Nerd Poker - The Fog Campaign Episode 44

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Now that we're settled into our new lives as thief kings, maybe we should look into what that means. One big heist is left, and it might be useful to understand if we already won the campaign, you know? Nah. Into the mudhole we go! 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.

Our friends at HeroForge have come out with 3D custom dice. They use the same process as HeroForge's color printed minis. You can choose the dice number, color, the dice shape, and size, even extra large ones. Visit HeroForge.com to start designing your custom miniature and dice today. And check back often. New content is added every week. Thanks, Hero Forge. It's Brian Possein. Nerd Poker.

We're calling it. The Sand Camping. My friends are here. Chris, Blame, Ken, engineer Sam, and of course our kick-ass DM, Dan Telfer. Welcome to Nerd Poker. Hey, everybody. It's Brian Persane.

And you're listening to NerdPoker. It's episode 44. of the fog campaign. My friends are here. We're doing Zoom because our schedules are all facacta and crazy and other things that mean crazy. Blaine is here. Speaking of fagotia bread. Yeah.

Ken is wearing a KFC bucket on his head because he wants to be like the guitar player from the Bay Area. Chris is here. Hi. I'm not wearing my dead mouse helmet, but I'm also dead mouse. What's the shirt today? I'm heat vision and Jack. Oh, shit. Nice pull.

Nice pull. It's on YouTube. Yeah. Sure is. Super funny. And Dan is here. Hi, look, I got the Grillamol shirt on. Oh, nice.

Oh, yeah. I still have not been to the second location, the Long Beach location. Yeah, and you know why that. That is Bees because you don't go to Long Beach. Yeah, you have to go to Long Beach to go to that one. I really feel like to offend anybody. Fuck Long Beach. No, I will not.

I lived in Long Beach, but I'm sorry. It's far. There's nothing there. Yeah, yeah. It's just boring. There's nothing wrong with Long Beach. It's just sort of like, okay, well, we are in the Peoria of Los Angeles County. You know the guy that made the enemy.

Speaking of Peoria, Sam is here, everybody. Hello, sweet children. What were you saying, Blaine? I was going to make a Grillam-Defo joke. How's that dog? Good. He just pooped. Oh, nice.

Sweet. Wait. Just that. How did it taste? Recently poop. My dog's just got fixed, and the male is totally fine, and the female is all drapey. She's very sad. Oh.

She got her balls cut off. Yeah, she did. It hit me like that, too. I was pretty sad. Yeah. When I got my balls cut off. Yeah. But you have such a beautiful

Castrati voice, Brian. That was my last time I used the lawnmower. Anyway, Blayton's here. Hey, Ficaccia. Don't you, Foccaught you about me? Dan, we should thank some people. We should thank some people.

You know what? I love all of you. Thanks for listening. And if you are a supporter on Patreon, you are keeping nerd poker going. So we appreciate each and every one of y'all. But we're going to go ahead and shout out some of our Patreon supporters who are at our top two tiers of support. They've got names like Bob Rob. Thank you, Bob Rob.

Brum. Thank you. William Prine. Thank you, Wick rotation. Thank you. This is what Raman just created for Halloween. Pupa Cobra.

Thank you, Pupa Cobra. Thank you, Stephen Terrell. Thank you, Roland of Gilead. Thank you, bifurcated bugle boy from Company B. Thank you, Nerdy Girl 13. Thank you, Justin Malam. Thank you, Morgonzo. Thank you, Tenser's Gifts.

And finally, thank you, Megan Bradburn. Who are those supporters brought to us by? Spores brought to us by Vulti Vulture Capital LLC. The people who brought you toys were us, bedbath and be gone, and brown lobster. Volchy Vulture Capital. Gimmy, give me, give me. Dan. Thanks, Blaine.

Let's chat. About what happened last time on Nerd Poker. It is currently the day after Halloween, so all I can really think about is the candy I have in a backpack about 50 feet to my left. Holy shit, you guys. We're playing nerd poker, but oh, I got some Rhesus pieces. I'm 47 years old, and all I can think about is fucking Rhesus pieces. That's fair. Yeah, you guys are now the plank.

Brian Spicoli, our de facto leader of the ding-dong danglers. I think that's what you actually call yourself, right? That's what the T-shirt says. Don't worry about it. You have the brooch. It's a little dagger with a ruby in it And after all you know You had a little

I had the conch You have the conch This is of course Lord of the Flies That means you get to speak And everyone will kill you soon We could be Royals It happens

Yeah Lord of the Flies for you everybody What are you gonna do It's gonna be our next system of government After this one collapses in about three months So you guys are Currently like down in the Thieves Guild You've been getting everything appraised, selling what you could, really, really making this heisty campaign fruitful by controlling the market in a way.

