Nerd Poker - The Cavern Campaign - Episode 7

Episode Date: September 30, 2026

Look, the cavern campaign really gets going this episode, but also there is some serious Shemp Chat. 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

Hey, it's Brian Possein. 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 Passain, and you're listening to Nerd Poker. It's Episode 7 of, of the Kevin campaign

or the whole campaign Ken, please Thank God the listeners aren't in their room to see Ken's dirty, filthy gestures in Blaine's mouth Chris is here Hello Blaine's here

Dip dip dip Dip Diff Diff Diff Diff Dirty Bird I'm a dirty birdie and Dan is here Bow running the show as always from the cool part of my table it's Sam everybody

Hello sweet children Yay We've been blessed with the sweet children line Let's get into some thinking people And let's get into some episode 7 action If you listen we love you If you support us even for free on our Patreon. We appreciate that you are following us there. But if you can support us,

at our top two tiers of support, we'll shout you out. Thank you to users like War Anus. Thank you, War Anus. Thank you, Mark P. Strandberg. Thank you, Kevin Hitt. Thank you, Kevin Leota's magical male card of rage. Thank you, Keel Basanova. Thank you, M.C., hoo-ha. Thank you, Todrick, Hot Doggins, the third, and a quarter, Esquire. Thank you that one Star Wars character that's vaguely racist. Which one? One. Nemoide. Do you mean the anti-Semitic one? Do you mean the anti-Asian one? Yeah. We talking Star Wars or Star Trek? The Jamaican patois?

I don't even know the Star Trek racist ones. Well, there's a couple. Oh, brother. Thank you. Cabbage Capatch Kids, now with enhanced flammability. What? And finally, thank you. Our Lord and Savior, Oski, all hail, blue, and gold. Thy strength never shall fail for thee will die. Is that a reference anyone, I understand? I think you just summoned a demon, Dan. Oh, no! Well, congratulations on your personal reference.

You fit into our podcast. Blaine, who are those supporters brought to us by? Supporters brought to us by Fluber! For the bounciest ride to the airport, Dean. Download our app and get bouncing with Fluber! And try son of Flubber. if you're a nepo baby son of flubber i'm rice sharing just like daddy

what does he sound like the villain in the warriors come out to play hey clank clank clank clank thank you playing thank you dan and thank you listeners. And thank you again, Dan. Thanks, Hero Forge for, we've got some NPCs coming up and we've got a...

Yeah, thanks, Hero Forge. Yeah. What was the name of that movie? Did we talk about, it played at the New Beverly? It was like a rip-off Dean. Yeah. Holy shit.

That was bad. Yeah, it was really bad. Oh, you guys talked about that. Yeah. I feel like I've seen it before because I know the exist. It's in my head that I saw a bad Martin and Lewis. Oh.

And I can't. Because I don't really remember. Yeah, yeah. But it was yes. The Martin is worse than the Lewis. And I think I saw it and was like, this isn't that. You know, like I think it was like, this isn't the real. Yeah.

It's hard. Which in movies is weird. Like TV sometimes is like tricksy copy and stuff. But in movies, like, wait a minute. And when you're kidding, there was all these comedy teams besides like the, You know, there was the three stooges, and then there was... Adam Costello, Laurel and Hardy. Yeah, Laurel and Hardy and the brothers, the...

Marks Brothers. The Marks brothers. And then there'd be other ones that you're like... The four assholes. The Huckins twins. And you're like, the hookins twins. What the fuck? And so much of it was vaudeville where you're like, okay, like, and one guy's

that's like crazy hat and has a mustache and you're like, I... What the fuck is this? Oh, like, Porkins and the jujupee. People trying to pay rent into their old age. Yeah, I know. It went great live. You guys wouldn't believe it. But they're like, yeah, they're like a couple of 70-year-olds

who are performing the late 1800s, and now they're just trying to... This depression is great. People love when 70-year-olds, Pratt Fallen film. Oh, brother. Do you ever watch those late Three Stooges movies where, like, Mo and Larry are just with, you know? Joe number seven.

Larry had a stroke. Early Joe Dorita. Pooh, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. I was always a, I always love Shemp.

It was very great. Shemp is underrated. Yes. Very proscient. I came to like Shimp as a gross. He came in hot. He was ready to go. Yeah.

He was like, oh, I'll start. Those are big shoes, man, to come in. Absolutely. It wants to be Shemp. Oh, I think Curly Joe. Nobody wants to be Curly. Well, and Curly Joe did want to be Shemp. He wished he could be Shemp.

Wasn't Shemp a replacement or no? The other one, the other guy was first? It was Curly, then Shemp, then Curly Joe, Derrida, then Curly Joe or something. I feel like, but Shemp is in Moer brothers. So isn't Shemp part of it? Who knows? Curly Joe is Matt Bessor's grandfather. Evil dead.

