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C1 Ep. 107 Eberron Reviewed 17
295 Plays6 years ago
Join us for another Eberron Reviewed as Jeff, Eric, and Philip take a look back at the Recovered Kingdom arc while answering all of the pressing questions coming out of this dramatic arc.
This episode is brought to you by the generous donations of our amazing Show Sponsors: Laura Pickrahn, Jessica Smith, Irene Viorritto, Ryan Royce, Darrell DeLaney, Jon Cary, Charles Compton, The Kamm Family, David Scrams, Elizabeth Clark, and Michael Clark.
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Transcript
Introduction and Donor Acknowledgment
00:00:00
Speaker
The following episode is brought to you by the generous donations of John Kerry, Laura Pickron, Elizabeth Clark, Darryl Delaney, Ryan Royce, Irene Villarito, The Cam Family, Charles Compton, Michael Clark, and David Scrams, as well as all of our generous patrons.
00:00:26
Speaker
D20 radio, your game is roll.
About 'Eberron Renewed' and Episode Structure
00:00:41
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Eberron Renewed, an actual play 5th edition D&D podcast. We have just finished an arc, so it's time for Reviewed. I'm Jeff. I'm Eric.
00:00:56
Speaker
I'm Philip. Yep. Man. We don't have a perfect order for reviewed episodes. We don't. That's how long it's been since we've done one of these. Yeah, we're warming up. It's fine.
Arc Recap and Key Events
00:01:07
Speaker
Okay, so let's just jump right in because this was an eight episode arc and based on the questions and the discord, it was really heavily loaded to the backend. So.
00:01:22
Speaker
But so we start and we'll just kind of the first two episodes together are a lot of conversations we. We have successfully restored the king to the throne. Hooray good job everybody team effort it was and then.
00:01:42
Speaker
So basically Eric says, Hey, we're going to time jump a couple of weeks. Is there anything really important that you guys want to talk about that happened in that couple of weeks? Turns out we had an hour and a half worth of important things in that couple of weeks.
00:01:56
Speaker
But it culminated in each of us getting a boon for our efforts.
Surprising Discoveries and Boons
00:02:04
Speaker
And we can go through each of those with Booyah, got the wildest set of armor. I still can't believe that's actually a thing in a published thing and not just some wild homebrew. I mean, I'm sure it started as a wild homebrew. Yeah. But
00:02:24
Speaker
Well, and I wonder, okay, so like you at Gamer Nation Con, which we're not going to get to talk about a lot because there's too much to cover, but it was a blast. You made Eberron X-Men. Yes. This was somebody's attempt to make Eberron Avengers. Yeah. Eberron Iron Man. Yep. But so that happened. And then, I mean, if I'm being real honest, Beric and I, we didn't blow it, but we definitely punted with our boons.
00:02:50
Speaker
We got the ship we already had, officially ours, and a pilot. Which leads me to, I think, the most important question on everybody's mind about this whole arc.
Character Absences and Interactions
00:03:03
Speaker
What's up with Gerald?
00:03:10
Speaker
This is one of those things where there there is an in cannon in story reason why he did not come with you and it's more than just petty like he's still holding on to some of that stuff he brought up way back when like there's a legit reason why he would not join you based on the circumstances of you all leaving.
00:03:29
Speaker
But I don't know if that's going to come back around in the narrative, so I would hate to. Fair enough. Ruin that, I guess, for like a better way to put it. That's but it wasn't it wasn't pettiness. It wasn't him just being like, I don't like those guys. And I honestly didn't think it was pettiness. I thought it was he's still scared to.
00:03:45
Speaker
Yeah, he suddenly had this protection offer to him and he was going to jump out. Well, and that that is part of it. I mean, Booyah did go talk to him and he did. I mean, there there is an infrastructure here that he considers a better shield against the might of the twelve than the three of you, which isn't a dig on you. Like it's just systemic defense is better than individual defense. So I don't know. We beat the crap out of that system.
00:04:14
Speaker
But yeah, so yeah, Booyah talks with Gerald. Dex has a pretty altogether unimportant conversation with Commander Bala. I mean, she offered you a pretty Bala job. Well, yes and no. A Bala job? Yeah, a pretty Bala job. Yeah, no, I heard it. Just chose to move on. Yes.
00:04:39
Speaker
But no Barrick actually had some intricate with the ghost tiger and the aberration and that was fun stuff. Barrick actually had real things happen. There was another opportunity for him to speak with his mother. And if you guys would like to talk about that for a moment, I will. Shut up. I mean, I didn't actually anticipate that scene
00:05:03
Speaker
um, being anything, to be quite honest, when, when it started, I was actually just trying to say, uh, Barrick is still dealing with stuff and he's kind of just retreating out
Significant Conversations and Departures
00:05:18
Speaker
of the limelight throughout this. Um, and so that, the fact that that scene turned into anything is all, all to the credit of Eric's improv skills.
00:05:29
Speaker
Yeah, and it was I mean, I could tell I was surprised. I could tell you were surprised. It was like, oh, like when you realize where it was heading, you're like, oh, OK, let's get it. Let's get in this then. Well, part of part of the the reasoning behind that scene occurring the way that it did is because regardless of any other plot threads that might be going on.
00:05:48
Speaker
I know that I once or twice tend to make Barak's life a little bit difficult. And I know that the whole Paolo coming back the way that she did thing threw another wrench into what was going on in Dolar. And I wanted to try to have a more substantive way to where Barak could kind of get a sense that his mom is doing okay.
00:06:13
Speaker
Like, that was a big reason why I wanted that conversation to happen. So, that was my... It was a good conversation. It was a good moment. Well, and it further put Barracks, I can't trust anything involving
00:06:35
Speaker
people coming back from the dead anymore that led into the Palo conversation in the next episode as well. Like they fed each other well. Yeah. Yeah, it really did. Um, uh, so then, and that's it. That's the gist of that episode. Um, we get the boats officially ours. We have another pilot coming gracing with Eric and his mom.
00:06:58
Speaker
Well, there is one last thing. It's an NPC heavy thing, but significant for the story. Krast, Krast spoon as he wants out, like he's done being a agent of the Brielish government because of many reasons, not the least of which being that the swords of liberty are now kind of in the fold with the Brielish government. Sure. Yeah. So that was just too much for Krast. So he had to walk away.
00:07:28
Speaker
Yeah, and I really hope one day, I mean, I know at the end of the campaign, we're going to ask what happened between Crass and the Swords and you're going to tell us, but if it comes up narratively, that'd be cool too. I have my own personal fan theories. I'm not a fan. I don't like the show.
00:07:44
Speaker
Well, that was probably my biggest shock once you all said, okay, we Jeff doesn't like the show Once we once you all stated, okay, we are out of row at now I was surprised that nobody asked Christ if he wanted to stick around like that was a shock to me
00:08:00
Speaker
I think, you know, and you're right. And that is something that I, one of us should have thought of. I mean, I'm not just dogging you off. Well, no, no, but you're right. That would have been a smart move because I think that he would still work with us. Probably likely. It's just that.
00:08:15
Speaker
I'm not a smart man and there are a lot of threads all the time and that one slipped my consciousness and I'll say this, if we ever do end up back in, I assume he stays around Road, he may not, but if we ever end up back in the cities of Brella and we may ask after him in Sharn or Road or even
00:08:39
Speaker
I mean, he may even end up in Flame Keep. He didn't go with us, though, did he? Did he? Rickard did. Rickard stayed in Flame Keep, I think, didn't he? No, Crass didn't, because he was with Thorin in here. Yeah, Crass was on the away team. And we determined that Gerald stuck around and picked up Rickard. Yes, Rickard was on... Did he come back? Oh, okay. I could not remember, because he didn't.
00:09:01
Speaker
He didn't show up in that. Well, because there was the big thing. There was actually a conversation, I think, in the first episode about I was waiting for you guys to ask if Rickor is in the boat. We had no control over Rickor is in the boat. So that's on you. So, yeah, you all left Roet. Well, in the next episode, we do meet Jace Jace Quinn, best pilot name. You really nailed it on that one. Thank you. I appreciate it. That's a kickass pilot name. And Randy, when Randy's on,
00:09:31
Speaker
That episode, something happened to him and he was just like, I am become Booyah. There was the whole Gerald thing and that was fun because Philip and I picked up on it at the same time. We even spoke in unison at one point. The thing with the... God, the thing with the mast. Yes, take him to the mast. I'll say this. Go ahead.
00:09:57
Speaker
I still don't know what Randy was doing with the mast of the sail. I still don't know what Randy was going for. I thought that Randy was having Booyah actually be the one messing with Jace until he revealed. But the greatest plot twist ever. Until he revealed later he was like, no guys, we need to sail. I really thought you were joking because it's a boat and we obviously need a mast. Despite the fact that he's seen so many other ships at this point that do not have sails.
00:10:25
Speaker
Oh man, just when he pulled him aside and started talking and Philip and I are trying our hardest not to scream laughter into the microphones. It was brilliant, brilliant way. It was amazing. By Randy. And this is also where we have, in some cases goodbyes, but in every case a
00:10:48
Speaker
We may not see you for a while with the whole rest of the NPCs that you added to us, really. I mean, everybody on the boat, which are with the exception of, of, of Krast and Borenel, the most important NPCs.
00:11:01
Speaker
Most important always on our side in PC. Yeah of the whole campaign. I mean Paolo Charlie Orianna I guess that's really it Cassian okay, Cassian is important because he is of them Cassian's not an ally in that same sense. Yes, he's a ward. Yeah who we adore but Mm-hmm
00:11:26
Speaker
yes we had some some good farewells and really i mean again shocking no one the best two were barracks two with uh the two women of the boat um but i mean they're the two women on the boat yeah uh
00:11:43
Speaker
of the Charlie's little dig of, I don't think you guys can be alive without me. It was pretty good. With all due respect. The Palo scene was good and everything, but I love that with you two as Barak and Oriana. Thank you, pal. Also, because Palo is already a really fleshed out character.
00:12:02
Speaker
Orianna has always kind of been, she's headstrong. She's clearly capable of learning. And the last time after Paolo had died, there were some great conversations. But man, this really made it where it was like, oh, no, she is on this for her own reasons, which was really cool. Like she's not just here. She is here out of circumstance, but she's adopted it. Yeah. Yeah. As her cause.
