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C1 Ep 67. Eberron Reviewed 12
332 Plays6 years ago
Eberron Renewed takes a break with a Eberron Reviewed episode! Join Jeff, Eric and Philip as they sit down to talk about the latest arc: The Raven’s Toll.
This episode is brought to you by the generous donations of our amazing Show Sponsors: Laura Pickrahn, Jessica Smith, Irene Viorritto, Ryan Royce, Darrin Katzska, Darrell DeLaney, Jon Cary, Charles Compton, Nikko Batson, Matt Lewis, and The Kamm Family.
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Transcript
Introduction and Acknowledgments
00:00:00
Speaker
This episode is brought to you by the generous donations of Matt Lewis, Darryl Delaney, Darren Katska, Ryan Royce, Jessica Smith, Laura Pickron, Irene Villarito, Nico Batson, John Kerry, The Cam Family, and Charles Compton, as well as many others.
00:00:26
Speaker
D20 radio, your gamers roll.
Podcast Introduction and Review Announcement
00:00:44
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome to Eberron Renewed, an actual play 5th edition D&D podcast. I'm Jeff. I'm Philip. I'm Eric. And today we are doing Eberron Reviewed. We're going to look over the happenings and events of the last six episodes, the Raven's Toll Arc.
00:01:01
Speaker
Man, some things happened. Didn't they just? And then we do have some questions from those patrons who are at the Ask Us a Question level, and we're going to get to those as well. So
Narrative-Heavy Episode Discussion: Funeral and Character Interactions
00:01:15
Speaker
let's just jump in. Episode one, narrative heavy, not action heavy.
00:01:21
Speaker
Good conversations that needed to happen, especially according to people on the Discord. Yes. So it began with a burial of sorts, a funeral for Dex's brother. In particular, the noteworthy craft showing up was nice, a nice touch that Eric put in there. But other than that,
00:01:51
Speaker
Although I do think there were two different ideas going on between what Dex was asking for and what Beric was actually doing. You know, Beric was more addressing the Raven Queen. You know, the actual, here's where this is actually heading. Whereas Dex was a little more fantastical about it, really, just hoping something would happen.
Character Dynamics and Vulnerability: Dex, Beric, and Booyah
00:02:18
Speaker
Randy is not with us this morning to discuss this. There were some really good Booyah moments in these episodes. Yeah, there really were. That he won't get to speak to, which is unfortunate. Maybe we can get him to answer some questions on the Facebook group in a text format so you guys can get some more information. Because I can't speak to the Booyah things. They're really nice. And this was, I think, in the second episode, actually, of him taking out the hunter's patch and putting it on his leathers and really good symbolic stuff.
00:02:49
Speaker
But Dex and Barak had the conversation that everybody had been wanting them to have.
Beric and Dex's Important Conversation
00:02:55
Speaker
And that sort of stereotypical, let's not really talk about our feelings way. Very bro-y sort of way. It really was. I just, I don't think Dex is a feelings guy. I don't know that Barak is in most cases either. I don't think so.
00:03:15
Speaker
if barracks life taken a different course he would probably have been a really melancholy turtleneck wearing poet kind of character yeah i think with with dex it's even though you know barrack and and now booyah i mean they've been together certainly long enough are the closest things he has in his life he still isn't letting
00:03:39
Speaker
doesn't want to admit he's letting anybody too close. He's very much like if he was going to take an honest assessment of himself, he's just a big old softie for those two guys, but he's not going to admit it out loud, at least not yet, at least not sober.
Beric's Inner Turmoil and the Raven Queen
00:03:57
Speaker
That probably would have helped the conversation if we had gotten them drunk. Well, you know, I don't know where it goes when he drinks anymore. Eric hasn't been drinking since. So I mean, emotionally, physically, we're very kind. So that's that's true. No, we're that kind of really. But the crux of it was, you know, the important thing to Dex to find out and he found out more important things as far as what for the future, but was just.
00:04:25
Speaker
Finding out if Barrick was upset that he was brought back. Both if he was personally upset with Dex and then just in a larger sense, did you go someplace that you're upset you're not there anymore? Right. And I think Dex was satisfied by the end that he did the right thing. Yeah, I mean, I
Naming Characters and Narrative Decisions
00:04:45
Speaker
think that makes sense. Barrick's
00:04:51
Speaker
frustration and melancholy is a lot more on a
00:05:00
Speaker
realization of what he's what he's lost and what he's cut off from rather than a I wish I were dead sort of thing right and I guess yeah I wish I were dead sounds so different to our ears than it would to Barrick is like he knows where death would take him right so but yeah so what else Barrick had a conversation with the Raven Queen in that episode
00:05:27
Speaker
Yes, and found out the name of the next packed wielder that he could try to find, Arsal Dithern. We had a question about whether that was a deliberate name choice or it just happened. It just happened. Things happen. I'm pretty sure it's in the Xanathar's list. I didn't roll randomly for it, but I saw it
00:05:53
Speaker
because it started with A, so it was early in the list. I was trying to find a name on the fly and was like, Arsal, okay. I'll be honest, the episode that had some quality issues and had some chops and messes up, I thought that was the episode where I very innocently said we're going to Arsal's backyard. I did not think about it when I said it. And when that episode, I was like, oh man, I think that was the episode that got cut. Oh, that stinks, because that was... No, it was in there. But it was the next episode, so yeah.
00:06:22
Speaker
because that really was just purely I mean that's where we went we landed close to his house I mean if you have if you have never if you have ever run an RPG then you know that it does not matter
00:06:36
Speaker
what the name is. If you select a name, no matter how carefully you thought about it, um, how much time you put into deciding, okay, what is this name? Maybe what does it mean? Does the same mean? Why does this character have this name? Your players will immediately give him an insulting nickname.
Murder Board and Plot Advancement Strategies
00:06:54
Speaker
Yep.
00:06:55
Speaker
Yeah, and if it weren't for radio, it would typically be rounded off to the nearest obscenity for Jeff. Or definitely forget whatever name. You may have crafted a very important name and at least one player who's currently talking will absolutely not remember it.
00:07:18
Speaker
And that was Irene that asked about the Arsehole name. So no Irene. Arsehole Dotharn. Luckily he had two names so we could just refer to him by his last name and not giggle. Right. Once we figured out how to say it. Anything else from the first episode? Did the episode end with the approaching shit? We had
00:07:43
Speaker
you had your um training montage oh yeah we both did those yeah yeah man i wish i did not know it was going to be a thing i thought it was going to be something i said and we moved on but when it became a thing we played out i was like i don't have any idea of what to do for these and i came up with a better one and redeemed myself later in the episode yeah but man did not go great yeah um i don't think well on the fly i don't know why i'm doing it
00:08:09
Speaker
An improvisational storytelling podcast. It's really not my wheelhouse. Yeah, and you had your moments with Orianna as well. I think that was the end of the first episode. Yeah, the ship approaching was this episode. And then everything that was going so well went so very wrong. Well, you know what? That's not quite true.
00:08:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. But before that, we did have the murder board.
00:08:40
Speaker
Yes, we had the murder board meeting and that was a lot of fun to get to make use of the murder board that Barak has crafted. Which is gone now. Which is now gone. It's destroyed. Alas. But yeah, the crux of that scene was simply everyone synthesizing the knowledge that they had and creating a group idea, basically, between what
00:09:07
Speaker
what Barrick, honestly, it was the first time that everybody sat down and Barrick and Dex were able to share their knowledge from growing up about two different worlds and how they're colliding now. Yeah. And how bad that could be.
