OK! This should be fun. Strix from Dice, Camera Action will be joining Acq, Inc. on stage. To set this up, they did a special podcast
which you can listen to here.
This show is one of those that I think you should just watch before you read this. It's ridiculously good. It's good enough that I think you could show it to people who don't play D&D and they would be laughing along after about 5 minutes.
Long story short, Omin Dran owns Strix's soul through an infernal contract that he picked up as part of a bulk sale. She has no real choice other than to do what he says, so for now she is adventuring with Acq Inc trying to find a cure for the death curse, which Jim Darkmagic is suffering from.
The heroes were set to meet with a merchant prince, when yuan-ti assassins attacked them. Strix destroyed them with some fireball spells.
Wow... Chris is wearing an Acererak costume. He proceeds to tell a bunch of jokes in a Canadian accent. That was really good. Who is this guy?
The crowd goes apeshit when Holly comes out.
Chris is being really hilarious.
The Party(
Jerry)
Omin Dran - Half-Elf Cleric
(
Mike)
Jim Darkmagic - Human Wizard
(
Patrick)
Viari - Human Rogue
(
Holly)
Strix - Tiefling Sorcerer
The people of Port Nyanzaru are getting ready for the weekly dinosaur races. The whole city is moving stuff out of the way in preparation. Jim loses another max hp due to the death curse.
Strix wants to shrink Jim to make him more aerodynamic. Jim seems unnerved by this idea.
The group is trying to come up with a way to make a profit off of dinosaur sales. Viari spots the snake lady. Jim and Strix go out of their way to embarrass Viari in front of her.
Famous dinosaurs: Ubtao's favorite, Banana Candy, Big Honker. and Mountain Thunder
Omin is curious about Banana Candy. Strix is in charge of dinosaur decor - she needs to make their dinosaur intimidating and scary.
Viari wants to find a way to "juice" the dinosaur. He's looking for Achmed's Shed of Danger Juice/Fabulous Robes. He finds it.
Strix doesn't know which dinosaur to make scary, so she starts rubbing dung on Banana Candy.S he gets swatted away by the owner.
Jim finds a dinosaur he wants. Omin makes a persuasion check to buy it. Natural 20! This crowd is fired up.
They cover it in dung, and then clean off an "18" on the side. I assume they did this to make it like a race car, but the 18 plays into things as the show goes on. It's a really freakish, only-in-D&D thing.
Jim uses prestidigitation to clean 18. Strix uses prestidigitation to give it fart clouds. He dispels the farts. She uses minor image to make it look like it is covered in poop.
They trot out their dinosaur with the 18 on the side. Its name? Shitstorm. "We're coming in #1 with #2."
The odds against the group are 10-1, as bad as it gets.
Viari has the "steroids" - stimulating stuff like ginger root. He's going to stick it up the dinosaur's butt. Jim gives the dinosaur some wine to loosen it up.
Time for the race... They set up. The crowd cheers.
Another rider tells Jim to prepare to be annihilated. Jim summons a dove and tries to have it shit on her. He rolls a natural one. It hits Omin instead.
Time to stick the roids up the dinosaur's butt. What kind of check? Sleight of hand. The group has been on fire from the second Chris stepped on stage. It's one genuinely funny thing after another.
Viari makes his roll. Wait.. he doesn't want to do it. Rolls a 4! He has a +13. 17! Crowd goes nuts.
Viari gets caught in the "contractions". His arm is stuck deep in the butt of their triceratops.
We learn some dinosaur race stuff. These rules seem completely different from the rules in the first Adventurers League module.
- Don't go down side streets.
- No attacking the other riders (It's fair game if nobody sees it).
- A triceratops costs 500 gp.
- The race is abstract. It is based on a point system. The first person to get 300 points wins.
- The race involves animal handling checks.
- The DC to succeed is different depending on what dinosaur you're riding. An allosaurus is more difficult than a triceratops, because an allosaurus is hard to control.
