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Ep. 106 Tonight, We Ride - De Profundis
100 Plays3 years ago
Tonight We Ride - Tom Russell Style (youtube it)
Follow us on our Twitters - @FellowshipTable
Intro written and produced by Joseph McDade - https://josephmcdade.com/
The Fellowship Party Twitter Pages:
- The DM/Mark - @HastilyRolledDM
- Drago/Ian - @IRolledA1
- Folly/Callum - @TheD20Gamer
- Princess Helena/Casey - @unicorncrit
- Carstan/Will - @Natural20Will
- Robin/Darren - @DarrenPage06
- Claude/Danny - @totalpartythrlz
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Transcript
Introduction and Player Banter
00:00:00
Speaker
Bonjour you bunch of Voldemort.
00:00:28
Speaker
Hello everyone! And welcome to this week's episode of the Fellowship of the Tabletop. We've got a lighter-wha-hearted one in line for you, my friends. Don't you worry about that. We're just charging it to rank to the undead. Thank you for joining us on this week's
Recap and Journey Begins
00:00:40
Speaker
episode. My name is Mark, and I'm the Dungeon Master. And also with us for today's maybe final episode, we have Darren, who plays the human fighter, Rogue Robin. What the fuck did you just drop? What? It might be. Every episode might be the last. We've got Danny, who plays the human, um...
00:00:56
Speaker
Cleric, Claude, I've forgotten all your names. Bonjour, you bunch of Voldemort. We've got Callum who plays the known source for a folly fizzle bang the ninth. This will be the last episode, because we're going to kill our DM. Oh, what? We've got Will who plays the human bad caster. That got dark. Yeah, that got really, really dark. What is this? An episode of Squid Games. Yeah, he will kill us. Green Knight. Hi, everybody. I hope you've enjoyed the ride so far.
00:01:24
Speaker
We've also got Ian who plays the Dragonborn barbarian paladin Drago. I've got this beautiful image now of the battle towards the tower. It's just gonna be green light, red light. Who's gonna be the old man?
00:01:49
Speaker
Anyway, dodging that bullet right there. So, welcome everyone, welcome to this and hopefully you've been following on or you haven't just jumped on to episode 106.
00:02:00
Speaker
It's 106, 106. And because that'd be silly, go back a bit, listen to a few. If you forgotten what we did last week, well, we chose horses to ride into battle.
Marching to Battle
00:02:11
Speaker
And that was pretty much it. We used one of the most powerful leaders of the fourth battalion of the obsidianist, Garmir, the powerful tiefling to be our little messenger boy and take things back. He carried some accoutrements from you at the party to
00:02:26
Speaker
yestra to take back through a portal and to pass messages on to thali and to take for safekeeping forecast and story We then chose our horses we then chose our steeds our valiant steeds to ride into battle with the undead to the blight and We started to make our way in line behind the flying v formation of thousands of obsidianist soldiers on horseback
00:02:53
Speaker
black plate armor, thick black armor on the horses, black skin of the horses, strong soldiers marching, strong soldiers walking at the moment into battle. The clouds start to swirl overhead as you grip the reins of your obsidianist horse. The rain falls hard on yours and the horse's armor. You hear a rumble deep in the ground that only one hears when thousands of hooves move in unison.
00:03:24
Speaker
There is a still and quietness in the air. For now, you are just walking. There is a wide V of a formation in front of you. You have the party and you also have Lucian and Helena following in a close group.
00:03:41
Speaker
You're in a tight group. You look behind you and notice 400 or 500 additional soldiers. These seem to be your kind of utility soldiers behind some Magi of the Obcisca, acting as a rearguard force, as a second wave, as Garmi mentioned in his previous chat. Last lesson. I want a last lesson. In the last episode,
00:04:08
Speaker
You're quite a distance away from the tower. At this current trajectory, at the speed you're currently traveling at, it should probably take you a couple of hours to walk there. So there is a bit of time. The land in front of you, you can barely see or make out. You seem to every now and then dip low into the ground and then pull up small, almost like rolling hills if they weren't so dead, mudded, dead, black, blight-ridden grounds where every tree stump, every tree that was there at some point has been killed, maimed, cut down.
00:04:37
Speaker
or has been left for disrepair. This area is dead. And as you make your way slowly across it, following the 8,000 strong obsidianists, every now and then you look over to your left to try and catch glimpses of the sleepguard surge in the Blackmouth
Approaching the Tower
00:04:52
Speaker
Ranges. Yet you cannot make out their location just yet. You stand as you walk as a tight group together. Is there anything that you'd want to say as you make your way towards the battle?
00:05:07
Speaker
I can't believe I'm gonna ask this, but... Cast any of you got some sort of song? I think now is an appropriate time for the bagpipes.
00:05:17
Speaker
I was gonna say... Oh, I didn't ask about that! I was gonna play the bagpipes. Yeah, I think... I think the bagpipes... Thank you, Claude. I think the bagpipes would be a super... They know we're here and I think we could all do with the... You know, morale-boosting... Who knows, Jarvis? Boosting, bum bum bum, from bagpipes! Well, it may scare the enemy of the bagpipes, so I'd say it's worth giving it a go. I'd say it's more likely that. That the bagpipes are the national instrument of sleep guard.
00:05:47
Speaker
They really never heard that it's the last chance I can just fuck marks understanding of his own world This time then I I think I think I guess because sleep guards quite mountainous It's all about being able to yeah communicate across the high hills and Dells so that's not yodeling shush I've also heard Claude Claude I've heard that sleep guards enjoy a good yodel and
00:06:14
Speaker
Never heard of a yoda, mate. Isn't that some form of confectionary soup? I thought he was still chick. They deliver food in the same weatherlands. Maybe the bagpipes, then. All right. Okay. From Castan, over to you. Now, Will is about to give us his very best mouth impression of bagpipes.
