The Glass Cannon Podcast - Strange Aeons Episode 18 – Enter Sandman

Episode Date: June 21, 2022

The heroes' journey in the asylum reaches its terrifying climax when they finally come face to face with Ulver Zandalus as the marathon to end Book 1 of Strange Aeons concludes! Join Troy Lavallee, Joe O'Brien, Skid Maher, Grant Berger and Matthew Capodicasa as they tour the country playing the Lovecraftian Horror Strange Aeons Pathfinder Adventure Path. Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/5Evz1Imy9co Recap 24:08 Gameplay 30:38 For more podcasts and livestreams, visit glasscannonnetwork.com and for exclusive content and benefits, subscribe today at patreon.com/glasscannon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Price and participation may vary. Extras, taxes, and delivery additional. Expires April 8th. and on the third day they rose to finish book one of Strange Aeons. Grant does the countdown. He goes, all right, your mics are live at five. He goes, ten, nine. He gets down five, four, three, two. And I go, ah.

And he goes, and one. Really threw you off. That was an 11 second countdown. Yeah, I know. I forgot to fade out the theme. I think they heard you starting to say something and over the splash screen. So sorry about that.

Three, two, and one. It's a new system. It's a new system. We're still figuring out. We made it, guys. We made it till day three. We did it. We did it. We did it.

Not only that, for everyone except Grant, this is our fifth day in a row recording. And that's a lot. That's a lot for the team. But if you factor in all the hours Grant has spent this week figuring out the new system that we're using, we're all exhausted. But it's the last leg of the marathon. We've got to muster up strength and finish strong i was thinking right before we went live like uh i did uh ran finished four books of jade region we were about to we were deep into five when we started this business uh four books

of giant slayer we're at the end of five uh three books of dead sun so that's a 11 i've done 11 like ends of books and they're they're an exciting time it's it's but it's it's it's bittersweet because you love finishing a book it's like i accomplished something you can put it on the shelf don't worry about that book anymore um it's a little bittersweet like i really like that story now we don't get to play that anymore that's all right i'm excited for the next story but uh the ends are always wild uh especially the way we play because you know i am usually knives out uh for uh ends of books uh things can get hairy and this book uh i don't have to do too much to make it crazy it is going to be wild you guys get to see it live you get to see us completely collapse psychologically. Uh,

yeah, I mean, this is, it's, it's just crazy. I'm so glad that we're, we got to do this because I just, I wanted to finish this book for so long and I was going over in my head, like where we would have been on the tour for this to happen.

And, you know, a million things could have changed, but there's a good chance that the first part of this session tonight would have happened in Seattle, and the second part would have happened in Columbus. The finale would have been in Columbus. Those could have been interchanged. The finale

might have been in Seattle during PaizoCon. I don't know. But then that means that GenCon, we would have been in book two. So, as Joe pointed out to me when I told them this before the stream, technically we're still behind, which is astounding after 12 hours this weekend. But how do you guys feel?

Like, how do you feel about a book? Obviously I know, I know what's on the table. Grant knows cause he read it, but like, what are the rest of you feel going into this? You already know what you're up against at the beginning of tonight's sesh. I'm just scared, to be honest.

I've heard from you for 18 months that it's absolutely brutal, the book, and that you don't expect people to survive. And then you reiterated multiple times last week, you know, bring your backup characters, I guarantee death. I guarantee death. And now here we are now uh obviously we have one death uh on the books but i don't think that you were counting that encounter as one of them so i'm like i'm just really worried i'm really worried because

i don't want it to end with a tpk basically that's my fear uh and i want to try to push through no matter what. But the thing is, this is cosmic horror, man. Like a TPK is like, that should be expected with like the kind of horrors that you're going to be dealing with. And I have no idea what to expect. So yeah, I'm a little frightened. Yeah, when you play Cthulhu type games,

winning isn't the usual outcome. It's surviving, but with horrible loss or like barely getting out of there. Be interesting to see for you guys and for everyone else watching how closely Paizo mimicked that sort of Cthulhu-esque way of playing.

Grant, what about you? How do you feel? You know, I'm very nervous given how jam-packed the end of this book has been with encounters. I don't know if we could have gone about it a different way, but hard encounter versus hard encounter versus hard encounter. Everyone seems to be able to take one of our poorly formed party out of the fight for multiple rounds. I mean, especially with three of these things at us. Just think about that battle where Sir Julie had to keep on kicking Halster awake.

Now two others could close in potentially. And it's a nightmare. It's a true nightmare. It's a wonderful job by the Paizo team of creating a real nightmare here. Matthew, you obviously you suffered the big loss so far this weekend, but your new character had an outstanding first sesh yesterday. How are you feeling going into this? I kind of, as I logged on today, I could hear you guys plotting a little bit about what your plans were,

so I took my headphones off and kind of just played Silent Observer. You seemed confident, but then you were like, well, no, I think there's something else going on here. How do you feel? I would say confident is a drastic overstatement. We have a coherent plan that we fully expect to be subverted within the first round. Guarded immediately. Troy's like, just then.

You know what I mean? As soon as he says those two words, yeah, at that moment, like, you know, it just, it's over.

Anything you expected, throw it out the window. Do you remember the old Facebook relationship status? It was like you used to be able to, I think it was Facebook. Maybe it was MySpace where you had the option. It's complicated. Yeah.

It's complicated. Tonight, that would be the theme for the rest of this. It's, it's complicated. Tonight, that would be the theme for the rest of this. It's complicated. Skid, you've been a veteran of many of finishing books, going all the way back to second and first edition. How do you feel going into tonight? You got that story out of Aldo, obviously a huge reveal at the end of last session,

that some people are still sussing out, whereas a lot of people online have already figured out what's going on there. You got that out now? Are you just ready to die? I'm ready. I'm always more concerned that it's going to be really frustrating, which you warned us that it probably would be. That's worse than dying. I know. It's worse than death. But there is something else that I want to address. It's worse than death. But there is something else that I want to address. The wombat in the room, as it were. I got a few messages last night.

During our session last night, I addressed Atticus in character, saying he looked very tired. So I said, mate, you look rooted. I used the word rooted. rooted and i got some messages from some of our australia lovely australian fans saying you know that word doesn't mean what you think it means it is a very rude word that means you've been you've been like fuck that means a word that means fucked it's like we were all laughing at how stupid you sounded when you said that word because it's you looked so ridiculous and we were all laughing at you. We all got together here in Australia and laughed and laughed. Yeah, we all had a bunch of Foster's beers and showed each other knives

and we were laughing and laughing at how dumb you fucking are. I just want to say, so for anyone who doesn't know, I've been working off a spreadsheet compiled by our longtime friend and fan, Todd Oneout. It's a list of Australian terms. And according to his sheet, I'll show you what I was looking at. He's got the proof.

He's got the receipts. Yes, I got the receipts. So the primary usage, according to him, of root is, yes, fuck. But a secondary use is to look exhausted, to be exhausted. So it was an intentional double entendre on my part, which may or may not have been an unintentional single entendre that completely elided the main use of the word that I wanted to use. So I'm announcing here and now that I am at least temporarily suspending all use of the spreadsheet until you people can achieve some measure of consensus over your own fucking language.

That's it. They did this to themselves. It did. And I'm sorry. You don't sound sorry no i guess i'm more angry than sorry but i'm you know it's these words these have more than one meaning so you get got to read into it skid you need to add to your list of fears uh being corrected that would definitely be at the top. That would definitely be at the top of the list.

That goes above Jim Crochet now. It's above centipedes. Oh yeah, there's the shirt. The famous shirt. Oh man. Being corrected is definitely at the top of the list. I can't believe I forgot it. To think that started in L.A.

Yeah. Oh yeah. It started in L. started in la god and now here we are about to wrap this up and we're wrapping it up i saw some people in chat last night oh lafayette it's happening we're finishing it tonight um well that's why we're starting at four i mean we're going to at least 10 30 11 right no i think we'll be i want to finish early honestly i'd love to be like having dinner at 6 30. It's not going to happen. But there's a chance we might finish early. That would be great. If not,

we're finishing one way or another, and I'm excited to just jump right in. Oh, no! Before I do, though, obviously, part of this weekend was the marathon. Part of this weekend was boosting up the Patreon to make up for this big blow we took for losing all these legs of the tour. And, of course, the Nash have responded with overwhelming generosity, taking advantage of the new annual memberships that we offered all weekend long.

That's going to end tonight at the 5% discount, at least. Joe, do we figure out yet if we're going to keep the annual memberships but lose the discount for right now? Maybe bring the discount back here and there? What do we decide? The annual memberships will go away after this weekend. They may come back at no discount. We have to basically – consider this like a 5% discount is both a sort of fundraiser of sorts for us for 2020 and also kind of a beta of this annual plan system. So we want to take a look at what shook out over the weekend, look at the numbers, and then take probably a couple months just to see what people are thinking about it.

And then, yeah, I fully expect it to come back. And then if you ask me, look, no guarantees, but I fully expect to have like discounted annual memberships on black friday and stuff like black friday membership yeah yeah so i think we'll do weekends like that i thought it was funny that it was this weekend instead of next weekend which you know because that would be a labor day sale uh but you know this is when we were doing our our marathon so but that's kind of the idea to me it's like pick a pick a weekend a few weekends a year and do sales like this. I think it would be fun. Listen, when there's a tier that offers mattresses to our supporters, then we can have the Labor Day sale.

That's in a President's Day sale. It'll happen when we team up with Sleepy's or Casper or someone. Let's make a $35,000 tier. Let's make a $35,000 tier. And then every year we'll do the December to Remember event where you get a Lexus because you pledged a $35,000 tier. My dad hates those commercials. He's like, oh, yeah, you just put a bow on it. It's a Lexus.

It really is preposterous. Such a slap in the face of every blue-collar man and woman out there. I'm going to buy you a car as a surprise. A $50,000 car. You know what the bow alone must have cost? Ordinary people have to plan and save.

It's not like you're going to throw a car at somebody and park it in their fucking garage in secret. It's also a very presumptuous gift. It's like giving throw a card. Somebody parked in their fucking garage and secrets. It's also a very presumptuous gift. It's like giving someone a puppy. But now you take care of this. Right. Would not be a child. A bad time to reveal my father at the height of his attorney earning power.

Purchase my mom a red Cadillac. I believe Eldorado with a big pink bow in our garage when I was like six. I mean, but yeah so when you saw those commercials during like as football playoffs were getting close you were always like oh yeah that's what people do that's what everybody does the insanity looked at it we're like what a that's like a holiday joke commercial every year the insanity of where i grew up is when i started my growth spurt i thought to myself well looks like i'll I'll never buy a Ferrari because I can't fit in one.

That was what I thought. I thought I'd just be able to purchase one. My earnings in life have turned out to be way below the ability to purchase a Ferrari. But that was the craziness. That's why I'm kind of glad to be out of there. Because it's not relatable to anyone in any way whatsoever. Well, I expect that level of gift-giving if we ever do the Glass Cannon Secret Santa around the office.

Oh, man, I hope Grant pulls me. I hope Grant pulls me. I might get an Eldorado. You'll get my mom's 1993 Eldorado. I'll find it from a junkyard, and I'll get a nice new bow for it. Just like you wanted. In addition to the annual memberships, which, like we said, a lot of people have been taking advantage of, you have until the end of the night tonight to get the membership and also to get it at a discount.

We also released a bunch of new goals. We already hit the $70,000 goal. We hit it on night one. We might hit the 71 tonight. We're at 7711 right now. We need to get to 71 for Cannon Fodder to move to Twitch and be released in audio to our new $10 premium audio tier on Patreon.

But be sure to check out the Patreon to see all the new goals. Grant, I don't know if you have the graphic up there, but if you want to toss it up there, 70, 71, 72, all the way to, of course, Glass Cannon Con at 75. And then last night we delved a little deeper into what the goals look like after 75. But there were a couple we didn't touch on that I'm going to talk about very briefly right now, one of which being the animated pilot at 90 000 well what does that mean uh it's something we've always wanted to do you know one thing we we we always talk about is like growing the business it's become a sort of a catch-all phrase for us for like just getting more people to uh join the nace and enjoy what we do. And we think, not unlike playing 5e or offering 5e content,

getting to animate some of what we do in some way, shape, or form would be a great way of expanding the business. So what form will that take? Will it be Glass Cannon? Will it be one of our other shows? We don't know yet. We have a bunch of ideas, and we've talked to some animation houses and whatnot, but that's $90,000 a month.

We're still a ways off from that. We just think that if we get there, we'd be able to make a small, short pilot presentation that we'd be able to shop around the networks to then be able to see if we could turn it into a full-on fucking show. into a full-on fucking show. I think, too, if I could chime in, I think some of the, or not animated, some of the scenes, the battle scenes we've had drawn and illustrated have gotten me really excited for that idea. Being able to extrapolate those out

to be in full motion and to have development into them and lead up into those, if it works out, it would be amazing to see. I would just love to watch that, even if I weren't a part of the show. It would be so cool to see some of these battles, these intense dungeon fights, and just otherwise the story played out that way would be great.

I mean, it's a great format. I love that it's like Harmon Quest has done it on CISO, and it's great, but they have a very different approach to storytelling than we do. It's more goofy and a lot of guest stars, and they're not very rules-heavy by any means. So to see that approach with our kind of thematic sensibilities,

I think it'd be so cool. This is like real serious action, and that animation, I think it'd be fucking awesome. It would kind of remind me of like when i was like a 10 or 11 and the first time i saw like a really violent like fist of the north star or gyver ninja scroll like right now that seriousness i feel like is kind of missing in that space that our battles have a lot of the time as much as we joke around i love the visceral

nature and toughness of our battles yeah combined the yeah the humor and that the action in that way would be really neat just seeing what our friend friend of the friend of the pod austin uh fr.echel studios makes these animatics uh we've he's done some of glass cannon obviously the barry broadfinger uh one which is one of my favorites and the one with the uh prostitute hairdresser from androids and aliens uh and then he's been doing some of side questions some of delta green i mean just seeing those sort of rudimentary animatics dude the delta she's so fired up i mean the delta green of like the accoutrement on ralph macchio's desk at work you know what i mean like that is just phenomenal. Like that's not in the show.

That's added by the animators. You get other minds involved in it and the imagination just explodes. And anyway, I'm excited. I'm very excited at that prospect of the pilot. The pilot! I've never done a pilot. Troy's done a lot of pilot.

Yeah, I did. Nothing ever happened with him. They all failed. Yeah. They led me to you guys. They all failed. Yeah. They led me to you guys. They all failed. And then at 100,000, I will watch this movie you guys have been talking about. But that deal is off the table if we don't hit 100,000 by 8 p.m.

So it's up to you guys. I just rewatched it. It's on Netflix. And it's never been easier to watch it. Yeah. No interest. Don't care it's never been easier to watch it. Yeah. No interest. Don't care about dinosaurs. Don't care about pirates.

Pirates? Pirates? Don't care about them. No, no, no. But you're also missing there. The first Pirates of the Caribbean is one of the greatest masterclasses of cinematic storytelling ever made. In my opinion. I think that that is an exaggeration.

No, no, no. Having never seen it. For an action film like that it is perfectly paced the screenplay is gorgeous the character development is great like it's just wonderful that's what i always say chinatown and pirates of the caribbean but we're not we're not arguing at kim's video right now troy we're just enjoying things for enjoyment's sake you piece of garbage yeah i mean it's not get into it it's the debate that i always have about the

matrix uh sequels when it comes to like the matrix revolutions i'm always like well i'm not comparing the matrix revolutions to chinatown i'm comparing the matrix revolutions to like big budget science fiction action movies a a lot of which are terrible. This one is tolerable. You know what I mean? So like people are like, it's such a terrible movie compared to blah, blah, blah. It's like keep it within its zone. And so if you look at an action movie, it's really good.

I just need to return for a second. Troy, are you just issuing a blanket statement about dinosaurs and pirates or do you believe that there are pirates in Jurassic Park? That's what I heard. I was just putting that on there, because I know once I watch that, they're going to be like, oh, you got to watch Pirates of the Caribbean next. And I'm like, I don't want to watch that crap either.

I don't care about dinosaurs and pirates. But if there are pirates in Jurassic Park, I don't care if we hit 100,000. I'm not watching it. I'm not doing it. I'll renege on it what about is there a pirate in it no that's why i was confused but are you does anyone ever go are even like jokingly no think about it i mean there's corporate piracy actually actually there are

they are mentioned in jurassic park irons are mentioned in jurassic park that's true there is a joke i'm going into patreon right now and editing the goal. Are you opposed to pirates of all kind? Like, have you seen Captain Phillips? No, no. Is that the one and I'm the captain now? Yeah. Yeah, no, no.

That's like, you mean like Somali pirates? Yes. Yes. Are you trying to get Troy on the record as saying he's pro-Somali pirate? I'm just trying to get Troy on the record as saying he's pro-Somali pirate? They're cool. I'm just trying to figure out where the boundaries of Troy's

taste are. I think they're cool. I don't know what to say. Are they cool? Are we supposed to be okay with them? If you get an Oscar nomination for playing a pirate, would you watch that film like

with someone like oh if i was nominated for an oscar not you there's someone you're like oh that has an oscar nominated portrayal of piracy uh no no no i would not i don't care i don't care about the oscars they're not going to make me well how many oscars did jurassic park win a couple actually for what visual? Visual effects and sound design. Well, final question. Here we go. What about Muppets and Pirates? Ooh.

Now you have my attention. You had my interest. Now you have my attention. So we need to do some genre mashups to get you into the Pirates and the Dinosaurs. I'll tell you what. If Jurassic Park was done with puppets and an occasional frog, I would get into that. It's funny because there are frogs and puppets in Jurassic Park. That's true.

That's very true. I'm not lying. I mean, it's got everything. Everything you already like. Jim Henson's voice. Except for Somali pirates. If it doesn't have Jim Henson's voice. Except for Somali Pirates. If it doesn't have Jim Henson's voice, I'm out. It does have Sam Winston's animatronics.

You listen to Kermit now and Kermit back then. They're two different Kermits. Well, Troy, I'm reading on Kermits now. I know, I hate it. On the first night of my turn at GCN Employee Lounge movie night, I promised to watch The 400 Blows and supplement it with French readings of Cahiers du Cinema in order to please

the movie snob in you. I will join you on that viewing. Beautiful. But we've got another viewing to talk about right now. The viewing of the finale of Beaucoup of Strangers! We're giving away more

dice tonight. Same rules that we've done all weekend long, right, Joey Jojo? That's correct. You've got to take a screenshot of you watching the show, and like Grant said last night, throw yourself in there. It's been adapted today to include Grant's idea of put yourself in it, too. We want to see the

nation. We saw some great ones yesterday. I added them all to my story, and I think we added them to our story, too. They were a lot of fun to see. It was much more fun than seeing an LG TV on a wall. That's for sure. Yeah, throw yourself in there. Don't be shy.

Show us what you're drinking. And toss it up there. Tag us at The Glass Cannon on Instagram. You'll be entered to win. We're going to announce the winner around 7 o'clock tonight. 2,000 viewers is still on the table. If we hit it, Norse Foundry is going to throw in a bunch of extra stuff. So let's see what happens.

And don't forget, we have trivia today as well. To the final trivia question of the whole trivia run, go to our story on Instagram. Answer the question there if you know it. And the winner will be chosen among those who answer correctly. And, yeah, just go ahead and give us a follow there while you're at it. Thank you. In the meantime, for the last time in Book 1 of Strange Aeons,

Grant, do me a favor and take it to the recap. That's great Good Good That's nice That's real nice Grant you've been on fire all weekend From the grantee theft cam To the recaps

Was that one night only? The grantee theft? Oh it's still available Yeah after about ten ones in a row He's thrown it out theft cam to the recaps. Is it, was that one night only the grant I theft? Oh, it's still available. After about 10 ones in a row, it's, he's thrown it out. I need to tweet out a picture.

I need a pitch. We had a picture of my setup, but I, I think I have like reached near windows tens limit on number of USB devices connected to my computer. It is like several USB hubs, three monitors, two keyboards.