Yeah, he's Besser, Joe Besser. That's right. Holy shit. Joe, and I could be, I could get the connection wrong, but he's, yeah. Listen Joe, I'm a bester, one of the drummers for Spinal Tap? Mm-hmm. Okay, so yeah, Mo, Larry, Curley, and of course it's Mo Howard and Curley Howard. And then Shemp Howard, who is like a character brother, then Joe Besser, then Curly Joe Derrita.

Yeah. Oh, Joe Besser. Yeah, Joe Besser was not that bad either, in my opinion. Then Curly Joe came in and it was like, okay, you really smashed two together. Yeah, he was very. I'm a stinker. And then Ted McGenley came in and you know it was over. Did you ever see the three-stitchie's movie?

Oh, with Sean Hayes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of dead on to three-stitchers. It's surprising how in tone it is. Yeah. Fairley brothers? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, with Will Saso is as curly. Yeah, I did see it. It worked better than it should have. Absolutely. Yeah. Was it called Egg something? It was three stitches, I think. three stooges, I think.

Oh, I know, but like it had a name after that too. They're in, there will be in some episode. Reboot, three. You know, we were talking about Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. One of my favorite scene, I love that movie so much, but one of my favorite scenes in that movie is when, uh, uh, Jim Backus and Mickey Rooney and Buddy Hackerner trying to land that plane. Yes.

And they're coming into the airport and there's swerving all over the place. And then the camera pans down. And it's the three stooges wearing, wearing, wearing firefighting gear. And even as a kid, I was like, not them. No, no, no, they'll kill everyone. It's just like the last fucking guy

that you like where your plane is going to land badly as the three stooges. Especially right. It's just called the Three Stooges. Wow. But there might have been like an episode title in there. There wasn't. I thought there was that there is. Yeah.

It's great. Let's get in. Chris Demon Toppolis was the guy who played Mo in that one. I don't know what happened to him. He was perfect for that. Wow, he looks, look at how handsome he is. He's like, he looks like, just like, he's like the, he really mowed it up.

Yeah, this is not who you would think he looks like. He's really good. Yeah, and he is, they're all really good. Normally more of a leading man guy. He's the, they did the sequel to Christmas story, and he was, he was like a Ralphie's dad. Oh, okay. He was on the soprano. the office, Boston Legal.

Wow, he's really good then. Yeah. Because I totally didn't have to learn about this fellow. Hey, Mo. You want to get in? Yeah, let's talk about what happened last time on the Cavern campaign. You guys just started going through the murky depths.

I always, when I was little wanted to do this, like running on my side in a circle. I used to do that, yeah. Do you know how to do it? Yeah. Do it now. Yeah. on the floor.

He's a second 67 years old. You know that whenever he did that stuff, whenever he did that stuff, whenever Curley like smacked his face, he lost another vertebra. No, it was because he couldn't remember his lines. What? And that was all his physical schtner. His physical stick to just cover the fact that he was trying to remember what his line was. Shandner was sitting himself to forget the crimes that he could.

Nook. Yuck, yuck. And he was searching for the next word. God, he's a bad person. Anyway. Why? Spock, I ought to. If I ever tell you when I had to, I discord him from the lot for at midnight when he came by ab midnight?

Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah, the pinkest eyes. All the PAs were busy. So I was like, okay, I'll go, I'll go get Chattner. And he was just like, what the fuck are you doing? I'm so, and, like, he was, like, really mad about, like, the driver getting lost. And I was like, I'm one of the assistant, like, producer.

I'm not one of the like, he's like, I don't give a fuck. And like the whole time he's just yelling at me and I just handed him off to the, they do it. He had him up to. Helling to this recorder. Hand him off to Bart and was just like, Bart, I didn't say one bad thing.

Yeah. Anyway. Anyway, he's a millionaire. You go to Paris France. That's good. That was a good one. Yeah.

His eyes could not have been more swollen. Yeah, he was, he's 98 or something. I know. He hurts to be awake. Yeah. Yeah. And he went to space and saw eternity and was afraid of it.

He looked too closely into the abyss. I just heard an interview. I mean, he's talking about how afraid he is of dying. Oh. Sorry, no. It's coming for you too, man. Oh, boy. He's did a con with him.

How was that? It was fine. Arathos gone? I know. Beats too. The best was I did a con with Cheats and Chong. And it was one of the best weekends of my best. What's Dave there?

Whatever about them? What do you find interesting to you? I heard they played great pickleball. I've disliked them since I was a kid. Sure. And, yeah, for a couple of years. Big bamboo. I do like the music.

We talked about. Basketball Jones. My eye and, yeah. Wow. I had breakfast with them twice. It was fucking so fun. They were on my plane. Quote, unquote,

and I was like, oh, man, if this goes down, uh, cheats and chimes. on diet and other comedians. Yeah, it was like, oh, fuck. Others also dead. Easy headline down in smoke. Yeah. Danny brought it home.

