Tales from the Stinky Dragon - [Tavern Tales] Mealwalkers and the Crystal Shards - Ep 00 - Shuffle Off this Portal Coil

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

Snag a barstool and listen to this Tavern Tale told by Micah Risinger and played by Barb, Ben, Blaine, and Chris. The party creates characters and learns to play the old-school TTRPG "Knave," whilst roleplaying and worldbuilding the backstory of this original adventure: Mealwalkers and the Crystal Shards! But this is merely the raucous prelude to Episodes 1 and 2, so listen to the rest of the adventure at StinkyDragonPod.com! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Get no frills delivered. Shop the same in-store prices online and enjoy unlimited delivery with PC Express Pass. Get your first year for $2.50 a month. Learn more at pceexpress.ca. Do you remember that feeling of your first critical hit or are you one of those people who are getting ready to start that journey? Well, I have a show for you. It's called Girls Who Don't D&D because none of this all-female team of players has ever joined a D&D game before or any other role-playing game. They go from learning which dice is what to challenging the gods themselves.

They're surrounded by a beautiful chaotic environment has been described as a cross between Terry Pratchett's Discworld and Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and to World You Can Be Part of Two. That's because their listeners perform pre-recorded sections that fit into each show. Those parts and the rest of the show sound amazing with carefully added music and effects

that bring a touch of the cinematic to your experience. It's kind of cool how they're complete amateurs when they started and they really progress. I think you can probably, you know, we can relate to that with Tales on a Stinky Dragon starting off kind of as newbies and then really learning the game as we go, I think that's a great way to approach it. And you can join this group of unassuming Australians, otherwise known as the girls who don't D&D on any device that lets you stream podcast, but I'm warning you, this one's

addictive, heartwarming, heartbreaking, and very, very funny. Felicitations, my foul-smelling friends, and welcome to Tavern Tales. This is when we snag a few barstools in the Stinky Dragon Tavern and share a shorter, smellier story by a role-playing and rolling dice with friends. I'm your dungeon master, Micah Rysinger, and today we're going to be playing through an adventure I've written and we'll be using an old school style RPG called Knave. But before we get too far into the tail, I'm going to hit our four players with an arrow. I wasn't prepared for an arrow. I'm always prepared for an arrow. For this episode. I whip up my shield and I catch it.

Nice. Very, very good. you gain two cool points. Anyway, episode zero. This question is, in your opinion, you, the player, what quality should every adventurer have? Oh, do we need to roll for this? Introduce yourselves. Do you need to roll for this?

Oh, we could roll. I got a 20. I'm not kidding. Come on, Barbara. A chap, jepa, chappo. Ten. I also got a 10. I got a eight.

Man. Second roll of 17. My second role is a one. All right, so I got Barb, Chris, Ben, Blaine. Yes. Go for it, Barb. So the one quality every adventurer should have. Yeah.

Ingenuity. Ooh. Why? Because it's good to be ingenuity. It's good to be ingenuous. Ingenuity. I think just trying to figure. out solutions to problems in a creative way and maybe in a way that things outside the box

is, I think, very helpful, especially when, you know, the typical solutions might not be very obvious. And I think also it makes it a little bit more fun as well. Indeed. You know what? Take two more cool points. Wow, four cool points. Guys, Barbara's beating us. Real quick, what is your name that you just spoke? Oh, me? Yeah, you. I know. I was like, I forgot to introduce myself. Hello, everyone. I'm Barbara Dunkelman playing TBD. Cool. All right. Next, we got Chris. Hi.

Hi, I'm Chris DeMaris with zero cool points. I was just going to say. And also playing, I think also playing TBD. So me and Barbara might need to rework my character. And a quality that every other. adventure should have is the ability to go long periods of time without

going to the bathroom, eating, or sleeping. Oh, we never covered that in Stinky Dragon. Because I can, we played a lot of D&D and games and very few times we stop down. Well, in the adventure in real life we do it all the time, we're like

body breaks. Old, old nursing home patients who go to the bathroom all time. But in a game we very rarely stop to go take body breaks. It's true. Just write down ignore bodily needs. An adventure needs a catheter. A. Or

a bedpan. Cool. Thanks, Chris. On to Bann. Hello, everybody. My name is Ben Ernst. I am often one of the dungeon masters behind the dungeon master. Who? Who? Who? Who? He decides to sit in recordings and make little fun jokes to try to get Gus to laugh. But this week, this episode,

I'm going to be playing an adventure named TBD, version And really quickly, let me just get this out of the way. Oh my God, I can't believe Micah shot me with an arrow. You guys do this every other week? You get used to it. I was like, where's Ben going? Just rolled away.

Okay, sorry. I'm back. Yeah, a quality that every adventurer needs, I feel like, is the ability to improvise. Look, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. And I feel like if you're an adventure, you got to be ready for a monster. a goblin to jump out of nowhere and punching the face. It happens so often you see it. Plus, improvisation is funny.

So, you need that on a little adventure. The win-win. So true, bestie. Exactly. Even saying the word improvisation is fun. Improvisation. Cool, thanks, man. A little bit of improvisation and ingenuee.

Yes, exactly. And ignoring bodily needs. Blaine. Hello, I'm Blaine Gibson. I play characters on the show. and today I'll be playing TBA to be announced. Oh, wow. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

And I think that every adventurer needs a spine. Not like the skeletal spine, but like strength and character. Gusto. Yeah, like clarity of vision, what they need to do and some, some oomph behind it to get it done, you know? Mm. Yeah. I wonder if anybody's ever called him gustovo. He does have a lot of gusto.

Stovo, Gustago. But he's not here. I'm going to start calling him Gusto Cerola and see if he notices. Cool. Well, thank you all for taking those arrows with, you know, gumption and gusto. Without going to the bathroom. Yeah, exactly. All those things.

Very ingenuous, very improvisational. And sitting up straight with our spines. Speak for yourself. A lot happened when I got hit by that arrow, okay? Yeah, I might have wet myself a little bit, but I can handle that after the recording. Well, we'll divvy at the cool points later. All right. Let's move on to, we're going to make some characters today in this game called nave.

So everybody's got character sheets in front of them. If you want to follow along, you need to have a book, audience members. So if you want to go buy a nave book, you can do that. There might be like a quick start sheet out there. I'm not sure. But you can find character sheets for free online. So first things first on your character sheet, we're going to start with. ability scores similar to d and d there's uh six ability scores just like dndd strength

x con intelligence wisdom and charisma they're divvied out a little bit differently with like what they're meant to do in the game not too differently but the first thing is we're going to record those scores so um you're going to take all the scores are just modifiers there's no like a score and then a modifier based on that score so it's just modifiers so you're going to add three points to any of one like any of those six scores. So you can roll dice. They say you can roll dice, like throw a roll 3D6s and then depending on what the D6 is, that's the ability that you're adding your 1.2. Okay. So for instance, they give an example, like 3-5-5 is what they rolled. It means that con will get one. Whiz will get one and all the other scores have zero. Oh, sorry, Wiz has two and all the other scores

have zero. Interesting. I'm going to get a pencil because I just realized that I'm probably going to be marking things out and remarking things in. Yes. I don't recommend that. Question. Question about that. So you said choose three. So like let's say I want to give strength, dexterity, and constitution those scores. So I roll 3D6s, let's say I get a 3, 5, and 5. I give a 3, 5, and 5 to

whatever those three I want. No, no, no. Those are just, the dice are just to determine which score you're going to add 1.2. So you have three points total that you're going to divvy out. Oh. Oh. It's like assigning a dice dice number to one of those scores. And everything else is zero. One of those abilities. Okay.

