Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
C1 Ep. 86 Eberron Reviewed 14
326 Plays6 years ago
Eric, Jeff, and Philip sit down to discuss a tumultuous and somewhat controversial arc in the story. Come join us as we try to unpack the arc.
This episode is brought to you by the generous donations of our amazing Show Sponsors: Laura Pickrahn, Jessica Smith, Irene Viorritto, Ryan Royce, Darrin Katzska, Darrell DeLaney, Jon Cary, Charles Compton, Nikko Batson, Matt Lewis, The Kamm Family, and David Scrams.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Episode Recap
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of Eberron renewed an actual play D&D fifth edition podcast This week we are doing an Eberron reviewed. We just finished a four episode arc That had a name and now we're gonna talk about it. Well, yeah Five runes the five runes four episodes five three players Anyway, I'm Jeff. I'm Eric
00:00:27
Speaker
And I'm Philip. Yeah. And so, uh, yeah, so we'll just jump right into it. The episode kicked off, the arc kicked off with us, um, waking up after, uh, Barrick had done something to dispose of, um, uh, strength and, uh,
00:00:47
Speaker
I mean, we just pretty much say, all right, we've got, we've got chores to do. Uh, we needed, we all went to meet with three and I don't want to gloss over that. And then we split up to do other things. So the, uh, the meeting with, with three and boring L that Barrick basically facilitated all of, um, I wasn't really involved in it. So if either of you two would like to speak to how that went down, it just seemed pretty boiler plate. See, we told you. I mean, yeah, it was, it was.
00:01:18
Speaker
it went more or less the way I expected. There weren't a lot of surprises there, although outside, the weird, the weird bird shenanigans, but, but yeah. Uh,
00:01:37
Speaker
I don't know, I wasn't sure how Eric would play it with the fact that it was obviously not really any of our characters who had the authority to tell Three what he should do in this situation.
00:01:50
Speaker
I think it's one of those things where he was knocked on his heels enough that he was gonna listen to anybody who seemed like they knew what they were talking about. Yeah, I mean, that happens. I'm sure we've all been there. And three people that the real Borenel had been traveling with and trusted with the secret, so he must assume they're worth listening to at least.
00:02:13
Speaker
And you know bear has the pedigree and the yas adorable whatever.
Character Strategies and Messages
00:02:22
Speaker
But yeah you know I will say did you think about with the scroll of true sight that you read like wouldn't three have thought leave this bad boy running I'm gonna be back at the castle before it wears off.
00:02:36
Speaker
I mean, I understand why narratively he didn't, but did you consider, I never really, that didn't enter my mind in the moment. That's not it. Yeah. Cause boy, it entered mine. I wish I'd said it. I wish I'd said something. Ow. Ow.
00:02:51
Speaker
sorry this cord i just i kicked it with my foot and it ripped these like i have a headphone band shaped dent in my skull now i'm a very soft head i'm like a baby my soft spot never closed up in a hard rain i'm out i don't know we're all punch drunk right now um
00:03:16
Speaker
Anyway, yeah, so let's talk about your bird. My blade. Yeah. I did like Philip asked how far away it was and you immediately thought he was going to try to kill it. I was like, no, he's going to befriend it. Yeah. So the bird lands and it says, I will see you where this all began. To discuss terms, meet me where this all began. Did you, Eric Shrimpl, expect for the three of us to recognize the voice that you put on?
00:03:46
Speaker
I was hoping that maybe because Lucan's voice was fairly distinct compared to my general Britishism. It certainly was. I'll be perfectly honest, the only reason I knew we were supposed to understand it is because you went with an accent that was so far off. I was like, that's somebody we're supposed to know. He's done that before.
00:04:06
Speaker
It is a distinct voice. I just haven't listened to that episode and we recorded it. Yeah. I mean, I had to go back and redownload it to remember what Lucan sounds like. So, no, I mean, I thought maybe, but I was wholly prepared to need to tell you this sounds like Lucan. Yeah.
00:04:27
Speaker
um well and this is if if i hadn't if you hadn't added investigation to the opportunity like you said insight or investigation i would have beefed that role and all we would have known was booyah's recollection of i've seen him okay okay cool so um yeah i was kind of hoping that i could uh keep keep my sit keep jerky's senses in the bird while it flew back to its master but
00:04:57
Speaker
it being just animal messenger that just didn't work once the messages just charged the spell ends. And there was no point where I thought, oh, I'm going to switch it now. Like animal messenger was the intention from the from yet. So. But yeah, so Lucan sends a message. Mm hmm.
00:05:19
Speaker
and we do you have a head cannon of how lucan knew that our campaign began at that bar uh yes i do i do have a head cannon for how lucan figured out where where you you're all's like last point of settlement was is the the the phrasing that i would choose to use like the information that luke lucan did not find out their journey that led them to me began here it was
00:05:46
Speaker
Okay. Based on my research, this is the last place they were like at for multiple months slash years. So fair enough. And ever since they were not enough, you needed to begin every word with a Z in that sense. So we, I mean, we just, we realized pretty quickly, Lucas back in contact with us in order to do that, he had to be close by.
00:06:11
Speaker
a packed holder was killed. We put two and two together pretty quickly on that one, because we're not always dumb guys.
Party Decisions and Negotiations
00:06:20
Speaker
But then we decide to split the party. And as always happens when you split the party. Oh, I forgot about this. Something bad went down. I didn't do. You guys forgot about this? I've been reliving this.
00:06:38
Speaker
Because I already listened to every episode. I do too. I just forgot that we would be talking about this tonight. And I listened to all three of the four. I didn't listen to the most recent one because it was fresh in the brain. I can't believe no one asked questions about this.
00:06:56
Speaker
So Booyan and Dex go to meet with Garnaw Thickeltarn and give him the Warforged parts. Sorry, it's Gurpath Tickle Yarn. Oh, shut up. That's a rude response to my harmless joke. Yeah. It was.
00:07:18
Speaker
but uh so barrick chimes in over the sending stone he's like hey why don't you see if he wants to buy these siberis dragon shards i was like cool idea barrick and what i didn't know is that well a lot the the
00:07:36
Speaker
The weight of what I didn't know could drive a hole through a boat. But one thing that I didn't know was that in the interim of the really nice goblin who helped us out of no real reason other than he liked Paola,
00:07:54
Speaker
and you know was helpful and gave us all this gnome gnome pardon me gnome gave us all this all this assistance and he was like yeah cool take some dragon skin whatever at some point he took a heel turn and became a grade a butt wad
00:08:17
Speaker
Now I knew that $150, the original offer, was too low. I didn't know how too low it was, but I knew that these things were worth more than- 50 gold pieces too low. I knew they were worth more than 30 gold each. So he said 150, and I was about to say, you and I both know what these things were worth to see if I could get a more realist, and roll a bluff check maybe, see if I could get a more realistic offer.
00:08:47
Speaker
but I didn't know that it was that much more, obviously. Well then Booyah says 200, he says okay, and I was just like, all right, it has been said, it has been agreed to, and Philip gets mad, but I just want to say to Philip, Philip, what should I have done? Should I have taken the- Continued to negotiate. Oh, you mean the always fruitful proposition of negotiating with Eric's triple NPCs? Okay. Because you did that and he killed your girlfriend.
00:09:17
Speaker
up firstly what Barrick was doing in the episode we're gonna get to was the exact opposite of negotiation secondly please god can that conversation not last as long as the y'all I will leave no okay here's the thing
00:09:42
Speaker
I got Spider-Man to play. It is absolutely realistic, from an in-universe perspective, that Dex Norbuya would have any, the average person that would approach Gurnath Ikultarn. It's like if you had some silver coins that in reality are incredibly rare and worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, but you go into a pawn shop and you're like, hey, I got some silver.
00:10:08
Speaker
Like, hey, I have these shiny crystals that seem magical. How much are you willing to give to me? The average layperson don't snicker. I was actually clearing my throat. I have a little bit of trouble. Someone's touchy, Eric. The average layperson is not going to know what they have, like, other than being magical crystals. Like, Sibberish. Okay. Yeah. This is why I was mad.
00:10:34
Speaker
Okay. Booyah has been- Guys, he was mad. He's been presented to us. Continue. I'm sorry, you were making, you were making gestures. I thought something technical had gone wrong. No, emotionally, not technically. This is not, this is not me mad at you. I'm not mad at you.
00:10:55
Speaker
I was never mad at you. I'm not mad at anyone anymore. I was never mad at you. I was mad at you. I never thought Gurnath Ikyltarn was a decent person because of what it took to get to his office. No decent person builds a death trap for a front door. So I had no illusions about Gurnath Ikyltarn being evil. Booyah has been presented to us.
