Icebound | Ep. 10 | Midwinter
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Welcome to Legends of Avantris. I'm Barnabas Dreadwake and you're listening to Eastbound. Here's what happened last time.

Could this be your end? She looks down and she sees a hand grab onto the ice. There are dead things active in the water. And the dead rise. Oh no! There are dragon-born skeletons pulling themselves up and

up and over and onto the ice floe. You also hear in the background of all of this, a very strange sound. He loves your goblin noise. The rushing sound of water is getting louder.

Turning around, you realize that you are watching the other ice floes that are ahead of you disappear. You are going to go over an edge. The waterfall crashes. You don't know how far you fall, and you are terrified. You can feel a deep rage underneath the plunge pool.

Buried hunger that's scraping to get out. Surrounded by its own phobia. Surrounded by water. Trapped. Trapped and attempting to scrape through. I don't know what choice we have but to keep fighting it. Luckily we've got everybody back now. Did you find Daisy when you were under there? Let's finish this. I don't think we have any other choice.

As it turns, you manage to hit it right in the eye. It goes off like firework, and it slumps over. There's material there, should you want to use it. You're looking for a very specific thing, and you see it right away. In the chest cavity, not one heart. Not two hearts. Five hearts glow in the bright of this...

Fire. I found the young lady! She's alive somehow! And the fact that it is slightly brightening and no longer storming feels like the most positive breath of life that you could imagine. The opposite direction of the waterfall, there is a shape. You've all seen this shape before. It's the dragon. It is the mountain. A day's walk away. That is a place of power.

and filled now with renewed enthusiasm, you are ready to embark on the next arc of your journey. Winter is here. It is the early morning of the winter solstice. And though you know you have a hard, cold, trudging journey ahead of you, the feeling of the frozen ground under your feet serves as a happy reminder that you are still alive.

There is a tangible sense of brooding expectancy lying across the land as nature itself seems to sense this change in season. Exactly 252 days have passed since you all met in the Wuzean Tavern at the start of spring, nine full months ago. In that time you have journeyed hundreds of miles on both sea and land. You have faced threats, mortal, once mortal, and cursed.

And you have endured. You have done what must be done to survive. The wretched undead monster you faced still haunts you. Its lust to consume, its terrible strength, its chilling scream that still echoes in the dark recesses of your mind. You hope to never be so close to death ever again. It seems that now only you five are all that remains of the crew of the moribound ship.

Each step takes you farther away from their fates, from that nightmare. You find yourselves now trekking up the face of a great mountain. Though it is not the tallest or sharpest mountain you've seen in Drakkar, it is evident from your dreams that this is a place of power, and that you have been drawn to it. At your side, the mute footfalls of Daisy remain with you, another survivor of the brutalities of this realm.

What happens next?

is up to you. Mechanically, we've actually skipped a bit. I, through DM Fiat, have pushed us from the morning that you saw just after your confrontation with the spirit creature that attempted to devour all of you, and your victory over that creature, and this journey that you are now making up the side of the mountain.

That means that you can all enjoy the benefits of a long rest. - Oh, heckin' yeah. - It means that in the past 24 hours you've enjoyed some necessary downtime. You've mended your clothes, you've sharpened blades, you've spent time in silence pondering your situation, where you are now, how you feel. Spent other hours in animated conversation with one another, trying to figure out what to do.

once you reach the top of the mountain. And you've tended your bruises and your cuts and your wounds. So I'm just confirming, what does that mean for the people that died last session? With the death saves and everything. Wow, getting straight into this. Actually, no, that's a really good question. Because they don't... It's only one per long rest, right? Yeah.

That's how we wrote the rules. That's correct. So if they had three failed death saving throws, they'd be at two now. If they'd had two failed saving throws, they'd be at... Well, I died, so I had three. But I think we're going to have to track that separately. Yeah. Because D&D Beyond wipes them. Yeah, and then you can't see your HP, and so it will...

I'm gonna steal a pen. Yeah, please do. Yeah, get it out of the Batman. The Batman bucket. The pilot G2 7mm, ladies and gentlemen. That's a really great pen. Mike, can you pass me the green pen right there? I've still got two.

Thank you. You're welcome. So I'm much more vulnerable to dying again. The Pentel RSVP Medium. Oh, that's a spicy pen. That's the pen. It leaks all over the place. It's horrible. But it writes really well. Do you want this one? No, no, no. I love the way they write. They just leak. All right, well.

So that is where you find yourselves, the six of you now making your way up. What is almost feels like a path. It's rocky, but there are times where you are confronted by a cliff face and have to make your way up. You can wind your way around and still make good progress as you ascend.

Oh, Bonobos, I'm hungry! You've been eating all of our food, Mr. Stanniscus! No, no, no, it wasn't just me, but when are we gonna stop for lunch or something, please? Oh, that's a great idea! Perhaps we stop for lunch. You ate five minutes ago! Oh, no, it wasn't enough! Please, you know it wasn't enough! We haven't had enough for forever! For months! It's been months! We haven't had enough food! Then you will starve! What? You will all starve!

It is fine, we can tolerate that we have been through much worse. It has been a day! I think that perhaps just after our harrowing experience with that creature, we're just a little more peckish as we regain our strength. Yes, yeah, that's exactly right, we're healing! Look, I'm a big, strong goblin man, I need to eat, I need to get my strength up! I'm ten times your size, I need more food than you do. That seems a little greedy, don't you think?

It's true. Alright, fine. But it doesn't change the fact that I'm starving to death over here! I think my stomach is bigger than your head. Yeah, that's all well and good, but we don't have the food to feed you right now, so you're gonna have to deal with the hunger, alright? And I personally don't want to hear any more of it. We've got a lot we need to do. We're scaling a mountain. I don't know if you've noticed, we're scaling a mountain. I'm gonna keep an eye out for eagle's eggs.

Them's good eats. We'll see, eagle eggs. I have not heard found mountain eagle eggs, but... All right, Queenie, I'll try to...

Keep it down, but... I will keep my eyes out for anything that would make for some good hunting. And you can do me a favor and keep your eye out for it, too. And just let me know if you see something, all right? Yeah, all right, all right. That sounds like a plan, I guess. Oh, I'll look out for anything we can forage. Like berries. Either way, I don't believe we should feed Barnbows and Scream. Why not? We're punishing them? Out of character, last session...

I determine that their hunger is some sort of like, it's not something natural. It's not like, oh, they're healing. - I don't recall if we mechanically resolved that, did we? - I can't remember, but I would find, at least I would think that I would find it suspicious. - Make an insight check. - Perfect. - That's pretty good. - Ooh, and we have our proficiency bonus is up, so that's 25.

For the past, since your encounter, for the past two days, or day I should say, you have never heard them complain about food as much. It seems to be the topic of conversation coming up much more frequently, even when you were literally starving across an ice sheet walking for days and weeks without food.

For Scrim, it's only a little weird. It's very weird for modernists. But Scrim's only acting slightly more irrational than usual. You will not feed them because it is a symptom of the terrible curse that has reanimated their flesh. What? No, no! There's no curse! You're gonna have to stop walking after you say something like that. You don't get to say something like that and then just trudge along like that was a normal sentence. Do you think they'll turn into...

Wendigos? If that's true and we don't feed them, they're going to eat us. I'm not interested in eating any of you. You're my friends. And if you were to get hungrier and hungrier, who's going to be the first to go, Scrimm?

I would never, I would never. If our fate is the same as Mr. Clemens, then no thank you, I'd rather die. Yeah, and besides, we can fish. We can do plenty of fishing and hunting. It wouldn't ever come down to us eating each other. We already know that we're not gonna do that. But until they do, they will not turn into a beast that we just felled. Oyster Grim here, why don't we just eat some ancient estuary and maybe that'll feel like we're able to... Oh, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, that's a good idea. I'm just going to be able to save her for later. Oh, get a beat. Barnabas, that's the greatest idea you've ever had. Here, have some more. Oh, my God.

It's like it's in my hair, it's in my like goatee. It's like all up in my nose and my mouth. I am repulsed. There's so much celery salt. Ah, it helps a little. Oh, you can't be enjoying that. I am. You can't even taste it. You must have the worst dry mouth you've had in a long time. With reckless abandon. Ah!

There's no way you're making enough saliva to get that down in the quantities you just shoved in your mouth. You know what I would move for now? Some mustard powder. I don't keep my mouth to myself. Here you go. This is going to turn into the cinnamon challenge. For you, your morning started differently than it has for three months because the fernway rope

became the tobacco choice out of your grow bag. Oh. It now is a color of bruised plum. It tastes coffee, peaty, cedar. What was the name of that again? Fernweh rope. Ah, finally, some fern, so finally some fernweh rope. Something different. Oh, yeah, just a little. Oh, so is it midwinter? It is the day of midwinter. A holy day for you, I believe. What does that mean? This is...

Are you asking that in character? No, no. Sandy asked it. Yeah, I think in the morning I would have done some, you know, I would have probably prayed and done more rituals than I normally would have done. But now that we're on the mountain, I'll be very sort of seriously focused given the day that it is. It's the winter solstice. It's the shortest day of the year. It is, yeah, it is a day of celebration for you very much. This is not...

Forever. I believe, or I hope, that whatever force, being, or whatever it is, is that it's calling us to the top of this mountain. I hope that it perhaps can help these two. They're literally shoving seasonings in their face and inhaling them. Better than wasting the rations.

Continue, please. What are we thinking, Mr. Sabascotch? Dealer's choice, really. How about Mr. Flair? How about you? Surprise us. With seasoning. What are you feeling? How about some cayenne? Perfect. Oh, it's good for your stomach. Okay.

Oh, that one's spicy. It's really great on a breakfast burrito.

That does a number on your sinuses. Are we sure watching this is better than them eating the rations? Are we sure? Look at the color of the snow. You're getting this everywhere. Oh, the treyog dropped some. Oh, it's refreshing!

Everyone make a perception check. Great. Thank God. Does this perception check involve any kind of... Hearing or smelling food? No. What's it like to hear food? Oh shit. Wouldn't it also be like prey or fish or something? I...

Oh, and a live beast, I guess you could consider food, but that I think is, uh, it goes beyond the intent of the, of the... I got a 22. 22. 28. 13.

Seven. 20. Okay. Queenie, Yornir, and Scrim, you're facing the two gentlemen, Tyshen and Barnabus, and their backs are to what you observe. But through their bodies, you can see up on the mountain, the tiniest flick of light suddenly appear. What looks like a torchlight appears.

And then another, and then another, and you start to see more and more illumination. It's very medium light right now. It's very early morning. And there are very plainly these red dots starting to appear and sproing on the side of the mountain. Sproing? Who all saw it? You, Barnabas, you, Yornir, and Queenie. Y'all seen that?

What is that? I mean, it's gotta be fire. That's perfect. That's where we gotta go. They gotta have food. Supplies. We're saved. It means there is someone else on this mountain. Civilization! Not necessarily civilization. They could be bad. They could mean harm for us. That's true. But if they are bad, we can deal with them and take the supplies. That is true. And maybe they have food. They have to. Nobody would be out here without food. That would be crazy.

Well, let this continue. There's only like one path up. Aye! I mean, there's... On this side of the mountain, it hasn't gotten to its steepest descent just yet. It feels like you'd be able to walk straight up. You can tell that there's almost like a twist or a wind to the top of this mountaintop. That when you get to that point, you're either going to have to scale or try and find a path that maybe scoots along the edge.

And the fire, the torch that we saw is on the way. Basically, it's the direction we're going. It does appear to be directly in the direction you're going, yes. All right, well, just, we will approach. We should approach with friendly intent. Everyone we've met so far has been very welcoming to us. Except for the crew and...

The Wendigo, and then those possessed monsters outside. Don't forget about that metal guy. Oh, the snow blind monster. And the kobolds was sort of a close call. Oi, that's right! Didn't they stab Gwaine in the gut? We're lucky, shit, they didn't get infected! All I was trying to do was give him a hug to prove I was nice.

