Nerd Poker - Episode 13 - Stomp On It

Episode Date: July 12, 2017

As our heroes finish their standoff with the Lunar Elves, they make their way towards the castle of Count Bariss. On the way they meet many creatures that push all of Bodhi's buttons, and it will be a miracle if he doesn't immediately stomp on all of them. Will Brian be forced to change Bodhi's alignment? Will Twee continue to napalm the countryside? Only time will tell.

Hey, it's Brian. Welcome to episode 13 of Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. If you're not following us on Patreon, please join us over there in our fungen. We're about to record our bonus episodes for July. And let's just say we haven't forgotten about Jerry. So follow us there. And my stand-up-wise, I'm going to be in Raleigh, North Carolina, this weekend at Good Nights. The club's been there forever. It'll be a good time.

Check me out there, brianpassain.com. Also, July 25th, Dana Gould, Greg Proops, Blaine Kapach, and Guy O'Bielan, Karen Kilgariff from My Favorite Murder, and my friend Derek Sheen. We're all going to be doing a show at Largo celebrating my 30th year in stand-up. Anyway, you're about to listen to episode 13. Things are off the rails.

Bodhi has been acting like a lot of my other characters in the last couple of episodes and doing crazy stuff. So enjoy. Thanks for listening. Bye. Hey, it's Brian Poussaint. I used to have a podcast where I played Dungeons and Dragons with a bunch of my friends. I missed it, so I decided to make a new one. It's called Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. It's myself, a couple of my buddies, Blank and Patch, Dan Telfer, Ken Daly, an occasional guest or two,

and we're gonna be playing in a new setting, my dining room. Each week you'll hear my wife, my son, my dogs, and we're gonna be playing in a place that I love and playing the game that I've loved half my life, Dungeons & Dragons. We've got 5th edition, and we're ready. So are you ready? Here's Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker.

Hey, everybody. It's Brian Poussaint. You're listening to Brian Poussin's Nerd Poker. Welcome back. This is episode 13. I've got my friends here. Hi, Brian. Hi, Brian.

Hi, Brian. Hi, Ken. Hi, Dan. Hi, Blaine. Hi, Ken. That's who those guys are. Got somebody sitting on my lap who doesn't feel like talking. It's Sam, our engineer. Hi, Sam.

Well, let's get into it. What happened last time? Well, you guys had gotten this plan in your head of how you were going to fight the weird little hook-armed monkey hy hyena faced beasts in the trees. What the hell? Now he's talking. Does that sound exciting? What the hell is that? They look like Gibbons

except they had hooks for hands and hyena faces. You know Gibbons, you'll Gibbons. He was a guy who taught people how to eat natural food like pine cones. I call them whoop whoops. What the heck is all of this? What the heck?

That's what happens at D&D. Yeah, they were swinging in the trees making whoop whoop whoop noises, and they started coming after everybody. They're in that field. These are us, right? That's me. What your dad did is he set the forest on fire, and then they traveled for a couple of days to try to get away from the fire but little did they know some elves were trailing them because they were mad about the fire in the woods so as they were leaving the woods they were

trying to just get away from the whole thing really um they started shooting magic missiles at your dad and his friends um and uh for no reason no they're a little mad about setting their forest friends on fire and to premeditate Blaine was like you know what we don't want these guys to have the upper hand so his character Twee the elf bard

set the whole forest on fire in a line with some oil I can fly and then Ken is a tiefling rogue arcane trickster. That doesn't get a what the heck? Do you know what that is? What the heck?

No. He set the woods on fire in front of them. So right now they're all kinda, there's 24 elves that may or may not be evil trapped between rows of fire and these guys are hiding behind a boulder and Blaine's character Tui is flying above the woods up to the north. So uh... Sound exciting?

Yes. Are you gonna go play Roblox instead? Um, my mom is gonna download me a fidget spinner app. Oh, okay. Fidget spinner app. Those are popular. App? My daughter's just got fidget spinner app. Oh, okay. Fidget spinner app. Those are popular. My daughter's just got fidget spinners today.

Yeah, he got into fidget spinners last week. I know, but an app? Is there a yo-yo app? It's better than having one in your house. Imagine having these things in your house. Probably one of the most underrated cellists. They're not noisy.

They're a little bit. I can hear my daughters going, vroom, vroom. I guess they make a little bit. Anyway, that was funny. I liked explaining where we were to Rhodes. That was a fun twist. Kind of bad for the break.

Ken explained Hitler to a kid. You guys are all chaotic. Shut the fuck up. Sorry. Ken's been real into interrupting me lately. I'm going to have to find out a way to destroy his character. No, no, I am not so much defensive so much as I'm letting you know I'm onto your schemes. Okay.