So it's just one, one, one, one on three scores, and then zero zero on the other three. Okay. Okay, Blaine reporting back in. I got Constitution, intelligence, and wisdom. So you're saying we roll to see where we put them? You can, or you can just choose. I like, you know, Micah, full disclosure, I'm going to do everything by chance. We're going to see what happens.

We're going to see where the dice take me. I personally enjoy that. Some people don't. Some people like to strategize and, like, kind of work out and make it make sense. I love the randomness of making a character sometimes. Is everybody got scores? Yeah. I got a six, a three, and a four.

So I put a one in charisma, constitution, and intelligence. I hate, Ben, I got the exact same three as you did. Yeah, TBD one and two. No one of you guys are the same name. TBD, TVD, TBD twins. I got a three, a one, and a one. So that would be strength and then two strengths and one constitution. Yeah.

Yeah. Uh-oh. Chris is playing an idiot. Uh-oh. All right. Next thing is careers. So you can roll a D-100 twice or pick two careers from the list that I've given you all, which is just in the book.

There's a list of 100 careers. Each of those careers are very like all over the place of kind of medieval times. And they each come with, I think, all of them, three or four items in their listing. You can add those items to your inventory. Okay. You guys all roll in for this? Yeah, I'm going to roll. I was hoping to have, I don't know how to do a D100.

All right. With the physical. I did, you could roll two tens. I'm a pit fighter. You take the one that's with the double dice and the one with the single dice. Uh-huh. Both look like D-100s. Okay.

Yeah. One looks like a D-100, like has 60, 50, 40 on it. And then the other one has just zero, one, two, three, four. You roll both of those and you add the tens is the tens and the one is the one. So like, I'm learning so much today. All right. So, Chris, you're a pit fighter. I am a, I have to look what that says.

Got mine. I am a cut purse. Oh. Do you roll it twice? A cut. Wait, oh, what do we do the second roll for? You're adding two careers together. Two careers.

Oh, we get two careers. Chris, much like today's economy, you need two jobs to get by. Yeah. So true. Your side gig. Fitfighter slash Uber driver. I am a often-known career watchman and Hermit. Oh.

That's nice. I just imagine I live at the top of like a lighthouse on the coast, watching ships come in, telling people to leave me alone. Well, let me give you this one. I am a hunter-sculptor. Nice. Whoa. Is that like a taxidermist?

I was going to say, yeah. That could be, that could be. I'm a cut purse and investigator. Oh, that's actually kind of cool. I'm a pit fighter baker. A fighter baker? A fighter baker? Okay, wait, hold on.

Oh, my dear, confi shoes. Please come in. Let me make you some bread and then come down to my basement where we have people beating each other to death. Oh, my God. Awesome. So, yeah, make sure you guys, you'll write down those items in each of those careers and add them to your inventory. You have 10 slots plus your con. So if you, I think the only person that had con was Chris, maybe.

I also had con. Yeah. You also had con. Okay, you guys had con as well. I did as well. Con intelligence. Then, yeah, you can add as many additional items slots. And you put it in the items here and like the careers up here.

Yeah. Let me see my paper. I have paper too. Cool. I'm learning. Yeah. So you just write down each of the three. So it would be six total items that we have.

Exactly. Yeah. I think all of them have like three or maybe four on some of them. I can remember. So that's that. Your careers are also, like, besides common knowledge in the game, are things that you're knowledgeable about. So if there's anything that becomes relevant in the game

that you're like, they're fighting in a club or something like that or there's boats nearby, I don't know, then you can like, I'll give you that knowledge for free. Like, you don't have to roll for that. Oh, cool. Generally, there's no real knowledge checks in this game. It's like, you know it or you don't or you find out. You figure out how to find it out.

That's generally how it goes. So next thing is you are going to add more things to your inventory. So you can carry 3D6 times 10. So you roll 3D6 out a zero to it. That's how many coins you get in your inventory. You get two rations. You get a 50-foot rope. Two torches.

And is this all going in our items? Yeah. So if we have two torches, would that count as two items or like a single item slot with the two. Great question, Barbara. It is a good question. They say in the game that if it can fit in your hand, if multiple small items can fit in your hand,

then it counts as one slot. I'm going to say it counts. It needs two slots because you have to have hold a torch with like, you neither hand. You could do the juggling thing. One in one hand one in another pinky. I'm willing to be flexible if you max out on your items in this first section, but generally that's kind of how it works is if you,

And you can drop a torch. You don't have to have two torches. And then the next thing is any armor pieces or weapons. And I've given you a list of those as well, I believe. And a quiver of 20 arrows. So that's everything that you can add to your inventory. You don't have to have all those things, but those are just all free things you can add into your inventory.

Right. Under armor pieces and weapons. Okay. So our coins are in our items as well? Like up to 500? Yes. Because 500 coins takes up a slot. Yeah, I've got 130 coins.

Nice. Oh, I got one, 110. Okay, I was going to say, I don't think I'm a very good purse cutter. Okay, hold on. Barbara, I also got 110 coins. Oh, no. Are we creating this? Are we going to be twins?

What's happening here? I think we probably should, we should play twins. That would be funny. So I have a 120 gold so I can pick that, what, whatever I want with that. No, you don't, you just add that to your inventory. Everything else is free. All these items are free. Oh, my goodness.

So I get a one-headed. That's how much coin you have to like to use to spend on just in the game. I'm still trying to find the career. Yeah, it looks like shield, helmet, Gambeson. Yeah. What'd you call me? Mail shirt, breastplate, arm plate, leg plate. Those are free?

I guess they just take up one spot. Yeah. Okay. Up to your total, I would assume. Up to your total. I feel like a slots. Like, I don't know to Gamberson. I think I need at least a male shirt.

I'm going to take some mail shirt. So, like, 500 is 500 is five constitutions. Don't worry about the price. Oh, okay. That's just for if you're buying it in world. We're just talking about any stuff. You should buy a war horse. I think that would be really smart.

I think, okay, so wisdom is the range of tax is denoted by winsdom, right? So I have one point of wisdom. I think I might invest in, I'm not going to get a bow and arrow, because that sounds like somebody we know, but I think I'm going to get a sling. Okay. You can also roll for it if you want. That's fair.

because I did and I got a trident Nice Whoa I'm like what am I I'm a hunter A sculptor with a trident You're like survived Atlantis And you want to roam the dry lands now

You stab fish and you make those little Like Billy Bass wall mounts That sing to you Oh So you rolled okay now I see I finally found the equipment So you rolled the D100 for your weapon Yeah

I shall do the same And if it's if it requires Like in your mind If it requires two hands, like a Trident, you probably could do one hand, but typically if you're going to stab something, it's going to be two-handed. What's a kukri? I actually don't know. Spell it.

K-U-K-R-I. It's like a national weapon of Nepal. Oh, it's like a nice. Kind of like that thing that Chip had for a minute. It's like a curved blade. Yeah. It makes sense for a pit fighter slash baker. Yeah.

Do a chain whip. How do we determine our AC again? So armor class is however many. armor pieces you have so if you have a helm on shield you know gamison whatever it is each of those gives you an extra armor point okay so you add 11s you're starting and you add armor points to that and that becomes your AC and those are you guys doing multiple weapons only if it's one-handed you can have multiple weapons as long as you have the item slots it's up to you okay and then do the armor pieces also go on our item slot correct okay whoa whoa this guy the the like our whip and

And wine jug, those are stored treasure and items? No, those are item slots. Okay. Everything so far is item slots. I have a question for you, Michael, whenever you have a moment. Yeah, go for it. So under my list of career items, I have a lot of what I would call worthless items. Do I have to include those on my sheet or am I, I can swap those in and out?

