Pre-Show[]
BRENNAN: Hello, and welcome to tonight's episode of Exandria Unlimited: Divergence, a story of heroic adventurers dying of exposure in the ashy rain. (laughter) The first D&D campaign where multiple PCs maybe go down because of pneumonia. Let's get excited.
MATT: Woo!
BRENNAN: Before we get started, we have a few announcements. Matt, you want to come take it over and take us away?
MATT: Let's go for it. ♪ (harp glissando) ♪ All righty, so tonight's sponsor is and oldie but a goodie: NordVPN! Sam.
SAM: NordVPN is the fastest VPN on the planet, offering amazing features like enjoying your favorite streaming content anywhere in the world, a dark web monitor to guard your online accounts, and they can foil scams and malware with threat protection. They're a great VPN, one of our favorite sponsors, so please head on over to nordvpn.com and--
LIAM: Attention, attention! Time violation detected.
MARISHA: Oh shit, he's back.
SAM: What the hell? Where did you, who are you?
LIAM: I am Time Cop, policing the time streams to protect against illegal temporal manipulation. And at night, I serve as a security guard at Ross Dress for Less. (laughter)
SAM: Wait, what? Have I committed a time crime?
LIAM: You are wearing the same clothing as every other Divergence advertisement. Your facial hair has not grown. Time Cop has surmised that all of the Divergence ads were prerecorded on the same day, over the course of an hour, max.
SAM: And that's against the law?
LIAM: A felony. Time Regulation 420.69-- Nice. -clearly states that all new content-- must be fresh.
ASHLEY: Yes.
LIAM: Including sponsorship skits. (laughter)
LIAM: This is not funny! You claim NordVPN is a beloved sponsor, yet you violate their rights.
SAM: Okay, okay, it's fine. I admit it. We shot all these ads together because we're lazy. What's the punishment? A fine, a warning, what?
LIAM: You will be issued a ticket to hell! (clamoring)
MATT: Oh shit! What?!
SAM: Okay, wait, wait, wait. Okay, what if I invent a brand new character on the fly for this ad? That would make it fresh content, right?
LIAM: You mean improvise? Technically, improv is compliant with time law.
SAM: Okay, then, Time Cop, give me a suggestion, like a location, any place.
LIAM: Um. (laughter)
SAM: Just anything.
LIAM: Time Cop is not good at thinking on the fly. Give Time Cop a second to think. Um.
TALIESIN: Maybe a dentist's office.
LIAM: Negative! Time Cop will come up with something. Just give Time Cop some time. (laughter)
LIAM: Wait. How ironic that Time Cop needs time. Time, time, system overloading. Time, time.
SAM: Okay, okay.
MARISHA: This is good, this is good.
SAM: While he's shorting out, you should hurry over to nordvpn.com/criticalrole. Our viewers get an extra subscription time with their order, and try it risk-free now with a 30-day money back guarantee. Matt, hack to you.
LIAM: T-t-time, time, time. A dentist's office! Wait, you've said that already. Why is this so hard? (laughter) I should've taken classes at The Groundlings! (laughter)
MATT: Oh my god. And we recently announced a brand new board game from Darrington Press called Solar Gardens.
SAM: Wait, what? (cheering)
MARISHA: Oh, yeah, we make games.
SAM: Oh my god!
MARISHA: Yeah.
MATT: Isn't that crazy? In this tile drafting game, players take on the role of a visionary architect, specializing in carbon neutral engineering, to build a rooftop garden in harmony with nature. L
AURA: That's awesome.
MATT: Love to do that anyway. But gather points by building things like solar farms and windmill systems to create tranquil garden environments. Embrace the power of creativity and optimism in Solar Gardens, coming August 1st at Gen Con. (cheering) MATT: So take a look for it there.
LAURA: Speaking of games, Allura Vysoren dice set! (exclaiming) This is what we have available. The dice are designed by Leia Rondeau and the box artwork is by Nikki Dawes.
MATT: Woo!
MARISHA: So cool.
LIAM: NikkiDawesDraws.
LAURA: I'm going to pull them out for you.
MATT: My girl, Allura. I love them.
LAURA: They're really pretty.
ASHLEY: Let me see.
LIAM: Take one.
LAURA: What'd I roll?
TRAVIS: Snag one.
MARISHA: Oh, natural 20!
LIAM: Natural 20!
LAURA: Shut up. Did I really?!
LIAM: Yes.
SAM: Guaranteed, they all roll nat 20s.
LAURA: Oh, no one's going to believe it! No one's going to believe it because it's an ad, but it's not, it's, look, it's a 20.
LIAM: Natural 20.
ASHLEY: Hey, meant to be.
LAURA: That's amazing. And you get this awesome bag with it.
MARISHA: Eyy.
TRAVIS: Bing!
MATT: Can I have those?
LAURA: Go look-um for them.
LIAM: Look-ah for them. Go-way look-ah for them.
LAURA: I don't know where they're at, but they're available.
MATT: (laughs)
TRAVIS: That's my woman, right there.
MATT and MARISHA: (laugh)
MATT: Brilliant, I, one, love those dice, two, I think that concludes our announcements. So Brennan, get back in here. (cheering) ♪ (harp glissando) ♪
SAM: How are you doing, Brennan?
BRENNAN: We did it.
MATT: Yeah.
JASMINE: Great announcements.
BRENNAN: Wonderful announcements, Matt.
MATT: Thank you, I try.
BRENNAN: And with that, let's jump right into tonight's episode of Exandria Unlimited: Divergence. ♪ (dramatic music) ♪
Part I[]
BRENNAN: We return to the Rifenmist Peninsula in the south of Gwessar, a continent that has not yet earned the name Tal'Dorei. In an age long past, where a group of straggling survivors escape the ruin of the prison of Rybad-Kol, headed north towards a whisper or a promise of safety, a community known as Torm's Hill. Pockets of civilization here in the height of Calamity are few and far between. It's only been less than two years since you were there, but two years is normally long enough for a group of people trying to survive the Calamity to be found and slaughtered. Who knows what you will find or if indeed you will even live long enough to find it. After the events, mysterious, divine, cosmic in ways and yet oh so very real that unfolded, shattered stone, lightning and thunder, roots growing before your very eyes, lights of some strange insect so very wild and mundane, and yet also so otherworldly, are on the locket of your sister. Scattered from the other companions of your gang, sent forward into the unknown, you have been traveling for days following a stretch of magically conjured woodland, hiding from the eyes of whatever this world now holds, now that up is down and chaos reigns. We return to the moments after the falling of Starmian Fiddleflask and the witnessing of a colossal figure moving across the landscape. Crokas, at your feet, made of thick leather cord and clasped in dragon ivory, a gift from a god whose care is as profound as it is fleeting and glibly given. The lightning fades, and you are left in dark forest and you do the only thing you can: put one weary foot in front of the other. You are three days from where you believe Torm's Hill to be. Some of you have two levels of exhaustion already. Starmian just became rid of his very last, now knowing rest that you do not. You have three days left, assuming your party can move at regular speed. However, if enough of you hit that second level of exhaustion, that three days might turn into six.
ALEXANDER: (deep exhale)
BRENNAN: So let's see if you all die before even a single combat.
MATT: Love it.
BRENNAN: Give me a group survival check. We need a DC 15.
CELIA: All right, who's next to me? Who's next to me?
ALEXANDER: I'm still carrying the children.
BRENNAN: Still carrying children, but that doesn't affect your survival checks.
ALEXANDER: Okay.
BRENNAN: That affects your constitution saving throws.
ALEXANDER: I will, just to say out loud, I did put on the belt.
BRENNAN: You put on the belt.
ALEXANDER: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Fantastic.
ALEXANDER: As just a, "Well, I have a belt now." (laughter)
CELIA: "This is where the belt goes."
MATT: The reverence that all Vestiges deserve.
BRENNAN: If you could pass this--
JASMINE: Oh cool!
BRENNAN: -- to Alex.
MATT: There you are.
BRENNAN: Your strength score is 21.
CELIA: Whoa.
ALEXANDER: Jesus Christ, fuck.
LIAM: It's not even a full level.
ALEXANDER: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Not even a full-- Yeah, this is a bunch of Vestiges going to Challenge Rating 1/8 NPC stat blocks. Let's hope for the best, huh?
CELIA: Yes.
LIAM: Survival.
BRENNAN: Survival.
LIAM: Disadvantage for me. What's that?
CELIA: One level of exhaustion doesn't roll with disadvantage, does it, or--?
MATT: It is.
BRENNAN: It is.
JASMINE: Oh wait, I am also--
CELIA: Fierce.
JASMINE: Okay, roll a second one.
CELIA: I can't get much lower than that.
MATT: Four.
BRENNAN: Four.
CELIA: Eight.
BRENNAN: Eight.
ALEXANDER: 16.
BRENNAN: 16.
LIAM: 13.
BRENNAN: 13.
JASMINE: Five.
BRENNAN: Five. I'm going to need constitution saves from everybody. But your first of three days is marked down because I believe you're being carried by Gond, at this point, as well.
JASMINE: True.
ALEXANDER: The bugbear.
JASMINE: Yes.
BRENNAN: Yes, gotcha.
LIAM: Natural 20.
BRENNAN: Natural 20, let's go!
MATT: Hell yeah.
BRENNAN: Natural 20 on that con save.
ALEXANDER: 16.
BRENNAN: 16, hell yeah.
CELIA: God, you said constitution?
BRENNAN: Constitution save.
CELIA: Five.
BRENNAN: You take another level of exhaustion, I believe you have two now, correct?
CELIA: Uh-huh.
MATT and BRENNAN: Which means your speed is halved.
CELIA: Perfect.
MATT: 10.
BRENNAN: 10, level of exhaustion.
MATT: My speed is now halved.
JASMINE: Mine is nine.
BRENNAN: Another level of exhaustion.
CELIA: So I'm at three now?
BRENNAN: You are at three.
CELIA: What happens at three?
BRENNAN: Disadvantage on attack rolls--
CELIA: Okay.
BRENNAN: -- and saving throws.
MATT: Uh-oh.
JASMINE: Cool.
BRENNAN: Now, several of you have your speed halved. Garen is a lot harder to carry than Fiedra.
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: So you now have four days left of travel unless anyone can think of something clever in this moment they want to do.
CELIA: Can Nia carry Garen? No, she can't.
BRENNAN: Your speed is halved, too, you need someone to carry you.
ALEXANDER: I don't know how many more people I can carry.
CELIA: I think we're going to slow it, I think we're slowed down.
JASMINE: You're doing enough Crokas, he-- Yeah.
ALEXANDER: I feel pretty good, actually.
JASMINE: That's good.
CELIA: That new--
JASMINE: Yeah, how are you liking the belt?
ALEXANDER: (grumbles) Belt?
JASMINE: Looks good on you.
ALEXANDER: Thanks, I, uh, never had a belt before.
JASMINE: Yeah, I'm proud of you.
ALEXANDER: Thanks.
JASMINE: First belt.
BRENNAN: Next day, give me another survival check. Rolling with disadvantage.
JASMINE: Whoa, that was--
ALEXANDER: (gagging) Not good.
LIAM: Just a matter of time. What is that?
JASMINE: Oh my god.
CELIA: Oh, this is disadvantage.
MATT: Yep.
BRENNAN: Disadvantage.
CELIA: Great, sick, gorgeous. Okay, that doesn't change much. 13.
BRENNAN: 13.
MATT: Six.
BRENNAN: Six.
ALEXANDER: Six.
BRENNAN: Six.
JASMINE: Five.
BRENNAN: Five.
LIAM: 10.
BRENNAN: 10.
CELIA: Ooh!
ALEXANDER: Ooh!
BRENNAN: Go ahead--
LIAM: Short game, guys.
BRENNAN: It's been a really good game. Give me constitution saving throws.
JASMINE: Now I also have disadvantage on this, right?
MATT: Correct.
BRENNAN: Yes.
JASMINE: Okay. I swear to god--
CELIA: You got it, you got it.
JASMINE: You guys, I need you.
CELIA: Okay.
JASMINE: No. Nope.
BRENNAN: I believe that you now have two days left. What did we get for con save?
MATT: 16.
BRENNAN: 16, you save.
CELIA: 12.
BRENNAN: 12 saves.
CELIA: Oh, hallelu.
ALEXANDER: 17.
BRENNAN: Saves.
JASMINE: Two.
BRENNAN: Two.
LIAM: 17.
BRENNAN: 17 saves, so some of you are at three, you're at three?
MATT: At two.
BRENNAN: You're at two exhaustion levels, you're at two, you're at zero.
ALEXANDER: Zero still.
BRENNAN: Crokas is a creature of legend. (laughter)
CELIA: Sweet dragonborn!
JASMINE: That's my boy!
BRENNAN: These sweet little kids have not made any saves at all. They've been-- You carrying them on your back with no exhaustion. Right here we have a one.
LIAM: He doesn't know that he's fucked.
ALEXANDER: I just don't. I have no concept that I'm completely screwed.
BRENNAN: Fiedra.
JASMINE: Yes.
BRENNAN: There are two days left.
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: You are at the fourth level of exhaustion.
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Your hit point max is halved. Nia, you see-- Jasmine, can you describe for us what Fiedra is looking like, at this point.
JASMINE: Fiedra just looks like a haggard shell, cracked, bleeding lips, vacant eyes. At this point, she-- If anyone talks to her, she's not even like-- She already looks like she's got one foot out of this world, it's bad. I think even you have never seen me in this state.
ALEXANDER: You don't look good.
JASMINE: I don't feel good.
ALEXANDER: Yeah.
JASMINE: Yeah.
ALEXANDER: Well, can I help?
JASMINE: I don't know if you can. I think you're doing all the help that you can. You're doing a good job, Crokas.
ALEXANDER: I don't, um-- Okay.
JASMINE: I don't want you to worry about me, okay? I'll be--
ALEXANDER: It's my job.
JASMINE: I know.
LIAM: Let me share the load. Erro will kneel down and scoop Fiedra up onto his back in piggyback style.
JASMINE: Okay.
LIAM: So that you don't have to walk.
BRENNAN: Scooping you up, this will cancel the disadvantage on any constitution saving throws you have to make.
JASMINE: Okay, cool.
BRENNAN: If you have to make a constitution saving throw, you will do so with disadvantage, carrying her on your back.
LIAM: Okay, all right.
BRENNAN: Fiedra, you see Erro, with no fanfare at all, hoist you up on his back to continue trudging through. This has been different worlds for you. You're used to, you've come up in prison of Rybad-Kol, back in your city life as the leader of this gang where your small stature was at some points an inconvenience, but never life or death. There are roots every two to three feet that other people step over absentmindedly that require a tremendous exertion of effort from you to get over. It is a very cruel and unfair world out here in the rain and ash.
JASMINE: I think as I'm on Erro's back, I whisper to you, or not trying to whisper, but just, I can't muster up more, I say: You-- I don't know how you do this. I thought-- I though I was strong. I was foolish enough to believe that I understood this world. In a weird way, everything made so much sense before we left Rybad-Kol. And now out here, it's just-- There's no logic, there's no order to it, it's just-- How do you do it?
LIAM: How long were in Rybad?
JASMINE: How long was I in Rybad-Kol?
BRENNAN: You were in there for about four or five years.
JASMINE: Oh, okay, yeah. Four or five years. Before that, it was just, you know, city living and it was tough. It wasn't, you know-- Had to do a lot of stuff just to make it. But it wasn't like this. This is--
LIAM: Repetition. Repetition can make the impossible seem commonplace, maybe. I've lived in the wastes better part of my life.
JASMINE: Yeah.
LIAM: You learn to stomach it with time.
JASMINE: Well, if I do last long enough to do this again, we'll see. And I hope you're right.
BRENNAN: Two days left, give me a group survival check.
LIAM: ♪ Everything's at disadvantage ♪
JASMINE: Yeah, this is disadvantage.
LIAM: Oh!
CELIA: I am excited for that nat 20 or you're going to announce to everyone, Liam! Hmm!
MATT: Oh, that's great.
BRENNAN: What'd you get?
MATT: 14.
BRENNAN: 14.
CELIA: Dirty 20.
BRENNAN: Dirty 20.
ALEXANDER: Nat 20.
BRENNAN: Nat 20!
CELIA and JASMINE: Oh yeah!
BRENNAN: Nat 20.
JASMINE: Two.
BRENNAN: Two.
LIAM: One.
BRENNAN: One.
ALEXANDER: Oh!
JASMINE: Oh no, you didn't make me better, I made you worse!
BRENNAN: A nat 20 and a 14, great. I'm going to need constitution saves. You will not be rolling with disadvantage.
JASMINE: Okay.
LIAM: I am.
JASMINE: Oh no.
LIAM: (chuckles)
BRENNAN: What's that?
LIAM: (chuckling and coughing)
CELIA: Please, please, please, ooh!
LIAM: One.
BRENNAN: A nat one. (laughter)
BRENNAN: Ooh, baby.
MATT: That's bad, baby.
MATT: 12.
JASMINE: Two!
BRENNAN: Two.
JASMINE: Yeah!
BRENNAN: All right.
MATT: 12.
BRENNAN: 12.
CELIA: 17.
BRENNAN: 17.
ALEXANDER: 10.
BRENNAN: 10, level of exhaustion.
ALEXANDER: Okay, there it is, finally.
CELIA: No, first one.
BRENNAN: You two are okay.
CELIA: His first exhaustion!
BRENNAN: Level of exhaustion?
LIAM: I'm at two.
BRENNAN: You're at two.
JASMINE: I'm at five?
BRENNAN: You're at five levels of exhaustion. Your speed is reduced to zero. The last day, the trees get wider and wider. This narrow strip is broadening out. Erro, you are aware of two things simultaneously. The ground is becoming more uneven, topographically. You're getting higher in altitude. It's been raining for days. The threat now, everything that was the threat of thirst is now the threat of sickness and pneumonia. It's the threat of chill, and you can feel on your back, Fiedra's speed has been reduced to zero. Fiedra is struggling to breathe as a powerful infection sets in in her lungs. She's on the verge of drowning on your back, held up by your arms, in her own breath. The feebleness of her own lungs, robbing her life from her.
LIAM: You told me last time we gathered that Torm's Hill is relatively close on that map to another place that I know.
BRENNAN: Yes.
LIAM: So I think that Erro is bad off himself, nowhere near as bad as his new companion, his cargo. But his vision is going double from time to time and he's focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and taking some strength from his proximity to old haunts.
ALEXANDER: Crokas goes over to the children's mother. Can you take one of them?
BRENNAN: "Yes, yes."
ALEXANDER: Hands off one of the kids and then goes over to Erro. Let me take her. And plucks you off and cradles you underneath with one arm.
LIAM: Erro's going to plant his hand above his head on your pec for a second and pat it and then start to hobble forward.
BRENNAN: You smell it with this draconic snout. Erro's feet, he's been leading the way the whole time and cutting through the first layer of brush getting up through here. You can see a thin trickle of blood from where his scales have split from the soaking mud and rain moving forward through this place.
ALEXANDER: Do you want me to go first?
LIAM: No. I'm familiar with the area. Just keep pressing forward.
ALEXANDER: Okay.
LIAM: Almost there.
MATT: You know this one, right? He's trustworthy. He knows where we're going.
CELIA: Yes. He guided me to where we were supposed to be going before we got captured. I know him. I trust him.
MATT: Very well.
CELIA: Even when we're all a little worse for wear, he's still the guy I know.
MATT: I trust you. I trust him. And lean into, both of us almost leaning on each other for strength as we hobble forward--
CELIA: Mm-hmm.
MATT: -- fall lock step with him.
CELIA: Nia, she sees how rocky and rough Fiedra is, right?
CELIA: Nia, she sees how rocky and rough Fiedra is, right? So I think it's not wise, but she's not a very wise girl. She is a little bit, but she takes her cloak off and tries to bundle Fiedra. She can just to keep whatever heat that she has close to her.
BRENNAN: You bundle up a halfling who was wiry and scrawny and scrappy at the best of times and has been walking without food for a week. So is skeletal and the cloak goes around you. I think also Crokas' enormous torso I think also Crokas' enormous torso is something like an umbrella and you feel yourself--
ALEXANDER: I'm holding you underneath walking on three limbs now. Just holding one.
JASMINE: At this point, I don't think Fiedra can even get the words to come out of her mouth, but she looks at you. Thank you.
CELIA: Nia nods, exhausted with her two levels of exhaustion. Doesn't have words back, but there's that thing of, like, it is unending.
ALEXANDER: Thanks.
CELIA: Of course.
ALEXANDER: It's going to be okay.
BRENNAN: Erro, as you push forward, you begin to recognize these woods. If you were all well, you could be there by nightfall. As it stands, stumbling through the dark and the rain and the mud, you will have one more day of travel to arrive there. And if it is as you remember it, you will get to safety and the ability to actually rest and potentially skirt Fiedra from the very jaws of death if she can find a warm fire and medicine, just a structure, any structure to get out of the rain. It occurs to you in this moment that that is if Torm's Hill is still there.
LIAM: To that point, unless you're throwing something at us. When we stop for the night as I have on past nights, Erro will fall to his knees in the mud and plant his hands in it. It's slow, way slower than the past times that the group has seen him do this. But he tries to mold the earth into a lean-to, and it's so wet and muddy that it takes probably 15 or 20 minutes. But dry earth slowly starts to push up through the mud. After a half hour, I'll say he comes up with a crude lean to and then also is able to create a bonfire like he has, but it's small, barely holding on in the weather.
BRENNAN: Oh, fire, sputters and burns.
ALEXANDER: Oh, oh, you-- How do you do that?
LIAM: Part of it is spending so much time out here, but when I was young, a man who was like an uncle to me showed me how.
ALEXANDER: I don't know how to do anything like that.
LIAM: Well. (coughs) If we make it through the week, maybe I could show you how.
ALEXANDER: Okay.
BRENNAN: You see here by the fire, Fiedra shivering under the cloak, Garen blowing breath on his one hand, you see Cos, as he goes by, the green dragonborn looks over at Gond. You see Gond has his long bugbear ears flattened with rain to his head, and he has wrapped up in his cloak Starmian's body. You see Gond going (deep coughs) You see Cos looks over and goes, "You know, Gond, I mean, we don't have to carry--" You see Gond looks up with this pitiful expression and Cos thinks better of giving brutal and pragmatic advice. I think you see Cos realize on some level that leaving the body here in these strange woods to rot would be a different kind of death. That some things that are symbols and stories actually keep you alive in a different way.
LIAM: I've heated and opened up another and I have not done this every night, but another pine cone and a taloned hand places three of those seeds into Gond's palm. Then I go to the worst of us, not myself, but everyone else and plants one in their hand. (coughs)
BRENNAN: Fiedra, with one of these, I will ask you to, even though this is not necessarily how the spell works, to hold onto a d6.
JASMINE: Oh boy. Okay.
ALEXANDER: I'll also give mine to Fiedra.
BRENNAN: Cool. You give yours to Fiedra as well. Next day, final day of travel. Let's roll these survival checks.
ALEXANDER: One level of exhaustion, is this a disadvantage for the survival check?
BRENNAN: Uh-huh. Nat one!
CELIA: No.
BRENNAN: Ooh, it's tough out here, folks.
MATT: 18.
BRENNAN: 18.
JASMINE: Let's do these two.
MATT: Rolled really well.
ALEXANDER: 12.
BRENNAN: 12.
CELIA: You said survival?
BRENNAN: Survival.
CELIA: 13.
BRENNAN: 13.
JASMINE: Oh, okay. 12.
BRENNAN: Okay. 12.
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: This is going to be another set of constitution saves. So you are rolling straight not with disadvantage.
CELIA: I'm rolling straight so if we have two.
LIAM: With two points of exhaustion, which is what I got right now, is that--
BRENNAN: You don't get disadvantage on saves with two. That's a three.
LIAM: Okay. And with Fiedra no longer on me, it's a straight roll for me for constitution. It was a disadvantage once because I was carrying--
BRENNAN: For her, to roll straight, you have to roll with disadvantage.
JASMINE: No, but Crokas is carrying--
LIAM: Crokas.
BRENNAN: Oh, Crokas. So you're rolling disadvantage on this.
ALEXANDER: Cool.
CELIA: That's a 20.
ALEXANDER: Okay.
BRENNAN: What did we get here for constitution?
MATT: Six.
BRENNAN: Six? You take another. How many do you have?
MATT: Three.
BRENNAN: Three. Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws. What'd you get?
CELIA: 13.
BRENNAN: 13. That succeeds. So you're at two or at three?
CELIA: Two.
BRENNAN: You're at two. Incredible. Nia's got some spirit within her that is--
CELIA: Me and my sister. I'm like: Listen, girl, I'm coming, honey. I'm coming. (laughter)
BRENNAN: Indefatigable.
ALEXANDER: 13 as well.
BRENNAN: Crokas, you succeed as well. So I think you're still at--
ALEXANDER: I'm still at one.
BRENNAN: Still at one. Just a monster out of legend.
ALEXANDER: Also resistant to cold, so.
ALL: Oh!
BRENNAN: Well, there you go. That explains it.
JASMINE: Yeah. 12.
BRENNAN: 12?
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: You succeed and do not die. (laughter)
CELIA: Good, good.
JASMINE: (relieved sigh) All right. (laughter)
BRENNAN: Five levels is the most you can have without dying.
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Congratulations, Fiedra. (relieved laughter)
JASMINE: Ugh, thank god.
ALEXANDER: Holy shit.
BRENNAN: I really wanted to do a series at Critical Role where a hike through the woods was the scariest shit. (laughter)
JASMINE: Yeah. Yeah.
MATT: I think you succeeded.
JASMINE: Yeah.
LIAM: Nine.
BRENNAN: Nine. You get another level of exhaustion.
LIAM: I'm at three.
BRENNAN: You're at three now. Your party, you see Celeste is at four levels of exhaustion. Gond is at two, Coswald is at three levels of exhaustion. Marlath is at two levels of exhaustion. There's a group of you that is, no one is walking basically at full speed. The only person who could run right now is Crokas.
CELIA: Where would he run to?
BRENNAN: Where would he run to? As you move through, you begin to see the forest fan out. As it does, trees begin to part, rain continues to fall. Though there are still storm clouds everywhere, you look and behold a thicket of briar. Erro, you see this enormous, huge gulch of thorns. There used to be a secret passage in here somewhere that you knew about. That secret passage is torn wide open. You see there are wagon ruts and muddy boot prints and everything moving in as fast as they can into these woods ahead of you. In the distance somewhere, you think you hear a clang of something on metal, there's a snap of a rope. You think even through the woods, as the rain continues to fall, you can still hear what you think are voices even through the dense rainfall.
LIAM: So, help me, the briar has been blasted outward or broken toward us?
BRENNAN: It looks non-magical. It looks like the briar has literally been widened out and pulled apart. This was a place that was supposed to be hidden from the soldiers of the Strife Emperor and is now something else entirely. It looks like any pretense of being hidden is gone. You can see, again as a wanderer, more sets of footprints than you can count. But there's a certain--
LIAM: Heading out.
BRENNAN: Heading in.
LIAM: In.
BRENNAN: You look at them and you're looking for soldiers' boot prints. Some of the people that were traveling here were barefoot. You see that there were-- It looks like chaos. Just things going in towards what you remember as Torm's Hill.
LIAM: (grunts) It's raining on us. So does it feel to me that this is-- I'm hearing stuff, so this is recent?
BRENNAN: Quite recent. I think some of you guys can clearly hear a voice being in the forest through the rain and muffled by trees. But a voice being like "Further back, back here, back here, back here."
LIAM: I pull my hood of my cloak off so that my gold visage is very clear. Stay behind me.
MATT: That we did. He pulls his hammer and clutches it tightly. It's as tight his hand as he can, as exhausted as he is, but just ready.
CELIA: Nia, following Garen, takes Starmian's letter opener and tries to hide it, but just in case, she keeps it ready.
ALEXANDER: Crokas stands up after walking on all fours for a while, still holding Fiedra, maneuvers the child to be sitting on his shoulder as opposed to on his back.
BRENNAN: Yeah.
ALEXANDER: Then proceeds to put his hand on the shoulder of the dragonborn that sold the other dragonborns out.
BRENNAN: Marlath.
ALEXANDER: Marlath. He puts his hand on Marlath's shoulder and goes: Come.
