Nerd Poker - The Mountain Campaign - Episode 2

Episode Date: February 13, 2024

It's time to head to the actual mountain! While the crew debates how to spell Mount Dukes, it becomes clear that yes indeed they picked the weirdest and hardest of the three paths.  For merch, social media, and more be sure to head to nerdpokerpod.com. And for 3 bonus episodes a month and more, subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/nerdpoker.  

Hey, it's Brian Poussaint, NerdPoker. We're calling it the Mountain Campaign. My friends are here, Sarah, Chris, Blaine, Ken, Engineer Sam, and of course, our kick-ass DM, Dan Telfer. Welcome to Nerd Poker. Hey everybody, I'm Brian Poussin. I'm very excited. Doing the second episode of the Mountain Campaign of Nerd Poker. We're back. In my house.

It's crazy. My son introduced the last episode. But he's in his room. Who knows? I think we know. Smoking cigars. cigars all video games uh my friends are here we go around the table uh ken hey buddy oh hi brian how do you do welcome back

welcome back indeed it's nice to be in body warmth range. I'll take it. Chris is here. Hi, how are you? I'm good, buddy. I'm curious to see who everybody thinks smells the most, now that we're all in smelling range. Who are we smelling the most?

Not in a bad way, but just like a human musk way. I clean up for you, fellas and peoples. Thank you. Sarah's here. Hi, it's me. You can call me a fella. I'm not going to be one of those weird you-can't-say-you-guys. Yeah.

Blaine. Hi, Brian. I'm wearing gray flannel. It's my traditional cologne. I picked it up in my favorite German city, Hamburg. I feel like my grandmother wore gray flannel. That's a lady thing, right? No, it's a very, very masculine cologne that I actually use when I wear suits.

Okay. Maybe my grandmother wore masculine cologne. I actually use when I wear suits. Maybe my grandmother wore masculine cologne. She did some other shit. What? Don't get me started. On Nana. Dan's here, everybody.

Hey, Brian. Hey, pal. You want to talk about Nana? No. I'll wait until my next therapy. San's dog, but he's still bringing that energy.

Here he is, Sam. Hello, sweet fellas. Nice. We're all full of smarties. there was a bunch of smarties left over from halloween and now everybody's uh gacked out on smarties so much smarties in my tom's sweet eat smarties oh god i still have an unopened bag of that sitting in my cupboard try dumping some some cayenne on those and see if you can recreate that. I've really never eaten that. It's like a soup.

Bam. Like fill a bowl with sriracha sauce and then put it in there and just stir it around. Get them freeze-dried. It's all the rage. Ugh. All right.

I'm going to thank some Patreon supporters. Go ahead. Go right ahead. Do it. They go by usernames like Bobcat Goldthwait's Vocal Coach. Thank you, Bobcat Goldthwait's Vocal Coach. bobcat goldthwaites for good thank you paul chapman thank you sam boyle thank you pwhm thank you where are you from you don't know gator this gator 50 years old he been attacked before that's a classic chris tallman billy that's reno 911 oh is it yeah oh i got it wrong that's right

that's okay i've seen that clip but i am a goof thank you deckard skill so thank you gluten-free pcp thank you everybody's favorite moment from season four danny's frog face fiend thank you satan everybody's like oh christ thank you satan ov beer thank you dango merman aka uncle magic thank you i'm just here to deliver the worms thank you kaylee we love you and just want you to come home thank you flock of seagulls thank you blaine's thank you blaine's successful pre-hobbit thank you killie kill all kill all killie kill all thank you eric e thank you jack watkins and finally thank you the leprechaun that watches silently while you shower. Ew.

Blaine, who are those supporters brought to us by? Supporters brought to us by... AI Fridays. Way too many Jackie Daniels chicken fingers and French salad drippers. A human food that is a tasty food for friends. What is love? AI Fridays, trademark. Dan? this is a tasty food for our friends what is love A.I. Friday is trademarked Dan you know I hate that voice

in person I don't know if I ever heard it in person I don't know if you started doing it over COVID but Jesus Christ it's upsetting you love it it doesn't look like it should come out of a human mouth you know you love it there's something happening in the epiglottis

I know and I don't like to think about other people's epiglottis. Let's move it back and forth against my teeth while I talk a little. That sounds like a crime against uvulas. Alright. Well, I think it's time to talk about... I have a little more cash.

Let's talk cash before I get narrative on everybody. And listeners. I wish they put what city this was in, but it's got to be one of the last ones I was in. Folks, next time, write your city on your dollars. Yeah. Madison? I was in Milwaukee and Madison. Played the Majestic Theater in Madison.

Ooh. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. And what a great little town. Oh, man, it's one of the best college towns you can hang in. Yeah, and I chased dog owners around now like when i miss my dog you just chase people in the street yeah i'll just be hey is that a doodle and then they run and then we got a two dollar bill two dollar bill y'all uh here is a 20 with two fingers up its uh ass oh rich your hands after this dead and tattooed oh yeah he gave me a 20 in it oh yeah but uh thanks rich thanks you guys

uh did i see all the names on this one jerry jacob calo or no jerry jacob cade and drake Jerry, Jacob, Cade, and Drake. Thank you. Thanks, everybody. And people come up and go, can we still do this? Yeah. No, please don't give me cash.