00:12:31
Speaker
Really furthered the Arya Stark vibe. It certainly did. When does she start a list? Now, I am certainly not current on Game of Thrones, but I know there's a list involved. Yes. And I did see some of the list happen before I stopped watching. She doesn't have a list yet. She is basically there's just probably doesn't have enough names to have. Yes.
00:12:53
Speaker
Yeah. What if at some point when we reunite with them, we're like, just talking, all of a sudden you hear Eric just start reciting names. I'm like, oh. And he's like, Dex, no! You know what you did. I probably don't remember. But yeah, both of those were great. Anything, Phillip, you want to say about those? I'm looking to see. I don't think we have any questions up to this point. Our first real questions come with the dream episode.
Fan Engagement and Convention Highlights
00:13:21
Speaker
There is a question towards the end about Berwick and Paula. Yeah. Oh yeah, sure. Sorry. Yeah. I'm going in chronological order, but you're right. There was one asked earlier today and it was... Well, I read. Oh, the one I found is Laura.
00:13:41
Speaker
So I'll ask that when you ask that. Oh, no, no, you're right. I misread the names. Laura asks, one, do you see any chance of them ever getting back together? You know what? I'm going to take pause real quick to say this, not talking about game radiation con. However,
00:13:56
Speaker
Two of our Discord members, Jess and Laura, cosplayed as Dex and Drakir at the con, and it was so cool. John also cosplayed as me, which was weird. John cosplayed as Eric, not an NPC, as Eric Strimble. Pretty impressively, to be quite honest. Especially circa 2009, Eric, he hit that nail right in the head. And that was the Eric I lived with.
00:14:26
Speaker
And Niko dressed very well in a suit, which they said was foreign. We said, oh, I can wear a suit. OK, they looked great. Yeah, it did look very nice in a suit. Anyway, it was really it was really super cool. And I think we were the only podcast there that represented my game. It's been here. It's gone. They had people cosplaying as the characters in the podcast. And that was pretty cool. Pretty rare. We also received inside joke again.
00:14:55
Speaker
Yes. Oh, yes. Let us say those really quickly. So, yes, a big, huge thank you to these are the names that I was given a people that was involved. It was Liz, Laura and Irene, I believe. Yeah. That were all parties involved. Irene wasn't able to join us. But, yeah, we all got some amazing notebooks. Very clever. Randy, if you're listening to this, I will get yours to you next time we record. Absolutely. No, Randy's not listening to this. But so. So my notebook.
00:15:25
Speaker
had a silver dragon cover, and it was bound by an elastic band with owl eye-shaped goggles. So my new goggles of the night. And Barak's notebook was. Yeah. Mine has a black hand print, actually around the spine. Yes. And it's otherwise white and silver, which
00:15:53
Speaker
fits the whole silver flame motif. I presume that was what the reference was. If I'm missing something in my reference to my own show, then I apologize. I thought it was just because it really made that black hand stand out. But it also did that. I was just reading into it. But I also got not a notebook, but I was also given one of Drakir's shadow blades with decals in Elvish that I am told say, I will kill you and everyone you love.
00:16:22
Speaker
Yes, just wonderful. And my notebook was blue with the geek pantheon logo on the cover and they felt bad that mine wasn't as nearly as creative as your also the construction on mine is super rad. It can like fold around in cool ways and sit completely flat on a table and
00:16:40
Speaker
Uh, very, very handy for a DM's notebook. So, uh, huge. Oh, and Randy's is the book of exalted deeds. Like they just, they just made the book of exalted deeds. No, I'm like, uh, the beauty and the simplicity. So sorry to have stopped the flow of the podcast, but if I didn't say it, then I was afraid I would forget again. Huge. Thank you to all of them. Uh, gamer nation. God was a huge blast. And, uh, if you are so inclined next April, uh, keep an eye out for the Kickstarter come October rich.
00:17:08
Speaker
Um, and yeah, I mean, it was so fun. We spent, I spent the majority of my time just gaming with listeners and, and, and these, and, and the other guys on the shows. Uh, I mean, these shows, Eric and Phillip and Trevor, and boy, it was a good time. Yeah.
Beric and Paola: Future Possibilities
00:17:25
Speaker
Okay. Um, so the power question, uh, do you see any chance of them ever getting back together? What would it take for Barrick to believe it's not a trap?
00:17:37
Speaker
Um, I like Irene's proposed answer in the discord of Admiral Ackbar informing me. It's not a trap. Um, I don't trust that guy either. Whoa. Well, that's a star wars reference. So you wouldn't, um, yeah, I don't know who he is. I mean, I know who he is because I know it's a trap, but, uh, I really don't, I've been thinking about this since I saw it and I really don't know how to answer it or so I, since I saw it asked, I really don't know how to answer it. Um, I don't.
00:18:06
Speaker
I don't know what would make him. I mean, Barak's fear is many, many layered. On the one hand, he's not 100% sure it's her.
00:18:31
Speaker
And I don't know, there's probably ways to confirm that, but he's not 100% sure it's her because he's no longer sure of the Raven's limitations to the degree that she has limitations anymore, which he's also not sure of. But moreover,
00:18:55
Speaker
The fact that she came back with the timing as we talked about and the fact that the first thing she had to say to him really was that, you know, it was this thing about how as he reclaimed the packs, the souls were getting freed and that sort of thing. It. Right after he had, you know. Told off the Raven. His fear is that the whole thing
00:19:25
Speaker
is intended to lure him into doing the Raven's bidding again. And he does not want to make her a god. So I don't know. Maybe finishing the job. Maybe completing, maybe fulfilling the pact and freeing all of his ancestors in that way.
00:19:53
Speaker
Will be enough and then it will be a moot point. There's no reason for him to gather the packs if he's fulfilled them and You know things can can be fine But I don't know what will happen possibly what would make him Feel safe Maybe
00:20:17
Speaker
If he finishes the pact, he's been told, assuming this was true, that his ancestors will be freed when the pact is done. If he does that, then there's not any point in regathering the pacts anymore because he's fulfilled them. So maybe then it becomes a moot point whether she's intended to lure him or not. But I mean, I don't know if Barak has put thought into this, but I
00:20:48
Speaker
have to wonder what's going to happen to Beric and to Paola when the pact is fulfilled. Because if what we understand is true, then both of them have been returned to life by the raven's power. And if the pact is fulfilled and she moves on, which I don't know if she will, but if she does, then what happens to the things done by her power?
00:21:13
Speaker
I, well, I may be misunderstanding, but was Beric returned to life from her power? It wasn't the genie that returned him to, or the, the wish spell. Well, the second time fair, fair. So it just depends. Yeah. It's Eric's Eric's existence is complicated at this point. Uh, as far as the how of it, it's a real Charlie in the mail room kind of situation. So.
00:21:39
Speaker
Sure, sure. Yeah, so I'm not 100% sure. Yes, it is theoretically possible that Barrett could be convinced that she's not a trap, but I don't know what exactly that would look like.
00:22:03
Speaker
I think Barrick and her could, I mean, I don't know what necessarily would bring her back into the story, but I don't think this is, this isn't a, Barrick never wants to see her again. Barrick intends to studiously avoid her at all, at all cost. Barrick was just being honest with her and she reacted pretty normally to that. Or at least to the way in which she was being honest. So I,
00:22:33
Speaker
I don't really know what hope there is for a, for their relationship to be quite honest. I don't know that there was ever a lengthy future in that relationship. They're very different people. Um, and I, I always viewed Barak as frankly, very much the junior member in that relationship and not, and not just in the sense that she's older than him, but yeah.
00:23:03
Speaker
how much older is she? Did we ever establish what her actual age is? Um, I've always envisioned her at like 35, 34 to 35. Is she human? Yes. Okay. Um, so
00:23:21
Speaker
Okay. Well, so I don't know if once we saved storm reach, she goes back to, you know, storm lording and Eric, I dunno, retires to a hermitage in the Hills somewhere.
Combat Challenges and Party Strength
00:23:35
Speaker
Um, but yeah, so I don't know that that was a, they get married and live happily ever after sort of story in the first place, but I don't see a lot of chance for that right now.
00:23:49
Speaker
Okay, I want to go back just really quickly and say earlier I said when Randy's on he's really amazing. Randy's always on. When Randy leans into it is what I should have said. Randy's always a great role player man when he leans in. Okay, so let's move on to the third episode which is the first fight of the arc of Combat and Adventure. Yes, the return to Combat and Adventure. And I have a theory about Eric building encounters.
00:24:19
Speaker
And it is that when we haven't fought for a while, Eric.
00:24:23
Speaker
over-estimates exactly how hardy and strong we are. Because it feels like the first fight after a break from fighting, at least one of us goes down. And Booyah and I both got our clocks cleaned by bugs this time. That was a nasty fight. I mean, it was a fight. I just want to flex sometimes. You're going to flex me into the grave. I've done it to Philip twice already. Well, no, you've done it to Philip once. He did it to himself the first time.
00:24:53
Speaker
That's fair. Honestly, that was kind of a heat check because it had been a while since we've been in combat. We were about to go into a really dangerous place. And so I wanted to throw you all into an extraordinarily difficult combat where it was in a position where retreat was a possibility. If things really started to go sideways, you could pull back.
00:25:18
Speaker
uh, take long rest, recover, and then continue your journey as opposed to doing that in the middle of Kyber when it's just like, well,
00:25:25
Speaker
you're in the core of the earth, good luck. So yeah, that was kind of an intentional like, what can you all deal with from a like, cause I had already mapped out the future episodes with the Sloth City and everything. And so I wanted to get a measure of how difficult I needed to make those encounters based on where you all were. We'd been doing a lot of just fighting other
00:25:50
Speaker
Yeah, humanoids. Yeah. And you know, they don't have things like teeth and fangs and so I'm really sad that we turned the video off because I'm about to tell you what the CR was and I want to see Phillips reaction. But that was a CR 30 encounter that you all were in.
00:26:04
Speaker
What? Yeah, skittering quarters are CR 15 each, so you all should have reasonably gone up against one of them, but I wanted to do that heat check. Would you mind explaining for the people at home and the one across the table? That encounter power was for a party of four PCs at level 30.