00:11:24
Speaker
as a moonlighting artifice or tinkerer guy. He should know what a dragon shard is. And he has no concept of economics. He's been with us for weeks now. We've been spending money. He's got to have some idea. He has 10,000 gold pieces in the walls of a boat. I understand that because he recognizes they have value. Or they're just shiny. We don't know.
00:11:55
Speaker
Anyway, what's important, guys, is that none of us like each other anymore. This is the last reviewed. We're breaking up. We're waving and screaming like this is a sports talk radio show all of a sudden. And we're talking about a fantasy game. Can we please, when we eventually livestream a review, can it be like that where we have the different heads offloading?
00:12:17
Speaker
Um, uh, so Phillip was genuinely angry. I was really angry. I was way more. I was way angrier than Barrick was. I had to really bring it down because I realized that Barrick would be a lot more understanding. But, and I, and I mean, this was, you can, you can say whatever you want to this. Half of my thought process was.
00:12:40
Speaker
Eric has decided that his character is going to do inner gold pieces and Eric is not going to change his mind. I can't imagine what I would do to make, to get more money out of this. And this isn't interesting enough radio. Let's do, let's just do it and move in situations. You can always roll dice, man.
00:12:59
Speaker
We did so little dice rolling in these four episodes until the fight. And you could have rolled dice to convince him or rolled insight to see if he was conning you or realize that you didn't know the worth of the dragon shards and gotten on the sending stone to your buddy who lives in Corvair.
00:13:37
Speaker
The past is not decisions where you have no information. I never have information. When he said, do you want to go to Schlarflop or Glorpal? And I was like, I don't know those places, but Philip does. Dex is supposed to be in that situation. Dex is the adult in the room.
00:13:44
Speaker
who regularly tells me to make decisions on my own.
00:13:59
Speaker
Okay. What happened in the next episode? No, there's more, right? Oh, the long talk with Paolo. Relationship stuff. Was that in that episode? Was that in the first episode? Yeah, because while they were at Gurnoth, you got back to the boat and... But I didn't talk to Paolo until after the Wish. Right. Oh, yeah, we got to talk about that, I guess. That was in the second episode. That's in the second episode. So this may be where we wrapped up.
00:14:28
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I tried on my armor and that was kind of you look fantastic. I do. Man, I am interested to find out if we can figure out if Barrick can blacken it without losing its powers, because that would be. I mean, it's generally better, although I do have a bright white cloak I wear sometimes. And now a silver suit goes well with your clothes. I'm like Elton John. I'm like a purple haired teal skinned glam rocker.
00:14:55
Speaker
It's Elvis. You're dressed like Elvis. That's true. Vegas Elvis. I mean, Liberace definitely had that look. Well, Dex looked like he's out of the 70s. I mean, shooting straight could do worse. That's true.
00:15:19
Speaker
Yeah, Dex looks like an idiot, but man, he's really strong and he's really happy. It's only stupid if you picture leather armor as a jumpsuit.
00:15:28
Speaker
Yeah, when he said head to toe, I was like, come on. No, I'm I'm personally picturing it like a leather tuxedo. That's my head. No. And all interpretations are correct. But when but when the man himself pictures decks, it's just standard leathers, but happen to be made out of dragon skin. Now, crocodile skin tux, silver. Sure. Like armor pieces like leather armor pieces, cauldrons and a chest plate and that kind of thing. Very movable, very breathable. Looks real good.
00:16:00
Speaker
doesn't squeak when he bends up. Well, it does do that. That's a feature, not a bug. But hey, I brought my AC to 20. Yeah, that's nuts. I'm the tank now. I'm the tank rogue that's not very sneaky or good at picking locks. I don't know how to do this. My party's monk. My player group that I run for, their monk is
00:16:25
Speaker
Uh, just gotten an AC of 20 at level 16. So yeah, you're, you're rocking it. You're ahead of the curve. I'm trying to remember how it got there. It's not super important. It's all legit. I triple checked the numbers because I know somebody will call me on it. I think the only thing I did wrong was I was adding too much to my to hit bonus for one half of a session. Cause I thought it included something it didn't.
00:16:49
Speaker
The only thing I've ever I've I've audited thus far is Randy's damage rolls because we are just and it's legit much to my chagrin. He did not mess up the math. Yeah, that's amazing. This has convinced me that that sharpshooter is just a broken feet. Yeah. Oh boy. OK, so. So yeah, then the second episode. Yes, there's the wish there is the way I guess first we find out that they've left the ship, right?
00:17:19
Speaker
Well, Bornell, no, because the wish happens while you all are waiting.
Morning Events and Character Dynamics
00:17:26
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So, so we get back. The next morning happens. Bornell's reading the chuck shows up with the, the. Oh, that's right. Gives Bornell his morning paper. Um, at some point Cassian stole a coin from me. Um, yes. Yes. Okay. So, uh, the Cassian coin stealing is,
00:17:45
Speaker
after the wish though, is post-wish. Oh, okay, fine. I listened to it on 2X while I was in line for a PS4. So, yeah, the wish. I wish. So I had been in very limited conversation with Philip and with Eric about the wish. Mainly, the only thing that I said to Philip was, hey, I don't want to ruin someplace you're trying to go with your character.
00:18:14
Speaker
It feels like the way Drakir is talking to Dex, you don't want to get possessed anymore. Or you'd be OK with not. And so that's where the wish is going to head. But if you have something planned for Erebus, I don't want to ruin that. I don't ruin your fun. And I can figure out another way to say it. And Philip's response was delightfully vague. He was like, I don't mind challenges. I was like, fine. OK, I'm going to wish that you have six heads.
00:18:44
Speaker
I was just that genie would have just given me a bag with some heads in it. Fair enough. We'd have to figure out where they came from. Um, but yeah, so I did do some verbal gymnastics and asked a lot with the wish. My favorite part of the buildup to the wish
00:18:59
Speaker
was how you were being so careful to not mess with Barrack. I know what you're going to say because I noticed it today too. Go ahead, maybe. Well, no, because even in conversations outside of recording, you would talk about it in the context of not wanting to upset Philip or do something that Philip wasn't happy with, but acknowledging that Dracure was the one that gave it to you. And you were just so into it compartmentalizing Philip into two separate entities of Dracure Philip and Barrack Philip that
00:19:25
Speaker
Like, in my head, I was just laughing like, but Philip told you to do it. That was great, though. I approve, and I see that you do as well, but I wholeheartedly approve of Jeff's thought process because I made that decision as Drakir. That really wasn't Philip saying, yeah, okay, I'm sick of this Venom thing that I'm doing, which I really wish we'd started doing that after the Tom Hardy Venom came out, because I would have made it a lot funnier.
00:19:53
Speaker
But no, I made that decision as Drakir and thought there are a lot of things Drakir could do with this lamp, but I felt like this is what he would try to do at this point. And I feel like, personally,
00:20:12
Speaker
Um, we kind of underplayed on the last review, how huge it was that Drakir gave up the lamp. Like as I went back to listen to it again and thinking not like. Drakir's whole thing is like for his people, like anything to help his people. He could have walked that back and they could have passed it around for all they know.
00:20:28
Speaker
Yeah. Or just wished aberrations out of existence. Right. Potentially. I'm sure there would have been some unintended consequences. I mean, a caveat of the wish spell is that the creature granting the wish has to be capable to do it. But I don't feel like we gave Dracure his due in terms of the sacrifice he made for the sake of Beric. And that's kind of what I was trying to play with there is that
00:20:59
Speaker
Drakir. I'm trying to think of how to put it. It is one thing that Drakir and his people, and he now personally, having taken some warlock levels, made this decision to bind his soul to something horrible in the name of saving his people. But the barrack he met
00:21:29
Speaker
after the first resurrection and the Barakimites now are just very different. And it's very different to see someone else who wasn't always like this doing that with themselves.
00:21:45
Speaker
Well, and something that I really kind of appreciated once again going back through the episodes because now I have an hour long commute so I can do that. Welcome. When Drakir was first introduced, like there was a twinge of kind of this dark mirror of Barak and I feel like after the second resurrection when Drakir showed back up it
00:22:06
Speaker
there had been a double turn almost where Barak was much darker and Drakir is kind of on an upswing of being like, well, maybe not all people deserve to die. So it's been an interesting dual arc that those two have been on. It's not deserve, it's all people can die if it's useful.