JK, give me a lot of cash. We're back, and we can always use the help. If you see me at a stand-up show in LA, I was just paid $ dollars to get on stage. So please buy all this. Alright, well, now it is time to talk about

what happened last time on NerdPoker. Our heroes got some potions and they talked to a very ineffectual Baron. They're now going to go kill a dragon, Brobs. We now take it under poker already in progress. One thing we talked about last episode that we think was only in

passing is what we're going to do about items. So I think Chris and I discussed this at length and I put this in group text at one point, but we can resolve this a little on air um but it would have to

involve you looking up your items so if your game we can do it on air if you're if you want to surf around dnd beyond on the air but otherwise let's do it between episodes two and three so you don't feel stressed out yeah let's do that um okay but just to let listeners know the deal i struck up with everybody is you have uh three choices you can have an uncommon defensive item which is better than just like a regular old one and an uncommon weapon or you can upgrade one of those uncommons to a rare, which is even more fancy, and the other one downgrade it to a common. So you could have a rare weapon,

a rare defensive thing, or uncommon of both. So that's what I tossed everybody as a house rule. And it sounds like everybody would rather just do it off the air, which is totally fine. I think it's good to call it out so everybody can listen to it if they forget i didn't equip uh on this when i print it up so but you have stuff in your inventory yeah i have a long sword and a battle axe so i'm two-handed fighter uh i've never done that before well i've done close to that i feel like it's uh close to that I feel like

Ronnie had something which one was before Ronnie Danny Donnie Jimmy well I always avoided Donnie I was named after Donnie Yen but then there's another Donnie that I don't like

Donnie Wahlberg he's done some shitty things a long time ago that i still think he's gross about no i'm kidding i'm not um be a random guy for me to hate not for me uh but wow he's doubling oh wait no i'm thinking of mark yeah mark has done shitty things. Leave Donnie alone. I was going to say. Well, the six senses Donnie Wahlberg needs to mind for goodness. Yeah, yeah. I apologize to Donnie. Your brother, get him out of my house.

Well, yes, those are the item situations. And you guys have distributed. Paul was cast over the room. I know. Everybody's like, wow, Wahlberg's hot. Don't get me started on Paul Wahlberg. Is that one of them? No. Yeah, he was in the Fast and the Furious.

I don't know how many Wahlbergs are on that Wahlberger show. All of them. I know, but who are they? What about Robert Wahlberg? That's my least favorite Wahlberg. He doesn't spell it right. Volare! They spell cigars.

Yeah, you know, the big thing that you guys sort of have to decide is which of the three paths are you going to take? One thing I really wanted to do was make this campaign feel like the choices matter. And so you've got three paths before you. Have you drawn up a map?

No. Okay. I could. I was just, no, I was wondering um so i mean i have one on graph paper that looks shitty at home that i can share with you guys it kind of depends what you do what's like closest like can you kind of yes and you named it you named the different things and so um but i kind of still don't have it like what the layout looks like in my head yes so there there's two mountains uh the dragon glut is on top of mount farkness there's two ways up mount farkness and then there's a second mountain where her nest is okay that's what i was wondering so like how far away is that like so what like do it in

clicks or days it's a two days journey but i won't make that part like uh climbing up the boat level what's the first what's the closest mountain how how far of a journey is that to get to darkness you're already in the foothills you had to walk upstairs how far away is the actual dragon and he's being guarded by kobolds, right? She? She. She is 20 to 50 episodes up the mountain. And her name's Glonk? Glut. Glut. Glonk.

You can call her Glonk. She'll take a nickname. Glok. Like the glut like glut. The handgun. What do you want to be doing with your time? We've got a forest. The nest is very valuable. It do you want to be doing with your time? We've got a forest. The nest is very valuable. What you choose here is

going to depend on what map I eventually start giving you because we're talking about an abandoned dwarf city if you want to trap her nest. Haunted. And that would be like... I feel like we have to go through the haunted dwarf city. That does sound really awesome. And then I feel like eventually we have to go fight this dragon and fight the kobolds but but potentially

we can build up to that she will show up at her nest it's not gonna be like you go up there and you're like nothing happens that's what the plan is we would go to her nest and she then shows up there and we fight her there the idea is and yeah like it was suggested you set a trap so like she won't be there when you necessarily get there. Maybe you have to wait for her to leave, but eventually she will leave. I think that's the worst plan, but the most fun to get there. I agree. Objectively.

We dress up Ken like a cute little baby. Yeah. Put him in the nest. Oh, and throw this out here too. I think you guys kind of know this. I don't think I've said it to anyone, but it's implied heavily. We're going to try to do shorter seasons, so a TPK

is very much on the table. That's a total party kill, Sam. Yeah, so I'm very like, I'm designing this so it is 100% beatable, but also because I want to next campaign do new characters again and just have this be kind of a clippier campaign,

uh, very open to murdering everybody. I said, TPK open for EMF. Hey, that was, that was unbelievable. Oh,

Oh, ah, um, oh, dice. It stays doing that. Uh, that sample.

