The Glass Cannon Podcast - Giantslayer Episode 259 - Take Two of These and Caldera Me in the Morning

Episode Date: January 5, 2021

Metra's invisible flyover above the caldera is interrupted! For more podcasts and livestreams, visit glasscannonnetwork.com. To become an official member of the Naish, subscribe today at http://www.jointhenaish.com. Want to be a part of Glass Cannon Nation? Follow us at twitter.com/glasscannonpod instagram.com/theglasscannon facebook.com/glasscannonnetwork tiktok.com/@glasscannonnetwork Get the best apparel and gaming accessories in the biz at https://glasscannonnetwork.com/store If you enjoyed this, we have several other series featuring Call of Cthulhu - Time For Chaos Delta Green - Get in the Trunk Pathfinder 2E - Glass Cannon Live! Strange Aeons Pathfinder 1E - Legacy of the Ancients Traveller - Voyagers of the Jump and so much more! Join us every Thursday night for Campaign Two of The Glass Cannon Podcast – a playthrough of the Pathfinder 2E Gatewalkers Adventure Path! Videos premiere on YouTube Thursday nights at 8PM ET with a companion podcast available at midnight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last week on the Glass Cannon Podcast... Trembling is a free action. The heroes pushed forward into the caldera... Can we just take a reconnoiter a bit and take a look? Before going to the forge, you mean? Yeah, you know, why not? And discovered the Castle of the Storm Tyrant. Overhead, an enormous, grey castle floats atop a roughly spherical cloud just a few hundred feet above the caldera floor, casting a haunting shadow across the entire mountaintop.

But an attempt at a flyover. At that point, you hear a loud steam whistle coming from the direction of the tower. Foooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo from the direction of the towers. The adventure continues. Grab your dice and roll for initiative. Oh, what? Now. All right, listen, I can't remember what I said in the first episode of 2020. I'm not 100% sure. I didn't go back and listen, but I bet it was somewhere along the lines of, this is going to be one hell of a year

for the Class Canada Network. I say that usually at the beginning. This will be one hell of a month. But I'm sure I really got fired up about it. And you know what? It was still correct, just not in the way we intended.

We did two live shows instead of the planned 16 or so. We did one convention instead of the planned seven or so. And we launched a bunch of new shows and we played a bunch of new games. Yeah. More than we did in 2014. That is absolutely true, Matthew. It's very accurate.

You were but a twinkle in our eyes at that time. But I think 2021 is truly going to be a landmark year for the Glass Cannon Network, because it's got to be better than last year, right? And last year was pretty good. Listen, a lot of businesses suffered during the pandemic and still continue to suffer. And we take that very seriously. We've been trying to do what little we can to help out. Thankfully,

because of the generosity of the nation, also just the strength of this fan base, we were able to keep going. Because that could have been a real possibility. Having to shut down. Having to do no podcast, take a year off and hope for the best and just pay taxes on nothing. But no, thanks to the niche, we were able to keep going and power through,

and now we are ready for, I truly believe, a landmark year. We got a lot of plans, and one of those plans includes finishing Giant Slayer. This is the last year of Giant Slayer. This is it. I don't think it's going to go 52. Well, actually, I didn't even realize that. It might go into next year. But I wouldn't think so, right? 52 eps?

Book 5 was 51. But we're already, wouldn't you say that we're already two eps into book 6? It's hard to define what that starting point was. I mean, it is easy to define. You could just open the book and tell us.

Yeah, I'm going to say, well, we did a lot of not even downtime, just kind of like aftermath epilogies type stuff. So I think this is really the third episode of book six. So 48 to go after today. Finish before Christmas.

Well, I said this before book 5, and it didn't really come true. I guess it kind of did in a way, but this is going to get so elevated that it's just going to have to move kind of fast. Yeah. Because combats are going to last a couple rounds, and that's it. It's just the sheer amount of damage is insane. Now, each round takes longer than they used to. But yeah, just the amount, the swings of damage are so nuts.

And I don't know, I think we'll see dead characters, but other ones will swoop in to die in their place. We'll keep going, baby. We're not going to slow down. Yeah. Unless we do have situations where we have to leave this book, essentially, like the pre-written stuff, because of character death, you know, and do a lot of role play of bringing people in,

and I don't know, I don't know. Also, let's not forget how much of book six is our story that isn't in the book that has to get resolved. So that'll all get added on to the length of the AP. So sometime in 2022, we will be wrapping up. Hopefully. Unless you're just TBKs.

It could be TBK. TBK, you lose. Giants take over the world. You stole fizzy lifting drinks. You lose, Matthew. You lose the AP. It's happened to greater men than you. What a sad ending, though.

I mean, is that the ending this is going to be for five years or on this the bad guys win brander high fives the storm timer they fly off into the night yeah they fly to vegas you gotta decide what's more important finishing in 2021 or finishing with a happy ending i know maybe we could wrap this up in a few weeks we're out it tonight, honestly. We wanted to. Seriously. Put our minds to it. Next week's ep will just be like a talkback ep like we did at the end of book one

talking about Galarian lore. Yeah. I don't know. It'll be interesting to see. There might be some episodes that get extended. I don't like ending episodes where you've only done

four rounds of combat, but the rounds take so much longer. I'll extend where I need to, but I still like the hour-long format. We'll see. I really do want to get this done this year. I think it might be possible to even get it done in the fall if we really ramp things up and extend some maps. So much depends on choices that you make and uh you know whether you survive or not because right now there's a pool of characters out there beyond the four mains they're floating around out there in addition to several uh ancillary characters that may or may not uh have uh you know resolutions to their story at a certain point, those characters, the herd might thin. And then

I think once they're all gone, you lose. You lose the adventure. So let's see if that's on the table. I know. It seems strange and extremely unlikely that four 15th level heroes come out of nowhere, come together to fight the Storm Tyrant. It really is a little bit crazy to imagine in the narrative of the world that there's that many people that powerful. I think there's that many people that powerful. And it makes sense to me that it took this long for them to get word because we've been spreading this word to every single council town government we can. And they've got to, through just general trade, get that across to other town folks across the world.

And they've got to speak that out to their champions. And maybe one of the champions thinks, I don't care what the king or otherwise leader of this place says, I've got to go stop these things. That's interesting. Not the dwarves of Kragadan, however. They won't be sending any reserves. They're all out.

I think we could pull it off. I think we could pull off like one. It's like a trope. You can do that once. I've taken up the call, and i'm somehow on this cloud yeah four nations of galarian four heroes unite what's kind of like right yeah each nation sends a hero yes an ambassador hero yeah legendary warrior yeah that's why i kind of like being in that situation having characters in that situation because then you get to you get to create out a whole cloth, their whole backstory.

Yeah. Like all their adventures and everything. You get to make them into this superhero, like on Galarian, and say how they got there and everything else from scratch. Yeah. It's pretty fun. The other very obvious way, which is how we got Adela, which is that someone's captured up there. Yeah. But how many times can you do that is there like a jail

full of 30 people and we only free one person this is a jail full of 15 15 level characters like all right we need we need a melee fighter we need a spellcaster divine preferably does anyone do ranged in here

anyone ranged combatant range prison what level are you what level are you what level are you sir 12th i'm sorry we need someone a little higher i mean it's not too crazy to think about i've already started thinking about this because you know when it happens if it happens now pc it's just gonna it's just gonna happen we didn't it's not gonna be that big maybe it'll happen in the big, big epic encounters. But odds are it's going to be like, oh, shit, we didn't see the oops. And then someone dies. I don't think it's going to happen in those Skirkotla-Urathash fights anymore.

