The Glass Cannon Podcast - Strange Aeons Episode 53 – Master of Poppets

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

Shades of the ancient inhabitants of Ib wrack the heroes with their dooming touch while an ever greater enemy approaches from the distance—the Great Old One Bokrug!. Join Troy Lavallee, Joe O'Brien, Skid Maher, Matthew Capodicasa and Sydney Amanuel as they tour the country playing the Lovecraftian Horror Strange Aeons Pathfinder Adventure Path. Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/1JcNaB1oyHk 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

Ooh, French lavender soy blend candle. I told you HomeSense has good gift options. Hmm, well, I don't know. Mom's gonna love it. She'll take one sniff and be transported to that anniversary trip you took to San Tropez a few years ago. Forget it, she complained about her sunburn the whole trip. It's only $14. $14? Now that's a vacation I can get behind.

Deals so good, everyone approves. Only at HomeSense. This episode is brought to you by Tresemme. Want silky smooth hair that's still full of natural movement? The Tresemme Keratin Smooth Weightless Collection is your simple solution. This new collection features a wide range of products from nourishing shampoo and conditioner to lightweight heat protectants and a silky smooth serum for a sleek finish. Wave goodbye to frizz and say hello to three days of smooth hair with the Tresemme Keratin Smooth Weightless Collection. Visit tresemme.com to learn more.

You are listening to the Glass Cannon Network, the premier source for role-playing game entertainment. Let's talk about it. The elephant in the room that everyone at home is thinking about. Nobody wants to discuss it. Nobody wants to bring it out in the open on a live Twitch stream viewed by millions

what is everyone's favorite halloween candy i was really worried i was like this is gonna? Am I going to have to just sabotage the stream in some way so we don't have to hear everybody's controversial answers to some hot topic? I'm just having a hard time with this question right now. You only get one. Do you mean like Halloween themed candy? Because like some candy is just tiny and then it becomes Halloween candy. I'd like you to elaborate on this. Like a tiny Twix it becomes Halloween candy. I'd like you to elaborate on this. Like a

tiny Twix. Right, right. Or like a tiny Kit Kat. Halloween candy is all candy. Fun size. You're talking about fun size. Yes. I feel like fun size is just a year-round thing. Right. So you're talking about Halloween themed candy. Troy, you think that is just, that's a gross

oversimplification of the truth. Listen, I'm not saying, if your favorite Halloween candy, when you were a kid up until now, as you reach in there and you pull out a fun-sized fucking Twix, and that's your jam, then that's your answer. That's it. You get one answer.

Oh, jeez. That's preposterous. One answer is preposterous. That's all you get. I'll start. I'd venture to say that choosing one favorite is against the spirit of Halloween. I'm with you, Matthew. I'm with you. Well, all I remember is as a kid, when you dumped it out at the end of the night, or

sometimes you'd be like two buckets deep if you had a really good neighborhood, you dumped it out at the end of the night, or sometimes you'd be like two buckets deep if you had a really good neighborhood, you dumped it out. The thing that I was most excited for is the same thing that I'm excited for now, and it's the thing that I now hand out to the children of my neighborhood. Circus peanuts. Is what you say, circus?

Circus peanuts. I actually like circus peanuts. So do I. And a lot of people think they are disgusting. They don't promote candy like we had as a kid that is just pure sugar. Yeah, and not just pure sugar, but unwrapped and just handed to you by a stranger. There you go. Clammy hand to stranger.

And then you would just eat it. It was a different time. The best thing for me was a Reese's peanut butter cup. And here's the thing, Kate. There was no... When I was a kid, they didn't have many cups. You had a different time. The best thing for me was a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. And here's the thing, Kate. There was no, when I was a kid, they didn't have many cups. You just, you had a whole cup, which was huge. By the end of the night, you had the equivalent of 20 packages because two come in a package of Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

Now they've got the pumpkin ones, and they got the ones with the green Halloween-themed bottoms. They got the white cups, the inside out cups. Great. They're all in the same family for me. You can't beat it. You can't beat it. So the question is, what is your favorite candy to get on Halloween? Correct.

He didn't phrase it properly. You have just phrased it properly. What would be the alternative version? Your favorite candy to give? No, you, no. You said Halloween candy as if it's candy that has to be Halloween-y. I see. Like chocolate ghosts or something.

Right. Candy corn. Candy corns, which I love. I've talked about this before. I love two and a half candy corns with all my heart. And then after that point, I'm just like, oh, God, I'm going to vomit. That's the exact number. It's the same thing with IPAs two and two and a half and then they're disgusting and then you're like

oh you should say that i had a handful today and i was like damn those were good and i went back in for a second handful and that was enough i didn't even i felt a little sick after that second handful i like to here's something you can do at home. It's a little fun. I like to bite off each color one at a time. Me too. That's what I've always done. I don't know another way to eat a candy corn except for six at a time. I like biting the orange and white

off, or the orange and yellow off, and you're left with just white, and it kind of looks like a bunch of little teeth. Oh, that's fun. That's kind of twisted. Yeah. Children's teeth. Alright, I picked. Oh, that's fine. That's kind of twisted. Yeah. Children's teeth. Alright, I picked. Matthew, I imagine you've got something pretty front

door. Did they just hand out like spaghetti covered in sauce in your neighborhood? No. There you go. Spaghettios. No, they just handed out whole student-els. Wow. Well, here you go.

A lot of sugar everywhere. My favorite candy to get on Halloween, and I don't know why I have such a Halloween attachment to this, but I do, is Reese's Pieces. Oh. In a bag or loose? Preferably loose. That way I know they've been laced with love.

Good. Okay. Reese's Pieces. I don't think they had them back in the day, but with love. Okay. Reese's Pieces. Do you see these days? I don't think they had them back in the day, but these days they make the Reese's Pieces carrot. That's not how you say it. That's how they have this discussion. Reese's Pieces. Yes.

I mean, that's how I say it. That's how people say it. I know what it is. I don't know what it is. All right. You know, in the carrot bag, it's like a bag and it's shaped like a carrot and tied at the top. Oh, that's Easter. Okay.

That makes sense. That makes more sense. That predated or that postdates my childhood. Yeah. Trick-or-treating, by the way, trick-or-treating around Easter is just begging. They call that begging. They call that begging. Skid, you got a go-to that withstood the test of time?

Well, as some of you know, I was not allowed to eat candy. That's right. For a very long time, so I wasn't – Your mom told me about you. That's right. It's like, oh, no. I know it's his birthday, but he's not allowed to have any candy. But nowadays, I mean, I love like a Reese's Cup. That's great.

But now, if I were to go now, I'd be really hoping for some fentanyl. I just really want to get lucky. I might go out this year and dress up and try to get some. Trick or treat or fentanyl. If you have any. Oh, actually, or the fun side, not the ones they have now, but the old Butterfingers because they changed the recipe. It used to be like a real kind of, I can't even describe,

the crispity center. But then they changed the recipe, and now it's just like wax. Really? It turns into like a flavorless wax in your mouth after a while were you like me that you liked butterfinger more because bart simpson was the spokesman for it no no that was cool but i i liked them way before bart simpson existed yeah so Yeah. Butterfinger can't go wrong. Uh, Kate, I've given you ample time here now to, uh, work through the recesses of your brain to choose one candy. Um, please tell us your candy. So listen, my favorite candy is Kit Kat. Oh, great choice. But for Halloween, Great choice. But for Halloween, when I was a child, the goal was to get regular-sized bars of anything.

That's how you felt like you won. If you found the neighborhood where someone was giving out regular-sized bars, and the pinnacle of it was a regular-sized Butterfinger. Everyone loved Butterfingers. That's the arc of the covenant of the trick-or-treater. It's like the person that didn't understand how trick-or-treat works. Fortune and glory, kid. How much could it cost? Here's a king-size Charleston Chew.

Yeah. Fucking huge thing. I like that. I like to make up. I do what my dad did. And he made up bags with several different candies in it. So I do the same thing, little Ziploc bags with some Reese's, some Kit Kats. Little toothbrush.

Little toothbrush. Travel size toothbrush. So then and now you live in sparsely populated areas? Why? Is that frowned upon in busier areas? I mean in busier areas areas you just have hundreds and hundreds of kids that come to the door like i know we've never be out in like 15 minutes and then be that that house that didn't didn't show up well i mean i howling can is expensive i've got like four bags of it and it costs like 60 dollars unless you get the garbage do you know

the real cheap bags? I can't do that. I can't do it either. I'm like, I can't just give these kids just all Tootsie Roll, like different flavored Tootsie Rolls. This is awful. It's awful. That's where the corporations, they know. They know that's where they got you and they raise their prices and they know you're going to buy it.

Do a lot of kids come to you? Any of you? My neighbor told me we don't get hot trick-or-treaters, so... Yeah. So my neighbor told you you don't get hot trick-or-treaters? Is that what you said? Unfortunately, the guy next door, we don't get any more

hot trick-or-treaters around here. You want to see hot kids, you can go to our neighbor. Ugly trick-or-treaters don't get candy that's right we have standards wait can we get a good amount can we go back a minute have we talked about on any of our shows i'm trying to rack my brain we've done so many different episodes about how about the crazy thing about tootsie rolls what i think we did we have talked something about yeah i'd like to hear what were you gonna say well then if you eat like if you were to think we have talked something about Tootsie Roll. Yeah. I'd like to hear it again. What were you going to say?

Well, that if you eat – like if you were to go to the store and buy Tootsie Roll and eat it or even that bag of Tootsie Roll's multicolored flavors, if you eat the chocolate kind, you are eating at least some portion of Tootsie Roll from the 1930s. Oh, I don't think we did talk about that. What does that mean? What? How is that true? What does that mean? The recipe for Tootsie Roll is every day you add in yesterday's remainders or a portion of yesterday's remainders. It's like sourdough starter?

Yes, it's like sourdough. So if you eat a Tootsie Roll now, you kind of have a piece of the 30s in there that you're ingesting. Wow. The FDA allows that? Apparently. That's so wild. It's the military candy complex. That could explain why they're so gross. Because eating a Tootsie Roll is like eating a tiny Yankee candle that someone had a conversation about chocolate around.

They're disgusting. I hate that. Didn't it start during the Depression when chocolate was really expensive? I think so, yeah. A little bit of cocoa powder. I was yes-handing Joe. You were making fun of the flavored Tootsie Rolls. But I actually love those because when I was a kid in my hometown of Haverhill, Massachusetts, they still do it now.

