Nerd Poker - The Fog Campaign - Episode 56

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

The Ding Dong Danglers eye their loot, and encounter a very sheepish and non-threatening door, which of course makes the door creepy and terrifying. 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 Sault Campaign. My friends are here. Chris, Blaine, Ken, engineer Sam, and of course,

our kick-ass DM, Dan Telfer. Welcome to Nerd Poker. Hey, everybody. Brian Prasane here. Nerd Poker is what your ears are listening to. 57 or 56. Yeah, sorry. getting ahead of myself.

57 is next. So stick her out. But we're going right into it. We're rolling right into it. My friends are here. We're Zoom and again, hoping to get together live. We're talking about it. My schedule is clearing up a little bit soon.

I won't be shooting 12-hour days for a little bit. So that'll be nice. We'll get some live episodes, banked soon. So thanks for sticking with us. I'll introduce my friends as usual. Chris is here. Ken is here. Hi. Chris was waving the whole time by the way. Blaine is here. Is he? Yes, I heard. Dan is here. Hi. And then running the show as always from the cool part of town. fully clothed everybody sorry fellas it's it's sam everybody hello sweet children hey man how you doing good just waking up it's early yeah it's early it's earlier than we

normally played but we had to get this one in for my youngest mootang is for the children and nerd poker is also for the children so uh we had to get it for you kids out there listening, waiting for this episode. Oh, I didn't get to ask about ramen, but I'm sure he's great. I'm sure he's still sleeping. Oh, I think he's turning it back on.

Still sleeping. Of course. Yeah. Willie's on the other side of the house. She has no idea that this is even happening. If you guys can donate on Patreon at our new $100 a month tier, Sam will wake ramen up at any time. we'll pay extra that you can give ramen a treat

and also feel like a better dog dad and we will force ramen awake whenever we want. Fair. We should thank some people. Yes. Thank you, everybody who's listening and especially if you can support us on Patreon and actually keep the podcast going.

If you're at one of the top two tiers of support, you get a shout out and those folks got usernames like Merlin from Static Factory. Thank you, Merlin. Thank you, declines. Thank you, Lance Van Zant, used to listen to Nerd Poker. Now he doesn't. What a chump.

I love that one. Thank you, Ragnor. Thank you, Jason Todd's Dominatrix's Crowbar. Thank you, Horny Larry. Thank you. Society for the Advancement of Naked Skydiving. think you shit missile thank you

Blaine who are those supporters brought to us by Oh you're welcome Thank you dungeon master 41 seeks dungeon submissives Thank you don't ask Just give me Bartic inspiration Thank you sleepy Mario Speedwagon Thank you Brian's plastic bag

Thank you The Wotnought Thank you Boskin's broken Star Train heart Thank you I'm now on season four and thank you

Kenny Wheeler Lane Who are those supporters Actually brought to us by Sporters actually brought to us by Time Taffy Chew your way into the past Or the Chutcher

Take a bite out of time History sticks to your teeth With Time Taffy available at Time for Taffy. It's Time Taffy. Titi's Taffy Time. Taffy Time are us and Taffanee's Time Taffy. Wherever temporal candies are sold.

Taffy Time. Dan. Thanks, Blaine. I think I'm just tired enough that it was the first time I've ever said, Blaine, who are those, supporters brought to us by with a different inflection in my voice? and it was terrifying woke me right the fuck up when you imitated

inflection for inflection the exact way I said it you are an expert mimic and a cup of coffee I never get no respect thanks dad that's my that's my Captain Kirk compression oh

I tell you no respect Scotty beat me up I don't respect out of here oh that was Chris Pine as Captain Kurt right? That was Christopher Lloyd from back to the future. Oh.

Hey, morning. It's your kids. Hey, whoa. Hey, yeah. Hey. Now I got a machine to gun, no.

Oh, what is that? Oh, it's Chris Pratt. That's, that's, that's Chris Pratt as the dead guy at the beginning of diehard. Um, all right. So,

yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whoa, hey, you're all right. Let's keep asking who these people are. Right after we talk about what happened last time on nerd poker.

You guys got into the loot room on the northwest corner of the Denggion, which is really how it's pronounced. It's pretty racist if you pronounce a dungeon. You made it all the way kind of like, you like broke balls down, smashed some shambling mounds, got through some traps, including a fake firewall. A creepy fucking hand was casting things against the door, but you got through. And yeah, you managed to get your noses not bitten off by a little beholder and open the treasure chest full of treasure after going through all four of the hidden chests.