Like it's just insane. I don't think this thing can stay up on my desk forever. And it still be load bearing at a certain point. So I might have to remove it. Well, let me walk you through what happened yesterday. If you're just joining us and you haven't been here all weekend, you need to go back and watch what happened on Friday night. Because that ended with the death of Mrs. O'Lady. Spoiler alert, it happened. Ghouls came and attacked. She got paralyzed. Coup

de Grace, first time on the net. Work. Deadzo. So yesterday, we started off by introducing her replacement, her spiritual replacement, as it were, a woman who started her career, it looked like, in the world wound during a Mendevian crusade, perhaps. Someone who we soon find out is named Sir Julie, Sir Julie Andrus, a paladin of Sarenrae who, after her time spent in there, cracked, would you say, and was brought here to Briarstone Asylum decades ago. Decades ago. And only now is she being thrown back into the fight. So when the party brings the body of Mrs. O'Lady, Cartha Malasort, back to the Apostle and Orpiman's camp, they ask Dr. Ren Elborn, is there anybody here

that can help? He offers, he's like, there's an orderly that's kind of strong, but he doesn't have any power. And he's like, well, there is this paladin, or she says she's a knight, but she's a little... You go talk to her, and she's down to clown. So you head back to the scene of the crime where Mrs. O'Lady met her fateful end.

And you see a staircase that's kind of dangling up above you. You have to climb to get to this tower that Dr. Wren told you about days ago. That there would be one of Xandalus' own erogens there that you'd have to talk to. And maybe find out what's going on with this mist surrounding the asylum and seeping into the building itself. You get up there and you realize there's no talking

to be done because unlike Eliage Lysandro, the first Onerogen you met, this one is fully functional. And it doesn't put out a lot of damage, but when you get close to it you get real sleepy. And so this is what happened. You couldn't get in there close enough to, like,

throw a bomb or fire off a spell, and Halster kept trying to get in to get close, and he'd fall asleep, and Sir Julie would have to spend her round waking him up, and then he'd fall asleep again, waking him up. You chipped away, and you finally took it out, and when it died, the mists surrounding that part of the tower outside began to thin. And you realize that

perhaps the other Onerogens that are supposedly upstairs with Xandalus, if we were to destroy all of them, perhaps the mist and the island would be gone So armed with that information You head upstairs You head upstairs and you find Three apostles in Orpiment After the fight you find out that they were playing cards Some gambling game with a harrow deck But you interrupt them

They're living in relative luxury up here Compared to the other apostles in Orpiment In the shantytown of the old asylum cafeteria them. They're living in relative luxury up here compared to the other apostles of Norfamant in the shanty town of the old asylum cafeteria. You confront them. They say get out. You say no. Fight time. Couple rounds into the fight

an old woman enters from the back. It's the infamous bag lady Agra Loomis, former serial killer who has bounced around from asylum to asylum before ending up here at Briarstone. Sir Julie, brave as shit, rushes right up to her. But then you see, even at probably 70 years old, kitten has claws. She jumps on Sir Julie and starts strangling the life out of her.

You're trying to get some stuff off. A timely crit from Aldo with the bomb that ricochets off and hits the bag lady followed by another magical crit from Atticus killing another one

of the apostles. Once they're wiped out, Sir Julie, even though she's getting strangled to death, just stabbing, stabbing, stabbing away

kills the bag lady. You look through the room. You find bag lady. You look through the room, you find some gold. You look through the harrow deck and you find this strange card that has some connection to the race known as the Denizens of Lang. You keep that in the back of your head,

but there's a war still to be fought, so you start climbing over the rubble to get into the next room. The room choked with yellow fog, and you get in there and you see not one, not two, but three Onerogens. This hall of Onerogens, the north wall of the room, completely collapsed and open to the outside. The fog seeping out of their mouth, the fog seeping into the room as well from the outside. You don't know where it ends and where it begins. To the south, in what remains of the southern wall, charcoal and chalk drawings.

Charcoal and chalk drawings that if you look at them too long, it almost looks like there are little shapes moving within them. You walk closer into the room, Sir Julie says, I'm going in, walks up right next to one of these things. But all four of you just get lost in the drawings. We black out from there.

And now, as the lights come up we see a series of quick vignettes that just fade in and out of each other we see scenes of celebrations over drinks in the home of Atticus Grimm we've seen this home before we've seen him and his father have arguments there

we recognize it immediately we see him now celebrating with his friend slash rival, James Netherford. They're drinking and playing games of chance until the wee hours of the morning. Then we see Atticus now staring daggers at James, staring daggers and pouring a vial of something into a glass of wine that he smiles and hands to James Netherford. Next scene, James is now asleep in Atticus's father's armchair while Atticus sits cross-legged at his feet. Candles surround James, and intricate lines are drawn all around and between the candles. Atticus speaks under his breath, a guttural tongue of cosmic darkness.

We see that he's reading directly from a tome lying open on the floor in front of him. It's titled The Tapestry of Madness. The page itself is packed with troublesome arcane symbols, but one thing is titled in common, Mind Swap. Atticus continues his incantation and the room itself recedes into nothingness. No sooner does he believe he will finish the ritual that Atticus feels a presence in this non-space that he's created. Not James. Someone else is here. Atticus turns to see a figure half-lit by the flickering candlelight, and his blood runs cold. This beast before him must be seven feet tall, conical in shape, with three strange appendages. Two look almost like pincers, while the third ends in some sort of hideous maw. The head has three eyes and a mass of fine tentacles dangling

from where a mouth should be. Just as Atticus is about to speak, the figure makes an ear-piercing, guttural sound composed of a thousand voices overlapping each other. The entire plane of existence begins to shake as this alien tongue emanates from the creature. Atticus grabs his head and begins wailing. James awakes as well from his drug-induced slumber and screams, and he looks and sees his friend Atticus on his knees, wailing, but for only a heartbeat before the candles are snuffed out

and the world goes black. Atticus opens his eyes and now sees that he sits in the warmth of his living room. His head is pounding, though, as he looks around. He looks down, and below him on the floor, he sees himself

reading from an arcane tome surrounded by candles. This can't be real. He shakes his head to shake the obvious illusion, then opens them to find that now he's on a stage. He sees the crowd is all on their feet.

They're cheering for him. He feels someone touch his arm and he turns to see a host facing the crowd. A chill goes down his spine because he sees that his own arm has the pale hairless flesh of a human. The host raises his arm and shouts to be heard above the roaring crowd Ladies and gentlemen I give you James Noverford At that moment he searches the crowd Intently for what he's looking for

And towards the back He sees himself A rat In a hat Staring daggers at the stage At that moment the bottom Drops out beneath him A rat in a hat, staring daggers at the stage. At that moment, the bottom drops out beneath him. He feels like he's going to be sick. He closes his eyes and rips his arm away from the host as the cheering fades to silence.

Soundless darkness envelops him once more. Atticus opens his eyes and finds himself back where he was just moments ago, in this space of pure blackness with dim candlelight emanating from an arcane circle on the floor beside him. James Netherford stands in the middle of that circle, looking at Atticus wide-eyed. A form emerges from the darkness behind James and they both turn to look as a small, pale human girl in a faintly glowing pale yellow dress emerges from the darkness. The girl walks right past James, ignoring him, and comes to stand directly in front of Atticus. Her eyes are just like black marbles. Her hair is so thin that her scalp is visible

Atticus is frozen He's unable to move his limbs Unable to speak, unable to breathe The girl reaches for something And pulls a book out And holds it to Atticus It's titled The Life and Death of Atticus Grimm

By James Netherford to Atticus. It's titled The Life and Death of Atticus Grimm by James Netherford. He looks up at the girl and towering over her, behind is this conical alien from Bohor. Its three

appendages seemingly slick with black wetness wrapping slowly around the slender frame of the girl. The creature's elongated neck moves in a peculiar way and the life and death of Atticus Grimm floats from the girl's hands into the air. Atticus can't help to look as the pages fly open and flip, flip, flip several times before landing on the start of a chapter. The title, yet again, is in common. The Mind Swap. Atticus turns back to the creature and it's no longer covering the little girl. It's beginning to crawl all over him. It's wet black

skin pulsing inches away from every part of his body. He feels more than hears the creature as its thunderous voice shatters his reality to pieces. And in that moment, Atticus screams in desperate pain as his own mind is ripped from his body. Lights come back up from that blackness the blackness of these chalk drawings on the southern portion of this broken wall and all of you are staring

staring at these these rudimentary drawings everybody roll a perception check these rudimentary drawings. Everybody roll a perception check. 18. 15. 23. Nine.

Roll for initiative. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. You're going to come from the... He's coming from the painting. Oh, no. The calls are coming from the... That's fine. Oh, man.

Oh, baby. It's starting. Oh, baby. It's starting. All bets are off. This is for not all the marbles, but a lot of marbles. Most of the marbles. A great deal.

More marbles than you'll ever need. Aldo, what did you roll for a niche? 22. 22. Atticus Graham? 21. 21. 21. Good rolls.

You're going to need a 15 to start the afternoon. All right. Alster Price. 16. 16. Every time I say your last name Price, I'm like, is it Price? It is, right? Yeah.

It never sounds right when I say it. Sir Julie Andrews, making her, give it up for Sir Julie, second sesh. And probably her last. Lovely. Lovely.

Eleven. Eleven. All right. Let's go to the map real quick here. I have you guys on the old map. This is where I want you. Yeah. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Aldo and Halster. It's all happening within seconds. You're looking at these drawings on the wall. And you see the sketches start to flutter. Ever so gently. In an unfelt wind. There is no wind whipping through. Though that north wall has been completely erased and the ceiling is barely holding up,

sagging on the few remaining pillars, there's no wind. There's no atmosphere. You see the drawings begin to curl up. In a surprise round, what would you like to do, Aldo, if anything? Aldo, I think just out of surprise and desperation, is just going to take a slash at them with the sickle. The pictures.

All right. AC5 to hit. Natty 15, yeah. Natty 15. AC5 to hit 90-15 90-15 you slice at the pictures and you hit it and three or four of them just rip in half and fall off the wall and you watch

and it feels like the pictures that were on either the left and right side seemed to close the gap. Maybe that's just your eye. There's no way those pictures are moving. But are they? Did they just get larger? Or did the wall get smaller?

You can't tell. Halster, what do you do? Halster can't believe his eyes and realizes that in order to find the strength necessary, he needs to reach outside himself to a higher power, and if he can use a standard action, will cast Bless upon himself and the rest of the party. Nice. May Phrasmus

Spiral protect us all. May we not make the journey to the afterlife yet. Pfft. Bless. So does that give everybody? A plus one to attack and damage? Correct. Does Bless scale as you level up? No.

Every, nope. Still a great early level sort of divine spell to have. It's just a hit, not damage, right? No, it's both. We talked about that last night. Yeah, I didn't think it was. It's not showing up in my sheet. Oh, no, no, no, it's both. It's both. It wasn't damage. Not just any damage. We talked about that last night. Yeah, I didn't think it was. It's not showing up in my sheet.

Oh, no, no, no, no. It's just not. I don't know why. Oh, I'm looking at Mythic. I looked at Mythic last night. I knew it didn't. I knew it didn't. It wasn't damage.

Well, are our faces red? Okay. Mine is. Well, it didn't get added to my numbers, so I didn't ever take advantage of it anyway outside of this he slipped through the whole blast okay that's right first uh thing that will frustrate you this evening everyone roll a will save no is this right is this a fear effect a good question yes sir julia is immune to fear

yes yeah i yeah it's i would say it's a fear effect i am going to enact an ability eldritch knowledge because of what you just saw atticus has been through some shit. And he is able to attempt to steal his mind against this sort of supernatural invasion with his intelligence as opposed to his will. Interesting word you chose, steal his mind. Exactly. The second double entendre of the marathon. This one in American English.

The president's English. I'm going to use my intelligence modifier instead of my will, a wisdom modifier for my will save. It comes with its own penalty. Here we go. What'd you get there Joe? It looks like a dead mannequin I'm dead inside What is the total of your will save?

The total of your will save? The total of my will save. Hold on. Bless matters, too. Does it? Yeah. Yeah, against fear. Oh, great. Yep.

Is nine. It's totally worth it. Totally worth the suspense. Aldo, what did you roll for a will save? Well, I have some bonuses too. I have the bless. Bless. And I also have the enduring stoicism trait,

which sort of reflects his style of madness. He doesn't experience fear the same way a normal person would because that's cool mental break so that's a that's plus one for the blessing additional plus two for the enduring stoicism and guess what i rolled a natural six oh no by the way for those who are wondering what i'm rolling a natural six on that's a norse foundry die you can find them in our stores we're doing giveaways that's a Norse foundry die. You can find them in our stores. We're doing giveaways. Norse foundry.

Norse foundry for all your random generating needs. I just hope you don't need them to be too high and inconsistent. Oh, yeah. All right.

They sent me this T-shirt. Yeah, I got a T-shirt, too. Thank you very much, Norse foundry. Yeah, I got this one, too, here. Yeah, it's gorgeous. I got that one myself. Very nice.

I liked it back. Gradient. Beautiful. Very comfortable te here. Yeah, it's gorgeous. I got that one myself. Very nice. Gradient. Beautiful. Very comfortable tease. A gradient logo action. That's two juicy fails. What about you, Halster? It's going to be close. I think I'm going to fail, though.

It is a total of a 14. That is actually a pass. The bless I would have been in 13. Now, here's the thing. That is actually a pass. Ah! Curse you! The last time would have been in 13. Now here's the thing. Also a pass. This is where it gets... Oh, it was?

Okay. It gets... It shouldn't get complicated, but it's just how... We just all have to be on the same page with this. As long as we can all get on the same page with this, it won't be as complicated as it needs to be. Skid and

Joe, Aldo and Atticus, are now fascinated by the swirling shapes on the pictures. Now, here's the thing. I'm going to read Fascinated from the book, because it's been a point of contention before. A fascinated creature

is entranced by a supernatural or spell effect. The creature stands or sits quietly, taking no other action than to pay attention to the fascinating effect for as long as the effect lasts. Minus four penalty on skill checks made as reactions, perception checks, any, now here's where it gets interesting, any potential threat, such as a hostile creature approaching, allows the fascinated creature a new saving throw against the fascinating effect. We'll save. That's the important line. Any obvious threat, such as someone drawing a weapon, casting a spell, or aiming a ranged weapon at the fascinated creature automatically breaks the effect.

A fascinated creature's ally may shake it free of the spell as a standard action. We understand that last line. may shake it free of the spell as a standard action. We understand that last line. We understand that if a creature comes to attack you, you're broken out of it automatically. It's the potential threat line. I intuit this, that if this thing is just attacking Mrs. O'Lady, excuse me, Sir Julian Halster,

and not attacking you guys you don't get that and it never moves towards us and it never moves towards you you don't get that new save are you guys comfortable

with that ruling sure yeah okay if it comes at you you get automatic if any of them move in the room

I would say toward us we get another save right even if they're coming towards Mrs. O'Lady you don't know that not Mrs. O'Lady, you don't know that. Not Mrs. O'Lady.

Coming in our direction. Coming in your direction. Yeah. Okay. That's fair. That's fair. Mrs. O'Lady is dead. I know.

She's dead to us all. I don't know if you remember. It happened so long ago. Well, this is going to be interesting to see how this plays out. The surprise round is over. It is now round one. And it is Aldo's turn. These Onerogens have the same situation.

They're surrounded, 10-foot radius, by this obscuring fog, which is different from obscuring mist. Someone like Aldo, who relies on ranged attacks, can't target that square. Can't see it. What are you thinking, Aldo, here relies on ranged attacks, can't target that square. Can't see it. What are you thinking, Aldo, here? Oh, you're fascinated. Good talk. Atticus.

I'm not thinking anything. Atticus. Wow, look at those pictures. They are fascinating. Atticus, you would be up next. You have the same problem. Halster, your last turn against these dudes did not go well. You're up.

Halster just gets, snaps himself away from the drawings on the wall in great fear at seeing three of these things or at least enough smoke to indicate that there's more than one and looks back at Aldo and Atticus. Does he notice that they seem

to be stuck on the wall, fixated there? Yeah, they're just like, they're gone. In that moment, fear overwhelms him. He knows he can't just do it, even with Julie's help, Sir Julie's help. So he spends a move action to sheathe his sword, and then he reaches out to unarmed strike smack Aldo Casimir. Threatening him. Hopefully undoing this.

I'm hoping that it'll be ruled out. I think you can just rustle him awake. Oh, okay. You don't have to punch him in the face. You don't have to sheathe your sword. You don't even have to sheathe your sword. You can just spend the standard action to rouse them. I love it. He slowly sheath your sword You can just spend the standard action Like you said to rouse them

I love it I love it He slowly sheathes his sword Sets his feet Really plants that back foot And then The back of his metal gauntlet Just as hard as it can Smacked across the face

Non-lethal but maybe some free plastic surgery In there too Do you want to roll any type of checks I'll do act across the face. Non-lethal, but maybe some free plastic surgery in there, too. Do you want to roll any type of checks? I'll do I mean, applicables, knowledges to the wall that would help. Knowledge religion? Okay, I will roll that.

We'll put that on the grant-type theft system. Oh yeah, maybe it's a haunt. Oh jeez, it's out of the box. You saw it. You saw it first. Uh, I don't know eight that happens for the you finally got to see it everybody that's what it looks like all the time we see that all the time uh so yeah eight on the religion check i do not know anything probably yeah unfortunately you do not um Alright. It is the Onerogen's turn.

All three of them stand there and do nothing. Just stand there, mouths open, vomiting yellow fog. Did my waking up Aldo move him in the initiative order at all? No, unfortunately it was his turn, so he lost the turn.

Yeah. It is now Sir Julie's turn. Do I have to roll a save of any kind? You certainly do. I want to call it the most a save of any kind? You certainly do. I want to call it the most important save of the night so far for you. This is Sir Julie, though. She can crush these saves.

She's a save crusher. Alright, Will's save? Yeah, if you fall asleep here, it's very bad. Might as well just wrap it up. Hey, dinner at 6. it Hey Dinner at 6.30 Dinner at 6.30 Yeah

That'd be amazing How does a 21 work for you? Oh Oh You were able to Thank god Stand it Let's

Trand it I have a feeling I'm gonna have to roll Separate saves for each of these guys So we're not out of the woods yet No but we have a plan Okay Sir Julie will

Uh Wind up Power attack Take a swing at this Oneirogen. Let's see what you got. Tweener, 18 to hit. It's a hit, roll a 20% mischance. 21 or higher hits. 37. You're all right.

Nice. What if somebody rolls an 86 in this room? Oh, my. Or for the rest of the night. Yeah. That is 16 points of damage. All right, so you lay into this first one. That is great.

That is great. Awesome. Do significant damage to it and it still just stands there doing nothing. So weird and creepy. Defend yourself! Can I see the... Oh, God.

Where did you get that? Can I see the walls from where i am in the cloud uh which walls the ones that fascinated aldo and alistair oh yeah atticus okay so sir julie steals herself against the oneerogen's sleep effect makes a mighty cut with the great sword then glances back behind her to see where her allies are and notices one of them staring at the wall. So we would love to roll a knowledge of religion. Yeah. Do it. 22.

Okay. Beautiful. This is a haunt. And that's why we had to do the perception check. Yep yep the old notice check which allows you to act in the surprise round see that little effect

this is what you know about haunts they have usually something that if Halster had applied positive energy to it you would have been able to possibly wipe it out in the surprise round it usually has something else that can kill it you don't know what that is you would have been able to possibly wipe it out in the surprise round. It usually has something else that can kill it.

You don't know what that is. Like, end the haunt. It may be persistent, though, in which case, if it's a proximity haunt or something, as long as people are close to it, they might continually be fascinated by this. So even though Halster woke up Aldo, he might have to roll at the beginning of his next turn. He does.