What are you, like, what are you calling what? Useless. Well, for instance, as a, I think it was hermit, I have the ability to carry fungi with me. And while I am a fun guy, I do not want to carry fun guy. So I would like to get rid of the fun guy on my character sheet and swap it out with something way more useful. Like what? I don't know. Maybe like right now I think I'm completely naked.

I don't have any armor whatsoever. But I have full item slots. So maybe like a, you know, a breastplate or male. Mail. Yeah, you can do that. You can switch that out. All right. I think that'll complete my list of things.

But when it comes time to you need fungus and you don't have it, you don't complain to me. Oh, man. You're going to regret that. I'd be eaten crow. I'm going to remind you throughout. I'm going to put that in the game just because you said that. Screw Ben with mushrooms. So we could pick more than one weapon to have?

Yeah, as long as you have the slot. Okay, cool. Okay. I think I'm about there. I have a couple of weapons, a couple items. A couple items. I got a little bit of armor. I still have one, two, three, four, five.

five spots open, so I guess I could probably finish that up with more armor if I wanted. And you might have, to keep in mind, like, you might collect stuff on your way. So if you have open items slots, otherwise you have to drop stuff. I'm going to give myself three open item. Two open item slots. Just because, like, some of this stuff, I'm going to drop a torch, probably. I don't think I need my sculptor calipers, personally. Is a man-catcher two-handed, you think?

That's probably a two-handed weapon. Sorry, what? So if I, a man catcher, if I rolled, oh, is that like a net? It's kind of like a, it's weird looking thing. Oh, like a, like a, kind of like an, a net? Like a staff with a hoop or something like that. Yeah. But like, that's a two-handed weapon.

So if I don't, I, I could just do two one-handed weapons, right? Oh, I see it. Wow, that thing's, that thing's crazy. Yeah, it's kind of. It's like a long stick comes out like a hoop that's broken and then it has spikes on it on the inside to like put around someone's neck. Oh, it's like a dog catcher's thing. but worse. If you want to trade one out, you can and just do two one-handed.

But keep in mind that, like, it changes the damage dice, if that matters. With the, I guess, how do we know if it's two or one-handed? That's right above. Because I have a... Oh, like, if just use your imagination. If it's like a big axe or something like that, it's going to be two-handed, if it's a sword that's like a short sword, it's going to be one-handed, you know, long sword, two-hand.

Just typical, like, D&D kind of rules. Dagger. I have a chain whip and then I have a Cestis, which is like basically like, brass knuckles, like heavy-duty gloves that you can punch people with. Blaine, that's what I rolled. Cestis? Yeah, I got a Cestis and I got a spear. Yeah, I think, like, as long as you...

We're gladiators. Can use one hand with it, then I'm fine with that. You just roll the one-handed damage die. Okay, okay. And then, do you say we need to add clothes as well? You don't need to worry about clothes. You can just tell me what you're wearing. Okay.

Let's see. I think I, at this point, I've got my weapons. I've got some items. Were there any other optional items? that we could try to acquire. In the game. Or is that just like... While we play.

And then... If you want to trade out like Ben did, you can. But... Okay. And then I think other than that, it's just building up my armor then. Yeah. And I didn't realize this,

but your max item slots is your... is 10 plus your constitution. Correct. So if you have zero constitution, you have 10 slots. 10 slots or 11 if you have constitution, like one point in constitution or two points, it would be 12.

Great. I have 11 spots. So I already need to start dropping things. Yeah. But I was like, I got to 11 items and I was like, man, we have 20 slots. Like, there's so much room. And then I looked up there and I went, oh, I'm done. Yeah.

I'm going to drop a torch to drop one torch. Yeah. Do I need the 50 foot rope? Yes. My opinion, rope's always handy. I don't know. Okay. Could you also go through those things that we already have that you mentioned, the two torches, the rope, and what else?

Yes. Give me two seconds. Sorry. Wait. Character creations there Okay You can have your coins Two rations

Rope two torches Any armor pieces or weapons you want A quiver of 20 euros Definitely don't need the quiver No So what's up Chris So we get all those things But we can only hold

So I have a constitution of one So 11 items Correct Correct So you got to pick and choose What you want to have One thing we haven't done yet is hit points

you have D6 roll that that's your maximum hit points that's whoa we are squishy starting at level one

yep okay I rolled a five okay also my guy has a knife built into his thing is that that's considered a weapon right

or is that like a utility knife a utility knife rather a knife built into his like his career yeah as a cut purse oh okay

that'd be an item you can typically use it as it's meant to be used but I mean if you can use it as a weapon go for it Okay great Between Blaine's cut purse knife

And Chris's kookery We're really setting up for a whole That's not a knife This is a knife This is a knife This is a knife This episode of Tales The Stingue Dragon

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Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. All right. items store today. I got 11 items. Man, that was hard. And then I'm rolling for heath points. He said health points? So D6. D6. All right. Heat point five. All right. I can't get over how cool some of these Sestis designs look when you Google Sestis. Ben, do you have? It reminds me of Shredder. Yeah. Ben, do you have hit points yet? I do. I have a solid four. Noise. Barbara, did you also roll a four? We're both raising our hands. No, five.

I am the stronger twin The first born twin Are you doing Chris? I'm confused Yeah always I don't think my character should have a wine joke Because Chris is still an item's like

Hmm Do I need a wine jug or an hourglass? We know from previous campaigns Chris likes to hoard And if this game mechanic has like a specific specifically limits your item slots inventory. I've been feeling every five minutes we're going to have to stop and be like, all right, so Chris needs to sort through his pack and figure out what he wants to get rid of.

If this were a video game, we would just see items dropping from his character. And then being picked back up. A trail. And then being dropped again. A trail behind him. Arrows and quivers, is that, those are two separate items? Quiver of arrows is one item. Do you have a bow?

Quiver of arrows. But the bow is separate. Okay. Bo is separate. Yeah. I need a row. Do you have a bow, though, Chris? I just have a whip.

I don't need a, maybe I don't need. I have a whip. Okay. I don't think any of us have arranged weapons. I will say that, but that's what we rolled, so, you know. I guess you're throwing stuff. And I do have a lard block and a rolling pin. Oh, I'm, okay.

I'm losing one of my, I'm just going to stick with the kukri and a rolling pin as my weapon. Okay. Cool. Love it. Did you roll your hit points yet, Chris? Roll a D6. Believe in you. Four.

Not bad. All right. Chris, do you have room to put my fungi in your inventory? Can we remove something? I'll make room. Just like. A mule putting inside of him. It's weird.

The whip won't save in my inventories. Oh, you're doing it on... So are you saying the whip is saying... Written out for me. Hey! Now watch me whip. You stop it all of you. All right, so everybody's got hit points.

You got your armor class calculated. Got all your item slots. It should be like 10 to 11-ish. Got your careers marked. Last thing is if you've got all that is name. and a description of your character if you want. I've provided some random tables for names on that Notion page.

D100 stuff. Otherwise, you can come up with it on the spot here. Oh, man, this is going to be fun. Do we not even choose like a class? Careers is basically your class. Oh. It's a classless game. It's true.

Interesting. This changes everything. But you can flavor your character to be, you know, whatever. Your careers don't have to be current. That could be something you've done in the past or they could be right now or they could be like whatever you want to flavor it to.

It's a very open-ended game. I'm doing the... Mon-name. Yeah. Fox. What, sorry? Fox? Fox.

Whoa. Are you doing a surname as well? These are, these look like all... Oh, there are surnames. Never mind. It's like share, Blaine. Just the one. There's a combination.