They have this thing. It's called the Santa Claus Parade. And it happens like the week after Thanksgiving. And at the end uh when santa claus comes out they throw fucking candy well everybody's throwing candy but one of the main candies that was thrown throughout the parade was those flavored tootsie rolls and so my memory of that they cost nothing picking them up out of the gutter and eating them uh they're so good world war ii surplus tootsie rolls, seriously, that's what it is.

Like, that's where I ate the bulk of Tootsie Rolls in my life. I love Tootsie Rolls. And I ate the bulk of them at my grandmother's house. You know what I mean? And she didn't have a dime. So, like, it was just always Tootsie Rolls were the candy of choice. And so, when Halloween rolled around, I mean, I got pushed to the end here, and both Skid and then in succession,

Kate took my exact answers. Everything I was going to say. I didn't know. I didn't pick fentanyl? No, no, no, not fentanyl. You're going to say fentanyl, too. No, I was going to say... We were both into fentanyl. We could have been having so many fun discussions. We could have been talking about this.

We'll talk about it on Legacy. When you said, when you shake it out of the bag and it hits the floor, what gets you most excited? For me, it was the full-size Butterfinger because there was one rich lady on my block. And all she did was full-size candy bars. And it was the greatest thing in the world. But that's a very rare thing to see today. And incidentally, today, Butterfingers stink. So that's a very rare thing to see today and incidentally today butterfingers stink so that's what i was going to say and uh and yeah you guys like mentioned

all that like i used to love butterfingers now i could care less these days i mean reese's are amazing kit kat's amazing i'm a big fan of milky way and snickers too i love milky way milky way is a surprise like a very front door but but just solid candy bar. Underrated. What about Three Musketeers? Three Musketeers is the worst. I love Three Musketeers. That's a yeoman-like candy. Nothing wrong with Three Musketeers.

It's a journeyman bar. I'll take Three Musketeers over Snickers seven days a week, twice on Sunday. That's an incorrect opinion. I'll tell you what's wrong with Three Musketeers. The excessive amount of nougat? What's wrong with Three Musketeers is Milky Way and Snickers. Because if you start with the

Milky Way and then you're like, wait, this is great. And then you have a Snickers and you're like, oh, this is great too. And then you get to a Three Musketeers and you're like, oh, this is just the nougat? I would give away the other two just to have more Three Musketeers. That's so funny. I wish I had you around to give my Three Musketeers, or trade my Three Musketeers. We could have made a good deal. The Great Cavourne

says almond joys are pretty good too, so I guess the Great Cavourne is 70 years old. You either like coconut or you don't. I love it, so yeah, I get that. And sometimes you feel like a nut, and sometimes you don't.

Well, hey, if you're out there this weekend tricking and treating, hope you have fun and be safe. Don't go to Kate's neighborhood to trick or treat. Don't go to Kate's neighborhood unless you're hot. Unless you're hot. And you might get some candy.

I'm excited. I'm excited for Halloween. When you have kids, it's like Halloween's a whole weekend long event. There's like a thing at the mall tomorrow night. They call it Boo and Brew

where they just have a brewery just handing out beers and the kids go to all the stores in the mall and get candy. That's a great idea. It's a good time. And then there's farms and shit. And then Monday.

Monday, what a great day for trick-or-treat. Give me a Monday trick-or-treat over a Friday or Saturday. It kind of keeps the weekend going if you have a Monday trick-or-treat. It's just the best when the Saturday night is like the Halloween parties. I mean, this is

before I had kids, but it would be like, you could have those parties Saturday night and then still have Halloween. You got both of them. It's a nice, nice combo. Question from chat. I'm curious, to everybody's opinion, one of the majors that we didn't mention is Twix.

Your thoughts on Twix? I mentioned Tiny Twix. Oh, you did mention. Oh, I thought you just said Kit Kat. Okay. Love Twix. Love Twix. I love Twix, too. I just think it's below most of those, except Butterfinger, which is obviously trash.

Butterfinger. I feel like Twix, like I trick-or-treated before tiny Twix was a thing, I feel like, so there just weren't a lot of them. They were a rare Halloween candy for me. Yeah, yeah. I didn't see a lot of Twix. But I did like them a lot. Oh, yeah.

We get full-size Twix. We all agree that Whoppers are disgusting, right? Nobody loves Whoppers. I eat Whoppers when there's just nothing, no other candy. I'm like, all right, I'll eat it. I won't not eat it. It's like drinking a bush light at the end of the party. I want a beer.

Yeah, to me it's always been like, it tastes to me like what mothballs smell like. I don't know. It's just an odd sort of. That's the recipe, I think. Chocolate-covered mothballs. Chocolate-covered mothballs. In my head, Rolos and Whoppers are the same.

But no, Rolos are amazing. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Rolos are great. Phenomenal. Phenomenal. All right. Well, I'm glad we didn't have too many disagreements here, which is good.

I guess now we'll play some Pathfinder. Okay. I thought you were going to end that segment with saying, well, I've sent some Halloween candy to each of your houses just for the occasion tonight. Well, that would be nice. The worst was like two years ago. I bought so much of it. And then it was like that first COVID year where like four people showed up to the house.

So then my wife and I just proceeded to eat candy until the new year. But last year was good. I assume this year will be good as well because I really don't want to eat candy leftover. last year was good. I assume this year will be good as well because I really don't want any candy left over. But speaking of left over, we've got a combat left over from the New York show

this past Saturday. Hey, who was at that show? Raise your hand in the chat. Gabe was there. It's good. I was there. I was there. You were there? And Matthew, you were there? You were there? Joe, you you were there? You were there? Joe, you weren't there, but Jon Snow was.

The king of the North! It's crazy. The king of the North! That was a good time. God, that was Saturday night, and that feels... You know, you get older, and time feels like it's flying by, and then you're like, five days ago feels like five months ago. But that's good.

I like that feeling better than the Flying By feeling. But we had a lot of fun Saturday night. And we've got one more show this year. Philadelphia, December 3rd, during PAX Unplugged. We've already sold more tickets than the New York show. That's how hot this show is. It's very close to half sold, which this far out means this show is going to sell out. So please, if you want to come, I mean, it is our favorite,

probably our favorite con next to Gen Con. It's just a good reason to go to Philly, the only reason. And the weather is perfect. Got Christmas in the air. Reading Terminal Market, PAX unplugged, and we're going to be playing Saturday night at City Winery, brand new venue this year. So please head to glasscannonetwork.com slash tour to buy tickets.

And if you missed the State of the Nation last week, Glass Cannon Network in 2023 is going to be the shit. So get excited. And if you want 10% off an annual membership to Patreon, tomorrow is your last day to lock that in. We've been running that promotion for the past week since the State of the Nation because we feel like if you're on board for all the exciting things that we have coming up, especially on Patreon, you might as well get yourself the discount. Why not get 10% off? Lock it in.

It's like a gym membership. Just lock it in. And then if you don't go. And I've always liked anyone that sold me a gym membership. Right. I've always liked anyone that sold me a gym membership. Right. I've always really trusted those people. Just a couple of sign-up fees and be sure to refer your friends. Yeah, but the nice part about this membership as opposed to a gym membership is that you don't have to do anything to hold up your end of the bargain.

You just got to sit there and hit play sometimes. Yeah, and we want you to partake of the membership as opposed to the gym membership. Yeah. Which is their best result is you Joe O'Brien it, which is go a couple of times and be like, this still sucks. And just never go again. But then you're locked in for a year.

And at the new $1,000 tier, you can take a sauna with us. Whoa. Which is fun sauna with us. Whoa. Which is fun. I did not know about that. There's that. And then, yeah, only a few more of these this year, too. We're not going to be going every single week up through the holidays.

There's like three or four of these left. So get excited. I've bantered enough. Let's just jump in. Recap-wise, just very quickly because I want to get back to the action. You've been going through these dreamland excursion rituals to try and traverse the dreamlands to find these gifts that has sent Lowell's on this journey to the South. So you're trying to retrace his steps in a way by going to the places that he went to to find these gifts or similar gifts to present them to the mad poet, because it appears you don't just show up and say, hey, mad poet, let's talk.

You need to come bearing gifts, seven gifts. poet, let's talk. You need to come bearing gifts. Seven gifts. But for the first time, really, things got a little hairy when you were at this necropolis of ghouls where you almost didn't get the gift. For the first time, you are in a position where not only may you not get your quarry here. This green statue of a water lizard that you now know is a statue of the great old one, Bokrug. But you may die in the process because your latest trip to the Dreamlands has taken you to the city of Sarnath. And there's this huge hedonistic festival taking over the city, and they're celebrating, like they do every year, the destruction of the city of Ib, the city of stupid frog people that they murdered and wiped out. And every year they're like, fuck those dumb froggies.

And this is the thousandth year that they're celebrating, and so everybody's coming to town to drink and have sex with each other. And you show up, and you're like, can we just get this statue and get out of here? And as this party's going down, these ghosts, these frog ghosts come down the stairs and start laying waste to the people. You fight them off and you find out that the waters outside have risen and have started to come over the seawall, threatening the entire city. And with it, more of these ghosts, one of which is holding the idol that you seek. So you go up there

after meeting a new friend of yours, a witch whose name is Eris. You meet Eris, and thank goodness you did, because your new friend Suki and Xantar, king of the Zoogs, during this hustle and bustle of pandemonium,

people running everywhere, were pulled deeper into the party, nowhere to be seen. So Eris is like, I'm in, let's go. You go upstairs, and the waters are indeed coming over. There are bodies floating in like an inch of water, and three will-o'-wisps

attack and brutalize you. Luckily, you're able to take them out. But then you see more of these shades of ib rise up. And one of them, this sort of priestess or priest in the back, is holding this idol. And they begin attacking you. And they are laying out some serious damage. Because if they hit and do damage to you, you gain the doomed

condition. And every time you take damage, that doomed condition goes up. Get to four doomed, or five doomed if you have the die-hard feat, and you dead. But that may not even be the way you go. Because at the end,

a great being, a kaiju-like creature, rose from the depths of the ocean, hundreds of feet the wall and blocks any means of escape back into the palace. So you are now standing there against four of these Ibshades. One priest of Bokrog, you imagine. And Bokrog himself!

