The Adventure Zone Royale: Episode 10

Previously on Taz Royale, by merging your moats, you will create more complex and for the purposes of this trial more powerful material.

Those materials will be given life.

Yeah, man, but what's the Titanic of the swamps?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And now, fuck you,

now,

as the Titanic sinks, Swampert grows in size, forms thick, meaty legs, a huge, wide trunk, big, strong arms, and says, I'm still Swamper.

But now I'm more like Swamp Thing.

All of you are Voltron-style, controlling Swampist, your elemental, in this final battle of the Third Trial.

Hey, everybody, welcome to the Adventure Zone Taz Royale, our battle royale season.

We are in the heat of the trial of evocation.

In the last episode, the three of you, with your teammate, Scorpo, the giant Scorpion man, built an elemental, as did the three other competing quartets here on the Octave Ziggurat Island.

And after quite a bit of experimentation and fusion and

good old-fashioned magic, you all have created Swamp Thing,

the beloved character.

What's that, Trap?

I was like, Wild Thing, but Swamp Thing.

It was kind of an intro song I was working for him.

Because if you do two copyright infringements at once, it cancels out that space in the chat.

Well, but I would change.

Hey, listen, y'all, that's how Glee

did it.

I would change the lyrics to Swamp Thing instead of Wild Thing.

So it's now a parody.

I love it.

So that's very good.

Making it safe.

Yeah,

that's how Weird Albert gets away with it.

That's criminal.

Let's begin at the very end of the last episode.

The three of you turned into

swamp material and fused with the elemental that you had created.

And while you all have seen sort of any number of unimaginable things here during your time on the Ziggorot,

in this moment where your bodies are transmuted into this kind of primordial muck and your consciousness is shunted into the body of this this 25-foot tall swamp thing,

you truly realize the awesome power that the octave possesses.

You all feel your consciousnesses latch on to this new form.

And in this weird sort of abstract space, you feel the presence of your three teammates doing the same thing.

And for just a moment.

What does Scorpo feel like?

That's a great question, Travis.

In this moment, the boundaries between your minds have become a little bit blurred, and you see flashes of your teammates' memories kind of manifest before you.

You all see Rictus standing before some sort of altar,

looking very nervous.

You see Hellgrammate laboring resentfully for his hive.

You see Loriveth locked into this just ceaseless territorial battle.

battle, and you see Scorpo surviving alone out in the wilds at the very edge of the fold's foggy border.

And in this moment, you all realize you could probably sneak a peek at more of those memories if you if you wanted to try and pry.

I leave that up to you.

I was about to ask, I was like legitimately about to ask if I could look in, but like before you offered the opportunity, I was going to ask to watch Rictus's memories to see if i could spot any weaknesses of his um okay

here's how we're gonna do this rictus make a wisdom saving throw for me this is gonna dictate sort of how successful this is and more importantly if rictus sort of clocks that you're doing this

that's a 13 total uh okay with a 13 total rictus you get the sense that someone poked around uh in in your memories but you are not exactly sure uh who what are you looking for probably hell grammat

what are you looking for lorveth uh as As mentioned, I want to see if there's some sort of weakness that

is more obviously telegraphed during this moment that Rictus is fixating on.

Something that I might be able to exploit later.

Or just to understand more, I guess, about what makes Rictus tick.

I can tell there's a lot of layers of

theatricality there.

So I'm trying to get a better sense of who he is as a person.

Yeah,

you see a memory of younger Richters, maybe 12, 13, somewhere in there, getting kind of lectured by his family members, the other necromancers in his life, about the purpose of necromancy, the strength of it, why they do what they do.

And it's very much focused on like

bringing people back to serve you and the idea of like the strength of,

you know, the power over death and that kind of thing um how attentive of a student does he appear to be like is he really dialed in or is this like is he more obligation sort of thing he keeps interrupting to ask questions about like well but couldn't that also be used you know to help or to do this and uh that is getting

like a very much like well it could but away so engage but maybe not in the way that they're they were hoping he would yeah he's not super on board with

the concept of necromancy as a like,

this is a powerful tool that we can use to maintain power and that people kind of fear

that kind of deal.

As you're poking around in Richtis's memory, this part is a little bit confusing because there's a lot of deaf stuff in his history.

There is something present in his more recent memory that is really, really potent.

It is really, you feel it a lot more than his other memories.

You are able to pick up on the fact that Rictus has been, has been cursed by this

statue, this specter of death,

here, here on the Ziggurat Isle.

I don't know how forthcoming you've been about that, Rictus, but I think in this moment, like when the walls are down, it's not something you're going to be able to hide.

Anyone else?

I'd like to pry

into

both of them.

I want to see their proudest memories.

Well,

listen, if he's, if we're prying on lots of people now, I thought we raised this one.

Yeah, I think let's pick one just to just to keep it moving.

And listen, I can, yeah, I can tell about it.

Listen, that's fine by me.

I don't want to stay.

I should have thought.

I should have thought to see if I could look at all both of them.

Well, yeah, no, if Laura is going to pry it, then I'll pry in Hellgram it.

We'll keep the triangle going.

There we go.

I want to pry in Hellgrammit and see his proudest memory.

What makes him feel good about himself?

Roll a wisdom saving through it, Dad, just so we know how much Hell Grammar sees here.

Ah, that would be an eight.

Okay, you are unaware that this memory is being accessed.

You do need to divulge it.

Um,

Hell Grammit thinks back to a moment when he was

just a low, lowly drone and was

doing his part he was one of the uh feeders in their hive um that fed the queen uh larvosa if you remember larvosa of course and uh

so he's

he sees himself on this one particular day he's just in the line of drones you know oh

and they're just doing their droney thing where they're going up and then dropping some kind of hideous looking stuff down so that Queen Larvosa can yummy down on whatever it is that

they yummy down on.

And

he has this moment of revelation where

he thinks

this is not enough.

This is not good enough.

Why?

Why can't I be the ruler?

Why does it always have to be a queen?