And yeah, you guys are all chaotic good. Lekas is lawful good. And he's been enjoying the wrecking crew kind of bulldoze lifestyle with you guys for a while. But he's got to get back to his Mormon mission. Well, he mentioned in the last episode, what did we just do? He's kind of shaken off. Oh, I remember that. Yeah, he was was like wait a minute

well i was worried about myself doing that because i'm chaotic good but what i want to do is um instead of making you change your alignment um we are in a very evil land where evil seems to be the predominant presence not everything is evil but everything appears evil so it can be difficult at times to figure out. So what I'm gonna instead do is put the pressure on you guys to figure out for yourselves what you're gonna do. And you'll see a little bit what I'm talking about. It's not gonna be too overt, but I'm gonna make sure

I frame everything that happens in a way where you get what you've done. Did we figure out? I think you sent me that there was a god for me that was better than Tyr. Oh, I meant to bring this up before we recorded. Yeah, but in one of our bonus episodes, I had suggested Tyr, which has always been sort of my go-to good god. But somebody didn't listen to him. He was really good for my fear.

There's a dude named Kord. K-O-R-D. I recommend you look up. That's a listener or that's a deity? It's a deity. It's both. Kord is the storm god and lord of battle. He revels in strength, battlefield prowess, and thunder.

Fighters and athletes revere him. He is a mercurial god, unbridled and wild, who summons storms over land and sea. Those who hope for better weather appease him with prayers and spirited toasts. He also flies the band around in a 707. He's more of a barbarian chaotic good guy. He's for sure chaotic good. And I was like, Tyr was my go-to guy.

I was like, you know, I boasted a lot about how I liked how 5th edition has a lot of gods to choose from I did some research I think cord is your dude K or D I think he's the guy Brian because when he described my pictured Bruce Dickinson he's got a very Conan the Barbarian ascending to Valhalla kind of vibe to him. And a pilot's license. Oh, he keeps crashing those planes, though. Does he? He's chaotic.

He can't keep them in the air. Ah, I think he just... Tribulants never brought down a plane, Dan. So, you're not sure which god Lekas worships, although he has a sigil on his shield, and he has made reference to his god a couple of times, and then he's familiar with the local good god, Mananan McLear, who's not particularly worshipped, but has apparently had influence locally, and he's... As a law office Manon in Manon in and Manon in yeah yeah but it sure is that in the back of a bus in front of me just for the motorcycle attorneys oh man so so yeah he he's kind of, he just got nailed, and now he's thinking about it a little bit.

Once your firebolt hits the woods, Tom, you guys all notice, just escaping the woods in time, a big flock of what looks like giant black insects just kind of flees the woods like you would expect bugs to flee the woods after a, a big flock of what looks like giant black insects just kind of flees the woods like you would expect bugs to flee the woods after a giant forest fire. And so you guys are past this clearing in the mountains and you see them kind of fly up like about 100 yards in the air above the clearing, just kind of like a big swarm. No sign of the elves from where you two and

Lekas are, but Tui, you see that in the middle, some of them are already trying to put out the fire enough to flee. Okay. What do you guys want to do? I'm going to get away from the swarm of giant insects. I'm going to fly to the

top of the mountain above where these guys are. So, I'm flying to fly to the top of the mountain above where these guys are. So I'm flying, I guess, I'm taking a position above those guys and keeping an eye on the- And are we still being fired on those? Let me get to that, actually. So before we get into that exactly, Uh, before we, we get into that exactly.

So you're, I'll, I'll give you a tweet that you get about to the clearing before anything happens. Uh, what do you two guys want to do? Just hang out behind the boulder and see what, what goes down? Uh, I mean, I was, yeah, ready to fight those guys if they're still fighting us. What's your armor class, Blaine? That's kind of a personal question, isn't it? I'm going to say 11. Okay.

I'll say 11. So you get nailed for three points of damage. An arrow hits you in the leg as you're flying away. And as you get hit, you look over your shoulder and you see... None of them are hits, but you see eight more arrows kind of volley past you. Coming up from the woods. Yeah, but last you saw, it looked like everybody was making a break for the deep woods. So that might just be like a final screw you.

You can't tell for sure. All right, I'm zipping back down out of sight. I guess down to the tree line or whatever, but out of sight line of anybody in the place. Just fuck that. What? He said fudge that. We're making ice cream sundaes. Sorry, everybody.

I just swore in front of a kid. We're all in the other room. We're getting fro-yos. So, yeah. You notice the swarm is starting to sort of like spin around and kind of like

get a feel for like maybe where the source of the fire came from. Almost like they're a mob sharing a mindset. I'm going to start singing We Didn't Start the Fire. Oh my goodness thank you melanie my wife just silently brought out a plate full of brownies

and a stack of captain american napkins adorable quiet murder all laced with poison because she's tired of us doing this uh yeah brownies Lekas looks at you guys and he goes he looks in the woods he looks at you guys he looks to the woods on fire and he goes gotta think gotta think I should say

something I feel like we had a real good time guys we did some real cool murdering but I think I got a duty to do something besides murder sometimes. I mean, we just can't just – I mean, you can. I mean, should we cross paths again, I will surely take up arms with you, but I think I need to... You guys go ahead and if you want to go to this castle up in the mountains,

maybe I'll follow you in a little bit even, but I think I'm going to go see what's going on in these woods. See if I can make peace with these elves. He's going to go back to the elves that are trying to kill us? Yeah. That seems like a bad idea.

Okay. So bad it's great. You're with him, though, right, Tom? I am going to... You three are together behind a boulder. Tui is flying overhead. Okay. But Bodhi and Tom, you're both with Lekas

while he sort of bids you a fond adieu. I'm going to try to explain to him how we sort of had no choice. I would like to hear Tom say it. We kind of had no choice in the situation. We kind of, you know, we were getting attacked, and we tried to defend ourselves. He says, yeah, man, I got hit by those bolts too, man. I get you, I get you.

