Previously on Dumbgeons and Dragons.
You have been requested by the Wizards of Thay.
Aren't the Wizards of Thay bad guys?
Yes. The Wizards of Thay have been known to be helping the Cult of the Dragon in the rise of Tiamat.
But we have been approached by one such wizard, Nigh Ilmich.
And they give us their word that the Wizards that are helping the Cult of the Dragon are exiles of...
Varram, there's these guys here to see you.
I had a couple questions about, what is it, Xanthal's tower?
What are you heading there for?
A letter from Iskander. He says he can score us the blue dragon mask. Do you think it sounds like a trap?
Iskander was more open to questioning what's going on.
It's not unheard of for them to give those sorts of artifacts to that group at that tower.
So, I mean, that checks out.
Anything we need to know about this tower?
It's a tower. A big open courtyard.
Big open courtyard surrounded by a maze of endless things that are trying to kill you.
And then some hills. You guys head back to where the airships are Mored.
You hear a voice from up in one of the airships and she goes,
Fuck yeah, bud! Let's go get some shit done!
Yay!
I'm an air pirate now!
Welcome to Dumbgeons and Dragons.
We are a D&D 5th edition actual play podcast and I'm your dungeon master Russ More.
With me today is Amy More.
Yes! I'm a smartass and I play Thea Amastasia.
Also with us, Carla Johnson.
Yes! Amy is a smartass and I play new Laura Moonbread.
She doesn't give a descriptor of yourself.
Last but not least, Tom Laird.
Yes! Amy is the smartest smartass and I play Flint Firebeard.
That backfired on me.
Yeah. You didn't see it coming.
No, I didn't.
But knowing the crowd, you probably should have.
How are you guys? And girls? And people?
Doing well.
Me, I've been taking down a notch so slightly demurred.
I didn't think any of that was insulting. I thought it was compliment.
You are a smartass.
You really are.
It's one of your best characteristics.
The best of all the smartasses.
Exactly.
Just had a feeling like we weren't recording, but we are recording.
Oh, thank God. We would have missed that.
Right?
That energy.
I got the intro right and everything.
You did. I'm so proud of you.
Yeah, I'm pretty good like that.
Almost episode 50. He finally gets the intro right.
Guys, it's almost episode 50.
Holy shit.
That's pretty wild.
You know, this whole going weekly thing really escalated how soon we thought we would get to episode 50.
Because before we were like, oh, by December.
Like, no.
Yeah.
No, definitely not by December.
By September.
Yeah.
So, I mean, I said it, we went weekly. We haven't officially announced it, but.
Is it the official announcement?
I think we stumbled backwards into it, but.
Do you mean I didn't spoil it on our monthly goop chat this time?
Yeah, but that's that's that's Patreon.
So they get they get the inside scoop a little bit earlier, which we'll talk about momentarily.
But I think it's safe to say that we are now considered a weekly podcast until I fuck it up somehow.
Until proven otherwise in a court of law.
Yeah. Yeah.
So welcome to Dumbgeons and Dragons, the weekly D&D fifth edition actual play podcast.
Now you're just showing off.
Yeah.
Yes.
Doing it correct.
Just like bang, bang, bang.
Twice.
Yeah.
Love it.
So good.
And speaking of Patreon, which we were before that.
To circle back.
As they say in the executive industry, circle back, loop in, bring around.
These are all buzzwords.
Getting perilously close to something inappropriate.
I was going to say the reach around.
That's the one Amy.
There it is.
Right there.
We're trying to skirt around.
We're no longer perilously close.
We are right on the nose.
We are right there.
So Patreon.
Somebody say something about Patreon because it's pretty awesome.
Our patrons are the best.
That is true.
They really are.
Well, I'd certainly agree with that.
Yeah.
So listener, if you think you are also the best, you should be one of our patrons.
I mean, we only collect the best.
Our listeners are also the best.
Well, that's true.
Yeah.
On Patreon for being the best, you get a whole bunch of cool stuff.
That's true.
Like bonus episodes.
I mean, now we're weekly.
So bonus episodes.
That means you get like five episodes a month.
Whoa.
That's a lot of us.
That's more of us than.
Quite frankly, I care to hear.
I'm glad our listeners think differently.
I know we're supposed to be trying to convince people to do this.
No, we're going to pull the Amy and just drive right over the edge.
Yeah.
So part of those bonus episodes.
Tom ran.
Tom ran a full, a full arc of 11 episodes.
That's all up there.
Ready for you to follow in the lovely characters.
Opal, Elia.
And Nighthunter.
Yeah, there you go.
You almost forgot my character.
I mean, it was my least favorite character.
Brutal.
She was my favorite character.
She was giving you ships.
She was a very good character.
And we understand that if you can't be part of Patreon,
that you too are a wonderful and fantastic person.
And we still think you're the best.
And super good looking.
Yeah.
No, that's totally all good.
Yeah.
We totally understand that.
If there's other ways that you can support us by just talking about us on the internet or to your mailman.
Yeah.
Tweeting us out and whatnot, how the Twitter works.
Or if you don't like, yeah,
if you don't like contact with people in the real world,
you could leave us a review on iTunes.
Also.
Nice.
Nice segue there, Tom.
I like that.
Fuck it, guys.
Let's play D&D.
Oh, we are going to play today.
It's happening.
So you guys find yourselves in the docking station for the airships.
And Flammikins has just screamed down at you.
Hey, guys, I'm going to be an air pirate.
Flammikins?
Yeah.
I'm going to fly around in the skies.
Oh, yeah.
You flying with us, girl?
I don't know where you're going.
Help.
I need an adult.
I don't know where I'm going.
Some tower.