Why couldn't it be a king?

and

as men's rights i love it as he goes walking up and uh starts going up the side of the the feeding that was a joke i don't like men's rights and no one reacted to it but i want to act

so he clarified that trap okay um he

you know after whatever millennia of the way this thing these things are

he takes his little chunk of food and just drops it just drops it on the side of the mound uh

and

looks around.

Everybody reacts in shock

and he says,

oh, sorry, dropped it.

Hold on, I'll get it.

And he goes chasing down the mound after it.

And then the drones get back in

time and they start filing in.

And when no one's looking at him, he sneaks out and he leaves the hive.

for greener pastures and to try and fulfill his destiny.

And for that moment, when he sees that he has broken away from all those menial drones, he feels a surge of pride in his insectoid hearts.

Feel the rain on your skin.

No one else can feel it for you.

You've been let it in.

I don't know that song.

No one else.

What?

I shouldn't have gone to Harmy, man.

I would have bumped right up to Melody if I had thought I was going to be flying solo.

Could have been first chair, Juice.

Oh, man, the rest is the melody is unsupported.

i don't want to like not unwritten it's written how about you hell grammar

oh i gotta look into

loraveth don't have to look into

that that dingus the dingus scorpion nope i'm gonna look into loraveth

i want to know

loraveth's most terrifying moment What scared Loraveth the most?

That's good.

Can you roll a wisdom saving check for me here, Loraveth?

One time there was a big old bug landed on his shoulder.

Freaked him the fuck out.

Ever since then, he's had a real problem with bugs.

16 plus 3, 19.

19.

With a 19, I'll say it is up to you.

I think you got to give something here.

But with a 19, you feel specifically Hellgrammat, kind of poking into your memory.

And like, you know that that's what it is because you just did it to Rictus.

And

I think you're able to resist a little bit if you want to not get like too crazy specific with it, but I leave that up to you.

19 is a very good save.

Okay.

Here's what you see, Hugh Grammat.

You

see a cliff's edge.

There's three or four sparse

trees that are

like sort of lining the edge of the cliff.

And there's a big rock.

And there is a small Goliath who probably still would have been about six feet tall at this time, but he doesn't look more than eight if he was a human.

And you can hear him yelling, please, anybody,

help, I'm lost.

Please, anyone.

And you can see him like staring out on the edge, yelling, please, anybody.

Is he calling out over the edge?

He's clearly lost.

Like, he doesn't know where he's at.

Aww.

Poor little guy

oh

um well of course not you hellgrammit bug man bug man anyone but you and the boy turns on you and he's speaking like that clearly ah clearly oh see oh i'm out caught me in a rather inconvenient moment bug man

uh you get caught red-handed hellgrammit um and in that moment you are a little bit distracted as you feel

another

you feel my fucking boot in your chest as i kick you off the cliff is what he feels.

It's a sort of

the dream cliff.

Yes, it's an abstract thought.

You get it, Griffin.

Abstract thought boot.

Yeah.

Griffin acts like he's never seen a Freddy Krueger movie, but check his tattoos, man.

Yeah.

Mine?

I have Freddy Krueger tattoos?

Yeah.

You have the sweater strikes.

Why would I act like I don't?

Why would I act like I don't know?

No, you just have never seen them, Griffin.

You're too scared to look.

Hell Grammat, make a wisdom saving throw for me, please.

I sure will.

How about a four?

How about it?

As Hell Grandma, drink it in, Riffins, to dominate the dice.

Yeah, A, B, C, Blue.

All right.

With a four,

um,

I'm going to twist it a little bit.

Uh, Scorpo is prying into your memory, and it's a very recent one.

It is

the memory of your first trial here at the Octave Ziggerot.

Uh, and Scorpo

is

present sort of in the background of your hive as you make your triumphant return after winning here at the Octave Ziggurat and have become the latest member of the Octave.

It is the vision of the future that you saw during

the trial of divination.

And with a saving throw of four,

Scorpo sees all of it.

All of it.

The nasty sort of

you know domination that you desire in your heart of hearts uh scorpo is now like infinitely really intimately familiar with and you see him standing next to the queen as you sort of tower over her in all of your arcane power and you guys make eye contact and then the vision ends and the walls sort of between your minds become distinct once more.

And you all are now fully integrated into your elemental, into Swamp Thing.

And you can see now, you have some senses now,

though they are sort of strange.

You feel a certain familiarity.

You can see through its sloppy eyes.

Sorry.

It's sloppy, floppy eyes.

It's super sloppy.

Super, duper sloppy.

You see...

you know, this giant, slimy,

vinyl hand raise up in front of your face but you're not really sure who specifically is making the movement there's very much a like Ouija board sort of situation and you also have a sort of like telepathic link with each other which you realize when you hear Scorpo shrieking I'm dead I'm fucking dead fuck oh I hate magic so much oh my god oh fuck oh god what happened I'm dead

No, you're not dead.

We're in swamp thing.

What?

We're in We're in Swamp Thing.

Where's my body?

Okay, I don't.

Sorry, just to be clear, guys.

We're in a Swamp Thing.

Yeah, Swamp Thang is how it's been sound.

I like that.

Swamp Thang, who is a Swamp Thing.

IA indefinite article, Swamp Thang.

He's like spiraling.

He is freaking out.

He is sort of...

You can see Swamp Thang now is kind of like trying to ambulate, trying to walk forward, but kind of like slops down onto the ground and like

D deforms and then like pulls itself back up out of the ground.

If we are telepathically linked at all, I want to try to

not like tell them, but share with them the confidence that Rictus has that the soul and the body are not the same thing.

They're not connected.

Yeah.

And that they're still themselves even without corporeal body.

You know, I like this a lot.

Give me a persuasion check.

I will say you can have advantage on this.

Just to kind of like get Scorpo.

Everybody else seems fairly chill.

Scorpo is the one like freaking the fuck out right now.

A persuasion check to kind of...

That's a Nat 20, baby.

Instantly.

Oh.

Oh, okay.

Wow.

When you put it that way, I do kind of feel like we are not just our brains and bodies.

There's a witness, a silent witness at the back of all of our consciousness.

And that's

where the self resides.