The priest holds this idol aloft, activates it, and does like 10d10 damage. I think that Aldo critically succeeded. Eris and Ethel regular succeeded. And Atticus' crit failed. Atticus' crit failure took him below zero, which brought him right to dying two. Even though Eris succeeded, that half damage was enough to bring Eris

to dying one. And you're all stupefied eight, just from the mere presence of Bokarug, who is just, when you come face to face with the great old one, you're lucky to live to tell the tale, with what's left of

your mind. The last thing I'll say is the good news is if you die in the dreamland, you don't die in real life. You just wake up with a madness. However, what if you do that without getting the idol? Let's go back to the map here. Can I make a request? Hello.

When you're picking the madnesses for us after we're all dead, can you pick ones that are good for radio this time? How dare you? Which one wasn't good? The melancholy Sir Julie? Yes. I thought it was funny.

I thought you did a great job. And honestly, I think it informed the character creation of Ethel when Sir Julie died very shortly thereafter so kudos to you Matthew for taking that suggestion and really running with it really good job fishing for a compliment Matthew

really impressive sometimes you're just standing near the water and a fish flops near your feet and that's what I feel like just happened give that guy some whoppers alright back on the map here. Also, if anyone who is at this New York show or listened to the New York show

knows why Eris has an icon with a three on it, let me know. Because Eris is dying one. That's the skull and crossbones. You're all stupefied eight. That's what the brain with the eight. This little frog guy is enfeebled one.

It's in muscles. Obviously Atticus is dying too. And then Ethel is doomed one and Aldo is doomed two. But we cannot for the life of us remember what that three is on Eris. So if you know, remind us in the chat. And if you say doomed,

we think you're wrong because Kate listened to the episode today and doesn't remember. Oh mirror images says constrictor ah kate you fool kate it was a beneficial thing it was my first time mirror imaging so huge all right guys we got it constrictor got it i like to think that it was the angels and the devils on Aerith's shoulders, and right now the devils were winning eight to three. That's fun. That's a high-scoring hockey game. High-scoring hockey game.

Go devils! All right, the thing standing next to Ethel took two actions to activate that idol, but still has one more action. And was I allowed an attack of opportunity on that activation? Yes. Did we resolve that? You did resolve that, and I think you missed a ton for like the past year. The past year.

That's true. It's been a horrible year for Matthew. Rolling flies. It's been a bad run. Ever since Matthew got off the juice, his numbers have come back down. I want you all to know I went home after the New York show, and I took every single die. I took every single D20 out of my travel dice bag,

and I just retired them into my other dice bag, because I was like, I'm not rolling them again for a very, very long time. Wow, okay. That's good. I like it. This creature now reaches out to touch you.

Give me a will save. Okay. Excuse me, fortitude save. Oh, thank God. I was going to say my will save is significantly hampered by the stupefication. Fortitude will be

24. It's actually a fail. Did you roll bad? I rolled a 10. I rolled right down the middle. You rolled bad. All right. It's not going to be too bad. You are going to take four points of damage from a harm spell, a one-action

harm spell. Its hand just reaches right through you and you feel this cold, chill touch your broken heart from your divorce. Just a reminder that Atticus and Eris have moved in the initiative order now

because of what happened, because they went down. So now it is one of the... Let me see here. It is one of the Ibshade's turn. God, Atticus and Eris are both down, so this one is going to come up

and flank Ethel Merman. First action is going to move to Ethel. And then... I believe we established that the eyes that Eris gave me are still on my body. Yes, they are. And you can't be flanked. But you're welcome to stand behind me.

Technically, that spell lasts a minute. minute right but I think I said on the show rule of cool those things are still on you so no flank bone on this John ski so it's just a straight up attack as it tries to touch you that is going to be a 24

that is a miss okay and then I'll try to touch you one more time. Uh, also a miss. And then it is, uh, Ibshade four turn before Aldo goes. And that is the one way over here. Ibshade four turn. Ibshade four turn. Uh, you guys, only the one next to Aldo has been touched.

Um, uh, with also the priest has been touched as well. So these guys are in great shape. This one is going to double move to close on Ethel and try to strike. 93. Miss. All right. All right. So it is Aldo's turn. Aldo, what do you do?

Aldo is terrified beyond Aldo, what do you do? Aldo is terrified beyond the capacity for rational thoughts. But he is still going to attempt to... Why don't we throw a couple of bombs? How about that? Hey!

You don't need to be rational. You can probably take that one out in front of you. It's taking some damage. Yeah, we'll try. Natural 20. Yay! Whoa, right okay! Yay! Strong opener.

Wow, okay. All right, so that's going to be a crit. Go ahead and pick a city there, Skid. How about Albuquerque, New Mexico? My dad lives. Great town from what I hear. Did we determine that your things are ranged and not magic? Yes.

Yeah, I think they're, yeah. Okay. I think the chewy bombs, unless they are imbued with magic, are not magical. But then even if you use a magical bomb, it still falls under range. Uh, okay. Um... Occasionally, I'll be quirky.

I'll be quirky. Okay, um... This one is from... Okay. From Scott in Oklahoma City. Oklahoma. What's up, Scott?

Ranged. Criot! Um, full lashing. Double, uh, double damage. You breathe in sharply as you aim at your target. To your surprise, a power within your projectile activates. It now glows with a brilliant light, imbuing it with an adhesive property.

Your target becomes immobilized as your projectile pins your flow foe to the nearest surface. That makes sense. They can end the condition with successful athletics. Check to free themselves. Blah, blah, blah.

It is a ghost. This is annoying. Okay. Double damage. Okay. Okay. Double damage. Okay. Double damage. Oh, wow. 30 points of damage.

Okay. It's dead. Okay. Beautiful. We don't have to worry about that. What I was going to do is just reinterpret that so that it's not completely lost like sort of

like a ghost Like a planar anchor I was thinking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's dead instead which is even better. First one down and you still got

a couple actions left there. Okay. I am gonna throw another bomb at the one that just moved up behind Ethel.

Okay. You know what you need? You need a one that just moved up behind Ethel. Okay. You know what you need? You need a bomb that just explodes healing vapors. It just does like a channel positive energy. That is an option. I don't have it yet, but I think that's something I can get down the line. Oh, that is cool.

That would be really cool. That is a 22 to hit? 22 to hit. I believe that is a hit. I started looking at other things. 22 is a hit. Remind me, is this magical? Is this particular bomb magical?

This one is, yeah, it's alchemist fire, so I guess no. No, okay. Because they do have some sort of DR against non-magical. Right. Okay, so that's 17 points of damage. Okay, some of that gets through. Okay. And is DR and 2E not like it was in 1E insofar as like...

It's resistance. I'm calling it DR for shorthand, but it's really like resistance 5 or resistance 10 against non-magical. Resistance 5 everything. Yeah, some things get through and you've determined that already that like ghost touch uh force and positive gets through right cool so with my final action with my third action i'm going to i think for the first time use my pendant of the occult which I can use as a verbal action to cast the Cantrip Guidance, and I will do that to

Ethel Merman. Nice. Gratsy. Come on, Ethel. Come on, Ethel. His hand. Okay, and we will finish out the round with one more of these Ibshades

it is the one nearest Eris, that one is going to move Eris, it is going to close on Aldo and do one attack Aldo is sitting here at doomed 2

so really doesn't want to get hit again garbage roll might be close, 22 is sitting here at doomed two. So it really doesn't want to get hit again. Garbage roll. It might be close. 22? On me? Yeah, on Aldo. Oh, no. That's a miss. Miss. Okay. Alright, so that is the end of that round. It now goes

to round three. In the distance. You see this. This thing just approach you. Have you ever seen these videos on Instagram or TikTok where it looks like a monster is rising from the deep, like they're using After Effects or something, and it looks so real?

That's what I imagine, because there's so much mist in the air, you just see Godzilla in the distance and it's got to look so cool I wish that this was a movie Pacific Rim is a movie where that happens there you go I haven't seen that but is that it always reminds me of whenever I saw it like Evangelion

is it supposed to be a take on Evangelion it's not far from that okay yeah it's not great but it does some effect shots and some of the action is very good. Love a good Mecha. Alright, it is Ethel's turn. Now, at the beginning of each of your turns,

I forgot to have Aldo do it on his turn, but at the beginning of each of your turns, you need to roll against the unspeakable presence of Bokruk. And why that's important is, should you succeed, which is a very, very small chance that you succeed, you're going to have a better chance of making this will save to wake up,

because stupefied eight will also be a minus eight to your will saves. So, Ethel, go ahead and give me that save. Will save? That is a natural 20, I believe, we realized. It is a natural 20. It is We realized it is a natural 20 is required My natural 2 then should be Oh no, a little bit off That's a crit fail

It probably is a crit fail, yes it is I rolled a 7 Brutal Do I get more stupefied because of that? You know, you just stupefied Stupefied 16 Stupefied you're just stupefied. Stupefied 16. Stupefied 16. Well,

Ethel is stupefied like Aldo and like Egon beyond irrational thought. So he's just, all he can think to do is just get the statue. That's all he can think to do. And he doesn't even have the wherewithal to try to grab it.

Mostly because there doesn't seem to be a mechanic for that. But is there a mechanic to just grab something out of somebody's arm, or is it just disarm? Well, it's funny, because disarm, can you only grab something on a crit success? Yes. Or is that not even an ability? No, you can't even grab it.

On a crit success, you knock it out. Disarm. False, yeah. So I was talking to our buddy Eric about this recently and he was saying that there's a good deal of stuff in 2E that's like crit only.

You gotta crit to pull it off because it's hard stuff. Right, but you know what you can do is buff your chance to hit. Yeah, by succeeding. Someone could give you, what's the thing, was the plus 20 in Pathfinder First Edition? Is this escaping me? True Strike?

Thank you. Like a True Strike-y type thing where you need to crit on something. You must have that option, but it requires a little teamwork. Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at other things I can use the athletics skill for, which is my best skill and probably my best shot at doing this, and there's really nothing else that seems to remotely apply. So I'm going to continue to try and discern. All right, so what I have here is look under the grapple action in Chewie.

Okay. The requirements for the grapple action is you have at least one free hand or have your target grappled or restrained as long as your target isn't one size larger than you. You attempt to grab a creature or object with your free hand. Oh, okay.

Attempt an athletics check against the target's fortitude DC. You can grapple a target you already have grabbed or restrained without having a free hand. So the only thing that it doesn't say in there is if you can grab an object.

It doesn't say if the object is attended or unattended. But to me, if you're using, if you're trying to grab an object and you're rolling an athletics check against the fortitude DC of someone, isn't that sort of inferring that you're trying to grab their object and you're rolling an athletics check against the fortitude DC of someone, isn't that sort of inferring that you're trying to grab their object?