That's so good. Seamole. I don't say anything about his birthmark. Let's play. Yeah, so you guys just started going into this cavernous little pool. There's been a little bit of a hint that there could be larger bodies of water beneath us that this is feeding into. Your guide, Durkan, told you that, yes, this is like going to end in a little bit of a waterfall. But right now you're going to spend about four hours in this murky water trying to get through it,

trying to get to a small little Dwergurgar town called a Borgre. Murgren where he's a blacksmith. You vaguely know, Flint. Yeah. I may know other people once I get there, right? But I just, I remember. True. Yeah, yeah.

You know what? You rolled a persuasion check last time. Why don't this time you finally do a history check to determine how much time you spent there? Okay. And we'll say for every factor of five, that is a longer amount of time. So if like you roll a five, you spend a week there. If you roll at 10, you spend a month there. If you roll a 15, you spend a year there, et cetera.

Oh, boy. Two and a one, so not long. I mean, maybe you fucked a barmaid and like hung out for a week, but like, you know. You did not like that anymore. No, I just wanted to have more to work with. Well, you could have loved that week there. Yeah, yeah. You could remember a lot about it that week.

But yeah, this is. You got a shirt. Yeah. And you've been there and you know the blacksmith. Yeah. All right. let's swim away. Yeah, well, and you know, you're trying to go slowly and stealthily.

You know, there might be some sort of underwater creatures. Former. We've seen some stuff. Humanoids that breathe air that may have gotten stuck here in the muck and turned into water creatures. You rolled a really high stealth check. So for the first hour, you guys are able to be really quiet. But then things start to get a little hard to see.

You lose all of your ability to get more than like a millimeter. past your eyes. The water is so dark and full of silt. So how about everyone rolls a perception check to determine how for the next hour, how well you're able to feel around without tripping, bumping, sticking your eye in a giant fish eye, taking your finger in a giant fish eye, your eye and an eye. What the fuck? 17, 12 plus 5. 15. 19, 17 plus 2. 14 plus 5, 19. Great. Those are all great numbers. Nobody went into single digit. there are a couple of times where each of you puts your hand on something, hoping it will be like a hard surface like rock and it gives a little bit.

And you all because you rolled high enough on your perception checks are able to like pull your hand away and quietly keep moving without like feeling it give and like start swimming away like a rush of thick water. But you are able to get a little bit farther. you're now two into the four hours. I'm going to have you roll a stealth check again to see how you can get knowing there are now creatures in a lot. 16 plus 7, 23.

Great. 18 plus 13.31. Nice. Eight. I'm sorry. Three plus one. Four. You make me sound like Buddy Rich. 26.

20 plus six. Well, yeah, so I got a 20. I got a half. Nice. With the 31, it's like, go fuck yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, that's fantastic. And, you know, of course you didn't roll that high, Chris,

but you're more than compensated by everyone else's stealth check. There might be a couple of times where you tripped and they just, like, grabbed and held you. Maybe each of them took a turn. Is there anything you get, 20s on a stealth, bro? You mean like a prize? No, but I mean, like, oh, like double damage. Oh, absolutely. So, like, I've mentioned last.

episode on group ability checks, 20 pluses cancel out single digits. That's my house rule. So like per my house rule, you had three people beat a 20, one of them a 30 and then a single digit. So it's totally easily compensated for it. And the marching order is up front Flint, iron fist, then Durkin, your guide, Durkan, Risbank, and then we have Mr. Bites. Corbeau, where are you again? I think, I think I'm in front of Mr. Bites. Got it. Because Mr. Bice wants... We moved Flint around in the order, so I lost track of where you were.

Thank you for clarifying. All right. Now, as we come up on the last hour, Flint, you're going to need to do your own investigation check to try to find your way out of the water. So do an investigation check, Brian. Oh, sorry. Thank you for apologizing.

It was really fucked up how you like our human being. Blaine, you're in the back. So could you please roll a perception check to get a sense of if you've been followed? one more time what check I'm doing investigation boss boss 15 plus 5 20 hell yeah 3 plus 1 4 all right so it takes you yeah well it takes you a while

is what it'll mean it's going to add times you guys are going to need to all roll a constitution's savings row this is just to keep your breath nice and tight as the potion starts to wear off no one's going to die I believe that because oh wait then this is up to you if everybody anyone who's within a certain distance

I think it's 10 feet of me can add three to all savings throughout rules well yeah what's the distance on that ability that's gonna try and find 24 plus three is 27 nice about the 30 over there if this works but Chris like protection

you radiate a protective or in a 10 foot emanation that originates from you so everyone can gather up close once you know the potion's wearing off and you got to hold your breath. Great. You and your allies in the aura gain plus three to saving throws while in the aura. Great. And then, yeah, well, so it's a 30. He gets me to 14, which is. Great. Great. I rolled a natural one plus what doesn't matter, I guess.

Yeah, I mean, it's what? About you, boo? Not still under a 10. So you're going to take two D6. plus two force damage. Force damage. Nine points of force damage is you feel the water is starting to get into your lungs. Okay. There's pressure in your chest.