And you have a pile of loot that I don't believe you have identified yet. Didn't think we've got some. Did you? I don't remember. I don't think so. We don't have time. Nobody has to identify as a spell. We have to do it during a short roast.

A couple of cloaks and a sword wand. The potions we figured out, but yeah, we have two clubs, a short sword and a wand. Yes. So in the golden goggles. The torture room. was a red potion that regenerates limbs, a gray potion that will turn you into a cursed immortal skeleton, a blue potion that is a potion of speed, a brown potion that is an inside-out potion, and a green potion that is a wear shark curse potion.

Right now you have also unidentified two cloaks, a sword, a short sword, and a wand. All right. What did what do the cloaks look like? Do they have any sort of like like logos on them or? Yeah, it's one of them say like invisible. That'd be cool.

Yeah, one of these has a sort of deep purple color to it. It's kind of velvety with an almost kite-ness like area where it looks like latch on to someone's paldrons. Does it make you look like your smoke on the water? I'll tell you what. Anyone who would like to can roll an insight check.

I will tell you what the other court looks like in a minute. But if anyone can beat a 20 on an insight check, which you all have pretty high bonuses, you might. Yeah. You have a high bonus. I'll tell you some basics about that, some specific basics about it without telling you magically what the name of the item is. I can give Bardock inspiration to somebody who's

strong on insight to begin with. I got a 25. Never mind. Well, never mind. 15 plus 10. This is definitely some kind of magical cloak made by drought elves. Am I getting like a bad vibe from it? Like a, no, like an evil vibe?

No, drow are evil, but they're not known for cursing things. And it's not uncommon for, all of y'all every season to take things made by evil people and use them for good. So it's not going to like turn you into a shark like that potion. Does it, uh, does it, does it feel like it's made out of spider webs at all? The kiteness material that looks like it latches on the paldrons does like almost have an angular spider web kind of look to it,

but not in a way that makes you think that there's like a web spell attached to it. Okay. It's not like a spider web. man cloak. Is there a Spider-Man, like, costume where he had a cape? There must be, right? I mean, I'm sure there was, like, a Doctor Strange Spider-Man or something. Yeah, there's different versions, I'm sure.

Anywho, the other one is Electric Blue, and it is studded with sewn-in crystals. Oh. You may also roll an insight check DC-20 to try and figure out some basics about it on that level. without casting, identify, or attuning to it, you don't know, but I'm a big fan of letting people blindly attune to something and telling them what it is. Yeah, because it usually means that they're cursed forever, but not really. I think you're on our side. Aren't we a team? Your team with me, says your little elephant teen friend, but, yeah, your dungeon.

semester just sort of looks at you in the eye quietly for a while and you get really uncomfortable. Son of a bitch. Let's roll that Insight 20 check. If you want to see what the other cloak might get some clues. All right. Shalabby, 24. I was ready to use it, though.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, Jesus. Well, yeah, with a 24, it is also magic. And you know what? Since you are a magic user, I'll give you a little bit of, of a clue. It looks pretty powerful. It looks like it has multiple spells attached to it.

Like one of those pens. It's blue and red and black and green. And each one's a different scent. Yeah. Yeah. Have you tried scratching the gems on it? See if they smell like pizza? Whoa. So, okay, you recognize the crystals as a very powerful thing.

powerful thing. They look like they are shards of mytholar. These are an ancient magic source used by the Netherese people. The who? The netheries were also known as Ness. There's Brian's butt, everybody. Take a good look. Brown's asshole. There it is. Who called the plumber? There's an empire of magic, yeah. And so we're all familiar, right? at that. So we all recognize and go, aha, Mitherees. Just forget, like, that's our familiarity. It's not something, I mean, not that it's not special. Yeah, well, yeah. I think, I think everyone would know Netherese because there was this, like, Nether Empire that fell thousands of years ago. But Mithilar is a specific crystal thing that I think

only a magic user might notice off the top. If you use magic, though, so you might, you you could, you know, hear it and recognize it. So if nothing else, we would all, like, sort of point blank, be like, ooh, some kind of magical cloak. La la. That one looks a little fancier. Yes, it looks like as far as magic goes, what it can do, a little fancier than the dry cloak. Okay.