Maybe we approach with caution. Oh, and you can't forget that dragon too that just completely ate the captain. Didn't she boon us? She killed the captain, sure, but... If by booning us you mean choosing not to murder us on sight... That's kind of a boon. I guess for a gigantic, horrible, evil monster, I suppose so. A bit serendipitous, if you will. Aye, that is strange. You know what I wish?

I wish I had a three pack of cookies and a large sandwich. That sounds delightful. That was oddly specific. Let us go. All right.

I'll flip around and I'll start. You journey up the mountain, and it's very much winter. It is still extremely cold, though the sky is clear and there is no snow. There's one or two inches of snow still untreaded making your way up this mountain that you remember from the storm that passed during your fight with the...

forest spirit, for lack of a better word. And you start to...

You reach after, I'd say, another hour of walking that you reach the first torch. And it's adjacent to a large stone in the ground. A huge, clearly shaped stone. And you continue to make your way up the path and to the next torch. This one forms an arch, even. Clearly two massive stones with a large stone placed atop it. You can walk around it. A hinge.

a hinge, which apparently is a misnomer, weirdly, but it's still a hinge. If you're picturing hinge, you're getting exactly what I'm laying down. Stonehenge. A stonehenge, yes. Six stone things in a giant circle. Well, that's... This is just a milestone, seemingly marking the way. This is an individual hinge. There's also trilithon is another word that you could use, or obelisk. And these...

do have what appear to be runic markings carved directly into them. But unlike the cairns that you saw on your journey so far, these are painted. They have brilliant colors on their faces, different markings in purples and greens and blues. It's actually quite attractive compared to the gray. Does it resemble the site of Gobekli Tepe or Karahan Tepe?

God bless you. That was my question. Make a investigation check if you were interested in perceiving the age of the paint. Because I don't know anything about history. Well, apparently I'm actually very historical. Investigation, you say?

Oh shit. Come on, skills. Wow, I'm actually not proficient in investigation, so I got a dirty 20. Dirty 20. Plus one. I got a natural 21. Wow. Very nice. Was that a natural 20 plus one? Yeah, natural 20 plus one. Oh, you were more than me.

Look at you go. Looking at the surface of this, you have a sense that it is not freshly painted in the sense that it was painted in the last week or so, but that it hasn't been worn by weather and time. It feels new to you, but new the same way that a freshly painted house would in its first year or five years, as opposed to...

you know, an obelisk that stood the test of time on a mountain for centuries or decades. Roger. So nothing like Gobekli Tepe or Kara. I don't know what that is. I think Queenie's working on her abyssal. You'll get it at the end of the campaign. Oh,

You continue to ascend up the mountain and you're following these milestones now. These trilithons, these stones, these cairns, these obelisks, these hinges. Monoliths. Monoliths. Obelisks. There's no temple, I would say. No tepees. Oh, tepees? Yeah, like Gobekli Tepe or Kara Tepe. Oh, Gesundheit. You continue to make your way up the path and not an hour goes by before you reach a flat...

A flat...

Plateau? Steppe? Plateau, outcropping is good. Mesa? Mesa? No. No. That's not right. Mesa means table. Time to bring a little justice to the moon mesa. And it's here and it's still quite dim. I want to reemphasize how cold and how...

diminished the light is. It's almost as if the sun hasn't risen at all. At this altitude, you can actually see it just cresting the horizon. Even though it's starting to feel more and more like morning, it's hanging there low and hugging the tree line the many thousands of feet that you've come. You are higher up in the air. The elevation is getting... is actually dropping the temperature as you are ascending. It's probably...

-40 or 45 degrees. - But Scrim and I, we don't... - You feel quite comfortable. - And I got a coat and some nice boots. - Yeah, you feel quite comfortable. - I'm some poor dead elves. - Suckers. - It's on this outcropping that you can see underneath the dusting of snow, a tremendous circle of stones.

This circle is perhaps 70 feet across from each side to the other. And it is shielded a little bit from the elements. As you look up, you can see the tall, tall side of this mountain almost all the way up to the tip, it seems. It's looming over, shading this great circle. What are you all doing?

Do we see the source of the lights? There are torches that have been placed around the path that you've made your way up. Just one, mostly illuminating these painted monoliths. But there does not seem to be much illumination here against the circle, no. There are no fires, there's no torches during the immediate vicinity or along the perimeter. Well, we made our way up to this flat mesa.

I don't think this is quite a mesa. I can't believe you even suggested this was a mesa. Have you ever seen a mesa before? I haven't seen a mesa? What's a mesa? I'm from Yona. I've seen plenty of mesas. Oh. Then you would know this is a mountain, not a mesa. Yeah, Scrim doesn't say any of that. That would be rude. Scrim says in third person. Well, we followed the lights.

I don't know. Can I like walk up to one of the monoliths and like just sort of see if there's anything written on it or like anything signpost-y? The circle of stones, this great 70 foot wide stone circle, they're not as large as the giant stones that were, it seemed to literally be milestones making your way up the path.

These are perhaps the height of Scrim. And they look almost like tombstones, like little teeth jutting out. So they're like 6'2". Yeah. And they're huge. About a foot and a half. 6'2". Three feet wide. And they're spaced very, very evenly apart. Almost mathematically. So they're like...

two feet long, one foot wide. And as you observe, you see each one of them has tiny faces on them. None of us even bother to ask them. Can I do that face, please? It's so uncomfortable. I feel it in my boobies.

- Scrooge grabbed by the goons. - I thought you were gonna say you feel it in your gooch. - No, no, that's a different face to that. Not a single one of us even bothered to ask if we could read the signposts. Does any of this writing look like legible? - It's identical to the runic language that the Cairns were marked with. You can tell from-- - Which was Draconic. - I was gonna say.

That's right. Okay. Which was ancient draconics. So I definitely can't read it. But would I be able to see that it looks similar to... I'm on my way. I think that you'd be able to make that deduction. Out of recognition. Exactly. Exactly. You've seen runes made with these marks so frequently on your journey at this point that seeing these again doesn't surprise you. They seem to be of the same culture. Got it.

I say nothing. I can't even think about food. I walk up with Jornir. Could you take a look, see if you can make sense of what these are saying? Yes, I could. It's fresher as well than we've seen before, not weathered by time. This has been upkept in at least the

Last year or two. It looks newly made, as they say. And you can brush away some of the snow. Both of you make a perception check as you enter the stone circle. I want to say that kind of got stuck by your book. It did. You know, what am I doing? It got stuck by my book. Let's keep the book away from the end of the thing, maybe. Bad luck. Plus eight is what? Holy shit. 16 for me. 21. 21, thank you.

16, 21. The two of you, you can hear the crunching of your footfalls as you make your way into the stone circle on the surface of this thin layer of snow. And looking down, you can see that it's not a perfectly flat stone circle. There are just tiny ridges or grooves creating something like a pattern, as if the face of this stone circle has something...

beneath you in addition to the many runes of the circle. - The hell? - And counting them,

There are dozens of these runes. Not dozens on each, but one rune per stone. Dozens of these stones, each one of them equally spaced apart from the center out in a line. Equidistant. Thank you. I like that word. That's good. Mesa. Mesa distant, as I believe. The term is... Man, I hate you guys. LAUGHTER

Do any of the symbols, do I pick up anything? Make an intelligence check. Straight intelligence would be a 10.

You just make the DC that I had set in mind because these runes match draconic symbols very closely, much more closely than some of the directional or navigational runes that you had been confronted with on the Cairns in your long journey north to this mountain. These match symbols you would see on a calendar.

A calendar? It's like some sort of giant time-telling device. Oh. Not like a sundial, but like almost like a yearly... It's a fucking calendar. It's an ancient calendar. Whoa. Your name seems to be...

Some ancient time telling. Fuck, it's not like a calendar, but like an ancient calendar. Oh, I'm glad you clarified. That is totally different. I was almost totally misdirected. Don't think that it's the new calendar. I'm just gonna stop talking. This is ancient Draconic calendar. Classic. You want to know what's the most ancient of all calendars?

Yes. The stars. Wow. That just seems legitimate. What's legitimate? The stars of the oldest calendar. Did you mean legitimate? What? Legitimate?

I think I have some legit-a-mint in here. Here you go, Scrim. Very minty. It's deliciously fresh. It's like a dessert after the ancient Ashtuarian mustard. A little moose boosh. It's your after legit-a-mint. So this is all...

I mean, this is quite a lot of effort to build just for a calendar. Is there any kind of religious context that you know of? Well, I can't be sure. It... it... These seem to represent days, months, maybe. There's something... That's generally what a calendar does.

Thank you for that wise insight. I'm just trying to help. There seems to be something on the ground beneath us. Maybe if we clear snow covered?

It is snow-covered, yes. Does that look like it would be a lot of work? It's a 70-foot wide stone circle, so if you can imagine how long it would take to clear a basketball court. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Taishan, there is no Wii clearing this out, you must be kidding. Not on an empty stomach, I'm starving! Well, perhaps we could clean off some of it, and if you feel like it's informative, we can keep going.

I will help you clear some of it. I'll help you too. Excellent. I'm going to open my honey pot and my swarm of peas has gotten much bigger. And I'm going to talk to them. All right. All right, babies. I'm going to need you to help clear this snow. You know what to do.

Hop to it! And my bees are gonna form the shape of a shovel. Yeah, they form a shape of a curved shovel and just scoop along and they are pushing the snow like a...

Wow, I'm out of language tonight. What's the- Snowplow. Snowplow, thank you. They can carry up to 250 pounds. Holy shit, that's a lot of snow. How much? 250 pounds. Oh. I just want to have them scoop it up and toss it. Scoop it up and toss it. You're able to clear the area without Tyshen or Yornir's help very quickly.

And the three of you, or the five of you, all staring down, you can see that there's these beautiful runic lines. You know how in some art the knotting will, the lines will appear to go underneath and then back wrapping around and create these sort of elaborate patterns. Yeah, like Celtic knots. Like Celtic knots, exactly right. This is the case here, and there are 12 clean wedges

that connect to each of four of these little stones. Very much a calendar. It's clearly 12 wedges for the months, four weeks for each stone, four stones. And looking down, you can see that they correspond with the cardinal directions.

midwinter stone is directly pointing at the sun right now. It's in alignment. Well, I guess I didn't need you or you to help with the snow. That was very impressive. Yeah, don't thank me, thank the bees. Thank you, bees. Oh, he thanks the bees.

You see as they shape a thumbs up. They're the bee's knees. Oh, I'm so hungry. They form the image of a lady doing the Charleston and then they go back in. In my honey bowl. Are the bees bigger now because of your stone?

Yeah. Well, it's a bigger swarm or they are using each bee to be bigger? Each bee has gotten a little chunkier. Is it because of your power stone? Yeah. Okay, I'm just curious. Did they also get even cuter? They did. They got even cuter. That's amazing. They're even cuter, a little bit chunkier, a little bit fuzzier, and there are more of them. God, it's so good. And because I've just remembered that she exists, Daisy's standing there and she's,

Gesturing. Trying to convey something. A few moments later of understanding, clarifying questions, you get the sense that she's seen this before, where she's from. She's looking down and this looks very different, but a wheel like this is a wheel of years. This is for tracking time. It's a calendar. She's confirming what you are all seeing.

I mean, Yornia never stops talking about the dates and the stars and the sun and the seasons. I mean, clearly this is important to these people as well. Is there any kind of mystical or magical importance of the one that you are aware of? Not to my knowledge. It was...

in a great building, the floor of a building, and she starts to make more and more gestures, but you lose the plot. What she's explaining seems too complex that you'd have to take 15 minutes or half an hour to really play the 20 questions you would need to get there. I mean, it would make sense they'd have something like this in a perilous place like this. I mean, we use a calendar back where I'm from, because anytime you're tending to any kind of agriculture, you need to know

what kind of weather you're gonna get, what kind of time of year it's gonna be, what you can grow, it's all related to the time, the movement of the Sun and the Moon. It is... the calendar obviously from where I'm from and with my order especially is not too dissimilar what they've done. This just feels more informative and less holy, if that makes sense. Is it because we're in a circle?

