Trinyvale X Strahd - Ep. 9: The Wolf's Head Jamboree

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This is a Head Gum podcast.

Welcome

to Trinivale.

Trinival. Trinival.

And also Barovia.

Barovia. Barvarovia.

Lovely stuff. Man, I'm on the verge of tears for unrelated reasons.
Yeah.

Other shit that's happening in my life. Yes, it's, you know, I yelled at a lot of people.
Let's move on to today's episode of Trinivale X-Trade, episode 9.

I am your Dracula Uncle, aka Drunkle Caldwell Tanner, and I am joined, as always, by my prickly players, Brian Murphy. Creaming my jeans from Wet Dreams.
It's Ken's Lindell. Yes, dude.

You reminded me beforehand that I said I was never going to come up with another rhyme. It's evergreen.
It's ever cream. It's so ever cream.

Ever cream. Ah, that was a great band, Evercream.

And of course, Emily Oxford. Duplicating keys and creaming my jeans.
It's honestly yeah.

This can't be a theme. This can't be a cream theme.
This is a

Okay, I didn't mean to steal it. I'll do a different one.

You didn't mean to steal it? I think I just, since you did it again, I was like, oh, okay, we're going to do this. But now that I feel like I overstepped.
Okay. Oh, new one.
New one. Everyone, reset.

Reset. Okay, everyone, reset.
Reset. Reslate.
Parallel thinking. It's okay.

No, it wasn't parallel thinking. It was directly inspired.
Okay. I'm going to say facing down a vampire eternal.
Wis er dream. Journal.

It's on exlinia. Man.
very good. Wow.
Murph, you creamed your jeans, but only creamed my mind.

And finally, Jake Hurwitz. I'm not going, man.
Yeah, that makes sense. I'm not going out there.
Let's get to the recap. Just okay, right to the recap of that.
Okay.

I'm playing Nayak, but let's take it down a notch, all right?

I won't be talked to like this on my show, of all places. Not in Barovia.
Critique me directly afterwards, but for this hour and a half, it's mine.

When last we met, you found yourself accosted by a werewolf trapper named Piotr he and his two companions boga and grylja attempted to grapple you and then steal your hair

however thanks to onix and nayak tactically going limp and embracing death

technical

extreme tactics the werewolves were unable to succeed you made quick work of the pack and grill pioter about the alpha who sent him on this job before dying he revealed that his leader is a werewolf named Kirill Stoyanovich, but that all the werewolves follow Strahd, who they revere as the ultimate lycanthrope.

You then ransacked the werewolves' corpses and found an electrum flute, orders from Kirill, and a magic journal that records your dreams, which is perfect for a crew of Sagittariuses like you.

We are so dreamy, but also practical.

After the battle, you decided to push on through the night to make it to the walled village of Valaki. Onyx and Nayak took a level level of exhaustion while Jinns lounged on the back of Fitbit's cart.

As you approached the town, you saw that there were several wolf's heads mounted on spikes.

Jinz astutely pointed out that these must be regular wolves since werewolves revert to human form upon dying.

Weary of being a target, Keychain shed his dog disguise and extended his legs to become a super tall, super cool man.

You then arrived at the gate, where guards informed you that the town was celebrating a festival called the Wolf's Head Jamboree.

They led you inside just in time to see the burgomaster of the town, Baron Vargas Vilakovich, give a speech reminding everyone that all will be well.

He implored everyone to keep evil at bay by having fun, playing games, and of course, earning burgo bucks in the hopes of becoming burgomaster for the day.

All the villagers cheered, except for a man named Udo, who booed and was then thrown in the stocks with a plastered donkey mask on his head.

Jins Jins questioned Udo while discreetly pummeling him with tomatoes. It had to be done.

Udo revealed that all was not well in Velaki. Strange figures had been seen in the graveyard, and some of the staff had gone missing from the burgomaster's mansion.

While Jins chatted, Onyx stealthily cast duplicate on the Baron's keys, thus allowing her to access some of the town's off-limits areas.

With keys in hand, you three glanced towards the abbey on the hillside next to Velaki, just in time to hear a loud bell ring from atop its sanctuary.

Nervously, the Baron forced his bard to loudly play his flute, hoping it would drown out the sound, but it was no use.

As the bell continued to peal, you heard a chorus of baleful, inhuman screams coming from somewhere inside the abbey. And that is where we are now.
Hmm.

As the screams continue, the Baron looks stricken for a moment, then covers his face in a sweaty grin. He turns to the crowd and shouts, Okay, let's get this party started, y'all.

Everyone, go get yourself a free glass of wine, courtesy of me, and the Blue Water Inn. All will be well.
Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. Onyx, I think Nyak is just too into all of this.
Yeah. Do you guys want wine? Do you want a wine? Do you want a wine? We're lucky, Jane.
Wine.

Bluetooth will take a wine. I would like a wine and a wine bottle to chew water.
Okay, two wines. All right.
Three wines. All right.
Yeah, Bluetooth's young.

Bluetooth should be drinking wine coolers, okay?

Let's not be bad. There's a little seltzer.
Yeah, there's some seltzer in there. All right, in the meantime, isn't Blue Water Inn? Isn't that where our guy is? Isn't that our innkeeper?

It is. All right, let's go over.
Let's see if we can find him. Okay, so I have to tell you, I copied the keys of the Burger Master

and it only lasts for an hour, so I was thinking of making Bluetooth invisible, having him shapeshift into a raven, and sending him to inspect.

Okay. And seeing through his eyes.
So I'm going to go limp.

Wait.

Okay. Oh, great.
Okay. Pretend to drink a bunch of wine and then I'll carry you around.

Got you guys some Vino. Hey, what's up? All right.
Okay, I'm Chug, Chug. I'm trying to get a bunch of people to chant chug.
Okay, well. Chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chant, chug.

I'm going to, I am going to mage hand, like, throw it over my shoulder, do do like an optical illusion so it looks like I'm drinking it.

Catch all the wine with the mage hand and catch it and like gently put it onto the ground just so it's not making it sloshily.

Yeah, so it hits your hands like a mage down.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Use the mage hand to sort of slide it down.
Okay, great. Not so sloshily.
And then the second I finish the final one, I'm going to be like, I am so drunk.

Chad. She's way

everybody. She's so tough.
Oh, my God. She's so drunk.
We're so sorry. This is fucking humiliating.
She's an idiot. She's stupid.

This was so dumb of her. Oh, my God.
We're humiliated. Well, she's humiliated.
Holy shit, honestly. We're fine.
You're irresponsible. You're an adult.

This is really low. This is really low.
This is awful. The wine is like really not that alcoholic.
It's safe for children. Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, but she drank it fast and she totally skipped breakfast. She drank it so fast.
She skipped breakfast. She skipped dinner.
Also, you don't know my age or my astrological sign. Yeah, I'm so sorry.

She's a Sagittarius. I carry onyx around.

Okay, so they can go do stuff and then I'm like, I'm sending Bluetooth with the keys to

Invisible as a Raven, and he can shapeshift in and out of being a Raven. Amazing.
That's an imp thing, I guess. So he's an Invisible Raven.

And I'm just going to have him try and find like the Burger Masters, quarters

maybe go into spy on what's going on uh in where the screaming is coming from the screaming is coming from and just like basically figure out where all these keys go to anywhere that he gets in with the key I want him to try to leave a window ajar Wow and I want to earn some burgo bucks so we're each doing something equally important right

okay so yeah divide and conquer I'll go try to talk to Irwin right at the presumably he's at a stand or something like that or some somebody is at the Blue Water Inn, yeah. The Blue Water Inn, yeah.

I will silent image, so it looks like I'm puking.

I'm I'm so sorry for her.

My bare feet, do you just silently puke?