Misadventures and Combat Scenarios
00:09:20
Speaker
I mean, honestly. And and we decided since we were going, no, that's later that we decided to go. Yeah. So
00:09:32
Speaker
So a boat. A boat. A boat. A boat comes. And a boat innocently comes down the shoreline. Yeah, innocently rocketing towards us. And man, so episode two. Just everything went wrong. Just some things happen. I mean, y'all need to roll better. Apparently. Yeah, you need to roll better. 220 is giving you something else to fight.
00:09:58
Speaker
So it turns out that Vinay Delirander really liked this boat and really wanted it back and brought some dudes to help get it back and everybody dies.
00:10:16
Speaker
I think, I mean, eventually, including Vinay. Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Uh, no. So, uh, at one point, uh, Randy and I both rolled twenties and decided to combine our powers, um, to make their, I mean, basically we disabled their ship, um, by letting their fire elemental elemental break free. The cost of that being
00:10:37
Speaker
It is not necessarily concerned with who it's fighting so much as that it's fighting. So once it took out their ship, it jumped onto ours and we had a fire elemental to deal with. And then who rolled the natural one?
00:10:53
Speaker
I don't remember who didn't I mean everybody did right I don't remember who's natural one summon of the drag I think it was mine okay I think I rolled a natural one which brought a dragon the first dragon mm-hmm and we didn't get to fight it didn't have to fight it like it didn't it didn't actually interact with us at all no at one point you were like there's a dragon you should hit it and I'm like
00:11:15
Speaker
No, it gets to punch first. Well, I'm just thinking we got we got we got the captain, we got an elemental and we got a dragon. And we have three threats that are all sufficient for our entire party individually. So we might as well split up and try to do something about all of them.
00:11:31
Speaker
Yeah. You know,
Character Deaths and Resurrection Mechanics
00:11:33
Speaker
thinking about it, there was a dragon and an elemental and it was the dude that cleaned our clocks in the end. That's true. Oh, because Randy, Randy pulled off the, the disadvantage. He's able to, he's able to banish the elemental and the dragon and Kevin honestly didn't seem concerned and turned out to be a burglar. Yeah. Yeah. And can you, I mean, obviously you can't say who the dragon was, what it was working for or anything like that, but,
00:11:59
Speaker
And we are skipping a lot to jump to this, we'll get back to it. The fact that all the dragon did was tear a hole in the side of the boat and steal that black book, was that?
00:12:08
Speaker
Were you planning on separating Philip from the book or Barrick from the book? And that was a good way to do it or was that all just on the floor? It wasn't like high on my priority list. It wasn't something like I have to get this book out of Barrick's hands. But when that rolled, when that one got rolled, it was just a moment of this is as good a time I need to have something come steal the book. So, yeah.
00:12:32
Speaker
That's that's my answer. All right. Had you been looking to introduce a dragon soon? I mean, it's Dungeons and Dragons. So, you know, it's always fun to throw those in in unconventional ways, I think, like as opposed to the dragon landing on the deck of your ship. And now all of a sudden it's a dragon fight, especially in Eberron with dragons having
00:12:58
Speaker
So much agency and planning and everything. Using them in different ways is a lot of fun to me. So, you know, we talked about we made it this long without seeing a dragon and Dungeons and Dragons, but we were actually once in a dragon's dungeon. Yeah. So we don't like to speak of those. We don't want to talk. You really want to talk about that now? We're going to talk about fun was had by Eric. Just leave the room. Yeah. No, sorry. Let's I'm done.
00:13:24
Speaker
Let's bring it back to lighter fare. So we all died. Yeah, I feel a lot better about that episode. The episode where it tried to kill us all. No, I knew about the, you know, I mean, the, the feeling in this room, because honestly, basically when, when, when, when Barrett, cause Barrett fell or was thrown off, knocked off first.
00:13:52
Speaker
And like the immediately the feeling in the room was just well
00:13:57
Speaker
At least one of us is dying today. Yeah, it was just sort of a, what can we do? You know, Barrick can't fly. Barrick, you know, we thought, okay, how far will I have fallen by the time it's my turn? Maybe I'm within range of one of my teleports where I can grab some driftwood from the destroyed ship or something. Thanks to Chris Perkins Twitter account we discovered. Yeah, you fall real fast. Much like real life.
00:14:26
Speaker
And that's just one of those one of those things like Just the nature of the game it can't be How can I say this?
00:14:38
Speaker
The sequel, you know, we take advantage of the, of the fact that it's not a real life sequence of actions by making play in turns. So we have to be, uh, we have to be victim to the fact there's a sequence of actions that, that Dex, as soon as he started to fall off, couldn't make a reaction move to try to catch or something like just, that's the way the game is.
00:15:00
Speaker
Yeah. Well, and, you know, that episode took forever to record. Like the episode after, well, the episode after Barret falls. So the third episode just took forever to record because once we worked out between the episodes, we'd worked out, okay, there's absolutely nothing Barret can do about this. So we're falling. That's just what's happening. And so
00:15:26
Speaker
Barric hits the water, Barric goes unconscious, and at the same time you two are getting
00:15:32
Speaker
pummeled around. Staying true to what was actually happening, Dex couldn't say anything about Beric falling, because Dex didn't know Beric fell. He just knew Beric was gone. And that is not something surprising. Like, oh, he went invisible. Oh, Beric's invisible now. Or Beric's
00:15:57
Speaker
Melded through the floor down below deck like who knows what he can do Or something he he he phased into the into the into the helm to say I'll drive the boat You go be a god for a minute Gerald so So there was no reason to think he had fallen off the side of the boat I guess if I had wanted to roll an investigation check you and I did how you maybe let me see that I
00:16:21
Speaker
because didn't he blast off a little bit there was stuff going on that you could you could have made that check that would have been your action yeah right exactly and I wouldn't have done that because I was busy fighting the out poorly because I also got so yeah the episode took a while because I was reticent to make any decisions on the fly in regards to that so
00:16:41
Speaker
Yeah, for all the for all the crap we give Eric About trying to kill us or you know, he was really unhappy about it He was very hesitant to let Philip make death saving rolls, especially after the first one was a natural one Yeah, like he did not want to let Philip make that last day saving roll and
00:16:59
Speaker
Philip basically forced his hands like, nope, my turn. Yeah, and I just kind of hit a point once we had the moment of acknowledgement that, OK, Barrick is falling, going to hit the water, take an insane amount of damage. I was just kind of like, well, Vinay saw how well that ability worked. So let's just roll with it and knock the other two off as well and take my ship back.
00:17:29
Speaker
So, so Barrick died.
Revenant Concept and Raven Queen's Role
00:17:31
Speaker
I mean, Barrick. Yeah, Barrick. Basis loaded, Barrick died. Everybody else managed to stabilize. Yeah. And I was like, I kept asking and I never, you never answered me. I kept asking, did anybody see us fall off of this boat? Because it didn't seem like anybody but Vinay saw us fall off the boat. There's no narrative reason except for
00:17:55
Speaker
Days XDM that people knew we were down there to go get us I mean eventually they'd look around for you and what you'd you'd think yeah, but eventually and you all were only 200 feet up I think so you could we would have been see a body in the water like like if somebody had thought to look Yeah, cuz there was damage to the railing and people got like eventually someone was going to think to look I
00:18:17
Speaker
Right, but every 18 seconds we're getting one step closer to death, potentially. Right, and we all made the full complement of saving throws. Yeah, I mean, you all had stabilized and Barak was a corpse, so it could have taken a day. So, as that was happening, Barak introduced another element to the battle for our freighters. Yeah, just showing up. Yep. Just cuz. Which, I mean, nice to know that he's alive. Sure.