00:22:26
Speaker
No one needs to live. There it is. No, what I thought you were going to say is I kept saying all this stuff in character and out of character about making sure the words I chose were as ironclad as possible to keep the, what I kept calling the monkey's paw situation. And I listened to it today. I said, Barak has no possession and Barak is possessionless. Like, that could so easily have been like, Barak, all your stuff's gone. Yeah. No swords, no clothes, no glasses.
00:22:55
Speaker
You're possessionless and your buddy asked for it. And it didn't dawn on me while I was talking, but I was listening today and I was like, oh boy. That's Jeff at his most careful. Great. I was just so excited for you to finally get around to saying the wish that I was willing to roll with it. I didn't notice it in the moment either. It was a lot. That wish was a lot. Oh, I heard it.
00:23:31
Speaker
Uh, yeah. And, and, and Eric, there was a, there was a silence where Eric was writing something and I don't know what, or maybe, maybe typing something on his phone, looking it up. And I thought, I might be getting a text message. It's like, we're going to take this again, chill out a little bit, Richie rich. But no, so it leads to a really good scene of, um, Oriante, I almost right. Oriana. Oriana. Oh, Oriante was Michael Jackson's guitarist. Um,
00:23:50
Speaker
Did you? I heard it in the moment.
00:24:02
Speaker
Don't worry about me. Things get in here and they don't get out. I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that that is Eric's planned character path for her, is that she grows up to be Michael Jackson's guitarist. That is true. There are worse things that could happen. There are so many worse things that could happen. Orianna and Barrick are fencing and you two can talk about that scene. It was fun. Yeah.
00:24:24
Speaker
I mean, it was just rolling to follow. We kind of just jumped into the moment of transformation, which I kind of wish we would have jumped back maybe a few minutes because we haven't gotten some good Oriana moments lately, so.
00:24:38
Speaker
Well, we're about to. Yeah, that's fair. I'm going to clear my calendar for when we record next week. Yeah. Well, that was my thought. I was like, yes, we've got Berwick back. And then it was like, not for long. See how Orianna is the only like witness to the transformation of looking like a living, breathing creature.
Transformations and Relationships
00:25:04
Speaker
I really appreciated that the way you played it was like it was just instantaneous. Like there was no, you know, there's no werewolf moment or anything like that where he shifts. It's just you blink and wait, you didn't play what? Yeah. Or you didn't get the Disney transformation. Oh, there's swirls of light and you float for a second.
00:25:26
Speaker
I guess it's not just Disney. But it turns out that all that nonsense about appearance is not being important. It's just trash. That's right. Because if you love him hard enough he turns hot. Yep. Or Shrek and Fiona.
00:25:40
Speaker
or she turns into an ogre. No, that was better. I was just talking. I guess that's true. You get the same. You do get the same effect with that, don't you? But that was directly mocking the first example. Right. So anyway, welcome to our Shrek cast. And it's still in comments here on otherism, if you really want to think about it, but we don't really want to think about it. True. Don't think about things you loved as a child. It will only disappoint you.
00:26:05
Speaker
So yeah, what were we talking about? There's the transformation. I kind of regret the answers I gave to your questions because it would have been a lot funnier because you asked when the last time Barak ate was, when the last time Barak slept was, and I was just thinking Barak would want to be, to continue to act normally.
00:26:26
Speaker
But I kind of regret giving those two answers now because it would have been really funny if Eric suddenly just collapsed into a coma because he hadn't eaten anything in like a month. Yeah. Um, I mean, it was just going to be like the most intense hunger pangs ever. Or if you hadn't slept, like just six hours later you wake up and everybody's standing over you confused. Um, yeah. Um, I will ask because I'm sure it'll be asked eventually in the discord.
00:26:53
Speaker
What do you, I mean to you, what does Barrick look like now? Is he just a slightly, a couple of years aged version, or a year aged version of what we saw in Mr. Marsh? Have we been going for a year? No, not a year. Maybe just been a few months. Kind of feels like- Lord, this is the worst quarter of a year in our lives. Right? I have died twice in three months.
00:27:21
Speaker
That's I've heard I've heard somebody go on a tangent about the the original run of alien movies and like the fact that Ripley like it's just like a week and a half for her the first four movies of that franchise because she keeps like going comatose and dying and being resurrected like
00:27:38
Speaker
is just non-stop action for her. At some point I just put a post on my head that said, do not thaw. I've been accessory to the murder of two of my brothers. I'm averaging a brother a quarter. We need some breathing room, man. Good Lord. Can we just have a shopping date? Oh no, we can't because we didn't get enough money.
00:28:04
Speaker
Another one of those month-long relaxation breaks where we didn't do much relaxing Anyway
00:28:16
Speaker
What was the question? What does Barrick look like? Yes, I'm sorry. Boy, you know what? This is, it's like 8 48 right now and we're going to start recording the next Ever On Renewed set at like 7 30 or eight. So this, and normally we record it like one in the afternoon. So this is what it's going to be like folks. So just, just be prepared. I feel like we've recorded an evening one once before. Also, none of us are drinking.
00:28:42
Speaker
We're doing this cold sober. It's a stone cold sober. This is just who we are. Anyhow, Barak looks, I think, pretty close to what he looked like in Missed Marsh. He's got the sort of grayish, ashy gray skin.
00:29:04
Speaker
His eyes have cleared a little bit and he's just got the black in black. He has, his eyes have whites once again. Um, uh, his hair is shorter because I don't imagine it's grown back to whatever the length was in this March since he, since he cut it all off. Well, if he wants it longer, I'd know. Yeah. But that's been that it's been, it was that way. Um, then it all fell off. Yeah. That's a good question. Was he bald at that point or did it just go back to his hair?
00:29:35
Speaker
I, it went back to his hair, moving on. Anyway, so yes, I would say he's just, as Barak originally looked with, with significantly shorter hair. And that's another interesting question. Did his hair keep growing when he was undead?
00:29:56
Speaker
I, that's a dumb, I did the dumb question, but it's a question. I have not put any thought into the. Yes. Next question. Okay. So, um, the next thing that, uh, Dex explains the wish that had happened. And then we discovered that the ping power is gone. Oh, was that right then? Yeah. Yeah. I guess that was, you ran up and just asked, where's the next pact?
00:30:25
Speaker
Yeah. Cause that was the thing that I was concerned about. Well, obviously making sure there were runes on the sword, like making sure the packs were still there. And, and the barracks still had all of his possessions. He was not truly possessionless, right? So all this stuff, boot, got his jeans on, his team was strong and everything was good. Speaking of runes, do I still have the Raven Queen's rune? Uh, we, we did say that yes, the, the fifth rune was still there. Yeah.
00:30:55
Speaker
I know, but it was like right in the moment. Yeah. You might have had time to actually think through the implications now. No, I've thought through the implications. It'll come up. Don't worry. Oh, I haven't the slightest doubt. Barrick is blameless in this. That is literally accurate. It rarely is that way, but that is literally accurate. Philip isn't. But Barrick is.
00:31:21
Speaker
Dex is not. Anyway, um, Dex's did blameless in the sense of like, how can you blame him? Uh, but no, so then the palo conversation that sparked some conversation among our, our, our discord group, our, our patrons had a lot to say, a lot of thoughts in many directions about the actions and words of one palo Omerin that I spent literally minutes skimming.
00:31:50
Speaker
Yeah, I'm just kidding. I read them. I just didn't get them. All right. Yes. I tried to, I don't know, but basically I was just thinking back to the way that the conversation went after when Barrett didn't how, how piteously Barrett handled the,
00:32:17
Speaker
the conversation after he was resurrected. Which, by the way, it was a long time ago, but that was a conscious choice on my part not to have him go and talk to her because I was trying to play on the, we're a little less barrack now. We're a little less barrack, we're a little more rock and roll. And this time- Emo is technically a genre of rock and roll. That's true. That's fair. Was he Emo?
00:32:47
Speaker
Yes. I was trying hard not to be emo. Oh, I'm sorry. I wanted to be, I wanted to be dark. I just didn't want to be whiny. I think of emo and whiny, but maybe I missed defining email. I don't know. You know, that's a very specific interaction you had with emo when I was a sophomore in college. So, ah, okay. So I've just, I've just been misjudging emo basing it based on your taste in music. Yes. Okay. Fair enough. Anyway.
00:33:15
Speaker
Well, thanks for listening, everybody. That's going to be a real weird night. Trying to have Barrick. I was trying to show a little bit of growth in Barrick and the way that he's handling this relationship with someone who's just far more experienced in the world than he is. Sure. It doesn't often, I mean, we haven't often made it clear, but Paul is what? 10 years older than him? Thereabouts. Yeah.