I can't remember the dude's name.
Zanthal.
We're going to Zanthal's tower.
It's surrounded by a magical barricade.
Maze.
And like a killer garden.
Yes.
A killer garden.
Yes.
Zanthal's tower.
Yeah.
With the magical maze.
You can't fly over it and you can't tunnel under it.
Nobody ever makes it out alive.
Why are you whispering?
I'm all the way up here.
Oh, sorry.
And nobody makes it out alive.
You into it?
That sounds dangerous as fuck.
I don't know where it is, but I bet you the captain does.
What's your job up there?
I haven't told them that I'm here yet.
Fair enough.
So I'm going to have to break that to her shortly, I think.
Yeah.
Come on up.
Is there a rope ladder or stairs?
Yeah, how do we?
Do we get beamed up?
Yeah, there's a rope ladder right there, guys.
You look and there's a rope ladder right there.
I climb up the rope ladder.
Ditto.
I wasn't asking her in game.
I obviously know how to get in the airship.
No, it's in game now.
We've done it before.
We no longer talk out of game.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
Okay, I'm coming up.
Climb the rope ladder.
So you climb up into the airship and you are greeted by a excited Flamikins who says,
Yeah, let's just escort you over here to the captain because I belong here.
And we'll just see if it works.
You're with us now.
You don't need like, it's fine.
She's steward Flamikins.
Right.
Okay.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Hey, which one of you is the captain?
Everybody kind of looks to you and they just point up to the top, like a top deck on the on the ship there.
And there's a human female who's looking down at a map.
Let's go talk to her.
I walk up and I say, ahoy matey.
Love it already.
Can I help you?
Yeah.
No, we need to go to Xanthal's Tower.
We're looking to get to Xanthal's Tower.
We're hoping you can give us a ride.
Okay.
You know that's like right in like getting into cult territory there, right?
That's the whole idea.
Oh, maybe we should introduce ourselves.
Maybe that will clear it up.
I'm Nulara.
I'm Thea.
And Flint.
Because we're famous now.
Flamikins!
She says, oh, right.
Sorry.
Yes, of course.
Don't know Flamikins, but she's the best.
She is the best.
Thaddeus is like, yeah, I'm Thaddeus too.
Oh yeah, right.
Thaddeus is there too.
Oh, I forgot Thaddeus.
You guys, you guys invited me.
I went by his house and he wasn't home.
It was Flamikins who wasn't home.
Flamikins who wasn't there.
And what's your name, captain?
Captain Catherine Neff.
Can I call you a cat?
Yeah, sure.
Ah, thanks.
I like that it's cat Neff.
Cat Neff?
It's like catness, but with a lisp?
Cat Neff ever do.
Cat Neff.
Captain Catherine Neff.
Pleasure to meet you all.
Nice to meet you as well.
When do you think we can leave?
Well, we're just getting our fleets ready to go about Faerun
and try and find any people that we can bring back here.
As you can see, and you look around and there's a ton of ships.
There are at least 50 ships, which is a lot of airships to be all in one place.
She says we're going to be going out in the fleet and spreading off as we go as it's safe.
Your stop, Xanthl's Tower, and she points to a map, would be about the farthest we'd want to go.
So we'll see how it gets as we get closer to there.
We may have to drop you a little bit before that, but we'll figure that out as we go, as long as that's all right with you.
As you're the captain.
As close as we can get.
Are we and the captain, are we going to make it happen?
I am the captain now.
Sorry, yes, Follumikins, I interrupted you.
I don't know.
I just didn't understand why Flint wants to be the captain.
I mean, I was going to try and make my move right there, but all right.
You and me, Captain, we'll talk later.
All right.
Well, Follumikins, you didn't see Captain Phillips.
Come on.
It's been a while.
And it was very intense.
So, you know, you try and block intense memories.
All this movie chat.
We're going to turn into a movie review podcast.
I mean, we're not there already, but all right.
Captain Neff says if there's if you can make yourselves at home below or just hang out up here.
I mean, the trip will probably take a few days to get down there.
So as long as you can help out, you're welcome aboard.
Sure. What can we help out with?
Well, nothing right now.
But all right. Fair enough.
OK, well, that's your answer forever.
I only offer one chance.
You guys are just killing time until you go.
Oh, God. Does it?
I mean, is it a is there a lot of diversity in the airships or is this like it's basically the same as the other one?
Is it worth checking out? Sure.
Is this one cooler?
Is there a lab in the bottom?
A lab? Yeah, like a science lab.
Yes. Go check.
OK, I go and explore.
Do I have to roll for science lab investigation?
No, but I can't tell you if there's a science lab if you're standing on the deck.
Fair enough. I go below.
OK, you're going below.
Nularaaaa, you're looking at what the ship looks like.
Yeah, like how big is it?
Because I pictured the other one not like there was just a few of us on it.
Francis's ship was more like a like a a few people sailboat type of thing.
So it had enough for everybody to sleep in a small galley.
This one has it looks like like 50 people that crew this one ship.
So it's quite a massive ship and there are varying sizes of ships all around.
But this one is quite large and it has a large sculpture of a bear on the front
and large airship balloon above.
And it's crafted from nice petrified wood and rich mahogany's and whatnot.
I was just. Rich mahogany's.
Yeah. Yeah. All throughout.
Petrified wood is extremely heavy.
How does this affect the buoyancy like the air?
Magic. Oh, right.
Love D&D because whenever you need an explanation or something, it's just magic.
It's a high magic world.
Can I go look at that bear and see if there's an explanatory plaque or anything?
You love you love a good explanatory plaque.
Who doesn't?
An explanatory plaque.