And you guys can take as long as you want like this is we're talking about those the vibe and and that's we know which one sounds coolest haunted abandoned but the other two is like a kobold army or forest creatures like dilly dally probably wants to go through the forest right dilly dally i don't know who you are speaking my name is dally tail dally tail i was very good i'm sorry that's extremely close isn't it confusing me with fish posh i might have been the name these are just our earthly dally tail not our earthly oh yeah you know what are we on it's only episode two let's go around the table again ken uh can you give everybody your name,

species, and class, please? Pish Posh. Malorga. Didn't give the last name first time. Okay, thank you for elaborating. I am a black dragonborn sorcerer. Speaking of Malorga, it sounds like

Malort. What the fuck is with malort why do you think i know but why do you trick people into drinking the worst thing they've ever had it used to be like a weird obscure thing and then like john hodgman started talking about how much he loved it as like a joke and then it started to blow up in popularity now they're like this famous growth it used to be more disgusting they made it taste better every guy that works at a Chicago bar a guy or woman that works at a Chicago bar is like hey have you had Malort and Bink Wink

well now that the Cubs have won the World Series Chicago just needs something to be self-destructive about it's you know a way for everyone to stay sad in Chicago and I was in Wisconsin this weekend and they were trying Malort on me I'm like not you guys no that's chicago's thing you're supposed to do cheese yeah don't be a dick they

they call wisconsin north chicago i love both of them chicago is one of my favorite places to go and i've had a blast doing comedy in wisconsin yeah um continue to go around the table sarah would you like to go next um sure i'm my character is named juniper sharp she is a monk uh and a brewmaster and a human and a human yeah which which chris said i was being weird about but i just was saying it was there was like a bit of a you know it was surprising to be like I feel like we've been very elf heavy before where it's like every single person is an elf and this time

every single person is a you know I think I was an elf in the first game we played we got two adorable you know like furry I like that we get weirder every season I really think we do Chris would you like to go sure um i am a dally tail sharp twig uh a squirrel ranger squirrel squirrel he's a squirrel little red squirrel

so ranger yeah like i have a bow my My magic item I picked is a bow How adorable He's an Aragorn How big am I? Two feet Yoda size right? Well if you and Mordecai get along You can maybe ride on his shoulders

I'll sit on your shoulders It's as high as I've ever been. I feel like you climb trees. I just want to make him feel good. Oh, that's nice. No, but cool. Tear it down. That was a small tree.

You could perch on one of his horns. Oh. Yeah. Like an owl. What color? Like, what's your coloring as a tiefling? Let's do Chris. Yeah, let's do Brian. I'll get you. I'll get there. Sorry. No, yeah. Like an owl. What color? Like, what's your coloring as a tiefling? Let's do. Yeah, let's.

I'll get you. Sorry. No, Brian. Yeah. What's your tell us again your name and species and class. I'm a tiefling. But, you know, there's other things about me. It's not like my, you know, my focus in life.

What's your name? Mordecai. Gray Menace the fourth. I come from a long line. Well your name mordecai gray menace the fourth i come from a long line well three mordecai's i'm the fourth so not that long pretty long well we live pretty long uh and uh i'm a fighter um champion i uh was uh in the military i was a police officer i uh also was a cage fighter after that and now i'm a vegan chef and uh vegan vegan chef and cage fighter still i like both wow and i collect vinyl final but not in the records you have another name don't you oh yes

well people I like to help people that are being bullied and I hate bullies and so I'm if somebody needs somebody to make a situation equal

out and they need a little help uh they can they can do worse and they can call yeah the equaler yes yes three blaine who's your token psychotic weirdo uh meow i'm blep jesus christ i'm a uh tabaxi trickster cleric blep uh did you just wait did you just turn your very appropriate cat named blep into a dracula blep no i was just blepping okay okay sometimes i ble. Because I do like a Dracula. Because they go blip. Well, you know, we both have fangs. And we're both a little batty.

So did Phyllis Diller. Meow. But I'm a trickster cleric. Her husband fang. All right. But yeah, that's it. Can we give you a magic feather boa in honor of Phyllis diller um i've got one did you did i show you the picture my wife bought a bunch of uh phyllis diller's wigs are you serious yeah holy shit i'll send it to sarah maybe she can put it up online

what sort of a kitty are you are you like a siamese i'm sort of it's sort of like a what's your fur pattern sort of like a mountain lion-y kind of you know i'm uh a puma ish puma yeah yeah puma is it pronounced puma i choose to pronounce it puma a lynx i had a sweet pair of pumas oh wow blaine is showing us a photo of him wearing one of phyllis stiller's wigs john 316 that's great i love phyllis stiller she was great she was completely insane and she knew exactly how to do stuff she's very funny she did the full rainbow that's the full rainbow nice yeah she went to football games she always she always be in the background of uh pga matches well is that true no well is that true no so what you guys doing i don't know what are you doing we're going to haunted dorfville right but then what then what do we do when we get to the nest

i do i do feel like that's gonna be the most fun i don't want to let dan know what we're gonna do but i have some ideas okay i think this is something that is worth discussing and not rushing to any conclusions because this will be what the campaign is. Right. Alright. I think we should be some egg beaters. That's what I think. Meow. I think we

should use the eggs as trade. Like take the eggs and... Black dragon mail? Yeah, exactly. Like, take the eggs and... Black dragon mail? Yeah, exactly. Oh, I like that! And then what? Say to the dragon, you get your egg back if you leave?

