Do you know the secret knock?
No, you don't need it.
Dumbgeons and Dragons will start in just a second.
Hang out right there.
You're all quickly moving through the forest as quietly as you can.
Some of us are very quiet, but does that matter with these gentlemen with us?
Yeah, if I'm rolling an imaginary nat 20.
Yeah.
And they're not.
Say you're secretly a rogue and you're very stealthy.
Yeah.
When you roll a group roll to try and be as stealthy as possible,
at least half of you have to do the good thing.
There are three of you who could potentially do the good thing,
and three of you who, four of you who can't.
Like just auto fail.
Folan could be good.
Steuben could be good.
Folan and Steuben could be good.
Okay.
Steuben's carrying all the stuff.
Steuben's okay.
Yeah.
No.
No, not so much.
Yeah.
In fact, it's even worse because who's following in behind everybody.
There is another story that's coming from from Rudger in like a stage whisper.
He's like the elves once offered me a general ship.
You know, as I said, I had the finest strategic mind they'd ever seen.
Of course, I turned them down loyalty to Kingstown.
Of course.
What else?
And then what happened?
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.
You've stabbed the most things in the butt.
Carla Maxstab is Bonwyn Everbane, she, her.
You don't have Elko on your list?
And Tom Laird as Kavlaran Goldweave, he, him.
Even for a reader, a voracious reader like Kav.
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And now, fuck it, let's play.
Who's leading this, this, this charge?
Let's place ourselves in, like, you're following a path, like,
you could maybe go two by two, but, like, who's, who's at the front here pursuing the elk?
I feel like, yeah, I am a dwarf, so I only have a 25 foot walking speed,
so I am probably realistically not at the front.
You're bringing up the rear with stupid and rudgered at this point.
Which, I gotta tell you, is extremely frustrating.
Yes, yeah.
I can't see anything past them.
I can, like, it's just, I'm just back there.
You are fully enveloped in red.
I'm just in it, yeah.
Oh, I'm probably near the front.
I'm excited.
I want to see an animal of any kind, but a ghost one.
So, Follon and Alydin, followed by Cav and Merrick,
and then the trio at the back who's just having the best time out of anybody.
All three of you.
Everyone, all three of us, 100% enjoying this experience.
Follon and Alydin, you are kind of first to step out into this clearing,
and immediately, it's still daylight as you step out into it,
but immediately you see this majestic creature, this elk, ahead of you.
However...
Carla's mad that I'm definitely not going to get to see this thing.
Not the first one to see this.
You step out into the clearing,
and you see this majestic creature with these massive antlers.
It almost appears to be shimmering or translucent,
and the antlers themselves, as you are catching your breath and focusing on it,
everybody else is coming in behind.
It turns and looks at you,
and the antlers appear to be dripping with something black.
Is it sick?
What's wrong with it?
Does it appear to be in distress?
Roll nature or animal handling.
You're not really handling it, but understanding creatures or animals.
14.
It doesn't appear to be in distress,
and the longer you...
For the brief moment, you continue to stare at it.
It stomps its front hooves and turns to face you,
and like scuffing the ground towards you,
letting out this snort.
And it's not a cold day, but you see billowing from its nostrils
like this fog pour out of its nostrils,
and it begins to like crawl along the ground towards you.
It looks really mad.
Yeah, it definitely looks really mad, but amazing.
Throw it a roll.
Yeah, Steuben, throw it a roll.
You turn to look at the gentleman who are with you,
and all four of them are like frozen in fear
as you hear the hooves pound again into the ground,
and this animal charges towards you.
Everybody roll for initiative.
Fuck.
A three.
I also rolled a three, but that's a seven.
I'm like, oh, I have plus one.
11 for me, Russ.
The elk is going to go first.
I mean, I know you guys rolled really well,
but that's a big surprise.
Well, we just kind of came upon this now angry elk.
Yeah, it is going to charge towards you.
So as I mentioned, the men who you're with
appear to be frozen in fear.