But I was kind of a party to their woods getting lit on fire three times. And you know how elves can be, man. You know how elves can be. They're all protective of their leaves and their berries and all that junk. I feel like I should at least make clear our intentions on your behalf and mine. I think everything on this island that's on this island is evil

except for us. So they're not regular elves. They're not dark elves. They were not normal elves. You notice they had sharp teeth. Yeah. And then you decided Vampiric elves.

And then you decided they were fuck these guys. You don't know that they're vampires. You don't know that they didn't set off detect evil. They didn't. They're creepy elves. They were very creepy elves. They worship the moon.

Oh. Were elves. Were elves. Ah, shit. I think we were right to do it. Yeah. Yeah. yeah and again he says yep I got no beef with you guys

seem kind of like a bunch of fucking nerds but you know I'm going to just try and find out what's up with him there are these things this old scholar named Dr. Seuss or something. He wrote some book with the word nerd in it.

Yeah, it's a long story. If you hear any horrible eating noises, it's not me this time. It's Brian eating a brownie like four feet away from the mic so i really hope you can't hear my his hand over the mic too i leaned back when i was when i realized i was chewing because i don't want to get flamed on twitter so yeah he uh he says he gets it yeah he doesn't necessarily disagree with you guys, but he's going to put his hammer on his shoulder and his shield over it. Blame nose whistle.

What are you doing? He's nose whistling on purpose. I just wanted to say my piece. So he heads towards the smoking wood. Good luck. Stop, Blaine. It he heads towards the smoking wood. Good luck. Stop, Wayne. It was worse than the Casio. I'm eating a brownie,

and Ken and Brian are just silently laughing. Okay. I ate one really fast, by the way. Yeah, you did. Tell me what you guys want to do. Yeah, like, for what you can tell, Tui, once you get in the mountains, the arrows aren't following you. Finally, relax.

No more shots are getting fired at you guys. Lekas disappears off to the north far enough away from the flames where he can get into the woods. Let him go. Yeah, let him go do his thing. If he feels like he's got to do it. I just wanted him to know.

We didn't feel like we were doing anything particularly wrong. Just a little maybe wrong. Yeah, the way I looked at it was my guy Cord was guiding me and I wasn't doing anything he wouldn't do. Well, because I keep thinking the whole island is... Yeah, everything's fucked here.

Yep. All right. Sorry, I don't know why I thought I could eat that brownie and not have it disrupt everything. I'd like to think of myself, I guess it's officially chaotic good. I prefer to think of myself as chaotic good. Last episode, I remember there was questions of whether or not I would make you guys change alignment.

I thought about it, and I was like, as DM, I don't feel like I should make you unless you do something super evil. This is more fight or flight like you were saying, and I was like, you know, yeah. My alignment's fine, by the way. I got four new Pirellis for Father's Day. But yeah, my alignment's fine, by the way.

I got four new Pirellis for Father's Day. I mean, when I lit the trees on fire, that was out of self-defense, I felt. And also, I thought we were going to be fighting those things forever. Well, right. And for the record, I think it's all hilarious. I was laughing the whole time. And I'm going to tell you a couple other things that now happen. Maybe I'm leaning more on the chaotic than good.

Yeah. I mean, and also, what's your intelligence? My character? Yeah. A little bit more than my own. Nine. I'm about a seven. Yeah. So I feel like a character with a nine intelligence you know he's he's also not super fanatical religious and all it's fine it's fine

um but that said uh twee you notice up in the mountains uh some creatures are observing you guys i don't know if you guys remember those here on the other side now there was there were these ashen deer that looked like they were on stilts that you encountered on the beach when you had the time constraints. They were unpleasant. You notice there's... Where we look back up that way? So you guys are still kind of behind the boulder.

Tui is up here now in the mountains. If you're listening at home, Dan is pointing to a map. Let me describe it to you in detail. It's a rectangle with graph paper on it. Is this kind of a vaginal map? No. Oh, yeah. Here's the crevasse.

Here's the thing. Here's another potential thing. Sure. Well, that's herpes. Cank another potential thing. You've got to soar. Yeah. Oh, well, that's herpes. Canker. They come and go. I'm going to throw up on that map.

You notice there's two of these things, much as you encountered two before, and they're just sort of staring blankly back and forth at you and these guys in their little cluster. And there's also some other weird little creature with them that looks like about the size of a dog. That's weird. You can't quite make out what it is because you flew up in defensive mode.

They're looking at me. How far away are they, Ben? You guys can't see them yet. They're on a sort of cliff face a couple stories above these guys. Oh, so I don't even know. They're like 100 yards away from you a couple stories above these guys. Oh, so I don't even know. Okay. Who sees this? They're like 100 yards away from you, so you can see them pretty well, but you can't make

out exactly what they are yet. Hmm. I don't like them at all. Well, do I even know this? Is somebody telling me? Nope. Oh, okay. Tweet, you can tell them if you want.