And you've sort of been slotted into this by really helping out Philip the plank. He was a little pissed at you guys for burning down city hall when he was trying to usurp the city. But you made it up to him by murdering the entire local guard. he felt really placated by that and so he allowed you a position of authority within the Thieves Guild he also promised once you guys are done there

if you want to head down to Saggy Town on the south side of Delsmith where all the Kuatowa live he will introduce you to an elite force of Kuatowa who would be willing to go down into the depths with you

and perhaps they would even be able to tell you a little bit about it if you remember Glug who accompanied you to what we could call the mud vault a couple dozen episodes ago told you a fair bit about the ruins

that he knew about that were underneath that layer of the city where you believe the greatest treasure of the mall is and you have a map of that vault that's a little abstract right now you're going to get a little bit of a shortcut so you're going to end up in a spot that's not directly

connected to the map you have, but you are going to get past some guardians and dangers that would be a part of if you had gone through that Stone Mason's Guild in the known quarter

where you encountered some Zorn and it felt like a real pain in the ass. This should be at least a safer way down to the bottom. Now, I think you guys got a pretty good appraisal on everything, but is there?

anything else you guys wanted to get appraised? Have you made notes about what everything's worth and sold what you no longer wanted? Yeah, I think we did all that last time. We sold the Morning Star, the shield was cursed, I mean, everything, you know, I think we're hanging on to the adamantine javelin to hand

off possibly to, once we pick up a fighter. Right. And that would likely be usable by Glug, who is a barbarian type of fighter. So you guys can head on down to Soggy Town.

I wasn't sure just, you know, like if there was anything we left out when we had to hurry up and quit. Uh-oh. Hello, Oliver. Oliver is showing us what appears to be a box of nerds that he has turned into a human puppet. Whoa. A human puppet? Like a feeling puppet? Are you proud of me?

I'm very proud of you. Oh, damn it. I'll get over it. I've learned so much about society in these last 30 seconds. Wow. I think this is nerd related. That's a joke.

Keep it down, Ed. All right. Blaine, you might want to have him walk around with you so he could clear that up for more people when you've made a joke. It really sells it. It really sells it. Yeah, he patted me really hard on my COVID arm.

Oh, no. No. How? He did it on purpose. He came over and did it on purpose. Oliver, stop bullying your father. He weighs five pounds. His muscles are sloughing.

off his skeleton. Please be gentle. Yeah, I think... Now he's doing Brian elbow drops in the emergency. Yeah, you covered all this stuff. Soggy town. See me soon enough. All right. Soggy town, unless we want to go somewhere else, right?

Yeah, let's do it. That's the plan. Take me on down to Soggy Town. Won't you can meet you? No, no, no. Don't do that voice. A soggy town is on the south side and you guys are on the northeast side. So it's a short trek, but it's not a large town, Bellsmith.

So you go down to Saggy Town, which is a part of a town, and you walk through the heavy green fog on the way. You're going to walk past the under-construction mansion of the drow gentleman, who's the front of his mansion, you encouraged the explosion of, you were walking down a street where there was a bit of bloodshed where you pinned a drow assassin to the ground.

Dan, can I ask a question as we're walking through and you mentioned the green mist? How is it compared in terms of like thickness, like compared to the time we've been here? Is it the same? That's a great question. Why don't we get it insight from everybody? Insights.

Ooh. 25. Nice. 15 plus 10. 22. Oh, 13. Now you're in trouble, Dan. Beat that.

12. Fuck all you all. All right. We're doing reverse day, right? But 10. But Ken. But Ken? 22.

22. So most of you have No clue, although Twiddin stops and taps his chin. He looks around, squint's big wave of this fog kind of rolls past and you're not sure. All of you, I think, would take a moment to remember that the deaths, the random deaths, seem to have been tied to an undead gnome that you stopped. And it's been a non-topic. So you think those deaths have probably died down.

It was rumored that people were getting possessed by the fog and strangling people. but it seems like it was all really more related to these worshippers of caius deep under the city who are sending worms up to possess people. Shalab, as you look around, you notice, yeah, it's actually pretty thick. It's, it's maybe twice as thick as when you got here. There have been a few nights where it seemed to be blowing kind of bat by you easily. But for the most part, it's been getting thicker and thicker. And as you walk past the mansion, you notice you can't see as much of the front lawn as you did the last time. As you walk past the center of town and the fountain with the secret compartments inside,

you notice the fountain is harder to see from a distance. And the first tavern that you stopped in also seems to be buried in fog. Only the sign out front is visible as you walk past the fountain. So it seems to have really, really gotten thicker. and the rumor is, of course, this fog rolled in from the sea and because of the fissure just off the coast, an explosion of the seabed originating from deep below where perhaps the caius worshippers are.