Yeah. Or kill yourself. We can also trade the eggs to the kobolds. Because the kobolds want to get a... They want to sort of... Have a dragon army? I will say, i think for the sake of brevity going all the way up the mountain getting an egg not trapping the dragon but taking it all the way back down the mountain and going to one of the other campaign paths is a little bit like

doing a new campaign so i will allow it on the condition that it is not going to happen. Wait, we can't steal the eggs? You can steal the eggs, but to change the solution so you take two of the three paths, I think would overcomplicate the things. Why don't we all split up right now? I mean, it feels like you guys have a consensus. I will allow you taking the eggs and just running and not doing anything about the dragon but yeah it feels like everybody just wants to see that that dwarven

we should figure out a trap too yes maybe as we're going through the haunted dwarven city well isn't taking that should make more noise with our yeah i just saw Sam looking at us like, whoa, more plastic and chewing. It's a roaring fireplace. Oh, no. We're playing D-A-S-N-M-R-D. Maybe it wasn't the smartiest tree. Elbow drop. It's back.

Folks, we've had our first official elbow drop of the campaign. We're back. Wasn't the same watching you do that over Zoom. So, Juniper, so then you're saying we, are you saying the egg thing is maybe not the way to go? No, I'm very happy with whatever everyone decides, I think. And I think there's a clear consensus, it seems to me,

not to metagame, but also I think that sounds the most fun. So shall we head out to the hall of the dwarven? I think you, I thought your character might want to go through the forest. I mean, I'm a master of the wilderness, but I do want to see a dwarf ghost. Yeah.

Fair. All right. Well, it sounds like we have consensus. Yeah. I'm afraid the dragon is unbeatable. So I think like tricking it is probably the best route. Yeah. We haven't had good luck with dragons.

I think that we're capable of anything. Oh, my God. That we set our minds to. We could eat the eggs in front of the dragon and give it a terrible anxiety. Yes, let's give it a terrible anxiety. I like this guy. Okay. Well, after purchasing your potions, you all get a free night at the local tavern in known as the Bleakest Psy.

And when you wake up the next day dr puckle is waiting for you at the bar uh and he says hello again um have you made a decision of which way you're going to take care of this thing we're going to go through the haunted dwarven

region okay well that's uh about two days travel you're just going to want to head over the molten flats where the dragon spewed its heavy fire and once you get to the other side of it there's just one clear road you'll want to take northwest and that'll take you to the gates of hegrin a dwarven city that has fallen to some sort of magic horror okay that feels different than haunted and abandoned yeah but i haunted might have been shorthand that your dungeon master was using but i an in-character person i'm going to just try to be as honest as possible we definitely heard abandoned maybe haunted oh it's those things too i mean when i think haunted i I just think of, you know, spectral interference, and that's exactly what's going on.

It's magic. I mean, magic, are you telling me supernatural things and magic things are different fears of yours or concerns of yours that you feel you've been lied to? So, you know what magic is? I feel like the word horror was not. I make potions. Okay. We met a kid yesterday, by the way, in charge charge of everything who didn't know what magic was i mean the baron is young and very very foolish but if you have been saving up any magic questions

that he failed to answer i can do my best this is probably your last chance to talk to a townsperson oh look he's taking you seriously and being so kind so strange oh no one's taking advantage of it i guess i'll never do this again don't trust it oh i was i was being serious what would you like to know i i was looking at deliwag to see if you wanted to go ahead meow meow you say spectral uh thing spec meow meow this is like rainbow spectral this is more of a like ghosts uh spirits on is are there undead involved meow i would have to say uh no not not undead but very much like undead like ghosts things that are half there there's specters yeah and they seem to portal in but they're like transparent beings and they come in through gaps in space and time so that is where uh the difficulties

will come in there there are there are beings who seem both there and not there who come in through gaps in space and time can i ask this and this is just based on what i've seen of the world um do they look really fucked up yeah yeah classic uh you know what dungeon master stuff that's what i suspect you know who meow meow the uh the molten flats you mentioned meow yeah and i won't i won't make you spend a lot of uh episodes going across those but yes what is your question are they are they still uh liquid lava it's lava lava you know dried lava it's not hot anymore and and there's but there's a breezy area cools off way to there's a way to get across you know yeah any any sort of it's it's depressingly easy to get across because it used to be a part of the town and now it is flat

rock yeah well we'll do this sounding kind of cool right now isn't it you know i was thinking the road you just let's just march in but you know i mean you would you would face hundreds of of kobolds and whoever they've hired as mercenaries in open combat the kobolds meow do they are they organized is there a head kobold meow oh there's something i mean we haven't really learned a lot about them since everyone who goes up there has just been murdered and that's really the only thing that the town has tried to do is go up the road. And everyone got either killed by the dragon or the kobolds. They can be beaten. They can be flanked.

