Episode 55: Sweet Nothings
There is a discussion on the Dice, Camera, Action subreddit about whether or not they should include NSFW content. I have to say, that cracks me up. What exactly are people going to post? Stories? Art?
There is also a really great piece of art depicting Paultin and Escher right here.
The Party
(Anna) Evelyn - Human Paladin of Lathander
(ProJared) Diath - Human Rogue
(Nathan) Paultin - Human Bard
(Holly) Strix - Tiefling Sorcerer
(Sam Witwer) Mordenkainen, the Mad Mage
Chris starts off by reminding us about the story of Mordenkainen, aka "the Mad Mage," and his battle with Strahd in the backstory of Curse of Strahd (fell of a cliff, didn't die). Mordenkainen helped the Waffle Crew defeat Strahd by shattering the giant crystal heart that gave Strahd magic protection.
Paultin's shadow has pulled the group back into Barovia so that Paultin can link up with the dark powers and his shadow can link up with him. The dark powers want Paultin to be the new ruler of Barovia. To do this, Paultin will have to marry the flesh golem lady.
We left off last time with the Abbot being none too happy with Paultin. They're in a chapel where the wedding is about to take place. The rest of the group is on the roof of the chapel.
A wereraven kid lands on the roof and tells the group to wait for the wizard to arrive. The wereravens are good guys. The heroes met them a few times, most notably at the wine-making place where Evelyn almost ate a baby.
Paultin talks to Escher. Escher was just messing with a corpse. As Paultin is smelling the corpse-stink on Escher's hand, the bride comes in. Escher asks where her bridesmaids are. Who are the bridesmaids? Mongrelfolk? The witches? It is not yet revealed.
The golem bride talks. She makes a corpse-y croaking noise. So she doesn't talk... I thought she talked when they met her last time. They should get Ireena's corpse and animate that.
Up on the roof, the bells ring. The belfry is right above the group. The doors to the chapel open and a line of ghosts enter. That's the ghosts from one of the very first sessions. They ghosts this every day, I think. It was a very cool part of Curse of Strahd that you could do a lot of fun stuff with.
The vampire altar boy that the group almost killed in one of the first sessions spots the group. Evelyn approaches him, friendly. She tries to grab him. Rolls a 20! He turns into a bat.
Down below, Escher says that it's time. He's all keyed up. We learn that the witches are the bridesmaids. They've gone missing.
Escher brings Paultin to see a corpse... it's Falkon! Escher says he blames Strahd for his death. Escher's plan is for the wedding to happen, and then once it is complete, they'll kill Paultin's shadow. There's only one thing that can hurt the shadow. The sunsword! Paultin has it, but he doesn't use it much.
Up above, Strix uses magic to look like Strahd. I love it when he does the Strahd voice.
The wedding starts. The group is about to spring into action. The wereraven kid tells them to wait - it's not time.
The ceremony starts. Paultin's shadow looms near the altar, watching intently as the Abbot performs it. It's not so much a wedding as an incantation. Evelyn gets the sense that once Paultin says "I do", the spell is completed.
The vampire altar boy tells Evelyn that she's a construct - she could marry Paultin and embrace the darkness. Evelyn is deeply offended at the idea of embracing evil and starts going off on him about Lathander.
Here come the good guys. They burst through the doors of the chapel. A mob of villagers led by Ireena's brother, Ismark. He beheaded 3 of the witches and he's holding their heads! We can only wonder if he sundered their brooms.
Wereravens are with him, as is and Mordenkainen. Murty Gurty has returned, and he is drinking buttermilk!
Evelyn tackles Paultin and demands to know if he was actually going to marry the golem. Paultin doesn't answer.
The Abbot strikes her with his mace for 25 points. Escher grabs Paultin and pulls him to his feet.
The villagers all have polearms - each a different type! If you're new to D&D, you might not get that. Mordenkainen was Gary Gygax's (the co-creator of D&D) real life D&D character that he put into the actual published game in the form of names of spells and in Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure. Gary Gygax was obsessed with polearms. He always wrote about and statted up tons of polearms. I think Zeb Cook said that part of his job application actually had a quiz on polearms.
Hey! The Abbot tinkered with the golem. The bride now has has Ireena's head! The head is frozen with the same scream on her face that she had when Strix accidentally knocked her off the nightmare and she fell to her death. That is funny.
Diath is freaking out. He is afraid to fight. Ohhh... here come the witch brooms! Of course, they're coming right at Diath. Someday he's going to have to fight a colossal undead spell-casting broom. Or maybe a broom golem! Has there ever been an artifact broom in D&D? Someone should make one.
Strix wants a broom to keep. She grabs one and she's pulled off her feet. Diath leads the brooms on a chase. Look like he's got some sweet maneuver planned.
Ismark is going after the bride. Escher tries to stop him, but Ismark pushes him into a fire.