Like if they had QR codes in D&D,
Carla would be snapping all those on her fucking phone.
Do you have an audio tour I can listen to?
So you're going to go look at the bear.
You're down below. Flint, what are you doing?
Is there like a crow's nest or anything up at the top that I can go like stand out
and look at like one of those old timey like telescopes with?
Oh, sure.
Whatever you want to call it.
Yeah. Yeah.
There's a there's a spot that's exactly described as what you were looking for.
So you climb up the ladder.
Perfect.
There's one one gentleman up there and he as you step up to the top,
he kind of jumps.
He's like, oh, what are you?
Who are you? What are you in here?
My name's Flint.
It's Flint.
I just wanted to come have a look around.
Can't beat this view.
Flint, Flint, the fire beard.
Flint fire beard. Yep.
That's my name.
Oh snap.
Nice to meet you there, sir.
Nice to meet you, too.
What's your name?
Ah, Cyril.
Well, Cyril, I'd shake your hand,
but clearly you're busy with all those ropes.
He looks at his hands like I do.
I do have ropes.
What are you doing up here?
Yes, and I just came up for a look.
I always I always like that top view that you can't get anywhere else.
Oh, kids like no other.
This is why I hang out way up here.
And he's like, here, help me with these ropes.
And he throws you the ropes.
And I do whatever he needs me to do with those ropes.
So I lower them.
Do I coil them?
I have no idea.
Lots of knots.
Yeah.
Oh, lots of knots.
You see him as you start tying knots.
He just kind of his rope wrapping it around, just coiling it up.
What are you doing to my rope?
I thought a good dwarven knot would be a good one for this rope.
Oh, OK.
Well, you do you, man.
Yeah.
No.
Anytime you want to come look at the view.
I got the looky looky-loo device there.
Is that what we call it in this universe?
Yep, that's the one.
Well, yeah, let me have a look at this here looky-loo device.
It's like almost the creepiest name you could have chosen, isn't it?
We call it the voyeur device.
Oh.
Do we?
OK.
All right.
Well, I mean, I'm uncomfortable with it, but I'm on board still.
Point it into the stateroom.
So what are the other airships that dock nearby?
OK, Cyril, you freak.
What's going on here?
Well, there's a reason only I'm up here usually by myself.
Gross.
OK, swallow your water.
Dumb dragon fart hash hash.
That one would have got me too.
My tongue is numb from holding the bubbly water.
The bubbly water for so long.
It's burning my tongue.
That was a lot of real good like one right after the other.
You want to swallow the water and then you're like, we call this a voyeur device.
And I lost it.
Also, yes, disgusting name.
I used the creepily named looky-loo.
And where am I looking?
I don't know which way you're looking.
I will say south.
I'm looking south.
You can see you look to the south and you see a stream of caravans that are coming up the coast and into water deep.
Varying sizes and looks like they've got tattered wear like they've been traveling for quite a while.
Some of them have like scorched caravans, scorched vehicles, as you could say.
Do I notice any like symbols or anything that I might recognize on these caravans?
Nothing of note, really.
No major cities insignias or groups insignias.
There's no, yeah, like dwarven clan insignias or anything on these?
No, not that you can tell from where you're looking.
Does it seem like bedraggled like a refugee caravan kind of thing?
Most of them. Yeah.
Like they've come perhaps from either from battle or from escaping cities that have been attacked.
That's kind of the attire and state that you see these groups in.
All right.
While you're hanging out there with Cyril, looky-loo.
OK, you're going down underneath. Yeah.
So you head down to the to the body of the ship.
I don't know what ships are called. I should have looked up ship names.
We've been on enough ships that I actually think I'd figure this out.
But yeah, you get down and there's several levels.
The hull is the hull would be like the outside.
I don't know what body I'm pretty sure it's body.
It's body. Yeah, body.
So you walk past like the galley and some quarters and there's like a common room where it looks like people are set up just to kind of rest.
If they were so if they so desired and nobody's in there currently, they're all they should all be bustling about getting ready to bust someone's ass.
Nobody's in there right now.
And you go down to the next level and there is what were you looking for?
Science lab lab. Oh, OK.
It's a weird secret lab.
OK, yeah, you go down to the second level and it looks like more just storage areas.
And then you go down to the third level and just roll me a D20.
Oh, first. Do better.
It's fucking two and there's a secret science lab down there.
It's not secret, but there is some sort of it looks like a laboratory or some sort of magical alchemical area.
And then there is, of course, some someone in there.
I was like, yeah. Who do I see? Man, woman, child, prodigy.
It's a woman. Hey there.
And she's working with some some some things.
And she looks up and says, oh, welcome, welcome.
Who what are you doing down all the way down here, Miss?
Yeah, Miss Thea, Miss Thea.
Of the of the things in the safe, this people saving people.
Yeah, I guess I'm the owl in that group.
You don't look like an owl. Oh, yeah, but I'm wise.
We'll see.
No, we probably won't. What you working on here?
Oh, I'm just getting some some some armaments ready.
You know, just in case we need to battle the cult.
Are you are you creating them with alchemy and magic?
I don't know why you teach me.
I don't know why you're saying them like that. But yeah, yeah, sure.
Well, I have magic.
I have you know, I know I know a little bit of magic,
but I've never dealt with any sort of alchemy or potions really before.
Can you show me some stuff?
We do have a bad track record with potions.
It's true. So if I can know a little more about them, that'd be great.
Yeah, well, sure. Yeah. OK.
She's like, I can't believe it's taken this turn.
That's OK. Now I have to teach her about potions.
So she shows you what she's working on.
And it looks it looks more or less like a round sphere.
It is a round sphere with a hard exterior.