No, I'm not actually puking, I'm just using silent image, so it looks like a really intense puke. But you have to make the noise with your mouth to copy the fake puke.
Great, gotcha. She's leaking.

So, Nike, you want to go to the booths?

Before we handle Bluetooth, let me give you kind of a lay of the land as far as what booths are around

and what else exists in this town. So basically, you're in this big town square.
You've got this huge wicker wolf's head up set up in the middle of this like crumbling fountain.

All of the businesses are kind of in this square, and they've all kind of put out booths in front of their respective businesses.

So you do see by the Blue Water Inn, there is a long table that's been set out with several wine bottles on it.

There's a woman with peppery hair and a few black feathers tucked into it as well. She's wearing a splattered apron and she's kind of leaning next to a large sign that says Wine Chug Challenge.

And behind this booth, you do see the Blue Water Inn, which is this like old inn with a big wooden sign kind of swinging gently in the wind that's got a faded waterfall on it. Gotcha.

In addition to that, next to the Wine Chug Challenge, you see a small stage with a heavily patched red curtain. A sign above that reads the Blinksy Bluppett Blayhouse.
Blayhouse?

And then on the other side of the fountain, you see a set of stocks holding four people in plaster donkey masks. On one side of the stocks is a tank of water labeled the donk tank.

And on the other side is a high-fenced pin with a poorly scribbled sign reading wolf wrestling.

So the four booths that you can visit today are the Wine Chug Challenge, the Blinksy Bluppet Blayhouse, Donk Tank, and Wolf Wrestling.

And there are also further businesses and places to check out in town if you would like to go there as well.

Nyack is like jonesing for these burgo bucks, he's hopping from one foot to the other. Great, I feel like these stocks

seems like an aim thing that feels like I would excel there. Ooh, you want to go to the donk tank? Yeah, I'm going to go to the donk tank.
Great.

If I'm not mistaken, you guys both have bardic inspiration. I believe I've given it to both of you, and neither of you have used it.
That's correct.

Just a heads up.

Is that a D6 or a D8? Oh, D6. We suck, remember? Yes.

It's worth remembering because Onyx, you and Nyak do have exhaustion from your long trip. So you have disadvantage on build each other.
Oh, yeah, we didn't fucking see it.

I'm going to earn some freaking Burgo Bucks. Nyak stumbles towards the donk tank.
I'm carrying Onyx. We're going to be rich, sis.

Nyak, you're heading towards the donk tank. Jins, are you just hanging with Onyx over by the Blue Water Inn? Yeah.

I also don't really need to be warging until I'm like officially looking through Bluetooth.

So like, I mean, mean i can help you but also like i'm not okay so you're pretending right now to be drunk and we'll have you go out when we need you to go out okay so great so i think maybe we'll walk up to the wine chug challenge because we don't see irwin right no irwin's our guy we don't see him so maybe and she's also got black feathers so i think i'm gonna try to talk to her i don't really care to go to the wine chunk challenge although i could have onyx do it Yeah, I could do it.

She's already wasted. Yeah.
Why don't we do two birds with one stone? Oh, I do that.

I out loud, I say, why don't we hit two birds with one stone? And I wink at the lady at the booth. Excuse me, do you have a problem with birds? No, actually, I really like birds.

Some of my best friends are birds. I wink.
He was referring to like a stone massage. Oh, of course.
Have you ever at stones put on you during a massage? Yes, like a bird bath full of stones. Yeah.

Of course. That sounds lovely.
Yes.

We got off on the wrong foot. My name is Danica Dorakova.
I run this inn with my husband, Erwin. Oh, Erwin.
Yes. You know, Erwin.
Yeah, we are looking for Erwin. Erwin is

a friend of, and I do a bird sign.

I make like flapping wings with my hand. I act out like fangs.
Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

We know some wine moms

that we are friends with. Interesting.
Did they

tell you to tell me anything? They did.

Jen's rules. Oh.

Jen's rules. Kind of.
Oh, fuck.

As soon as you say that, her expression totally changes.

She kind of like brings you in for an embrace. She notices the feathers that you have placed.
Where did you place the feathers, by the way, on your body? I have turned it into a quill.

Oh, oh, nice. For your dream journal.
Yeah, for my dream journal.

great uh i think i have one like a brooch clasping is mark's best cape uh nayak where do you have your feather um nyak' would be uh attached to one of his arrows wow flying extra true i love it um so yeah so you see that danica clocks all these feathers hears the code phrase and says yes oh it is great to meet uh fellow friends of the feather my husband irwin is tending bar inside if you wish to speak with him most of the people are here um i'm serving up drinks so the bar is actually a little quieter today than it normally is.

Just the people who are trying to get away from the hustle and bustle. If you want to do the wine chalk challenge, by the way, I would be happy to facilitate that too.
Sure. We could also,

if you want to just rig it because we're friends and just hand us some burgo bucks, that would be sick.

You see that she kind of nervously looks over at two of the town guards and says, like, even for friends of the feather, there must be rules. I am sorry.
Do you know where the burgermaster lives?

Yes. Oh, he lives.
She points past the grandstand where the burgomaster spoke earlier. You see this big mansion covered in crumbling blue plaster.

On the other side of it, you see a small shimmering blue pond and a gazebo. And between those two things, you do see the gate to the abbey.
Okay, thank you so much.

I'm sending him an edible arrangement. So that's so helpful.
That's very kind. Yes, we must keep a low profile and play our part as members of the society of a lakhi.
But if you wish to speak, go.

Yes, Erwin is inside. But if you want to kind of pretend like you're having fun and like you're not raising suspicion,

maybe it would be a good idea to do the wine jug challenge. Don't, don't worry, I've got this handled.

Onyx, you have a problem, okay? The wine jug challenge after everything you just did, fine. I'm gonna go inside and have a reasonable amount of drinks.

And I walk into the bar and leave Onyx at the booth. I will cast the Cantrip evil eye on Jens.
I stare at a creature I can see within range, imposing a paleful hex on it.

I'm mad that he threw me under the bus. And I think I'm never going to use this on an actual enemy, so.

What kind of paleful hex happens to me?

He takes

six psychic damage.

Oh! Oh, my God. That's so much of his age.

I'm at 13 life.

And for the rest of the round, only the round

attack rolls and unarmed strikes against you score a critical on a 19 or a 20. Okay.

I wobble into the bar and hit my head on the door frame. Are you? Okay, your eye bulged way out of your head.
Yeah, I just was super mad at my friend. Anyways, I'm going to get drunk.
Chug, chug.

Chug, chug, chug.

Okay, so you sit down. We'll handle this.
We'll do Onyx first, then we'll go over to NIAC, then Jin's, and then we'll check in on Bluetooth. Okay.
So, Onyx, you sit down to the table.

You see, your competitor is this mustached man in overalls. He's seated next to a bottle, waiting for the competition to begin.

As you both sit down, he kind of gives you a little nod, says, Oh, how's it going there? I guess you're not here to make friends. Oh, geez, okay, yeah.
I kiss his hand politely.

His mustache bristles with electricity.

I'm Imrick. It's a pleasure to meet you, and may the best drinker win.

Do you usually drink wine?

Is it your drink of choice? What's your drink of choice? I would say, like dandelion tea. So this is kind of not really my.

What, you're a teetotaler? I am, but only because I only drink tea. Yeah, yeah.
That was my.

That was my joke. God, you get nothing.
Jimmy's a wine. Good joke.

Sorry, I just.

I don't. I'm sorry.
Is there a connection between us? I just don't meet many people with a sense of humor like this.

Oh, shit. he's her type.
Bottoms up.

A Sagittarius. Gentleman looks out the window.
Like, what the fuck is happening? I gave another evil eye.

All right, that bottom's up.

So you sit down with Emmerich here. Danica explains the rules.