It's going to be more like the way Lork went down. And then it's going to be a little bit of scrambling. So I'm already like wheels in motion trying to figure out how to pull this off and make it work. Because that's hard. And as you see, you'll see as this story progresses that it's going to be harder and harder um speaking of the story oh man i love how we're starting the new book and all we're talking about is what new characters are going to be yeah We're already so convinced of our own defeat. We haven't even seen really what's happening here yet. Hatching our bets early.

Right. It's stressful, though. Before we jump in, I was just thinking about, what if you do lose? That is a real bummer. We go through every contingency plan and you still lose? Yeah. It would be kind of cool in a way.

Sure. But it would also feel like a massive waste for the last four years yeah four years of a campaign it seems a little tough to me to just walk away from it if you were playing it super fast and you played a ton of sessions and banged it out in a year or two like you know i don't think it would be as bad but a real slow burn five-year campaign that ends that way i don don't know. I mean, we answered this question on fodder years ago, and I think you were of the opinion that you keep going, and I was of the opinion that you just stop, because it's like you're not going to bring people in

with all that backstory to this campaign and have it fit. But now, like, ever since Grant said that, I'm like, it would almost be fun and funny if, like, just new, super high- level people just kept showing up to try to take down the boss that were like each tweaked a little bit exactly for the adventure yeah it would be really fun and then at the end you'd win you'd be like when we won yeah suck it yeah even as we're talking about i'm getting ideas that i need to write down because you just gave me an idea i know i think it's really fun we

got a tpk each of us gets an hour-long episode introducing our characters back oh that would be amazing this year but that'll be great the journey from that yeah that nation to like across galeria you do one hour and each get 15 minutes right yeah just do an episode difference that would be great but you know what Why don't we just take that? Four hours seems a little long. Well, then you've got a good ten minutes of banter. All right, you get nine minutes each. Grant would have absolutely no problem filling an hour

with the adventure of how his character got there. I have no doubt. He could just go down his equipment sheet and fill it up. time i sent troy a backstory for one of our shows and he wrote back to me he's like this is really good but i just cut some stuff uh save it for the novelization yeah i remember that he says it to me all the time he's like i sent grant something and i just i just said keep it short like i just need a couple minutes, Grant. Grant's very verbose. He gets lost in his words.

He has a lot of big words in those Grant backstories, those Grant flashbacks. He's a wordsmith. The words take up too much space. I just want something in common with the words I use. We both take up too much space. Oh, God. Well, I'm excited i'm excited to just jump right in and uh pick up where we left off and uh and then talk about what we've been doing for the last uh two hours while we were sitting here um goofing off um you finished

last episode uh a little before the end uh metro wants to take a little peek. So you go ethereal and you look out there. Do a cool little cut scene. And then you see the situation. And you're obviously seeing it in gray and black and white on the ethereal plane. But you see a huge crater. You see a flying castle. You see a tower. You see giants and large insects, colossal- insects around, and you're just taking it all

in. And then you rush back. Then you say, all right, I'm going to go invisible. I'm going to fly up there. Just check it out. So the guys stay 90 feet back, Baron, Dalgrith, and Nestor, you fly out, you keep flying, you get 110 feet away from the cave opening when all of a sudden a steam whistle sounds from the direction of the tower. There's... Like Fred Flintstone wrapping up his day at work. Let's roll for initiative. Oh.

I didn't know if you were just saying that to hype up the cliffy, or if we really were going to be rolling for initiative. Oh, yeah. I don't joke about initiative. Certain things are off limits for my humor. It's one initiative. It's no laughing matter. It really is.

Metro, let's start with you. I feel like you're the star of this scene. 22. 22. Oisathon. Solid. Nestor? Nestor got natural 20.

Got a 31. Well done, Nestor. Gold. Baron. Natural one, 16. Embarrassing, brother. Oh, embarrassing, brother. A tale of two cities. Dalgrith.

Natural 18 for a 30. Oh. You know, when we ended last week's sesh, usually when we end seshes, you guys get the benefit of time to not have to immediately react. Do you know what I mean? Like when we end on a cliffy that throws you in the middle of something, I feel like it almost always benefits you guys more than it does me. And I think in this situation, it certainly benefits you.

Now you have time to think like, okay, what do I want to do? Whereas if I was just like, what do you do? You would make a much different decision than having a whole week to think about it. This benefited me as well because I don't know if I'll ever get to talk about it, but for a number of reasons, this really benefited me to kind of take in the scope of what is happening. So, that being said, that cryptic paragraph being said, let's go to round one. Remember, Dalgrith Baron Baron, Nestor, 90 feet from the cave opening.

200 feet as the crow flies, as the Metra flies away up in the air is Metra. You three in the cave do hear that whistle. Nestor, what if anything do you do? Nestor is just

mutters like, oh, bloody hell. And I think he's just going to run to the entrance of the cave so he can get a view of what's going on and have fire support for Metra if she needs it. So he's just going to run

to where he can see the caldera. Okay, so staying within the cave. Right. He's not going to jump over it into the caldera. Okay, so staying within the cave. Right. Okay. Yeah, so I've got to jump over it into the caldera. Ah! The bow. I do have those boots, so I could do it.

And you make 90 feet easily in a run. It's a straight line. All right, so Nestor runs all the way up to the edge of the exit looking up. Obviously, you don't see Metra, but you see everything I explained to you that she saw. You know what? Let me show you what you see. What? I thought this was theater of the mind.

Now it's real. Night of the theater. I want to show you what the castle in the cloud looks like. Oh, my. I saw a city in the clouds. the cloud looks like. Oh, my. Oh. I saw a city in the clouds. Oh, my God. It's beautiful. Look at those little openings down in the base.

What the heck? I can see them on the drawing, Troy. This looks like a place. Yes, you would assume that that is covered by the energy field. It is below the cloud, as far as you know. It isn't. Wow. Look at this.

Down the bottom. I see an you know, it isn't. Wow. Look at this. Down the bottom. I see an opening there. Oh, wow. Texture. I think you're overreading the artist's texture. I really think so, Matthew. You know what the problem about this is? It looks like the protagonist of the story lives there.

Not the bad person. Yeah, it's very pleasant. It looks like sharts or something. Are we the baddies? Yeah, it's very pleasant. It looks like Shart or something. Are we the baddies? Yeah, it looks like a cathedral in Florence or something. It's really nice. It's like a Romanesque slash Gothic cathedral. Yeah, it's not quite Gothic.

It's not quite Gothic, but yeah. Not enough negative space. It looks celestial. And I really am having a hard time picturing this in the middle of a volcano. Yeah, it looks like God's boss lives there. Yeah. It does. It's a beautiful day outside.

It looks like the government building in heaven. Right. Boss. It's obviously enormous. it's obviously enormous and it has this beautiful bluish gray color to it that you would think if it was actually up and out of the volcano

it would blend in with the clouds perfectly here it just really yeah doesn't fit the scene but I just want to give you a visual representation of that wow very cool and just like that I will take it away from you. It has trees. Well, it's in the middle of it.

It's the smoke of a volcano. The trees mean that they have a gardener that takes care of it. And they care about beauty and relaxing. Oh, boy. It is now Dalgrith's turn. Dalgrith, you hear the whistle. You see Nestor boot down the hallway. Yeah. His first instinct was to not do anything. But now he's like, You see Nestor boot down the hallway.

Yeah, his first instinct was to not do anything, but now he's like, Oh, Nestor, we need to stay close. Just because he's thinking, like, if Metro's going to swoop in and teleport us out of here, we've got to be close. But he can't keep up with Nestor's speed. So he's like, And starts trying to hustle behind Nestor. But I don't know if he makes it to him, if Nestor went full run. Well, if it's 90 feet.

