Dumbgeons and Dragons, we'll be right back.
Previously on Dumbgeons and Dragons, the case against Kavlaran Goldweave moved to trial.
The party met prosecutor Croker Shaw, whose reputation for ruthless tactics preceded him like a thunder cloud.
The first witnesses took the stand.
Oak, Kavlaran's loyal work friend who tried his absolute best to defend his bumbling colleague.
And Bizard, who unsurprisingly held his ground against Shaw's aggressive questioning.
Despite Oak's heartfelt testimony and Bizard's backbone,
Shaw's relentless pursuit seemed less about justice and more about destroying an auditor who stumbled onto something he shouldn't have.
These are their stories.
Dumbgeons and Dragons is a D&D actual play podcast, and I'm your dungeon master, Russ More, he-him.
Also with me today is Amy More as Alydin, she-her.
He's not even doing real magic.
Carla Maxted as Bonwyn Everbane, she-her.
That's a lot of times to lecture, sorry. I made a face.
Tom Laird as Kavlaran Goldweave, he-him.
But where'd the lighter fluid come from, Amy?
And Kyle Klassett as Bizard the Wizard, he-him.
I do not look at him. I look straight forward and do not acknowledge him.
With special guest this week from Greetings Adventurers, Tim Lanning, he-him.
Can you describe to the court what the Feywild is and what a mind booger is, please?
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And now, fuck it, let's play!
I have a few follow ups, I apologize.
Can you describe to the court what the Feywild is and what a mind booger is, please?
Yes, so a mind booger is a method of being able to store memory experienced by one magic user.
And can be referenced later on. The Feywild is...
Hmm. How do I say this without potentially breaking brains?
Imagine...
Imagine you step into a world like your own, but the laws of nature don't apply.
I see.
Down can be up, up can be down, inside can be out, outside can be in.
When have you been to the Feywild?
Well, I was trapped in the Feywild with some friends of mine, including Cav, for what turned out to be three weeks on the material plane.
For us seemed maybe 48 hours.
So, you thought you were gone for 48 hours, but when you got back, more time had passed.
Correct. Our perception of time was that of days, whereas the material plane passed in weeks.
How were you... It seems like that sounds...
You probably say something like, were you suddenly sent there? Do you know how or why?
Yes, but it does not pertain to the case.
Okay, thank you. No further questions.
Shaw stands back up and says, the Feywild is where Kavlaran disappeared to with you.
In the three weeks that he and you were presumed missing, you were on another plane of existence.
Often referred to, apologies, often referred to in stories and fairy tales.
Yes.
No further questions. He sits down.
Judge Delacour looks back and forth between the two of you, Thurston and Shaw.
Is there no further questions, Bizarre?
No further questions, thank you.
You may take your seat. Thank you.
Thank you, Judge.
Shaw stands up and says, I would like to call my own magical witness, one William Vanderhootz.
Now, there's a loud sound as the door bursts open.
Hell yeah.
And Kool-Aid fan as we is.
But where did the lighter fluid come from?
And smoke begins to billow into the gallery and there are streamers and sparklers going off.
And William Vanderhootz steps through the fog and into, almost like he's gliding into the room.
He's on Heelys, isn't he?
He could very well be on Heelys.
He has long bell bottom pants that are rainbow colored.
He's got a very bright pink jacket, a frilled collared shirt that he has on.
His hair is long and like waving in some imaginary wind that's in front of him.
And he steps gliding.
He didn't tell me this guy was awesome.
Oh no.
He glides in and immediately looks towards you, Bazaard, and just gives a wave like, hey, let's catch up after this.
I do not look at him.
I look straight forward and do not acknowledge him.
Waves it, we'll catch up later.
He makes his way up and swears his oath and Shaw steps up to the bench.
Thank you for the theatrics, Master Vanderhootz.
Next time, probably not necessary.
You are a licensed practitioner of the arcane arts, are you not?
Yes, of course. I went to the same school as Bazaard over there, Bazaard the Wizard is what we called him.
But yes, at Barnhart Swan School of Magic Fighting and Dance.
I was one of the top of the class.
Shaw takes a step forward.
You've lectured since then on illusion and subtle enchantment at the Vintersmouth Society of Magical Theory.
Well, yes, of course.
Several times a week.
You've no formal connection to the defendant.
That's a lot of times to lecture. Sorry. I made a face.
You've no formal connection to the defendant or the mayor's office.
