Hey, Pants people. I just wanted to stop real
fast and say thank you so much for listening.
We love getting to know you guys and interacting
with you, whether it's on the Discord, social
media, anywhere. So this one's for you. Sholay
Brass, the supernova's own mother, and she used
her knowledge of the auroral diamond to do the
unthinkable. She pried into her very mind and
ripped away all memories of the sun she murdered
during her killing spree on Hallray. Do you remember
that, I wonder? Sholay tearing through the Phoenix
District in Yanito, setting fire to a festival,
a gathering made in her honor. Her flames killed
hundreds, and she turned around and stole that
memory from all of us, leaving families to grieve
without reason or justice the monster. Well,
there will be justice, good people of the Concord.
We've just received word that Atash has apprehended
Xolay, that she has been taken under celestial
guard into the custody of the Citadel. She will
be tried. Bars. She's guilty of sin and we all
know it, but yes, she will be tried by the Speakers
for the Ancestors. Though it does pose a little
problem, doesn't it? Surely, Shirley cannot stand
as judge at her own trial, right? And so we leave
the interim speaker to stand on her behalf. Well,
I beg the people of Ankaran Sengar to cast their
votes in the right direction. Vote for Adash.
Some will argue he holds too much power already
as the king of Ankaran Sengar and the number
one luminary. Well, we didn't bat an eye until
our Oshami royals appointed their niece to the
position. Right? Right? Is it so different? And
besides, we all need a powerful figure, a righteous
figure to keep our world safe from monsters like
Sholay fucking Bratt. Fuck you, Rune. See what
you did there, Blanche? See what you did? You
idiot. Fucking ruined everything. Jeremy, we
gotta talk later because I have a brain tickle.
What? Oh, okay. What are you tickling? Okay.
Something's tickling me. Oh my gosh, later. I'm
not the one doing the tickling. I'm not invited?
This is horribly mean of you. No. Oh my gosh.
Well, tickle monster. You had a bant topic you
sent to our Discord last week and you probably
forgot already. No, of course not. You didn't.
Holy moly. All right. Wait, what's the bant topic?
A rare, like, high -functioning day for old Mr.
Rodriguez. It's good. You're going to need all
the brain power you've got tonight. Both of you.
What's that man topic? Hit us with it. Go crazy.
Are you guys at all superstitious? Are there
any superstitions that you abide, practice? I
saw you waiting for me. I saw you waiting for
it. I was like, I'm not going to do it. I'll
leave it to the wolf. What's here, Jeremy Wolf?
What? We were quoting The Office. Tell me about
your superstitions. Oh, I mean, I don't really.
I don't know. Cool. I got one that goes back
to my theater days. Whoa, okay. Actually, we
just talked about this last week. Want me to
break your leg? No, there's a big superstition
in theater that unless you are doing the show,
you do not ever say the word Macbeth in the auditorium.
Really? Yeah. I'd never heard that. That is weird.
That is really, really bad juju for whatever
show you're doing. Unless you're doing the actual
play Macbeth. You do not say that name. Okay.
Yikes. Yeah. Okay. Hmm. Huh. That's a weird one.
That's a fun one. Yeah. I like that a lot. And
everybody will have your head if you say it.
Like get mad at you. Yeah. They'll be like, Beth
all over you. Do you try to like trick people
to say it? Nah. No, it's really bad juju if somebody
says it. Yikes. What about you, Mr. Monroe? I'm
not very superstitious in sort of this household,
our household. My wife is a very superstitious
one. Gabby's got – she's one of those knocks
on wood if you say anything. She'd be on – she'd
be standing trial for murder and be like, Your
Honor, in my defense, I am a Virgo. And it's
like, all right. I mean – I get it. I get it.
You're a Virgo too. Yeah, I get it. You're such
a Virgo. But there is one thing that's kind of
fun from what Superstitions kind of relate to
are kind of like, you know, out of podcast environments
we find ourselves in, in kitchens, especially
at our kitchen. There's a superstition that we
all kind of believe in that if you pull the tickets,
like all the done tickets are kind of sitting
down after the day's done. We're all POS now,
so it's not the case anymore. But back when we
had paper tickets and they were all on the nail
because everyone, when they finished a ticket,
they put it on a nail. And you pull them at the
end to count them up. If you pull them early,
a lot of times people try to pull them early
to count them before close. Never do it. You
wait until that close. You wait until the door
is locked and the last people are out. Because
if you pull it before close. Shit goes down.
Everything goes to hell. You will get a 50 top.
Oh God. It's, it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's a
whole thing. But I've seen that go bad quite
a few times. So I a little bit believe that one.
That's weird. I like how specific we're getting
with our superstitions. Mine's also pretty specific.
Okay. All right. I'm not a very superstitious
person, but I think about this one a lot. And
I was going to bed thinking about it the other
night. And I was like, all right, I got to text
the guys. We should do this. Okay. There is a
superstition in the Japanese culture that if
you gift somebody a knife, it will sever your
friendship, your relationship with them. All
right. And I don't know if you remember this,
but when you started working at Reckless Again,
David. Yeah. I gifted you a carbon steel knife.
You did. That I restored. You did. And I think
about it all the time. It's still on my porch.
I've actually been saving it for the day I decide
to kill you. I can't. Full circle. Yeah, exactly.
I can't get it out of my head. I can't get it
out of my head. I think about it all the time.
It's been years. It's been a handful of years.
Okay. I still think about that. That's interesting.
That's interesting. Really not knocking down
the serial killer theories, but the I think about
knives while I sleep. Oh, my God. You know? So
if we have any juju specialists, any white witches
or something in the audience, I'm looking for
a cure. Okay. Before it's too late, save him.
Before I kill him, please. That's a... That's
the end of my superstition talk. Okay. All right.