You can do combined surname like first syllable, last syllables, sort of thing. Oh, I love that. You're the guy from... You're David DeCovine's character from X-Files. Fox Mulder

Oh God Fox Clawfell Cool Are you guys rolling personalities as well Can't if you want to Otherwise you can make it up You can be kind of

Another fun way to do it in game If you're up for this Is like just to kind of figure it out As you go And like fill in the gaps Of what your character is Or have their memories And like that kind of stuff

Barbara I am not even joking I also rolled Fox for the first first name that I rolled, so I'm going to re-roll that. What is happening? How are our dyes connected? I feel like it's fun to roll. Did someone get a, does someone have a torch? I do.

Yeah. I think I only have one. No, I got rid of both of my torches. My personality is chummy. My name is Bartholomew Dreghope. Bartholomew, huh? I'm going to go by Barth or, what's like, what's another other, like, other than Bart? I don't want to do Bart.

You could go by Mew. Fart. Thalo. Othello? No? No. Mew. My name's Mew, Dreghope.

I'm a nerd with wavy hair. My name is Dennis. Whoa. Dennis Weatherland. Cool. Incredible. I kind of love tables. Now back to Dennis Weatherland in the studio reporting on tonight's weather forecast.

It's going to rain. So, Blaine, what did you go with? I'm going to go with Mew Draghope. All right. He's a nerd. And Chris? Here he comes. All right.

So it's coming. It's coming. I love when I ask Chris questions just silence for like, you know, a good 30 seconds. I'm typing it down too if you need it. I am Odell. Odell. Odell. Odell.

And then where do you pick your last name's from? The keep scrolling. down. Oh, Adel? Odell. Yeah, Adele. I love it. That's great. How is that spelled? O-D-E-L. E-L, okay. Weatherland. It's so good.

Odel. I'm going to write this down. Now is that Dennis or Denise or Denise? Odel Long. Depends where in the country you're at. It's pronounced differently. Long under. Oh, no.

Long under? Odle Long under. O-D-Long-U-U-L-U-L-L-U-L-U-L-U-L-U-L-U-L-U-L-U-L-U-L-R. Rolling in the deep? Oh, hey, Mr. Long Under. Did you do, you did two? Oh, I might have. Part ones.

Because I was like, I don't see Under as a second part, sir. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's the character with three first names. That's okay. I'm sticking with Long Under. Long Under it is. And how do you calculate your armor? How much armor do you have, Chris?

I did four. Oh, my. Whoa. Wow. My guy's, he's a pit fighter. Yeah, long under. He's got to cover up the goods. All his armor is just on his under bits.

It's a crud piece. It's just like, coo, coo, co. Really quickly, everybody gives me, starting with Barbara, everybody give me your AC. My AC is 14. 14. 14. Mine is 13. 13. 12. 12. 15. 15.

Hit points. Start with Barbara again. Five. Okay. Four. Okay. Five. Okay. Four.

All right, cool. I was waiting for Chris to be like two. I know. Pit Fighter with no health. I know. I'll do it. I ran a version of this adventure and this game with some friends like probably months ago now. And one person rolled on their D6 of hit points a one.

I was thinking that could easily happen because it's a D6. So. Very high chance. All right. Next thing, we've got your characters. Start thinking or kind of developing as we play what they might look. like, and we can kind of go over that as we roll playing. But the big thing I want to talk about is you as a party, you four as an adventuring party. First thing is, y'all need a name.

Could be very simple, could be one word, two words, something like that. Could be a color and a noun, you know, like whatever kind of speaks to what you think your name is. So if you have an idea for a word or a part of the name, just like call it out. I'm going to, could I roll in this personalities thing for a descriptive word. Some inspiration. Yeah. You can totally roll.

All right. I got creep. So we could do creepy something. The creeps. Creepy crew. Creepy crew, the creepers. Longfellow in the creeps. Long under in the creeps.

Creepy under. I rolled a 44. So that is. say idealistic. Giles? Right, no, no, let me do sure name. That's a Gerd. We're Gerd.

Creepy Gird? Creepy Gird? Creepy Gird sounds like the guy you run into in the tavern that gives you the like quest to go into his basement to fight rats. Yeah, oh, creepy Gerd at it again. Okay, how about we're a team called creepy Gerd? Or maybe that's our boss. It's like creepy Gird's crew.

Yeah. Like our boss is, he is our leader, creepy Gerd, and he sent us out on a mission and we're creepy Gerd's crew. I also just want to specify, Gerd, I've heard of this before. It's like an acid reflux. Yes.

Situation. He's named after basically a gastrointestinal reflux disease. I do like Gerd as a name, though, like Gerd. It's why he doesn't go out of venturing. He's stuck at home. He's too injured. Hack it up as long. He's got his gird, yeah.

Or it's like you gird something, you even circle it. Oh, like your loins. Curred your loins. Like a, like a, or a girdle. We're the creepy gird crew or CGC for short. Yeah, CGC. Yeah. Creepie Gerd clue. All right, creepy gird crew.

What is your party's sigil, the symbol that you have emblazoned on your flags and on your shields and stuff? It's someone pending over holding their tummy. I was going to say, just a picture. A picture of intestines. Intestants. Yeah, yeah, bald up intestines. Like, we're all, it's like... Just like an antacid, like, tablet.

Thumbs, yeah, a bottle of thums. Intestines, all right? The intestines spell out CGC. Yeah. Ooh, that's gross. That's creepy. We're getting there. I'm looking up what just a simple picture of intestines look like.

It's so gross. It's gross. Gross. Just rope. It's all it is. It's just rope. Human rope. Slimy human rope.

Maybe that's just what it is. It just looks like a like a kind of bunched up rope. Coiled slimy rope. Yeah. Creepy Gird crew. How do people feel about that? Every time someone stops to ask us what our sigil means, it takes forever us to explain that it's a bunch of intestines bald up.

No, they just recognize you from the get-go. Yeah, we're notorious. The creepy gird crew. Don't mess with them. All right. We've got your name, the creepy gird crew. We got your party sigil. the coiled slimy rope.

Yeah. Let's go over some rules real quick and then we'll dive in. So, Knave plays a lot like old school RPGs, such as D&D. Like we talked about, there's six ability scores. You roll checks and attacks

with the D20, add relevant modifiers. I'll help you with that as we get there. Successful attacks. You roll damage dice. Again, we'll go over that if we need to. And then subtract whoever you attacked from their hit points,

excuse me. So subtracted from the targets, hit points. The two biggest immediate differences There are very different differences down the line but are the item slots? So like item slot wounds. So whenever you drop to zero hit points,

you take a wound. A wound, you start with your highest number item. So like one through 10 or 11, start with 11 or 10. And that wound drops that item slot. You can no longer use that item slot. It's not gone. You just can't use it.

So if it's like an armor piece, for example, our AC would go down. It is gone. Oh, it's gone gone. Yeah. Oh, I should have. So you're telling me I might have to drop my lard block. Oh, no. Yeah, maybe. Not my fun guy. And then it kind of works its way up from there. So every time you get hit and take a wound, you lose another item slot, another item slot until you get to zero item slots and then you're dead. Goodness. Whoa. So you have those like five or, you know, five or four hit points and then it goes to item slots. Make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You can recover

item slots with a rest. We'll see if that happens in this game. But just know that that's what you have going forward. And the second difference is initiative. We've kind of done this in maze rats. It's very similar. It's side-based initiative. A lot of games do this instead of like rolling everybody rolls initiative, just do two sides. So like the leader of your group, the leader of the enemy's group, both roll a charisma check, not a dex check. And that determines which side acts first. On a side's turn, everybody can act in any order they want to. It doesn't have to be the same order every time. You can work and do things together.