The villagers drag down the Abbot. Mordenkainen uses Bigby's crushing hand to do a massive pile of damage to the bride. In real life, Bigby was one of Mordenkainen's NPC sidekicks (along with Rigby, Zigby and others).
Paultin spots his shadow creeping up on Evelyn. He runs over and attacks it. Natural 20! Wow. The shadow is obliterated! It scatters like a bunch of bats. He hears Strahd's voice howl. It looks like he destroyed what was left of Strahd.
Lightning hits the chapel. The dark powers are not happy. The roof crumbles. Strix, luckily, is flying on the broom.
The only creature still on the roof when this happens is Waffles the baby owlbear! The owlbear falls. Diath catches it! Phew. A roof chunk falls on Escher. Methinks we have not seen the last of him.
In the sky, the clouds take the form of a giant face. It looks like Strahd. He's angry! Lightning flashes and tears cloud-Strahd apart. The chapel flickers between night and day.
Wow... Barovia's about to go back to wherever it came from! That's cool, I don't think it has ever been officially stated where Barovia came from. Do you think Chris will place it in the Forgotten Realms? Or... Greyhawk?
Mordenkainen realizes this flickering indicates that there's a fracture in time. If the group stays here, they're either going to go to the past or the future.
Izek, Strix's brother with the big demon arm, hucks a ball of flame at him and calls out, "Lorcana scum!" I think that's what he said.
Diath is getting beat on by brooms. Strix casts dispel magic and all of them clatter to the floor! The one remaining broom lands next to Strix and pats her. It doesn't want to be dispelled. I am very glad Chris let her have the broom, that should be fun.
The Waffle Crew is fading away. Wow... they're going back in time. Mordenkainen thinks they're going back to AD&D 1st edition and hands them a 10 foot pole, an iron spike, a flask of oil and buttermilk. I hope they have flint and steel.
That's where we stop. Very good show!
Overall
There is a 2e Ravenloft adventure called From the Shadows where the group goes back in time to when Strahd had his freakout and killed his brother, Sergei. The heroes possessed wedding guests and get the thrill of being slaughtered with the rest of the people.
We are given this advice: "The rest of this encounter is a merry chase in which Strahd kills all the characters one by one. The DM should be cruel; none of the players are losing their real characters."
Even as a kid, I knew my players would hate this, I don't think I used that section at all. That adventure has cool stuff in it, but it requires a lot of tweaking.
Another interesting thing is that Chris said recently on twitter that time travel ruins campaigns, or something to that effect. Maybe this is an isolated jaunt that won't negate any campaign stuff. Who knows? Maybe we'll see the the origin of the amber temple, or what Barmy the lich was like as a regular dude.
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There is a discussion on the Dice, Camera, Action subreddit about whether or not they should include NSFW content. I have to say, that cracks me up. What exactly are people going to post? Stories? Art?
There is also a really great piece of art depicting Paultin and Escher right here.
The Party
(Anna) Evelyn - Human Paladin of Lathander
(ProJared) Diath - Human Rogue
(Nathan) Paultin - Human Bard
(Holly) Strix - Tiefling Sorcerer
(Sam Witwer) Mordenkainen, the Mad Mage
Chris starts off by reminding us about the story of Mordenkainen, aka "the Mad Mage," and his battle with Strahd in the backstory of Curse of Strahd (fell of a cliff, didn't die). Mordenkainen helped the Waffle Crew defeat Strahd by shattering the giant crystal heart that gave Strahd magic protection.
| Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.  |
| Mordenkainen |
We left off last time with the Abbot being none too happy with Paultin. They're in a chapel where the wedding is about to take place. The rest of the group is on the roof of the chapel.
A wereraven kid lands on the roof and tells the group to wait for the wizard to arrive. The wereravens are good guys. The heroes met them a few times, most notably at the wine-making place where Evelyn almost ate a baby.
Paultin talks to Escher. Escher was just messing with a corpse. As Paultin is smelling the corpse-stink on Escher's hand, the bride comes in. Escher asks where her bridesmaids are. Who are the bridesmaids? Mongrelfolk? The witches? It is not yet revealed.
The golem bride talks. She makes a corpse-y croaking noise. So she doesn't talk... I thought she talked when they met her last time. They should get Ireena's corpse and animate that.
Up on the roof, the bells ring. The belfry is right above the group. The doors to the chapel open and a line of ghosts enter. That's the ghosts from one of the very first sessions. They ghosts this every day, I think. It was a very cool part of Curse of Strahd that you could do a lot of fun stuff with.
The vampire altar boy that the group almost killed in one of the first sessions spots the group. Evelyn approaches him, friendly. She tries to grab him. Rolls a 20! He turns into a bat.
Down below, Escher says that it's time. He's all keyed up. We learn that the witches are the bridesmaids. They've gone missing.
Escher brings Paultin to see a corpse... it's Falkon! Escher says he blames Strahd for his death. Escher's plan is for the wedding to happen, and then once it is complete, they'll kill Paultin's shadow. There's only one thing that can hurt the shadow. The sunsword! Paultin has it, but he doesn't use it much.
