Nerd Poker - Episode 8 - Bonnkyl College Tour

Episode Date: April 4, 2018

After a brief tour through Twee's PTSD, our heroes arrive at Gostel, the second mage college that a strange cult is attempting to indoctrinate. Poor Bodhi is subjected to some extremely boring waiting around, and it only increases the chance of some major smashy smash. And a brief apology for the shorter episode- we wanted to record 3 in one night before Dan and Brian had to go on some long trips! We hope you enjoy the silly bonus nonsense at the end of the episode.

Hey everybody, I'm Brian Poussaint Comedian, writer, actor, nerd. I've been playing D&D with my friends for a long time. I decided to do a new podcast where we play Dungeons & Dragons in my very own dining room. With my wife, kid, and my noisy dogs. So meet my friends... Sarah. Ken. Sam.

Lee. Now it's time for another episode of Brian Pussain's Nerd Poker Season 2. Hey, everybody. It's Brian Pussain. You're listening to Brian Pussain's Nerd Poker. Rose is already in bed. It's episode eight. Episode eight and nine are going to be shorter.

Not by much. Don't freak out. Only 48 or 49 minutes. My friends are here. That's one of by much. Don't freak out. Only 48 or 49 minutes. My friends are here. That's one of my friends. That's Blaine. Sarah, Ken, Dan, and Blaine are here. Dan's got some family stuff coming up and I'm

gone next week so we're trying to figure out how to not skip it a week. Because you would really hate that, right? Yeah, so we're going to do a couple of shorties. Two shorter episodes tonight. We won't miss them. Sarah can't hang and be in the second one,

which would be episode nine, right? Because we're doing eight. Yeah, so forgive us, but we'll be back to your regular scheduled program, episode 10. Yep. They'll be an hour long and rambling as usual. That reminds me of this thing that happened i remember once i was talking about geach kook do you know who that's the episode we only have 42 minutes left actually you guys discovered a lot in the last episode you analyzed

the shit out of a star chart you gained a cook you commandeered some horses you discovered a dragon took over uh some space right yeah you now have a cook named Typha who is tagging along. Typha Mary. At least as far as Gastel. She's like, sure. Are there any animated characters' genitals that we need to mention? Yeah, let's thank some Patreons. Mickey Mouse's dick.

Thank you, Minimum Falcon. Made the Kessel run I'm kidding Thanks Jace M Thanks Jace Thanks Star Command Me and Ken are the only ones that laughed at that Including all our listeners Peter Long

Thank you Peter Long Thanks Peter Thank you L Peter Long. Thanks, Peter. Thank you, Lolo Nene. Lolo Nene. By the way, those are both joke names. I don't think. Thank you, Casey Ransom.

Thanks, Casey. And thank you, Marvin England. Thanks, Marvin. Thanks, Marvin. Marvin England, England. Cross the Atlantic Sea. That's Marvin the Martian. Oh, I thought it was Marvin Gaye.

Alright, so yeah, you guys just managed to freak out a little kobold army that appears to be marching towards the city of Tenet, and you're headed south to Gastel. As you guys head south, Typha says, Oh boy. Glad I don't have to deal with more of those

kobolds. I might have to smash a few more of them. Yeah, well, you're not made out of pans. I am, actually. She takes out four pans. My specialty is pan combat. Oh, I remember you from the labyrinth. That's where I know you from.

She's the master of the pan. Smash. Can I give her a dagger? Does she need anything? She says, oh, exciting. I don't really have a formal weapon. I thought she might want one. Does she have one of those electric Thanksgiving knives?

I had one that was a blue something. I tell her she can borrow it for a little while. But it's a magic. Yeah. You haven't identified it yet. She turns it over in her hand, thanks you. She takes one of her kitchen knives out of

a little sort of covering and she attaches the covering to her belt and sticks the dagger in it and says I look forward to using this if I don't mind saying so. See, you're finally getting to be a soldier. Yeah, she's like, oh boy. I hope I get to stab something.

Oh, this is why she wasn't allowed into the army. She tells you, actually, no, she wasn't allowed into the army just because she was poor. And they don't really go out into the outskirts of Tin Man. Oh, right, right, right. Maybe she should join ICE. As someone on the other side of the wall,

she also doesn't feel welcome inside of ice. Wow, this is sort of like an allegory episode, man. But yeah, it's about a half a day's trek down to Gostel. Are you guys going to follow the road or not? What's the plan? What's the plan? Headed to another... Yeah, I know.

It's fucking... Blaine's head literally hit the table. I'm sorry. I have to go to a place in my head and forgive myself. I've come step to your dumb joke. Allie Corey invented the internet-y.

Jesus Christ. Ryan, we're sitting too close. I think you've caught it. You've caught my early onset dementia. Do we see any people gathering and doing any sort of ritual behavior? Praise me for that joke. We don't see that.

What did Tipperary think of that? No, we don't see that. What did Tipperary think of that? Oh. Oh, Jesus. His roommate in college was Tommy Lee Jonesy. Good God. Sam, cut all this out.

Sam, Sam. There's two legs hanging from a leg. No, no. Sam killed himself-y. So, no. Sam killed himself-y. So, yeah. Unlike the episode, we're staying on the road. Somehow Sarah had the best joke. That's why Sarah's back. Yeah, okay.