Well... But before you jump into it, I do have
one more thing that I want to get off my chest
real fast. All right. What do you got to do?
Because I was listening to... Getting off there.
It's gross. I'm sorry. I was listening to the
last week's episode yesterday, and I was cringing
as I was trying to describe the concept of swagger
with... Out remembering the word swagger. Wait,
that's what you were trying to say with that?
It was like, yeah, it's like a certain swagger.
You know, like, you know, the superhero walking
down the street. I liked your description. I
liked it. I felt it. It worked. I wanted to jump
out of the car. I hear swagger. I imagine Blanche
just kind of like doing like, you know, dance
step down. It's such a frivolous sounding word
compared to just like, I walk heroically and
nobly. Sure. I kind of like the way you described
it because otherwise I imagine Blanche kind of
like, like put your hands in the air. You just
don't care. You know, everyone's kind of like,
yeah, but it just sounds too fun. It sounds too
fun. A word to be noble. I don't know. Am I wrong?
Well, now it's out there both ways. Okay. Here
we go. is out there both ways. That's it. I'm
done talking. So let's hope you guys have some
swagger in your step tonight. Yeah, throw some
salt over your shoulder. Knock on some wood,
gentlemen. Because you're going to need all the
luck you can get for this one. Yeah, Stephen,
don't look at my computer because the map is
already up in Roll20. You can look at it. I pulled
up Roll20. No, I know. He just didn't want a
spoiler. Yeah, so it was posted in the Discord
under the spoiler tag, and I didn't click the
spoiler because I wanted to see it tonight. Oh,
I totally looked at it. And I'm looking at it
again right now. I'm going to do an opening scene
here. I'm going to talk about this map because
this map is amazing. I mentioned last time, Sound
Pew Girl map. It's so... Cool. Exactly what I
need. Even the edges kind of blur off into fog,
which was more incidental, but it fits my image
so, so well for this. And it's also got updates
since it was put in Discord, because if you've
noticed, there's a new token in the center. We'll
get to that. But Zila had a little update of
her own for our map, which is really, really
cool. We'll get to that. If you're not following
these people on Instagram, what are you doing?
You know, we also can find these. You can find
them on the Discord. Sound Peaky Girl maps, astropathic
art. Look them up, people. It's our superstition.
We don't plug the Discord. The show ends. Right,
exactly. Once an episode. Yeah. Let's get into
it. We're going to open on old young Guy. still
smiling, still crying, lost in a sort of trance,
as he wanders down the long hall to the seat
of dragons. Two guards move just behind and beside
him, both in a state of shock, one of them just
kind of grumbling. We shouldn't have let her
go, the monster. She needs to pay for what she
did nine years ago. All of those people, we shouldn't
have let her go. The other kind of cuts in just,
but why did we forget Omeru? What did she do
to us? But young Gi does not seem to hear these
words. He simply moves, step by step, cane clicking
against the floor, his free hand usually playing
through the motions of a riveting buttock match,
rests still at his side. And then we hear the
shout that booms out from down the hall, from
the direction of the throne room. MAST! The guards
whirl around as white clouds surges towards them,
blanketing the world beyond, blanketing these
halls. No, no, it's early! They burnish their
halberds, taking stance as the whiteness overtakes
them all. Yungi scrambles back, fearful, his
features of relief melting away silently. And
there's a pause. A wait. Halberds facing out
into the whiteness. And a large silhouette, maybe
seven feet tall, suddenly rushes through the
mist. A claw formed of jagged stone snaps out
over the pole of one halberd, closing in on the
arm of a soldier and gagging him into the obscuring
mist. The other guard charges after with a NO!
Screams. Metal clanging on stone. Young Gi stumbles
away from it, pressing to the wall. His trembling
hand finds something, a handle for a sliding
door. He pushes against it, falls through into
a different room. Now prone, he snaps the door
back with his legs as another scream rings out
behind. He looks stupidly towards a dark smear
left by his kick. There's blood on his feet,
not his own. Breathing hard, almost sobbing breaths,
the old dragonborn turns to see that he stands
within the long room that has been turned into
a makeshift infirmary. Shaking so badly he can
barely stand, Yungi steps carefully into the
room, passing close by beds, noting a few physicians
hiding beneath them, whispering their own prayers
to Meru. He moves, desperately pushing farther
and farther from the door for the final screams
of the men dying just beyond it. And back in
the Park of the Elders, the statue of Queen Jeannie.
of arathlon brass looms above you. With its still
shifting, cracking form removed from its throne,
it stands about 25 feet tall on top of a sort
of base that's about 10 feet tall. A cape of
woven light like boiling magma covers its back.
A massive stone greatsword set aflame is held
before it. We see the jaws of the statue crack
and split open into rows of jagged teeth backlit
by a searing flame. We see breaks and fissures
splitting all over the statue's form, steaming
the air and radiating with red heat. We see Arathelon
the supernova greater and more spectacular in
death than he ever was in life. And we see our
heroes standing tiny before the... I burped.
Well, now it's staying in. Damn it. Before the
monster. Heroes. What are you doing? Remembering
that Sholay asked us to stay with the queen for
the next mist. She basically said... And she
also told us to try to get some of the castle
guard to come with us. She did say that. Her
intention with the queen was more to be like,
if the mist comes again, if it hits noon, the
mist comes again before I've done the thing,
you should get with the guard because you're
going to get attacked. How it happened before
the mist came. I'll say right now, you're probably
looking at about 1130, a half hour to noon when
things were about to go down. Okay. So the mist
did come early. You couldn't have predicted that
would happen when you summoned Arathelon. Sure.
And you don't know what is going on at the palace.
So you asked what we were doing? Yeah, what are
you doing? I am... Pulling up the map. Oh, let's
talk about the map. Let's talk about the map.