BRENNAN: He walks with you. As you enter, I will describe to you a place that, at this moment, exists only in Erro's memory. I need to describe to you a place that exists only in his memory because I need you to understand how strange what he now sees is. Torm's Hill was a hill so named for a single dwarven smith who lived in what is called by some a stronghome. It's a single dwarven family makes a cottage, but by the standards of other folk, that cottage looks like a tiny castle, right? It's the standard of dwarven living that to other people that aren't familiar with hill dwarves would think: Oh, that's a lot for a house. But it was under a hill, so it was sod-covered, grass and trees grew on it, but you could see a little chimney, and there was work that was done there. That, a long time ago, at the beginning of the Calamity, was overtaken by a group of goblins. After that, the goblins fled to go join the Strife Emperor's armies, and a group of very secretive halflings came who created the briar wall around it and created a small community that you would've known, run by two older matriarchs, Klasara Bandy, an older halfling matriarch, and her wife Nez Pilch, a goblin matriarch that basically ran a small community or not even ran, tended to a large community of survivors, usually about two to three dozen people. So whenever you went to Torm's Hill, it was a couple of structures around an old dwarven stronghome in deep forest with large briars around it that kept it hidden in a little rill of two legs of the foothills of a mountain series. Hard, hard, hard to see, right? You'd fly overhead, couldn't see it from a distance, couldn't see it through the trees. As you walk through in this area at the very south of the Storm Point Mountains, in an area called the Hallowroot Hills. This place that, at its peak, housed about two to three dozen people, currently has about 1200 people. Wagons, sleds, bodies on the ground, torches being lit. As you begin to approach through the woods, you see people stumbling. You can see there's an area where they've piled up hay bales as a mountain of sludge is coming off one of the mountains from the rain, trying to stop a flood from carrying off one of the lower tented camp areas. You see a lot of these tents at first seem like: Oh my god! There's an encampment of soldiers of the Strife Emperor here. No, these have been liberated tents. These tents have been taken by the people you now see in this place, which appears to be prisoners that have escaped, other refugees, vast and sundry different people. There are halflings and humans and goblins and hobgoblins. There are what looks to be a lot of goblin peasantry, essentially. These are people that were not in the prisons of Rybad-Kol, but were in the farmlands that they also were not allowed to leave, and were basically living the same life, you know, being told, "Look how lucky you are to not be in the prison of Rybad-Kol. Also, we'll kill you if you leave here." Right?
MATT: Mm-hmm.
CELIA: This is somehow different.
BRENNAN: (laughs) This is somehow different.
ALEXANDER: Technicalities.
BRENNAN: So you see the central hill, but that is now drowned in brand new structures. I think, Erro, right away you're like: Okay, it didn't go from 36 to 1200 overnight, because there have been some attempts at order, but it is a collapsing order that is overwhelmed by the mortal need that is now in this space. You hear screams, you hear crying, but you also hear a lot of shouts of people trying to direct and give whatever help or aid they can. trying to direct and give whatever help or aid they can. But it is a struggling order under overwhelming chaos in the moment that you approach. What do you do as you begin to approach this scene?
LIAM: Well, I think my first instinct, since I have passed through here a handful of times, and Kassandra and Nez know me and I know them. I don't know if this place is safe. It's chaos around. So I'm going to start pushing through the crowds to try to reach that central structure in this chaos and mob that you've described. I think, as he's walking, Erro is struck by the fact that, before going to Rybad, he has never seen this many mortal souls gathered in one place since he was a child.
BRENNAN: The world continues to tumble upside down. To see this many people in one place and to see them not in chains, not hiding, in danger, but part of that danger is freedom.
ALEXANDER: I drop my head down to you, and watching him walk away, go: I'll stay with everyone. Go.
CELIA: Yeah. I go with Erro because this is the place that we were on our way to before disaster struck. I think Nia, although incredibly exhausted, realizes that this is the place where she thought she was going to reconnect with her sister. So there's a bit of-- Wherever excitement can be seen in her posture, you see bits of her back straightens, her shoulders are up, she's still hobbling, but she doesn't want to look as awful as she feels. but she doesn't want to look as awful as she feels.
BRENNAN: Finding some inner reserve of willpower to not collapse in this moment, and some deep heroic instinct. In so many times in the world of Exandria, someone in your state would so clearly be the one in need of aid and rest. You look, and in this moment realize that you are one of the stronger standing here and more at the ready. Crokas, underneath you, Fiedra, who has been holding onto her breath, and talk about heroism, refusing to let go of her last rasping breaths. I think, even on a deep intuition for one who does not know a lot about the world, you know that she has fought very dearly to survive to this point.
ALEXANDER: Just a little longer.
JASMINE: Okay. I know that death hasn't come for me yet. I'm not supposed to die like this. I'm supposed to die getting ambushed in a knife fight by bandits on the side of a highway.
ALEXANDER: No, because that one--
JASMINE: It's not rain.
ALEXANDER: -- that one I can stop. So this is something I can't, so you need to hold on.
JASMINE: I know. I am holding on.
ALEXANDER: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Erro, you push forward through the crowd. Going towards Torm's Hill, there is a small area. Torm's Hill didn't used to have roads. There were little areas where, off towards some goats in a pen, there would be a little less grass, a natural footpath.
ALEXANDER: Goats.
BRENNAN: Now suddenly, in the midst of these couple of structures, is a place that is a crossroads. You can see it's like: Oh, there are no roads, there's no civilization, there's no places to go. The world is destroyed. But all of a sudden, yeah, well, what do you call this thing in the middle of these four sloppy, ramshackle structures other than a town square? It happened maybe overnight.
LIAM: Just by the sheer number of footfalls.
BRENNAN: Yeah. You see in the middle, behind her, you see a bespectacled hobgoblin, one of the frames of his spectacle is totally shattered and full of cracked glass. But a bespectacled hobgoblin is holding a little sputtering lantern under a hood over this tiny, rotund goblin woman. under a hood over this tiny, rotund goblin woman. She's got graying, wiry hair in two braids hanging off her back, a little kerchief, gown. She's soaked. We see her pants are rolled up under and her skirt is tucked into her belt because she's going through mud that comes up to her knees. She's very distinctive because she's got two big fake silver teeth behind her canines and her mouth spreads really wide as she yells. She goes, "All right, keep that moving in! They need more rope over at the hay bales! Erro!" You see Nez before you. "(gasps) (laughs)"
LIAM: How did this come to pass?
BRENNAN: "(laughs) Miracles abound! We're all about to die. Listen--"
ALEXANDER and MATT: (laugh)
CELIA: Well.
BRENNAN: You see that she comes over and wraps an arm around your waist and puts her head against the outside of your thigh. She's a tiny. She has old age shrinkage, and wasn't a big goblin to start, so is tiny, tiny, little creature. She puts her head against the outside of your leg and goes, "I can't believe it! We hadn't seen you in over a year! We thought you'd been taken."
LIAM: Oh, it's good to see you, Pilch. I swore I was never going to come back here. Here I am.
BRENNAN: "You said that it was a fool's errand to stay here and that we would all die. And look, we've become more popular than ever."
CELIA and ALEXANDER: (laugh)
LIAM: I am happy to be mistaken.
BRENNAN: "All right. Are you wet?" She looks down and sees the blood oozing out from your feet and goes, "You need to get to a fire."
LIAM: I have seen better days.
MATT: "All right. Do you have any with you that are on the verge of death, that can no longer walk?"
LIAM: Well...
JASMINE: Fiedra feebly raises.
ALEXANDER: I've got you in my arm.
JASMINE: Yeah, you just see a tiny halfling, a skinny halfling hand raise.
ALEXANDER: She needs help.
JASMINE: I could take some fire right about now.
BRENNAN: "All right. There's not much space left, but inside of the actual, inside of Torm's Hill, bring her in there. It's piping hot, it's toasty warm, but I don't know how much space there will be. But luckily she's tiny! Oh, there's a shelf! We could put her on a shelf. You're small, like me!"
ALEXANDER: Someone will have to put her in there. I can't fit.
BRENNAN: "All right." You see she says, "If you'd be so kind, please."
CELIA: Yeah, I'll try and put Fiedra-- She can't walk, I'm assuming Fiedra can't walk and Nia is not much stronger, but she does what she can to prop up her body weight and try and slowly, slowly move. She nods to Nez a quick greeting and follows. I think if Erro's moving, Nia's following.
ALEXANDER: Child, it's time to come down. He takes the kid off of him finally and puts the last kid on the ground.
BRENNAN: Puts the last kid on the ground. Celeste looks at you and says, as Celeste collapses on her knees and scoops up her children, she looks at you. She has not spoken in days because her mouth is just, you can see that there's some cough or rasping thing, but through a wheezing voice she goes, "(coughs) You are family to us."
ALEXANDER: Okay.
BRENNAN: "You saved my children." Seeing Crokas unable to meet her gaze, she simply puts a scaled hand against your scaled cheek, brushes your face, and smiles and says, "(coughs) I'll go see if there's any food to be had." You see that Cos goes with her to look after the children. Fiedra, you take off. You look around and see Gond holding Starmian's body, looking for somewhere to go, and you see Marlath gazing around, looking at everything under the rain. You see he looks down at Nez and says, "Is there food or drink for those who have just arrived?" You see she goes, "Beats me! We're trying not to die right now." You see that she rushes off to go help with this flood coming in. For all of you here, you're in a scene of a lot of chaos where there's a lot of action immediately. I know that you guys all have the disadvantage on pretty much everything right now, but let me know if there are any perception or investigation checks you would make right away in first being here.
JASMINE: I would quickly do a scan for the rest of the members of my gang, just in case maybe they ended up here.
BRENNAN: Give me a perception check.
JASMINE: With disadvantage, right?
BRENNAN: With disadvantage. That's right.
JASMINE: I am barely lucid at this point.
BRENNAN: Yeah.
JASMINE: I think partially, Fiedra also thinks that she might have died, and this is the line to get into Hell.
BRENNAN: Yeah. (laughs)
JASMINE: In which case, she would also be looking for the fellow members of her gang. So either way, yeah.
MATT: Viable.
JASMINE: Bad. Four.
BRENNAN: You look and see--
LIAM: That line was the day of your birth.
BRENNAN: You're looking around for members of your gang, and you see in the rain under the lantern your mother and father are both looking at you.
JASMINE: Mom? Dad?
ALEXANDER: Crokas, you see Fiedra speak to empty rain as the fever takes hold and you begin to see things that are not there.
ALEXANDER: Bad.
JASMINE: Can you hear me?
BRENNAN: Moving your hand up, you see the look and go, "We're glad you're here. We're so proud that you are going to see the sun."
JASMINE: Am I finally joining you again?
BRENNAN: As Fiedra loses consciousness, do you think that she's able to join her parents, if only in dream?
JASMINE: Yeah, I think so. I think she hasn't thought about her parents for a long time, and this, for the first time, she's letting herself think about that again.
BRENNAN: Your cunning and ruthlessness gave you life in Rybad-Kol, and the absolute ill-advised kindness of strangers saw you safely to Torm's Hill. It is a kindness that you have not seen since before your parents passed.
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: With an unconscious Fiedra, Nia, you move through the doors of this dwarven forge home and see that there are shelves built in. There's a massive roaring fireplace. As you come in, give me a medicine check if you'd be so kind, rolling with disadvantage as well.
CELIA: Yeah. Oh good, three and a two.
BRENNAN: (laughs)
CELIA: That'll be an eight.
BRENNAN: Eight, you--
CELIA: Oh no, just kidding. Seven.
BRENNAN: Seven. You see that there is space, it's literally on a shelf above the fireplace. But Fiedra is small enough that you can put some-- You see as you walk in, there's a big pile of cloaks and other things that have been dried out by the fire. You, even as exhausted as you are, know that you can get the wet clothes off of Fiedra, get her into something dry and literally store-- There are other halflings and gnomes up on these shelves because the floor, every inch of the floor is hobgoblins, humans, half-elves, these larger folk. You see that there are a couple, what look like healers or other things like that moving in a room choked with about north of 60 people. There are two people tending to people in here.
CELIA: Okay, I get Fiedra into something dry and-- I think she's sees the two people and starts to move towards one of them. She's had a-- I don't think Nia's really recognizing what's happening. She gets Fiedra somewhere dry. She's in her nurse brain, grabs her healer's kit, there isn't much in her bag besides her healer's kit. So she leaves the bag with Fiedra. Gives her something to hold onto and keep manipulating. She walks up to one of the two people who are helping in whatever way they can.
BRENNAN: You walk up and you see that there is a little halfling woman who is here. She looks up at you and goes, "You have a medicine kit?"
CELIA: Yeah, there isn't much and I, there are people who this belongs to. So I was, if you have anything, bandages--
BRENNAN: "Are you skilled in healing?"
CELIA: Relatively (coughs) not great, but--
BRENNAN: You see she looks at you. She has this wild little thatch of wavy hair. It does, it's like an Albert Einstein-y poof of hair that goes out in all directions. Tiny little halfling woman. You recognize her having a similar wedding band to the goblin woman you saw out in the street outside. She looks at you and says, "All right, you can heal?"
CELIA: Yes.
BRENNAN: "You need to rest. You need to rest. Here." You see that she hands you a crust of bread. It's hard as a rock. But she gives you a canteen of what feels immediately warm to the touch, you recognize as being tea, smells herbal. And she says, "Just pour some on it to soften the bread. "Eat that, and you have to sleep. "We need you."
CELIA: Okay, okay. She rips it in half, dips some of it in that tea, gets it back to Fiedra and tries to feed her, I guess.
BRENNAN: Yeah.
CELIA: Fiedra, hey, open up. She get, like--
ALEXANDER: Feed me.
CELIA: Tries to break down bits of bite-sized bits and is giving a bite to Fiedra, a bite for herself--
JASMINE: Chokes it down.
CELIA: -- a bite to Fiedra, a bite for herself.
BRENNAN: Somewhere in a dream, your mom is feeding you delicious tea biscuits. You begin to feed them, and then you see Klasara, the halfling woman, leads you out back into the rain for a moment again into another building where you see there are a few cots laid out. It's much colder here, but if you're not on death's door, you'll at least be able to rest here.
CELIA: Wraps her cloak around herself. Conks out, hits that pillow hard. Hard.
BRENNAN: Boom.
ALEXANDER: Unfortunately, that pillow's a rock.
BRENNAN: (laughs)
CELIA: Concussion, concussed.
BRENNAN: For Crokas and Garen, you're out there still with Erro as you see this goblin woman get back to work. You've all had some exhaustion as well, but you see that also things are going nuts out here. What are you going to do?
MATT: I think at this point, Garen's just taking in all the chaos around, you know, the ash and sweat-streaked elements that the rain couldn't wash over this trek. The beard itself almost darker stained because of it in places. At first, it was just standing stoic before you see this smile curl through his mouth. This, you know, this hell that some of you had seen for a time, some longer than others. This is the first time in nearly a century that he's been in a space where people, while in chaos, aren't under tyranny. And he's just breathing in a sense of community that he hasn't really been around in a long, long time. Glances over at Crokas.
ALEXANDER: (grunts)
MATT: You going to be all right?
ALEXANDER: Yeah.
MATT: Puts his hand on his shoulder. I'll be right back.
ALEXANDER: Okay.
MATT: Now this is a place of dwarven make, it looks like, at one point,
BRENNAN: At one point, yeah.
MATT: Although a mountain dwarf in his history, there are maybe some similarities in the subterranean builds. He's going to start walking through what tunnels he can to where some of the great keepsakes are held by dwarven common folk.
BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.
MATT: Try and recall his days of building simple and intricate abodes, and stumble best he can to where they might keep their finest liquor. (laughter)
BRENNAN: Go ahead.
CELIA: Yeah, yeah.
BRENNAN: We're going to roll straight because you're still exhausted. But this is Stonecunning. So I want you to roll a-- We'll make it a tool proficiency check, given that it's like a Stonecunning.
MATT: He is a crafter, which means he has proficiency with brewer supplies, but--
BRENNAN: Hell yes.
MATT: -- we can try and add that.
BRENNAN: Let's do that.
MATT: All right.
BRENNAN: DC10 gets you something. DC15 is even better.
MATT: 19 work for you?
BRENNAN: 19! (cheering)
MATT: Rolls well when it counts!
CELIA: Yeah!
ALEXANDER: Throw us a bone.
CELIA: Liquor, liquor, liquor, liquor, liquor!
BRENNAN: Garen--
ALEXANDER: I almost high-fived you, I'm so-- (laughs)
BRENNAN: I love it.
MATT: Bring it, bring it, yo.
CELIA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!
BRENNAN: I love it. I fucking-- (laughter)
BRENNAN: I fucking love it. Garen, you begin to move-- You begin to move forward from this place. As you do, you are looking out, you hear laughing voices behind you. It's a distant cousin. "Well, and of course, who knows a-- "And why shouldn't she have?" He says, I have nothing against it. He's a very proficient brewer, as hill dwarves often are. I'm just saying." He says, "You sound ignorant, and you sound-- A brewer is a craftsman just like a mason is." "Right, but ale doesn't last for generations, is all I'm saying. It's consumed after it's brewed. That's all I'm try--" You see that there's a moment and someone puts a hand on your shoulder and you feel in this moment someone looking at you and going, "Pop, are you all right? You seem lost, like you're somewhere far away."
MATT: I, uh, I-- You see me trying to lick lips that are still themselves just cracked and dried even through the rainfall, a split curling up the front and almost towards the base of his nose. Aye, I'm just admiring-- The grounds. Have you got beer?
BRENNAN: (laughs) "Get them the man a drink! Torm! Torm!" You hear the name Torm shouted out and you hear voices going, "I just want-- I just want, I just wish I was free. Free again. Free to be with those I love." You were headed for Torm's Hill, but you look at the back where it meets the wood line and you see that there's an old stone fence that connects. And it connects at a large standing rock that's covered in lichen. It's really thick with lichen. But you look back and there's some part of you, deep down, that remembers that stone, remembers this ancient, tall dolmen or menhir stone. As you go to touch the lichen, you see that there are dwarven runes underneath it. It's very common for hill dwarves to, as a way of sanctifying and protecting supplies especially things that can go bad, to place them within sight of a sacred stone like this. And on that 19, you look, see where the stone touches, see this earth and sod at the back lip of the mound and there it is, poking up out of the grass, you'd miss it even in bright daylight, let alone during the rain, the very tip of a ringed brass handle on a door that maybe hasn't been opened in who knows how long.
MATT: I'm going to stumble forward catching it to hold my weight up with what little strength left to see if I can give it a tug.
BRENNAN: You pull back (grunts) open-- 12 massive, dust-covered barrels of ale. And hanging from the roof, salted beef and pork. Huge rations. These may have been here for years, but dwarves know their craft and know it well. And the dwarves that smoked and cured this meat and brewed this ale and sealed it under black wax in ancient oaken barrels, sealed here in this place. You know this will have kept.
MATT: All-Hammer. Miracles abound indeed. (laughs) And starts cry-laughing on the ground, falls to his knees and laughs.
BRENNAN: You laugh and laugh, and as you do see this miracle unfold before you, Erro, what are you up to?
LIAM: I think that Erro has an inverse reaction to Garen.
LIAM: I think that Erro has an inverse reaction to Garen. A lifetime spent wandering in the ashes of this landscape and only spending short amounts of time in any gathering of people, he has come to distrust gatherings as places that are perilous. Time and again, he made attempts in his life to settle, and those all evaporated through his fingers. So to see this many people and his fear response or anxiety has deadened over the decades. So he's never really thrown or upset in a way that he-- He feels an apprehension right now. And I think he's both scanning the-- We're in view of the mountains here, you said, right?
BRENNAN: Yes, you are.
LIAM: He is both looking at scenes around him of people helping wounded friends or family and people laughing in the face of tragedy, and people laughing in the face of tragedy, and so much life around him that he is-- Part of him is in another place a long time ago where he saw scenes very much like this. And then the other part of him not trusting his surroundings is scanning the mountainsides for the kind of danger he's used to avoiding his entire life. And I think his gaze eventually falls on one particular peak. And it stills him to a degree. After allowing himself that indulgence turns to Crokas.
ALEXANDER: (grunts)
LIAM: I don't think that we would've (coughs) made it this far without you.
ALEXANDER: Oh, (grumbles) okay. (snorts)
LIAM: This is not something I would tend to ask.
ALEXANDER: (grunts)
LIAM: Can I lean on you?
ALEXANDER: (grumbles pensively) Yes. (grunts)
LIAM: I think I need to rest.
ALEXANDER: (grunts) Crokas sits and hunches down and lets Erro lean on him.
BRENNAN: You sit and hunch down, so exhausted, hearing frantic activity. Erro, you feel this strength pouring out from Crokas, and he's even stronger than he was before, if that can be said, this enormous belt on him. But you also wonder if whatever magic now moves upon your companion is a gift to him, or if it simply clarifies a gift he already had. As you finally rest, another harrowing escape from near certain death delivered once again from a fate worse than death, your eyes do what they have always done, which is move to the horizon. You have to stay ready. How long does Garen stay laughing at the entrance, and what does he do after he is finished?
MATT: He laughs until he physically does not have the strength. That wordless phrase. He does something he hasn't done in 100 years, and he taps a keg. (laughter)
LIAM: Respect.
MATT: He cherishes, drinks hungrily, as it is the finest of ales, a meal, but then carves a fair piece of meat, fills what could service as any sort of an ale skin. He would probably have to go find, if not. Close the door, and doesn't make it known, for fear of a panicked rush of unknown supplies, but returns to probably more connected and organized heads but returns to probably more connected and organized heads to decide what to do with this bounty, but returns to the rest of the troop with what meat he can salvage in secret.
BRENNAN: Having carved off a piece for you and your companions, you walk by Nez, who is organizing people again. You see that she's speaking to an absolutely soaked-- He looks like a-- Sorry, he looks like a tiger-folk, these white and black stripes in his fur, but like a wet cat, you see he sits there, speaking and going, "The river's completely flooded. There's no-- If the scouting party's still out there, then they're not going to be able to make it back to town, and I'm worried about the--" Once again, dealing with this chaos. But again, the people here, at least the ones that are in charge, look rested and sharp of mind enough to be able to handle this. As you walk up to her, she looks up at you. Clearly seems like the one in charge, if you were going to tell anybody. She looks over and goes, "All right. Need to find some way to deal with the river, but years without rain, and now rain comes, and it's incredible, and it's a miracle, and it's going to kill us all!"
MATT: Miss. Miss!
BRENNAN: "Yes?"
MATT: Taps her shoulder gently with his cap, gets her attention. His other arm is clutching the meat underneath a half-cloak that he's thrown over it. If we're looking to dam something, I might be able to aid at least a bit of focus, but for the time being, you have many mouths to feed, and you've been sitting on a bounty unknown. I give a nudge in that direction. Walk with me, if you have but a moment.
BRENNAN: "All right, briefly," and she walks with you.
MATT: Briefly. I don't take too much of her time. But I say: You don't know who to trust, and how to disseminate, but this belongs to you. This belongs to everyone here. See to it.
BRENNAN: She looks in the open cellar behind the hill that's been hidden under the sod for who knows how long, and you've never seen someone go completely radio dead in the brain while weeping as hard as possible. Mouth open, eyes--
CELIA: Tears, tears, tears, tears, tears.
BRENNAN: "You're a sorcerer? Miracle?"
MATT: Just an old drunk.
BRENNAN: She goes, "Well, I love this old drunk!" And a big hug around the waist. She says, "Thank you for telling me discreetly. This will be shared, and shared equally, but-- So many of the people here are new faces, and we trust that they are good of heart. We trust that they are good of heart, all of them." You see that she puts her head down, and struggling with the meaning of those words, she walks back out to the center of the town, closing the door behind her, and rushes off, and you see a couple of young, strong people coming back here to set up and start to inventory what they have to share.
MATT: I nod and watch that for a minute, bite off a little piece of meat, (sigh of relief) and begin to walk towards where they went ahead and took Fiedra.
BRENNAN: Incredible. We are going to move through time as you have skirted death. Congratulations, heroes of the Divergence. You have made it to--
CELIA: Somehow!
BRENNAN: Somehow! We will say here, normally it takes multiple long rests to stave off exhaustion, but I think here, in the beginnings of the Divergence, we will awaken the next morning with your exhaustion gone, the food and drink that you have, and awakening that next day, Fiedra, you come to, against all odds, alive. I think, Nia, it's the next day. Still rain clouds overhead, but the rain is very light as it's coming down now, but it's constant enough as it's coming down that the skies, maybe somewhere it goes from a black storm cloud to a little smudge of gray. God, is there something I've never seen on the other side of that? However, looking throughout the room, you see that there is a very small little medicinal tankard of ale that has some medical tools in it, just enough alcohol to hopefully sterilize a little bit--
CELIA: Let's not think too hard about that.
BRENNAN: Let's not think too hard about that! But you see Nia here as well, and up along one side of this new encampment, you see that there is a bunch of hay bales with ropes. The rope snapping you heard was the flood literally snapping a cable as hay bales pushed through it.
JASMINE: Really quick, I'm so sorry, am I still holding Nia's bag that she gave me?
CELIA: I probably--
BRENNAN: No, you took it.
CELIA: I probably, in changing you and getting that, once I got the bread and tea to you, I probably took it on my way to go knock out wherever she knocked out.
JASMINE: Then never mind.
ALEXANDER: I'm not stealing your--
JASMINE: Then, yeah.
CELIA: Would've been a more interesting story. Sorry, friend.
BRENNAN: You're good you're good.
JASMINE: It was an uneventful night.
CELIA: This is the very next day, though, right?
BRENNAN: This is the very next day. As you awaken, and the day stretches on, you start to get active again. You can see, unfolding around you, where the chaos meets the community, where the chaos meets the kindness. It stinks here in this community. There's a lot of waste everywhere. There are a lot of sick people. Nia, the next day, you awaken and look at this room where every sick person has been packed into a hot, smoky room together with almost no ventilation. There are some tents and other things around, and you can see this next morning there is a porch on a thatched roof little shanty building that both Nez and Klasara are speaking with an older bugbear, who you see that bugbear has what looks like injuries sustained from public punishment under the rule of the Strife Emperor, but looks to be a peasant leader of essentially a lot of bugbears and hobgoblins and goblins that have fled here in whatever the chaos. You remember seeing whole plains of ash wiped out in the floods before. Whoever could make it here has made it here. But you see that's the group that seems to be talking about what is to be done, and Nez and Klasara both wave over at you, Erro, that next morning, with an open invitation to come speak with them. Other than that, it looks like there's some loose people trying to fix the flood wall, and there's this thing called the Larksbrook, which is this little river that is enormous and engorged. It's broken its banks off towards an edge of the community. But you guys tell me what you do the next day here in this new kind of freedom and uncertain safety.
ALEXANDER: After Erro woke up and removed himself from Crokas, has been pacing near the doorway waiting to see if Fiedra wakes up, and is waiting just outside. That's his only care.
JASMINE: Fiedra gets up with a start and immediately thinks: Crokas! I get out, jump off that little shelf, trying to find stability back on my legs, and it's been a rough past few days, so I stumble a little bit. Then I immediately make a beeline for the door to try and find Crokas, but before I do, stop in my tracks, look back at that little mug that has all the medical instruments in it.
BRENNAN: Yeah.
JASMINE: Is there anything in there that I could potentially use as a weapon, a little knife or something?
BRENNAN: Yeah, give me a little sleight of hand check.
JASMINE: A little sleight of hand. Nat 20 plus five! (cheering)
LIAM: Where it counts.
ALEXANDER: Where were these rolls earlier?
BRENNAN: These guys are not working with the finest surgical implements, so on a nat 20, you pull out a full, working dagger. Bad for surgery, but great for what you need it for.
JASMINE: Okay, yeah. So I just pick that out. Cool, mine.
BRENNAN: I'll say on a nat 20, as well, you pull it out. It's actually a stiletto, which is why it's being used here. So it's this long, thin blade, and I'll say that as part of its design, you can add a plus 1d4 to attack rolls against heavily armored opponents. It's for finding the little neck joint in the armor there.
JASMINE: Plus four?
BRENNAN: Plus 1d4.
JASMINE: 1d4.
BRENNAN: Plus 1d4 to attack rolls there. So Fiedra, you were down, but not out. Next morning, back up, stealing already.
JASMINE: So fucking back.
BRENNAN: You're so fucking back. You walk out the door and see Crokas.
JASMINE: I say: Oh my god, Crokas!
ALEXANDER: Crokas immediately drops to all fours, puts himself lower than Fiedra. That's because that's his normal--
JASMINE: Yeah. I say: Oh, my boy. How are you?
ALEXANDER: Fine.
JASMINE: You're good? I knew you'd be good.
ALEXANDER: I'm fine. Are you?
JASMINE: I'm fine. It's going to take a little more than rain to get me.
ALEXANDER: I mean, it was more than rain.
JASMINE: True, but you did real good out there. You know, not just with me, but with taking care of those kids. I did a lot of thinking, or at least I tried to, you know? There's so much about your heart that changes the second that you have a bodyguard. I'm so proud of you, my bodyguard. And maybe one of these days, you'll have bodyguards of your own to be just as proud of.