00:18:45
Speaker
I guess I never met him. That's your buddy, but... As far as I know, no one told Beric. No.
00:18:54
Speaker
I you know Dex literally doesn't know Eric knows this dude. No one would Lady Omeran maybe be the only person that I mean Omeran I saw this happen and as far as I know they're keeping a secret from us, right? But but I'm saying just the idea that this What's his name? Daedric Daedric Daedric Benner right that Daedric is alive
00:19:16
Speaker
is not important to anybody except for Barak. And Omeran would probably, I assume Barak and Omeran would have talked about his other training. So she's the one who is responsible for telling him because she's the only one that knows.
00:19:29
Speaker
I don't know these people treat us like we're the leaders of this this gang so you'd expect oh by the way this guy showed up and he gave us this mysterious piece of paper but apparently I don't even recall a mysterious piece of paper you definitely handed off a mysterious piece of paper I believe that's right I don't recall that but
00:19:49
Speaker
But there's nothing I can do about it because Dex was faced down in the sea. Right. I was dead. You were very dead. Why don't you two talk about, I mean, we're there now. So we took a break. Yes. Because we needed to talk about dying. Just death in general. Yeah. The fleeting nature of life. I mean, basically what it came down to is
00:20:13
Speaker
the story that we have been telling is very tightly tied up in the pact. So. I mean, it's it's one of those things where given the nature of the format and how long we've been going, I mean, this is the 67th episode and we've had Barrick index as consistent fixtures of this story.
00:20:41
Speaker
And I'm not saying that either of them have plot armor necessarily. Um, I mean, if, if one of you all did something monumentally stupid, like, yes, I'm going to jump off this hundred foot cliff to dive tackle a guy. Okay. Well, you're going to take a lot of damage and probably die. Um,
00:21:07
Speaker
But I am just reluctant to throw out the story because that, I mean, a lot of aspects of the story and how far we've gotten here, kind of our contingent on Barrick index being a part of the story. Um, specifically with the pact and the reedering connection. Um, so.
00:21:31
Speaker
Philip and I went to talk about, well, Philip actually handed me a piece of paper with three options while we were recording. And that's not the first time Philip's done that. And I've just been like, I want to know, I need to know. But then we went outside to talk and figure out where, where to take it because unlike
00:21:55
Speaker
There was a quote unquote cost to the resurrection last time with Barrack in the form of his dad.
00:22:06
Speaker
But we wanted it to be a bit more barracks central this time around, I think it's fair to say. Yeah. So that's where we talk through the revenant because of the link to the Raven. So, yeah, so revenants as presented in 5e Unearthed Arcana are kind of half done. I really expected it to be something that was going to appear in a published material and maybe it will eventually, but
00:22:34
Speaker
But it's kind of just you get some stats with for the revenue as a sub race and a little bit of lore. But the lore is presented very like the reverent as a monster, which is you died unjustly and your spirit is restless. And so you've come back until you've achieved vengeance. It's like a ghost backstory, like I think much more ghost than revenue with that type of description. But.
00:22:58
Speaker
In 4th edition, there was this idea that sometimes when a hero died, when a powerful soul, basically the Raven Queen sits in the Shadowfell and she watches the River of Souls pass by, and when she notices an interesting one, sometimes she knabs it. And so the idea of the Revenant in 4th edition, which was its own whole race instead of a sub-race, was the Raven Queen plucks you from the River of Souls and says, I have an offer.
00:23:28
Speaker
Let's make a deal. How would you like to go back on terms? Yeah. So that's kind of what we went with. And yeah, I think I think it serves the story well. You know, I mean,
00:23:49
Speaker
I think there was definitely a cost to it this time. Right. Well, but also it's it. I think that it wasn't, you know, like you said, when she sees an interesting soul, she plugs it. This was very much a backstory you already have with the Raven Queen spanning several conversations. Yeah. You know, you are as close as there is to a
00:24:16
Speaker
I mean, I don't know how to say it. Uh, I mean you are, have been taking paladin, right? No, not paladin. Pardon me. You've been taking, uh, the Kinte, the monk thing. And I, I, I conflate monk with a religious thing. Well, the Kinte levels that Barak has are more a reflection of his time studying with Benar than they are of the Raven Queen. Uh, but yes, the,
00:24:42
Speaker
Well, we got to discover the Raven Queen has an ulterior motive, that she is less altruistic in the reasons that she's helping Beric than she seemed the first time. First time, it seemed very benevolent, but we're getting a little more of the Raven Queen's cold nature in this, in that she is obtaining power. And there were some questions regarding that, which is probably a...
00:25:09
Speaker
Well, and and I will say, because this may be a question or it may not be, but I want to say it. That's definitely it's not.
00:25:19
Speaker
a reveal on her part, it's very much an evolution because as she has grown in power, because I don't, the way that I was playing it is she didn't even know that this was going to happen once Beric started collecting the packs that her power should grow. And that it's not temptation, but that acknowledgement of responsibility of if this power comes to fruition that she is going to
00:25:49
Speaker
she has the potential to take on a much larger role in the world. And so she's taking that very seriously. So anyway, the question from from Irene regarding that was can Barak tell how the Raven is growing in power with each pact gained?
Technical Issues and Audio Quality
00:26:06
Speaker
No, he doesn't really have any detail. He doesn't have a line into the Shadowfell to know exactly what that means for her.
00:26:17
Speaker
But yeah, so she basically offers Barak to send Barak back to finish the job under the terms that at this point he is working for her. It's not just that what he's doing benefits her or that she's also tied up in this pact. He is an agent of hers at this point and to represent that.
00:26:43
Speaker
We introduced an adjustment to the nature of Beric's Pact Boon, which Eric and I worked out. And if you're one of our patrons on the DM spellbook tier, you can check it out in that. But we altered Beric's Pact to be, instead of the Pact of the Blade, it's now we're referring to it as the Pact of the Vessel.
00:27:03
Speaker
And this is something that I have homebrewed and Eric has approved, so it's in playtesting, so it might shift around as we play. But essentially, Barret can now allow Erebus to possess him for a span of time.
00:27:24
Speaker
So that's kind of how we do it. Which we would see in actual practice. Yes. Towards the end of this art. Three more episodes. So, yeah, so the episode ends with Eric wakes up and looks a little different than you used to. Yes. I mean, substantially.
00:27:43
Speaker
Yeah, sure, sure, sure. More, Barrick looks more different than we have had the opportunity to see. Yeah. Because Barrick wears such full, such covering clothes and everything. Oh, okay. Yeah. Cause the only thing I knew of was the eyes. Barrick's eyes have changed, but that's, and, and his skin is now cold to the touch, but that's about, that's about all we've had the opportunity to see, but there is more to it. Okay.
00:28:08
Speaker
so we get to episode four of this arc and we will address off the top of this we apologize for the audio audio quality the general quality yeah again not the story
00:28:24
Speaker
Episode sounded real bad. And we are sorry for that. We've been asked if we're going to rerecord it. We aren't. We don't really know how we could do that. I know it's a slog to listen to. You know, it was hard. I know the stuff that was missing and it was still hard for me to listen to it. But if you can make it through it, all of the major story points are still in there.