Let's talk about the map. Look at this map. We
have Arathelon Brass in all its glory. The supernova
right there standing upon the dais. Huge. Yeah,
he's super cool. And in giant white text across
the middle of the map, it says Arathelon. There
is literally in the air, there is a light show
of his name just hanging above you. What about
the big blue G? That is your glyph of awarding.
Oh, nice. All right, now I have it staying directly
in front of the statue. Before all you guys,
you guys are about 20 feet away from the statue
where you stand. It's a 10 -foot square map.
You can move your tokens wherever you would want
them to be for this. I just kind of lined them
up. Yeah, we definitely need some space here.
Yeah, so line up. Take your second. Change your
tokens around. Like, I asked what you're doing,
but you also knew you were going to do a fight
with the star, so you can move where you want
to move before this goes. And you can move your
glyph of awarding. I can't move Akio. but front
line's moving back. Front line's moving back?
Hint, hint, wink, wink. There you go. Jules and
Chester go behind Blanche. Thank you. I can't
move Chester. Damn it, son of a gun. Damn it.
Ha ha, there we go. All right, you should bullshit
have access now. So if you're asking what we're
doing, does that mean that I can cast spells
right now? Like, is this like a... before the
battle, sort of? No, if you go and cast a spell,
we're just going to roll initiative right now.
Okay. I don't know what you want to say before
we get into this thing. Do you want to do some
hero -villain banter? Classic Megamind style,
you know? Do you want to do this thing? I'm going
to do something crazy. Blanche is going to do
something crazy. You do that, then Jules is saying
something. In these sort of situations, basically,
the way it works is... If you go to, like, do
a thing that's going to start a fight, he's ready
for the fight, so we'll roll for initiative because
as you're going to do that, he'll start making
his move. So that's kind of how that goes. But
right now we're before the fight. If you guys
want anything, say anything, do anything cool,
this is the time to do something cool. Yeah,
Blanche can do something cool. I already said
last episode that she drew Ichigenka, and now
she's going to turn to Akio at her side and present
it hilt first to Akio. This figure's just shaping,
changing heat, wafting over you, and Blanche
just turns away from the heat, lowers the sword.
Akio, his own sword, Igaoni Saru, in his mouth,
looks to you in shock. I'm entrusting Ichigenka
with you for this battle. Make good use of it.
He does not argue. He knows it is time to just
follow orders. He drops Igaoni Saru and bites
down on the handle of Ichigenka. You see in his
resplendent new plate armor, it is a formidable
-looking form. The sword, the armor. He looks
like a disciple of Ozen. And Blanche's hand falls
to her old scabbard, which hangs underneath and
beneath Ichigenka's scabbard. Holy shit. Jules.
Jules, standing right behind Blanche and Akio,
will just look up. And he will say, Arathelon,
we remember you. His eyes narrow. I remember
you. You will be forgotten again. I will make
sure of that. You see that stone form finally
finish its transformation. The last bit of stone
crumbling through a dust falls down upon the
stage, upon the throne. And he looks to you as
if seeing you for the first time, a hearty smirk
just grinding into the monster's face. Jules,
you say I will be forgotten. I think not. No,
I will make sure every person in the conquered
world remembers my name. Even if that means they
must fear it. I'll kill every last person in
this city, in this world. Starting with the members
of the esteemed Dragon Clan. One more thing before
we get this started. Your sons were better than
you ever were. Jules! Jules! I can't wait to
spill your blood. The Horde Lord beckons. He
who called out from your own heart. Who woke
me from my deathless slumber. In charge with
the task of taking your life. I've always hated
you. Granted such a prominent position. A gift
beyond compare. And you tossed it aside like
it was nothing. Fame, power, riches. These are
all one can ask. For from this life, you don't
deserve the opportunity you have been granted.
It should have been me, or at least my own sons.
But no. At the very least, I will have the pleasure
of breaking you apart before watching your glorious
ascension. And he begins one step up to move
down from the base. Blanche goes to draw her
katana. I won't allow it, Arathelon. Step forward
once more into obscurity. Roar for initiative!
Nice. Oh my god. So I forget this. Every time.
I don't know if I've done it once, but Akio has
advantage on initiative. Oh, Chester also gets
a little bonus, right? It doesn't say on the
sheet. Oh, no. Akio, you still didn't roll well.
All right, that's 11 for Akio. Oh, no. And 7
for Blanche. That's not great. 11 with advantage?
It was like a 2 and a 5 or something like that.
Didn't knock on enough wood, dude. You shouldn't
have said that, Jeremy. 5 and an 8 or whatever.
That's a fucking 3 for Jules. No. We're gonna
die. And a 25 for Chester. Holy shit, Chester.
Holy shit. Oh my god. At least we get to die
on a beautiful map. Oh, wait. Okay, it's three
and seven. Wait. A three for Jules, a seven for
Blanche? Three for Jules, seven for Blanche.
That's funny. It's the opposite of the roles
you made. Exact opposite. Yeah. It's like fate.
It's like fate. It's so serendipitous. Oh, naturally
I got an at 20 on Arathelon. Get out of town.
You can take a look right now. No, I believe
you. I mean, that's what I rolled on Chester
too. I hate it. Oh. Right then, as this opens
up, as Arathelon boldly takes that step, the
first move is not him. It is the one who's always
got a finger on the trigger. The sidekick that
will give all to defend his luminary Chester.
Chester gets the first move here. And he gets
advantage on attacks because of his ambush feature.
Chester the murderer meets. Chester the murderer
meets. Wait, what did you just say? He gets advantage
on his attack. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think
it's all his attacks against a target that hasn't
moved yet. So actually, if he has two attacks,
I think he only gets one attack with his heavy
crossbow. He does not have a heavy crossbow master
yet. But you could do a secondary attack with
something else if you want to with advantage.