I highly recommend that, kind of like talk through what do you guys want to do as a group and then the other side goes and then vice versa. So I might say use some ingenuity. Maybe. Or spine.

Huh? Everything else, we'll kind of address it as it becomes relevant. One thing we didn't do, this is relevant, is some of you all had intelligence points, right? Yes.

I have one, yes. I think, yeah. So just you two? Anybody else? No. Ben as well. Ben does too. Okay.

So what you can do is I think I've put this a notion as well is on the side. There should be spellbook. Should be the second to last thing. For every point of intelligence, you can have a spellbook. A spellbook has one spell in it. And so we pick one of these at random? Pick at random. Pick at random.

Roll at random like either one. Are we going to do that now? Barb, you can do that now? Yeah. If you want a custom one, we can do that. But some of these are really like actually kind of fun spells. They're really simple. I got command.

Ooh. That's the one I was just looking at. Get out of my head, Barbara. So command, it says a creature obeys a single or I guess it's amount of intelligence you have word. So like if you have one point, it's going to be one word command that doesn't harm it. So it obeys that single word command or however many intelligence points you have. And where does that go on our sheet? Good question.

There's no. It's like to put in notes. I'll just put in notes. I would like to choose babble. That sounds fun. Babel? Babel. Babel.

Babel. Go ahead and read it. Babel. Int creatures must loudly and clearly repeat everything you think. They are otherwise mute. So you have one point intelligence or two points? One point. Okay, one point.

So you have one creature that must loudly and clearly repeat everything you think. All right. And then Blaine. I got such an unfortunate one. Sniff. Creatures can smell all scents up to 120 feet away for one turn. Could be interesting.

I could see how that could be useful, actually. I think my guy's like a bit of an investigator. There's a lot of stuff that's like data collection. So we'll work with it. Yeah. And like we can, these are very malleable spells. Like if we had made up a custom one, it would have been like three words mashed together

and then like we just kind of make up what it does. All right. If everybody's got their spells marked down, get your hit points, armor class, that jazz. Let's dive in. We begin our tale in the mystical and medieval realm of Gauntlandia.

Gotlandia. The sprawling lands of Gauntlandia are blanketed with indescribable, what are they blanketed with again? Like a weird kind of snow. Okay, a weird snow, that's right, okay. It's a domain that has been seen its fair share of battles, beasts, and who could

forget the great... Ben, what was that thing that happened? What was the great... The War of the... The Great War of the Small Bears? Yeah, it was terrible. Really bad. Small little like, creatures running around.

I need to brush up on that. Remind me later. But today we find our party the, what was the name of your party again? The creepy gird crew. Yep, the creepy gird crew. They're in the deepest, darkest dungeon of the tallest terrifying tower called,

Blaine, what was it called again? Party City. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's a very terrifying name. Our four veteran heroes are neck deep in a fierce fight. They're surrounded by torturing devices, slain beasts, and unforgettable. Chris, what was the last thing that was surrounding you?

Large animated tomatoes. Animated tomatoes, yeah. Very bad for those people that struggle with GERD. That's true. They're formidable foe, an evil sorcerer named Malistar. A pasty man currently floating above an obsidian dais wearing a black velvet cloak and a horned skull hat. Malistar?

Malastar. That's a cool name. I'm going to give you guys something really cool for a little bit. Since you all are expert adventures, for the time being, you can add a zero to your hit points. In other words, times 10. Whoa! So powerful.

Oh my goodness. And on all your checks for the, until I, tell you otherwise. You have advantage. In this game, advantage is not rolling again. Advantage is plus five. Oh, okay. So disadvantage with the opposite, minus five. Love it. So everything is plus five and plus your relevant modifiers that they come into play. This is like the prequel in a video game before you stub your toe and lose all your cool items. Yep, yeah. And is that on like every, every dice role basically or yeah okay yeah all right so you guys are in battle with malastar there's tomatoes flying everywhere he's floating above a dais animated tomatoes they have faces and they look really disgusting

they keep like fighting it to you guys but it's getting towards a tail end of this battle you've been really successful thus far slaying the the minions getting through the torturing devices and malastar is really on his last leg so let's say we're in initiative already it's y'all's turn this is like your last round of combat think of like super power moves that you want to do and then let's do them who wants to go first you guys want to roll

I'll go first okay okay barbill go first all right so I want to take my trident and I want to do a really cool spin move with it and stab it up into his neck ooh

okay what does a fox look like they're wearing Fox is definitely like heavily armored but in a in a nice, fashionable way. So he has a breastplate, armplate, and then also a Gambeson. I don't know how to pronounce that correctly.

Yeah, you got it. Gamson. He's definitely on the bigger side, probably about six foot two, six foot three. Very muscular, kind of big, gray hair, and like a beard as well. Awesome. Very cool.

Fox steps up to Malastar, floating in the air, pulls out their trident, and goes for a stab. go ahead and roll that D20 to add your strength to M plus five. I swear I rolled a 20. Nice. So that would be 25, I guess.

So in this game, if you roll 21 plus, you get to do the damage and you get a free maneuver. So maneuvers are like disarming, pushing, stunning, blinding, breaking something, tripping, and so on. So like anything that's like you're changing the circumstance kind of a little bit. So what do you think? What do you think Fox would want to do in this situation? It's going to be a little graphic.

Okay. I think maybe he, once he stabs, he kind of tilts the trident, so it also blinds him and goes through his eyes. Oh. Oh, wow. Okay. So you stab, go up, and then through the eyes. Amazing.

Lots of tomato juices are flying everywhere now. That's the old flocks called Feld move. Awesome. Oh, roll damage, too. Sorry, we didn't say that. I think for, that's a two-handed way. weapon probably. Yeah, probably.

I think it's a D8, if I remember correctly, but I don't remember off the top of my head. Guys, I don't know if we need to do anything else. I think Fox has got this. I think it might be taken care of. That's a seven for damage. Awesome. I'll write that down.

Yeah, who wants to go next? I'll go. It is I. Mew, Dreghope. So, Mew is wearing, like, very basic medieval attire. I think it's called a tabard.

So it's just like, kind of like a tunic type thing. It's like very like close to, you know, he has it very, what is it, was it when you go and get like a jacket fitted, was that called? Like tailored? Taylor. Yeah, it's like very tailored to be form fitting. I kind of imagine him being like a climber.

And he is going to whip out his caltrops to throw at Malistar's feet to kind of like put him off balance. And if you'll allow me, like, kind of be whipping at him. I don't know if that's two attacks. If it is, then I'll just do the caltrops because I think that those are cool. Typically it is. If you want to describe how you would do that at the same time with, like, one swift movement, I might allow it. Okay, I think well...

And what does he sound like when he says that? Oh, oh, I'll get to that. So I think while... Barb, what was your character name again? Fox. Fox. Fox. Well, Fox is, like, stabbing and stuff like that.

Mew is, like, circling. He's just trying to stay as evasive as possible. So he's whipping up at him and he's throwing caltrops. He's doing anything to just add to the disarray so that Malistar can't keep track of what's happening, you know? Yeah. And he's just saying, I got good back, you feed, get back.

He's crazy. Awesome. Mew, go ahead and roll. Let's say a wisdom. Okay. Wisdom check and add plus five. Mew's catchphrase. He got a guigabaga.

Eat my shorts. All right, and that's a D20, correct? Yeah, D20, bless your wisdom, plus five. That was a 20. I'm going to try to hold it. I hold it up for you right there. I believe you. And then that was...