Hey, I rolled a, I got a 25 on my insight and I have a cat nose with cute little whiskers. Can I detect anything like magical or monstrous in this mess? We're stinky. Why don't you roll an Arcana check? Sure, why not? That's only a 12. Okay.

I would say you've noticed that the blood of the worms was green. And this kind of has like an eerie cosmic resonance to it that just makes you wonder like what exactly is going on far down there. if the worms have this dark green, Iker-like blood, and the mist is also this dark forest green. Okay. Dark fogs are creepy. It's like smoke. But there's no scent of charcoal.

It's just the fine smell of water droplets in the air. Okay. And yeah, with the 25, you've got these cute cat features. I do feel like I want to give you something. So I will say You're keenly aware that your lady friend Has not shown up in a while

But the last time you saw her She was trailing you Okay She trailed you guys to like the Stone Mazins Guild on the rooftops So you're wondering if she might be In this denser fog Continuing to follow you Do I smell her conditioner?

You do get a whiff of that like Trader Joe's T-Tree oil conditioner, but it could be anyone. Everyone loves that conditioner. I love T-Tree oil. He's drinking so now. I don't like T-Tree oil. Mr. T-Rilil. Ridiculous.

I love your brain, Blinkapatch. They love you too, Brian. if you know Mr. T is Googling. Let's keep trotting and we don't want her to catch us, right? No, she has kind of a brutal, stoic competitiveness to her that just makes you think that she is very aligned with her own interests. Isn't she also a member of the Thieves Guild? Yep.

And she helped you out, but also like, She kind of dismantled Siam in the beginning of the campaign and got him to accidentally spill all of the information he had when Siam went into the conversation thinking he was going to do the opposite. She works for Brian. Yeah. Yeah. Some real office politics going on here.

So, Brian, I don't know if you heard that, but your friends think you're in charge of the Thieves Guild. You're the leader. Well, by name only. Okay, well Well, can't you make, like, order her to show herself? Oh. I guess.

Is that what we want? Well, maybe, like, we'll huddle for a moment in the safety of the cosmic smoke. And I think Twidman would be like, I mean, she's with us till the end. I think she was, like, trying to beat us out of getting treasure. But now at this point, I think we're kind of like, now we've got to go kill this God. So we're not, like, in a treasure race with her, right? We need her help to kill this good. I mean, we could use all that point.

She's going to follow us. Okay. Like maybe, I mean. All right. So I'd beck in her. Do you remember what her name is? Describe the beckon. Well, uh, her name is Fen der Stratt.

Fen, uh, Thieves Guild business. Please attend. Okay. And you're like, you're calling that out into the mist. Sure. Yeah. Fan party one. Your table's ready.

Fan. Resend the map of Dellsmith to everybody just as a reminder. I'll say you guys are doing this on the south edge of that fountain that looks like. Demon Bart Simpson's eyeball. You call it out. Let's get a persuasion check, Brian. All right. Can I give him guidance?

Yeah, sure. I'll back them up with my guitar. as he's calling out. Mm-hmm. Nannin-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-dn-n-n-d... What kind of fake guitar are you playing there, playing? Oh, that was, I was being slashed, so it was probably a less ball. That was Welcome to the Jungle, right?

Yes. You got what you need. Well, even with assistance, it won't be high. I got an eight. So, I mean, I guess I can roll. Yeah, roll their guidance for fun. I mean, a single digit number is definitely something compared to a 12. It's a four, right?

A D4. Yeah. Ten's better than an eight, at least in my mind. I do tend to give a weaker response for single digit rolls on anything. So you call out, everyone can hear you, but it seems to get lost in the fog a bit. you think there's about a 50-50 chance if she's following you she heard you because she's paying attention

to what you're doing but she does not reveal herself because there's just something about the timber of your voice that is not particularly persuasive it sounds a little bit as you call out that you're just unsure what you would even ask of her

okay but yeah if you have something that you want to try again with her I of course am open to it you guys head back down the path to the south side of town and once you get to the edge of town you notice there are a lot of Kuatowa in armor their weapons are in their armor are both kind of improvised looking but you're getting a sense that they are being way more bold and they may even be planning to move a little bit more north

into the town because they have control of it this might be the new city guard even And they haven't, you know, ripped all of the armor and weapons off of the corpses of the guards that you burned alive in the barracks. But it does look like they have cobbled together a lot of new stuff to make sure they're well outfitted and can stand for themselves. And there are a few carriages and carts that Kuatoua are piling things into. You think maybe some of the abandoned homes are going to have Kuatua in them soon. And, yeah, you know, somewhere down here. Philip the plank is waiting to meet with you. Should we start saying,

we're looking for Philip the plank? We're looking for soldiers to join us in the muddy depths. Sure. Well, of course, they are waiting for you in a sense. So after calling around, a few of the guards come over to you, nod with their weird

lidless eye faces and take you by your much less soggy hands. Siam, do you want to wrestle some of these guys? No, they're covered in mucus. Ew, meow. You wrestled that one before.