Yeah, because I stopped 30 feet short of how far I could go. Okay, so he can get to Nestor. And that's all he does. Yeah, Nestor is 85 feet away, so you just got to make it 85 feet. Let's stay close, Nestor. Stay near each other just in case she comes in. Yeah. It is Metra's turn. Metra, you are invisible,

flying, and you hear this sound coming from the direction of the tower. It's far, far away from you, this tower. Can I attempt a perception check on the tower? Yeah, dude. They saw me. Yeah. So clearly they have some ability to see invisibility. Do you want to see

the bird's eye view of what you see looking down? Yeah, I do. Let's go to another map. Maybe! Calderon! So where is the opening and where am I? Alright, here is the cave that you flew

out of. I'm pinging it on the map. Okay, over to the east. On the eastern side. On the eastern side. And then the tower is up to the north. I mentioned to you that there was another opening back into the cave to the east. On the eastern side. On the eastern side. And then the tower is up to the north. I mentioned to you that there was another opening back into the cave to the south. Okay. And then obviously Flying Castle, tethered by two chains, three chains hanging loose. You are right.

Oh, no, you wouldn't be that far. Actually, check this out. This map is to scale. Yeah, this doesn't make any sense so you are oh my god so you're only 110 feet away oh my god barely a dot so i'm how barely out of the cave opening is yeah if this was a five foot map i think you'd be five feet from the cave opening i think every five feet is like 100 or something something. But I'm about, so roughly let's see, so I'm a hundred

and you said 110 feet? Yeah. So roughly I'm about 876 feet from the tower. Yeah. Wait, what is the tower? There is a tower. Like a watchtower? Yeah, it looks like a lone watchtower,

defense tower, standing. Looks like there's a little bridge. You see a littleower? Yeah, it looks like a lone watchtower, defense tower, standing. It looks like there's a little bridge. You see a little bridge leading up to it. You worry about those fighters. I'll worry about the tower. That's good. That's good. The map is a little tricky. It is to scale, but for the

sake of argument, just go by my measurements. Use your measurements as a ballpark, but you'll see that even putting, because the map's so large, even putting it an inch, a millimeter away screws it all up. But we're roughly at least 14. You're 900 feet from the tower at the cave's entrance.

And almost 1,500 feet from the castle as the crow flies. So I was pitching this all wrong. Me too. I thought there was, like, when we get to the edge of the cave that we're in, that there would be a sheer drop into the caldera, but we could walk out. There's a big plateau. It's kind of like a strip mine going down into the...

And there's different levels where we could run around in, right? Yeah, so the entire caldera is probably more than two miles in diameter. Metro, you can see this. The rest of you just see, or Barry, you're not up there yet. It just goes on forever. However, this circular inner crater that you're flying above is probably about 1,200 yards in diameter, about 3,200 feet across. But the entire crater that isn't even shown in this map is over two miles wide. yards in diameter. About 3,200 feet across. But the entire crater that isn't even shown in this map

is over two miles wide. Wow. I pictured the castle taking up the whole thing inside. You know? Right. It's just one thing. It's massive. It's a massive caldera. Massive. And you see there are rocky cliffs

and ridges about 30 feet high forming concentric arcs within and around the inner crater, which is ringed by a 30-foot high cliff. You would think you'd need to climb if you wanted to get up there. Can I ask real quick? Yeah. This is probably obvious, but what is it like, the ground? Is it just all barrenren, volcanic black rock? So yeah, you and Nestor would be able to see it slopes downward

first of all, from where you are. To get to the bottom of the crater, it slopes downward, and it's like a gradual slope covered in loose pumice gravel. So you'd think that's going to make footing a little tricky if you want to do any type of acrobatic stuff, but on the plus side, it gives you higher ground.

If you were attacking people below, you get that plus one bone. There are also volcanic vapors and gases emerging from fissures all over the rock. And so it creates this thin haze over the entire crater, giving the air an acrid smell, too, that you guys smell right when you get there. Is it like a sulfuric sort of? Is that the kind of smell you would get in that situation? Yeah, it's very stinky. It doesn't provide concealment. It's more of a flavor haze, but it's kind of cool.

And up on the cliff to the northwest, there's a lot more of it. It's kind of that smell. Have you ever been in Yellowstone or anything? No, I've always wanted to, and I've never been. Yeah's kind of that smell. Have you ever been in Yellowstone or anything? No, I've always wanted to and I've never been. Yeah, it's really cool. That's that smell, that sulfur smell is like everywhere and I imagine it would be similar here. Yeah, and off-putting. Maybe you get used

to it, but to me that would be off-putting. Like lighting a match, you know that smell right after you're lighting it. I don't want to live in that. Here's the other thing you notice and Metro, you're starting to notice it and now that Nestor and Dalgrith have got to the opening, you know you're very high. You're thousands and thousands of feet in the air,

and we're inside the tunnels of the caverns of the volcano. You didn't feel the altitude difference. You feel it immediately as you exit the tunnel. So that's right. There will be hourly fortitude saves, unless you can go to Life Bubble Town or something similar. We have the Wand of Life Bubble.

Then you should be fine. You don't have to worry about it now, but if you stay up here for about an hour, you know, you're gonna have to start dealing with this. And the higher you go, the worse it's gonna get. Talked about the castle. It looks like it's the walls are nearly 500 feet high.

It's sitting atop a cloud that's got to be 600 feet in diameter. And the bottom of the cloud comes within 200 feet of the crater floor, which I think I told you, Metro, when you went ethereal. You just can't see where the bottom of the castle starts and ends. And yeah, that is what's going on. So back to your original question, which was what? What's the tower? Yeah.

What about the tower? So the whistle came from the tower. Yeah, the whistle came from the tower. It's this squat Cyclopean tower standing on a massive base of layered stone. From where you're standing, you only see one entrance in the middle of its cylindrical body at the top of a long wooden ramp. There's a turret sitting on the roof of the tower and a tall metal chimney rising from the roof that's just releasing smoke. So you think, okay, that is probably where the whistle came from.

You're 110 feet up. Away. Away. You see activity up there. It looks to be some giant mechanism and bodies. And you hear that chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk. Can I roll perception on that? It's very far away, but I have a very high perception.

Yeah, go for it. Also, you know how occasionally you read the text of a skill and you discover something a skill can do that you never knew before? Sure. I just discovered something sneak attack can't do by reading it just today. Kill the common cold? No, and that's why I was so scared when you talked about the fissures. I read it right.

You can't get sneak attack damage if your opponent benefits from concealment. That's true. I read that today, too. So if you're flanking in the cloud, like, and you hit and you roll the 20% and everything, you still can't do sneak attack damage. So if you were going to be like, this entire place is 20% concealment, I was going to be like,

no! Yeah, you got, I think I gave one to Nestor in the Taitarian fight. He got sneak attack when there was concealment involved, and you technically aren't supposed to get there. I never noticed that until today. It's crazy. Well, you can use perception

to identify the powers of a potion through taste. Oh, that's right. Even if you have no magical aptitude? It's a perception check. I've had that before. I think that's a potion of invisibility. That tastes like invisibility. It's either a potion of clairvoyance or a diet slice.

They're very similar flavors. Okay, I'm going to roll perception on the tower. Okay. Natty, 19. Okay, 39. All right, so it's about 80 feet tall. There looks like a six- foot or so wooden parapet on its flat roof

um you see some sort of mechanism that is being turned towards you it doesn't quite look like a ballista it doesn't quite look like it's some sort of siege engine but it's so huge and it's

moving extremely fast for its size. It doesn't make sense to you. Nothing you've seen before. And you see far away three or four, maybe five bodies up there. All right. Can I do another perception check? There's the creature down below that's been activated by the whistle. The scorpion.