No, no, no, no. I don't work for the mayor's office, not like Bazaard here.
And I've never met Kavlaran here.
And in your professional opinion, are these ledgers, specifically the copy submitted to Kingstown and he puts the evidence in front of him free from magical manipulation?
Vanderhootz looks at them, holds them up to the light and says, I see nothing wrong with these.
It's just a piece of paper. He rubs his hand on it.
He takes a wand out of his back pocket, which Shaw does put a pause to.
It's fine. And slams it down on top.
And like, since this sparks up, the ledger appears fine.
And he's like, ah, oh, see, that would have removed any enchantment in an instant.
He's not even doing real magic.
Good eye, Alydin.
So to clarify, while the structure of the ledgers appears authentic, the specific entries Kavlaran cites as proof of corruption have perhaps been altered in some other way.
Well, if it's not magically imbued, it must be the real thing, right?
Shaw takes a long pause and a deep breath.
If magic can't remove magic, it's because it's real.
I have no further questions.
Thurston, stand up and for the courtroom and the records, what exactly, what spell did you cast on that ledger to test the veracity, whether or not there's magic on it?
I cast the detect magic spell.
And you did it that fast?
What material components did you use?
Oh, well, see, I have many wands and he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out like 18 wands and I imbue the wands.
I store the spells inside of the wands so that for instances like this where I need to quickly cast something, it takes but a moment.
But the material components of the detect magic spell, I mean, I could go into at length.
Go into any length. Apologies for the, this might be boring, but we need to hear some of it. I'm sorry.
No, of course, of course. I totally understand that you need to do that.
And of course, the detect magic spell, unlike the identify spell, it actually doesn't have physical components. You'd be surprised.
I want to do an insight check on this fella.
Sure. What is, yeah, you can roll, what is, and feel free to make this up.
What is Thurston's own experience with magic, if any?
Thurston has a decent background in magic.
He's been around the block a few times. He's seen, he gets a lot of these cases that other people don't want.
He doesn't see himself as a hero, much like have things, he might describe it as unluckily fall into his lap.
So he's definitely had to become adaptable, and that includes things such as magic or skullduggery, whether it's mundane or otherwise.
So he definitely has, while not mechanically, a high or even any arcana score.
He does have some background and knowledge of magic.
Then roll with advantage.
Hell yeah. That is a 15 plus 6, so 21.
Hell yes.
All right. While you don't necessarily know the exact what you need to do to cast this spell, you do get the sense that he is telling you the truth, as he at least believes it.
Am I getting a sense of overcompensating? Am I getting a sense of oversimplifying?
Definitely trying to oversimplify. You feel like he perhaps is, while not avoiding what actually goes into casting that spell, maybe avoiding the means of which he just cast it.
I don't know if this is legal, but let's do a little bit of creative invention.
I have here in front of me three documents that I can verify to the court that at least one of them has been magically altered.
We have here a sketch from my last court case.
We have here a menu at the Brewed Awakening.
And here is a simple flyer for Bizarre's store.
Why mess with perfection is what I always say about our beautiful middles.
Every single time they are perfect. And there's no notes when I go back and edit them. I just cut them just clean.
I'm going to say something crazy right now, guys. I think you should open your podcast app right now and give our show five out of five stars just for how good the middles are.
Jess is doing it right now.
Tell us your favorite middle. If you could just like that.
Share about Discord, the middle that really spoke to you.
Should we just be putting out just the middles? Do we even need the rest of the podcast?
That's the bonus content people need.
Should we make a compilation of just middles?
I think we did talk about like a podcast recap show where you don't actually hear the podcast, you just hear the people talking about it.
I mean, I guess it is kind of what Dumbgeons Downtime is, is like an extended middle basically.
Just us like, just having a chin wag.
It's what we used to do in the middle.
Unless we moved that.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, Dumbgeons Downtime is like the show after the show where we talk about the show and make amazing plans for next time we record and then forget them.
How do I access this new show, Carla?
Tom, I'm so glad you asked. I am so glad you asked.
What you're going to want to do is go to patreon.com slash dumdragoncast and sign up.
And great news, it's Roz's birthday month so it's on sale.
That's right.
Aw yeah.
We're the same age again, baby.
Yeah.
50% off over at Patreon and I'm the same age as Amy, which is both very exciting things.
50% of the year.
For only 50% of the year.
It's all coming together.
Yeah, so you get those Dumbgeons Downtime, you get the show run by Tom, you get other fun stuff, including getting an episode dedicated to you.