And she's like, so what you do is you take one of these
and she lifts one up and it's very heavy plunks down
and you put some chemicals in there, some things, some ingredients.
And then when you fire it,
it blows up.
So you're making cannonballs?
Yeah. But ones that blow up.
All right. Do you want to do you want to know which kind?
Yeah. All right. So she begins.
She begins showing you all the various directions and ingredients
on how to make these explodey cannonballs.
And it's glorious how much information you gain from that.
In fact, so much so that you feel that you know how to,
with a proper roll, build an explodey cannonball.
Oh, I'm going to call it an explodey ball.
So whenever you're crafting an explodey ball,
you have to roll a DC 16 using your wisdom modifier.
Roll a D12?
D20. Can't get higher than...
You're going to have a hard time beating a 16 if you only roll a D12.
That's true. But I swear you said D12.
I said a DC 16, a difficulty class of 16.
Oh, I'm confused. Roll a difficulty class 16?
So you have to beat a 16 or greater in making it.
If you don't get 16 or greater, if it gets like much lower,
it may just blow up.
If it gets like anywhere in the middle,
there will probably be like a minor inconvenience that comes along with it.
Like either it doesn't work or it does something that you don't want it to do.
Neat.
Dyes your skin yellow.
Yeah, no big deal.
So you've learned this.
Cool.
Great. Back.
And what is your name?
Yeah, my name.
Coming up with a whole bunch of names this game.
My name is Mary Ellen Donnell.
It's very nice to meet you, Mary Ellen.
Very nice to meet you too, Thea.
You use this explodey ball thing for good, okay?
Oh, you betcha.
I should have probably, you know,
given you a test or something before giving you all this very important
information.
Okay.
She's famous.
Yeah, exactly.
It's all been a long con just so she could get this explodey ball recipe.
So, okay.
So by this point,
we're going to say that as long as you guys don't need anything in
water deep, we have set off now.
Yes.
Okay.
So I don't think I don't think I need anything.
I think we got on the ship with the intent of ready to go.
Yeah, sure.
Yeah, I agree.
So the entire airship fleet moves out and New Laura,
you're up looking at this carving of this bear.
You don't see any sort of plaque around it.
Kate, how big is it?
Like life size?
Like bigger than me?
Yeah, it's a fairly large ship.
So it's it's much bigger.
Yeah, it's probably I would say the size of a large bear.
So much bigger.
Is it just like a masthead thing that I don't actually need any explanation for?
I mean, it is a masthead thing.
Yeah, it's like how they had mermaids on.
Yeah.
Is someone wandering past?
Yep.
There's an older guy swabbing the deck.
So that hasn't really advanced very far in his airship career.
He's still swabbing the deck as a senior.
Yeah.
Sorry.
It's his post retirement job, I'm sure.
Exactly.
Kate, how close is he?
He's like right beside you.
OK.
Hey, excuse me.
Yeah.
Yes.
What's the what's the story with the bear?
Why a bear?
Well, the name name of the ship here is and a few others go by.
Well, very similar names within the fleet here.
But this is the bear totem ship.
So there are different totem ships within our fleet.
And ours is graced by the power of the bear.
It's one of the strongest ships in the fleet.
Well, thank you.
Oh, you're welcome.
I don't really need to know more than that.
I'm going to keep wandering around and looking at things.
All right.
Do you maybe like critique his swabbing abilities?
I don't know.
I think I'm like kind of filthy, so probably.
OK.
All right.
I think you are as like a fastidious individual.
What's Thaddeus and Flamikins doing?
Flamikins is like trying to work her angle on the ship captain you see over.
To like give up her captain title.
You overhear little bits like I'm a great pirate.
I know how to do things.
And things like I clean the decks and things like I'll just hang around and it'll be OK.
It's getting like less and less responsibility as it goes.
And Thaddeus is he appears to have found some older guy, you know, someone of like-minded spirit.
And he seems to be token up a little bit.
Just taking in the sights.
You guys are you have left Waterdeep and you are traveling south towards your final destination, Zanthal's Tower.
And you've been traveling for about a day and many of the airships have split off at different cities as you've passed.
Some some look like they have been more or less untouched.
Others look like there have been raids or attacks that have happened there.
So they go in and drop down and help out and remove people and bring them back to Waterdeep as they so need.
After the second day, you're traveling over the Highmoor, which is just before you get to the Serpent Hills where you guys were.
Everybody make a perception check.
Oh, no, I aimed it, y'all.
This dice rolls fucking weird.
All the edges are rounded.
It's almost a sphere.
Oh, interesting.
And so when it rolls, it's like this way, this way, this way, this way.
I got an 11.
I got a 21.
I got a six.
So you're passing over a forested area.
And by this point, you're reaching more or less the tail end of your journey.
The rest of you don't aren't really paying attention to the area that you probably should be paying attention to.
But New Laura, you are hanging out near the back of the ship and you see a fireball erupt out and out of the forest.
What do you do?
I yell fireball.
We're being attacked. We're being attacked.
Everybody turns and begins.
There's a huge commotion of people looking and Cyril up in the crows.
He's like, oh shit, I wasn't paying attention as the fireball hits one of the other airships and it explodes and erupts and falls to the ground.
And out from the forest, you see a red, a black and a blue dragon emerge from the forest line and begin following behind.
There are four airships, including yours, following behind those.
And we are about to enter what's called a skills challenge.
We haven't done a skills challenge in forever.
We haven't done a skills challenge in a while.
Are there any chickens on the ship?
There are no chickens that you have seen on this ship.
For those playing the home game and those here that don't remember what a skills challenge is, it is a test of skills.
