decks bonus. Yeah. So what's your dex bonus? Two. And then your proficiency bonus? Yeah.

My proficiency bonus is where... Press four. Because I assume it's all the same for all of us because we're all level 10. Does everyone have a proficiency plus four? Plus six to hit. I believe it's at the top, I think, right?

Oh, yeah, plus four. Yeah. So you have a plus six to hit. Roll 20 side of die. Okay. Can you help me do that before the next game? Yeah, I'll go in your sheet and hit a clip for you. Yeah.

Sorry, listeners. We did all fresh sheets and through D&D beyond. And it's been buggy lately too. Like if you search stuff now, because we're playing live instead. We've been using the website when we play on ZonD. Zoom. And I'm trying to explain to the listeners what's been going on.

But when we played live, we go old school and print up the sheets. So I just printed up tonight before Deanne got here and missed this thing. So let me roll. Plus six. I could if I have enough time right now, I can just like while we're talking go in there. No, but I think I have a thing where I can roll advantage on. Oh, cool. Really? Yeah, like if I do...

Give yourself advantage? I like that. Ken, you should figure out how you can give yourself advantage. Can give myself advantage? You just have to believe. But I do have a second. I have a second action to her. A second attack? Second attack, but... Oh, I have advantage on stealth.

Yeah, pretty thinkies. I won't get to do it now. I'll just roll a second. Okay. Is it probably one of the heroic thing or a bull's... starting presence or no funny style action surge that's what on your journey can do oh action surge that's a nice one too that's not it all right I'm just gonna roll again we're not thinking is the tactical mind thing sorry listeners again I have all these new things and I'm trying to when you fail an ability

check you can expend a use of second wind and instead of regaining HB you roll a 1d10 and add the result. I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to roll again. Okay. That's cool. I'll save that up for later. 16 plus 6.

That's a hit? Yeah, cool. And then what is a... Hand crossbow would be a D6 plus your dex bonus. It's a light crossbow, or is a hand crossbow? I thought he said hand. I looked up hand. Oh, okay.

Yeah, D6 plus... your dex bonus okay dex bonus okay plus two is that already said yeah do you say okay plus two mm-hmm so nice six is nice we did smite that ogre yeah all right cool uh and then you have two attacks you get you to go again is that right no that was my second attack yeah first attack wasn't a botch but I wasn't strong yeah ogre how you like that shit it take that ogre yeah oh the nerds oh yeah yeah he just he just passed away uh it's a drag uh he's burning down uh he crits and that's

nice what is his weapon opposite arrow he's got a short bill John Goodman is skinny the first time. Thack. Slips right into his gut. The ogre is saying, Oh, stop! People have been giving John Goodman shit for doing whatever it takes to get skinny. And people should...

Why? People should get off. Fucking fat people want to do whatever it takes to get healthy. Keeping him alive. I'm glad he's healthy. I love him. Yeah, he's great. Absolutely.

I fucking love him. I don't know why Sam. He keeps talking shit about him. He was so good and righteous jacks. He was, knowing who I was on the strike. We were walking on the strike together, and he called me by my name and knew who I was,

and I was like, holy shit. He goes, you know I am? And he goes, of course I do, Brian. And I was like, what the fuck? I guess it was like one of the greatest days of my life. Jesus. Christ. It's like Greedo saying your name. Pigs are putting that into perspective.

They're kind of for me. This is me, Dan? Yeah. 12 plus 8 is a 20 dirty 20 great it's just a hit 12 oh 12 nice plus 4 Jesus so 16 and then I'll do that again that's just a 3 3 plus 8 so 11 what's a total damage oh no that's a total damage oh no that that was that was was the second attack. So the second attack missed. God, the first one was 16. Great.

There was the damage on the cruise. He cries out. With a battle axe, right? With a great axe. Great axe. Great axe. Great axe. Yeah, I'm not getting

close enough. Objectify axes. They're all good acts. Corbo's up. All right. I will go. three, three, four, five. Can I even get, I don't know if I can get line of sight.

Maybe not. Around the corner. All right. As I will run up, I will say, surrender, creature. And we will spare your life. Otherwise, prepare to die. All right. Roll an intimidation paladin.

Intimidation check. Corbo. Yeah, yeah. Corbo. It's funny asking him to surrender when you attacked him in a sleep. Kind of like him, Corbo. And he's done nothing. 10. Okay.