It really hurts with, there's like sharp pains in your chest, but also just it's a tough trick out of the water. As you guys pull yourselves up, the water is cascading down some rocks, but there is a pool here, a cave in behind you that has kept the, Most of the air blocked off for the entire four hours that you've been traveling through this tunnel. And with your 20 on the perception check that you pulled up in the bag, Mr. Bites, you do feel like the water was swishing behind you once. Okay.

So there's a chance something was creating a current because it was tracking you. You think maybe just one thing, you don't feel great about it. But given that so far, the only real things you saw were maybe, like, during the watch last night, one of you saw what could have been a predator peeking, didn't catch you, didn't notice you, and then before that a mud skipper. What did you guys end up doing with a mud skipper? You ate it? He killed it.

What'd you do with the bones? I threw him in a trash can next to a fence where I sang. Yeah, people for shoes at me. Okay. What did you do fantasy-wise? There's just a skeleton backward where I left it. Okay. You sort of like parked it under a rock, sort of.

Yeah. Okay. Great. So you guys pull yourselves up out of the water. There is this waterfall trickling down. This looks like it used to be a staircase, but it's been beat up a bit. So out of the water. You're out of the water.

But you're now like going to have to sort of go down these old stairs that have a waterfall kind of cascading down. You're going to all want to do an athletics check to not slip as you walk down the long steps. I'm going to have my claws out to anchor us from the back. Yeah, sounds good. I'll give you advantage, Blaine. Nice. 10 athletics. 9 plus 10, 18.

11 plus 8. 19. Great. What you got there, Brian? Dirkin's going to roll 15. Finally had him roll because this is not as insane being underwater. 13. Great.

So you all did pretty decent. nobody rolled single digits this time. No one slips. It takes you a little bit because we didn't have crazy high rolls all around, but not a bad amount of time, not a negative amount of time, about the time you'd want. It's starting to get to like,

you know, early afternoon as you finally get to a level tunnel. The water is starting to fork off to the side. Durkin points out that you don't really want to go that way. It's a much smaller tunnel. You might not even fit well down. there but he does note it looks like it is probably going to an underground ocean you'll encounter eventually he says otherwise the water would not be like consistently running that direction

and he says you know i um anyone's feeling a little daring it does look like there's a chamber about 50 feet through that tunnel it might be a squeeze but if someone wants to squeeze into that chamber there might be something in there you want to take a peek before you You commit to it? No. Anyone just want to keep moving? Does anyone feel particularly gold-hungry? Well, I'll take a look.

You are a thief after all. And you're little. And, of course, Flint can reduce his size as well. Yeah, you can reduce yourself or make yourself bigger. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Enter invisible.

Great for cave, squeezing. Why don't you roll an investigation check Luther? Luther, not you, silly boy. You're so eager to roll. Investigation. 13. So with the 13, yeah, you don't get like a clear visual of any items or objects or even like, you know, chunks of things in this chamber.

But you can see the chamber, about 50 feet. through some uneven tunnel that you do think you could squeeze through, but that maybe only you or a shrunk flint amongst the party could get in. There is a chamber big enough to like set a camp up in at least, but you can't see where it ends. And the water rushes to it and then past it. So it's like a stopping point. You could even go farther if you really wanted to, but you can't see the contents of the chamber. You just see there's when it at least big enough to set a camp up inside. Not that you'd want to, but that's like to give you a sense of it's maybe like 10 by 10 feet minimum. I will pass that along to my cohorts.

Yeah, I mean, if it's that big, someone might have wanted to hide something down there. I'm just saying if we're here for the city, we're here just for the city. That's fine. But I don't know. Why is it being so tempting with this? I'm very big. I'll tell you myself, I'm a little gold. hungry myself. I just can't fit down there.

Too lanky. I'm going to let this one pass. What do you think, Flint? More important things to do. How much time do we think it would take to look in there? To squeeze down and come back up

50 feet, maybe depending on how big the chamber is, at least two hours. But you wouldn't be like staying up late by doing it theoretically unless you know you got into trouble. Let's maybe

continue on to the Duregar Village. Yeah. Cool. Dirk and Nods just made sure you guys knew about that. Thank you. Yeah, I'm trying to keep my eye out. You know, I think this Dwergar town

should, you know, they've got that guy, Flint knows is a blacksmith. They've got loot at least as far as supplies. So we can stockback up on rations for, you know, some kind of barter. But remember, they might not take gold down here, gold coins. It's one of the reasons we talked about back at Delzumith,

maybe cashing out as much as you could. So keep in mind, it might be barter time. We'll see. We'll see. If you've got any gold in your pockets, it might be worth something, just maybe not as much as you want. Right. Might be that they're like, gold, we'll take 10 gold for a bite to eat.