So it's a role-playing encounter where we roll an initiative and the players have to meet six successes before three failures.
And if you make the successes, good things happen.
If you hit the failures first, oh, bad things happen.
So we'll roll initiative and see what happens here.
Fuck this dice.
Eighteen.
Nine.
Fourteen.
Nope.
Fifteen.
Plus your initiative.
Eleven.
Ten.
Eighteen.
Fifteen.
Twelve.
Fourteen.
I don't even know.
Nulara, you are up first, which is fitting because you saw the fireball happen.
So three dragons following behind.
And on top of them, you see a varying number of three to five cultists on top of each of them.
And they are approaching in behind the two tailing ships.
You are in two of the front ships.
So they are coming up just behind the other ships.
One of the ships has obviously exploded, but it looks like they're going to attack those two back ships first.
So on the ship, it does have armaments.
There are many people.
But sorry, I totally remember the other one with the throwing chickens and whatnot.
But were we doing that because we can't use our normal weapons?
Like, why were we doing that?
Why would I not just do something normal?
It's designed to, I mean, you can do something normal, but it's designed to utilize a skill you might not otherwise utilize
and just figure out a way to make that skill make sense in whatever attack or whatever positioning you are doing in order to succeed at something.
Right, right, right, right.
So I'm supposed to be using my skills.
That's why it's a skills challenge.
Exactly.
Like my skills for my character keys, not just like my skills.
With a Z.
Okay, I am going to...
How far would you say these dragons are from us?
If they're behind two ships that are behind us, how far is that?
They're about 100 feet from you.
So they're about 20 feet kind of closing in on the ships behind.
And then so total of about 100 feet from where you currently are.
Now, you don't have to do something that necessarily hurts or, you know, does damage to the dragon.
You just have to think from a positioning standpoint.
Do you need people to get into position?
Do you need something on the ship to happen?
Do you need to...
I mean, I would think like clearly the ship has like cannons or something like they were making magic cannon balls.
But am I...
Like, I don't know that I know how to use those things though, right?
Because I probably don't.
I don't even know if I know there's magic cannon balls.
Thea probably told me because we were hanging out all the time.
You've been traveling for a couple of days.
I'm sure it would have come up that Thea now knows how to make magic cannon balls.
Do you have persuasion or anything like that because you could...
Oh, no.
Well, I mean, everybody has more skills.
I mean, yes, I do.
But it is not a strong skill.
It is a low skill.
But like, for example, you can use a skill to rally the troops into...
Or like if intimidation, you can use that as like a way to like bolster their...
By telling them how shit's getting real right now and everybody better fucking be on their game.
Get to those cannons or whatever.
Sure.
What if Nulara just did like a bunch of jumping jacks
and everyone was like super impressed with her athletic prowess and then like rallied because of that?
Well, I'll have a combination of those two things because athletics is one of my very good skills.
But I'm at the back of the ship and I just saw it and it's a huge ship.
So since I don't know how to work the weapons and stuff, what if like...
I've already yelled to alert everyone, but I just like take a lap of the ship.
Like there's dragons telling people what's going on so that everyone knows what's going on.
What if they, you know, like didn't hear me yell or don't understand what kind of threat we're facing?
Sure. Yeah.
So as you're running about, yeah, you do see people kind of looking over the side,
trying to get a view of what has happened.
Some see the wreckage down below.
Some don't see the dragon based on where they are.
So as you're running, what do you say and then we'll make the roll to see how well it succeeds or doesn't succeed.
I say, there's three dragons behind us.
We're under attack.
There's three dragons behind us.
We're under attack.
I'm very repetitive.
Yeah, sure.
But I want everyone to like, that's the basic information.
It's a clear, strong message.
It's a clear message.
So you are trying to, you're not trying to intimidate.
You're not trying to...
Well, I'm using my athletics skill because I'm running and yelling very, very quietly.
I get it.
That makes sense.
Yeah, exactly.
I'm running and waving my arms and not getting out of breath because I'm in very good shape.
Well, we'll see how good shape you are in.
Yeah.
Let's see.
So I just roll and then add my athletics.
You betcha.
Okie dokie smokey.
Fuck.
I am a little out of breath.
Just a little windage.
Because I only got an 11.
But you should have a huge athletics bonus.
I do.
That's with my bonus.
Oh, that's with?
I rolled a 3.
I have a plus 8 to athletics.
We'll say based on your little RP sessions at the beginning, everybody picked up an inspiration point.
So that is a point at which before I tell you, if you succeeded or failed, you can choose to reroll.
If you so desire.
I would like to reroll.
So you use your inspiration.
Yeah, that was a bad roll.
Ok, that is a better roll.
That is a 16.
Yeah.
So you definitely, as you're running through it, it doesn't seem to take much to get everybody's attention and snap them out of whatever shock they're in.
And they are beginning to move to where they need to be as far as battle stations.
So we'll go Flint.
Ok.
You said there is a blue, a red, and a black dragon.
A blue, a red, and a black dragon is what I said.
Yeah.
Ok.
So I'm assuming at this point, like, people are manning the weapon stations and other things like that.
It appears so.
Yes.
After Nulara runs around, yeah, people are moving to where you assume they need to be.
So the dragons have kind of overpassed the back ships now.
And one of them, the blue one, is firing its lightning breath at the back ships.
And then the black and the red are headed up towards your ships.
So they're about 50 feet out at this point.
Ok.
I would like to roll a history check.
Ok.
To see if I can remember traditionally how dragons will move, like how they will dodge if things are fired at them.
Like maybe they are predominantly, like, they juke to the left or dip down or something like that.