00:26:23
Speaker
You monster. But your magic weapons are so far beyond what even a level 20 PC should have most of the time. So that's why I sometimes have to do these heat checks because you all are not a CR12 party. If I throw you up in a CR12 encounter, you're just going to walk through it blindly. No offense, Phillip. Dude. So yeah.
00:26:53
Speaker
That's why that encounter was a little harder than normal. But yeah. I did skip something. There was something of an encounter before then in Sharn when these dumb douchebag shifters were like, hey, here's four dudes and a tiger. We should probably try to rob them. And I get it. Dex looks ridiculous. And rich. He looks ridiculous and rich. I own it and I love it.
00:27:21
Speaker
and Booyah looks silly but also well protected. No, he looks like a tiny, like, he looks like a mistake of a warforged. Like he looks like a warforged that got screwed up on the production line. Fine. I've decided he looks like a kitchen trashcan. Some box. Like the one droid that BB-8, that does cubic ones. Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:27:50
Speaker
I didn't think I said that BB-8. It's BB-8 encounters in Last Jedi than what I've seen.
00:27:58
Speaker
But decks are decks. Wait, Jeff made a Star Wars reference. Everybody take a drink. Boy, you guys are the worst drinking game ever. Y'all are going to be good to drive home. But Barricons are here, look like people you don't want to mess with. And there was a ghost tiger. Yeah. And they were like, yes, we still want to try this. And they got what was coming to them. Well, the ones that didn't run away feared.
00:28:24
Speaker
feared having been having been a feared yes a feared anyway jim james jimothy
00:28:34
Speaker
But that happened and then we fought the skittering horrors and I said we're taking a short rest and I'm rolling hit dice. And so we did that and into the episode there and then started the next episode with me saying we got to take a short rest so I can roll some hit dice. So I don't know what happened to that character. I printed off a fresh one.
00:28:55
Speaker
So yeah, then you all went down into Kyber. We went into Kyber and... We did. You got to meet some chokers. Yeah, so the first thing is we see these dead bodies and all I'm thinking is there are big things because we've seen the footprints.
00:29:12
Speaker
And according to, I think, Drakir, no, because we never said the name. There are these big things running around. And when we saw these dead bodies, I was like, I want to see what killed these things. Which is exactly what you were hoping, I have to assume. Yes. I mean, that's what the chokers were hoping also. That's why they stand corpses up on their feet. Right. And a choker tried to get me and the choker didn't get me. We make quick-worthy chokers. The chokers were nothing. The chokers were an alarm system. And they alerted. Yep.
00:29:40
Speaker
So, I just love that all of his hit and you're like, nah, you don't. Bibbidi bobbidi boo, I can see all of you barbaric. All right.
00:29:51
Speaker
I'm sorry, it's not magic. Hey, no, it's fine. It made for a good encounter. Yes, because you were so terrible at sneaking around Sloth later on in this arc. Okay, you got me there. Man, I don't know what happened when I built my character. I mean, I know what happened. I didn't know anything about D&D. If I had known that, by and large, the most important checks you're gonna be making, comment checks you're making during combat,
00:30:19
Speaker
at least when Eric is your GM apparently, are wisdom and constitution. And that, they're both plus one modifiers for me.
00:30:30
Speaker
And you make your fair share of dexterity saving throws as well. Well, okay. That is true. That is certainly true. Um, and that, yeah, that one I'm fine. Um, and there's also this, this common turn of phrase for DMS called kick them in the dump stat, where you intentionally pick things that maybe will not, not target the thing the player is best at or the PC is best at. I think the difference though, is if I fail a deck save, I take some damage.
00:30:54
Speaker
If I fail the wisdom save, I turn into a sloth a week later, or I run a thousand feet in the wrong direction, or I'm suddenly on their side, or who knows what. Okay, you say take some damage. A fireball deals 8d6 damage. Like, that's not some damage. No, you're right. No, you're absolutely right. You have to run away. Some people die. Hi, Philip. Hello. But, well, actually, okay.
00:31:23
Speaker
Although most I would take is half of that now anyway. Cause I got evasion. But that's not, has nothing to do with Dex. That's just my being a rogue. That's being a rogue, which anyway, we're, this has been a departure. It's all a departure. This is, nevermind. Okay. Um, uh, but yeah, and those Slod, boy, they suck. Uh, Dex says it a lot. Jeff's going to say it too. Kuyper sucks.
00:31:51
Speaker
Nothing good happened to Dex in Kyber. That's true. On the way to Kyber. Were we in? Yeah, you were in Kyber. Okay. Okay. I didn't know, because I always thought we were in Kyber when we were... The first time we met... Drakir, not the first time we met him, but... Would Drakir take us down to where Elodrin was and stuff? I thought that was in Kyber. No, that was on the edge, kind of like the depths of Sharn, but then you went into Kyber to fight the beholder and then you came back out of him. Okay, so, okay.
00:32:19
Speaker
Anyway, Slotsuck, they're very scary. They can do terrible things to you. We beat them with, you know, a couple of 20s and some loopholes or some natural ones that benefited us. Yeah. So, I mean, I assume we probably. Booyah banished one. Yeah. Or wait, Barrick banished one. Barrick banished one. Yes. Yeah.
00:32:41
Speaker
And then I think, didn't we use a 20 or maybe a natural one to say, and he's not coming. Yeah. Randy told the 20 to say he's not coming. There's no rolling to see if he stays gone. And, uh, I think I use a natural one to get an extra shot in with my knife. So that poor thing, that's probably never been to the plate of Zoria, but it is its natural home plate. It's probably having a bad day, but good. I'm glad he's having a bad day.
Drow Culture and Character Development
00:33:06
Speaker
He.
00:33:06
Speaker
Fighting off home invaders, how dare they? Anyway.
00:33:13
Speaker
but they're carrying a bag. Yes, they are carrying a bag, a body bag, in fact. And the thing in the bag was a real jerk. Vanara. Vanara. The, okay, Beshmirtny. Beshmirtny. Is this a thing? It's a thing that I made. Okay, because I tried to find it, and the only thing I could find that looked like Beshmirtny is a Slavic surname, and there's a writer.
00:33:40
Speaker
I was picturing that you found some woman named Bess Nertney. No, Bess Nertney is the Russian word for immortal. That is my approximated pronunciation of the collection of letters that is Russian for immortal. That is a fair way to put it.
00:34:04
Speaker
That concept is really cool. And you came up with that. Tell where that comes from. It was inspired by a video game series in Dragon Age where there is a group of dwarves that basically are banished from their homes for different reasons, but they're sent out to just kill as many darkspawn as they can before they die. And and they're I think called the deathless is the is the name of them. But I definitely drew a lot of inspiration from them. And then
00:34:28
Speaker
ran with it beyond that point of these drow being touched by the aberrations and having different indicators that like an aberration or a delqueer has messed with them physically. Did you stand out, Venera, just in case?
00:34:44
Speaker
I had a rough of standing out like I basically I didn't have a full character sheet I had her attacks and her hit points okay well just cuz at the at the end we'll go back but I just at the end she says she killed four of the four slawed by herself so was that narrative or was she that badass oh that was a narrative okay yeah
00:35:03
Speaker
And she could have been lying. Because in spite of the the real continuity boon that I had with the the red stone slot in the flametongue sword. That was good. Definitely beefed it up with her in her introduction, saying that she doesn't keep trophies. That's why they mark their arms and then her showing up with a trophy at the end of the art. So yeah, beef that up upon re-listening. But it's fine.
00:35:27
Speaker
But yeah, so she, uh, she doesn't speak common, which I guess is actually more likely for a drought, right? Yeah. I mean, it's called under common because it's common under. Right. Well, and I, when I was looking to see if this best Smirnty thing was a thing, it was the first time I actually read the, uh, I might've just been the D and D wick or a D and D Wiki, but about the drow and in Eberron particularly and how really
00:35:55
Speaker
Drakeer is an extremely rare case in one that not only knows common, but actually understands enough surface culture and mores and stuff to really be could integrate into society. Yeah. Up there. Like, well, that was a smart part on, on Phillips, a smart thing on Phillips part of making Drakeer's job within his tribe, essentially like
00:36:19
Speaker
going and collecting things from the surface because that gives a really good in world reason why Drake here would be that way. So good job. Thank you. Um, it was the first suggestion on Keith Baker's article about the ember gin on how on how to excuse an ember gin adventurer.
00:36:37
Speaker
Well, thank you, Keith. That guy, he's good. He knows the thing or two about everyone. Yep. Yep. Um, cause that definitely was not, uh, my plan for trick here. When I wrote, wrote up barracks half brother and inserted him into the story. So Jeff's yawning nicer in your vision. No, he was much meaner. Cool. Speaking of main trick here. Think of drow Cal Drogo. That's, that's kind of what I was going for with trickier.
00:37:03
Speaker
Drow, Khal Drogo, that would be awesome. I know, it was going to be. Damn. Yeah, too bad we got such a lame character like Drakir that nobody likes. But yeah, so and then Drakir turns into a real butthole and starts calling us all stratos. Saving your life. Starts calling us all stratos.
00:37:22
Speaker
and uh that was I mean that was really fun for me that was really funny yes I had a good time doing that yeah no kidding um but it is a very smart move and it does keep us alive and give us shelter for an evening uh despite the fact that the drow are just they're all jerks I don't believe them life's really hard they've had a terrible life and I really I love the fact though people keep acting surprised
00:37:49
Speaker
Well, I don't know anything about them. I only know Drakir. I know. Drakir's not... Okay, how do I... If it had been Eric and Eric in PC, particularly the way he just described him, I would not be surprised the rest of the drow are jerks. But since you had to ingratiate Drakir into the party, he's less a jerk and more just cold. Mm-hmm.
00:38:17
Speaker
This one, this one, this one guy that we all wanted to heal was like, yeah, but can we kick him around afterwards? Like that's not, that's not Drake here's MO. That's true. Um, or Drake here just knows how to behave himself on the surface.