But is there any other kind of movement up in the, you know, coming at me? Anybody else that might be coming to attack us? Okay, roll perception. Natural five, 25. You don't see, well, you're 110 feet up. You don't see anything lifting off the ground to come after you. You just see these giants riding a colossal scorpion, and they're skittering, like, in the direction of the castle. But that's all you see. Okay. off the ground to come after you. You just see these giants riding a colossal scorpion,

and they're skittering in the direction of the castle. But that's all you see. Okay. And they don't appear to see her? No, they're looking around at the sound of the whistle, and you're so high up, you hear things being yelled, but nothing that you can hear. This could be a lot of things. It doesn't necessarily have to be, like,

a giant who sees invisibility seeing him. That's easy. Could be that very well. But, like, there could also be some sort of, like, motion detection going on here. Proximity alarm. Yeah, proximity alarm because you trip something, but they still can't even see you. But they are pointing the ballista at me. I know, which leads me to—but it could be that the ballista is intelligent or something,

or it's a construct that knows something and the giants don't. So there's a lot of weird options out there. All right, I'm going to ready an action. Okay. Let me just make sure I can ready this. Yeah. So I'm going to wait and see what happens. And if the ballista or whatever that object is on top of the tower gets turned at like, at me, I will act.

I will cast a spell. All right, so it's being turned in your direction. You want to wait till it fires at you, or you want to... Oh, it's going to fire? Boom! Nice, Matt! You! Well done.

Lawyer tricked him. Lawyer's dodge. You idiot. It's being aimed at you. Is it being aimed at me, or are they just going to, like, swing it around? I'm saying you can't ready that action. You can ready for it on a firing, but aiming at you, it's too hard to tell what it's being

If they fire, then. Can I interrupt that? Yeah, you haven't taken any action, stand or move. So you want to take an action should it fire at you. Yes. Okay. As long as I can interrupt it. I don't want whatever it's going to shoot to hit me.

So if you're saying I won't be able to discern that, then I'll just... This is tricky. Say it did fire at you. The firing happens, and then that thing, just the bolt or whatever, floats in midair while you act. When you ready an action, it occurs before the triggering event. Right. So you'll hear that thunk in that case or whatever. But the triggering event is triggered and can't be untriggered.

So it does essentially pause in midair. But the other thing is, like, you've got to hover, right? Or are you going to keep flying as a move action and then ready this? Or are you going to hover as a move action? I can do that. Yeah, I guess I have to take my move action because I took my perception check. I can't just delay. Yeah, okay.

So I will... I'll hover. You know, I'll turn. I'll kind of gracefully turn to face the tower and the opening that I came out of. Okay. That's my move action. Ready action. If it fires before it hits me, I will cast a spell.

Okay. So you move a little bit. That's your move action. You're readying your standard to act if it fires at you. Because if it fires at me, they can see invisible. Right. Maybe the giants can't. You don't know.

Maybe one giant can. You know what I mean? There's a lot. I'm just saying, keep your mind open. Let's not assume. If they can target me, they can see me. Yeah. Something can see me.

Someone or something can. Okay. Or they just see in heat signatures. It's a bunch of predators up there. You never know. Maybe they just have a preternatural sense of brooms. Yeah. They could just detect brooms.

I wonder if it's a broom bane ballista. Yeah. Anything can happen in book six. Let's take it to the last member of your elite fighting team, Baron Redheart. Baron is going to power walk his way up to Nestor in Dalgrith like a 60-year-old divorcee at the Mall of America going for the last Cinnabon. All right, so Baron can get up there with ease, 85 feet. 60 feet is how far Nestor moved, but yeah, I have 80 feet of... No, Nestor moved 85.

He moved 90. He moved right up to the end of the thing. Oh, you have extra movement speed. That's why you were able to get there as opposed to... No, because I'm running. I can move four times my speed. I'm asking Dalgrith, though. No, no, no.

I know. So he didn't need all of his running speed to get up to me. I didn't use all of mine. He didn't use all of his... But you can move more than 20 I didn't use all of mine. He didn't use all of his. But you can move more than 20 feet around is what I'm asking, Douglas. No, no, I can't. Oh, so you didn't get up to him. Okay.

You got 80. You could be 10 feet away from him. Yeah, 10 feet away. All right, then I'm also 10 feet away from him. Okay, good. So the dwarves are hanging out, hoping for the best for Nestor while he stands at the edge. And it is Nestor's turn. Nestor, again, you don't see uh metra uh you hear that

whistle you hear the sound of this coming from the tower uh and yeah i don't even think you see these creatures that she sees because there's a they're a level below so yeah nester's just kind of like looking around i'm gonna going to do a perception check. Yeah. 30? 30. Let's go over it all again. Start from the beginning. With the exception of the stuff that you hear in the tower, which is basically the same stuff she hears,

you don't see it because it's above your eye line. Right. I don't see any movement around where I am, from my perspective. Alright, so you're right there on the cave thing, over where there's a lot of vapor to the northwest, and there's a lot more fumaroles. You do see some movement up there,

but you can't quite tell what's happening. It doesn't look like giants. There's just some strange sparkling movement. And then you hear stuff below in the crater, but you can't see it from that vantage point. It doesn't look like giants. There's just some strange sparkling movement. And then you hear stuff below in the crater, but you can't see it from that vantage point. Yeah, so Nestor, his spidey sense is going off. And he's just kind of like looking around. He's just like looking up at Mettra. He says, come on, you little witch.

Go to get out of here. And he's just like, he doesn't want to shout out, but he's just like kind of looking at her, just willing her to come back down to where they are so he can bug out. Okay. Nestor waits. Dalgrith, you're 10 feet away from your good buddy Nestor. What do you want to do?

He's going to stop 10 feet away from him, looking out at this huge opening and just feeling the sense of danger, but Nestor hasn't shot at anything yet, so he's going to creep up and he'll actually go prone and just sort of crawl up and do a stealth. Just kind of get up there but not be an easy target. So he rolls a 30 stealth as he comes up to the edge.

But he's going to get up right next to Nestor. Oh, yeah, and Nestor... He army crawls up. Right. Nestor's going to have up right next to Nestor. Oh yeah, and Nestor... He like army crawls like up. Right. Nestor's going to have at the end of his turn, he's going to throw himself against the southernmost wall of the tunnel just to get some kind of cover and concealment. Okay. Do you want to

try and stealth in there just for good measure? Yeah, I'm going to do that. So that is a 90, 14, so that is a 40. 40, alright 40 alright so guys super super stealthy You get up there you don't feel like you've been seen You don't see enemies but you don't know what Can be seen in the tower

That's the only thing that's above you But now Dalgrith can see the cloud castle or at least the fog Surrounding it Do you want to see that picture again Yes please Now you get to see it I see a castle in a cloud. Hanukkah.

Oh, damn it. It's there as a castle. I didn't want to get sued, so I changed two words. That's all you get to see. All right. Buck and Metra's turn. Metra, they did not fire at you between your turn and the return of your turn in the second round. Interesting.

Yes. Tung, tung, tung, tung, tung, tung, tung. The winch sound has stopped, however. Good job, dude. Okay. Just for good measure, Metro will do the same thing. Measure, Metro will do the same thing. She'll kind of do a lazy circle to the northeast and will ready an action.

If they fire, she will cast a spell. Same exact thing. Okay. Looks like it's going to pay off because at that moment you hear two sounds. Okay. Metro will cast Dimension Door. Okay. Where do you go? I appear right behind Baron and Nestor and Dogwrith.

Do you tap them on the shoulder and do something funny? What are you guys looking at? It's like the last crusade when the tank... I was thinking, yeah. I was thinking it's like Janet in Good Place. When she's summoned. She's never where you think she's going to be. Wait, I'm trying to remember it.