Okay, so what you do is you choose the amount of wine you want to drink, and then you make a constitution check for the corresponding amount.

If you fail the check, the amount you failed gets added to the next check you do. So, example, if you roll a seven on the DC 10 check, it means you add three to your next check.

If you fail three checks in a row, you spit out the wine. So, the way this is gonna work is you can choose if you want to chug a quarter bottle, a half bottle, three quarters, or a whole bottle.

The DC goes up depending on how much you chug.

And if you fail, you get to add the difference to your next check. So, you don't automatically fail, it just makes the next check harder.
So, what is the DC for a full bottle?

Full bottle is going to be 25, three quarters is 20, half bottle is 15, quarter bottle is 10 these are constitution checks okay and that's with disadvantage because we're exhausted that is with disadvantage you could start slow you could do four checks uh to get through the bottle uh that's probably what emerich's gonna do slow and steady that's what that's what i always say wow it's so hot okay um so if you're ready um let's do our first chug okay okay emerich does not add anything to this disadvantage i did get a nat 20 on the higher one

uh emerich got a 16 so he uh passes his first one he's got one quarter down what did i need to get uh a 10 for one quarter. Okay, I am not using my bardic yet.
I just got an 11.

Okay, boat, you both passed. You both chugged a quarter of wine.
Okay. Oh, I'm feeling pretty good.
See, Emmerich instantly starts to flush. Oh, but he got a six.

So he's going to have to add four to his next check. I got an 18 now.
Oh, nice. Okay, so this is for the third quarter of the wine.
Emmerich's check is now a DC 14.

He passed. Okay.

I am going to use my bardic. Okay.
13. 13.
All right, you pass again. This is the last quarter, okay?

Rolling flat on both of these.

Oof.

Emmerich failed. He got a six again.
He failed also. I got a six.
Yep.

So this, you're both going to do a DC 14 check to try and get the last bit of this wine down. Okay.

Shout out to the two crew for Emmerich. 11.
Okay, so you both failed. This next one's just going to be flat.
We're going to go back to DC 10 for this one. Emeric got a five.
14.

there we go. Oh, that was so stressful doing it with disadvantage.

Every time I would be like, well,

can't use that one. Can't use that one.
Can't use that one. Emmerich is red as a beet.
He really fell apart during that last quarter. You see wine is just dribbling down his face.

His mustache is totally red as well. You're out your nose.

Oh, geez.

That's a little stronger than Dandy Lion T, let me tell you.

Great work there. I guess you win the burger box, but you know, I had fun, so I got nothing to complain about.
Yeah, me neither.

Where do you live?

Uh, you know, um, just outside of town, I got a little farm. You gotta, what do you farm? Dandelions?

Um, well, yeah, I mean, just for fun, I do the dandelions, but I grow a lot of the food for the village, you know.

Mostly, yeah, potatoes, tomatoes, basically everything you're throwing at the donkey people, I grew it.

Really?

Those tomatoes, they splatted so pleasingly. Oh, shocks.

Against the people, what was it in the stocks, I think?

I'm just knocking on the windows flirting with this man. Yeah, have you seen a guy with a monkey?

Yeah. Named Piccolo.
He's actually like right over there. He just points, like, kind of just a little bit to your right, and you see that next to the

little puppet show booth, there is a man in a flea bit and gestures costume with a monkey on his shoulder. Okay, Emeric, I really want to be with you, but

monkey

is trying to make me a thread wife. So I need to kill him before I

before I can be with you. Maybe it's just the wine talking, but what you said is fucking crazy.
And I think that's beautiful.

Sometimes, sometimes a tomato will grow. And it won't look perfect, but when you bite into it, it tastes juicy and delicious in a way no tomato will.
Sorry, are you implying that I don't look perfect?

No, no, that's not what I'm trying to say. I'm just saying.
Yeah, choose your words carefully. Okay, Emeric.
Okay. Yeah, no, no, no, I'm sorry.

Onix is crying and walked away to jam.

How did that go? I won. You won BurgoBots.
Yeah. How many Burgo Bugs? Yes, you win three BurgoBox.
Three Burgo Bugs. Three? Okay, yes.
Did the Burger Master explain the prizes to you? No.

Are there big stuffed animals?

Oh, well, let me. I've got the little sheet here.
She pulls out the sheet.

I'm going to wave my burger box at Nyack. Nyack drips over like a cartoon dog smelling hot dog.
Nyack, can you keep C's safe?

Yes, I can't.

I'll put them in the glove bag, brother.

I can be the treasurer of the Burgo Box. Nyack has a weird look in his eye.

This is okay.

I just implicitly trust him when I hand the burger box over.

Yeah, could you explain to all of us what? Oh, sure, yes. She pulls out a little sheet with the burger master's seal on it, and it has a list of prizes written on it.

So, for two Burgo Bucks, you can get a Blinksy toy. For four Burgo Bucks, you can get a room at the Blue Water Inn.
For eight Burgo Bucks, you can get a room at the Baron's Mansion.

For 10 Burgo Bucks, you get your own personal guard. and for 12 Burgo Bucks, you become Burgo Master for the day.
Okay, we are saving for 12. We're saving.
I on the prize. I am the prize.

You do see at the bottom, there's also a little addendum that says, for a simple donation of 100 gold, you also can get an extra Burgo buck. Oh, I'll put it, yeah.
Well, we'll figure that out.

Let's do that at the end. 200, all right? The last,

we'll figure that out at the end. Okay, great.
I'll give anything. What? What do you mean?

Great. So you guys are going to go talk to Erwin, but before we get to that, let's cut over to Nyack, who has gone to the Donk Tank.
Yeah. Nyack wanders back to the donk tank.

And has all of the Burgo Bucks.

That's right. I've got three Burgo Bucks in my pocket.
Winning.

Charlie Sheen.

I turned to Onyx after hearing him quote Charlie Sheen, and I say, we should follow him.

We can come back and talk to Erwin.

We follow Niack. I follow Nyack.
Let's do it at a distance and see if it does anything fucking weird. What's the issue, guys? I'm by winning.
Oh, God.

So you walk over to the donk tank, which is a massive wooden barrel filled with water. Above the barrel, you see a man in a plaster donkey head suspended on a seat.

Next to the tank, you see a bald man with wild eyes and a leather jacket and gloves. He points to a small painted target attached to the tank and says,

Hit that on you into Burgo box or not. I don't care.
Wow. Yes.
This guy isn't fun at all. What if I hit it so square that you give me your jacket, sir?

You see, as you say that, he like clutches his jacket closely and says, No, this jacket is very important to me. The Baron gave me this.
It's important to me as well. Why? Hey, Nyak.

It just feels like you got here. Can we circle up for a second? I pinch Nyak's ear and I pull him in close.

You love the Burgomaster. You need Burgo Bucks.
And now you're obsessed with this jacket. I like leather.
I always liked leather. You win.
Win, though. Ever since I wanted to be the Burgo Master.

Okay.

Self-very new. So, we're in the best hour.
We need you to focus up. Okay.
Okay. I pinch him again.

We need you to focus up. All right.
My ears. Win the Burgo Bucks.
Yeah. Get your friend under control.
All right. Go ahead.
Taking this jacket would be a crime.

And if you commit a crime, then you will go in the stocks. Yeah.
Not interested in being a donkey. Yeah, I'm not a donkey either.

I'm going to hit this thing so square that no one will deny that I'm winning.

All right, great. So the way this is going to work, you see there is a man in a donkey mask sitting in this dunk tank.
He's just boredly saying, hee-haw, I broke the law over and over again.

What did he do?

What did you do, sir? Yeah, what'd you do? Pissed in public. That's funny.
Jen's is doing that right now.

You can't

tell.

Well, he's pissing himself, so that is different. Yeah, that's totally different.
Yeah, because you're wearing your jeans. That's private.
Yeah, and they're dark pants.