So you're sticking to the road. For a while, it seems like a good plan. Everybody do a perception check, please. And so is... 17. What the fuck? So is Typhus. I botched my perception check. Okay. 12. I did much better.

You scratch your back and don't ask it. You're at 12. What did you have? 17. What did you have? 6. You notice off to the west that there every once in a while seems to be some sort of what do you call it? A kobold warrior just a little bit into the trees marching to the

south. Oh, like they're watching us? Maybe kind of glancing over their shoulder, but they look like they're marching like that army was. Oh, towards them. Not towards us. They're going to the dragon. You get the impression that they're kind of

seeing you coming and going in the woods so you don't attack them, but they want to keep heading. We're a threat. We do need to go back and try to help Tinette at some point, but I guess it's more important that we save people from turning into muscles. We're in the middle of so many wars.

Seriously. I don't know which way to jump. This definitely feels like the right way to go to head out of there. Yeah, and you manage to get to the outskirts of Gostel. We're tad Gostel. They're a much smaller city. In fact, it seems like almost just a wizard community. It doesn't seem like

Tinat, where there was a town with suburbs, with a mage tower, and a school. This seems like it's a huge mage tower. There's wizards just kind of everywhere, studying, smoking their little Gandalf pipes. Listen.

So condescending. It is. And it also seems more primitive. There's a lot of just like smoking their little Gandalf pipes. Listen. I want to enlist all of them. So condescending. It is. And it also seems more primitive. There's a lot of just like cobblestone overgrown with grass as opposed to like, it looks like an old city. Okay, so we got to get to see the headmaster or whatever immediately. The Dumbledore?

The Dumbledore. Don't know what you're talking about. Never heard that word before in my life. Knock on the Dumbledore? The Dumbledore? Don't know what you're talking about. Never heard that word before in my life. Knock on the Dumbledore. Yeah, I mean, you only get a little bit of the way in before a few of these guys kind of run up to you and kind of get in your way. Hey, wizards.

The wisest beardies. You guys are kind of weird. Of all these dudes. Well, they're like, what are you doing here? Like, what do you want? We're here to warn you. We need immediately to speak with the, are they called the, I would know what they're called, what are you doing here? Like, what do you want? We're here to warn you. We need immediately to speak with the, are they called that? I would know what they're called, the headmaster or whatever.

Big Chief Grand Poobah Wizard. They tell you, well, the Archmage is busy studying. I don't think you can speak to him right now. Ken, talk to them about how important it is. I'm going to persuade him. Persuade or intimidate? Intimidate. No, I just said persuade.

Wait, what is my persuasion though? You get a smaller but I still think big persuasion bonus. Yeah, intimidate is better. We just don't want to start a war, but okay. I mean, that's the risk you run when you roll with Tom Peretto. Intimidate. Okay, he's an intimidator. I'm not going to be that intimidating though.

Watch. Okay, I'm very intimidating. He rolled a 30. How did you roll a 30 on that intimidate? I'm just saying, we need to see the Archmage. Let me think for a second how you would react to a 30 intimidate, because I

feel like that's a really special, horrible thing you just did. Can his pointy hat go... Well, there's two of these guys, and they're young. They look like they're probably students. Can their hats switch? They kind of look like prefects.

They're just jobbed to roam around the outskirts of the town and make sure nobody rides their horses. Are they both red-haired? No, they're... It's not the Weasley brothers? You know Weasleys, Sarah? Don't know what you're talking about. I just, on the right over here, talked to her about it.

She hasn't read Harry Potter. Stuff that seeps into my brain. Don't spoil them by... Ginny or something? Hmm? Ginny? Ron? Ginny, Ron.

Look, I haven't read any of these, and I know this stuff. I know. This is what the world is now. I know. Just watch the movies tonight. You'll be all caught up. Okay. These guys are going to actually do a saving throw because I've decided.

Let it be known that Ken was literally just twirling his mustache right now. How do you think he gets it to look like that? So your intimidation was so aggressive that it was like a psychological attack, and one of them failed their saving throw. So one of the guys seems very accommodating and he starts kind of nervous and upset, like waving. The other guy starts

crying. And he sits on the ground and he starts lamenting like, I really I'm just a student, please. And he's just inconsolable. He's like, I'm just a student. I'm just a student. Please. And he's just inconsolable. He's like, I'm just a student. I'm just a student, please.

Should I light him up? No, I don't know. I'm not going to light him up. I was just going to break his neck. Tui, for just a second. For just a second, Tui. You joke, perhaps. I'll let you decide if you just said that out loud in character. But, and we've heard Tui talk in his voice for a while.

There's a flash from his fingernails. You do, for a second, as he falls to the ground, you just get a quick flash of what he would look like if he were a charred skeleton. Jesus. And I think about that kid, right? And I get bummed, right? Really bummed.

You get really bummed. And you just kind of look at how you've just gotten through a bit of forest and you're in just like a clearing. I'm going to sit on the ground and start crying. All right. Okay, I was going to deal with the other guy crying, but I guess for the student, I'm just going to like kneel beside him and I'm going to like pat him on the back,

but I'm going to be like, it's okay, he's not going to hurt you, but man, you've got to toughen up. There's some real stuff coming. Okay? You've got to toughen up. You're going to be in the shit zone.