00:38:33
Speaker
Just the same. Okay, no, that's fair. No, I love the fact though, given the end of this arc and where Drakir ends up by the end of this arc, I love the fact that these past two arcs have been like the most fun I've seen Philip have playing Drakir with the assassination attempt of the false king and then going into getting to pal around with this, this un, not undead, immortal drow woman just make it kind of,
00:39:02
Speaker
Drakir was doing what he was doing for the benefit of the party, but also I don't think Dex's frustration was lost on Drakir. Oh, he was very, I think he was very much enjoying frustrating Dex. I did have an immense amount of fun letting Drakir be Drakir. Yeah. Well, good. Okay. All right. Then they get to the camp.
00:39:26
Speaker
We get to the camp and meet Taras. Uh-huh. We meet Taras. We meet the was commander was word you guys used of, of the tribe of the, of the Bushman. Uh, commander Anushka Demeter. Right. Um, but really, well, I mean, you guys can talk about that. That was y'all's conversation. If you want to talk about all of that, me and the other Stratos were just chilling over in the corner at that point. So.
00:39:57
Speaker
And it was, I'm not sure if you were trying to hook us into something through that conversation. So, but if so, I didn't pick up on it. So, yeah, that's the that's the danger always of naming naming these arcs before we've recorded them is because, yeah, I definitely the recovered kingdom thing was supposed to be a an initial acknowledgment of everything you had accomplished up to that point.
00:40:26
Speaker
But then also the where the title of the arc will make sense later is you all in exchange for being able to explore the ruins, assist the best Mertany in reclaiming the city was where I thought that was going to go. And it didn't. And that's fine. But now the arc makes no sense in terms of title. So it's fine. But
00:40:51
Speaker
So yes, there was some intention there. I just didn't want to, it's a fine line to walk as a DM, especially in D&D of giving your players choice and agency and making them feel railroaded while keeping them moving in the direction that you want, that you've planned for them to go in. So I didn't want the Anushka conversation to be
00:41:14
Speaker
so ham-fisted as to say, this is what Eric intends for you to do. Right. And also at the same time, I wanted the best Murtney to feel different than the dry that you experience, like the Drakir's tribe, who are very much like, you are our prisoners now, we are going to send you off to die in this war. I wanted the best Murtney to be very much more like, we don't care about like,
00:41:40
Speaker
being big dogs and telling people what to do, because we're just going to die eventually. So I wanted to have that distinction in drow culture. But yeah, so that didn't work out, but that's fine. We had a really good arc anyway. And then sliding into the next episode, it turns out that if you as a DM don't want to be too railroady, but you want to drop a good hint, what you should do is you should separate your three players
00:42:09
Speaker
give them all three dream sequences and make it so intriguing for the players that you did it that way that we can't help but do exactly what the dream sequence said. That's true. Like everything you just said is sound advice for any dungeon master. If you give them something so intriguing, they can't say no, you've done your job.
00:42:29
Speaker
Yeah, so that and that is I mean I I'm sure you all picked up on I don't think we ever explicitly said it, but we recorded those three dreams separately from each other Philip did his and then and then Randy his and then I did mine.
00:42:45
Speaker
we did not talk about it. We did not say what each of us like when in character, I mentioned this in the discord too, in character when Dex says I really thought I was gonna have to do a whole lot more convincing. That was like Jeff saying to Philip, okay we clearly had similar dreams or something. Because I mean obviously I didn't know Bella Shearer came to them as well. I didn't know what the contents of their dreams were
00:43:11
Speaker
So I was really under the impression that we all got three different things. And I just want to give a quick shout out real quick because we're starting to answer the question. And Glenn actually asked in the Discord about the player experience while playing with limited knowledge and potentially different goals, just kind of being in the dark from your fellow players, because Glenn really liked that convention and wanted to know what your all's take on it was as players. So continue speaking. Well, I'll say this. I genuinely thought that Eric made it because it makes sense
00:43:39
Speaker
for Dex, and it makes less sense, I think, for Beric or for Booyah, for Belasheer to actually show himself talking, especially Beric. So it made sense to me, Jeff, and it made sense to Dex that Belasheer would say, okay, I'm talking to you. I had to get real metaphorical and imagery with the other two guys, but I'm straight up talking to you and you can't tell anybody that it's me.
00:44:07
Speaker
I was surprised to find out that you did basically the same thing with the other two because it made sense to me the way it was presented. That's why I thought, okay, if I'm the one that is talking to Bela Shira, I have to have more direct information than the other two got.
00:44:27
Speaker
Yeah. So when Beric says, Oh, there's a sword down there. I was like, well, or there's a weapon down there. I was like, Oh, well, okay. Okey doke. I guess everything I was planning on saying in like roundabout ways and like, you know, doing my best to
00:44:44
Speaker
Basically, I thought I was going to have to say eventually, I don't know why I know this, but my dream tells me there's a sword down there. And, and, and I was going to hit all the buzzwords, Lucaneer Klar spot for a stone, but instead right out the gate because there's, there's a weapon down there. We should go get it. I was like, well, all right.
00:45:02
Speaker
You did have some info that he didn't have, though, about the stone. Yes, there certainly was info that I mean, we did all have. Well, I will say so Philip can speak to his conversation, but I did want to say from Randy's perspective, because Randy's not here with us, because Randy only shows up to record reviews when he gets confused and things that were playing that. But with with Booyah's conversation, Belashira was very much like, OK, listen, you've been around everybody else that you're traveling with.
00:45:31
Speaker
you clearly have the fewest moral hangups of the rest of them. Like they're all pretty on the good straight and narrow. I know that you're trying to be better, but we both know who you are. And Randy, as Randy does, was embodying Bouillon was like kind of, you know, sheepishly ashamed, but yeah, very much understood where Bela Shira was coming from. And so I tried to tailor each conversation to make it make sense why Bela Shira would be talking to that person.
00:46:01
Speaker
Fair. So what did you think, Philip? Um, like you, I assumed that we all had different information, um, and that Bella Shearer was going for different things, uh, with us. Um, but no, I mean, it really was just, it was made intriguing enough
00:46:27
Speaker
that I and Berwick were willing to go along with it, at least to see where it went. And, you know, the not mentioning Belisheara thing seemed
00:46:51
Speaker
Seemed insufficiently problems and didn't seem extremely problematic to me. Sure. Same. The. Obviously, the later conversation is very different, but. Saying I know where the sword is and I can't explain it. But that didn't seem. That didn't seem problematic to me as far as the relationship between Berwick and.
Guidance and Missed Opportunities
00:47:20
Speaker
And here.
00:47:21
Speaker
Because if we get double-crossed and we get double-crossed and that's you know, or from the course Sure, well, you know the other thing was if the deal was Not only am I telling you where this is? But if you just don't tell people why you know where it is I'll make it easier for you to get there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Okay. Sure fine, and it's not like I'm
00:47:46
Speaker
You don't have to cite your source for a prophecy. Yeah. Like we live in a world where those sorts of things are real. So it just seemed way too easy to not go for it. Now I will say Jess asked the question. She said, why did they trust? What's this face so much in the first place that they're, that they'd be willing to make deals with them knowing that in doing so there would be conflict, cough, barrack and rakir cough in parentheses. Um,
00:48:12
Speaker
I don't think it was a matter of trust. I didn't trust Bella Shira. No, I mean, I agree. Go ahead. Sorry. I mean, he was pointing Barrick towards something that they need and saying a specific spot to check. Eric knows what he can do and knows that it's what we can do. And, you know,
00:48:37
Speaker
We can try to get to that place and check it out. And if it's not there, we continue on our way. Oops. You know, uh, so I don't think it was a matter of trusting Bella Shira. It was, we were offered information that if it was true, if it panned out was going to be.
00:48:55
Speaker
Hugely useful, put us 25% closer to our ultimate goal. So why not at least check it out? The risk to reward ratio, which is not fun to say. I just realized it was such that you could not check it out.
00:49:12
Speaker
Yeah, we had to at least check. And we even say that in character. When Booyah is showing trepidation, Dex is like, I mean, yeah, it might be wrong, but it's right. Yeah, we've got to check it out. So yeah, I don't think it was ever trust. And I think it's very clear in the second encounter, which we'll get to, there was no trust, especially not from Dex, obviously.
00:49:43
Speaker
So coming out of the dreams and sharing all the info, Eric makes a really good joke at my expense. I was glossed right past that. And then I edited out the second time I did it, which was far less funny. Yeah, diminishing returns on that one.
00:50:06
Speaker
Um, I'm looking, I don't think I seen the questions. I mean, like we just sneak through the city. Yeah, you snuck through the whole city. Right. And you so much loot left. Okay. Okay. So, I mean, we, we, we snuck through.
00:50:22
Speaker
How many encounters did you have in contingency? I mean, every little area that you snuck through there was an encounter. That area that you all snuck through and I kept pointing out how many buildings there were, there was loot in, I think, 12 of those buildings. There was gold and magic items and all kinds of stuff just throughout that area.
00:50:48
Speaker
So and we've got to be the least lutenist Party that's ever played it was genuinely me thinking like it's been a long time since I've given them new toys to play with like and But we don't even loot dead guys after we kill him No, you don't wrap with your pocket and I've been playing a lot of Red Dead Redemption to Arthur Morgan
00:51:10
Speaker
He likes to loot people and it sometimes is pretty lucrative. Yeah, your boy got a gold nugget the other day out of some dude's saddlebag But yeah, I mean I I had planned out in I think five total encounters and you all did one of them and I had accounted for one of them being removed if you all kept your promise to Bella Shira, so But yeah, so what were some of the things where do you want to keep it in case you want to drop them later?
00:51:39
Speaker
Oh, I mean, it was just, it was slide. It was just a variety of different structures of encountered with the slot. Obviously on the bridge, you had the red slot and the green slot. Oh, no, I'm sorry. I mean, some of the things that we didn't get besides gold. Yeah. I mean, I can, I can give, give you all a little taste of what could have been. Let me pull up that notebook real quick.
00:52:06
Speaker
three bolts of giant slang for plainer justice for Booyah to have. A bag of beans, Jack and the Beanstalk inspired where you throw the beans out and different crazy stuff happens. Cloak of the manta ray which lets you breathe underwater and swim super quick. The eagle whistle where as long as you're blowing into it you can fly.
00:52:30
Speaker
Elixir of Health, which just is a ridiculous healing item. Tome of Leadership and Influence, which once you read it, I think your Charisma score just goes up permanently. Sorry, I have these all in one note, linked to D&D Beyond, so I don't have the descriptions in there. Sure.