Yeah.

That's incredible.

Thank you for...

You've just changed.

With a nat 20, you've just changed this man's entire sort of existential understanding.

And like interesting.

Travis is that fucking Alan Watts YouTube video.

That 10-minute meditation just came out of nowhere.

Like, this video will find it when you need it the most.

Like, the body and the soul are separate.

Okay.

Oh, shit.

Yeah.

So, cool.

So, we're not, we're not in this Voltron style, right?

One of us in the legs.

That's what I need to understand.

And I'm like, actually, now that we, now that

are we, yes, thank you, dad.

This is the question that I've been like hung up on.

Am I in a knee?

Like, where do am I like the leg man?

I think, Justin, now that I've gotten a nat 20 on this, I think not only do all the characters understand it, but you guys and me understand it too.

So I don't even know why you're worried about it anymore.

That's a really good, great point.

Maybe you could explain it.

It was a 20, yeah.

You all don't seem to have any kind of like localized, like you're in the knee, you're in the arm.

But as Scorpo kind of calms down and you guys sort of like start to poke around with what it is like to be in this body,

it becomes pretty clear pretty quickly that you're going to have to come up with some sort of system because all four of you are basically in control of this same body.

So like as you're as you are trying to sort of figure that out,

you all, now that your senses have sort of reactivated,

you can see sort of around the island.

You can see that those dividing lines between the different sort of elemental quarters of the of the octave ziggurat have become these opaque walls of shrouding fog.

And the only thing you can see beyond your immediate area is the ziggurat at the center of the island where a clock has appeared in the sky, just like in the last trial,

and it is hovering over the ziggurat structure where you can see the eight members of the octave and the aspirants all watching.

And this clock is counting, it has two minutes on it.

It hasn't started counting down yet.

And you hear Trace's voice come through into your minds telepathically.

and Trace says aspirants you're now in direct control of the elemental you have evoked you will have two minutes to learn how to operate this shared form in unison after I raise something

battle will begin yes Rectus

oh sorry I was just practicing okay to remind you all of the stakes the last elemental standing will be rewarded greatly after this this trial.

The runner-up will receive a smaller prize, while third place will receive an even more meagre boon.

But the first elemental to perish in this battle will take its pilots along with it to the grave.

Your two minutes preparation begins now.

And the clock starts counting down two minutes until the battle begins,

a period of time in which you all can sort of you know figure out how to how to move this body together i i i i

actually have an idea i actually have what might be a good idea why don't we we'll see why don't we divvy up uh between the four of us it is four right yep counting scorpo yep like one be in charge of offense one be in charge of defense one be in charge of uh uh observation and the senses and one be in charge of

healing or constitution or something along those lines.

Could I maybe suggest even more rudimentary than that?

Legs, arms, head.

We'll start there, and like Lorave,

take the legs.

No one operates that way.

You don't operate as an independent head in arms and legs, do you?

How could if we're thinking that way?

No, we need to be thinking as one.

What number am I thinking of right now, Victor?

Say it.

Eight.

You weren't thinking of a number.

That was a trick.

It was seven.

We're in good shape.

I was going to say one, which one minus from eight is seven.

There we go.

No.

Yeah.

What if just one of us did it and the other three can just kind of chill?

Or tag team voting?

uh

we could vote the time is like half elapsed so like i've got this wait i need to check one thing

all right i will myself to cast lightning lash okay in the same way that i would make it happen in my body and i'm basically what i'm attempting to do is make something magical happen with the swamp like i need to know what we got awesome yeah i'm trying to see if we have offensive matches what are you trying to whip what are you trying to lash the air okay just like in the yeah no no attack roll necessary You hold out Swamp Thing's hand and you see, indeed, you see Lightning Lash whip out of it.

It has not

necessarily scaled to this size, right?

But you can tell that the magic abilities that you all individually possess, you can channel through this thing in addition to

whatever other powers it might sort of natively possess.

So yes, your magic is available to you.

You have figured that out.

Okay.

And we don't know anything about the other elements.

You do not.

These walls have sort of blocked your vision off from seeing them, but in just over a minute, it's going to drop and you will find out.

I think between us all, we've got a lot of elements covered.

Like, you know, heat and ice and other, you know, other skills, other spells.

Let's just go at it.

We should lay down in the trees.

Okay, think we should lay down in the trees and let the others fight for a moment.

Let them battle.

We're hiding in the trees.

They don't know where we're at.

Yeah, then we see

when they think the fight is ended.

They look around.

All the foes are slain.

Then who rises up from the trees?

It's us.

According to our powers.

With this telepathic link.

Yeah.

I don't think that this is on purpose, but I'd like to see how much Rictus's commitment to helping the fire team, like he promised,

bleeds through to the other three.

Yeah, I think this would be a

this would be a separate check.

And I'm gonna, this one's gonna be quite a bit, I think, higher.

I'm obviously you got a nat 20 on the last one, but this is a big thing to kind of like subtly push through.

Um, so if you want to make another persuasion check, uh, we'll say a, I mean, a DC 18 to like really get this going.

Okay, yeah, at 11 is

It's strong enough.

I will give you this.

As you're sort of like measuring that out,

you

feel this like telepathic link connect to Hasty Jane over on the fire team.

And you can actually tell that she has been frantically trying to reach out to you.

Make a perception check for me to see how effective you are.

How much of her message is 13.

okay it's it's like a uh

like a radio static sort of situation you're catching like every third word but she sounds panicked you can hear her say this everyone's after you all the other teams came to my it's and convinced to gang up

i'll try to interfere but

why did you You wouldn't work with...

Why wouldn't you lie?

Oh, shit.

Bad news, guys.

I think I figured it out.

Go on.

I think the other team convinced the other team members of Hasty James Party to team up against us.

And now she's trying to mes with have, but now it's three-on-one.

We should hide in the trees.

Yep.

Hide in the trees.

Hide in the trees.

To the tower.

We should go to the tower.

To the trees.

It's offensible.

It's defensible, right?

Okay.

So you all, to understand your plan, is to become a swamp and try and and hide.