You're not winning any rewards in this game. It was, I guess, plus five, but also my intelligence, sorry, my user was wisdom, right? If it's over 21, it hits. Okay, well, then it is. And then you also get a maneuver. So, I mean, this kind of works in your favorite. of what you were kind of describing with like the caltrops and all that kind of stuff.

So what do you think happens because of the caltrops? I think he'd step, Malastar would step on him and go, you know, like his feet, he's all known and certain of his movement. So he's kind of trapped in one spot, making him more vulnerable to the rest of the party. I like that this started with like a gory face injury to like slapstick comedy. Yeah, cool. Awesome, very, very cool. I love it.

Oh yeah, go ahead and roll damage. I think that's a D6, probably. Okay. That is five. Nice. Nice. Norse. All right.

Next. I'll go. Go ahead. No, you go, Ben. You see a tall six-foot two man standing toward the back a little bit. A nice, like, white suit almost. Ooh. With an admiral's jacket.

Oh. And he's eyeing the, what's going on with, What was Malastar? Malastar. Malastar, yeah. And he definitely sees that his two compatriots have that handled. But all these flying tomatoes, something has to be done about it. So he reaches into his admiral's jacket and pulls out one of his very limited 11 item resource slots and pulls out his trumpet. Oh. And with a large blast wall of sound wants to blare into this trumpet and try to

confuse or push away these flying animated tomatoes that are surrounding the crew. Awesome. Gosh, I would say that's more like a charisma thing to me. That's perfect because I actually have a point in charisma. All right, do your trumpet solo.

And that's a solid 25. Woo! Wow. Y'all are killing it. Okay, so what's the maneuver that you add on top of that damage, go ahead and roll damage to? Or actually, what were you trying to do with the tomatoes? I want to like blast them back

with like a wave of sound. Okay, absolutely happens, yeah. What maneuver do you think happens in the midst of that? Give me the list of maneuvers again. It's just something I can come up with? Sure, sure. Disarming, pushing, stunning, blinding, breaking gear, tripping, climbing, restraining. I think this is stunning.

This is, like, going to, like, blast these animated tomatoes's eardrums. It's stunning. Yeah. Stunning. Like, you blow your trumpet and these flying animated tomatoes start, like, pulsing and getting larger and larger and larger. that's just like bursting, like bubbles all around the room and just like juices are flying and staining everything in the area.

Baba bea. Malastar is already covered in blood and is covered in more red sauce. And last was not least. Oh, really quickly, can I give just a one liner? Yeah, yeah. The sound just quells and he pulls the trumpet away. And you hear him say, Ar, I never let my crew get someone get the jump on them

or else my name not be Dennis. Weatherland. Dennis. My name is not Larry. All right. So Odo Long Under sees an opportunity.

He's a 13-year-old boy wearing giant armor full decked out. I'm talking like armor plate, helmet, breastplate. Or arm plate, helmet, breastplate,

leg plate. But he's got his apron. on over it because he doesn't want his armor getting dirty and in one hand he has his kukri and the other hand a rolling pin and he goes he goes oh wow this is a really good extent a really good opportunity these these tomatoes are are really valuable and dishes also they they burn incredibly incredibly badly so so he's one of the remaining pieces of the tomatoes that are he's kind of slices a piece off of it and just takes it and shoves it

deep into the the Malstar's wounds. Sizzler, how could you? Wow. Sizzler's more like this. This is just more completely different. Completely different. I hope that was okay,

guys. Legally distinct. Give me a, you tell me, what would you argue for? What ability do you think this plays into the most? Like, is it a Dex? Is it, because you're just like shoving something? I guess decks or strength, right? Yeah, and then go ahead and roll.

I rolled a two plus my plus five plus two for a total nine. Nine, okay. So you come up to Malastar who's already like on maybe death's door, very covered in blood and guts and like tomato juices. And you just like thread that needle and like shove more tomato. gross sauce into this person's like eyes and wounds and like just all the acid is leaking up from these juices are all over him now. You see that he is barely limply levitating above the ground now. He's like gradually touching the floor every now and then dripping with blood like

I said tomato and heaving heavily. His sable eyes narrow on the four of you and he says in a kind of a whispered tone. The game is far from over, heroes. And with a turn of his blood, tomato-stained black cloak, he vanishes into a wisp of shadow. I like to think that because he was blinded, he wasn't facing us when he said that. Oh, there you are.

The game is far from it. You're very successful. All the minions have been dispatched in this dungeon. The tomatoes are no more. The torturing devices have become lifeless. And you have treasure chests of hordes of treasure and items all around you that your courtiers could probably come and collect for you and bring back. So we'll fast forward a bit to a few hours later,

you, the creepy gird crew, return home to Stronghold Keep and are welcomed with a revelrous feat. held in your honor. You have attendance with silver platters offering exotic foods like what were the foods that were offered, Barb? Oh, well, you know, they've got Fox's favorite food, turkey leg.

Turkey leg, of course. Yeah, yeah. It was a very successful hunt this year. Chris, did you have a question? Well, I think Odo would have wanted to help cook the feast, if that's okay. Sure, yeah. What else would you have cooked? Oh, I just want to prepare some of this delicious tomato.

Oh, tomato pies? Tomato pies? Tomato pies? Are there cheese on these pies? Excellent. Where did you get those tomatoes from? Oh, I, I, I, I, I scavaged them from the remains of the giant, uh, anamorphic tomatoes. Okay, you sure there's no blood mixed in with this?

Because, you know, where the ketchup began and the blood ended, it was hard to tell. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, there absolutely could be some blood, but you know, blood is actually a delicious flavor. Oh, oh, yeah. It gives you strength. Strength in battle. All right. confidently say that after this day I will never eat bear or tomato ever again.

All right. I don't know what to do that information. So you have these exotic and maybe questionable foods circling around on these silver platters. But also you have something to wash it down, thirst-quenching beverages. Like, Ben, what were some of the beverages there? Ah, seafaring man's favorite beverage, orange juice. Mmm. Orange juice to battle the scurvy. Excellent.

Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves in a bang! The feast is interrupted by someone bursting through the front doors of the Great Hall. He recognized this individual immediately because of their distinctive... Blaine. What was distinctive about this person again? Big Wardy Knows. Big Wardy Knows, that's right. And it's your friend and home on courtier, Squire.

Squire. You all know Squire. But the nose and the warding... All right, guys, remember, don't mention his nose. Whatever you do, he hates it when you mention his nose. Hmm. Well, something's wrong. They're barely hanging on to their mounts.

It's a humble creature. Chris, what was it again? It was a giant hamster. Ah. Humble. A humble giant hamster. He's barely hanging on, struggling to breathe through bloodied lips and swollen cheeks. And his nose is obviously in the way.

And Squire says, The withered have been taken. I'm sorry, what was that? The Witherd. What? The Witherd. The Witherd. He said the Witherd.

And I'm going to ask each of you, starting with Fox, what, how did the wizard find you? And what wisdom or magic did they share with you those many years ago? The wizard find me while I was alone camping. Just trying to make a buck for myself. You know, I've been trying to sculpt these little vials. for everybody, you know, it was an interest I kind of got as a child. But he also noticed how I killed a lot in my free time. You know, it's like, which one's the hobby is the question?

Killing or the pottery. Who knows? And he just said, you know, you could put those skills to use elsewhere. And then I just followed along with him. very trusting of this guy for some reason. Yeah, easily to trust. Very. Let's move on to Dennis.