To remain fascinated. So it's a bad situation. It kind of forces you to have to get deeper into the room in the event that it's a proximity hunt. Out of an abundance of caution, Sir Julia will say,

keep away from the walls say Keep away from the walls Get away from the walls And then relays all the other No It's Fascinating It's beautiful Gotta say this

This painting is so good That I would turn my back On the most deadly room I've ever stepped in In my life And that is Sir Julie's turn That is Sir Julie's Turn my back on the most deadly room I've ever stepped in in my life. And that is Sir Julie's turn. That is Sir Julie's turn.

I'm just reading some haunt stuff. Once per round. What you doing? Oh, just haunt things. Alright, so yeah, this is what I wanted to see. So it's the haunt's turn, and so what happens is instead of you rolling on your turn, anyone within that range has to roll again.

I don't think you're immune to it just because you saved on it, so let me just make sure. Yeah, that's what you said last night. When did I say that last night? You said that if you save... Wait, oh, I i'm sorry i thought you meant on the sleep effect yeah no all right so uh aldo and let me check where hauster is alder and how aldo and hauster roll another will save to see if you're going to be fascinated so julie you are immune because all haunts manifest as fear effects oh Natty 17 21 huge 19

alright so you have got a round to not be fascinated to do what you want Atticus remains fascinated until something changes round two I like when I feel like I'm doing things around 90% of the real way it is

Aldo's turn. Aldo, you have a chance to act now. Okay, so Aldo, still a little... Still not a lot he can do. He's going to move over into the corner of the room, away from the wall, but outside the mist. And he's going to shout out,

he said, Julie, get a bit of light on your weapon or something and shout out, if I can see the light, and then he can point out the enemies. I'll have something to toss at. And he is going to drink an extract, pops off his bomb delir, plucks a hair off of his head, drinks it, effectively casting shield on himself. Ooh.

Good one. I like the hair. That was a nice little touch. Yeah. Ding. That spell is so good. Yeah. Atticus remains fascinated.

Halster, Bryce. Halster does not, if he was informed that it was a haunt by Sir Julie, does not want to waste his precious healing spells on it because of how much in danger the rest of the party has been. So he will take a five-foot step adjacent to Sir Julie, will reach out and touch her sword with his standard action to cast light upon it. Ooh, nice. Go ahead and toss that aura around you, Sir Julie.

You know, it's an interesting thing. Having fought one of these last night, you know that they're not super lethal when they do attack it's the like if you can't time it up to wake one of you up while you're near it uh it could be really bad news um and then i'll take a full move action just outside of the fog i think you took a five foot step already didn't you but there was no need to take that five foot step yeah you Yeah. You were adjacent to her anyway. I'll just cast it on her, and then I'll just move a little bit outside of the fog.

Okay. And away from the wall, really. Your light is very blue, yes. Just to distinguish between that and the yellow mist. I can make it a different color. I don't see Halster's light anymore, though. Oh, because you can only have one up. Oh, it's ten minutes.

No, it's ten minutes. Oh, you can only have one up, right? Yeah. Okay. All right. So, it's ten minutes. No, it's ten minutes. Oh, you can only have one up, right? Yeah. Okay. All right. So, interesting blue light you have there. You see semen all over the walls. I'm no longer fascinated.

It is the owner-ogen's turn. And now, Sir Julie. I find these paintings disgusting. Yeah. Yeah, the panties are covered. Somebody found a little too fascinating. All that yellow, that's not mist. That was just me.

Oh, no. Oh, boy. All right. Guys, come on. It's Sunday afternoon. It really is. People just came to church. A lot of church goers.

Perhaps, Sir Julie, because you attacked this thing You don't know but now It's awake and it's mad Goes to slam you Natty19 Hits you Well I gotta see 20% mischance Oh I rolled a 1

So with blind fight I'll get a second chance And a 12 on the second chance. So it just straight up misses you. Grab that natty 19. Nice. And yeah, that's all that happens for the moment. And now it is Sir Julie's turn. Sir Julie will say, Aldo, Aldo, can you see? Hold on, what is her voice?o Aldo can you see hold on what is her voice

Aldo can you see my light And then she will take a Swipe Power attack And you know because you succeeded on the save For this one you're immune to this one's Sleep effect That is 25 to hit

25 is a hit. Roll the Jimmy John. 12 points of damage. Did you pass the concealment? Oh, concealment, concealment, concealment. 31. Oh, yeah. Razor's Edge.

The good news is one less Onarijan to worry about. Nice work, Sir Julie. Perishes as it falls to the ground, not unlike the oneirogen to worry about. Nice work, Sir Julie. Perishes as it falls to the ground, not unlike the one you fought in the tower. The mists outside, you can see them beyond the two in the back, are starting to recede. Perhaps this is the key. Nice. Sir Julie will say, that one's no more. And then she will move.

One, two. And she will move up. Follow my light. And she'll move up to face the northeastern one. As you move up into that square, I need you to roll a will save. But you do. Natty 19. Yeah, baby.

So cocky Alright Sexcellent It is the haunt's turn And I believe only Atticus Is standing Yep Neither Halster or Aldo Need to roll a new save based on where they're standing

So you know that It's something proximity based And where you're standing. So you know that it's something proximity-based, and where you're standing, at least, is out of that zone of effect. However, your pal Atticus, who has ranged spells, is just still enraptured in there. You want to go in and save him, but then you run the risk of being fascinated yourself!

New round. Aldo. Aldo. All right. Yeah, again. new round. Aldo. Alright. Yeah, again. Well. Alright, so I almost don't want to do this.

I don't think it's... I can throw a bomb aiming at where Sir Julie told me to throw, but I don't think it's worth doing. Just for the damage it'll automatically do to her, and could really do a lot of damage, because I could miss the square completely and hit her directly.

So, I think Aldo's just going to hold. Okay. An opportunity may arise seconds later for you to strike, but he is putting caution first, which,

as you are on this second floor now, is probably the right call. Atticus, meanwhile, remains just lost in these pictures, memories being dredged up of what happened to him in the past, perhaps what led him to this very asylum.

It is Halster's turn. Halster will spend a standard action casting Divine Favor upon himself. Actually, no, he won't because he... No, he wants to save his final casting of that for another battle so um Halster doesn't want to pass out in case someone gets in trouble so let me just see

Halster will move into position next to Sir Julie Andrews in order to help next round. He can only move 20 feet in order to attack the creature, but can't quite make it there this round. I mean, you definitely can. You just have to roll that save. No, because I started here. 5, 10, 15. And then the diagonal. Okay, perfect, 15. And then the diagonal here.

Okay, perfect. Let's get up the granti theft system. This is the will save here. New die, because that die was failing me. 14 on the die. Total of 21. You are immune to its sleep ability. Okay.

Now we'll swing out an attack then. Awesome. You did that instead of divine favor, right? ability. Okay. Now we'll swing out an attack, then. Awesome. You did that instead of Divine Favor, right? Correct. Awesome. Yeah, roll to hit. It's a total of a 15. 15 would be a hit.

You've got to roll that 20% mischance. Sony! Okay. 21 or higher does it. 86, we should talk. Where's my other D10? What a terrible time. Love the Grand Tie theft system. Just

simply love it. Alright, so I'm just going to roll a D10 twice. So this is for the tens digit. Oh, a ten? Oh! So it's a fail. Oh, that's a miss. Oh my God. That's's a miss. Oh my God. That's a Swiss miss.

What a bummer. Meanwhile, it is the Onerigen's turn. And now that both of you have struck out at it, it takes an attack against you. First one is going after Sir Julian Rus. 15, big old miss. you. First one is going after Sir Julian 15. Big old miss. Second one coming at Mr. 30 AC over here. Halster Price.

That's going to be a 19 to hit. Miss Kling. Nice. That shield, man. Poop salad. All right. That's that one's turn. The other one That shield, man. Poop salad. All right, that one's turn. The other one does not move.

It is Sir Julie's turn. Sir Julie, you are immune to what's known as the Veil of Mists ability. All right. Seeing that Halster has stepped up And not fallen asleep Sir Julie is going to Slide to her left To go after the third Nice Ooh slide to the left

Follow my knight You know what that's not a 10 that's a 70 I think well it's too late now Damn it Granger Ruined Matthew's moment I know I'm so sorry We'll save Natural 20 Damn it, Grancho. Ruined Matthew's moment I know, I'm so sorry Will save? Will save, yes Natural 20

Oh, man And a natty one on the roll to attack? Let's see what happens Power attack Come on, baby Natty 8, so that is a 15 to hit That's enough They're not wearing any armor.

Roll a 20% mischance. 50. 50, he says, with a flourish. Roll damage. Okay, not a lot of damage. 10 points of damage. A lot of damage. I think we can all agree it's more damage than Atticus has done this encounter.

Yeah. Let's keep moving here top of the next round it's Aldo's turn yeah I had a plan Skid but then Grant stepped in so he ruined it for you oh no

yeah I mean if it was... If these guys weren't able to handle these on their own, I could toss a bomb at Julie Andrews one, but I think I would do more harm than good. So I'm still just going to hold. I get that. It's definitely the safe option right now. You want to save

your ammunition as well. Whatever's coming next, I want to be ready for whatever's coming. Throw a bomb at Atticus wake him up oh actually oh yeah yeah yeah he's still fascinated so Aldo Joe's like wait what Bob I'd prefer to

take this encounter off skit is this corner around the corner from being able to see it or do you maybe it's a proximity thing and not a visual thing but that might be a good place it's like a broken pillar oh well these are the broken it's like a broken wall chunk but yeah i mean you could you give them splash damage um oh i know i see no go ahead well what i'm gonna do i going to throw my dagger at Atticus. Okay.

Wake up! Ranged attack. What about this rubble all over your feet? That's not threatening, necessarily. Maybe he can leave a dagger sheath. We've got to take a skid to a good stoning Monty Python style sometime. You're going to crit. Who do you want to hit today? Oh, there are women here.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. 16 to hit. Well, I'm going to say it's a hit because I'm assuming I'm flat-footed to the attack, right? Well, put the fascinated condition on. It should adjust your AC accordingly. With old Hero Lab. Yeah. Don't leave home without it.

Oh, no. It does not change my AC, so it harmlessly deflects off my mage armor. But it is a direct threat with a weapon. Yep. Yeah, it's an obvious threat, you might say. An obvious threat, right, Joe? Yeah, hostile threat.

He's in clear and present danger. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. I just tried to kill you. The guy that wrote The Fascinated Condition is watching tonight, and he's like, this is why I didn't want to include it. This is why I didn't want to include it. It's too good.

It has no business being anywhere near a combat encounter. I know. The entire purpose of the ability is for social situations. encounter. I know. The entire purpose of the ability is for social situations. Yeah. I know, but then you have something like this where it's a haunt whose only ability is to fascinate.

Yeah, it is a haunt. It's cool. But like, it'd be much cooler if they used it so that they could pull something off and you just can't stop it rather than like, attacking you.

Well, it's also, it's changing the way I'm playing. I'm not having them move. You know what I mean? Or at least I haven't thus far to keep you. Well, it's changing the way I'm playing. I'm not having them move. You know what I mean? At least I haven't thus far to keep you in that thing. So while you're sacrificing yourself, it's helping your party not get ganged up on. And so I snap out of it?

You got a new save, right? Or yeah. No, it's a new save if, say, they move at you. But if you are attacked, you just snap out of it, right? Any potential threat no, it's a new save if, say, they move at you, but if you are attacked, it is a, you just snap out of it, right? Any potential threat to any obvious threat, such as someone drawing a weapon, casting a spell, or aiming a ranged weapon, it says someone

automatically breaks the effect, yeah, so you are, the effect is broken. Beautiful. Alright, and then it's my turn. And I just have to roll again. Actually, it is, yes, it is... Yes, it is your turn. If the haunt got another turn,

you'd have to roll again. So he gets distracted, looks at Aldo, thinks like, what the fuck was that? I'm going to... Oh. Don't look at the planet. 90, 18, 21.

Not fascinated. No, you don't have to roll that. It's not its turn to fascinate you Oh I thought just because I was Starting my turn in it's presence No no no It acts on initiative 10 All haunts act on initiative 10

In that case I'm going to Snap out of it and I will just I'm just going to Move to the middle of the Cloud To try to see where my allies are I will just... I'm just going to move to the middle of the cloud to try to see where my allies are, and then I find myself. I see the back of Sir Julie.

Okay. Hello. All right, Atticus has joined the fight. She creepily says, turns around, hello. Halster, you're right up in the business on one of these things. You withstood its Ve veil of miscibility what do you want to do? There's only one

option and that is to chop chop chop here it comes 18 on the die that is a hit nice oh concealment first okay so the red die will be my 10 the black die will be my single digits

a 77 nice The red die will be my 10. The black die will be my single digits. A 77! Nice! That's a crit in Cthulhu. And minimum damage, six points of damage. Minimum damage, six points of damage. First time this one has been hit, but Halster did strike. It is now their turn.

Two attacks on Halster. Two attacks on Sir Julie. First attack on Halster. Natural one. Oh! Just terrified by the ferocious presence of Halster Price. Now we're having lots of fun

with a natural attack. I was going to say I'll take the rest of my attacks while you're looking that up, but it could very well affect the rest of the combat. Okay, let's see. This one from Sean in Cincinnati. Cincinnati Kid. The Cincinnati Kid.

Home of the Cincinnati Kid. The Sleeping Horrorsters. Cincinnati. Cincinnati Kid. The Cincinnati Kid. Home of the Cincinnati Kid. The sleeping horror stirs. Ha ha. Oddly appropriate. An eldritch horror is fitful in its slumber and you suddenly become psychically aware of the outer god's presence, leading

you to a temporary state of mania. You are confused for 1d4 rounds and are vulnerable to psychic damage for 1d2 days. Will save halves the duration and negates psychic vulnerability. Wow.

Yeah, you're confused. This thing could hurt itself! Alright, it's a very low chance of a will save against Houser's AC and I miss with a 16 on the will save. Oh, great. Okay, so it's 1d4 rounds. It's confused for 3 rounds.

Amazing. So does it need to roll now if it has two attacks? So it's second attack. I'll have to roll a d100 to see what happens first. That's great. Lay on the table. This poor thing, if this wasn't confused enough, I rolled

a nine, which is act normally. So it will attempt to slam, but it's still confused for three more rounds, and it misses with the second slam. Nice. Meanwhile, the one in the back... And then I believe

that as soon as it gets attacked, it breaks the confusion. Or then I believe that as soon as it gets attacked, it breaks the confusion. Or, it will attack its attacker. I'm pretty sure that's in confusion. But I'll read it while you move on. Okay. FYI, Sir Jules. If a confused

creature is attacked, it attacks the creature that last attacked it until that creature is dead or out of sight. Meanwhile, the other one is going to take two against Sir Julie. First attack is a big ol' natty two. Second attack is a natty

19 for a 24. Yep. Here's some concealment. An eight on the concealment. Wow. Reroll with the blind fight i mean garbage all right a 65 uh not a lot of damage it's going to be four points of damage so whatever strategy you have here uh thus far is working moving right along it is sir jul Julie's turn. Okay. Power attack. Swing with the great sword. That is a 23 to hit and a 49 on the concealment.

Ooh, baby. Nice, nice, nice. Finish it. Finish it. Minimum damage. Nine points of damage. Oh, gross. Roots McGoot's over here.

Gross McGrosserson. Top of the next round, Aldo. Aldo, whatever you did there, throwing that knife at your buddy Atticus, it worked. He's up. All right. Aldo is going to double move to pick up his knife. Double moves to pick up his knife. Did he perhaps move in a dangerous area?

We'll find out. Atticus, you're up. I'm going to delay. Atticus delays. Halicus, you're up. I'm going to delay. Atticus delays. Halster, you're up. Halster will swing out again and will roll all of his dice at the same time. Here it comes.

18 on the die. 77 again on concealment and max damage all on camera. You see the luck in action. We're talking 11 points of damage. 11 points of damage. He just lays into the thing, and it's still, like, hovering back and forth. It is now their turn.

They will attempt to do a little bit of damage here. They haven't been successful thus far, but chipping away could mean a lot towards the end. A 17 to hit and a 18 to hit. Two misses on Halster, and then against Sir Julie, a miss and a miss! Two misses from the other one. It is now Sir Julie's turn.

Sir Julie, you've got a chance to take this one out. All right, here we go. That is a 16 to hit and a 71 on the concealment. Hit, hit. What's your minimum damage? Nine. It's dead. Yeah! Two. What is

going on here? What is this encounter? I don't understand it. It makes me very unnerved. Two unnerved. Two Unergens down. However, now that Aldo has moved back close to that wall there, he needs to roll another will save against

these fascinating... I'm gonna move. Fascinating pictures. I'm just gonna move to flank with Halster on the other Unergens. Okay, and you got there without provoking, right? I don't think you could? I don't think you could I won't do that

I can't hit the broadside of a barn you can still move right next to it yeah I'll do that and you're already immune to its veil of miscibility Aldo will save on the paintings that is a natty 18 for 22.

Picks up his knife, spins it around his hand, and resheets it. Top of the next round, it is Aldo's turn. You got your knife. What do you want to do? All right.

I was about to say, that wasn't a knife. He's having a good time. But it was in fact You know what that joke is rooted So Aldo is gonna He's just gonna step away and get close to Atticus And that's it

Okay Atticus your turn Yeah right He turns to Aldo What do we do They seem to have it in hand Atticus Is just gonna do Perception Turns to Aldo. What do we do? They seem to have it in hand. Atticus is just going to do Perception. Perception for other dangers.

He's looking around. He sees the cloud. He knows they're fighting in there. He's not going to get in there. Natural two. Got that out of the way. All right. That'll be my round. Good.

Good. Get that done with. And it is now Halster's turn. Halster, finish him off if you can. Halster will five foot step into flanking with Sir Julie. And then another multi-die roll on the Granted Theft System.

Dim, dim, dim, dim. Okay, natural one. Oh! No, buddy. That is why we play. Switch die. Oh, no. Why did you switch play. Switch die. Oh, no. Why did you switch die? You had a hot die.

No, that was the same die that was hot earlier, but that's what random chance means. Wow. And you are a named character. I am. Doesn't matter for fumbles. That's true. You know what?

My parents took the effort to name me, so I appreciate Troy pointing that out. It was unrelated. I just wanted to mention that he does have a name. He has a name, you know. What do we got, Joe? We got Chiz from Bellingham, Mass.

Ah, Bellingham. Ah! Bacana. The defender deflects your attack With such ease You are certain there is no way you can defeat them Your character gains the frightened condition For 1d3 rounds Fortitude save

For shaken So that's it Okay here it comes Oh Jesus Out of the box Out of the box. Oh, out of the box again. So nervous.

Natty, 19. All right. Okay. You're just shaking for 1d3 rounds. How many rounds? You're shaking for, doesn't matter, two rounds. It's going to take probably its final attacks and a natural 20 on the second attack. Against whom? Against, I didn natural 20 on the second attack. Against whom?

Against, uh, I didn't call it out. So I'm going to roll a d6. Uh, 1, 2, 3, Sir Julie, 4, 5, 6, Halster. 1, 2, 3, Julie. Uh, to confirm the crit. Concealment. Ah, yes. It is an unconfirmed crit,

but I will roll concealment A 1 again Oh my god Reroll for blind fight And a 39 so it is just Exploding dice Just chipping away Exploding I got a 4 and a d4

And another 4 on a d4 Oh come on So 4, eight, ten. You don't get the bonus. So 12 points of damage. Oh, my God. I suppose exploding dice does benefit lower-sided die more clearly than others. There's a higher percentage.

That was better than confirming the crit. That probably did. It absolutely was. It would have been triple damage. So just boom! Unnatural strength. This thing just lays down upon you. But it is your turn, Sir Julie,

and you have been red hot this combat. Can you take it out? Let's see. Let's hope so. Sir Julie! 17 to hit. 17 is a hit. Roll concealment.

62. 62! And how much damage? 14 points of damage. 17 to hit 17 is a hit roll concealment 62 and how much damage 14 points of damage ooh yeah yeah and you are out

of combat the mists outside are out of combat. The mists outside look to be more than halved at this point. You can actually see some of the rock formations, benches outside, pathways on the ground surrounding the asylum. You almost think you can see water where you couldn't see water before. It's still pretty grim out there.