00:06:42
Speaker
We're musically inclined here. One random rider like two miles away goes, I fucking love this tune, man. Some kind of punk rocker jumps into a mosh pit full of the undead. He builds up his helmet. He's just got a bright pink mohawk. He's a rocker, bro. He doesn't. He continues to ride on and ignores you, even though he does love punk rock.
00:07:05
Speaker
As you get your bagpipes out, you start to have a little play. Was that for a spell or anything, Karsten? Or was that just for flavour? Well, Karsten will do that. And then he might start this. And once he's got the old bagpipes going, he's going to add some lyrics to it as well. And then he's also going to be using his counter charm. I'm going to be using it to do counter charm.
00:07:32
Speaker
which means that everyone within 30 feet gets advantage on saving throws against being frightened or charmed. Lovely, how long does that last? As long as I keep going. As you play, you... As an action, you can perform until the end of your next turn, so as long as I keep going, every six seconds, it just keeps going.
00:07:54
Speaker
Oh, this is a long song. That's good. That's awesome. That's really great. That's really good stuff. I think knowing that Kastan's doing this, I'm going to make sure I ride really close and just keep a shield held to protect him a bit. He's drawing attention, but he's doing it for a benefit. So I want to sort of reciprocate that by making him feel a bit more comforted.
00:08:18
Speaker
So even the people from the Sword Coast who might not recognize the great anthems of the armies of Sidianus, they'll still feel a stirring in their heart that's sort of bolstering their spirit.
Handling Chaos in Battle
00:08:33
Speaker
That's nice, that's a nice thing. Any other, any other conversation you guys want to stick to base? Could I cast Thaumaturgy on the bagpipes to make them three times even louder? Yeah! Just as if he builds the entire battlefield. Does that mean the range would be 90 feet now?
00:08:49
Speaker
No, just I think it's just the sound. Just the sound is booming. Yeah. I think if you combine that with 30 sources points, burn all your sources points. If you use 60 sources points, the tower collapses and we win the game. I've got a thousand how to do that. Yeah. So suddenly the bagpipes claw waves a hand and the bagpipes just erupt into volume. A few of the horses kind of react a little, a little,
00:09:15
Speaker
Funnily to the to the to the sudden increase in noise, but suddenly these bagpipes played to perfection Echo-eyed across the area you see a couple of soldiers even though riding under orders look back towards the sudden increase in sound You can't tell their reaction and their emotional reaction to it some of them might be crying with honor who knows we'll never know because we can't see under their helmets and
00:09:37
Speaker
But this fucking cast and cam with his stupid perception. Yeah. Yeah, I can I can see the reflection of one of their helmets and this is a good tear rolls down his eyes He thinks of home thinks of his mother and the message she told him return home soldier. That's what she said and We continue to ride
00:09:58
Speaker
As the song continues cutting through the sound, this melodic sound, you hear two distinct notes that do not match the song sound out from the head of our kind of phalanx of our kind of arrow of soldiers of the fourth battalion of the obsidianist. You hear two pitched and unmistakable notes, a note lifting and then a second note turning minor.
00:10:21
Speaker
In an instant, all riders pick up the pace to a sustainable counter. The horses bray and call out with this lift and speed, almost in excitement. So as the horses pick up, your horses naturally do. It's not the rider that instigates it, the noise instigates the horses to change speed. This is the preparation for a sprint to battle.
00:10:43
Speaker
We're going to make a test now. This isn't going to be a initiative role. This is going to be based off an animal handling role, which is going to decide the order. Now, it just gives you a number from one through to six, or one through to five even. And what that number will decide is later on, I've got a couple of things that say, number one, this thing comes. What do you want to do? Number three, this thing comes. So it just gives me an order, basically, for things to randomly happen to you, depending on the order we sit in.
00:11:09
Speaker
So we're going to do, and obviously if you fail the animal handling test, something happens, which is always fun. So we're going to do an animal handling test to start off with, please, as the horses increase in speed, to make sure you can stay on as the speed increases, these massive beasts, please. Could you all roll animal handling and tell me what you get? Some of your reactions already are fantastic.
00:11:28
Speaker
I see all these things coming on. Hands on spaces and covering mouths. I don't know if it's good or bad, so we'll just go round and order. Cast, Daniel, come on, Brood. Right. Come on, Brood. I'll just go round and tell me what you get, really. Lord, what'd you get? 13. 13, thank you. Robin? Natural 20 for 22. Wow. Nice. 18. 18, Drago.
00:11:58
Speaker
15. 15. Dare I ask, Karsten? Thankfully, you can't critically fail on a skill check. I rolled a 1 and adding my skill of 5, that's a 6. Thank you, David. You'll just naturally fall off the horse as soon as you can to start. Right, you can't critically fail. It's the bagpipes, they threw you off.
00:12:24
Speaker
Once again, it's the case to reinforce the point that the bagpipes are shit and those who play them won't have good things happen to them.
00:12:32
Speaker
Could you make a dexterity saving throw, please? Karstan. Well done, Ian. You've alienated our Scottish... Our single Scottish fan. That's a 23 on that, mate. Yeah, absolutely fine. So you lose your footing, so the horse suddenly takes out bagpipes in hand, your bagpipes drop into your right hand, you manage to grab the pummel, pummel, pummel of the horse's saddle. I got that on the end, pummel. I used to ride the pummel of the horse's saddle in front of you and manage to just at the last minute get your fingers around that.
00:13:01
Speaker
and pull yourself back into position, and then go straight back into song almost like nothing's happened. It's quite majestic to look at. So you managed to save that fall. That would have been embarrassing. Steam rises from your horse.