What?
Today's patron.
Caitlin!
Thank you, Caitlin.
Thanks, Caitlin.
Without doxing Caitlin, can you tell me how she spells that?
There are so many spellings of Caitlin.
Wait, let's take bets first.
All right.
I think K-A-Y.
See, I was going to say Y.
T-L-Y-N.
Double Y.
I was going to say C-A-I-T-L-Y-N, like a C, Caitlin.
Still wrong.
I got next.
Go for it.
C-A-E-T-L-Y-N-N.
Caitlin.
Also wrong.
I like the creativity though.
I'm going to go with the username approach and go K-8-L-I-N.
Oh, great guess, great guess.
Also wrong.
Are you sure?
K-A-I-T-L-I-N?
C-A-E-T-L-Y-N?
We're just saying letters now.
The letters were all said there.
Don't worry, Caitlin.
There's an exclamation mark somewhere in there too.
Oh.
That was how we yelled it earlier.
Exactly.
Thank you so much for being here, Caitlin.
Thank you, Caitlin.
You're the best.
But yeah, you can join us today at Patreon.com slash Dumb Dragon Cast.
50% off if you join before the end of September 2025 for your first month, which is great.
What did we determine last time?
Last time that we got up to like 18 weeks free by the math is how that worked out.
We're excellent at math.
Don't worry.
It all bAlydinces out in the end because you're going to come in, you're going to get all that bonus content and all the great things that were previously mentioned already.
Don't need to get into it again.
No, you're going to be like the best money I've ever spent.
I love these people.
If you're listening way in the future and it's like 2026 in September, go to the newest episode and see if we're doing another one this year.
We totally are.
I mean, his birthday comes around like annually.
Every single year.
Innovative.
Like Carl.
Yeah.
Thanks for being here, friends.
We'll get you back to the trial that's happening right now.
We'll see if Lauren makes it out or not.
Oh, he definitely will not.
Spoilers, Tom.
We'll see.
He definitely might.
He might. You never know.
I think he might accidentally get out.
Look, all I'm saying is he didn't really have a strong defense for himself.
No.
My principal told me CCG, and that's how we get away with doing stupid shit, Casually Confused Girl.
CCG Casually Confused Guy.
That is Kavlaran.
Casually Confused Kavlaran.
Well, put it on your character sheet.
That's your new class.
So you got that.
You're dipping your toe.
You're level three now.
You can start taking another class.
Yeah, you can.
Like it.
All right.
Well, Tom's looking at his phone, so it's time to get out of the middle.
He's making notes, Russ.
Busted.
I saw his lip move.
I was like, no, he's just looking at his phone.
He was adding it to his character sheet.
I was randomly putting Russ's birthday in my calendar.
No, it was already there.
All right.
We love you.
Thanks for everything, everybody.
Love you lots.
We'll talk to you very soon.
Bye.
Love you, bye.
Okay, Tim, I want you to decide.
Don't tell me.
You to decide which one is magically imbued in some way, shape, or form.
You got it.
You put these three pieces of paper out.
Well, you show them to the judge first, and then you put them out in front of Billy Magic's, William Vanderhoet's apologies.
And he looks at them.
He says, of course, this is child's play.
Bazaar could do this in his sleep as well.
And he pulls out the same wand, gives like three.
And like the same flourish goes off on all three of them.
And he examines them, looks at them, holds them up to the light again, you know, being very scrutinous this time.
And he says, without any doubt, I believe that this sketch.
He holds up the first item that you shared.
This one is, in fact, magically imbued.
Magically imbued.
OK, and the next two, please.
He looks at them.
He holds them up.
Well, this looks like a menu that I've seen recently.
I did eat down at the Brewed Awakening on Wing night.
Actually, it was a it was a great time.
You should go if you haven't been.
And he's looking out to the gallery on task.
We have other this appears to be completely normal.
And the the flyer.
Oh, this is this is a bizarre store.
Before it changed the name, right, bizarre.
And he looks out to the audience towards you.
I nod in confirmation.
Not your main, but no, of course, I just please note that bizarre did not.
I don't know if that's even admissible in this court.
Well, I well, I don't know what this might have looked like in such a historic time.
This does appear to be mundane and normal.
OK, OK.
Can you describe to the court the spells that you cast on these three and confirm if it's the same spells that you cast?
Oh, yes.
On.
Yes.
Same for same spell detect magic.