00:28:50
Speaker
And and we apologize. We were really sad. We were really happy with the episode. It was such a good episode and such a nice to have a light note in what had been a fairly rough story for a while. But it just, you know, it happens. And I know I know I talked about it with some of our patrons that are at the monthly hangout level right after the episode came out. But I'll just go ahead and say,
00:29:16
Speaker
Uh, for everybody, uh, basically what had happened is while the episode was encoding from a wave file to an MP3, because I don't want to force you all to download one gig files to listen to our episodes. Um, my, my house lost power and something about being mid encoding or something. It just.
00:29:39
Speaker
sent both the source and the final file through a blender. And so even going back to the original source file, it was donezo. So that's basically what happened and why it was not fixable. I have learned my lesson and now edit copies of the source files instead of the actual files themselves.
00:30:03
Speaker
Um, but that's what happened.
Humor, Quests, and Character Interactions
00:30:05
Speaker
Uh, I do very much apologize because after I was done editing and encoding everything or not encoding, but editing everything, the episode sounded fine. It was just in that encoding process that things took a bad turn. Um,
00:30:20
Speaker
But I was very happy with the episode also. And I mean, the the biggest thing is with an episode like that and the big reason why we can't rerecord it is because we we have these ideas of conversations we want to happen. We have these ideas of what we want to talk about, but it's not scripted. Like we we couldn't go back and just point for point recreate what we had attempted to in that episode. So such is the nature of D&D.
00:30:50
Speaker
But let's talk about what we what we what let's talk about that episode. Yeah The the biggest things are Barrick deals with
00:31:00
Speaker
saying hi to everybody. I've been telling everyone that Barak's really not smooth. And boy. And this is the episode where we got to demonstrate it. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, it begins with Dex and Barak, right? As Barak wakes up, we pop right back in there. Nothing noteworthy. Yeah. I mean, Dex handles things, takes things in stride.
00:31:29
Speaker
We get to discover Booyah's got a problem. Yeah. So, okay. So, um, I think we've talked about it before early on, you know, for maybe even the first reviewed, um, our, and you've noticed, I'm sure listening, our weapons are leveling up with us. Um, because our weapons matter and eventually we, uh, we'd out power them or we'd find something cooler and Eric wants for us to,
00:31:58
Speaker
The ribbon weave needs to stay with Dex, and planar justice needs to stay with Booyah, and obviously... Oh, well, the thing that's leveling up for Beric is that amulet. The amulet, that's right, that's right, that's right. But as a consequence, occasionally, not every time, but occasionally, Eric also makes us take a consequence with our leveling up. You'll notice in a couple of episodes, not a couple of episodes, the last episode that was released before this one, I have to cut myself now to get one of the aspects of my weapon.
00:32:27
Speaker
Booyahs. Now, if Booyah gets 10 feet away from that crossbow, dude can't see. Yep. Randy did such a fun job of showing that because we wondered how are we going to introduce this because, of course, you know, when we're adventuring, we've all got our weapons. Yeah. When is Booyah going to be 10 feet? But right. I thought I thought the quest for a sandwich was just just cracked me up so much. Very Booyah. And it was, you know, I think that
00:32:57
Speaker
That that Philip did a really good job of keeping it Realistic how we found it wasn't just like oh I since that right I have to stick with my crossbow now like we worked it out. Yeah, and It was really funny. Yeah, and of course Randy just plays Booyah masterfully and then we decided to go after Ditharn and
00:33:21
Speaker
Yes, we I guess we might have done that at the beginning, huh? You and I. Maybe so. Just basically saying, hey, the back is as important to us personally as and they are intertwined. So, yeah, we let Gerald know that we're no longer going straight to gray wall.
00:33:42
Speaker
We're making a quick detour and then they're going in and on. And, um, and then Barrick has some explaining to do to a certain passenger on the boat. Yeah. Yeah. Paolo, Paolo's upset and Barrick's not.
00:34:04
Speaker
good at it. Not good at fixing that, at apologizing correctly at any of the things. Anyway, Barret gets punched. Just put it at that. Barret gets punched. And then receives some advice on what he should have done from, of course, a worthy source, King Boren, Elia Renarn. Yes. Eric finally gets to begin to truly characterize that turd.
00:34:41
Speaker
Yeah, Borenel gave some advice. To change things, not as much, but people. Then, was it that same conversation that you all revealed what you were doing? Yes. This was just a little too choppy to really pick up on, so we'll really explain what happened here. We had already met with Krast and basically said, hey, bud, it's just going to be the three of us doing this. And then we go and talk to Borenel.
00:35:00
Speaker
Oh, Borenel was so much fun to play. The people liked Borenel. Yes.
00:35:05
Speaker
All right. Was I even there? I was there. You were there. Yeah. And I believe we always as well, but we go and talk to Borenel.
00:35:13
Speaker
And Bornell, again, I don't know how well it comes through. Obviously, my listing was colored by the fact I know. Bornell pulls rank. Bornell says, hey, I'm the king, I'm gonna come. He threatens to pull rank. Bornell basically says, what if I ordered you, Beric? What if I, and Beric's like, oh, well, then yeah. Well, of course. Sorry, Dad. And so having already told Krast, who we know,
00:35:42
Speaker
despite the last time we fought with him, is a formidable warrior. And we're like, no, we're gonna do this on our own. We're just like, sure, the king. Why don't you come with us? But it worked out so well. It ended up being great. And, and Bornell is fun. And one of my, one of my favorite moments of getting to role play in NBC, I think was, was lost in the episode of, there was a beat of silence and then Bornell just goes, I have to go get my hammer.
00:36:08
Speaker
and got up and ran out of the room. So, yeah, that was a it was a fun, fun app. Beric apologizes to Paolo, takes his leave of Orianna and gives her a spear that we're not going to tell Uncle Dex about. Yeah.
00:36:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's cool. It's what it is. It's cool. It is. Um, and then, yeah. And then Dex also says goodbye to Cassian. Uh, basically very different advice about dealing with gray wall. Well, Cassian's a little boy. Um, and he, the thing that he's learned, like, you know, I made the joke at one point, like you're not good. Don't try to steal things. Please don't. It's going to end badly. But like basically it want to do,
00:36:57
Speaker
All Dex knows is that Cassian's lived a privileged life. Yeah. And, and assumes in that case that he doesn't know how to handle himself in a bad situation. He's always had someone there to help form. So he's like, Hey, look, life can be tough and you hide well. And it's the best thing you've got. So do that if you need to.
Skydiving Adventure with King Borenel
00:37:15
Speaker
Um, and that was basically it like trust, Charlie, trust Omeran, you know, everybody that's on this boat, it's going to be able to help take care of you if you need them to.
00:37:27
Speaker
I mean, what he wanted to say was, don't leave the boat. Do not, whatever you do. Gerald will be here, clearly. So, just stay on the boat. But it sounded better in a storytelling standpoint. It was good. To do the hide thing. Whereas Barrick advised Oriana to stab people. And then we took off. Then skydiving. Yup. Yeah, we raced. We raced to the ground.