You can circle down. You can go check it out. What do you want to do? Oh, just Blaine saw that. Sorry. Yeah. This is just Blaine right now. Okay. If I didn't think it was only going to last a few moments, I'd tell him

in another room or something. Are they following everything I do? A little bit. They're definitely focused on you. They look like they came to watch the party. They're very quiet and still though. Are they wearing anything? Are they just animals? No, They look like animals.

Well, you recognize the shapes of the two stilt-like deers. They're, you know, very familiar in shape from that encounter on the beach. But the other creature, maybe the dog's kind of squat looking. You can't quite make it out, but there's something definitely odd about it. Hmm. Weird. Set one on fire. I'm thinking about it. It's my new thing. Hey, can I just sort of float there and stare back?

Mm-hmm. I'm just gonna stare back and see what happens. I'd kill you with staring. and stare back. Mm-hmm. I'm just gonna stare back and see what happens. I kill you with staring. After about a solid 90 seconds of silence, you hear what sounds like a voice coming from the three

of them going, here, here, there, here, there. Are they pirates? Slurry drunk pirates?

It's far away, so I'm,hing it up a little bit for the distance. Okay. Someone's calling to you from the three. Can't tell which. That's a little one. I think I'll fly a little closer. Fly a little? You get a little closer.

I'll fly a little closer. Fly a little? You get a little closer. And again, you're more sure that those two creatures are what you saw before. The middle creature, the dog-sized creature, is not a dog. It has the body of what looks like a toad and a human face. And it's wearing a little cape. It's super Toadman. As you get closer, it says,

Oh there! I need to speak to you! Is it related to the Toad people that we... Is that from earlier in the game? Way earlier? What Toad people did you guys...

Am I thinking of another game? The Kill Bugs? Are you thinking of another campaign, maybe? Yeah. Anyway, yeah, a little toad with a face on it. I need to speak to you. Sounds like John Huston. Oh, I need to speak.

Do you speak for your party, sir? Who? What's your name? Before you answer, don't wear it out. I am Torzo the Phantasmal, and I speak for Count Barriss. The governor has an issue with you. What? We don't hear anything still.

Well, I hail in fine finding thee, sir, oh, ambassador of McDonaldland. I prefer to be called the phantasmal. land. I prefer to be called the phantasmal. Excuse me for a second. I'm going to... As you leave, he keeps making that weird

ho noise. He's like, ho, trying to get your attention. He's very creepy, as I probably have already laid out very clearly. Yeah. I'm going to sort of like zip Very creepy, as I probably have already laid out very clearly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to sort of like zip down to where these guys are and go,

hey, heads up, there's a toad and some stilt deer up above. What are they doing? I don't know. I'm going to go back up and kind of, but just want to, just so you know there's something happening upstairs we head up there I'll head up that way I'm ready to go in case there's anything okay but you know I'm keeping a safe distance I guess i'm making sure they're not armed with anything are there trees where towards yeah there's little outcroppings like this little grassy patches with pine trees am i getting a good or evil kind of a magical vibe

from um you're getting a vaguely evil vibe and blaine just told us where they are right so uh-huh so i'm to head up, but I'm going to also kind of stay close to cover when I can. The two deer are very still, but the little toad creature is kind of shifting very uncomfortably. He looks like some sort of abomination. There looks like he was created in some way. A human face on a toad, I get it.

Yeah, he's got a very leathery body that's bag-like with weird little webbed paws. And a hairless head, but almost looks like an old Winston Churchill face kind of stuck on it. It's white. His face is very white, but his body is a dark sort of leathery gray. Is it just some sort of trick projection being thrown up by those two creepy deer? I don't think so. I think he's a weird creature. Should we kiss? He says, I am the phantasmal. No, it's Torzo guy.

Torzo. Torzo. You're phantasmal. No, it's Torzo guy. Torzo. Do we still, are we? Tell us when we get to him. Yeah, where are we? So, as you approach him, he says,

oh, I fear you come to speak with Count Barriss. You are not welcome here, you are not welcome. You are the ones who slayed the other Counts, are you not? Well, the Counts. You slayed Count Dengal. You slayed Count Amalegda. You are not welcome here. Count Barriss forbids it. Well, we're going to slay him.

No! No, you are not permitted to slay. I, Torzo the Phantasmal, am here as a messenger. You are not permitted to slay. I, Torzo the Phantasmolim, here as a messenger. You are not welcome. How far away is Torzo? He's at this point about 20 feet in front of you. You're pretty close. And he seems to be some sort of...

He's unarmed. His hands don't look like they could do more than hold very simple tools. But he's wearing like a royal cape. He looks like he's been dressed by somebody with working thumbs. Where's, uh... What's the deal with the guys around him? The two deer are

standing over him and they're staring right at you. And just a quick refresher because I know there's a lot going on in this land that's just fucked up, and at a certain point it might all run together. When you encountered these things before, they approached you,

they shrank their arms down, tried to walk towards you on two legs, and you cut them both in half, and their corpses turned into the corpses of normal deer. Right. Okay. So that was your last encounter with these things. And there's two of them again and they're staring at you.