I'll do a persuasion check. Is that persuasion or is it like? You can tell me if it's like performance or. I mean, it's not acrobatics, which is what I have my best.

Okay, well, here is what we'll do. Let me look at your bonuses. Animal handling? Emotional. I don't have a lot of that. I think it's a persuasion. You're just trying to calm him down.

14 plus 2 is a 16. Yeah, he perks up. It's like, okay, okay, okay. Keep it together, devil. I'm not kidding, though. You really got to eyes on the prize here because we got some real stuff coming down the pipe. Some scary stuff. Some real stuff. He's like, yeah, he starts getting

in. These wizards are idiots. Oh, yeah. Then we all help Twee off the ground. Yeah, they're all kind of waving you towards the tower and you notice Twee's kind of far. He's lagging behind. Is there a wizard that can prescribe? Wizard of the Presence?

Lexa Prim. Twee's just back by the horses just kind of sitting on the ground I get my shit together and kind of make sure my makeup isn't running and then go follow you guys yeah you head over to the tower and there's another mage at the door

what do you want to say to him this guy seems fully grown he has white hair. He doesn't have a goofy wizard beard, but he does seem a little more serious. He kind of raises an eyebrow when you guys approach the tower and says,

there are protections against outsiders here. What is your business? We've come with terrible news from the College of Roke and we need to see the Archmage immediately. Persuasion check difficulty 10. I wanted to let Ken do that, but okay. 19.

He nods. You guys are allowed inside, and you're told to wait in the landing of the Mage Tower, and they will send word to the Archmage and see if he would like to have an audience with you. All right, I'm just going to, I guess I'm just going to read Entertainment Weekly. I'm going to try to find the most recent issue of Entertainment Weekly.

All right. So you're told the name of the Archmage is Sermanic. And Archmage Sermanic. What? It's all fantasy names I made up. They're all going to sound weird. What does Sermanic sound like? Depression. What? Manic Depression. Manic. Sermanic? It's all fantasy names I made up They're all going to sound weird What does Sermanic sound like? Depression

What? Manic depression Manic Sermanic No, not sir, but manic Sounds like manic depression Oh, okay I immediately thought of manic depression

He was manic until he got knighted Now he's Sermanic S-E-R-M-E-N-Y-K Sermanic I couldn't see how you spelled it when you said it Well I tried to not say it like If you would have said Sermenic Oh brother

There's just no way around the accident Like when you come up with fantasy names It's going to sound like something dumb Unless you're like If you ever play the Elder Scrolls video games Where they just give everybody like 30 syllables In their name so there's no way you'll confuse it With something Like Zeromalafalin where they just give everybody like 30 syllables in their name so there's no way you'll confuse it with something?

Like xeromalafalin. Okay, xeromalafalin. I won't remember why you exist because your name is confusing. It sounds exactly like Zinzerina, though. They all sound like antibiotics. Ask your doctor if xanthoplamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylamphylam Take serotonin to cure your sermene. Mainly to suicidal thoughts. At least there are no apostrophes in your names. Compulsive gambling. If you have a hard-on for more than 20 days,

call me. Non-intercourse pregnancy. Everybody notices as you wait in this sort of landing area, nobody's waiting with you. There doesn't appear to be any guards. You start waiting for a while. All these guys are magic, right? Yeah. You look down at the carpet.

There's just this orange thick, ruffly carpet. Looks kind of nice. There's some tapestries on the wall of wizards. You surmise they were other archmages. It's like a dry cleaners where all the wizards go. It's all their headshots.

I mean, this is taking too long. They could be starting the ritual at any time. You definitely are like, they're dragging their feet. At this point, you've spent about half a day traveling and you started just before sunup. So it's like one in the afternoon in Gastel. It's been about 14, 16 hours since the beginning of your adventure. Does anybody know how this starts?

Like, what do we tell these guys? What are the warnings? Like, what's the... People start acting crazy. No, they're going to have the fortune-telling party or whatever. Oh, yeah, right. I assume. Did we see any flyers for that shit?

You didn't really get much of a... Yeah, we didn't talk to him. We just went to talk straight to him. You kind of went straight for the main dude. Well, let's ask him. Can we ask anybody? We're still waiting. Is there anybody?

About an hour goes by. And you feel like you've been kind of... No, this is not acceptable. Sorry, I just remembered I have to pick up my quality eyeglasses. Okay. Do we know where he is? There is sort of like a... What are they called?

Like an archway. There's not a door. There's like an archway. It looks like a spiral staircase that goes up around the edge of the... I'm walking... There's nobody watching us right doesn't appear so let's go let's just keep looking for him do you head up the staircase yes uh how fast do you run through the up the stairs i don't know normal pace okay or should i roll a dice

before you have time to make say else. You run. 17. As you approach the doorway, you skid to a halt a little bit as you get a weird vibe and you just barely smash your nose against an invisible force. Okay. Okay, can we talk to the guy outside the door who let us in?

If you go back outside, there's nobody there. The guy who brought you in went up the stairs. Where's that fucking festival? No, no. The guy who brought you in went upstairs. Oh. He was...