ALEXANDER: I am-- What? (stammering)
JASMINE: I pull you into a big hug.
ALEXANDER: He lets Fiedra hug him around the neck, and then he stands up with her hugging him, and puts his hand underneath so that she's standing, but he stands up again and is holding her, and is looking around now.
BRENNAN: As you look around, you see, rushing up out of the crowd towards both of you, Crokas, you unmistakable here with a little bit of dim light so it goes from the total chaos of a rainstorm in pitched night to light rain during smudgy, dark gray. So everyone's in those partially concealed, foggy half shadows during a daytime thunderstorm. You look and see two shapes, massive shapes, stumbling through the mud, and hear, "Boss!" as this shape starts moving, and you see another guy running as rain touches the sizzling head of Taveen, going, "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," rushing through. "(yelping)" They get through. Otto scoops you both in an enormous hug. Taveen is there as well.
JASMINE: Otto! Taveen!
BRENNAN: He goes, "Boss! Oh my god!"
JASMINE: Oh my god, my boys!
BRENNAN: "What the fuck happened?"
JASMINE: What the fuck happened with you? Where did you go? What happened when everything exploded?
BRENNAN: "Everything exploded!"
JASMINE: Yeah! Yeah!
BRENNAN: "Well, here's the thing. You were making the special dinner, and then some guys came and said, 'If any of you are hiding hands in the soup--' Then we said, 'We got to go get that hand!' And we both fell! You know those giant crucibles?"
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: "Everything collapsed, and the crucible smashed out of there, but we were fine because it's basically a giant helmet. So we were under there for a while, and we were trapped in there, and it rolled for a long time. Both of us and Keph, and we were kind of-- You know if you were inside a ball, you could run-- I'm trying to think how to paint a picture with words."
JASMINE: No, you're doing a wonderful job. I can see it, I can feel it, I can smell it.
BRENNAN: "We got badly hurt, but we got out of there, and I think the reason-- I think hiding in the pot is the only reason we're still alive."
JASMINE: Yeah. I mean, hey, that's what us Roaches do, right? We survive.
BRENNAN: "We survive."
JASMINE: We make it out.
BRENNAN: "We make it out."
JASMINE: What happened to Keph? You said Keph was with you?
BRENNAN: They both turn to look at each other. "Yeah, a couple days ago, we were traveling on the roads out, trying to get back to harbor as best we could. Keph-- we met up with some friends of Keph from--"
JASMINE: Keph has friends?
BRENNAN: "I think he might be like 200 years old. I don't know. We ran into some friends of his, and they were kind of going a different speed from us, I'd say."
JASMINE: Okay...?
BRENNAN: "Yeah, he's kind of fallen in with a band. A band of-- I don't know, he took a bite out of a guy's face in front of a bonfire, and people were talking about how the gods are dead and we're the new gods, and he got naked and he walked into the fire and started burning and laughing. We left."
JASMINE: Yeah. (laughter)
BRENNAN: "We simply left."
JASMINE: Wow.
BRENNAN: "It was a different, you know--" Taveen's like, "I consider myself a dangerous, violent man, and am proud of the crimes I do, and I wished for no part of what I saw." (laughter)
JASMINE: Yeah, no, that-- Keph, that tracks 100%. Not-- So he's still out there somewhere. He's--
BRENNAN: "Don't say that."
JASMINE: Yeah, no, as much as I--
BRENNAN: "It makes me sad."
JASMINE: You know, as much as I did not like having him around a whole lot, I'm now realizing that the alternative is much scarier.
CELIA: Don't say that.
BRENNAN: "I'll never forget that he exists, and that he's out there somewhere."
ALEXANDER: Ah, oh-- I-- And I point at Marlath.
BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.
ALEXANDER: -- to him. That guy. We got to keep an eye on him.
BRENNAN: "That guy? What's his deal?"
ALEXANDER: He sold out a bunch of dragonborn.
BRENNAN: "Oh."
JASMINE: Yeah. Shady guy.
ALEXANDER: For money.
JASMINE: Does he have any belongings on him?
BRENNAN: No, he was a prisoner.
JASMINE: Yeah, okay.
ALEXANDER: But just because I told Fiedra, I'm telling you. We have to keep an eye.
BRENNAN: "All right."
JASMINE: Yeah, keep an eye in general. I mean--
ALEXANDER: Yeah, we don't know who's here.
BRENNAN: As you point at Marlath, Marlath actually is going to walk up to you.
ALEXANDER: Crokas will stand all the way up, so his 6'6" is--
BRENNAN: You see Marlath walks up and goes "(clears throat)"
JASMINE: Hello.
BRENNAN: "Hello. I'm very sorry to interrupt your--"
JASMINE: No, of course not. No, what's going on?
BRENNAN: "I'm given to understand that your coterie, I was aware briefly of the existence of the Roaches."
JASMINE: Many are.
BRENNAN: "Was understanding of your command of the kitchens of Rybad-Kol."
JASMINE: Yes.
BRENNAN: "Word had reached me that you lived rather a higher lifestyle than many of the prisoners of Rybad-Kol, due to your--"
CELIA: This fucking guy. (laughter)
BRENNAN: "I would love to speak with you, if I could."
JASMINE: Oh, well, I'm not, you know, I just almost died. I'm not super in a speaking mood.
BRENNAN: "But you are a woman of resourcefulness and skill."
JASMINE: I can be. Who's asking, for what?
ALEXANDER: Malrath.
JASMINE: Thank you. Thank you.
BRENNAN: He looks and says, "This is chaos."
JASMINE: I agree.
BRENNAN: "And therefore, represents a tremendous opportunity. If--
ALEXANDER: (growls)
BRENNAN: "There is word going around the camp. Some believe that the Strife Emperor was victorious in battle, others are saying that he was destroyed, but regardless of the truth of the matter, a new order is soon to impose itself here on this town, and I cannot help but notice but two plump, matronly older women are sort of scuttling around and engaging in various acts of charity, and that seems to be the entire organizational structure of events here in Torm's Hill."
JASMINE: Yes, very astute observation. And you are bringing this to my attention, why?
BRENNAN: "I am a man of letters, and had some position, prior to my incarceration, amongst the administration of the Strife Emperor and his empire. There are people here who-- (chuckles) Things within the camp are being shared and relied upon, and it's chaos, and of course this is happening because it's life or death and there are floods and things of that nature, but things will revert here. It will not always be a state of emergency, and when the dust settles, I would love to work with you, because I believe we may be able to create structures that the people here rely on, together."
JASMINE: You make a very convincing argument, but-- There's a bit of an initiation process that you're going to have to go through. Maybe we can discuss it at a later time. But until then, thank you for your advice.
BRENNAN: He is going to try to make an insight check to see if your words feel genuine to him.
JASMINE: Okay.
BRENNAN: If you would like to make either persuasion or deception.
JASMINE: Okay.
BRENNAN: Go for it. You're trying to beat a 15.
JASMINE: Dirty 20.
BRENNAN: What would you like Marlath to believe?
JASMINE: He believes that I am being genuine about-- that's very interesting information, thank you for letting me know. And he believes that, oh, you know what, Fiedra is genuinely going to-- He thinks that Fiedra is recognizing his value.
BRENNAN: Yeah.
JASMINE: And is thinking, maybe this is actually a good alliance to make. I think this is smart.
BRENNAN: "Lovely."
JASMINE: That is--
ALEXANDER: That's what he believes.
BRENNAN: You see he looks--
JASMINE: That's what he believes.
BRENNAN: He looks at the stiletto at your side, and you see he smiles and says, "Quickly armed. I need to find some parchment, ink, and quill, so that I may be likewise armed." And he's--
CELIA: Kill that guy. Kill that fucking guy! Put him down!
MATT: T-1000 through the milk carton. (slices)
ALEXANDER: You say anything, and I'm on him.
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: For the rest--
ALEXANDER: It's my whole job.
CELIA: Oh my god. Fuck that fucking guy. I don't like him. I don't like him.
BRENNAN: I'm affecting Celia's ability to be in character at the table.
CELIA: Nia wouldn't do it, but Celia damn sure would. (laughter)
CELIA and BRENNAN: (stabbing)
LIAM: Kill the lawyers.
CELIA: Yes!
BRENNAN: For the rest of you, that next day, and we can be fungible also with time here. If you feel like your actions would occur not over the next day, but over the next week or however long, that's also fine here.
LIAM: Well, day one, I know you said that the matriarchs of this settlement signal me, but let's say before we get to that, Erro would have, I think that we hunkered down and passed out undercover of rain but still outdoors, and I think Erro, who is first up always, did not sense you leave, and comes awake in his little bit of cover outside, watching the day already started and people moving about. He wants to find everybody, that first moment, but most of all, he wants to find Nia. So he spends the next 20 minutes asking around the settlement if they've seen her or anyone that looks like her, until I wind my way to her.
BRENNAN: Give me an investigation or perception, and do it with advantage, as you've been to Torm's Hill before and know your way around.
LIAM: Fuck these ones. That's a dirty 20.
BRENNAN: Hell yeah.
LIAM: But the other one was a one.
BRENNAN: Asking around for Nia, someone explains, "Oh, Nia's already working with Klasara, taking care of the injured and sick." So you're directed to her very quickly. As you are, though, a woman behind you speaks and goes, "I'm so sorry, are you mentioning a Nia? Is that short for Rei'nia?"
LIAM: It is.
BRENNAN: Turning around, absolutely soaked in a-- There's a traveler's disguise cloak, but underneath it, you see a shimmer of actual white, well made fabric, the kind of fabric that is not common to see, and you see that there is a beautiful tiefling woman, swooping horns that come up, white robes underneath this traveler's cloak that are frayed and destroyed at the bottom, but near the top, lovely stitching and embroidery in the vest and cowl of the robe. You see openly on her chest, and as stunned as you were by this amount of people, here's another stunning moment for you. She openly wears a symbol of the Moonweaver on a holy symbol around her neck.
LIAM: You said horned tiefling?
BRENNAN: A horned tiefling, yes. You see that she appears to be a tiefling, either, she kind of looks like she could be a priestess or a cleric, but seeing open clerics of the Prime Deities, maybe that's going on in Vasselheim, but out here in the south of Gwessar near the domain of the Strife Emperor? That is crazy to behold. She looks at you and says, "Rei'nia?"
LIAM: Aye.
BRENNAN: "Greetings, I am Luz. I am helping tend-- I'm a friend of Klasara and Nez, and I was a friend, for a time, of Liana, of her sister."
LIAM: For a time?
BRENNAN: "She has departed from Torm's Hill, but I was to remain--"
LIAM: He has a split second heart attack at the word "departed" before the sentence is completed.
BRENNAN: "She, to the last of my knowledge, was alive. She waited here for many months, but-- Waited for many months here for her sister, but believed-- She received a vision, and she departed to the northwest of here," and points towards the mountain that occupied your dreams the night before. And parted for the Snowgrave Pass," and you know that pass, and you know it very well.
LIAM: Are you free at the moment?
BRENNAN: "Yes, yes, I've been tending to the ministrations of those here. Praise the Moonweaver, (breathing shakily)" and has a moment of crying as she just says the name of her goddess out loud in public.
LIAM: Come with me.
BRENNAN: "Yes."
LIAM: As we field the crowd, I'm not going to recount it, because everyone here lived it, but I tell her the story of our exodus from the ruins of that prison place to arrive here, while searching.
BRENNAN: She moves with you, and as she does, she says, "All right. My god. (laughs) They're doing it! (laughs) They're doing it! (laughs) Oh. Oh. I feel so sorry." On the events you've recounted, she says, "That poor-- That poor old man. In his dying, the last execution in Rybad-Kol, a priest of the Changebringer. Who had the last laugh, then? I just wish that he had stayed alive to see it. Oh, all right. A miracle, that you are here, and a blessing. Strange things are afoot. Great danger avails this place. Change is coming. Change is coming." And she moves with you towards Torm's Hill.
LIAM: Okay. So I think the last time, I think I lost track of her entirely, so it's just based off of, someone pointed me in the right direction already?
BRENNAN: Yes, so there's the matriarchs speaking on the porch, and then you also see where Nia is working at Torm's Hill, at the actual dwarven stronghome under the hill.
LIAM: Okay, so with this tiefling in tow, I roll up on your spot.
CELIA: Nia is being as helpful as she possibly can. Her locs are tied back. She has been waiting for a moment of stillness so that she could look for her sister. There has not been said moment, so she's bandaging what she can, setting things, trying to do her-- She's sweating and frantic, but there is a routine that she is falling into that is providing some comfort. She's remaining helpful. She's remaining useful. And yeah, cloak, bag, bundled up together somewhere safe, but she is working and working and working and working. She woke up and has not sat down since she has been awake.
BRENNAN: Give me a medicine check with advantage, if you'd be so kind.
CELIA: Ha-cha. 11! Medicine, 16.
BRENNAN: On a 16 medicine check, you see that-- On a 16 medicine check, you are currently treating this beautiful woman. You realize that she has dark, deep skin, almost like the water at the bottom of the ocean. You can sense almost a noise. She appears to be a water genasi. Shaved head, but is very, very ill in this moment, just from exhaustion. It's just collapse, nervous system collapsing body. On a 16, her eyes flutter open and they look like these deep sapphire blue eyes without pupil or iris to them. You see that she looks up and she goes "(coughs)."
CELIA: Hey, there you are. Welcome back, hi. I'm Rei'nia.
BRENNAN: "Rei'nia. I don't believe in an afterlife, so if these are the halls of paradise, I owe you an apology."
ALEXANDER and CELIA: (laugh)
CELIA: Nia laughs and she says: Not paradise yet, but if you knew me well, this is paradise compared to where I once was. How do you feel?
BRENNAN: "Absolutely awful. But better."
CELIA: I'll take better. She lets-- Oh, actually, what can I call you?
BRENNAN: "Ondetra."
CELIA: Ondetra. Pleasure to meet you, Ondetra. And continues to bandage and try to warm her freshly conscious body.
BRENNAN: Give me an insight check as you do so.
CELIA: Oh, good. Eight.
BRENNAN: Eight, cool. You see that she looks up and goes, "(sighs)." As you tend to her, there's-- Most of what you're doing here is treating a couple of actual flesh injuries in her legs. You see that she did not come through that road, she walked through briars to get here. Her legs are torn apart. As you're treating those injuries, and also basically taking some of that tea and helping her breathe, because the smoke, you can tell is really affecting her, but she's got to be near warmth in this room. So you're letting her have a wet rag near the fire, bringing it over so she can breathe something humid that has herbs in it that's like a poultice that's coming through. She looks over and says, "This is-- This is saving my life. Do you get that a lot? Is that special for you when you save someone's life?"
CELIA: Every time is special. but it feels funny to feel the special things feel common. But again, if you knew me well, yeah, it's kind of what I do.
BRENNAN: "That's a contradiction. If something is common, it can't be special. So you've contradicted yourself. You don't make any sense."
CELIA: No, no, no, I don't. None of this makes sense. I think to make sense in a place this, you would have to be a real particular kind of crazy, not my kind.
BRENNAN: Erro enters this place with Luz behind him.
LIAM: I don't think she sees me coming.
CELIA: No.
LIAM: I see you at work in the middle of this conversation--
CELIA: Yeah.
LIAM: -- and come up behind you and you hear a familiar voice say--
CELIA: So yeah, contradicting is kind of my thing. I mean, one day it works, one day it doesn't. She's rambling, rambling, flustered. You said shaved head, dark skin?
BRENNAN: Yes.
CELIA: Flustered. Flustered. Nia's flustered. (laughter)
CELIA: Nia is absolutely flustered. She's trying to tend and be normal. But yeah, contradictions are actually a funny thing, because you know, when you're a healer, it's common for you to be saving lives, but every life is so precious and so special. So I mean you, of course, I mean, you're-- And so yeah, it's sort of my thing.
BRENNAN: "You a little flustered?"
CELIA: Yes.
BRENNAN: "Got it. I'm a little flustered, too. I just have a funny way of showing it."
CELIA: I mean, I-I-I-- So-- (laughter)
LIAM: I think we're all a little flustered these days.
CELIA: Whip pan. Erro! You're okay! Gets up, scrambles, and then sees Luz and-- Oh my god! Goes to hug Luz, weeping, but cry laughing, and just out of that one place into this other very precious place. Luz, hi. Hello.
BRENNAN: She gives you this huge embrace, holding you to her. "Oh, Nia. I cannot tell you how strongly I wish that I could tell your sister--"
CELIA: Liana, where is she?
BRENNAN: "Liana received a vision."
CELIA: Is she here? Where--
BRENNAN: "She received a vision of your parents. Your parents were here more than a year ago. They journeyed from here to where I cannot say. I was on a scouting expedition when they left. The exact manner of their departure was unclear to me. But Liana received a vision and believe that they headed in the direction of Snowvale Pass."
CELIA: Okay. It is wonderful to see you.
BRENNAN: "She was well, she was whole, she was healthy, and she left fed and armed."
CELIA: Okay.
BRENNAN: "There's every reason to believe that she knew what she was doing."
CELIA: Okay.
BRENNAN: "How are you? Are you well?"
CELIA: As well as one can be at a time like this. I'm moving with a par-- Erro, have you told Luz the-- How are you? My goodness, hi. Good morning. Hello.
LIAM: Good morning.
CELIA: Here. She clears out a place for Erro to sit. After taking care of Fiedra, I passed out here. I met Klasara?
BRENNAN: Klasara, yeah.
CELIA: Klasara, and we've been working to patch up what and who we can.
LIAM: I'm still getting my bearings.
CELIA: Yeah, she gleaned that. That's why she's trying to get you seated, and immediately is going to pay attention to the conversation, but is checking him, seeing how he's doing, giving a little cursory scan of her friend.
LIAM: I told you I'd get you to Torm's Hill.
CELIA: Thank you.
LIAM: You see something that you have not seen before. You've seen him smirk. You've never seen him smile. I'm just sorry that it took such a roundabout way of getting here.
CELIA: It's okay. It's okay, we got here. We got here and we got here whole. We got here well. She goes to grab Luz's hand. I told you change was coming.
LIAM: Undeniable.
CELIA: She is reeling after all the information that she's gotten. Her sister is well. She goes to make sure that her locket is still in her bag. It's still there.
BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.
CELIA: It's still there?
BRENNAN: Yes.
CELIA: Wonderful. Yeah, Nia is untying her hair, getting ready to-- You said Snowgrave Pass is where she may be?
BRENNAN: Mm-hmm, yes.
CELIA: We must move. If--
LIAM: I'm familiar--
CELIA: Okay.
LIAM: -- with Snowgrave.
CELIA: How far? Is it days? Can we get there quickly? Can I make it there and back?
LIAM: Days, right?
BRENNAN: Days.
LIAM: Yeah.
BRENNAN: It's days.
CELIA: Okay.
LIAM: Properly outfitted, yeah.
CELIA: Okay.
LIAM: Have you seen the Roach Gang or Garen this morning?
CELIA: Have I seen Garen this morning?
BRENNAN: No, I think you've probably been-- Unless Garen thinks you have.
MATT: I don't think so.
CELIA: Okay, let's find Garen and everyone. Luz-- Holds her hand. How can I be helpful to you? Do you want to come with us?
BRENNAN: "For right now, I think that my place is here, in Torm's Hill. There's much to be done here." You hear a commotion outside as a faint cheer goes up, and you hear a wagon trundling into the camp. and you hear a wagon trundling into the camp, and this little halfhearted "Hey," halfhearted cheer. (laughter)
BRENNAN: As it does so, you see Luz says, "I believe my task is to remain here. The Moonweaver's blessings are required for the people gathered in here."
CELIA: Yes, yes, of course.
BRENNAN: "And it is due to the Moonweaver's workings that these people have--"
CELIA: Thank the moon. Thank the moon!
BRENNAN: As you say that, you see below Ondetra, leveled, says, "If you're going to converse, could you do so outside?"
ALEXANDER: (laughs)
BRENNAN: And looks up--
CELIA: I see.
BRENNAN: -- looks up at Luz specifically with a look of utter scorn and distaste.
CELIA: Nia sees that, receives that, hides her offense and her confusion. Nia is, she's so sweet, sweet baby, is really confused and offput by-- The energy that she's giving is I've done this for you and you spit at my friends.
BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.
CELIA: Very well. Very well. Takes Luz and does not leave, but moves to a corner hopefully out of earshot of this once hot, now mean--
BRENNAN: (chuckles)
MATT: (chuckles)
CELIA: Still hot, but now mean.
JASMINE: (laughs)
BRENNAN: You were hot and then you became mean.
CELIA: Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. (laughter)
JASMINE: We've all been there.
CELIA: Yeah. Yeah.
MATT: Yeah.
ALEXANDER: Yep.
CELIA: So, sure. She says once more, a little louder, a little bit more confidently: Thank the moon to see you.
BRENNAN: Ondetra takes it as given and averts her eyes down and goes somewhere in her head.
CELIA: Okay. I let her.
BRENNAN: Luz looks at you and says, "I'll remain here tending to the people in this place."
CELIA: Gently passes her hand over the emblem on her chest and, yeah, is Klasara somewhere in here?
BRENNAN: Yeah, Klasara's--
CELIA: Klasara, if I could take a break for a moment?
BRENNAN: She says, "Oh yes, all right, Nia. Go feed yourself. Go eat."
CELIA: Okay.
BRENNAN: "Get water."
CELIA: I'll be back soon.
BRENNAN: "Yes."
LIAM: I haven't seen her yet, though. So I'm going to trundle over and take a knee.
BRENNAN: "(sighs pleasantly) Erro! Oh!"
LIAM: Are you faring all right?
BRENNAN: "(laughs) I can't believe you're here! I'm faring all right."
LIAM: The digs are looking a little different.
BRENNAN: "Well, you know. It's gotten very in demand in a way that I could never have anticipated."
LIAM: Sustainable?
BRENNAN: "No. No, not without some more miracles. But they seem to be going around."
CELIA: Nia, being very nosy in this conversation, this is the miracle hub of this space, so.
BRENNAN: "Yes, but--" Outside you actually hear shouting and you hear Nez shouting, "You lunatics! What's the matter with you?" You hear, "I'm sorry, Ma. We just did-- We thought it was the right thing to do, so we done it!"
ALEXANDER: (laughs)
CELIA: (laughs)
BRENNAN: Outside, what has Garen been up to this morning?
MATT: So Garen fell into the deepest sleep he's had in a long time that lasted about four hours, before he shot up in the corner somewhere where he had slightly drunkenly passed out. He goes: The river, right. And immediately charges out and goes off to where that river swell was threatening to continue to flood and take out some of the elements, and looks to see whoever's trying to be in charge of the damming efforts or the redirection efforts of this. Who did he see when he was--
BRENNAN: So you see, as you go out there, Nez and also this older bugbear that has some evidence on his body of public discipline. Goes over, he's got these long arms that go down past his knees. He can crouch down and put an elbow to the ground and still rest his chin on his hand.
ALEXANDER: Wild.
BRENNAN: He looks over. As you begin to walk over, he looks and says, "Well, I don't know how we'll manage to get anything out over the-- There are rocks on the other side of the water there. I don't know how we'll--" As you approach him, Nez looks over and says, "I didn't get your name last night, my friend."
MATT: Garen. Just Garen.
BRENNAN: "Saint Garen, the miracle worker Garen. Finder of ale and salt beef."
MATT: (laughs humbly) You see the older bugbear, who looks over at you and says, "Bulray."
MATT: Bulray. Clasps. It is one thick, meaty hand on a stretched forearm.
BRENNAN: Yeah.
MATT: Wrapped around it, almost.
BRENNAN: You get his wrist and he gets your forearm.
JASMINE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MATT: Yep. (laughter)
BRENNAN: "A pleasure, friend. The meat is going to-- That's an incredible--"
MATT: Nevermind the meat. This river is swelling and it's flooding, right?
BRENNAN: "Yes."
MATT: All right. Glancing around, are there any-- Might have been common with some of the hill dwarves there. Are there any decorative outer waist or shoulder high walls that may have fallen or weathered with time?
BRENNAN: You look out and see, buried under moss and foliage, an old farmer's wall. Big thick slabs of stone, moss covered, off in a corner for a long-since defunct pasture.
MATT: Okay. As he's looking out past that, still holding onto the bugbear forearm, thinks of all the years that his skills have put towards the subjugation of others and a bit of inspiration hits to finally turn his craft towards its original intent. And looks back into the eyes of this new friend and ally and goes: All right. We're going to build a new wall. Get your men. I'm going to teach you a little bit about masonry.
BRENNAN: (laughs) You see he turns around and says, "All right, lads! Let's look lively!" And Garen, just taking a stride. I think, as you guys exit out, you look and see Garen. As you step to start grabbing those stones, you see a carriage pulls in with three young halflings. All of them look absolutely devastated. They're skeletal thin. All of them also have visible brands on their face, you can tell from some of the cities of the Strife Emperor. Because the Strife Emperor still wishes to conduct business and trade and all this other things like that. All of them have a T on one cheek, which is for thief, and they have another brand scored into their skin, HD, for habitual drunkard.
MATT: Hmm.
BRENNAN: And they have a wagon being pulled by some oxen. You can see that they have two pulling the wagon and there's a couple more clearly rustled or stolen, and there's a big wagon up front. You see Nez is shouting at them. "You lunatics!" There appear to be recovered lumber. You see that in the back, there are tin pails, there look to be some loose tools, little spades and shovels and things like that. But you can tell they've got it from somewhere. Looking at it, it all looks like this abundance would be from a work site of the Strife Emperor. So it looks like they've gone out and done something potentially really stupid. But they've got buckets of tools, they've got some partially rotted, and some more okay lumber. As Bulray stands side by side with you.
MATT: Yeah. So I'd say, probably, when you've come upon them, he's probably begun to, or partially through an instruction to likely Bulray about: See, the stones are heavy. It's not about lifting them, it's about leverage. It's about using-- (laughter)
MATT: He's going through baseline instructions of large scale--
ALEXANDER: The most powerful force in the universe. (laughter)
ALEXANDER: Leverage.
BRENNAN: Hell yeah! Garen, you come in. As you do this, you see these three halfling lads jump off the back of the wagon and as they come up with these big things of tools, Bulray gets a lot of his goblin and hobgoblin peasantry to start grabbing these tools. One of these kids, who you can see has a permanent, from where he was branded, it got too close to his eye--
ALEXANDER: Oof.
BRENNAN: -- and you can see it's a little bit warped on an eyelid. It's leaking some tears, and it has a permanent blood spot on the white of his eye, down in the corner. But you see he looks, all three of them look a little bit, there's a twinge of madness in their eyes, and a little bit of risk-taking. He comes off and he's like, "Right then, well, get it off! Get it off the back of the cart!" He comes over and you see Nez says, "Bowdleys!" Addressing them as a group, "Give the tools to Bulray and he'll distribute them. Don't just give them to your friends." (laughter) (laughter)
BRENNAN: You see, all of a sudden, there are tools, there's some oxen here in places, and you see some of these bigger stones. That wall ends in some other larger plinths That wall ends in some other larger plinths or hitching post stones that you can tell go deep enough into the ground that they might be, you know, eight to 10 feet in length if pulled up out of the ground. What does Garen start instructing people to do?
MATT: I think he's going to start looking at the angle of the river, and where it's swelled beyond the banks and the direction where it's threatening to overtake the hill and into where a number of these communities have set up temporarily. To start relocating the stones to offset where that is--
BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.
MATT: -- densely pack them deep into the muck and try to basically be a barricade, a full-on dam, that'll carry the river beyond the point of danger and further into the valley where it's supposed to go.
BRENNAN: You have the most help action a person could have as these halflings and hobgoblins and Bulray starts to direct his community. He's like, "All right." He's like, "Bowdleys, go get the oxen!" You see he goes, "They've just worked all night. Why can't they have a little time off?" He's like, "We're all in it together. The oxen are in it with us." (laughter)
ALEXANDER: I absolutely understand this.
CELIA: Yeah. Uh-huh.
BRENNAN: So they start hauling stones. Give me a mason's tools check with advantage.
LIAM: Oh, this helps stacks!
BRENNAN: This helps stacks! There you go. Call it DC 10 for something. DC 15 gets you the best result you're looking for here.
MATT: That's going to be a 20. A dirty 20.
BRENNAN: Dirty 20!
CELIA: Yeah!