And you said, it's a blue short sword? Long sword. No, it's tis a second cape, my friend. There is all. Oh, there are two capes. and there is one short sword. Look, I'm really drunk. All right.

Would you like to go over the short sword and the, what's the other thing, the wand? Yeah. Okay. We can get some more insight checks from everybody. All right. In fact. I'm putting everything in my notes. You want to start with the sword or the wand, y'all?

Thing. All right, let's see. I'll do, uh... Do that wand, Shalab? It's probably going to be your wand. Here we go. It's probably going to like stick to your nose and become like... That's 25.

Jesus. Wow. All right. There's one of our Patreon supporters, Brian's paper bag. Sorry. I was just moving it, actually. It wasn't getting anything out of it. I was getting it off my desk.

It was a nice guest appearance. I'm entertained that it's made it to our supporters' usernames. The, uh, So the wand is really creepy I think I mentioned that last time It almost looks like a spine You Think that it could double as a mace

It looks like it is probably cursed Like no question The skull at the end of it is a pretty big hint But you know Like the whole using it as a mace thing Is a little disturbing You were kind of hoping it would be too fragile And just a wand

But it is big and it looks like it is magically reinforced in such a way that you could club somebody with the skull at the end of this spine. Does it match my helmet really well? Honestly, it does. If you can roll an Arcana check DC22, I will tell you exactly what it is. It is a rather nefarious wand. Can I give you Bartic inspiration for this, Ken? All right, take it.

As the three amigos would say, it is an infamous wand. Is it Orcus? Is it Orcus? Oh. What would it be doing? Yeah. Well, that's 16. With Bartig Inspiration?

Yeah. Shit. And fourths, I rolled a one on my bonus. Can I roll an insight on it? Did you not roll an insight? I wanted everyone to be able to do. Oh, I did not. Go for it.

I was just looking for an Insight 20 to, like, learn what you already did. If you roll, you're not a man. I'm a magic user, so it's tough, but you're smart. If you roll an Insight 22, I will tell you exactly. How dare you? I got a 13. Does that count? Ooh.

Yet. Does that mean not yet? I should keep rolling. I got a one plus a six. One plus a six. You got a rushing no, but it is a seven. You got a no from the Russian judges. They're horrible at D&D.

In Russia, yes means no. and no me. I still have the Ben Stoer thing. Oh. I'm so cold and lonely. All right, well, moving on. There is a short sort if you would like to try to pick that apart. But yes, Chris is giving me a gesture.

I'm wondering to the group, I think Twouldn't be like, seeing as we don't exactly know what this is, other than it is 100% cursed. Perhaps we just leave this here. Perhaps we just leave the curse there. Unless I'm looking around at our, but our shady friends, like, can, does this have a financial value? I would say that anyone who rolled an insight check of 15 or higher can tell

this is probably the most valuable of the things that you just found. All right. Let's just not use it. Let's keep it inside its box. All right. Short sorted up. All right. Insight check, please.

You can beat a 20. I'll give you a strong sense. what it is. Sam, I'll give you Bartic inspiration. Okay. I don't think that's going to help because I got a 14-15. Yeah. I should disuse my passing.

I got a 19. Nice. Is 19 good? I got a 22. Yay. Oh, I missed it. I'm sorry. All right. So, sorry, I missed it.

Insight. Oh, yeah. Cool. What the fuck is with my insight rolls? Fuck. Broken. You're all high, Spacoli. You're high.

Shit. Uh, seven. Let's get Guy Gex on the phone and talk about your dice. Oh, let me make some... Let's figure it out. He's screwed something up. We got to hold him accountable. Chris, this looks like a short sword with some sort of magic.

imbued in it that would cause additional damage. It doesn't look like a classic spell sword, kind of sword that might like let you do a distance spell or give you some sort of boost to regular magic use. It looks like something that would be for a melee person. And that pretty much anybody who can use a short sword would be able to harness it. You would have to have at least a proficiency in short swords to attune to it, but it does seem reasonably powerful. Cool. My most recent sword exploded and briefly blinded

me. Is anyone else possibly in need of a magical short sword? I've already got that blood blade. Nice. So, Tully, you've got the Adamantine javelin, right? Yeah, that thing's pretty strong. Is this stronger than that? I kind of doubt it. Yeah.