Up above, Strix uses magic to look like Strahd. I love it when he does the Strahd voice.
The wedding starts. The group is about to spring into action. The wereraven kid tells them to wait - it's not time.
| Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.  |
| Ireena |
The ceremony starts. Paultin's shadow looms near the altar, watching intently as the Abbot performs it. It's not so much a wedding as an incantation. Evelyn gets the sense that once Paultin says "I do", the spell is completed.
The vampire altar boy tells Evelyn that she's a construct - she could marry Paultin and embrace the darkness. Evelyn is deeply offended at the idea of embracing evil and starts going off on him about Lathander.
Here come the good guys. They burst through the doors of the chapel. A mob of villagers led by Ireena's brother, Ismark. He beheaded 3 of the witches and he's holding their heads! We can only wonder if he sundered their brooms.
Wereravens are with him, as is and Mordenkainen. Murty Gurty has returned, and he is drinking buttermilk!
Evelyn tackles Paultin and demands to know if he was actually going to marry the golem. Paultin doesn't answer.
The Abbot strikes her with his mace for 25 points. Escher grabs Paultin and pulls him to his feet.
The villagers all have polearms - each a different type! If you're new to D&D, you might not get that. Mordenkainen was Gary Gygax's (the co-creator of D&D) real life D&D character that he put into the actual published game in the form of names of spells and in Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure. Gary Gygax was obsessed with polearms. He always wrote about and statted up tons of polearms. I think Zeb Cook said that part of his job application actually had a quiz on polearms.
Hey! The Abbot tinkered with the golem. The bride now has has Ireena's head! The head is frozen with the same scream on her face that she had when Strix accidentally knocked her off the nightmare and she fell to her death. That is funny.
Diath is freaking out. He is afraid to fight. Ohhh... here come the witch brooms! Of course, they're coming right at Diath. Someday he's going to have to fight a colossal undead spell-casting broom. Or maybe a broom golem! Has there ever been an artifact broom in D&D? Someone should make one.
Strix wants a broom to keep. She grabs one and she's pulled off her feet. Diath leads the brooms on a chase. Look like he's got some sweet maneuver planned.
Ismark is going after the bride. Escher tries to stop him, but Ismark pushes him into a fire.
The villagers drag down the Abbot. Mordenkainen uses Bigby's crushing hand to do a massive pile of damage to the bride. In real life, Bigby was one of Mordenkainen's NPC sidekicks (along with Rigby, Zigby and others).
Paultin spots his shadow creeping up on Evelyn. He runs over and attacks it. Natural 20! Wow. The shadow is obliterated! It scatters like a bunch of bats. He hears Strahd's voice howl. It looks like he destroyed what was left of Strahd.
Lightning hits the chapel. The dark powers are not happy. The roof crumbles. Strix, luckily, is flying on the broom.
The only creature still on the roof when this happens is Waffles the baby owlbear! The owlbear falls. Diath catches it! Phew. A roof chunk falls on Escher. Methinks we have not seen the last of him.
In the sky, the clouds take the form of a giant face. It looks like Strahd. He's angry! Lightning flashes and tears cloud-Strahd apart. The chapel flickers between night and day.
Wow... Barovia's about to go back to wherever it came from! That's cool, I don't think it has ever been officially stated where Barovia came from. Do you think Chris will place it in the Forgotten Realms? Or... Greyhawk?
Mordenkainen realizes this flickering indicates that there's a fracture in time. If the group stays here, they're either going to go to the past or the future.
Izek, Strix's brother with the big demon arm, hucks a ball of flame at him and calls out, "Lorcana scum!" I think that's what he said.
Diath is getting beat on by brooms. Strix casts dispel magic and all of them clatter to the floor! The one remaining broom lands next to Strix and pats her. It doesn't want to be dispelled. I am very glad Chris let her have the broom, that should be fun.
The Waffle Crew is fading away. Wow... they're going back in time. Mordenkainen thinks they're going back to AD&D 1st edition and hands them a 10 foot pole, an iron spike, a flask of oil and buttermilk. I hope they have flint and steel.
That's where we stop. Very good show!
Overall
There is a 2e Ravenloft adventure called From the Shadows where the group goes back in time to when Strahd had his freakout and killed his brother, Sergei. The heroes possessed wedding guests and get the thrill of being slaughtered with the rest of the people.
We are given this advice: "The rest of this encounter is a merry chase in which Strahd kills all the characters one by one. The DM should be cruel; none of the players are losing their real characters."
Even as a kid, I knew my players would hate this, I don't think I used that section at all. That adventure has cool stuff in it, but it requires a lot of tweaking.
Another interesting thing is that Chris said recently on twitter that time travel ruins campaigns, or something to that effect. Maybe this is an isolated jaunt that won't negate any campaign stuff. Who knows? Maybe we'll see the the origin of the amber temple, or what Barmy the lich was like as a regular dude.