Folan does kind of snap out of it
and grabs his sword that you had made for him, Bonwyn,
and comes up to join you.
It's going to charge towards everybody, though,
so let's give a straight shot.
I mean, you're all standing kind of clustered
as far as I picture it as you come out of this path,
so everybody make a dexterity saving throw as it charges.
21.
Fuck.
6.
Do I die?
17.
Everyone dodges, and there's just like,
Alydin like.
Well, you and the three frozen men
who are just not frozen physically,
but like in state, are going to take a hit.
No.
That hit is going to be dispersed among you.
Breast strength's so hard not to kill Alydin right now.
So each of you are going to take two piercing damage,
and you need to also make a strength saving throw.
Jesus.
So you're a child, you're very strong.
Very strong.
So strong.
Definitely do not have a minus in that.
So all four of you are knocked prone as this.
What makes sense?
Does it throw me?
Animal throws you like back into the trees.
She's like a waif.
Like a ragdoll.
You hear the men kind of trying to clamor to their feet
and run back into the forest.
Cowards.
Kavlaran, it's your turn.
Cav's going to like get his war hammer ready,
but he's not going to like just ready in action.
He's also going to like do a little spells-y.
OK.
Going to cast Sacred Flame at this elk.
All right.
Remind me if I have to do anything or that's an attack roll.
I believe you have to roll a dex save.
A dex save.
OK.
How about a 13?
A 13 will pass.
Ah, sorry.
That's all right.
It's a sweet, sweet cantrip, so no harm, no foul.
What does it look like as you cast Sacred Flame?
A like column of radiant light kind of comes down from the sky,
but it doesn't hit where I was looking.
Yeah, no.
As it passes by the elk,
you find that that radiant light begins to refract unnaturally
and as it kind of disperses around,
everybody make, I guess everybody remaining,
which is Cav, Follin, and Bonwyn,
Alydin is kind of off in the trees a little bit.
Make a wisdom saving throw, please.
Oh, we don't get to roll dex?
No.
Damn.
Wisdom is probably better.
Not for me.
I'm dumb.
That's a 12.
But damn it, are you good with that hammer?
That's right.
That's a 14 for me, Russ.
Cav has read five books.
At least five books.
Pretty wise.
Least.
Slowballing.
Cav and Follin succeed.
Follin got a 19.
Bonwyn, however, you become distracted by the shimmer
and you have disadvantage on your next attack roll.
Okay.
Follin's turn.
He's going to take a look at the men behind him and Alydin,
see that they're okay,
and even some trying to escape the situation.
And he looks over to you, Bonwyn,
and he says, so what shall we do in this event?
Stay safe.
Try not to kill it.
It's just a creature.
Of course.
He's going to move between the animal and Alydin,
and he's going to ready an attack if it is to charge that way.
Brave boy.
I mean, his friends kind of stink, but he's great.
Bonwyn, your turn.
So yeah, disadvantage on your next attack.
Okay.
Well, that's rude because I had a whole thing.
Blame Cav.
That was really...
Yeah, my bad.
How dare you?
I don't know.
It's an animal.
You know what?
Maybe we're getting really thrown off the fact
that it is a shimmery white elk.
Yes.
Instead of just like a monster?
Yeah, we've been attacked by stuff before.
I think we're being prejudiced.
We're being prejudiced against cute majesty.
Okay.
No, it's totally true because I'm like, but it's so beautiful.
Elks are wonderful.
Even normal elks, I love them.
But you're right.
So I will try and shoot it with my short bow.
It is also a goat, so TBD.
That even does anything, but that is what I'm going to do.
But I have disadvantage.
You do.
I mean, it seemed pretty corporeal when it hit me with it.
Spoon four people into the fort.
I true, true, true, true.
24 and 21.
Oh damn.
Then yeah, absolutely.
That'll still work.
Take that disadvantage.
Well, that was bad, but that is a six.