There's a lot of stuff that they have brought with them. They have war machines. The kobolds have war machines? And mercenaries, but I don't know who the mercenaries are. I feel like we're getting a lot different story today than yesterday. Yesterday- The Baron is an idiot. Yes.

I'm glad that you stopped and talked to me, perhaps forcibly. If you had to choose which way you were going to go, what would you select? I mean, I wouldn't go. It's horrible. Imagine that you're- Has somebody tried this before? No one has tried the wilderness up the mountain or the haunted city. Personally, I would be comfortable doing the haunted city.

It's an abandoned city. I feel like if you keep a low profile on the shadows, maybe you could just sneak from abandoned pillar to abandoned stairwell for a few days and make it to the top. How far away, Meow, are the eggs from the haunted city, Meow? A few days up. You're going to be ascending a lot of stairs and things like that. There might be an old dwarven elevator.

They've got these big steel contraptions that'll lift you up a few floors here and there. Well, it's good for the lungs. Do we think there are any dwarves still living um if there are any ghosts or undead there they will be the dwarves that formerly live i mean there's a possibility there's a cluster of dwarves hidden away but some sort of um i don't know it's like a spectral decay befell the city and all the dwarves disappeared and do you know anything of what happened to the city? I know that the king was experimenting in the dark arts and that

is part of it. His name was King Fistgore. Fistgore? Those dwarves and their names. A lot of really beautiful names. I saw Fistgore open for goat whore. Anything else

I can do to make you feel like you're making an educated choice? The wilderness, I will say there are a lot of monsters in the woods. Is there anything that we should have gotten from you that we didn't if we are choosing to go through that? You've cleaned me out potion-wise and spice-wise. You know what? I can tell that you're someone who can whip something up

sort of almost improvise. Hmm. I could be convinced if you rolled a persuasion check. I mean, every time I've done this, it's been really bad. So. 13. Nope. I'll try.

Okay. Well, if anyone wants to. I mean, I bow serenely. It's no big deal. I mean. Why don't I convince Dr. Puckle? bet the equal there could do we're back at the hotel though right he met you downstairs yeah he wanted to help you out because he figured this out here nice okay let's see what would have here picks us up something

helpful and cool if you can afford it and I will gather some ingredients let's say 25 gold I can whip you up a potion of invulnerability oh it is

it's pretty good it grants you resistance to all damage for a limited amount of time I can whip you up a potion of invulnerability. Oh. It is... It grants you resistance to all damage for a limited amount of time. About one minute. One fight. But resistance doesn't mean completely invulnerable. There's things I can get through. Would the very generous squirrel want to spring

for that? But no pressure at all. 25. 25. 25 gold? You're purchasing it? From my mouth to your pockets. Are you taking gold coins out of

cheap pouches? Oh my god. That's amazing. So he's going to, you know, he'll take a day to whip this up. You guys get another free night at the bleakest sigh. Oh, and Mordecai can make dinner. What do you make uh i thought it was the morning so i i had something prepared but i can uh whip something up you can tell us about the most delightful meal of the day that you make if there are three that is great okay i'll say i'll say the bleakest i also will provide you

with all the necessary components for the meal but But if you want to use your new spices, you can make it interesting. For breakfast, I prepared a vegan chili chile. And I made my own chips. And I did a green sauce. But it's mild, even if you're too sensitive to heat. Don't worry. I'll let you choose between three things if you want to roll for how amazing this meal is. Okay.

You can roll medicine, survival, or performance. Performance. Medicine, survival, or performance. I have a plus one. Oh, no, I'm going to go survival. Great. Roll a survival check and we'll see how amazing this meal is. Okay. This is your big off-to-adventure meal.

I've barely survived 13. Oh, 13. So, not too shabby. Definitely better than you guys have had in a long time. For dinner, i'd love to do a flight of different mead a little sampler to pair so we can like we just have a little combo so i can pair some some of our best stuff and you're gonna order the the mead from the tavern oh no i have a lot i have it secreted away i have little not a ton but just enough

like those like one whiskey a day things like airport you know so i've seen these bottles those little things you can get at bevmo if you're an alcoholic that's what all that clinking was great so you you prepare uh as well for dinner like a taste like a tasting flight for everybody. Yeah. It's the best last meal you could all ask for. What? And then I do a vegan charcuterie plate

and then I do a vegan pot roast all made of... Why don't you roll another performance check to see how that... I need to hear what the vegan pot roast is. Yeah. Don't worry about it. It's Satan! Brian, throw up the horns. I saw the first number that you rolled there, Brian.