There is still some yellow fog. Maybe not as many shapes. But the weather is also bad. So it's hard to really tell. But clearly destroying these now four onerogens has severed something and started the healing process. Where you are standing

you see a hallway that stretches to the west. Oh. Okay. Could we do a little wanding sure time absolutely um three points eight points one more eight points wow great i can heal too i can anyone else i can heal too I can heal too you know I can do stuff

I just wanted to save on hands and any spells and combat level stuff my lays on hands the new potato chip flavor from lays on hands on hands so we have defeated

these creatures what next I'm ready to push through So we have defeated these creatures. What next? I'm ready to push through. I don't know about this. Let's keep going. Let's keep going. Research the body. Yeah.

Research the room. Yeah, take 20 in the room if we have time. Hell yeah. All right. So, Sir Julie, you're really the only one that can get close to the wall. So, roll a perception check. Me? Yeah, without incurring the effects of the haunt.

So, while everyone else is searching the rest, you roll a perception on that, and then the rest you roll a perception for the room. Natural four. Twelve. Twelve. Twelve. Alright, so as you're looking over there, you don't really see anything that jumps out at you. Sorry, I'm going to also detect magic

on the room. Detect magic on the room. You detect magic emanating from the pages, the drawings. But nothing else. Well, actually, I mean, now that we're not threatened by enemies, it's not horrible if one of us gets fascinated.

Right, as long as nothing else comes in here, it's not the worst thing. Right. Aldo be ready to shike me out of it if I'll get the old gilly-goolies. And he goes over. Atticus pulls

out a dagger, flips it, grabs it by the point, and just goes, whenever you're ready. That is a 20 on the perception. 20 on perception. Just just for argument's sake roll a will save uh that is a 16 all right so you're over there and you're looking you're withstanding the fascinating effect you're kind of keeping your eyes up and uh you looked at many of the drawings have text on the back side of them so you start taking them down and you realize

there's some sort of order that these pages can go into they were ripped out of a book and the back side the blank side was used to draw the charcoal and chalk drawings but it was some sort of book. If you had enough

time, which you don't think you have now, you may be able to reorganize these pages into something useful. Yeah, okay, so I start, because it looks like there's a book here somewhere, there's a book in this, and he

just gathers all the sheaves together and tucks them into his own spell book, like in a packet at the end of the between the cover of his books, of his spell book, and tucks it away into his backpack. It says in the book you have to take an hour to gather all those pages,

but I think that's stupid, so I'm going to say you just take 10 minutes. An hour? Yeah. They're really sticky. They're really stuck on the wall. I would say that the four of you can do it in less time, a quarter of the time. So they write this stuff and you're like, that just seems ridiculous.

But sussing it together and putting it where it has to go, that could take hours. That's for sure what do you do so these stairs on the southeast side of the room they don't go anywhere you look and like you can see the landing uh just beyond it um but it seems to just lead to nowhere. The ceiling up there is gone. So, I say we go down this hall. All right. Agreed. Let's go.

Let's go. Begins walking down the hall. Do you, Sir Julie? Lovely? Wonderful. Yes. Yes, quiet. All right.

Sorry, I'm just itching uncontrollably from my liver damage. Sounds so strange to say. Sorry, I'm just itching controllably from my liver damage. All right, you start meandering down the hall obviously Atticus you can see further than the rest of them you see that this hallway continues on

and eventually opens up into a room to the north you see a couple or you see one door hanging on its hinges just opening into a room to the north you see a couple or you see one door hanging on its hinges just opening into a room that is completely collapsed and not unlike the north wall

and the room that you were just in completely exposed to the elements alright moving forward continue forward alright is the whole party kind of moving on with Sir Julia All right. Moving forward. Continue forward. All right. Is the whole party kind of moving on with Sir Julie? Yeah.

Yeah. I think in general, like I said last step, when the space allows in a hallway, Halster will walk alongside Sir Julie. And when it is too narrow, he will walk behind her. Okay. Very good. Okay. Very good.

I'm going to do a perception for traps. Okay. In the hall, 13. All right, you don't see any traps, but now the deeper you get into the hallway, you see that there used to be... These were probably cells that were used for solitary confinement or patients that needed to be put in small quarters and locked away. And the further you walk in, if you thought the last room looked shaky, you feel like this could collapse at any moment. The ground underneath

your feet feels very wobbly. Also, just like the room you were in before, there are thousands of parchment scraps covering the walls, but they're covered almost as in a pitiful attempt to plaster the countless cracks from whatever shook the foundation of this building. There's also candlelight, the flickering of dozens of candles illuminating these parchments. These parchments that you see aren't just there to cover cracks, but feature artwork.

aren't just there to cover cracks, but feature artwork. Artwork consisting mainly of innumerable, forlorn, surreal landscapes stretching into bleak infinities. And the multitude of these visions, as you continue walking down this hallway and eventually opening up into this room, which is equally covered in these things, transforms this experience into a threshold of nightmares. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. Towards the rear, as the hallway opens up, you see in the center of the room ahead of you, Atticus sees this before anyone, lies four stained mattresses and numerous pillows, heaped together to perhaps make a makeshift pallet throne. Sitting atop said makeshift throne Is a gaunt man With a ponytail

Of long and exceptionally white hair And he's sitting cross-legged atop these pillows Like a Kalashite mystic He wears multiple patients' gowns that have been shredded and stitched together to create a multi-layered robe. His arms and much of his chest are exposed, revealing lines of charcoal and yellow chalk

that streak his flesh, the most prominent of which appears to be a yellow flame emblazoned on his forehead. From everything you've heard so far and gathered together and pieced from articles and journals you've found throughout the asylum, you believe this to be Oliver Zandalus. Oh my god. Let me see where you guys are on the map.

Yeah, can we see it on the map? Yeah, so... I'm gonna show you what you can see. Atticus is the only one that can see. Let me do a little shift Z. Oh. Prettier than I expected.

Yeah. Hmm. Wow. Got white hair. Yeah. What? Atticus immediately stops everybody. Stop, stop, stop.

There. Ahead, the next room. It's him. Only, perhaps, 50, 60 feet away. And is he looking right at me? Or at us? His eyes appear to be closed.

I'm sorry, is he sitting, he's sitting on the throne, the makeshift throne, eyes closed? Eyes closed. It's like he's meditating. Eyes closed. Don't know if he knows we are here. What do we do?

Let's kill him. He must be sapped in one fashion or another. Shall we? No. Any buffs anyone would like to do any buffs anyone would like to do why i i i um i ought to get my poops i ought to buff you into next tuesday uh has it been three minutes since our last encounter? Yes. So once we start moving forward...

You took an hour gathering those pages. No. Once we start moving forward, Atticus is going to cast Mirror Image, but not until Sir Julie is straight up walking down the hallway. That's going to be your last second. And it looks to open to the left and the right

approach very slowly keep your eyes peeled for other threats hauster will reapply bless at the last moment as well so you see these people walking down the hallway and just it's like it's the magical equivalent of cocking a shotgun before going We're going. All right. I'm going to roll. Aldo. Sorry. Aldo is going to mix a couple more extracts. He's going to cast shield again on himself. And he is going to cast comprehend languages on himself. Just in case.

Oh, I love it. Right. Okay. How many images do we see? Four images. Pretty darn good. stinky sis four images for atticus and uh yes that's that's what he's going to do for now and and you're going to cast bless you said okay watch this just be a role-playing encounter. I know.

It's just genius. Yeah. We're going to, like, intro be like, and that's about six minutes. And you've used all your stuff. Are you here to save me? No. All right. All right.

So you all step up, and these will be your just-before moments. Step up, and these will be your just-before moments. As you get to right where you are on the map, his eyes go wide, and his mouth falls open. At that moment, a voice like a tempest wind hissing over broken glass shears from his split motionless lips as though something other than

Xandulus himself speaks from inside his body and you just hear you're supposed to be dead I already

killed you. Why aren't you dead? And at that moment, Xandalus is yanked up like a motionless puppet on invisible strings, and his mouth lets forth a scream.

And he floats towards you. Roll for initiative. Oh my god. Oh man. Here we go! Here we go! Oh man. Well, at least I can be confident in the fact that

this guy only does physical attacks, so my mirror image will be very effective. Yeah. Oh, baby. We're having fun now started in uh what october uh 20 2018 no 20 2019 to october of october 28th 2018 2018 we cracked open book one in L.A., and now we're going to finish it in our homes. Aldo Casimir. Well, I rolled a natural one. Oh, no. What kind of dice are you using?

Well, that would be Norse Foundry. For all your random number-generating needs. Normally between one and eight. This is the worst because this is my one chance to throw a bomb without hurting one of my friends while I'm doing it. So that's a seven. And you have improved initiative,

right? Just to protect you against situations like this. I'm pretty sure we have a surprise round. So I wouldn't worry too much about it. Sounds like he has no idea we're here. Sir Julie? It sounds like he has no idea we're here.

That wasn't even him talking. I don't know what it was. 18 for Sir Julie. 18 for Sir Julie. 18 for Sir Julie. Atticus Creon. 22 this time. Now he's 16. Moving it up

inch by inch. Halster. Prize. 14. 14. What's your initial bone? Plus 3. Plus three. Plus...

Plus three. Please, sir. I have a three. When was the first time you heard this? You guys came up from the dungeon. And you met an apostle that was like totally not there. And he said, praise, praise. Words fail.

Zandalus sees. That happened, I think, in L.A. Was that in L.A.? Yeah, I think that was the first thing you heard as you started exploring the halls before you even talked to Crossbow Jackson. Praise, praise. Zandalus sees.

Now, here stands Oliver Xandalu. Evidently the man behind this asylum uprising. It's round one. And it's Atticus's turn. How many are you? I'll throw your mirror images up. I have four images in addition to real Atticus. Four images in addition to real Atticus. Four images in addition to the real one.

What shall I do? Shagum kagum. Okay. Just start. Magic missile. Wish I had it. Hmm. Okay. wish I had it uh hmm okay

man you know what I'm gonna delay I have no idea what this guy can do or is capable of I'm gonna delay oh I'll do a knowledge check to see I mean so this guy this voice this disembodied voice said I killed you

I'm assuming this is from the tatter man from the nightmare that started the whole thing. I want to see if I can determine anything with the knowledge planes check about possession or what abilities he might have or weaknesses.

You know what I mean? I don't know. Yeah, it's tricky because what you have in front of you is this being. But go ahead and knowledge planes is definitely what you want to roll. Okay, giving it a shot. Not too bad. 23. 23.

Is there any way to know what this thing is capable of? All right. way to know what this thing is capable of. All right. You feel like this tatter man, perhaps, is anchored directly to Zandalus'

consciousness. That he himself may be on another plane speaking through him. And may only be able to influence Xandalu's thoughts. So that's what you got here. You don't feel like he can actually hurt you with Xandalu's here.

Okay. And he will say that to the group quickly, and that'll actually be his action. I'm not going to move, and I'm not going to cast anything just yet. That's just a knowledge check. You don't have to waste the action if you don't want to. Okay. Well, just to test the waters,

as this thing comes moving at him, he's going to reach past Sir Julie and fire a ray of frost at it. He has no idea what effect it's going to have, but he'll just try it. Okay. So this is a ranged touch attack through some cover.

Ooh, natty 19! That is a 23 against touch. Touch plus 4. That is a hit. And he does Man six on the die Three points of damage I've maxed all of my rate of frost over the last two days

So three points of cold damage Does it seem to affect him It seems to affect him The body whips back in pain Okay And I Am going to stay where I am Okay Chat make sure I will move back and I am going to stay where I am. Okay.

Chat, make sure you're... Actually, I will move back. I'm going to move back a little bit. Sorry, I got out of there, too. If you're watching this on Twitch, make sure chat don't spoil anything, not only for the people watching, but for my players who are probably reading the chat

and looking for good ideas. I'm not, for the record. if there are any mods, boot them if they do that. Wait, so hang on. Just to recap, I was trying to look at my character sheet to see if there was anything I could do. Zandalus himself is a conduit for the Tatterman, who's probably on another plane. And then we think that we can't actually affect the Tatterman but we can hit Xandalu's because goes Ray right and you have every reason

to believe that you know it's through this control perhaps that he was orchestrating this whole movement through like as Xandalu's mouthpiece alright moving right along. Keep breathing, everybody.

It's Sir Julie's turn. Sir Julie Andrews. She's new to this party. Sir Julie is going to... Is he flying in the air or is he kind of just above? No, he's just like... He looks like there's invisible strings holding him up. Okay.

Sir Julie is wearing heavy armor, so she is going to have to double move to get up in melee with him. She's going to go around and come up over here. Okay. And double move. All right. And don't move. Alright, it hasn't acted yet, so it would technically be flat-footed, and so it cannot take

an attack of opportunity. Sorry, is there anything to the south? Or the north? Oh, yeah. Now that Sir Julie's in there, I can show you the rest of the room. I feel so claustrophobic right now. Oh, no. Oh, Julie.

Oh, no. Sorry. I used the reveal tool on roll 20, and it hid the room. It's so weird that it does that every single time I go to reveal the room. Isn't that strange? And I know we've talked about this before. It's like everyone knows it's a fight, but you're still flat-footed until you act in the round. I always thought that was a little counter.

It's one thing if it's like you caught him unawares, but I guess that's... You're having a conversation. Yeah, I know. It's like, we know we're battling right now. What the hell is that? That knight just got behind me. Yeah, I just love the image. Yeah, to me, it breaks the immersion like a video

game where he just like Sir Julie just like runs by him and he just watches her. The only reason I can use to and probably why that is the rule is like this is all happening in six seconds and Sir Julie was faster so she was able to get there before it

was able to react. Yeah. But I still don't like it. Oh, we were having a perfectly pleasant conversation about how I killed them before, and then they jumped me out of nowhere. For no good reason. For no good reason. In my own house. Halster, you are up. So, after hearing what Atticus shared with us regarding what is going on with this guy,

and following up on a hunch I had ages ago, which I discussed in the show, and not wanting to have the same effect where we had a scroll of paralysis removal that we never used, Halster will reach into his sack and pull out the candle of spirit protection which I guess will be a standard action candle of spirit protection is a move action

okay so I can't so here's the deal the area is protected against intrusion by astrally projected creatures ethereal, haunting corporeal creatures, mediums channeling a spirit, and phantoms. I'm hoping this will interfere with this. If that is a move

action, then all I have left is a standard action. You could light it. I can't. It will only work in a 10-foot radius from where I light it, so I need to get next to him first. Any attempt to move it once it's lit will extinguish its properties, according to the wonderful archives of Nethis.

Halster will cast, in addition to this, just in case, Divine Favor on himself, and with the Fate's favored bonus will receive a plus 2 to hit and damage, and is ready to move in and light it next turn okay unless someone wants to grab it relay style but that's the plan pulls it out as a move divine favor is a stand downy

and then religion checks would that be any use here or no no okay can I throw something into the mix? I don't know if this is going to be a thing, but I just want to let you know. If you don't like it, you just throw it right back at me. Just toss it right back, sure. Sir Julie's mercy is deceived.

So if she ever, if there's an ongoing illusion that I fail to disbelieve, I get an automatic reroll. Thank you. Thank you for telling the class. It is Oliver Zandalus' turn. Sir Julie, you have a real good view of this as it's standing next to you and about to

hurt you. Yes. It's already pretty scary what you just saw, but all of a sudden its head down, and a darkness envelops it. And it just looks at you with those dead, vacant eyes, where you know somebody else is driving the car. And then it just, like, twists its head at you. You roll a concentration check, or a cast offensively, rather.

Natty 19. Made that. Roll a will save. Is this a fear effect? No, mind affecting. 17. 17. You pass. All right, you're going to take half damage. 17 17 You pass

Alright you're gonna take half damage From a mind thrust? From a mind thrust With a little extra flavor Dropped in from Oliver's class Oh rocks You're lucky you made that save.

Oh, my God. I rolled 3d6. I rolled 665. So, 12, 17. So, that's going to be eight points of mental damage. Okay. And then one point of bleed damage. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Scanner. Scanner. Literally, it just, yeah, boom, and you just, you feel like a little cold spot leaking out of your right ear as blood begins to trickle down your face. And it will then float five feet backward, just like, it looks like it's floating, but it actually moves just five feet backward. It looks like it's floating, but it actually moves five feet backward.

Actually diagonally up. Avoid some friendly fire from your friends. Aldo. Kazimir. Well, I'm glad he did that. So Aldo, seeing this move, this horrible thing,

he is going to run up here, run up to get an angle onto him and toss a bomb. Yeah. That is a 14 against touch. 14 against touch is a hit okay oh yes okay so that is 16 points of fire huge huge okay so Aldo lays into it with a bomb it is now new round Atticus's turn this is so terrible

Atticus is going to move up move up 20 feet got so many crazy things on me. What is going on with all these Atticae? I have never played this class, by the way. Come on. It's a class? Yeah, it's got some levels in a certain class.

I think... Actually, I know one of you has played. So is this line of sight blocking right here? This wall? Yeah, it's a chunk of a wall. So Atticus can't shoot at him, correct? Just got to move it a little bit more. I maxed my movement.

All right, he's just going to... He'll ready an action. If this guy steps out and is visible, he'll fire his crossbow at him. Okay. Very good. It is Sir Julia's turn. Sir Julia shakes off the mental pain. She will lay on hands.

Okay. Get two points back. Is it ideal? And then she will take a five-foot step towards Zangelus and take a swing. Power attack is on. Natural one. Oh, no.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.. Oh, no. I'm. Jules. Jules! God sakes. Oh, no. Oh, no.

Not in a boss fight. This isn't a video game. You can't just restart at your earliest save. Is she a named character? I don't know. Is she a named character? I don't know. Okay, this one from The Young Squire Petty Pants. From Asheville, North Carolina.

Asheville, love that town. We get a lot of support from Asheville. How you doing? We do. Love Asheville. College town, great town. The title is Bra.

As you miss your attack You know I love his reactions To fumbles Makes it worse As you miss your attack You notice something about your target That hits you hard in the feels

You become dazed For 1d3 rounds Jesus Will negates Oh you become dazed for 1d3 rounds. Oh, Jesus. The daze. Will negates. Oh. So at least you get a chance. All right.

If you are dazed for three rounds. 21 on the will save. It's against his AC. You are all right. Oh, wow. Thank God. Dazed for the first. What is going on here? I don't understand this encounter. Oh, wow. Thank God. What is going on here?

I don't understand this encounter. Oh, bad. Okay. Well. Got very, very lucky there. No secondary effect, right? That was it. Will negates.

Alright, so Julie steps up and almost puts herself in bad position. Could you imagine if she was dazed for three rounds? How fucked we would be. Well, I mean, can you imagine if Mrs. O'Lady were here? She could do nothing. We'd be... I'm sure this thing is immune to mind-affecting effects. O'Lady wasn't making it out of this book.

I don't know. I don't know that it is. I mean, it's a psychic. I think it could be like the fight at the end of Dark City. If she was here. Anyway. Psychic battle. I think it could be like the fight at the end of Dark City, if she was here. Anyway, psychic battle. I don't think this, I don't think she, I think Xandalu's mind is not what we're fighting.

So I think... Oh, well, yeah, maybe. It is now Halster's turn. Halster, you got a candle in your hand. You brought a candle to a gunfight. I did. Halster steps up 20 feet. Looking at the wall next to him, it provided cover or whatever

concealment for Atticus to not be able to shoot from where he is, but does it have cracks in it? I'm just trying to ascertain whether or not I can light the candle here and the smoke would emanate in a 10-foot radius or if the wall would stop it. No, I'm fine with that. If you drop it in that square,

I'll make a little candle for you here. Good old Roll20. I'm sure I can get something, and then you can put the aura on it you want. There you go. Excellent. Okay. So I guess that would be a standard action probably to...

Actually, I can just... Hold on. Edit the token. Let me... Can you put an aura on the candle since it won't be attached to me? Sure. How many? Ten feet?

Ten feet. I guess it would be a standard action to light it. So it doesn't say in the text, but that makes sense to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say to light it and place it down is going to be your turn. Okay. Because you moved as well, right? Correct. Yeah, yeah. That be your turn. Okay. Because you moved as well, right? Correct.