Yeah, I got mucus all over me. Meow. Poor Siam. Does, do one of them come up and hand me their business cod? Business cod. Blaine, your eyes are bleeding. Oh, Jesus, hold on. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Where is Oliver? Oh, man. Two ladies. You're really going for it. All right. Let's talk to, fill up the plate. They walk you over to, it's a, oh, hey there. made me want to.

So you head to one of the semi-submerged mud huts, and Philip sees you coming from a distance through a window, and he wadles out through the mud, and gestures for the guards to stop escorting you in. Oh, yes, I don't want you to have to duck into the deep mud like you have in the past. I understand you lack the gills we do, except our friend Shalab here looks. like he may have evolved some. Yeah, I found this cool-ass helmet and shit.

Yeah, it looks like a skulls on your head. Pretty crazy. Thanks. Well, don't forget the compliment. Don't forget, if you did that for a reason, you're going to need every skill and ability at your disposal for what's coming next. I can offer you our greatest champion, who of course you've met before, glug

and I can of course offer you our greatest sorcerer. Their name is Gickel. Gickel. Gickel. Yes. Gickel is a

former champion sorcerer. So has been in the octagon much as Gluge but retired after a single win. Gickel should be able to cast occasional quite

powerful powerful spells for you, but if you'd like additional forces, they simply will not be as powerful as either of these two. I'm happy to arrange, so I can spare you up to eight soldiers.

Can I ask Gickel a question? I can ask Gickel to come over. If there's nothing else you'll have of me. Ask him if he was named by a little kid who couldn't pronounce pickle. He says yes.

He's not here yet, but we all know. We all know what he did. Yeah, you have questions for Gickel. You want to move on to talking to Giggle? Yeah, I just want to ask him a magic question round. Philip Knott's walks you over to where Glug is sharpening his hallbird. Glickle is nearby. Functionally, we are talking about a Kuatowa

arch priest and a Kuatowa whip. Soldiers will be less powerful. I always get a Kuatua whip when I go to the Tiki room. Oh, fine. That's great. Really great. So refreshing. Then when you say Kuatua whip, is that the class that glug is?

Correct. A whip. Oh, okay. Interesting. They're often like in tandem with archpriests. They work well together. Hmm. This is just a magical question for you, Giggle.

Let's say I alter... Yeah, go ahead. What? Let's say I alter myself and give myself aquatic features like gills, web fingers, and such. Now, do you have any spells that would extend the runtime of those spells? Let's see. Let me check on. that I know there is a sorcerer thing that does

do that and your dungeon master has to look it up. I do do-do-do-do-do-do. I think it's just extended spell. Yeah. I can double the

duration of a spell for a maximum of 24 hours, he tells you. Okay. Well, thanks. Just check it. I would hate to be underwater with gills and then have my gills wear off in the middle of something. Yeah, that would suck. Yeah.

I'll make sure to keep that one available spellwise. Thank you. Appreciate it. Maybe on that same subject. Maybe we should think of a place to like camp out and take a longer rest so that we are fully charged up for what comes beneath. Yeah, that would be good. I'm not saying that has to happen now, but I definitely think we need to get one of those in before we descend.

Right. Well, Fomple said that he's cooler. Fomple? You may know him as Philip. Yeah, we tend to just use the one name for what for a person. What's his alternate name? His Cua Tua name is Fonpul. Fump.

Fumple. F-L-N-P-L. Flan-Fill. He tells you that there is a building being cleared out that is meant to be a diplomatic suite. Suites, you know, like rooms that people can come in and occupy before they have a permanent home. The plan is for the Kuatowa to invite friendly species to come live in Delsmith, and this will be sort of like a middle place. So there's already a place that's like, kind of like a new inn. Great.

It would be welcome to stay in for free. So kind of you. You guys are considered local champions to these Kuatawa. Well, not Siam, but. Ah, yeah. A bit of, a bit of business. You guys may have just thought I was throwing them at you, but I do want to ask, are you going to take the full eight soldiers that were being offered to you?

Hell yeah. Sure. Yes, please. Okay. It's making a note that it is going to be wild. Like J6, am I right? I don't know anything about that. It's going to be wild.