00:52:51
Speaker
Yeah, you spend 48 hours over the period of six days reading it and your charisma score goes up by two. So your modifier just goes up one. Oh, I think this is the one that I was most sad that you all didn't.
00:53:04
Speaker
Talisman of Pure Good. So it would have been real bad if Booyah picked this thing up. Hello. Yeah, Talisman of Pure Good allows you, if you're wearing it or holding it, you can use an action to expend one charge from it. You choose one creature you can see on the ground within 120 feet of you. If the target is of evil alignment, a flaming fissure opens underneath it. The target must succeed on a DC 20 dexterity saving throw or fall into it and be destroyed, leaving no remains behind. Holy cow. Yeah.
00:53:35
Speaker
But I let, I gave you all that with one charge on it. So just one time you all had a nuke that you could just take care of Bill. Sure. Yeah. Um, just do something crazy with it. So just stuff like that, that I kind of peppered in a lot of it was either very circumstantial or one time use like the talisman appeared here. Um, cause like how often have you all had to swim other than that one time? Um, and swimming was not the issue. Right. Um, okay. Um, all right. So,
00:54:03
Speaker
We sneak through the city. Uh, Barrick uses a 20 to cause a Bessemerni riot or invasion. And then we all see the death slot. We all see the drow distracted and it runs away. And we all know that our very specialized individualized promises have been kept.
00:54:24
Speaker
And then we get into the, and then Randy does just enough to give away the goose that I almost messed with you all. Like I almost had Bella Shira do something like, what do you say? Kept his keep his word. He walked up, opened up the doors and then went, keep his word. And I was like, Oh, that's a fine line, Randy. That's a real fine line that you're walking there. So I almost had the death slot come back in that moment.
00:54:49
Speaker
Um, yeah, I mean, I'll be out. That's now he did say that he would get it out of your shot of me, Eric. So I didn't play it that way, but that's when Jeff knew. Oh, but that was the off mic implied promise that I made you all make to me of not sharing the information outside of kayfabe. And both promises needed to be kept in order for the desktop to disappear. So.
00:55:12
Speaker
Um, so yeah, that was just enough for me to question it, but I ended up thinking, no, I'm about to have a giant worm attack. Um, that'll be fine. Yeah. Yeah. So we walk in and we see the handful of things. We see the brain cage and we see the sarcophagus and we see the alcoves and we don't get to walk around much.
00:55:51
Speaker
situation. Or at least enough
Encounters and Decisions
00:55:55
Speaker
for Giant Worm.
00:55:56
Speaker
concerns would have been raised to where he would have been prepared for it. The elder brain tank being destroyed and it seeming like this was abandoned in haste when you come upon a mind flayer colony that's like that.
00:56:09
Speaker
there's probably one of these things somewhere. And it's probably gonna try to protect the colony, because that's the only thing a mind flayer larvae, it just knows protect the elderly. Understand, sure. So the giant worm pops up and gosh, Phillip, did anything noteworthy happen during that fight?
00:56:28
Speaker
Okay, I'm so sad. I have to talk about a moment that Drakir passed a DC, like it was a strength check. And if Drakir didn't pass that, these things have such a cool mechanic, where when they hit you with their tentacles, you have to pass this DC strength check or you get swallowed whole. Now you're not dead or anything.
00:56:47
Speaker
But one of the party members has to exact at least, I think it's 30 damage in one hit on the thing, and then they throw up whatever they've swallowed. And you all do enough damage to where I was not worried about that happening. But I was so bummed that Drakir passed that check, not because I wanted to mess with you all, but I just wanted that moment to happen.
00:57:06
Speaker
I wanted Drakir to have the Drax of the Destroyer moment. I'm going to have to go back and listen to that encounter again and see how long it would have been between when he would have been swallowed. The whole encounter lasted like two or three rounds. That's because of Drakir.
00:57:26
Speaker
right so i want to see if there was if in those two or three rounds between his past strength check and when he warbled to 24 double warpled but but double warpled um anyway so yeah i just said it out loud but philip why don't you talk about what happened during the fight uh yeah um i finally
00:57:53
Speaker
Roll the natural 20 using the Vorpal Sword that we took from the Caneth Vault, which was amazing, and then infuriating, and then amazing again.
00:58:10
Speaker
It was the second, second loudest yelling. I think I've had, I've been a party to the table. Uh, as far as when you rolled that second 20, uh, the only time louder was when the three of us were playing a game or nation con and I exploded three times to actually pass that check. I needed to do to essentially win the game for us. Um,
00:58:34
Speaker
If those of you don't know, when exploding it dies, if you roll in D&D at 20 or whatever, the highest number on it in Genesis, it's triumph. And I needed, basically I exploded three times in a row and just was able to pass the check that I needed with the third explosion.
00:58:54
Speaker
And there was, and Philip exploded twice in a row, not too long before that. Lots of yelling. Anyway, so yes, so we made, I think, quicker work of the worm than Eric was expecting. Yeah. Yes, to say the least. Well, and also Eric made a totally reasonable call with that first 20, and then made a totally reasonable call with the second one. So, yeah, I'm just saying.
00:59:20
Speaker
Uh-huh. Who was that mysterious third party that just came in to weigh in on how good Eric is at things? That was so weird. No, just I could, I re-listened to that episode. It could feel Philip Saltz through my radio. And so I just wanted to reiterate that. I, I, well, nope, nevermind. I was going to say now it'll just be that much more exciting when trickier rolls a 20 with the World War II later, but we'll get to that. Um, no spoilers. Yeah.
00:59:49
Speaker
So we beat the worm and we start exploring the space. And then New Jersey Bellaschira's goes up. Well, and we figure out that there's a puzzle to be solved and we solve the puzzle with some help. I mean, I mean, Eric didn't really lay it out for us, but he definitely did. I kind of hit a point where I had to ask some questions and had to do it in a way without giving everything away. And then Bellaschira
01:00:17
Speaker
Shows up says I can explain end of episode. Yes next episode he explains This is a boring episode. Yeah, it's the last episode of the arc. It was just denouement The Vorpal sword thing was the climax. No, okay, so Bella Shearer says I can explain and the thing that he explains is I Didn't know the worm was coming. I tried to help but here's the thing and I will fight you on this forever. I
01:00:47
Speaker
He made the same promise to all three of us. If Booyah had not held up his end, then Belashir would not hold up his end, thus breaking his promise to Beric and to Dex. Yes?
01:01:04
Speaker
Sure, yeah, that's fine. He needed to know he could trust the whole party. Like, he didn't need one of you, he needed all of you. I was so ready, though, for you to start defending it again. No, it's so late. Well, because Eric has a thing, and I love it, but anytime we talk about a bad thing a PC did, Eric will defend it to his death when he could just go, yeah, he's a jerk. That character that's not me is a jerk, so I played like a jerk.
01:01:35
Speaker
what this creature of ultimate chaos didn't keep its word yeah exactly and this time he did it and i love it because it's the best time to have done it um okay so really quickly because it is late uh i mean i i will say my thing i and this will go towards the i dex doesn't trust belashira yes the two things
01:02:01
Speaker
In the grand scheme of the three offers, this was not the big one, by any means, it would have been nice to have a little more juice to my fireball and being able to blind somebody. I mean, seems pretty cool, but Dex didn't trust Belashira enough to know that being marked by him meant anything more than a cosmetic change. Like, I don't trust that it doesn't mean that
01:02:29
Speaker
You know, I asked all the questions I could think of, well, I show up as evil. I show up as an aberration. Will you have control over me? But I never expect them to tell me the truth. If any of the answers were ones I didn't like. Right. And so it just wasn't, if I had been given the offer, Barrick had been given out of been like, as depending on the.
01:02:50
Speaker
Phillips would be a better role player than me to be willing to go blind for something we really need. I don't think I'm a good enough role player for that yet. But if it had been something bigger for something similar, I'd have been like, yeah, something bigger for something smaller. Not something smaller, something bigger than what I got for a similar cost. I think I would have been willing to go for it. It was easier for Dex to say no, I think, than certainly Beric and just Booyah being Booyah.
01:03:13
Speaker
Well, and it was, it was a situation of, uh, the, the things I was trying to give you all because from a narrative standpoint, barracks was obviously the most potent and powerful from a mechanical standpoint. Barracks is actually a huge detriment negative from a mechanical standpoint. And I was trying to bring a bit more, uh, let level it out a bit because from a mechanical standpoint, yours is the most powerful.
01:03:40
Speaker
because in effect what I've done with Booyah is given him the ability to use melee weapons which he's not as good at with and he can only attack with planar justice one time which he's using in his hands he can do it too so I've given Booyah a cool thing that actually probably reduces his damage output by a little bit and that was his cost essentially because he didn't have a cost like the mark yeah yeah his cost was mechanical
01:04:03
Speaker
Barret's cost was narrative and his game was benefit. Yours was just mechanical benefit, essentially, in a narrative. And it would have been great. I think one of the reasons I didn't take it is because I don't make as much use of that fireball as I probably should. I certainly would have used it more often if I'd taken the thing. But no, I couldn't let Dex trust him for that.
01:04:31
Speaker
Well, it would have been one of those things that, I mean, obviously, Bela Shira didn't say this because he wasn't trying to sell you too hard on it. But it's something that would have grown over time. Basically, you would have gotten a modified prestige class from 3.5. There's one called the Heir of Sybaris, which is basically what Gerald has, like a Sybaris mark, except it was the Heir of Kyber, and you would have had a Kyber mark.
01:04:52
Speaker
Oh, so over time the tattoo would have grown. Yeah. Not cool. I knew there was something. So, but it would have grown in power as well. Like that would have been the thing. So, um, but anyway, um, so that was the, that was the offer. Okay. So let's talk. And then, you know, Booyah got the thing he got. So let's talk.
01:05:13
Speaker
Darren had a very specific question about the exchange that I wanted to address. Yes, let's do that. So Darren had the question, why did you decide to have Bela Shira take barracks eyes instead of replacing them with symbionts, if I'm pronouncing that right. I have I have an answer for this. Go for it. I imagine the moment that Eric read that question and go, ah, man.