Okay. You see there's plenty of other wizards just wandering around. Can we see if we can break this tweet? Anybody know how to break invisibles? We don't have time for this. I'm gonna be about to yell intimidatingly to whoever might hear it yeah well what was the guy's name that dropped us off uh sir so sir menick's the guy you want to see archmage yeah but sir sir sir fafflin or whatever the. You don't know his name. No, the guy who...

Sir Manic. I know, but the guy who was just with us was like Sir... Sir Fizzy... I did not give you his name. I thought you did. What was the Sir thing? I'm going to loudly demand he come down here at once.

Just like yell up the stairs. Using my persuasion. My intimidation. I'm going to see if there's anything here at once. Just like yell. Persuade. Using my persuasion. My intimidation. I'm going to see if there's anything I can do with whatever's casting. Yeah, you yell and it just feels like you're in a bubble. Like you're not. I'm going to see if there's anything I can do with whatever's on the door. Roll an Arcana check.

Difficulty of 12, please. You get a plus four, I believe. 19. 19 plus four. Oh, please. You get a plus four, I believe. 19. 19 plus four. Oh, shit. Yeah, you detect that there's some sort of magical field. You feel like maybe if you cast Dispel Magic, if one of you could dispel magic,

you might be able to do something. I don't have a Dispel Magic. I don't know if I have it. Is there a... M-A-G-I-C. This thing goes straight up, right? It's like a hollow towery kind of thing. I'm going to fire an arrow straight up the middle and see if it stops.

Okay. See if there's like a force field around the whole thing. Just on the steps. You fire an arrow and it goes about five stories up and then it does crack and fall in half to the ground. Nobody has Dispel Magic? There might be other ways to get out there, get through, but that particular solution...

So we need to go outside? If you wanted to somehow ascend the tower without waiting. Yeah. And that's not, I think that's what we need to do. It's, yeah. We've waited too long. It's taking too long. We told them it was important.

Let's go out and do that. All right. So you guys head outside. There's no, you have no problem exiting. Are there any people outside? Yeah. They're everywhere. Okay.

Can I just grab a. You see easily like within, I, I, I range like a hundred different people. Okay. I'm just going to grab a nearby student and say, Hey, do you know anything about a fortune telling party that's going on? I'm going to roll a dice to see how smart this guy is because you're just grabbing a random passerby. Roll a persuasion in addition to that, please.

You should be doing this, Ken. This guy has an intelligence rating of 18. I had an 18 total. Oh, great. So he says, oh, yeah, we have those all the time. What do you mean, fortune-telling party? We do stuff like that all the time at night. We're kids.

We entertain ourselves. No, I mean, there's people who are traveling, coming around. There were flyers. They had one at different colleges. Oh, yeah, we got some kind of traveling thing tonight. Oh, it's tonight? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where are they?

Don't go to that party. I mean, we had to get special permission for it. That's the? Yeah, yeah. Where are they? Don't go to that party. I mean, we had to get special permission for it. That's the only reason I remember. From that dean. Because there are drow who are coming here, and usually we don't allow dark elves on campus. Who gave the permission? The Archmage, Semenik.

Yeah. He's already fucked. We had to make him him promises we had to where are the drawing these waivers uh where we're magically bound to our promise and you weren't part of bringing who who are the people who brought them here oh just students i mean they they're the kind of we have this happen all the time you know people want to just have some sort of private magic show for the students. Usually we pay them. And so, yeah.

They just found some students and a student liaison invited them on the campus. We had Doug Benson come last week. It pays better than even a corporate gig. It's not NACA. No. You're just going on the Bonko NACA circuit.

That's just for comedians. I just want to explain to him what's been going on and what these parties are. This particular drow party. What do you want to know? We want to explain it to him. Where are they? This is a ritual thing.

You try to break down everything you know? No, no, no. Okay, go ahead. Let's pause for a second and say, Esmeralda and Tom, you lock eyes for a second. I feel like it's a lot. I feel like we should just be like... You hear him start to explain

and you kind of tap him on the shoulder. What do you think? I feel like just like the log line, maybe, which is like they're going to kill you and destroy the college. It's already happening in Roke right now. The town is under siege. We need to speak with the Archmage immediately.

He says, oh, you mean all that racket coming from the north? Yeah. You're saying that can happen here? It will happen here. So we need to speak with the Archmage. We've been already waiting, and it's... He's like, well, I mean, I can have the student liaison maybe go up and see Archmage Sermanic,

but I don't have the access to go up to the top. Hey, where's the... Where is he? Where's the guy that would take us up there? Oh, the student liaison? Yeah. He's in those dorms over by the hill over there. See that building that's kind of built into the side of the hill?

Sure. It's actually like an underground thing that goes like seven stories under the ground, and all the students are in there. What's his name? I want to tell him something. This is very important. You need to spread the word to stay away from that party.

Okay. Well, do you want me to do that? Or do you want me to go get the student liaison? He's like, what do you want me to do? Once we get the student liaison, I want you to spread the word and tell everyone not to go to that party. Hopefully it won't even happen. But if it does, don't go. All right, so he's just kind of overwhelmed, and he's like, I still don't understand. Get the student liaison.

You just want me to run off? All right. No, we're following you. Move. Take us to him. Take us to him. He's a little freaked out, and you're welcome to follow, but he kind of darts off towards the dorms. At this point, he wants to tell him.