And if I can coordinate these knowledges with our attackers, maybe they can, like, fake the dragon out
so it will, like, dive down and then have a second person aiming a little bit lower to hit said dragon.
Sure.
So.
Ok.
Yeah.
Make your history check there.
Does that make enough sense?
Yeah.
No.
It makes perfect sense.
Well, I don't know if it makes perfect sense.
That seems very kind.
Alright.
That is a 25.
Yeah.
You certainly know the fighting styles of, at the very least, the black and the red style dragons.
So explain to me, knowing this information, what you do in order to get the cannons that are currently positioned
sideways in the ship shooting out with dragons behind you.
So how you coordinate that with the people either driving the ship or firing the cannons.
I get Captain Neff to turn a little bit to the left so that the cannons are better lined up towards the red and black dragons.
Ok.
And I inform the cannon operators as to the fact that red dragons will traditionally dive down if they see a projectile coming towards them.
So we get the first volley to fire where they are and the second volley that fires immediately after to fire a little bit on a lower trajectory.
Sure.
To try and nab that red dragon as it dives out of the way.
Sure.
So yeah, Captain Neff begins turning the ship as the dragons are closing in behind and you hear her.
There's like a ship horn that she can communicate with the people down below.
And she relays this information and the first volley goes off.
And you're correct in the fact that the red dragon dips down and the second volley quickly follows behind it.
The red dragon takes three huge hits and it begins to go down to the ground.
It doesn't look like it's out but it has gone down way lower and farther away from where you are currently.
Yeah.
Hey there. I'm your Dungeon Master Russ More.
Thank you so much for joining us for episode 47 of Dumbgeons and Dragons titled The Jet Stream to Xanthal's Tower.
If you'd like to support us directly, please visit our Patreon page, Patreon.com slash dumb dragon cast.
There we are loading so much great content like monthly bonus episodes,
fortnightly character sheets that you can take and use for your own games and a ton of other great rewards and perks.
With our Patreon community supporting us we've been able to upgrade some of our hardware
and cover some of the costs to go to PodCon 2 coming up in January.
We really can't wait for that and hope to see you there.
So we hope you give us a chance and check us out on Patreon to see if there's a place for you within the community that works for you.
Again, that's Patreon.com slash dumb dragon cast.
And if you aren't able to support us through a monetary pledge, we totally get that and we appreciate you listening 100%.
The biggest thing that you can do if you can't join us over there, which is totally fine,
is to support the show in other ways like share the link to the show on social media, tell your friends about us,
talk about us on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram.
Whenever you see a post like, hey, who's your favorite D&D podcast?
Maybe we are, hopefully.
You can share us to those people as well.
Word of mouth is one of the best ways to get the show out to everybody.
So thank you for doing that.
And all of our social media links can be found at dumbdragons.com.
So go check out the website and join, follow or like where you can today.
Links for everything mentioned today can be found in the description.
The next episode will be out next week though.
August 8th, hey, did you hear?
We're officially a weekly podcast now.
Crazy, right?
Let's get back to the episode though and see if the adventures have any skills left.
You have a great week.
We'll talk soon.
Thea.
Thea is going to go down and see.
Oh gosh, what was her name again?
Mary Ellen.
Thank you, Mary Ellen.
And she's going to pull out a leather bound book that she kept from her old scribe days.
And there's actually inside are some ingredients for a much more potent explosive inside.
So she's never had any any sort of like,
she didn't know of any vessel that could contain the material together.
But now that Mary Ellen has shown her this,
Thea is going to go down and make some of these special explodey cannons.
Okay.
What are you using to do this?
Wisdom? Arcana?
Arcana.
Okay.
Yeah.
I'm going to use my Arcana.
Okay.
Come on, weird spherical d20.
That is 18.
So yeah, you and Mary Ellen begin whipping up these super potent explodey bombs.
Explodey balls.
Thank you very much.
And we'll say you are, you are getting them prepped and lined up and some of the other.
I get Flammikins to.
Sure.
Haul them back and forth because everyone else.
Is he safe?
Oh yeah, girl.
You good.
Okay.
I hope my magic chaos bolts don't fire off when I'm carrying one of these.
Why would that happen?
As she stumbles out of her room carrying them.
I made a poor choice.
Okay, so back to the top.
Nulara.
So the red dragon has been knocked down with three of these cannon balls
and it looks like it's kind of coming up and in front of the ship now.
The black dragon is up over top and you see its mouth.
Looks like it's charging its breath.
Your turn.
Okay.
I am going to use my.
Man, my skills are so amazing for this.
You got skills.
Sure.
Well, you can use any of them.
It's just you won't have like a super duper bonus.
Exactly.
Which doesn't seem like the best, the best use.
Okay.
I am going to use my perception to see if.
So sorry.
The red one is in front now.
The red one.
Yeah.
It is coming up front.
Like it's kind of cresting up.
So it's not yet in front, but that you look over and you see its trajectory and
that's where it's going.
So they're kind of cut off this ship.
Who's a, who is charging up.
The black dragon who is behind.
I thought you said on top.
Well, like up and it's not like resting on top, but like behind and above.
Sorry.
I am going to yeah.
Okay.
Good.
The black one.
I'm going to use my perception to see if I can spot his, you know,
that one fatal flaw that all dragons have on the other side of them.
Yep.
I would like to see if I can see that so that I can get one of the super
talented archers that is standing beside me to shoot it in that spot.
Okay.
So that is a 19.
The black dragon flaps its wings and exposes its underside as it's about
to unleash this breath.
And you see like a glowing spot on its chest where you think would probably
be a tender spot.
It's the dragon heart.
Great movie.
Yeah.
Where you think that if it were struck, it would probably do some
damage.
Okay.