No, Adamantine javelin's about as beastly as it gets, I think. Okay. I'll stick with that. Ken, do you, are you, you're more of a sorcerer? Can you even use a short sword? If you guys are, if you guys are okay with it, I'll hang on to the short sword and then attune with it, I guess, the next time we,

short rest or whatever. Do it. All right. That sounds like a yes to me, Chris. Okay. Adding for the time being, mystery sword. Yeah, and I would say

of the four items, this is the one where you could just sort of equip it and use it as a short sword if you really wanted to. But the attunement will make it a different thing in your inventory. Copy that. Nothing else really does that.

Weapons do. Cool. All right. So that's everything from this zone, right? As far as you can tell, you really did, though, pick this room clean. There is another door heading to a hallway to the south. But other than that, you've kind of touched, prodded, or gripped everything, including invisible things in this room. So then door-wise, there's the one to the south. And do we, I mean, this seems to, really have been the treasure. From here, it seems to be more about survival and murder, right?

We know there is another room to the south of us, but can we tell what that room is, Dan? This thing down here? I think if you combine the fact that you've done a reasonable amount of exploring and you have this

map case that gives you a strong insight, there's probably something valuable in there. However, you note the map does not make it seem like there's an obvious door to that room. Yeah. Maybe we can search for secret stuff that potentially would get us into that room

from this room as opposed to the hallway. Yeah. Like, I guess I'm already kind of standing towards the southwest corner. Can I start searching around there for a potential way to, I don't know, secret door or something? Yeah, totally. I did realize I left out the golden goggles.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Golden goggles. You guys would just sort of... You know wine. You guys would just sort of lay this out and stare at it. Is, do we think that maybe there's a... Can I go out into the hallway?

Is there anything in the hallway that looks... Are these doors open yet or no? No. Should can I can I like quietly try to open these doors and see if there's a some sort of switch or or device kind of thing in the hallway? Were we in this in the room with the the glowing X in it yet? Um, I'm kind of feel like I'm juggling a couple things that are once right now. Were you guys doing anything with the goggles or are you focusing?

I rolled it inside and it was bad. Okay. Did anyone beat a 20, I guess, is the thing? No. So maybe everyone noticed no one was piping up for a 20, and that totally would, of course, justify moving on. I got A20. Nice. 10 plus 10.

These goggles seem otherworldly and of a make you do not recognize, which surprises you. You stop and think this doesn't really look nomish, doesn't look dwarven or alvin. Doesn't look like a typical thing humans would wear. It's almost as if it's built for a face too wide. White face. Alec Baldwin?

Bill Maher. Those solid, solid bits. If I look through them without putting them on, can I see anything through them that might give a hint? how far away would you hold them from your face sort of like binoculars I knew somebody put ink on so I don't want to come away with the raccoon eyes

classic and just sort of like point them at a light source like if anybody has a torch or a glowing something going on in here yeah bring up a light thing I can certainly like throw a fire bolt or something if that helps.

I think I can use press digitation or Ooh, poor effect. Yeah. Wait a minute, not that one. Okay. Yeah, I'll take a... Yeah, I'll take a... Dometurgy.

Hmm. Never mind. None of those things do shit. But I'll light a torch. How about that? Okay, you light a torch, and Blaine, you hold it He's like a foot from your face? Yeah.

Just kind of better or worse, better or worse? Like I'm at Lunds Crafters in exchange for this announcement. Does this movie in 3D? No, but your face is. Can you do a strength check? Strength check. Mm-hmm. I got an 18.

Nice. On a 14 strength. You managed to hold the goggles away from your face as two small toothy maws start snapping at your eye sockets. Oh. Dodge that bullet. Looking for an 18 on that roll. Yeah, I got one. That was good.

So is that a mimic? Or those cursed? I see rows of eyes on it that might make anyone who's seen. a mimic before go, oh, right. This is some sort of pocket mimic. Okay. I'm going to hold them by the strap over that torch.

Oh, gosh. Okay. That's a fun idea. Will you do a dexterity saving throw? Dexterity saving throw. That's a 17.

Okay. I got, yeah, plus four on dexterity, so. Yeah, you manage to, like, whip your hand around. You're having a hard time. It's trying to bite your wrist off. Okay. I mean, this is good. Put it back.

You lightly toast it in the six seconds that this is going on. Okay. I'm going to flip my hand really fast, like when a cat steps in water, and they flip their flip their flip really fast. Are you going to keep holding on to the goggles? No, I'm going to let go. Okay. It slaps.

against a wall and it starts scurrying towards everybody. I'm gonna shoot it. For real? Yeah, with a god. You're 45. Yeah. Suddenly, Alec Baldwin is back. All right, so if you would like to roll to attack, go for it.