I know you have some sort of sneak attack situation.
You do have...
I do, but...
Fallen would be probably close enough and flanking it.
Oh, does sneak attack work on ranged?
Probably not.
You think that's...
No, I think it's just...
Never mind.
Oh no, it's range 166 with a finesse or a ranged weapon.
There you go then.
So that is...
Oh damn.
12.
Kick this thing's ass.
Really, you're just trying to scare it off.
I am.
But as a bonus action...
No, because am I still at disadvantage
or that was just for that roll and now that's canceled?
Yeah, just for the next attack roll.
So if you do...
I want to use my insightful fighting,
which is a bonus action so I can make an insight
versus their deception to see if I can learn about it.
Okay.
My insight's terrible.
It's a minus two.
So that's a 13.
It's a 17 for the elk.
I'm still just like, you're so beautiful.
Even if I'm sorry, I shot you real bad.
I might have an apple in my bag.
Did it bleed?
So yes.
What happened?
Did it bleed?
Is it stuck in its body?
This is not how I am.
Hey, we're in the middle again.
Oh my god, how did we get here?
Man, it's like a Hugh Grant movie in here.
Which are more problematic than I remember.
Some charmingly befuddled?
Oh, I see.
Yeah. No, it was in and out because we were in the middle
and then we were out and we were back in once.
I see.
I think that was a Kavin Kline movie.
Was that Kavin Kline?
I'm way off.
Oh wow, Kyle getting corrected in real time in tandem.
Oh my god, I don't even think I've seen that movie.
I really am mistaken.
Maybe I'm from a different universe.
I searched in and out and it just brought up burger places.
That's cool.
You got to turn your location off.
Well, we're in the middle, so it's not really about that, is it?
It's not really about that rom-com from 2002?
Something.
Who knows?
What it's really about is, I don't know.
What's it really about, guys?
Probably the holiday season and how you can get some dope ass fucking gifts
for you and your friends and your family members,
specifically related to the content that this podcast produced over at our Patreon.
This is true.
Patreon.com slash dumb dragon cast slash gift.
We've tossed that in at the end there
because we want you to send others to go purchase it for you.
That's right.
Take a load off.
Yeah.
You give that job to someone else.
You deserve it.
Delegate.
They can get you one month, three months, 12 months, whatever they're feeling.
But then it gives you all that time to come in and test it out and have a grand old time.
Talk to people like Jess, who hangs out with us all the time because she works here.
She's a delight, guys.
Super cool to talk to.
Really good co-worker.
And who else is here?
Sam.
You could talk to Sam, too.
Sam is also a delight.
The thing is, here's the secret.
Sam and baby Grancis.
Oh, baby Grancis.
The secret is they're all a delight.
They're all a delight.
It's a no skips kind of community.
They're all good.
There's them and then everyone else in the Discord, too.
Exactly.
Everyone's so good.
Lovely.
I only list them because they're in the chat right now.
So it's like we're all talking to you.
Sam says, hide your wife.
Fair.
But yeah, patreon.com slash dumb dragon cast slash gift is the place to send people.
Or you can just go knock off the gift and come join us today and be like today's patron
because you get an episode dedicated to you.
Today's patron is Katharina Sindelar.
Thank you, Katharina.
Thank you so much.
What a name.
You've been with us forever.
Again, is that a character name or is that...
Oh my goodness.
It's a good character name, too.
It's just a good name.
Yeah.
Thank you for being here and we hope to see you over there.
Now we'll let you go back to the episode where we will be talking more
because that's what a podcast is.
That is it.
It's just talking.
Definitively.
Fancy talking.
We'll call it fancy talking.
Fancy talking.
Talking.
Elevated.
Yes.
Get in the kitchen and elevate your cooking.
Grab your apple cider and curl up by the fire.
I don't know what's happening in this episode because I haven't gotten that far,
but I'm sure it's fire worthy.
Okay.
Love you.
Bye.
So everybody who's close enough.