- You can whip your beast to make it go faster. If it doesn't like it, though, it might do something.
The race begins! Jim is riding his triceratops. Viari's arm is actually stuck in its butt. He makes a check to escape... 3. He's getting sucked in.
Jim needs a 14 on his check to succeed. He has 50 points so far.
Viari makes his check. His arm is free. Strix is on her flying broom and grabs him. Paper chandeliers just so happen to be stretched across the street. Viari swings from paper chandelier to paper chandelier. Each comes apart as he goes to the next one. He lands on Banana Candy.
The rider starts smacking him with his whip. Viari picks his pocket. He snatches a dinosaur hide pouch from his pocket. He goes "Is this yours"? He hands it over and "accidentally" drops it, trying to get the rifer to fall off.
Omin is with the spectators. He's being followed by two tabaxis. One has pantaloons, the other is wearing a hat. Omin walks up to them and tells them if they want to follow a cleric of luck, they'll have to do better.
One cracks its lute over Omin's head. One point of damage. The cat guy runs. Omin cracks him in the head with his mace with an opportunity attack.
I wonder what happens when you roll a 20 in this thing? The crowd in the game is rooting for Jim. The real life crowd plays along, chanting for Jim.
Jim is rolling really well. The juice kicks in. Jim now has 100 points. Now 250. 50 more and Jim wins.
Ubtao's Favorite and Banana Candy are ahead of him. Viari is on Banana Candy. The dinosaurs collide and they both topple over. Viari wants to leap and save the snake woman.
Viari tosses her toward some fruit. Strix flies over and redirects her toward a statue of a tiger. Rolls a 10. Now she needs a DEX save. Strix misses and the snake woman on an awning.
Strix crashes through a window of an estate. She's going through hallways. Survival check to navigate. 20 total. Strix exits, leaving a burnt hole in her shape in the drapes.
Jim is winning the race! He rolls bad. His dinosaur is becoming uncontrollable. He's running down the sidewalk smashing into things.
A kid on a balcony throws a melon at him. The kid rolls a natural 20. It covers Jim's head. He can't see anything.
Jim rolls to navigate blind. 18 total. Crowd chants "18". Oh yeah... that's the number of the dinosaur. Only one dinosaur, named Big Honker, is ahead of him.
Strix misty steps onto Jim's dinosaur and is going to try to steer it. Her broom starts whacking Big Honker in the face.
Jim blows past Big Honker. The crowd chants "18". Jim pulls the melon off his head. Strix declares that she wins.
Jim is choking her. She turns into a cloud.
Viari helps the snake woman up. She looks at him with her snaky eyes. They make out. The forked tongue is like two tongues, you see.
There's something sweet on his lips. Viari feels delirious and he begins to stagger around. She becomes a blur. He falls unconscious. She loots him. The apocalypse dagger! Gone.
A group of mostly-naked men and women bring Jim with a trophy encrusted with gems. Strix and Jim both grab it. Opposed checks. Jim wins! Jim celebrates. Her broom comes back.
Omin looks for Viari. Viari has been robbed. He's unconscious. Omin brings him to the winner's circle. He wakes up and cleans himself off in a fountain.The apocalypse dagger is gone. She also took his betting chips - he stood to win a lot on this race.
The heroes try to go to the betting place to ambush her when she tries to cash in.
As Jim gets free drinks, Strix cries. He brings her a drink and pretends he paid for it. She dumps it on him, cries into it, and drinks her own tears.
Omin and Viari track down the people who cashed in the chips. It is the two tabaxi that fought Omin.
Viari uses his owlbear figurine. It chases one tabaxi and catches him. Viari chases the other guy down. Viari gets his earnings off of him.
He was doing a job for Yashida. She works for Ras Nsi, one of the main bad guys in Tomb of Annihilation.
The group meets with a guy named Grandfather Zatembe. He communes with Zavrus. He sees a jungle city to the south and a black obelisk draped in vines.