00:13:15
Speaker
You realize as the minutes pass that the temperature drops lower and lower. You look up to the direction you're traveling and something strange seems to happen. Either time is sped up or distance has been warped. The tower stands a great deal closer than it did not half an hour ago. You can see it clearly. You can make out its features. The tower, your plight, your folly, your mission. It stands jutting out of the ground, angled and sharp. There are hints of old sleep guard deep in its bones.
00:13:44
Speaker
The tower is dark and corrupted. Its windows smashed out, its stonework in disrepair. But there is a light. Something that seems to grow as you get closer. Something that seems to pulse with energy as you gain on it.
Magic and Strategy in Combat
00:13:57
Speaker
It seems to feed as you get closer and closer.
00:14:00
Speaker
A pulse of purple light pierces the sky above the tower, shooting from the tower deep into the swirling clouds above it. The moon is lost in the sky. The stars too. You start to smell sulfur in the air, the unmistakable smell of sulfur and rot. Two more piercing tones break the silence and an echo through the air this time, now in a low minor into a high major.
00:14:24
Speaker
As one, the obsidianists let out a single grunt of coercion at their steeds, or break into a gallop. Could we please make a second animal handling check, please? And I'll go in the order of what I kind of made up initiative order for now. Robin, what'd you get? 18, 16 plus two this time, 18. Folly? Seven. Thank you. Drago? 19. Thank you. Claude? Natural one.
00:14:54
Speaker
Thank you, Castan. Nineteen. They're cool. Um, Folly and Claude, could you both make dexterity saving throws, please? In plate armour? Yes, please.
00:15:11
Speaker
uh foley what did you get 21 21 thank you uh claud what did you get 15 nice okay meets a beat i'll give you that fucking hell okay lovely you um manage and swear with me
00:15:28
Speaker
Both of you as the horses pick up, this is quite a gear change from the canter into the gallop. You're not expecting this and both of you ride back onto the coccyx of your spine and your legs will come out of the stirrups. Folly, you managed to quickly pull yourself in back into position. Claude, you actually kind of go back over yourself and you are hanging off the back of the horse, holding onto the butt of this horse.
00:15:51
Speaker
as it's kind of flailing you're kind of grabbing hold of the saddle as you can feel its legs kicking out fast underneath you see the ground rushing beneath you the cold dead mudded black earth rushing beneath you as you reach up you can grab the pommel of the horse and pull yourself back up it's slow it's difficult but you get yourself into position get both your feet in and continue to look up you just about make it um on that check uh you look out to your left in the far distance you see the sigil of the sleep guard surge banner held high along the vanguard
00:16:18
Speaker
you see line after line of black-mouthed rangers in perfect synchronicity lay volley after volley you follow the precision arrows you follow their trajectory you follow to their target and then you see it deep are the ranks of the blight mechanized abyssal draconic demon this is no longer a force just of the undead but a force to kill the living
00:16:45
Speaker
Bone rutted, flesh peeling, burning, freezing, screaming, glottal, evil. Their ranks innumerable. Onwards to the vanguard and you see them smash into the blight. They make contact, you hear the scream of fireballs and light bursting forth, destroying innumerable undead. Fireballs scream over head and you look back to see a hundred magi of the obsidianus safely in the rearguard sending volley after volley of deadly fiery destruction.
00:17:14
Speaker
The sleep guard's surging gauge and the lines hold, they must hold. A final shrill note sounds from the deep. It pierces through you, filling you with confidence. The bagpipes surging further into your confidence. The obsidianis break into a sprint. Your horses along with it.
00:17:35
Speaker
They release a well-rehearsed war cry in unison, filling the air with the drive for death and for battle. Lucien, on your flank, shouts to you all. Here we are then!
00:17:47
Speaker
At the end of it all, here we are. Could we please make your final animal handling check to get up to speed into battle, please? We're going the same order that we have. Oh, I'm so excited. Would you allow me to cast a spell? Absolutely, yeah, yeah. As Lucien makes that call, I'm going to cast Bless amongst the parties. Everyone adds a d4 to everything. They roll a d24. Lovely. Thanks, Danny. Thank you.
00:18:15
Speaker
Yes, including Lucian and not including myself. Okie dokie. Okay, we'll go down the kind of full initiative order we've got at the moment so far. Robin, what'd you get? Do we get to add the bless to this? Yeah, that happens before the animal handling check gets. Okay, so that's 19 then. Thank you. Folly? 10. Thank you. Drago? 21. Thank you. Claude? 20. Thank you. Karstan? 12.
00:18:46
Speaker
Okay, lovely, lovely, lovely. As the horses break into a sprint folly, you still weren't really set from the previous time that the speed had increased and you start to fall again, cast down the bagpipes. Just, you're trying to keep up with the rhythm of the horse and it just puts you off again a little bit and you slip from your positions as well. Could you both again, make dexterity saving throws, please? Oh, this is not going to go well. God bless shit. And you got blessed. Motherfucker.
00:19:15
Speaker
What did you get? Natural 20, so 25 with bless. Lovely, thank you very much, Castan. I got 21.
00:19:28
Speaker
Ian nearly had a small kitten because he thought that my D4 roll was a one. He thought that was my D20 roll, but no, I got 21. Lovely. Okay. Okay. You are, you are, yeah, I just want to knock someone off the horse at the moment and none of you are falling off. No, absolutely. That's great. That's great. Great, great, great, great. They were getting, those animal handling checks were getting harder and harder as you went through them, obviously, as the speed began to increase.