So that would be Bonwyn Cavan and Folan can see this.
So the arrow strikes and I mean you said ghost,
but it does strike it as if it is...
A corporeal animal.
The arrow sticks into its side and instead of blood coming out,
it begins to ooze more of that black liquid that's coming off of its antlers,
which obscures the luminescence that's happening on it
and like turns and snorts and more of this fog comes out.
And for everybody who's close enough within the fog,
you see that there appear to be words mixed into the fog
that they dissolve faster than you can actually read them.
Even for a voracious reader like Cav.
I know.
He read those five books over the last 20 years,
so he is pretty quick with the reading.
I'm in the grass, right?
Even for Cav.
Oh yeah, you're just like...
It is your turn, Alydin.
Okay, well I guess I'll use my movement to get up.
Half your movement.
You can still run up and try and hug the elk if you want.
I mean, I won't.
I get up and I'm holding my side like,
ow, good, because I don't know if I've actually been hurt very much.
Like mentally, sure.
Oh, mentally.
Yeah, psychologically, absolutely.
Sent through the wringer, but yeah, physical damage.
Trauma-wise.
You took some physical damage in the banjo man stuff.
Not much.
Not antler damage.
And it was all mostly like mental.
Yeah.
I think that Alydin is going to grab her sling out of her bucket
and try to shoot it with the sling.
Okay.
I'm going to try yet another d20, see if this one works.
Nope, that's a five.
God damn it, plus three, eight, does an eight hit.
Your rock goes up and over the elk.
Well, I'm injured.
Mm-hmm.
That's all I got.
That's it.
And I'm going to probably stagger backwards a little bit
and make sure I'm behind my found family.
Okay, got it.
It is the elk's turn.
And Fawn, when you were the most recent one to try or to hit it,
so it is going to be mad at you.
I mean, I didn't hit it and I seemed to hit it.
There was like some fallout from that among us.
So it's going to look at me really disappointed.
Like, come on, man.
Like, do you see how beautiful?
It's going to move away from that.
It was previously charging towards where Alydin is.
Fawn has stepped between.
It's going to move away and come back towards Cav and Bonwyn
and get within 15 feet of you.
I assume you were a little further than that to try and shoot at it.
And it's going to shake its head, which sprays these droplets of this
ichor that's coming off of the antlers.
Why did I move back to them?
I don't know.
Oh, you're behind us, right?
You said you moved behind us.
I did.
You're under partial cover.
We'll say you're fine for this one.
The two of you, can you make another wisdom saving throw, please?
Come on.
I'm not lying.
No.
15.
20.
Dirty.
So you're going to take half damage, which is going to be six psychic damage,
and you won't receive disadvantage that is granted by this.
But as this liquid lands on you, you're rubbing away at it,
and it looks like ink, like from an ink well.
Back to Cav.
I kind of look over at Bonwyn and I say, is this ink?
Is this something to do with the archives?
Got to be, right?
There was the words and then the ink, and it's like...
So this is, I don't know, the guard of the archive?
Maybe just talk to it.
Maybe we can talk to it.
I'll stop shooting for a second.
You try and talk to it.
Okay.
I'll try to talk to this elk for us.
Okay.
Animal handle it.
What do you say?
And I guess you're just going to presume common?
Yeah, I think common's really probably my best shot at today.
You don't have elk on your list?
I don't have elk on my list.
I have a fair few, but...
I mean, elvish and elkish are very close to the same elvish.
That's true.
You're in a city of half-elves.
Carla's got a very good point on that, Russ.
It's very close.
Very close.
Someone reading quickly might mistake the two.
Exactly.
I would say they're next to each other on the keyboard even,
but that's not true.
That's a lie.
Okay, I will kind of put my hammer not fully away,
but mostly away, and say like...
What do I want to say?
And say...
Ah, man.
Sorry.
Our bad, dude.
My bad.
I'm so sorry.
Yeah, I'm going to kind of put a hand up like Chris Pratt
in Jurassic World.