Well, yes, we have monuments, and we erect them in different positions based on the rotation of the sun. No, I just meant because it holds a circle. What? You said this feels more holy, and I said, is it because we're in a circle? Oh, I see. And you started to explain something that was out of context of what I was asking. It's a play on words. No, I just meant it literally. Is it because we're in a circle? No. All right, then.

It seems like this is used for tracking, but I'm not getting a sense of a ritual purpose to it.

Unless I do get a ritual purpose to it. Make a perception check, all of you, actually. While he's rolling, I'd also like to ask a question. Go ahead. Once cleared, you said that there was a stone pointing to a certain section or quadrant that delineated, denoted the... Perception, you say? What he thought of of the day as well. The midwinter stone, which would be in...

the month of the 12th month right it's the middle of the 12th month and you are looking down the wedge of the line and you can see that it corresponds with one of these small stones at the perimeter so my question is looking at this whole thing does it look like this thing that's pointing to it the whole thing physically moves oh no no no no it's fixed that's confusing

How does it work?

Stonehenge works the way that I just described. This is Earth? Okay. It works the same way as sundial works. Why would you apply normal physics? A sundial is stationary, but you see the sun based on the shadow. Well, in this case, it's where the sun is positioned. Because it's very early in the day. Because if this were Earth...

The way that you would... That the seasons change. The sun changes positions and sets in different places. Every day it moves just a little bit. So we're looking at shadow?

Like it's casting a shadow to point at... So... Like I'm trying to... Like what is actually... The Temple of the Sun... Let me draw a little. Here's an example. The Temple of the Sun in Mexico. During the... During the... Yeah, I guess it would be winter because it's based on the sun. When it hits a certain spot...

The way that the light is cast down the steps of the pyramid, it makes it look like there's a snake. Interesting. Running down the pyramid. So it's similar to that in the sense that we're looking at the sun through probably like a little hole. Alright, here's the circle. I'm just asking because... There are 48 stones all around the perimeter. Sure. Right? 48?

48. How many stones? And there are 12 wedges that correspond like this. Now, if this is the side of the mountain, then you can see the horizon is out here and the sun is doing its sunny thing, right? Correct.

This stone was constructed in such a way that the midwinter stone aligns with the sun perfectly on this day. I see what you're saying. So basically you could stand in the middle and you could line up the celestial lines. If it were the autumnal equinox, it would be over there and not perfectly aligned. That answers my question. How do we know it's the midwinter stone? Because I understand how sundial works. Because we know today is midwinter.

I was just confused that it was low light and I wasn't sure what we were actually physically looking at. No, it's all good. So you would actually use it with the heavens?

Essentially. It's in sync with the stars, it's in sync with the sun, it's in sync with the movement of all of this. And the deduction that you've all made that it's the Midwinter Stone is because of Taishan's realization that each of the runes on each of the weeks is like a name for the week, almost. But this is the Midwinter Stone. Got it. Alright, Scrim says nothing. My question's been answered. Well, this is dissimilar in my moods.

We call them weirding stones, which we meet here. We meet in similar circles of stones on the holiest holidays. Midwinter is the holiest for my order. We meet at the Circle of the Mammoth. We feast and we conduct our rituals and we read the runes and we try to... Did he say on Midwinter is the Circle of the Mammoth?

Yes. Alright, mammoth's different than a rhino. Yes. Alright, cool. It is the northmost circle in Mammut. It's big and hairy. So my pilgrimage every winter would be to arrive at the circle of the mammoth, meet the fellow shaman of my order. Perhaps there is something similar that I could use and perhaps I can consult the runes.

Just see if I can get the sense of anything. You made a perception check, didn't you? I did. 21. 21? 23. 18. 22. 19. You spent enough time now that anyone with a 20 or higher is...

Rip. It's because we died. There's no food around. Looking at the beautiful carved grooves as they almost tell the story of the year in front of you. And in the center, and the lotches elsewhere, darker patches. Darker patches that indicate that this is perhaps a ritual stone as well. One where

There might be sacrifices. Oh, Jesus. Ooh. Oh, this is... There was blood. What? You mean all that brown stuff? It is very faint, but this is evidence of ritual sacrifice. We do the same. Like, like...

Sacrificing humanoids? Or animals? No, no, not humanoids. Sacrifice... I'll give offerings to the gods. Animals, plants. Well, if they're sacrificing animals, that means there has to be food around. Great thought, Mr. Savascoach. But you're assuming that just because your nearest practice is to sacrifice animals, that theirs is, too. This is true. Well, I would like to assume that, yes. Yes, absolutely. That's much better than them sacrificing small goblins.

And I sacrifice to the old faith. Their religion, or whatever they're sacrificing to, is totally different. Is there religious significance of these shamanistic type things to sacrifice little goblins and otherwise? Is there? I mean, it really depends on where you're from. What do you mean? Do we have any reason to believe that is the blood of some poor feller?

Well, I'll see if I can take a look at it. Instead of a go... See if I can see if it's animal blood or humanoid blood. And I'd like to try to use my hunting abilities to see if I can tell the difference. Bada-bing. So yes, I would like to look at where it looks like the sacrifice has happened and check to see if I can see any fur remnants that are stuck into the stone or anything that would...

chips of bone or anything like that that could help me determine whether it was humanoid or bestial. Survival. Gotta love survival. Twenty-six. Twenty-six? Woo! Jesus. It's no joke. This is my forte.

This is why I always have a farmer's almanac on me. If anyone would like to see. It's been working around this 40 pound book. Farmer's almanac. It's got a cosmetic chapter that's just paw shapes. 26 is strong, so you...

start to circle and making your way out and sort of in and then looking at it from different angles. It's still difficult to see in the light. It's quite medium, as I said, dim, but you do spy something when you turn a certain angle and the light hits it just the right way. You look down, you pick it up. Silver. Silver shard, broken. It looks like a tiny scale. Oh.

No! I have scales. What? What is it? What do you find? Is it animals? I need you to calm down. I have a fear it might be dragonborn. Does this scale look familiar to you?

I would assume that it looks too small to be dragon. It does look too small to be dragon. You've seen a dragon. Let me pull out my farmer's almanac. Oh, Farmer Maggot says the crops will be good this year. Why is his name always Maggot?

This is a huge family. He's got cousins all over the world. Those damn farmers. You do make the comparison and you hold the scale up against Taishen's golden scales, his dragonborn skin being what it is. And this appears to be smaller. Well, that was going to be my next fear. There are some groups, ancient groups,

That would prefer the sacrifice of children to adults, believing that it was significantly more honorable to their deities, the innocent life, you know. These were children dragonborn? Potentially. Or kobolds. Or kobolds.

Oh, well, it's cold. Anyways, let's continue. This is not a laughing matter, Archie. Yeah, your dear. Oh, no, this is very interesting. So they are clearly sacrificing humanoids.

Clearly. But who? I mean, we know that there must be some gathering of them. There's all those different clans and all those different factions. Are they just sacrificing themselves? Whatever the answer is. It's a possibility, yeah. We need to be on high alert. The torches didn't light themselves coming up here.

And if what Jorna says is true... That's true, yeah. If he makes... I forgot about those torches. If he makes journeys on the midwinter to come here, that's now. Well, not here. He goes somewhere else. Well, but someone may have journeyed here. Yeah. That's why the path was lit. Someone could be here now, watching us. This feels... This is fate. This feels intentional. Are we being led here as sacrifices? Oh, I don't like that sound of that at all. Well...

It looks like they're sacrificing Dragonborn, so we're all fine.

Look, we're not gonna let anything happen to y'all, right? Don't go more than ten feet away from any of us. Yeah, you stay right next to us, Tash. Mr. Fireblossom. That sounds good. What I do like the sound of is you keep saying that this is like a special day for you. You gotta have some extra juice in the tank, right? A little extra power? Maybe there's something here that's worth whatever you were saying communing with, right? Reach out! I will try to reach into the weird and

Given that the sun is in alignment with whatever circle we're in and these the holiest holiday, we shall see. All right, I'm gonna let you do your thing and I'm gonna stand way over there outside of the ring, but it's just to keep an eye out, just to make sure that you're all right while you're doing your thing. It's certainly not because I'm worried you're gonna burst into flames. You wanna be really far away from us in case there are people lurking out there ready to sacrifice you to some kind of deity? I don't wanna be inside this ring when he does whatever he wants to do. I'd rather keep a lookout at the very least.

Alright, Scrum. So, I would like to, I will walk to the center of the circle and clear this, I think it's almost nose cleared, and I will kneel down and I will pull out my leather pouch of probably seal hide, full of these runes that I have, what's the word? Wrist. Wrist!

You risked the rune. I would like to try to peer into the weird and read the runes in a similar way, not through augury, but I've done it once before, where I pull them and if you can give me whatever you... God, that was so good last time. Facing the cliff or facing the sun? The sun. Okay. And I would like to go the way we entered the circle, up the path, and look back down it and keep an eye out to make sure nothing's coming up behind us. Okay, make a perception check.

And we'll resolve it when we're done here. I'm a big Augury fan, so let's Augury. Or me either.

Oh, that's terrible. If you wanted to do an augury form factor, that's fine, but whatever information you would want to give me, try to peer into what I believe the weird, meaning my take on chi or just the energy of the universe and time and all that. I'll connect it to whatever I feel like connecting to. Do you want to shoot her on the camera? Oh, yeah, let's do it. You can put it in a circle.

Oh, yeah. All the circle. Okay. Thank you to Kimma for these amazing... Thank you, Kimma! For context, last time he did this, we got, like, Derek gave us, like, you know, some cryptic, like, one-liners that were not from Char, believe it or not. And...

They became very... At the time, we had no idea what it meant, but it became very pertinent several sessions later. It was very impressive that he, like, kept it incredibly specific. But it was perfect. It was the perfect level of, like, teasers and pleasers. I mean, I had always planned that there was going to be a fucking...

Metal Horse Metal Man show up, and then I get Tool Horse Man? It was literally fate. It was literally fate. So let's see what we get this time. So I think last time I pulled three, so let's do three again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. If the rest of you want to just reflect on the past year, think about the changing of the seasons,

Days no longer getting shorter, but now getting longer. Summer is now close, or closer than in every day summer will be closer. So think of the renewal that will come with this, and the cycle begins again. While he's going through his ritual, just after these words, he speaks these words: "Wind rustling all around you. You're outside of the circle keeping an eye down the mountain. We're the three of you."

I would be in the circle. I'd be staying close to everybody. Okay. Like in the circle near your near. I'd be making sure that I don't leave Taishan's side. Okay. So basically wherever he's going to go, I'm going to go. Okay. So I would be here and I would be taking very seriously because obviously Barnabas is superstitious.

And I've heard of sacrificing, but not to like the primal spirits, to like blood gods deep in the jungle somewhere, right? So this is all new. In a world filled of fantasy magic, aren't you just stitious at that point? Yeah, that's true. And I think I would probably be walking in circles around the hinge and just keeping my eye out for any kind of movement or anything going on. So you're patrolling. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

So I don't know if you need me to roll for that. We'll resolve that after we find out what our runes are. So my right eye will glow again with bright frosty blue magic. And I will pull the first rune. That is... Anti-climactic. That's literally a rune? Wild.

probability altering missiles your request for no MSG has been denied MSG's king of flavor puff the magic dragon what are you doing here it's like that time my fortune cookie said give it up you loser laughing signs point to yes laughing holy shit it knows me so well laughing

Amazing. This is Urys. It means auruk, or strength. Or a big bull. Think of a big bull. Or strength. Oh, he's strength. That's a good sign, right? Unless that strength is turned against us. If it portends an enemy. This is Eywaz. This is the U3, the Tree of Life.

Tree that began all life according to the old faith. This tree is very relevant for midwinter. What? Life or just tree of life? It's the yew tree or the tree of life. Which could be life in general. But like literally yew. Like the Y-E-W. The type of yew. It's yew tree. Yes, like yew tree.