I believe he looks at his wand and like holds it up, looking at what you can see as like a little like level bubble inside.
Yeah, like a battery.
Yeah.
I only have a couple more charges in this one before I have to.
But you confirm.
Yes.
It's it's to the best of your knowledge.
It's working accurately.
Yes.
Yes, sir.
OK.
OK, well, I have here a scroll of dispelled magic.
This has been certified by the court that they have used in the past for their own dealings when they make sure that they're not be given false information.
Judge, do you confirm that?
Yes. Yes, of course.
Proceed.
And he'd probably if he could, like, does the court have any like mages that are like on hand in case of a brouhaha gets out?
I'm trying to think like who he would ask to do it that wouldn't be like bizarre again, which he was fine to do.
But like what information would he have in this town?
Bizarre is the only resident caster.
William Vanderhootz is a contractor who travels around towns.
Got it.
Well, so bizarre is trusted.
So magic's just so rare.
Got it.
Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it.
Yeah. I just want to make sure I have the Lord down because I've already messed up my Canadian.
If the court will allow me bizarre, will you verify the authenticity of the scroll and cast the dispel magic on these three?
Yes. Yeah.
Bizarre gets up, walks forward and holds his hand out for the scroll.
Hands it and assuming probably got permission to do some of the stuff for the judge.
Of course. Of course.
Which document would you like me to use it on?
I believe if you have been told that it's can affect multiple mundane effects.
So ideally all three and hopefully not anything else standing in front.
I don't got anything on me, so it's fine.
Excellent.
Yeah, well, whichever evidence we're using, then, you know, bizarre goes ahead and undoes the scroll and like takes a long look at it.
Blinks.
OK, and then like sets it down.
He's like putting it to memory, seeing pull out a little mind booger, stick it into his pocket.
And I don't have this spell, so I need to remember what the fuck that looks like, especially because we're going to use it.
So, yeah.
No matter what happens to Cav, you've already come out of time.
Yeah, exactly. I'm going to be gold now.
Yeah, so I go ahead and cast Dispel Magic on the evidence that's being asked to be cast on.
And any of the jurors that are eagle eyed will notice that the original ledger is still out, not in the foreground, so to speak, of what's there.
But it's off to the side. Imagine there's like another like table set up for evidence and what have you.
Got it. OK, you cast that spell.
So, Tim, describe what happens to the three documents that you had placed out.
You can see almost in cinematic slow motion.
First document is the sketch.
I obviously had it done in to make my punch less big.
It was enchanted as Mr. Vanderhootz confirmed.
And then you look to the next one.
But as you can see here, the prices are now changing and everything is much more affordable and reasonable priced on this menu.
And the last item simply puts the flyers much less ostentatious and garish looking.
All three items were magically changed.
I would like to do a slight like look to see if I can tell, because I don't want to imagine if they did the OJ club thing by bringing out seven gloves and you could be like the sixth glove.
I want to see if I can tell whether perception slide of hand investigation animal handling.
Animal handling. Not sure how that would work.
Oh, actually, I have a familiar that I would probably beforehand have it like up in the rafters, so to speak.
And I want them to be staring hard down.
OK, it looks like a pretty standard barn owl.
OK, and they're examining the actual ledger to see what changed there.
Yeah, yeah, you see as I guess you're you're more focused on the three documents, but your barn owl who presumably you can see through the eyes.
That's how that familiar works with your specific circumstance.
Let me tell you a little something about Dumbgeons and Dragons Warlock 2024 edition.
You can do whatever the fuck you want.
I'm not sure. It seems like it seems like it does less than old stuff, but I think it's just normal fine familiar.
So I think I can I have a telepathic connection to it.
So, you know, there's a lot of, like you said, share senses.
So, yeah, your owl is watching the document and it gives you the bird signal for something something's happening.
It's just which is more like you hear its feathers ruffle and then it goes.
It's an owl. Yep. OK, yeah.
It wouldn't make owl noises because that would tell everyone there's an owl.
Everybody kind of looks up and around and they come back to brought their chicken to court.
That's crazy. Then I'll turn to Mr.
Vanderpump rules and Mr.
Vanderpump. Can you explain why you missed the two enchantments on the two other documents?
Oh, oh, well, that could be a very pulls up his wand.
I miss fire. It happens to all of us.
Right? Bazaar. Where we sometimes the spell is more focused on one and it doesn't occur on the other two.
It's happened before you mathematically that you were sixty six percent off.