I'm going to scale the tower. Oh! Yay! That's weird. I like it. Wait, can't Blaine fly? Oh, yeah. Why don't you? Because I'm the only one that can fly. I'm trying to figure out

how to get us all up there, but right now I'm trying to figure out how to get us all up there. But right now I'm trying to figure out if we can maybe unlock this thing and get up to the Archmage. I have a plan. Well, you can just go and talk to him, right? Yeah, I mean. We don't all need to be there. As far as you know. Everybody signed a pledge, so it seems like he's already turned.

He made them sign a pledge that nothing would happen, and he was the one who was, right? Is that what we, that's what I understood, but maybe I misunderstood. You know that the students seemed really into this party, and they convinced the Archmage to allow Drow on campus by magically bonding themselves to a promise somehow you're not sure how that works exactly but you do know archmage sermonic made students bond themselves to this event because he was at least in theory worried about it right got it okay he might have ulterior motives but that's all the information you're going on. Okay, so I guess we're accidentally splitting up here because I definitely wanted to follow the guy who was going to get the liaison. It doesn't sound anything accidental about it.

It sounds like Bodhi's a man of action, and he doesn't want to go talk to more kids. He wants to go fucking climb a tower. So this guy's heading off to the student liaison. You tell him he's super interested to see what the hell's about to happen. He's heading off to the student liaison. Yeah, and I'm super interested to see what the hell's about to happen. He's heading off to the student liaison. Yeah, and you guys can either chase after him or stick with Bodhi. I say, I mean, I'm following this. I think I just already was following this.

Yeah, we're following this. She did not even notice that Bodhi is starting to climb the tower. All right. Surrounded by mages and students. Well, let's pause that for a second and turn our thoughts to Bodhi. Is it scalable? It's cobblestoneestone and there's a lot of grippage going on.

And then is there like windows or things that I can see if I wanted to? The windows follow what you're guessing is the spiral staircase. So it goes in kind of like a diagonal corkscrew around

the tower. And how high is it? Like 30 stories. Oh, geez. It's a tower. All right. So we don't even know where this guy is. I thought it was only just a couple of stories.

It's a tower. It's like a very impressive mage tower. And where did we think that the... I'm saying Tui is starting to jog away, but he's in your shot if you want to adjust your plan. I want to stay here and I want to go up now because I don't want to wait any longer. I want to talk to this asshole.

It occurs to you, you could try to cast Fly on Bodhi. Okay, I have an idea. Give you help, give you help give you help i can levitate you so i'm gonna levitate brian and we're both gonna fly up to the window okay what was that from it's pixies oh okay so you're gonna try to just stick close to the wall and kind of pull yourselves up the side of the building okay i'm gonna say that's gonna uh go on for about five minutes you get about halfway up the tower when uh all of a sudden uh something goes and you guys get pushed away from the outside of the tower. Do a athletics check. Difficult twee, specifically.

Difficulty of... Difficult twee. 15. Two. You grab at Bodhi, and you're unable to maintain physical contact with him. Oh, well, I mean, I cast Levitate on him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he can still float.

He's still... Yeah, but you're 15 stories above the ground. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he can still float. He's still... Yeah, but you're 15 stories above the ground. Oh, I'm flying. And he's levitating 15 stories above the ground. Okay. Levitate is... I'm gonna have to look up now to see if

that holds or if he plummets. Well, I have athletics too, so let me... Do a... Do a... This is to grab back at you. Do you have mathletics? It grabs towards you. I got an 18. Great, so you grab onto Twee.

I still need to do a quick physics check. Levitate. One creature after your choice that you can see within range rises vertically up to 20 feet, you're way above 20 feet and remains suspended there for the duration so that helped him float for a while

but then can I argue that if he's 20 feet from me, wherever I am I'm the source of the ground, I guess does that make sense? Yes. However.

When the spell ends, the target floats gently to the ground if it is still aloft. Yeah, but that's after 10 minutes. The spell hasn't ended. It's just a matter of he's... Yeah, yeah, yeah after 10 minutes. The spell hasn't ended. It's just a matter of he's... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so you grab Tui and you manage to hover. But you're clinging to him.

And you feel like if you were to free float, you might fall down. Okay. Where's the building um it's like about like 50 feet away from you now oh we got pushed that far yeah some kind of spell pushed you away from the tower yeah let's just go back okay i'm glad we didn't have an amarthamon part two uh so you guys head down. Amarthamon part two. Are you going to say you just kept following the student, or are you going to watch the plan? No, I didn't even notice it was happening.

It wouldn't have occurred to me. Okay, and the time this happened, you make it inside the dorm. So these guys, by the time they land, they don't even have to tell us about the choices they made. Yeah, they'll tell you about that later. You guys get in, and they call for the student liaison. He comes over um his name is uh zaris and zaris says uh hey what's up well there's were you responsible for um bringing the the drow party tonight yeah yeah it's gonna be awesome are you here for that too first of all where'd you hear about it oh they approached us at just like a

little get together in a tavern a little bit down the road. Great. We see this stuff all the time. They're from the House of Fane. They're great. Yeah, they're not that great, though. That's the thing. We saw them do a demonstration at the tavern, and it's fine.

They're trying to create... They're trying to destroy the planet, basically. They've murdered most of the students at the College of Rogue. Zerus kind of laughs, and he goes, no, I did a detect alignment on them. They're good. They're fine. They're not like other drow.