And finally... That's good, huh? I hope these sound too good to be true. Dagas, choose Day or Dawn. And I will... And if you want me to pull one more to see what it is, if it helps your story, just let me know. A strong, a strong life tree. Dawn, that all sounds quite nice. Perhaps. Maybe it means we're supposed to sacrifice Tashi to be able to have a good life.

It can't mean that, get it? Well, to be fair, you didn't have the same color scales. Oh, so you think it won't work? I don't know. Well, I'm trying to concentrate on the commander. Just focusing purely on the reins. I know you have to help. What did Mr. Stametsconch do? Rage. Rage. Well, what are you doing? We're helping Yornir reach into the weird. Lend him your strength.

And join us! Weird! I am reflecting. You know what, I'll actually say something. I'll take Mr. Yornear's thoughts here. And the changing of the seasons. Are you trying to decipher his rooms for him? No, I'm not. I'm trying to discuss the question that he asked us. I think he's channeling his...

Think about the past year and the renewal and the change of the seasons is quite like the change of the tides, the sea, where it's not any kind of massive change one way or the other, but slow, gradual, consistent, and certain change. Just like the seasons. You don't hear any of this chatter. You have gone into your trance. You are...

divining, speaking to the lands now, speaking, asking the triad, using the old ways to see if you can perceive what you need to see victory this day, to honor the midwinter, to do what you need to set the course of the next year in motion, to...

see the change in the seasons and understand and embrace the nature and the natural world as much as you can. The image of the sun appears in your mind and it doesn't set, but instead starts to turn from its yellowy glow to an orange, a burnt umber, a red shrinking,

smaller and smaller like an ember until darkness. And against an impossible midnight sky, you see a single sprout emerge from the soil, from Earth. It's a symbol, and it begins to grow. You feel very much it is a

a metaphor for life, for something that needs to survive, something that is surviving, something that is alive, and it emerges and becomes this beautiful, twisted, gorgeous tree with fruiting fruits of all kinds, small leaves spreading out from it. It doesn't look like a yew tree to you, but it does feel like a tree of...

reverence, a sacred tree to you. And as soon as it reaches its maturity, behind its almost blinding, the sun explodes back into the sky. And you can see the shadow of its many boughs and its twigs and its branches spray out in all directions. It's blinding and it fills you with a tremendous amount of hope. But you realize that to see this vision will take great strength.

and blinking, you now realize that you are staring down at the three runes that you've cast. You hadn't even read them until you are coming back into the mortal plane, back into your body, back into reality, but you see that that is the story that these runes tell. And then they begin to grow dark. And you realize for a moment

You can hear the chatter of Tyshen and Barnabos. Why is it getting dark? It's dark only for a moment because it's a shadow. A shadow of something slamming down in front of you just at the center of the circle. Splat! All of you hear the cracking of bones as a...

young silver dragonborn child crashes from the cliff top a thousand feet ahead at the feet, crushing the runes in front of Yorneir, splattering against the Wheel of Years.

So we're like covered in- I would immediately come running over if I heard that happen. You hear this disgusting crunch, all of you. And yes, you are covered in gore. You can see flecks of blood sprayed out like a flicking paintbrush in all directions, completely smearing this blood-touched stone. Oh my gods, what happened? What is that? What is all over you? By the gods...

I want to look up. I want to see what I can see. You look up, and it's too far. You are 1,000 feet down, even with a natural 20 and a tremendous perception bonus. You don't see a face or a head or anything looking down. It is a tremendous fall, and it is, of course, quite dim. The three of you are all looking down, and I need those who are in the circle and close to make a perception check. I am assuming you are both running in. Yeah, I would be running.

I was not close enough to... 21. 21? 19. 19. In these few seconds that you guys have to look down, to understand, to comprehend what has just happened, you hear the faintest whimper. What are you all doing?

I would immediately run up and try and... Does it still look like a child? It looks like a child covered in a blue robe. He seems to be almost frosty, as if a...

The surface of Frozen Lake clings to its silver scales against him, but terrible contrast against the dark red that is now pooling against this and filling the grooves of this knotted surface. Oh, no, no! Ah!

Ah, what? What happened? I would try and cast to cure wounds, I think, to try and heal him. Okay, you reach down and you realize you have almost no time to execute this. It will take a medicine check for the spell to be successfully applied before he passes. Oh, okay. Let's twist of dread that. Oh!

I wish I had that for a fun box. No! It got better, it got better. With the Twist of Dread, do you take the second roll or do you take the worst of the two rolls? Oh, worst of the two. It's like disadvantage. Oh, probably. So you just take the worst of the two and you keep the original. There's only one difference. It would be a 16. 16. You reach forward and you are about to unleash your magical energy, but by the time you touch his chest...

You realize that this creature is gone. This child has passed in the moment that this death rattle escaped its lungs. I was gone for a couple minutes. What happened? Did he do that, Yorneir? Yorneir. I don't believe so. No, this is not... I saw an image of hope in the weird. I peered and I was able to go into a trance. And I saw...

Great. I saw a sun go black, but then I saw a tree of life erupt and bring the sun back. It will be difficult, a challenge, but we need the strength to persevere. This was the vision I received from the runes. We shouldn't be in here. We gotta get away from this thing. I don't want to stand in here anymore. Young lady, please avert your eyes. You should not be saying this. We're all gonna need professional help after this. I say that to Daisy. Daisy.

Thank you. We should get his body out of this thing. We shouldn't leave it here. I can take it. I'll carry him. I figured you might want to.

You're feeling strong enough, Mr. Fireblossom? Your hand is already on him, so it feels natural enough to get under him. You can still feel the warmth in the body underneath you, and you're able to pick him up just as you are starting to shuffle. On the wind, all five of you can hear very faintly. Where's that coming from? Possibly a ritual from on top of the mountain.

It's getting louder now. It sounds like it's approaching. This rhythmic chanting and humming. Can we get a sense of if it's coming from top down or... Make a perception check. We gotta get out of here. We can't stay here. I think we should clean up those of us who need to.

With a 13, you realize that this sound, in order for you to hear it on such a windy mountaintop, must actually be quite close. And sure enough, as you turn in the direction of what you can get a sense of the sound is coming from, a procession of robed silver dragonborn.

covered in blue start to make their way down this curved path that would lead up to the top of the mountain. They're walking in unison and you can see their metallic faces all solemnly humming together, chanting, clearly making their way down for

whatever the next step of this is. Oh, no, no, no, this is not good. They are not going to be happy to see that you've picked up the kid. We can't be here. They're going to lose their minds. They just killed a child. I understand, but there's a lot more of them than there are of us. And we are severely outmatched and we're undersupplied and I don't know what they're going to do. It's going to be very unpredictable.

What choice do we have? Fate led us here. I suggest we accept our fate and we confront them. Oh, oh, I don't like this. I don't like this at all. I didn't ask for any of this! I would wager that I'm a lot better at wielding an anchor than they are. All right, if that's the decision we're making, then I'm staying with you. I'm not gonna run away now. Oh, gods, what are we doing? Hey, at least we get to kill something a little less scary than horrible elder abominations.

Okay. The procession stops, and they clearly have now spied the five of you. And the first dragonborn of the many lines, there's perhaps ten or so of these dragonborn, all wearing these light blue, sort of tied at the neck, beautiful robes. And again...

just like the boy's body, seems to be frosted with highlights that ripple almost and change as they move. And the first one steps forward. Friends! I have my anchor completely gripped, like white-knuckled. What is going on here, friends? Do not misunderstand. You look very confused. I'm sure that you feel this way. But hear us out.

And another one steps forward. This is necessary. You have to understand, please. Are you out? Necessary? This is a dead child. There's no defense for this? It is a dead child, yes. But it is our way. If you will join us, we will show you. We will be able to make this day matter.

Jo-join you? Jo- what if we end up like the kid? You think we're just gonna blindly follow you and trust you after that? You... you do not know our traditions. We will show you our ways. We will show you how to... how to... make winter right. I'm just gonna look to Yorner. What is the nature of this ritual? What is the purpose of such a sacrifice? It is... both a symbol and magic.

It is how we will ask the sun to return. The sun to return? Will the sun disappear? If we fail today on midwinter, we... I'm going into Lethica. I don't know why. That works, yeah. If we fail, then we will not see spring. Presumably, I would know of cultures in Mammut that do similar things.

where they sacrifice their own in some way for purposes. It's probably not a shock to me that a group of humanoids would do this. Would you agree? I would absolutely agree. I don't know if your circle would have been as violent and brutal as this. My circle certainly wouldn't, but a race of humans or whatever, like a culture. And certainly them believing that they're doing the right thing is a possibility. Right.

You believe that this is your work. If you do not do this, that the sun will be gone forever. This is not the first time. Was this done willingly? Did he make this choice for himself? Or was it forced upon him? He was not pushed. He walked willingly off the cliff face. Willingly? He's a child! He couldn't have made that choice? He shouldn't have made that choice. He shouldn't have had to.

But he did. It is very hard. If I could make the choice myself, I would. But I have no innocence. It is... Is it his blood that is holy? What is the reagent that is used in this way? What was his name? Nodus. Let's call him Nodus. He is a sweet boy. Was. He will make you smile again, I promise. You say that like his life...

did not end here today, but the viscera upon my body would disagree. On any of the other many days of the year, you would be right. But on this day, he will be reborn. And what sort of blood god do you worship? We worship the lands. We worship the sun in the sky. We worship the Drakkar herself.

This is way too much for me to take in. To the power of herself. All right. What needs to be done for this young one for him to have his life back? We must find the midwinter father and the midwinter mother to beg for the child. It is a day of celebration. It is a day of revelry.

We will give the sun something to shine on so that it is drawn back to the world. So that today is the shortest day. So just so I'm on the same page here as everybody else, you've done this before. You've found this couple. You've begged for a child's life back and they've come back from the dead. No, no, he...

He is a lost child. We do not know his natural parents. We are talking about the winners of the festival. The mother and father. All right. Will you join us? Were you expecting us? No. No, it has been a very long time since we have had guests. Can I insight check him? Yeah.

That is a plus eight, it's 19. Oh yeah, let's go. Big money. He is not approaching you. He is keeping his hands together. He seems pleading and earnest. Oh, I have a proposition. If you don't mind me, Mr. Yornear, this whole culty thing is more your wheelhouse, but perhaps we see how this works.

Mr. Stabascotch and I return from the dead, perhaps by those same primal forces. But if this day goes by and that child does not return to us, I'll smash your skull in with an anchor. How does that sound? It is a deal.

I like your enthusiasm and quick response. I like you. I am Sondar. I'm a Barnabas Dreadwake. Pleasure to meet you. He's now approaching you, and the others are starting to feel a little bit more relaxed, too. Taizhan, you're still holding a dead child, but...

As this group starts to show up, they're smiling. They look at you almost like an old friend, even in this current strange situation that you all have now found yourselves in. Oh no, I don't like this. I don't like this. This is going really pear-shaped really quickly. This is fate, Scrape. It is not chance that we ended up here. That I appeared into the weird moments before the ritual. This is not chance. This is fate.

Their ways killed this child. They're wrong. If this is what they do to see spring, they don't deserve to see it. I don't smile, but like I spit the last words out of my mouth and like fire would look out of my, between my teeth. Would you doom if this, as they say is true, would you doom the rest of this land to eternal winter?

For the sake of one child. It is not right to force a decision like that upon a child. I'm not saying it is, but what I am saying is that sometimes it is more complicated. Yeah, and it may be more complicated, but we don't have to willingly join a party as if this isn't difficult. Well, I will join this party because I believe we are here for a reason. That reason is to join them and to assist in this. And I saw it in the runes.

moments before. So I will join you. You are? I am called Jornir. I am Sondur. It is good to meet you. I am sure this is a shock, but we must make merry this day. We must share in gifts, in games, pranks. Pranks. Join us. Help us get the attention of the great light in the sky.