BRENNAN: I will say this. Over the course of that day, Garen, you are striding around hearty claps on the back from Bulray. You see that these three halflings look really industrious, and they want to help, but you can tell these three halflings have never known an honest day's work in their life. (laughter)
BRENNAN: Their task is better suited to going and getting the goods by means unclear to you. As they are passing tools and things off to people, and Bulray's there, I think you are busy with that bridge there, you see that Marlath comes and gets on the wagon as the Bowdleys are passing stuff off. And you see that he has covered this, as the rain fades, and instead, this mist comes up, right as the Bowdleys are starting to pass stuff off, Marlath says, "Name? What's your name? All right two hammers to you." And begins to keep track of what's being passed out to people.
LIAM: Bureaucracy is born anew.
BRENNAN: (laughs) And starts to take a ledger of names and who got what and who went to whom. The Bowdleys look over and you can see Marlath speaking candidly with the Bowdley brothers as he marks down what's going where. Garen, on that 20, a wall comes up overnight. What was hay bales and rope becomes replaced with solid stone mortared with earth. I think that you see, as these stones go over, you actually look and see, out there in the river, there is in the middle of it, a standing stone that's about maybe 10 feet out, and splits the difference. You think you could probably get two of these stones anchored on that rock out in the middle and get a bridge out to the rest of the forest. On that dirty 20, the wall goes up and a passage out to the forest. I think, Erro and Nia, with your Wanderer ability, that's the forest that has game, it's higher up in altitude, there's probably food out there, there's ability to trap and hunt and things like that.
MATT: I think as this is going on, too, there's moments where people are either losing focus or, you know, misaligning things out of a lack of knowledge. And Garen steps up and begins, you know, giving shouts and overarching instruction to how to fix, correct these things and work it properly. As happens time to time, his brain wanders to memories of giving these same instructions as they were carving out the deeper hill sides and mountain abodes of Uthtor. He catches himself and steps back a bit and withdraws from a position of authority that he began to step into out of instinct. Instead, turns back to Bulray and puts the remainder of his effort teaching Bulray and lifting him up as leader as opposed to being that. But still takes pride in this endeavor.
BRENNAN: As you show the working of the stone, how to build a foundation, where the pressure, what the relationship of the weight is to the rest of the structure, how to be the person that knows how to do this intuitively and deeply. You see after, there's this moment later on in the day when the first-- Because getting the first stone out there is easier. You get it up, leverage it, have ropes, it goes nice and solid. It's getting that second stone across, that larger standing stone to make a little foot bridge over the raging water. You see, as that goes, it's tipping. People are getting it into position, ropes, it's a little bit more precarious and boom, falls exactly where you said it was going to. A cheer, and this one not ragged, this one just (shouts) as it goes up. You can see as that cheer goes up, there's a moment and a pause, and from deeper in the woods, (shouts) as another cheer of this lost party goes up, and everyone starts to freak out going. (shouts) (laughter)
CELIA: Just screaming.
BRENNAN: You see that one guy who's way too exhausted and injured to be yelling this hard, just faints and gets lifted back up. "Oh, get him back to the infirmary!" (laughter)
BRENNAN: "He cheered too hard. He passed out!" (laughter)
BRENNAN: You see this bedraggled, coughing, exhausted search party comes back with barrels and barrels of herbs and medicinal greens from the woods up ahead and baskets and baskets of berries from further up on the hillside comes in. And what would've been a raging torrent finds a bridge waiting for them. As Bulray looks, he goes--
ALEXANDER: (laughs)
BRENNAN: "You've changed the world. This didn't used to be here, and now it is. That's something like a miracle."
MATT: (chuckles) Miracles don't come from one person. We did this. You did this. It's just the beginning.
BRENNAN: You see he smiles and looks out and goes, "You know, we're talking about the weight of the stones. A long time ago, I remember there was a woman in my village before I was taken from my family and sent to work here in the ash fields by the Strife Emperor's soldiers. And the rulings and edicts of the Emperor, the gauntlet raised on high our ruler, our sovereign. When I was young, I believed in him because it's what we were allowed to believe in. Got to believe in something. This girl who came through our village, beautiful, long ears--"
ALEXANDER: (laughs)
BRENNAN: "-- nut brown fur shining like starlight. So I've heard, starlight shines. And she said, because I referred to the Strife Emperor as our leader, and she corrected me. She said, 'Our ruler.' And I said, 'What's the difference?' And she said, 'A ruler goes on top.'" And he points to the stones, 'And a leader goes underneath, gets under something, a town, a family, a cause. A person who leads finds a way to hold the weight 'that others cannot hold, to be sturdy and strong.' I never knew what she really meant. It seemed so impossible to matter like that. But I do know one thing. She carried a hammer."
MATT: (laughs)
BRENNAN: You all hear a scream from elsewhere in the village. A terrible scream. As you turn, and having arrived, walking through the chaos of the encampment unseen in the fog and shrouded in darkness, armored in full black cast iron plate, removing a cloak, armed to the teeth, is a captain of the Strife Emperor's guard with six fully armored soldiers behind him, who calls out. "This gathering is at its end! All of you will kneel to the Strife Emperor's will, or you will be executed on the spot! Return at once to your lands and service to your Emperor!" You see the six soldiers (impacts) slam their swords on their shield as several lie dead at their feet, cut down already. That's where we'll take our break.
CELIA: Cute!
ALEXANDER: (laughs)
Break[]
ASHLEY: Oh, hello! You're here to learn about Beacon? Not only the extraordinary home for everything Critical Role, but also the best way to support the very important work that we do here. LIAM: Can someone zip me up? ASHLEY: I know what you're thinking, "What's in it for me?" What do members get?" Exclusive early access to tickets for live events. Access to our members-only Discord server. Instant video on demand and podcast access right after each episode drop. 10% discount on all merch in all five international online shops. With your support, more content is possible. [metal clanking] TRAVIS: No, I've-- TALIESIN: Shh. It's just some immersion therapy. Keep your eyes open. TRAVIS: (screams) ASHLEY: We've got Beacon exclusive series like "Critical Role Cooldown" where you get to sit around the table right after an episode ends, and "Fireside Chat" our community Q&A powered by the Beacon Discord and questions from members like you. LAURA: Hey, Ashley? ASHLEY: Yeah. LAURA: Do you want me to get you a new Mister plushy? Because this guy is rough. ASHLEY: No. MATT: We're on in five. LAURA: I'm just going to wash him, then. ASHLEY: And if that isn't enough, we've got series like "Critical Role Abridged," "Re-Slayer's Take," and "Midst." Above all, Beacon is the best way to directly support Critical Role, our staff and everyone who helped shape our company into what it is today. DIRECTOR: I'm coming to you in three, two... TRAVIS: (excited noises) MARISHA: (excited noises) MATT: Hello, everyone, and welcome to tonight's episode of Critical Role.
(mysterious music) So like, I really need that money, but I also really don't think we're supposed to kill this thing 'cause it's like, yeah, I owe a lot of money to someone and it would really help. I did not know that. Yeah, I might have gambled some money I didn't have. Honestly, at this point, I don't really know 'cause there was interest. It's not important. It's not gonna get back to us. It's not? When did you come in? I saw you guys take the book and I thought I'd just see what you guys were doing and I caught the tail end of that. I'm really sorry. I know I wasn't supposed to. I forgot it already, I forgot it.
LAURA: Hey, Critters! Laura Bailey here to guide you through what's new in the Critical Role shop. Roll an investigation if you want, it's basically perfect. Oh my gosh, it's so amazing. The cuteness! It's overpowering! Style should never be a dump stat, Darling. This is pretty badass. Look at this. Isn't it fashion? So much fashion happening here. Check it out. Look. It has pockets. This is a lot of stuff, you guys. We have so many cool things right now. And hey if you want, you could head over to the Critical Role shop right now. KLAUS: In play, it felt so good. MOHAMAD: Everybody's engaged at the same time. ALISON: The Hope and the Fear mechanics are a wild role-playing ride. MATT: The game is called Daggerheart, our own fantasy tabletop RPG we've been developing. It's a unique 2d12 dice rolling system that ensures that every roll of the game has some sort of impact on the game itself. DANI: It really fosters that collaborative role-play aspect. DARIUSH: Character building lets you do your own thing and organically be like, "Actually, I'll take a little of this, a little of that." CAI: You can be an unlikely combination of things. The Hope and Fear mechanics to me really feel more like the score of a good film. NATE: Mounting fear, just added a different layer of tension to the game. HANNA: The tactileness is really exciting for me. I just feel very represented in this game. EVAN: I would absolutely play again. TRAVIS: Daggerheart is fun as hell to play. RICH: I absolutely love Daggerheart. MATT: It's going to be something real special and it's just the beginning.
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Part II[]
BRENNAN: Hello, and welcome as we return to our tale here in Torm's Hill, where things are getting a little bit tense.
ALEXANDER: Spicy?
BRENNAN: Spicy, I would say.
JASMINE: Picante, even.
BRENNAN: Our heroes, where are you standing as this group of Strife Emperor soldiers emerges in the center of the most structures? Where you met Nez last night with the lantern up, that's where you are right now. There's a little makeshift paddock for some livestock over here. There's a couple little buildings. The new bridge is over that way. Torm's Hill, the actual structure, is farther past you to the left over here. They're in the center of all the new people here, and you can see that there are three bodies on the ground around them that they have just cut down in this moment. As they turn, the captain in the center calls out, "I see a wagon and oxen belonging to the Strife Emperor and his servants. Where are the thieves that absconded with this? What are you all doing here? Are there any in this rabble that have an answer for your lord and sovereign?" You see-- Do any of you speak?
ALEXANDER: I'm still holding Fiedra up so she's eye level with everyone else, so I'm just waiting.
LIAM: So it's six soldiers and their one--
BRENNAN: Captain.
LIAM: -- captain.
BRENNAN: So there are seven of them.
JASMINE: Seven.
BRENNAN: Erro, as you look around, there are 1200 people in this camp. There's about 40 some odd right in this area around the soldiers, but you can see people are hearing shouting elsewhere. But it's a busy camp. Past a certain edge of camp, people might not even know that there's something happening right here, right?
LIAM: How ringed in are they with the crowd? Or are people pulled back?
BRENNAN: With the people that they just killed, everyone has moved about 20 feet away from them. What you see is, you're looking at the tired, the bedraggled, the sick, the exhausted. The strongest people here just spent all day building a fucking bridge with their hands. There's exhaustion and panic, and you see these soldiers there. Give me an insight check. Call it DC 12.
LIAM: I know what I want to do. Yeah, that's good. That's a 22.
BRENNAN: Everyone around you is terrified. All of that joy, all of that laughter, was so loud and exuberant and urgent because everyone knew it was too good to be true. Now the soldiers are back, and it's all about to be taken away again. That's what you would get on a 12. On a 22, these soldiers haven't eaten in three days.
LIAM: Knowing that things are on a knife's edge and can go in either direction, and people need something to believe in, Erro is going to quietly walk up from the side, hopefully slightly back on an angle, plant a hand on one of the soldier's shoulders, turn. (roars breath attack)
BRENNAN: (laughs)
ALEXANDER: Hell yeah.
BRENNAN: Hell yeah. Roll initiative.
BRENNAN: I fucking love it.
MATT: Okay!
CELIA: Nice!
BRENNAN: I fucking love it.
JASMINE: Oh, I don't know why I was rolling two.
ALEXANDER: Hell yeah.
CELIA: All right!
BRENNAN: Let's go!
CELIA: That's a nat 20.
BRENNAN: Nat 20!
MATT: Nice!
LIAM: Woo!
CELIA: Yeah!
BRENNAN: Do you add anything to that? That's awesome.
CELIA: Oh, I add my constitution.
BRENNAN: Your dexterity.
CELIA: Dexterity! No, that's it.
BRENNAN: Okay. Nat 20.
CELIA: Mm-hmm.
BRENNAN: What do we got here, Matt?
MATT: 18.
BRENNAN: 18 for Garen. What do we have here--
ALEXANDER: 18.
JASMINE: Oh!
BRENNAN: 18 for Crokas.
CELIA: Ooh!
BRENNAN: These are some good initiative rolls. What do you got?
JASMINE: 19.
BRENNAN: 19!
JASMINE: Yeah! Oh, we're so ready. We're so ready to fight.
CELIA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
BRENNAN: I fucking love it. Erro, what do we got?
LIAM: Oh, 10.
BRENNAN: 10, okay. So the way we are going to do this is, give me a stealth check, and I'll tell you the number you're trying to beat here as you get up. You're trying to beat-- That's a 10. I think you're only trying to beat a-- You're trying to beat a 10 on a stealth check.
LIAM: 16.
BRENNAN: 16. So you got the surprise round. So you're doing the natural ranger thing, which is, you don't sneak like this, you move as soft as you can.
LIAM: Pad foot.
BRENNAN: Pad foot. I'm going to bring the map out. (cheering)
ALEXANDER: I've never done a thing that had a map--
CELIA: Me neither.
ALEXANDER: -- here. This is the first time I get to have a map.
CELIA: I'm excited.
ALEXANDER: I'm so excited.
CELIA: I'm very excited.
LIAM: The fire freezes in midair, and then we cut to the captain going, "You're probably wondering how I got here." (laughter)
JASMINE: Yep, that's me.
LIAM: (laughs)
JASMINE: (laughs)
MATT: Oh man.
CELIA: Oh shit, wait!
JASMINE: Wow!
CELIA: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!
BRENNAN: Hell yes. Now I have to ask where all of you are with your minis!
CELIA: No way!
MATT: Yes! Yes!
BRENNAN: Garen, my boy.
MATT: Hell yeah.
BRENNAN: Here we go. Rei'nia.
CELIA: Oh my gosh!
BRENNAN: Miniature Crokas, look at that.
ALEXANDER: Oh!
MATT: Woo!
BRENNAN: Unbelievable.
CELIA: She's got heels like my girl would.
BRENNAN: Fiedra.
MATT: Yeah!
CELIA: Whoa!
BRENNAN: And Erro. Here we go, baby.
CELIA: Where's you? Oh my gosh! Wow! Let me see my big boy. What a scary boy!
JASMINE: Wait, let me see you.
ALEXANDER: This is so cool.
JASMINE: Wow, you look so cool!
CELIA: Wait, can I see yours?
LIAM: We just need 20 more minutes, Brennan.
CELIA: Erro!
BRENNAN: Hey! Look at all your minis!
JASMINE: We're playing with our toys.
CELIA: Wow!
ALEXANDER: That's so cool.
BRENNAN: Play with your toys, do your thing. Any questions--
CELIA: I'm so deeply obsessed.
MATT: Which direction is the bridge that we just built?
LIAM: Where's Nia? Where's Nia?
CELIA: Nia's not here.
BRENNAN: Bridge? This direction over here.
MATT: Okay.
BRENNAN: Bridge over here, Torm's Hill over here.
CELIA: Look at us! That's a fearsome duo.
MATT: Got it.
CELIA: That duo--
JASMINE: Do I have Otto and Taveen with me?
LIAM: Look at us.
BRENNAN: Yes, I believe you do have Otto and Taveen.
JASMINE: I feel like I would, yeah, I would've stuck around with them.
BRENNAN: Yes, absolutely.
ALEXANDER: So where--
JASMINE: So where would we be?
ALEXANDER: We were all talking right outside of Torm's Hill, right?
BRENNAN: Yes, you were.
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: You were all talking right outside of Torm's Hill. We're going to make that Otto, and we're going to find a little Taveen somewhere around here, too.
CELIA: I have a mini! We'll make that Taveen. Okay.
CELIA: I've never had a mini before.
MATT: Really?
CELIA: Yeah, I've never had a mini before.
BRENNAN: That's awesome.
CELIA: Baby's first mini.
BRENNAN: So you guys were doing your shady stuff.
JASMINE: Mm-hmm.
BRENNAN: This is the wagon that was brought in by the fellas. So you might be somewhere back in this area over here.
ALEXANDER: Yeah, I think so, yeah.
JASMINE: Okay, okay. Cool.
BRENNAN: So there's Otto and Taveen right there.
ALEXANDER: I would be over here.
BRENNAN: You're over here with Fiedra. Hell yeah. So I'll tell you guys right now. This is a-- The story reality we are in matches the mechanical reality, which is, this is not a fair fight. These are soldiers, they have powerful weapons and armor and shields and everything like that. Everybody else here on the battlefield is a commoner.
ALEXANDER: Ah, yeah.
BRENNAN: So the reason you guys all started in Rybad-Kol is that a group of soldiers would instantly slaughter any of you, without question. So this moment is as tense as tense can be. However, Erro is going to kick things off with us. So we're going to move... ♪ Da-da-da ♪ Erro-- So in the surprise round, we move through everybody's round, so all of you come out of the surprised condition. You can all act normally on your turn, and it gets to Erro. You can pop all the way off, my friend.
LIAM: All right, so I think what happened was, once this guy started shouting in the middle of this new town square, I turned on a dime and walked away from Nia and started moving through the crowd so I wasn't coming directly on, and then popped up by that well and quietly walked up without any fanfare. Breath weapon is a 15-foot cone or a line. I think it's most beneficial if I do the cone and get one, two, three.
ALEXANDER: (laughs)
CELIA: Yeah! (laughs)
BRENNAN: Oh my god! Oh my god!
LIAM: They have to make a dex save.
CELIA: You came for the group!
BRENNAN: So you're going to get the captain and both soldiers right now. Unbelievable. What a way to pop off. Okay, what is the DC on that dex--
LIAM: 13.
BRENNAN: 13.
LIAM: Big 13.
BRENNAN: Okay. We're going to roll for these soldiers first. Not the most dextrous. They need 12s or higher. One succeeds, one fails. The one right in front of you fails. We're going to roll for the captain. Captain succeeds as well, so they're going to take half damage. You can see the one right in front of you is getting the brunt of the flame as it erupts from you.
LIAM: Okay.
BRENNAN: Go ahead and roll damage.
LIAM: Oh, it's a one!
CELIA, MATT, and BRENNAN: No!
LIAM: One out of 10.
CELIA: Crushing!
LIAM: It's a one out of 10. Well they can't get half, so they all take one, right?
BRENNAN: They all take one. Boom, boom. Fire moves out in all directions as they raise up their shields and armor. That is your action. I will ask as well, as you spray fire everywhere, the fire erupts, everyone screams as one of them has walked up and breathed fire over everybody. Is there anything you say or do in this moment? Because you can feel that knife's edge. You have selected violence for you and possibly everybody here. Is there anything you say or do in this moment? Because you can feel a stink of a nearby predator. You can feel confusion, that thing that gets people killed more than anything else, as people do not know what they are supposed to do.
LIAM: He shouts, after spitting fire and they rear back: Seven overlords or 1200 of us!
BRENNAN: Give me persuasion with advantage, and I would also like you to roll with a d12 die of inspiration.
ALEXANDER: Ooh!
MATT: (laughs)
CELIA: Ooh!
LIAM: What's that guy? Okay, okay. The total is... Oh, I have no persuasion bump.
BRENNAN: You're rolling that inspiration die as well.
LIAM: I did. 21.
BRENNAN: Great. 21. Amazing. As you shout that out, select five commoners nearby you who are going to be activated to act.
LIAM: This strong man with the blade in his hand.
BRENNAN: Hell yeah.
JASMINE: Mm-hmm.
LIAM: Uh-huh.
BRENNAN: Great. He's going to rush forward and join you.
LIAM: This guy who looks like he's about to break dance.
BRENNAN: Hell yeah, right here.
ALEXANDER: There's a ninja in the village.
BRENNAN: They'll rush forward. Hell yeah.
LIAM: This chef.
BRENNAN: Chef is running forward.
LIAM: Yep. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
ALEXANDER: One of the kids.
LIAM: Okay, I see a guy with-- This one with the hammer in their hand as well.
BRENNAN: Hell yeah, great.
MATT: Come on, little Bobby.
CELIA: Great picks, Liam.
MATT: About time you learned.
JASMINE: Oh, not the guy with the flute?
LIAM: Am I out?
BRENNAN: You have one more.
CELIA: Is the lute not helpful?
JASMINE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can change their minds with the power of song.
LIAM: Oh man.
CELIA: ♪ (jaunty tune) ♪
ALEXANDER: There's a little kenku on the other side.
LIAM: I'm going to say this dwarven woman with a farming sickle over her shoulder.
BRENNAN: Yes, okay. She is going to rush out here and join you. So as you call out, "Seven overlords, 1200 of us," a group of people who you can see are the ones that were the most predisposed-- Basically, there's five people in the crowd that had your same exact idea, and you beat them to the punch, and they rush. Maybe even the dwarven woman was like, it could've gone either way, but now that it is violence, it better be us violence. If you're picking violence, do violence hard as you can. What I'd like you to do now, you have five commoners. These are commoners, man. They do two damage on a successful hit.
LIAM: Me too! (laughter)
CELIA: Twin 'em!
BRENNAN: Go ahead, I want you to roll 5d20. You're going to roll five attacks for me. Roll the two next to you first.
LIAM: Okay.
BRENNAN: They add two to hit.
LIAM: 17.
BRENNAN: 17 is a hit!
LIAM: And a seven.
BRENNAN: 17, okay. So rushing up to the soldier right in front of you, you see the guy with the blade, who just has, literally, he just has a farming shovel, rushes up to a guy in full half-plate and jams a gardening implement under his helmet and scores under his fucking collarbone.
JASMINE: Yeah!
BRENNAN: "(grunts)" That's him. Give me three attack rolls for these guys rushing up to that soldier over there.
LIAM: So that gets us a 17.
BRENNAN: 17 hits.
LIAM: A four and a 20, dirty 20.
BRENNAN: Dirty 20, okay. They walk up to that soldier. Once again, you see one of them has a hammer they've been using to help build the bridge, coming over from the bridge area over here. Runs up, clocks the guy across the helm, and the other one runs up and gets a hand in through the armor and begins to try to strangle the guard standing.
CELIA: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Just, get your hands in, get your hands in!
CELIA: Yeah. That is your turn. We go to the top of the initiative order. You see the captain comes out of surprise and says, "Kill them all!" That is going to be, ♪ Da-da-da ♪ that's the commoners' turn. A bunch of the other commoners are holding their initiative in shock and dismay.
LIAM: Right.
BRENNAN: Nia, that's you.
CELIA: Nia's probably, is that-- I don't know where the med area would be that she was leaving from. I'm assuming she's--
BRENNAN: Torm's Hill is this way, so you might be over in this part of the crowd over here.
CELIA: Okay, if you could find me a place. Probably hide. I don't know. Yeah.
BRENNAN: This is Luz right here.
CELIA: Oh, wonderful. I'm going to tell her to hide.
BRENNAN: Okay.
CELIA: Or take that Moonweaver emblem off her, because that's probably not a good thing to have on your person right now. Oh gosh, she doesn't have-- Wouldn't be smart for her, because she has no weaponry, to go up and try and get into the fight, so I think-- Are those two kids? Two small people?
BRENNAN: Those are halflings.
CELIA: Oh, those are halflings. I think she's going to hold her action. She doesn't have any weapons. I think her instinct is to get the more vulnerable people away from the fray and the worst of it. The most exhausted, the most sick, the most unable to fight in a time like this, she would probably be moving them away from this.
BRENNAN: Give me a persuasion check. Do so with advantage.
CELIA: Okay. Persuasion is a 19.
BRENNAN: 19, okay. Pick four that look the most vulnerable to you, and you pull them to safety.
CELIA: Ha-cha, maybe--
BRENNAN: Luz is going to be one of them.
CELIA: Yeah, Luz definitely. I'm going to get her to safety.
BRENNAN: She rushes to safety.
CELIA: Maybe old boy with the guitar behind that tree.
BRENNAN: Yeah.
CELIA: Yeah, or the lyre.
BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.
CELIA: I can't tell if any of these people are youths or elderly. I'll say this person with a mug, he can probably stay. Maybe this--
BRENNAN: These two right in front of you here?
CELIA: Yeah, those two.
BRENNAN: Great.
CELIA: Yeah, those can be moved.
BRENNAN: Great.
CELIA: Then probably this gentleman on the left of her.
BRENNAN: Great. So you get everyone behind you.
CELIA: Yeah, everyone behind me.
BRENNAN: Everyone behind you.
CELIA: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Great, that's awesome. Are you going to hold your turn to potentially act later?
CELIA: I'm going to do that and then hold the rest of my turn.
BRENNAN: Okay. You let me know, because you're sending your initiative down the river--
CELIA: Actually, no. She has Starmian's letter opener. She might go, if she could-- She's going to hold, she's going to hold. She knows she has that letter opener, but she's going to wait until probably somebody more vulnerable or weaker gets in her way.
BRENNAN: Great, great. Fiedra, that's going to be your turn. You let me know when you want to insert your turn in the initiative order.
ALEXANDER: Standing in my hand.
JASMINE: Yeah. I look at my boys and I say: You know the drill. Sic 'em. (laughter)
CELIA: Oh yeah!
ALEXANDER: Crokas immediately puts her on the ground.
JASMINE: Yeah, put me on the ground.
CELIA: Y'all got it. I love it.
LIAM: Yes!
JASMINE: Yeah, if we could all just I guess charge the guys closest to us.
BRENNAN: Hell yeah.
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Great. Crokas goes literally right after you.
JASMINE: Oh, okay. Great.
BRENNAN: This guy is uncircled right now. The whole Roach Gang can just charge that dude right now.
JASMINE: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
BRENNAN: Okay. You rush forward. Boom! Boom! Taveen and Otto.
CELIA: I just can't at a time like this.
JASMINE: (laughs)
BRENNAN: Incredible! Fiedra, do you want to take your attack?
JASMINE: I will. Okay, so does this soldier have heavy armor?
BRENNAN: Yes, he does.
JASMINE: So I get my plus four?
BRENNAN: You get your plus 1d4.
JASMINE: Or 1d4 is what I meant. Okay. Do I add my dex?
BRENNAN: You add your dex. Yes, you do. And your proficiency.
JASMINE: And my proficiency. So that's a 21 to hit.
BRENNAN: 21! Fuck yes! (laughter)
BRENNAN: Okay. So you're going to add 1d4 plus your dex modifier.
JASMINE: 1d4 plus dex. Okay. So that is-- No, I'm not going to use that one because that one's evil.
ALEXANDER: Roll a d4.
JASMINE: d4. I don't know what I was doing. d20. You know? That's a one, but my dex is three, so I do four points of damage.
BRENNAN: Four. Twice as much as one of these commoners here.
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Fiedra, as you see the rush happening here, I think you also see, give me an insight check, if you would, as I describe--
JASMINE: Ooh!
BRENNAN: You rush up. Smaller than everyone here. You were almost killed by the rain and nature, but people have been fucking with you your whole life. You know how to take care of people, and you run up and stiletto. Blood gushes. You run up and get him right in the femoral artery, the main artery inside the leg. Boom! And feel, as you have many times before, a gush of blood over your forearm as one of these giants towering over you is about to be brought low. What is--
JASMINE: I feel great. I got a nine.
BRENNAN: You got a nine on insight.
JASMINE: Nine. That's right.
BRENNAN: Okay, you're gripped in battle frenzy. You run up, stab this guy. Boom! And the rest of your crew is rushing up as well. Crokas, go ahead. That's going to be you.
ALEXANDER: So as soon as she says--
LIAM: So excited!
JASMINE: Yeah.
ALEXANDER: As soon as she says, "Get 'em," essentially, Crokas puts her down, he looks at the guard, his eye, the dragon eyes go, (sizzles) and just become needles.
BRENNAN: Yeah.
ALEXANDER: And almost roll back in his head, and the claws on his hands extend and he bulldozes at the guy and is going to make a claw attack. Yeah. Just (steady thumping). Big tail behind him, down like a dinosaur running, going to slam into him.
BRENNAN: Hell yes!
ALEXANDER: So that's--
JASMINE: It's this coming at you at full speed. (laughter)
ALEXANDER: Yeah.
MATT: Can we use that as the mini?
ALEXANDER: That is a 16 plus seven to hit.
JASMINE: Woo! (laughter, clapping)
JASMINE: That's my boy!
BRENNAN: Yeah, Alex, that'll do it.
ALEXANDER: Yeah.
BRENNAN: That'll do it, man. Yeah, for sure.
ALEXANDER: The only thing Crokas is good at. (laughter)
JASMINE: Yeah!
CELIA: That we know of so far.
MATT: I think he's done well.
CELIA: He's a very capable boy!
ALEXANDER: So he does--
LIAM: He gives excellent piggyback rides.
ALEXANDER: Yes.
MATT: Yeah. Concise conversation.
ALEXANDER: Oh, okay. He does nine points of slashing damage.
BRENNAN: Jesus!
JASMINE: (laughs)
BRENNAN: Unbelievable! Jasmine.
JASMINE: Yes?
BRENNAN: Could you please roll two attacks for Otto and Taveen?
JASMINE: Okay.
BRENNAN: They are slightly more dangerous than your average commoner. They roll plus three to hit.