You wouldn't need to roll a grapple check to pick something up off the table. But it kind of makes sense that you have to grapple them. When you're trying to take something from someone, you immobilize them and then you can take it out of their hand. I think that's what it means.

You attempt to grab a creature or object with your free hand. I think I can just use grapple to just try to rip it out of their hand. Yeah, I think in this case you have to... there would have to be a distinction between object and weapon. You know what I mean? You can't just grab a weapon out of somebody's hand.

But in this case, I think this thing even though it can be used as a weapon, is really more of an object. It doesn't have such a solid grip. And disarm doesn't specify either. It just says you try to knock something out of a creature's grasp. Now, the difference is I'm going up against fortitude versus reflex. Right, right.

The fortitude save of this guy. And I succeeded. Fortitude DC. I succeeded. I don't remember what I rolled, but I remember being surprised that I succeeded on the Disarm with a relatively not terrific roll. So I wonder if I'm better just going Disarm?

Here's how I'll rule it. i've been stalling on purpose to see if the chat would weigh in i don't even know um if you crit success you can straight up grab it a regular success uh you kind of have a you both have a hold of it with grapple yeah and then different things with failure all right so to me that seems like what the spirit of this is until i hear something different. Alright, great. Then I'll do grapple, at least for my first action. And I will roll athletics.

Here we go. You might crit! With my plus one from guidance. Thank you, Skid. Yeah, take it. Okay, that is a 31. 31 is a crit success. Yes! Awesome!

Holy shit! You grab the doom 31 is a crit success awesome holy shit you grab the doom idol of Ib from this fucking game oh my god Ethel Merman worth every penny that was just a natural 13 thank you for the guidance now here's the pickle you're in

all you need to do now is just wake up. Not here. You need three actions to wake up. You only have two left. And you're going to have a minus eight to those rolls, which means you have to roll an 18, 19, 20, I believe if I remember my math correctly.

But you can't even do it this round. You've got to stay alive long enough to awaken. Because if they kill you and you go unconscious, that idol just falls into the water and then we start having fun here. That's where we're at.

That's when you start having fun, not us. That's true. Why don't you just run? Just run. Just fly as far as you can right now. Fly as far as you can. That is my plan. However, I only have 28 hit points. So I could get, if these guys have an attack of opportunity. They don't.

They don't. I don't know. They don't. They don't. I believe they don't because I believe we, I mean, Aldo has made multiple ranged attacks right next to them. And I believe I casted a spell in melee in the last one.

The last encounter. Well. I mean, if you stand there, you're going to die. Oh, 100%. There's three of them. And as Carlson points out in chat, Joe has never been wrong. That's a good point. Does drawing a potion or drinking a potion provoke if they if they have

an attack of opportunity yes it's an interact action interact actions all right yes well then uh ethel merman is stupefied and he doesn't really have time to think this through so instead he's just going to scream at the top of his lungs and just start flying away at top speed. Also away from Boak Rug, let's be clear. Yeah, turn your back on the Boak. I quote-unquote turn my back on the Boak, and I just start flying away. Okay, how far can you fly?

I can double move, so it's 40 feet. Okay. Great. All right. I'll let you figure out where that 40 feet is. Hopefully you have the map for it. If not, let me know. If you want to fly into the negative space there, that's fine.

We can... Yeah, okay. It's still flying to a wall. Well, I'm flying up at an angle, so I'll take myself back a few squares. All right, so you just dart away, and none of them attack you. Yeah! Come on, Ethel, you gotta go, dude. All right, this is very interesting.

All right, so Ibshade 2 is dead, so now it comes to Atticus and then Eris. Atticus, you are at dying 2 after falling from this crit. So everyone has one hero point right now, but you can't use that to stabilize unless you fail this recovery check, which for you is going to be a flat check, DC 12. What do you want to do? All right, I'll take the flat check.

Yeah, I mean, he has to wake up. I mean, he has to be conscious in the dream to wake up, right? Yeah. You've confused all of us, but yes. You don't have a kick handy. Yeah yes You don't have a kick handy Yeah, we don't have a kick handy Alright, here we go, flat check Natty16

Okay Stable at zero Stable at zero And unconscious And un-conch Give yourself the unconscious condition You're awake But you need some healing. I'm not awake.

You're not awake. You're just no longer dying. No longer dying. Okay. And I believe in this instance you are now wounded too, right? Yes, I believe so. Okay. Just take an extra look at that.

In the past we've just been using hero points to stabilize, in which case you don't get the wounded condition. But I think in this case you do. And you're wounded two because you went from dying two to stable. Okay. Or do you go from dying two to dying one? I'm going to look it up in my handy-dandy pocket core rule book. Oh, that's a good thing.

I think if you make the recovery roll, you stabilize with the wounded. If you roll a crit success, you go up two dying conditions. A regular success is just up one dying condition. So what did you roll? Oh, really? Yes. I rolled a 16. You can't crit a flat check.

Yeah, that's true. Recovery checks. Critical success. Your dying value is reduced by two. I wish you could talk back to a book. Just be like, book, you can't crit on a recovery check, and it could answer you. What was your dying value, Joe?

It's a flat check, 10 plus your current dying value. Which is 12. But he's just rolling a d20. So you can't crit that. You're right. We roll a natural 20. Yeah, that's what they're saying in the chat. But that's...

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to roll a natural 20. Okay. Alright, so dying 1. You're dying 1. Or you could have just used your hero point. I thought you just went up. You can't do it unless you fail the recovery check. Oh, interesting. I thought he went up and got the wounded condition, but...

Okay. All good. That's okay. I'd rather take our time with this. This is how we're really going to learn it. So, Eris, same thing for you. The difference is where you're only a dying one, if you succeed on this recovery check,

you'll be unconscious in zero and wounded one. Also... Yeah, I think Joe will be wounded one as well. Right, if he succeeds. I used my hero point in Brooklyn. Do I still have one? You start a new sesh with a fresh bottle cap. Yay!

That's amazing. Okay. You earned it. Okay, DC 11. Natural 20. Oh, nice. Yay. Nice.

See, Joe, that's all you had to do. Yeah, it's easy. Kate, you made it look so easy. It is easy. All right, so, Kate, you get to save your bottle cap, and you no longer have the dying condition, but you are wounded one. Wounded one.

Can we just take a moment to appreciate nobody on the podcast can appreciate this with us but the photo of the goblin alchemist just riddled with arrows. Just riddled with arrows. And they were so good. Yeah, the art in the

2E core is pretty sweet. Did I say photo? I meant image. Photo. Yeah, I don't think it's a photo. I don't think it's a photo. They're not real, Matthew. What? Yeah.

It is pretty rough. Like, if you're like, I'm going to play this game with my kids. The goblin is riddled with arrows bleeding from all the holes and blood is pouring from its mouth. It's a pretty gruesome photo, as Matthew thinks it is. All right. All right, so you guys, that's your situation. You desperately need to be healed. Do I have zero hit points or one?

You have zero hit points, and you have the wounded one condition. Okay. And the unconscious condition. It's all about conditions. They should just call it Pathfinder Condition instead of 2E. All right? Burn.

Solid burn. I told them, Skid. Okay. It is the priest's turn. He's ready to take you to church. All right. You flew away 40 feet. 40 feet, yeah.

And you took my idol. I don't care for that. It flies right to you. Yeah. Hi. But that took two actions. Fuck, I didn't think you'd just grab the idol. I thought it would be a little more of a fight.

This is rude. There's really no other option if you think about it. You can't just kill the guy. I mean, my plan was, before we established the grapple thing, I was going to disarm him and then just plunge into the water, chasing after, like, swimming down after the idol. I can swim. Also, I'll sink pretty easily,

and then I was just going to try to wake up from underwater. Yeah, I'm looking. He's not, like, super athletic to try and take it back from you. So his solution is to try and kill you. I've got a few casts of harm here, so I'm going to try it again. Go ahead and give me a fortitude save. If you crit fail, it will be double damage. That is a natural 19.

Yes. That could be crit success pass. That is a natural 19. Yes. For a... That could be crit success, Pops. It's a 33. That is not a crit success. Damn. Just a regular success. However, you will take just half damage, which is just one point of damage. Okay.

Not bad. And that was its whole turn. Okay. Now... Good turn. Ethel. Ethel. Okay.

Now the two shades that followed you. I think they might be a little slower. Let's see here. About the same. All right, so one of them is going to peel off and go towards Aldo, and the other one is going to double move. Actually, they both have to double move. So one double moves to you, one double moves to Aldo.

The one near Aldo will take an attack with its racking touch. Natty four, Skid! Oh, Natty! You're doing just fine. I have a feeling Matthew is due, though. Let's see here. Okay. Oh, it went 20 to

not 20. That's going to be a 21 to hit. That's a miss. Alright. My rocks have run out. Can we actually do this? Can we actually? We can. We can. We can. Maybe we can.

I think we are. I think we should probably wait to resolve it until Kate's cat is out of the picture so that people can actually pay attention to the show. I'm sorry. She was meowing. Oh, no. Don't put her away. I'm just kidding.

She's very cute. That was the whole thing. She's my precious. Oh, no. My precious. What's her name? Is it my precious? Tweek. Tweek. Of course it is. Amazing.

Do you give it coffee every morning? Yes, that's why. Wake up, Tweek. First part of Joe. It is Aldo's turn. Should I try to wake up now i mean yeah get out of there yeah i'm gonna okay

i'm gonna spend three actions and attempt to wake up all right first give me the uh i keep forgetting this give me the save against the unspeakable presence which has to roll a natural 20 no it's good it's good it gives him a chance to be on super fun uh fail okay so super fight 8

uh for you you need to roll well roll your will save to wake up it's gonna be very very hard okay yeah this is gonna be hard yeah it's gonna be really hard natural 17 23 18 19

20 are the only wait natural 17 is a 23 for you? Yeah. Did I mis-add? I have a plus 5 with my 8 stupid 5. That's 22. Right? Oh, no, you're right.