Ask it to come back with us. Where do we do this? As we make our way up the mountaintop. We will take the child, and by the end of the day, we will hope. If we fail in our mission and the boy does not return, it will not matter if you have an anchor. The winter will never end. Listen, Taishan, I don't like this any more than you do. Trust me, I don't have any idea what's going on here. But...

What they say is right, then maybe everything will be set right. And look, no one's ever said that Scrim's stab of scotch is a leader, so I'm following along with you on here. A second one of these other silver dragonborn walks up, and it is my honor to carry the child this day. I can take this burden off of your hands. I have...

Not done it for many years, but I would be happy to do it now if you would allow me to make the back of the procession. It's no burden to me. I'll carry him. Then we will be at the rear of the festival. I will stand with you. I'll be right next to you, Mr. Sonder. I tap on my anchor. We will make our way up to the first camp. There will be food there, and we can talk.

Why didn't you say so? I know it's a little inappropriate, but you have supplies? You did mention food. You have any food on you now? Perhaps a vole? I do not have food on me now. I have... We will be making our way... You don't bring snacks on your processions? Our first meal is cookies, if you like cookies. Yeah, I'll take anything at this point. It's been a very long time since we've had anything to eat.

We are almost done, I'm sure. We can go just up this way. How long? Not 200 feet. A 45-minute walk. I peak up a little bit when I hear cookies, but I hate how it makes me feel. All right, well...

I don't really know how this works. Are you going to lead the way? Yes, please do lead the way. Sondra turns and claps. And the others almost like cheer. They're...

Cognizant enough to not like immediately jump up and like be all excited and what have you but they are um clearly in a mood of merriment as they turn and start to make their way up and Staking close to taishan you watch them all start to flow up and around the side of the the mountain face and You begin to make your way and sure enough. Why don't you both make perception checks at advantage? I

I just want to go on record as I make my perception check to say that this entire thing makes Scrim sick, but deep in the pit of his stomach he's still hungry. Yeah, me too. Perception at advantage? 23. 23? 17. 17? Surely enough, just as Sonder said, you start to turn around the side of the cliff and...

On the wind, there is the smell of baked goods. Oh, by the gods. It smells almost gingery in the nature of its quality. I can't even think about how long it's been. And underneath that, there's not a honey, but some sort of a sweet ale-like smell.

Is that ginger? I think they might have alcohol. Is that ginger snaps and butterbeer? It has to be. It must be. It couldn't be anything else. My nose wouldn't deceive me. You reach... You have a moment to talk amongst yourselves before you reach the first camp. I'm extremely distracted now. Oh.

I do the thing where I Scooby Doo off. And I start floating on the scent trail. Incredible. Oh yeah, those cookies, hot ginger snaps. Turning around the next corner, you find another one of these flat outcroppings. And you can see that there are a number of mesas and campfires.

that house more druid scared the shit out of me that was a good one sorry I have to do it every time I just want Durge to think he's always in trouble of being a little on fire

Keeps a good DM on their toes. Where did I... Ah, okay. That's why I wish that you were there for a while. You'd be able to just light me on fire. Threaten to. No, you probably should just light me on fire.

That way I really am always on my toes. Like, oh, when's he going to pull out the flamethrower? At this point, I would, if I feel like I can talk to Yorneir, maybe not even like trying to lower my voice, I'll say, Mr. Yorneir, you are the shaman here. I will trust your judgment. If you feel like this is some sort of perversion of the land and isn't the right path and is against fate,

You say the word and I start swinging. Sorry. Oh, I thought it was my computer. That's my alarm. I'm with Barnabas. I mean, you know this better than anybody. I'm going in blind here. I'm trusting you. What I will say is that just because you do not understand their ways, their practices, and their rituals, no matter how unfortunate they may be, it does not mean that it is inherently sinister what they do.

They could be genuine. I have lived a long time and I have been all over Mammut and I have known cultures that have done similar things. That have sacrificed their elderly, sacrificed their young ones, sacrificed those based on faith. And it is not the way of my order. I do not believe it is the correct interpretation of the old faith but

They too believe that they are doing good. They too believe that they are bringing good crops the next year. A fruitful hunting season. Bringing the seals back to the fjords. That said, this may not be as they say. And I'll say it. I'm not gonna try to hide my voice. I'll be very blunt. But you made your agreement. And I will allow you to honor that.

Uh, that's something we can agree on, Mr. Yorneir. I trust your judgment in these matters. So, it may be hard to believe, but I believe that Vamuth sent me here for a reason. I am exactly in the right place. I am where I'm supposed to be. And as they said, they worship their god. It's not the land, it is a she. It is a... it is their own god. What they do is not that different from my order.

You think Mahmood and Drakkar know each other? I do not know. I received visions of this land when I had my incident. Perhaps there is some connection. I do not know. Either way, I will continue forward. I won't stop you from eating all the cookies.

I'm going to eat most. I'm gonna at least eat one more than Scrim. Well, we'll see about that. And for what it's worth, I appreciate the cookie blessing, but I certainly didn't need your permission. I just want to go on record. Well, I was just trying to say that, you know, if you are reanimated through some sort of horrible curse, I won't prevent your base animal desires to eat cookies.

Thank goodness for that. Any turn, you can see fire, small campfires all spotted around this very large outcropping, and you can see not dozens, but quite a number of these silver dragonborn, and some of them are indeed making cookies nearby, but you also spy a number of other really bizarre sights right away.

in the center of this outcropping is a huge bonfire and what appear to be bushels of hay that people are forming into the shapes of beasts or symbols or something like that and then hooking and almost like an effigy burning down at the top that seem to have great meaning to them and they're sort of laughing or

or yelling at these different symbols as they are being submerged in the fire. To the side, you can also see that there are two pools of water, and unbelievably, they are not frozen, but even more unbelievably, there are people who are plunging themselves into the fire and trying to stay in for what seems like as long as possible before jumping over to one where they are putting hot rocks

that looks like almost a steaming sauna that has fruits and other citrus items floating therein. You can see some people have removed the top of their robe and put

these sort of fake wigs on and they dip their hair into the water and then try to shape them into different beasts equally well. At this moment, looking at the strange surprise on all of your faces, Sonder walks up. These are traditions of long, long story history of our people.

Our circle believes in connecting to nature, but also to our people. And it may seem very strange, but understand this. The...

celebrating and joining in on the activities, they are attempting to earn tokens. Tokens that will allow them to perhaps beef that father, or perhaps be that mother that may have the honor of bringing back the child at the top of the mountain. If you have any interest in this,

Please share in our activities, share in our cookies, share in anything you see fit and you would be perhaps find this honor on your own shoulders. I will partake in the cookies. Thank you. Me too. But you're saying that you would let us outsiders compete for tokens?

To potentially take part in your rituals? It has been a long time since we've had any outsiders, but it's this Uzi ritual that was performed all across Drakkar and by many races and by many peoples. You would be not just welcome, but happily invited. I know that what you saw was very violent to start, but it is...

our attempt to undo that violence that makes this ritual possible. Well, I do like tokens, and I really like games, and I really, really like tokens. Joini, what do you think about this? What do I think about what? Competing. Winning some tokens. Trying to become this... It is midwinter. Elder couple. Part of these festivals is supposed to... We are supposed to eat. We're supposed to have fun, relax, talk.

Enjoy the day, despite the grim pining we received. You look over and you see Daisy. She's just like... Are those just help yourself, Sam?

And she points at like 20 feet, there's like a bench of these fucking things. I'll be back! I'm just gonna like scramble over and start grabbing cookies. You're gonna learn that was a mistake! You run over and you can see these are shaped knotted cookies, very similar to the Celtic knot patterns that you saw on the surface of the Bloodstone. And...

They're made of bark flour, but they are actually even more delicious for it. It's not like biting a tree. There's an earthy quality to them, but they do clearly have been seasoned by sugars and by seasoning spices. You get senses of the Dracarion equivalent of nutmeg and ginger and...

Yeah, it's a delicious cookie. Oh, no. Or a little chewy, not like crisp and crunchy, just like something that almost has a brownie-like quality to it.

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Barnabas, Scrim, you are smashing these cookies one after the other into your mouth, and just adjacent to that, you do see what appears to be a tankard, a large barrel with a spout on it and a variety of open flagons for what might be able to help wash that down. I proceed to help myself. You pour it in, and what you find is a bunch of

blood meat in the bottom of your tankard. It's called blood meat because of its color, not because it has blood in it. You smell it. It doesn't seem to have any actual blood in it, but you take a sip, and it's bright and delicious and sweet, and it goes extremely well with the cookies. At this moment, you're approached, both of you, by a...

another dragonborn and hands you two small, like almost shot glasses. Hi. What's this? Well, you have any milk?

We may have milk, yes. But first, after meals, we say, hi! And we drink a shot of water. Water? Is it water? It's water. Good water. Hi! Hi! And others are coming in. You hear the echoing highs. As people see you guys starting to participate, they're waving. Hi! Hi! Hi! You can hear that go all the way down. It doesn't taste like water.

As soon as you sip it, yeah. It's very fresh, like river water. It tastes delicious. I set the shot glass down, and I begin to fill my cup again with the blood mead. Keep glass. Oh, you want me to keep that? I was going to ask when. Many more meals ahead. And we just keep doing those shots of water? After every meal. All right. I'll keep it on me. All right.

Oh, it's a palate cleanser. Who's the recipe for these cookies? You have to speak to Monarch. Monarch? Yes, our cook in the fourth camp. Oh, that's a good idea. We can head on over there. I don't know how they get them so chewy. Well, cookies are good, but do you guys have any meat or eggs or eggshells or fruit or fruit rinds? Much meat comes later. Much meat on the way, but first, tokens. I'm going to Plunge Pool.

Plunge pool? What's the plan? Is that on the way or past the cook? Plunge pool! And he starts to undo his robe and starts to walk over to the bath in order to take a dip into what is clearly extra freezing water.

Can I bring my drink with me into the plunge pool? Is that taboo? That's fine. Well, I gotta go check this out at the very least. Are you gonna go talk to the guy? I'm gonna go. I gotta go see this plunge pool. Don't we get tokens for the plunge pool? It's one of the traditions, yes. Oh! I will, uh, I'll follow him and begin to take off my winter clothes. I am Ruba. You are? Scram.

I'm Barnabas, straight away at your service. Let me take off my net. Do any of you start to participate in the activities? I would look at the sauna, and I would be like, it's been a long time since I have experienced one of those. That would be very nice right now, so I will...

I will enjoy these. You see two feminine silver dragonborns are clearly just like head back, just like lounging arms over the edge of the depression that makes this pool. And you can tell that it looks luxurious. You can even get vapor of, clearly there's been like some sort of grain alcohol poured into this. It is a hot and steamy bath. I picked the wrong pool.

So, yeah, I guess I'll remove, like, a bunch of my gear and stuff, and I'll probably just keep my pants on. You don't get a token if you just come to the sauna. I mean, you're invited, certainly. You would be good company for Vimo and Biko, myself being Biko, for some reason. I'm referring to myself in the southern person. Meet your Mule. Ah, pleasure to meet you. Yes, uh,

You need to go. It looks like your friends are about to endure the harsh elements of the Plunge Pool. This is enough for me. Thank you. Okay, and Taishen, you are standing there, still carrying this great heavy weight, Queenie at your side, and you can tell that Daisy has silently made her way over to the bonfire and is starting to work

the hay into some shape of whatever creative imagination is bringing to the fore. What are you doing, both of you? Do I get a sense that there's a...

a place that they would have put the kid to rest for right now at the festival? Right at the top of this ascent, just before this outcropping, there does appear to be a stone that looks specifically like it would, to be laid down for rest.

Okay, just a stone? Yeah. Okay. I would go... I'd walk first to the hay where Daisy is and get as much as I could additionally. You get some food and... No, no, just the hay. Oh. Just the hay. You grab some hay, sure. And then I'd go back to the... Yeah. I would go back to the stone and try and make it like...