Yeah. Yeah. That's your turn. All right. So he lays down this candle of spirit protection to perhaps try and ward all of you from creatures from the spirit world. It is now Oliver Zandalus' turn. It is now all for Zandalus' turn. Zandalus is standing right there

and again just does something, looks exceedingly dark and cocks his head again. I'm going to need a will save from Halster. Okay. A total of

18. 18. That's a pass. Nice. Oh, wait. It would be a 17 if it's not fear. 17 if it's not a fear effect. It's not fear effect, yeah.

Okay, so 17. 17, you're still alright. 4 points of damage and one point of bleed. Oof. Oof. And that'll tick on your turn. And that'll tick on my turn? Okay.

Yeah, so Julie, you took a turn after you got hit, right? So take another point of damage for the bleed. Although, did you use magical lay on hands? I did take, I used lay on hands. All right, so that would for the bleed. Although, did you use magical lay on hands? I did take, I used lay on hands. Alright, so that would stop the bleed. Smart. Smart! Alright, so it does that, and then it moves

fully behind this wall now. Or he moves, rather. Five foot step. Five foot step. Behind that little clutch wall. And it is Aldo's turn. Okay. Aldo.

Oh, wow, this could actually work out again. So Aldo's going to step into this pile of rubble here and should have view of a corner of the sky. He's going to throw another bomb. Yep. This one, Halster, will have to try and avoid some friendly fire here. Wait, but there's a wall in between

me and him. Yeah, you get a bonus to your reflex save. Okay. And I have a miss. That is a nine against touch AC. Oh, boy. So that is going to be the old D8. We haven't had this one in a while, right? Bad news. Okay, boy. So that is going to be the old D8. We haven't had this one around, right? No. Bad news.

Okay, so that's six. One, two, three, four, five, six is right on Halster's square. On the candle? Yeah. The candle's out, but more importantly, Halster takes full damage. And then... Oof. Halster

takes 14 points. That doesn't hit my touch AC either. Does that matter? It just changes where the square is that it hits. Yeah, it just lands on the square. It's splash damage, right? So wouldn't I be affected by splash damage instead of a direct hit? Yeah, it just splashed damage. It didn't land on his square.

It landed on the square next to him. No, it landed on Halster's square. But it wouldn't have hit my touch AC. Isn't the DA just the ring of squares surrounding the target? No, it's where the bomb lands. It landed on Halster's square. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

So when it lands on there, it doesn't... Oh, my roll 20 didn't update. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. It doesn't make sense because it wouldn't hit my touch AC. I feel like I should just get splash damage from it if it doesn't hit my touch. Interesting. The rule kind of doesn't make sense on top of that, but regardless.

Well, that aside, I'm just wondering if it hits you or if it doesn't. I mean, yeah, it wouldn't hit your touch AC. All it has to do is touch you, though. Like, it hit you by accident. Yeah. All right, so. But with a nine when my touch is 11. No, no, but I know.

But, like, that's... If I were aiming at you, I would have missed you. Yeah. But I threw it at something else, and it accidentally hit you. Yeah. All right, splash damage. And then, so, it's... But it's...

You can... I guess you can still roll the reflex, say, to avoid the splash damage. Okay. And then, uh, Oliver will do the same, but Oliver gets the bonus now and not you. Okay. Oliver made it. He doesn't take any. I like that you're on a first-name basis with him, Troy.

Me and Oliver go way back to the beginning of book one. Twelve, which I imagine doesn't cut the mustard. No, that is a fail. How much damage? So that's nine points of damage. Nine points of damage. All right, not great. He's been...

Sorry. Those have been landing true for a while. It's Atticus's turn. Atticus, you now see that he is ducked behind what remains of a little wall there. Probably this used to be... Like all these rooms to the north were little cells, this was probably a room comprised of four or five cells,

but most of the walls are broken down. I just don't know. I can't see him. I just... And I can't heal anybody, so... You know what? I'm gonna cast... I'm gonna cast Detect Magic. Okay.

On the room. And a cone on the room, just to see if there's any other sources of magic in the room besides him. Which I wouldn't really know in one round. Just ruling stuff out. The only magic you detect in the room is emanating from the mace in his hand and the candle on the floor in front of Halster. Okay. Well, that's a standard action, so that's his round. I'm not going to move.

Let me just make sure. There's actually... There is the... You're not even supposed to give me any of those specifics in the first round. It's just the presence or absence of magic. Yes, there's magic, so I won't tell you anything else. Thank you for not letting me say too much. All right, detect magic.

Yes. It is now Sir Julie's turn. Okay. Sir Julie will show five foot step up to Zandaloose and take a swing. Taking a swing at the loose. Natty 18. Nice. With power attack, that is a 25 to hit. That is a hit.

There we go. Well struck, Sir Julie. 16 points of damage. 16 points of damage. Boom! Thrashes out. And that hurt him. That definitely hurt him.

The time has come for you to release your hold on Xanderloose. It is now Halster's turn. So this wall, can I strike through it? No. Okay. It's a confusing wall to me. It's a wall that you get a bonus to your reflex save if there's a splash damage, but you cannot strike through it. It's like it's providing cover.

Okay. Alistair will do... So he can't strike me through it either. So let me just see. Five. Actually, five, ten, fifteen, twenty. And will swift action

heal himself with fervor and empower that very quickly with a blessing. Let's see how much healing I'm going to get out of it. So that's six points of healing. Okay. Very necessary at that point after that bomb damage. And that will be Halster's turn. He'll hopefully be within position to attack next round.

Okay. It is now Oliver Zandalus' turn. Joe, you shook your head at my cover comment. You don't like that? I mean, yeah, I just, like, is there a line of sight through it? Yes. Okay. And you know you can attack through cover just with the bonus to AC in melee, but if you're saying it's just, you know, while you can attack through cover just with the bonus to AC in melee.

But if you're saying it's just while you can attack through, I just mentioned the line of sight. Yeah, I'm just saying it's a while you can attack. You get the bonus to your reflex save, but you can attack through. It's fine, too. As a move action, it makes sense, too, because Halster would need to draw out his sword anyway after having held the candle. So he really shouldn't have been able to attack anyway. So either way, it's a move point. Okay.

It's Oliver's turn. Oliver will take a five-foot step back. Did we decide that if you take a five-foot step, you can draw something as you do so? Yes.

Yes. As long as you have a BAB of one. He pulls a... That doesn't matter in that case. You can take a five-foot step and then move equivalent action to draw anything. Okay. As long as you don't move again. Oh, I thought if you were going to do something else.

Yeah. He does so and drinks a potion and goes invisible. Oh, okay. Okay. So, Oliver has disappeared, and it is Aldo's turn. Okay, well, Aldo is going to take another

little five-foot step, give a little better look, and though he went invisible, he knows where he must be, or where he likely is. So he's going to throw at the square where he saw him drink the potion. Okay. That is a natty 13.

So that's a 20 to hit. Okay, 50% miss chance. Okay. Come on, buddy. Miss. 37. 37. So. Oh, my God. miss 37 so

oh my god okay so it hits the wall behind it hits the wall so like up towards the ceiling it just so yeah in three dimensions it will splash reflex save natty 14 so that he makes it doesn't

take any splash alright you have an idea where he may be, but he is no longer visible. New round, Atticus. What do you think? Hold on to detect magic for a second round. Yeah, I'm going to keep detecting magic, and now I get to know the number of auras of magic.

I also know exactly where he is, because he's carrying a magical item, as Corey told us in the last. Right, so he's right there where you thought he was um you know still 50 mischance because he is invisible i know the number of different auras and the power of the of the most potent aura so if there's something that really stands out i would notice it in in comparison to the other auras six a auras, and the most powerful aura is... I'm sorry, the power is like the caster level, I think. Right.

Six auras, the most powerful of which is emanating... I get to tell you where it's emanating from? No, no, no. Not location, just the power, like the caster level. What it actually is? Okay. Third round is exactly where it is. Let me tell you too, Troy, the candle of spirit protection is caster level what it's actually is okay third round is exactly let me

tell you to troy the candle of spirit protection is caster level 11th if that changes the oh thank you thank you for telling me that uh i can tell you that's interesting it's a super powerful thing i was hoping that it would cut him off somehow yeah i don't know if it had any effect at all or not otherwise i would have just attacked him him off somehow. Yeah, I don't know if it had any effect at all or not. Otherwise, I would have just attacked him. Sorry, I'm just trying to suss this all out, and it doesn't quite give me the information. I guess the

candle spirit protection is a level 11? Faster level 11th. It's from Occult Adventures, page 256, Moderate Necromancy price 1500 gold pizzerinos we should have sold that if money meant anything in this horrible place um interesting well i think that might be the most powerful thing which just seems crazy to me it's a very powerful spell. What it does is incredible.

Yeah, so 11. That's what you feel. 11. I hate that, though, because it's certainly not the most valuable thing. Do you want me to lie, or do you want me to tell the truth, Troy? What do you want? I got this whole camera.

God damn it. Do you want to move it all, Atticus? No. Alright. Sir Julie. Sir Julie will take a five foot step here so I don't have any cover and will swing at the square she saw Xandalous drink the potion from. Okay.

50% mischance. 51 or higher hits, I'm saying. Gentlemen, 51 or higher? Gentlemen, 51. Okay, 90 on the mischance. 51 or higher hits, I'm saying. Gentlemen, 51 or higher? Gentlemen, 51. Okay, 90 on the mischance and a 22 on the hit. Oh, yeah. That is a hit. Big hit.

Swing for the fences. Great sword connect. Ooh, I rolled a 6 and a 5 on 2d6, so that is 18 points of damage. Something is about to happen. My detect magic finally worked! Yes! Atticus MVP! MVP! MVP! Yeah, man, he has been hot tonight!

You feel the body that was there crumble to the ground. Oh. And from that spot that is still invisible, clouds of thick yellow smoke begin just pouring out into the space. And we'll see you after this quick intermission. No, no, no. Oh, man. Oh, God.

A quick word from our sponsors. Us. No more smoke, yes. See you in a bit, everybody. See you in a bit. Man, if that Android's intermission clip doesn't get you fired up for the return, so

friggin' funny. Still, it still holds up for us. We're sitting here watching it just die. I couldn't hear it, and at one point I looked over at Troy, he's just cackling. I'm like, are you just sitting there laughing at your own jokes? It hits so good. It hits so good good i was just remembering it i was saying like

it's so funny because ellie made so many mistakes with her own finally we just had to be like all right on. Can we get this out of the way? You don't know your character. Know our own name. If you haven't followed along, both Glass Cannon and Androids will be back in November. Joe was saying before we went live tonight, he's like, we need to just like pick three days and record a bunch of glass cannons in a row over three days just to like stay in the same mindset that we are like we are with strange aeons it's not a terrible idea joe i know i'm in the zone right now and like and then skid even

said it he was like think about your prep is jam like you can just prep one game for just for you know it's coming yeah three weeks four weeks out we schedule it and it's just like bang bang bang and we just and we're so in it because right now we're very in it with Strange Ads I think the only difficulty

would be like it's a lot different prepping a book five and a book six eleven hours twelve hours of that than it is prepping a book one

but yeah but if you're doing like multiple sessions you end up doing re-prepping stuff over and over again each time that you thought you may get to that you didn't get to right so at least you it's always those high-level casters man that's what really just like yeah give me a high level guy that all he does is like grind he's got a couple feats that just make his smash yeah his

damage even more cool at bleed clean sign me up. But when you get into casters and stuff, it's a pain in the butt when you're not used to playing these. I had to, for this last guy, I had each round written down of options of what I wanted to do for him because I wasn't familiar with the class of one Oliver Zandalus. But yeah, before we jump back in, I just want to thank everybody for joining us all weekend long. We've had an unbelievable turnout from day one all the way to this strange afternoon time,

which is very convenient for us, less for other people, maybe. It's also Sunday, but we appreciate it. We appreciate all the new subs, the upgraded subs, the people that jumped to annual subs. Thank you. And like I said, we're already starting to book tour dates for all of 2021. So if this disease can get its shit together, we're going to be back on the road playing live where anything could happen. Kind of like this. But you get to see it in person. And we drink.

We drink a lot. We're still doing that giveaway I'd say we're probably gonna go to about seven if you haven't taken a screenshot with yourself in there if you want you don't have to of us tagging us at the glass can on Instagram do it now you got like 27 minutes before we're gonna pick a winner of another set of glass cannon GCP Norse foundry dice. But honestly, I just want to jump back in because I can smell the end here. And I'm really interested to see how this is going to all play out. You guys made relatively short work of the man formerly known as Alvar Zandalus. He went invisible, took a gamble there to try and move back and get some healing because you laid into him with bombs

and with great swords and with a couple clutch detect magics. With a scented Yankee candle. Don't forget that. The scented Yankee candle and the detect magics really took him out. He falls and you can see— Did the candle do anything?

It doesn't appear to have any effect thus far, but your day is far from over. So, Julie, you feel a body fall next to you, and yellow smoke, tendrils of yellow smoke, start rising up from the space where you know Zandaloose to have been, start rising up from the space where you know Zandloos to have been, and then slowly his body starts to appear, and you just see from every orifice smoke shooting out in all directions, so much so that it starts to cover your vision and black out from there. That yellow fog gives way to a late autumn sky All colors of the rainbow, orange, purple You see a chalk powder white waning moon Mournfully sitting low above a swampy landscape The noise of toads and cicadas dominate the scene

As we see a falcon swoop through the air Riding on the turbulent winds Our eyes follow its dusty silver wings As it ascends from the crown of the cypress swamps To the apex of a soaring ebony obelisk Dotted with saffron lights Our view now takes us inside the obelisk, where magical white candescence glows from a shield

lighting a winding staircase, where we see Halster Price climbing, flight after flight, until he finally reaches an iron-bound oak door. From a monk's pouch tied around the waist of his folds, Prysa extracts an impossibly complex key and unlocks the door. Amber light beams through the open door frame,

so bright that Halster has to squint. At the rear of this cavernous, oblique room, high atop a sulfurous throne, sits a man wearing a circlet on his head. The light effusing from behind the throne makes it impossible to fully regard his features, but does nothing at all to diffuse his voice booming from the willowy, serpentine silhouette. The time has come, my dearest supplicant. Your duties as lector have been executed admirably, but it is time for a reassignment. Halster struggles to hide his disappointment. Where would you have me serve,

my prince? The pitch black backlit figure rises from his throne, a halo of dandelion enshrining The time has come for you to leave us and serve another. An allied house requires your assistance. Immediately on the morrow, you are to report to Count Hasterton Lowles IV in Versex County. As you command, my prince. He turns to walk away, and from behind we see, beneath Halster's hair at the rear of his skull, a spiral scar, glowing briefly with gentle phosphorescence.

And that spiral, that phrasmal-like spiral of yellow continues to turn until we're back in this room where the body of Oliver Zandalus now lies, yellow fog spewing from every hole, including the holes that Sir Julie made in him with her great sword. Staying in initiative order here, what do you do? That was Sir Julie that landed the killing blow. Halster will move in to flank Sir Julie, standing side by side to regard the fallen figure. Can you do a perception check or a heal check to learn anything about him? Sure.

So we'll go with heal. That's a nine. He's too nervous in the moment to do anything um you know he's dead he doesn't resemble the uh what happened to the noah narrations remember you looked at them and looked like their organs had been eaten out from the inside um he seems to be dead, but there's something seeping out of him. Does Sir Julie appear hurt to him? A little. A little. And with one use of fervor as a standard action, Halster will reach

out to heal Sir Julie, will not use a blessing to empower it. Five points of healing. That's great. Five points of healing on That's great. Thanks. Five points of healing on to Sir Julie. Moving right along, it is Aldo's turn. Aldo steps up to, can he do an arcana or an alchemy check on the mist itself to see what it is?

Yeah, I would say planes would be best. If you don't have planes, do arcana. 18. 18. It just resembles this fog that's been surrounding the asylum, the fog that you've seen strange shapes in. So just knowing what you know so far, it's almost like the dreamlands are entering the room. All right, moving on to Atticus. I'm just going to keep detecting magic.

So that would be a third round, which means I know the location of all the items. Okay. The largest collection of those items are where Xandulus was sitting in the direction of the uh the pile of pillows and mattresses um and there's obviously uh the mace that was in zandalus's hand and the uh candle that uh house are placed on the ground and none are stronger than the other? No. I mean, the candle is the strongest. Okay, then Atticus is going to walk over to the pallet and do a spellcraft check. Okay, you want to move the pallet around and search because the pallet itself isn't magical. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wherever the items are.

Okay. All right, so you start kicking. Well, I mean, actually, I mean, it doesn't say you have, well, yeah, yeah. Wherever the items are. Okay. All right, so you start kicking. Well, I mean, actually, I mean, it doesn't say you have, well, yeah, yeah, you have to have line of sight. So, yeah, I guess I have to see the actual item. Okay.

So, you start kicking at the palace to see if you can find the source of the magical aura. And you see several things trickle out. you can find the source of the, uh, magical aura. And, uh, you see several things trickle out. You see, um,

sorry, got a lot of shit here. I've got so many tabs open. You know, you have like a million tabs open. You try to scroll down and it's just like, that's what's happening right now during a climax.

Alright, so I just love looking at the map. It's like, Atticus, Atticus, Atticus, Atticus. You see, as you kick it, coins start going everywhere. You see some coins that you'll be able to gather up. A wand. An el gather up. A wand, an elixir,

a scroll, and a book. Okay. For this round, I'll do one spellcraft check on the wand. Okay. Roll a spellcraft. This. Roll a Spellcraft.

This would be a good one to not screw up. Natty 19, 27. Nice. It's a Wand of Command. Ooh. Okay. With 38 charges. Whoa.

Okay. Good. I think that's his round. Okay. Moving on. It's Sir Julie. Can I do a Knowledge Plains on what's happening with Sandalus' body right now? Yes.

That's not going to cut it because it's a natural two. So seven. Yeah, you don't know. But it's uncomfortable. It is still, like, pumping out yellow gas. Yeah, it's just, like, it's shooting out, like, almost comically. Starting to fill the room. Sir Julie will drive her greatsword into Zandlu's chest just to make sure he's dead.

Okay. Blood emanates. And now that you've created another hole, more yellow smoke. Oh. It is Halster's turn. blood emanates, and now that you've created another hole, more yellow smoke. Cool. It is Halster's turn. Still nothing is happening. We're staying in initiative order.

Can I also do a perception check on my turn for the room? See if there's anything else going on that I haven't noticed. Yeah, that's not going to cut it either. Twelve. You're all fired up from the kill. Can't really get your head straight to perceive.

Halster? Jeez. A heal check failed. Would a knowledge religion check help at all? No, there's really no thing to yeah i think you feel like your group knows all they're going to know about this yellow unless someone crushes a plans check do i get the sense that the body is still alive and with us or could i stabilize it could i cast stabilize on it and now that

sir julius ran it through again it it's gone. It's totally gone. Okay. Hold, I suppose, unless there would be a way to seal off this room somehow. Really, he's racking his brain for what to do. It's not usually, even though he can't remember any of his past, this is a very unusual situation, so he's at a loss. Yeah. I hear you. All right, so you're going to hold your action.

Yes. Okay. Very well. It is Aldo's turn. Aldo hears Atticus's little rat-like claws digging around in the pallet. He's like, oh. So he goes over there to see what he's doing, and he sees these items spilled out on the floor. And so what is left?

There's a potion, a book. Yeah, a potion, a book. He took the wand. There's an elixir. Yeah, the elixir is the potion. He took the wand. There's an elixir, a book, a scroll. Elixir, book, and scroll.

I'm going to do a spellcraft check on the elixir. Okay. 23. It's an elixir of truth. Ah. Interesting. Nice. Oh, interesting.

Truth serum. Okay. Puts that in the old pouch. Save that for later. Atticus, come here! He'll do a spellcraft on the scroll. Well, he has read magic.