Dennis, how did the wizard find you and what wisdom or magic did they share with you those many years ago? Oh, he found me in my lighthouse. Much longer after my captain days. I retired and moved to the top of a lighthouse for the isolation to be left alone. And for 20 days and 20 nights,

he kept knocking on my door. Knocking, knocking, knocking, incessantly. And I would open it and say, Get out of here. This is my lighthouse. And he'd say, No, I need you for a, for a grand adventure until finally I said,

what possibly could you offer me to get me to leave my lighthouse? And he said, the one thing I love more than my isolation, money. And so I said, of course, money must be. I'll lift the restraining order. Wait, he offered you money? He did offer me money. Well, I shouldn't have agreed so soon. and so he never gave me advice

but I assume it's got to be that money is the most important thing and so I said yes of course and here I am today ready to get my money and go back to being alone oh all right and Mew

how did the wizard find you what wisdom or magic did they share with you well I was out and about one of the great cities doing investigating and I had a terrible terrible sinus infection as you could hear from my voice

and the wizard offered some help. He lifted some of my sinus conditions with the power of sniff. Sinus conditions. Yeah, with sniff, I can smell up to 120 feet away. My nose is still plugged into the sound

of my voice, but yeah, he gave me my mints of smell back in a sense of purpose with that too. Wow. The power of olfactory. It warms the heart. Lastly, even at least, O'Dell. Yeah. Well, whenever

my village was conquered and my my father and mother and little sister were also drafted into the gladiatorial right what he called it forced to become gladiatorial combatants and we were separated he told me that only by winning the hearts of the crowd may I win my freedom and be reunited with my family once again So I just, you know, at the young age of four, five, I began just slaughtering everyone I could. I became the greatest pit fighter in the world. And it was all thanks to the advice of him. Ah, yes, the UFG.

I know of it well, the ultimate fighting gladiator. I thought you looked like Russell Crow. So you all recall these memories, the wisdom and magic that was shared with you. and squire begins to explain that your quest master, the wizard, and their humble squire were out exploring the far reaches of Gauntlandia, when they unexpectedly stumbled upon a portal. It transported them to a strange realm,

a cursed land plugged with vicious, albeit sentient creatures. They quickly came to call them meal walkers. Most of them were armed with crystal shards imbued with powerful magics like conjuration, divination, telepathy, illusions, and more. The wizard was struck by a magical spell of invisible lightning and captured in battle. Squire tried to help, but was afflicted by a fatal curse of necromancy by the Meal Walker's leader, name unknown. Squire barely managed to escape back through the portal to Gotlandia, and their mount, the giant hamster, of course, carried them home.

but the curse causes them to slowly but unstopably bleed from the inside. You just see all this blood kind of oozing out of their body and Squire seems to have precious time left. I can't tell what's tomato sauce and what's his blood. Someone please

help Squire in his big bovis nose. Squire, it's okay, nobody knows. I mean, just sannaza. I mean, I'm big conco. Squares says, I beg of you all, please, to find the wizard, go through the portal, I'll give you this map and there's a few other things if you could do it along the way.

Search for them, rescue the wizard, of course. Find a cure for me, if possible, you know, if you have time. It's okay if you don't. Collect crystal shards for the wizard, of course. He'll want to study those once he's, you know, free from wherever he's at. And then slay all the meal walkers, you know, if you can, as needed. And, oh yeah, exact revenge and vengeance on whoever's responsible for all of this. So, you know, a few sub-side missions, if you will, side quests.

Anyways, yeah, I might just rest here if you all just, here's the map. And you can go and he starts, like, dozing off. And you see, like, more blood is starting to ooze out of the way. Well, I did collect some of these, they're called tampons. So just shove them up your nose. That should stop the bleeding just a little bit. Thank you. That's very helpful. Thank you.

I think it's too late for him. I believe you're dying now. Do you want us to injure suffering? I can do it quickly. No, I'm fine. Please don't. Our mission is to find his cure for this. We don't have to kill him.

It's too late. I've seen this before many times. He's a gunner. You have too much tomato sauce already, please. We don't need anymore. All right. Squire's giant hamster kind of comes forward and starts like growling as a giant hamster.

Hamster mite. Oh, hen. Protective of Squire. Oh, ham. Good to see you. All right. You've been given your quest. You've been given a map.

Any last things you want to do before you head out? I'd like to get some of this food and pack up a little to go bag. This is really good stuff. Yeah, absolutely. Attendance kind of come to your aid and beck and call and start like stuffing dried foods and different meals that they've collected and cooked for you all and add it to your mounts. to your mounts in the back. Do we know what our mounts are?

Ham Ham. You tell me? Well, Ham Ham is taken, but if you want a similar creature, you can totally do that. Amtaro. Yeah, okay. Like jerp, jerk.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, could I have Hamham was, you know, a noble, noble breed of hamsters, and I would be honored to have one of Ham ham ham ham siblings. Yeah, stirster. Sturster. No, no, Sturster. Sturster and I don't get along,

but maybe, um, oh, okay. Maybe, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, whiskey, whiskers. Whiskey whiskers, yeah, whiskers. Uh, the runt, right? He's the runt, yeah. I always called them whisk, whiskwisk, because I would whisk whenever I'd cook, I'd whisk, and, and whiskwisk would always, I'd whisk up some hamster milk for whisk, whisk, whisk, yeah, I think that's how you two met.

What about the other three of you? What kind of mounts do you ride? Hmm. Can I have a panther? That's cool. Yeah. Dang. Is it a black panther?

Is it a different color? No, he's a black panther, and I'm going to say his name is, what's that band called? Pantara. Yeah, we're going to go with Pantara. Yeah, that's what his name is. I like it. Well. Awesome, yeah, Pantera comes up.

Mine is a boar. And, like, just a giant pig, you know, with tusks and stuff. His name is Waddles. Waddles. All right, cool. And lastly. Well, I have the biggest. Wait, hold on.

Where was that accent? Would that come from? Well, I have the biggest. I have my loyal steed, little Archibald. He's the fattest, smallest-legged, and shorted tiny pony you've ever seen. I love it. Awesome. So you all get saddled up, all your gear, and you find this map that Squire has crudely strewn for you on a parchment.

and you set off into the night. You've been battling and then revelry for most of the day, and now it's times of the essence you head out crossing forests and fields and mountains and hills until you reach the far reaches and ends of Gauntlandia that have barely been explored. The light of day is beginning to diminish, and you start to see amongst the shadows a cavern. Who's going to go first?

He's got torches. I'll go in. All right, it's very dark at this moment. You can barely see the evening sky and the clouds and the trees are kind of blocking most of the light. The cavern itself is pitch black inside. How do you want to do? Could I light one of my torches? Absolutely.

You strike your torch and immediately like a soft glow illuminates this cavern. And it seems to be strewn with colorful spider webs all over the place. each one a different shade of the rainbow. What do you want to do? All right, ladies, stay close. You got it. It scoots a little closer. Could I reach up and like touch, gently touch one of the spider webs to see if it's like hard

or if it's like breakable kind of thing? Yeah, you holding your torch, have your other hand out and reach for one of these colorful spider webs. And as you begin to touch it, you notice that it is not soft. It doesn't break easily. In fact, it's a little thicker than spiderwebs that you normally see. Maybe it's a bigger creature, but it feels kind of like it has a little bit of a grip to it. Like it does kind of stick to your hands, but not in a gooey way.

Kind of like an, like a, like, almost like springy. I don't know what you mean by springy. Like an actual spring. Like a almost like a fishing line or something like that where it's like. Oiant. Yeah, it has a little bit more density to it. Yeah, something like that. If you pulled on it, you hear like a bing-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-y- Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so that's kind of what's in front of you, like strewn about, kind of obscuring your path. Well, you all know the first rule of the sea, right? What is it, Dennis? I don't. You find a spider. You burn it all down and start over. I think this cave, we just porch it and say goodbye.