That is the goal: is that if we hide in the swamp,

then it is like we are, they won't know exactly where we'll be in our absolute element.

Yeah, absolutely.

I fucked, I mean, quite literally.

As literally as is imaginable.

Okay.

I love this.

With seconds remaining on this countdown clock,

I think all four of you simultaneously just like make a move as swamp thing

towards the, towards this like thicket of woods around the mages tower here in your quarter.

And uh because of the sort of like simultaneous nature of the movement, it actually works pretty fluidly.

Uh and uh he swamp thing dives down into the trees and uh just as he did moments ago when Scorpo was sort of like flailing around uh just sort of deforms into a swampy bog on the floor.

Uh yeah, I am going to need a group stealth check to see how effective this is before we get into initiative and combat.

And this is a...

I'll just let you three roll.

We'll drop highest and lowest and take the average roll.

Okay.

Now, Griffin, wouldn't you say that dad's camouflage care?

Absolutely.

Yes, Dad, you can roll with advantage.

Yes.

Okay.

The other two cannot.

Okay.

Dad, I'll always fight for you when it benefits me.

Yeah, for sure.

All right.

Stealth checks around the table, please.

Okay.

All right.

That's an eight from Rictus.

15 from Lorave.

13.

Considering my negative two.

That's really good.

Yeah.

13.

And if you can get higher than a 15, this is going to be a really good one.

Here we go.

Son of a bitch.

That's a nat one.

Okay, so we will take the 13 as the average roll.

With a 13,

you all sort of in this form, D form, you turn into just a pool of muck.

And you still have like your senses available to you from this like position.

You're obviously low on the ground.

You can see sort of the ziggurat and the clock above it through the canopy of trees.

And you see the clock hit zero, and a horn resounds across the island.

And with that, the fog walls disappear.

And

you all can see the creations of the other three teams.

To the east, the fire team, you can see

as you are sort of

warned by

Scorpo during the last part of this trial, you see a towering tree, and it is

a pine tree, but it seems to be decorated in a like

wild and colorful sort of fashion.

Roll a history check, Anyone who wants to.

13.

5.

I already did it.

13.

30-20.

13.

I was the one who's doing it.

He said, anybody who wants to.

I did say.

I wanted to, and I did it first, right?

Did you want us all to do it?

You all could for sure do it.

Loravith.

I will take dads then.

Yeah.

Hell Grammet.

With a 20,

you recognize it as a Christmas tree.

This is a Christmas tree.

And you haven't seen a Christmas tree before.

Christmas isn't like a big thing

in the fold, but like for whatever reason, you know that that's a Christmas tree.

For us, Earth,

you know, reality people, it's basically like the Rockefeller

plaza.

massive, massive three-story tall Christmas tree.

It is decorated with baubles and garlands.

Tendrils of garlands garlands are sort of whipping off of it like tentacles.

And

it has these two thick trunks at the bottom holding it upright.

That's the fire team, which has Hasty Jane and Gunk and Dr.

Legume and Burgerman on it.

To the northeast, you see...

Standing before the mountains there in the earthen quarter, you see a two-story ranch-style house.

And it is standing on two big, I'm going to say bare feet.

Wait, bare feet or bare feet?

Like bare human feet.

And that's confusing.

And you can see that.

Just a naked, supple human feet.

Naked, supple, huge human feet.

It has sort of two second-story windows with lights on and shutters sort of open on them, sort of making a sort of vague eye

shape.

But this is a living house elemental that has been created in the wild fashion that you all know.

And to your left, sitting in the lake, the water team.

Oh, by the way, the Earthquarter is the sort of American Gladiators Ray's Days, Hazen Blaze.

Of course, and then to the north, you see the water team, which has the gentleman from Wisbury who came and petitioned you

at the middle of this trial,

as well as Corrigan, Hilda, and Enigma, who I don't believe you've met.

You can see a familiar sight.

Sitting in the lake, you see the Titanic.

You all had a brush with this yourselves while you were building your Elemental out and decided against it.

And seeing it in this way, you are somewhat regretting that decision, maybe because it is...

It's not to scale with the original ship, but it is still significantly larger than any of the other Elemental summoned here.

Swamp thing, the Christmas tree, the house, they're all about the same size.

And this is,

you know, much larger than the others.

And you hear a deafening, threatening horn bellow from one of its stacks across the sky.

And

we're going to roll for initiative.

Can we shade our thoughts so that poor Swamp Thang doesn't feel our resentment?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that that's

that's a kind gesture, Doug.

Yeah, okay.

Can I tell you guys something I've noticed about computers?

Yeah, Travis.

These dang things are everywhere now.

Have you noticed that?

And they've got these things now where you can like take computers with you and put them on the top of your lap.

Yes.

Yeah.

And it seems scary, right?

Because it's like a computer.

So it's got to be like the size of my size of my kitchen.

Well, but I listen, I have to know, like, at least I know that a laptop, there's no way it can be as powerful, like a gaming kind of thing, as like, say, a desktop.

Yeah, Travis.

Before you embarrass yourself anymore,

take a look inside this.

Whoa.

Holy shit.

Yeah, dude.

This is the new Alienware Area 51 gaming laptops.

These are going to push your brain and your gaming to the limits.

They're combined with Intel Core Ultra9 processors that merge CPU,

NPU, neural processing unit, and integrated GPU, graphical processing unit, into one AI Alfred I Newman.

Optimized chip delivers fast, smart, and seamless processing,

fast, smart, and seamless performance across everything you do.

Everything?

Yeah, Travis, no matter what you're playing, Alienware is going to make the game run precisely as the developers intended because this is a powerhouse.

They'll take whatever you can throw at it.

And what does the Mad Magazine guy have to do with it?

I just forgot what AI stood for.

Okay, Griffin, don't make a big production out of it.

Discover Area 51 today at www.alienware.com/slash area-51 laptops.

Hey, everybody, this is Griff McRoy, Dungeon Master, your best friend, and your Dungeon Master, and your best friend, and your Dungeon Master.

Hey, some quick announcements here before you get back to the rest of the episode.