Okay, cool. Holy shit. Could spit on him. I don't
think he's got that kind of reach, though. Just
to set this up again, you guys, Jules and Chesta,
are about 45 feet away from the base of the statue.
Just ahead of them, we see lined up are Blanche
and Akio, about 30 feet away. So you have 10
feet between the two groups here. It's not really
Blanche's turn, but maybe before combat starts,
she'll turn her head over her shoulder. Jules,
we need to spread out. We don't know if he has
area of effect fire attacks. Is that what she
says? Yeah, that's exactly what she says. Tactical
battle master she is. We are a little grouped.
You're pretty grouped up. Okay, so this is within
the public sphere, so I want to ask you this.
Yeah. What was it? Was it necrotic damage, psychic
damage that was halved? I think it might have
been both. It might have been both necrotic and
psychic. I don't think they took any necrotic
damage because they were undead. Yeah. And maybe
psychic was resistance. This might be a little
different. Okay. But if you remember from the
other fight, it was half necrotic damage. Oh,
half necrotic. It was half. Okay. Chester was
doing a little bit of damage with his hex at
the time. Okay. So with that, Chester. All right.
Fuck. You're big. But the bigger they are. Yeah.
Weapon up. And he will move to the side to get
a clearer shot. Oh, he dives over. Hell yeah.
Slides to the south, parting about 30 feet away
from Jules, moving all the way over, heeding
Blanche's warning. Yep. And he's going for misdirection.
Hell yeah! With advantage. With advantage. What
about an 18? 18 hits. Oh, okay, nice. We're testing
the boundaries. We're testing the boundaries.
I'm really fucking glad that I had advantage
because the first roll was a natural one. Whoa.
Yeah. Informative roll, Chester. Informative
roll. I damage 1d10 plus 4. Oh, man. Heavy crossbow
out. D -tizzy. Fires out. Striking right into
one of those open sort of cracks. You heat. Bursts,
vents out. The crossbow bolt that hits in starts
to glow molten and red hot. But sparks shooting
as it strikes true. Yeah, minimum damage. Five.
Yeah. It's something. And we know that 18 hits.
So we got some information. All that happened
on his finger. Not a very scary spot. He's like,
ow. It's been so long since we've had combat
with Chester. The extra attack doesn't work with
misdirection, correct? Yeah. I don't think...
We talked about this before. He doesn't have
Crossbow Expert, so you have to pull up out your
bow, I think, because you have to reload it,
which I think you just kind of do in between
rounds. It's one of those weird things. I don't
love it. I'm going to... I intend for him to
soon have Crossbow Expert. Okay, cool. Yeah,
I mean, that's fair. Cool. Hell yeah. It's a
way of scaling it. It's a pretty strong weapon
for him at this point. Yeah, for sure. Okay,
that's it. Sweet. Okay. uh two fires sparks he's
hits the ground uh sort of sliding against the
dirt the center of this park oh oh i forgot something
silly me i guess i'll do it now chester's so
fast he actually out moved My lair action. Oh,
no. Silly me. No, no, no. Come on. Silly me.
I like to do this at the top of the round entirely
just because it's easier to keep track of. He
even gave us the opportunity to move. Yeah, yeah.
Oh, no. It's so bad. God damn it. Oh, hell yeah.
That's such a move as you guys prepare yourselves,
brace yourselves. You see the letters spelled
in light with a statue sort of... spark the mist
-formed crowd push back 70 feet or so from where
you stand at the edge of the obscuring whiteness
continues its chanting supernova supernova supernova
supernova now blanche i'm gonna say you have
high enough intelligence and you the experiences
you've had all this time i'm gonna give you this
for free i think this makes sense to give you
this for free you know that wrath's powers here
the powers of all guishin are likely sourced
by a different plane one that is connected to
or absorbing the world of Yonito, or world of
Hallowry, said Yonito. Given the mist and these
horrific powers wielded by these creatures, I
think you'd be able to connect this all to the
Shadowfell. Much like the spiders of Danatu and
the horrors you've heard about from the rattle
on God's Breath, the plane of nightmares is a
hold on Hallowry. And as you see these powers
made manifest, hear these chanting voices, voices
made of mist, you think you can hear something
beyond them. Trees snapping, following. Something
large, moving. But are you hearing the park of
the elders around you? Or the Shadowfell itself?
There's another noise much closer that pulls
any such thoughts away. As Rathlon is stepping
down, stone cracks on the statue's base beneath
him. Forms rip themselves very quickly from the
stone, humanoid, unfurling wings. You see draconic
features similar to Arathelon's own, but oddly
different as well. Two monsters at each one corner
of the statue base. Two gargoyles tear themselves
out from the stone. One staying a little over
five feet, the other near seven. I'm going to
add them to my map, and that is my action. I
have a set place initiative where they will go,
and it is not yet. And with that... These creatures
appearing. Arathlon finishes his step down. Right
onto your glyph of warning. Boom, baby. So that
means that he steps into the glyph, activates
it, and phantasmal killer goes off. Okay. All
right. This is fun. So actually a lot of reason
for this fight because this was tearing me apart
since last week. Uh, it's really really quick
dm talk. I know doing a lot of talking before
we get to the fight But this is important. I
want you to know what i'm going for with this,
right? Legendary resistance is weird Uh, a lot
of people don't like it, but I understand why
it's necessary. I've done a lot of research into
it I was considering trying other things Uh,
basically for those who don't know legendary
resistance is ability A lot of boss monsters
have where when they fail a saving throw they
can just choose instead to not fail it They can
succeed on it automatically, but they only get
so many of these per day They exist so that very
powerful spells like Polymorph or Banish can't
just end a fight instantly, you know? In this
case... I didn't want to just like do that when
you had this cool setup, a really cool idea.