I know you guys might not like drow, but they're good. Tell him forcefully that they're not. Tell him with a 19. It's just weird that he detected that. Yeah, well, he is a student. I'm intimidating him now and saying they're not like other drow. Okay. Roll an intimidation check.

Wait, you're intimidating him and telling him that they are like other drow. Yeah, yeah. They're worse than other drow. Okay. Oh, shit. There's like no way that roll would be amazing. It's so great. It's a 13.

So basically you have to get like a three or it's going to, yeah, yeah. Well, can you have, would be amazing. It's so great. It's a 13, so basically you have to get a three. This is just a sidebar, but can you have difficulties that are above 20? Do you have difficulties? Oh, absolutely. And it's happened a couple of times. They've tried to do strength checks that were... One of the reasons they have ridiculous loot is because in the last campaign, they went in this old drought tunnel and they found stuff, and it took them like four turns because I was like,

oh, Bodhi, there's a boulder on top of these old gloves. Strength check difficulty, and it was really high. It was just ridiculous, and he kept not quite getting it. So it's possible. It is possible, but not in this particular. These are students, so these kind of intimidation checks, that was like just a 10, so it was fine.

And yeah, so he goes, I do not see how this is possible, but I believe that we're in some kind of danger. I believe that maybe I could have screwed up. I guess this is important. Maybe we should go tell Archmage Semen. We were waiting. You need to take us to him right away.

We've already been waiting to see him, and they do not understand the urgency. Okay. Let me walk you over to the mage tower, and I'll go get him. Okay. Right. We're just kind of floating.

Okay, so you guys head outside, and you guys see those two floating gently to the ground. Give them a casual salute. Hey, we just got back from the Thanksgiving Day Parade. You guys look great. Hey, the noise says hi. By the way, you all notice Typha's just over by the horses

and she's plucking a chicken. She's just kind of giggling. She's sitting flicking chickens. She's kind of laughing because she watched the whole being knocked away from the tower. We're a fun crew, Typhoon. What's that?

I'm telling you, we're a fun crew. Oh, I'm having a good time. Did you say fondue? I almost saw two of you get squished. That was pretty fun. Wait, is her name a joke like she's Typhoid Mary and she's going to poison us all? I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, my God.

She only threatened someone like a wooden spoon like Typhoid Mary did with the cops when they accused her of poisoning food by not washing her hands. Great, we're all going to get bronchitis. Well, don't eat anything that she makes, guys, okay? It may have just been a fun reference. All right. Who will ever know until someone dies?

But Zerus waves you inside the mage tower and he says, okay, you guys, wait here. I'm going to run up to the tower. I'll go get Archmage. I'll be right back. All right. An hour and a half later, you inside the mage tower and he says okay you guys wait here i'm gonna run up to the tower i'll go get archmage organic i'll be right back all right an hour and a half later when a guy runs up 30 stories in a row he runs up the stairs wait no he's not leaving without one of us huh he's not leaving without one of us we're not letting another person leave he gets like just through the doorway and you feel like he could hear you if you want to shout something

yeah i say wait up i guess he says oh there's a magical hear you if you want to shout something. Yeah, I say, wait up, I guess. He says, oh, there's a magical protection. You actually, you need to have a charm cast on you to get through this doorway. So there's... Just do it. Cast one on us. Oh, sorry. Roll. Please.

To convince. Plus three, so ten on that one. But he's like oh I don't know if I should do that I could get in really big trouble I say you do it he goes 29

and he looks at and realizes he's on the other side of the wall already and he goes no no no no no no I can't I can't no no no no no I can do it what did he roll? 29 yeah not high enough

Jesus yeah yeah yeah okay then you need to hurry oh he's trying come back little sheba he's trying come back little sheba yeah that's enough he's he's fucking come back he says look it'll just be a minute uh i swear i once i'm once all he's probably just one flight of stairs up okay you need to hurry his study is just above us like all right it's just a little landing it will it'll be easy. Yeah. It's just one.

Okay, thank you. Very helpful. If you don't come back, you're going to wish that we let this party continue. He says, I understand. All right. Any heads up? I start to set the building on fire. What?

No. Oh. Five minutes. Come on. God damn it. Okay, well, I think five is reasonable, and then ten, we're going to start to go to the next story. Another five minutes. Come on. Okay, well, I think five is reasonable, and then ten, we're going to start to go to the next story. Another five minutes, go back.

Okay, let's go. We're going up to the story, right? I fucking hate this. We're trying to help these people. I know. This is the most annoying. What are you doing? So the outside of the building has, they got pushed away.

There's a window about every story. They got pushed away halfway up about 15 stories up. Okay, I go up to the first window okay just scramble up okay do a strength check difficulty 10 yep all right so you get up there you're clinging to the window the window is just big enough you feel like you could squeeze through if you smashed all the glass in I smash all the glass do a dexterity check difficulty of 12, please. That was a 16. Well, then, yeah, you smash the shit out of the glass and you don't cut yourself.