JASMINE: Oh, okay. Not super great. One got a 14 and one got an 11.
BRENNAN: Okay. Both of them miss.
JASMINE: Damn it.
BRENNAN: So you see they rush forward "(shouts)" hacking at the armor. So only you and Crokas hit. You slash into his leg. Crokas, one of your claws (shouts) as you rip a pauldron off the armor and all of the skin of his shoulder comes off with it into your claw. (laughter)
ALEXANDER: And I press the front of my forehead just against his helm and just--
LIAM: Terrifying.
ALEXANDER: (growls) (laughter)
ALEXANDER: As I'm holding the pauldron in my hand.
BRENNAN: We hate it. We absolutely hate it. (laughs)
ALEXANDER: The non-working breath weapon, when I get into this state, starts foaming like snow foam dripping between his teeth and splattering on the ground.
MATT: Grotesque.
ALEXANDER: Yeah.
CELIA: Yum.
MATT: I love it. (laughter)
BRENNAN: Garen, that is going to be your turn.
MATT: Okay. Garen was a bit far from the whole center of this chaos. So is going to, let's see here. Garen is going to move 30 feet up to here. As he's rushing up there, feeling the hammer's weight in his hand and his fingers starting to dig in to prepare for what's coming, especially at the spark of violence that has erupted here. All right, I guess we're doing it this way. And is going to step alongside this person, individual here.
BRENNAN: Yeah.
MATT: Is this somebody who looks capable or frightened?
BRENNAN: I think everyone here is both.
MATT: Fair.
BRENNAN: And you know, ultimately, these people aren't warriors, but if they do not become warriors they will live under the decree of warriors.
MATT: Okay. I'm going to move past them and say: If I fall, step into my place and keep going. And I'm going to dash action.
BRENNAN: Hell yeah!
MATT: And just get as close as I can to that fray to be one of many targets, preferably better than somebody else.
BRENNAN: Hell yeah! You want to get up here, in between these two?
MATT: If I can get there with a movement, yeah.
BRENNAN: Yeah, I believe you can.
MATT: Yeah, with 30 feet I can do that. Yeah.
BRENNAN: Great. Okay. You rush forward. Nia, you have sent your turn forward initiative.
CELIA: Yeah.
BRENNAN: The soldiers have been surprised, but they are about to act. Give me an insight check.
CELIA: (long exhale) 19.
BRENNAN: 19. Garen rushes forward. So far, the people that have rushed forward are a few of the bravest, it looks like. Here in the crowd, there were some that have known violence and conflict. Everyone here has known cruelty and injury, but the people that have rushed are people that have hit someone before in their life. The Roaches, Erro, Garen, people like that. The soldiers are about to take their turn. Not one of them has fallen. I think that, on a 19 insight, the crowd rests on a knife's edge, and the reality is there is a distinction between the rest who are standing back and those that have charged forward. Those that are standing back have a hope in their heart. The hope they have in their heart is that the world might be saved without any danger, fear, or risk on their part. Many of them are weak, and it should not be asked of them to be brave. If they are not asked to be brave, it is possible that they will watch the brave quickly die.
CELIA: Okay. I think Nia is amongst people who are like-minded. She sees her braver, stronger friends going into the fray. She knows herself. She's not quick to violence. She's very much a wordsmith. She talks and talks and talks and talks and talks. But with that ability to speak, I think she's going to see the people behind her. She's going to look to Luz, actually. She's going to, even with this chaos in front of her, she's going to ask: Will you fight or will you flee?
BRENNAN: You asked this of Luz?
CELIA: Yeah.
BRENNAN: She looks at you, going "(stutters)"
CELIA: Fight! So, Nia--
ALEXANDER: (laughs)
CELIA: She raises her voice to the people among her. If you cannot be brave, fake it and try anyway! (laughter)
CELIA: Fake it and try anyway! Yeah, Nia's going to take Starmian's letter opener and she's going to try and hurt somebody.
BRENNAN: Hell yeah! You--
MATT: "Fake it or try it anyway." Rei'nia Saph.
BRENNAN: You rush. If you had merely said that, you would've made a persuasion roll.
CELIA: Yeah.
BRENNAN: As you charge forward with an office tool in your hand--
CELIA: Yeah.
BRENNAN: You will make it with advantage.
CELIA: Cool!
BRENNAN: People want to see what they are supposed to do.
CELIA: Okay. Follow me!
BRENNAN: Rolling persuasion, 10 gets you somebody, then you get more and more the higher up you go from 10.
CELIA: How about 17?
BRENNAN: 17 gets you 10, 12, 14, 16. You get four more commoners with you.
CELIA: Okay.
BRENNAN: So you're going to rush this guy right here?
CELIA: Yeah!
BRENNAN: Boom!
CELIA: I see old boy with the cleaver.
BRENNAN: Where is he? Right here? Cool.
CELIA: Oh wait. No, behind him.
BRENNAN: Oh, behind this guy here?
CELIA: No, the guy in front of him. Yeah.
BRENNAN: Okay.
CELIA: This guy, I think that's a cleaver in his hand.
BRENNAN: Yeah, he's going to rush up and join you right here.
CELIA: That one.
ALEXANDER: What's happening to that guy? (laughs)
CELIA: Old boy with that knife.
MATT: He's had rougher than most.
BRENNAN: Right here?
CELIA: No, the first guy you grabbed.
BRENNAN: The first guy here? Oh, first guy! This guy right here? Oh, sorry. This guy?
CELIA: Yeah, that one. Then the guy with the hammer that you just touched. Those three. That's two, actually. That one, buddy with the hammer.
BRENNAN: Buddy. Okay, that's your four.
CELIA: Okay, that'll make four.
BRENNAN: Go ahead and roll. Roll me an attack roll for knife guy.
CELIA: Okay.
ALEXANDER: Knife guy!
CELIA: Knife guy! ♪ Ree-kee-kee-kee-kee ♪
ALEXANDER: I always loved knife guy.
CELIA: Oh! Knife guy gets, do I add anything?
BRENNAN: Plus two.
CELIA: Four. Knife guy gets a four.
BRENNAN: Knife guy gets a four. Oh, we got four on the attack roll? Knife guy misses.
CELIA: Aw!
ALEXANDER: Knife guy!
BRENNAN: Go ahead--
CELIA: Knife guy. (laughter)
BRENNAN: Go ahead and roll. For the other two, roll two more dice for the two. Oh, sorry. Wait, you got four, right?
CELIA: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Oh, so you actually do get one more guy. Sorry.
CELIA: Oh! Then--
ALEXANDER: Man with jar.
CELIA: Man with jar, or does Luz still have that Moonweaver thing? I feel like Luz has something within her that she's ready to unleash.
BRENNAN: Sure. Luz will come forward.
CELIA: But does she have that Moonweaver thing still on her?
CELIA: The holy symbol? Yeah, she does.
CELIA: Yeah. (growls) I mean, yeah, sure. It's an interesting story. Go ahead, Luz. Godspeed to you.
BRENNAN: All right, you're rolling 3d20. These are all attacks.
CELIA: I might have just fucked over my friend. That's a plus two for. That's an 18. Woo! And a nat 20!
BRENNAN: Oh shit!
CELIA: So that's a 16, a 17, and a 20.
BRENNAN: Oh my! All of them hit and one is double damage!
CELIA: Cool!
BRENNAN: Okay.
CELIA: Luz does double damage! Damn it!
BRENNAN: That is incredible! So that's going to be eight damage, and then that's your attack. So roll your own attack.
CELIA: Cool! Imagine they all outperform me. (laughs) Barely! Natural 19, so that'll be a 21 to hit.
BRENNAN: 21 hits!
CELIA: Yeah!
JASMINE: Woo!
CELIA: Cool.
BRENNAN: Go ahead. So you're rolling 1d4 plus your dex modifier.
CELIA: 1d4 plus my nothing dex modifier. Come on, honey! It's a three.
BRENNAN: Three damage.
CELIA: Yeah.
BRENNAN: You rush up with a group of four people that have never hurt anyone in their life, and the soldier seeing a priestess in gowns and a young traveler laughs, which allows someone to grab the front of his armor, pull him to a knee and you see that Luz goes (shouts) and gets a finger into his eye and starts tearing. Just literally (shouts) as everyone realizes they will kill all of us and put us back in Rybad-Kol.
CELIA: Mm-hmm.
BRENNAN: Rushes forward. That is going to be the soldiers' turn.
CELIA: Sorry, Luz! Love you, diva!
ALEXANDER: I just want to make it clear. Forgot my character's name. Crokas!
BRENNAN: Crokas. (laughter)
ALEXANDER: Yes. Is trying to, very much in his very direct way, be, "He's the thing you need to hit." He's trying to put himself in front of everybody, all his gang around him to be the target. He's trying to tank this guy.
BRENNAN: Hell yeah! We will go with this wounded soldier right in front of Erro. Erro, you were the one who decided to be brave.
LIAM: Oh yeah.
BRENNAN: He's coming right for you.
LIAM: Oh yeah.
CELIA: What? Fake it or try anyway.
MATT: Fake it or try anyway.
CELIA: I blacked out. (laughs)
BRENNAN: What is your armor class?
MATT: It's the best--
LIAM: It is 11.
MATT: -- motivational poster, I think.
BRENNAN: Okay.
LIAM: It's pretty easy to hit.
MATT: I need that framed in my office now.
CELIA: I'll get you one.
ALEXANDER: Like a cat in the snow or something. It's like, "Fake it or do it anyway."
CELIA: Fake it or try anyway.
BRENNAN: How many hit points do you have?
LIAM: 11.
BRENNAN: Okay.
MATT: It's legitimate.
BRENNAN: You take nine points of damage.
LIAM: Okay.
BRENNAN: He takes a swing at you and connects (shouts) for nine points of damage.
ALEXANDER: Oh!
BRENNAN: This badly injured soldier is going to take a swing at Crokas. That is a miss.
CELIA: (sighs) Thank god!
BRENNAN: That is a hit.
CELIA: No.
ALEXANDER: I have an AC of 14.
BRENNAN: AC of 14. That is a hit. He deals you six points of damage.
ALEXANDER: Okay.
BRENNAN: What are you at?
ALEXANDER: I am down to four hit points.
BRENNAN: Four hit points. This guy is going to step forward, take a swing. That's a hit.
CELIA: (groans)
BRENNAN: He drops Otto.
CELIA: Oh!
JASMINE: (gasps) No!
BRENNAN: He goes forward. "(shouts)" Otto falls to the ground. He's going to take another step forward as well to close with the rest. This one's going to swing on Garen. What's Garen's armor class?
MATT: Oh, seven.
BRENNAN: Seven. (laughter)
MATT: He's an older fellow.
MATT and LIAM: (laugh)
BRENNAN: Garen, you take 10 points of damage.
MATT: Ooh!
CELIA: Okay.
ALEXANDER: (laughs)
MATT: (impact noise) (grunt of pain)
BRENNAN: This one cuts down both of the ones in front of them.
CELIA: (groans)
BRENNAN: Two strikes of a sword. Then, we move to this last one here, who's going to take a swing for Rei'nia.
CELIA: Yeah. Miss, motherfucker!
BRENNAN: That is a hit.
CELIA: Okay. (laughter)
BRENNAN: Rei'nia, you take six points of damage.
CELIA: Fierce!
BRENNAN: What are you at?
CELIA: Something less than six. (laughter)
CELIA: Four. Four.
BRENNAN: Four.
CELIA: Yeah.
BRENNAN: So for the first time, maybe in your life, a sword travels across your arm and you feel a shatter of bone. Something fractures. There has been much conflict and violence in and around you in your life, but this is the first time that you have run up, done something brave. In the stories about brave things, they are rewarded by the gods, and you are hit with a tempered piece of steel that, if it had been six inches in another direction, would've ended your life on the spot.
CELIA: (cry of pain)
BRENNAN: That is the soldiers. We get back. Erro, that is your turn again.
LIAM: Okay.
BRENNAN: You go before the captain who had to come out of his surprised condition and rolled bad on initiative, but you can tell he is of a different class than these already formidable soldiers.
CELIA: Big old knife he's got.
LIAM: I've already seen, in the blink of an eye, people go down, and they are, I know that I'm leading the charge into danger. I think that people will prevail here--
BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.
LIAM: -- but the responsibility is on my shoulders for starting it. So I'm going to walk through these two gentlemen here.
BRENNAN: Great.
LIAM: He's bleeding profusely. I'm going to slap a hand down on the captain's shoulder and say, "No bent knees today, I'm afraid." (growls) I will use my second and final charge attack to cone these three.
BRENNAN: Hell yeah! Go for it.
LIAM: It's a dex save 13.
BRENNAN: Dex save. Captain fails.
JASMINE: Yes!
CELIA: Yes!
BRENNAN: These two soldiers fail as well.
JASMINE: Yay!
CELIA: Yeah!
MATT: Making up for the last one.
CELIA: Get coned!
BRENNAN: Four damage.
CELIA: Get coned! (laughs)
BRENNAN: The captain takes four points of damage, and that's-- D and E take four. Okay. (exhales) Four points of damage. Four points of damage there. This one is looking very hurt right here. That is your turn. The captain is going to turn to you. Your armor class is 11.
LIAM: 11. I'm getting hit.
CELIA: No, you're not! No, you're not!
BRENNAN: I'm going to roll this in front of the board.
ALEXANDER: (groans)
CELIA: No!
BRENNAN: He's going to make two attacks.
JASMINE: Oh no!
BRENNAN: He hits on a seven or higher.
JASMINE: Oh no!
LIAM: 15.
BRENNAN: 15. (groans)
CELIA: Okay! Okay! Okay!
BRENNAN: He deals you seven points of damage.
LIAM: Down.
CELIA: No!
BRENNAN: Erro goes down. (impact) On your turn, as you go down, do you want to make one final persuasion check for me as you rush forward? Only if you wish.
LIAM: (sighs)
LIAM: If the crowd, for a split second, hushes at the sight of this dragon, this gold dragonborn, who kicked off this fight, just for a split second, and you can hear croaking out of his voice: Change is coming!
BRENNAN: Give me a persuasion with advantage.
LIAM: Mm-hmm.
LIAM: Where's my dice? I'll just roll it twice. Persuasion, 16.
BRENNAN: 16, hell yeah. Pick four more to run up on your turn and join you.
LIAM: (sighs heavily) Let's do Mr. Claw Hand here.
BRENNAN: Hell yeah.
CELIA: Come on, claw hand.
BRENNAN: He'll rush forward over here, great.
LIAM: I think this little raven individual will join.
BRENNAN: Hell yeah, he's going to rush forward and fill the gap.
LIAM: We'll have that black-and-white-haired--
BRENNAN: Mm-hmm, he'll rush forward, yeah.
LIAM: Yeah, and then this guy with the stein is going to come try to break that crockery on somebody's head.
BRENNAN: Hell yeah, okay. He's going to rush up over here. Go ahead, give me two attack rolls for those closing in on this soldier over here.
LIAM: Natural 20.
BRENNAN: Ooh!
CELIA: Woo!
LIAM: Then what do I add for these guys?
ALEXANDER: Two.
LIAM: Two?
BRENNAN: Yes, you add two.
LIAM: 11 for the second.
BRENNAN: Second one doesn't hit. However, this soldier right here, this little kenku looks at you, rush forward and say, "Change is coming," and goes, (squawking) and leaps forward. The one that is face to face with you looks at you and goes, "You're going back in the cage, big boy cl--" And opens his mouth and you can see a knife coming up through his tongue as a tiny little kenku says, "They can't stop us all!" (grunting)
CELIA: Yeah! (laughter)
BRENNAN: The first soldier goes down.
ALL: Yes!
CELIA: Community!
BRENNAN: Unbelievable. Okay, as that happens, you have two more attacks to make.
LIAM: Okay.
BRENNAN: So go make the one for the stein friend over here and go make the one for the tiger folk that's joining Garen over there.
LIAM: Stein friend only rolled a three-- Oh, three and a four.
BRENNAN: Okay, no problem. The crowd is rushing, rushing, "Come on!" You see the tiger folk says, "We have to stop them now," as people start rushing and you can feel this fevered pitch of fear turning into excitement, turning into rage. That is going to be the captain-- Oh, so that all happens on your turn. The captain's going to step over you. He's going to make an attack on Luz.
LIAM: Oh!
CELIA: Yeah, that was, please.
BRENNAN: On a six or higher, he hits. Seven.
LIAM: Aw!
CELIA: Damn!
ALEXANDER: (laughs)
ALL: (noises of discontent)
LIAM: Oh my god.
JASMINE: How could the Moonweaver let this happen?
BRENNAN: So Luz looks up and goes-- You see, as you fall, you look at Luz, she touches the Moonweaver symbol, looks up, And as she looks up, the captain of the Strife Emperor looks forward, the amulet comes out and he centers his blade right for the holy symbol, coming in horizontal. Severs the cord, the holy symbol goes flying. She drops to the ground. That is going to be-- That is the captain's turn. Back at the top of initiative. We have one, two-- We have one-- These ones have fallen. One, two, three, four. We have four fallen commoners so far. I'm going to roll death saves for them.
CELIA: Oh.
BRENNAN: Okay. (exclaiming and groaning)
MATT: It was the half swallow that got me.
CELIA: Yeah.
MATT and CELIA: All right.
CELIA: Oh god.
BRENNAN: As the soldiers begin. They have cut down four and you have managed to drop one. We move through initiative, back to Fiedra with a 19.
CELIA: Yeah, didn't I get a nat 20?
BRENNAN: Oh, sorry, what's that?
CELIA: I got a nat 20 on mine.
BRENNAN: But you sent your initiative--
ALEXANDER: Oh, that's right.
CELIA: Yes, right, yes, yes, yes, yes.
ALEXANDER: Yep, we all remember that.
CELIA: We do. We do all remember that.
BRENNAN: Fiedra, it is your turn. I will also say this.
JASMINE: Yes.
BRENNAN: As that kenku rushes up alongside Crokas and you, that soldier falls to the ground, his sword clattering to the ground.
CELIA: Yeah.
JASMINE: Whew.
CELIA: Get that sword, honey.
JASMINE: Should I? Can I use a sword? Yeah.
CELIA: Yes!
BRENNAN: You can use it or you can give it to one of your companions, it's up to you. You can absolutely use it.
JASMINE: Taveen has nothing, right?
BRENNAN: Taveen has nothing right now.
JASMINE: Okay, I'm going to make Taveen grab the sword.
BRENNAN: Hell yeah.
JASMINE: I think, I don't know if that's part of my turn. But I am going to yell to the few remaining people who are behind me, try to do a persuasion check and I'm going to yell: Guys, you know, it's either us or them. Let's make it them! (laughter)
CELIA: Mm-hmm!
BRENNAN: Give me persuasion with advantage.
JASMINE: Oh, okay. 17. Yeah.
BRENNAN: 17, hell yes. Hell yes. Four are going to rush up alongside you.
JASMINE: All right.
BRENNAN: Pick four. These guys, this crew right over here, if you want to to be joining.
JASMINE: Yeah, I think just these first, these four. So these two--
BRENNAN: Yeah.
JASMINE: -- then those two who are standing right in front of there.
BRENNAN: Hell yeah.
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Go ahead-- As these ones rush up--
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: -- in this throng of people, make their attack rolls. Seeing the crowd of commoners around them, they just start picking up rocks and start throwing them at these fucking soldiers.
CELIA: Yeah!
JASMINE: Hell yeah, hell yeah.
BRENNAN: Go ahead and--
JASMINE: There's four of them?
BRENNAN: -- give me four attack rolls,
JASMINE: Four attack rolls, let me get another d20. I'm sorry, and I add what to these?
LIAM: Everybody plus two.
BRENNAN: Plus two.
JASMINE: Ooh, okay. We got a four and a six, which I'm assuming don't hit.
BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.
JASMINE: Then we have a 16 and a 21.
BRENNAN: Both of which hit.
JASMINE: Yes.
BRENNAN: Hell yes. You see that this uninjured soldier right here gets a rock right in the teeth and stumbles backwards.
CELIA: Yeah!
BRENNAN: Through the opening in his visor, as he's, "Ahh!" He says, "Captain, the guard has fallen!" Yelling back that one of his things-- Taveen kneels down quick, his hair catches on fire. He grabs the sword and he says, "When they drop, get their shit!" And leaps forward. (laughter)
JASMINE: Yes! Go Taveen!
CELIA: Yeah!
BRENNAN: Give me an attack roll for Taveen. Now if he hits, he deals 1d8 plus two damage.
JASMINE: Oh, Taveen, that boy.
MATT: Kill that dick. Take his sword.
JASMINE: Oh, that was bad--
BRENNAN: It was bad.
JASMINE: He did not, two.
BRENNAN: You see that this lifelong burglar takes his sword, massive weight, telegraphed swing--
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: "Hiyah! I don't practice with these!" (laughter)
BRENNAN: But keeps advancing, you see he's going to step over and close the gap here so that people can come in behind him and he gets in between two of the soldiers to make it a true fucking brawl. Fiedra.
CELIA: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Your attack.
JASMINE: Can I also? Okay, awesome.
BRENNAN: You can absolutely attack.
JASMINE: Then, okay, so plus four to attack versus armor. That is a 20 something.
BRENNAN: That is a hit, hell yeah.
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: 1d4 plus your dex modifier.
JASMINE: All right.
BRENNAN: You can go for-- I would say you can go for this guy right here or this one.
JASMINE: I think I'm going to go for the guy who's the-- That guy is the one that the other two villagers just hit, right?
BRENNAN: Just hit, yeah, that's correct.
JASMINE: Okay, I'm going to go for the same guy.
LIAM: Let's go, killer.
JASMINE: That is a five.
BRENNAN: Five damage.
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: You run up and (grunts) right in the stomach. (grunts) that soldier gets a bad, bleeding wound that spills out over him. Blood gushing everywhere as he looks down at this halfling. You are now out wading through fallen bodies.
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Standing on people's chest armor to get to solid footing. (grunting) With this little like, again, this tiny, thin dagger. Fiedra, that is your turn. Crokas, that's you.
ALEXANDER: So the kenku stabs up through the chin of the person I had my head pressed against. They fall and I see past that you've fallen right behind and that the captain is right there. And Crokas, yeah. Unknowing he's doing it, he's going to use his action and activate the second part of this belt.
BRENNAN: Hell yes.
CELIA: Ooh!
ALEXANDER: Because he's raging, essentially. So for a minute, I become a storm avatar. (laughter)
JASMINE: What?
ALEXANDER: Lightning just starts to--
BRENNAN: ♪ We gave Challenge Rating 1/8 NPCs ♪ ♪ a Vestige of Divergence ♪ (laughter)
ALEXANDER: So lightning starts crackling across his scales and trailing out of his eyes and he goes charging up behind the captain. And is going to put a hand on his shoulder and spin him towards him.
BRENNAN: Hell yes. Whoosh! You rush, spin this captain around. Hell yes.
ALEXANDER: Crackling with lightning and then I'm going to use my bonus action and I can-- "As a bonus action, you can choose one creature you see within 30 feet to be struck by lightning." (laughter)
ALEXANDER: It's going to come from Crokas' mouth. (cheering)
BRENNAN: Yeah, breath weapon!
ALEXANDER: Like a Godzilla breath.
BRENNAN: Yes.
ALEXANDER: It's going to zap! Right out of the front of him.
CELIA: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!
ALEXANDER: So he has to make a 15 dex saving throw.
BRENNAN: Hell yes, these guys are not-- They're heavily-armored dudes.
CELIA: Fuck them up, Crokas!
BRENNAN: Would you believe a nat one if I told you.
ALEXANDER: Hell yeah! (laughter)
ALEXANDER: Okay, that's two, five, 10. 15 points of lightning damage.
BRENNAN: Jesus Christ!
JASMINE: Yes!
LIAM: We get the Gathering-- (electricity whooshing)
BRENNAN: (screaming)
MATT: "Highlander" beam.
JASMINE: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
BRENNAN: This veteran of the Strife Emperor's wars moves from virtually uninjured to bloodied and near death's door in a single mighty smiting of your lightning breath. (whooshing roar) This action on your part, without that, it is hard to see how you succeed in this. I will be honest, with the amount of hit points this captain had and how terrible he was. This is the thing that maybe means people will survive this group of seven soldiers walking in here.
ALEXANDER: Just standing there, lightning (crackling) Crokas goes, (purring growl)
LIAM: Yeah.
CELIA: Mm-hmm.
ALEXANDER: His lightning--
BRENNAN: Hell and yes. Hell yes. Garen, that is going to be you, my friend.
MATT: I'll say Garen who is on the opposite side of this. As the bolt strikes through, puts up his hammer defensively and the bolt hits his hammer and now (electricity hissing) also disseminates through.
ALEXANDER: Hell yeah.
BRENNAN: Uh-huh.
MATT: His fingers go numb for a second from the dissolution of that energy. Looks at it, sees the captain stumbled back a bit, looks around the crowd and goes: Some wait for miracles. But we make them with our own hands! And goes rushing into the back of the captain to see if he can possibly flank--
ALEXANDER: Hell yeah, hell yeah, hell yeah,
MATT: -- on the opposite side of Crokas.
BRENNAN: You can absolutely flank, roll with advantage.
MATT: All righty.
CELIA: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
LIAM: Let's go.
MATT: A natural one and a natural 17.
BRENNAN: Woo!
MATT: For a 23 to hit.
BRENNAN: Hell yes, 23 hits. Go ahead and roll damage.
MATT: All righty. Woo, that's going to be-- Plus four. 10 points of bludgeoning damage.
BRENNAN: Jesus Christ! (exclaiming)
ALEXANDER: Hell yeah.
BRENNAN: A dwarf, old though he may be, with muscles that at this advanced age are more like the stone he works than flesh itself; thunders and sees the shoddy craftsmanship at the back of his captain's armor. Crunches in. (impact) (screaming) As the armor buckles and the captain drops to one knee, he is within an inch of his life as he stumbles before you, Garen. As you look up and meet Crokas' eye on either side.
ALEXANDER: (lightning crackles)
LIAM: (laughs)
BRENNAN: Unbelievable.
LIAM: Awesome.
BRENNAN: So fucking badass.
CELIA: So good.
BRENNAN: Rei'nia, that's going to be you.
ALEXANDER: Completely blank eyes, all the lightning courses.
MATT: We'll unpack this later. (laughs)
BRENNAN: Nia, you see before you, the captain on death's door. Luz's blood still on his blade, as he's beset between Garen and Crokas in front of you. There are still soldiers around, but you see that captain is right in front of you as well.
CELIA: Luz's holy pendant fell, right?
BRENNAN: Yeah.
CELIA: Nia's going to pick that up and attempt to bludgeon the captain's-- Oh, he's on the ground, right?
BRENNAN: Yeah.
CELIA: She wants to, ting! And use that to hopefully kill him.
MATT: Bludgeon him with the symbol?
CELIA: Bludgeon him with the Moonweaver symbol.
MATT: That's so metal!
ALEXANDER: Hell yeah, hell yeah,
BRENNAN: Celia.
CELIA: Yeah.
BRENNAN: What are you feeling in the moment that you pick up that holy symbol?
CELIA: I think Nia is such a frantic, shaking person. She is constantly needing to use her hands to keep her mind still. When she picks up that Moonweaver symbol, a calmness and a serenity washes over her unlike anything she has ever felt. The world almost gets quiet. She picks that up. She feels the weight of her sister's locket in her bag. She steps over anyone in between her and this captain and she looks at him, almost feeling sorry for him. Understanding that he has put himself in a position of-- It's seven against 1200.
ALEXANDER: (laughs)
CELIA: He very well could've decided to join us to build a better world, but he decided to be an obstacle. So Nia does what she does with obstacles, and that is push it out of her way.
BRENNAN: To respect the free will of all beings means to respect when one has made themselves an obstacle to a kinder world. With no malice or hatred in your heart, you take the beautiful symbol of the Moonweaver from where it lies in the mud and ash, the rain subsiding, fog roiling. You lift it on high, move forward. I would like you to make an attack roll with advantage because Crokas and Garen stand side by side your companions here. Make a roll with advantage. You will add your proficiency bonus and you will add your wisdom bonus, because as of this moment, you are a first level cleric.
JASMINE: (gasps) Woo!
ALEXANDER: Ohh! (laughter)
JASMINE: Level one.
CELIA: Oh gosh!
BRENNAN: Level one never felt so good! (laughter)
CELIA: Oh gosh.
BRENNAN: Make your attack roll.
CELIA: That's a natural 17. Proficiency is two, wisdom is three. So that's a 22.
BRENNAN: 22.
CELIA: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Please roll 3d10 radiant damage.
ALEXANDER: Oh shit!
BRENNAN: As you cast Inflict Wounds.