So that's how you lost your ship. I've gone through a lot of ships. Well, you win this time. Don't you worry. I swore vengeance on that spider. Find him one day. Don't you worry, Dennis. Because I got just tried it.

It kind of acts like a giant fly swatter. All right. So if we see a spider, we swat it. Barb, do you use that voice? You had the biggest teeth. You stick it out like that. It's so fun. It's like the opposite of my teeth.

All right. Big mouth, not little mouth. So what are you going to do with your trident? I think I'll just probably hold it forward. Could it slice through these spider webs? Is it strong enough or is it still resisting against the Trident? You want to try? Yeah.

Do you want Triton? Okay. Good one. Yeah. Are you like stabbing forth trying to cut down? What is your motion? I'm picturing it almost like when you fork spaghetti. So it's like you like stab and then twist.

Twist it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like it. Yeah, you start to get a few of them caught between the tongs of the Trident and start spinning them. and it takes a little bit of force, and eventually they start to, like, snap, almost like vines. And a few of them kind of fall to the ground, and, like, that's kind of what's happened this far.

What are the rest of you going to do? Good thing. I got strong forearms from sculpting. Well, now that there are any sort of obstructions in the way, I step forward and I summon the mighty sniff to see what kind of things lay ahead of us in this cavern. Now, I will say you can use that spell once. Per long rest, or? I think we're only going to get one long.

Yeah, per, I think it's per day. Now, Wayne didn't say anything about a spell. I think he's just going to. I'll also set this up and say, you are at evening. So very well, me, may be that you'll get to the next dawn. So I just want to give you all the facts. I'm not trying to sway you. I think using Sniff is totally.

I live every day as if it's my last. Okay. Well, I'm going to sniff anyways and just see if I can smell any sort of like enemy types or anything like that. What kind of sense do I summon with my mighty nose? What does it look like when you cast

this spell? Hmm. I do some magic with my fingers kind of like Dr. Strange style and then green is suddenly forming and then I sick them in my nose. And then now my nose

is glowing bright. green and I just go is this like an homage to Squire? This is for Squire. Shout out to Squire. Hashtag Squire. Hashtag Squire. Squire life. Awesome. Yeah. You notice that this

colorful emanation from your nose starts to even like softly glow throughout the cavern a bit more and you start to see things that aren't weren't there before. You can kind of like see that there's like light traveling through the spider webs, even through the walls a bit. At the end of the hall past like where the torch might be lighting it, you see these like two deep carved lines and they're like vertical lines in like the cave wall

directly in front of you like maybe 30 feet ahead. Okay. Do I smell anything beyond that? Because I do have 120 feet a sniff. You do 120 feet? Okay, you smell... It's like smell of vision. Yeah.

In the distance, some, like, metallic sort of sense and sweat, like perspiration. And probably in the air, you smell like other beasts, like in the forest you've traveled through to get to this cave. You don't smell any immediate animal-an kind of creatures in this cavern, though. Okay.

All right, Gag, I've used my super snobs, and I don't sense it any enemies ahead. but there are two vertical lines beyond these webs, and it, you know, I smell metal, so that could be traps. So everybody will be careful. Good nose on you. Thank you, thank you. So Dennis was just going to throw a rock down the hallway,

but what you did was way better. Well, I mean, you could activate traps because I did smell hints of metal. Yeah, who wants to move forward and do something? I want to take some of my flat, of some of the flower from my flower bag and fling it into the air and see if any hidden traps or strings

or pulleys reveal themselves or if it reveals any footprints or things that might have, you know, show the way. All right, yeah, you toss out your flower, white powder kind of blooms into the air and you see that it kind of stays there for a moment and starts to settle towards the ground, but like some of it towards the back,

starts, like, moving towards these deep carved lines. Oh, it's... You don't see any footprints on the ground, except, well, you might see two sets of footprints. Two sets. You assume that it's probably the wizard and squire that came here earlier. Size 11, size 8. That's definitely the wizard and squire. Which one's which?

Oh, the wizard is definitely size 11, yeah. Squire's actually... He's more of a size four, but for some reason he wears eight. I think he's self-conscious about it. I don't know. They usually say your foot size matches your nose. dollar, sir. Oh, he made he's size 14.

He's squishing into an eight. Who's to say? All right. Well, that's what the flower reveals for you. Beauty is pain. I'll never be, I'll never be more surprised than when I hear your snows can detect someone's shoe size. It's the most impressive thing about you. I am an investigator after all.

I know a lot of these things. I'm quite observant. What if we were to carefully retrace the same? steps of our, uh, of the, the poor, poor slain squire who's undoubtedly dead by now and then that way we're to avoid any traps. And then it seems like there might be some openings up here if, if my flower, uh, is correct. Your flower power. We cut back to Squire in the great hall, like, Ham Ham is licking it and licking him and he's like, you know, pouring some wine into his, his mouth. Like, I hope they don't forget about me. We cut back to y'all. That's why

they call me the flower wizard. Oh, I think that's been trademarks. Legally distinct. All right, so what do you want to do? Oh, Del, I know you really, really liked Squire. I promise we will avenge him. And I will raise my torch and slowly follow these footprints. Everyone follow me.

Okay. Dennis moves forward, kind of tracing, retracing these steps forward closer and closer to these carved lines. As you get closer, you see that the carved lines start to like glow with a soft red more. and more and more as you get closer. And as you reach one of the final steps, Dennis disappears. Dennis? Well, he's dead. Remember me!

Hey, uh, uh, meo, do you happen to smell Dennis anywhere? Uh, are my sniff power still activated? He smelled like the sea. Yeah, I think you smell some sea salt. Yeah, exactly. I'd like to know what Dennis smells like, Blaine. Uh, if you could... Yeah, yeah, yeah, hold on.

Old spice. Captain Morgans You know Back at when we were celebrating Not at the party city That was the fight The other place Our strongholds

Sorry I forgot that was called Party city Strong what was it Stronghold keep Yep Squire did mention something about portals So maybe he got teleported

There was some sort of portal technology from which these Meal walkers appeared from. Yeah. I'm going to go ahead and step forward and see if I can follow through the portal

after Dennis. What about the rest of you? Yes. Yeah. I'll follow through as well. All right. The three of you follow suit with your friend Dennis

and retrace these steps and the glow kind of envelopes you all with this red flashing lights and a cacophony of sounds bombard your senses from every angle. They're surrounding,

like just swirl their strength begins to diminish and suddenly you slam it to something hard with the crash. My back. And we'll have to find out in the next episode. So thank you all for listening. Thanks to our patrons who make this show happen,

making Tavern Tales happen. It's really exciting to get to do that for you all. Thanks to all our players for learning a new game and creating characters. And this show and the adventure is not over. Go to episode one and we'll start this adventure with y'all. See you there. excited.

I think the adventure's already started. I can't wait to show off my teeth. It's so time. Hark, good sirs, fair ladies and gentlefolk. Should ye crave more of the odorous and wondrous stinky content and seek ye the companionship of like-minded souls? Then make your way to sticky dragonpod.com. Our generous patrons do bestow upon us much favour.

And in return, we offer exclusive bonus shows tales from behind the scenes, entry to the Stinky Dragon Discord, live streams for members only, grand stinky community gatherings, and much, much more. This very tavern tale was produced from the mind and quill of Micah Rysinger, polished and sonically edited by the hand of Alina LaCorchek, and its stirring thematic melody was composed by none other than Micah Rysinger himself. Join us yet again for the next adventurous episode of Mealwockers, and the crystal shots.