And honestly, they're Ismark's pants. So you're allowed to just go when you want.
He's got me there. Yeah, that's why you wear Ismark's clothes.
You can just go on the ground.

You can piss there instead of public. It's pretty simple.
Why are we talking about my movements, right?

Throw the ball.

Am I crazy here? Why is everyone watching the piss leave? I'm chucking the ball at the bottom of my pants. I feel like no one stopped talking to me.
I feel like I don't know why.

It's like watching Zaguthers in Zeray. There's just a growing pool.
Will you ever stop pissing? I don't know.

Do I have full control of that?

I don't know.

Do you want me to just stop pissing just in the middle of it for no reason? I guess it's your braudiness. Yeah, I have to piss.
It's been a long day. We haven't really stopped down.

I tried to go in and talk, but then you were being fucking weird with the bag and stuff, and so we decided to follow you.

I didn't have time to go to the bathroom. I'm wearing Ismark's pants.
I decided to piss myself. All right? It all checks out.

It's still going. Can I chuck this thing or what? Yes, please.
My God.

So this is going to be a DC23 sleight of hand. Sleight of hand.
You get three tries. You can also sacrifice a try to lower the DC by 1d6.

So you can do it raw and try to hit the DC23. I'll also allow people to cast spells or give inspiration, but you cannot use the help action.
Okay. Can I use Mei-chand to give help action?

Unless you want to try and do that stealthily, I think Izek would catch that.

So yeah, is there anything you want to do to help out Niak? You've got a disadvantage because you're exhausted. Your vision is blurring a little bit from the long walk.

But also, Jins, you have given him inspiration already, right? Yes. Okay, cool.
Would you let me cast Zephyr Strike to get advantage? I mean, it is a projectile. So I guess, yeah, sure.

How does that manifest? You just kind of like gather shadow around yourself? Yeah, you move like the wind. Until the spell ends, Your movement doesn't provoke opportunity attacks.

Once before the spell ends, you can give yourself advantage on one weapon attack on your turn. It deals an extra D8 of force damage.

So, I guess I imagine like all of the shit, like the gloomy shadows circling this ball and having it burst forward from my hand. And you get a rookie of the year broken arm snaps.

Yeah, my arm snaps back, and I just look at it and wonder, oh, your tendons, they look like they're too tight.

I think I've got tiger blood coursing through me. Oh, my God.
This is the last time I'll say a Charlie Chinese, I promise.

Yes? I have a pitch for how I could use mage hand.

I have silent image, which I can cast at will.

So I would silent image almost like a layer on Photoshop, the target without the mage hand, and then behind that, use the mage hand to kind of

be there

in the event that it goes a little off center. Oh my god, you're using it.
So essentially like duplicate the scene with the fucking masking mirror, a masking layer?

I think that's what I'm essentially trying to do. Holy shit.
You're speaking my language.

It doesn't need to be like advantage, but maybe it could be like give like a couple extra points if you close or something. I think that I'll let that do the equivalent of inspiration as well.
Okay.

So yeah, you can add or you can subtract a D6 from this DC. Okay.

I only lowered it two, but that's still something. So it's 21.
All right. Okay.
And you get three tries. Okay, great.
And my Zephyr Strike can cancel out my disadvantage on the first one. Okay, great.

That is a 24. Nice.

Yeah, you wind up your arm. It plays that disgusting rubber band noise they use in Rookie of the Year.

And

you fire it. It goes right down the middle.
Just blasts through this like flaming shadow following behind it. And it absolutely decimates this little panel.

You see this board man in the donkey mask goes, hee-haul, here I go.

It splooshes into the water. You see, Isaac stares forward, but as the donkey man goes into the water, a little grin creaks onto his face.
Yeah, you love that. Yes, very good.

That's what you live for. He loves his job.
That's what's just water, right? That he fell into. It is some of his piss from earlier.
Yeah, that's all the public piss, I think.

Punishment meets the crime. Yeah.
So that is two Burgo bucks for you, my good man. Well done.
Wow, can I just run that again? I'm sorry, one game per customer. What if I offer to be Zoe Dunk?

Have you committed crime? Not yet.

I wink.

He blushes a little bit. Yeah.

Would you stop flirting with everyone?

I'm sorry. It's just seeing Piccolo and knowing he wants to make me a trap.

Are you sure he wants that?

I guess.

Not every dream is real, I guess. It's like my argument.

Really? Because you wake up with real consequences if I recall.

All right. You wake up really hard, brother.
We stopped doing, talking about all of the stuff that my dick does, all right? Yeah. In public? Do we have to do that? No.

Does anyone else feel like that's inappropriate? I think we covered it all anyway. Yeah,

cumbing and pissing. Is there anything else we want to talk about? I don't think so.
I think that covers all the basics. Passing a kidney stone or something.
Should we talk about that? I hope not.

I don't wish that for your health or your future, brother. Yeah, I hope not either.

Am I right now? Clearly not. You all see the puddle.
I seem to set. You're not passing it.
You're not passing anything. You're fine.
All right. You're not breaking any laws, but they don't like you.

So please leave. That's fine.
Unless you want to also take a chance on the dunk tank. Yeah, no, I'll dunk the guy.
Why not? Yes.

We've got five Burgo bucks. I just, with terrible form, like nearly throwing my shoulder out of the socket as I throw something for the first time in my life.
Oh my God. Shout out to the two crew.

Okay, so first one is bad. Nayak, what the fuck?

You are breathing too loud. Sorry.
All right? Yeah.

Can I cast favored foe for Jens on the target to give him an extra D4? I think that only applies to you specifically, right? I think you can only cast that on yourself. Yeah, yeah, it does.

I was just wondering if you would allow me to get some fuck for you, crap. Okay.
You see that the new donkey that's gone up there is Udo.

Oh. Hey, okay, go easy on me, right? We're friends now, huh? That is, and and that's why I missed the first one.
Oh, okay.

I wink at Udo, uh, and then I throw it and try to hit the target as best as I can.

18. Fuck.
Okay,

can I try to do the mage hand double layer thing? Yeah, yeah, you can do that again. Okay, all right, so subtract D6.
So if I get a five or higher, there you go, and then Onyx can do it.

Come on, come on.

Fuck!

Yes!

We're in the money.

Everything's going according to plan. Wow!

I hit him in the head and knocked him into the water.

You hit him in the head, it knocks him out his head. Yes, it's a lot easier if you just try to hit the guy.
Why didn't I think of that?

Very good. Yes.

Awesome. So he hands you two more Burgo bucks

and says, great work. Does anyone else want to try? There is also many other attractions.
There is Wolf Wrestling. There is Blinksy's Bloppet Blayhouse.
And of course, there is donations.

Yeah, we'll think about it. Why don't we go check out something else? I don't know that I want to wrestle Wolf.
Yeah, the Blayhouse might have something to do with Piccolo, right?

Didn't we see Piccolo next to the Punta? Yes, we saw that. All right, Punky.
Let's walk over to the Blayhouse. Is this going to be...

Please.

No one make you weird. I pinch both of your ears and pull you in.
Ah, okay.

Yes, right? Look. I wasn't weird.

I was being normal. Okay, you weren't being normal.
You're both being weird.

Don't say anything weird to Piccolo about being a trad wife, okay?

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Uncommon goods were all out of the ordinary.

As you walk over and say, Don't be weird, you see the weirdest man in the entire village

steps up and says, Step right up. My name is Blinksi.
Would you like to entertain little boys and girls with a puppet show? If they like it, you win a Burgo Buck.

We have to do the puppet show.

uh-huh. You pick out the puppet.
A single fucking Burgo buck. One Burgo buck.
Unless you do a really good job. Oh.
Unless you roll really well.

Here's the thing: I'm like really entertaining, but my material is so crass.