Last Crusade. He walks up behind them, right? And he's all huffing and puffing. He's like... It's such a good moment. Metric Dimension doors behind Baron, behind Dalgrith, behind Nestor. And Nestor and Dalgrith, you both see, and only the two of you since you're right at the edge there,

a thundering ballista bolt come flying by and a huge stone just right in the air where nothing was. You would assume that's probably where Metro was. Wait, is it a stone or is it a ballista bolt? Both. Two things. Two things. Oh, one stone, one ballista bolt. You heard that zing and then foof.

Whoa. Yeah, a ballista bolt and a stone. Which one came first? The fwoop or the oom? It looked like the ballista bolt came flying first. He's trying to do the sound. The fwoop. Fwoop.

Or the fwoop. Fwoop. Fwoop. He's trying to get him to do the sound. The fling. Fling. Foo. Oh, the fling. Fling. Foo. There's a little fling foo. Uh, classic fling foo. Just your classic fling foo. Uh, and that is what happens.

It seems for the moment you are out of harm's way. What do you do? I think we're going to need to reinvestigate our tactics. Shall we make our escape to the Cathedral of Minderhall? Aye. Let's get the fuck out of here. He starts backing away, like, on his belly. He's, like, really afraid of being seen

by something out there. He's sliding along the walls. He's like, what's that old saying about waking sleeping giants? Bad thing, right? Generally bad thing, yes. All right, so what is the plan? We'll teleport to the Cathedral of Minderhall. Teleport to Cathedral of Minderhall.

I see you reaching into your dice tray there. What die are you pulling out? D-100. D-100. The D-100. I'm100. The D-100. I'm more nervous now than I've ever been. This is the most nervous I've been for all these years. Oh, yeah.

You're very familiar with Mindercall. Mindercall is the key. What? The key, though. Mindercall is the hedral. Right. I'm, however, not familiar with any presentation. Mindercall is the hedral.

It sounds like you're trying to say polyhedral dice yeah there's some there's it there's that there's a hedril my uh nearest resolution was to have a stroke on air check that out yeah all right cut that out of the way quick really i roll a 49 okay it's always so terrifying like when you see those news reporters they're like oh it's a hurricane in miami, and you're like, and nothing changes when they have that stroke. And I'm so afraid that's going to happen to me. Glossolalia? Is that what that is? Glossalia? Gale force winds coming through South China.

All right. You find yourselves in Minderhall's Cathedral. It's been a while. Ages. It's been a while. It's been a while. Amazing. Since you went to Thinderhall's Cathedral.

Thinderhall's Cathedral. You arrive and things are different. The doors to the cathedral are open and you see outside camps of all sorts of people. Medium-sized creatures, giant-sized creatures, almost mingling with each other in many ways. Outside, you look in the cathedral, in addition to Farron and the other wackos that have started to become a part of this story. Ralphio. Ralphio, of course. You see frost giants, where there weren't frost giants before.

Whoa. Frost giants, where there weren't frost giants before. Whoa. Sitting down on stone benches, having conversations with Kellid tribesmen. Amazing. You see maybe half a dozen stone giants. Looks like they're teaching humans how to use tools that are much too large for them. There's a lot of sharing of ideas going back and forth. Humans talking to a giant, the giant is bending down to listen.

And presiding over it all is Farron, who sees you immediately when you just appear out of thin air. And all of the gathered masses that are in the cathedral, and you see outside as well, they start standing up to look at you, and everyone else just turns to look. You imagine that Farron has been preaching the gospel of the True Now Five, in a way, telling of your story, telling what you've sacrificed to try and save the world. And in that moment,

you think maybe there's hope to end this fighting between giants and humans. It's not going to happen overnight. Defeating the Storm Tyrant is just one part of this puzzle. But if you could have done this already in Minderhall's Cathedral,

there's a moment of hope. Theron opens her arms and says, Behold, the true now four have returned. Come, friends.

Take a load off. Let's talk. And I imagine you look weary. Yeah. Even though you have magic that can make your wounds close up, you've got that look in your eye of, you know, a battle-hardened warrior.

And do we have magic that can act as a deodorant? Probably not. Probably not. No. It was hot in that volcano. Volcanoes are hot. We're all wearing cloaks. Yeah.

That would be the first cantrip anyone would develop. It would be in the top five. I think there is a cantrip that does this. Well, there's cleanse, right? There's cleanse. And prestidigitation can clean off. Oh, right. Okay.

Well, this is all, this is lovely, but Nestor is made, he's deeply suspicious and uncomfortable in all this. Have you been back since? Yeah, that's what I was just going to ask. Yeah, no. Yeah, this is his first time back, too, so he's just like, scene of the crime, literally. So, yeah. She's eyeing you.

She was there. Yeah. she saw it all go down she looks to you baron as if like what's this is not the true now for i expected a couple things have changed since we last saw you farron i can see the tide has turned. We have defeated King Tytarian at Ash Peak. A couple of the giants turn their heads like, what? What did you say? King Tytarian? He's on the balls of his feet. He's like, yeah, that's me, King Tytarian.

We did it. I'm King Tytarian. Surely you took his magical crown. No, that got away. Is that important? It is probably a headband of something. Amazing. It's pretty badass.

No, it is pretty badass. What is it? Could you just tell us? You want to know what the crown does? Yeah. You're never going to see her again. I'll tell you in a second while Baron roleplays. In the epilogue, we could hunt down the queen and murder her and all of her people.

We'd like the crown. And take the crown. That's a great post-credits scene. If you hang in there for the post-credits scene. It's a dark ending. You just see the slaughter of the, what tribe was it? The clan? Brandrick.

Brandrick clan. Well, it looks like you've had a few more acolytes since I've last been here, and you might expect a few more from Clan Brandrick any day now, so get ready for them. Now, we could use your help. We need more help than ever

to end this fight, and that's why Nestor's with us. Our aims have aligned for the time being. Now, Farron, you could help us in all of this by helping us identify a couple items we haven't been able to figure out one way or the other what they do. And he pulls out the hammer

and is there anything else that we couldn't identify with our spellcraft checks? That's it. So he pulls out the hammer. She takes it from you and even in her huge, slag-giant hands, you see the weight of it. Change her mood. Not only the weight, but she senses the great magic it possesses. I've never seen such craftsmanship.

My whole life I've been surrounded by giants such as I, who were masters of the forge. And yet I've never seen anything resembling this. I must pray on this tonight, and see if Minderhall, or perhaps one of your gods, speaks to me and lets me know. Do you have time? Are you in and out, back into the battle? We have about a day, Farron We plan on using the forge to resize a few weapons we've found

And perhaps even give ourselves a bit of a fighting chance heading into the next battle But as soon as we can, as soon as we're geared up and mended, we're out of here. We also might kind of pop over to another town called Skelt at some point before we head back. Let's not be too hasty, brother. One day might be more than a day. And Baron looks Dalgrith up and down and realizes, like, even if he's trying to get things done as quickly as possible um as a leader he's like not even taking care of himself and everyone might need a bit more rest than that and that it might even be worth like an extra sabbatical day to go to the hot

springs or something even if the world's on the line just to take that tension off and that tension out of our muscles might be enough for us to dodge an arrow or ballista bolt or get out of the way of a swing that could end our lives. Yeah, and this is what we were talking about before we went on air. And by we, I mean the four of you guys is going back and forth.

And you had already been working on it for the whole week, but you still needed to do it together, talking about what you want to do here. Because it seems pretty clear, and you don't know. You don't know once you get in there what the situation is going to be. I know. But there's some things I don't even know because I've already forgot.

Because I didn't prep it well. I didn't really prep the adventure well. When I don't know, I just make it up. There are a lot of things about the start of book six that I don't even know. I don't even know. I'm only 10 pages in. I hear it ends well. I just finished the foreword, and I made up all that stuff about the creator.