00:19:50
Speaker
And as Lucian shouts that over the din, it is a din now. And you can see now off in the distance, not too far off in the distance though, you see the front line of our kind of flying V formation start to collapse in on itself slightly as the ranks collapse and the cacophony of combat is deafening. The lines crunch and the speed of the following lines of horses seems
00:20:10
Speaker
quick to not crash into their companions, but they dodge and dive, twist and swoop like sure-footed goats on the mountainside. The obsidianas push deeper and deeper, the lines crumble before them, you see human bodies of the dead and the demonic crushed under the weight and speed of your horse's feet.
00:20:26
Speaker
Now, I need to ask a couple of people in a specific initiative order. There are some things that are going to happen now. They apply directly to your characters. You get to decide how you get out of it or what you do with the situation. But depending on what happens, obviously, good or bad, et cetera, you know, it's kind of like a personalized skill challenge for specific scenarios. So, five and two, this applies to. So that's going to be Folly, sorry, Folly and Carstan.
00:20:50
Speaker
The remains, as you're smashing through these lines, you are catching some of these creatures as their legs are missing, arms are missing as they're trying to flail out, but they've already gone through eight, nine, 10, 11 lines of well-trained obsidianus before they even reach you. They are almost on death's door, but a few of them do manage to get through, and the remains of two white-eyed, socketed, green-skinned demon hangs onto the front, bloody and dying, hanging onto the front of your horse, reaching up towards its face and towards you, its long black nails.
00:21:16
Speaker
reaching up to horse you your horse begins to bray and discomfort and starts to slow and you have a choice now what do you want to do let's start let's split this up let's go with uh folly first um so i've got this weird ass creature on the front of my horse absolutely and it's disrupting the horse's flow uh can i just grab my quarter staff and just try to push him off you can roll to hit
00:21:41
Speaker
Much better than Fireball. Yeah, but I think in that close, even Fireball, my horse is going to get scared shitless. I just want to grab my quarterstaff and go, yeah. He's like, he wouldn't. He wouldn't do it. I've not got my staff as an equipable item at the moment, so my bad. It's on D&D beyond since I moved into equipment and backpack.
00:22:11
Speaker
21 to hit. That hits. Could you roll the damage then, please?
Overcoming Challenges with Humor
00:22:20
Speaker
3.
00:22:22
Speaker
okay it's still it is a quarter staff and i'm basically kind of poking him yeah absolutely um you hit it in the face but it's just still hanging on now the horse kicks off a little bit more we'll go to cast and then come back um cast and you've got something similar to you but it's kind of hanging on it's it's impaled through the chest on the front spike of your horse's armor but it's still trying to reach up round the side of it trying to reach up to the face of the horse and reach up onto the saddle towards you with its long black fingernails what do you want to do
00:22:51
Speaker
I could meta it and draw my rapier, but being as I've got my bagpipes in hand, Karstan is going to grab the tubes of his bagpipes and swing it to smack this creature with his bagpipes. Awesome. Because it's, you know. Yeah, why the fuck not? Brilliant. Roll to hit. This is an improvised weapon I've seen, isn't it? Yeah, it is. I'm just going to roll a... I'm not adding anything to this, am I?
00:23:18
Speaker
not unless you're proof that that's what there's a fee I'm not yeah roll a straight d20 come on man that's a 12 to hit ah missus I'm blessed I'm blessed I'm blessed I still think it's gonna miss though uh that's a 15 to hit me to beat I'll give you that yes it is pretty much dead so yeah bag him don't you waste my spell slot William uh
00:23:47
Speaker
What am I rolling for this damage? A d4 for improvised weapons. I did one point of damage.
00:24:00
Speaker
I like the sound of it making the noise. You lightly bruise its cheek with that. It's mildly annoyed. Is it a finesse weapon? There's nothing finesse about it.
00:24:17
Speaker
Your horses, both of them slow down, and you are now at a sustainable distance behind the rest of the group, probably five or six metres, still galloping, but your horses are slowing down even more. You've got kind of one more round through to kind of get these creatures off, otherwise you start to lose pace and end up with a rear guard slightly. Folly, what do you want to do? Does it look like if I get in a force and shove this thing again, it's going to go off my horse? Do you want me to tell you that?
00:24:46
Speaker
Partially, no. If I say that, you might as well ask, does it look like we can win the game? Do you reckon we can kill the party?
00:24:55
Speaker
Try it. You know what? I'm not gonna do anything else. Folly's gonna do what Folly would do. Fireball. No, he's not gonna fireball. He's gonna see that, obviously, these creatures kind of hanging on to the horse at the front. Me and I've heard Karsten go... over on the other side as well and obviously see that he's got one on. I am going to cast Levitate and twin it as a spell.
00:25:22
Speaker
Because I've got range, I'm going to put it on the two creatures just so they will hopefully start flying away off our horses and up into the sky. So I'm going to spend two of my sorcery points. I'm saving your ass cast, Dan. Fuck you. You're attacking a creature with bagpipes. I'm trying to help you. I'm always so touchy when it comes to sorcery points. My sorcery points.
00:25:50
Speaker
I could have drawn a weapon, but I thought it was far more dramatic to hit it with bagpipes. Folly now levitates the one on Castan's horse and immediately drops it onto Castan's horse. Yeah, I've got that. Could you just give me an Arcana check? The spell's fine, but I'm just for the, of course, the spell challenge. The creatures need to make a con save. That's perfectly fine. Yeah, you guys will need to make con saving throws, but I'll do the Arcana check first. Unnatural 20.
00:26:14
Speaker
Yeah, they both fail and the roll, they got 10 and a 7, so I'm assuming that fails. They both start to float. However, the one cast on, the one that's currently on your horse, Folly, does start to kind of float up and away and as it kind of moves into the line of the horse, the horse nudges it with its neck and it kind of floats off. It's almost like when you release a helium balloon, it kind of floats off on its own accord. He's just done that.