You're right. I'm sorry. Yeah, the only reason I thought that is I remember looking this up, and I feel like you, Joe, and Matthew wake up on 18 19 20 and Kate on just 19 20 well that's I'm never gonna do I'm gonna die like yeah alright I drank my own alchemist fire

we are all gonna die no one's getting this idle and by the way we're never coming back for it and by the way we're never gonna find the mad poet so the AP is over oh great I will say we're never coming back for it and by the way we're never going to find the mad poet so the AP's over oh great tonight's the night

hey congrats everybody for seeing the last episode of Strange Aeons thanks for sticking through to the end of the show guys what a ride it's been what a ride it's been I said this in the after the after talk talkback after the show

In Ron Lundin's original conversion It was completely impossible Now it's just near impossible But there is a chance At the end of the day If you all die, but you get that If Matthew's able to win There's a lot of different permutations of how this could work

But odds are you're all going to die But all it takes is one So let's see Throw me the idol Throw me see. Throw me the idol. Throw me the idol! Throw me the idol! The, uh, the Ipshade right next to you, Skid. This may, uh, this may

save you a lot of time here if this thing just kills you. It is its turn. Um, let me see my attacks here. I think he just has that wrecking touch. Yeah. All right. So here we go.

Uh, 19 to hit. Uh, that is a miss. Okay. Second attack. Uh, cracked eye. Uh, 22 to hit. A miss. Okay.

And, uh, I don't want to take that third attack, so you're going to be all right again there, buddy. It is going to peel off and try to go after Ethel Merman. And now it is round four. In the distance, the mighty Bokrug continues its approach. It was hundreds of feet away, and now

it's less and less and less, and you can see it start to come through, and like I said, it has like a beard of tentacles. It kind of looks like a giant iguana with this beard of tentacles. It's just swimming and splashing and tidal waves are coming over and knocking over parts of tentacles. It's just swimming and splashing and tidal waves are coming over

knocking over parts of the wall. People in the city, if you look down over the seawall into the city, you just see oh my god! It's flooding. Bodies everywhere. But you are at the highest point of the city atop the seawall. It is now

Ethel's turn. Ethel, give me your save against unspeakable presence. If only you had some healing power to wake up your friends. I swear to God, natural 19, so nothing happens. Brutal.

It's a will save, right? So yes or no. Ethel is going to triple move. He's going to fly three times And just get, put 60 feet Between him and these Frog-like pursuers

Frog people Okay, which way are you going? East? Straight up Really challenged, Troy Straight up Let's explore the three-dimensional space Okay

What's in front of me? Is it a wall that I can get over? Or we're at the top of the wall? Is it like the big palace thing that we were in? Yeah, it's a big palace there. There's the sea wall which ends, so you could just fly up atop the palace for sure. Yep, straight up.

60 feet straight up. I like it. I like it a lot. Just remember, if you choose to hover at all, that's an action to hover. But you're actually moving. I can imagine you're moving circuitously. And I would like to state it for the record that Ethel continues to scream in a stupefied fashion the entire time. Right. Thank you. Atticus, back to you, buddy.

You are still a dying one, so I'll need another recovery check here. Should you fail, you'll go to dying two unless you want to use your hero point after that. This is all moot and doesn't make any sense. No matter what happens, we die. Not necessarily. Without a cleric, no matter what happens. With that attitude, for sure.

Yeah. Well, no, I guess... without a cleric no matter what happens with that attitude for sure yeah well no I guess wasted die rolls if you're unconscious there's no way for us to even get them up to wake up right so they have to die right

unless someone can heal you but not with this thing coming at us as well. I mean, I could maybe... Well, I could do it. I have some potions. You would have to, like, administer all while these things are harassing you. But they miss a lot. Yeah.

So maybe there's potential. I don't know. All right. Flat check incoming. DC 11. Fail. Fail. Obviously! Why?

Do you want to go to dying 2? Or do you want to spend your John? Do I want to go? Oh, no, I'm not going to spend my John. There's no point. There's no living. There's no.... There's no living. There's no living. Nothing means anything. There's nothing more Joe than this moment. He's going to engage in the bummer,

and he's going to refuse to use his consumables. All right, so you go to dying two, and poor Eris, you're still unconscious. If anyone could give you any healing, you'd be back in the fight. For how long? I don't know. You just draw the ire of these frog people.

Ethel is no longer in the fight. So let's see. Ethel is the fight. Ethel is the fight. Ethel, you flew away. You said 60 feet? Yeah. That's real shitty.

Yeah, by the way, I mean, if Ethel somehow gets away, you know, that's it. It's all fine. We can all die. We'll deal with it. But like, if Ethel doesn't get away, then it's all pointless. Well, this is

very interesting. 60 feet away. Last time you used an action and could only fly 40 feet, so they could catch up to you with a double move. Now they can't. So the fish people, the regular fish people, don't have any range things, so they just, like, triple move, and they get, like, right next to you. But that doesn't really—they don't have any actions left. Now the priest can double move,

but like, the, I have a harm spell left, but when I use the one action harm, it has to be range of touch. So you've created a situation for yourself where there might be a way you can get out of this.

Hmm. Let's see if I have a ranged spell where I only have to move once. I don't know if I do. Because you said you're 60 feet away, so if I move 25, I'll be 35 feet away and the range on that spell is

30 that I was just going to use. Gross! Gross! This is what happens, Joe, when you just think positive. Hey, I'm just talking about you and I. I'm like,

why are we even rolling dice? There's no point. I didn't roll any dice. My turn just happened. You rolled a natural 20. Oh, but didn't I also just... I'm just unconscious now? Yes, I guess that's the thing. Even though you critically succeeded,

unless Aldo wakes you up, ultimately, they're just going to slowly come over to you and just be like, wait a minute. Is she breathing? Head smash! And then you'll wake up in the real world.

All right, well, it is going to, instead of... No, you know what? I'm going to stay on you. I want my idol back, but it's going to cost me three flight actions to do it. Now, I don't know that you're going to try to use three actions at some point to awaken, but I am going to continue to chase you. So they just all swoop towards you, hoping that they can catch up with you. And then it comes to Aldo.

Aldo, go ahead and give me a will save. Okay. 21. Yay. 21. No, that's okay. You're stupefied eight. Do you want to try and awaken again here, or did you have some other point? Yeah, I'll try to wake up again. Okay.

Nope. Nope. Okay. Okay. So, Aldo, just trying to wake up wake up wake up you're not in Kansas anymore and uh let's see

the uh the shade next to you attacks in fact that was one of the ones that uh just went out of order here alright so it is going to attempt to attack you. That is going to be a 33. Wait, no, that was the priest's number.

Sorry. That is going to be a 26 to hit. That's a hit. Okay, so you will take 10 points of negative energy damage 26 to hit. That's a hit. Okay. So you will take 10 points of negative energy damage, and you go to doomed three. Ugh.

So one more doomed, and you just wake up. It is its turn again, and it will try and send you there. Send you to hell. Okay. It misses. And then I am going to have him leave you alone and go join the friends. The priest is calling, come!

It just flies in pursuit of Ethel and the idol. Now you could wake us up. I also have, I'm reading the rules here, sir. And it says that if I'm unconscious at zero hit points but not dying, which I am not anymore. Correct. Then I naturally return to one hit point and awaken after sufficient time passes. Oh, no, here it is. The GM determines how long you remain unconscious.

I read that and I was like, we're dead. From a minimum of ten minutes to several hours. Yeah, it's like an out of combat thing. Yeah. Never mind. I read that earlier today, too. I only read the bold text. I didn't read the not bold text.

You totally Matthewed that text. It was classic Matthew. Feels bad. That's what we call Matthew around the office. Okay. All right. It is round five. And...

Wait, did Kate get to go? She is unconscious. There's nothing for her to do. According to the rules. Just according to the rules. Just according to the rules. And something really fun happens at the top of round five. Bokrug

becomes close enough to you that you can see him. And there he is. Oh no. No, that's really not good at all. Oh, no thanks. It has been moving

slowly toward you and now it is within 50 feet of you. Why is that important? Next round it will be on you. Oh, for God's sake. It's not within 50 feet of me. It is not. It is not.

It's getting close. And it is Ethel's turn. Ethel, go ahead and give me your roll against Unspeakable Presence. The Unspeakable Presence of this great old one! Wait, does it not have a range? Yeah, 300 feet. When I get 300 feet away from Vokrog, I won't be stupefied anymore?

You won't have to roll against unspeakable presences. As a freebie, just for you. Okay. It's my turn. It's your turn. I keep moving 60 feet. You want to try and awaken? No. No, not yet. No! What are you thinking? I'll fail and they'll kill me. I'm going to keep flying 60 feet. Keep flying away. Just keep flying away.

Okay. Yeah. Alright. Great. So, keep track of how far away you are at this point. 120 feet from the base of the wall, essentially? The top of the wall? Yeah, I got to where I am now, and then I started flying straight up,

or like at a slight angle up. So we could call it even as 120. 120, yeah. Because you were already a little bit above when you went out to the priest. Call it 120 as 120. 120. Because you were already a little bit above when you went out to the priest. Call it 120 as the crow flies. Not going to hold

you over the coals for it. All right, so that's Ethel's turn. Atticus, go ahead and give me a DC 12 recovery check. Shut up, Matthew.

Natural 17. Oh, man. Doesn't mean anything! All right, guess who went to die? This is even worse. This is even worse. Like, slowly approaching consciousness as a great old one is slowly coming toward you.

This would be the worst stream you could possibly have. Yeah. There's no worse stream. No wonder you'd be messed up when you woke up. You know what? I think this is a good time for me to talk about a nightmare, a recurring nightmare. I don't know if anybody ever had recurring nightmares when they were kids. Oh, my God.

But I had a very clear recurring nightmare for a couple of years. It was really, really brutal. And it was in my old house in my basement in the dark and I was curled up on the floor in the basement fetal position like asleep basically eyes closed I couldn't tell if my eyes were open or closed

basically because it was so dark and there was just this massive footsteps moving on the upstairs to the door to the door, opening the door, coming down the stairs and coming to me. And it scared the shit. I just got chills now thinking about it.

And it used to scare the shit out of me. And I would wake up in bed terrified. Uh, and I never saw what it was. There was never any indication. It was just coming for me. And I was in the basement. It was so scary.

Wow. That's what I imagined when I imagined this. Death comes for us all, Joe. One day or another. It's true. Maybe that's what it is, Matthew. It's death. For I beheld a pale horseman and the rider, his name was... I don't know the quote. His name was Death.