01:05:41
Speaker
There was an initial moment of that, of like, oh, that would have been really cool. Can you explain, what's this in my mind? It's something that, specifically half Delkir in 3.5, it got weird there towards the end. Delkir grow that can be attached to a host and it's like a living breastplate or a grasping claw, like these weird aberrant limbs or body parts that they can insert into people, which would have been cool
01:06:11
Speaker
couple of things. In my reading, it is unclear if somebody that is non aberrant can use symbionts according to like Canon. I've either seen it specifically declared that they have to be some kind of half Delque or Delque or aberration, or I've just seen it not addressed. So that's part of it. Once I actually started doing the research as to why I wouldn't have done this cool thing. Also, I
01:06:41
Speaker
I like making Beric blind. I think it is poetic that the Lord of Eyes takes his eyes and gives him nothing physically in return. He took his eyes to what end?
01:07:00
Speaker
like and and so um so yeah i i just i liked that exchange of bella shira being the lord of eyes and so collecting them um and that's i mean i i suspect also that part of i know i i imagine that if we're being real honest eric didn't think of that yeah until after that's darren's question um but i i think even if you had
01:07:29
Speaker
Eric also knows his players very well. I think he knows that Philip would have had a harder time saying yes if the deal involved making his character look weird. Yeah. Because Philip is a very vain player. I am. I have a particular image in my head of what my characters look like and
01:07:53
Speaker
I cannot relate. I know. Back in our MMO playing days, Philip would in MMOs intentionally not wear the best armory had because it did not match. Like that's like, which I'm not making fun of Philip for. No, I respect that. But that's just just to
01:08:16
Speaker
really give the gravity to the list. Well, I mean, he have a play the on it because it made it have long hair. I mean, that is part of. Yes, that's why I dropped lately on another voice in his head. Well, yeah, sure. But he specifically said to me, I didn't want the hair. Yeah. You know, it's funny. I am I am at the same time quite surprised and not at all surprised by the thing you just said about the MMOs. OK. I will say
01:08:46
Speaker
and you two can either expound or correct me. We do have questions on the Discord about mechanical stuff. We're gonna work it out. We can't answer those right now. Yeah, we're not gonna address any mechanical... Questions like, is Barak's attack spells affected because he can't quote unquote see them now? That's something Eric and Philip are gonna talk about that they haven't yet. So we're not gonna answer those questions, I apologize.
Beric's Blindness and Adaptation
01:09:08
Speaker
If I may guess, I would suggest that Eric is probably not going to render my character irrelevant in 90% of combat situations. I certainly hope so.
01:09:20
Speaker
So I would assume this will not mean that Barak is no longer ever allowed to cast spells. Right. And we have already said that there'll be problems with it. We have already said that he, he cannot see, but he has a, some sort of visual sense of things that's been vaguely mentioned that we need to refine. Um, so we appreciate those questions and the answer to those will be keep listening and we'll all find out together. Um,
01:09:48
Speaker
I apologize. I don't mean to trivialize because they were good questions and thoughtful ones from Irene and from... Cali. And I believe from... Cool? Yes. Yeah. Mentioned it a bit and maybe another one or two.
01:10:05
Speaker
I mean, it's going to be a problem, but yes, it's going to be a problem. We're just not going to get into the mechanical minutia of it all because there have been some conversations between Philip and I, and moving forward, there will be more. And so we honestly can't speak to a lot of it yet.
01:10:21
Speaker
Uh, we did have some about barrack, Philip, Philip and barracks, emotional state on working so hard at being a sword fighter and the Kensei training and all that stuff. I don't know if you want to speak to that at all, Philip. I mean, it literally just happened to barrack. So if you'd want to say, I mean, Philip, I mean, barracks, barracks, emotional state is quite confused at the moment. I think Philip has had quite a while to process this. Um, I mean, yes, I think that barrack
01:10:52
Speaker
is feeling, I mean Barrick is not, Barrick's personhood is not tied up in being a good swordsman in the way that, I don't know, to go Game of Thrones with it, the way that Jaime Lannisters is. And so this is not doing to Barrick what that character losing his hand does.
01:11:15
Speaker
But that said, yeah, Barak has put in a lot of work into understanding the sword and becoming really good with it. And so losing that potentially is a big part of it. From my perspective, I'm a little less worried about it because we live in a world of wizards.
01:11:42
Speaker
and Barret can perceive magic already. And I have spent the month contemplating the various implications of that. Like, can I cast darkness over there, thus creating a big magical aura backdrop and see things silhouetted when they move in front of it?
01:12:07
Speaker
I don't know. Eric is violently shaking his head right now. Not violently. I just kind of frowned and like looked up at the ceiling and shook my head. No. So, so I, you know, I've been thinking of all the sorts of ways. How could, you know, how do you problem solve this in a fight? Um, because, you know, Barrick is not an extremely practical person, but he's practical enough to know that this is potentially made him a liability to the crew.
01:12:37
Speaker
And so there's some of that, but also, and I think probably much more speaking to my fantasy tropes that resonate with me. And I think one of the reasons that this is something that Eric would not have, I mean, speaking to one of the other questions, yes, Eric and I had some conversations about this beforehand because this is a big thing and Eric's not the kind of DM who's just going to spring this on you.
01:13:06
Speaker
But Eric knows that I find the Philip, Philip loves a blind swordsman. Yeah. The fantasy of the blind swordsman is the one that I love. So it was not the idea of this is not a really hard sell to me. Yeah. I'm still on the fence. I have no idea how it's going to play out to be quiet. Like Eric and I have had a few conversations, but I don't know where it's going.
01:13:34
Speaker
We had a few conversations about the execution of it, not the implications. Yeah. All right. A couple of questions. Since Barrick can't give butterfly kisses anymore, is he going to rub noses there when it's did? I have to assume yes. Why would anyone think Barrick has been giving butterfly kisses? I don't know. We can figure it out. That sounded so defeated.
01:14:02
Speaker
are you happy laura you broke phillip um no that was jess's question oh jess oh sorry jess barrick does not give butterfly kisses not anymore wait now butterfly kisses require eyelids does barrick still have eyelids no i said there were just there's flesh over where the eye socket you're basically forehead down to nose
01:14:23
Speaker
Why would you put it that way? That's just... anyway. Well, because you like to have a really specific idea of how your characters look. You just said so. Yeah, but I have that idea. You don't have that idea. You know how on the Discord when Laura tells you how your character behaves?
01:14:39
Speaker
Yes, and I just kind of say no. She has great ideas, but it's already been done. I don't know what to say. Kelly had a really interesting question about Bela Shira.
01:14:57
Speaker
Yes, I was going to go to that one next. So go ahead. So Kelly said, I was previously under the impression that Bela Shira was perhaps a large antagonist to the campaign. He had a flesh bridge conjure. That's not a friendly power move. Fair. But now he keeps wanting to make weird bargains and the PCs are instantly talking and not moving into initiatives. So is he not the instant antagonist? Has he transitioned to a plot device? And then she goes on to say, this doesn't need to be reviewed. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't hearing wrong.
01:15:25
Speaker
So, I mean, the party's never gone into initiative with Bela Shira, very intelligently, especially the first time they met him. Oh, Dex is terrified. Yeah, as you should be. Because even in Keith Baker's material for Eberron in 5E, the Delcure aren't statted. Like, they don't get stats.
01:15:51
Speaker
When the Star Wars role-playing game launched, Darth Vader didn't have stats. If the party tries to fight him, they just die. If you can manipulate reality, you're probably going to win the fight. Not to say that I wouldn't, if it became clear that you all wanted to throw down, I wouldn't stat him out.
01:16:12
Speaker
But yeah, that's just kind of what you're dealing with. You're dealing with somebody that exists outside the rules of the world. And that's how a lot of people do play delk here is they break the fourth wall and know the abilities of the PCs and know their stats and we'll even reference them and stuff like that. I mean, he did. He referenced stats. I mean, he referenced the narrative. He said that Theradak wasn't going to be part of the story much longer.
01:16:36
Speaker
That's true. So yeah, I mean, he was never the large antagonistic campaign. My intention with Bela Shira, which has kind of come to fruition at this point, and what I had tried to start setting up, the story that he wove about the quarry manipulating the creatures of Zoryat to invade has been since day one of this campaign.
01:17:02
Speaker
Um, that that's been, that's been a narrative truth. Um, and so I wanted to kind of show that a, the Corey had been operating for a very long time towards this goal. And be that sometimes people that are on the same side of a war as you are not people that you would normally want to deal with. Like that's, um, that's been a big thing with, um, with, uh, I tried to do it with a barrack and the lycanthropes.
01:17:30
Speaker
from their plane and with obviously the whole party in Bela Shira of just sometimes the people that are on the same side as you are not the people that you would want on that side. Would it be fair to say that Bela Shira is our gross Loki?
01:17:48
Speaker
Yes and no, I mean I could see that a bit, but he certainly does not want to rule Eberron. He has thoughts, but ruling is not one of them. So yeah, Callie, it certainly could have ended up if
01:18:07
Speaker
If party interests would have gone a different direction and they would have gone deep into Kyber and that became like the heart of the campaign, maybe Bela Shira would have been more of an antagonistic role, but that's just not the way the dice fell. And I tend to run my campaigns that way of the Cory were obviously the heart of the story, but everything around it is very malleable.
01:18:27
Speaker
to say that I couldn't have switched it up and decided, you know what, Bela Shira and the aberrations are still on the side of the quarry and still working with them. That could have easily been a switch that happened at some point if the story dictated it. So you weren't hearing wrong. I was intentionally making Bela Shira kind of
01:18:45
Speaker
KG from the outset until this moment where I feel like in the dream sequence, Randy made an insight check that he rolled relatively high on during his dream to know that Bella Shira, it seemed like Bella Shira was telling the truth.
01:19:02
Speaker
So yeah, one of the cool mechanical things that I've seen somebody do with the delk here, though, and this was in fourth edition, but they had a once per a daily ability where a delk here could just just switch the fate, the any die on the table, they could just switch which side was facing up.
01:19:21
Speaker
Like just showing kind of their meta power. And so if somebody created on and be like, nope, that's a one. So what a jerk move. I would flip this table. I would run. I would Vorpal sword. No. Yeah. So, yeah, that's kind of the flavor of Delcure. That's why I really like running them because they can be a lot of fun to play.