00:26:39
Speaker
Cast down, the one on your horse is obviously impaled, so you see it almost start to spin almost like a windmill slightly on the front of the horse. Why am I undermining my own combat? But anyway, it starts to do that slightly, because I think it'd be funny. But it's still there on the front of your horse, but now it's just kind of slowly spinning around, still stuck through impaled through the chest. And it is back over to you, follow you, you're now free, and your horse starts to catch up with the others. Cast down, what would you like to do?
00:27:01
Speaker
Okay, being as the Babkites haven't had their intended effect, he clearly needs to work on his weapon ice bag pipes more. Karstan is going to try and destroy it through sheer psychic energy and I am going to go tell it to die in a hole and it needs to make a wisdom saving throw from being viciously mocked. Roll a 15. Yeah, it fails. Cool.
00:27:28
Speaker
It takes 10 points of psychic damage. And basically, it becomes just, it's kind of the internal brain, however small, it just explodes internally.
Facing Formidable Enemies
00:27:40
Speaker
And what was the kind of white sockets that remained of this creature kind of fade to black and it slips off the spike at the front of the horse and gets trampled under its legs and you're free and you give it a quick yeah and you manage to catch up quickly with the others as you're riding in.
00:27:56
Speaker
That was the first one passed, well, only two. One and three, so this is going to be Drago and Robin. As Folly and Karstan catch up to you, you see incoming arrows flying in towards you from the blight. You could dodge and possibly lose your footing on a saddle, you could move your horse or try and block the volley. It's a skill challenge, so how do you want to evade this? What do you want to do? We'll start with highest number this, so let's go with Robin to start off with.
00:28:20
Speaker
Okay, so I see the arrows coming in, do I? Yeah, they're quite a distance away. So you've got time to react and do something too. So you can, you know, I gave you a couple of examples, but you can do whatever you like. Sure. Um, Robin is just going to steady himself and what he is going to do is.
00:28:42
Speaker
Robin is going to wait steadfastly for the arrow to come in and then he is just readying a kind of like we're on the Lord of the Rings trajectory, the O the Orc when the stone is coming at him and he just moves out of the way at the last minute. He's just readying in his saddle and the horse and he is readying a quick pull or actually more himself because he knows how armoured the horse is.
00:29:07
Speaker
just a dodge if the arrow is coming at head height he's just holding on to do something acrobatically in the saddle even if it involves leaning all the way over and just keeping hold on the side kind of like a western style cowboy who almost like a MotoGP rider who maybe when they have to lean down into corners he's preparing to do whatever it needs to get out of the way of the arrow.
00:29:28
Speaker
Nice, and as the arrow comes flying and most of them falling in front of you, trying to hit the first waves of the obsidianus, one stealthy arrow does head towards you and you see it coming. Could you please make an acrobatics check or an athletics check? I would say it's acrobatics, isn't it, more than... I mean, my modifier is the same for Ivo. Yeah, acrobatics then. Well, that's really good. I rolled an 18 and I rolled a 4 on the D4, so that's 22, 27.
00:29:55
Speaker
Good old stabicus maths there. Yeah, absolutely. That's absolutely fine. The arrow comes close in just like the orc from Lord of the Rings. You step to the side, the arrow goes past. And as it goes past, you manage to spit on the arrow as it passes by and continues back and thuds into the ground aimlessly. And actually then, as you notice, a few of these arrows that fall into the ground, as they thud into the ground, they fall to ash. The instantly they hit the ground. So they aren't particularly pleasant arrows. That was a good dodge there.
00:30:23
Speaker
Drago, you see the same thing happening. Obviously, it's happening at the same time, but we'll just split them up. Of course, you see an similar thing. Most of them hitting the obsidianis lines in front of you, but one or two or one comes sneakily out towards you. You've got time. You can see it coming through the air in the distance. What would you want to do? You want to move the horse and you do you want to move? What do you want to do?
00:30:41
Speaker
Quick question. Space to the right and left of me. Is there space to move horse left and horse right? Just like one horse width to the right and one horse width to the left? Good question. The way I've kind of got you is that... Why am I so tightly packed? I should have mentioned this at the beginning, actually. I've always imagined you guys forming like a mini V within the big, big, big, big V with kind of Robin at the... As you were the highest in the initial order, Robin at the front, they kind of fully drag off to the sides and then Claude Carstan
00:31:08
Speaker
out in that v-shape and then Helena and Lucian often the very kind of flanks of it as well kind of Helena near Claude. So in that regard yes because there's room either side of you you kind of can all move right or left and you're all about two horse widths apart so there's room for maneuverability especially at that speed you're going to need it.
00:31:30
Speaker
Darren, you want to say something? I was just going to say, Robin's found a way of naturally taking point for everyone else. I would have drawn Ghostbane. So there is a fixed point of light that the eight of us can follow. Which is shining incredibly bright at this point, almost like a beacon of hope and light of the living.
00:31:47
Speaker
So seeing the arrows come over, Drago's eyes are centred on the tower and he's hunched over the horse, he's grabbed the reins tight and he's got his feet in the stirrups and he's
00:32:03
Speaker
He's, um, he's loose, but his muscles are tense on the horse and his focus is steadfast on that tower as he's running through. He's trying to make himself as one with the, the, the beast, his brood underneath him, uh, as possible. So when he sees these arrows, it's almost going to be a subconscious push down on his left foot and a pull on the left side of the range just to notch the horse, just a fraction to the left. Okay. So I guess you're going for animal handling then.