But they attacked me last time. Nope. Nope. Like many things you just straight up killed them unprovoked. You decided they were creepy and you would just hack them in half. God, I don't remember that. I can't remember. I can tell you I like you. killed them unprovoked you decided they were creepy and you would just hack them in half i can't remember i can tell you i like you i don't mind that you don't remember that's why i like being the person who uh tells things like sorry because i get to see the look on your faces you have to you have to deal with it. Alright. I want to put him in my pocket.

He's a cute little thing. Do you tell him that? What do you guys say to this guy? We can have a lot of fun goofing on how he looks like a real pile of shit. Is he guarding the actual couch? There's enough mountains here

where you can't see the castle yet. But according to the map, you guys are in these foothills, and the mountain can't be far away. I think if you go through a couple of mountain passes, you'll hit it. He seems to have come down through a pass with these two as a sort of messenger. Yeah, well, we slew the others because they were evil. Yeah, you got an evil vibe, yeah. I'm saying, I'm telling him.

Oh, that's you're telling him? That's why we killed him. Oh, but we are all that is left. Do you not understand? We have a very, very delicate balance. There is nothing here. The evil is the only way to survive. Yeah, but you've turned innocent people.

Oh, but where else will they go? What do you mean? There's no more world! Sorry, I need to think of a way to say this in this really stupid voice. He says, If you speak of the vampirism, it is a gift.

You are all that is left. You will not last long without it. We must pass on the gift of the vampirism, it is a gift. You are all that is left. You will not last long without it. We must pass on the gift of the undeath. Without the undeath, how will you live? How will you experience the universe in this small land that is all that is left? You may live forever with Count Barriss' gift. I really don't know. Don't you want to live forever? Don't you want to live forever?

Don't they want to live forever? There's nowhere else to go. Oh! We're trying to bring things back to the way they were. Yeah, we think if we destroy these evil priests or these evil... Vampires? Yeah. These vampires, that we can turn it.

He says, you do not want to slay the vampires. They are the keepers of order in this place. You speak of the Demolith. Right. He was once a vampire. He has transcended the physical form. Right, but we're killing the other Pete guys first and then we'll get him.

That seems very rude. Comparis is my master. He gives me life. Then tell us how to get to the Demolith. Where is he? You wish to slay the Demolith? You will never get back to your world. You need his help.

Well, then we want to find the Demolith so we can get back to our world. How about that? Will you kill me? Not if you're not a dick. He waddles up to you in a really gross way. And he says, what is a dick? Show him. This.

Oh, my! You must be half-orc. That is very frightening. Is that an exoskeleton? It didn't make the thump I wanted it to. You were hoping for more of like a... Yeah, but I did it onto the book. The monster energy drink tattoo

kind of really makes it. Your metal bracelet makes a great noise. It sounds like he's got a dangly piercing or something. He goes, oh, well, you have not slain me yet. Perhaps I can at least get you an audience with Count Barriss, but you must promise not to slay anyone. Can't make that promise. If you cannot make that promise, you are not welcome.

Oh, my God. I'm beginning to be afraid of you! Should I be afraid? Sometimes. When you say sometimes, he scurries off into the mountains like a terrier. He was starting to shake a little bit

as you started talking more about death and you whipped your giant half-orc wiener out. But once you say say, and you imply that you might actually kill him, he, like a bolt, just flies up the mountain, just going like skrrt, skrrt, skrrt, skrrt, skrrt, skrrt. And the two deer, with crazy agility because they've got these long stilts

kind of like, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, up into the mountains to follow him. Okay. Creepy. Let's follow them. Yeah. Cool. As you head farther up into the mountains, you notice the crowd of black giant insects seems to have dispersed. Good, because I didn't like them.

You're really just going through one mountain pass here. There's a big hill, big hill, and it only takes you about an hour to get through, and you see the castle in the distance. There are some gardens around the castle. It seems to be in rather good shape, but much of everything is still dark. You get a very evil vibe from the whole castle.

It's almost definitely a vampire castle based on what you know of this Count Barriss guy. Count Barriss. Yeah. See the gone count? Did we already make that joke last time? No. Remember his name, Chuck Barriss?

Oh. We're going to have to fight Gene Gene the dancing machine JP Morgan all of a sudden one big black bug starts going past really fast oh yeah they're back

but it's just one of them? Uh-huh. Where is it? It just flew through the mountain pass and it looks like it's circling back and it's gonna do another flyby. Like close to us? Like flying down low?

In a threatening flyby? You can't tell. It's, you know, the size of a fist. Well, I'm ready to bat it away when it comes back through. All right. It comes back through. I'll swing at it. You're going to swing at it?

Yeah. All right. Roll a 20. And so this is... We were talking about the new wave rolling. Yeah. I'm really trying to get this right because I was listening to an episode. We were talking about the new way of rolling.

Yeah, I'm really trying to get this right because I was listening to episode, I think it was nine, and I gave you an attack roll as damage. Let's take a break. Break. We'll talk about this in a second. We're back. Hi, everybody.

We're back. Hey. We're back. We're back. We're back. Full of pizza pie. We didn't eat it on camera. Oh, here comes Mavis.

Hi. Hi, Mavis. Jay Leno's wife. Excuse me. That's what you would want more of. Jay Leno's wife is under the table right now. I'll say. Hang on.

Get back under there. Why can't you be a Duesenberg? Why are you holding a bug's body? Get out of the garage. I told you, not in the garage. Hey, what do you have? Oh, is she chewing on something? What'd you get? My radon detector.