You put money into it. You put time into it.
It was brilliant. And I was like, well, how can
I make that half work? I was thinking of doing
like a legendary action that was just resistance.
You could burn it later on, something like that.
But at the end of the day, I looked this up and
it's kind of cool because I was seeing other
DMs talk about this. And I've always thought
of resistances as being part of a monster's kit,
but they're not. They're part of the DM's kit.
They exist so a DM can actually choose the most.
dramatic places to burn one of these things.
You don't always have to do it. You don't have
to be tactical with it. They're not for the monster
to survive longer and to always burn them to
just keep going. They're so a DM can choose when
a fight should or shouldn't be ended by a spell.
I'm saying this because I am not going to use
my Legendary Resistance here. I don't want to.
I think this is a really cool setup. I think
it deserves a fair roll without any chance of
me saying, nah, I succeed anyway. I think this
is really cool. So, anyone who wonders if you
want to come at me for going at this, choosing
this way to review Legendary Resistance, I'm
ready. I'm coming. Come on. Let's do it. Roll
for initiative. It would have really sucked if,
like you said, all this effort went into it and
you were like, nope. Yeah, yeah. But if I get
a level one Tasha City's laughter coming at me,
you know I'm going to be like, no, no way. Yeah,
yeah. I mean, you might. I might. You might.
Before you roll, though, I need to, Jeremy. Yes.
What? What's up? This is a bit of an opportunity.
Okay. So Phantasmal Killer, if he fails this
wisdom save, he'll take 4d10 psychic damage.
If he saves, then the spell is over. Yeah. I'm
considering using two buttons for disadvantage.
Ooh. Because if I use two buttons and he fails
the save, he takes the 4d10 psychic damage now,
but then he has to make the save again on his
next turn. It could continue to stack. This could
be like a high ROI button situation. I'm talking
myself into it. Yeah, do it. Also, I'm kicking
myself in the ass right now. Two buttons, disadvantage.
Earlier in the day, Stephen, we were like, oh,
we don't have a fucking strategy. Yeah. It's
coming back to bite me. Oh, no. Well, I should
have cast Hex and given a disadvantage on Wisdom.
No, it's actually only on Chex. Oh, it's Chex.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The best way to utilize it
is Strength if you're going to go for a grapple
on it. Right. It's kind of useless. I mean, it's
just a cantrip. We've talked about this before.
I forgot that we did. A million times. Hey, guess
what? What? I rolled dice. I rolled two of them
and take the lower because you don't want to
just keep talking about it. Here we go. That's
funny. I rolled. Sorry to tell you this. I rolled
the same roll twice. Oh, no. Fuck. It's a 15.
Meets it, beats it, baby. Oh, shit. Really? Damn.
Wow. Wow, that's crazy. I blew more than half
of my gold. Fuck. A third level spell slot and
two buttons for nothing. For fun, I do want to
say like Wrath steps down, he steps on it, and
you see that glyph goes off. What does the spell
look like? Hold on. I'm trying to recover. That's
rough, dude. I can't believe I rolled twice and
got the same roll. distraught. I'm so sorry.
Oh my god. I don't care what the spell looks
like. My imagining was that I was thinking and
hoping that Arathelon's deepest, darkest fears
were going to be being forgotten again. You know,
like he finally got it back after all this time.
And I was hoping it would be taken away from
him for the duration of about a minute or so.
Wow. I like to think that in this moment, what
we kind of see is as he sort of hits this thing,
as he kind of like... His mind, for instance,
floods with this illusion. He looks to your eyes,
the eyes of all these four figures before him,
and they are not determined eyes that are facing
him down. They are eyes of unrecognition. He
thinks you don't see him. The crowd's chanting
vanishes, and you just hear, who's that? Is that
Xolay's son? I think that's Xolay's son. And
I think... For a moment, he sees a great shadow,
an ancient brass dragon moving closer through
the mists ahead, trees breaking, the ground trembling.
And then he sees it all for what it really is.
Fire illuminates around the stone. Orbs are his
eyes, burning away all of this. No! Ha ha ha
ha! Is this what counts for a luminary now? I
will not be forgotten. Well, shit. And now I'm
going to attack. What? Am I going? I mean, oh
no, guys. I guess I have to, huh? I guess I have
to go for a fire breath. Yeah. Yep. Bet. Uh -huh.
I think, you know, I mean, I see, I see, uh,
right now before you got a chance to really move
and break Chester got out of the way, which means
Blanche stands alone. And so he turns to two
figures that are lined up. Akio and Jules. You
see his throat backlit begins to burn hot and
a full sort of like laser blast out this long
flame unfurling, like a full flame throw rips
across this space, ripping through Akio. Ripping
through jewels. I have dexterity saves from both
of you. God damn it. You guys are going to start
rolling a lot of die. Oh, no. Six for Keo. It's
bad. It's real bad. This isn't starting well,
guys. No, that's a lot of die. You should stop.
Jesus Christ. What even is it? It's a D6 at least.
Yeah. Jewel's got a 15. That's a fail from both.
Yep. It's 16. It's a close fail. It's a fail
from both. Goddamn. Oh, man, guys. 28 points
of fire. Jesus fucking Christ. You feel this
heat ripping through you. A Rathalon unfazed
by your trap. Steps out enraged. Dude. That's
half my HP. Jules, you feel that fire ripping
through your body, burning you, and you feel
a voice, a figure, a presence is pushing up towards
you, eagerly awaiting the moment your soul leaves
your physical form. It's so close now. Unfortunately,
that is all I can do. Akio's going to react.
What? What's he doing? He will point his snoot
at Arathelon and use Hellish Reboot. That's so
cool! So I need a dexterity saving throw from
Arathelon. Oh, shit! The fire goes out. The fire
burns out. Jules can't hold against it. Akio,
we just see the fire. It goes into the smoke.