01:19:42
Speaker
okay let's see jess asks why do you enjoy hurting your listeners we really don't i promise i think that was directed at me more apologies um i could just say they win if you want i mean that's not nice um we are we i mean eric obviously is the
01:20:01
Speaker
The guide of it, but we're all trying just to make the most compelling story that we can and boy I'm compelled We do have a question from Joe There was not much group reaction when jakir left do the other players realize he had left left like left Well jakir hasn't left in our recap yet. I was saving that one. Sorry
01:20:23
Speaker
Okay, so yeah, let's move on. I think that's the last question about the blindness. The walls come down. We see Barrick obviously changed. Dex did ask,
Deception and Group Dynamics
01:20:35
Speaker
what did you do? And I felt like Philip took offense to that, not Barrick. You did get Barrick to cuss. That wasn't Philip cussing. That was Barrick cursing. Okay, cool.
01:20:46
Speaker
Um, yeah, I've heard Philip cause I, uh, but, um, and that wasn't the same episode where he said my parents raised me not the curse. Uh, but yeah, so Drake here asks what happened and. Uh, honest, honestly, the reason that I chose to have Dex lie.
01:21:05
Speaker
and say nothing happened to him was because Dex could tell that whatever deal was offered to Barrick, Barrick took. It was pretty obvious. And so my goal was to make it seem as though nothing happened in mine and it was not a thing you could refuse. So it would still look like we weren't working with Bellaschira. That's why Dex played it the way he played it.
01:21:31
Speaker
I couldn't tell if Drakir believed Dex by the time he left or not. I think either I passed my deception or you failed your insight, but that doesn't really necessarily mean... I think Drakir's flat assumption is Dex is really good at lying. So looking to Dex as a source of true information, Dex being a changeling by his very nature,
01:22:01
Speaker
is not, is not helpful. Um, and then also Booyah just lied really, really obviously, just really obviously. Yeah. Um, Barrett comes clean. Yup. Dracure lays down the sword. He need, we need very, I mean,
01:22:31
Speaker
That was good of him. Yeah. Right. And walks and walks away. Laura does ask. So Joe says, okay. Like the party didn't have much reaction when Drakir left. I think part of that was several other pressing things. Dex was more concerned about Barracks eyes being gone than Drakir walking away.
01:22:55
Speaker
Yeah. Also, we all know how Dracure feels about aberrations. None of us were surprised that he walked away. If anything, I mean, I can't speak for Randy, but with Booyah's history with
01:23:13
Speaker
You know, uh, uh, Drakir's tribe in, in general and Drakir in specific, we all might've been relieved. He didn't try to kill them all. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. So yeah, Laura says. Are there any circumstances that Drakir would have accepted them making deals with Belashira? Did he suspect what happened when he saw Beric? Is he gone forever? Um, what's going through his head when he knew they were lying? Um,
01:23:39
Speaker
So yeah, that was Laura's string of questions. Yeah. We definitely did talk about how lucky we were that this episode dropped the weekend after Gamer Nation Con and not the weekend of Gamer Nation Con. And all of us knowing. Yeah. But yeah. Okay. One, are there any circumstances that your crew would have accepted making deals with Bill Asherit? No.
01:24:09
Speaker
I don't remember if Dracure made this particular comparison in the episode in the course of that argument. But this would be, this would be Dracure says, oh, by the way, I am inspired and have been working with the Quarry all along. I hope you don't mind. Yeah, sure. This is, Belisura is,
01:24:38
Speaker
Billashira is Drakir's huge antagonist. Like he is he is the devil. Yeah. Kelly, Kelly, if this were Drakir's campaign, then yes, your assumption would have been correct about Billashira. So. No, there are not any circumstances under which Drakir would accept that. Do you expect to have me to saw Beric? Yeah, I mean, Beric also
01:25:05
Speaker
The combination of Beric and Booyah walking out with an animated crossbow hanging around on his shoulder. These are all weird things and weird things speak to aberrations. Is he gone forever?
01:25:21
Speaker
We thought he was gone forever last time. I've tried to exit this character more than once already. So I don't know. Yeah, I would say we've all gotten a lot more drakeier than any of us expected. Yes, for sure. Yeah, I don't know. What's going through his head when he knew they were lying?
01:25:48
Speaker
That was when he began, that point was when he began running through his playbook of how he kills each of them and deciding whether to do it or not and ultimately deciding not to. Was that a benevolent decision or did he realize he wouldn't be able to kill all three of them?
01:26:13
Speaker
Well, I think that Barak's probably a non-entity in that fight, at least initially. I thought you meant benevolent, as in for the listeners, like benevolent to the listeners to not have this sort of fight. No, Drakir is very powerful, but there are three of us, and we're not slouches. No, that's entirely true.
01:26:33
Speaker
Uh, I don't know. It depends on, it would all depend on the first, like the first round or two. So no, I mean, if you're here, if you're, if you're, if you're here, wanted you all dead, I wanted once did the party dead. Um,
01:26:50
Speaker
It would be, he, well, first off, that's not how he would go about it. I suppose it's entirely possible that you hasn't decided not to kill us all yet. Eric's eyes just got so big. Cause I just remembered something that you're here has in his possession and I'm very frightened. Oh, that's the question. Okay. Um, yeah, trick here, trick here, first off would not.
01:27:12
Speaker
generally choose to try and kill the party in a straight fight. He would wait and ambush them or sneak in as he did the first time and decide to kill them instead of just trying to steal one of them. Steal a corpse.
01:27:28
Speaker
Oh, Grand Theft Cadaver. That was delightful. Good times. I'm just letting you all know if that fight would have broken out and Drakir would have attacked Dex in the first round and rolled a natural 20, I just would have gotten up and walked. This is my house and I would have left. Well, Drakir wouldn't have gotten the first shot. That's true. That's very unlikely. The odds of Dex not winning the initiative role are so slim.
01:27:53
Speaker
Although here's the only one who has the chance, because Drakir gets advantage on initiative as a Ranger. What's your modifier? I don't have it in front of me. Oh, fair enough. I mean, obviously. It's real unlikely. Like, I could roll a two, and yeah, sure. But I think it's just plausible. Yeah. And I've got that stick that makes daylight, so it would have been helpful. Yeah, that's true. So Drakir might go a couple rounds, and then if it's not working out,
01:28:21
Speaker
he has lots of ways to escape. Yes, that is true. But no, much more likely is he would, if Shakira decided that the party needed to die, he would lurk and wait for them to camp out because, frankly, in terms of looking around for traps and ambushes, we're pretty dopey. Yeah. It makes for terrible radio. That one Garnath Ickletarn where I checked for traps every 12 feet was not good.
01:28:49
Speaker
No, that's true. I think Dracure felt this as an ultimate betrayal and so...
01:28:58
Speaker
left. Yeah. And that was one of like, obviously Dracure feels betrayal. Dracure can feel, um, Dracure has emotions. No, but I'm being serious. Dracure, betrayal, disappointment, anger. Is any part of Dracure sad that people that he trusted betrayed him, especially his half brother who he's actually grown to care for as much as he's capable of?
01:29:22
Speaker
probably okay um probably yes somewhere somewhere there is there is sorrow in it but uh i think you know eric said cold i think calloused is a really good description of drakeer drakeer's life as a member of his tribe and his personal life in his family
01:29:46
Speaker
have been one of disappointment and betrayal and that sort of thing. So I think probably at least in the near term, you just have Dracure classic for a while. Sure. Irene did ask if Dracure, and we kind of touched on this or you kind of touched on this. Did Dracure leave simply for story reasons or were you needing a break from playing two PCs?
01:30:11
Speaker
No, this was entirely an in-the-moment story decision. I expected to get rid of Drakir to be done with Drakir soon because Drakir was not planning to go hunt down the rest of the artifacts with the party. He was on his way home. He was having me going his way. Yep. So, no, I mean, I had been expecting to exit Drakir. I wasn't sure Eric was going to let me when he introduced the fact that there were four weapons that we needed.
01:30:40
Speaker
Um, to be quite honest, uh, I thought I kind of interpreted that as a, as Eric deciding, well, trickier is just in it. Yeah. Uh, and, and that would be fine if Eric had introduced a reason. That trick that trickier would begin to perceive this threat as the threat. Yeah. Um, but if that was going to happen, we never got there. Well, Thorin's not busy. So.
01:31:03
Speaker
I don't want to play two people. I don't want to play two people. Don't make me do it. This bumbling dwarf in the middle of... He's not bumbling. We've never seen him fight. He could be a really capable fighter. Fair enough. He is in fact a 13th level fighter. He's probably pretty good.
01:31:19
Speaker
or 12th level, whatever we are now. There were more questions. Oh, okay. So we never got to... Drakir's Boon from Voronel was a thing that never got to be used. What was it? Laura asks, what did it do? The specific item in actual D&D terms is from the Curse of Strahd adventure path, the holy symbol of Ravenkind. Eric just changed it.
01:31:50
Speaker
So that everywhere that it says undead, you change that to aberrations and that's, that's the item. So basically it allowed you to turn aberrations, like a, kind of like a cleric can to undead and a whole lot of damaging things that were specific to aberrations.
01:32:06
Speaker
Okay, something very useful. Yeah, yeah, I know. Very useful. And Dracarys taking it back to his tribe, just like he's taking that dragon orb back to the tribe. Oh, yes, he's still got, he got the dragon orb back. That's so great. That's not, that's not the thing that I thought about that Dracarys still. What is the thing that you thought of? Um, the, the thing that Booyah got from the genie.
01:32:27
Speaker
Oh, gosh, you sure do. The thing that Booyah got from the 14,000 Giants worth of poison from the genie. OK, I didn't hear the last. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
01:32:39
Speaker
Yeah, so you all might just disintegrate next time you get thirsty.
Booyah's Suit and Narrative Depth
01:32:44
Speaker
Okay, I count two more questions. Neither of them are- There's a couple of miscellaneous questions that I wanted just to make sure that they won't take long to answer. Okay, let's finish up the recap real quick. So basically it ends with Bill Ashira agreeing to take us, like just bamf us all back to the shorn entrance to Kyber. Barak is blind and we have a glaive.