00:37:57
Speaker
Um, Bornell was just so excited to, you know, be a part of it. Just like a dog. So for those of you that don't know, uh, yeah, we had a question about, um, I believe it was just asked, just asked where I got my inspiration for Bornell. So that I'll let Eric talk about the characterization because it was amazing. Uh, but the, the lore is that Bornell was not
00:38:24
Speaker
expecting to become king when he became king uh... borenelle as a young man he served time in the army this is during the last war was he king pre-morning was he king before the war he was king when the war ended but not but but uh... and had been for a while he's in his fifties i think but when he became king he wasn't in breland his father died while he was away adventuring in zindrik and he was out
00:38:52
Speaker
busting his way through some dungeon when a messenger or I don't know how they or ascending or something informed him of the death of his father and the fact that he needed to come back and be king now and The impression that I think Eric and I have always taken and you know Borenel can be played in a lot of ways but the impression that Eric and I have always I think taken is That that was like the worst news that Borenel could have possibly received in that moment outside of the fact your dad's dead But yes that he was king. That's a real that's a real bummer too. Yeah
00:39:22
Speaker
No, I mean he's had a really tragic life too is his father's death of course, but also his his Life the love of his life his wife has died. It was it was murdered By we know not who several of his children have been killed one of his sons died I think in the morning or his daughter I can't remember but he's had a rough go. Yeah, he had a very tragic tragic life for a long-lived guy but
00:39:46
Speaker
Yeah, he being king is his least favorite part about being king. Yeah. No, I really tried to take a very likeable, lighthearted Robert Baratheon.
00:40:03
Speaker
uh from from the book Game of Thrones and first season of the show Game of Thrones like this guy that was a great warrior loved like being in the field with people and when it came time to actually sit on the throne it was the most boring tedious thing and the idea of I mean you go back to season one of Game of Thrones and watch Roberts
00:40:27
Speaker
Excitement at just fighting in the melee at a tournament like just getting to use his weapon again That's really what I kind of drew on is like this opportunity arises where Borneo can go adventuring and Nobody's like
Murder Mystery and Haunted House Exploration
00:40:43
Speaker
none of the typical people that are at court that are going to say, oh, my lord, you can't do that. Like, nobody's going to tell him that. He just gets to go do it. Bash some heads in and have a good time. See, I thought the whole time you were just playing an anthropomorphized Saint Bernard.
00:40:59
Speaker
That's also what it came across, it's like, um... That's awesome! Wait, are we gonna go? Well, because it's been decades since he's gotten to do, like, this is his favorite thing in the world and... Yeah, no, that thought process makes total sense with how that character was played. And he is fun. He's a little headstrong, but he is the king, so... But yeah, so we skydive and he said he had never done it before.
00:41:25
Speaker
Or had. He had. He had. Booyah. Booyah had not. And everybody was much more successful than our first attempt. There was no crash landing. Well, that Booyah rolled the 20. That gave us all safe landings. Yeah. Was it safe and quiet was what he got out of the 20? Or maybe it was just advantage to have a safe landing. But still, with advantage, and that's a low DC to have a safe landing when you've properly feather fallen.
00:41:58
Speaker
He wanted backflips, but he also wanted Booyah to survive. And when Booyah decided he was gonna chase Borneo, I was like, well, I've got to also now do that. So I sacrificed, I sacrificed being awesome to make sure Booyah was okay. That's a big step for Dex. He doesn't do feelings, but he does loyalty. That's very true. We land on the outskirts of Ardove. Yes. Where we walk into the,
00:42:20
Speaker
No backflips from Dex this time.
00:42:26
Speaker
walk into a murder scene we walk into a murder mystery that we didn't get again again this is the second time we walked into a murder mystery we eventually we're gonna get blamed for one of these guys so we here because we've killed a lot of people as as players are want to do we skipped it yeah we decided no we short circuited it because it occurred to to me at a certain point and i decided it made sense for it to occur to barrick that since he had been victim already to it nobody
00:42:54
Speaker
Nobody knows this is the, the king on the throne is a fake. So if a king shows up, people are going to assume it to be the proper king. So why can't we just use the king? Right. And get me a pretty horse. So talk about that, Eric. I did not plan the adventure with also the idea of Borenel coming along in mind. So I honestly just,
00:43:24
Speaker
didn't, I had not even thought about that possibility when I was planning out the murder mystery aspect of it. And when you had planned through something, there was a, there was, yes, yes. Um, and when Phillips said, well, I'm just going to go have born, I'll talk to him. It was like,
00:43:40
Speaker
Yep. Um, so, so yeah, there was going to be this really cool murder mystery thing surrounding you all trying to track down our soul. And, um, so yeah, that's, that's it. Had, had, had our sold on the murder. Well, you'll never know now, will you? I really don't care.
00:44:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean we could go back to our dev and make that guy report. I mean, yeah, we're right. We're still in the out right outside our dev in a big scary house.
00:44:13
Speaker
So yeah, so we make our way out of that situation. It's just one of those things that, again, I don't play a lot of RPGs. The first time I played one for more than a single session is, well, on the Geek Pantheon podcast first, but then this, and obviously well past the single session.
00:44:36
Speaker
I don't know how often that happens. You come up with 60 different ways you could get out of this and then you go, oh, or we could do this game changer plot killer thing. All the time. I assume so. It doesn't happen a lot with us.
00:44:51
Speaker
um yeah speaking as a dm all the time i mean like like i know that you guys as dms and the dms that listen have planned out a bunch of things that the characters work around but i mean in this sense where you and me and oh we're making plans we're like well we can try to hide him or we can go into the alley or we can pretend he's drunk and leave the hood over him and then it was like
00:45:18
Speaker
Or he could be the king for a second and all of the 10 minutes of planning we had done. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you know, I know it happens to you guys a lot. I don't know how it happens with players doing that, but yeah. Um, but we're also not known for planning. Uh, that's true.
00:45:37
Speaker
So yeah, and then you all leave our dev and race across the fields of Breland to a haunted house because you sense our soul leaving. Yes, that's right. Yep. So one of the things that a revenue can do is sense the direction and distance to the nearest
00:45:54
Speaker
object or person that is connected to whatever their mission is. So since the obvious like within reason, like you're not going to, if the next closest one is in the Tolinta plains. No, it's, I mean, according to the text of the, of the document, this being, this being an unorthodox kind of thing, it's, you know, within, uh, obviously it's within Eric's purview to just decide. But, but as far as the text goes, you just know the distance and the direction.
00:46:23
Speaker
The idea is that Revenants have that single-minded focus like, this is why you are here. I think the biggest thing that I would amend to that is on the same plane of existence. That seems reasonable. But yeah, that's the only amendment that I as a dungeon master would make to that for those of you playing along at home.
00:46:45
Speaker
So this you building really want to know who's playing along at home like playing our adventures after we play them your home barracks So yeah, so we go to a haunted house and we do the thing same thing again We make a lot of plans on how to do it and then we I was like, oh I can just walk through the walls. Yep. Yep but and and and
00:47:08
Speaker
Yeah, so what happened at some point was we changed some runes on a door because we thought it was a trap. Sure. Or a lock that kept us from getting in. Right. But it was actually trapping ghosts in the house. It might have also kept us out. Sure. It could have gone. It could have been most. Would it have kept us out? No. OK.
00:47:26
Speaker
I mean, you know, most locks do prevent the door from opening from either direction. That's true. But yeah, it turns out all it was doing was keeping these three ghosts now in. However, we got a natural 20 in the process of this and declared that the ghosts were not going to be hostile. Yes, that's correct. So they came out as friendly ghosts who had a sad story and were going to go seek peace until
00:47:53
Speaker
The little girl popped out and said, boo. No. No. Dex screamed until- Before that, when- Dex offers his interpretation of Go Seek Peace. They said, Go Seek Peace, and I was like, like, revenge? And you were like, now? I had never thought of that, but now I feel this great swelling of vengefulness in me. They were not hostile towards you, which was the 20. Yeah, and, you know, I mean, let them.