A little nicer, just with like a little bed of hay. Okay. And lay the child down. You lay down, notice, and his face looks serene, at rest, even though there's quite a bit of damage. The head hadn't actually taken much of the impact, and so it's just eyes closed, looking up into the sky. Whoa.

At least he's at peace now. To grow up in such a harsh land. He didn't get a chance to grow up. No, he didn't. I don't know how everyone can just party after this. Maybe... Maybe I'm different? I've never seen anything like that and I look down at my overalls covered in blood and dragon scales and I look to my friends that are eating and bathing and enjoying the night and

I just don't understand. Even if we can't change it, it's still not something I've ever seen before. I watch the laugh go out of that poor child's eyes, and I can't think of anything else. I feel broken. I felt his dragon's breath fade away in my arms. The only piece of hope that I can hold onto now is that

Your near is right, and somehow this serves a larger purpose, and somehow he will be reborn. And that doesn't excuse it. They will never know me as a friend. That may be true, and I hope it is, but it'll never erase the memory I made today. Yes. It'll never... Nothing will ever wash the blood from these overalls. I'll... I don't have a change of clothes.

I'll never be able to look at these again and not think of that poor boy. I just... I'm gonna go look into the fire for a while. Okay. I need some time to myself. But if you need me, you know where to find me. Thank you. And if you do feel like eating a cookie or bathing and laughing, that's okay too. We all gotta handle things our own way, you know? And even though I know you're not reincarnated you from the death of a Wendigo...

I do know that we're all different, we all come from different places, and though I'll never understand Yornir, or Barnabos, or Scrim, or really even you, you're all my family. So you do what you need to do to make your heart a little bit lighter, alright? Well said, Queenie. I have no appetite now, looking down at notice, but I have a feeling we'll need our strength for whatever comes next.

No. I'll reach down and grab his little hand. I hope that the choice you made was worth it, little man. And I hope that I do get to meet you someday. But if I don't, I hope that you have found peace. Alright, I gotta go. This is just much too heavy for me. Come on, bees.

I'm going to pat my honeypot and I'm just going to walk over to the fire. I'm not going to pick up anything or make anything with them. I'm just going to stare into the flames. Okay. Let's go. Barbara, scrim. You are staring down into a still pool of water. The last dragonborn who couldn't take it anymore has jumped out and plunged himself next to Yornir and the two ladies. And, oh,

Oh, you hear a sigh of relief. He changed pools. He changed pools. And it's very obvious that this other pool is almost right next to this pool because of how...

the cold of this water makes you feel like you want to get into the hot tub. It's like jumping into a pool and then hopping into the hot tub. It's like the greatest thing ever. And, uh... How do we feel standing... I'm in my iron monitor pants. How do I feel standing in this cold underwear? Do you feel it? I mean, it's negative 40, negative 45 degrees. It's fucking cold, but not so cold as to make you make a constitution saving throw in a mechanical sense. Do I feel weird? Like, do I feel weird about it? Like, do I notice that I'm just, like, not as cold as I should be? Oh. Oh.

Make an insight check. I'm just curious. If that strikes me as odd, like, oh, I'm not, you know. This is quite pleasant. Yeah. I'll go. Mason, it's every day for you.

You're joined by another dragonborn who basically jumps in, almost cannonballs, and it splooshes around. I got a 14, and as I'm preparing to... I'm watching Barnabas get in, and I'm going to follow him. It does occur to you that you aren't...

that you feel like maybe it's the adrenaline of what's happened this morning, but it is weird. Or the mead, perhaps? It's a little weird. And you get in just as Barnabas is settling in, and it occurs to you that this is somewhat magical water, that it ignores cold resistance. So... Oh, shit. Well... Sitting down, the opposite one, our goal is to stay in as long as possible. Oh, shit.

Oh, that really hits you once it gets past the ghoulies. Roll a... Woo! Oh! Oh! Oh! Longest stay in win game, eh? And what you do is roll your hit dice. Oh, Jesus. Subtract your constitution modifier. Oh, no. By the crown of great King Krav! All right, hold on. Hit die minus con modifier? Yep. Oh.

Oh, I am not. Oh, hit die? Oh no, I'm okay at this. I should be okay at this. So what do you say, hit die? Take your hit die and subtract your... Total? Yeah. Wow. Subtract? So I don't know if I want a low number or a high number. To reduce the roll. Minimum one. Okay. Come on, so I got a spike at eight here. Wait, eight, right? Hit die? Yep. You're a D8. Modifier? Ah, shit, that didn't go in. I'm re-rolling it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Seven! My con modifier is unfortunately a four though, it's very high. Okay, so you take three damage. Oh! It's not real damage. Oh! Your max HP is going down. We're just tracking this for the purposes of how we're going to mechanically represent how cold it is. I'm just gonna do my hand. It's cold. So wait, I rolled a nine. Yes. My con is plus four.

Yes, so you take five from what your max HP would be and you start subtracting it and whoever can stay in the longest wins the game. Wow, this is pleasant! This other nameless dragonborn across the way is trying to concentrate and breathe and white knuckle it. Roll again. As I roll again, my teeth are chattering but I'm still sipping from the mead.

I take two damage. Another seven minus four, I take three points of damage. Oh, I thought you had four. Okay. Oh, so you wanna roll low on that. Yeah, you wanna roll low on the dice, because then you subtract your con. Yeah. And so the lower you roll on the dice... So me being a barbarian... So I'm taking max... I'm basically taking max damage. My high... Thus far. My beefiness makes me bad at doing con stuff. Well, but you also have a fuck-high, like, health pool, so... So... What are we...

Talk about while we're in here. Just concentrate on winning game. Okay. Can I get a cookie? That'll warm us up. No one seems to hear you, but there does seem to be someone observing. I never got my milk.

There does seem to be like almost a judge observing to see like who gets out last because it can sometimes be a narrow race. Just start rolling over and over and over because we need to get you guys down to the point where you maybe have to start making that saving throws. That's a four. So I take one. So that's my third roll. Let's just make sure we roll the same number of dice. So how many have you rolled? You're on four. So let me catch up.

So I don't take any damage there, right? If I go negative, or I take one. You take minimum one. Alright, so that puts me at 35 and then 34. Alright, so now this is the fifth roll. Yep. Oof, that's gonna be a big old four. So I go to 30. Six roll? Six roll? Hold on. Shit. That's four, so I don't take anything. I take one, so I go to 29. What is this, seventh roll? I take four. Oof. So I go to 25.

Eighth roll? On the eighth roll, this nameless dragonborn...

I can't, I can't, I... And you can tell he's nearly to the point of fainting when he just turns around and just jumps into the... Almost crawls and sprints into the hot tub, for lack of a better word. In his goolies. You hear him... You don't ever want to be freezing and get into hot water because you can give yourself nerve damage. Oh, well, he now can no longer feel, and...

His life is fucked. Join the club. Ninth roll. Between the two of you. Yeah. Who heads up? Who wins? Jesus, I'm rolling really high. It's clear that these dragonborn haven't lived at the bottom of the ocean. I didn't live at the bottom of the ocean either. This is kind of weird. I don't know how I'm able to do this. Fuck. That's the ninth roll. It's 17. I'll just tell you. That's fine. 37. Oh.

I almost max con - it's pretty crazy. I'm at 13

I don't know what roll this is, I'm just rolling. I'm keeping up with you. Okay. Oh, gee. I mean, you're still gonna crush me. I'm at 11. Okay, this is a big roll, this is a big roll. I take one there, so I'm not in 10. That was a big chunk. I'm at 20. You have the ability to take higher damage. I take another one, so I'm at nine. If I just keep rolling ones, I might be okay here. Yeah. There we go, another one. I'm at eight. I feel like I'm gonna tap out here, though. I'm at 20.

Oh, shit. I actually physically don't think now. Oh, no. I tap out before I get to one, because this puts me at five. If you want to start risking death saving throws. Fuck no! I got one to spare, and that's from a matter of perspective. Spring doesn't know that. But Andy's not that bad of a player. All right, Barnabus. This has been fun. But I could go way longer, but I'm out of meat. I'll see you later. No jumps, Mr. Savascox! No jumps! I climb out, and I go...

Do I feel like I need to get in the hot water? - We're gonna ignore the nerve damage realities and you get out and you're very cold. Even because you're so wet, the blowing wind now immediately chills you to the bone.

You should get in the water. As soon as I jump out of the water holding my tankard, I will... And I'll jump in, but I'll make sure that I keep the tankard above the water as I fully submerge. You are awarded a token by the Silver Dragonborn Druid. And now you guys can start taking those as you participate. The...

you are not awarded a token, but everyone claps and cheers when they see you and Barnabas. Oh, I give Mr. Stavis a big round of applause. He has 33% more health than I do. That's a large chunk. He's fucking huge. He did great, didn't he, ladies and gentlemen and everyone watching?

And everyone, hi! You hear more hi's. More milk! No one's brought you milk yet. You keep asking for milk. I would like some milk, please! Another round of milk! There's no milk at this camp, it seems. Everyone's just sort of looking around. I don't get any cookies with no milk.

You're free to... Oh, as you dip down, the other gentleman who you were competing against, he indicates that his name is Lachis. And would you like a little something extra? Yes, of course. This is very special. I once traveled across the Sea of Fog, and I found a great...

forest of humidity and heat and greenery. It was a strange land known as Chok. And there we fell the great snake and we were able to save its venom. Here, if you take more than a drop, you will die. But just...

If you take the end of this toothpick and suck on it, you will awaken to the world. Before you finish it, I put the toothpick in my mouth. Make a constitution saving throw. Okay. I'm gonna take a good one for this. I'm about to trip balls. If it matters, it is poison. I don't know. I don't think that matters for me. 23 on a con saving throw. 23. Um...

The poison doesn't poison you. You don't have the poisoned condition. Instead, you are... I'm a goblin. You are charmed. Oh. You are not charmed by any particular individual. You are not charmed by...

anything specific. You're charmed by everything specific. You are charmed by the world. You suddenly, as this ethereal makes... Yeah, your eyelids get fucking huge, and all of a sudden, the blood made, you look down, and it looks like you're staring down at the ocean, and the waves are crashing. You look...

at the steam coming up and it's making the most amazing hypnotic patterns in the air. You look at your friend Barnabas and you've never seen his tattoos and all these configurations. Them moving and animating across his skin almost. You are lucidly alive to the universe as soon as this happens. And you are all free to do what you wanna do after that effect occurs.

So did you join us in the hot tub or are you still chilling in the cold tub? Don't you keep rolling. Yeah. It'll eventually kill you. I mean, eventually you will either faint and have to be pulled out or you, but you've already been given a token. I'll get more cookies. You go get more cookies. Oh, you got milk. So you're in the hot tub. Yeah, I've been in the hot tub. I'm like staring into the tankard. My eyes are wide and I'm like, you weren't here.

I gotta ask you a question. Alright. You wouldn't lie to me, right? No, I have no reason to. Barnabas keeps saying that I died. Is that true? Yes. Did we die? Yes, you and Barnabas were dead. I saw your corpse. Oh god, I'm really freaking out, man. This is not new information. I didn't really believe it. I didn't really believe it.

I mean, I fell unconscious and then I was awake. That's a normal thing. Well, you are alive now. That's the important thing, is it not? So the... so the... The wind... It killed us? Yes. It killed you, it killed Barnabas, and then we killed it. You fight Wendigo.

Where did you come from? I've been right here. I gave you this. You are lightweight. He's sucking out his own toothpick. How do I? I can't take my eyes off him as I try to turn back to yours. How do I know I'm not dead right now? You're not dead because you are currently alive. I can confirm that. Whoa.

Whoa. Is he talking to me to pick up his hair? And, like, drop it on his shoulder. When you drop it, it doesn't seem to go down at the regular, like, gravity. Instead, it, like, lava flows down and then, like, pools and, like, hits his shoulder and continues. Turns into a giant red snake.

Are you well? Never better. I brought cookies! Oops! There goes one into the gym. Oh, that'll be good. Okay, who wants cookies? Cookie! Oh, cookie for you, stranger! Cookie for you, Mr. Skippoo. My cookie falls into the hot water. I'm trying to push it out.