But you think that this could be your last visit to the outside world, so you want to resize some stuff. You might want to forge some stuff. And then you said you want to go to this town. You want to go to a town. You might want to forge some stuff and then you said you want to go to this town you want to go to a town you might want to buy some stuff you need your last stock to go in there just in case there's no way out just in case this teleportation uh anti-magic field is a situation where you you can't get out and we've decided on top of all that um to to resize some things to do some shopping but to also because time is of the essence we're basically going to send a raven of word of what's happening as an update to true now and the other towns and allies we have made throughout the way to let them

know about this huge threat uh that we're making good progress but at any moment we can fall you could give them directions you You could let them know that if a TPK happens, you might need people from these towns. People with really mediocre backstories. Don't take long to make. Something you can talk about in nine, ten minutes. Right. And then

spend the other four minutes going over the mechanics of that character. Yeah, bland characters with incredible mechanics. Right. People with a death wish. I come from the town of powerful cy death wish. I come from the town of Min Maxius. All orphans with no families. Nothing tying them down. Only accepting orphans with no children.

That would be a good one for Matthew. That should be Mindy Maximus. That should be your nice... Another feminine character. Mindy Maximus. Mindy Maximus. Or Mindy Hall. Minderhall worshipping.

Mindy Hall. Yeah, Mindy Hall, yeah. Mindy Hall of Minderhall. Mindy Hall of worship of Minderhall. I am the Hall of Minderhall. But I think in kind of the spare moment before, we ask permission to use the forge, and if that'll interrupt anything.

And does Farron agree to let us use it but of course it's the forge does not belong to me i am but it's keeper now that atena has passed a question baron if i may and she can pull you aside I noticed he is with you. Sure, it's a long story, but my concern is, can you trust him? I can't. But as of this moment, I also can't move forward without him. He's one of the strongest fighters in all of Galeria. And one of the only chances we have of Galeria, and one of the only chances we have of stopping the threat in front of us. I'm not going to sleep easy, I can tell you that, until this ends. Maybe even after then I won't. But it's a risk I'm willing to take, if it means being able

to stop the Scourge from descending on the small people of the world. There were times when I was studying under Atena when I sensed great discord in her beliefs. Not true evil, per se, but moments of darkness. And yet I still followed her because that was my path. I was her acolyte and I listened. In time, I realized that her ways and beliefs were not all correct. Now, would I have done things differently? I don't know who's to say.

However, this man, this man seems like he's pure evil. Now maybe there's something in him that's worth saving, but you should be very careful. I will. And just as you were shaped by a tenna, I was once shaped by a little lady who didn't even say a word to me. Her name was Abria. And ever since I found her, gave her back to her family, I've been fighting for her and people like her every day. And it doesn't matter if I can trust him or not or if he'll ever turn tail and kill me in my sleep. As long as I can point him and his aggressions towards the things that are threatening all the Aubrey's of the world,

I don't care. I don't care about my own well-being. I already lived my childhood. I already adventured childhood. I already adventured more than any man has a right to. Seen more of the world than anyone

should. Farron, from here on out, it's not about me. It's about the principles we stand for. It's not about me. It's about the principles we stand for. Listen, might I be allowed to interject? I mean, this is sort of about me, so... They look up from where they were standing over you, 40 feet away.

We should have gone farther away. You know why we stood so close? Talk so loudly. I know, I'm not... Clearly, he's getting emotional. I'm not, clearly he's getting emotional. I'm not entirely sure who Aubrey is. And I think I can probably guess who a tenor is, though I don't really care.

But just the simple fact that I've managed to convince this lot, who I betrayed so openly and completely, to take me back in, should be some indication of the amount of need that they have for me, what I've been able to do to convince them. And I am the first to admit that I am one of the world's most incredible liars. But in this particular case, I am not lying. I need them. They need me.

I need to take this giant tyrant out, or else he will hunt me to the ends of the earth. Even if he doesn't, even if he chooses not to, I choose to kill him, because he has turned me into a hunted animal, and that cannot stand. And much as they need me to do this thing, I also need them.

And as much as I have little faith in my own personal ability to complete this task on my own I also have almost no confidence in their ability to complete this task without me so we're sort of stuck with each other and I hope that's enough for you even though I don't really like giants at all it's not my place to determine

what's right and what's enough. Seems as if you are a weapon to them in many ways. And some weapons, not unlike this hammer, you can sense the evil in it. But if in the right hands, even an evil weapon can be used for good purposes. By the end of this, all of us will know if the right decisions were made.

In the meantime, you should get some rest. Use the forge as you will, and I will meditate on this hammer. She goes down beneath the forge, into the forge arc with this hammer. She goes down beneath the forge into the forge heart with the hammer. We should also say that I didn't want to belabor it too much, but I've already She poked her head out.

Farron, I've already talked to him about, I believe, in the salvation of man through good deeds and that he could potentially do that still. That's my principle going forward and I've already discussed this with Nestor. All right. Okay. I'm going to go back.

Let me know how the hammer does tomorrow. And you hear a fall down the stairs. Oh no! The hammer was so heavy! He decided to be held up! Oh God! Crap! I've broken the hammer!

Now I'm bleeding! That's a long fall! The hammer landed on my knee! I'll never walk again If we were to You hear a voice over about 40 feet away On the other side just says Is she alright? And you look over and Dogger is just in a towel

Steam bath over Soak tit to toe That feels so amazing It's incredible to be back So refreshed So glad to be, that feels so amazing. It's incredible to be back. So refreshed. So glad to be off that damn mountain. The crown, by the way, is a crown of conquest.

What? Sha-gum-gum-ga-gum. Couple cool powers. The wearer gets a plus four. Plus four comp bone on intimidate checks. If the wearer of the plus four plus four comp bone on intimidated checks. If the wearer of the crown has the leadership feat, you get a plus one bonus to your leadership score and any follower or

cohort of the wearer gains a plus one bonus on attack rolls and saving throws against fear while in line of sight of the wearer. And then the last thing, which I think is the coolest, is whenever the wearer confirms a crit, the crown creates a prayer effect centered on the crown's wearer.

That's incredible. Holy crap. I can't remember, but I think Tytarian rolled a 20 on one of the rocks, and I was just like, oh, I can just get a crit off. That would have been, boom, a little prayer effect. Never had prayer cast against me before in a combat. That's crazy. A little Zerthvater prayer.

For those that don't know, a prayer gives all your allies plus one and all your enemies negative one to hit at once. It's really cool. It's like a doubled up bless. Yeah. Bless and bane all at the same time. Yeah. Now, you already took time off air deciding what you want to do with the forge.

So just tell me and more tell the listeners really what your plans are. We are, I mean, at the forge, we're doing a whole lot of resizing so that this stuff can be sold to the outside world. And so we can turn it over into cash to get the things that we really want. But among those things, and I don't have to go into it. there's a ton of stuff yeah just the stuff that really matters but i guess it doesn't matter like if you're just resizing it to sell yeah sizing anything to keep there's only one thing i think we're resizing to keep uh no we there are there's a lot more okay go through those first uh well we'll get to yours last but it's little stuff uh well i guess you know what the wondrous items all resize themselves so i

guess they all they're all wondrous to worry about the things that we're keeping weapons armor and cloaks are wondrous items aren't they yeah so just the weapons and armor we're not keeping any of them uh we're selling them all back except for one and that is the plus two distance lucky fire forged pistol. Going to hold on to that one. And I had a bit of a back and forth with our erstwhile game master today. That is I. I'll be playing the game master. I am dungeon master.