I didn't. It was a 13. Oh, okay. Okay, cool. So 17. It almost tastes like meat. It's perfect. I'm going to go down to the kitchen.

I feel like I nailed the texture. Yeah, Blaine? I'm going to get out of the kitchen and get some rats. Okay. For a while, you guys all noticed that your new cat friend Bleb is missing and comes upstairs. And, yeah.

You've cleaned out the basement. I can feed cats too meow i'll make something nice for you oh yeah yeah did you just meow maybe now okay so uh after dinner and i look like satan after dinner dr puckle shows up with the uh potion of invulnerability who's going to be putting this in their inventory collects the 25 gold i can hang on since you're paying yeah i'll hang on to it you can be the team peck rat i'm sorry is that offensive um delicious yeah i was gonna say well there's other things squirreling away is a phrase I've heard before.

Certainly. I mean, look at here. Ew. Sorry, I just was realizing that we have almost the same last name. Yeah. That our character. Sharp and sharp twig. Oh, I can change mine.

You can change mine. I don't mind at all. I don't think anyone should change it. Maybe you guys get married. Cousin? Yes. All the world is family will this be the first campaign where chris and sarah's characters don't hate each other because they're cousins all of a sudden okay so uh night falls again and you can choose to leave at night or you can uh leave in the morning it's safer to travel under the sun's warm rays

agreed get another uh as you check in for yet another free night at the bleakest side the tavern owner goes here's your keys uh and do we want to go explore that cavern wasn't there a cavern where they gave tours oh that's where the dragon lives now on top oh i see how much does i ask the um the innkeep how much a room usually costs a gold a night a person per person per room yeah there's one bed per room and i'm giving you it's you know one each for free right now but it's a gold per person per bed yeah think of the money you'll raise once this town is safe and restored oh i feel like you just interrupted me maybe getting some charity cash with that whole like you're going to live oh it'll feel so much better when you're paid for an honest day's work yeah yeah yeah i sort of just

give him like a shrug like i was trying to I picked up the vibe I almost got thank you so much what what's up uh oh uh oh clap why are there rat skeletons all over

my lobby floor all of a sudden rats are fucked up dude that's a bad rat sorry I guess if you had told me you'd done that i would have thanked you but i would have really acting it out folks blame is crouching over and really trying to give us a full method rat puke also listeners earlier when chris said he was procuring something from his cheeks he did a full act out as well yeah it's a very visual podcast all of a sudden since we're in person

this is great we did it i want to clean your kitchen meow oh but i kind of have to or i'm gonna get my restaurant downgraded because of the rat skeletons everywhere the slimy fleshy rat skeletons they're mostly hair yeah okay well night night yeah you guys go to bed wake up bright and early the the warm lustrous sun in the sky uh that's also for what it's worth two nights that you have spent in town with no sign of the dragon that's good who you have learned as of last episode comes about once a week but you depart from Farintown

sun high in the sky across the lava flats it takes you again about two days you guys have to set up camp again but then the next day after a full day's travel you should arrive at the base of Mount Dukes. So, if there's anything you would like to narrate about your night out in the wilderness, this is not the wilderness

of the mountain. That was one of our options for the whole campaign. This is just the plains between mountains that you're currently setting up camp at. I'm looking forward to another delicious meal, Mordecai. Mordecai, would you like to cook for everyone again? Is it dinner time again? Oh, it's dinner time again, buddy.

Let's get another performance trick. But you know what? I liked what you did before. Tell us what's on the menu and then roll. All right, let's see. We're on a mountain right so yeah no I'm gonna prepare a vegan

boar and then uh or just most vegans oh my god that is a joke oh my god shit b-o-a-r blade oh you son of a fuck oh my god. That was amazing. Sweetness. My girlfriend in a coma. And then I had some potatoes and greens and some other stuff. Okay. Sounds delicious. Would you like to roll a performance check to see how that turns out?

Blaine, I hope that you have a numerically based Morrissey joke in the hopper for how this turns out oh boy oh this is one of the best meals I've ever cooked it's a 22 there's a group of adventurers that never go out yeah

and then I do a little vegan tuna pate for blaine that's so generous what is it actually made of that the cat is ingesting uh what is the what is the vegan ingredient here that's bunch of herbs and berries don't fucking worry about it i was gonna one of my character things is that uh squirrel folk eat nuts fruits and, and vegetables. They will never eat meat. If they're forced to do so, tell me if you ever sneak meat into something and I have to make a constitution saving throw.

Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. Or be poisoned. This is almost like destiny that you were paired with this guy. Oh, I can't wait to cook for you. Oh, you've cooked for me so many times. But more.

Not what I was going to go for. It just sort of became part of this character. Wait, so you're vegan, so you can't have any of my mead, actually. What? Because it's made with honey. Mead is a honey. I mean, it depends if you think of honey as vegan. That is debatable.