Did want to tell you that we have one more leg of our 20 Thunder Drive tour coming to Salt Lake City and San Diego.

We're going to be doing Mabim Bam in Salt Lake City and Mabimbam and Taz in San Diego.

Tickets for all of those shows are on sale now over at bit.ly slash McRoyTours.

Come out out and see us.

Come help us close out this year of touring.

And we're going to we've got some fun stuff planned.

So we also got some merch up in the merch store.

Have you been there?

Have you been in the merch store?

Have you been there in a while?

It's at macroymerch.com.

There's all kinds of great stuff over there, including a new Gerald shirt designed by Lynn Doyle that I am absolutely just wild about.

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Go ahead, guys, and roll initiative for me.

Independently.

You are going to roll independently.

Nice.

Nine.

Okay.

Fifteen.

And Scorpo has a five.

And Swamp Thing has an 11, which shockingly is the highest of the elementals

so swamp thing is up first obviously you all are in this sort of like hiding position if you want to delay your turn and take it uh once the other teams have like started moving then that is that is fine um the way that i sort of envisioned this going is all four of you are sort of in control here but uh if somebody has an idea that they want to pursue that not everybody else is wild about, we are going to go in initiative order to determine whose turn it is to

pilot the swamp thing.

So, I guess, Hellgrammate, we'll take it to you because you got the highest initiative.

Are you wanting to keep this hiding posture that you all have taken and then

take a turn once the other teams have come close trying to surprise them?

What is your plan here?

Maintain stealth or do something else?

Well, I think if we have this mental communication, obviously we've already kind of shared the idea.

Yeah.

And

I mean, it would be kind of stupid, which is kind of my forte in these games.

Okay.

But

I think sitting back, though, right?

I mean, this is what we wanted to do.

I kind of see.

How about a perception check?

Yeah, sure.

You can make a perception check.

Try to really kind of zoom in on what the other ones are doing.

Yeah, for sure.

Okay.

I have mage armor,

which I'd like to cat.

If we have like a turn where we're not doing anything, it's a full action.

So it lasts for eight hours.

You know what I mean?

That is not a bad idea.

What does mage armor do, Rictus?

It increases the target space AC becomes 13 plus its dexterity modifier.

Okay, that actually wouldn't affect Swamp Thing.

Swamp Things AC is already 17.

So

not bad.

And you're trying to perceive sort of just like get a lay of the land what's going on

as the walls fall and everyone starts moving.

Give me that perception check.

You know what?

I changed my mind.

Okay.

I'm going to do something else.

Okay.

I'm going to cast Augury.

Okay.

With Augury, you receive an omen from an otherworldly entity about the results of a course of action that you plan to take within the next 30 minutes.

I want to see if it'll send us a sign as how well this hiding

theory or our hiding plan will work.

Okay.

My answers, I believe, are wheel or woe,

if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah, wheel, woe, wheel and woe, or indifference.

And wagon wheel.

I will say for you specifically, Hell Grammar,

I think you you feel wheel.

I think you're keeping it wheel right now.

You

are sharing this kind of like psychic link with everyone.

And so they can kind of feel you poking around in this kind of like divine,

you know,

source of information, this thought space.

And so for you, it's like fully wheel.

And for

Loravith and Scorpo, same deal.

Rictus, I think for you, it is wheel and woe because I think you've pieced together that if this works and you hide, the result of this is going to be the other two teams are probably just going to turn on

Hasty Jane's team, the Christmas tree.

Yeah, that would be a bummer for sure.

Yeah, but the alternative is you all, you know, get caught and die.

Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

Okay, that is your action.

We move on next to the Christmas tree.

I want you to roll a D4 for me, Rictus.

This is representing sort of your friendship with Hasty Jane.

If you get a four on this roll, it's 25% chance

she will sort of interfere in the plan that was concocted by her teammates.

That's a two, Griffin.

Yeah, no.

So

you all see the Christmas tree run over to the observation deck and tries looking around for you.

I'm going to roll a perception check.

Okay, that is an 11, which is under the 13 stealth roll that you made earlier.

So you see the Christmas tree kind of like poking around trying to locate you to no avail.

You can hear Hasty Jane clearer now, Rictus.

You hear her say, Rictus, okay,

whatever you're doing, keep doing it.

Stay hidden, but like, what's the plan?

Because

if we don't team up on you, they're going to team up on us.

So, like, what's the plan?

Can she hear me?

Yep.

If I get the chance,

if I get the chance, we'll attack one of them first

and not you.

Okay.

I why did you tell them that you were not gonna team up with them?

Why wouldn't you just say that you were going to and then not?

And then we could like trick them.

Oh, they're assholes.

And I got kind of blinded by that, I guess.

You hear another voice like pop in, say, Who are you talking to, Hasty Jake?

You hear the voice of Dr.

Legum.

Um,

my flexible.

You know how I feel about the bug man.

That is going to be it for the

Christmas tree.

No, you know what?

The Christmas tree flexes its lights and starts shining its lights throughout the wood to try and help the other two locate you.

Next up is the Titanic.

The Titanic you see sails over right to the edge of the lake on the edge of the forest where you all are hiding

and

is going to

start pumping smog out of one of its smokestacks.

This layer of smog starts to roll low, clinging to the ground,

over the,

you know, under the forest canopy, basically settling right on top of where you all have taken this swamp form.

Let's get Loravith, roll a constitution saving throw.

That's a plus five.

If you click on the initiative order swamp thing, you can see all the roles there and make them yourselves if you would like to.

Do you guys hire the character sheet for sewer thing?

Yeah, I got it.

Okay.

Oh, there we go.

And did you use the advantage on its initiative role, Griven?

Does it have advantage on its initiative role?

Unexpected appearance.

If the sewer thing is motionless, the startup combat has appearance.

I mean, he was first in the order.

Yeah.

Anyway, I did forget it, but yes, thank you.

Okay, so Constitution save.

Swamp Thing has a plus five.

Loraveth, can you roll your D20 here?

I'm trying to beat a 15.

I rolled a 19.

Perfect.

Amazing.