JASMINE: Whoa! (laughter)
ALEXANDER: Hell yeah.
CELIA: Oh my-- I'm like, I'm shaking. So we can see what's happening here?
LIAM: That's just right!
CELIA: Celia the person is shaking. Holy cow, okay. I'm going to faint. Where's the 10? What do 10s look like?
ALEXANDER: Eh, you know.
MATT: There you go, you got that one--
CELIA: This one, this one--
MATT: That one.
CELIA: And this one right here?
LIAM: Nia, Nia is the 10.
MATT: There you go, you got it. (laughter)
CELIA: Thank you. Crazy stuff. Guys, wild things are happening. That's a one, a four, and a six. So that is 11.
BRENNAN: With 10 hit points left, how do you want to do this? (laughter and cheering)
MATT: Yes!
BRENNAN: Yeah, here we go!
CELIA: Okay.
ALEXANDER: Okay.
CELIA: Nia, the calmest she has ever been, feeling so emboldened by the people around her. She's so far from her family and has yet, in this moment, feels an incredible sense of belonging. She looks at Erro, down. The man who-- Well, the being, excuse me, who got her to the point of where she's trying to go. The person who promised to lead her back to this point, and she feels the earth underneath her feet. Under her breath, she says: Change is coming, and I am change. Bam!
BRENNAN: Woo hoo hoo hoo! Boom! (cheering)
ALEXANDER: Love it. So good.
MATT: Mwah! (growls)
CELIA: She brains him! She may, even as he's down. She's like-- There's a frantic joy within her and she just, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam! Until she feels as though now is a proper time to be done. (laughter)
BRENNAN: Garen and Crokas. Crokas, you just activated some crazy magic power that you've never seen before. Garen, your hammer's still crackling with it. And wreathed in fog and moonlight, the holy symbol of the Moonweaver shining in her hands, Rei'nia lifts it aloft as though to invoke a miracle. The miracle she invokes is making the thing glow as she bashes this fucking guy's head in with it. Boom! Boom! It is a magic that is at once mystical, but profound in its mundanity. This was not a moment where an obstacle would be removed invisibly or with the rough edges cut off. Miracles, when they touch the real world, get dirty, and this captain is going to be eating ash and mud in rainwater in the final moments of his consciousness. Captain defeated. Rei'nia, what a turn! (laughter)
MATT: Oh! So good!
BRENNAN: Unbelievable!
CELIA: Crazy town! This is my favorite game! (laughter)
BRENNAN: Incredible! Okay, there are soldiers here, standing. One is going to take a leap at Garen. That is a six, which is a miss.
CELIA: Yeah!
BRENNAN: That is a five, which is a miss.
CELIA: Yeah!
BRENNAN: One of them's coming for Crokas. That is a hit.
CELIA: (groans)
BRENNAN: That is a miss. Crokas, you take four points of damage. Down?
ALEXANDER: I'm out.
BRENNAN: Crokas goes down. Boom! That's Crokas. This one--
ALEXANDER: Just (heavy flop) a giant lizard falling into the mud.
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Dropped. Boom. This soldier is going to move here.
ALEXANDER: Exactly the amount of hit points I had.
CELIA: Yeah. As soon as he said it, I was like: No!
MATT: That's how it works.
BRENNAN: Boom. Down.
CELIA: Question for you, Brennan.
BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.
CELIA: Nia knocks that captain down. Can she take whatever weapon he has?
BRENNAN: Yes.
CELIA: Cool! Nia takes it.
BRENNAN: Hell yeah!
CELIA: If she can fit the Moonweaver symbol onto her--
BRENNAN: Yeah.
CELIA: She will pocket that and then take whatever weapon he has and get ready for her next turn. Sorry.
BRENNAN: Hell yeah.
CELIA: Didn't mean to interrupt.
ALEXANDER: You're fine.
BRENNAN: This guy's going to take two swings. Our beloved kenku friend falls.
CELIA: No!
JASMINE: Oh no!
LIAM: Oh!
CELIA: Not the kenku!
BRENNAN: This guy's totally surrounded.
LIAM: Ken!
CELIA: (laughs)
BRENNAN: That's a miss. That's a hit.
BRENNAN: Drops this guy.
CELIA: Jeez!
BRENNAN: Soldiers hacking through these commoners in front of them as fast as they can. Erro, we come to your first death saving throw.
ALEXANDER: Oh fuck!
LIAM: Fail.
CELIA: No!
MATT: Oh!
ALEXANDER: All right. All right. Let's go!
CELIA: No, no, no, no. This will not happen. This will not happen.
BRENNAN: Erro, that first failure, you see around you feet in the mud. You feel life leaving you. But you watch that captain fall. There's people around. You see Garen's feet. You see the light from Rei'nia's first spell. You don't know if you will succeed or fail here, but there's something bubbling up. It's not an idea, even though it can express itself like one. It's a feeling. What do you call a mix between a feeling and an idea? I guess, a belief.
CELIA: Mm.
BRENNAN: Succeed or fail, does Erro think it was worth it to stand up to these soldiers here?
LIAM: In these moments, his mind wanders back to that lake where men dressed so similar to these robbed him of what little joy he had in this world. And that day, he fled. Today, he wasn't sure as he uttered the words, "Change is coming," that he himself believed it. But on this day, where he stood instead of fled, as the rain water seeps into the side of his mouth, as the rain water seeps into the side of his mouth, maybe he won't see it, but finally, he believes it.
BRENNAN: (heavy exhale) Fiedra, it's your turn.
JASMINE: (sighs) Seeing Crokas go down--
ALEXANDER: I was like: I'm dead. (laughs)
JASMINE: Yeah. It's the guard on this-- Or no, which is the guard that took him down just now?
BRENNAN: This guard right there.
JASMINE: Oh, that guard. Okay, cool. Okay. That's still a little ways off. In that case, is there a way I could get Taveen to try and grab that guard from behind--
BRENNAN: Yeah, for sure.
JASMINE: -- and hold him?
BRENNAN: Yeah, absolutely.
JASMINE: Okay.
BRENNAN: Give me a grapple check for him.
JASMINE: Okay. Okay. Come on, Taveen. Come on, Taveen!
BRENNAN: You're just trying to beat an eight.
JASMINE: Oh no! Four.
BRENNAN: Four. He does not succeed.
MATT and CELIA: (groan)
JASMINE: Fuck!
ALEXANDER: Taveen, come on!
CELIA: Taveen!
JASMINE: Taveen!
CELIA: Get it together!
JASMINE: Okay. Well, that's fine. (laughter)
ALEXANDER: That's it. That's the amount--
BRENNAN: Right now, you have--
ALEXANDER: -- of revenge you're committing to my death?
BRENNAN: -- one, two, three, four--
LIAM: Or not Taveen.
BRENNAN: -- five soldiers standing, all in various states of injury, but there are many commoners still fighting right now. If you want, you can roll for some of those commoners--
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: -- to to attack first and see what is available to you to do then, if you'd like.
JASMINE: Yeah. Okay. Oh wait, sorry. As in roll an attack, or roll a persuasion for more commoners?
BRENNAN: Oh, you can roll a persuasion for more commoners right now, if you want.
JASMINE: Oh, okay.
BRENNAN: Yeah.
JASMINE: Okay. Yeah. Fiedra calls back and says: Their captain has fallen. Let's send the rest of these fuckers to join him. (laughter)
ALEXANDER: So understated.
BRENNAN: Hell yes! Hell yes!
JASMINE: Yes.
CELIA: Get up!
BRENNAN: Hell yes.
CELIA: Get hip to the cause!
BRENNAN: Hell yeah! Give me a persuasion check.
MATT: I love it.
JASMINE: All right.
BRENNAN: Roll with advantage.
JASMINE: Oh! That is a 21.
BRENNAN: Wow! Okay. (laughter)
BRENNAN: These guys all rush. You get one, two, three. People see their companions going down. They are not going to take that lying down. Then these two rush up over here. Give me three attack rolls for this one right here.
JASMINE: All right. All right. Come on, commoners! I believe in you! One of them got an 18. Wait, I'm sorry. I feel like I ask this every round.
LIAM: Plus two. Okay.
JASMINE: I add plus two to them, right?
BRENNAN: Plus two. Yes. We got an 11, a 12, and a 20.
BRENNAN: An 11, a 12, and a 20. Hell yes! Okay. So that's two points of damage to this soldier right here. You can go ahead, too, because you have some other people that have joined you. These ones are going to rush up into the fray, one, two, and they're going to take attacks. So give me three attacks on this one right here.
JASMINE: Okay. Ooh!
CELIA: Mm!
ALEXANDER: Ooh!
JASMINE: That is two 14s and a 19.
CELIA: Ooh!
BRENNAN: 19 hits. That one takes another two points of damage. Boom! It is your attack, Fiedra.
JASMINE: All right. Then I'm going to try and stab that one guard. Do I get any sort of advantage by being behind him and sneaky?
BRENNAN: Yeah. You want to hit this guy right here?
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: You can jump in next to Taveen and flank him.
JASMINE: Yes, I do that.
BRENNAN: Yeah, go for it.
CELIA: Flank him, flank him, flank him.
BRENNAN: Roll with advantage, yeah.
JASMINE: Roll with advantage? Okay. Cool. Then this. So--
LIAM: Let's go, 20!
JASMINE: Not a 20, but a dirty 23.
JASMINE: Not a 20, but a dirty 23. Yeah. (laughs)
BRENNAN: 23 is a hit!
CELIA: Some would say better than a 20.
BRENNAN: Roll damage for me.
JASMINE: All right.
MATT: We call that overachieving.
JASMINE: Oh, that was a mistake.
CELIA and MATT: (chuckle)
JASMINE: Four.
BRENNAN: Four damage.
JASMINE: Not awful, but not great.
BRENNAN: Four damage. Unfortunately, he has five hit points left.
JASMINE: (gasps)
CELIA: (groans)
BRENNAN: So you're going to have to roll that first die of sneak attack damage because you are a first level rogue-- (cheering)
BRENNAN: -- as of this. (cheering continues)
CELIA: Yes, yes, yes, yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes!
BRENNAN: Let's go! (laughter)
ALEXANDER: d6.
JASMINE: d6?
BRENNAN: d6. It automatically does at least one damage, but let's see what you roll anyway. Here you go.
JASMINE: Five!
BRENNAN: Five!
CELIA: Yeah!
BRENNAN: Fiedra, how do you want to do this? Describe how he goes down.
CELIA: Yes! Put that bitch in the dirt! (laughter)
BRENNAN: This is the one that dropped Otto.
JASMINE: Oh, this is the one that dropped Otto? I come up behind him with the stiletto, and I think put it right against this guy's neck, and I whisper into his ear: You don't mess with the Roach Gang, and just (decisive slice).
BRENNAN: (killing slice)
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: You open up a second smile under his chin--
CELIA: (groans)
BRENNAN: -- and he drops to the ground, dead. Immediately, another one of the commoners here picks up that longsword.
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: "(war cry)" Howls for blood.
JASMINE: Yes!
BRENNAN: Incredible, Fiedra! Great! Okay, that one is toast. That is going to be death saving throw from Crokas.
CELIA: (sighs)
ALEXANDER: Natural 20.
CELIA: Woo!
BRENNAN: You got to be fucking kidding me! You have got to be fucking kidding me! (laughter)
MATT: You are unkillable!
JASMINE: Yes!
CELIA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! (laughter)
BRENNAN: Crokas, the monster. (laughter)
BRENNAN: A distant voice rumbles like thunder. "You going to take that lying down?" (laughter)
ALEXANDER: Okay, so clarification. This means I can stand up, correct?
BRENNAN: You have one hit point--
ALEXANDER: I have one hit point.
BRENNAN: -- at the beginning of your turn.
ALEXANDER: Yeah, at the beginning of my turn.
BRENNAN: Wow!
ALEXANDER: So I would like it to be that he's laying there on the ground. He's crackling, he's laying in the mud, comes around, and all of a sudden a bolt of lightning goes-- (lighting strike) Basically defibrillates him back up. (laughter)
BRENNAN: You're defibrillated. By the way, I don't know if everyone can see where we're headed here. You absolutely gained your first level on that nat 20 death saving throw, a million percent. I believe your class is fighter, right? Or no?
ALEXANDER: No, we were going--
BRENNAN: Oh!
ALEXANDER: I think-- I don't remember.
BRENNAN: Monk. We were going monk.
JASMINE: Monk.
ALEXANDER: We were going monk.
JASMINE: I think it was monk.
ALEXANDER: Yeah, I guess we're going monk.
BRENNAN: I think on that death save, you come back feeling centered in a power and focus like you have never felt in your life before. At the beginning of your turn, you may act.
BRENNAN: So I just (electric shock) get shocked and the lightning comes across. Technically, that'll be the end of the-- Because it would go away when I passed out.
BRENNAN: Yeah, yeah.
ALEXANDER: But I'll say that's the last of it. He stands up and looks. Which guard is closest to me there, where I would stand up?
BRENNAN: As you stand, you've got two. You got this one right here--
ALEXANDER: Yeah.
BRENNAN: -- and this one right here.
ALEXANDER: He stands up, eyes still looking, looks at him and goes: "You're dead." (laughter)
ALEXANDER: Rushes and clamps his jaws over the front of his face plate.
BRENNAN: Hell yes!
ALEXANDER: Like a giant crocodile.
JASMINE: Yes.
BRENNAN: Hell yeah! You definitely have flanking on these guys now. All your commoners have surrounded them. Roll your first attack with advantage.
ALEXANDER: That would be a 18 to hit.
BRENNAN: 18 hits. Roll for that first attack.
ALEXANDER: Yeah.
BRENNAN: As a 1st-level monk--
ALEXANDER: Monk would be--
BRENNAN: -- you have a bonus action martial arts attack as well.
ALEXANDER: I do, indeed.
CELIA: Oh my god!
JASMINE: Oh!
ALEXANDER: So where the hell is my actions? There it is. Now I can use this.
JASMINE: He's about to get karate chopped by Godzilla.
ALEXANDER: So now it's 1d6 plus five.
CELIA: (laughs)
BRENNAN: 1d6 plus five.
ALEXANDER: Yeah.
CELIA: Come on!
ALEXANDER: So that's 1d6 plus... So that's-- My brain! Nine points of damage, the first hit.
BRENNAN: Are you doing it to this guy here?
ALEXANDER: That guy right there.
BRENNAN: That guy right there? Okay, nine points of damage. That one, miraculously, has been uninjured largely for the battle, and now is on death's door once again.
ALEXANDER: He crunches the helmet in his jaws, crunch, and then is going to take, with his bonus action, the claws in the front. I grab into the front of his chest, try and pull out whatever he finds. (laughter)
BRENNAN: Going to piñata this soldier of the Strife Emperor. Roll with advantage.
CELIA: Ooh!
ALEXANDER: That is-- Oh, that was upside. That is ♪ ba-ba-ba-ba ♪ 19 to hit.
BRENNAN: 19 hits!
ALEXANDER: Then that's another nine points of damage. Slashing damage.
BRENNAN: Let's keep this train rolling. Alex, how do you want to do this?
LIAM: Yeah!
JASMINE: Yes!
BRENNAN: We'll go through each--
ALEXANDER: He runs up behind, his jaws clamps around the helmet, starts crushing the helmet and the guy, blood is coming out from under the helmet. He takes his claws, slams it into the guy's chest, pulls out a hunk of meat that was in there and rips it out, cascading blood across, landing all over the white scales on his body.
CELIA: Fierce.
ALEXANDER: And is just, then with the guy limp, he's holding his head in his mouth and he's looking at the next guard.
LIAM: (laughs)
BRENNAN: Unbelievable!
CELIA: How do they feel about that, Brennan?
BRENNAN: They feel pretty bad. At the beginning of their last turn, there were six of them, and there's now three of them.
ALEXANDER and JASMINE: (laugh)
BRENNAN: That's not good!
ALEXANDER: I can't believe--
BRENNAN: You don't like when the chart goes in that direction. You want that line to go the other way.
ALEXANDER: I cannot believe I rolled a natural 20!
BRENNAN: That is fucking insane, Alex!
CELIA: I can. I can believe it.
BRENNAN: That's amazing! Garen, that is your turn.
MATT: Oh my goodness. I mean, seeing this trend, I mean, watching Erro fall to the ground, the instinct is to rush, but it's not a safe time or moment to do that. Hopefully, there'll be a moment to tend to that. But right now, there are two soldiers that are on my right and left? Which of them looks the most wounded?
BRENNAN: The one to your left is far and away the most wounded.
MATT: Okay. So what I'm going to do is, the one that's to my right, I'm going to hold the hammer up in defensive way as I withdraw, and lean this way, and then swing around and try and use my cap to the back of the helmet of the one that's facing the opposite direction and see if I can strike it.
ALEXANDER: Hell yeah, hell yeah!
BRENNAN: Hell yes! That one is flanked as well. Go for it.
MATT: Okay. Ooh! That's going to be a 24 to hit.
BRENNAN: Go ahead and roll damage.
MATT: That's going to be another 10 points of damage. (laughter)
MATT: I rolled full six on both dice. (laughter)
BRENNAN: I don't want this to become the Hollywood handshake from "Great British Bake-Off." (laughter)
BRENNAN: But numbers are numbers. Matt, how do you want to do this?
LIAM and CELIA: Woo!
MATT: So in what was attempting to basically try and confuse and draw attention, his cap slams into the back of that soldier's helmet. As he spins around to see where the impact is from, the momentum of his head spinning meets the side of my hammer. Whack! With a massive smashing crunch sound, the front of the helmet caves in with the hammer itself delving about three inches into it. His body crumbles and Garen falls forward with him, holding it there. As he's still clutching the hammer wedged in his face, just stands over. We have hope now.
BRENNAN: (laughs)
CELIA: (excited noises)
MATT: And I hope you tell your master how it feels. (fleshy rip) Wrench the hammer from his face.
BRENNAN: Hell yes! Hell yes! Rei'nia, that is your turn. Two soldiers stand. It is chaos here.
CELIA: Erro is down.
BRENNAN: Erro is down.
CELIA: I don't have it in front of me, but I'm hoping that this recent clerical--
BRENNAN: You have Cure Wounds prepared and you have another 1st-level spell slot at your disposal.
CELIA: I'm going to cast Cure Wounds on Erro.
BRENNAN: Incredible!
ALEXANDER: Hell yeah, hell yeah!
BRENNAN: As you have wielded the destructive powers of the light and of the magic that flows through all of Exandria, even before the danger is yet passed, you embrace the other side. Destruction, creation, preservation, these are truths of the world. They are neither bad nor good. Obstacles present themselves, they must be brought low. And also, when something is threatened with destruction whose time has not yet come, great miracles can intercede on its behalf. Roll 1d8 plus your-- Roll 1d8 plus your wisdom modifier.
CELIA: Oh good, four.
BRENNAN: Four, okay. Erro, with the possibility of death on your next save if you rolled a natural one, you instead sputter to life once again. As you do, Rei'nia, you see Erro's eyes open. The man who promised you he would get you to Torm's Hill. What does he see the moment that his eyes open?
CELIA: Nia has her eyes closed. She's in a deep state of focus and she goes: We make our own miracles. You are my miracle. Be made again. Rise!
BRENNAN: A magic that has flown. A magic that has flowed through you before in a different chapter of your life returns in this moment as a cleric moves that healing power through you and you feel life and your wounds knit closed. Incredible.
LIAM: His mouth sputters in the mud and water on the ground. He doesn't even lift his head but just one eye, a complete mess, turns up and their eyes meet in a split second.
BRENNAN: Two soldiers remain. They know the battle is lost. What they were counting on more than anything was that 1200 people would be so afraid of being the eight who have fallen. would be so afraid of being the eight who have fallen. That's what they were counting on. For all of you to be afraid, for no one to be willing to fall into the mud like Erro was. Now Erro is back. These two soldiers that are on either side of Rei'nia see and know that their day has come. see and know that their day has come. But they also know what it is when a cleric of a Prime Deity stands before them. A cleric of the light. They have enough belief in the Strife Emperor that they will not suffer that to pass. So even if this is their final moment, they will make it count.
CELIA: I got the moon on my side, bitch, try me. (laughter)
BRENNAN: Your armor class is 10, yes?
CELIA: Something like that.
BRENNAN: That's a miss.
CELIA: Fantastic.
BRENNAN: That's a miss.
CELIA: I got the moon on my side, bitch, try me!
ALEXANDER: Got another guy, hold on. (laughs)
CELIA: That's another miss. I'm going to worry about it.
BRENNAN: I'll roll this in front of the board.
CELIA: Okay.
MATT: Let's do it.
CELIA: This is what I get for getting cocky.
BRENNAN: They add a plus three to hit.
CELIA: For why?
BRENNAN: On a seven or higher. They're soldiers. On a seven or higher they hit. 16.
CELIA: Gorgeous.
BRENNAN: 1d8 plus two.
ALEXANDER: It's all right.
CELIA: Gorgeous.
BRENNAN: Eight damage.
JASMINE: (gasps)
CELIA: Yep, I'm down.
BRENNAN: Sword flashes through. (sword slashing) With that last attack, that old one's going to turn. (sighs) Does he turn to Garen, or does he attempt to finish hope in this moment on one who has already fallen?
ALEXANDER: (laughs)
BRENNAN: Garen, we'll leave it up to a roll of the dice. One, two, three, four, five, six. Four.
CELIA: (exhales) Thank you, friend.
MATT: I'll say in this instance. I see the blade starting to come down in an attempt to finish this and Garen goes: Hey! And puts the hammer up and goes: I'm what you want, boy.
BRENNAN: He's going to take his last swing at you, armor class of seven.
MATT: Seven.
BRENNAN: He hits on a four or higher.
MATT: Yeah, that checks out.
BRENNAN: Four.
CELIA: No!
MATT: I bring it, I bring it. (chuckles)
BRENNAN: Nine points of damage to Garen.
MATT: So-- Hmm, here's what I'll say.
BRENNAN: Yeah.
MATT: I try and make that final push to distract. It doesn't work. The drive to finish this job is there and Garen leaps forward and covers her body with his and takes the blade to his own back.
BRENNAN: As you feel the steel go in between your ribs--
MATT: (pained cough)
CELIA: Ooh!
BRENNAN: -- there is a moment, both of you horizontal, you covering Rei'nia with your body, who has healed you so many times, you look over and see on the ground Erro, who you've traveled with for so long. And Erro, you look and lock eyes, as you come out of unconsciousness and you see Garen entering it. There is a moment where you lock eyes together, having wandered this world for so long.
MATT: He smiles before he fades.
ALEXANDER: (growling snorts)
BRENNAN: Erro.
ALEXANDER: Hell yeah.
BRENNAN: It is your turn.
ALEXANDER: Okay.
BRENNAN: I would also let you know, as you stand up, the one who stood forward and said, "It will not be like it has been." It is your turn and you may take it as a first-level ranger.
CELIA: Yeah.
MATT: (chuckles)
LIAM: Can I grab one of the soldiers' swords up out of the mud as I rise?
BRENNAN: Yes, you absolutely can.
CELIA: Yes.
BRENNAN: Hell yes.
LIAM: And roars into the air from his gaunt, golden dragonborn frame (yells) and I'm going to swing it into their attacker.
BRENNAN: Hell yes. Go for it. Go ahead and roll. You are flanking, so you will have advantage as you stand.
LIAM: What do I add? What do I add as a ranger?
BRENNAN: Your proficiency plus either your strength or your dex modifier.
LIAM: Strength or dex?
BRENNAN: Yeah.
LIAM: That is a 15 total?
BRENNAN: 15 total. Hold on, a 15 total to hit. Ta ta ta. Let me get their armor class here real quick. 15 total does not hit the armor here, unfortunately.
LIAM: Okay.
BRENNAN: But you have access to also any of your first-level spells that you have here now.
LIAM: I'm level zero.
BRENNAN: (laughs)
ALEXANDER: I know.
BRENNAN: You have your stat block in front of you. As you take a swing with that sword, you also have, yeah, Hunter's Mark is also available to you. I think is one of your first-level spells.
LIAM: Right, but that is--
BRENNAN: Extra damage I think, yeah.
ALEXANDER: Not extra to hit.
LIAM: That's it, then.
BRENNAN: You take a swing, clang, connect there with the armor holding the sword aloft. We move from Erro's turn, the captain is dead. Fiedra, it is your turn once more.
JASMINE: All right, I intervene, and then do I still have a little army of commoners?
BRENNAN: You do, yeah, absolutely.
JASMINE: We are all going to fucking mob the guy that got these two.
BRENNAN: Yeah.
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Actually, by the way, some other people had also summoned some commoners on their turns as well, right? Nia and them? Let's make sure we resolve that as well. I realize your guys' commoners should make attacks also. Nia, as you drop, you have I think these four over here.
CELIA: Oh shoot.
BRENNAN: So give me four attack rolls there if you'd be so kind.
CELIA: And these are all 20s, right?
BRENNAN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
CELIA: One, two. (vocalizing)
BRENNAN: Just let me know if any of them get a 14 or higher on the die.
CELIA: One of them gets a 19, the other missed.
BRENNAN: Two damage to that one; still up looking so bad.
CELIA: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
BRENNAN: Erro, you also have some over--
CELIA: Oh wait, no, sorry, that was only three. I got four, right?
BRENNAN: Oh, roll one more.
CELIA: I get one more.
ALEXANDER: I can't read the die.
CELIA: That's a two.
BRENNAN: Two. Erro, you have your original four over here that are all still fighting as well.
LIAM: They're rolling much better than me. That's a 17.
BRENNAN: Hit.
LIAM: A 12. A seven and a 10. So probably only one hit.
BRENNAN: Only one hits, boom. Fiedra, that's you. Do you want to roll for your commoners first?
JASMINE: Sure, yeah.
BRENNAN: Hell yeah.
JASMINE: I have how many? Four?
BRENNAN: Roll for Taveen. He's got the longsword still, yeah.
JASMINE: Oh, Taveen. Taveen! Please, Taveen.
JASMINE, ALEXANDER and CELIA: Come on, Taveen!
LIAM: It's all on you.
JASMINE: No. (laughs) He rolled a nine, which--
CELIA: Well, doesn't he get a plus?
JASMINE: It's plus two, though, right? Yeah, I don't think, yeah.
BRENNAN: Oh, sorry. Oh yeah, he does not get, he only gets a plus three.
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: So he does not hit. You have three more commoners, though, right?
JASMINE: Three more commoners. All right. Come on, one of you guys, please. Ooh, they rolled really well. One of them does not hit because that's a five. But we have a 18 and a 21 to hit.
BRENNAN: Both get four damage.
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: These last two soldiers are at death's door. Roll your own attack.
JASMINE: Ha ha! That is a 19 to hit.
BRENNAN: 19 hits.
CELIA: Oh yeah.
BRENNAN: Roll sneak attack damage, too.
JASMINE: Roll sneak attack damage. Wait, that was, oh, that's a six, I'm dumb. Then plus dex, right?
BRENNAN: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
JASMINE: It's 10 damage.
BRENNAN: You rush up to this one, (grunts) slit his throat. Gone, dead. One soldier remains. Fiedra, you've killed two of these guys now. Just disembowel. You hear the intestines hit the mud and he-- That is Fiedra's turn. Crokas, that's going to be you.
ALEXANDER: Okay, so, now. Last guy--
BRENNAN: Last soldier standing.
ALEXANDER: So Crokas still has the other guy in his mouth and he looks directly at the last soldier, catches his eye, goes (bones cracking) and snaps the guy-- Cracks the skull, drops him. And is going to run at him. What I want to do is he runs at him and he is going to take a swipe with his claws, and then as the bonus action attack is going to to spin and slap him with his tail.
BRENNAN: Hell yes.
ALEXANDER: Is there flanking?
BRENNAN: Yes, you have flanking here as well.
ALEXANDER: The first hit. Ooh. Seven, eight, nine, 10. Not hit. It's 12, so I miss.
BRENNAN: Miss the first one. You still have your bonus action.
ALEXANDER: So it glances off the armor, uses the momentum to spin and is going to slam him with his tail. That is a 17 plus seven, so I assume that hits.
BRENNAN: That is a hit. Go ahead and roll damage.
ALEXANDER: That's five, six, seven. Eight points of damage.
BRENNAN: That first claw misses and the soldier steps back thinking maybe I can get this monster freaking my last blow, rears back and doesn't see that the missed attack is already part of the follow-up and roiling this massive crocodilian tail. Whah! You hear his spine crunch like popcorn and falls to the ground dead. The last soldier defeated. We are going to stay in initiative because people are dying.
LIAM: Yeah.
ALEXANDER: Okay. So we're going to move from this onward as fast-- Continuing on. Garen, I'm going to need a death savings throw from you.