I am dungeon master. But isn't he still our current Game Master? Well, you don't know what I put in his drink, Matthew. I've been trying to show Archer the Dungeon Dragons cartoon. Oh, that's awesome. He's not into it. We get through the intro, and then he just wants to watch the intro again. I am Dungeon Master. It's a good intro.

Acrobat. That was Venger. Cavalier. Cavalier? Thief? Ranger? I always forget. It's all the original class. Yeah. Cavalier? Thief? Ranger? I always forget the original class. Acrobat? Ranger.

Barbarian. Barbarian. Essentially, after we went through all the original classes in our email chain, I basically talked to Troy about altering this gun. Little gun alteration.

Not adding on any magical abilities, as we have done in the past with Lawbringer, which no longer is with us, sadly. Rest in peace. Oh, I hope I find... Rest in peace is more accurately. Oh. I didn't want to add any abilities to it.

I wanted to change it, which made sense to me at a forge, because my feats are built around double-barreled pistols, and this is a single-barreled pistol. So I asked Troy, hey, man, I would love to change this. I don't want to be cheesed

out there. Firing both pistols isn't really something I do, but my feats are around it, and I don't want to cheat. And Troy said, I don't like doing things that aren't explicitly listed. But he came to a compromise that makes us both happy. So what did you

decide, Troy? Well, because we had talked about this before with your feats when you were using a single-barrel pistol, rapid reload and stuff, it's tied to just that. So when you switched to the double barrel, you would have had to take rapid reload again and put it on double barrel. It so since rather than make you do that again i said just let you can do a flavor second barrel on there that you're like welding yourself at the forge of

minder hall just to balance it right yeah just to change the balance but it doesn't have any mechanical bonuses it just allows you to not have to retrain those feats a cosmetic barrel yes a cosmetic barrel if you will um and i think that's cool it's flavor character um we talked about you know maybe making them you could shoot them both at a minus five or a minus six when like you're hitting a touch ac anyways especially how with the distance pistol it's going to be even easier or like hopping the misfire i'm like you know what, just make it a flavor barrel. Yep. And so I guess Baron kind of looks around at all the Ignants and finds a fire-forged one. I ain't Ignant! I'm smart!

I'm smart, all right! Will slowly melt down that piece of metal. He's not going to say that word again because he doesn't want the Game Master to interject. that piece of metal. He's not going to say that word again because he doesn't want the Game Master to interject. And we'll meld it and shape it into an extra barrel that will allow him to kind of have the muscle memory necessary to use this single-barreled pistol as a double-barreled pistol

without the benefits of the barrel. Sweet. That's the sound. That's the sound. That's the sound of a man. I feel like we're playing a digital version of the Giant Slayer board game. Ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, uh sweet so you have this resized new gun um uh and that is it everything else plus one long swords plus one great swords plus two half plate plus one half plate like all kinds of stuff that we found on these guys we uh are resizing uh through like a probably an entire day's work just like using the magic of the forge using farron's advice to resize all this stuff so that we can turn it around

into value for the items we want to take into what appears to be a castle we can't leave until we take it down. Are you going to resize the hammer? Oh, well, we have to wait until Farron has a day to examine it so yeah we're gonna chill on that for the moment we're not gonna so can you resize it without knowing it's probably you know what i guess yeah we would resize it anyway yeah yeah can i make a recommendation what how long i know we want to rest and go to the hot the hot springs and everything but we should go to skelp today and do our our sales and our selling and buying and

rest we're either in skelp or back at the cathedral that way we are all fresh and i have all my spell slots when we return back to the caldera but i literally do not imagine us turning around that fast like i think we can be three days minimum like we can go do our stuff i would like to yeah i would like to retrain a feat also which would take five days right so skid told me about this before so i that's why i sort of did it in character but like i think we're talking about a few days rest here even if that makes things a little tougher for us there i don't even know that it would i think like if we if we if we came back right away they would be on guard because they're like but i think the more time that we take we

might they might slip back into a little bit like we are coming back right so it's just like yeah just leave them guessing as to when we're coming back yeah i don't think that you know who knows like really i mean we have we have no idea anyway but but yeah we just landed such an enormous blow yeah by just um disbanding their entire fire giant special forces that they had been training up you know what i mean like there's no way they have like special forces coming in we just got rid of all their special forces right so i think we not this week time now do i think that there are some repercussions yeah but do i think but i think it's worth it for the things we will be prepared for going in exactly yep definitely and i think

that i could picture us in character i could picture us multiple days debating like how we approach right exactly what are we gonna do i have no idea like i think it could be an entire episode just like debating how to get into this place i what also... Or what our first step is. I also want to go back to the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon for a second. I am Dungeon Master. Did you know that three of the classes of the kids in that show did not exist in Dungeons & Dragons until that show premiered?

No. I assume that they... But then they reverse-engineered them from the show? They did. Oh, see, I always thought the chicken came before the egg. No, they were... So Cavalier so cavalier barbarian and acrobat were originated in the show and then were retroactive well not retroactive but then were inserted into the game rules by the unearthed

arcana supplement isn't that funny yeah huh barbarian's a big one yeah that's a hell of a class oh yeah to have that come out of that. That's crazy. It was thief acrobat. Acrobat was kind of like a prestige class for thieves. Cavalier was super overpowered too. That's cool. He gives the ranger a magical bow. He gives the barbarian a magical club. The thief gets a

cloak of invisibility. The acrobat has a bow that she can vault over people. Cavalier gets a shield, a magical shield. It's not a bad show. You know that they never aired the final episode of the show, but the script was always floating around, and someone

got together with one or two members of the original voice cast and recorded the script. I was watching that a few months ago. I haven't watched it, but I heard it. Did they animate it too? Yeah, they did they did they did animate it oh that's cool the one i saw it was on youtube imagine the animation is so cheap now it's terrible but yeah but yeah it looks it's i mean it looks almost the same as the regular show that's nice they did that because like you always see at comic cons like table reads of things yeah yeah but like

seeing it actually animated is another step up yeah all right so you're gonna spend the night at minder hall's cathedral just sleep it off okay does it take is it take more than a day to do this but like seeing it actually animated is another step up alright so you're going to spend the night at Menderhall's Cathedral and just sleep it off does it take more than a day to do this kind of stuff that you want to do I don't think well you know what I think that I don't know the rules because I don't have craft beats

but like it's something like it takes like a certain amount of hours or sometimes it can take like a week to like craft something well are you doing crafting or you just know we're just resizing so does that is that just like one hit from the hammer and it does it or who has the um the hammer of what was it called again hammer uh aggramash the aggramash is making yeah wait that's the only way you can resize that's yeah so uh minder uh sir will has that hammer oh really yeah how would he have

that hammer i thought that the forge resized no inderhall's cathedral can be excuse me inderhall's forge can be used in conjunction with agramosh the hammer of unmaking to resize armor and weapons when a weapon suit of armor or shield is placed in the forge and struck with hammer it permanently resizes to instruct with struck with hammer, it permanently resizes to match the size of Aggramash's wielder. The power is so strong that magic or even intelligent

items are always infected. There's no way that the party would have let Sir Will leave with it if we knew that that was tied to that. Right? So Sir Will doesn't have it. So wait, what happened you had it and who did who did you come in contact with that could get here metra if anything if anything would be in the bag yeah yeah i think baron would have taken it before

parting ways with sir will right did baron see sir will or what yeah when they left when they split when he went off when he When he went to Skelton. I feel like we had this conversation before, last time you were doing resizing. You were like, we can't give it to Sir Will. We need it. I don't remember. Either way, that's when I would have taken it.

I'm going to penalize you for that. Because you would have been like, no, Sir Will, give us that. Because it's the only thing you can use to resize. Is that another hammer? Is that another item that we don't know all the magical properties of still? Agamosh, the Hammer of Unmaking? Yeah. Use its full name when you speak.