Fantastic.

This smog, this like dark,

putrid green smog as it rolls over

your sort of stagnant swamp form on the ground.

You could tell that the Titanic team was trying to smoke you all out.

They did not know, you know, that

you're a swamp thing.

Even if you had failed that role, you are immune to poison.

So this attack would not have done anything to you.

And you hear another sort of like angry horn resounding.

Next in the order is the house elemental.

It is going to climb.

uh over the ziggurat uh and standing atop the ziggurat is just going to try and spot you all in

the woods where you are hiding.

That is going to be a

It has to be an 18 intelligence check.

An 18 investigation check to discern that the sewer thing is animate.

Oh, yes.

So that's another aspect of unexpected appearance.

That's rad.

Yes.

Okay, so with an 18 intelligence investigation check, let me just...

I can actually roll that directly from the guy.

Roll.

Nope, that is an 11.

Again, this house has started to look for you all

and it doesn't seem to be

finding much purchase.

You can hear some chatter happening, like over this psychic airwave, but he is pretty far away from you for you to be able to pick it up.

He's not aiming it directly at you, sort of as Hasty Jane was doing.

But you can tell that specifically the Titanic team and the house team are starting to really second guess this plan that they had concocted to team up with the Hasty Jane's team to take you all out first.

Next in the order, it's back to Swamp Thing.

I mean, we still haven't been spotted.

That is a good point.

Maybe we could do a little, can we do a little

inside-out sort of discussion here?

Yeah, I would think.

Yeah, for sure.

i think this would be the moment if we were to sort of covertly snatch one up like uh

to really instill some fear and confusion rather than wait for them to uh approach this is a great moment

okay but counterpoint if we take out the weakest one first and blow the advantage of surprise why not save that to take out one of the stronger ones Is there a chance we're the weakest one?

No way, man.

They have no idea where we are.

Oh, right, right, right, right, right, right.

We draw them into our forest.

We're on our home field turf.

Hmm.

Yes, but they will have the advantage if they begin the attack.

They haven't sensed us yet, right?

Correct.

Yeah, nobody has...

Nobody...

They didn't know what you look like, right?

They are all operating at a disadvantage.

From their perspective, the walls dropped and you guys were just gone.

And all of their attempts to find you so far have been unsuccessful.

What I want is if they, here's what I'm trying to get to.

Yeah.

If one of them hoves close enough, I'd love to like snatch one of them up.

Like really,

really

kick things off a little bit, get things a little, get people a little freaked out.

Here's, here's what I'm going to say, Lorabeth.

You were next in the initiative order.

It is technically your.

Is there anyone near the who's near the hand of the or no?

Who's near the yeah, who's near the hand who is near the hand of the swamp thing yeah can i do like a luck roll or something is there is there no i mean look at if you look at the map you can see the christmas tree team was standing sort of like right on the observation deck looking for you all um and so sort of to scale has anyone wandered into the the swamps yet uh no into the forest okay that's what i am would like to delay action until someone has decided to do that okay um so maybe while i have the initiative yeah i'd just like to give a cheeky little shake of the trees with our foot.

Okay.

Just a cheeky little tree shake to see if I can get the Christmas tree's attention.

Okay, that's very, very good.

Give me a

slide of hand, right?

You're trying to like

slide of slime.

Yeah, give me that.

Give me a slide of hand check.

You can either.

This is great.

I'm perfectly positioned to do this with my negative two from my five, which is three.

Okay, yeah, I mean, with a three, immediately the Christmas tree, which was standing like right over you all in the observation deck, like sees you all.

Um, and they are actually next in the order.

So, I think a result of your failing roll here is you're kind of gonna get exactly what you wanted as the Christmas tree is going to uh leap down.

Uh, actually, D4 roll for me, uh, Rictus.

Yeah,

D4.

Looking for a four.

It's a three, Griffin.

Nope.

Acy Jane is unable to rest control.

And so the Christmas tree leaps down and its two big trunks sort of splat down right next to the swamp.

And you can see its sort of

garland tendrils begin to whip back for an attack.

However, you did prepare this exact action,

swamp, swamp thing.

Slash Justin.

So what do you want?

What do you want to do?

How big is it?

Talk to me a little bit about scale.

Yeah.

Talking about like 25, 30 feet these things

are.

If you look at the

character sheet sort of for sewer thing, which is what I have based this swamp thing off of,

you can see that it is huge in the terminology of

D ⁇ D.

You can also see sort of like the other stuff that it is capable of.

This guy has wandered in, and this is, we are never going to have a better moment to pound the ever-loving shit out of this thing.

Like, this is, we're not gonna be able to do that.

We could engulf it.

I think that that's what I want to pounce and just engulf it with our swampy mass.

Uh, that is amazing.

So, sewer thing, there's a few things that are going to be working for it here.

Uh, if this sewer thing attacks a creature, it can make one additional tendril lash attack as part of its multi-attack action.

So, uh, sewer thing multi-attacks, you're gonna make two attacks, uh, and then a free tendril lash and then also you can use engulf as part of this action so you are you are indeed going to this is what sewer things do is they hide and then if you step on them they fuck you up really really fast so this is this is doing exactly sort of what what god intended so let's get our first uh multi-attack role here it's also and this is the worst part that is tough is like we are not acting in a legally distinct way from the marvel characters characters that's fair uh so this i have this very swamping coded actions we're taking here uh we are going to do plus eight on this roll melee attack roll on the christmas tree uh against the christmas tree yes okay trying to beat a dc17

uh okay

i'm just rolling still the d20 right and you're doing the math d20 plus eight

I roll a 14.

Yep, that is going to hit.

So that is going to do 2d8 plus 5 bludgeoning damage and grapple onto the Christmas tree.

Okay, that is 8

plus 5, 13.

Okay.

Plus 5, 13.

And then what was the other one?

Do it again.

You get two sort of...

You actually get three attacks and an engulf on your first turn here.

So just another d20 plus 8.

Oh, that's a one.