00:48:16
Speaker
We didn't kill him, probably. I'm fairly certain we didn't kill him. Let him go seek their revenge. Fairly certain we didn't kill them, but we don't know who killed them and we don't know who they're going to go kill. They may not kill him. They may just haunt him. That girl's scary. She proved it. We land the decks startles easily.
00:48:34
Speaker
That is a that is a personal trait that I have that I have imbued into decks. I said it on the thing I really I do. I startle so easily. I like my dog scares me all the time. My kid scares me all the time. Boxes. I turn around and I forgot I put a thing somewhere and I just try feet in the air. Odd shaped trees, my own vibrating. No, I really do startle easily and it's not funny.
00:49:04
Speaker
uh sounds like it is um no uh so yeah so we go
00:49:14
Speaker
Again, we talk about how we're gonna go into, one's through the front door, one's through the back door, and Barak keeps wanting to go through a window for some reason. And then everyone goes through the front door. Yep. There's the front door, and there's a Banshee there, because of course there is, because we're about to fight a guy, so what should happen? I should have a 45% chance of getting knocked smooth out immediately. And we all failed to save. We all failed to save. Only thing that saved the party was Barak being undead.
00:49:44
Speaker
We all failed to save that knocked us all immediately to zero hit points. I walked into that house with 76 hit points and I immediately had zero. Yep. And you were like, it's a low DC. And I'm like, I had a 45% chance of failing. That's less than half.
00:50:03
Speaker
No, I had a 45% chance it was conceding. That's almost half. Oh boy. Luckily, Booyah rolls a natural 20 on his first death save and immediately revives with one hit point.
00:50:17
Speaker
and uses the 20 element of it to get an action with which he heals Dex. He heals Dex, and so Dex is up. And you have 10 hit points. What are you guys complaining about? 10 hit points, ready to roll, right? Crushing it. Ready to rock. It's like a first level character. Ready to run, no way. Because that's what happens next. Yes, so we get everyone back up. Barric heals with 4 and L. We got everybody back up. Nobody's in great straight shape, but everybody's back up. And then...
00:50:43
Speaker
Horrifying Visage, which, I mean, the way that half the party fails. The way this stupid thing plays out is by the end of this fight, Bornell and Beric kill it, and Dex is a football field away. Oh, you're a lot more than that, weren't you? No, it's 270. Okay. It was three, it was three, three turns. Dead sprints back to our dev, basically. So, I mean, honestly, like the only takeaway from this fight for Dex is there is nothing on this earth scarier than a Banshee.
Powerful Dagger and New Abilities Exploration
00:51:12
Speaker
like that seems reasonable but like yeah like there is literally nothing that he can see that will scare him as much as seeing other Banshee because all he knows is that it killed him immediately and then compelled him to book it away as fast as he could well and Dex doesn't fall prey to those sorts of things very often like Dex gets hit a lot
00:51:35
Speaker
Um, and I've always kind of envisioned the Banshee and I didn't do a great job of describing my mental image. Um, the librarian ghost in Ghostbusters is just creepy looking ghost, but then turns into it's large, it's large Marge. Yeah. So you're, you're, you're a ghostbuster. They react to the same way you did. So anyway, okay. Like all Vinkman Beric explores the house, uh, avoids a bunch of creepy rooms and then finds a dagger.
00:52:01
Speaker
Yes, which eventually comes to tax through a joke, but but it does. Yeah. Yeah. So I've got a dagger. It was explained what it does. I'm not going to go into it here because for those of you who don't pay a lot of attention when we talk about things we find, it'll be more fun for you to be surprised by what it can do down the road.
00:52:23
Speaker
It's very, it's comically powerful. And I'm excited to play around with it. And I'm excited to watch Eric's face the first time you use it for something where he forgot you had it. Yes, because that will happen. Right. I mean, and we're gonna I mean, if it's as written,
00:52:45
Speaker
Like, it's bonkers if you let me use it as written. And so, yeah. Anyway, but it is a sentient weapon. It has a voice. Its name is Lana. It's gonna be fun. One of the questions, I believe maybe also Irene, let me double check that real quick. So Irene asks, is Booyah gonna start talking to his weapon now? So that's just the thing to do. Obviously Randy's not here, but I can totally see Booyah. This Booyah, you talk! Hey, Crossbow, you talk!
00:53:15
Speaker
Dagger talks, sword talk. I can't do the voice, but I feel like I got the pitch the most. You got the syntax. I got the temperament. But no, actually, they have not seen me talk to the dagger, and may or may not, because the dagger is in my brain. We don't have to have a conversation. We can telepathically speak, which is concerning to Dex. Honestly, he thinks a lot of things that he won't say.
00:53:42
Speaker
And with the stuff he says, that means something. The only downside, and it's not even a huge downside, is that Dex now has long, beautiful hair. Long, luscious locks. Long hair. Four feet long. Four foot long hair. But hair down to your knees. That was one of my favorite bits of it, though, is when you let go of the dagger, the hair just fell out into a pile on the... That is pretty funny. So I...
00:54:11
Speaker
So what you told me? Personally, yeah. I, Philip, as a player of games, care a lot about how my character appears, that my character's appearance matches what's in my imagination, because I really enjoy that, about games where you're allowed to design your own character, both in RPGs and on computers.
00:54:38
Speaker
It didn't matter to me how absurdly powerful that weapon was. It changed the appearance of Beric in a way that I found really stupid and annoying. And I had no interest in Beric walking around with four foot long hair, so I would have thrown it out the window. I don't care. Like if no one else had wanted it, if it had been specifically designed to be awesome for Beric, I would have left it in the house.
00:55:00
Speaker
And that was random, right? The hair thing like that. Yes, that was that was a random table. One of the one of the properties of the weapon is it like it has two minor and one major. Yeah. Yeah. And Eric rolled on the minor table and it came up with long hair and Dex doesn't give a crap. Right. Dex will braid it and move on or put it into a man bun.
00:55:19
Speaker
I mean, it'll be a big man, bud. Barrick doesn't care. Philip cares. Right, right, right. What's his name? Jonathan Safranfuhr from Queer Eye? Oh, yes. Now, this is a lot longer than that.
00:55:34
Speaker
He has very long hair. This is just a person with long hair. It is one of the hosts from Queer Eye that has long, glorious hair. Really well taken care of hair. And so now so does Dex. That's his style icon now for hair. The upstairs of the house was pretty gruesome.
00:55:55
Speaker
a bassinet with a blanket over it that Berwick did not disturb. There was a playroom with a bunch of dolls facing the doorway. Based on what he found in the third room, I'm glad that we didn't remove the blanket from that bassinet. And then found the remains of two adults. And that was the least creepy thing. And then by the time Dex got up there, it was the remains of two adults and a pile of hair.
00:56:21
Speaker
Oh God, what happened? Cause then it fell down. Um, and I really enjoyed, I forgotten this happened until I re listened to it, but Dex asked if that was the one that the corpses hair and barracks. Sure. Yeah, pretty good. So Eric has left that horrifying idea in Dex's head for all the time. Literally a joke.