Okay. So I guess that would break the detect magic that he's been holding. But he doesn't detect any other R's, right? Whatever the guy was holding. All right, so he'll do read magic. So he'll cast read magic. Cast read magic on the scroll, and it is a scroll of Summon Monster 3.

So you've got a nice little haul there. Elixir of Truth, a scroll of Summon Monster 3, and a Wand of Command with 38 charges. Do you move at all? No. It's the standard and then the move to pick it up. All right, okay. Which means he also has to put down his crossbow.

So his crossbow. So his crossbow is down at the moment. Okay. Something happens. The mist now is completely surrounded the body of Xandalu so much so that you don't even see him anymore. Sir Julie caught one glimpse of him as she made that final stab, but now so much smoke has come out,

you can't even see where he once was. Suddenly, from that mist, steps a figure. The shadowy, gaunt murderer from your communal dream. Oh, come on. You said he can't hurt us. Arms covered in exposed veins and red lesions. Fingernail scrapes across his sickly white head and face.

The markings, perhaps, of those trying to fight for their lives against him. Razor-sharp teeth, seemingly too many teeth, protrude from his round, lamprey-like mouth, and from the sickly fog clinging to him, and many of his tatters flutter freely and just dissolve into the mist. You don't know if the tatters are actually clothes or just parts of the mist attached to his body. He looks like this. No, no, no, no. I kind of want to see it, and I kind of don't. I got it, I got it, I got it.

I got it. Oh! Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, come on. And now things are about to get... Oh, he's got chains. He was chained up somewhere.

Oh, wow. Oh, interesting. Let's just take one more creak look there. How awesome is that? He steps forth from the mist. Yeah, yeah. You recognize him immediately because you saw him in the first dream.

He killed Burl and then proceeded to kill all of you. He steps forth and I need everyone except Sir Julie to roll a will save. Okay. I'm going to use my ability again. I can do it one more time.

Because it's fear, right? Fear or something else? I'm sorry. It works if it's fear or something else. No, it's fear, insanity, madness, confusion. Is it any of those? Oh, yes, yes. It's Fear. And everyone's still under the effects of

Bless. How many rounds is that last? Last minutes. Minutes, you're there, all set, yep. Okay, here we go. Come on, dude. Yes! 25. 25. Uh, Halster. 25.

Halster. Nine. Aldo. 11. No, guys! I need you, not me! You don't need me! You need you! Oh, no. Aldo and Halster

Are panicked For 12 rounds Oh They must drop everything they're holding And flee from the source Of this creature From this creature As as it were. On their turn.

Well, at least they'll survive the encounter. Yeah. They can come back later. I guess they'll come back with Matthew's backup, backup character. And we'll do this fight again in December. And, uh... Oh, God. And we'll do this fight again in December. And at that moment...

You wish I failed. I wish I failed. Concentration check. Made it. He vanishes and moves somewhere in the room, as far as you know. Moving right along, it is Sir Julie's turn. This is the most fucked up thing I've ever read for, like, a boss. I mean, because imagine if all three of you fail, that it's just Sir Julie.

That's the fight. It's 5d6 rounds! Wow, so you rolled pretty low I did roll low and question for you this person is not astrally projected ethereal haunt and corporeal medium channeling a spirit or a phantom

no it's from another plane it's a plane walker uh sir julie what are you thinking It's from another plane. It's a plane walker. Sir Julie, what are you thinking? Oh, we lost Matthew. Matthew just left. He's just so furious. Matthew's like, fuck it.

I'm out. We got a good close-up of his final moments before he succumbs. We need like a go-to Matthew pic to put up there. Oh, there it is. There we go, guys. There we go. I have a plus two fork bone. Ha, ha, ha, ha. There we go, guys. There we go. I have a plus two fort bone. I am such a tactical genius.

Oh, mind thrust, mind thrust, mind thrust. On two different shows. Mind thrust. Wow, Matthew, you're really hard on yourself today. What's that all about? Oh, I don't know. I've just been sad lately. Grant's been crushing my times on the Peloton.

Oh. Yeah, I don't know. It's just, it's hard being, you know, above small size. Let's imagine what he would do in this circumstance. I would say run and cower in the corner. Imagine, though. When I saw that he was making a paladin, I thought to myself, okay, there's a chance you'll make it out of this book.

But not after that first thing. Now, there ain't no chance. I can tell you right now, after Sir Julie, it's going to be Halster Who will just run And then it's Aldo who will drop and run And then it comes around To Atticus Welcome back Matthew

We can't hear you We cannot hear you Matt Still can't hear you for some reason? If you're afraid, you can just tell us. Let's close up on Matthew struggling with his computer. We'll let you know. There it is. Hey!

Thanks for rising. I was just hanging out here, and then the computer just froze and crashed. Frozen and crashed. Which is great, because I hadn't saved my recording. You know what that is, Matthew? Typical Apple. That's what I always say. So typical, it's never happened before in the entire five years I've had this computer.

If that ever happens to Grant's computer, we're running in trouble. Can you attempt to rejoin the Zencaster link, just for fun? I'm in. According to what I'm looking at, I'm in. He's in and recording. And you're recording again now? Yeah, I lost my entire Grudgement file. That'll save.

That'll save a crashed file, I think. It didn't. The first part of it. All right, let's try it. As long as you're recording now. Sorry for the behind-the-baseball talk here. Just have to make sure. Really just ripped the tension out of the room. This horrible situation.

Let me tell you, the tension over here is extremely high. Palpable. Palpable. What are you thinking in terms of your turn? You're talking to me? Yeah, yeah. I just got recording again uh okay anything happened while i was gone uh no no no you dropped on your turn it was your turn and then you dropped we've just been uh hold on let me load the map let's vamp for a few minutes while

i'll roll 20 oh i mean the map isn't going to help you that much because he vanished. So he vanished. Halster and Aldo are panicked. They haven't gone yet. They haven't run yet. And you are there. And it's your turn. All right.

Sir Julie will just take a guess that he is still in the space he's in, and for shits and giggles, we'll swing into that space with a 50% miss chance. Okay. Tell me what happens. I rolled well, but I got a 45 on the concealment. All right. So you don't know if something's there or not. Do you want to try and move at all? So you don't know if something's there or not. Do you want to try and move at all? Yeah, I will, actually.

I will move towards the door. So I will take that step, then that step, and that should be my movement. Okay. Very good. It is Halster's turn. Halster, what are you holding in your hand shield and a sword red destiny plus two

short sword and a heavy plus one magical light wooden shield or heavy wooden shield you drop those and it's you run away in a random direction. So you actually have to roll to see if you, instead of running towards the hallway,

for some reason run to the top, the bottom, or the back of the room. In which case, next round, you'll continue going in that direction or run around. No, it would be like a pinball at that point. Yeah, you're freaking out. I have to continue to move would be like a pinball at that point. Yeah, you're freaking out. I'd have to continue to move away from the source of it at that point. Right. So we'll say one north to the hallway, which is probably where you want to go.

Three south, four west. D4. Okay, you want me to roll a D8? D4. D4, D4, D4. Two. Two. All right, so you, D4. Two. Two. All right, so you will run right out down the hallway.

Do a double move down the hallway without your weapons and shield. And then it is Aldo's turn. Aldo, same situation. Were you holding anything in hand? No. All right, so that's good. No bombs. Just get left behind.

One, two, three, or four, two Two you're going to end up following on the heels Of Halster Anything else you're stuck in that room Three Alright so you run to the south wall Just out of instinct And there's no exit there Double move towards the south wall

Moving right along it is now the top of the next round, and it is Atticus's turn. The one time you probably wanted to fail a roll, Joe. You succeeded, and it will mean the death of your character. There's still four mirror images of you, though. I think one got left behind here. Oh, stupid. Atticus holds it together.

He sees this creature. He thinks, I've seen something worse. Hold it together, Atticus holds it together sees this creature I've seen something worse hold it together Atticus wait for your moment I feel like there's a chance that this thing

might be I don't know it might be embodying something that was here once. I feel like there's, I'm just making a guess here that I think that it's possible based on where we are and what somebody said about like, now that did, when they talked about the experimental treatments and stuff and like,

uh, whatever the treatments that were frowned upon and stuff, we said only where that other onerogen was, or was that just up on the second floor in general? That was just on that, in that room. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I just wonder, because with the chains and everything,

I just wonder if it was imprisoned somewhere. Maybe even here, and experimented on and they unlocked something horrible. That's kind of what I was thinking. Yeah, I don't know. He's just going to delay. So he's going to, he's like like looking around

you know, just holding on to his mage armor and his mirror images to hopefully help him and let this creature reveal himself first. Okay. Very good. I need you to roll a will save. Fourteen. Fourteen.

You are shaken. I just said I wasn't. I just said I wasn't. Now you are. I just said he's not scared. You're just a little shaken. Not stirred, though. There is that mere presence that he's exuding into the room. Your will is not strong enough to steel yourself against it.

It's his turn. The Tatterman. Sing us a song, it's the Tatterman. Sing us a song tonight. Okay. So scary. He is going to... so scary he is going to

um hmm really wish I could smite evil right about now hmm okay all of a sudden in the darkness you heard his voice

in the not in the darkness but in the yellow fog in the room you heard his voice, not in the darkness, but in the yellow fog in the room. You heard his voice emanate out of Oliver's sandalwoods when he lurched up like a puppet and attacked you. But now you hear a soft, sweet lullaby

come from somewhere in the room like the theme song to Rosemary's Baby. La la la la from somewhere in the room, like the theme song to Rosemary's Baby. La, la, la, la. La, la, la, la, la, la, la. La, la, la, la, la, la, la.

Everybody roll a will save. And as that sound is coming out, he reappears in the corner of the room. And that sound is coming out of him. Skin is gone to please stand by technical difficulty. 19. I lost everything. It's just pure terror What did you get Sir Julie

Let me see Sir Julie this isn't a fear effect This is a Sleep effect Enchantment compulsion mind affecting 19 on the will save 19 on the will save This guy's got so much shit 19 on the will save. 19 on the will save. This guy's got so much shit.

Let me open up his stat block here. I'm not sure if that's enough. Oh, fuck. It doesn't have the save. Yeah, I know it's Will Negates. What's the save? Anyways, hold on to that 19 Joe what'd you get three

that's definitely a fail and then Halster and actually I didn't think about how bad this could be Halster and Buck and Aldo you guys roll it as well

is that a range the range is and Buck and Aldo, you guys roll it as well. Am I far enough away, though? Is that the range? The range is, yeah, over 100 feet. Oh, jeez. So you hear it echoing down the hall. Of the sleep? Of this lullaby. The words you want to hear from your GM's mouth.

I didn't think about how bad this could be. By the way, after guaranteeing death. By the way, after guaranteeing death. By the way, when you're panicked, your will save goes down by two. Yeah, same thing when you're shaken. So Hauser already rolled, and it was a 10 on the die for a 14. 10 on the die for a 14. Okay.

Which I bet will fail. 14, 17, 18. I bet will fail. 14 is a fail. And Aldo? Natural 20. Natural 20. Alright, so Aldo is fine and Atticus you got, who got the 19? I did. So Julie, you're fine.

However, Atticus and Halster you now take a minus 2 penalty on will saves against sleep effects as long as that lullaby is going and for one round after. Oh, I thought we were just automatically falling asleep right there. You just start to feel really drowsy. Oh, my God. But the Tatterman has revealed himself In the room And it is Sir Julie's turn

Sir Julie you see him he's right there Sir Julie will quickly step up to him Cease this wretched singing creature And we'll swing with the great sword Critical threat Oh yes Natural 19 Get this guy up Oh my goodness Critical threat. Oh, yes! Oh, hell yes! Oh, my God! Natural 19.

Oh, hell! Get this guy up! Oh, my goodness. Roll to confirm. This is a power attack round, by the way. The kills are alive with the sound of the movie. 23 to confirm. That is a confirmed crit.

Oh, hell yeah! Oh, my God. Amazing. Let me ask you this. What is your weapon? Does it have any special alchemical properties? Is it aligned to an alignment or anything? No, it is a masterwork cold iron greatsword.

Okay, thank you. All right, that is a critical, and I mean, it is the biggest critical in the history of Strange Aeons. Holy moly. I wish I like I said before I wish I could have smote evil but I used it against the bag lady bag lady

well you were worried about your life at that point I don't blame you I mean it seemed like a good idea at the time you might have died otherwise um okay so we got this one from Andre in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Hi, Andre. I feel like butterflies in my stomach. I'm sick to my stomach right now.

Was it the lullaby? Come on, we got to get this. Ugly, pretty before this Ugly, pretty before Ugly, pretty before You hit your target with such force That it leaves a nasty scar on your target's face Oh no, the tatterman will be ugly now You're a beautiful face

Double damage And your target suffers 1d6 charisma drain No save The prom's next week I'm so mixed up with second edition and first edition six charisma drain. No save. The prom's next week! Woohoo! I'm so mixed up with second edition and first edition. I roll four dice

instead of two and double my bonus. Or do I just double whatever? You roll four dice instead of two and double your bonus. Oh! Terrible. Oh no. God! 22 points of damage

I rolled 3 1's Okay The one thing you notice is that not all of it goes through There is some sort of DR here But you do land a very important blow And I hope you take that charisma drain I will How much charisma drain was it?

1d6 charisma drain. Give it to me. Oh, you want me to roll it? Yeah. One. Oh my god. Christ. Well, he'll never be elected president.

That's your fourth one out of five d6s. I took it. I took the advantage. Okay. That took the amateur. Okay. That was Sir Julie. It is Halster's turn. Halster, you feel a little drowsy, but you continue double moving away. I mean, do you just, is it, I wonder if it's a random direction every time, or it's just a, I think you start with a random direction.

I think until you hit a direction where you cannot flee further, where aldo is you go in the same direction he panicked ran into a wall he's like oh god and then he turns around all right so you just keep going down that hallway and then uh so double move and then aldo it's your turn you obviously want to start following uh but you're gonna follow along the wall like a crazy person to get out of the room. Atticus, you have delayed your turn and now it's back to you in the initiative order. Yeah, but I'm asleep.

No, you're not asleep. The lullaby, you just take a minus two on your will saves against sleep effects. Okay. You'll be asleep soon. on your will saves against sleep effects okay um you'll be asleep soon if it's any consolation

and I see him in the corner uh this sucks and we should have done some library research before this I am going to open up the scroll and just begin casting. Begin casting summon monster. Begin casting summon monster. Yeah, you lost two allies.

You've got to bring out the replacement. The problem is if he puts me to sleep before my next turn, it won't work. Well, Sir Julie has affected his concentration. He was concentrating on that lullaby. So it has... It's still going. You still take that penalty

to your will save, but that's not going to last forever. However, it is the Tatterman's turn. I'm sorry. Atticus is also going to move away from him. I just realized by the way that when I said Mrs. Old Lady would have been totally useless in this fight,

you know what spell she did have? Remove fear. Oh! Now that is clutch. She would have had a moment. That is certainly clutch. She would have had a moment. That is certainly clutch. She also couldn't have delivered the 23-point crit.

That's true. The Tatterman attempts to cast defensively. It was a gimme roll anyways. I'm rubbing it in. Let's see what my radius burst here. One or more creatures within a...

If you say more than 10 feet, I'm going to be furious. Well, I'm going to move to get you in there. So, yeah, I'll five-foot step. And now both Atticus and Sir Julie roll a will save. Don't forget a minus two. This is a sleep effect. It's an effect called sleep. 18.

Why were you talking to me about? Yeah, I'm working on it, Grant. Natural 20. Natural 20. Natural 20. Huge natural 20. What about Sir Julie? 18. She got an 18.

Oh, you got an 18? Yeah. I want to hear it from your mouth. I said it already. Okay, and you don't take the minus two? No, I pass on that. You both pass on sleep. Oh, that is huge.

If they're running away and you guys are just helpless, game, game. Yep. Huge. Absolutely huge. An opening has presented itself here. I was waiting for the music until something good happened. Well, here it is. It is Sir Julie's turn.

Sir Julie, you see this thing. You have withstood against its lullaby and its sleep. The lullaby is now gone. You no longer take a minus two. However, you do see where you hit it. Part of that is starting to close up on his body.

Ah, shit. Can I do a knowledge check on him? Sure. Yeah, I meant to do that too. Whatever. Planes, I'm assuming? You know what? You can do planes. You can do dungeoneering. You can do... Yeah, those are gonna be your big

ones. Planes is better for me. 16. 16. Do both. You should do both. I could do... I only only have I have planes and religion all right so you know he's the tatter man that doesn't really tell you a whole lot

he is effectively a nightmare doppelganger with a spellcasting nightmare doppelganger you got a 16 I can give you I can give you one piece of useful information so you tell me what Spellcasting Nightmare Doppelganger. You got a 16. I did. I can give you one piece of useful information, so you tell me what you'd like.

And if he doesn't have it, I'll let you ask something else. Is he undead? No. That is all I can tell you. All right. Because you got an answer. And would you like to take an action now? I would

Sir Julie will She'll stay where she is And take a swing with the greatsword Okay Power attack Natural seven That's going to be fourteen to hit Sir Julie misses

Swings at this thing, its mouth just dripping green ooze out of its round mouth with jagged teeth on a circle. Grant, is Bless still on if you're not close by?

There's a range on it. Caster and all allies within a 50-foot burst. uh there's a range on it uh caster and all allies within a 50 foot burst you don't have you can like it's effective on whoever it's originally cast on until the expire expiration the spell um so julie oh yeah you're immune no it's yeah it's centered on the caster but at the burst was where i was i believe okay Okay. Only right now Atticus is shaken. All right, Halster and Aldo, I'll let you guys just continue double moving.

This is the third round out of 12 that you're panicked. And then it goes again back to Atticus. Honestly, I thought it'd be a one-on-one fight with Sir Julie and this thing. So you've got a horse in the race, especially if Sir Julie and this thing. You've got a horse in the race, especially if Sir Julie lands into the crit. Okay. So tense. Do you remember, I don't want

to say what book of what game, because I don't want to spoil it for people who are playing it, but the tower and the boss was flying around and you guys had to climb and fight it. Jade Region. Yes.

How awful that was. Oh, yeah. That was the first session I played with you guys. Was it really? Oh, wow. You must have been like, I'm never coming back. I was playing Chris's character. We didn't even know the rules back then.

I certainly didn't. Atticus, what are you thinking you're shaking yeah it's up to you and sir julie your friends are gone um first let me do a knowledge check see if i can squeeze a free action so i feel like i can squeeze it in between this casting to see what I should bring out. Twenty one. Twenty one. Knowledge what? Planes. Okay, I can give you... Or Dungeoneering if that's more effective.

The same result. Okay, twenty one. I'll go ahead and give you two pieces of useful information. Is there something specific you're looking for before I just start? Yeah, what goes through the DR? Good aligned or silver weapons. Good aligned or silver weapons. Good aligned or silver weapons. Okay.

He'll shout that out. And then one more. Yeah, dealer's choice. Well, I can tell you this, too. He has regeneration, and only good spells or weapons can stop it. Wow. Or silver. So that's huge. If you have it.

That's... This is where you need to start looking through your list, but if there's a silver weapon, who's to say? Halster or Aldo doesn't have it. And I don't think you have any good aligned weapons. I don't know. Alright. Do you want to do anything besides knowledge here? Or excuse me, what would you like

to do? Standard action? Yeah, I'm going to use that tidbit of knowledge as he's glancing off the side and reading off this scroll. And that is going to make my decision for me. I am going to summon a Lantern Archon. Yes!

My favorite! What is that? They're awesome. It's like a celestial being that does good damage and bypasses DR. Yeah, yeah. Wow.

And it has a couple other tricks. I'm trying to read up on it quick so I don't waste everybody's time. Yeah, I can't find a lantern, Arkansan. I'm going to give you an actual lantern. Okay. What do you want to put it? Flanking with Sir Julie?

Oh, my God. Oh, this is so cool gestalt i'm not sure how to pronounce that gestalt supernatural ability nine lantern archons can fuse together as a full round action becoming a single large entity that is more powerful than the individuals

so it's a small outsider and yeah it will appear That is more powerful than the individuals. So it's a small outsider. And yeah, it will appear in the square next to him. And then it can attack with a... Where is it? Sorry. Sorry. My God, how can I not find its melee?