Okay, that second Tendril, the Christmas tree, like, knows to get out of the way of, and then it sort of like stands resolute, preparing to continue its attack that it had ready, not knowing that you still have quite a bit of stuff left.

So you can use your bonus ambush Tendril Lash here.

So one more D20 plus eight.

You've already got it grappled.

15.

15.

Yep, that is going to absolutely hit.

So

another 2d8 plus 5.

Got 3 plus 6, 9 plus 5, 14.

Okay.

We're in kind of like kaiju battle mode, so the the the hit points on these elementals is uh quite a bit higher than uh your own sort of squishy wizards.

Uh, okay, and then finally, in golf, uh, you have grappled successfully the uh the Christmas tree.

This grapple ends.

The target has the blinded and restrained conditions, is suffocating, and is subjected to

the following effect at the start of

your turn, uh, a DC 16 save throw, or else they take a fuckload of damage.

Also, if you move, the target moves with you, and you can have up to four creatures engulfed at a time.

And I think,

I don't know if that would count since this is four sort of like people piloting a big, this is four kids in a trench coat, but

right.

I feel like one of these is a fair,

like if I can only do four, I feel like one of these guys.

Yeah, they're pretty big.

Fair limit.

Yeah.

Okay,

so they are restrained, right?

They have zero zero speed.

They have

they are going to attack you.

They are going to have disadvantage on the attack roll.

They are also blinded.

So, I mean, this is...

Is double disadvantage a thing?

Well, you also have the chance, fair play.

You can try to make an escape roll with a DC-16 athletics check.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean,

I think Christmas tree gets a multi-attack too.

I'm going to do one attack against you all with disadvantage and then try to free

from this

prison.

Okay.

That is a...

Wow, double 11s.

So

plus 4, a 15 with the disadvantage, which is not enough to hit Swamp Things AC.

And then it's going to try and escape.

With a...

Trying to hit a 16 here.

That is a nine.

No, okay.

So, what just happened is Chris's tree saw the leaves shaking,

saw the forest

trees shaking, where you very unsubtly kicked one of the trees and hopped down.

And instantly, as soon as its feet touched the ground, you just went berserk and attacked it a bunch of times and then swallowed it.

You know,

the whole trunk, certainly, and you know, maybe the top

half of the actual piney bit of the tree.

And as it tried to attack you with the tendrils, some of it were, you know, they were already submerged, and that was not effective.

And then the tree itself tried to wiggle out of the grasp of the swamp and also did not work.

You hear Hasty Jane's voice come through,

kind of staticky now, as Dr.

Legium sort of picked up on your guy's secret back channel.

You hear her say, What are you, what are you, are you all in this?

Are you this one?

And can't quite hear anything other than that.

Next.

Hey, AC Jane, it's it's me, it's your boy Richters.

We're just kind of playing the hand.

We're dealt.

And, you know, it's not over yet.

And

just gotta keep on, keeping on.

Doing my best.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Uh, okay.

Next in the order is the Titanic.

Now that

this, uh, you know, now that you've revealed yourself, I think the time for stealth is

over.

And the Titanic is going to

dip...

Hold on.

What?

The Titanic is going to dip down into the lake

and then launch into the air and come crashing down on top of the two teams that have now sort of merged into one big gooey tree.

Mr.

Griffin, you did accidentally.

I said dig.

I just said dig.

I'm waiting to finish the thought.

Yeah.

And which I think

is a real market

gross.

Yeah.

But I do want to say that if the Titanic was going to verb a lake, I don't think you're incorrect and say the Titanic would dig a lake down.

I mean, let's look at the Titanic as a symbol in and of itself.

Yeah, it's not a freshwater vessel.

But he is also...

Thomas is talking about this is a phallic extension.

We can agree.

Thank you.

Right.

Yes.

Of course, the biggest one, the strongest one.

Never

quite like this, Miss.

The unsinkable dick.

The first challenge at the first bit of rigidity.

It shatters because it refuses to change its path.

True to form.

Okay, so the Titanic is quite accurately dicking down into the lake.

Okay, make Hellgramma.

We'll have you do this one, a dexterity-saving throw.

That's just a plus one, and you're trying to beat a 15 here.

Okay.

How about a dirty 20?

Wow.

Yeah, dirty 20 is going to do it.

The

Christmas tree is...

Rolled a nat one.

But it moves with us.

It does move with you.

Yeah, that's a good point.

How about this?

I leave it up to you, Rictus, because technically you would be next in the order.

Do you take it with you?

You can save the Christmas tree from this attack.

If you want to.

Okay.

100%.

Awesome.

Then with the deck save of this, of the swamp thing,

you sort of goosh to the side, flooding around the mages tower, getting out of the way of this attack as the Titanic beaches itself,

coming smashing down onto the forest.

When that happens, you hear Dr.

Legume's voice.

What are you doing?

Why did you say boss?

Because I made a promise, promise, and if I can keep it without also getting fucked over, then I'm gonna do that.

But Hellgrammet's in there with you, right?

Yeah, he's not that bad, really.

Hello.

Yeah, he got me, he got me thrown out of a big tower, and it was really scary.

Yeah, but would you have done that to him if you needed to?

I'll never know.

Yeah, you do.

Come on.

Give me a persuasion check, Rictus.

uh okay

oh it got stuck on the side but it's a five

um with a five

with a five uh you can tell that you can tell just from sort of like his tone of voice dr leg you is is sort of has come around

uh and maybe also because you have just uh you know Fucked up this Christmas tree pretty bad.

Now an alliance with you guys actually seems not so bad of an idea.

What was that, Juice?

I'm thinking.

I mean, I guess on that note, if you wanted to sort of flex a different, if you want to roll an intimidation,

no, you know,

I think a pivot and strategy sounds good to me because we're not, I don't feel like going to be able to do the same trick.

Unless maybe

the tree can lure some haters back here.

You know, yeah, I heard about this great web.

The spider's really nice.

Yeah.

Come on over.

He's got ice.

Yes.

Great.

That's the saying from old Mother Goose's nursery rhyme.

Ice cream.

Ice cream.

So, yeah, if you leave it here, the Christmas tree, you're going to have two out of the four members of that team sort of working on your side.