00:33:44
Speaker
And he's in her 30s and reached a level of Fame or infamy notoriety of some regard Yeah, and I mean the first like I forget how old exactly we said Barrick was at the start of this campaign, but like early 20s, right? Yes, but the the first 20 years of her life were probably a lot more harrowing than barracks were Yeah, yeah much more tactile sense. So All that What
00:34:13
Speaker
pirate family and all that. Yeah. So anyway. Yeah. So Paolo reacted the way that she reacted and was much more concerned about discussing their their venture and putting Oriana in danger. So that was the conversation that was had. Yes. And some people felt that Paolo was unfair to Eric, which is not how I read that
00:34:43
Speaker
conversation as a player it is a fair thing to point out that all the on-air conversations admittedly there are must-be conversations that Paolo and Beric have off-air yes but all of the on-air or else they've talked five times in a relationship
00:35:05
Speaker
You don't know how Pala's game works. That's fair. Yes, Pala has the power in this relationship. Oh, none of us were surprised at all. All of the conversations they've had on air really have revolved around whatever is going on in Eric's life.
00:35:28
Speaker
Just talk about this guy they know named Eric all the time. They're really concerned about him. They're those friends who kind of think of themselves. Anyway, go ahead. Frankly, they're both kind of sick of Eric but don't know how to say it. I understand what you're saying. I got a relationship like that, too. Yeah, if all of their conversations are likely on-air ones, then Barak's a very needy boyfriend. That's true. No, I mean, I...
00:35:57
Speaker
I don't know. I kind of view the relationship and the way that I try to play things is very in the moment because like we just kind of talked about, nobody on this boat has really had moments to breathe a whole lot. It's been a constant moving around and it's
00:36:19
Speaker
I'm only discussing the circumstances when I make this comparison. It's like Han Solo and Princess Leia, where you are in the middle of confrontation after confrontation after confrontation, and that is the basis around your relationship. And so the conversations you have are based around the things going on in the moment. And also, Beric is somehow getting to this girl despite not being very good with the women, just like Han. She likes Beric. Liked. Yeah. We'll get there.
00:36:49
Speaker
but the heart deaths go on. I have nothing to add to your Star Wars analogy of the relationship between your two characters. So it's like Doctor Who and, and literally, Clara, Rose, none of those are romantic relationships. Well, Rose becomes, you know what, it's for another podcast that never got done. Despite my regular attempts. I will say it was very surprising to me
00:37:17
Speaker
the amount of conversation that generated not so much because it wasn't mostly just because I still cannot think of this game that we're playing as
00:37:29
Speaker
a story that other people are invested in. I know that it's true, but it is very hard for me to think about, to realize that in any given moment. Sometimes I feel like you know that it's true, but you'd prefer that it wasn't. That's not exactly true. I'm glad that our podcast is successful. I'm just joking, of course. I'm not entirely sure Randy knows it's true, but I think Randy thinks we might just be lying to him. But why do we even bother with these microphones, guys? The joke's old.
00:38:03
Speaker
But it was very interesting to read other people's takes on the conversation and the way that it read for the people who weren't in the moment and also it's very interesting because you and I know each other so well and so you and I would read each other's intentions and
00:38:25
Speaker
Yeah, very, very differently from people who don't, I think, in a lot of situations. Well, and it was an effort on my end going just back to kind of the genesis of why this conversation happened and why there were discussions about this conversation. It's always been in my head that the NPCs are very active beings when you are not on the ship and that they're doing stuff.
00:38:47
Speaker
But this was the first art where I really wanted to make an intentional point of saying, okay, you see Charlie bringing the foodstuffs that all these people need to eat onto the ship. You see it's totally reasonable that these very capable and powerful people that occasionally go with you all on missions would
00:39:10
Speaker
go do stuff. And if Borenel brings a lead to you all and you all are too busy and go off and do something else, maybe Borenel starts talking to Paolo, who we've established they have a very close relationship. So it was really an effort on my part to kind of realize my head cannon that I had even back in the when it was just crass and Gerald days. But I don't think I did a good job of communicating that leading up to that one episode with Gerald. So yeah.
00:39:40
Speaker
So yeah, and then the pilot conversation ended. Yes, it did. Well, like it. Yeah. Amicably. I would say it was on the positive side of ambiguity or indifference. So we.
00:39:57
Speaker
I mean, we had already at this point said, hey, we're going to Miss Marsh. We're eighty nine point five percent certain that's where Luke and Osteroth is going to be meeting us where it all began. Except for not the first place we. Anyway, we. What did we find? When did we buy the skis found out we had floaty boats? It was on our way. It was on our way out. Yeah.
00:40:23
Speaker
bought enough skiffs to fit the 36 people that we took with us into Mr. Marsh. And, uh, little roomy around the way back. And so we, uh, Wow. Wow.
00:40:43
Speaker
We get to miss Mark. We go to the forest. We go to the thing. There's nothing there. But boy did Eric let us roll a whole bunch of dice on the way in and out. You know, I wasn't like, you wanted to go to the forest. Nothing was in the forest. I still think that that was a pretty good assumption on our part. That's where it all began. That's where our journey began. I believe so. But once again, it's not where you all lived for anyway, moving on.
00:41:14
Speaker
I have my head cannon as to how he knew you were there and now you'll never get to find out because you killed him. You know what? Let's trade off uncomfortable with. So we get back into town. We go to the Red Wolf and I remember what it was called. Attaboy. Well done. And sure enough, there's Gregor watching that black mug. Just a pasty old white guy sitting in the corner.
00:41:40
Speaker
What? Lucan, oh, he's a drow. I was thinking vampires are pale, but he's definitely a drow. Would that make him gray? Yeah, probably. Maybe. There's an ashy old guy sitting in the clean. I don't know how melanin works in a drow. Or vampirism. Although he was out in the daylight, so plot twist. Yes. So anyway, so he is all friendly with us and none of us like it.
00:42:10
Speaker
And then I fast forward it through this episode, but I want to say something about the accident because the reason I had such a hard time with the accent is because I recognized it. Because Eric was in a show when we were in college called Black Comedy. In which he played a German electrician. And that is the accent that he did. Shoop inside. For the German electrician, the entire show.
00:42:40
Speaker
That's the one where you're fumbling around in the dark the whole time, but the lights are actually on. Yeah. And so that is why this was so hard for me to take this conversation as seriously as I needed to take it is because Eric used an accent that I recognized from a ridiculous play that he was in. So that's why I kept snickering about the accent.
00:43:01
Speaker
Noted. I kept snickering about it because it's a silly accent. Not an actual German accent, it's fine. Eric's German accent. My German accent, when I try to do one, it's a silly accent. It's Monty Python German. It's mine. Anyway, so Luke and Ostras there and a conversation ensues.
00:43:27
Speaker
anything it's more unnerving that he's friendly to us it was weird I didn't like like it was it was it was disarming and I didn't think that being disarmed would be a good thing in this situation but so the gist of the conversation and I think we'll all agree to this except for Eric is
00:43:47
Speaker
that by all I mean. To the three of us. I mean the listenership as well. Lucan wanted us to do something, to help him do something. That is not inaccurate. Our response was, we don't trust you and we probably don't need you when it's time for us to do this thing.
00:44:17
Speaker
but we could definitely use you for this thing over here, so we'll help you with your thing if you help us with our thing. That is called a compromise. Negotiation. That was absolutely negotiating. And then Lucan does something completely unnecessary.
00:44:36
Speaker
by trying to say, okay, but you're right. That does sound even. So what I need is for it to be uneven again. And you do another thing for me. Oh, by the way, a really, really difficult thing that will probably not turn out well for most of the people here. And we were like, well, no, that doesn't seem right. And he was like, no, trust me. It's right. And we're like, no, it really doesn't seem right. And he was like, no, trust me. It's right. And then we killed him. The trust me is right.
00:45:06
Speaker
You skipped one crucial step near the end there, where Lucan said, okay, I'm sorry, we couldn't come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Negotiation Breakdown and Confrontation
00:45:18
Speaker
I'm going to leave now. And then you killed him.
00:45:21
Speaker
No, the problem here is that Lucan's whole attitude is premised on the idea that we are wherever in an equal relationship ethically. But we walked into him drinking our friend. That puts us in a moral high ground.
00:45:43
Speaker
He was implicitly holding our hometown hostage. That's very true. I mean, there's, there's no way we could, we could see it as anything other than him holding our whole town hostage. So when he's like, well, I guess it didn't work out. I'm going to go to my house where I live among your friends now. Like, well, I don't think you are. I don't think you are because here's the thing we've killed and we'll kill again. And you're a bad man. And we're going to have to kill you eventually anyway, because you have five packs.