So a 10, and then is anything else for your turn? Ah! Okay. Todd, the oggers. The paladin's easier when they're not Jerry. I mean, it may have been, you know, the guy driving the car, not the guy. The ogre is going to try to shove you to the ground and run away. Roll a strength check.

Who me? You talking to him? Blank. Because he's the only one in. Okay. I avoid an opportunity to. And then in a 19. Okay, so he got

What's his bonus? I don't think he's going to win. What's your bonus? 14. So, yeah, you're going to still get an opportunity attack as he runs away. Would you like to attack? I would love to.

Sassy. It's either sleepy or saucy. That's 16. Okay. That's a hit. Boy of damage. 11 plus 4. Geez.

15. Okay. And he was running away, right? Yeah. How would you like to see him die? This unarmed, ogre. I would like to see him sort of slide into little slices of baloney, like balona lunch meat from multiple sideways, great ax wounds.

Jeez. Cool. All right. All right. So he, I'm going to like my whiskers guy. He's show me this friendly ogre. I mean, I do think it's fun to call out the fact that like he was there to see if you'd attack him or not. And he was friendly.

But you know, you'll never know exactly what his deal was. He sounded to me like he was going to eat us. Yeah. Let's go through his shit. Have you ever seen a dog run out of a picture shop in real life? It's amazing It'll be the best day of your life Eyes lied

With a string of knackling a sausage Freshly made sauces Dead butcher in his mouth Stuff German guy chasing him With a cleaver Why don't you all roll an investigation check If you want to go through his chef Yes

Natural 20 Plus one Okay We did. Go into investigation. Did steal his shit after we'd killed him. Technically, we're not stealing it. He's dead.

Right. We are finding it. Someone killed this ogre. 13. 13. Would you get, Brian? People like to know the numbers, even if they're low. I know you don't like to say it.

It's embarrassing. I'm embarrassed. I know. It's embarrassing. I'm not going to make fun of you for your role, though. My number is so tiny. Blaine, you rolled high on the investigation check. This guy has one gold.

There's a lot of corpses around him, but they're very strange. They all look like maybe they are supposed to be warriors of different humanoid races. And like they do have what looks like warped skeletons. It sort of fits with this whole de-evolution thing you saw. A lot of them look like pigs. A lot of them look like they have transformed into wear pigs or pig-like humanoid. or straight up pigs with armors draped over them. There's a suit of ringmail.

Okay. Do we need armor? A short sword. And a plus one shield. Ooh. Now, keep in mind, you can pick up large loot, but I warn you in advance, there will be tight spaces that you'll have to squeeze through. So there might come point where you have to choose between your gear.

Is anyone currently using a shield? No, I am not. Would you like one? You are a paladin. Yeah, but I actually had to give mine up before because of the stuff that I'm already carrying, so I don't... Well, again, you could take it,

but this was like a freebie, right? Like, you didn't have to choose... This is something maybe you, I'm not going to decide for you, as a player, would not mind throwing away. Oh, I see. Do you what I mean? But what I'm saying is there might come a point

where you have to squeeze through a tight space where you will have to choose. It's a rainy day magic shield. I'm going to toss you to shield. Yeah, I will. Right now you can carry it, but you didn't know when you have to, you don't know when you'll have to make a Sophie's choice with loot.

Yeah, at the time. Oh, yeah, so I will, for the time being, equip myself with a plus one shield. Great, go for it. Anyone want the short sword or suit of ring mail? Or the one gold. I think I can use it. Okay.

Okay. So, you can leave the rest. Also, Blaine, you rolled high enough. You do find. You do find a strange letter in one of the bodies is pockets. It says, beware the toy maker. Oh, no.

Oh, no. Where is the toy maker? Oh, my goodness. I mean, clearly. You never faced him in Curse of Strade when you thought he was maybe the big bad. Thought. Hmm. But it appears there is someone in this campaign referred to as,

the toy maker. Interesting. I wonder if Harps Schwartz is related to F.A.O. Schwartz. What is that a reference to? F.A.O. Schwartz, the toy. How did that come up? Oh, the toy. Oh. See, I forgot what F.A.O. Schwartz was. Yeah. It's been a minute. But yeah, there's a big

or was a big one in downtown Chicago. Remember when you bought things in person? That was a good thing. Oh, I loved that. I remember anything. Ever? Who are you? We're all 90 years old.