Because we're going to melt it down. I like this shot of bites. What an obvious thing you said. You guys are going to head out, and it will take a couple more hours of travel. But again, it's only me like dinner time when you arrive. Yay. I'll take a bite of that dinner. You get the impression that Dwergertan may have been better connected to things like the Mage Tower, but also maybe other civilizations.

The Mage Tower you left had three ways out. So it's possible the Major Taur used to long ago be a crossroads to different places in the underdark. At this point, though, you're trying to get it lower than the underdark. And so the place you're stopping, this little Dwergard town called Borgre is going to be in like the lower underdark. And once you get past Borgor, you're going to be leaving the underdark proper into a deeper place that has no name and where civilization is even more. sparse. So when you get to the city gates, which are these huge stone pillars with a stone archway built into the cavern, the cavern opens up a little bit. There are two Dwergar holding hallbirds. They're both just like smoking joints, hanging out. They're probably just here to kill monsters.

They don't really expect a group of adventures to come by. They may have never seen adventures come by except maybe coming through side tunnels. A few times you guys passed side. tunnels that look like they maybe went places and you did see there was maybe some science adventures had fled from this forgotten town of Bith, this lost city, leaving the back the way you came. Would any of you guys have wanted to stop along the way and just sort of root around for loot that people may have dropped on their way fleeing Bith? Yes. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So why don't we all roll an investigation check

and that will account for the last couple of hours you're just stopping and looking through rubble that you see. 18 plus 4. Investigation, you said? 16 plus 1, 17. Crit plus 1.

Oh, 5 plus 1. 6. All right. So, Brian, you're going to find a stack of 10 throwing daggers. So you can put some 10 throwing daggers. in your inventory. Yeah, we'll digitize it later, but definitely make a note.

10, you said? Yeah. What was your exact role, Ken? 18 plus four. Great. So, yeah, that's a little higher. I knew Brian was 20 plus one, but that's... Sorry, Blaine.

No, no, I think he did it. All right. Can you do it again for me? Thank you. I really appreciate it. God, sorry. That's a funny noise to me. Okay, so you're going to find some armor.

Oh. You're not sure like... Armor hot dogs? If your friends might want it, but you find some plus one studded leather armor. Nice. Stutted leather armor. You can wear that?

Yeah, I can. Amona. Is that pulling up easy for you? and beyond the other pendant that you found is maybe a little tougher. That's it. I got that. Great, right, great. You're making out like a bandit here, Ken. And now that you have somebody who's found two pieces of loot,

it might be a sign that three other folks are going to want to find something fun in Borgre. You're approaching these two guards. They both kind of like stand up a little straighter and kind of like squeeze their joints between their fingers and stuff them in their pockets trying to act like they're more all business than they were fucking around a second ago.

One of them goes, Hailing well met. What do you want? Oh. We come to reunite this son of burger. Oh, wow, that's pretty formal. You're from here? Yeah, it's been a while. What's your name?

Flint. I invest. Do a persuasion check, Brian. Yeah. I know it really well. Plain iron finger. Persuasion? It's pretty low.

They don't offer you a joint, but they do go, yeah, all right, all right, all right. So, okay. I mean, there's an in here. We don't really get a lot of tourists, so no promises about what you're doing. going to find here. We kind of keep to ourselves. So don't fuck with anyone and no one will fuck with you. Got it?

That's good. They both kind of like wait for your leave so they can go back to smoking. All right. As you walk away, I'll turn to Flynn to be like, very surely your friends. Those fellows aren't my friends. Clearly. Yeah. You start walking down the tunnel and it opens up into a mining

village. There are some, you know, huge tunnels going down that you do not want to fuck with with glowing red embers that flicker up from the depths. You think that they maybe have tapped into some molten rock. They are making blacksmith type stuff everywhere. There's a few, you know, kilns as well. People are making things in, in ovens, but pretty much just basics. You know, it doesn't look like there's anyone like who's like an apothex or an artisan. There's no fancy thread store here. But everyone just sort of nods at you politely as you come through.

They didn't hear any tussle with the guards, so they don't think you are here to start any shit. There is a tavern and inn that looks very backwards, as it were, back caves. And this place has a little sign out front that says the flattened slate. Shall we at least sit down for a drink? Talk with friends. The flattened slate, you said? Yeah, Tavern and Inn.