I'm so blue. Are there any famous puppeteers?

Jeff Dunham.

No, no, no. Yeah, Jeff Dunham.
Eventriloquist.

Jim Henson. Oh, she's a bitch.
I like look around to see. Jim Henson, Jeff Dunham.
I know the Mount Rushmore.

I look around to see if there is a bunch of posters of like traveling puppeteers that are going to come through and it's like a big deal. Give me a perception or investigation role.
Okay.

13. With the 13,

you look in the window of Blinksy's store, which is kind of directly behind this little puppet stage that he set up. And in the window, you see a poster.

You can't really make it out very well from here, but you do see the word Fritz on it, and you do see an illustration of a fantastic-looking puppet. Okay, I'm gonna disguise myself as Fritz.
Okay.

And then I'm gonna say, it is me, Fritz, here to give you the puppet show of a lifetime. Just to clarify, you don't see Fritz on this flyer.
You see a miraculous-looking puppet on the flyer.

Yeah, I know, I am disguising myself to look like the puppet, because that's all I can see. And I'll pretend to be a puppeteer, I guess.

Okay, so you disguise yourself as this puppet.

It looks less like a puppet and more almost like a robot, like a little clockwork man. It's so complicated.
And you kind of like waddle over towards Blinksy. Yeah.
And as you do, he says, oh,

Peterwick!

Peterwick, is it you?

It is me. I am Peterwick and I'm here to do a play for you.

I can't believe it. My master, Fritz von Wirg's greatest work has returned.
I do a pirouette into a split.

And then I do a handstand and start walking around on my hands.

Leaning the knack, I thought we said we weren't gonna be fucking weird.

I think this is cool. Piccolo, clap, clap, it's Piccolwiki's returned.
Um, I'm gonna accidentally quotation marks a kick

piccolo

with my leg in the air.

I mean, roll an attack.

What the fuck?

This is the opposite of normal.

I don't want to actually roll an attack. I just like, I'm just going to.
You want to like graze it? I'm being petty. I'm just being petty.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Peterwick, why do you hurt Piccolo?

Accident, accident. I am holding on to this monkey for a great friend, the wizard Leomond.
He gave me this monkey. He trusted me with this monkey, please.
Peterwick, I know you are a crazy puppet boy.

I'm crazy!

But please, focus on the puppet show. This is Peterwick.
You see, Gadolf Linksy turns to the gathered crowd, which is mostly children, by the way.

It says, this is Peterwick. He is the ultimate creation of my master, Fritz von Wirk.
They say that when Fritz finished this puppet, he sprang up and came to life, and now he roams around the land.

No one knew where he went until today when he returned to put on the greatest puppet show of all. Hooray! And I'm doing cartwheels behind you the entire time you're saying this.

And then I whisper to Onyx and I go like, okay, look, these people here, they hate wolves, right? So do like a little three little pigs type thing.

And also, you know, you got to appeal to the kids today. We even, like, instead of pigs, skibbity toilet.
I don't know what that means. It's skibbity.
The wolf doesn't have enough Riz

and dies from it. Okay, so what I'd like to do is I would like to pick out a puppet to use.

It doesn't matter which one because really I'm going to do a silent image and try to tell the exact story that Murph just said.

Somewhere flying over the village, Bluetooth is like,

okay, so you see the way this is going to work is basically you need to try and impress these children. So this is going to be a, let's call it a contested performance check.

Okay, so since I'm in disguise and I have the actor fee, I will do my performance with advantage which means that i it will negate my disadvantage from being exhausted hell yeah okay so i'll be doing it flat okay so can i uh disguise myself as a child and sit in the audience uh almost as a plant

and try to whip them up into a frenzy oh my wake them up and hopefully

you have to disguise yourself as a cool kid though okay yeah like one that can be emulated uh nyak give me a persuasion check or a performance check i've got a fail safe if this doesn't work. Yeah.

Nyak,

so I am, I unfortunately got a four.

Okay, so I'm going to try to use this. Can I do a performance check?

As soon as Nyak looks like a not-cool kid, I'm going to point at him. I'm going to turn myself into a pot-bellied eight-year-old with a huge lollipop

and a tiny hat. A 1930s idea of what a cartoon child looks like.

Like porky from the little raspberries.

Hey, gang! It's time for a puppet joke!

I point at Nyack

and I cast vicious mockery, and I said, this kid's got negative Riz.

He's Ohio. And then I dab

and I do a persuasion check to try to whip them up. Yeah, yeah, you know, try with that.

Wait, so you're trying to endear them to you by making fun of them? Yeah, Nyak failed. It's over.

Nyak spins the little propeller on top of his hat.

16.

Wait, are you just an adult man making fun of this child version of Nyack? Yes.

The kids see this cool man show up and make fun of a fellow kid.

They go, kind of sus.

But pretty funny.

I don't know. I didn't think it was that groovy.

What

lane are you in? Wow, you're pretty cool for a grandpa. Tread carefully.
Tread so carefully. Okay, alright.
So what are you doing here? Are you going to watch this puppet show or what?

I directed the puppet show. What? It's called The Wolf That Tried to Dab Down the Three Little Skippity Toilets.

We fucking hate wolves around here, huh? Yeah, fuck wolves, dad, right? Fuck them.

Yeah, screw wolves. I think they're the worst.
Wham, wham. Yeah, right.
You love wolves. You fucking love wolves.
Snag drinks a carton of milk.

Holy shit. Wait, wait, wait.
Hang on. Hang on.
Let me see this. I cast like a little cantrip and it says missing Riz on the carton.
I'm like, no wonder.

No wonder he can't find it. Holy shit.
This kid sucks. Brah.

My glasses. They all just start saying, brah, brah, brah, brah, brah, brah, brah.
Brah.

That's awesome. One of the kids goes over and does a backflip, knocking the milk out of your hand, Nayak, and then they all cheer.
That's awesome.

That was 2%.

Whole milk milk or bust, dumbass. All right, yeah, when is the show gonna start?

It's been going on.

There's been a silent image of three toilet puppets getting attacked by a puppet wolf. Okay, so the way this is gonna work, I'm gonna roll a wisdom save for the kids.
Okay.

And depending on how much higher over that you roll, is how many burgo bucks you will earn. Okay.
And how does my whipping them into a frenzy? They're gonna roll with disadvantage. Okay, okay.

Nice.

Okay, that's a flat 10 for their save. 18.
Whoa. 18, that is eight over.

The kids are enamored.

Describe to me how you conclude this puppet show.

I conclude the puppet show by doing like an intense acrobatic routine as a puppet and I like minor illusion some puppet strings and then take out a pair of scissors and I pretend to cut them all and then I minor illusion puppet strings on everyone, including Nyack and I cut all of their strings except for Nyak.

How am I supposed to use my slingshot? This kid's a puppet. No, I'm not.
He probably listens to adults other than Grandpa here who's cool. Right.
Tread so carefully. Nyak gets tangled up.

I fall over and I sneeze and fart at the same time.

The kids explode into applause. I'm going to change my ways and respect my elders now.
Thanks, Grandpa. Tread carefully.
You're welcome. You see, Blinksy says, that was amazing.
Thank you, Peterwick.

It is so good to see you again. Just by the way,

Piccolo is cursed. What? His worldview is cursed.

I mean, yes, he could be a bit saucy and traditional in his way. Traditional.

I look at Jones.

Okay, I'll admit that was strange. That a monkey would be traditional.

He's always reading the newspaper and shaking his head angrily.

But here, for that stellar performance, I will give you two Burgo bucks instead of one. Well done.
Oh, great. Alright, nine Burgo Bucks.
Can we ask you, you've got to give this monkey to a wizard?

Oh, no, the wizard gave me the monkey. The wizard gave you the monkey?