00:56:42
Speaker
I did not mean that Dex walked up the stairs to find Barrick and said that. You start talking like Dex and I'm going to decide you're in the room. And boy, and I ended up in the room and I almost felt bad about it. Like, cause you just talked about this item and then I insert myself there and I was like, no, I'm not. I promise I'm not gaming to get this thing. I literally just wanted to make a joke. Yeah. And then I ended up with this thing. That's amazing. Um, I think I find out as far as I can tell, it's very impressive. It is mechanically amazing narratively might be a real pain in the butt.
00:57:13
Speaker
Well then we discovered there's a door, one of them fancy bookshelf doorways. Yep. Classic. And Dex tries to disarm it. You just don't get to disarm traps very often. No, I don't. There's a rogue. That's the thing, when we talked about this, I almost forget that Dex is a rogue because he doesn't get the opportunity to do a lot of roguey things except for
00:57:37
Speaker
sneak attack. I don't get to do a lot of deception stuff because we're almost always among the three of us and allies. We don't do a lot of deception stuff. We don't have a lot of dungeons where we're detecting and traps and picking locks and stuff. So yeah, I'm not complaining. It's a fun game. It's just those attributes haven't...
00:58:05
Speaker
The one thing is I don't get to do a lot of the Rogie things and that's all the rogue gets to do I don't get multiple attacks. I don't have magic What I do have magic we've does amazing things and this knife boy and You try and it doesn't go very well. No, I fall into the basement
00:58:23
Speaker
Yeah, but you found dithern you performed a valuable service. I did wait no Barrett can detect I did what we set out to do I found Dithern and and then immediately hurt I Will Okay, so the thing the thing with the thing the new thing the new thing I can do that I immediately do because I wanted to play with it in the in the the the the the handbook it is called
00:58:52
Speaker
Sickening radiance, right sickening radiance. I believe yeah. Um, I cast it properly and then you guys dinged me. Uh, I said, I, because it is a, it is a 30 foot radius, but centered on a point that I choose and it ignores walls and such. Yeah. So I could have cast it at the end of the room to where it was just getting him and not me, which is what I said. But then you two with your mumbo jumbo and you're knowing more about this than me confused me. And I was like, well, true. I guess I'm going to do oops.
00:59:22
Speaker
Um, it's much better fit your description of what happened though. Yeah, it was accidental. Uh, absolutely. Um, but I just want to say Jeff knew what he was doing up top and then got rope doped by YouTube. Um,
00:59:39
Speaker
But it's a cool spell. I mean, it's a cool spell and it does damage and people can't. The coolest part about it, which really didn't matter in this one, but could in the future is you can't hide if once you're in it. And I think even once you're out of it for a turn.
00:59:55
Speaker
I believe so. Uh, like if you move out of it, you still emit light for a turn. So pretty rad. Um, but also it hurt Jeff and her decks a bit. Um, but more interestingly, new thing that happens during that fight is what, uh, your boy, Eric does. So why don't you explain the possession thing? Cause I, you know what, explain it to me. So Eric and I had worked up this pack to the vessel thing. So I had been.
01:00:26
Speaker
I had been kind of hoping that people would notice that you guys would notice that we had a fight and Beric did not make any effort to summon his sword, but no one did. As is usually the case when I try to give subtle hints about the way that Beric has changed, it just went unnoticed, so I just moved on.
01:00:45
Speaker
So Barak, instead of summoning the sword, basically, and I think in this occasion without realizing what was going to happen, allowed Erebus to possess him and takes on this sort of shadowy armored form and
01:01:04
Speaker
some other weird attributes in the way that he speaks and basically allowed Erebus to take him over and use him as a weapon to attack Ditharn. In my head, he looked like, oh, what's his name? The Bindum, the Michelin man.
01:01:29
Speaker
But black, because he described, he was like shadows form around him and he's big. So I, I'm joking.
01:01:38
Speaker
Philip and I were both just sitting here with befuddled looks on our faces. But the original Michelin Man, not the big fluffy cute one now, the old school. There's been, this isn't the original Michelin Man? The Michelin Man was never, was not always white and fluffy? Well, he was always white, but he used to literally look like a stack of, we're cutting this. No, we're absolutely not.
01:02:01
Speaker
Instead of being whatever he is, not like eight stacks of big fluffy things, he looked like a stack of tire inner tubes. So it was much- So you thought Barak turned into a stack of tires? Yeah, like a mummy kind of look. But tires. I'm so unhappy because I described it. I know, I'm joking. I'm saying this because you went to the effort of putting a picture of it in the Discord, so now I'm screwing with you. Yes. Anyway. Yeah, this is the original one.
01:02:32
Speaker
Ah! Well that's terrifying! That's horrifying! So was what Beric did!
01:02:37
Speaker
but not like in a nightmare way. It looks like something you see in a fever dream. So dumb. It looks kind of like Oogie Boogie from Nightmare Before Christmas. Sure. Yeah, that's what Barrick looked like. Yeah, exactly. Kind of like Oogie Boogie. He was just a big amorphous black blob. Anyway, fighting stuff, I guess. So Barrick turned into something that looks absolutely nothing like that or anything that ever came out of the mind of Tim Burton.
01:03:06
Speaker
Yeah. Honestly, he always looked a little like Edward Scissorhands. He does not. Pale. He was pale. He's not anymore. Anyway, boy, this show's dumb.
01:03:22
Speaker
so we fight our soul ditharn who has an awesome cool packed weapon uh yeah double-bladed staff that turns into a bow yeah yeah super cool that was awesome we all made several mentions every time he did something with it we were like that's awesome unless we forget friends he was wearing a mask
01:03:40
Speaker
Yes, he was wearing a bird mask. The chartreuse vulture chartreuse was not true. So it was pale green. Yeah. Sickening. Like is it chartreuse? Kind of a kind of a very vibrant. It's like a oh, it's really vibrant. Is it not pale? No, chartreuse is like it's a what do you call a really pale green? I don't know. Chicken egg green. Irene asked if it was just to drive us all you all crazy. No.
01:04:06
Speaker
is all of the answer that I can give like no it was not there to drive you crazy um so yeah yeah there's more birds more more birds um I don't know why you hate birds so much actually I'm down with birds uh Dex is starting to dislike bird people bird people who race this against Eric okra people who would wear bird masks oh
01:04:32
Speaker
Except, I guess, Dedeckno Beric has one and then his mom had one? He's never born it. I mean, he had it in his hand when we fled the city, so you might have seen it, but...
01:04:43
Speaker
You know a lot was going on. It's in his it's in his room I probably have forgotten that but I saw it at this point because a lot was happening and that's it's in his room But he's not he's not worn it. Yeah, I mean the Image and I have in my head has this very sort of sharp lower face mask to it So I guess that's kind of aqua line in appearance, but it's not yeah
01:05:06
Speaker
No, Barry does not wear a bird mask because he would be attacked by his allies if he ever wore a bird mask. Yeah, anything with a bird mask, I'm attacking on sight. So you better let me take a good look at that thing before you try to wear it around. Noted. Not planning on wearing it on.
01:05:21
Speaker
Um, yeah, we eventually defeat Dotharn and Beric takes us back. Yep. Yeah. And then earns the body. Parry some. Yeah. Uh-huh.
Narrative Stakes and Listener Questions
01:05:30
Speaker
And, uh, you know, I can't remember, did, does Bornell get down and get, get involved in the fight? Yeah. Does he get to play in this one? Yeah, he gets in there. Cause I know we fought the Banshee, but I couldn't remember. Bornell, Booyah made it down. Bornell jumped down through the hole. Booyah went down the staircase and ran behind. Let's call it what it is. Oh yeah. Bornell did not jump.