MATT: Yes, you do. That's a three. It's a fail.
BRENNAN: Failure from Garen. Rei'nia, death saving throw from you.
ALEXANDER: Fuck.
CELIA: That's a five.
BRENNAN: That's a fail. Erro, it returns to your turn.
LIAM: I throw the sword aside and scrabble down into the mud and try to press my hands against the wound on Nia's side. Try to stabilize.
BRENNAN: You go to stabilize and feel true power coursing through you. You can make a medicine check here, or you can cast Cure Wounds.
LIAM: I'll probably do that. (laughter)
BRENNAN: What does it feel like? Erro, you are of the world. You are wanderer in this world. You've been molding earth with the secrets of druidic power that were taught to you. But this is awakening something deeper within you. What do you feel in the moment that this power avails itself to you?
LIAM: Yeah, that very simple connection to the earth that was learned through practice through someone very important to me now surges with inspiration and belief, impossibility again. And the power of green and good and living And the power of green and good and living draws up through my knees in the earth and passes through my core and out my hands into this singular person.
BRENNAN: Rei'nia, you open your eyes.
CELIA: (gasps) I think she looks at you and you can barely hear it, but she goes: There's my miracle.
LIAM: Thank you for helping me find my way again.
CELIA: It is unending.
BRENNAN: Fiedra, we return to you.
JASMINE: Garen is still down?
BRENNAN: Garen is down. Otto is down. Luz is down, yes.
ALEXANDER: Otto's been down a long time.
MATT: Yeah, he did four rounds.
JASMINE: Otto's probably-- Well, okay, I shouldn't say that. (laughter)
CELIA: Careful! Careful obeying in advance.
MATT: Is he dead? Shh.
JASMINE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
ALEXANDER: Don't have to worry about him anymore.
JASMINE: Honestly, I yell out to the crowd, I think. I yell: It's over, we have injured. Can anyone help?
BRENNAN: You see that, yeah, as you yell out. Fiedra, you immediately go into gang boss mode and start getting people. As you've been the whole battle. Getting like, "More bodies! Hit them, hit them!" You look out and see immediately that, as you rush forward, Klasara and Nez heed your command right away. Both of them are going to rush over. One of them is going to rush to Otto. Klasara is going to rush over to Otto. Otto has a death save failure already and I haven't rolled. He may, if he rolls a nat one, already be gone.
JASMINE: Cool. Oh, Otto.
BRENNAN: 17, that's a success.
JASMINE: Oh, Otto! Eyy!
CELIA: Ooh!
BRENNAN: And Klasara's going to roll. She adds a plus four to her medicine and just needs a 10 for it to stabilize him with the medicine check, so six or higher. 13.
ALEXANDER: Yay!
BRENNAN: She rushes over. Otto looks up and goes, "This one was bad, worse than most. Worse than most."
JASMINE: It was, but we still fucking got them.
BRENNAN: We got them. You see, Otto, looks over at you, Erro. You haven't met him before from your time in the prison. He goes, "You're fucking crazy, man. I love you. You're fucking crazy." (laughter)
LIAM: Pace yourself.
BRENNAN: "(groans) Yeah, I'll never be brave again. That's the last time." (laughter)
CELIA: My bravery done.
BRENNAN: You see Nez is going to rush over, who's the other healer here. She's going to rush over to-- She sees Luz. Luz rolled a nat one on her first roll for two death save failures. Which means that on a nine or lower, it is too late for her.
CELIA: Oh, I can't do anything about this, okay.
BRENNAN: I'm going to roll to see-- Because Nez is doing triage between Garen, who has one, and her that has two, but we need to see--
LIAM: Oh my gosh.
CELIA: Please.
BRENNAN: What's happening with Luz.
LIAM and JASMINE: Oh.
BRENNAN: Two. Nez rushes over to Garen. Once again, on a six or higher, stabilizes. 15.
ALEXANDER: Okay.
CELIA: Okay.
MATT: Okay.
BRENNAN: Garen, you feel yourself once again, you see these quick goblin hands go to work. She says, "Easy now. There's ale and salt beef and all the good things in the world for you still to have, my friend."
MATT: Her voice is mingled through the memory and the echoing sounds of laughing children, dwarven voices, and blurry mingled memories of generations past, not seen in a long enough time where the faces themselves don't crystallize until eventually, half conscious, can see the blurry expression of Nez.
BRENNAN: You swim back. With Crokas, it is your turn.
ALEXANDER: Crokas isn't aware enough to know that the guy he was fighting is dead. So when he fell on the ground, Crokas immediately stomped on him, grabbed him, picked him up and whipped him into that well, into the side of the well there and is making this noise that is like, there's this noise that crocodiles make that's this clicking deep in there, this (clicks) that's this clicking deep in there, this (clicks) and he's making this noise and foam is dripping from his mouth and he's blank-eyed and he's looking around at everybody else. Everybody around him is the same--
BRENNAN: Yeah.
ALEXANDER: -- and he can't bring himself out of it. He's whipping his tail around and looking at everybody. He's at one hit point and has lost his mind at this moment--
BRENNAN: Yeah.
ALEXANDER: -- and is a danger to anybody who gets near him at this point.
BRENNAN: Yeah, people begin to give you a wide berth.
ALEXANDER: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Just seeing-- You summoned something deep and otherworldly. These people have not seen a-- The handiwork of the gods is not widely seen, even during the height of the Calamity. You with whatever you summoned in that power and your own natural state as a fearsome, fearsome warrior, give me a perception check.
ALEXANDER: Not good. Well, my perception would be-- Okay. Natural 20 plus two.
CELIA: (laughs)
MATT: What?! (laughter)
BRENNAN: Alex, you-- Crokas, on a nat 20, you feel the rage, you are frightening. You are monstrous. Everyone is frightened of you. You're barely even a person to some of these people because of all the things that you've done and all the things that have happened to you. And on a nat 20, you look and see cowering behind the well Celwyn and Celdria, the two little children that you carried all the way here from Rybad-Kol. They meet your eyes and both of them step forward slowly, softly and put two little scaled hands up and put their heads against your head just as you did moments ago to one that you meant tremendous harm to, and you see that both of them breathe slow and steady, crying from fear, so afraid that their lives were about to end after knowing even a moment of joy and you hear Celdria's voice, so soft in your ear. "It's okay. You don't have to be scared."
ALEXANDER: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And he just sits on the ground.
BRENNAN: Both of the kids wrap their arms around you. "We can tell you're scared. We're scared, too, it's okay. We're going to be okay, you got them. They're not going to take us away."
ALEXANDER: (grunts) Yeah. Okay. Okay.
BRENNAN: You feel another pair of hands gently press your head against her chest as Celeste covers you and puts her head over you and whispers in Draconic.
ALEXANDER: Which I don't understand because I don't speak it.
JASMINE: Because I raised him.
BRENNAN: The words over and over in a language you can't understand and seeing your expression change again to one of confusion and understanding, you see Celwyn looks up and smiles, his little hand on your cheek. "It means you saved us."
ALEXANDER: Okay. (pants)
BRENNAN: Garen, stable once again. You are unconscious, but your body-- Perhaps the hands that shaped Exandria made in you something too much like the land and stone, for you simply will not quit or perish from this earth. Lying there. Erro, you send the energy and heal Nia. Fiedra, you look to and fro as the people here under your command go to attend to the fallen and there is a moment that is so small and in passing that it's hard to even feel it or understand it but Klasara, this little halfling matriarch, walks past in your command to see to the injured, puts a hand on your back and smiles and gives you this little pinch on the shoulder that you immediately recognize that your mother gave you the same thing. A little, "You're doing exactly what you need to." You look at a community that rather than glowering over you, causing you to be ruthless in the shadows, is looking at you in the open town square for answers and guidance.
JASMINE: I say to them: This was great work that we've all done here. Every single one of you. Remember, we look out for ourselves. We have each other's backs and that is how we're going to make it through this.
BRENNAN: You see that Taveen turns to look at you. No biting remark, no quip, no turn of phrase to preemptively put someone on guard to not tangle with your sharp wit or cunning and instead just open support and encouragement of people that desperately need it and Taveen smiles-- or doesn't smile, Taveen internally smiles, but just more looks, seeing a side of you he has never seen before. And Nia, as people move, you turn and see Luz.
CELIA: She-- Nia's seen a lot of messed up bodies. She's seen people on death's door. There have only been, this may be the second time she has seen one person kill another and her instinct is to go to Luz and to try because Nia has done miraculous things before and she just tries to bring her back. She is not even bothering to check a pulse. She's pressing and pressing and you can see on her white robes little splotches of tears, as Nia is crying. There is something she can do. There is something she can do. This cannot be how the story ends. It's the three of us. It's me, it's Liana, it's her. She has to come back. She has to come back because Luz is the only person, she's the last person who saw Liana. She has to come back, she has to come back, and she's pressing and pressing and pressing and pressing and pressing and pressing and pressing and she may do that until she hears that she may be making a terrible situation worse.
LIAM: Yeah, Erro's hand rests on your shoulder from behind.
CELIA: This can't, this cannot, no. I, no, no, no, no. She's now banging on Luz's chest, feeling like such a failure. She thinks back to earlier in combat where she had so many options to call on other people and she, at some point, was like: No, let Luz hide. And the quick change of that thought is the thing that she's blaming herself for. She should've followed her instinct.
LIAM: Nothing will take this away. But when the world is so impossible, give yourself some little bit of grace. We do the best we can in the shadow of the gods.
CELIA: Can she see the sky? Can she see the moon at all, Nia?
BRENNAN: Do you think you can? Do you believe you can?
CELIA: Nia looks up and even if she can or cannot see the moon because of the clouds and the rain and whatever time of day it may be and she clocks it and finds it, feels its gaze on her and she looks to the moon and says: Have this one, but you keep my sister. You watch her and you make sure I do not make this mistake again. She gets up, and tries to find a place where she can perform some sort of burial for her friend and Starmian, who still is with us somewhere.
BRENNAN: Starmian, Luz, two others that fell in the brawl and battle here in Torm's Hill are laid to rest. Erro, Nia moves so quickly with a sense of rage and injustice moments after embracing a light eternal and moves so quickly to the work of honoring the fallen dead that she misses what you see, which is for the first time in maybe decades, clouds part for a moment and you see a glimpse of star and light. They twinkle there far off in the nighttime sky and for a moment, sailing as sharp as a saber is the crescent of the moon. Catha moves through the sky and just as quickly, the clouds cover it. She knew exactly where it was. The battle subsides and the honored dead are buried. Some measure of ale is imbibed in their honor and a wounded Otto stands by Taveen. Taveen looks over at you, Fiedra. "What's the angle, boss?"
JASMINE: (sighs) You know, I've been trying to figure that out, and I'm not sure I have it yet, but well, we're all here again.
BRENNAN: "Yeah."
JASMINE: We did a pretty good fucking job. (sigh)
ALEXANDER: He walks up and hunches down next to them. (grunts)
JASMINE: I think we might be able to really make a change here. You know?
BRENNAN: "Yeah?"
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: "Okay." Garen, you are propped up somewhere recovering next to Otto.
MATT: (groans)
BRENNAN: Erro, you are there nearby. As the rain finally subsides, it's still cloudy, but my god, you saw a patch of sky for a moment and you see that for the first time once the bodies are cleared, you see that your friend Bulray, the bugbear elder, goes, "We followed them back out but there's no sign of any other scout. So none of them escaped. They'll not know where they went or how far. These ones already had eaten through their rations. So, you've saved us. The people that are here will be safe because of what you did. I know we lost some, but we honor them. It is all we can do. So many are now free that might have marched for cause of fear back into the chains of oblivion and tyranny. We thank you, and we thank the honored dead." You see Klasara and Nez come over and Fiedra, you are once again reassuringly pinched by these older matriarchs who make sure that you are fed and for the first time, there's an area where now that the rain is gone, they build an outdoor fire and there's a fire burning and people can get warm and there's a chatter through the camp. For the first time, many see that the soldiers of the Strife Emperor were defeated. That the Strife Emperor did not appear and lay 1,000 people low with a mighty swing of a morningstar. Instead, there is freedom, dearly paid for, but freedom nonetheless.
ALEXANDER: Crokas is going to, Are-- Did-- (snorts) Did you get hurt?
JASMINE: No, not at all.
ALEXANDER: Okay.
JASMINE: Hurt, but I know--
ALEXANDER: It's fine. I'll be right back. He's going to go walk to the river and wash the extensive amount of blood that is all over him off of him. And try and clean himself.
BRENNAN: In the-- After you go to wash yourself, you see that Klasara and Nez are both speaking to you, Erro, right in near Garen, you propped up. They say, "We're worried about Nia. We'll keep an eye on her. Luz was one of the few old family friends that she had left in this world. Of which we all have precious few, I'm afraid."
LIAM: It's a bitter loss for her.
BRENNAN: "Do you think you will leave at once, Erro? Or tarry here a while?"
LIAM: I think we will stay for a spell. I had originally thought to move on fairly quickly, but my thinking has changed somewhat.
BRENNAN: "We would love to have you stay for a while. It would be an honor, and there may be a life for us to build here. But I know that there is a conversation for you to have with Nia, who may wish to travel on as quickly as possible. And if she does, I would hate to think of her going alone."
LIAM: That will never happen.
BRENNAN: She smiles. Nearby, Fiedra, with you and the rest of the Roach Gang tending to a recovering Otto, you see Marlath walks up to you. Who you did not see at all in that conflict.
JASMINE: No.
ALEXANDER: Of course not.
JASMINE: I was wondering.
BRENNAN: He walks up to you and says--
CELIA: (sighs heavily)
BRENNAN: "Fiedra, my friend, could I speak to you in private for a moment?"
JASMINE: I'm not going anywhere without my bodyguard. Can he come?
BRENNAN: "Yes, of course."
ALEXANDER: I mean, I'm down by the river.
BRENNAN: Oh, so he's gone down by the river at this point.
JASMINE: (huffs) Okay. I say: Well, anything you can say, you want to say to me, you can say in front of Otto and Taveen. So let's hear it.
BRENNAN: "I've spoken with the Bowdley brothers."
JASMINE: Bowdley brothers?
BRENNAN: "The Bowdleys. The three halfling lads with the branding marks on their face."
JASMINE: Yes.
BRENNAN: "Connor, Owen, and Rowan Bowdley."
JASMINE: Okay.
BRENNAN: "They are enterprising young lads who were handing out the tools earlier. I've kept a log of everything that was given away by the lads. And of what use it was given and to whom it was given to. And I've approached them and spoken about the possibility of, shall we say, going into business together. The tools were taken with no discussion thereabouts, but in logging what people took and how they had it, I believe that those who have taken those tools have incurred something of a debt to the Bowdleys and it is possible for us to join forces with them such that we might be able to capitalize upon that debt. Those tools are of incredible utility and the Bowdleys are not necessarily worldly, so some of these concepts, it was difficult to explain to them. But by working alongside them, we may be able to entrench ourselves in what is about to become a burgeoning place of industry and tools will need to be sold here in some degree or another. And I cannot help but notice the prowess that you and your companions possess in establishing order. In a place like Torm's Hill, it can behoove one to work side by side with those who are able to establish order. When and if it need be done."
JASMINE: Hmm. You know, I think I underestimated you. You got a good head. Good with this kind of stuff.
BRENNAN: "What can I say? I am a man of no skill at arms, but vision, certainly."
JASMINE: Mm. You wish to share that vision with the Roach Gang, I assume?
BRENNAN: "My intention would be to employ your services such as they are."
JASMINE: Hmm. Well then, perhaps we can have a little discussion, a private discussion. Sundown, behind Torm's Hill, perhaps.
BRENNAN: "Lovely."
JASMINE: Bring the ledger with you.
BRENNAN: "I shall."
JASMINE: Yes.
BRENNAN: "I will do so. It had occurred to me as well, something of fascination to me."
JASMINE: Yes.
BRENNAN: "The structures here in Torm's Hill were built as auxiliary structures and now are dwelling places for those that have arrived here in Torm's Hill. But there is no established deed of title or ownership to any of the buildings herein. So in other words, those that dwell here are dwelling here at the welcome as guests, essentially, of Klasara and Nez. There are possibilities for, I think, arrangements that could be made with those here who certainly have done nothing to earn these dwelling places."
ALEXANDER: (groans)
CELIA: (groans) Okay.
MATT: It's too heavy to flip. (laughter)
BRENNAN: "I bring it only--"
JASMINE: Very interesting. So, you're saying that perhaps maybe there may be a way to leverage these--
BRENNAN: "Look at it this way."
JASMINE: -- stragglers.
BRENNAN: "None of these people built these structures that they now dwell in."
JASMINE: Yes.
BRENNAN: "If we were to go and simply offer to care for the structures--"
JASMINE: Mm-hmm.
BRENNAN: "-- in exchange for a deed of title. Should anything come up. Your roof has a hole for the rain to come in? We'll repair the roof, and all they need do is simply acknowledge the deed of title and we move forward from there. You must understand."
JASMINE: Yes.
BRENNAN: "Some order is going to emerge from here and it will either be an order determined by two elderly grandmothers, or it would be an order determined by those with an understanding of how to structure a place like this that requires structure."
JASMINE: Okay. Those with understanding like you.
BRENNAN: "As one example, certainly. But also by those such as you who know the proper and practical applications of force when required."
JASMINE: Very interesting. Well, we'll talk more at sundown. Very excited to hear all those visions of yours.
BRENNAN: "I'll bring the ledger book."
JASMINE: Yes, please do.
LIAM: Back where Klasara had spoken to us and Garen was there as well. As soon as she walks away, Erro will lean against the same building that Garen is sitting against, and with a wince, slide down and sit next to you. (huffs)
MATT: Hey.
LIAM: I don't know if you're feeling your age, but I certainly am.
MATT: I've been feeling it for a century.
LIAM and MATT: (laugh)
LIAM: I'll tell you, it has been a difficult week, but I wouldn't be sitting here licking my wounds if you hadn't broken me out of prison back there. if you hadn't broken me out of prison back there. I just wanted to formally thank you for it.
MATT: Hey, I'm pressed to say that we're all fairly even if we're keeping count, but I'm bad at adding and subtracting. but I'm bad at adding and subtracting. I appreciate you all putting any faith in these old bones. I'm left here wondering how much more I got in me, to be honest. I'm not a-- I'm not a fighter; I'm a maker. He looks down at his hammer, itself like the stone, somewhat pockmarked from the blast of remaining divine energy from the blast of remaining divine energy that unexpectedly fired from his friend. He goes: I can't help but feel like I'm a bit small for these bigger things.
LIAM: Well, you could've fooled me. You showed us equal measures of both. I am slow to offer trust, been that way for a long time, but from the second I laid eyes on you, you had it. Can't even really say why.
MATT: Sometimes you can read a person who's got nothing to lose and wants nothing to gain.
LIAM: Claps his hand on your shoulder.
MATT: (grunts)
BRENNAN: (chuckles)
LIAM: Gives you a little squeeze.
BRENNAN: (laughs)
MATT: Oh, that hurts.
BRENNAN: (laughs)
LIAM: Let's see. Maybe we can find some of that ale you were talking about. (grunts) For now, I'm going to go find Rei'nia.
MATT: So I'm going to, just give me a little more time. (grunts)
LIAM: He limps away.
MATT: (chuckles)
BRENNAN: You go to find Rei'nia. Where is Rei'nia in this moment?
CELIA: (huffs) Still at her friend's gravesite. Nia's not-- She's still putting the pieces of everything together and finding some way to blame herself. Any onlookers would see that she has taken some of her friend's robes and has turned it into some, or she has wanted to turn it into some sort of pouch for that Moonweaver symbol that she will now be keeping for herself. She's sitting there, next to it with her hand in the earth, squeezing and releasing, and squeezing and releasing. Just lost in thought and regret, and Just lost in thought and regret, and is trying to come up with some plan to make this loss worth it.
BRENNAN: Near your friend's grave, I'll ask Alex, do you think that this area of the graves is near to the river?
ALEXANDER: I'd say it probably is.
BRENNAN: I think, Rei'nia as you're meditating here at the gravesite. You hear a splashing in the river that is just now starting to come down and that choking, muddy, torrential flood is actually starting to get a little bit translucent. Like maybe some of the ash of centuries of war between the gods is actually starting to turn into what centuries ago was a clear and babbling alpine stream. Funny how things change.
ALEXANDER: Crokas has never seen a river before. He's lived in the city his whole life and this is the first time he's ever-- And then he went immediately to prison, and so he's never seen a river. And he's like, if there's a part of it that naturally pools and isn't quite in a rapids, he's standing in it, and moving his feet around, and washing his hands of the blood and everything, but not with purpose. Just being a child in a pool of water and just standing there. (grunts)
CELIA: She lets the sound of her new friend splashing for the sake of it. She listens to that and just-- She hasn't talked in a while. It almost looks like she isn't breathing because how dare she get that and her friend not?
BRENNAN: I think, Crokas, you look up, see Nia near the graves there.
ALEXANDER: He's going to get out of the water and slowly walk up towards where she is. (grumbles) I'm (grunts) sorry about your friend.
CELIA: Me too. We're similar, you and I.
ALEXANDER: Huh? Okay.
CELIA: Hmm. I don't know where my family is either.
ALEXANDER: (grumbles) I only, I-- (grunts) Fiedra. Fiedra has raised me.
CELIA: Hmm.
ALEXANDER: I don't know who my parents were.
ALEXANDER: I don't know who my parents were. Fiedra had my egg. (grunts)
CELIA: So, I guess it's just me who doesn't know where my family is.
ALEXANDER: (grunts) Sorry to--
CELIA: Don't. Don't.
ALEXANDER: Okay.
CELIA: You deserve each other.
ALEXANDER: (grunts)
CELIA: And Fiedra, as elusive as she can be--
ALEXANDER: (snorts)
CELIA: -- she cares about you.
ALEXANDER: (grunts) Yeah.
CELIA: I miss the person who cared about me.
ALEXANDER: Your sister? (grunts)
CELIA: And she, her body cracks and clicks in a way. She goes to reach in her bag for that locket and she pops it open and shows Crokas a picture.
ALEXANDER: Sister? Yeah.
CELIA: She's a day's travel.
ALEXANDER: (snorts)
CELIA: I hope to leave tonight.
ALEXANDER: Oh. (grunts) Bad?
CELIA: Everything's bad.
ALEXANDER: (grunts) Could be better.
CELIA: Closes it, puts it in her pocket. And goes back to squeezing the earth.
BRENNAN: I think, Erro, you walk up at about this time.
ALEXANDER: (grunts)
CELIA: She hears Erro. She knows the sound of her friend's feet. She's heard him try and be sneaky behind her before.
BRENNAN: I think in the distance, too, you hear Taveen's voice going, "Crokas!"
ALEXANDER: (grunts) Don't let her leave. He walks away back to town.
LIAM: Yeah, he stops you with a little fist on your arm.
ALEXANDER: (grunts)
LIAM: Just gives you a little knock.
ALEXANDER: (grunts) And goes back to town.
BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.
LIAM: Erro stands by you for quite a long beat without saying anything.
CELIA: We have to go get her. I don't want to sleep here another night. I want to go get her. I've been distracted, I've been naive.
LIAM: Well then, that's what we'll do. I have some idea what you might be feeling right now. There's nothing I can say or anyone else who can talk it away. But I will be here, sitting quietly by.
CELIA: I think she reaches for him and tries to get him to sit with her so she can lean on his shoulder. She feels the weight of what he has said and knows that she has so many questions about him and his history and that line on his throat she's tried to ask about artfully and still not gotten an answer for. But in this moment of shared grief, But in this moment of shared grief, she understands just a bit more.
LIAM: I can't take the pain away, but if you know where you want to go, I will get you there.
CELIA: Where do you want to go? What do you want when you let yourself want?
LIAM: I think I want to know something different again.
CELIA: Let's go find something different. She gets up and brushes herself off, takes some of that earth from her friend's site, and presses it into one of her locs to keep a bit of her friend with her. I can do two more nights here. Get our rations, get some water. We should make for Snowgrave Pass as soon as our friends can come with us.
LIAM: As you wish.
MATT: A little ways later in the town, hobbling as much as walking, I think Garen has retrieved a small personal mini barrel I think Garen has retrieved a small personal mini barrel that he had stashed from the discovered chamber and tucked it away somewhere where no would find it and figured this is a time as anything to enjoy. But as he wanders into the streets, catches a glance of Fiedra almost taking a parallel path catches a glance of Fiedra almost taking a parallel path and gives a look over. Hey, Fiedra.
JASMINE: Yeah.
MATT: Why don't we all join for a drink and celebrate (chuckles) everything. and celebrate (chuckles) everything.
JASMINE: You got enough for four?
MATT: I think we can manage.
JASMINE: All right.
MATT: Don't have any cups, but--
JASMINE: That's fine.
MATT: -- you can hold this, I think.
JASMINE: Oh, we can manage.
MATT: We'll go find the rest here, aye?
JASMINE: All right.
MATT: While I got your attention.
JASMINE: Yeah.
MATT: You're a survivor.
JASMINE: I mean, we all are.
MATT: Aye, but you-- I mean--
JASMINE: Came pretty close.
MATT: Points to the tattoo on your arm.
JASMINE: Oh.
MATT: You know who you are. You endure. Not just because you have the will, but you have the mind, you have the clever wit, and you have the instinct to continue.
JASMINE: I've tried. Sometimes it seems like (exhales) it doesn't do as much good to me in this world as I thought it did, especially these days.
MATT: I don't know if you saw the look in the eyes of those that saw you today.
JASMINE: I did.
MATT: They themselves found a little bit of that survivor in themselves because of it. That's responsibility.
JASMINE: I know. I felt that, too. I felt something. You know, I've always believed in looking after my own people, and I think these are my own people.
MATT: You felt something.
JASMINE: Yeah.
MATT: It's the first thing I've felt in a very long time.
JASMINE: Yeah.
MATT: So just-- You're a survivor, but not just for yourself anymore. You have to survive for everyone here.
JASMINE: I know. It's not a responsibility that I take lightly.
MATT: Good.
JASMINE: Mm-hmm.
MATT: Let's go have a drink.
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: The Roaches and Garen have a long drink. Nia, do you take yourself to find rest to prepare the next day, make your preparations to get to Snowgrave?
CELIA: I think I try and find Garen so I can thank him. I think-- I don't know how much she got to see after she was struck low. I think part of her knows that Garen prevented something really catastrophic. Garen prevented something really catastrophic.
BRENNAN: Yeah.
CELIA: So I think she keeps her things on her and tries to go find Garen.
MATT: He's not too hard to find. You hear the sound of some laughter not far from the edge of the riverbank where he was working earlier.
CELIA: Mm-hmm.
MATT: You hear the: (hearty laugh) Here we go! Well, round two? He's passing the keg around.
CELIA: Garen?
MATT: There you are.
CELIA: She sees the gathering here. A word?
JASMINE: Real quick, is it sundown yet?
BRENNAN: It is sundown.
JASMINE: Oh. Well, thank you so much for the drink, Garen. We have a little appointment, but you guys have fun. Me and the boys, we--
BRENNAN: I think, yeah, the Roaches go head over.
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Behind Torm's Hill, you, Crokas, you, Taveen, and Otto all gather. It's now nice and dark, there's multiple bonfires. For all the sorrow and heartbreak, the vast majority of Torm's Hill didn't see the fight even. It happened so fast. You know, probably about 100 to 200 people actually got eyes on it and then word spread through the camp. The word spread through the camp was: It's very sad for the people we lost, but we will not go back into the darkness. You, behind Torm's Hill, see Marlath walk up. You see he's gotten some nicer clothes for himself. He's not dressed in the rags of a prisoner anymore. Walks up with his ledger book and he goes, "Fiedra, good to see you again."
ALEXANDER: I would like to position myself in a place where he doesn't see me.
BRENNAN: It's very easy, he ignores you. You're not a very eloquent person, so he barely regards you at all.
JASMINE: All right. (laughter)
JASMINE: Do you have high perception by any chance?
ALEXANDER: Okay.
JASMINE: Decent perception?
ALEXANDER: Yeah.
JASMINE: I would also, I think, as soon as Marlath walks up, I would've discussed this plan with all you guys already, but can he do perception check to make sure he wasn't followed or anything?
BRENNAN: Sure. There's no one else around except for him?
ALEXANDER: Rolled a 19 stealth check to be--
BRENNAN: Yeah.
ALEXANDER: Where he walks up, I'm--
BRENNAN: Give me a perception to see if he's being followed by anybody.
LIAM: Gigantic monk shit.
JASMINE: My perception is not good.
ALEXANDER: Oh, I don't know.
JASMINE: Oh okay, great.