So I tell is, is there, there's a super wickedly trained archer beside
me, right?
Naturally.
That I give the like elbow to and say like, I love it.
It's a glowing spot, but only I can see it.
Whatever.
It's fine.
He doesn't know.
Well, it's like, it's not like, like glowing all the time, but
there's like a flash and it's like that one spot.
And you happen to see it as it was like charging up and about ready.
Yep.
Perfect.
He's just really not paying attention.
No, I'm just kidding.
My name is Harold.
He's an excellent shot.
He's not going to notice it.
Shoot the archery.
It's fine.
He just has different skills.
People have different skills.
So I, I tell Harold where, where to aim his, his bow so he can try
and hit the dragon and hopefully stop that.
Well, at least stop that charge up of that breath weapon that we
probably really don't want to get attacked with.
So you point, point this out to Harold and Harold had his bow
knocked already ready to take a shot, but sees where you were
directing him and lets loose his arrow.
I mean, you succeeded.
That's okay.
Let's lose his arrow and it impales into that spot and the
dragon lets out a loud roar.
And instead of dropping its head down to release its breath
weapon, fires its acid breath up into the air and begins to
kind of fill the sky above, but doesn't fall down onto the ship.
Flint.
Okay.
The red dragon is now up in front and the black dragon has just
been struck behind you.
The blue dragon has taken out one of the other ships.
Okay.
Does the red dragon look like it's breathy time or?
It's just getting up in front and kind of turning around and
positioning in front, but you can't tell at this moment.
Okay.
How about that blue dragon?
You said it just took down a ship?
Yeah, it looks like with its lightning breath, it took down
one and now is on top of the air, the balloon of the second
ship behind.
So there's still three ships that are up, including yours.
And how far away is this blue dragon now?
You've kind of slowed your, how fast?
We kind of turned sideways.
And you turned sideways.
So you're going, I'd say it's probably like 30 feet out from
where you are.
So you guys are getting in pretty close proximity as all the
ships are swirling, trying to take down some of these
dragons.
I see a pile of rope next to me on the deck and I tie one
end to the railing of the airship and one end to my
dwarven thrower and I throw my hammer at the foot of the
blue dragon, but miss ever so slightly in the attempts that
it will go around the foot and then return back to me,
thus snaring the foot of the dragon and dragging it a
little bit away from the ship that it's currently on top of.
Okay.
And I will, I guess, roll a athletics for that.
That sounds athletic, right?
Yeah, I'm trying to think of something that would be
better, but I get it.
Yeah.
Athletics.
Well, athletics is strength.
Acrobatics.
I'd say acrobatics.
Something decks based.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
You're trying to aim rather than like brutally knock it
down.
Yeah.
It's a finesse shot more than a power shot.
Come on, acrobatics.
I'm going to use my lucky rabbit's foot.
Have you used your inspiration yet?
Thanks for the gift.
Have you used your inspiration yet?
I have not.
Okay.
I had a pretty good roll, so I'm just going to,
I'm going to tack on a little bit here, I think.
All right.
And I'm going to add four to that, so that's a 19.
You let loose your dwarven thrower and it goes just
kind of to the side?
Yeah, like just around the foot, if you will.
Sure.
And then it, like around its leg.
And as it returns back to me, it doesn't come
straight back.
Yeah.
So it goes around the dragon's leg and it doesn't
like snare it, like it doesn't drag it all the
way back, but it's enough to like throw off its
bAlydince and drag it a few feet.
Yeah.
That's exactly what happens.
Just to give that other ship like a little bit
of time.
Yeah.
So it pulls it off.
We'll say it pulls it away enough from the
balloon and dips down and lets the, one of the
rear ship gets it into position so that they can
let loose their cannons on it.
And it does that.
Perfect.
It fires it and is enough to drive off that
blue dragon.
Nice.
Thea.
Wow.
Who would have thought a magical returning
hammer would be useful, guys?
Right?
Right.
It's very strange.
Thea shouts up to the captain.
What model is this ship?
How is that pertinent to the current situation?
Damn it, captain.
It's important.
We talking like the 42-B or?
Definitely a frigate series 16-R.
Well, Thea knows she's going to use history
because she-
From all your time on ships?
Yes.
I did a lot of random reading as a scribe in
the library of the university.
I was bored as shit in there.
And Thea remembers reading that there is a
special emergency defense mechanism for these
ships that actually casts a force field around
it.
And she remembers that the button is located
just underneath the ship's steering wheel.
Roll for it.
Captain Neff, not the best captain.
I'm going to use my inspiration.
Apparently, this knowledge has been lost
to the annals of time.
Indeed.
Well, she's like, what?
What's happening?
Caught in a frenzy.
Maybe she never-
Fuck.
I hate it.
So tell me what you scream out to Captain Neff.
I say, what about the force fields?
And she stops with all the mayhem that's
happening around her.
She stops and she looks you dead in the fucking
eye.
And she's like, the fuck you talking about,
bitch?
Is this not a frigate series 2.0-7B?
No, I just said 14-R.
Oh, damn it.
They're no fucking force fields.
Never mind.
Go back down and make your bombs.
Let's see, it goes back down.
Hashtag dumb dragon fart, y'all.
Oh, that could have been good.
You guys, I fucked up.
This is our very last one.
You went for the moon and I liked it.
You swung for the fences.
That's your first fail.
So you had five successes, one fail.
Nulara, the red dragon, looks like he's
recharged his breath and he's up in front.
The black dragon has dropped back from the
arrow shot.
The blue dragon looks like he's left
because of the dwarven thrower cannonball
incident.
It's fair.
Ships are circling themselves, kind of
like just trying to get position on the
dragons, keep position on the dragons.