The foot of my laptop, I think, fell off. The little plastic pad. I would not like that anymore, please. Alright. What are you doing weirdo lay down why how did you get part i guess it fell off because it's hanging over the table yeah lay down hey all right oh good girl so but a stereo you're gonna swing at this fist-sized bug that is flying at you.

And I'm going to say you know, because it is the size of a fist, if you swing it with the flat side of your sword, it's going to be an easier but potentially less damaging hit. If you swing with the blade, you could potentially cut it in half, but there's less surface area of your sword to connect with the small object flying at you. So which do you want to do? Because I'm going to make you do a dex check before you do an attack roll, because if you don't make the dex check, or you can do...

Hey, you can do dex or you can do athletics, because it's basey ball. Do you want to split it or smash it? Do you have an athletics bonus that's better than your dex? Yeah. Okay. What is it, plus four? Yeah. Cool.

So why don't you roll a 20, and if you get a plus four and it's over 10, you connect with this thing. Wait, unless, do you want to do flat of your sword or blade of your sword? Because if you're going to do the blade, then it's a 12. It's a little harder. So you got to plus flat of your sword or blade of your sword? Because if you're going to do the blade, then it's a 12. Okay.

It's a little harder. So you got to plus your bonus with a 20. You want to use the tower? We got the tower lights. Oh, yeah. What is it? 11. 11.

Plus four? Yeah, you connect. Nice. We call that a stranger thing. Roll for damage. that's your attack so that's your decks I'm sorry so your decks check is you are going to be able to hit it okay now you can do the attack if you had missed this it would have been a for sure whiff okay so now roll to attack and so this is going to be your um strength bonus uh which is

plus five uh plus your 20 versus this thing's armor class 15 plus five that is that is a hit okay cool it was a really hard thing to hit but you you hit it. That's where the 5th edition roll gets fun, I guess. Do I even need to do damage on the thing? Actually, you do. Because as it turns out, this is a sentient creature as opposed to just a bug bug. Brian, you're killing something. It's thinking. Where is he? he so one second hey

Blaine what is this me pulling up my spreadsheet brought to you by this was brought to you by a chic chic chic skin condoms warm and winter cool in summer no more stanky on your hang down. Chic sheepskin condoms. So how much damage do you do this thing, Brian? Is there a bonus on that or no? Yeah. What's your damage bonus? Now I'm all confused because we've moved these numbers around. I know, I know.

Sorry about that. Count the money. De Monet. I know. Sorry about that. Count to money. De Monet. Where would that be? De Monet. Count to money. It's you... Oh, wait. It says it right here. Yeah, plus two to damage

with your great sword because of your proficiency, so... Yeah, and plus four if I'm raging and I wasn't raging. Okay, so you rolled what? A I'm raging and I wasn't raging so okay so you rolled what three two sixes you roll two sixes right yeah what came up I didn't even buy two and one two and one so yeah three and then so five cool so your blade connects right with the middle of this thing. And you hear a loud, squishy crunch. And it sticks to your sword for a second,

and it flops to the ground. Nice. And what do you do? Is it dead? No. But it's twitching on the ground. I finish it. As you get closer, you notice it is a fairy of some kind.

Why were you attacking us? I just wanted to see if it was you guys. Oh, is it Gago? Yeah, it's Gago, you piece of shit. Are you kidding me? No, it's fucking Gago. Sorry. Why did it look so unfamiliar?

You fucking gut shot me with your sword motherfucker i only got 10 hit points you rolled higher i would have been fucking split why were you flying at us like a fucking asshole because you just set the forest on fire motherfucker and i wanted to see if it was you we don't really like him anyway, right? Should I just... I could have just stopped him. He led you to the drow cave where you got your gauntlets

of ogre power. That's true. Okay. In case I'm not gonna step on him. Yeah, and we got him drunk. He was funny. He's got a big... I think the fans like him.

...gash in his stomach from where he came in. Sorry, fans. Can we heal him? I don't know. Do you have any healing abilities, Blaine? I don't. Lekas was your cleric, and he's Gonsville. Hey, Gago, go find Lekas and have him heal you and bring him back.

I'm a good bitch. I was kidding. I have a cure wound spell. Oh, great. Do you want to use it? Yeah, I'll use it. Why don't you give that a roll, won't you? I'm going to strum my little magical lute. I'm going to sing a little song called

Novocaine for the soul. Because that's a song by The Heels. Oh, I love it. They're one of my favorite bands I appreciate the reference how many what's the what's a cure wound sorry figure out how much cure wounds yeah brought to you by this cure wounds spell that brought to you by? This Cure Wounds spell is brought to you by Swiftnuts. It's like a Swiffer, but it's smaller, and it's for the dust on your nuts. Swiftnuts. What?

Look, I can't do this as well as Blaine. That's all I wanted to do. Welcome to my world. The dust on your nuts? Some Swiftnuts. Hey, tired of walking around with dusty nuts. Some swift nuts. Hey, tired of walking around with dusty nuts? Get swift nuts. It's for your dusty nuts.