00:32:33
Speaker
Yes, please. All right, let's go for it. I mean, I'm 20. Yeah, very nice. Absolutely. And it's just the lightest of touches. You just twitch on the on the reins to your left and the weight just into your left claw and your foot just a little bit. And the horse reacts perfectly. It's almost like you and what you're becoming synchronized in your thought and motion, mind to mind, animal to animal. And he just twitches just enough. And
00:32:58
Speaker
It's just you have a moment and a connection. You think, fuck, yeah, this is how it should work. And he manages just to sidestep over a bit of rubble on the ground as a couple of creatures groan and moan as you trample over them, which is just across the side, just passing the arrow, almost like the horse knew it was coming also, and moved itself out of the way perfectly.
00:33:17
Speaker
For Flavor, as Drago does that movement where he shifts the weight just a fraction to the left, he's also in Draconic going to say the word left, brood, and as it happens. Nice. I really like that. Thank you very much. You too for another couple of successful passes on that as well. Four and two. Folly. Oh no, four and two every day. Just me.
00:33:51
Speaker
As we continue to gallop at pace we are sprinting now towards the lines and you can see we are kind of crushing through line after line but at the moment the pace continues to ride on through these forces as you seem to inch closer and closer to your goal, closer and closer to the tower.
00:34:07
Speaker
The enemy starts to change and the protection starts to shift as well. You see these large orbs of purple energy start to fire in almost like antimatter through the ranks of the obsidianus. Some are caught in a huge black and purple necrotic explosion which seems to scream itself as it slams into the earth. Horse and obsidianus rider fly up into the sky and seem to hang for an infinite time before thudding back into the cold dead ground beneath it. Their horses flip back and lay dead directly in the path of your galloping horse.
00:34:37
Speaker
You could jump it, try to swing around, jump to another horse, break a hole in the horse, like, what do you want to do? There is now a creature blocking your path and it's a couple of steps away before you've got to, you can make a decision about what you want to do. If you continue and your horse doesn't jump, your horse is hitting that and you are flying off the horse. And this is going to Folly and to Kastan. Yeah, Folly, you know, Folly entered Claude. Sorry, I said Kastan, didn't I? Yeah, I'm number five. Sorry, this is Folly and to Claude. I've got the order wrong here.
00:35:08
Speaker
Folly to Claude. Folly, you're the highest in your animal handling for that initial role. What do you want to do to get around this? Folly, not feeling confident in jumping. I'm just going to try and manoeuvre around it if they're in sufficient room. Okay. Can you give me a perception check, please, first of all?
00:35:26
Speaker
I'm so shit at every kind of check. Um, 10. Okay. Oh, thank you. You are blessed. I'm blessed. I'm blessed. Whoo-hoo, 13. Bit better. Okay. You are sure that you saw some more even grind to the right-hand side, but this is just an, you just have a feeling.
00:36:00
Speaker
swing and whip. He's just going to try and pull the reins over to the right-hand side of the horse. He's not got a lot of strength. He's not got best cattle grip at ounces because he's got short ends, but he's going to give it everything just to try and shove him a little bit over to the right to get on that level ground. Thank you very much. Could you make an animal handling check, please? I can do. Oh, shit.
00:36:08
Speaker
So with that in mind, what are you thinking of doing?
00:36:24
Speaker
Oh, double shit. E12. Okay, thank you. Stick a pin on that for now, thank you. We'll just pop on over to Claude. Claude, a similar thing is happening to you. The body of a horse is mangled and caught up in this demonic beast that seems to only seem... Something you could only imagine from your time in the Eternal Plane or time in Hell, not that you've been in Hell, but seems to come from the concept of Hell. There's no way of describing it.
Divine Aid and Adaptability
00:36:49
Speaker
It's just flame and darkness and armor.
00:36:51
Speaker
and a colossal scream as this horse is tangled up with this force, this enemy, this creature on the floor. Both are dead, but both are blocking your path. You've got a little bit of time. What do you want to do? I'm just going to hold my hands together and in abyssal say a prayer to Akiva and
00:37:16
Speaker
as I just take in the battlefield in those split seconds before I see this thing just sort of fall inside the path. I'm just going to say, we are here to end this. Please aid our steps. Help us get there. I'm just gonna hope for divine support.
00:37:45
Speaker
So what have you, is that just a religion? Straight up prayer, channeling all the goodwill I've earned over the whole campaign.
00:38:02
Speaker
Why the hell not you've you've you know, you've done all those copper coins I spent making sure people didn't turn to undead sending you built Akiva literally from the ground up and why the fuck not let's go for it give me Give me give me what I'll do is how about this? You still got to make a decision because Akiva won't just control everything for you. But depending on the
00:38:25
Speaker
strength of your religion check, you get advantage if you get, yes, we use a religion check. If you beat my DC, you then get advantage on your next kind of skill check, whatever, whatever you choose them to do. So you can pray and then you've got to do something. But if you get a good high enough religion score, you get advantage on it. That makes sense. Okay. So I do a religion check now. Yep. And then you decide, then I do another thing, but the religion check might give me a bonus. Exactly. Yep.
00:38:53
Speaker
Okay. Let's go for that. So let me just write down a number. Pray the dead away. Pray him away. What did you get? Looks good. That looks good. Uh, uh, uh, uh, natural 19 for 23. Holy shit. That's one of the 20. One off crit, one off crit, man.
00:39:11
Speaker
I hope that he's doing a little... Do the wiggle. Do that jiggle. He looks at what he's... Do that Akira jiggle. ... inflatable in what... What I mean, inflatable too, man. What I mean, inflatable too, man. That's what I meant to say. That's exactly what I said. Lovely. So you get this buzzing in your ears and this sense of elation starts to fill your bodies. You feel your connection with your deity. You're one with a Kiva for a second. And then that feeling goes away. The horse is still there, but you seem to have a sense of hope in everything you choose to do now. So what would you like to do?