It appears so. If we're going by math figures.
Yes, math is the rule of how many I got right there.
Mm hmm. Well, no further.
Wait, what in the hell? I don't know what the original ledger should even look like.
Initially, Thurston didn't think that this was that strong of a thing to bark down because why wouldn't they just,
I don't know, use pen and ink to lie like a normal GD person.
But all of these nobles go.
They have to do they have to do it. They have to do too much.
You know what I'm saying? So he was just as curious as anyone else.
Right. Like he's done his the main job.
So, but now his eyes are turned to this changed excerpt.
Judge, I think Mr. Bazaar's spell magic spell, which is spelled my three documents, is affecting the allegedly enchanted document.
And it appears to be changing as well.
She calls for the guard to bring it over to her bench and the guard does so.
She examines it for for a long moment.
I apologize for the this delay. This is not supposed to happen.
I have no further questions to you, Vander Goot.
But this is we might need to I don't know.
This is it's the only piece of evidence and it seemed to be very important.
So I apologize.
She doesn't show it to anybody at this moment.
We might just have to strike it. I'm not sure.
She actually calls you and Croker to the to the bench says this was in fact magically imbued.
We may very well have to strike it from the record.
However, I don't think and she's looking at you, Thurston.
I don't think that it's necessarily beneficial that you've done this.
She hands it to you and it's still continuing to kind of like morph.
And as you look at it, it is my name is Kavlaran I love crimes.
I mean, there are some consistencies there, but it's a written confession from Nina who has gone missing.
Hey, not my client. Hey, all right.
That explicitly implies that Kavlar was the mastermind behind this entire situation.
It's not to keep talking.
And I look at it real quick like, Judge, this is obviously we have no way to corroborate this.
I'm just seeing this right now.
They claimed what they had in front of them was the most important thing.
If anything, this added information proves that it's a deeper conspiracy against my client.
I think we're going to need to take some of this evidence, take a small recess and hold on to your client until we can determine how best to proceed.
Thank you, Judge. Thank you.
And then I way back to my like fucking jackass, I say over to Croker.
You go back to Kavlaran as the judge is calling two guards over to her bench,
you get a moment with Kavlaran before they're going to come take him away.
And I like writing something down like, yeah, so that may be backfired.
It looks like Nina is blaming you for the whole thing.
It was a classic double enchantment, double swipe.
You never expect the double enchantment.
You never expect it.
Yeah.
They enchanted over a forgery, mundane magic like I thought the nobles always over complicated.
But in this case, I actually kind of respected the over complication was pretty cool.
Yeah. Game recognize game.
Absolutely.
Exactly. Yeah.
A lot like Vanderhootz.
That guy's pretty cool, too.
So what's next?
What do we do next?
I have no idea.
I suggest you pray.
You see two guards coming over and they say, come with us.
Yeah, we're just going to we're going to take a pause.
We take a little rest.
OK.
And they handcuff you and take you back into holding.
And we hear the door shut as the judge dismisses the gallery and jury.
Dumbgeons and Dragons, season four, episode 35, starring Amy More as Alydin, Carla
Maxted as Bonwyn Everbane, Tom Laird as Kavlaran Goldwave,
Kyle Klasset as Bizard the Wizard with Russ More as your dungeon master
and special guest Tim Lanning from Greetings Adventurers,
Naruto Revuto and Tribulation Farce.
Find more from Tim at geeklyinc.com and listen next episode.
He's not going anywhere for a little while.
Dialogue, editing and sound design of today's episode is by Russ More.
Our community manager is Jessica Babiak.
Music is from Epidemic Sound and sound effects are from Epidemic Sound,
Boom Library and Sound Ideas.
Our amazing cover art is by Matt Garbutt.
And a huge thank you to our supporting producers, Gabriel Lynch, Jessica Babiak,
Angaron Kierzen, Kat Waterflame, Perry Matey, Jacob Madden, Old School Gamer D,
Craig Zeiss, L.A. Branton and Chibs1012.
We'd love if you joined us today at Patreon.com slash DumbDragonCast
for the amazing community, all the bonus content and so much more.
Patreon.com slash DumbDragonCast. We'll see you over there.
But until then, have a great week and we'll talk to you soon.
There was a real long pause. Did you forget that you'd asked yourself a question?
Yeah.
I mean you're talking like it's hard. You're having a conversation with yourself.
Dumbgeons and Dragons is a Dumb Dragons production.