Okay, cool. You crawl through? Yes. Great. You see this window is indeed on kind of like a small landing. There's almost like another little waiting area. There's a plush chair and a door. Those guys you guys all climb up yeah sure um there's a door and a big plush chair and the the orange carpet uh goes all the way up the stairs it continues up is this the same room

we were in before uh this feels like the second floor. Okay, yeah. Can we knock on the door? Yeah, you can knock on the door. Okay, knock on the door. Silence. Hello. Try the handle. Open the door. It's locked. Pick the lock. Alright, let's do a dex check. A difficulty of

a 19. Flack. You lose a lock pick. Can I borrow a lock? Plus four. How big is the door? What's the door made out of? It is a large wooden door.

It is a brass doorknob. There are large brass hinges. What's the lock like? The lock is a part of a brass attachment connected to the doorknob. What is the thing? Oh, yeah. 19? Yeah.

Oh, I wouldn't have even rolled. I'd give you back your lock pick. She sticks it in the lock and goes, I don't think so. Can I try again? I'm going to smash it. I'm going to rage, and I'm going to smash on it

with my gauntlets of ogre power. I'm just going to knock the door down. All right, this is going to be a strength check difficulty 25. Damn it. 15. Oh, no, 17. You scratch the door.

I'm going to do it again. That's a... Oh, man. 24. I'm still trying to put the lock in. You put a dent in there, and all of a sudden, the door feels like it's just humming a little bit. Okay, can I go out the window and crawl to the other side where there might be a window to this room?

You don't think there's a... How do I put this? The middle of the tower goes straight up up like a tube but this room is on the inside of the tower oh so like there is like it's like a small room that you that the there's no connection got this room in the outside of the tower you do feel like you could go like up another story or something but you don't necessarily think that there is another way into this room besides this one door um what happens if i put a portal on the door nothing right it just creates like a uh i've never seen dan perk up more not necessarily you don't know how that thing works completely no we don't know how that thing works completely. No, we don't know how it works. Except that we know that if we do two of them,

then it creates a path, but... I'm taking the rope and flying out the window and going up to the next window and fastening the rope so we can sort of move up. Go up another floor? Yeah. Does that make sense? No.

Going to go out the window. We came in. Correct. I've still got a fly going. Take the rope that we used to climb up. Did you just break another lockpick? Yeah. You broke another lockpick.

What's going on, Blaine? I take the rope that we used, the Bodhi lowered, take it up to the next window and fasten it and have everybody climb up to the next window. I broke the door. Do you smash the third floor window? Oh, I'll do that. I have an idea.

Dex check, difficulty 12. I'm going to do it with a pommel. All right, then you're fine. Yeah. I have an idea. Dex check, difficulty 12. I'm going to do it with a pommel. All right, then you're fine. Yeah. I have an idea. Everybody, yeah, what's your idea, Esmeralda? Oh, I got shot and broke. Wait, oh, okay.

I'm going to intimidate the door. I'm going to do the same difficulty because the door is now humming. I wanted to do, remember that thing where I got to pretend to try to make my voice like the Thane in the first? Is it actors? The actor's feet or whatever yeah yeah so i want to try to do that but make it sound like the uh the student liaison and and then yell through the door be like sir please okay let me look that feet up again hang

on what's it called i think it's actor imposter tell them the one that's in there is an imposter. Yeah, oh, good idea. I'm looking. Sorry. I'm going to break another lockpick. You have an advantage. You can mimic the speed. Okay, it's a successful wisdom insight check contest. God, Bodhi wants to smash this thing so bad.

I have so much more I need to tell him before he does it so he's uh rolling for funsies until you're done with this um you may be speaking you have heard the uh successful wisdom check contested by your deception check okay uh a 20 for me. Oh. Really good deception, too. What'd you roll? Eight. Well, I have great news.

The door seems to stop humming. Okay. The door seems to stop humming, Bodhi. Yeah, did I get another crack at it? No. Just open it. Can we try to lock. Yeah, did I get another crack at it? No. Just open it. Can we try to lock? Just open it.

First of all, we need to realign because the door got so frustrating everybody went off and did crazy shit. I'm going to come back down and poke my head and go, hey, this rope is... That is a good thing for you to do. You notice the door stops humming when you say it and you all kind of notice it.

What do you want to do? When I was talking, the door stops humming when you say it and you all kind of notice it what do you want to do? when I was talking the door stopped humming? when you cried out what did you cry out? oh I said like sir help please door stopped humming no voice but you definitely you are all like someone on the other side of the door

heard what she just did do we hear is it unlocked? can you say open the door please of the door heard what she just did. Right. Do we hear a... Is it unlocked? Can you say, open the door? Please, open the door. There's terrible news. Everyone here is in danger. You hear a... I'm the doorknob.

I am going to polymorph you into the person that you sound like. I'm going to double check polymorph. We got two minutes. Two minutes left?

Oh, this is going to be a fun way to end this episode. Oh, you're going to get to do this, Dan. Oh, no. Okay. Is that okay? Yeah, I mean, yes. Yeah, it's just a saving throw for an unwilling. I'm just seeing how, Yeah, I mean, yes. Well, it doesn't... Yeah, it's just a saving throw for an unwilling.

I'm just seeing how... Oh, up to an hour. Okay, so... I mean, the kid ran up... The only thing I would say is that the kid ran up here. I feel like... I think she might be unwilling only because I feel like her plan would be to...

for us to talk to this guy and not necessarily to pretend to be the liaison when there's like five other people out there. But maybe. It just feels like a much more involved deception than necessary. But I know that everyone here wants to do that. And so... And I won't be here, so...