Another flame blasts out towards Arathelon. That
is... Not very good. That is an 11. 11 fails.
Okay, great. So that's 2D tizzy fire damage.
As it sort of comes down, you see that plate
armor around him, engraved by all the dogs before,
shining, burning sort of flame moving around
it, blasting out, and apparently, according to
that side, doing no damage. 2D tens. No. I rolled
two twos. Oh, no. Four fire damage. Holy shit.
Oh, no. And he's resistant. Is he really? He's
fire. Oh, my God. I knew. I know. I knew it.
Hey, that might be the two damage that saves
your lives. Boom, hits him. And he kind of like
almost smiles as this flame moves back. I will
move my turn. And I'm going to move right up
to Blanche and Akio, leaving that. Stage behind.
That's all I've got. I use my action. I use my
movement. I have nothing else. And that is going
to be the Kiyo. Is Arathelon wielding anything?
A huge stone greatsword that's lit on fire. Cool.
Yeah, you don't want to get hit by that, but
you're going to. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool,
cool. Damn, I used my save base thing on the
not -tortal. That was stupid. Damn it. He doesn't
know. He doesn't know. Oh, I will say I have
to recharge that. So I don't. Damn it. That's
right. So now the thing that sucks is I'm in
melee with this guy. I don't want to take an
AOL to get to the ads. Oh, yeah. There's ads,
too. What are you going to do about that? So
we got to try to figure out a way to get to the
ads. But I don't. Shit. I don't know. Okay. For
now, Akio. is going to move to the side of Arathelon
here. Okay, weaves around one way. Parks Ichigenka
in his mouth. Hoping to set up for flanking later
on. Hell yeah. Maybe, I don't know. I don't know
what the right move is, but okay. Yeah, for now
Akio is going to take his two swings with Ichigenka.
Hell yeah. I knew a luminary, a real hero, and
you're nothing like him. Two 11s. Two 11s? With
a plus nine. Ooh. That's two dirty 20s. Two dirty
20s are two hits. Okay. Oh, shit. See? Hey, you're
getting through. You're getting through. We're
getting something. Let's see if he takes slashing
damage being made of stone. His body is singed,
but his spirit is ablaze. Sakio slides in to
strike twice, cutting right into two of those
open sort of cracked sparks, blasting out from
like the leg that he's Krayo sort of slicing
into. That's, oh, it would be 18 if he was wielding
his regular katana. It's a plus two. Yeah. Oh,
damn. So it's 22. 22 damage? 22 Dimaggio. Dude,
nice. Just carve, carve. A huge chunk of stone
falls off the leg. He sort of vents out around
him, singeing his fur. Then bonus action. He's
going to use second wind and heal 1d10 plus 6.
Nice. Good move. It's got to happen. Good move.
And it's got to be now. Where's my deets? Where's
my deets? Okay. 12 back. 12 back. Not bad. No.
Not bad. All right. And that is... My only bonus
action for Akio during this fight and the end
of his turn. As Akio's turn ends, he slides,
he gets those two good strikes. Like a Rathalong
just kind of like leans down at him and you just
kind of hear, security! And you see one of those
two gargoyles, the smaller one, flies out behind
Akio. Gonna get that sweet, sweet flanking bonus
myself. The other one. Let me see if I can make
it to you, Blanche. I can just barely make it
to you, Blanche. I don't believe I can get around
you, though, so I have to go next to you. So
you're about 30 feet away. It slides up beside
you. Do not get that flaking on you, but that
gargoyle is coming at you. Let's start with attacks
on Akio. You have your reaction back now. Okay.
So hold on, then. I'm trying to decide if I want
to do... No. Hold it. I'm going to hold it. I
don't want to use one of my spells on an add.
I'll wait for the big guy. I've made two attacks.
One will hit, one will miss. Okay. One was an
18 on the die. The other was, don't worry about
it. Not bad. That's only going to be six points
of damage. Snap of my healing. One claw comes
out. He sort of snaps around, rakes off the armor.
One comes out and catches him right in the sort
of hind, rips some flesh. Blanche, let's make
some attacks on you. This will go well. Actually,
you're on blade song. I don't have blade song
up here. Then I believe it might be the same.
There's going to be a 22 to hit with one and
a miss on the other. Hold on. I'm trying to...
Yeah. Am I allowed to use shield after I know
what the hit is? I think you are. Okay. Because
otherwise it wouldn't really, that's how you
should. Then I'm going to react, cast shield,
and it's a miss. Okay. All right. Go strike.
One goes wide. One's about to come at you. And
then boom, wall of force blasts out. Stone claw
goes snapping back. A little bit of stone like
crumbles off it. Pebbles fall into the ground.
You stand unfazed. As of yet. And that's your
turn, Blanche. How do you follow that up? Blanche
is going to... Blanche is going to go Super Saiyan.
What? What does that mean? Flames start to...
What the fuck? Flames start to wreathe Blanche
from her toes, up her legs, around her shell,
her arms, her head. as she casts fire shield.
Whoa! Oh. Yeah. Oh. Oh, cool. Okay. So I'm going
to use the, you get a choice between a warm shield,
which protects you from fire damage, but also
deals fire damage, or a chill shield, which protects
you from cold damage, but also deals cold damage.
Ooh, that's a tough call. I know, but it's like,
there's a chance that he could be resistant to
cold damage. Or weak to cold damage, I mean.
We know he's resistant to fire damage. You know
he does a lot of fire damage. He also does a
lot of fire damage. And his sword is on fire,
so I'm going to pick the Warm Shield. You know
what the coolest thing about this is? What? This
spell was on Ozen's stat block. I didn't get
to use it. There's a point in the fight where
I was lamenting that I didn't use a certain ability.
This was the ability. Okay. This is the ability.