01:05:47
Speaker
down to the hole. Borenel tried to knock the door down and stepped into the hole. Ruined my awesome moment is what Borenel did. That was very in the tone of our game.
01:06:06
Speaker
But yeah, and now what happens next? Find out. Let's see, any other listener questions we have not answered? Laura wants to know what Dex has gotten from his lycanthrope class. Okay, yeah. So the thing about the lycanthrope thing. I'll field this one if you want. Well, yeah, but I want to explain I'm still only level one at lycanthrope and essentially just traded in my barbarian level for lycanthrope.
01:06:32
Speaker
The reason I'm only at level one is because I'm trying to play it true to the narrative and Dex can't level up without the black dog and without seeing the either sugar or another Mentor and we haven't had the opportunity to do that. Yeah So really right now the like and throw Level isn't Narratively, it's giving me nothing so far like to play within the story mechanically. It's giving me a couple of things Yeah basically
01:07:02
Speaker
the level one features for the lycanthropic warrior.
01:07:06
Speaker
animalistic prowess, um, which, uh, basically gives, uh, whoever is level one in this class advantage on survival and perception checks when you are in a natural environment. Um, and then an armored defense. So when you're not wearing armor or wielding a shield, AC is 10 plus decks plus wisdom. Um, and you get, and that one, honestly, I have better AC in my studded leather. So.
01:07:33
Speaker
Yeah. Um, but then the, the notable proficiency that you get is with, um, how do we decide ungukuli? Is that the, um, I've, I've gone with ungukuli, ungukuli because the, you lie being a plural, um, which are clawed gloves that, um, were hidden because deck still hasn't talked to Barrick about going to the black dog yet. So they've been chilling in his bedroom. Um,
01:08:03
Speaker
They'll make it out. Essentially, they do the same thing when I had claws as a bear. They're the same damage, the same everything. They're a training weapon. Except for they are non-magical. The claws were magical. These are not any magical creature that has resistance to anything but magical weapons. They're just going to do half damage too.
01:08:26
Speaker
Cool. Uh, let's see, we had a couple more and I've seen level two, I know it, I'll get a level two when I get a chance to take it, but I haven't taken it. Um, just to, I mean, we've kind of touched on this, but just to clarify it, both Irene and Jess asked for a little more clarification about how the revenant works and also why the Raven Queen was able to resurrect him. So just to give you clear statistical explanation of this, the revenant in five fifth edition is a subclass as a sub race. And so you can attach it to any race.
01:08:54
Speaker
and it gives you two particularly substantial abilities. One is that ability to track things related to your task, which I explained already. The other
01:09:07
Speaker
The other is that if Barak has very, very slow regeneration, whenever he's below half, he regenerates one hit point, which means that he will automatically stabilize. And if by some chance Barak is ever killed, his body will reform 24 hours later.
01:09:27
Speaker
And if that were to happen, my best friend, Dex doesn't know that. Well, and I mean, if that were to like Philip, Philip has drawn a lot of inspiration and I've kind of picked up on inspiration from Beric Dondarian from A Song of Ice and Fire. I was really trying to be very carefully subtle and not let anyone know I was picking, I was choosing that as inspiration by naming him Beric. Yes.
01:09:52
Speaker
But that to say I'm a worshipper of a fire. I don't know who that is. You read Game of Thrones. Oh, read A Song of Ice and Fire. I'll say this. I did. I tried to listen to the audio book of A Song of Ice and Fire, and it is impossible because all of their names are the same.
01:10:12
Speaker
I could not do it. So like I made it to the first hour and I was like, never, never again. Maybe watch Game of Thrones and then read a song. So I've watched the first handful of seasons of Game of Thrones. Eric Dondarian is in it. I don't doubt that. But anyways, if he's not if he's not Sean Bean, I don't know which one he is.
01:10:30
Speaker
This aside all to say, if Beric were to die and his body has to reform, something else about Beric may go missing. Yeah, basically the proportion of Beric to Erebus.
01:10:44
Speaker
shifts as it has each time he's died. Yes. Which is a good segue into another question Jess had about Dex just rolling with Derek's new developments. She says, does he ever have any concern or think about what the changes mean in regard to what's been happening to him? And Philip wants to know this too, because Philip feels like what what Barrick did in the last arc would be alarming to everyone. Yeah.
01:11:07
Speaker
I think we need to make a distinction between concern and surprise. We can talk about that stupid thing with the shapeshifting in whatever that town's called. When Dex felt Beric's face and felt it cold, he was not surprised because Beric has died a couple of times.
01:11:33
Speaker
He didn't expect it. Like he wasn't, he wasn't like, Oh, he must be undead and his skin is cold, but he wasn't surprised by it, but he is concerned about it and that the physical changes and what we've just talked about the next time. Oh yeah, he is concerned about it. And if this thing happens, he dies, comes back. Um, and it's changed even more. He'll be further concerned. The reason Bidex is rolling with it is because Beric is back. If,
01:12:00
Speaker
If and when, it's just a question of how soon, because of how drastic the changes are, Dex realizes that it's less barrack every time the concern will grow. I mean, obviously, Dex was concerned the first time because of the change in barrack's demeanor, disposition, maybe a better word. Yeah.
01:12:25
Speaker
But was just glad he was back. So yeah, there's concern and this concern that will be addressed down the road. And there are probably gonna be plenty of things. Barak always does crap that surprises Dex. It's just this one thing Dex was kind of prepared for. Especially with the physical change, the idea that he had cold skin.
01:12:49
Speaker
Dex probably would have been like, ugh. Uh, but not like, oh my God, are you in fact not alive any longer? Just like that one he was able to take in stride. Yeah. I think might be the best way to say it. Okay. All right. I think that's all the questions. Two more.
01:13:08
Speaker
Um, Laura wants to know we have plans for more reduced episodes. Um, not plans, but broad intentions. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure there will be more. Um, we ended up, we had plans for reduced episodes at the beginning of this arc, but we ended up just through life and time ability, just combining them into that first episode. Right.
01:13:27
Speaker
Those were intended to be reduced episodes originally, but we just didn't have an opportunity to get in and record them. So we just made the first episode a series of vignettes, essentially. And then the last one is from Ryan on the Discord. Had a couple of questions about some
01:13:45
Speaker
interpretations of conditions and rules and things like that. And, you know, sometimes we get things a little incorrect. Sometimes we do things because it's the way that we want to do them. Eric gets to make up what he wants and we go along with it. And so sometimes we will do things that are different from what the 5E mechanic says. But I think the frightened condition in 5E is dumb that if you are frightened, you just can't not move closer. Like if you're scared of something, you're going to run away.
01:14:12
Speaker
Like that's that's my interpretation of it. So yes, it was intentional. So but yeah. So so yeah, I mean, any D&D game you play in or listen to or whatever is going to have DM and players interpretations of how things should be. And we're going to use that same license because either like Eric said, he just has a personal feeling about this part of the rule being dumb or because it makes for a better story.
01:14:39
Speaker
The other part of the question was about Uncanny Dodge, and I do like the idea that I can just say that whenever I want, but if Eric wants me to proclaim it at the beginning of the action, I'll have to remember to do that, and I'm so good at remembering things that that shouldn't be a problem.
01:14:55
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Well, awesome. Thank you guys for listening. Uh, we are, uh, going to go to lunch and then record the next arc. So we will catch you next week with episode one of the arc that has not been named the trolls dilemma. Uh, you're going to say the trolls lament, but dilemma will work.