00:46:12
Speaker
It's also important that Barrick's starting position here is, oh look, a vampire. Right. There is that. Yeah. I mean, there was no, I would have been perfectly willing either the thing that Barrick laid out or the one where I said, all right, here's what's going to happen. You're going to stay the hell away from this town while we go do this. And then, and hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
00:46:40
Speaker
and then we'll meet elsewhere and we'll go do your thing. To which Lucan agreed. I'm getting there. To which Lucan agreed. Because then we could just kill him afterwards.
00:46:55
Speaker
Barrick had gotten his pride wounded enough at that point and was angry enough at being talked down to. That he was in every conversation with every person he's ever met except you and Booyah. Well, then maybe take it out on Eric instead of me. Because now, anyway, I thought mine was really good.
00:47:24
Speaker
So did Lucan. Lucan agreed that your plan was really good. I mean, ultimately, at some point we're gonna have to kill this dragon. And Booyah. Booyah also thought that the plan that you and Lucan had agreed to was really good. And I bet Paolo thought that the plan that you all agreed to was really good. Oh, jeez. Philip just got really mad at me for those of you that can't see the look of... Honestly, I think it's disbelief. He can't believe you just said that.
00:47:54
Speaker
He's walking away. Okay, he's coming back. He's got a chainsaw and his shirt's off. I don't know what's happening. Is that animal showing up at me? No, I ripped that bit off wholesale. There's a podcast, and let's do now, where whenever two people in the room start even a mild argument, one of the guys is like, oh my God, why is your shirt off? Why do you have a Molotov cocktail in your hand? That's definitely from the office.
00:48:20
Speaker
Is it? Yeah. Yeah. Dwight's recording a conference call from Michael Wise on vacation. So Jim pranks by saying, Dwight, why are you taking your shirt off? Well, you're standing really close to me. That sexual harassment. Dwight, please stop. Oh, OK. Yeah. And then Andy jumps the shark by going, I am cutting off Phyllis's head with a chainsaw. Okay. Well, there you go. Welcome to our office cast. And also our all fantasy, everything fan cast. I just can't believe you.
00:48:50
Speaker
you brought Booyah in as an example of knows what a good idea is after what happened in the first episode of this arc with Booyah. I'm just saying that there was a majority consensus that Barak would not. I'm just gonna kick out there that none of these characters are immune to a bad idea.
00:49:06
Speaker
All right. Who said this was a democracy? You've been telling them to make more decisions. This has not been a plural you. What it comes down to is...
00:49:28
Speaker
I mean, I said it, it's dumb. It's true. Ride or Die is a dumb platitude for a real thing that Dex feels. And if Barrick isn't on board with... If Barrick locks and loads, Dex locks and loads. And if Barrick refuses to... Not all the time, but this was a big one.
00:49:51
Speaker
I'm not going to start it because I couldn't have gotten you to go with me. You wouldn't have been a passive follower in this. You, and you wouldn't have done it. I assume I, and I'm not going to roll persuasion against a party member. Eric would have dueled. And by the way, Lucan brought that idea up and deck shut it down really fast. Eric would have done it. I know. I know. That's why I shut it down really fast. Well, it wouldn't have been a duel anyway. Sick. The first time when you started looking bloody.
00:50:20
Speaker
That's when, that's when Dex comes running down the ramp with a chair. You hear Dex's interest music start playing and all of a sudden Luke gets in the ring looking real scared. Started watching wrestling again there, bud. No, but I watched it for a decade and it hasn't changed all that much. Those, those antics haven't changed a lot. Just your wrestling references have, there's a spike in the usage with this episode. What else did I say? He'll turn.
00:50:46
Speaker
Oh yeah. Oh, but that's just, I mean, yes, that is a wrestling term. It's a wrestling term that's made its way, I think into the, you know what, who cares? Um, Dex needs his own music cue for the podcast. I don't know. You know what? I'm a hundred percent on board. Can I pick it? Well, as long as it is a royalty free and public domain. Yes. Oh, so well, my first two thoughts were the Benny Hill theme and ride the lightning. So I guess I have to think, may I suggest in comp tech.com where Kevin McLeod has lots of great music that you can pick from.
00:51:13
Speaker
Which we use. Can't you do the thing where you like invert one chord like the vanilla ice note room art on the daily show whenever Lewis Black was on it would sound like a slightly off version of Back in Black. Yeah, that's true. It was like that. That I know. That I know. No, no, no, no, no. You can quote me on that. No, Beric. Beric wasn't.
00:51:42
Speaker
I mean, I think it was fairly obvious. Beric did not walk into this conversation ready to make a deal with Lucan, except under very, very peculiar circumstances. Yeah, I don't think any of the three of us that met him did. Maybe Booyah, I don't know. Fair. And I don't think it was, and I think the reason that it went so downhill so quickly
00:52:11
Speaker
Um, is that from, from barracks perspective, you know, we're back to, we're back to Barrett classic, right? Sure. And from barracks perspective, this is, this is that thing again, where he knows with iron clad certainty, Barrett knows with iron clad certainty that he's in the right here.
00:52:35
Speaker
And the other guy talks to him like he's a little child who needs to have the world explained to him. And Beric just hates that, just hates it.
00:52:44
Speaker
Well, this is, it could be wrong, but Eric is ironclad, certain that he was in the right. Well, this is the third time I think that Dex has borne witness to Barrick trying to talk to somebody for a while. And then it turns into a fight. So I think next time just going to start slicing people up. Like I know where this is going. The pattern has emerged. Um, okay. So if
00:53:13
Speaker
If the right thing had happened, and when you gave the counter off or Luke and accepted it, you know, the thing that any decent person would have done the proper way, uh, would have just been like, all right, roll out. Like you'd have been dead. I'd have gone with it killed him later. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're going to have to kill him later. He's got it packed. He's got five. I mean, that's not actually barracks thought now that Airbus is no longer living in his skull and barracks thought is not necessarily, I have to kill everyone who has a pact.
00:53:42
Speaker
Well, not everyone, but this guy. I mean, to be fair, the one packed holder you didn't kill, Erebus was in control and made the call. That is true. Yeah, but when Barrick would have absolutely killed them. Yes, there was a person that Barrick would have killed. Yeah, I mean, sure. Hacked number 11 might be a really sweet guy that we don't want to kill and maybe we can just hand it over. But this guy. No, this guy we were going to have to kill. This guy was going to die.
00:54:08
Speaker
And honestly, and I can say with absolute absolute truth that Barak I've talked to Eric about this the Barak has been Thinking about con had been thinking about contacting Lucan To find out what he knows now that Barak is a little more clear on the on the stakes Of things so Barak would have been willing to work with Lucan. It was just the Lucan was was insufferable in addition to
00:54:40
Speaker
from Barrett's perspective, highly uncooperative. Um, so, uh, yeah, the talk and the talk and the talk and the talk and then like, okay, we're going to fight now.
00:54:54
Speaker
And I do like, like it was as close as you can get to a movie scene where everybody grabs their weapons and all right, things are about to pop off. When you said Slayer's Mark and Booyah said whatever his thing is, uh, what is his Hunter's Mark? Hunter's Mark. Yeah, he has Hunter's Mark. And then I, so I had the Iyun stone and then Eric said, whoa, whoa, whoa, you guys doing a lot of things out of combat, which is fair. Yeah. But it's fun to imagine. And then the fight starts and here's what I realized.
00:55:22
Speaker
if in the preparations to go see Lucan, if one of us had taken a stake and sharpened it and had it in our belt, and let's say that person genuinely has a very high initiative role. I say genuinely, generally. Me, we're talking about Dex. We're talking about Mr. 31 initiative.
Vampire Lore and Motivations
00:55:45
Speaker
And Lucan was still standing on the ground.
00:55:49
Speaker
If I had said I rush him with the steak and I try to stab him in the heart, is that a thing you can do in the first round with a vampire? Or do they have to be incapacitated? Not necessarily at zero hit points, but I believe they have to be incapacitated. So for example, if Barak had succeeded with hold person.
00:56:07
Speaker
gotcha. Um, so it's not, it's not like, no, it is incapacitated in its resting place. Really? You can't stake them outside their resting place. Nope. Nope. That's incomprehensible. I would love to hear someone try to give me a lower justification for why, for why the vampire's chest is invulnerable outside of it. Well, I can tell you who has
00:56:32
Speaker
I get it rules wise. I get it mechanically. I just really like to hear someone try to do the mental acrobatics to create a lore reason for it. Well, Buffy, Willow and Xander have a lot of explaining to do to me because those guys dusted fools when they were very much awake. Okay, so they're playing vampire the masquerade.