Oh, is it? I thought honey wasn't vegan. Some people don't care. It depends why you're a vegan. Well, I hope that you. Oh, is it? I thought honey wasn't vegan. Some people don't care. It depends why you're a vegan. Well, I hope that you don't care. No, he's not a strict vegan. He's been dabbling. I took a Tex-Mex class, and I took a vegan class, and I've been combining.

You know, Texas and Mexico. Yeah. In Feiren. Yeah, you know. Well, green sauces. Tex-Mex. I love Tex-Mex anyway. Yeah. In Feiren. Yeah, you know. Well, green sauces. It's Texica. Food from a gas station. A lot of Verde's.

All right. Well, you guys, you know, have these delicious dinners and breakfasts. Make your way across the last bit of wilderness to the gates of the city of Hegrim. There is a few stone steps and then this very grand stonework built into the mountain with two enormous doors. They're just slightly pushed ajar. And there is this really sad, empty hollow wind whistling through the gates.

The gates are several stories tall. They are massive. You don't think a single person, let alone, like, even all of you together couldn't open these giant stone doors. There's probably some device hidden within the stonework of the doorway that would make the gates open and close. But given that there is nobody rumored to be here, it seems like, you know, probably not worth trying to push it open more it's open

enough for everyone to easily walk between but the road in front leading up to it uh you know we go west it looks like there used to be like a big road west maybe some of you came from that direction uh that led up to the gates of hegrin and it has since become very overgrown with trees and flora. It seems like this is not even somewhere people go to squat or hide out. This is a very unobserved

space that you're about to enter. Cool. Are there birds? Yeah. There's no sign of any life except for plants. Great time to assemble vegan ingredients. So you all head inside?

How much time do we have left, Sam? That is a good question. We have 11 minutes left. That's excellent. Light up some torches. I assume it's dark inside. Yes. Also your little helmet is glowingches. I assume it's dark inside. Yes. Also, your little helmet is glowing.

Whoever's wearing it, right? You cast, was it 30 feet of dim light? Yeah. Why don't you keep that in? You've already got it in your inventory, right? Yes. I have dark vision, too. I have dark vision.

Yes. I don't.'t oh why is that I'm a human helm of brilliance helm of brilliance but I do have a feat do I have dark vision I don't believe I do I don't think you do

so as long as the helm is at least one fire opal you can use an action to speak a command word uh flames uh do do do do that emits light what is the i don't know if i want to as long as it has a diamond the helm emits a dim light in a 30 foot radius and it doesn't use up the diamond uh right it's just oh oh when at least one undead is within the 30 oh i thought it was all the time well that's good to know then. Yeah. So, by wearing this helmet, it is like having sting. Yeah.

It'll... It's like having what? You know... Lord of the Rings. Oh, I just 100% was seeing... I could have answered that way, but... I wanted to leave room for Blaine to jump in. I was going to say, if Stuart Copeland is within 30 feet, the helmet just starts to really, really insult it.

So is the helmet glowing? I was thinking of the wrestler's statement the whole time. Not yet. No, it's not glowing yet. All the talk of Spectre isn't haunted. You feel like you feel like you're going to encounter something undead here or at least very similar to undead so i won't i won't i won't fuck with you too much as far as whether or not this helmet goes off but yeah

who's who's uh good with the undead here well we've got a cleric in the party they're traditionally aware of how necromancy works yes you probably got at least one necromancy spell available to you i don't know if you currently have one learned uh at fifth level uh when an undead fails its saving throw against my uh turn undead feature it's instantly destroyed folks okay so he does have turned yeah you should go first sure yeah we should have a marching order why not can you see in the dark i can meow good to know perfect okay so i'm gonna write down in my notes what the marching order is so you guys you know try to keep track on your out of this too but um who's who we have if we have blaine up front up front

yeah can we go can we go two by two or does it have to be single file of course you get it there's you can already tell as you go through the doors there is a massive open chamber so there might be some smaller stairwells or something but right now yeah you could go side by side uh i'm also going to uh throw up a detect mealgic. Boo. A squirrel is booing at that. Welcome to Nerd Poker. Okay, so this range of

30 feet. It lasts 10 minutes. For the duration you sense presence of magic within 30 feet of you. So I'm going to say over the course of 10 minutes, you're going to walk around this big chamber. So I'll describe this for you. You go through the big, huge stone doors. And yes, when you get to the other side, you see there are these large gears that were installed in the backs of doors. So somewhere in the walls, there's a series of contraptions that would allow guards to open the gates. And you can kind of see if you look up, there are platforms where it looks like guards would walk back and forth. But it's all made of this amazing stone masonry that's incredibly

polished despite how old it is. This is dwar dwarven um the the ceiling is a couple hundred feet high you know it looks like there's a thin layer of dust over everything but if you were to wipe it off you'd see just this incredibly shiny like marble like it looks really beautiful marbles there's a lot of really um well-made pillars along this chamber it's a huge thing it looks like this is where it was a gathering place where there were guards but also maybe vendors you see a couple of collapsed tents makes you think okay people maybe even like sold marketplace stuff here but it is it is very dead in here then even even the tents look like they aren't standing on one uh pole anymore they're just completely collapsed and um there's one pillar that is like broken in half it's there's

you know a few dozen pillars that go deep into the chamber and that broken pillar kind of stands out like something large was here at one point and smashed it but um to detect magic um you don't at first feel anything but then you start going deeper in and um there's necromancy just sort of floating in the air high above you for brief moments oh and uh uh are there any meow meow footprints any sort of evidence of maybe other people or animals Let's get an investigation check from everybody. Investigation. It is, again, yeah, very dark. So you guys with dark vision have a little bit of a bonus right now.