Sorry. It doesn't have melee it has two light rays oh oh it's ranged yeah okay great so then it will not appear next to him it'll appear I just saw the lantern it'll appear right over his stuff

and it will fire a ranged ray at him, uh, against touch AC. So that is a 12 against touch AC. That is a miss. It shoots past him. Yeah.

Wait, but he's got two, right? Yeah. That's two, two race, uh, second Ray.

Ooh, daddy 17. That is a 20 against touch AC That is a hit, but here's a question What is the alignment of the lantern? Celestial Lawful good It does no damage

He has protection from good on Constant Oh He cannot be hurt by Good summoned creatures. Oh. Oh. And also he gets a bonus to his AC against Sir Julie.

Oh, that would have been useful information. Yeah, that would have been a useful piece of information. Number one. Especially when I was doing a scroll of summon monster. Yeah. Three. I forgot you were doing that. But it's fun to see it fail from my seat

oh my god uh atticus that was your action or do you still have an action finishing this summoning i'm just gonna i'm gonna leave i'm leaving it's the uh tatterman's turn then um maybe he'll be tired of us. It is. It will stand in the fight, though, pretty well. It looks like it has DR 10 evil. Oh, but evil gets... Yeah. All right.

What do we want to do now? All right. It is going to... What gets through the DR? Good or silver. So it's impossible. to what gets through the DR? Good or silver. So it's impossible. It's protection from

summoned creatures. Protection from good is against summoned creatures in general. You know what I mean? Oh, I see what you're saying. You need Halster. Is really what you need. Sir Julie, I don't know what she's got. She might have a good spell, a good line. No. I'm a third level paladin dude you know how expensive good a line shit is

it's no joke did we find anything that was good a line I don't think so right I don't have anything on Mrs. O'Lady's sheet I went back and checked yeah I mean you just need four clerics that's how you play strange ants you just burst every haunt out immediately

you know what I mean you kill every undead ghoul immediately burst burst burst oh the archon can cast aid yeah yeah yeah it does have value outside of attack it will go it has a switchblade kind of like a razor

in its hand and it goes to like slash slash at Sir Julie and misses with the switchblade a razor in its hand and it goes to like slash, slash at Sir Julie and misses with the switchblade. And then it just takes a five foot step back. Actually, no. It's got a

claw on its offhand. It'll try to claw 17 with the claw. Miss. Miss. Alright. So then it'll take a five foot step back. So just blade claw and cannot land anything. There's some openings here. There's also another thing that the Lantern Archon has. It has the Aura of Menace.

So any hostile creature within 20 feet of it has to make a DC 13 charisma based will save or take a minus two to attacks AC and saves for 24 hours or until they successfully hit the Archon that generated the aura so I think you gotta make a save there my friend so what is it I missed that I was reading something a DC 13 DC DC 13 Charisma based will save. Okay, and what happens if I put it on my Hero Lab. Yeah, I mean if his Charisma score was

Oh, it's in Hero Lab. Yeah. His Charisma is insane. Was it even? I rolled a 29 on the will save. But it is now Sir Julie's turn. Okay, Sir Julie will take a swing with the greatsword. Or she'll take a five foot step up and swing with the greatsword.

That is going to be a 16 to hit. Horrible. the great sword. She'll take a five foot step up and swing at the great sword. That is going to be a 16 to hit. Horrible. Horrible time to be missing. Halster and Aldo, you keep running. Are you guys off this map now? Well, I hit a wall.

I'm ping ponging. Let me know when you need to get off the map. This is round 4 of 12 I believe I'll let you guys count that out as we keep going Zoom out and I'll show everyone where we are On the map after Skid moves out While they move

It is your turn Atticus, new round Okay Lantern Archon will Move okay um lantern archon will um move sorry hey troy i actually don't think you're you're immune to that attack from the lantern archon you start to be touched by it yeah it's bodily contact ah yes okay that's a really good point And it was shooting rays at me Yes Okay

Good rays too You still get the plus two deflection bonus To your AC Where it's good But yeah, the spell is just preventing bodily contact Okay, alright The first one missed I think the second one was a

What was it against touch? 20? Okay, all right. The first one missed. I think the second one was a... What was it against touch? 20? That second one hit? All right, so that will cut through DR and stop his regeneration for a round. Three points of damage. Three points of damage, okay.

Nice. All right, hey, listen, this is a book one boss. Three points of damage can add up over time, and you know that right now his regeneration has stopped for this round. That's the big thing. Now it comes back to Atticus's turn. Atticus, you now know this and can use this information.

Okay, so the Lantern Archon is going to... And truth be told, I did give you two very useful bits of information. I just didn't give you the exact information you wanted. So it's going to move up next to Sir Julie and cast aid on Sir Julie. Okay. She needs it.

Yeah, she needs it. Oh, wait a minute. I had provoke there, so it's going to move here. Does it have this speed? Oh, it's fly 60 feet. Perfect. So it'll move around behind her and cast aid on Sir Julie. Nice.

So that gives you a plus one morale bonus to attack rolls. I'm not sure if that clashes with the Bless. It doesn't stack with the Bless if that changes what you want to do. No, it doesn't because really I wanted to give you temporary hit points of 1d8 plus 5. So temporary hit points of natural 1 so six fucking hit points i mean just get me out of this please get me out of here uh that was with the archon did but that was the archon and then uh atticus like me is just leaving um no, I don't know. Atticus will...

He's gonna delay. If we were in... Can you delay where... Columbus right now? This would have been Columbus, yeah. We would have so many shots piled up on the side of the stage. Oh, dude. You would definitely delay where you...

I'd be a mess. Your summoned creature is its own thing now? Yeah don't control it really it's uh all right then uh it is the data man's turn i think i just gotta start killing here um you guys are taking too much time. Let's go ahead and take a five-foot step, and I need you both to roll a... Let me just make sure you're not immune to it. I need you to roll a will save against sleep. You don't take the minus two from that lullaby this time around, but if you fail, you will fall asleep.

There you go. There you go, Troy. You got it. 17. 17. That's a pass. Joey Jojo, Shabadoo? 10. Atticus. All of them crumble to the ground and fall asleep. There are still

multiple mirror images of you, though, yes? Those don't go away. Those don't require concentration, right? Those are just on a timer. That could save you from a coup de grace. The most amazing like multiple coup de grace coup de grace is killing images.

Which one is it? We still got the Archon. Oh, man. Now, remember, Sir Julie, you could, if you didn't want to fight it, slap or wound him to wake him. But normal noise does not. It's a standard action to wake the creature. It's one-on-one. The new character, the paladin, Sir Julie.

Well, you can just wake people up, too. So can the Archon. yes, you've got some options sir Julie will take a 5 foot step up against this guy this is truly terrifying with the aid for those temporary hit points ok, natural 14

so 21 to hit with power attack 21 to hit with power attack. 21 to hit with power attack, with its plus 2 bonus to AC against good aligned creatures. That is a miss. Unfortunately. Gonna need at least a 22 from you to hit the

tatter man. I had bless on, yeah. Hit the old tatter man if I had power attack it would hit him eh I don't know what that would dissuade you um just to stop your dancing um just tell me

if it's a spell like I'm sorry Troy I have to I just glanced at the chat the casting time is one round. Hold on. Okay. We missed it on the first one. We missed it on the first one,

so we'll say it's taking the whole round to cast. So you're not asleep, Atticus. But your fail counts. So if you don't interrupt it, you're going to fall asleep. Okay, but he couldn't move. That's fine. You can't five foot step and then cast?

Yeah, you can five foot step. Yeah, he only moved five feet. Five foot step, he begins casting sleep. Good catch, everybody. I'm not going to let... The first one's done. You guys didn't fall asleep anyways. I'm going to save your save and save Sir Julie's save. But Sir Julie just went to hit him. That damage would have been enough to break the concentration. Unfortunately

you missed. So moving right along Halster and Aldo you keep running away. I'll go before them because I delayed. You want to go before. Okay. Well actually I'll just go after because it's going to mess it up with the summon creature and everything. Okay. Alright then it comes back to Atticus and the Archon. Okay. So

the Archon is first going to fire two rays and try to interrupt him. So, you know what I didn't even think of is this stupid... He takes a minus four to all these attacks. Not right. Oh, I stepped up to it. Oh, for God's sakes. So irritating.

Can we just roll dice? All right, I'm going to say he takes the minus four unless I hear differently. I don't know that he has precise shot. So it's just against Touch AC. It's going to be brutal. Miss and miss. That was two natural twos in a row. Back-to-back natural twos.

And then Atticus is going to... I'm going to cast my second level spell before he takes me out. I will cast Bone Shaker. There you go. So now I got line of sight, a clean line of sight, and I will... Assuming he is living and has bones. Yes. All right, it is a

fortitude save. Actually, he's a crustacean. All right, fortitude save. This may be... You know, besides not getting that first sleep right, if you... We're doing it correctly now. He'll have to roll concentration. That's going to be a 15 fortitude save.

That's a fail, dude. Yes! Oh, my God. What a huge fail. Your bones got a little machine. Yeah, well, mainly it'll be the damage because we want to try to get through that DR. Man, I would love it if it just went through DR

because it's direct, direct bone damage. But probably at probs not. Let's see. This is a great roll. That's 17. 17 damage. 17 damage. And that bypasses DR, yeah?

Yeah. And it disrupts him. So he has to roll a concentration check of 10 plus the damage taken, I think. So DC 27. Yeah, which is probably not out of the question at all. And you said 17 damage. Wow, that is good damage. Yeah, it's 4d6 damage if you fail.

It doesn't get... Okay. Oh, and you know what? His regeneration is off for a round. Let's see. The Archon hit, came back around yeah it's it's back now because the archon is back now yeah all right uh but it was off for a round which is good okay so all right big big concentration now hold on a second i also move the creature five feet. Yep. So I'm going to just move him five feet,

and can that provoke? Yeah. Leaving a threatened square? Yeah. It should say in the spell if that provokes or not. They always say, like, when you bull rush that it doesn't, or it does provoke. It doesn't say in the spell?

No, it just says you, in addition. Oh, no, it says it does not provoke attacks of opportunity. Yeah, I figured. Alright, great. So I am going... I'll just won't move him. DC 27. Concentration check.

To see if I hold onto that sleep spell and put Atticus to sleep. He has combat casting. But this wouldn't be considered casting defensively or while grappled. So this is just a straight up... Let's see.

Fail. Oh my god. There is hope. I rolled a 19 concentration. So the sleep spell has been canceled, and you do not go to sleep. Wow. And now he's upset.

Absolutely huge. It is the Tatterman's turn. It would have been right there. Finish the spell. Instead, he's got to go back to the well here. All right, he's gone through a couple of spells. That's right, he did a vanish. Okay.

Man, I just... That one round casting time is enormous. Okay, he is going to slash out at Sir Julie with the War Razor. 18 to hit? Nope. No. Yes. Wow.

And then a little claw misses as well. So then he will just step back again. Did he take away your temporary hit points yet? No. No, I haven't been able to hit. Alright, so you're getting an opening here. Withstanding those sleep spells has been absolutely huge, especially where it takes a whole round for him to cast. Sir Julie,

you've done some damage. Atticus has done some damage with Bone Shaker. What are you going to do? Sir Julie will five foot step and take a swing. Come on, Jules. It's a two on one fight. No. No, Sir Julie.

It's a natural seven. The protection, the constant protection from good, Sir Julie, is going to need the power of Sarenrae herself. This has come up in the chat, and I hate to keep bringing it up. Please, please. Apparently, protection from good is a deflection bonus and some there are some suggestions that you might be stacking deflection bonuses and it should only be a plus one from that protection from good

I don't know if your lab is already accounted for that or not but I figured might as well bring it up since we're I appreciate you bringing it up that does change things moving forward by one point of AC.

It would have hit that attack. It would have hit that. That took a whole attack away. Well, here's the thing. Here's the thing. There's going to be people like, this is the game. The game is you do the best you can with the information you have, and when you learn new information, you correct and you move on. I'm not going to retcon

it. I'm going to move forward. That helps you later in the fight for sure it is now fucking let's see I can't I'm just glad we settled that now I'm glad we settled it clean slate just go forward now we know

best foot forward now we know man Halster and Aldo keep slate. Just go forward. Now we know. Put our best foot forward. Now we know. Um, man. Halster and Aldo keep running. You're off the map. You're off the map. Alright, so now just keep a mental track of how many feet you're off the map. Well, we just lose the map after this time, but yeah, okay.

Yeah, just keep adding your double move bonus. Next round we'll add that. And this was round five of twelve. Okay. It comes back to Atticus. I also don't mind figuring this stuff out as we go, you know what I mean? Because if someone knew about the deflection bonus

one of you four and said it in round one, I would have changed it just like I'm changing it now. So, rules are a two-way street. All right. Jeez, oh man. I would have changed it just like I'm changing it now. So rules are a two way street. All right. Um, geez, oh man.

Uh, does this thing have eyes? Uh, they are covered up, but, uh, it doesn't appear to need sight at all. Yeah. Um,

okay. Uh, I will, oh man, so nervous. All will... Oh, man. I'm so nervous. All right, I'm just going to fire off from my arcane bonded object, my talisman of revealing around my neck,

I'm going to fire off a magic missile. Two magic missiles. Okay. So I will use that for the day and what a useful spell yeah hopefully it does something i don't know this guy might be immune for all i know oh does he have spell resistance i didn't even ask that first that's a first level boss or first book boss i hope not i mean so far it's been unbelievably unfair so perhaps it's all right so you're firing it off uh yeah all right so two hits uh max on the second eight eight points of damage eight points of damage damage eight points of force damage

bypasses DR. Boom, boom. Seems like it hits. Seems like it does full damage. Beautiful. It is its turn. It will. Let's see here.

Did the Archon go? Oh, no, the the archon didn't go so let me just fire twice one more chat thing apparently the archon needs to make a save against the tatter man and everybody in the chat thank you for all of your all of your help yeah i mean this is how we're gonna learn this is the fun part about doing it live you get a little more uh uh what's the word i'm looking for not honesty but uh save what or be shaken like that that aura accountability accountability that's all i uh let's they're just saying now they're just complimenting me it's really nice i'm enjoying it yeah they're just saying nice things about me all right uh i'm gonna i don't. I'm just going to roll a save.

Oh, that's 18. We'll save. Okay. Against what? I don't know. I don't know. We don't know the whole rule. Let's not chat about that.

Frightful Presence. Frightful Presence. Frightful Presence. Ah, yes. So it's subject to the Frightful Presence as well, and you rolled an 18. Yeah. All right. So the Archon's out of there.

It should have been out of there in the first round because it failed and so just like aldo and uh hauster it's gone so uh 18 adjusted yep gone so get it out of there get that sexy lantern out uh all right now it's good this is a well-designed encounter because it immediately eliminates at least half of the people at the table from playing. Yeah, really, really smart. So that just an R, you just walk in the room and an R over a DC 18 will save at first level. Well, third level.

Third level in a first book of an adventure. It just eliminates players from playing. Yeah, it's like you could go home early. You can spend some time with your family If we had gotten to this earlier We could have had dinner on time I'm all out of Cheetos So I'm about to

I know, poor Grant, just sitting there Alright, here we go Oh, Lantern's gone So we're good then? Yeah, we're good So it's his turn So now it's his turn He is going to, let's see.

So take away those temporary hit points, Sir Julie. You don't have them. You never did. No, no. Well, no. We just learned this now. I'm not going to retcon that, just like I'm not going to retcon the thing from before. You can keep that.

We figure it out as we go. Okay. Okay. Hmm. we figure out as we go okay hmm hmm alright he is going to try to cast defensively here

made it he's going to try and do a touch attack on Sir Julie. So I've got a hit against your touch AC. I don't like the sound of that. Not great. Probs not great. 14 against touch.

Yep, got me. Going to need a fortitude save from you. I want to call you Aunt Julie for some reason. Is this a fear effect? It is not. 17. 17, and you pass. I was trying to give you a touch of fatigue.

Just sap your strength a little bit. By the way, I don't know if the chat mentioned this, but I just thought of something which is i had and i looked it all up ahead of time then i forgot in the heat of the moment i had to roll a die to cast that scroll because it's higher than my caster level but the dc was just six but i had to roll a caster level check against dc6 and i rolled a nine just now just let you know because it's a third level spell and I am only a third level character but it's a very easy thing to

do if you if it's on your spell list it's actually pretty easy oh all right it is Sir Julie's turn all right tatterman this has gone on long enough uh okay we banish you i rolled a 21 again which we now know hits oh my god amazing yeah okay come on box cause six and a five 18 points of damage nice points of damage you hit it and it crumbles to the ground

oh my god fuck that thing fuck that fucking oh my god Sir Julie might actually be a a howitzer tank disguised as an elderly knight.

Amazing. She spends every next round stabbing at it until its regeneration is clearly gone. Well, you're still in initiative order here, so you hit it. It hits the ground. Do you move at all? Do you do anything?

Bring the music back hot. I stand right on top of it. You can't share its script. All right, so you just stand there and look over it. You can't share it. So you just stand there and look over it. All right. Moving along, Halster and Aldo, you keep going. You hear a cheer from deep down the hall, but you're you're already gone on your way back to the first floor. It comes back to the top of the next round.

The Archon is now following suit. But Atticus, you are up. You see Sir Julie land a blow. Oh, man. Okay. A killing blow. I am going to run up. Double move. And while I do, I'm going to draw a...

And this is, by the way, from one of the first two or three shows, uh, I think. A Masterwork Silver Dagger. Oh. You had that the whole time? Yeah, but I mean, I'm useless

in melee, but like, if it like comes up and it's prone, I might have an AoO that I could do. Or I could give it to Sir Julie, but it's still going to do net less damage, I think, than you just going over the DR with your greatsword. It does stop the regeneration, though. Right? Or does it stop the regeneration

or just cut through? It stops the regeneration. It does both. Oh, okay. Oh, that's prone now. It's a minus four. So yeah, I could hand it to you. If you'd like. Sure. Okay, I'll hand it to Sir. If you'd like. Sure. Okay, I'll hand it to Sir Julie. Be in much better hands. What is it? Just a silver dagger?

Masterwork silver dagger. Alright. So you walk up, draw it And hand it to Sir Julie Alright Things keep happening It's Halster and Aldo still running away It comes back

Excuse me, it's Sir Julie's turn Okay Sir Julie will stab it With the Masterwork Silver Dagger Okay Roll a will save Okay Sir Julie will stab it with the Masterwork silver dagger Okay Roll a will save Okay 16

Okay so you just come down on it It's prone So how much damage do you do Let's make sure Power attack is on Yep 8 points of damage Nice. Eight points of damage. Nice!

Eight points of damage. So you strike it with a silver dagger. You're making sure that you're cutting through the regeneration so it doesn't come back. Coup de grace, right? Coup de grace. It doesn't seem to do anything at this point. You hit it with all your strength, but it doesn't have the intended effect. Not quite sure what's going on here.

I pass it back to Atticus with my move action. Hand it back to Atticus. Halster and Aldo keep running. This thing is useless. Take this back. It comes back to you, Atticus. Atticus just throws the silver dagger down the hallway as hard as he can. It hits the Archon and kills it

Oh man Atticus is going to Probably with some fear In his eyes Just sort of like say to Sir Julie like I don't feel good about this Fall back Fall back

And he's just going to move back ten feet. Just sort of like stumbling back in fear. Okay. So Julie, roll a perception check. Yeah, when she stabbed him and nothing happened, he's like... Uh... It's fifteen. Fifteen.

You look down. You stabbed him. Like, why didn't that do anything? Why can't I do a coup de grace? You look at its hands him like why didn't that do anything Why can't I do a coup de grace You look at it's hands And it the hands are moving They've been moving for the whole round As he was Feigning death And casting sleep

Both of you roll a will save This fucking shit Roll The single most Important will save of your life. I knew that feigned death ability would come in handy. We 100% did this right, right? Yes, you have to roll a will save when you interact with it. That's why I had her roll a will save when she hit it with the razor.