I was like, damn, I was going to use that. But
I was calling it Storm Shield, and it was a lightning
variant. But I think it's so cool that, like,
of course, Blanche has another spell Ozen had.
Well, maybe Ozen taught her Storm Shield. You
know what? I'll allow it. It's a storm variation
for you. You can do the same thing, but also
interchange thunder and lightning damage. Oh,
damn. I'll allow it. It's cool. Well, for now,
I'm going to stick with fire shield. I love it.
I just meant like the form, you know, like Blanche's.
Yeah. So she mutters storm shield to herself.
Storm shield. And it goes up. Then as a bonus
action, she will go into blade song. Let me mark
that off. Then she's going to. Full move. I understand
this means taking AOOs, but I have both Bladesong
and Shield up this round. That's pretty cool.
So I'm going to jump into flanking with the add
who is attacking Akio. All right, here comes
an Arathelon AOO. Just miss so I don't even have
to figure out what it is right now. It's pretty
high. Okay. It's probably going to hit. That
is going to be a 26. Hold on. I think it's 27.
Give me a second. Oh, it is 26. No, isn't it?
I think it's 27. My base AC is 17. Because it's
28 with haste. Yes. Okay. So I actually just
hit you. Okay. Well, so go ahead. But you're
also going to take the... I mean, it's fire damage.
Oh, no. Don't do fire damage to me. All right.
So this is important. This is going to be nine
points of bludgeoning. Bludgeoning, not fire
damage? The first. Let's roll the fire now. So
it goes both. It's bludgeoning. It could do slashing.
It's a big stone sword. I think it's more bludgeoning.
It's more crushing. So you hit by that. That
goes through. Now I'm going to roll the actual
fire part of it, which is six, which is halved
to three. To three. Okay. Okay. Not bad. Three.
That. And then you will take... 2d8 fire damage,
which is really half. Ooh, eight on the first
one, though, so 11, so five. I love that Akio
and Blanche are the exact same thing. You both
just, like, he hits you both with fire. You both
blast fire back. Boom, boom. It's so cool. As
you slide up and use, and both of you sort of
smoking with the fire you just dealt, Gargoyle
obviously misses, bounces off of you. You slide
up behind Akio. Hell yeah. Okay. Oh, that's pretty
cool. And that's your turn? That's the end of
Blanche's turn. I'm going to use a legendary
action here. Oh, no. It's a weird one. It's one
I designed for this fight that I kind of like.
I'm going to use a legendary action called Ignite
Breath. I'm going to roll. re -roll to see if
I can recharge my breath weapon. The way this
weapon works, if you don't know, a lot of times
you have to roll your die every turn to see if
it recharges after you first use it. You don't
have it again until you get the die roll you
need. I have a legendary action where I can essentially
just, rather than doing attack or whatever, try
to re -roll to regain that breath. I hate it.
I mean, I guess at least it takes away an attack.
It's like taking away pressure now to add pressure
later. I think it's a lot of fun. So I was like,
you know what, I'm making this up. I don't like
it. Okay, so you just kind of see he stops and
kind of arches back up, and you feel something
sort of moving in his throat, but it doesn't
look like anything has happened yet. Jules, that's
you. Okay. I'm really struggling with whether
to attack or to heal. Tough choice. Because that
was tough. It was literally half of my HP that
he took. Right. And I'll do it again, too. God
damn it. Okay, so animating performance. Oh.
Oh, yeah. Oh. All right. So I imagine that there
are a bunch of gigantic boulders and rocks laying
around from everything cracking. Still steaming
as they kind of fall off that body. Smoldering,
steaming stones. Okay. So he's going to animate
one of those. Thank goodness. Okay. I got to
put a rock in this map. We just draw a little.
All right. There's now a rock. Okay. It's not
working for a token. Darn it. Hang on. Damn it.
Aren't there, like, default tokens that you can
just stick in? Let me type in rock. I got a few
on Roll20. Okay, sweet. I want to find the funniest
one. Hang on. Give me a minute here. Dwayne the
Rock Johnson. We'll take off from you, Crag Cat.
That'll do. Cool. Boom. That's a rock. There
we go. Don't worry about it. There we go. Maybe
it was a detail on the statue. Dude, you know
what? Yeah, there's a little part of the statue
that looks like a little cat face. It's kind
of a part of the ornate sort of throne behind
that kind of cracked and fell off and rolled
over there. And you have this weirdly cat -faced
rock that you keep touching and it picks up and
somebody's like, meow. Okay. So, Stephen, open
conversation here. Yeah. I was going to use my
bonus action to give Bardic Inspiration to Blanche.
But I also just remembered I have to use my bonus
action if I want that item to do anything on
its turn other than dodge. That'd be totally
up to you, man. That's up to you. I mean, getting
this thing in the fight is worth a lot. Bardic
for Blanche is also worth a lot. I don't want
to make that choice for you. I'm not going to
be mad either way. You know what I mean? All
right. Elevates to flies right in front of you.
You see a cat face sort of whirl around to look
you in the eyes. Jules, do you give the command?
God damn it. Yeah. I got to do that. I'm going
toward this little gargoyle bitch right here
in front of me. Do you want to go like between
him and Rathalon or do you want to be away from
Rathalon? He's right next to him. Do you want
him to like be sort of besides him and Rathalon?
That will keep him from moving. That'll keep
Rathalon from moving. closer to you. That's hilarious
to think that he's like, I'm coming over there
and there's little rocks like, oh no, you know.
He's got a target in front of him. Well, like,
if he goes... Wrestling him back? No! No! If
for whatever reason, if for whatever reason the
animated object becomes a target, I would rather
not make Arathelon take a step towards Jules
to get to that target. By the way, also, it does
have its own reaction. I'm trying to play smart
here. The rock has its own reaction. That's cool.