That beheld and lo, his name was Death. Okay. Is that tombe Ndumbo saying not today that's what we say to death no no no not today not in my house not in my house Eris

you are still unconscious unfortunately the priest continues flying to try and stay as close to Ethel as possible. The shades follow it, and it is Aldo's turn. Troy, I'm not sure if you wanted to improv spice things up a little. Get a chance. You want to go to Game Mastery Guide page 156

and run some chase mechanics? Anybody want to run a chase? Just run a quick chase. Get out a deck of cards and run a chase. Just run a quick chase. We've got building a chase. We could start building in there. And then later on got building a chase we could start building in there and then later

on is running a chase uh but no honestly i went right to it because this is exactly what this is for because there is unless he has a range spell he's gonna do there's no he'll never catch him and we might as well just fast forward to 500 feet away right like it's it's interesting but with book rug coming there's obviously round by round, like, consequences. Yeah. Yep. But that's what chases are for,

because if you keep moving, three-action move, three-action move, they'll never catch you. Sure. Okay. Aldo, what do you do? All right, so Aldo is still, I assume, terrified.

Yeah. He's still... I assume, terrified. Yeah. He's still... I should have saved that roll. He's terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought. He's shaking his big knobby knees or knocking together, and he's just, like, digging his fingernails into his palms. He's just like, there's no place like home! There's no place like home!

Trying to wake up. Natty, 19. That is a 24. 24, and you wake up. Yes. I didn't have you roll against the unspeakable presence, but assuming you failed that. No, I did fail that. You did fail that.

Then, yeah, 24. Aldo wakes up. Oh, Aldo. Good job. Good job, buddy. So no madness for Aldo. However, it looks like Atticus and Eris will need a miracle. Don't need to roll for the rest of the episode.

All right, so that was that. So the remaining Ibshades just keep closing on Ethel? At that moment. At that moment. Bokrug moves up to the wall. First action.

Second action. Bokrug slams the wall. I mean, you have to really... Second action Bokrug Slams I mean you have to really Are you having a good time over there? You have to really picture this like Bokrug just Lifts up his fist and just Boom! Lays it down on Atticus

Vaporizes Atticus And rolls a 64 Why are you even rolling? oh my god he can roll a natural 1 because he's been looking forward to this for weeks for weeks? now I understand why this was your favorite encounter

you got to roll for a great old one I mean it's pretty fun it's not every day you get to play a great old one alright so yeah I mean obviously it's a crit It's pretty fun. It's not every day you get to play a great old one. All right, so... Yeah, I mean, obviously it's a crit, which would take you straight to dying three now, because of your situation. It then slams another fist on you

and crits again and kills you. It just... Boom! Oh! Boom! It just immediately kills you and takes out most of the wall as it does so. Bo-Krug has entered the building. Ethel, give me a roll against Unspeakable Presence.

Fail. Fail. What do you do? Fly 60 feet, 180 feet away from Bo-Krug. Keep flying away from Bo-Krug. 180 feet away from Boca keep flying away from Boca 180 feet away you'll live forever I've only got five minutes and the spells of Atticus is gone Eris is gone Boca in the shades

continue to follow you Aldo is gone it goes to round seven goodbye Eris because Boca just starts pounding on top of Eris's poor, unconscious body. 63 to hit. Hold on, let me just make sure that hits. Check your AC. Make sure you have all your boxes checked. Yeah, my AC's 17 right now, because I don't know why.

That hits. Unconscious condition. Oh, it's a crit. Yes, and so is... I rolled poorly on the second attack, but was it 55 a crit as well? Are you taking that multiple attack penalty into account? I did take the multiple attack penalty.

You know, the great old ones, like the build, it just really suffers from multiple attack penalty. I guess I'll say. That's what they always say. I've got a couple of feet that I might want to take to help him. You know what they always say. I've got a couple of feet. Never play a great old man. I want to take to help him.

You know what, Joe? I'm sorry that I gave you shit. I just want to die. Exactly. Let's just cut to

the story here instead of a non-story. Eris is out of commission. Yeah! And Bobra begins to like slowly lift out of the water like! And Bobrov begins to, like,

slowly lift out of the water, like, towards the top of the wall. It's, like, clambering on top of it. Can we have a scene where he's just slaying all of the attendees of the Bacchanal, just like... One fell swoop, just... Just flesh flashing bone.

This is a race to see if you can pull this off, Matthew. It is your turn. You're 180 feet away. Roll against unspeakable presence. Match for one. Match for one. Still stupefied. Now you're stupefied 60. Don't worry about it.

Alright, so... Now so now we get to 240. 240. So next round I'll be at 300 and then the round after that I'll have... I'll no longer be stupefied and then I will try to wake up. Unfortunately, when it comes to Bokrug's turn, Bokrug is going to cast a spell

on you and you are within range. Please, give me a basic fortitude save check the DC 23 critical fail

alright it's not so bad you take Alright, it's not so bad. You take... 106 points. From horrid wilting. So your skin starts to be wracked, and you are now at dying 2, and you just fall, and he just fucking

kills you, and you are now at dying two and you just fall and he just fucking kills you and you awaken do I have last thing you remember seeing is the great old one Bokrog laying waste to the city of Sarnath do I wake up

with the idol he asks question mark question mark like you would out of an actual nightmare. I mean, it's got to be terrifying. It has to feel so real, even though you know that you're choosing to take these dream excursion rituals. And you wake up and you your hands still feel heavy

from having it. But there's nothing there. But I wouldn't have it in the waking lands anyway. Right, but that awake in action is one of those things you feel like it stays in your possession. When you use the awakened action, anything you find in the Dreamlands stays in your possession. Let's start with a little bit of bad news and then get to some more bad news. Straight from Ron Dean's mouth. Not everything carries...

Who's Ron Dean? Ron Lundeen, the writer of book three of Strange Aeons, the one who converted this course. You said Ron Dean. Did I? Yeah, is it like one of the Ronettes? Ron Dean is his assistant. He proofreads all his work,

which is weird. He picked assistant. Basically the same name. He said not everything carries over between the dreamlands and the waking world. If you find items, like we talked about, they don't carry into the waking world. Madnesses, like they affect you in the waking world. They don't affect you in the dreamlands. But one condition, if you get in the dreamlands, stays with you.

And that condition is doomed. Oh, God. Oh, shit. So even in the waking world now, Aldo is doomed three and Ethel is doomed one. Now, the good news about doomed is a full night's rest can remove it. Restoration, if Ave Maria is still here, could help you. But you basically, until that's removed, you want to make sure you don't get in any tussles. Or if you do, you stay back.

Because at doomed three, all Aldo would have to do now is go to dying one and you'd be permanently dead. This condition is so great. This curse from the dreamlands has followed you into the waking world. It's not that great. It's not that great. I'm here to tell you. But of course, you also died in the dreamlands, which means you awake with a madness. But let's talk about this scene here.

You wake up, Ethel. Camera's on you. We saw everybody else die. Well, not Aldo. You wake up and you see Aldo sitting across from you, already awake. Aldo, what do you say? That was a terrible train. Did you,

uh, did you die? Or did you wake up naturally? I assume you died. And he's looking at everybody trying to ascertain they have any obvious mental issues apart from the ones that I always know that they have. Well, uh, I seem to have died.

I have to say, I don't think that was specified in our initial agreement. And dying is actually extra. Well, now you're not dead, are you? You're still alive. Very much alive. I mean, we're having this conversation on a boat. Is Aeris with you? Oh, yeah, that's a good question. Oh, yeah, good question boat. Is Aeris with you? Oh yeah, that's a good question.

Oh yeah, good question. Does she wake up with you? Start to take in the room. The room. You see a couple things. You see Atticus. But Atticus is just like staring off into off into space, like, not quite there. You see Suki and Xantar are still asleep and, like, twitching.

And then you look around the room and over towards the brig where Halster was. The brig and Halster are gone. And what has been replaced in that space is like a... It just doesn't make sense. Like, it's almost like a small, barren piece of land with like half of a tree stump. And the boat? Inside of the boat and laying next to that tree stump is Eris, who also wakes up. What?

She didn't know that you could just die and get out of the dream world. She's been trying to get out, so she doesn't know what's going on. She probably, can she see them? Yeah. Where's the thing? What happened? Am I still in the dream world? Did I...

Did we die? I believe so. There's a tree in the boat, which is strange. And you're here, which you shouldn't be, as far as I know. This is very, very, very strange. Are you telling me all I had to do was die to get out of the dream world? Theoretically, yes. How are you feeling?

Angry. Understandable. world theoretically yes how are you feeling angry understandable and she's like touching her cloak does she have her parts you feel like you have your parts however any body parts you collected during your time in the dreamland are gone. Any items you collected whilst in the Dreamland are gone. Everything you have on your person is what you came into the Dreamlands with. I'm also imagining, because her familiar did not die, she probably doesn't have that. After a couple minutes pass, that.

After a couple minutes pass, you notice that your little poppet is lying on the stump next to you. Oh, my egg. And she goes and gets it. Okay. Let's talk about Atticus. Atticus, well,

I'll come back to you. Your situation is sad. I'll talk to you, Ethel. Ethel, you died in the Dreamlands. Indeed I did. Came so close to coming out with the idol. Heroically flew towards this priest of Bokrog and grabbed the idol. Flew around like an, and never got out.

You seem to be just fine. I don't trust this. Eris, you awaken, and obviously you're on a boat that has, like, this splice between worlds. You see a part of your old homeland has now found its way into the boat.

You wake up here and you feel fine as well until you start to hear the sound of rushing water. And for some reason that makes you very, very nervous. And how this mechanically manifests is that you are paranoid and And your paranoia is tied to water. Whenever you are around water, as long as you can hear, see, or smell water, you are permanently frightened one. Oh, wow.

So you just feel paranoid when you realize you're on a boat and there's something about being next to water that freaks you out. Are you guys, are you sure that we're safe on this boat? I just saw like an unspeakable thing. Did you guys see the unspeakable thing? Why are we on this boat?

We need to get off the boat. We need to get out of the water. No, it's all right. Calm down, you horrible creature. We're all right. We're fine. See, there's your tree, your little doll. We're alright. We're fine. See, there's your tree. Your little doll. Everything's

hunky-dory. Question about the tree. We're all seeing that, right? Like, that's not just me. Yes, I am also seeing the tree. And you're perfectly sane. I believe so. I mean, as much as I was before I fell asleep.