I'm gonna fire bolt it first. Sure. That's a spell attack, I believe. That's a 12-7. 19. That's a hit. your damage. 2D10. It's a nine.

All right. There's a scre. It starts skittering in like a circle. You've heard it pretty bad, but you see like, yeah, it's still got its little

pseudopod, putty-like legs on the rims of the goggles carrying it back and forth. And it is still trying to shoot it towards you guys. Yeah, go for it. This is like that movie

the thing that I was. 18 to hit. That's a hit. 13 points How would you like to see it die Chris? I wanted to just immediately turn into a all black note detail

version of it and then it all turns into ashes and goes close The last thing that goes, of course, are its eyes, which it uses to stare directly at you and then, yes,

it is a pile of ash. It's a mercy kill. God. These are terrible treasures. Okay, let's do some people want to go in the hallway and search out there for a secret thing? Yeah, Blaine, let's get back to your door project. So what did you want to do with the door stitch to this house? Well, I want to see if I can open it quietly, but I did have a question.

Did we go in the room to the lower, I guess to the southeast there that has that glowing X in the middle? No, you guys have I'll actually draw This might be helpful for you guys Because in my head this is obvious But for you guys It's important regardless A little path of how you guys

Have gone through the dungeon so far We've got those little like pink things Indicating the map Like where you know magically is a good idea to go And we've got the green indicating Where the mucus started flooding in We'll do a nice bright blue That's short of

Sort of shows your ass. Would a quarter shorter. So that was like where you went. You took a break in that room. And then you went. Do you do, do, do to do. That way.

Yeah, avoiding the mucus. Yeah. So you haven't been in that room. I guess a good way of noting this for our listeners is there is a hallway and a doorway you have not explored that is connected to this room to the south, which we kind of have been mentioning. And if you were to take that hallway,

there would be a room on the right and a room on the left. It's reversed, of course, from the direction you're coming because it's a southbound or down direction. But if you were just looking at the map, the one on the right has a sort of flaming X on it and a doorway, it looks like. And the one on the left looks like some sort of storage room. you do notice it looks like some chests of the treasure variety might be in there,

but there's no doorway whatsoever. And I was sort of telling Chris about that one a moment ago. Okay. I was wondering if, like, maybe that room has, there's a teleportation into that room from the, from the X or something. Yeah, Chris was kind of hinting about, like, maybe there's a way in there in this room, and I think that is the sort of thing he might have been hinting at. Okay.

One of you guys mentioned it. So, yeah, so maybe the room with the fire X, is more interesting at this point than the storage room because maybe like what you're saying. All right. Shall we to the hallway then? Is everyone down with that? Yeah. It's kind of our only option in terms of moving forward.

Because going backward would be a slime river, right? Yeah. Or the other way. I mean, there is a hallway, but that seems to kind of go nowhere. All right. Blaine, tell me how you want to do this. I think I'd like to do this as Sylvester Stallone. No, it's the worst.

That's more of a frank. You're owner Fred Travelina. Fred Travelina, Mr. Fred Trevalina. I'm a Travelina man made a lot of stuff. All of them sucked. Man, back in college, I was very briefly on an improv team. with Jason Sudakis, and it was like back when like everyone at Improvillimbic was trying to get on SNL, I tried so hard to do impressions. I spent so much time trying to get good in impressions. You know, Patton and Sarah Silverman and I did a Greg Proop's game show versus and it was a three, it was alternative comics versus comedy legends. So it was me, Patton and Sarah versus Kipadada,

Shelly Berman and Fred Travelina. Wow. Holy shit. Something else. Was it fun stories at Crafty? It was very interesting. I think Fred was the most serious of all of them. We fucked with Kip because he was old.

And Shelley Berman was awesome. Anyway. How were you going to still on this? I'm going to sell my dog, then write the script, then put the dog back. Cool. Yeah, if you can make opening this door about arm wrestling, that would be cool. What would you? I'm going over to the top here. I'm going to, I'm going to search for, I'm going to do a search of the door first.

Make sure there's no goggles with eyes or goggles with mouth. Great. Let's get an investigation check. And if you haven't seen it, watch over the top, folks. That's at 18? You do kind of. I'll do a guidance too. Sure.