00:56:52
Speaker
OK, I think the rule is in place specifically for that reason. Sure. No, that makes sense. Because, yeah, I mean, one hit, one hit, they're done. Yeah. Yeah. Which, you know, I mean, in retrospect, no complaints, but it's been lots of things. I think in older editions, if you.
00:57:10
Speaker
If you rendered them, if you brought them down to zero hit points with a stake, it did, it pierced their heart and killed them or something like that. They've played around with how to do it, but because, you know, that way it just ends up with you every few rounds trying to hit them with a stake and it's just silly. Sure. Sure. No, I get that. I just wanted to ask cause I don't know the, I don't know how to do this. Um, I, uh,
00:57:38
Speaker
I mean, it was a fight, it was a good fight. Somebody got turned into a bird, and Rickard managed to do a thing. Shot his bow. He shot his bow. It's true, Rickard was a lot less, a lot less smitey than Barak hoped he would prove to be. Yeah. He's a hippie. And that's all we have to say about that. I'm just, you know, he's not a fight first kind of dude.
00:58:10
Speaker
Uh, I will say we really got to see the fruits of the, uh, Barrett can make things real vulnerable to radiant damage and Dex can wreck shop with radiant damage. I think, I think Dex in those three hits took like 130 points. It was a lot. Yeah, it was insane. Yeah, it went so well. So, so good job. Good job guys. Is okay. Is now that he's dead, was Lucan just.
00:58:40
Speaker
Like, was he a vampire guard or was he Strahd or was he... His final form that you encountered him this time was Strahd von Zarovich. That's what I thought. His monster guard. Yeah. Because I wanted to have that sense like...
00:58:57
Speaker
He's old like he is as old as the drow race. And so you pick up a lot of knowledge over those those years. And and so, yeah, I wanted to convey that in his stat block. But you all do a lot of damage very quickly. So we beat Strahd. Yep. Good job, everybody. Although. I believe I'm using this term right. A bit of a Pyrrhic victory. Yeah.
00:59:27
Speaker
Yeah, that's an accurate use of the word. Bad thing happens. I didn't know if it was just a victory where a bad thing happens or a pointless victory because it's not pointless. It's a victory where the cost is too high. Okay, that's what I thought. Yeah. The cost of the course in this case being the death of
00:59:45
Speaker
Well and I I was interested and I know once what we're about to discuss popped off that. That that had gone out the window but I was interested to see if at any point during the fight Berwick would have had a sarmat use a reference that you don't understand but literally the rest of the world will understand.
01:00:03
Speaker
and Anakin at the end of episode three moment where... Where he kills a kid? No. Where Mace Windu is about to kill Palpatine and it's like, I need the knowledge that he possesses. There is still utility to this individual staying alive. We just have to figure out a way to do it where I can still get the knowledge I need.
01:00:26
Speaker
I was interested to see if that would play out. Obviously it didn't and I don't encourage you that, but I was interested to see if that was going to ever hit a tipping point for Barrick. Yeah. I think you're super wrong about everybody else in the world getting that reference. I think if there's one Star Wars movie, it is the least viewed. It's probably episode three. No, it's definitely episode two.
01:00:52
Speaker
It's definitely Attack of the Clones. It's absolutely Attack of the Clones. Least loved, maybe. I'm saying least viewed. After episode two, people were like... I'm saying least viewed. People were really upset about episode one, and the reviews were very high for episode three when it first came out.
01:01:10
Speaker
Anyway, who gives a wrong? It's the holiday special. But anyway, that doesn't count the Ewok movies. Well, guys, this is not a Star Wars cast because I'm in the room. So let's. So I mean.
01:01:25
Speaker
OK, so one of the things that we said might have to be reckoned with is why did Lucan choose Paolo to be the the object of his derision? Yeah. And while Rickard did get a few shots in my my mentality in in canon, in fiction, Lucan had
01:01:52
Speaker
Lucan had taken care of the most powerful person he did not know in that room in the form of Krast by turning him into a little bird. Just purely based off appearances, not saying anything about actual capability. And then at first blush, I feel like Paolo would have been second bill. Also, we had the conversation earlier about conversations not had between Paolo and Beric and I feel like
01:02:22
Speaker
I feel like if this were a visual medium, a lot more would be conveyed via body language and positioning and things like that. I think Barrick being a 20 something super into this woman. 25, I looked it up. 25. I don't think it would have been difficult to discern that maybe there was something between Barrick and Paolo in a situation like that.
01:02:48
Speaker
And if that's unfair, Philip, you can tell me that that's unfair, but I don't think it is.
01:02:58
Speaker
The intention on Lucan's part in that moment was to inflict as much damage as possible before he turned into Mist and went away for a while. He did not think he was going to die in just trying to get one last shot in. He thought he had a very easy escape plan, then Drakir ruined it with his powers. If nothing else, this entirely vindicates Beric's opinion of Lucan as a cowardly thug.
01:03:21
Speaker
No, and I at no point wanted to dispute that. His motivations were absolutely selfish in the proposition that he brought to you because he was convinced that he could exact his will greater than yours when the time came to take that pact. That was not a doubt in his mind.
01:03:42
Speaker
So, yeah, it was purely selfish reasons. He was just trying to dress it up in altruism and, oh, hey, let's be friends for a bit. So no, Lucan absolutely was trying to do do harm.
01:04:00
Speaker
But it was purely because of the fact that, like we said earlier, Barrick is the reason they were fighting. Like, Lucan really thought, at a certain point in that conversation, you all were going to walk out of the room amicably and ready to go do work in a couple weeks. And Barrick was the one that attacked.
01:04:23
Speaker
him and so this opportunity that Lucan felt like he had that he knew he could not do on his own had been ruined and he was gonna have to go try to figure things out again so he was angry and he made the petty seems like the wrong word but he he made the heartless play against Beric because Beric tried to kill him twice now so that's my story
01:04:54
Speaker
But are you sticking to it? For now. Wait till you see the fan reaction. Then you'll decide. Yeah. And it was I mean, it was it sucked. Yeah. I feel that we need to just mention something that happened at the table that I don't know of any other fans had these thoughts.
01:05:24
Speaker
None of us reacted particularly significantly to pallet initially dropping. And this is because I think I know this was the case in my head. With no particular justification in my head, I thought, oh, ally, zero hit points. It's OK. We can get her back up. Whereas the way we were playing, the way we've been playing, is that in PC, zero hit points did.
01:05:54
Speaker
And so I don't think it was apparent to us that she was dead dead until Booyah tried to do something. Yeah. No, she's one of the like, okay. When Akko, when Akko died in PC dead, it was one of those things. It was like, I'm too new to this game. Dead guy's dead. Uh, and, but yeah, with, with, uh, and with, uh, uh,
01:06:21
Speaker
Oh, jeez. Barak's dad. Elodrin. It was just a purely narrative MPT thing. But with Paolo, she's so much a part of the party. I would think the same thing with Krast. I would think the same thing with Borenel.
01:06:39
Speaker
That's not a, yeah, that's a downed ally. Just the same as if it was Booyah, Beric, or Drakir, we've got a round, a few rounds to get him up. And that's why when she went die, never in my head did I think, oh crap, that's a dead, a main character that has died permanently, was never in my head. Which is why it made total sense when Booyah said he tried to heal her.
01:07:04
Speaker
Well, and and there was a conversation that was had that was cut out of the final product because it would be boring. Yeah. Yeah. You want to you want to really heighten that narrative moment. You stop it with a rule conversation. But honestly, when when you all were I don't want to say making your plea or pitching to me, but when you all were stating that you wanted to bring her back up,
01:07:29
Speaker
I made a note on the front page of my DMing notebook that I have that simply stated, all named NPCs get death saving throws. Like if we were gonna do that, then if you all get Luke into zero hit points and walk away, he might stabilize or he might die, but he gets three shots to stabilize. And then he's just laying there waiting for somebody to come get him up. So that was gonna be my concession if we decided to play it that way.
01:07:58
Speaker
I don't know. I think that's the fair way to do it either. It's one way or the other. But that's just my opinion as a DM. You can play it however you want to play it. So yeah, that was a point of clarification that we hadn't made clear. So yeah. Anyway, but now it is noted.
01:08:23
Speaker
Lucan's alive anyway. No, Lucan is very much definitely not alive. Yeah. Obviously, the ruling we made was NPCs die. Yeah. Yeah, anyway. So yeah, Paolo's dead. Spoilers for this episode. OK, we do want to address
01:08:55
Speaker
The death of a female character, particularly one of romantic interests to a male protagonist, is a trope, and it is a bad one. In movies, in television, in lots of fiction, it's a general misuse of a woman character.