Okay. Yeah, okay, so... So he's going to go in
for an attack on this little gargoyle bitch.
Okay, rock flies up. A smoldering cat -shaped
rock flies in. What's it doing? That's going
to be a dirty 20. Dirty 20's going to hit the
gargoyle. Oh my gosh, this is so cool. I forgot
all about this ability. For nine damage. That's
solid, too. And then Jules is going to move over
near Chester. Okay, so you move over. Everyone's
sort of split up. Hey, this makes sense. Sorry,
you moved Jules. I can't move. Oh, you were doing
it the same time. Hell yeah. Okay. In your turn
there, I'm going to take a legendary action again.
Fuck. I'm going to take it on Akio, who did a
lot of damage to me. His sword comes up. It's
going to come down on Akio. I'm going to react.
What? Other move that Akio has. Hold on. You
gotta say it out loud in 10 seconds or he dies.
Disadvantage. Warding bark, I think. You got
it. Warding bark disadvantage. The dog lives.
Maybe. We'll see. Oh my god. He kind of sort
of comes up and Akio looks up to him and this
loud bark comes out and as he does this armor
flashes gleaming super bright. A light sort of
catches Arathelon blinding him. for a brief moment
and give me disadvantage on this attack. He has
two of each of those abilities. One's burn, but
this is, I mean, this armor is coming in clutch.
Maybe. Let's find out. Let's find out. It's a
natural one. Oh, thank God. Thank God. Yeah.
Yeah, okay. It was sliding down. Sword goes as
it comes. I think he just took a whole, like,
I'm not going to do a penalty because it's not
a good situation for it, but I'm going to say.
It's a great situation for a penalty. Nah, it'd
be bad for me. I'll be nice to you later when
you roll one. Okay, sure. The sword goes wide
to the mark and kind of full, like, over swing
baseball bat. He just kind of just spin. Looks
a little goofy. Chomps the Gargoyle's head off.
Wafs out. No, no, actually makes it stronger.
It's weird. Akio kind of standing tall, unfazed
as a second attack flies out. Not bad, guys.
Phew. Not bad. Rather than kind of, no, you're
nobody. You're nobody compared to me. As he screams
this out, as our first round comes to an end,
everyone repositioned, the fight hot. Let's move.
Away from this again. What? Yeah, I'm crazy.
He's crazy. You know what I'm gonna do. Dude.
Young Gi hides in the mist as the sound of the
door snapping off its hinges echoes throughout
the whiteness. He presents himself against the
far wall of the infirmary beside a large bed,
one of two that stand at the room's end. He holds
back his tears, tries to hold down the sound
of labored breathing, and he listens. Heavy stone
steps. Creaking of a bed spring. The sound of
flesh tearing. Bones snapping. And Yungi's eyes
go wise. He remembers the unconscious and injured.
All helpless before the slaughter. We see the
hunched form of the dragonborn stand tall. No.
No, not them. Here. My territory is open. Come.
And capture it. His voice echoes out, and there
is silence. Creaking of a bread spring. Bed spring,
I don't care. The flapping of wings. A long silence,
and then a shape diving through the mist, resolving
quickly before young Gi. He tries to stand brave
as he faces his death, and he can't help but
close his eyes. The stone claws move in to rip
into faded scales, and a heart that beats beneath.
And we see a claw of brass. Snaps her in the
gargoyle's wrist. You knew it was coming. We
see the creature being pushed back, arms snapping
backwards, the sound of cracking stone as Arhalon
rises from his bed. His eyes, watery, bloodshot,
are focused wholly on the monster. He lets go
and the creature darts backwards from those eyes,
stone wings flapping as it takes the air, hovering
near the ceiling, wary, waiting for something.
Your grip slipped. Your... Arlon speaks, but
his eyes do not focus on the creature before
him, rather on something, someone else beyond
its stone forms. Do you really think so little
of me, monster? Young Guy from below. Arlon Brass,
you are awake. You must know the creature before
you was carved in the image of your father. He
is the undead that commands it. Another gargoyle,
this one of the shorter variety, appears from
the mist above, joining the other on the ceiling,
the two standing defensively. Hmm. You are wrong
in one regard, Advisor Yungi. These creatures
are not because of him. They are me. Me and my
brother, formerly his biggest fans. Arlan's feet
are locked in stone, his eyes a damning as the
flood of coming pain. He just nods as he casually
snaps the leg of a nearby table, whirling it.
and brandishing it as a spear towards the gargoyles.
We see them growl in unison, a sound like rubbing
stone, and raise their bloody claws. I really
don't know what is going on here, but I do know
two things. I know there are people that need
my help, and I know that thing is no father of
mine. So we hold the line here, protect the injured,
and show him what real heroes can do. With a
flap. of mighty wings and a burst of wind arlan
brass flies into battle back in the park we start
a new round and we start with a lair action i
know what's gonna happen roars out come my adoring
fans You see mist swirling at the arena's edge
as a few members of the chanting crowd begin
to shift in shape, growing, screaming their adoration.
Arathelon, we love you! And as they are transformed,
the three tigers, trailing mist from their bodies,
prowl slowly out from the crowd, low growls,
mingling with the chanting as they move in on
you. Oh, yes! And you hear something else. Unmistakable
now from the whiteness beyond. From the very
direction you came in from. A loud snap and a
crash. A tree falls. Pounding steps that seem
to shake the earth beneath your feet. A predatory
roar so loud that it drowns out every other sound
in the park. And Arathlon looks up in shock as
the mist part. And a Tyrannosaurus Rex comes
charging into battle. We see a figure perched
awkwardly upon its head. Long golden spear proffered
forward as it bracing for a joust. A young turtle
screaming out a familiar battle cry. For golden
times! For golden times! And we call it the end!