19. You do get close, almost run your hand over it. You sort of hold a hand. You feel like there's some sort of trap there. You have a hard time telling what exactly without touching the door. Huh. I'm going to step back and use a mage hand to just try to open it or push it or twist another. Okay.

You take a step back and cast a mage hand and piss the second your mage hand touches. hand touches the iron ring on the door, it evaporates. Oh, must be the hands of man. I'll give you a bardic inspiration to really help out if who like you or Spacoli, whoever wants to try and disarm this door. I'll give you a bardic inspiration so you can add a D8 tier role. How about that? Disarm the door. Yeah, can I, can I poke at it with a sword?

Sure. This blood blade. You take the blood blade and kind of give it a... Nothing really happens. Nothing happens. No. And what kind of a latch or a knob or... An iron ring.

So it's like a lot of the doors in this particular dungeon. It is made of old... semi-rotting wood that is thick and has an iron plate with an iron ring on it. Some of them have had keyholes. This one does not have a keyhole. Do we feel as though there's magic involved with this

particular door? You would get a sense from the way the mage hand piffed, but it didn't react to a completely inorganic, mundane object that this is some sort of magic.

I'll cast the spell magic. Ooh. All right. What level, boss? Three. You cast a spell magic. All right.

Does the quality of the door change? I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It does not. Can you do a role? I'm trying to look up what the role is when it is a level higher. There's like a DC, I think. Yeah, it's like, I know how to, I think, calculate the DC

but I'm trying to figure what I should ask Ken to do. I'm going to go jump in a lake. It's the DC equals 10 plus the spells level. Got it. But what is he, what bonus would he be adding? There's got to be a little. The answer.

The answer. Spell casting ability. Yeah. Roll an ability check using your spell casting ability. So whatever your spell casting modifier is, add it to the roll. Let me see. I think I've done dispel magic wrong many times.

Okay. So apologies to the boss. But thank you. Sorry, just roll a 20 and add. Yeah. Great. That's 24. This time it definitely evaporates.

And you all sort of hear a little vacuum-sucking sound as it gets pulled into the ether. I'm going to run the door, but the spell. I'm going to hide under the bed when I hear the vacuum. I meant like the magic is like being, you know, like out of the door. I don't know that, Dan. I'm under the bed. Those of you who looked at me funny, that is what I was trying to say. Spacoli and Siam, now that the magic's gone, can you guys tell as professional thieves,

is the door itself trapped as well? Or can we go in? Is it locked? I would say, yeah. You, Blaine, you would feel comfortable, like getting closer to the door now that you know it's not going to piff you and make you evaporate. You're a little closer. Don't be shy. So what I?

I'm going to try a mage hand again just in case, a mage paw. Okay. This time the mage hand does not get damaged in any way. You grab the ring, you pull, but it is stuck. And you lean in, and it's not too hard to notice, but there is a little iron bar inside the door frame, like kind of a classic door lock that is keeping the door shut. However, there's no keyhole.

Katie was here. Huh. Looks like a standard lock with no keyhole. That does mean it still might be trapped, but the Maychan doesn't activate it when it rattles the door. But there's a bar on the inside. Like a normal doorlock kind of little iron bar, yeah. Well, we can figure out a way to get one of us inside.

I think it's usually made of brass nowadays, but we're going to say it's iron because that sounds more fantasy. Can I try to do a lock picking thing? on it somehow. Yeah, totally. You do think you would be able to at least get your lock picking tools into the door framing kind of fiddle with it. You're not sure what will happen, but you can absolutely do a dex.

What is it? Why am I not pulling it? It's the most obvious. Slight of hand check. Thank you, Dan. Okay, I got a plus four. 12. It's a 16.

It does go click and you see the iron bar retract. Oh, okay. And then we push it up and get killed. Oh, no. I will allow your mage hand to automatically storytelling-wise automatically pull on that handle and you all see the door creak open. There are some torches on the wall of this hallway heading south.

As was noted on the map, you do see a doorway on the east side and no doorway on the west side. The hallway hooks around to the east pretty far down. It's a long stretch with some stairs. You can't see the end of the hallway. You just sort of see a little stairs. farewell going down with a glow of torches at the bottom of the stairs. All right.

Get to that magic room. Let's proceed, yeah. So, yeah, you guys head down. Which would you consider the magic room, the doorless room or the one with the flaming cross on it? I think the flaming cross gives off a magic vibe. Cool. All right.