Did she roll a concentration check? When I stabbed him with a dagger. He didn't. That's fair. That's fair. How much damage did you do? Eight points of damage? Eight points of damage. With a silver dagger. It's fine. Natural 20 on the concentration check.

Okay. Now I would like your will save. Here it comes. Coming in hot. 15. Roll of the whatever hide 13 matthew 15 you both fall asleep oh my god oh my god i don't know why this is shocking unbelievable and that was a natural 12 which nets a 13 so like not even a bad roll permadeath and he stands up over you and we keep moving in initiative order hauster ald, keep running. Seven rounds.

Seven rounds. Atticus, you're asleep. Hmm. Hmm. What to do? What to do? What to do? I mean just

Unlimited Sleep No I have X amount of spells per day And I can recast Until I run out of spells Unlimited Actually you know what? That was my last first level spell

Last sleep and it worked I used vanish and three sleeps Um Touch of fatigue my last first level spell. Last spell. Last sleep and it worked. I use Vanish and three sleeps. Touch of Fatigue is a zero level spell. Okay. Just to make sure we get this right because this could be TPK. The chat would like me to check the number of HD. You can do that on the number of creatures you can do it for HD.

Aren't we six HD? Together, yes. Together, you add up your HD? I don't know. Yes. It's a first level spell. 4 HD of creatures. But creatures with the fewest HD are affected first.

You can only put one of us asleep. Okay. Among creatures with equal HD, those who are closest to the spell's point of origin are affected first. So just Sir Julie is asleep. Okay. Yeah, huge difference. Huge difference.

Did that also... That's huge! That didn't apply to the fear panic aura thing, right? No, no, no. You're good. Thank you, Chad. Thank you, Chad. That's great.

Oh, my God. That's great. You know, and I remember that now. It was years and years ago I had a character that could cast sleep. I don't remember who it was, but that's why it's a first-level spell. It's not supposed to be, after a certain point, it becomes pretty useless.

Right, right, right. I read that the wrong way. I thought it was all characters 4 HD or less. But Sir Julie does fail and fall asleep. So, and you still have to both roll it because had she passed and you fail, Atticus, even though you're farther away, you would crumble.

So now Atticus is the only thing standing between Sir Julie's permanent death and maybe not I mean you know this razor you don't know what kind of damage this razor is doing she'll get a fortitude save against the coup d'etat so in an odd turn of fate

I'm right Halster and Aldo keep moving Atticus you are up. Atticus will step up behind Sir Julie and... Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! And just shove her as a standard action. Shake the shit out of her.

All right. It's its turn. Does it want to turn its attention To Atticus Graham Graham Get rid of some of these Get rid of some of these mirror images It strikes

Well it moves five feet and then strikes At Atticus With the razor That's going to be an 18 Damn it And there's six of you all together Or there's five Five total the razor. That's going to be an 18. Damn it. Alright. And there's six of you all together, or there's five? Five total.

Okay, so we'll say a five on a d6 hits you, and a six will ignore. Okay. Six will ignore. Oh, so no hit and all the images stay up. No. And then I rolled a four, so you lose one image.

And then he goes with the claw, misses with an eight. Beautiful. So just let me slide forward there. Sir Julie, it is your turn. You're prone in front of this thing. Sir Julie will stand, and

can I pick up my greatsword as I stand? As part of that move action? No. That'll provoke. I'm planning on provoking regardless. I think that'll provoke, right? Standing provokes. Yeah, standing provokes. So can you grab it as part, well that's

a move action, it's part of a move action, sure. Okay. They hit me with your A-0. My best shot? Okay. My A me with your... My best shot? Okay. My A-O-O is a miss with a 16. Well, what's your... Is that your prone AC any worse against a melee? My prone AC is a 17.

Okay. So you're all right. All right. And then she will swing with the great sword. Come on. Come on, baby. 22. That is a hit dude come on man i never expected you to fake your roles this is unbecoming matthew i need a grand camp i uh a grand

type theft a grand type theft device uh that is 13 points of damage 13 points of damage. 13 points of damage. Still up. But it's like it's just bleeding black blood, staining its tatters. Now Yellow Mist is seeping out of its holes as well, clinging to its body, trying to close the holes, close its regeneration ability. Halstern and Aldo keep moving for their seventh round. It comes back around to Atticus. What do you got, Atticus? That's not true. That's our eighth round.

You are incorrect. Excuse me. You're incorrect. You are a liar. Okay. Atticus. Man. Um... Atticus is going to take... Uh...

Oh. Yeah, Atticus is going to move... He'll take a five-foot step. Okay. All right. Yeah, he'll take a five-foot step, and he will fire off a ray of frost at this thing which if it's not invulnerable to cold we'll go through dr uh if i can hit so

big touch by the way do we still have bless or does that go away when you run away it's a it was a burst centered where i was standing but it it's not centered on me. So, yes, I still have it. Great. So, we'll need that. Silver dagger. Here we go. Natty, 16. Hold on.

I got to do the precise shot. So, that is, so it's a 17 against touch. Do it. Touch AC against you of 16. Yes! Wow. Yes! Okay. Yes! Uh, okay.

Wish it was a crit, but I'll take what I can get, and that is two points of cold damage. Two points of cold damage. He is still standing for the time being. Every little bit counts, though. It is his turn.

Regenerate a little HP. Little HPizzle. And then we'll attempt to We'll attempt to cast a touch spell again to try and fatigue Sir Julie. Natty 17 on the concentration. Or cast defensively rather. And then goes to touch you. I try and fatigue Sir Julie. Natty, 17 on the concentration.

Or cast defensively, rather. And then goes to touch you. I need a fortitude save. 22. Wait, did he make the... Oh, it's not a touch attack. Oh, yeah, no, I have to make the touch. But would you roll on the fortitude?

Yeah, I made it. 18. 22 on the fortitude save. You are right. You are not fatigued. So he's just trying to sap you, because I think he knows the end is nigh. Sir. Julie, you are.

Let's see if this will work. Oh, Matthew, Matthew. Okay. Good. Wait, isn't that an angle?

Can you see it? Yeah, I got it. Oh no. Oh man. What does it say? Touch of law Go back 11

It's an 18 to hit Julie Call in with your phone for your next turn There's a Skype call Click on it and I'll get it ready We don't have time for this Next turn it's fine 9th round of Valdo and Halster

Comes back around to Atticus Atticus what do you got? We could do this We could do this Uh Ray of Frost Yeah Silver dagger

I had to roll really high though Um Oh yeah Yeah and the silver dagger thing too Is Seems preposterous But Yeah you're gonna need to stop that regeneration

if he does go down or he'll just keep coming back up yeah i know i'd give it to sir julie but it's i wish you i wish that you didn't hand it back but just because uh it was a tricky move by la valley um uh all right uh you know what i'll do it one time why not fuck it i'll move up and stab All right. You know what? I'll do it one time. Why not? Fuck it. I'll move up and stab at him with the silver dagger.

Okay. Bang, bang. Atticus, the silver dagger. If it hits and does damage. I mean, I don't do any damage. So, I mean, basically don't do any damage. Would it have to do damage to stop the regeneration? I don't think it does.

You're going to always do one, minimum one damage. That it has to do damage to stop the regeneration? I don't think it does. No, you just have to hit it. You're going to always do one, minimum one damage. That's true. That is true. Just got to hit it. Here we go. Nope, that is a 12 to hit.

Slices out. Doesn't hit. It once again goes after Atticus with the razor. 19. Yeah. All right. There's four of you left razor. 19. Yeah. All right. There's four of you left now.

Four Atticae. All right. A four hits you on a D4. That's a two, so we lose another image, but you're okay. Buying rounds, buying rounds. I'm using the claw as my offhand because I can do whatever the fuck I want. It's 11 misses. So it is now Sir Julie's turn.

Sir Julie, you're Sir Do. Yeah, Sir Julie, if you hit it and step back, Atticus says. Because he wants to free up the space so he doesn't take the penalty on Ray of Frost if you don't get him down in this shot. Alrighty, I will. Mute your phone, Matthew. Working on it.

I'm trying to do this all at once, Grant. Okay. Okay. Fuck. One moment. There we go. Okay. I am going to swing

and then roll and then draw a hit. Let's see. Oh, let me cut to it. Come on, baby. What is it? Look at that. Cracked. It's not cracked. That looks cracked to me. It's not cracked, Grant. Look at it. It's a 19. It's a critical threat.

That's a critical threat. That's a critical threat. Oh my god. Alright, roll the confirmation on the camera. Oh, 16 on the die. Oh, nice. Hell yeah. That's a 23.

That is confirmed crit. Yes! Amazing. Amazing! See? No need to step back. Stay right where you are. Alright, yeah, fan critical.

Okay, fan critical. Oh right. Yeah. Fan critical. Okay. Fan critical. Oh, let's do international edition. Especially because we started off this stream by just shitting on Australia. Let's make up for it. Josh from Melbourne. Josh from Melbourne, Australia. Hi, Josh. Life finds a way.

Finds a way. I'll find it. I'll find it. You have faced extinction before, and yours is not on the menu. Double damage. You may swap initiative order with one creature, friend or foe. You may not ask the GM about initiative scores, and the swap does not take effect until the start of the following round. Double damage.

So, yeah, it's just double damage. Hold on, Matthew. Oh, okay. You ready? Now. Oh, God. One. Not great. Six. Okay. Sorry, the lighting in here is very dim. Just read the fucking dice.

It's really not worth it. Uh, 19 points of damage. He falls. He crumbles to the ground. Don't care. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. It comes back around to you, Atticus.

While they're still running away, I'm assuming you hit him with the silver dagger to end their regeneration. Yes, I watch his hands. I just keep stabbing his hand. Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab. Sir Julie comes up. Make sure you take it beyond con, and you have defeated the Tatterman.

Oh, my God. God. What on earth do you do without Sir Julie? On earth, without pumping out over 40 points of damage? If Mrs. O hadn't died last game, we would have been TPK'd this session. That's what I'm saying. I went into this weekend thinking

this was the party, Mrs. O'Lady and the three of you, and I'm like, there's no way. They need a paladin. We would have been completely fucked. We would have been totally fucked. Or a cleric. A cleric would have been fucked.

Or a cleric, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it all comes down to that frightful presence. Well, Sir Julie, if I hadn't been frightened, would have freed me up to do cleric-y things.

I had to take the role of the tank until you came along and triumphantly saved the day, along with Atticus's help. I'm so stressed right now. Me too. after a few more after a few more rounds of

Aldo you and Halster running away you come to you get a grip and I'm assuming you like start heading back up there tentatively to see what's going on yeah we were three feet away just go out the front door of the asylum

just get the fuck out. Breathe in, take a deep breath of that fresh air, and just keep walking. Well, then, meanwhile, if you do return, or just house returns, you come up and you see Atticus and Sir Julie standing over the dead bodies of Oliver Zandalus and the Tatter Man. He's got multiple Atticus's just have blood like all over their faces. He's just like, like looking maniacally at you. It faked death, feigned death once.

I won't let it do it again. We were both still just stabbing at it, sawing off its head. We'll be done in a second. It like deflates as the life and the yellow fog within it goes away. It deflates like

it was just full of air and now it looks like a suit that someone would wear. It's horrific. You already searched those mattresses. If you start collecting up the coins, you find about 50 gold coins. You got the Wand of Command. You got the Elixir of Truth. You use the Scroll of Summon Monster 3.

You see these sketches, unsettling though they may be all around the place, you realize that Sandalus, despite his mania, was talented. And that if you were to collect all of these artworks, if it was something you were interested in, they might be able to catch a price in the avant-garde of versex artistic circles. But the one thing that jumps out amongst all of this is the book.

And on the binding it says The Chain of Knights. It's got chills. Atticus will walk over and grab it you open up the book and it's a tome it's going to take a lot of time to really dig into it and figure out what this is why was Lowell so interested in it

why was Lysandro so covetous of it and what role did it play in what happened here, if any. Among the book's numerous elaborate medical sketches of the brain, depictions of pressure points and chakras, meditative mantras and methods of achieving lucid dreaming, you also see spells inside of it that you can learn. It's a freaking spell book. And arcane rituals devoted to breaching the boundaries of dreams.

Oh, dude. Atticus is like, oh, this is the most amazing thing you can find. Oh, man. If you really start to dig in it, I mean, I don't know how much time you're going to take, but I'm sure you're going to want some time here to regroup before you go downstairs. Oh, man. checks that you would do. And then Alver Zandalus didn't have any armor, but he had a plus one light mace. He had an oil of magic weapon,

a potion of bear's endurance, and a potion of cure moderate. He used up his potion of invisibility as a last ditch effort to try and save himself, though his mind was not really driving the bus. But as you dig into the

chain of knights while maybe the rest of them are gathering all these sketches off the walls, you see that it was written in the late 1200s by a Kellishite doctor slash seer known as Valhadas.

And it really focuses on exploring the brain as an organ, as the lens of perception, and as the throne of something more, unlocking more with the brain than just rational thought.

A cursory glance of it is, at first and foremost, a text on the anatomy and workings of the brain, and the first several hundred pages or so concern themselves with diagnosing, analyzing, and treating, via therapy, drugs, and basic surgeries, numerous physiological and psychological afflictions. But as you get towards the back of the book, the final third, it starts turning towards more esoteric topics such as the source of nightmares, accounts of the dimension of dreams,

and descriptions of the creatures that live in said dimension. You want to study it for like an hour? Mm-hmm. It's going to take that much time to pull down all these thousands of drawings. As you do so... All the images go away. His, like, deflection shield

vanishes, and he doesn't even notice. He's just sitting there. Sitting, and any one of you could do this. If you spend an hour with the book, you can immediately after use the hypnotism occult skill unlock once per day, even if you're not capable of casting psychic spells.

And if you don't possess the psychic sensitivity feat. Also, after consulting the tome for an hour, you get a plus two bonus on a single knowledge planes check related to the dimension of dreams. It's also full of some spells.

The spell Dream, the spell Dream Council, the spell Dream Scan, dream council the spell dream scan dream travel and nightmare most notoriously as you are just glued to this reading it it contains an elaborate and

some say flawed ritual for releasing one's dreams into the material plane and while the right functions, the side effects of failure can create dangerous beings known as Onerogens. So this released nightmare

is probably what Laos or Lusandro did to Xandulus that created these Onerogens that caused the rift and let all these nightmares in. As you dig deeper, you realize that if someone is killed with a nightmare, if the Tatterman had put you to sleep and then killed you with the nightmare spell, which you can now

learn, an hour after you are dead, you come back as a creature like a ghoul or a ghast. So he had been going around killing patients and doctors, and they were rising back up as evil-aligned ghouls and ghasts. As they're pulling down the papers from the wall and you're reading the book, we just black out from there.

First of all, you all level up till fourth level yeah yes first and most importantly from there we just see a series of vignettes we see patients and asylum workers alike wander out onto the ground surrounding the asylum has no mist and they're just reveling together in the return of a familiar sky and the dawning sun. They look out at the waters, which they couldn't see not even hours ago,

and breathe in the air around them, no longer choked by yellow fog. We see a scene of two ghouls and a ghast melting away into the floor, no longer empowered by the transformation that came about from the tatterman We see a scene of two ghouls and a ghast melting away into the floor, no longer empowered by the transformation that came about from the tatterman infecting them in their sleep. Meanwhile, other nightmarish aberrations, some that you faced in the asylum and some that you didn't, they simply melt away into the shadows, perhaps returning to the land of dreams,

or perhaps just biding their time until another unknowing victim falls asleep unprotected nearby. We see orderlies and other able-bodied women and men confronting and gathering up the more dangerous inmates, and as peacefully as possible ushering them back into the asylum where they can be held safe until the order is restored in Briarstone. We see Dr. Ren Elborn and Winter Klaxa working together to round up survivors from both camps, sussing out who's free to leave if they choose and who needs to stay. Some of the patients, though they're free to leave,

choose to stay because they know they need help. We see Winter offering critical medical attention to the injured and attempting to restore some semblance of order. As Winter directs two former doctors of the asylum towards people that need immediate care, she sees the four of you. Exit the asylum and walk towards her outside. She smiles warmly. She knows you saved the day. She's like, we cannot thank you enough. You have done a great service to humanity. Whatever evil was terrorizing this place seems to be gone, for now at least. She shakes her head.

What great loss, though. So many innocents perished or worse. Either way, I thank you for all that you have done. What will you do now?

I don't know I have no idea I would like to leave this asylum for good I don't have a lot of good memories here or memories at all but I must venture out to make new ones I feel a calling of some sort tugging me away from here.

Aldo, what do you say? Would you join me to leave this place? Yeah, best friend. I'd love to go walk about, too. This place is not fair dinkum. Indeed, no fair dinkum. In fact, it's rather rooted. It is utterly rooted.

This entire endeavor was completely rooted. May I ask, I did not want to pry when you were in the midst of your investigation of this place, trying to save all of us, but did you discover anything about yourselves? How you came to be here? Yes. Yes. We were brought here by Laos. Is that right, Laos?

Laos. By Laos, as amnesiacs, suffering from lost memories. But over the course of the last several days, I believe mine has started coming back. And I think, I don't know, I think this book deserves a long looking into, and that's what I plan to do. The Count, do you know why he brought you here? No, he simply told, I believe he told the asylum administrators that in exchange for access to this very book, we they would need to treat us.

But I don't feel as if I need to be treated. If I was, you know, have the choice of voluntarily staying here or not, I would not stay. Though I can't speak for Sir Julie. Sir Julie, would you stay? I have been within these walls

for 47 years now. I think it is time I rejoin the world. My regiment awaits. The darkness closes around us. You have not seen the types of horrors that are yet to come, but your bravery will be most valuable in the fight. You know that it was the Count that brought me here in the first place.

Yes, I remember. Him abandoning his duties. We were all dispatched, the sisters of the Maiden Choir, and I came here to find out his connection. And it seems that now you have a connection to him as well. You should head to Thrushmore.

Investigate your connection to the Count. No doubt my travels will take me there as soon as I can once I see this place returned to order. I think, and I shudder to say this, but this might just be the beginning of something. If the Count is out there doing things like he did here, in the world, then this is just a microcosm of what is to come. Either way, whether you go to Thrushmore or not If you do choose to leave, just follow that road there

I've told there's a boat tied to the end of the pier And I've sent some of my people to secure it It's too small for everyone to board at the same time But just tell them you have my permission to be the first to go And then we'll ferry the rest of the survivors to the mainland in as many trips as necessary. Thank you, Winter. Thank you very much.

Thank you as well, and may Phrasma guide your way. Hopefully we will see each other again. And may she guide yours and sweet dreams. And, of course, praise log.

A praise log, yes. Is that guy in the background? He just walks out and he turns. So she leaves you And you start walking down this road And though the yellow mists The road to Thrushmore Though the yellow mists are gone

It's still grim It's wet And it's foggy But you can see Kind of through the fog A little water up ahead The thick gray mist Makes the visibility less than perfect.

However, darting out of the mist, you see the ancient standing stone from Xandulus's painting. Oh, right. Although ominous in appearance, as you get closer to it, maybe you detect magic. It radiates

no magic, and frankly it doesn't have any discerning marks on it that make it any more than an oddity that Xandilus would have been able to recreate it so perfectly, having never seen it. But as you pass by it, up ahead in the mist, you see a humanoid shape, standing, veiled by the fog,

maybe 40, 50 feet away or so. shape. Standing, veiled by the fog, maybe 40, 50 feet away or so. Do you say anything? Hello there. Who goes there? Oi! Hello? Hello? From out the mist

walks Crossbow Jackson. He says, as if you didn't know I'll be your captain this evening Hop aboard friends Next stop Thrushmore Oh man

Good job Troy We did it Fin We did it. The finale of a book is always amazing. As if you didn't know. I was about to ask about Crossbow Jack. He's there. Guys, thank you for joining us all weekend long. It's a little late, but the winner of the dice tonight was Christian Largent Man Bear Hugs on IG.

Congratulations. Thanks for taking part in the contest. Thanks for watching. Thanks for supporting. We'll see you in book two! Good night, everybody! you