Yes. So there's a bouncer outside who doesn't even really like, you can't tell if he's awake, he's very old. He's sitting on his stool and his eyes are like just tight shut. You just open the door. It's kind of odd everything here, but, because there's no wood. So the door is like a swinging door,

but it's like this very thin kind of rock. And you're like, oh, slate. Okay. So it's like a flat slate door, this lighter rock. And when you push it open, it makes a loud creaking noise as the stone grinds and its hinges. Inside, there is an all stone tavern and inn. Somewhere in here,

you're hoping there's something soft to sleep on. But as you look around and note all the stone stools, stone tables, stone bar. There might not be. There might be at best leather things that are squishy and none of it is on the bar stools. So there's a moment where each of you would probably be like, okay, this is going to be a hearty night

if we decide to rent a room here. Everyone here is Dwergar with the exception of a couple of deep gnomes and a couple of drow who are gathered at various booths. There's about 30 people here. It's big, but it's back with. It's very simple. No one's probably drinking anything here,

but very simple mead-like booze. You shall fit right in then. A couple of you probably look a little fancier than they're used to. Luther, Durkin, and Corbeau. You three are probably standing out a little bit. He's a deep gnome, so familiar. But like you're more well-outfitted than these deep-on who are wearing basic threads. So as adventurers go, a barbarian and a dwerga are just going to fit in

little better, although they don't probably see a lot of tobacco see, they see a barbarian, and they're like, okay, we know exactly what that is. Oh, uh, shall we, maybe we should have you approached the bartender for the first in cows, so we don't screw anything up. He approached the bartender. It's also, seems like an older guy, but this, this guy's paying a lot more attention. He's been serving everyone drinks. Yeah, what do you want? Uh, what is it? What? drinks.

Oh, yeah. drinks for my friends. All right, what do you got? What are you guys failing? You mean, what do we have as far as payment? Yeah, we got wine, we got mead. Mead. All right.

What do you got for, what is it, five rounds of mead? What is typically, we are new here? What is typically exchanged? Well, we got favors. We got food. And we got ore. you got any of those things food

if you want food in return we do serve meals but then we got to take some of the favors or or I don't know if you got anything else but we take other things but those are typically what we got here what do you mean by favors I mean you could run a little errands

for me yeah such as such as well we don't have a lot of trouble here in Borgre so I don't need you to like, you know, stomp any heads or anything like that. But could use a little bit more supplies. There's always a lack of enough booze and leather. So if you feel like maybe you could retrieve some booze,

I'd be quite grateful. Why don't I go and bring back a couple of barrels? Here's the trick. Pretty much get all of it from the under dark, from a nearby drow city and the last shipment got stuck in the tunnels so if you like you could head back the way you probably came from the south entrance of town and maybe go in a side tunnel and i can tell you how to get there maybe uh some barrels just sitting there waiting for you'd be able to find out within a couple hours probably but i can't promise there'll actually be anything there for you if you catch my

drift if they got robbed they got robbed i thought you might out back i'll tell no no steakhouse no steak out. I'll tell the others that I have an extra suit of leather armor. Maybe we can just trade that like the original one you got. Yeah, or trade a portion of it like the pants. I do an inside check, Ken. All right. 17. Nice. Yeah, for the original set of leather armor, you think you could probably get like two rounds of drinks and and rooms for the night. It's like going to be pretty valuable to that much leather just slapped on the table. Right.

Here's my leather. Well, well. I was going to say Luther is like rich in leather. They don't. I mean, like the trick is you got to kill a monster to get leather down here and the monsters are pretty shitty. So like you're either going to get no leather from the creature because it's just got

this kite-ness cave like you know, carrion crawler type body or if it does have usable leather, it's something like one of those fuckers called the big they're like the big

silver. Umber Hulk is a lot like a carrying crawler. I kind of meant something that's like workable leather. What is the, Buellette? A buellette. So it would be good for armor but hard to kill.

So he's grateful. He's like, oh, I'm filthy as leather. Don't see a lot of leather like this. Clearly from the surface. Very fancy for a deep gnome. Enjoy, my friend. Oh, leather luther. What about that favorite?

You feel like retrieving a couple of casks for me? Well, don't we just, he just give you the leather and now we don't need to do it? Well, give you something else if you'll get it for me. Such as. We do have gems of a more common currency this far in the under dark. If you catch my drift, people like any old shiny thing. And it'll only take a few hours.

I'd say if you don't find any trouble, you could get there and back in three hours. Well, we do like trouble. Tell you what. Hensh! We were supposed to get five casks and nothing got here. So for every cask, I'll give you a diamond. All right, sure.

Please make sure our rooms are free from vermin. I'll reserve three rooms, which is all we have free for you, regardless. And I'll make sure there are no... Rust monsters. You're welcome. And what is your name then, friend? Boris. Boris.

Boris. The ficosaurus. All right. Doris the funcasaurus. Do you guys want to go become heroes by bringing booze back to the town? I mean, I guess. Come me beer. You could get up to five diamonds.

All right. Five diamonds. I would say you would know that. We need currency anyway. That would be really, like, decent money. And if you get it all the way back to the surface, it's better than decent. And also maybe it gives us a chance to somehow connect Brian to the blacksmith, right? Sure.

If you brought diamonds to the blacksmith, you could probably get some cool shit. Right. Right. Let's do it. It would give you basically your proper under dark currency. Oh, great. Okay. Yeah.