BRENNAN: Hard to see.
JASMINE: Awesome.
ALEXANDER: It's a six.
CELIA: This may be a bit audacious, but--
BRENNAN: No, go for it.
CELIA: Since Crokas doesn't see that he is being followed, I don't know where our conversation happens, but I very much wanted this conversation to happen within eye shot of this moment.
BRENNAN: Great, I think they will--
JASMINE: Oh boy.
BRENNAN: Gotcha, okay. So you guys, I think--
CELIA: I just want to see--
BRENNAN: You guys are in the dark, and I think you see them at a campfire pretty distant from here, closer to the river.
CELIA: How many feet would you say?
ALEXANDER: Oh, you want to read lips?
CELIA: No, no, no, no.
BRENNAN: May I ask why? Do you want to cast some magic?
CELIA: No, she doesn't want to cast some magic. I think she is-- I think she's trying to keep-- She's lost friends already by not keeping a close enough eye.
BRENNAN: Gotcha.
CELIA: I think she wants to keep--
BRENNAN: I think you stay vigilant. I'll say this. You're within earshot.
CELIA: Okay.
BRENNAN: Cool?
CELIA: Cool, I'll take earshot. I have a Observant feat.
BRENNAN: Gotcha.
CELIA: Which, yeah, if I can see a creature's mouth while it's speaking a language I understand, I can interpret what it's saying by reading its lips.
BRENNAN: Gotcha. Would you want to read Fiedra's, Crokas', or Marlath's lips? Or just anyone, someone who's in there?
JASMINE: Just reading Crokas' lips is so funny. (laughter)
CELIA: I want to see what Crokas is saying. No.
BRENNAN: We'll move with this, and if you want to hear something, we'll make it happen, okay?
MATT: I love the idea of you taking me out to converse, and I'm like: Nia? Hello?
CELIA: Yeah.
MATT: You're not even paying attention to me.
CELIA: I think something is charged within her. She's like, I've traveled with old boy, this shaky, shady guy for long enough, and seeing him alone with Fiedra--
BRENNAN: Yeah.
CELIA: Not because I'm worried about what she's doing, I'm worried about what he wants to do.
BRENNAN: Gotcha. You know that Fiedra's with Crokas and with Taveen and Oscar as well.
CELIA: Oh, they're all together?
ALEXANDER: Yeah, we're all together.
BRENNAN: They're all together.
JASMINE: Oh yeah. I have all my boys, yeah.
CELIA: Oh okay. I thought it was just her and him.
JASMINE: Oh, no. Absolutely not.
ALEXANDER: No, it's the whole gang.
JASMINE: It's the whole gang.
CELIA: Okay, then--
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Yeah.
CELIA: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Marlath walks up to you and says, "Fiedra."
JASMINE: Yes.
BRENNAN: "Splendid. May I show you something?"
JASMINE: Of course.
BRENNAN: He opens his ledger book and moves through it. You see he says, "The earlier plan I discussed, now the Bowdley brothers are, I think, a matter largely resolved. I worked with many fine merchant guilds in my time, serving under the Strife Emperor in his grand and imperial ministries. What I've found is that the manner in which those soldiers came through, obviously, that was a garish and violent display, and I think you were quite right to dispatch them posthaste. Now, the Bowdley brothers are already, I think, on board with the idea that their service they're providing to the camp absolutely should be honored. It should not be given freely. The goods they are providing the community relies on, and that which is relied on must be paid for. So I've offered to go into business with them as a majority stakeholder. I think that what we can do is, I would love to hire you for your services. Credit at first, but quickly for actual specie to follow, currency."
JASMINE: Very interesting. May I? May I take a look at the ledger?
BRENNAN: You see he opens and says, "This is quite a little clever thing here. I went and found some of the families living in the structures closer to the river and brought up the flooding that had occurred and simply was able to say," and you see that he has the book.
JASMINE: Can I--
BRENNAN: He shows you--
JASMINE: -- slowly try to take the book out of his hand?
BRENNAN: He shows and says, "By acquiring the deed of title for the structures, I simply imparted to them that should a catastrophe befall their house, they would not be charged with its repair. As the owner of the house, I would be charged with its repair and would be more than happy to provide that service, and that their lease of dwelling within would be quite a generous five years, which for people who've been wandering the wasteland--"
JASMINE: Right, right.
BRENNAN: "-- will get five years of free dwelling inside of a place that I am providing the care and maintenance for."
JASMINE: Okay. Marlath, Marlath.
BRENNAN: "Yes?"
JASMINE: Let me tell you something. All this is very impressive, and I think you're ready.
BRENNAN: "Ready?"
JASMINE: I think you're ready to become one of us.
BRENNAN: "Oh, oh. I've been thinking about your generous offer, and--"
JASMINE: Mm-hmm? Right.
BRENNAN: "Tattoos are not necessarily in my--"
JASMINE: Oh, we don't have to do a tattoo. There's plenty of ways of initiating someone. Boys, can we hold him?
ALEXANDER: Crokas comes out of the shadows behind him. Does this dragonborn have a tail?
BRENNAN: Yes, he does.
ALEXANDER: Stands on the tail.
BRENNAN: "(grunts)"
JASMINE: Otto and Taveen, presumably I would have told them--
ALEXANDER: One hand on top on top of the jaw and bottom jaw.
JASMINE: -- about this plan.
ALEXANDER: Open the mouth. I'm holding him there.
JASMINE: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Give me a grapple check. You have to beat a six. (laughter)
ALEXANDER: That is a 23. (laughter)
BRENNAN: You open. "Ah!"
JASMINE: I say: Oh, Marlath, you know, one of the core rules that we like to live by is that we look out for our own. You know, that means all the shit we do, we do it because we have people we're looking out for. I got Crokas, I got these boys. You know, we don't take too kindly to selling people out, betraying your own kind, taking advantage of poor survivors who are trying to get you out of a shitty situation. You know what your problem is, Tarlath? Is that--
ALEXANDER: Marlath.
JASMINE: Marlath, (laughs) Marlath.
CELIA: No, get his name wrong to his face.
JASMINE: Whatever. Whatever the fuck your name is. Your problem, you talk too much. I take out the stiletto and I cut out his tongue. (laughter)
LIAM: Oh!
BRENNAN: "(screams)"
CELIA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!
BRENNAN: You cut his tongue out of his mouth.
ALEXANDER: Crokas goes (snaps shut) and shuts his mouth and holds it closed.
JASMINE: I take the ledger from him and I say: Pleasure doing business with you. We'll be in touch. Then I think we all walk off.
ALEXANDER: Yeah, I let go and go: You should get that looked at. (laughter)
BRENNAN: Bleeding on the ground, searching in the dark grass for his tongue, you take Marlath's ledger book and walk out. You see Otto looks, as you're walking about, Otto looks at Crokas, and you have fully covered it and goes, "You're not a very nice man," and kicks him in the stomach hard. (laughter)
CELIA: Yeah! Yeah!
BRENNAN: You guys walk out of there with the ledger book in hand. Do you hold onto it?
JASMINE: Yeah, I absolutely hold onto it.
BRENNAN: Great.
JASMINE: I keep it on my person, I think.
BRENNAN: Incredible. You walk away from there. Fuck yeah. Garen and Nia and Erro, I think that you all-- Are you guys just drinking and--
MATT: You pulled me aside for a conversation.
CELIA: I did, yeah. Nia's sitting by the campfire, realizing that Fiedra is not alone--
BRENNAN: Yeah.
CELIA: -- and therefore, I feel confident enough to not pay attention. But this is, what?
MATT: It's a small keg. Have a drink?
CELIA: Okay. Nia takes this, tries to-- She spills ale in her hair, hates herself for it.
MATT: Oh, it's half the fun. Embrace it.
CELIA: Okay. Drinks, hands it back to him, and says: Thank you for what you did out there. I was down and I, through the swimming, the haze of it all, I saw you cover me and take that blow.
MATT: I'm old.
CELIA: Yes, you are old.
MATT: You've got a lot more to live for than I do. Besides, you've saved more lives than I can count through the years, my own a few times. I've had the opportunity to pay a little bit of that back in the recent week. Thank you for that.
CELIA: I have a feeling we'll be thanking each other for a long time.
MATT: I hope so.
CELIA: Give me this.
CELIA and MATT: (laugh)
CELIA: She takes it, takes a bigger drink.
MATT: As you hold it for a second there, he sits there and as you quietly sit there next to each other in darkness, he goes: I didn't really get a chance to know her, this Luz woman. But I'd like to know about her. Why don't you tell me?
CELIA: Nia tells the story of Luz and her sister and herself. The three of them, old family friends. Our families were friends for a very long time. She taught me about the moon and the Moonweaver. Me and my sister used to think that we could connect with each other in dreams and visions and we would always meet on the moon. Luz had such dreams for the world. Luz had such dreams for the world. She dreamt of ease and joy and laughter and serenity. Even in the dark time, she always made sure my sister and I kept hope alive. Shifting, sloshing the ale in its little jar. I just wish she was able to see the future she painted for me and my sister.
MATT: The strange thing about dreams is they're infectious. If we're lucky, they last long after we're gone. Wherever she is under the light of Catha, I can guarantee you, she'll see the world as it changes. After all, it's coming.
BRENNAN: The clouds part once more, this time fully. Nia, you look up and see, in a twinkling ocean of stars, a crescent moon smiling down at you. For the first time in your life, you are bathed in light not of this world, pouring in from the sky, moonlight surrounding you. Seated around a warm campfire, the tired and exhausted, and for the moment, full and fed and free denizens of Torm's Hill. Fire keeps the soles of your feet so warm, crackling, warm, the kind of warm at a campfire that means you have to twiddle your toes or they'll get too hot. It's easy enough to fall asleep right here with your back to a bench or a stone or a bale of hay with a cloak thrown over it. Sleep comes, rest, as it must. Fiedra and Crokas, you, Otto, and Taveen find a place of comfort and rest, take turns. But out in the open, busy here, for the first time in your life, being out in the open is the safer place to be. The people here are looking out for each other. They were shown how to do that, how to look out for each other. You think everyone here falls asleep and gets a good night's rest for once?
ALEXANDER: I'm at one hit point, yeah. (laughter)
BRENNAN: Crokas is gone and snoozing. Fiedra, you feel your bodyguard's massive form for you to rest against out by the campfire. You see Klasara walk over and hand you another little mug and she says, "You're fearsome, little whirlwind."
JASMINE: Look what you've done. Look at this place.
BRENNAN: "Well, we've tended to a place. You know, you make a tankard once and you wash it a thousand times. There is a care and tenderness that goes into maintaining. But every once in a while, someone has to step in and do some dirty work. I'm very glad you were here to do that for us."
JASMINE: It's our honor. I promise you, if there's anything that we can ever do to help you, to protect you, to look out for you in the way that you've looked out for us, me and my boys, we got your back 100%.
BRENNAN: "You can look out for me by getting a good night's rest." You see she taps and looks at the ledger under your hand and squints for a second because she's seen that book moving around the camp today, not in your possession.
JASMINE: Mm-hmm.
BRENNAN: "Oh, it's that book that that robed gentleman was writing names and numbers in."
JASMINE: Yeah. Could be something interesting, I thought. Maybe a little reading. Maybe not tonight, but thought I'd get some reading done.
BRENNAN: "Ah. Well, you're very frightening." (laughter)
CELIA: Smart girl. (laughter) (laughter)
BRENNAN: You snooze with Crokas as Otto, who's resting, was being tended to medically, is like, "I'm good, I'm awake. I'll keep watch." Nia, you get some of that ale in you. I think you're gone, too, you've got dropped today.
CELIA: I think she tries to find-- I hope that Erro came with her to the fire. I think she wants to keep eyes on him, eyes on Garen.
MATT: (snores)
LIAM: Well--
BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.
LIAM: I think perhaps Erro lasts later into the night than most. Where he ultimately ends up is back at the river.
BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.
CELIA: Yeah.
LIAM: In spitting distance of the bridge.
BRENNAN: Yeah.
LIAM: The newly-built bridge. He brings to life a little bonfire of his own. He molds the earth to hold himself, drawing his tattered cloak around him. He spends a few hours gazing at the nearby mountain peaks crowned in stars. at the nearby mountain peaks crowned in stars.
BRENNAN: Of our heroes, Garen is the only one that has not attained his first level as an adventurer. So I'll turn to you here, Matt, and I'll ask you a question. As Garen returns to his strength that night, do you think he feels a younger strength return to him in this moment? Or instead, does some connection or secret of the earth come to him in his dreams? I will leave that choice to you. You may choose whichever of them you wish, for that secret wisdom to come to you or for that old strength to return.
MATT: Given the things that he's experienced in the most recent of times, I'd say as he drifts into a nice and buzzed, exhausted and grossly sore stupor, the crackling fire and the comfort of his friends being the last thing he sees before he drifts away. I think the memory of the distant halls he once built comes again, the pride of the craft. While he was never a man of strong faith, you can't shake from his cultural upbringing the presence of the All-Hammer, whether it be colloquially spoken or just a symbol of pride in one's craft. The act of creation is something special and something he lost for a very long time. Seeing these people come together, seeing this community come together, seeing people rebuild a word that he said, the first word that he really said and felt he was fully behind after stepping out of the ash of the destruction of Rybad-Kol. He thinks of the scarred hammer he held in his hand today, and it reminds him of that symbol. I think probably for the first time in his life, in the presence of divinity, faith in each other and faith in the future, faith in change. Maybe he hopes to hold a bit of that sight of the All-Hammer upon himself.
BRENNAN: Our dear friend Garen, tough as nails, old as dirt, does not seek that younger strength and seeks that wisdom instead. So instead of leveling up, something becomes true about this world. You sleep and snore, ale and little crumbs of bread in your beard. Erro, you stay by your bonfire and for the first time in a lifetime, you feel the rays of the rising sun come through the clouds, like the warm embrace of a long lost brother. The sun rises, an arm reaching a hand holding the embrace of sunlight, it returns to Exandria as it hasn't in centuries in this land. You look out as the fog parts and see that Torm's Hill stands at the edge of a vast valley. The mountains shaped here by hands long ago that shaped the mountains themselves. All these people and the many survivors that come after them, unbeknownst to them, stand at the beginning of a vast valley. The approach of the Wildmother having raced through it, the rain of the Stormlord having fallen down upon it, this land will not know ash or shadow again, and instead, a valley shaped as if by careful hands and wise design to make a land rich with life, where all of the people now here can see under sunlight is green and growing, ready for the work of living things to make a world anew in hope and wonder. The most beautiful valley you've ever seen, waiting for lives to be built here by hand. That's all for this episode of Exandria Unlimited: Divergence. We'll see you next week.
CELIA: What day?
BRENNAN: Is it Thursday yet? (laughter) That's what you have to say. You have to say: Is it Thursday yet? That's what you have to say. You guys better remember it next time. I'm tired of telling you. (laughter)
Cooldown[]
MATT: Woo! (clapping)
BRENNAN: Hey!
JASMINE: We did it. (laughing)
MATT: That was so satisfying.
CELIA: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MATT: (growling)
BRENNAN: Fuck that guy.
MATT: Indeed.
CELIA: I was so nervous-- I was so nervous he was going to get you. I was like, please, please don't let her be wandering alone.
JASMINE: Wasn't going to let that happen.
MATT: I know, I saw you going and I was, "No, I feel you, I feel you."
CELIA: Like, is there some way I can make sure that he doesn't go get her?
ALEXANDER: No, at the break, we were like, "I have an idea."
JASMINE: We were scheming. We were cooking.
CELIA: Oh, thank god. Did you guys plan that? Did you guys have a conversation--
ALEXANDER and JASMINE: Yes.
MATT: I love it. I love it.
BRENNAN: Fucking tongue out. I don't think I've ever hated one of my own NPCs more.
ALEXANDER: That was so bad.
CELIA: This landlord guy trying to put a lease on a house he never built. Like, unh-unh, dude.
LIAM: (as Marlath) "They didn't build these places." The fuck you build, motherfucker?
BRENNAN: What did you build!? You didn't build it either! Well, that was the thing, too, even in the scene with him jumping on the wagons, there was a moment that we didn't get to because that moment happened so quickly where, as it went, I forgot that there was-- in thinking of that scene, where he jumps on and is taking account of who takes what, one of the brothers to say to him literally, "No one should take too much." And the brother being like, "No one's going to take too much." And him responding, "I would!"
CELIA: Honesty is important.
BRENNAN: Yes, having that, I think about that a lot with the idea of Divergence as an era. What the era is about, is about the defeat of the Betrayers and the exiting of the Prime Deities, and when we see modern Exandria in the time of Vox Machina, or the Mighty Nein, or Bells Hells, we've seen the centuries of civilization following that, and I think about how intense it is to be in those moments of immediacy after an order is toppled. And to me, the worst people-- there's something about the people who uphold an oppressive order, where you go, "Did you do it because you were evil? Did you do it because you were scared? Did you do it because you didn't know what else to do?" We had the-- what was his name? Bulray being like, "I worshipped the Strife Emperor as a kid because that was the god that was presented to me and you have to believe in something. And it wasn't until someone told me I could do something different that I knew you could do something different." To me, there's nothing worse than the people like Marlath who go, "My god! A blank slate. Let's do the exact same bad thing with me in charge." Those people, there's nothing worse than that.
MATT: The good thing is, there aren't a lot of them and they don't end up in power.
BRENNAN: Yeah, but that's the thing is you look at it--
MATT: Or cut out their tongues.
BRENNAN: You cut out their tongues. I truly want to be very clear from a worldbuilding perspective that if Marlath had been left to do his thing in Torm's Hill, horrors. Obviously horrors.
MATT: Oh, entirely.
JASMINE: He would have invented health insurance.
MATT: In my head, I was like, "So is he going to be the final boss of this?"
ALEXANDER: That was Saruman coming to Hobbiton. Just industrializing it.
MATT: The razing of the Shire.
LIAM: Strife accountant.
ALEXANDER: Worst supervillain title.
CELIA: Worse than the Emperor: The Accountant.
ALEXANDER: He is the Strife Accountant.
BRENNAN: It's hard, too, because I feel like you have lots of different kinds, and also we established him as being a worshipper of the Scaled Tyrant originally, that he was in there being like, "I was promised great wealth. It is the birthright of my people." The idea-- we've seen these lawful evil versus chaotic evil-- some of the guys you're fighting are literally like, "I'm a freaky demon. I'm going to fucking kill you." I wanted to show different moments of the horror of mortals in an era where the gods are leaving. That original family with the horrible lord with the knife who tells his child, "Stop fidgeting." Even the demons are like, "God, dude, that sucks." Absolutely fucking sucks, man.
ALEXANDER: I've always lived under the idea that lawful evil is way worse than chaotic evil.
BRENNAN: Because the idea that if Marlath had been left to his own devices, would have walked around, lived here for a couple years, and then been like, "Time's up on your five-year lease. I own your home. You have to leave." And then be like, "Well, you agreed. You signed it. You signed here. This is binding. This is good."
LIAM: All perfectly legal.
JASMINE: I held up my part of the deal, now you hold up yours.
BRENNAN: Yeaah, and people being like, "Well, we didn't understand because it was fucking flooding and raining and we were escaping a prison and we saw a lightning god walking across the plains, and he's like, "You were of sound mind when you signed."
CELIA: Please. He's the Strife Notary.
BRENNAN: Was that Barbithrix or was that separate? One of my guys was titled-- K'nukis, the Iron Scorpion/Strife Notary. Yeah, 100%.
ALEXANDER: Third title down.
BRENNAN: What do you do to a guy like that who's trying to impose that order? People have different answers, but I think Fiedra's answer was perfectly legitimate.
CELIA: Loved Fiedra's answer.
JASMINE: Well, because I definitely had the thought of like, "Do we kill this guy?" But then I was like, "No, that's a little too extreme even for Fiedra." But so, I was trying to think like, "What is really at the core of my problem with this guy?" Or Fiedra's problem with this guy, and a big part of it is purely, "You fucking sold out my son. You sold out your own kind and I don't stand for that kind of disloyalty. So you fucking blab-- I'm going to make it so that you can never blab again."
BRENNAN: That is very sweet.
ALEXANDER: I'm a child.
BRENNAN: Oh god, that scene with you and the kids.
ALEXANDER: That was very sweet. I've never rolled a natural 20 like that in my life.
BRENNAN: Death save nat 20.
ALEXANDER: I was sitting there with the die and I was like, "If I roll a nat 20, I'm going to lose my mind." I was just thinking.
MATT: Once again, you play through these games for years, and there are moments-- you largely remember the cinematic moments and the failures that don't really go strong ways in narratives, they pass over them. But sometimes the dice really fight for the narrative, and those great-- such epic moments. And that conflict had beat after beat after beat where the dice were swinging incredible, and then poorly, and both of them were adding to such a great tug and pull of that.
ALEXANDER: That was one of the most hectic fights I've ever had.
BRENNAN: Ah, that makes me so happy.
ALEXANDER: It was frightening.
JASMINE: Every single turn, I was like, "Okay, no, I think we got this. Oh, fuck. No, I think we got--"
BRENNAN: These soldiers were challenge rating 1/2 and they were dropping two commoners a turn. That was the thing, is if just you guys had run without any commoners? Dead. All dead.
ALEXANDER: We would have lost.
BRENNAN: Lost handily. Probably don't drop a single one of them. This was my--
JASMINE: But thankfully, Taveen came in.
BRENNAN: Taveen! But really, it was that thing where I was like, the game system wants you to be these heroic PCs that are high level, fighting big monsters who do lots of damage, and I was like: I wonder if you can do the Andor scene. A bunch of commoners who go, "Oh, these seven guys are going to bring all 1200 of us back... if we let them." Real Bug's Life, like, "These ants outnumber us."
ALEXANDER: One of them might stand up, and they all might stand up.
BRENNAN: That was the thing, Liam, that fucking choice to be like, "No, no, we resolve this with violence." There are times when there are other solutions, and there are-- in even our real history, there are times for words, there are times for collective action, there are times for going on strike, there are times for all that stuff. Sometimes a group of maniacs are going to go, "Everyone get in line and march back across the ashlands with us."
LIAM: Change is coming.
BRENNAN: Change is coming.
CELIA: Change is a-coming.
BRENNAN: That moment of watching Erro go up and be like, "I'm going to put my body on the line to activate us because this is how this moment has to resolve. These men have already killed three people. It's already happening."
MATT: Yeah, it would have been different if they had just walked in and made demands. But the fact that there were already lives taken, no.
LIAM: I think that Erro has spent his life being sort of a vagrant survivalist and has gotten very good at that, and has done everything he can to keep his neck out of harm's way, but the events of the story, something snapped.
BRENNAN: Yeah. I love it. This felt like huge change and character growth across the board.
CELIA: Almost everyone's a level one something now, right?
BRENNAN: Yeah, with Garen having instead a secret wisdom of the earth, which I love.
CELIA: It's just trauma.
ALEXANDER: I really didn't expect-- that relationship with those kids is very interesting. I didn't think about that at all at the beginning for this character, so that's really...
BRENNAN: Yeah.
ALEXANDER: Having those two kids were like-- Yeah, that's a curve ball for me that I'm like, "Okay, yeah."
BRENNAN: But again, you being like, "I'm a monster. I'm terrifying. People should stay away from me." And these two kids seeing you have just saved everybody, as violent and frightening as it was, in my head I was like, "What are these kids going to say?" I kind of didn't know right until they walked up and then them just being like, "You don't have to be scared." Being like--
LIAM: That's the guy who gives piggyback rides.
BRENNAN: Yeah, that's the guy who gives piggyback rides. He's not a monster.
ALEXANDER: Just covered in blood.
CELIA: Foaming at the mouth, lightning eyes...
BRENNAN: But if you spent a week on someone's back where they're keeping you from passing out and dying... I think it was the idea of, you had been such a reliable boon to them, and so obviously self-sacrificing and kind, that seeing you monstrously heave covered in blood, it's still like, "Why is that guy scary? Because he's scared. That's why he's scary right now."
ALEXANDER: Oh, yeah, entirely. He's just terrified.
MATT: Which to that point, towards the end when you described you going and passing out and Fiedra was sleeping against him, I realized at that moment, "Oh my god. You're a giant, terrifying, scaly Totoro."
ALEXANDER: Yeah. I'm just like, I don't know. Like, "This is scary."
LIAM: Crokoro.
ALEXANDER: That's too close to "crockery".
BRENNAN: That moment of you getting your clerical powers, that fucking--
ALEXANDER: So good!
JASMINE: So cool!
CELIA: Very, very cool. That moment, I, Celia, the person, doesn't know much about the gods of this world, but something about seeing her friend fall, and that pendant that she's worn so proudly, it only made the most sense to be like, "No, motherfucker, eat moon."
MATT: I'm so enjoying the framing of this because having played this game for so long, players more often than not want to start a game with some semblance of power already. It's part of that power fantasy. Even at the lowest levels, people are like, "Why don't we go to level two?" or even level one, you have some sizeable power, and that's just for the fun of the table. The intent of this narrative, as it's been crafted, allows the exploration of the pre-heroic moments and the acquisition of that truly at the moment of inception, after already earning a place of personality in the world, and it's been really fun to explore, but as expected, expertly crafted, too.
BRENNAN: Thanks, gang.
LIAM: Thanks for the heartache, man.
ALEXANDER: Like very ground-level down-to-earth things in storytelling, in RPGs is my favorite part. It's like I want to play the pre-, I-have-nothing character development.
BRENNAN: What makes you a first level adventurer?
ALEXANDER: Yes, exactly.
BRENNAN: A first level adventurer is someone that, by the design of a game, can go into a dungeon and seek glory, and what makes you be a person that has that kind of attitude towards life in the world? To me, it's like--
MATT: Trauma.
BRENNAN: Yeah, trauma. But to me, it's the idea of, "No, no, you don't get to call yourself an adventurer until, with nothing in your hands, you have charged a group of soldiers because you know that it's now or never. We have all tasted freedom and we either all march back into darkness and tyranny, or we do something right now with nothing in our hands. Picking up rocks, rushing forward, we do something. And Liam, that moment of you being like, "All right, it's popping off." I love it. As someone who pops off a lot whenever I'm in a player's seat, where it's like, "No, no, it's in initiative." I'm telling you it's time to roll initiative.
CELIA: We're. Fighting. Now.
BRENNAN: We're fighting now, baby! Because that's the thing, is getting that surprise round, it's everything, and again, doing the thing of like, "Go! Get them! Get them!"
ALEXANDER: Getting those people in there.
BRENNAN: Getting those commoners.
CELIA: Rallying the people.
BRENNAN: That battle concept of, yeah, we're going to get a bunch of commoners. Those little bits of two damage here and there were the difference between victory and defeat, right? "Rush them. Get them." It just felt so fucking cool to watch a group of commoners be victorious over six CR 1/2 soldiers and one CR3 captain. That fucking lightning was huge! That chewed through half his hit points. That guy had like 40 hit points.
ALEXANDER: Jesus Christ.
JASMINE: Oh my god.
ALEXANDER: Yeah, just having the chance to do a "Shin Godzilla" moment was so--
MATT: Straight up! I love it.
ALEXANDER: Oh, that was so cool. And also, as soon as I saw that I could do that, I was like, that's going to replace his inability to use his breath.
BRENNAN: Yeah, unbelievable.
ALEXANDER: That's how it has to manifest in him because it's the only-- that's how his brain would translate that power without knowing he can do it in just a moment of blind-- I'm forced. It would come out that way.
BRENNAN: I cannot believe how many moments we got like the Inflict Wounds and then immediately the Cure Wounds after it. The Cure Wounds returned the following round. So beautiful. And I loved the fucking one damage away, and it's like Sneak Attack. Let's go!
JASMINE: Yeah!
ALEXANDER: That was so great!
CELIA: That was really good. Really, really good.
JASMINE: That fucking ruled.
LIAM: She was already a terror with that knife.
BRENNAN: Yeah, that's true.
ALEXANDER: Chewing through people with that.
JASMINE: I was, yeah.
BRENNAN: Just surrounded by giants. Tiny halfling. Just, "Fuck you! Dead!" I've been so honored to come in and tell stories in Exandria. It's meant so much to me. I've told stories of very high-level characters, I've told stories of the gods, and to have something with the stakes this high, where it's like, "Pick up a rock, run, go, fight for your freedom, get out of here. We have all these people who are counting on us. All those sick people in that room by the fire are counting on us. It just felt the stakes were so high for a group of people with challenge rating 1/8 stat blocks. And that's how you earn a level of being a fucking player character, baby!
MATT: Thank you, Brennan.
ALEXANDER and CELIA: Thank you.
BRENNAN: Thank you guys. We'll see you next week here. Exandria Unlimited: Divergence.