01:09:19
Speaker
And it's called fridging. It's a word I had heard that Eric and Phillip actually had not. It was a word I was pretty familiar with. Um, and somebody didn't mention that on the Facebook page.
01:09:28
Speaker
And it's totally, I mean, what they said was it was almost fringing and it's totally fine. If, if, if that upsets you, we're not saying don't be upset about it. Um, we don't ever want to upset, uh, our listeners, but we definitely want to know when they are. Um, I don't know. There's a lot of evidence that Eric might want to. In a non narrative way, we do not want to upset you. What, what I will say, uh, on that. And it was also mentioned on the Facebook group. And if you think I'm wrong, you just stand strong in that. Cause I am a lot.
01:09:58
Speaker
Because this is a progressive piece of fiction and things are happening in the moment, this was not a planned death of a character to spur the arc of another one. Does it suck that our strong female NPC is dead? Yes. Is it the end of the world for strong female NPCs in our story? No.
01:10:19
Speaker
But is it something that Eric said I'm going to kill Paolo so that Barak can have a new journey to go on. It's not how it happened. And so like that the plan was not kill off Paolo for the benefit of Barak or the benefit of the story. It happened because fights break in different ways and that sucks.
01:10:41
Speaker
I just I know that a lot of people like our podcast because we tend to do better on some of those fronts that a lot of fantasy stories fall into pretty quickly. And so we felt it was important to address that, you know, we weren't trying a stunt. It just is a thing that happened.
01:11:00
Speaker
Yeah, and just from my point of view as the person behind the screen, I almost said behind the curtain and realized there's a perfectly good metaphor in our hobby that I can use. It's also weird, Eric sits behind a curtain the whole time. Yeah, he has this giant glowing projection of his head. Actually, Gary Gygax reportedly played behind a full body screen to where his players could not see him at all.
01:11:28
Speaker
I've heard that. I've always thought he was really weird. What a grade A weirdo that guy is. We didn't intend for this outcome because we play a role-playing game where crap happens and we understand if people are upset that the main woman character of our story has died. We've got a lot of more places to go. Me too. Yeah, and so am I. She was a great character.
01:11:55
Speaker
This isn't the end of strong women or non-men in our show. Promise. And really, I don't know what else to say about it. If you think that everything we just said was bullcrap and you're upset with us for killing off Palo, stand strong in that and we hope you keep listening and we redeem ourselves and we'll try not to. I don't know.
01:12:25
Speaker
Let's try not to disappoint you in the future. Um, I personally know that I will fail, but I don't know how I just know I'll disappoint you. Cause that's who I am, man. Um, okay.
01:12:37
Speaker
then the episode ended with us killing the vampire, throwing him in a clink. I just want to say, I thought of, along the way, we were running out of time. I thought of a lot of ways that Drakir could have made that as really, really gross and unpleasant as possible, as only Drakir might have. Oh, yeah. Because it occurred to me as I was dragging him that I wasn't actually sure he was unconscious anymore.
01:13:05
Speaker
Yeah. Oh yeah, he was just paralyzed. He was conscious for that entire experience. And so I thought of all sorts of ways that Rick here, things that Rick here might have done, but we try to be family friendly on this show. Okay. So here's a read in our character. The important question that I have as this episode drew to a close, and it's important to probably nobody but me, but Hey, I'm not much to think about, but I think about myself a lot. Um,
01:13:35
Speaker
Barrick gets five packs at the end of this episode. We did level up. Yeah. So I, so did Barrick. Right. So, so, so Barrick got five packs. I get to attack twice, once a day. So if it makes you feel any better, uh, Eric and I rolled all the packs on the moon blade table, which is what we've been using when, when Arabic is a sword, I didn't get anything like,
01:14:02
Speaker
your AC went up plus one I think was the biggest AC went up one and the swords bonus went up a couple so nothing nothing bonkers came of the pack I don't have my character sheet in front of me so I otherwise I would just tell you guys what they are but does Erebus have a German accent now though
01:14:24
Speaker
I mean, well, I guess I don't know. I haven't talked to talk to him yet. We'll find out. Right. Oh, man. Erebus had Lukens accent for the rest of this game.
01:14:36
Speaker
Um, I'd probably kill you and take your pack. And I know that you're not the only one who thinks about this because we have had this question before on an Eberron reviewed, uh, prior, I think where there was the question of balancing in terms of the party when it comes to barracks packs, because it's almost like Barrett gets to level up more frequently than you all Booyah. I'm not worried about, cause he has a plus 50 to hit and a 120 damage modifier. Um, but.
01:15:05
Speaker
No, I would. In fairness, we did just get done talking about how Dex did like, I was going to say my thing, my thing is not my utility. I know that I do serious damage in a fight and my perception and investigation are off the charts. Uh, like it's not really, it's not so much the utility as much as it is the flavor. And your bonkers fast. Yeah, I am wicked fast.
01:15:32
Speaker
You know what I realized though? I think I know I had it with me anytime I leave the dagger at home and I have to remember that I'm You definitely had the dagger. Yeah, cuz I used it. But anytime I leave the dagger home I gotta run 10 feet 10 feet slower slower Mm-hmm, which adds up
01:15:51
Speaker
Yeah, when you can move three times a turn, that's 30 feet. So I would like to ask how Eric felt after the episode having lost Lucan because you definitely didn't expect us to be able to kill Lucan. No, absolutely. Lucan had a whole lot of narrative utility in this. Honestly, the biggest thing I'm reeling from is there is just
01:16:14
Speaker
from a purely factual standpoint information that will not be revealed in the campaign now like in fiction there's there's nobody else like the original pack holder is it a step he witnessed from the original yeah i mean well because there's there's some inside baseball lore stuff that we'll deal with at a time that reveals like just there is knowledge related to your all's quest that lucan was the sole possessor of um
01:16:44
Speaker
the the
01:16:59
Speaker
Um, like those, those weird mural things, like he would have instantly known, Oh, that was this. Um, so. Luke had had a lot of utility left in the campaign and we'll, we'll see how that works out. Um, so it's, it's interesting. It's an interesting challenge. Um, because the last thing I want to do, we we've hit a tipping point and probably, and this is a good thing to kind of talk about.
01:17:26
Speaker
Um, probably just before the last arc started, you know, the one that lasted three months, um, that the, as a dungeon master, I finally hit the tipping point where I feel like I'm at a place where in my notes and everything, there's no longer going to be elements introduced to the narrative. Like the narrative is in, in canon in fiction and.
01:17:53
Speaker
I'm no longer having to set things up. Sure. And as a dungeon master, I don't want to step back on that point and be like, well, now, Lucan's dead. What is up, everybody? It is Eric here, your dungeon master, cutting myself off in the middle of a reviewed episode because I wanted to clarify what I said in the moment when we were recording this episode and kind of replace it.
01:18:18
Speaker
because I had a knee-jerk reaction to come to the defense of our story that we kind of collectively make around the table, not in a blustering over rot way, just trying to
01:18:38
Speaker
address the term fridging in context of the show. There was a great discussion in the comments for the release of this episode over on the Facebook group. If you haven't gotten a chance to check that out yet, I would recommend heading on over to our Facebook group to take a look at it.
01:18:57
Speaker
Uh, because, uh, Chris, Darren, Steve, Laura, Shera, uh, all jumped in and had a really phenomenal discussion and Stephanie, um, about the episode and the term fridging and the Bechdel test.
01:19:15
Speaker
And just kind of all around I think Jeff sums it up as soon as I'm done talking in that the only thing that really needs to be said is we did not intend for this to be a trope or to I guess for lack of a better way to put it to upset anybody or to play into any stereotypes
01:19:38
Speaker
It was also brought up in that discussion about the lack of strong female NPCs, which is something that I hear and I acknowledge. And we killed them real good to remedy that. So, yeah, I just I wanted to take a moment to take a step back to not walk back on what I had to say in this episode, because I'm kind of saying what I had to say, just not in such a defensive position.
01:20:07
Speaker
I really do love the fact that you all care enough about this story.
01:20:16
Speaker
to have why Rick here has mindspike and to see when we could perhaps be doing better. So I did also have to address that to people with really good perception and a boat. You're amazing. And now we're going to go still change life to Jeff is you all had to go get it. And so there would have been time when you weren't able to be close enough to perceive it.
01:20:40
Speaker
Yeah. Um, so step, uh, uh, playing, playing the C was going to be running from house to house. Be like, where'd that vampire move in? Yeah.
01:20:52
Speaker
Grant, Gregor, Graham, others. That's the biggest point of excitement for me going into the next arc now that we've talked about like, y'all are back in Miss Marsh. Granted, there's a somber tone about it. But we'll maybe we might get a chance to revisit some old characters in the next arc. We'll see.