They mention Ras Nsi and the guy freaks out. He says Ras Nsi was a defender of Mezro, cast out, he was. He is a curse on all this land. Forsaken by Ubtao and the old gods.
The group heads back to their ship. Their crew is there. Chris printed out the crew's statistics.
The heroes decide to bring 18, the dinosaur, along. They rig an apparatus so that it is strapped to the underside of the ship.
Jim flies down on his broom. He rolls to see if he can calm it. He actually rolls an 18. Freaky!
The group arrives at a section of jungle with a lava pit. It is shrouded in mist. Chris unveils an insane diorama/map. It's the lost city of Omu.
The group picks out a place to land. Gargoyles with green devil faces (!) are watching them. Strix ties the crew to the ship so nobody falls off like the one guy did on the podcast.
The group decides to kill the gargoyles. Each player will run one of the NPC crew in addition to their character.
Strix casts death ward on Jim, who asks what death ward is. Strix sarcastically is shocked he doesn't have it. The way she said it was hilarious. Crowd dies.
Jim makes like he casts dispel magic on it. Scubby casts a crappy illusion of pelicans.
A gargoyle swoops down, grabs Scubby and eats his face. Scubby is dead. It flies away with Scubby in its mouth.
Wait.. he's tied by a rope! Thanks, fan in the crowd. Oh... Scubby is torn in two. Part of the corpse swings under the ship. 18 tries to eat it.
Viari summons the owlbear. It rolls to attack. 18! Viari and the owlbear destroy a gargoyle. There's two left. They are flying.
Omin casts magic weapon on the ballista. Omin also spots a tyrannosaurus rex down below. It is intrigued with what is going on. His NPC kills one of the gargoyles.
Strix flies on her broom and launches a fireball at the tyrannosaurus rex. She does 30 points. The t. rex had feathers. Now they're burned off.
Viari swings on a rope and hacks into the dinosaur, impaling his sword into the roof of its mouth.
Jim releases the triceratops now known as 18 and rides him, falling toward the t. rex. He casts feather fall. 18 lands gently on its back.
Jim notices that this t. rex is evil, more malevolent than he'd imagine a t. rex would be.
Jim makes an attack roll for 18 the triceratops. Natural 20! Crowd goes apeshit. Damage: 8d8+6.
The t.rex bites Jim. 30+ points. Patrick says that He died doing what he loved most: riding two dinosaurs at once.
The t rex and 18 tumble down a hill. The t. rex is dead.
The group thinks he dispelled the death ward. Strix ties a rope around herself and climbs inside the dead t. rex. She grabs Jim.
The group pulls the rope. Out comes Strix and Jim Darkmagic, who is at one hit point thanks to her death ward.
18 is alive, too!
Omin destroys the infernal contract. She burns "fuck you, Jim" on the deck. She disappears in a shroud of black flame.
An old woman appears. A halfling. Rosie Beestinger from the C Team!
Show over. Crowd busts out an "18" chant.
OverallThis one is ridiculously good. The first hour+ is hilarious. There's a bit of a lull halfway through (on a 3 hour show, I think that is inevitable) and then it kicks back into gear in the final hour.
Holly was fantastic. Her character, IMO, is more well-rounded than the others, so she brings a bit more depth to the game and it feels all that much richer. It feels good to see her succeed in our weird little D&D hobby.
Chris was in rare form! I was blown away. He was really funny.
Everyone was great. This combination of people is really good, and I think if they played more, they'd gel and it would be classic stuff.
Rosie Beestinger will apparently be on the next show. That is a great thing, as I found her to be ridiculously funny on the C Team. She has done a lot of stuff with Jerry, so I think it will click really well.
I honestly think this was one of the best Acq Inc shows out of all of them. They are on a heck of a run. I was a bit worried when Scott Kurtz left, because he added so much. Now it is clear that there are people out there who can fill the void.
Great show! Definitely check it out!