And I'm going to say, sorry about that.
Are you involved in this archive stuff at all?
Straight to the point.
I like it.
Straight to the point.
Make an animal handling roll, please.
I can do that.
Bonus of two.
All right, that's 12.
Okay, it looks at you.
It stomps its hooves again.
Good sign.
Blows the fog out.
This is going great.
Catch any birds?
It doesn't.
Well, I mean, there's no recognition
that it's understood anything that you said.
It kind of looks back.
It hears clanging from behind.
It looks back and then looks off into
to the open field ahead of you
before kind of like side-eyeing back to you.
So that's what you see.
Guys, I don't know if that's going to do anything for us.
I didn't.
It didn't.
It doesn't seem to speak common.
I run through the same thing in Dwarvish, Elvish, and Gnomish.
In that six seconds that you run through that phrase that many times,
the same, you don't get anything more than what you've got.
Okay.
Shocked it doesn't speak Gnomish.
I know, right?
It's Follin's turn, and he's now behind the animal.
And he is looking at you, Cav, trying to negotiate with it.
And he's trying to signal Bonwyn with his sword.
He's got a very good vantage point.
He's trying to signal to you, should he take a hit?
Oh, Coward can't even do it by himself,
has to make Carla decide whether or not he killed the elk.
He's going to stab it in the butt?
He's going to stab the...
Why are we stabbing things in the butt?
This is why we defer to you.
You've stabbed the most things in the butt, I think, out of everybody.
Bit of an expert on the team.
I mean, it's not responding.
I shouldn't be tricked by its beauty.
I've already damaged it, so I think I give him a nod.
Okay, he's going to try and...
Because it's going to attack again, and last time that happened,
Alydin ragged all up into the air and felt like...
And those other guys, but I don't really care about them.
They ran away!
But I do care about Alydin.
Yeah, they just peaced out.
Then he's going to take his longsword that he has,
and as stealthily as he can, rush up behind the elk.
And jump down and strike into it, which he succeeds on his attack.
And that's going to be seven damage.
It's always more upsetting when it's a mammal.
Do you find that?
Sure.
100%!
With no claws or fangs or anything like that.
Red eyes, yeah.
It's an animal that in nature I would be like,
what a wonder and delight!
He cuts down into this elk, which the antlers shake again,
and more of this ink flies off, and there's this huge snort.
And the elk opens its mouth, you think, to make a call,
a yell, a scream of some sort.
But as the sword digs into it, and its legs collapse beneath it,
its entire body begins to dissolve into these paper fragments
that appear to be soaked in this heavy black ink.
Follens standing over top of it as this paper is blowing away
in the wind and the fogs dispersing.
And what's left are the antlers of the elk surrounded by this paper.
Dibs.
I know you can kill Dib, but...
She called dibs.
I mean, you can't...
That's legally binding.
You all kind of collect yourselves,
and Follens calls back to the men who had hightailed it back into the forest.
They're already at them punks' death.
They're too far to hear him, or if they have heard him,
they're not turning around coming back at this point.
So he looks down and he's like brushing between the papers
as you all come to join him.
And he says, there's two inks, there's little words more than anything.
I don't see any phrases on this.
What happened here?
Well, first, you need some new adventuring buddies,
or I hope the other ones.
Those guys can't go with you.
They ran at the first sign of trouble and you were here
and you protected Alydin and kept like...
Yeah, thanks, man.
You're crushing it as an adventure.
Well, thank you.
First of all.
Yeah, no.
I didn't think they were going to really hold...
I didn't expect it to charge us and throw them into the trees.
It really wasn't an animal, it was a book.
It was somehow a book, but also an elk?
Was it a book about an elk and then it turned into what the book was about?
I mean, that's not one of the five books Cav's ever read, so...
I wish Bazaar was here.
Oh, God, I was just thinking the same thing.
All the magic-y shit happens when Bazaar's never here.