1d8 plus my spell modifier. Which is? I don't know what my fucking modifier is. If it's more than three, then he's fully healed. I can't believe I fucked up Kaka. I can. I absolutely knew that was going to happen. I had a feeling somebody should talk

to him first. I can't believe you didn't fuck up Torzo the Phantasmal. I thought he was going to get face stomped any second. I can use this as a higher level spell too. I can use this as a fourth level spell. What are you going to do? I can use this as a fourth level spell which. What are you gonna do? I can use this as a 4th level spell, which is 1d8 for each slot above first, so 4d8. Cool.

Healed. That's 1. That's 5. Oh, he's totally healed. He's fine. 11. That's five. Oh, he's totally healed. He's fine. He's fine. Eleven. It's growing bigger. Yeah, 15 inches. So cool. After you lay hands on him, he flutters up to about eye level and goes,

Look, man, I've been trying to follow you guys just to see if you do anything hilarious, and you started setting shit on fire. I've been trying to talk my buddies into not killing you in a swarm. And then I was like oh shit shit that is I think it's I think I can talk to him if I can just fly over and then I stabbed you sorry yours I couldn't tell if it was zero I was trying to just do a quick flyby I was trying to be chill a quick flyby. I was trying to be chill. You seemed like you were attacking us. That's why I swung on you.

Look, I'll be perfectly honest. I wanted to see if you looked like you were having more of that booze before I really talked to you. And then I was just going to go back in the woods. I think you still got some of that booze left. You got a little bit of that sweet shit. You got that good shit, bro.

Alright. Hey, bro. All right. Hey, bro, you got some of that sick shit? He just needs like an eyedropper's full, right? Yeah, man. Who has it? It takes nothing to fill him up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then he's going to take a nap in a tuna can.

He will. Give it to him. So he takes a swig and he goes, Oh, you guys can go fuck up this vampire in the mountains, ain't you? Yeah, what do you know about him? Oh, he's one of the big ones, man. He's more powerful than those other guys. Well, do we have to defeat the vampires to get the Demolith to bring our world back?

Oh, you want to? Oh, right. You're trying to bring your world back. That's fucking hilarious. No, right. You're trying to bring the world back. That's fucking hilarious. Nah, man. If you want to try to... I mean, the Demolith is the most powerful. He doesn't deal directly with these vampires too much.

The vampires just kind of run the day-to-day shit and enslave all the beings and all that stuff. But, you know... So, ultimately, we don't even have to kill the vampires nah man you probably want to go hang out with you go straight to the demo lift if you want oh I guess building the stats is a good call yeah it's up to you I mean there's all sorts of crazy shit in this castle right yeah let's I don't know much about any of the vampires except you killed a couple and then the one here is

kind of the badass that freaks me out a little bit. Barriss? Yeah, Barriss is pretty freaky shit, man. Do you see any of those stilt monsters? If you like weird-ass monsters, there's a lot of weird-ass monsters in this dude's castle. Let's go see Barriss.

Yeah? It's close. I might be able to help you guys find another way in there let's go see bears yeah you want to take this shit out I might be able to help you guys find another way in there if you want to if you want I can't promise I'll follow you how much is left in this episode okay

well we got 10 minutes or so maybe check out what you got there your entrance alright man minutes or so. Maybe check out what you got there. Your entrance. Alright, man. Keep setting shit on fire. I was on board with that shit. That was pretty cool. I don't know why that dragon bitch left. He's kind of a puss though, right?

We can all agree he was a puss. Lekas? Yeah, man. I liked him. Yeah, but he's kind of a little bitch. Not everybody likes you. No, man. I liked him. Yeah, but he's kind of a little bitch. Not everybody likes you. No, man. I fuck a lot, though. Every day.

I get the fuck on with my fairy bitches. That's a straw statistic. That's not what we were talking about. I riled, I riled. So, yeah, he'll tag along with you guys. Great. So, yeah, he'll tag along with you guys. Great.

He suggests you spend some time climbing up some more. Now that you can see the castle and the gardens, he suggests you try to get a little bit of an eagle-eye view on this castle to try to maybe find a non-typical way in. The gardens, he says, are full of weird little monsters that are the Lord's servants there. I am going to get invisibled and then get a fresh fly on myself, and I'm going to go on a little mission. Sounds good. You want to fly way up there? Yeah. Can you fly twice as high if you read a book? Read Rainbow?

I can. Yeah, I can, actually. Okay. I fucked the lyrics up a little bit there. I thought you were going for a Lenny Kravitz thing. And now I'm in my head trying to think if I should have done a joke about how I'm just going to... His penis fell out that one time? I'm going to wait until we get up to cruising velocity, or cruising

altitude, and then I'm gonna turn to the magazine, but somebody already did the Sudoku, and I go, come on. I'm glad I didn't do either one of those. Once you get there, you see high towers in this castle.

It's got... It's standing on like a spire of rock there seems to be a natural pit between the mountains with a spire rock that the castle's built on a little drawbridge and uh there's gardens around the drawbridge this castle seems very busy it seems like there's a lot of beings in this castle not Not necessarily of a fighting kind. There seems to be lots of little... Remember that vibe you got off the weird little Toad Man? Torzo, the phantasmal.