Yes, he came to my shop and he saw that I was struggling to reach all of the dolls on the high shelves, so he gave me this sweet monkey.

He said that he was a visitor to this land and was searching for...

well,

I hesitate to say it, but he was searching for stradd and he was headed on his way to the village of uh borovia uh and he did not want his monkey to get hurt so he left it with me

it's actually strange that you uh inquire so much about the monkey you were the second person in as many days to bring it up really

brought it up oh two days ago or so a woman named esmeralda came to town oh

What did she want with the monkey? She was looking for Leomond, actually, actually, but when she saw the monkey, her eyes lit up. Wait, holy shit.
I pull them back.

We know a celebrity.

Leomund? Of the tiny hut? Like, of the tiny hut? Holy shit. Like, this is the creator of the tiny hut.
We have a chance to meet a celebrity here, okay?

By knowing Piccolo, by knowing Blinksy, we kind of could low-key get in. We can social climb our way to the top.
I'd rather know Mordenkainen because that's the magnificent mansion and everything.

He's richer, but we got to start with C-list. Yeah, we have to get our foot in the door.
Everyone

be fucking normal.

I think I see. When have I not been normal?

Say us a pop-up eight-year-old.

I think actually Leoman made the chest. Oh, Leon made the chest.
It's a magic chest. Okay.
That's cool. Great.
All right. Maybe he's B-list.
How do we retrieve this secret chest we have?

You have a key, and you kind of just stick the key into the air and it like materializes. Great.

Can I like flash the the key at the monkey and see if he has a reaction onix i'm just gonna you know like when people make things dance across their knuckles i'm gonna do that with the key at the monkey and just see if there's a reaction yes

Onyx, you hold out the key to this monkey, and as you do, it touches it. It starts shrieking maniacally as soon as it sees it.

And then it grabs at the key, starts like sucking on it almost like a banana or like a piece of papaya.

But as it does, its eyes glow purple and you start to see strange shapes form all on its body, almost like eldritch tattoos. They glow for a second and then

fizzle out.

And then he starts humping the key instead.

Okay, hey, that's cute. Hey, that's cute.
Stop. No.

I spritz him with the water bottle.

I spritz keychain with it. Let him finish.
No.

But then after that, he looks to Onyx, tilts his head for a second,

and then hands you the key while getting down on one knee.

I can't take it now.

You have to take it. All right.
I will take

your action. Nia, take it.
I don't want to take it at home. He was just humping it.
And you wanted him to finish, all right? Yeah, well, I didn't know he was going to hand me the key.

Be thankful that there's not gunk on it.

I'm not touching it. You're not touching it? With my hands.
Nia grabs it with his toe. Okay.
Ew.

That's even worse than a monkey humping it.

Why? Yeah, because you just walk around on your bare feet all the time.

Do you know what happened to Leomond? He said he was going to the village of Barovia, but I have not heard anything from him since. He's probably dead.

Well, let's hope not, because we have an inn. That's what we say.

Well, unless Leoman died and left all of his belongings and cash to the monkey who will now be under our care. Where did we get the chest? Who gave us the chest? We found it.
We found it.

You found it on the body of Reagan.

And if you recall, that was the chest that Reagan used to steal all your stuff.

You'll also recall that when you stayed at the Night Lotus, you stayed in a Leomund's girthy yurt. Yeah.

Okay.

Is it possible that Leomund is in on this? And we have a celebrity feud? Oh my god, this is as good as being friends with a celebrity beef. A celebrity beef is really good.

Do we have a celebrity beef? Why didn't Esmeralta take the monkey with her? Well, she chatted with the monkey in sign language. Those strange pictures appeared as well.

She seemed to understand what it meant, and then she continued on. I think she wanted to honor Leoman's wish to leave the monkey with me.
And we don't care if we put the monkey in harm's way.

We'll take the monkey with us. You'll take the monkey? Well, I like the monkey.
All right. Well, let's let Piccolo decide.
We'll do the airbud test.

Can I just try to put the key in the monkey's mouth and see if it gives access to a different chest? Like is it? I hand it to Onyx with my foot.

Here you go.

You're gonna put the key in the monkey's mouth. Wipe out and wipe it down before you put it in the monkey's mouth, you animals.

I want to see if it's like... In what world would the monkey's mouth unlock something? What if the monkey is a secret? Like that

Leoman store something on it. Yeah.
Leoman does that type of shit. Well, Leoman, we are like, is Leomand in league with Strahd or something? Was he part of the resort that got us into this mess?

But at the same time, would a bad guy leave his monkey to not be in harm's way? Blinksy seems cool. Yeah, I do.

Okay, okay, I will. Is it sorry? Is it Blinksy or Binksy? It's Blinksy.
Blinksy. Gandalf.
Gandalf. Blinky.
Gandalf, right. Wait, no, Gandalf.
Gandalf. I can't remember now.
I heard Gandalf.

I heard Gandalf.

I heard Gandalf. Okay.
Gandalf rocks. Yes, I do.
You see, he purses his lips, trying to get another kiss from Piccolo, but is rejected. Okay, yeah.

Piccolo, do you want to, I don't know, put this key in your mouth? We just want to try something else.

I keep it in my hand, but try to do like an unlock thing.

I think it might have just been as familiar or something. We can probably get more information.

If you want more information about Esmeralda, I believe she parked her wagon over at the stockyard. Oh,

yes, we could ask her what she said to Piccolo in a sign language. Yes, I believe.
Okay, if you want more information about Leomond and the monkey, I would probably ask Esmeralda.

I don't know where she went, but she must be around there somewhere. We will ask Esmeralda after we try to unlock this monkey.
Yeah, I do. I will say at this point, I am curious.

Yeah, I mean, you have to try to unlock this monkey. You gotta try, yeah.

Give me an Arcana check. Okay.

19 on the die. All right.

All right.

Just creating it into a wet monkey's mouth and twisting it.

Leomund wouldn't, would he?

With a 19,

you insert it in the mouth and you kind of focus your eldritch power into it. You kind of channel the mist, this old mist of Ariana and the Feywild that you've been gathering and learning to control.

And this time when you put it in, you feel a certain click.

And as you pull it out, the monkey goes,

What?

And a scroll comes out of the monkey's mouth.

She knew it. She knew it all along.
She knew nothing.

It shouldn't have worked like this. Onyx, you genius.
That's Spritz Piccolo. Bad monkey, stop eating scrolls.
That is a classic Sagittarius move.

Okay, I opened the scroll. You see that the scroll is a letter.
It is a letter addressed to Esmeralda. It says, Ez,

if you're reading this, it means you have specifically disobeyed my orders and have followed me into Borovia.

I must admit, I am very cross, but as long as you are here, I ask that you do not pursue Strahd any further. This is my mission, it need not be yours.

Find a place to lay low and continue your studies, and I shall retrieve you once this demon is defeated. Kindly yours, Liamond.

Okay, so Esmeralda is maybe

the student of Liamond. Okay, so Liam and is probably toast.
So I think we don't have celebrity beef. Wow.

But this could be a celebrity death that we could make about us. Yeah.
Because we have a tangential sort of relationship. We can use this to earn some social cachet.

We could say, I read a note by Liam and one. Oh, we can talk about how we're closer.
Yeah, like Liam and shared Instagram post about Liam and

Esmeralda is kind of like a Nepo baby, so perhaps we could use her. Oh, that's a new network.
Oh, that's really interesting. Why don't we go look at her cart?

See what she has there, see if she is there, and while we are there, if you guys see her, I can maybe go and see what Bluetooth is. We already have nine Burgo Bucks.
Should we just see?

All right, we should, yeah. Let's get

the Burgo Master. So we're so close.
Do we have to wrestle wolves? You see that Marina pipes up. She's been very quiet this whole time.
Ah! Whoa!