01:21:15
Speaker
Oh yeah. The twins and their parents can't wait to check in with them. Julian and Farrah. See what trauma we've laid upon Julian and Farrah from the demon waking them up a couple of months ago. And then their friends showing up 16 years older or older. All right. This has been a long episode. We need to do some questions. Yeah. Yeah. What questions have we got? We can knock those out real quick. They'll be kind of truncated. Sorry. I thought this was your job.
01:21:42
Speaker
Yeah, you're right. It is. I'm calm.
Character Backstories and Alignments
01:21:45
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I just don't you were you were at a computer and I'm not I have my phone. I got it. I got it. I can do your job. It's okay Except I don't know the names do my job for the next arc. I'd really love a month Okay, so Laura wants to know what did Eric originally have planned for Drake here you haven't gone back far Well, I'm gonna I'm moving back. All right, my original plans for trick here Like for barracks half-brother. Yeah
01:22:14
Speaker
I was gonna do like Drow Khal Drogo. Like I was gonna have him be a war leader kind of awesome like Uber Drow. So that was my original plan. That's about as far in the planning as I got. Cause I rolled on a random table and he showed up far earlier than I intended. Next question.
01:22:41
Speaker
Okay. Um, but that ends with a question mark, but it's not a question for us. It's something about Star Wars. Um, I can probably answer it. It's about somebody does Star Wars reviews on YouTube. Oh, first question I see is from October 19th. Yes. Is Drakir still an evil character? He's originally lawful evil. He was originally lawful evil.
01:23:05
Speaker
So I have to talk very briefly about how I define evil, and I define evil in Eberron. Keith Baker defines evil in Eberron, which is all about your ability to empathize with people. So in his view, a barkeep who waters down his beer might be evil in an alignment sense. And in that sense,
01:23:33
Speaker
I think Drakir is still evil-aligned, and the reason I say that is that Drakir is an anti-hero. He is working with the party because his aims overlap with the party. The scope of his empathizing and caring about people is extremely limited.
01:23:56
Speaker
He cares a lot about his tribe, and he has discovered that he cares some about his brother, and somewhat less about his brother's companions. But not at all. So yes, Barret cares about people, but you know, so probably to Scar and Darth Vader and, you know, other villains, I'm just trying to think.
01:24:22
Speaker
other evil characters. So I think Drakir's alignment has not significantly changed. We're just seeing him within a narrow circle that he cares somewhat about. Alright, next question. Definitely plundered Lucan's body before dragging it to the room.
01:24:44
Speaker
Oh good, I'm glad somebody did. I don't know about that. I mean, his clothes didn't dissolve. If we dissolve him, it's like straining him out of stuff. That's true. This question actually may or may not be about our show because I don't recognize his name at all. So you tell me if we just move on. Jess wants to know, can we get more information about Vore? We haven't heard about him in a while. I don't know who or what that is.
01:25:07
Speaker
Have we heard about him at all on the show? I mean, it's Beric's other half-brother. It's Beric's son by her second, by her actual marriage. Vore was mentioned in the third arc of the show when you all arrived in Sharn for the first time and Rookin's entourage showed up and you asked if you recognized anybody but did not say Vore by name. So deep cut question by Laura. No, Jess. Jess, sorry.
01:25:34
Speaker
I feel like Jess is trolling us. Short answer to this, from what Barrick knows, which is generally what I know in this situation, Four is still the personal secretary of the prime minister. It's conceivable that with all of the political upheaval that that has changed,
01:25:58
Speaker
But Barak has actually very consciously not made contact with his family since becoming an outlaw. Because he is not at all interested in them being tangled up in what he's tangled up in. The next question is Laura asks, Eric, why do you hate Philip so much? And I think we're going to deal with that one off the air. We'll let you know how it goes. I do not hate Philip.
01:26:27
Speaker
You heard it here first, folks. And lastly. I guess that's the only answer you're going to get. You made a declaration. You do not hate Philip. Therefore, the question has no bearing. Why do you hate Philip so much? I don't hate Philip. Question answered.
01:26:45
Speaker
Let me speak to it. I think Eric hates Philip. I think Philip likes Eric. I don't know why any of us do anymore at this point. Eric doesn't hate Philip. None of us hate Eric. None of us hate Philip. None of them like me. And it's okay because they let me hang around and we have a good time.
01:27:03
Speaker
We're all very close friends and this game is not going to break us apart, I promise. Probably. We're not to the end yet. That's true. Oh man. If you killed Dex at level 19. We still have half this campaign to go. I can't imagine we get to level 19. We're at 11 now, right? Yeah. Okay. Last question is from, you guessed it, Laura.
01:27:31
Speaker
That's not a dig, we appreciate the questions. She just had a handful in a row. Laura is our documenter and handles... Laura has started a book club for our community, so... Yeah, that is really cool. We're not ever knocking Laura, lest she skip doing all of the voluntary things that she does, like maintain our wiki. Yeah, Laura does the wiki, so she probably needs these answers to me. That's also true.
01:27:55
Speaker
Yeah, actually, and that is the thing. If you are a listener and you are not a part of the Facebook group, another new offshoot of that is a Geek Pantheon book club that Laura has started. So if another interest of yours is, I think they're specifically trying to stick with fantasy and sci-fi. Yeah, I think so. The first two options of books are Dune and Silmarillion are the first two that they're considering. So yes, at least with the first two books, fantasy and sci-fi.
01:28:18
Speaker
and if that's your bag to get involved and have conversations, check it out, find it. If you search for book club in the Facebook page, I'm sure that post will pop up. And then, okay, so her question is, if they found someone else who was willing, could Barrick potentially combine his pacts with a third person?
01:28:39
Speaker
So I have two interpretations of this question that we should probably, we may be able to answer both of them, or you may not want to answer one. One interpretation would be, could Barak merge his pact with another person in the way that his and the Raven Queen's pacts were merged? The other interpretation would be, is it still true, as it was explained to Barak a long time ago, that he would be able to transfer pacts to another person?
01:29:08
Speaker
Well and I think both those questions are answered from the attempt many moons ago of Barak to Barak like tried to allow Drakir to take the pact and that's true but at the time Barak only had his pact and the Raven Queens so yeah question would be could he give away the other pacts.
01:29:29
Speaker
Well, and I think the information that we have that the Raven Queen is growing in power with Beric. So both their packs are growing as packs are collected. So even the additional packs that Beric has collected are not solely his own. He is not the sole arbiter of these new packs. They are also tied to the Raven Queen.
01:29:52
Speaker
So yes, with presumably the Raven Queen's consent participation. Of course, we also don't exactly know what the wish has done to the patch sharing. Tune in next time. I don't know if it'll come up next time. It's probably fine. At some point. I'm quite sure it's not fine. Oh, no, that was also part of the wish. I didn't say that part, because if you say it all out, it doesn't come true.
01:30:22
Speaker
that's just wish 101 um so to answer those questions i would say no as of right now that might change in the future it might not change in the future who knows i don't all right well that is the last of the questions and it sure is bedtime pumpkin time is what pumpkin time you turn into a pumpkin okay yes pumpkin um
Community Engagement and Sign-off
01:30:46
Speaker
anyway find us on all the social the social medias at the geek pantheon you can email us at the geek pantheon at gmail.com come be a part of the community check out the patreon search for the geek pantheon you'll find it there we have everything from one dollar a month and beyond uh i think it goes up to 60 for a real like you actually get some physical things in the mail every month um
01:31:11
Speaker
There is also still space in our $30 a month tier where you get to play a monthly one shot. I actually ran the one shot this month and it did not go terribly. I think they actually had fun. They were ghosts because it was October. Actually it wasn't October, it was November because we had to reschedule it.
01:31:32
Speaker
Whatever. Um, yeah. So, so check us out. Social media, the geek pantheon find us. Um, thank you for listening. We will catch you next week with the brand new episode, be getting a new arc. Uh, I think I made the joke about a whimsical name last time. So I won't do it again this time, but if I didn't, it would have been funny if I'd done it this time. Anyway, my name is Jeff. My name is Eric.
01:31:54
Speaker
And I'm Philip. Philip liked that joke. It wasn't a joke, it was just me rambling like a madman. Cause we're all sleepy. Anyway, this is about the time we'll be recording episode three of the next arc. Actually about 10 o'clock at night. So just get, just look forward to that. Gotta be silly. Get ready for some of this quality. Bye. Wow. Are we not done? No, we're done. Good. Turn it off. I have to go to the bathroom.