And the next one. Whoa. Whoa. Apparently all those records have been deleted. Okay. You guys head in to the inn, and the inn has enough beds for all of you. You can have one large suite even

where there are a line of full beds around the outer edges of a large circular room that is a little under-decorated at the moment but looks quite comfortable and secure. Great. Yeah, I think, you know, especially love it if we can have our beds in the circle so we can all like fall asleep telling each other stories and stuff.

Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, and you know, like it's not a lot of, of decorations but there are some free copies of Tiger Beat that everyone can sort of flip through everyone can talk about who they have a crush on Bobby Sherman Bobby Sherman solid slumber party is there anything you guys would like to attune to as we pick up watches and such I like to attuned to my watch I got a tune my watch I'd never live in house remember have this we're not attuned to

I'm going to attune to this bloodsword this bloodshed blade oh that's fun bloodstone short sword yes yes bloodshed short sword bloodshed sword short short so you can add your

constitution modifier to the damage rolls of attacks I'm going to target when you target a creature you can evoke its ruin causing it to flare with crimson light infusing your attack with bloodthirsty precision. You then roll one of your unspent hit dice. So it's a hit dice thing, and hit dice are typically used for short rests and replenishing health.

You would instead use it to add that number to a rolled attack roll. You can choose to invoke the run after you roll the 20. So that means if you don't hit, you don't have to use up your hit dice. If you miss, it's not like. if you have guidance and you spend it and it's not there anymore you can wait and see if it's success first.

Roll an arcana check for me. That is a 17. All right. You should be attuned to this bloodshed short short. We wear short swords. She wears short shorts. Uh, anyone else?

Uh, what else is left? I think someone's got something that could be attuned to, but you're going to give that Hallberg to glue. Yeah, yeah. Do we do anything with the, uh, illusionist's braces? Is there any word of those? That might be a magic guy thing, right? What do they do, Ken?

I don't know. Okay. Me. I can tell you what the illusionist bracers do. Why do they do? Well, let me tell you. You acquired these quite some time ago. A powerful illusionist of House Demir originally developed these braces,

which enable her to create multiple minor illusions at once. The bracer's power extends far beyond illusions while wearing them. Whenever you cast a cantrip, you can use a bonus action on the same turn to cast that cantrip a second time. Well, I should put those on. I think that might be better for a player character as a cantrip. you know, spell slots and illusions might want to have a player brain behind them. Yeah.

Yeah, Ken was saying he was going to put them out. So there you go. Let's get in a tunement roll, please. Please be mindful, everyone, if you have maxed out your tunement slots. Oh. I don't know. What do I roll?

Arcana, please. Arcana, Do do do do Five Got it You stare into the middle distance As you attempt to attune To the illusionist praisers

Alas Not yet So some time passes While you two Attempt to attune And then it is time for Everyone to take a watch You can try tuning again in the morning

If you like, you're in this big safe room Is anyone going to take first watch? I'll take first watch. Buildings relatively secure. So as Spicoli volunteers, you all would feel pretty confident that one watch is plenty. There are multiple windows that look over the street. And although the fog is thick, you feel like that at least means that you have four points of exit in an emergency. You're on the second floor and don't think it would be too difficult to open a window and slide into the street if you couldn't leave through the main door.

Spicoli, please roll a perception check for your watch. Oh, my God. Since I have a plus 10, I got 11. Nice. Yeah. Or also known as a botch, but yes. Plus 10 is good.

Don't. Don't, Dan. You guys sleep soundly while Spicoli looks out the window. Also sleep soundly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You don't see much outside the window, but... Is anything like the guy that's rolling him?

It's a pretty quiet night. It's a pretty quiet night. Downstairs you do hear that there is some shuffling around. People are trying to keep it down in the middle of the night, but they are sort of building this in while you're staying in it. Pretty quiet, though. Who's going to take next watch? I'll do it. Oh, go ahead. Go roll that perception checks, sir

I'm gonna roll for Zoomies too Okay A perception you said Yeah, every Zoomie is an automatic crit though You don't need to roll that Okay, 28 Holy shit That's decent

Nice I mean Brian it was good too With a 12, that was good to It was 11 11, sorry Get it right, Dick DG plus 10 you hear there is a diplomatic meeting in the lobby of this little building it sounds like philip

the plank and maybe some other cootoa maybe even a human are having some sort of roundtable discussion do you want to go and listen in it's a choice you won't have to re-roll you already rolled so high yeah i'll kind of i'll kind of get to a place where i can aim my in my ears at him. You peer into the hall, don't see anyone, and so you silently kind of glide out into the hall. Can I get a stealth check, though, just to see how silently? Yes, 14 plus 12, 26.