It was like a dog with a... Dog shape that's kind of squat from a distance. You get the same kind of vibe. There's a lot of weird little squirming shapes. So this guy's like a Dr. Moreau kind of... That's the vibe that Tui is getting right now. vibe there's a lot of weird little squirming so this guy's like a dr moreau kind of that's the vibe you're that uh twee is getting right now that there's some sort of oh i'm not even seeing this again no but i think we can again i'm not going to make twee uh do this separately because i assume he'll just come right back and uh yeah you have to leave the room if well i here's here's the thing if blaine starts to say i'm going to go on uh mission impossible

attack without telling everybody then i'll make you guys have a seat and go play Nintendo Switch in Brian's living room. That would be terrible. How do you want me to phrase that again? So, yeah, there's two main castle towers. There's a very, very, very small castle courtyard, whereas when you were at Count Amalegda's this castle there's sort of a big courtyard where people were setting up kind of like party supplies to invite the other vampires

here there's almost just like a round little hallway between the outer wall and the keep but along all the keep walls you see these little squirming beings different shapes all of them none of them the same and and where's the window where the count looks out and we i can lasso him around the neck and yank him out you'd no sign of any anyone of stature i'm gonna i'm gonna need that window where he like looks out and i can grab him unexpectedly and yank him out by his neck. You can do that for me. Come on, Dan. There's some windows in the Spire Tower.

Do you want to get in real close? Sure, yeah. All right, let me see which one you... Okay, so you want to go to the north or the south tower? You know, I'm feeling... I'm feeling north. Let's go north. So the top floor has a window.

And when you look inside of it, it's dark, but your elf eyes can pierce it. And you see what looks like an observatory. You see a telescope. You see fancy chairs. Oh, chairs. And nobody's inside it. Really?

Yeah. Huh. And the windows are open, closed? There's one balcony balcony um it's got doors that can open or close but they're just wide open you know what i'm gonna zip a little uh gonna kind of zip a little in there yeah yeah yeah i'm invisible i'm flying all right uh hey ken and brian you want to go watch some uh wrestling vhHS tapes in the other room for a couple? Yeah, we'll call soon. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You probably only got about five minutes, right? Yeah, I feel like I can give him five minutes worth of investigating if you guys just want to scoot live without having to pause. We'll do a little whisper sesh, Blaine. Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody. we'll do a little whisper sesh Blaine so

you duck in and all sorts of astronomy gears in here there's globes, there's maps there's all kinds of stuff and there's a stair in the back of the room that leads down there's an alchemy set up here

there looks like a bar with maybe some alcohol in it okay what do you want to do no sign of any i just saw them on the back porch that's why i'm gonna get a little louder okay there's no but there's nobody, no movement in there. No, it's not like there's somebody working on it. Nope. Working on stuff. Nope. You feel like this is a very leisurely tower and someone took it for granted.

You feel like you just walked into somebody's beach house, into the veranda. Maybe they're in another room somewhere. Do any of these potions give off like a magical kind of vibe? Nope, just kind of liquor Looks like there might be some good stuff here though Huh I'm gonna take a nice bottle of it and I'm going to

You know what I'm not I'm gonna leave... You know what? I'm not. I'm going to leave. You're not going to touch anything? No, I'm not going to touch anything. I'm going to think a little better of it. Before you leave, let me give you a better sense of the room, because if you're going to leave, I should tell you everything that you saw, since you're not going to have a little interaction description.

There was a big, what looked like medicine cabinet that was likely full of liquor. It was just a tall glass door it was full of bottles there was a side table the kind of thing that you might put uh various uh booze stuff in next to it on the other side of the room there was another side table and it had alchemy instruments on top of it everything was empty there's no active potions and it was very fancy alchemy instruments. There was, I'll say, like a long wood table, not unlike the one we've got

with a bunch of ornate chairs around it, but it didn't look like any food had been served on it. It was very clean, very pristine. And there's a chair on the deck next to the telescope where people can look out into the sky or across the mountains is uh on the way out i'm gonna take a look into the telescope and see what he's looking at you look through the telescope and you can see into the night sky uh beyond the mist even and uh you you see what looks like very violent cosmic smashing you see nebulas stars colliding it looks it looks unlike anything

you've ever seen um just beyond the mists in the in the sky that you haven't been able to see since you landed here. Oh. That's new. Okay. Yeah. And the telescope is just kind of casually pointed up. You know, looks like maybe they just walked away, perhaps just down the stairs. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm going to leave. You're going to fly back to the group? Yeah, I'm going to fly back to the group. Cool. Well, I guess this has been episode 13 of Nerd Poker, you guys. Might have been the smartest thing I've ever backed out of. Make sure to check out our social media,

and hopefully Brian will drop any tour dates he's got for himself or if Blaine's got a Lucha Vivoom coming up. Yeah, oh, Lucha Vivoom in New Orleans, July 18th and 19th. Oh, hell yeah. Make sure you tell Brian to drop that in the next episode because that might have happened by the time this one airs. Yeah, I don't know when this one airs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Make sure you tell Brian to drop that in the next episode because that might have happened by the time this one airs. But you guys rock.

Thanks for all your support. Please check out our Patreon. We just found out who the July guest is going to be. So if you don't know already, it's a pretty sweet one. Bye guys. Thanks for listening to another episode of nerd poker.

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