So sorry. Have you been listening to everything? I mean, yes, we travel together.
We're sorry about your brother's jeans, but my brother really had to pick. Yeah, I had to go.

I was supposed to go into the inn and then I didn't go. So I went.
They are fully drenched. Yes.
Unfortunate, but yes,

perhaps the only thing left is the wolf wrestling, or we could make a donation, but I don't think that'll be enough. Also, I'm so sorry for being quiet.
I was just stricken.

This village is so much bigger than Barovia. There's so much hustle and bustle here, and selfishly, I must admit, it would be fun to sleep in another burgomaster's house.

Yours? You're obsessed.

Okay, you know what? I've never been allowed to status chase because my village is so fucking sad, and it's like everyone's happy here.

And you know, I'm just kind of starting to see what life on the other side is like. I know Leomant now, so I've noticed that you are like way hotter than everyone else in your village.

Yeah, you're like the it girl. But like, I feel like I'm a Velakian six, though.
You know, I'm like a Perovian tin, but a Velaki six. Are you kidding me?

You're totally right. Eyes that I see going to you everywhere you go, there is like a tide of eyes following you because you are that hot.

That's actually not great because I feel like a lot of people here are so

low. Oh, yeah.
Actually, that's true. Okay, try to be uglier.

Try to be like a strange tomato. Do you want to wrestle a wolf? No.

I'll wrestle a wolf. Yeah, Onyx can wrestle a wolf.
Yeah,

I could wrestle. Okay.
Yeah, you could do it. All right, yeah.
I'll give you my last Bardic inspiration of the day. All right.

So you go back over to the town stocks. To the left of them, you see this high wooden fence.
Various holes have been cut into the fence for peasants to peer through.

And on looking inside, you see a lone wolf prowling around a dirt-filled circle. Next to the door, a gaunt man in a fur-lined hunting coat stares at you with haunted eyes.
Oh shit.

You want to wrestle a wolf, eh? You get five Burgo bucks if you win.

No one else is brave enough to try. Except him, of course.

The hunter points to a blood-stained body bag on the ground. Whoa.
Okay. Is that Leomant?

Why are you so disappointing?

No,

that's Jerry. He was an alright guy.
Yeah, sounds cool. Yeah.
Never got arrested for public pissing even once. Neither did we.
Are you the trainer of the wolves?

No, well, I caught the wolf, so I guess

I've trained it

insofar as it's in that fence and not leaving the fence, so I trained it to stay in that fence by keeping it in there. So yeah, I guess, yeah, I'm Krushkin.

I'm the hunter, the trainer, just, you know, wildlife extraordinaire. Sure, so what does it mean to, quote-unquote, wrestle a wolf? So you gotta win three grapple checks on it.
Okay.

I'm gonna cast controlled mutation on Onyx and just give her really buff arms to give her advantage on any kind of strength check.

So the way this is going to work is you basically just have to like get three grapple checks.

You have to succeed on three grapple checks, but the wolf is just going to be trying to bite you the whole time. So can I use, like, do we have to be secret about our magic? Can I use mirror image?

You ask this of Crushkin and he says, whatever tricks you want to pull, it's a goddamn wolf.

Awesome. Okay.

I'll do mirror image then. Three illusory duplicates of myself appear.
I will go ahead and disguise myself as him just because I feel like he caught the wolf once.

Maybe that'll get a little bit of intimidation going. Oh, right.

And then I'm going to duplicate

myself.

Go ahead and roll initiative.

Nat 20. Whoa!

You just sprint in and tackle the wolf.

Four beefy mutated onyx has just bound in after this wolf.

You go in there, the wolf kind of like growls, bars its teeth a little bit, and prepares to pounce at you, but you have the first strike. Go ahead.
Okay, I have a plus zero to athletics. What?

You're so confident. I don't know.
Someone had to try.

12. 12.
Okay. Let me roll the opposed.

Oh, that's a 12. Meets it, beats it.
Okay. Okay.
That's one success.

Great. That is going to be the wolf's turn now.
The wolf is going to try and attack you.

So I do have three duplicates. So if it hits me, then I roll a a d6 for each duplicate.
And if I get three or above on one of them, then it goes after the duplicate instead. Let me see if I hit.

Does a 10 hit? It does not.

All right.

So you and all your duplicates just like pounce on this wolf, tackle it to the ground. Its paws are scrambling in all directions.
It seems more surprised than anything.

And that is your turn again to try and get it down to the ground, going for the pin. Four.
No.

Oh, okay. Well, if the wolf rolls a nat one, okay, okay, come on.
We'll have plenty chance.

That's two nat ones. That's an 11, unfortunately.
Okay. All right, so it like it's scrambling.

You're still on top of it, but it is like scrambling to get out. You do not progress to the takedown.
Okay. Okay.
Now the wolf is going to try and attack you.

It is just a tornado of claws and teeth that you are on top of. So it's just going to try and bite you.

That's going to hit. That's a dirty 20.
Okay, let's see if it gets a duplicate. Jens is just eating.
It gets one duplicate.

Hell yeah. Jens is just eating funnel cake while this is happening.

Can I have one piece, buddy? No. You'd pinned on top of it so that it was prone, and then it kind of like twists over so that it's supine and then starts like biting at your face.

But it just bites off the face of one of the duplicates. You see flesh just rended from this duplicate's face as it says, ah, fuck you, Onyx, and then dies.

Okay, that is your turn again. Try and get the next ah five a five okay um let me roll opposed

oof that's a dirty 20.

uh wolf keeps struggling okay you basically tried to like get your hand on the wolf's muzzle to keep it from biting you but it is still just flailing about uh this is gonna be another attack

nat one on the attack

nice okay come on

Okay, that is a 15 to grapple it. 15, that's good.
Actually, I'm going to just throw on a bar.

Okay, that's a 19 to grapple it. 19 to grapple.
All right, yeah, you're going. You've tackled it.
Now you're going for the takedown to get it in position for the pin.

That's an at one.

Okay, so two nat ones. Man, so good at DMing.
All right, you have progressed from the tackle to the takedown. Yeah, you are in position for the pin, but it does get to attack you again here.
Yeah.

Oh, that's a 19. Okay.

But it hits a duplicate. Oh my god.
Yes, dude.

This one bites into Mirror Onyx's stomach and just pulls out her intestines.

Jens! Onyx, do you feel this?

Mirror Onyx had intestines.

Jence finishes his funnel cake and goes to get some more and comes back. Sister, please remember me.

Eight-year-old Nayak throws up. You do see a crowd of people is kind of gathering around.

After the burgamaster told everyone to get free wine, everyone kind of gave up on doing the competition. So So you guys are way ahead in the Burgo Bucks race now.

So this could clitch it for you. Go ahead and make a grapple check.
This is a pitcher's duel. Fucking eight grapple.
I've rolled like sub 10 the entire time. Oh.

Okay, presumably I've had a, if I've had a short rest, I actually do have more, I do have more bardic inspirations.

You definitely had a short rest because you rode in the cart. All right, great.
Then I will, I'll throw Onyx another bardick.

Okay. This is back to the wolf's attack.

Okay, that's something going to hit. That's a dirty 20.

One duplicate. He hits a duplicate.
Oh, God. Yes, that's all the duplicates, right? All the duplicates.
Okay, okay.

I might have to call a draw. This one, it just bites off the duplicate's fingers one by one.

Okay, 15 to try to grapple. 15 for the final grapple.
This is for the pin. The wolf is exhausted.
It is panting heavily.

That's a 12.

Let's go.

You pin this wolf. It passes out, panting heavily.
Its stomach rising and falling. It kind of just falls asleep, and then you just start like kind of petting it like a big dog.

All of the peasants cheer. You see, the burgomaster came over to watch, too, and he says, Now that's how we do it in Vilaki, presenting this year's Burgomaster for the Day recipient.
What's your name?