00:39:36
Speaker
I would like to somehow magically and archonically turn all of my allies for two seconds into an ethereal form.
00:39:51
Speaker
warp as a ghost, then walk back into reality in the hopes that they can just move through any immediate boundary. No. I'm simply just going to yank the horse left and right, and try and do like a proper, what's it called, when a lorry is like? Larlem. Like doing a Stalin, it's something Jack. Jacknife. Jacknifeing. Yeah, so we're sort of trying Jacknife on the horse, so yank it left and yank it right.
00:40:21
Speaker
You're trying to Red Dead Redemption this, aren't you? Skid around the corner. All right, boy. Come on, boy. It's like, yeah, like how big is the beastie eating the horsey? It's the size of the horse. Okay, okay, yeah. So just sort of just... Around it. Slalom it, yeah. So give me an animal handling check with advantage. Thank you. Thank you for using your religion.
00:40:46
Speaker
It's the opposite of what REMs think about. Keeping my religion. It's a 15. Okie dokie. Things are about to get juicy.
00:40:59
Speaker
We jump back over to Folly. Yay. Folly, you yank on the reins and you underestimate your own strength and you pull the horse's head too far around, the back end of the horse skids and the shunts and the kind of butt end of it hits into the corpse of the horse on the floor. It stutters and starts to instantly stop slamming you against the side of it and trying to basically, we're not trying to, but you have a chance of falling off here. Could you please give me a dexterity saving throw please to hold onto the horse and stay on? Oh, I really don't want to do this.
00:41:30
Speaker
Oh my god. Ten. Okay. Bless. Oh, I keep forgetting about bless. I don't think that's really going to do anything. Wasting my level five skill slot. Sorry, Claude. Thirteen. Still not high enough, I'm sure. Thank you very much. We'll pause you there. Claude, you spin round and you jackknife this horse, the first corner fan, but the second one, as the back right
00:41:54
Speaker
hoof starts to lose its footing ever so slightly, you just feel a buzz and it kind of goes one, two, skidding on the mud, not touching anything on the third one, it catches on something, maybe a Kiva, I don't know, something grabs it and it starts to gather speed again, but then the front leg crumbles under the weight of the ground, which seems to, a hole seems to form, forcing its left front foot to dig into the ground, stopping it instantly and bucking forward. Could you also make a dexterity saving throw please? Three. Thank you.
00:42:25
Speaker
Both Folly and Claude are bucked from your horses, and you fly through the air and thud hard into the ground. As you look up, you see the lines of the Isabellianus come city to move further away. Robin, Drago, Kastand, could you please, each of you, make a perception check, please, to see if you notice that your comrades are no longer with you. My first turd of the night, sorry. Yep, me too.
00:42:54
Speaker
Even Will, oh my god. I bet it's not going to help. I mean, that's not really passive. I've got to say, Will still rolled a natural one on that. Yeah, I rolled a natural one as well. I rolled a three. Will, what's your passive? My passive is 28, mate.
00:43:16
Speaker
The other team, I got... Just a game breaker. The 12 in total. The Drago, you're two engrossed on your challenge ahead of you. You're two close to battle. You're one with your creature. You're feeling a bond, an animal bond here. And you're feeling so solidly controlled about this fight. Your eyes are boring ahead. You've got Robin just to your right. You two are just there. And both of you seem to have that same juicy Ghostbane held high in the air, light in its own...
00:43:44
Speaker
Regard leading you forward and both your minds are just forward-facing you aren't even looking you aren't even using a peripheral vision You're just turning and hitting things as they approach your horse Running them down as you get closer and closer to the tower cast on however You do suddenly see out the very corners your eyes two of your comrades just stop and as you turn back you see both of them face down in the dirt Is there anything you want to do or say a cast at this point
00:44:15
Speaker
I was gonna see if I could like grab folly as he like fell near me maybe and put him on the back of my horse but Because I was at the cuz I'm at the back You are near him. Do you want to do that then? Do you want to try to like to as folly hits sort of rolls off once? I'm like put my hand out to try and like grab folly to lift him up and
00:44:37
Speaker
on the horse. Yeah, I'm going to say that's probably going to be an athletics check. It would be acrobatics if he was closer because it's quite a stretch away from where you are and he was skidding around to the right, which would technically be further away from you. Let's go with athletics to see if you've got the physical distance and strength to be able to grab him and pull him up. Okay, let me just write down. DC, there you go.
00:44:59
Speaker
No, that's not going to work, is it? That's only a nine on the athletics. That passes. No, of course it doesn't. Unfortunately, sorry, that was really harsh. You reach out a hand and you kind of... And you reach out and you do grab a hold of... Grab a handful of shirt and that rips out his throat. No, it rips apart of his shirt and he unfortunately falls from the hole. He's falling down naked.
00:45:28
Speaker
As he falls down, he falls into the mud on the ground. Unfortunately, Claude, you didn't have anyone. Drago was too much facing forward. I have an idea. But high enough. As the other three of you continue to ride before you even get a chance to do anything else, as you turn back to the others from that moment,
00:45:51
Speaker
The three of you see another one of these necrotic. This happens quickly. It's like a barrage of necrotic explosions. They fight. We fire our fireballs out onto them. They fire these necrotic shots back. Another necrotic explosion falls directly. It's coming directly towards the party as you three are the only three kind of sorry, including Helen, but she's on the far flank. The only kind of couples still remaining. Could you all three of you please make dexterity saving throws, please? Sure.
00:46:22
Speaker
Yeah, I'm good.
Climactic Battle and Cliffhanger
00:46:23
Speaker
You didn't know how my DC is. Yeah, he good. What's your DC? That's a 30. That fails, you bitch. No, that passes. Thank you. Drago, what did you get? 24. Thank you. Robin. 19. Thank you very much.