Yeah, that's pretty goddamn silent. Nice shirt, Ken. Thank you. Ken is wearing an alien shirt. I was just imitating Brian. It was Ken. camera angled down. Oh.

To do my shirt. Yeah. Captain Caveman. We watched that with Ollie last week. Oh, how do you like it? The original alien. He really liked it. He knew all about it, but he watched it and he was like, this is fucking great.

Cool. It is great. That original movie is still one of my favorite movies, period, ever. For sure. Aliens is fine, but it's like comparing, I don't know. Just they're very different movies. Yeah, they're very different. And the first one is just more my game.

You got to see the first one first. You know what I mean? And like when you grew up on him, no, you know what I mean? Like, the first one was life changing. The second one was kick ass and was very cool. But you were a little bit older by then. And like if you saw it in the way we grew up, you know, to me, the first one was like made me like science fiction more for the rest of my. Yeah.

You know, for the rest of my life. It also helps seeing the first one because it makes the second one kick ass that much more. Of course. Yeah. Aliens is a really good dessert. Alien is the best dinner you've ever had. And yeah. Harry Dean Stan and the Ficoto just them together like just talking shit about shares while nobody fucking around with people.

They were great. They were great. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep. All time faves for sure. Oh. I can't wait to see the Hulu show.

or is it FX or whatever. I got to see the alien. It's okay. I don't care. I know you hate it, but I have like a bunch of things. I don't hate it. I watched a little bit of it, but. And then I didn't finish the last movie,

but I didn't hate what I saw in the last movie. I just fall asleep during everything. The last one. To get past episode two or three in Alien Earth, it's going to start disappointing you hard. Oh, really? I like it. It started strong with the relationship that,

Anyway, but Back to movie criticism. Predator Badlands also looks like it could be really good. That works great. Yeah, next week. Full up Wayland Yatani Cyborg in there looking for, not Cyborg Android.

Wayland Otani and Madam. Hey, you're my favorite Hollywood Square. I'm Adam, yes. Put that child inside that experiment box. You hear about drags being negative

to kids, but drag puppets were one of my favorite moments of my childhood. There you go. I never laughed harder. Do you know Greg Barrett and Mark Rivers story about

wailing flowers and madam? Yes. Is it like Your evil-connevil story? No, no, I wish. It was Barrett said that he and Mark Rivers were standing on a street corner, like down by the Willtern. And this old-timey Rolls-Royce, like a white Rolls-Royce, the kind that Arthur had in the movie Arthur. With the open back.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And they're like, oh, wow, check it out. They just noticed this car. And it drove by and they looked in to see who it was. And it was the Madam puppet. And she was Just the puppet

Just the puppet propped up in the back Being driven around In this limousine I believe Whalen was already dead Yeah Whalen was dead But he

He uh I guess stipulated That she'd be treated Like royalty Until the money ran out Oh my God That is the greatest story So

It was mad to be driven around in a limousine Yeah I wish P. Herman did that with Cherry Yeah He just She and Jerry driving her.

Well, she's a queen. She deserves that kind of special. She's her own rumble seat. Anyway, sorry to interrupt with... More D&D. Yeah. I mean, yeah. So right now, Siam Spade is tiptoeing extremely silently.

I think you rolled a 72 on your stealth check. Yeah. But you also got a very high perception check. So you glide out past... the hallway with the other rooms on the other side of it, over to a banister that overlooks the lobby. You hear Philip the plank talking to, it sounds like at least four other Kuatua and one human or elf.

You peer over and you don't have a good angle on the conversation. It is sort of like in a large booth near the kitchen because there are no tables and chairs set up. So it's kind of hard to see who's talking. But you can hear really well with your cat ears. and Dan, can we tell from the way they're setting it up

is the idea of the does it seem like Kuatoa's more sort of family style? Like is it sort of like sort of long row tables with benches and they're probably like when it comes time

they'll have like fish and chips and sort of just big platters and a lot of apps for everybody. Yeah, yeah it'll be very old country buffet. Do they have Arby steak chunks? Those are awesome. No,

fish don't like to eat. eat cows. Oh. Why would you say that? Mokin a bad, but. You can hear them talking about who is going to be moving in. There is a lot

of abandoned buildings here, and it sounds like a couple of the, you know, the elves, be they, drought or high elves, are going to stay, but a lot of the humans and gnomes have already left. And so this human or elf that you can't quite see is

sort of trying to plead with Philip the Plank to not make all the races that move into the town be aquatic races because it will alienate people who have lived in Dellsmith for the last century. Philip the Plank is very stoic

and doesn't give a shit of what this guy says. He just keeps shooting him down, keeps telling him that there's going to be a lot of aquatic elves that are going to be moving in along with the Kuatua. Some locatas, which are similar to Kuatoa, fish folk. And possibly even as security on a mountain to the north of Delsmith's storm giants are going to be communicated with to move in and help protect Delsmint.