What's your name, hon? Jens Lindell. Jens Lindell!

What?

Oh, my God. Jens Lindell.
Oh, will be well. Jens Lindell.
Oh, Will Be Well. Jens Lindell.
Jens starts to get whipped up and

you see, he turns to one of the guards and says, I think that guy pissed himself. Could you move him back a little bit?

Great job, Jens. I'm so proud of you.
Here, let me go ahead and I'll give you these keys right here. You get those for the day.
And of course, my ceremonial

pendant. You get to wear that.
And anything else you want. Mikasa Sukasa, as we say.

Okay.

Thank you so much. I bow to everyone.
My name is Jens Lindel.

I was born on a farm. What?

No, you weren't.

In the cow stable.

And to very humble parents. No, my father was a great warrior.

Jens spent their early years shoveling cow dung to fertilize the farm. Did you ever do that? It's crazy to be to go from knee-deep in cow dung.
No, it's not. As I was for most of my six-seven years.

Yeah, Jens Lindell spent one long summer as a plow. That was where they dragged Jens through the field and ate the cow dung and spit it out.
It's so impressive. This eight-year-old knows his history.

I'm so proud of him. Nayek spins his hat again.

um so yeah the crowd applauds um you are kind of uh scooped up and ferried over uh to the burgomaster's house as you're scooped up you do get a ping from bluetooth in your head saying mom ma'am i'm in position are you ready for operation stealth drone omega yes are you in position like at where the screaming is Yes, I am.

Okay. I'm circling the alley now.
Okay. Yeah, now is actually a really good time.
And I turn to Jens and Nyak and I say cover for me. And then I go limp as I try to see through it.

Wow, she's passed out. She is so wasted.
Oh, she's so tired and wasted.

Let's get her straight into the burger master's bed. Straight into the bed, everybody.
Yeah. Yeah.
She might yak and you're shaking. She's going to yak.
That's okay because she's the burger master.

Yeah, burger masters are allowed to yak. She is Jens Lindell.
Let's get her in there.

And all will be well.

Oh, wait a second. I go into her pockets.
I think her name is not Jens.

It was everyone misheard. It's actually Jen.
Jen. Just Jen.
Jen Lindell. Yeah.
Jen.

I think she was drunk, so there was like S's on there. But there's Jen.
All right, Lindell. Different person.
And Lindell with no E on the end. It's neither here nor there, Mr.
Burgomaster.

It doesn't really matter. It's really neither here nor there.
I think everyone already heard Jins Lindell, so that's where we're going to go.

No, it was all of like the lock and jow stuff and everything. Jen Lindell, different.
Yeah,

we already got the plaque made out. The Jins Lindell, though, is the thing.
Okay, that's fine. As long as

any of the stuff we're going to do is why rouse and say,

the episode should be human shovel.

I actually really like it. We actually went with a humble shit farmer.
Is that okay?

Yeah, humble shit farmer, comma, human shovel. And then I pass back out.
It should say human shovel is all.

I drag Onyx in a way where she's just banging her head on the cobblestone and I carry carry her into the Burgomaster's mansion. Let's get a song.
Let's get a song.

Chins, chins, loves to shit and loves to be in a deep old pit. No, I played my electric.

Stop playing the blue.

I pinched Nayak. It was catchy.

So you pass out. Oh my god, folks.
Look at that. She's overcome.

Let's get her to bed.

This crowd hands you off to a couple of guards who carries you into the burgomaster's bedroom. It is this grand primary room.

The furnishings have lost some of their color and splendor, but there's a strong scent of perfume still and everything is still very, very fancy.

In one corner, you see this vanity mirror against a wall next to a wooden mannequin wearing a beautiful white bridal gown.

You also see, as you're laid into the bed, before the war gang fully takes effect, a short pull rope hanging from a wooden trap door in the ceiling.

You see these three things, the mirror, the gown, and the pull rope as you're in the Baron's bedroom. And then you pass out, and the ward begins.

And we cut over to Bluetooth, who's been circling the abbey. He's kind of like quickly bypassed this switchback trail.
It took him a while to flap up there. It's about 400 feet up.

And then he kind of soars over this rudimentary iron gate. You see, there's these like two kind of crumbling stone guardposts on either side, and then a winding trail leading up to this abbey.

There's this big 15-foot tall sanctuary building with a belfry on top and then two wings on either side.

As he continues to circle, he says, okay, I'm in position. You could maybe even fly in through a belfry.
Belfry? Okay, bat style. Going bat mode.
Yeah, bat.

You see he makes a transformer noise as he transforms into a bat.

Did you just... Okay, I know what you did.

Okay, great. So he's going to enter through the belfry.
But he also has keys. So if the belfry is a dead end, he can come back out and try and use his keys.
Okay, great. Yeah.
The keys are good.

The keys are very helpful here. He's going to roll this with advantage because he's invisible.

He flutters in. You see there's other bats here too, so he's able to blend in perfectly.
There's this big, beautiful kind of bronze bell.

He kind of flutters past that and down, down into the belfry proper. And once he arrives, you see this large rope dangling near the base of this belfry, presumably for ringing the bell.

But you also hear a melody issuing forth from this room. Okay.

And as he kind of surveys, you see a couple things. You see two doors leading to separate rooms.
One looks a little more ornate. One looks a little shabbier.

You see a big table with a black cloth draped over it. You see an iron cage with a shivering shape huddled inside.
Creepy. And in the other corner,

you see

a small hunched figure plucking at a lute

with something red that looks strangely like a lobster's claw.

It sings a beautiful song and looks around the room, unaware of your presence.

With its other hand, it grabs a bottle of wine and chugs it with its strange crustacean mouth and says, All right, that's the good stuff.

Suddenly, on the table, the shape under the blanket moves and groans. Whoa! Back to work, says the figure, and he continues to strum,

putting the strange creature back to sleep.

And that's where we'll we'll end our story. What the fuck? So

creepy. I am so, I cannot wait to find out, maybe not now, but soon, whether or not Crustacean is in the module or if that's so-called welfare.
We will. I'm into it either way.

Let me just say that straw delivers.

Wow. And we'll get into it more on the short rest.
Oh my gosh. This was a crazy one, y'all.
Thank you so much for coming to the Wolf's Head Jamboree.

I'm excited to talk more about the games and the mysteries on our short rest. If you would like to listen to that, you can go to patreon.com slash nadpod.
That's N-A-D-E-P-O-D.

Don't say.

Don't say.

We've got some stuff to plug.

Come see us live. Dimension 20 has got a live show in Vegas.
We're going to be doing Starstruck Search Dimension 20 live.

I want to plug the cat from

Caught Stealing. Yeah.
There's a movie that came out with like a cat who does some really good acting. Excellent cut acting.
Yeah.

Check out that cat.

I think his real name is Tonic, maybe.

He is so cute. That's cute.
He did a really good job. And I'll go ahead and plug.

Well, what's the opposite of a plug? What's the opposite?

I guess like I would say like a cursed whisper for Silk Song because I know that it's going to take up all of my time and I'm mad about it because I have to plan more sessions.

But all I want to do is play Silk Song now. So shout out to Silk Song.

You fucked me. Good shit.
And check out my Substack, substack.com/slash at J Kurwitz. Sweet.

And you can follow us on social media, the Remiran Us at Seattle, Me at Caldis Caldwell, at Extraords Emily, and at Jake Ritz is Jake. And you can talk about the show online using hashtag NADPOD.

That's N-A-D-D P-O-D.

We are rear the youth of the nation.

We are, we are the youth of the nation.

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That's going to be it for us today, but we will be back here next week with a brand new episode, so come on by and check it out. Until then, farewell and have a wonderful week.
See ya.

That was a hit gum podcast.