It's a legendary hammer that its abilities unlock as you go. Right, right. Yeah, we did ignore it for a while. Remember when Gal took a level in Fighter to be able to wield it? Yep, yep. Sure do. And to wear the armor. I think you do know all the stuff it can do.

Once per day is a full round action. The wielder of Aggramosh can use the hammer to cast heightened enlarged person that lasts for 20 minutes. And whenever the wielder

of Aggramosh confirms a crit against a creature of the humanoid type, they must succeed in a DC 23 fortitude save or shrink by one size category as by heightened and reduced person.

That lasts for 20 minutes. You know, it's a cool hammer. You hate when you find these cool artifacts early and no one in the party was really built for it. And it's like, here's the weapon for the adventure. Everything we have found in this adventure. The signature weapon of the AP and we can't use it. Or the armor. Like, that's gone too.

Everything we have found in this adventure has been for fighters. It's all weapons and armor. It makes sense. It's not crazy. There aren't a lot of spell books just filled with amazing spells. Who could potentially use this

other hammer? Nobody right now. Jimmer? Yeah, Jimmerimmer coach he's got all his specialized uh long sword stuff so yeah none of you wait you guys can wield yeah we can wield it but it's not you're not not going to be feasible for us to use in combat um well i mean we'll see what the item does i mean if it if it grants constant effect see invisibility might be worth wielding you know there's maybe one of us dies today and then we'll be really lucky in a hammer wielding hammer resurrection yeah hammer guy will come along uh all right so what are you thinking you want to sleep it off here for a couple days before going to scale do you want to stay for five to get

uh nestor's feet retrained and then go there on the sixth day and return? We can also go without Nestor. While he's training, we can go to Skelton. Okay. All right, so you're talking about five days total then. You want to keep it as tight as possible? Yep.

Yeah, so what would the hammer, would that be a martial weapon? Is it like a... Sure, you can wield a war hammer, a cler be a martial weapon? Is it like a... Sure, you can wield a war hammer. A clerican. Yeah. Okay. Actually, yeah, that might not be too bad for you. Might not be.

I know you like your daggers, but... Depending on the... I love you using a hammer because it's the dwarfiest thing possible. Yeah, yeah. If you love Toraga and forgingging you got to use a hammer brah um can't load a hammer in your spring sheath we should before we teleport back it is it is a martial weapon it's not a simple weapon and clerics cannot wield warhammer if they're a cleric of torag oh you know why i'm thinking because i had a cleric barbarian that used a

warhammer barbarian allowed me to do it. So you can't use it. No. Unless I take martial weapon proficiency when we level up. Might be worth it. Which I won't. Well, we'll see what the weapon is. Yeah. You might. Somebody might. Alright, so day one, I'm just keeping track

of days here. Day one, you arrive in Middall's Cathedral. This is the same day that T titarian was murdered yes okay your plan uh you need to stay there at least five days and i'm going i'm fingers crossed that there is someone there with this feat that i want that can i can train with okay um what is the feat the feat i think i'm I think, is clustered shot. Clustered shot. Yeah.

Okay. So on day one, you mentioned about, does anyone have this ability or something? Yeah, I'm looking to do this, blah, blah, blah. And the word is in the cathedral, no one really has that capability. So one of the guys is like, I'll go out to the camps and see if there's anybody that has this ability. I mean, it's going to help save the world. I'll see what I can find. Comes back day two, nothing.

On day two, Farron comes up from the forge heart. And it's like, I have prayed on the hammer, and it is complicated. I've still not fully sussed out what it does However, if you notice, it's quite brittle There's something about it that seems like it's been changed That it was once something else, but something has been done to change it I must prey on it further. What?

To try and figure out what happened to this and what powers, if any, it once had or may have again. Was it fragile? Maybe it was a dwarven hammer that the giants altered. It's like the sword that was broken. Why don't you add a wand of identified at that list, shopping list there, guys. All right, thank you. It's not altered. It's like the sword that was broken. Why don't you add a wand of identified at that list, a shopping list there, guys.

All right, thank you. Day three, guy comes back. Still haven't found anybody. I'll keep looking, though. Farron doesn't come up. You're killing me, mate. Come on. You're killing me, mate.

Farron doesn't come up at all on day three. She's locked in there trying to figure this out. From time to time, you hear things down there, like she's conducting rituals in the Forge in there trying to figure this out. From time to time, you hear things down there, like she's conducting rituals in the Forge Heart to try and figure this out. Day four, the guy comes back. I found someone that might be able to help you, but we need to go to her. Right, okay. This way. He walks you out into into the camps and you see just like it's not like they're the the small folk and the giants are living together but they're not completely separated

they're mingling they're hanging out they're having barbecues um a couple kegs are out there looks like they're having a good time um and he takes you uh past a small uh group of dwarves you see two or three halflings as well nearby um he walks you right past them and over to a stone giant she says she can help you and he backs up and then kind of picks up his speed and runs back to the cathedral. So you're just standing there in front of the stone giant towering over you. What do you need to learn? Oh, hello. So, yeah, I've been looking, asking around for someone who can teach me to do it. You know that trick I've heard about? You know, it's boom, boom, hello. So, yeah, I've been looking, asking around for someone who can teach me to do...

You know that trick I've heard about? You know, it's just boom, boom, boom. Like, you put, like, a bunch of arrows in one spot, so you can, like, sort of hit it, and they die, and they can overcome damage reduction. Like, that's what I'm sort of looking to do. You can do that. I don't know. I've never seen a giant who was good at that sort of thing.

Let me see if this is what you seek. And she goes into her tent and pulls out a huge bow. Oh, fucking great bow! Oh, blimey, that is a big bow. She reaches down and picks up an arrow. A man. A young man. The young man who led you there.

Picks up Bull Bull and puts him in there. And she looks around at the surrounding mountain and she sees like off in the distance where the pit fighting was happening like a tent sitting there that's barely standing up. And she's like

maybe this. And she just aims it and hits it spot on and you know in that moment in the way that it hit it that she has the power that you seek oh my goodness gracious well uh can you teach me to do that i can make it worth your while let's get to work and you guys start training cue the training montage tell me about this the new way

Farron comes up on the fourth day as well and she looks like she's been through hell she looks like she's been through hell. She looks like she hasn't slept. I have determined what this is. Or what it once was. And what it could be again.

It seems as if this was once a hammer of a great warrior, great warrior, perhaps not unlike you, Baron, or your giant slaying friends. But that hero was defeated, perhaps by Tytarian or his clan, and he bathed the hammer in the blood of the wielder, thereby making it brittle. And brittle, that's what it is. And losing all of its inherent power. You need to now bathe it in the blood of a fire giant. For it to regain its power. This is, in my estimation, unholy magic. But it is the only way. Should you do that, you will gain the powers of this weapon. At first glance, it looks like a plus three

large returning warhammer. Oh wow! Yeah! Wow! But that's to the untrained eye. I've studied this

perhaps too long. I feel as if my mind is clouded by the murder of the previous Wielder But if you were to wield this Weapon while also wearing A belt of giant Strength

It becomes a plus five Large Giant bane returning Thundering war Oh my god! With the following two properties. First, when the bearer makes a successful thrown attack with the hammer, the hammer emits a powerful clap of thunder,

causing all creatures within 90 feet to be stunned for one round. Oh my god. What did you say of negates? The wielder is not immune to this effect. It is so powerful. Second, the hammer's range increment increases to 30 feet.

This minor artifact is known as the Hammer of Thunderbolts. And we'll see you next week. Wow! That weapon is incredible!

Plus five! Oh, my giant bane! You know you're in the endgame when it's a plus five. Saudi! Weapon focus. Hammer. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, man.

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