Okay, okay. I won't kick the door. Twee goes like this. You know he's about to cast Polymorph because you've seen people cast Polymorph before. You have one... You have one second to decide. Is he going to be allowed

to do this or are you going to do a saving throw? I'll allow it. Okay. Poof. You turn into Zerus. Okay.

But he was... But she's... But that... You still have the same social security. The door is unlocked. It is not open yet. What are you going to do?

I open the door. Okay. You open the door and you see a man in long black robes sitting in a chair, smoking a pipe. And he says, Zerus, whatever is the matter? And that's the end of the episode. Is it? Okay, cool. That was episode eight.

Shorter episode. Sorry about that. The last few have been a little over an hour, I think. So hopefully everyone can just do some math and forgive us. We'll get back to the hour longs. But thanks for listening. Any plugs? Buy Mad Magazine.

Oh, wait, wait. This is not quite. The next Mad Magazine is actually going to hit newsstands on april 17th okay uh if you subscribe you'll get it sooner so there's that cool uh check out jerry duggan's book on image comics what's it called again analog analog and uh brianpussain.com thanks for listening uh episode nine see you that See you then. See you then. You too. Hey guys.

We're going to do a quick bonus because this is a super short episode. I've had some people ask me on Twitter or Patreon in the comments. This has come up a few times where they're like, hey, publish the botch table. I want your botch table. Guess what? That's not fun because part of the fun is they roll a fucked up botch

and it's a surprise. Right. So instead, I'm going to tell you guys how to make your own stupid botch table. You want to say something, Blaine? I was going to say the first thing you're going to need is a wax paper and a cookie sheet.

And a comb. Now get a table. I recommend either having Microsoft Excel or Google Docs. There's actually the Google Sheets. So if you go to sheets.google.com, it's real easy. So if you hate having it installed on your computer, you can just do it in your web browser. Also, any dish soap will work. And you only need two columns um

make both of them go to a hundred uh and the left column you come up with uh the the sort of action of like what you're describing and in the right column you come up with the penalty so like in the left you put like for number one i have uh connected the attack it connects but you can't believe it didn't hurt so it's like insulting like even though you botched you hit them and it looks like it caused damage but you're just like you're like what the fuck like that should have done like some day and you're literally like confused and you miss a turn is what's in the right hand column and for like a bunch of them i have missed a turn but then it escalates so the closer you get to the 100 mark the more fucked up both of them are so for me the 100 is this really fucked up thing on the left and on the right is a whole bunch of damage that you take and you you narratively tie that together the thing on the left and on the right is a whole bunch of damage that you take

and you you narratively tie that together the thing on the left is like the storytelling part the thing on the right is like the numbers of the bad stuff so um where does damaging start happening for me damage starts happening around uh it happens at 51 51 so yeah the first first 50 is all just a missed turn and then i escalate it you could also do i think what sark did is like you closer you get to zero or a hundred like it's like hot spots at the top and the bottom you can also just not even have a linear progression to it you can fuck with them that way and have it be really bad like a deck of many things kind of yeah like like a 15 could be bad. Just because you and your group all hate the number 15

or it's got some sort of nostalgic meaning for you. You could go even odd. The other thing is you just want to make sure they match up. As the damage or penalty gets more fucked up, the narrative part of it gets more fucked up. For instance, i don't want to spoil non-damaging stuff is more like insults or uh yeah shame and and i guess embarrassment like the kind of final thing i'll say is you don't like have to start out funny yeah or even

or weird even be first just build a really basic one where it's just like twist your ankle yeah twist your ankle miss turn twist and it can even be twist your ankle for like 10 of them and then as you play and have free time slowly go into your spreadsheet and just come up with things to say like i'm always updating this i have a ricochet for like 10 of them so I'm like okay I need to kind of add some a little bit of English to some of these ricochets and every time I think of like a funnier ricochet I'll go into those ten and spice them up a little bit you can reorder them according to how much hold like yeah

that's you wanted to surprise people there's no reason you have to reuse anything but like just start off with a basic one with a hundred have it escalate in some way somewhere and as the longer you have it fill it out because it can be kind of like a intimidating thing to come up with 200 things to say like 100 kinds of penalties and 100 kind of narrative punishments but like over time you've got plenty of time to like come up with wacky shit like awkward self-harm is something you guys have had or permanent shame. Right. Or your ancestors' ghost slapping.

I had all that in there already, but another one that you guys haven't hit yet is you consider starting life over. Or maybe you have had that one. I don't remember, But it doesn't matter. All that matters is just like... And if you roll a 71, then you check the table and that's just a 69 with two fingers up your ass.

I have something special for 69. Thanks for listening. You guys haven't rolled a 69 yet. You can feel the sensation of two fingers going up your ass and take 11 points of damage. Your wife high-fives you. That's the end. Thanks, guys.fives you. That's the end.

Thanks, guys. Thanks for listening. That's the end. Thanks for listening to another episode of Nerd Poker. You can follow us at patreon.com slash nerdpoker, and you get bonus episodes from there. And you can also send us anything at P.O. Box 16069, Encino, California, 91416. Thanks for listening.