All of which freaks out to human. All of that sounds pretty dangerous and unpleasant to him. But Philip the Plank keeps assuring him things are going to be more secure than ever that this long period of this mist rolling over the town is soon to be eliminated. and that Delsmith's champions are going to be sent down very soon, tomorrow, in fact, to deal with the thief queen. Okay. It sounds like the human is slightly placated by this, a little frustrated,

but as long as the thief queen is dealt with, he believes the mist will roll away. Okay. Meeting adjourns, and you head back to your room. Okay. Who's going to take third watch? I will. And what were you going to say, Blaine?

I was going to say, I'll pass this on to Ken at least because he's awake. And then I'll tell the other, you know, the other guys when everybody wakes up. I don't want to wake people up. Yeah. Yeah, you're all trying to just get in your respective eight hours, too. So anyone who has not taken watch out, which I believe is going to be twidden, specifically, you can also wake up at this point. I mean, you're, you know, you got your eight hours in.

So you can be up with Ken. If anyone up who's had their eight hours. If I can help him with watch, I will. Yeah. So roll a perception check. But first I've taken a long rest. Let me just mark that. It's just Blaine and Brian who have to catch up.

I'm already curled up on that. Perception, you say? I do say. That's an 18 for me. Nice. 12. As I tune my guitar. And where'd you get, Ken?

18. Okay, thank you. It's pretty quiet. You do think you see a lot of Kuatawa moving in the streets. They all seem to be headed north. It seems like that army that you saw is now escorting carts worth of supplies and other less armed Kuatua north into the city. Exciting. And that'll do it for your watch.

Yeah. And at this point, you guys can stay here for free, right? So although the plan is to head down the mud hole, you do have a moment here where Ken, who tried to attune to the illusionist bracers, can try that again by dedicating four hours to hanging out. Sure. Do you like to do that, Ken? Yeah. Arcano? Yes.

13. Not quite yet. So you do your best to attune. Is there anything you guys would like to do while Shalab is up in the room, not to separate the party so much, but just to, it. maybe explore the block or talk to somebody who is in this diplomatic building under construction. I don't know about you guys, but sort of after hearing them over here, that thing, I'm sort of interesting. Like, maybe we could sort of refresh on the thief queen. They seem real intent on us handling that.

I would love to just, for my own wherewithal, this is the wife, the widow of the guy who's the, Who's the thief queen? Was that the Gnom's wife? The Gnom's widow? Dan, I'm talking to you. You guys don't know anything about this thief queen. Oh, okay. It could be someone you already know,

but you've never heard the phrase before as far as my notes say. Okay. Should we ask who the thief queen is? Talk to Philip and say, hey, so as we're going down there, let's maybe some bullet points on what the fuck is happening.

Let's ask him about the thief queen, yeah And wait, unless somebody thinks I don't know, do we want to ask our friend Glugue? Is there, I don't know, is Philip going to be deceitful for some reason? He suddenly seems to be very uptight. Yeah, he's very, he's getting all human about shit.

Maybe you want to talk to your sorcerer, pal? We could split, you know, like I could give Blaine guidance and he could try and ask the sorcerer. and we could also talk to Gloob, see if we can find anything out. Yeah, let's do it. All right, so you're going to talk to the sort of three primary Kuwaitoah

that you're aligned with at the moment, Philip. Maybe not Philip. Okay. Glug and Giggle, at least. Yeah, let's start with them. Does that sound good to everybody? Yes. Yeah.

Giggle, by the way, is spelled GKK-K-I-L, if anyone was curious. Who's going to talk to Gluck? Who's going to ask the glug question? I love glug and gickle their guitar duo I was going to say I love their strip in highlights magazine Girl from Emponias Yeah it's really good

Did you play the glug and gickle When you were in Austin? Yes Um Gloom and gickle Brian is that who you were in Pompocco Mm-hmm I'll talk to you know that I was in Pompoco.

Pompocos is one of my greatest achievements. It's awesome. I'll talk to Glug. Okay. Glug and Giggle are both just sort of milling around. You see Giggle is writing in a journal in the lobby, but Glug is just sort of pounding a bunch of eggs, just eating these large wet eggs, raw,

some Kuatowa stuff. You walk up to Glugany offers you what looks like Palantir from Lord of the Rings except wet with a tadpole rolling around inside of it. If you want,

it's really good. I'm sorry, I can't eat your cousin. Thank you, though. Super kind of you. Hey, real excited about the thief queen, huh? Yeah. I'll know a lot about her,

but I do know a little bit about who she's supposed to be. Oh, hey, you know what? Seeing as this is kind of like a reunion, why don't we bring each other up to speed? I'll tell you everything we know about the thief queen and then you'll know and you can tell us what you know. How's that sound?