But there is definitely a tree there. I mean, look, I walk over I fell asleep but there is definitely a tree I mean look I walk over and like knock on it yeah it's like the slice in the tree doesn't make any sense like it would take a perfect leaf like valerian steel to be able to cut through the way

that the tree was shaved Atticus when you died for the first time in the Dreamlands, you woke up with a delusion. A delusion that we find out later. You feel as if

your new companion at the time, Ave Maria, wasn't telling the truth. That she was out to get you, or like just an evil presence to be around, set on your destruction. The sad thing about that is now that she's passed, it's become just kind of a flavor element, where as this delusion heals itself over time, you're going to realize you were wrong. And it's just going to

I would assume, if you have any sort of conscious, just make you feel bad and there's nothing you can do about it. And honestly, there's probably nothing you could have done to save her, even if you didn't think that. But when you die a second time in the dreamlands, things take on a

darker sort of tone, get a greater madness. And for you, that is a cognitive disorder. And what that means mechanically is any time you're casting a spell with a verbal component, there's a chance you might mess up your words. anytime you're casting a spell with a verbal component, there's a chance you might mess up your words.

You might forget how to speak the spell as written in your spell book. And so you'll need to roll a will save anytime you cast a spell with verbal components. Or you'll lose the spell. May not be a high DC. It adds a little flavor. You can't get the words out. I think Joe's having fun.

Are you having fun? He looks like he's having fun, for sure. The layers of which this is a terrible choice is so many. The number one of which is i'm not role playing a stutter you don't have it's not a stutter fucking doing it it's not a stutter aphasia joe it's just you can't you can't think of getting those words out it's not a stutter it's just a cognitive disorder. He couldn't have a mechanical penalty

to his melee attacks, huh? The one of all of them he had to get. It had directly to do with speaking spells. Man. It's supposed to be tailored to the piece. I thought it was random. I thought you were

rolling on a table. You can choose. You obviously choose. But his hands are tied. My hands are tied. My hands are tied. Talk to Ron Dean. Look. Joe, I hear there's a book you can open. Send a letter to Ron Lundeen. Joe, I hear there's a book you can open to just freeze yourself in

amber for a while. That'd be great. I'll just make a backup character who's a fucking cleric! Here's the thing. These conditions, over time, will go away. And there's a lot of time spent on the boat that just passes.

They lessen. That will save will get easier and easier as you start to regain your faculties. And, for every time you go to the Dreamlands, that doesn't affect you. It's only when you have to deal with stuff in the real world. Your madnesses don't carry with you into the dreamlands. And you still need three more gifts. So you should be fine there.

It's just you've been getting into trouble while on the boat as well. This is the question I had. What's the story with the gift? It's lost. You could try to go back there and see what the situation is. You do remember the Yellow King telling you

you should try to get as many of these as possible. So it's not like seven or nothing? No. I have a feeling we get a certain bonus to a diplomacy role with seven. You get a different bonus with six. All right, that makes a lot more sense. Because I was like, I'm not going back.

What are we going to go back there for? A great old one? We got to go back. We got to go back. What if we just straight up said Detroit the next live show with no warning, we want to go see the Mad Poet right now Can we do that? We'll just take our chances With our bottle caps and just go straight to the Mad Poet

When you are ready You can go back To the Caravanserai And Meet with the Yellow King, he said when you're ready come back to me And I will take you to see the mad poet. Is that what you want to do? Is that what you have prepared?

I'll say, I'll see you next week. So fast. I will be ready next week. Let's talk about Halloween candy. Go in the old dreamlands there. So the only way this cognitive, whatever you called it, manifests. What you just did there, that's how that would manifest.

The only way it manifests is in spells. It does not have any penalty to diplomacy checks, intimidation checks. Nope, only spells. When you want to swing your two-handed warhammer, no effect whatsoever. Yeah, you'll be fine. You want to swing

your two-handed warhammer and say, take that, you fiend, you're fine. That could have been a lot worse. That could have been a lot worse.

In hindsight, not so bad. But yeah, anytime you cast a spell, if it has verbal components, maybe there's a spell you can cast that you don't need to use verbal components. I don't know, man. Yeah, I got to dig spell, if it has verbal components. Maybe there's a spell you can cast that you don't need to use verbal components.

I don't know, man. Yeah, I gotta dig in. I gotta dig in. We'll see. You'll have some time. But yeah, you do see Suki and Xantar twitching and you just imagine they're going to die. But time moves differently in the Dreamlands.

Maybe they won't. Maybe they'll survive. But if Bo-Krog was just easily laying waste like that, he's probably going to find them. Well, we need to wake them up. You want to wake up a sleepwalker? It's very, very dangerous. I mean, no more dangerous than letting them die there. It's true.

Can I roll a knowledge check on it? Mm-hmm. Occult? Recall knowledge occultism? Yeah. Come on. Oh, wait a minute. Why is that so terrible?

No, you're not stupefied. Doomed is the only thing that carries over. And then, of course, the madness. But where you woke up, Aldo. I'm feeling kind of tired, so I'm going to take a full night's rest. Am I still wounded? No, you're not wounded. You're back to full health.

It was just a dream, Eris. I feel like Eris is also watching these two people she doesn't know twitch and doesn't understand it and would like to roll something, too. Yeah, you can roll a cult as well or arcana. I'll roll a cult. I rolled a 20 a cult. Ooh, natural 15, so that's

31 a cult. I'll roll arcana over a basis. That is a 29. A 29. Alright, so Atticus is just struggling here to really get a grip on anything from that cognitive disorder.

Luckily, his two intelligent companions are able to suss this out, and you'd think it could be very dangerous. It was my idea! I know, I'm sorry. I'm looking at you, Stamos. Move away, stupid, they say. It could be very dangerous to take them out unwillingly.

It could do permanent mental damage to them. So you think one of two things is going to happen. They'll be able to get out and awaken on their own, or they'll die and wake up with a madness. And really the only way to know is next time they're on the show. Do you want to see what happens when we wake them up? It might be something bad. Said

the weirdo. No, perhaps if it carries risk along with it, we let them find their own way out. Xantar is a king after all. You turn around and Ethel is placing a bowl of warm water right next to Xantar's bed and putting his hand in it.

What is that? I just thought we could use a laugh. Like, it was a hard day. That's his last clean loincloth, though. I mean, a joke's a joke, but we all have to live with it. That's fair it that's fair that's fair why don't we go to the

why don't we go over to Suki and we can do it there I just think we could use a little levity yeah she's got laundry he doesn't so she's always wet that's established she's always wet anyway

anyone got a sharpie we could just draw and write things always wet. Yeah, she's always... Yeah, no, that's established. She's always wet anyway, so... Anyone got a Sharpie we could just draw and write things on Xantar's naked body? It's been done. It's been a lot of... Yeah, he's

pretty heavily tattooed. A lot of dicks have been drawn on him. Oh, right. The, uh... Who is it? Peanut Butter? No.

Sandwiches? What's his name? Peanut Butter. There should be a guy... Oh, uh... Pancake. Not Pancake. No, it's one of the... It's not? Peanut butter. There should be a guy. Oh, uh. Pancake. Not Pancake. No, it's one of the,

not Spinny Pot, one of the original crew. No, but Pancake, I believe, is the one who came down and was like, did you guys go to sleep yet? Yeah, that's right. Like, I like that guy, Pancake.

Did you guys go to sleep yet? But the one that was drawing dicks the first time around was either Finger Lakes or somebody. Not Wet Knees. Finger Lakes. Isn't that Fingers O'Toole? Oh, Dinky Fustumble. Dinky Fustumble.

I think he was the one with the Sharpie. I think he was the one that was also mute, introduced as mute, and then totally talked later. Because he just didn't want to talk to people. He was like, I was lying. I'm not lying. I just don't like conversation. The point is, you guys have to have some fun on this boat because it's pretty miserable.

So you draw a couple dicks, you put some hands in water. Let's talk about the situation at hand here. I'm new here. I didn't know we were doing that. I forgot. I didn't know that was a thing. I just wanted... You can do it to me. I forgot. I didn't know that was a thing. I just wanted... You can do it to me. All is fair.

No, it's totally a thing. It's just he is a king. You don't do that to kings. And he only does have the one sort of cloth covering of his genitals. If he gets it wet, then he's going to be running around half naked and stinking. And it's just too much. Sure, sure. What does he do when he washes the loincloth?

Well, he just jumps into the river. Like half the time, we're just hauling him up out of the river. And to him, that's like bath day, laundry day. And he'll disappear for many shows at a time. And then when we find him, oh, there he is there in the river. That's as clean as it gets. But we don't know if that's going to happen this time. He's lying there,

so he doesn't have the opportunity to emerge from water. Sure, sure. Fair enough. Atticus is looking at this incredible other landscape that has been cut into the boat, uh, from some sort of planar magic. And he wants to know what is happening and what this place is.

I have my suspicions as a player, but I want to see if Atticus knows what this is. Can I roll? Yeah, dude. Arcana. Yeah. Yeah. Come on, Atticus. Would you know one thing?ana? Yeah. Yeah.

Come on, Atticus. Would you know one thing? There we go. 34. Would you roll 30? 34. 34. It was DC 35, but you know what?

I'm going to give you some info. Damn it! You know from the brief conversation that you had with Eris in Sarnath that she ended up here. I think you said it was like magic on a rye or something, which is pretty common to the area which she hailed from, the Man of Wastes. Oh, right. Yep. So that between Geb and Nex, then that's – okay.

next, then that's okay. And, you know, as she's saying right now, like, I didn't know I could just die and wake up. Obviously she doesn't know that they wake up with a madness, but in doing so and being a part of

your group, it has pulled the area from which she originally went into the dreamlands into the boat. And you would think probably somewhere in the Manna Waste is a chunk of the boat and maybe even Halster. Where are the Manna Waste? They are on Avastan? Yeah.

If you go to a map, you have that map of Galarian ready? Avastan. Okay, we don't have that ready to go. It's in Garund. It's on the eastern coast of Garund. Oh, okay. It's in the southern part of the map. It's between the nations of Nex and Geb,

these two sort of magical nations that have warred against each other. And the Mana Waster are a kind of demilitarized zone between them. Correct me if I'm wrong, I think the new six-book AP Bloodlords starts in Geb. It's an area I think Eric is really excited that they're going to start exploring. I don't know if that was one of the ones that he came up with at the beginning of the company or not, but Bloodlord at least starts in Geb.

Spoiler alert. It's an undead nation. Right. They love an undead nation in Pizer, don't they? Who does? Geb is like undead and next is like magical constructs or something. There it is. I'm not going to focus, but it's over here.