You have torches lit, of course, but this is a huge empty chamber with just some sunlight kind of reflecting in from outside through the gap on the gates. Nine plus one, ten? Ten for blep. Ten as well well 10 for pish posh i had a natural 20 but i have a negative one to my end you know what here's i'm gonna play balder's gate three rules a 20 is a 20. oh if you have a negative penalty to a 20 it's still a critical

success yeah uh what would you get my squirrel man i got a 14 but it's like a natural 20 in belter's gate i heard no no it's not um yeah so heard that you're all looking and none of you see what appear to be normal footprints in the dust it does seem very abandoned but um at a certain point juniper you're like like hmm but i feel like something's going on and you notice that in the dust there aren't footprints but there are these long sort of like um dragging marks it looks like almost someone on stilts was walking around in here and they left these kind of like hoof prints that are a little asymmetrical in shape so they don't exactly look like hooves like they don't look like each other they don't look like any animal you guys have seen before and there's a thin trail in the dust behind them it looks almost

like they drag to a stop like they they started to drag the tip of something in the dust and then clomp down lift start to drag clomp down uh i have animal handling can i look at that as for interacting with an animal this is a an unknown monstrosity can i i have a perception uh bonus being a tabaxi cat guy can i I roll a perception check? Why don't we have everybody roll a perception check and you can tell me a little bit more about this tabaxi. Is it a tabaxi like bonus in numbers or is this a descriptive thing?

I have proficiency in the perception and stealth skills. It's my cat's talent. What that should mean is D&D Beyond will automatically include your proficiency bonus in your perception check. Okay, so I have a 17 plus 6, 23. Hell yeah.

What else do you guys got? 21. 9. 21. 20. 9. Oh, well, a couple of single digits, but then three people broke 20. That's fantastic.

It looks like this is what I'm going to give all three of you because because everything's very quiet um there's no sign you notice there's no skeletons no signs of any oh there's sorry i'm so easily distracted and now you can all enjoy that again in person no that's my adhd is what just happened um but yeah you i think you you three would notice there are no corpses or bodies or organic material nearby and then you start to examine the pillar and it looks like something's giant jaws crushed the pillar the break in it you start to see there's like a what looks like a tooth-like jaw pattern that broke into it. Again, it's

a pillar made of marble. Something's chewing up the scenery. Could that be a large pillar made of marble? Glip? Glork? What's it called? Glut. Glut. Perhaps that's a glut. Because you're the one who formed this idea,

Chris, would you roll an insight check? Certainly. I rolled a 16 plus 5. 21. Ooh, no. If you think glut would cause more chaotic damage here and that more of the walls and pillars would be broken if a big dragon was stomping around,

this seems like something else entirely. Can we tell how big? mean ish uh something the break is like 50 feet off the ground so something whose head could reach 50 feet off the ground is wow is there are there any weird smells meow what did you roll i rolled a 23 although you don't see any signs of organic material in a visual sense, you do detect with your cat nose a waft of decaying flesh farther down. How's my helmet doing? Nothing in 30 feet, just now.

And I guess we'll have to find out what that deathly scent is on our third episode of the Mountain Camping. Cool. Samuel, what do you think happened? Nice job. Hi, everyone. Episode two.

We had a potential total party kill, but we opened all of our candy wrappers on air. There's eggs, I think. We're bringing them somewhere. We're discussing how to get there. We're buying a last-minute potion from Dr. Butthole. Now we're on our way to, after a meal from Mordecai now we're on our way to after a meal from dot from mordecai we're on our way we're walking through some giant dwarf gates there's tracks in the dirt something was

dragged here something with big jaws lovely close nailed it it's not good enough for you huh it was wonderful i said close you said close same uh same as last time i'll be at san francisco sketch fest uh but like look at the schedule on my social media instagram i'll i'll post what shows i'm doing i don't know yet i talked i talked to the people there they're like oh yeah come on by but i'm not officially on anything yet so i'll probably be doing something just keep an eye out cool have fun out there man um hit house and then king yes yes yeah um yeah we appreciate your uh patreon uh patronage thanks for following us there and then uh and we've got merch we'll have new merch for this campaign very soon but there's some deals

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for joining us on this episode you got walls and a roof well on the next nerd poker franz ferdinand freaky Freaky Fridays with Benny Flagg for 44 French Falafel fanatics and ah, fucking forget it. All this and the Herb Schwartz OnlyFans AI achieves sentience and puts an entire bag of baby carrots up its ass. On the next 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 at 91416.

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