All of this weird stuff is happening and Bazaar isn't here
and he's the only one that knows about this stuff.
I want to gather all the pages that I can, even though they're ink.
Yeah, they're ink covered and mostly scraps.
Yeah, but yeah, you gather what you can.
Me as well.
Follon looks down and there is a pool of what you can presume
is this creature's blood in the space, but it looks like the ink.
There are the antlers and Follon and it pulls out of his satchel and he says,
I don't...
He says, your friend looks into this.
Maybe we collect some of this and maybe he can do something with it?
Great idea.
Thanks, Follon.
Yeah.
So he collects some of the ink-like substance
and there are the antlers, which are, as you're now up to them
and the ink has more or less been shaken off,
they are polished antlers that shimmer faintly with the light around it.
I'll just take these.
I always...
Stab them up on my shoulder.
Okay, you okay with...
You're good?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, okay.
This is a flesh wound.
It's fine.
Okay.
Might have to get you a bigger bucket.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.
You collect everything you can for more investigation,
both bizarre or anybody else later.
You manage to find...
You bring back a couple vials of the blood substance.
You have the antlers and as you're collecting the papers,
there is this cracked stone in the shape of a hoof
that you find underneath a big pile.
Pick that up and take that with you as well.
For sure.
Well, I mean, it's getting late,
but we could probably still make it back.
I don't think we necessarily need to stay in...
We found it.
I mean, we did find it.
This was the goal and we did it.
It was a lot quicker than we thought.
I guess we can put that rumor to rest.
It did exist.
Did exist?
Yeah.
I mean, it still might, somewhere.
Yeah, I mean, who knows what Book L...
Paper.
Yeah.
He's in a little bit of shock himself.
Everybody heads back towards town.
As you get back to town, it's late evening
and usually there's still a good crowd of people
going shop to shop, restaurant hopping,
that sort of thing.
But you hear from the Artisan District town center
on the Artisan District side of town.
Comotion coming from that part of the city.
Folan looks to you and says,
it sounds like there's something happening over there,
but I'm going to go see if I can find the others.
Yeah, tear them a new one.
Tell them thanks for nothing.
No, of course.
Thank you for coming with.
Of course.
I don't think that would have gone nearly as...
The way it did.
I don't think it would have been as beneficial.
So thank you.
Thank you again.
He kind of bows his head and heads off.
I guess we got to go see what's going on, right?
Well, is there an event?
I don't remember there being anything going on.
I don't remember there being anything planned tonight,
but yeah, we got to go see.
You make your way down
and this is in the little square outside
of where the Brutal Awakening is.
So there's shops around,
but there is a large gathering of people.
And as you're coming down the little hilled street
that leads into the square,
a few people look and see you
and you can see over the top of several of their heads.
You see that there is a crowd that's gathered around
what looks like a lector that's been placed
in the center of the square.
And there is a book that somebody appears to be reading from.
And then you hear that person yell out,
it's not true, it can't be true.
And they turn and they run
and there's like an audible gasp
as everybody looks into this book.
Dumbgeons and Dragons Season 4 Episode 43
starring Amy More as Alydin,
Carla Maxted as Bonwyn Everbane,
Tom Laird as Kavlaran Goldwave,
Kyle Claset as Bizard the Wizard,
and Russ More as your Dungeon Master.
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.
A huge thank you to our supporting producers,
Gabriel Lynch, Jessica Babiak,
Angaron Kierzen, Perry Matey,
Cat Waterflame, Jacob Madden,
Old School Gamer D, Craig Zeiss,
L.A. Branton, Chibs 1012,
and Kudzu828.
Dumbgeons and Dragons is a Patreon-supported podcast
and all of our amazing community help make sure
that we have adventures for you every single week.
Come join us today, patreon.com slash dumbdragoncast.
We hope to see you over there
and you have yourself right now a great week.
Yes, and we'll talk to you very, very soon.
Dumbgeons and Dragons is a Dumb Dragons production.