You see now that everything is kind of like congregated together.

The house comes smashing down, barging in,

and

swamp thing, it is going to throw open its front door, and from it, a

just a buckshot spread of furnishings comes launching out in your direction.

Rictus, roll that actually, you rolled the last one.

Lorabeth, roll that deck save for me.

It's plus one.

Trying to beat a

15.

Oh, wow.

I got 18 minus changes.

Jeez, guys, these saves are incredible.

Yeah.

You

know what?

You absorb it.

This, just, this,

you know, huge cloud of end tables and dining room chairs and a credenza comes flying out.

It just kind of lands in the swamp and you all absorb it and it sort of like dissolves harmlessly.

And that brings us to the top of the order, which is Swamp Thing.

All the teams are kind of gathered together here now, right?

You are all standing in this swamp.

You have the Christmas tree,

you know, almost fully submerged in your grasp.

Although two of its members have sort of suggested that they would,

you know, work with you.

Who had Tree partnered with?

Who was Tree?

Tree was going to team up with Titanic and House to fuck you guys up.

Because the other three members overruled Hasty Jane.

Yes, exactly.

I'm going to throw it.

It's my turn, right?

It is Rickus.

Yes.

Do we still have...

Can I just clarify something before Rick disacts?

Do we still have Christmas tree physically restricted?

Yes, absolutely.

You do.

Okay, thank you.

Oh, so they need to

do some saving throws.

Yes, you're right.

Thank you, Travis.

That is going to be a DC 16

that they need to roll Constitution save.

So

Christmas tree, con save, plus four.

That is a 15, which is not sufficient.

So, they are going to take uh, Trav, why don't you roll it?

2d10 poison damage and 2d10 acid damage.

So, just 4d10.

Yeah, just for

4d10 damage here.

Oh, boys.

Holy fucking shit, dude.

8, 10, 8, 9, 35 points of damage.

Oops,

Yauza.

Okay.

A 35

is crazy.

Like, as we were standing up, we stepped on their brain or something.

It was very...

Oh, no.

My fontanelle never close.

They are just bloodied.

So, like, entire branches and boughs and pine needles are, like, sloughing off of it into the swamp.

And

you can hear a sort of like psychic yelp coming from the four members of that team.

Okay, listen, sorry about that.

But if everybody agrees to be cool and work with us, I can help and let you go.

You tell me what role this is.

You tell me is this persuasion?

Is this deception?

Is it.

No, it feels like

intimidation.

Persuasion with advantage, Griffin, because we did just hurt him real bad.

I would give you intimidation with advantage.

Yeah, yeah.

But persuasion is not something something you would get advantage on after okay yeah then i'll take intimidation with advantage okay

so 17 plus 1 18 and 14 plus 1 15 so 18.

you hear um a voice say burger man here so you're saying you'll let us go and we'll work together

yeah

Really?

Yes.

You can feel feel the tree that you all have restrained kind of

go limp a little bit.

It stops sort of

flailing about and waits to see what you do.

Okay.

I release them.

Okay.

Voluntarily and cast Wither and Bloom.

Okay.

Wither and Bloom.

What level are you casting Wither and Bloom at?

I'm casting it at second level.

Okay.

I am assuming you are trying to...

This is like an AOE situation.

Yeah, I'm hitting the house in Titanic and triggering the heal on the tree.

Yeah, you all have not been hurt at all yet.

Yeah.

Okay, so what do they need to roll?

They need to roll a DC-13 Constitution saving throw.

Okay.

I'll go ahead and tell you right now, Titanic's going to hit this roll.

Can I clarify something?

Are we privy to the communications that he has had with Hasty Jane?

Like, have we been hearing those because we're also in his brain?

Uh, like, connected,

like, we know what the yes, I don't think that it would be weird if we don't know what the tree has done, yes, for sure,

for us to be not be fighting.

You are, you are privy to that for sure.

Okay, so uh, Titanic gets a dirty 20.

House only gets an eight,

so uh, house is gonna take some damage here.

They're both gonna take damage.

Oh, but yeah, Titanic's gonna take half damage.

Okay,

What is it?

2, D6.

So, house is going to take 10.

Titanic's going to take 5.

Okay.

And then Tree is going to heal hit dice, whatever that is.

Okay.

House takes 10, you say?

Okay.

Correct.

The house, you can see like some of the stucco on the sides of it, some of like the wood-paneled walls

start to kind of like creak and peel off a little bit.

I think now that you have dealt some damage to everybody here, you can kind of like tell that the Titanic is clearly outclassing sort of everyone here in terms of

sturdiness of their elemental.

But the house and Christmas tree do appear to be like quite a bit more vulnerable.

More vulnerable,

you would say, even than the swamp thing in which you currently inhabit uh the christmas tree is going to heal for 12 points of damage bringing them back up to out of bloodied range okay

you spew out the christmas tree uh it lands in this sort of like healing field that you have created uh you see the house kind of like take a big step backwards as you hit with the spell uh the

christmas tree stands up next to your swamp.

Have you all deformed?

Have you all like taken back the form of Swamp Thing or you remain?

I guess this is a question for you, Rictus, because it's technically your turn hasn't ended.

Or have you kind of like taken back your elemental form?

I would say we're back

to the swamp.

It wouldn't make sense.

They know where we are now.

Yes, absolutely.

They know where you are now.

Then the sand.

And when I cast it, Gravin, just a little flavor, some flowers bloom on his shoulder, on Swamp Thing's shoulders, too.

That's

very cool.

Then

what it is then is the flowers appear on the surface of this like flat bog that had just consumed the Christmas tree that it spits out.

And then as the Christmas tree is healed and restored and sort of like plants its trunks next to the swamp kind of squaring off against the house in the Titanic that it had previously aligned with, those flowers rise up as the swamp thing sort of reappears from the muck and takes its form, standing next to the Christmas tree in a sort of dramatic two versus two pose.

And you hear the voice of the gentleman sort of telepathically ring through your minds, and he says,

Well, now it seems we've got a fair fight on our hands.

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