We soak, we laugh, and we cheer in defiance of the leaving sun to show it should return to life. I'm here for the cookies.

This is just pleasant. And you are soaking. Queenie, you're staring into the fire for what feels like a long time when a female dragonborn sits down next to you and asks just very plain and blunt. You are not participating in the festivities. I...

I think I understand why. It is very strange, I'm sure, to see our ways for the first time, I know. Yeah, it is. But it's not just that it's strange. You, I'm assuming, grew up like this, yeah? These are your ways, this is how you live. My whole life. So you've come to expect it. I was simply with my friends, looking at a calendar, when a young child fell to its death...

and is now present upon my frock. We can get you a frock, but I don't think the solution is in cleaning or replacing your clothes. It's a shocking thing. I would be shocked by it as well if I did not know by the power of Trakar, by the power of this land. I've seen this happen many, many times.

hundreds of times. And it is always the same. At the end of this day, we will be cheering for the sun's return. The sun that is this boy. And she gestures over with her head to notice. I hope you're right. Please also understand that it can fail. There is a chance if we are not all filled by the light of the sun, filled by

The... the story, the tale of this journey that we make to the summit. I'm not part of your clan. The sun shines down on you like it does everyone else here. It's not shining on me this day. Is there nothing I can get you or do for you? I think I just need time to myself. I appreciate you coming and talking to me. But our journeys, our paths are different. We haven't walked the same road.

And I imagine if I were walking in your shoes, I would feel differently. You said you've seen this time and time again. Well, this is my first. And I don't know how to... I don't quite know how to stomach it. I see that you have a number of small friends with you. Oh yeah, my bees. This was not produced by bees, but it is a day of gift giving. And I...

would like for you to have this gift. And she reaches into her cloak and pulls out a small bottle, a vial, and she hands it. This is pine cone honey. Well, thank you. I appreciate that very much. Please accept it.

I would be glad to accept your honey. And I'll open up my pot of bees and they'll fly out and they'll create a, they'll create a thumbs up. That's just what they do with their fleas. Thumbs up. You killed again.

And you open it up and it has this unbelievable pine scent, but you can tell that it's a very thick and sappy, delicious honey that's clearly made through some sort of fermentation process. Thank you very much. It's at this point that the gentleman who offered to take and carry the child walks up to you, Taishan. It is nearly time for us to move to the next camp. We must make it by the end of the day.

Would you still like the honor? You are guest here, and I am happy to make this my gift to you. I would still like to carry notice, if I may. We are ready to make our way to the next outcropping. Please, take him and stay at the rear. I will sing. Okay. I'll pick him back up. Start to make your way up, and another...

45 minute hour-long walk you ascend another 200 feet or so of this very long slow Rotation around the spiral that is the making of the the the last Ascent of the mountain and sure enough just as you come around there is an open rocky area flat flat rock and you can see here there are people

attempting to start fires and then once they have the fire going, doing fire performances, launching great balls of flame into the air. You can see there's a group of children all standing, sitting, while a woman orchestrates with her hands, clearly telling some sort of a rich story

They're all enthralled by her energy and by the story and the drama that's unfolding in front of her. I need you both to make a perception check for the advantage. Oh, I'd be honored. Have I come down yet or am I still tripping balls? Natural 20. Gotta give it up. Gotta give it up.

Thank you. So my perception is a 25. That'll be a 22 for me. Oh, both of you smell it right away, and you both immediately Scooby-Doo and float towards the direction. You don't even need to see it to know that this is meat. This is seared duck with some kind of a berry sauce and cardamom carrot mash.

The drink on the side here is some elderflower cordial. It pops and you can hear it fizz and actually overflow in the tankards that are being poured through. And of course, everyone finishes their drinks and then takes a shot of water. Hi! You can see this all very much. What are you all doing? Am I still trimming bowls?

You trip balls for this camp and then it'll be... So as we approach the camp and I'm smelling the food and I'm looking around, I'm perspiring a little and I look to Jornir and I look to Barnamos and I say,

Oh, gods. Oh, gods. No, my feet are shrinking. My feet are shrinking. My feet are shrinking. And I look at the guy who gave me the toothpick. And I say, hi, I got to help myself with some of that drink. Here. And I put five gold pieces in. I say, keep the change. And I run over to the elderflower liqueur. And I help myself. And I start drinking deeply. So why is Andy not in?

Exactly how much acid have you done? No, Andy, not Scrim. Same answer, same answer. I think we should absolutely play the Feywild campaign, but Andy's character is just Andy. Okay.

What's wrong, Andy? Who's Andy? Join us. It's literally an isekai. Welcome to the fan!

You're the king of games! We've been waiting for you to defeat the Dark Lord! You have no spells or abilities. I have a sharp stick. I'm gonna formally request that the

- The poison lasts the entire rest of the session. - I already know how long the venom fades and it's written right here on my sheet. So those are the things that you see. This tail, Taishan, if you make a perception check.

And I will say there's another stone. This one has already been adorned, this time by a piney wreath. Word has traveled of your gesture with the hay, and clearly somebody has taken the time to carefully lay down a softer mat in respect and reverence of what you are attempting to do, to meet you halfway.

Um... Uh...

Yeah, I would, oh, uh, 17. 17. This entire tale is in Draconic, and so you're the only one who can hear the few words that are, it's still an ancient tongue, but it is absolutely the case that if you were to go there, you'd be able to participate in, like, listening to the story with these children.

Just letting you know that your ears perk up and you start to be like, "Oh, this is something about bountiful lands." And, "Oh, there's characters and heroes and happenings." What are the rest of you all doing while Taishen thinks about his choice as he lays down the body of notice? Do I ever feel full?

Like, do I have the capability of becoming full? Or is it really just... Yeah, it just takes much more food. Okay. Yeah, I would just be helping myself to whatever meat that is there, and the food and the drink. You're pulling slices of seared duck, and there's a lot of this. As you are doing that, I'll actually have you make an intelligence check. Huh?

Not bad. So just straight up use my int modifier. Yep.

It's plus one, so I guess 17. With a 17, you're loving the food and being like, wow, how did they get all of this food up here? And before that thought even can resolve, that question in your mind, you notice the cordial and you hear it pop. And it starts to... You're handed one of these delicious elderflower... I would think I'd just take it and drink it. This is not going to end well. You're near. I...

Is there anything that you hear besides eating meat?

There's eating meat, there's going and listening to an unintelligible story, or there's the fire performance, or you could go and talk to any of these folks who are themselves sharing laughs and sharing food together, going from party circle to party circle. Given that this has been, like, this isn't too dissimilar to festivals for me,

in Mammoth that I would participate in. I'd probably just enjoy the meat kind of quietly and sort of observe and kind of look around and sort of like eat by myself and just kind of take it all in.

Queenie finds herself next to another campfire. Yeah, I would have probably, I think, ripped a piece of her shirt, or she would have ripped a piece of her shirt. And I have all of these needles, and over the blood spots on her jumper, she's going to start sewing little sunflowers. Okay. To kind of cover them up. Um...

That's all. Okay. Uh, and the next hour will pass with or without your participation, uh, before, as the day progresses. So engage in what activities you want. And then the pattern of the day that they go and they do this specific order, this ritual in this particular way, these, these activities in this particular way, uh,

and then taking the young boy in a procession up to the next camp until they make it to the way to the summit is becoming evident even at this early stage. - How do we get more tokens? What can we participate in? - You can do a fire performance, which starts with starting with fire. - Not this gap. - Or starting without fire. You have to start a fire from scratch all on your own and then make a performance, a creative endeavor with the fire for this purpose.

And you can see others are participating. It seems to be like there's a maximum number of players and then the person who gives the best one and gives the loudest cheers is awarded the token by the adjudicator who is watching that particular behavior. I'd go up to the fire making contest to sort of take a look and see

- Kind of watch how they're doing it, and then if I feel like there's an opportunity to kind of jump in, I'd give it a try. - Okay. You watch as they very quickly put down the, some of them are doing the sort of classic thing, others have their own striking stones.

you watch them, and then they pick a branch or something like that, and they either do, like, a dance of spinning the fire or something along those lines. One of them gets a... does a really terrific fireball out of their mouth using some of this spirit that's right next to the... to this particular section of the... next to this particular game. And...

he wins the token. And you can see two other Dragonborn walk up. They seem to be engaged in this competition and you'll be competing against them. - And it's just building, there's two different competitions. - There's building fire and then turning it into a performance. - Oh.

I think I'd do it even though I wouldn't really have any cons, like, you know, like... Hero's a shadow puppet of a wolf. Yurnir just wants to build a fire. Okay. I mean, your speed at doing that and getting to the performance aspect is clearly part of the judging criteria. Okay. Yeah, let's do it. Let me see what kind of stuff I have. Roll for initiative. Twelve. Twelve.

You're actually first. Which means that you build the fire faster. The other two sit down and as experienced as these druids might be, you seem to really know what you're doing when it comes to putting together a natural fire and very quickly you go from smoke to burning kindle to creating a small campfire and now that you have something burning in front of you, what do you do with it?

There's one here. It's like bright daylight, right? Like it's still the middle of the day? It's not even noon yet. So there wouldn't be shadows? No, and I will also articulate that it's midday, but the sun hasn't shifted. From what you can see of the sun, it is still hanging in that same spot on the horizon. Oh, weird.

Look at the edge. It's not like up in the sky at all. Nope, it's not doing this. It seems to be right there on the horizon. Um... I would probably like light a branch in the fire and

And what I would do is I would just sort of like, I would probably do something similar that I would have done in the past. It's like, you know when you take a stick and you kind of like do it fast? I would like kind of try to do that, but it probably wouldn't work very well. And I'll draw sort of shapes of animals. And then I'll use drillcraft to like replicate the call of the animal that I might do for like the village children or whatever. Just some sort of fun little... Make a performance check. That's really good. That's really good.

I'm into it. I was wondering when you were going with that. It was almost a 14. Yeah, it was almost a 14. It's the log nut if I've ever seen it. Well, it's probably a...

Performance, you say, four. Oh, no. I was going to say that the others really did a shitty job because I got a seven and an 11, and I was like, there's no way he's going to... Yeah, plus zero. Plus zero. Damn. One of them is doing the equivalent of devil sticks where he's lit both sides of the room. He's doing this flipping stuff. Oh, that's just cool. Yeah.

And he wins the token. Better luck next time! I just like building fire this fall. That's what I do. A dragonborn walks up to you, Barnabas. Jooska! Jooy!

Miska. No, my name is Juska. We're just a bunch of Neanderthals. Like, what's going on, man? I noticed you have pipe. I do have pipe. I enjoy smoke myself. Oh, do you? Do you care for some...

What was it? Fernwet rope. Fernwet rope? I have not heard of this, but it smells delicious. I thought maybe we trade.

What do you got to smoke, my friend? Cannon make. Ooh. And he holds up a small pouch of his own, and it's this dark, dark green piney-looking tobacco. Ooh. And it's... Okay. You give it a smell, and it has this sort of nutmeg, cream, spice, almost like an eggnoggy smell to it. You guys are just smoking dope and slinging rope? LAUGHTER

Those are my memoirs. I'm not there. I don't say that. I have respect for this game. Do you?

He gestures and holds out some tobacco for you, and he has his own pipe, and you can pack a... Yeah, he takes some... I thought we were doing this puff-off-ass. No, no, no, no, no. He has his own pipe. Stop him from hurting the rope. He lights his own pipe, and he takes a deep inhale. I have not had new tobacco for a long time. Thank you, thank you, friend.

It's my pleasure. It's always nice to meet a friend who enjoys a good long bottom leaf. And a big ring. Smoke ring. He blows out. And he is able to... Actually, let's see if he can. Nope. He attempts to blow a smoke ring through a smoke ring, but he seems inexperienced with it. It's a difficult maneuver. I'm just going to presume that because I have control air and water that that's something I can do.