00:46:44
Speaker
He was only 15 until the bless and then I rolled a 4, so thank you, Kord. Well, we still get half damage on this, unfortunately, anyway. Oh yeah, sorry, mine was 33, sorry, I forgot to add the bless. Fuck off. Broken! I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I
00:47:10
Speaker
You still each take 13 points of necrotic damage. What?! It still hits directly on, but you halve the damage. It's like a fireball, but it's just an evil necrotic fireball. And can he dodge to reduce that even further for me? No problem. Down to six. Yep. I'd like to use bullshit to halve that. You've got enough bullshit right now. That falls all the way down to actually gives you health, Karsten. You gain 100 hit points. Temporary hit points.
00:47:41
Speaker
Yeah, I've got nothing, thank you, I'll take those 13. As the necrotic damage hits and you continue to ride through, is there anything you want to do? I'm going to shout up to Drago and Robin if they can hear me and say, Folly and Claude have fallen.
00:48:03
Speaker
Another volley of arrows hits through the armor of a score of obsidianus in front of you. A number of soldiers topple and fall off the horses. Some of the horses topple under themselves, taking their riders with them. The speed of the battalion is slowing as the ranks of the undead are slain, lion after lion, nightmare after nightmare falling at your feet. As you say that, we're going to pause there. We're just going to pan the camera back over to the fallen, to our two fallen comrades. And as you both stand up, kind of slowly bring yourself to your feet. You look around and you see each other there.
00:48:33
Speaker
But then you also see something start to burst out of the ground first, slowly. And then as it kind of reaches up and out, you see these creatures start to pull themselves out of the ground. You see these hulking, almost giant skeletons, skeletons of giants armed with this large metal pauldrons, two long great axes in their arms, two of them.
00:48:58
Speaker
pulling themselves out of the ground as they stand up they both pull out the grind between you both and and kind of stand there almost flexing
00:49:10
Speaker
What happens then is the rear guard come rushing through. I told you this would happen. The two giant, these two massive skeletal creatures just turn with these massive great axes and just hewn down three, four, five, six rows of the obsidianus as they try to take him out, take them out. Unfortunately, you are directly in the way. These horses are going straight through. Could you both please make another dexterity saving throw to avoid the being kind of hit by these horses, please?
00:49:37
Speaker
Oh, for fuck's sake, guys. Motherfucker. Oh, bless. That's still not going to be enough. Story of your night. Oh my god. One second. This is tense shit, man. If Oli's going to die on the battlefield before he gets to the tower. I know, Claude. Claude, what did you get? Dos.
00:50:02
Speaker
2. Lovely. And Folly? 10. OK. You both take 22 points of bludgeoning damage as you try to dive out of the way. You get caught by the side of one of these horses. You hear a rider grunting. Sorry! As he rides past, you can hear his horse trying to sally up and move out of the way. But unfortunately, it just clips you as you ride past, spinning you around and you land back in the dirt again. I need to do a concentration check for everyone's bless.
00:50:28
Speaker
Okay, do you want to give me a concentration check, please? I need to do a concentration check as well, because the creatures that I can't levitate on are still levitating right now. Everyone's bless is fine. Okay, and your concentration falling? Yeah, they break, so those creatures are just going to start randomly plummeting down to earth now. Awesome. Then make a note of that, because that could come in comic handy very, very much. Flying balloons.
00:50:58
Speaker
No more. No more. They've come crashing. Are they coming? Actually, no, they're not coming crashing down. They're coming down gently, aren't they? Yeah, they gently float to the ground. Yeah, they are gently floating to the ground now as they've run out of helium. You see the two giant skeleton warrior creatures, these massive great axis one in each hand, standing and as you slowly bring yourself back up from the head to this rear guard, and I'm talking eight, nine, 10 rows of
00:51:22
Speaker
rose deep of rear guard of Sidi Anasol. These aren't just kind of like any other folk. These are proper Sidi Anasol, just come riding through. You see these two giant creatures just slowly kind of ambling over to some of those who are still alive and just garroting them down and then moving to the next one down and taking them out before.
00:51:41
Speaker
turning up and looking around at you both. And as each one of them start stepping towards you, they both kind of flex and you see a black energy that seems to like almost a shrouded black mist that seems to run around their bones, running through its body as it moves around. And as they each bore down on each of you, as your three, four, five companions, Lucian, Helena, Carstan, Robin, Drago slowly turn about their horses to come back and see if they can do anything to help you.
00:52:12
Speaker
That's what we're going to have to leave it for this week's episode in the heat of the battle. We have our first fall and to make it out. Will they catch up with the others? Will they get to the tower? Join us next week. God.
00:52:26
Speaker
Normally, I see these endings coming. That one... That was mean! That was mean! Well, I only just realized, I was like, oh, we're probably about, you know, 25 minutes in. Look, we're an hour in. I was like, shit, you know. Oh, God. Oh, my God. I mean, guys, guys, but I say guys, I mean, you out there in the very real world. If this... I don't need to sell this to you. Please tune in next week.
00:52:54
Speaker
And thank you for tuning in this week. And you know, we have some socials. Feel free to follow it. It's at fellowship table. And then if you do want to go one step further and follow us individually, while you can, while the characters are still alive for this next week, please do so. I'm at iWorldA1. Danny's at Total Party Thrills. Callum's at TheD20Gamer. Darren's at DarrenKJ6.
00:53:22
Speaker
Big Willy Will is at... Massive natural perception. No, it's natural 20 Will. And our wickedly wonderful DM is at... Hastily rolled DM. It's very sombre end, but until next time, guys. Farewell.