So you take a little. 90 minute trek back outside of town. Sam, where are we out on time? We have 10 minutes. Sick. Just in time to terrify you. So you get 90 minutes. You head back to the tunnel and Boris told you that it would be the second tunnel to the right. So you don't have to go far back. The first tunnel you see, it doesn't even look like it goes that far down. It looks like it just sort of leads to a dead end. But the second tunnel on the right, you can tell it goes pretty far even, not down. not up and you can see okay so this is probably a thin road that goes to this drow town but it's not well traversed and it's fairly narrow thin so you you can

see why maybe getting a cask through here is nervous business if you're traveling Boris would have told you all the way to this drought city to be about five hours so five hours through a narrow tunnel carrying large casks probably have to get some sort of little carts that you're very cautiously wheeling through here hoping nobody jumps you. Why don't you all roll a stealth check to try to sneak down this time? And tell me whether or not you've got lit torches. I do not.

But you have dark vision. Yeah, dark vision. 14 plus 7. Is this rocky terrain? It absolutely is. And I have Edvanton. Cha, shot,

nice. Underwater was not, but this sure is. Ooh. So at least a nice. 19 without the bonus. Plus 13. Fucking fuck nuts.

What'd you get there, Brian? Stel check. 17 plus... So no torches. You have dark vision. Six. So, great. Where'd you get there, Blaine?

I had a 14 plus 7. Guys are great. Would you get there, Chris? 11. Great. So that's the low roll, but you had a 30 plus. You guys are A-OK. Again, maybe...

Maybe Corbeau's, you're just a little slippery-dippery when it comes to the stealth stuff. But you've got someone here who's basically silent and like stealth bomber level technology built into his bones. I think I will just let you carry me from yours. Getting really romantic between Luther and Corbeau, who already have sort of a French pairing kind of sound to their names. Luther and Cobo. Yeah, you know, you get not even as far as Boris told you you might need to get. when you can tell there's another sort of like fissure in the tunnel,

similar to where you saw that chamber that Durkan pointed out, it sort of branches off. There's no water like rushing down like a waterfall, but you can tell there are drips going down, and you can see there's broken wood. Like maybe from a card or a barrel? Yes. And so it's a tight fit.

But you think all of you could fit. It's just going to be a tighter squeeze if you are not Flint or Luther. Okay. Man. I'll sneak through. Okay. Flint, are you going to reduce? Meow.

Yeah, yeah, sure. Are you a vaccine now? Yeah, yeah. Okay. I'll make a note of that. I like it. I like it. Flint's rubbing off on me.

But I am going to want a... I'll let you choose acrobatics or athletics check from Corbo and Bisturbites. And Durkin also. I can go with athletics. Oh, that went through for something else. What did you roll, though?

For which thing? Well, you don't need to roll. You don't need to do anything because if you use reduced, you can just sort of glide down. Yeah, yeah. These are for squeezy boys. I did. Go ahead.

I did a 12 plus 8 athletics, so 20. Nice. Dang. Natural 20 plus 7, 27. Nice. Nice. And yeah, so Durkin rolled a 12 plus 5. of 17.

You guys all manage to squeeze down there. And when you get down there, yeah, there are five smashed carts. And what looks like an animal den, a smaller little cave. It turns 90 degrees, but you can tell there's like this organic stink coming from the cave.

The cave is smaller. So you think it's probably something about the size of like a wolverine but based off of this, it smells almost like iron like blood. You're thinking, okay, this thing is possibly powerful enough to have killed a merchant

and disposed of its entire body or digested its whole body. Can I twitch my whiskers? Get it. Oh, I try to figure out what kind of animal this is. Sure, let's say that is a nature check. Nature?

Mm-hmm. 11 plus 5, 16. Jeez. Okay. Cool. If it smells like iron, maybe it's a rust monster. Well, I will say that it is not a rust monster. But it might be, Dan.

Did you hear of Blanda said it might be? I did. I did. And I'm happy for you. I'll tell you who the rust monster is, Alec Baldwin. Right. Oh, God. Jesus Christ.

Thank you, Sam. Oh, fuck you. There is a very disgusting, it's like this weird ammonia smell with like a little bit of ozone. What was a number you got exactly? No. Just now?

Yeah, what was it? I thought in 18. Was it as a... 18? Yeah. That was a 13 place. Yeah, so the good news is you think the, the casks might be in this tunnel a little bit if someone wants to sneak in there because this is something that would not consume it. But you think it's some sort of pudding or ooze.

Oh, pudding. Cinnamon pudding pudding? Cinnamon pudding ring. I love it. Oh, I'm on it. What's the arm? I saw them open for Toad the Wood Sprocket. I mean, that.

That would be if there's some kind of ooze or something, fire. We need to destroy them. Have a look. Oh yeah, you're going to go in there? Sure. Do you want to light a torch? No. You don't want to try your attention is what it sounds like.

All right. I have dirt vision. I just mean as a slimes and goos and such tend to burn pretty well. I think I want to snake. Yeah, you do it. You do it as you wish. Okay. We all support you.