01:33:09
Speaker
there's a wild dagger that Drakir took, and then I've got this shifting sword that I need to get the stats from you again, or not the stats, but the effects. Basically, if I hit, if I crit with it, if I crit with it, I can turn somebody into something, but it's a random table, it's gonna end bad. But if you critically fumble with it, you are transformed. But I could be transformed into something great. Yes, or something terrible.
01:33:37
Speaker
I like it so I have that now along with my ribbon weave and I promise I will use this shifting sword for sure because since it shifts it can be a rapier so I can use it as a finesse weapon and that's some crunchy stuff that nobody cares about
01:33:56
Speaker
So one question, let's just get this out of the way. No, we got to save that one for the end. Okay, fine. It's the most important question that was asked. Okay, fine. So then Irene wants to know more about Booyah's suit, but not from a mechanical standpoint. She wants, she wants some narrative. Yeah. She said, where was it found? Why is it in Bornell's possession? Most importantly, there's not a slot for a stone. Yeah, there's no stone. Just get that out of the way. Booyah's stone is in plainer justice. Yes.
01:34:21
Speaker
So, Borenel, notably, and this was kind of alluded to back when we were exploring him and Paolo's relationship, Borenel loved nothing more than before he had to do the very boring, arduous job of being a king, than going to Zendric and sacking runes.
01:34:40
Speaker
Like he loved going to like ancient places in Zendrick. He was an adventurer. He was an explorer. He loved doing that stuff. Imagine a mix between Theodore Roosevelt and Indiana Jones. And so he found lots of crazy stuff during his time. And this essentially, from what anybody can tell, is a modified warforged chassis, but it predates
01:35:08
Speaker
uh what warforged look like now it's just people put that template on it because what else could this have possibly been for except a a small creature can fit inside of it so um what it was used for um which was not a question you asked um but it was found in zendric
01:35:29
Speaker
And it was in Bornel's possession because he found it while he was exploring either in his youth or after he had been crowned and had to take a long holiday to get away from the capital for a while. So yeah, I hope that is a sufficient answer. I could go into more depth, but suffice to say there is more depth to it, but I am reluctant to go into full depths right now.
01:35:57
Speaker
The end. Irene also asked, how is Paolo doing the split? Which we skipped. So I was right. Irene did have a question about the breakup. I apologize. I do too, because I did not realize that I was right. I mean, Paolo's doing fine. Like, I don't want to get too much into her whereabouts or her emotional state because that might be something that comes up later if she does reenter the story at some point.
Community Feedback and Appreciation
01:36:27
Speaker
Um, but she obviously stayed behind in, uh, in roet, I believe. Um, thought there was a show on the ship. Well, yes. Did she leave roet and go to Sean though? I thought so. I thought that the con I thought that that conversation plays after we did the ship.
01:36:49
Speaker
She stayed in Breeland. Like she got off the boat before Jace took the ship down to Smuggler's Roost, arrest, whatever it's called. And so she's doing what she can to get her home back. Like the inspired have taken storm reach.
01:37:08
Speaker
That is hers by birthright. And so she's doing what she can to take it back. Um, whether that means working with Bornell and Rookin to do it or going rogue and doing it on her own, um, or assembling a pirate army. Uh, she has a lot of options in front of her and she is working on it. So stay tuned. And now the most important question that was asked from all of our wonderful patrons over in our discord to ask questions. We're just encouraging. Um, Irene with the MVP question.
01:37:41
Speaker
Did Barrick and Vore spend any time together or have any conversations of a personal nature during the time jump in the first episode of the arc? Yes, they had a very long in-depth conversation. Wait, what? What? Over scrambled eggs. Yes. Wait, what? I have an answer for this. Go ahead.
01:38:06
Speaker
Vor has a job, and Vor's job is working for the Prime Minister, personal secretary, and the Prime Minister has to put the government back together and oversee a fundamental reorganization of the British governmental system. So Vor is working all the time right now, and Barak
01:38:32
Speaker
Honestly, we never really got into this, but this is the reason I had Barrick as Grand State. Barrick saw that immediately, Bornell got sucked back into the politics and all of the joy and happiness that we had kind of seen in him kind of just evaporated. And it just went back to
01:39:02
Speaker
politics. And Berwick, I think it will surprise no one is an idealist. And that really, really bummed him out. And so at the first opportunity, this is why he didn't speak at the big, you know, celebration ceremony, just answered who he was. First opportunity, Berwick got out of town and
01:39:31
Speaker
just got away because I really bummed him out. So no, the Barrick and Vore did not get to spend quality time together because Vore is a responsible adult. You did get some insight into their relationship though via the dream. So yeah. Yeah.
01:39:52
Speaker
So Vord did probably get more screen time this Arth than any Arth before. Did Vord ever do anything to cross Drakir and make Drakir very angry? He might take out some of his rage and we can stop this Vord questioning line. I mean, Drakir might just- It doesn't take much. Oh, Vord he did. Drakir might just skip over, kill you, and just kill your fam. Everyone you both did.
01:40:14
Speaker
Which would actually be great if you just wouldn't kill your family. Like, that would be gesturing to Dex. That's why it's not you and your whole family. It's you and everyone you love. Fair enough. And everyone I love... Everyone Dex loves is either in a... In and Sean right now. Is that what we decided we ended up... into the episode? Except for Beric. He's at a monastery. That's right. Beric went to the monastery. Or... We actually ended the episode in an inn. We talked about a monastery and then it...
01:40:44
Speaker
Then we just like, you know what? Let's just find a place to find a place to sleep or on a boat floating or near by wherever, wherever Paolo and or, or is a really sad drought walking away. Yeah, that's true. If you're here because everyone decks loves it's going to hire you.
01:41:05
Speaker
Anyway, that's everything. This was an exceptionally long episode, twice as long as it needed it. Of an exceptionally bad podcast.
01:41:22
Speaker
No, I will just say, I just want to give a shout out both to all of you in the Facebook group and on in our Discord. Thank you for all of the kind words about this arc and the conclusion and everything because it really does. I was very proud of this arc by the end of it and getting the positive feedback that we got.
01:41:44
Speaker
or even just seeing your maybe not positive but emotional reactions. It really does go a long way to making this feel I don't want to say worth it because it's always obviously worth doing but just makes it like a lot more fun to do. Yeah I'll say like we were
01:42:05
Speaker
Scared of this episode coming. Yes. I knew there were conversations happening a lot and we've had some real downers on this show. I mean some real downers And and this was the one where we were like, oh man, I don't know if I don't know if the listeners are gonna accept what we just did. Yeah No, and I I just I I wanted to give a shout out that I appreciate everybody who takes the time to
01:42:34
Speaker
Those of you that took the time to leave us reviews on your podcasting platform of choice, but also those of you that are on the Facebook group that do engage and let us know what we're doing right, what we could be doing better, and any just general questions that you have is always welcome and we really appreciate it, especially when we have monster arts like this where some big stuff happens and we get that feedback that is generally positive.
01:43:00
Speaker
I want to shout out I got messaged by one of our patrons Patricia who sent me some very cool videos about
01:43:12
Speaker
what she thinks Barak's ability to still see magic sounds like, which is apparently light perception blindness. And sent me a couple of really interesting videos that attempted to simulate what that looks like for someone with that. They gave me some really interesting ideas on how to visualize and describe
01:43:34
Speaker
uh, barracks current degree of perception, however long the current status quo lasts. So, uh, thank you for that. That was really cool. And it was cool that you reached out for that. So that was helpful. Thank you. All right. Awesome. Yeah, that's super cool. Um,
01:43:50
Speaker
So that's it for us tonight. Um, we'll be back next week trying to figure out what the heck's going to happen. Uh, you'll be right there with us as we figure it out. Uh, again, we recorded four days. Yeah. Thank you so much for listening. Um,
01:44:06
Speaker
Just the quick social media plugs, Facebook at the Geek Pantheon, Twitter, Instagram at the Geek Pantheon. We do have a Patreon. We mentioned the Discord a lot. That's a Patreon reward for just a dollar a month. You can get on the Discord. If you want to start getting your questions on, that's just five dollars a month. There's actually a tier between there, too, where you get access to Eric and Phillip's homebrew stuff for three. And then it goes on from there to other things.
01:44:33
Speaker
We'd love to have you in the Discord community. We really try to also be active on the Facebook page, but Discord hops so much that sometimes it's hard for us to be active in both. But more importantly, thank you so much for listening. Thank you. Go ahead, Derek. One last quick plug. Eric waved me down, and I completely forgot how to use English. Sorry. I just didn't want you to end the episode.
01:45:04
Speaker
Just one last quick plug. We are proudly part of the D20 radio podcasting network, which is the network that put on Gabernation Con that we got to attend. And we got to hang out with not only all of our amazing listeners that came out there, but also a lot of the other hosts on the network. We got to play in games run by them and run games for them, which was a blast. And I want to give a quick shout out to
01:45:24
Speaker
the Dice Pool podcast, which is the Genesis podcast on our network. Their whole crew got to make it up from Australia this year. That explains that. It's like they sound weird.
01:45:44
Speaker
So yeah, and one of their hosts, GM Hoolie, is a listener to the show, so thank you for being so accommodating. In that case, I take it back, Hoolie, you sounded awesome. And when I asked you how my Barasha accent was, it said, great. And I was like, oh, I was painting Australia. He was like, well, it's certainly not Australian. So thank you for that.
01:46:08
Speaker
But if you enjoy what we do here and you like actual play, go check them out because they do a really cool thing where they do short actual plays like just single arcs in different settings. So they've done one in Taranoth, which is the Genesis Fantasy setting. They've done one in Android, which is sci-fi or they're about to start one in Android.
01:46:28
Speaker
Uh, but they also created their own setting called night's edge, which is super rad. And you can listen to their episode titled setting roulette for, to like actually listen to them in real time, create the setting, which is super cool. Um, but, uh, they were all there and it was a blast to meet them. Um, and so, uh, just wanted to give them a shout out and send you all their way because they are a good group of people making fantastic content. Jeff, back to you. Yeah, we appreciate you sticking around since you started this podcast six hours ago. Uh,
01:46:57
Speaker
I'm Jeff. I'm Eric. I'm Philip. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Bye bye. Bye. Okay guys, that's enough. Turn it on.