That sounds good. What do you know? Jack shit, bro. Your turn. Sounds like chapter two is going to be more interesting than chapter one. Roll a persuasion check, please, Chris. Copy that. 18 plus 13, 31.

Holy fuck. So he leans in and says, all right, well, don't tell Philip that I told you this. But I think whatever we do, this thief queen is going to come back. She's been destroyed multiple times

from what I hear, never encountered her myself. But it's my understanding that various races over the last 200 years have gone. down there killed her and she's come back. She's been dormant for my entire life. I've not heard of her being around, but there's certainly legends of the thief queen,

who, the rumor is one of the founding gnomes of this city was a woman who is a former leader of the Féyroon Thieves Guild Network. She went through some of her greatest heists.

She decided to settle in Delsmouth. and then you know she decided one lifetime wasn't enough and she sought immortality she became what I believe is some sort of evil

forever wizard I don't fucking know how it works but she became some kind of evil forever wizard and now they keep trying to kill her she lives in the deep under city where we're going and I've studied the under city I've been through the outer outskirts of it

down through the mud hole I'll be you'll be good to have me with you but I've never encountered her myself all I know is she used to be alive she probably still isn't and she can be a real pain in the ass Hey glug

that was number one with the bullet Thank you friend Yeah You're welcome You're a well of information Uh and I guess We'll have Love one of you talk to gickle

On our next episode of Nerting Pope Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh, yeah. Anything, uh, Dan? Yeah, if you'd like to hire me as your dungeon master, I am starting to get my calendar filled up. I've had a lot of lovely people hire me.

Um, and I have some dates I am running games in December and would love to do more so I could pay for Christmas. So if anyone is interested, head to Dan Telford.com. You're paying for Christmas this year? Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. I'm going to buy.

small presence for five people. If you hire me to be a dungeon master, that is. So if you had to Dan Telfer.com, you can reach out to me very easily. I got info about what I do as far as who I am. And I'm happy to send you more info and we can talk about timing and such. If you live in an area that has galaxy cons, I will be coming there. I'm doing like a fistful of galaxy cons. I have some other conventions.

I got like eight or nine in 2006 lined up. So starting with the comic book or Comic Con from San Diego the Comic Con cruise. I think it's like their third or fourth cruise or so

you know, but I'm doing it and Felicia Day is going to be there. It's going to be fun as shit and I'm doing stand-up and signing and doing a bunch of other stuff. Brian, I also hear you you're going to do the yoga at dawn class? No, but I am playing D&D on the ship.

Oh, my God. If you play D&D. Yeah. So that's one of the live events that I'm participating in. How fun. So you're drunken disorderly? Yeah. And then as far as stand-up, I'm coming back in the new year.

But some of the places that I was supposed to be have now, dates have moved. So Batavia, I was supposed to be in Illinois, like in two weeks. It ain't happening. But it's moved to the end of the year or to next year. And as is a couple other, I was Wisconsin and a couple other places. But those are still going to happen. New dates coming soon.

Oh, hey. My grommets and Rifters for Christmas. And no, Blaine, you don't get to say nothing. I was going to say, check out Grommets and Rifters. Yes. Hey, I'm doing Luchivoum at the Fox Theater in Pomona on November 8th. So come out out to Pomona. Oh, yeah.

That's always, it's a great place. It'll be a fun show. And I'm going to be at the Punch Line in San Francisco with Dana Gould. That's one of the greatest clubs ever. Yeah. It's going to be November 20th through the 22nd. So come on out and see. me and one of my idols do the stand-up.

And then after the show, Blaine, I'll be getting high on the roof, so there you go. I've been high on the roof there for the last 30 years. Yeah, yeah. And I have nothing to do with it, but go buy the new Goonies Lego. Holy crap. It'll set you back a chunk. Yeah, it's, ah, it's worth it. Blaine.

We attribute the success. Save mankind from that. Thanks for joining us on this episode. You got walls and a roof. Well, On the next dirt poker. Chris is unavailable Tuesday and Wednesday. Ken's out of town on Monday.

Blaine's in San Diego Wednesday. Thursday's out. Dan has a thing all week. Is Sam around on Saturday? All this and Brian's balls are shooting all week on an all-new nerd poker. Thanks for listening to another episode of NerdPoker. 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 Cino, California, 911416. Thanks for listening. Hey, everybody. God damn it. Hey, everybody, goddammit.