Thank you. So let's get a stealth check for here. 17. Okay. So it's against. Oh. You think you make it in and you haven't disturbed it. You see five wooden casks all laying in sort of disarray in a small,

the chamber depth. You go into the cave. It takes like, you know, just a minute or so of like crawling silently, crawling, silently. It opens up a little bigger. The casts are strut about and you see skeletons stripped clean of all their meat. It looks like two merchants. Their clothing completely dissolved, nothing left but slightly dissolved bone. And this quivering black mass with,

little like tendrils that kind of sloped out, splat, and then retract, is resting in a corner of this chamber. Why don't you do a nature check, Ken? I don't want to. Flame an arrow. Well, you can just ignore it and leave if you want. That's a 22. It is a black pudding.

Hey. Pudding. They are shapeless masks. I can go out with the dendril's. Oh, Christ. I can't wait to describe this thing. Black puddings are shapeless masses of predatory cells. Once a pudding detects organic matter.

It oozes toward its prey, dissolving living matter and various objects. If a black pudding is split by lightning or slashing attacks, it divides into two smaller independent puddings. Because you rolled high and giving you the full descripti. All right. I'm going to try to get back to our friends Are you going to try to pick up a cask on the way out?

No. Okay. Roll stealth check, please. 15 plus 90? 15 plus 13. Great. Why don't the rest of you roll nature checks? as he describes this to you.

And go ahead and hit us with what your opinion would be. My opinion would be, uh, there's black pudding in there. Possibly some casks. How did I say, see how many? All five.

Oh, if I cut it, if I slash it, is that a good way to attack it? No, because it'll turn into several. Oh, so don't smash.

Also, you roll an insight check based off of this, the crime scene you just witnessed. All right. Uh, 11. 9 plus 3. Okay.

You're not sure the exact sequence of events, but you're guessing the merchants tried to set up camp in this little chamber that you're in right now. The ooze came up, and there was some sort of squabble

where they tried to get their casks, but they ended up dying in there with the casks. So they tried to handle with the... Or just like wrestle them free and underestimate how powerful. It's not exactly clear with an 11, but yeah,

why don't the rest of you tell me your nature checks? 17. Nice. 11? Yeah. Nature chips. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got 17.

We've got an 11. And change. It's all good. Yeah, I'll take that. Four. Who is 17? Okay. So 17 is high enough.

You would know that the black pudding is definitely immune to a lot of kinds of damage. And they're really hard to find. this thing is not hard to hit, which is the good news, but there's a lot of things that can't like... Who'd you see black pudding open from? Be done to it. You don't want it to jump you, but they're very slow.

You're just going in there alone and trying to do it alone is very dangerous. Well, we're a team. We don't do anything alone. Right? That's right. Oddly enough, Jill's Sobule. But that's who's opening for a black pudding.

They're friends. They've been friends for years. Gotcha. I guess we'll have to decide how we're going to handle this situation on the next episode. Where you open it for turnstile. Sam, that monster I just mentioned.

I can't wait to hear what your interpretation of it is. What do you think happened today? Season 8, episode 7, four minutes and 59 seconds in, and we're talking about Shemp again. we made it to the city gates we pushed open a loud slate door into a bar with only hard surfaces everyone inside is a drearguar i'm saying that right drinking meat like booze we headed back to the tunnel we're the best alec baldwin shooting on the set of rust joke we're looking for casks that are potentially full of pudding or ooze oh oh ooh

pudding or ooze and it's pudding what do you think about fighting a pudding sam gross this game's awesome how do you fight a pudding Sam roll for initiation probably that's right that's correct

yes yeah nothing wrong to be after it I would love if folks want to hire me they headed to Dan Tuffer.com and if you want to check out my other d&D project

it is darkest whimsy.com please subscribe on YouTube we would love to have you we love the numbers uh Brianpussain.com for tour dates I've got

uh Montana Missouri and Bozeman, Montana, theaters, and then theater in Seattle with, well, J.T. Hapersat will be with me in Montana, and then Derek Sheen will be with J.T. and I, and we'll go buy records and eat pizza and be friends, and then come see us.

That's it. Oh, and Stuart Fails Save the Universe is on HBO Max. If you haven't seen it yet, binge it. People like it. Season two coming soon. Blame. We attribute the success. Save mankind for joining us on this episode.

You got walls and a roof. Well, Oh, sorry. I was just looking at the, uh, checking out our nerd poker mail bag. Dear nerd poker. Whoopsie Daisy. I accidentally grabbed a briefcase that was full of diamonds and heroin, which meant that those gangsters got my briefcase full of anti-Italian joke books and

directions to my house. And now I'm in a trunk. It's so spacious for a sedan. Should I get rid of my three-row Mazda when my lease is up? Well, it depends on how much you use your vehicle for family outings, which probably won't be after this coming week. I really wouldn't get it. Anyway, we'll get into it a little deeper 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, Encino, California,

1416. Thanks for listening.