What are we doing, you guys? All right, well, my AC is 21 now, so I'm very happy about that. Well, good thing we kill this guy. Does there seem to be any kind of arrangement to the bodies? Like, was this guy in charge of cleaning up the body? He was catching bodies. They looked. It looks like there was a struggle.

Yeah. Wow. He would have been a good companion. Like maybe these are people running away from him. Maybe our guardian. He caught them and ate them. Well, perhaps we'll meet his brother. I hope so.

I hope he's not mad. Flint, don't be so quick to judge next time. It was Blaine. Blaine. Oh, well, shall we the... Mr. Bites is one who attacks people in their sleep. Yes. I just wanted to kill him.

I agree. He's like toothy-de-gay. All right, let's keep going, right? Yeah. So this cavern, it does... He's dead, right? Yeah, who he's toast. My, ogre.

Farewell. His name was Sean. Oh, no. R-I-P, Sean. Oh, yeah, Hogan. All right, well, you guys start heading down this cavern. it's pretty wet. This cavern has water sort of running down it.

You're going to have to step gingerly, but it's sort of to be expected. But let's remind ourselves that we're like tied to each other. And if it starts getting crazy, maybe you should start doing it. If you want, you have to redo it. But like, just because you're running separately in combat. But yeah, you manage to get a good knot on it. And as you descend, Durkin tells you. okay um again i haven't been here but it's my understanding and once we get out of the tower and we

start going through caverns and there's a couple of caverns away from this tower looks like eventually we'll know if we're heading down in the right direction if we get to an underground body of water maybe this is going downhill because it's going to collect in it do you know what i mean but there's going to be an underground body of water where then we go underwater and through a cave and I'll have maybe a better sense of where we're headed. All right. I suppose you could have told us that before. Well, right now everything's been pretty, like,

I didn't know too much about what it was going to be, like getting out of the mage tower. And I knew there would be caverns, but it was pretty vague. Now that we're in the caverns, I can tell you that's sort of what's coming up next. All right. You know, if you want more details,

if you're worried about me not telling you enough, I can tell you, like, once we get underneath the lake, yeah, well, I mean, I'll just throw it out there. I mean, there's going to, to be small outcroppings. There's some kind of like, you know, civilization. I understand there's some beast folk who live underneath the Underdark, who we might be running into.

There is a guild of Dwergar who do live down here. Might be handy to have Flint with us. Some of what we could have coming up ahead. Flint, you might become the bell of the ball. Yeah, I might have a cousin down there, too. Oh, you got a lot of cousins? Don't worry about it What those cousins look like

On the next episode of Derm Poker All right Sam, what do you think happened? Episode five We're fighting something finally But what Blase sliced up an unarmed ogre named Sean

And we learned about the existence Of the toy maker Huh Toymaker I said confirmed the existence Sure Dan you want to plug you anything Sure

If you guys want to check out That other project I have, it's at darkest onesie.com. Brian Plessain.com for tour dates. In October, I'll be in Montana and Seattle and a couple other places in the end of September. I have one gig with J.T. Haberset at the Ventura Theater. Looking forward to that. And then I keep watching Stewart Fails Save the Universe. and come see me at cons.

I got a St. Louis con coming up in the fall. Blaine? We attribute the success. Save mankind for joining us on this episode. You got walls and a roof. Well, Oh, oh, sorry. Sorry, guys.

I was checking out our nerd poker mail bag. Dear nerd poker mail. I've been kidnapped by clowns, and I was wondering if I should shoot the driver of the clown car with a neck dart. There are like 50 more clowns in here, and I only have the one neck dart. Oh, well, here goes. Uh-oh, we're headed for a phone pole. You asked a question and you answered it before I could say, uh, we're all bozos on this bus. Anyway, we'll be back with more horn jokes on the next nerd, poker.

Thanks for listening to another episode of Nerd Poker. You can follow us at patreon.com slash nerd poker, and you get bonus episodes from there. And you can also send us anything at P-O-Box 16069 and Sino, California, 91416. Thanks for listening. I forget how anti-Semitic you are. Yeah, mostly towards yourself.

Whatever. In the sense of, like, married to my uncle. He's my anti-Semitic. Oh, anti-Semitic. Yeah, I am Semitic. I'm sorry, but I never want to see Blaine looking at me like that ever again. That's my favorite monkey song. Anti-Semitic.

It sounds like a Jeff Donner puppet. Sam. Sam. Oh, for the day. Sit for the show. Yeah.