Down here. And we're all the way up here, right? Very far away. It's summer in Geb right now. Oh, by the way, Aldo is freaking out that Halster is gone. This is his best friend, even though he committed horrible

crimes and is gone. This is his best friend, even though he committed horrible crimes and is gone. He's losing his mind. His friend, I didn't play it, but let's imagine I did. Yeah. That's going to be very startling. Obviously he committed some strange acts on the boat

enough so that Skywin was like, you're going in the brig to think about this, and now this magic haswin was like, you're going in the brig to think about this, and now this magic has sent him somewhere, you hope. After you kind of suss this out, are you going to bed there, Ethel? Are you wiped

out? Are people tired? Remember, you did this at night, and when you come back, not a lot of time passes. Obviously, it's very unsettling to see Suki and Xantar still suffering but times moves differently in the dreamland. So do you go to bed? Do you go

bored and start talking to the pancake in basement Betty? I mean I just have an unyielding sense of doom nagging at me that I just would like to sleep up. You just want to sleep up that doom. I gotcha.

Okay, so Ethel goes to sleep. Good night, everybody. I think I've fulfilled my services for the day. Thank you. Good night. Ethel, mercenary. Gun for hire. You hear're crying softly sad i think atticus is going to go back to the books for a little bit obviously it's

nighttime so he can't like he needs to go to sleep but he he's also like he's so keyed up about i mean in none of the other situations today great old ones show up in the dream. And so he's trying to do some research maybe on whatever the next one may be to see if there's any possibility of that kind of thing happening, in which case maybe we just skip it. You know what I mean? Like he's looking to see if the dangers are so insurmountable with the next one that there's no point. And maybe he just does that for an hour or two and then starts falling asleep into the book and then turns in. You look at the next item on the list, item five out of seven,

only three of these possible gifts left, at least the ones that you assume Laos got or at least went after. And the next one on the list says a knight hag ambassador's heart stone. Now you know that researching these things has been taking you about a week,

sometimes five or six days when you and Aldo really put your heads together and dig into these books. But if you're spending an hour just kind of looking around uh he's just like kind of like yeah i think he's in a way skimming for like any mentions of gods of that level you know i mean like right now just to see if there's any mention of anything that powerful because he knows something is off with him and he can't describe it right now as you

you know start to figure out where Lowell's did his research in the hour that you spend you are able to sort of cross references notes around to at least know what books you need to dig into and those

books are and maybe the title alone will let you know, like, are we dealing with more great old ones here? One is called Atop the Valley's Soul. The other one's called The Falling Silk. And the last one is called In Admiration of Keeping Packs. Wow. Okay, so he starts pulling this syllabus together, basically,

for him and Aldo on the next day. Aldo stays up, too. Aldo stays up for a while going through books, but he's not looking about that. He's looking for any sort of history, any other instances of this kind of transposition that took place

between what happened to halster and eris because as as he stays up as long as he can until he just until he passes out from exhaustion like he's going to stay up trying to research that to see if there's any way to get back get his friend back yeah and, and we just see you falling asleep with a book on your chest that's like a history of wild magic. What about our newcomer here, Eris? So I think that she's been sitting on that little border of her world and this boat because she's afraid of water um and i guess before someone falls asleep um she's like so you can just go into the dream world you know how to

control that you can itcake, and he says, I don't really know how it works. I've heard they just got here. You should ask that guy. And you see Atticus just about to go to sleep. Pancake goes back upstairs. You, Mouse Man, you can

just go into the dream world whenever you want. No, not whenever we want. There is a quite difficult ritual that must take place. It takes the utmost concentration. It needs multiple people working together as one. We fail it quite often, one. We fail it quite often,

but some days we are able to punch through the veil into the land of dreams. How did you get there in the first place? Well, that must have been my problem. I have been trying to do this with friends. I was just trying

kind of winging it with my incantations, if I can be transparent. Where did you study? Perhaps this is how this happened. Where did you study your magics? How did you learn? The Baba Yaga gives me all of my magical abilities through my egg here. And she lifts up her poppet.

Oh, of course your patron. Yes, of course. You are granted the powers, but at what cost, what must you do for this patron? She's just like,

still holding up her poppet and you just see her chicken hands. She's like, what do you mean? And maybe you can also see the mouth in her neck a little bit, like underneath her cloak. I just... This boat really uneases me, but... I think that I can eat more children

if I can get into their dreams, and if I can get into their dreams. And you all can get into their dreams. And I might need to, like, give a little, take a little type of thing. May I ask you something? And feel free to not answer. and feel free to not answer. Why did you put yourself into the service of Baba Yaga? I didn't have a choice.

I was... I'm mutated. Do you remember a life before this? Before this mutation? Yeah, there was one. But it's not real anymore. This is so much more real. These wants and desires and my powers and the way I am transforming, even now.

Some of it is random. Some of it I can control. Yes. I think we have some things in common. Would you happen to have room for say a mutated flesh warp and a poppet on your boat? Well, the captain is very

fond of taking on literally anyone he can come across. So I think you have found a home here. You're most welcome that is of course unless your intention is not to make friends it seems like i have to make friends in order to access this dream world so that is my intention. Friendship in and of itself is not so...

You don't need friendship, but you do need cooperation. How about that? I can do that. What do you think you could add in terms of the pieces of the ritual?

And he'll then go into a description about what the ritual is like and uh you know so mechanically uh we could you know whatever the flavor is but mechanically it's like would you be a cultism role religion role arcana role all cultism would be your your best yeah her thing is a cultism she also has a little bit of religion, a little bit more arcana, but her thing mainly is occultism. Is she a master of occultism? What is she a master of? Yes. Master of occultism.

Good. Very cool. Master. Master of occultism. With her poppet. Oh, master of poppets. Master of poppets. Oh, thank you, Kate.

You just named it. There thank you Kate there it is save me an hour I think then you will be very valuable in the ritual and I think it may be even more successful now that you are part of it I'm very tired I'm going to go to bed now.

Um, and that was Joe too. So good night, everybody. Oddly enough, my character's feelings mirror my own and this mirror my own. Um, yeah, I just, I just don't know. It it's like it's very interesting you know like a flesh warp hatred of Baba Yaga I think Atticus more than any other character I've ever played would be more like inclined to like partner up work more learn more um he is very interested in where powers come from and how you're able to manifest them uh and doesn't matter how dark or twisted they are as long as it makes you powerful that's very interesting to him yeah you have to study over and over again yeah so is

it are you like jealous of people that are just given the power yeah like that's where that comes from it's like what did you have to do to get it like you didn't do shit you just gave it to you uh what you know what was your life before are you miserable now oh you're not miserable now either god damn it everything's working out in your favor like uh these kind of things are because i think all of the study he never got as far as he wanted to. And then it was once he delved into occultism and started digging into these dark rituals and these forbidden arts, he became more powerful. And so that, to me, is becoming really the essence of this character, his willingness to use the dark magic to make himself more powerful. Ethel, you were the first to go to bed. You were seen sobbing in the corner as you sobbed yourself to sleep.

What did we say sobbing? Do we have to say sobbing? Weeping. There was a distinct weeping sound coming from your general direction. Blubbering? Blubbering. There was no Blubbering? Blubbering. There was no blubbering, all right? Why did you and your wife get divorced?

Listen. This is getting heavy. I don't think we have the time to get into it completely, but basically my wife came to me and said, I don't, you know, in so many words said, you're a merchant of death. And I don't want the kids to be around that. And I don't love you anymore. Tale's oldest time. And yeah, there's just no coming back from that.

Like, what do you say in response to that? Honestly. Was there a time when you were happy? I was happy. I loved her. I still love her. I respect, of course, boundaries set up

in the divorce proceedings and her wishes. I still love her. How many children do you have? Two. Why am I having this conversation in character with the Game Master? I am baffled by it. I don't know what is happening right now. Hello, God, it's me, Ethel.

What was your oldest child, a son or a daughter? Oldest child is a son, also named Ethel. Okay. Ethel Jr.? No, no, he's Ethel IV. Were you in the room when Ethel was born? Yeah. Listen, we're not rich people.

We have a three-room hut. I was trying to make a little something so I could open up the woodworking shop. The woodworking shop was my dollhouse furniture shop. That was a solution I proposed to get out of the game so we could repair our marriage and work on it together for the kids. So maybe we see this, the beginnings of this shop. You know, you haven't fully gone into this yet, but we see little knickknacks.

Maybe it's just a hobby at this point, but it's in the back of your head. How dare you? Knickknacks? It's still in hobby hobby at this point, but it's in the back of your head. How dare you? Knickknacks? It's still in hobby form. I mean, they're exquisite. But it's not a business. This isn't a business. And we see you.

I get enough from my ex-wife, alright? I don't need to get it from you, too. It's a very cute little hobby, but it's not a business. I'm sorry. I'm out. It's Ethel on Shark Tank. We see you and we just see a couple of these beautiful exquisite pieces, homemade chess pieces, everything.

And you're in the room with your wife as she's giving birth to we assume your first son Ethel. And is there a doctor there? No, there's a midwife. Midwife. What world are you living in? I'm living in the fantasy world. Clearly you couldn't afford

an actual doctor so you have a midwife there who's doing it and are you holding your wife's hand and really like coaching her through this? This is pre like I don't love you anymore. I can't be with you. You're a killer. Please leave me. This is, you don't even have an inkling that anything is wrong. It sounds like you didn't even

when she divorced you. But you're with her and you're having this moment and it's beautiful. You're afraid but you're also you stare death in the face. So you're able to steal yourself and be that rock for her. I fought in wars and this was scarier.

And you're just you're holding her tight. You're squeezing her as hard as she's squeezing you, and the midwife is like, it's coming, it's coming. And you're so joyous, you just want this to be over with. And then you hear the midwife go, oh, God, oh, God! And the midwife collapses to the floor, and you look and you see coming out of your wife

is the face of Bokrog. Just... Oh, no! And you wake up in a cold sweat. And your madness is you have night terrors. Oh, no!

You're not gonna be able to sleep? Every time you attempt to sleep, you fail. And you are permanently fatigued. Until this goes away. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. That's horrible. And we'll see you next week.

That is a rough note to end on. That's truly awful. Oh, no. That's so bad. Oh, God. Good night, everybody. Good night, America. Thanks for hanging out.

It's so good to see you. Everyone sleep well. Sleep well. I'm going to be fatigued. Thanks for listening to the Glass Cannon Network. For more podcasts and live streams, visit glasscannonnetwork.com. And for exclusive shows and content you can't find anywhere else, subscribe today at patreon.com slash glass cannon.