Kate, how far is the red dragon from the
front of our ship?
He's like hovering like right in front.
So between you and you're following the
next ship.
He's between you and that ship.
I am going to.
God, why aren't there more animals on
this ship would be really helpful.
Do you need an animal?
I am going to.
No, that doesn't make any sense at all.
And I can't even pretend that it
makes sense.
You just tried to think there was a
fucking force field.
You can't just conjure a force field.
You actually can if you can roll high enough
and don't have the world's shittiest dice.
I was going to say, I guess if you roll
well enough.
OK, then I am going to go.
Is the dragon like above us, in line
with us or below us?
In line.
OK, then I am going to.
I remember now why we were throwing
chickens and stuff, get real desperate
in the skills challenge.
I mean, because it's amazing.
I am going to.
Grab the two strongest looking people I
see.
And we're going to go to them at the
drive.
They're going to go to the front of
the ship.
And we're going to.
And we're going to try to push that
bear masthead onto the dragon.
And I'm going to use my animal handling skill.
She's handling the animal.
I love everything about this.
I like it.
It's good.
We're getting weird that I am on board
in many ways.
That's a 22.
OK, what is your sorry?
What is your goal here?
You're trying to push it onto the
dragon that's in line with you.
I want to bonk it.
So it'll like, you know, I want to
hit it in the snoot so it doesn't
spray us with its fire, probably
coming out of a restaurant.
I imagine you guys would like
rip it off the masthead and then
hurl it.
Exactly.
OK.
So you and Hans and Franz.
I am Hans.
This is Franz.
We will throw the bear.
You go up there and you somehow
manage to animal handle this wooden
sculpture and tear it off.
And it is propelled forward and
knocks into the dragon, which
forces it to like it kind of
knocks its concentration long
enough that the ship actually runs
into it and spears into it.
And the red dragon is holding on
to the front of the ship.
You hear Captain Neff scream from
down below to fire everything.
And the two cannons that are on the
front release and these two extra
potent explode devices explode into
the red dragon that makes it explode
off the front of the ship and knock
it down to the earth below.
The black dragon seeing this now his
blue friend and his black friend
and the cultists on it kind of
give it the old let's get out of here
for now and regroup and come back later.
You've won the skills challenge.
Is the red dragon dead?
You are uncertain if it is dead,
but it has fallen and is lifeless
appearing on the ground.
Hopefully dead.
Yeah, it looked like it had not a
lot of movement in it, like perhaps
it was at least unconscious when it
was hit.
You handled that animal.
You sure did.
Now we all just like do amazing
high fives because that is by far,
by far, by far our best encounter
ever where a dragon has been involved.
Yep.
Yes.
That's good.
So yeah, you are you are cleaning
up the the two other ships have gone
to see if there's anybody in the
wreckage of the fourth ship.
And you you set off still towards
Xanthal's tower on your own now.
But you travel for the rest of the
day and you make it to a tower
surrounded by what looks like a
giant overgrown hedge maze.
And around that hedge maze is a
town.
You ask about that and Captain Neff
says that is this is Xanthal's
tower as well.
They named the city after the tower
after Xanthal brought that tower
up there.
People flocked to it because it
deterred people, deterred orcs and
deterred raids from attacking
because of the magic that was coming
off of the tower.
But you have made it to Xanthal's
tower.
And because of how, you know,
how the dragons had attacked you,
you went right up to it.
And you land on the outskirts of
the city of Xanthal's tower.
Music in today's episode was by
Kavin McLeod of Incompetech.Filmmusic.io.
Killer garden.
Not to be confused with a killer
garden.
I'm not going to take any notes
because the clickety clack of me
typing irritates Russ while he's
editing.
Yeah, it's like so loud.
So I don't take notes anymore
because someone's sensitive.
Someone could invest in a pencil
that's in there.
As someone who has no interest in
editing this podcast, I can't blame
Russ for that.
Yeah, that's fair.
Everybody has to edit one
episode if they have anything to
complain about.
You'll never hear another peep
at me again.
We will lose so many listeners.
So you,
all of you are climbing
the rope ladder?
Yes.
All right.
Well, unless there's another way
to get into the fucking airship.
I bust a hole through the side
of the airship.
Somebody's got levitation boots,
but whatever.
I only get to use those like
once every so often.
So I'm not going to waste them
getting myself into a boat.
The next huge encounter is going
to happen before so often.
What if it happened halfway
if she was floating up
into the airship?
I like it.
And what's your name, Captain?
Uh,
Yep.
And do you have a last name yet?
Uh,
Captain.
No, my name is Catherine.
Catherine.
Captain.
Stormborn.
Captain.
Stormborn again?
No, that's a bad.
I don't know why that's my default.
I don't know either.
You've already had a Stormborn.
Denearus.
Stormborn.
Uh,
see this is how much prep
I've done today, guys.
Captain Catherine Capsicum.
Catherine Wheel.
Captain.
No wait.
Captain.
Catherine.
Catherine the Great.
Sounds familiar.
Hepburn.
No.
Uh, Captain.
Captron.
Capsicum.
Captron.
Well, the name, the name of the ship is the
Bearskin Ship.
It's too bad you brought up that ship name generator.
Too slow.
And you didn't use any of the names.
They weren't good.
You just said the first thing that came to your head.
Well, the beauty of this audio podcast that is not live is
you can say whatever you want.
Would you like to try again?
The Vancouver.
The Pocahontas.
These are terrible ship names.
The Pocahontas.
None of them tie to a bear.
It's the Polka haunt us.
Yes.
Okay.
Dumbgeons and Dragons is a Dumb Dragons production.