So you give it a knock? Let's check out. Let's check out that door. Yeah. How do you handle the door? I shouldn't say you give it a knock. That's rude of me after all the traps. Maychand, I'm sure.

Yeah. This one looks a lot like the last door. When your Mayehan grips it, you find it is neither magically trapped nor physically locked, and the door creaks open. Oh, shit, bro. Spicoli, get ready. As the king of thieves for the spoils that wait inside. Should I try to open it? Or is it completely?

It's open a crack. Okay. It's open a crack, yeah. There's a flaming cross in there, so we're, we're X, I should say. Yeah, no problem. It'll be good. It's a good room. Should I try to open it the rest of the way using slide-of-hand or stealth or?

That's not a bad idea. Yeah, yeah. Be sneaky about it. Thief King. All right, Thief King. Let's sneak in there. And that's a stealth check? Yeah.

So you very quietly glide your way in. On your helies. Do a perception check for me, Brian. I like to imagine Spicoli has a sleeveless t-shirt also. 21. This room has pillars in four places. Oh, let's get some sleep. all of them

I'm going to fight them pillars all of them have what almost looks like a water spigot except there is a very magic looking flame emanating from the end of the spigot the spigot is not pointed down

but outwards towards the center of the room where there is a very wicked evil looking candelabra in the shape of an ex with bright flames coming off of each of the eight little candle holder areas. You don't see any wax, just these flames,

these small fireballs roaring on the candelabra. And Brian, you see in one of the corners milling around a robed figure with its back to you. Charo. It's in the dark. With a perception check that high, you can't tell

The robes have a, the robes have like a dark reddish or brownish color. It's hard to tell in the pitch black. Do you think it's going to be humanoid or do you think it's going to be like some kind of creature that's been in here? Well, and the other thing I was going to say is it seems like it's unlocked a weird room. It seems like it has a hood. It's about humanoid height, but you don't get enough of a sense of its body's silhouette to say for sure. Is it Skeletor? How big is the rest of the room?

room? I'm going to use the ruler tool to tell you exactly. It is about 45 by 45 feet. And it's pretty poorly lit, right? Is there any way we could, uh? Yes. And you have dark vision. I mean, that's why you can see the color of his robe, but he's in shadow.

Uh, are these guys following me into the room or no? That's a great question. They decide. I think we're waiting to see what happens because like you just stepped in. Okay, I'll step out and tell them that there's at least one person in there and the dudes in a hood. Roll another stealth check to get out without drawing attention to yourself. I'm moving all your tokens towards the door. Wasn't there something mind fliery?

No problem. I rolled a nine, but my plus 12 got me through. Jeez. Incredible. You don't think the robed figure notices you as you exit. and quietly push shut the door. However, you are with your passive insights, Pekoli, like we might want to whisper right now.

Yeah, I would. Okay. Well, Joffrey excels it and being sneaky. He loves those moments. So, yeah, totally in character. Guys, there's one hooded creature in there about my... I could take him. But I thought you guys might...

want to come in with me and maybe light up the room. Yeah, do you want to take him first and then we'll all follow you in? I don't mind creeping up behind him and... Yeah, assassinate him. Doing some, what was the, Metal Gear Solid Snake? A small cardboard box. I hated that game until I loved that game. until I loved that game.

Like at first I was like, fuck this, fuck this, fuck. Oh, shit. Which one have you played? Do you remember? I played a couple because I, it was one of the early ones. Because Kojima got more and more like insane

as he made those games. It just started to get really high concept. And of course, he ended up at Death Stranding. Yeah. Have you played Death Stranding? No, I never played it. Do you know what I'm talking about, though?

Have you seen pictures? of what that game is. Yeah. No, is that the game that, um, uh,

the kid from walking dead's in. Yeah. Yeah. Norman readers. Right. Okay. And it's deliver packages. It's a walking game.

It's a walking game, but you are walking around with a sort of immortal undead baby in a see-through pouch on your chest. Oh, crazy. And you're like the postman. You're just delivering shit in a pop. You're like the post-apocalyptic postman.

You can be murdered by shadows. It was just called the postman. Also. So, yeah, but you know what? This one's creepier. I think I will at least give, I like the game, but I have not gotten far in it because it is sort of difficult to keep delivering packages with so little reward. Right.

Try working for UPS. Oh, don't worry. What's funny about UPS is they were all replaced by Amazon, and then all of Amazon was replaced by Robits. Yes. Yes. I mean, I don't mind taking the guy. I just thought maybe we want to light up the room first.

But it's just to do it. No, no, no. I meant in light and just like to. Oh, find out what he's. Yeah, throw a torch in there that we tell a few jokes. Turn the lights on. Okay. I mean, he'll definitely notice.

I mean, he is working in. shadow on purpose, you think. Working in. So if you were to light the room up like that, he would have reacted. Right. Yeah, we can light him up with a bunch of firebolts, for example. What if he's a nice friend?

Well, we could just go in and say hello to him. That is something that we don't normally do as a team. We know that we also know that this is like the layer of the thief lich.

right? Yeah, it seems like he's probably going to be a monster or something. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, let me put it this way. So far all the treasure has tried to kill us. So probably the creepy hooded figure is also going to do the same thing. All right, well, I mean, we're going to wind up doing this in the next episode. Dan, do you think it's going to try to kill us?

Let's get him. No. I've never for the record I've never ever made an nPC that wanted to kill you guys was always your fault let's just follow me in and and let's play it by here but uh we'll just stealth back through all right all of you are going to self-check this time oh I don't know yeah that's true shit well think about how you want to attack it you can throw the javelin so that's a ranged attack so you could be kind of, I don't know, I don't know, the ranges on that. You know what I mean?

Like we could do a volley from the door. Yeah. You know what I mean? I don't mind being the tip of the spear either. I don't mind going to be in the first back through the door. Dan, can you on the map show us where hooded friend might be? Yeah. I'm seeing if I have.

Even if it's just like a dot. You don't necessarily have to give a token. Yeah, yeah. I will draw a little token. He was like behind that pillar, the little blue circle, the sloppy blue circle. Okay. So we'd probably a pretty good line of sight from the doorway if we can arrange ourselves. Do you want to do that?

Probably wrap this up there so we can get another one in. Uh-huh. I was just waiting to see if a decision happened. But we can go ahead and explore this next time on nerding pokes. Cool. And I'm going to drop a little silhouette token. it now so you can actually feel like this. See, I'm not here to do a recap, right?

I do not believe he is. Anything you want to plug, Dan? Sure. I will be announcing my new D&D project soon. We have recorded and made promo stuff. I'm just sort of waiting for a couple of things to line up. But check out my Instagram. I'll post about it soon.

Also, like, I have for a long time had a Discord. It's now in my link tree on Instagram. So if you ever want like automatic updates about Twitch or just what's going on really fast in my life, that Discord has a lot of info. And as I've been posting that link on my Twitch, more people have been there. So there are people there who will look at your memes and pet photos. That's it.

Cool. I've got, I just had to move the ComedyCon Cruise or Comic Con Cruise. I'm no longer doing that because of my schedule with Stewart fails to save the universe. Oh, I'm sorry. There will be some con appearances for Stewart coming up. So I'll announce those here.

And I've got my gigs that I had to cancel last year that are coming back. So I've got Batavia coming up in February. And then I'm in, oh, God. I'm in Wisconsin. I got a couple other things coming up. So check it out. Brimstein.com and then go to a comic book store and ask for Grommets or Rifters. I saw it up at Skylight yesterday.

Nice. Oh, hey, I'm going to be at the Throckmorton and Mill Valley on the third. Great club. Yeah, that's going to be a lot of fun. And we're doing Lucha Vovum at the Fox Theater in Pomona on Valentine. day. So come on out and hang out with the intel's in Pomona. What?

Yeah, everybody can't get a date on February 14th. Oh. It's going to be a lot of life. Yeah, you have, when I got to co-host a couple of times, it was a delight. Very nice people show up for the Mexican wrestling and burlesque. Always fine. I actually married a couple people at one of the

half times. What? Are you seriously an efficient, like registered and everything? Yes, I've married to me. people. Oh, I didn't know that. Like my wife. I'm sorry, Borat voice. My wife. Thanks, everybody. Oh, Blaine,

what's happening next week? We attribute the success. Save mankind for joining us on this episode. You got walls and a roof. Well, Oh, uh, on the next nerd poker, the line at Michaels is so long.

Uh, the nerd poker gang wonders if maybe they should have just bought these plastic ferns and temperate paint online. Can Sam accidentally order a bunch of tempora shrimp instead? All this, and Brian sits on Michael's balls wrong. I got it all new to Herd 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 1069, Encino, California, 9141. Thanks for listening.