Oh, wow. You could probably get even more creative. You create a galleon that flies. Oh, yeah. That's really cool. Have you seen this one before?

An actual galleon goes through the ring. Seeing this revelry, this merriment, your creativity, someone rushes over and slaps a token in your hand. Oh, bullshit! That wasn't even a cop- Bullshit! Who's judging this shit? That's just unbelievable. I can't believe this. I don't even cheat this bad.

Oh, there we go. Here, I'll help you with your cheating turn. Oops. LAUGHTER Andy is king of petty. King of petty. I knew that was going to get me. Bookmarking that for favorite moments. LAUGHTER This is still the second camp, correct? This is the second camp. Yeah, I'm still waiting to come down with this horrible trail. LAUGHTER

Mr. Stabberskotch, how are you doing? Never had a bottom bus. I'm doing good. And I'm still just shoveling meat and drink into my mouth, like alternating. And I'm really not focused on anything else. I'm very focused on the food of this game. You know, Mr. Stabberskotch, I've always been thinking how...

If you're eating the eggshells... Uh-huh. Yeah. Right? Yeah. But you're not smashing them first. Well, I mean, I smash them when I put them in between my teeth and... But does that really count? I'm not quite sure. I don't know. It could perhaps lead to witches in your stomach. Ah! There's a red! I've got two tokens! How many do you have? Oh, you're busy! Oh, you're busy! I'll come back later! You're winning!

At this very moment, from all the food that you've eaten at this very moment is when your stomach chooses to like grumble. And to your ears, it sounds like. Thank you. That was my best Nick game.

What do you mean, is everything okay? I was like, why are you guys on the camp, T-Corner? Some people can't take their snake venom. Is everything okay? What can I do? I explain the witch situation in extreme detail. Oh, you have witches in your-- And I don't realize how loud I'm talking and the entire camp could hear me screaming about witches in my stomach. It's the witchuation. Yes, exactly, exactly.

I'm gonna look like a really grave, and I'll just say, scream, I'm so sorry, there's nothing I can do. I, like, kind of collapse, like, onto the ground. I begin to, like, sob, and, like, I can't move, and, you know, I'm just like... Yeah, this is... My limbs are peaking now. You're peaking now. I, like... I feel like I'm melting, but also simultaneously very heavy. And I, like, can't get up. Ah, what a world! What a world! I'm melting! Ah...

You guys keep looking at me. What are you guys doing? Oi, what else can I do for a token? I feel like I need, uh, you know, three's the charm, as they say. Give a gift! Ah! A gift! Who wants a gift? Um, one of the kids, uh, darks away from the, uh, story. Here's the story, uh, the term, uh, gift. And, um, he runs up. What's your name?

My name is Barnaboos Dreadway. What's your name, young man? My name is Onism. Onism? I don't know why that sounds so naughty. I don't know. I don't know why. It just does.

I'm no surgeon, but I'm pretty sure that an old crewmate of mine too, in some way, found it on the ground. It was in your face, correct? When you said it. Yeah. I don't know what that means, Mr. Hardwick. No!

That's all right. What do you fancy, lad? What would I fancy? That's a fantastic question. Oh, no. I like shiny stuff. Like toys. Oh, boy. I don't have toys. Oh, I have just the thing. I think I see something behind your...

Not your ear, like your... head ridge. Oh, you think I see something? You got something stuck! Oh no! Oh, here, I'll get it, I'll get it, I'll reach behind my back. He clearly reaches behind with a coin on his palm. No. We'll see how he rolls. I guess I'll roll a sleight of hand. Yeah. I hope it's bad. No, it's actually really shocking. Brilliant. 21.

You've produced the coin. I'm not saying it was a coin. It stuck right at whatever you got. Palm something. You've palmed something and you're doing the classic. Oh, it's all coming out of your ears! And I reveal a big handful of ancient estuary seasoning. Amazing. The greatest spice in all the seas and lands of Avantris are now yours.

young Onitis. That's whatever your name is. Onism. Onism. Onism. Onism. Onism. Onism. Onism. Onism. Onism. Onism.

If you're watching this and your name is Onism, so sorry. About 20 feet away. Onism is the John of this. Scrim is on the ground, like, pinned to the ground. And he sees what's kind of happening at the corner of his eye and he says, Eat it. Eat it. There you go. It's delicious. It's like a poof of orangish seasoning. It's like that.

Barba's. Come sprinkle some over on me. Just a little bit. I just need a little. How are you feeling there, Mr. Stabiscotch? You ever better? There you go. Thank you. Are you alright? No, that's too much. Ah! Ah! Ah!

You need water, Fred. I'm not going to get out. You're here. I already need my mother. Oh.

You do not earn an additional token, I will say. The boy just walks away silently and goes back to listen to this. He doesn't have a taste for ancient history. Some people don't have any taste. He walks back and he continues to enjoy the story. I can't laugh anymore. You gotta toughen up those laughter muscles for me. You're gonna be in trouble. Oh no.

I would put notice down on the place laid out for him, not letting it go unnoticed that it was preserved or presented in a different format. And it wasn't just like bare rock. It was dressed up.

And I think hearing the story begin, presumably, I would edge with an earshot of it and try and listen in as long as I don't have to move too far away. Oh, you're catching, make a perception check. 20.

Sitting where you're sitting, the wind howling, you are able to catch some but not all words, and it also requires some translation. You know, there's a big difference between this silver dragonborn nature of Draconic and what you're familiar with, having grown in such...

For so many centuries, maybe millennia, in such different regions, there would necessarily be deviations in the uses of language. Some people say soda and others say pop, right? What's pop if you don't know the word pop means soda? But you get taste. The frozen wastes, bountiful lands of the Argent people spread even further than their dreams of conquest. Something, something.

Ouch. Something, something.

Winged beast, a dragon of ice, emboldened by the coming furies. Chaos everywhere. Something moving on. Starlight disappeared back into the pine forests and grassy plains. Common folk left to languish with no guidance. Ringing mountain halls always so close to broad lands now quiet. Do our lords and ladies yet live? Even the once mortals know not.

The morning stars march ever onwards. Hope glistens. Brilliance. Strength. Heroism. Love. We are not them. You have already passed onwards, into the stars.

And the story continues as you get these fleeting details and it continues to sort of weave this story of you can't tell if it's a fairy tale for children or if it's a history lesson. Is it both? Perhaps some sort of mythic Aesop's fable. But you enjoy the poetry of the language as it's being told. This is a horrible children's story.

What's the makeup of the people in front of me? There's the woman who's telling the story. And there's a bunch of kids. I'd say four to six children of different sexes. I would wait until the story ends and then attempt to cut in and see if I could...

Pardon me, do you mind if I take the stage? Oh! Governor? Please, my, my, uh, be my guest. Yes, I was just finishing, um, uh, Into the Stars, children. Uh, please, your name? Taishan. My name is Onism. It's a family name. Oh, my God.

He's gone. He's done. Look. He's gone. It's over. He's gotta tap out. He's gotta tap out. I'm done. And then she invites you with a wave to talk to the children. Good luck, Noidam. I cast Barbarian Inspiration on you. I would like to attempt to tell a...

better... a better story from my perspective, a brighter story. A story of when the the darkened clouds of you know, a

like a threatening storm attempted to come to the Jade Shell Village. And instead, the bright, brilliant light of Fu Zhao came and was able to banish the darkness and swirl in a warm blanket of...

safety and mystic comforts and tell the tale of a land that recognizes a different way, that enjoys

tea and similar games, but one where the sun rises of its own ability, of its own strength, and one that light shines freely for all who would bask in its radiant power. Make a performance check at advantage. That was really beautiful, Tashi. Oh.

Oh, we'll see. Especially like the part in Jade Soul Village where Luke and Duke are just... I understood that reference. Well, he doesn't like that part. A 17. 17.

It is. It takes a little time to warm up, but by the time you get going, you've passed the first act of your story. The kids are on the edge of their seats. Not that they have seats, they're sitting sort of cross-legged in front of you, but you can tell how engaged they are by their story, and by the time you're done, they are...

filled with hope and excitement over the new imagination that you've given them. They have new ideas in their childlike minds and so many of them are excited that three of them run up and give you one of their tokens each. This is bullshit. You know what? I think story time's a good idea. Kids, you want to hear a poem?

Oh boy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Scrim, how many do you have? I'm just like covered in frothy ancient estuaries. I'm still just breathing. I mean, I still have orange froth. You leave Scrim alone. He's trying to eat his ancient estuary. All right, kids. Thank you, kids. Thank you. This is a tale from my homeland of Yonah.

He came to town like a midwinter storm. He rode through the fields so handsome and strong. His eyes was his tools and his smile was his gun. But all he had come for was having some fun.

He brought disaster wherever he went. The hearts of the girls was to hell, broken scent. They all ran away so nobody would know and left only men because of Cottontail Joe. If it hadn't been for Cottontail Joe, I'd have been married a long time ago. Where did you come from?

Where did you go? Where did you come from, Cottontail Joe? All the kids riot. Where did he come from? Where did he go? Where did he go? Did you say an advantage? Yep. Thank you. Natural 20. Oh yeah, that'll do, that'll do.

Well done! Holy shit. So 22. You get four tokens in this moment. This is so rigged. Tyshan, would you mind passing me those four tokens from these beautiful children here? Of course. Scrim, how many you got? I thought you just said to leave Scrim alone. He's looking fine. It is time we have to go.

And you feel a tap on the back of your shoulder, Taishan, as Canopsia, the voice of reason and the procession, taps you and says, it is time for us to take the boy and make our way to camp. Are you ready? I'm sorry, I was still laughing. I missed it. They want you to take the boy and head to the next camp. I am ready. You told a very beautiful story. Thank you. The children will remember it forever.

centuries to come. I have seen you celebrate. I've seen you treat people with respect and open arms and I deeply want to believe that you are not evil and I want to think that you're just products of a harsh land. It is a harsh land.

I hope that by the end of midwinter, that we will be allies. I wouldn't hold your breath, but I don't think we'll be enemies. Look, and he takes his thumb and he closes one eye and he points it at the sun.

And you can see what he's doing. He's comparing the size of his thumb to the sun on the horizon. And looking at it, has it shrunk? Oh, shit. Oh, no. Has the sun shrunk? It's still in that same spot on the horizon, and it seems like it's receding. Gum, we have to go.

Take the boy and let us make our way. I beg your near to carry me because I'm convinced my limbs don't work. What does that sound like? It's mostly gargling. The smell of ancient escher is heavy. It's like it matted in your hair. It's like just on your chest. Please, please, please lift him.

I need more meat. All right, all right. I'll grab you by your collar. I'll pull him up and I'll just carry him. I'm foaming in the mouth like a crab. And he's posing like a scarecrow. It's over the next 40, 50 minutes that you are circling around the mountain of

As she comes, as she comes. You make your way onto the back side. Now the shadow side of this mountain is where the next outcropping appears to be, and it is completely submerged in darkness. As dim as the light is getting, the front of the mountain is still being hit by sunlight. This is on that shaded side. And...

It's about halfway through that you're being jostling, that you start to, like, sober up, and the duck in your stomach seems to be digesting and giving you strength again, and you almost feel like your normal self by the time you reach this new destination. That's great. Eventually I will walk on my own accord, and I will thank you on the inventory profusely.

I'm good. You can put me down now. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm sure Oh knees a little wobbly, but I'm alright. I'm good Which is near blood I don't think so that was kind of a really ridiculous notion I don't I don't know where that even came from. I don't want to talk about it Barnabas and scrim perception checks an advantage. Oh my fucking finger Oh, I'm gonna 15 this time

- Yeah, yeah. - 15. - For a Skeptron, 24. - 24. Red wine braised short rib with blistered tomatoes, buttered and spiced grain spirits and a shot of water. - Grain spirits, you say? - You had me at short rib.

The rush to the bench where the food is. Don't get out of my way! And the number of druids is growing. It seems that there are druids in each camp who are prepping for the coming procession to receive the boy in the rear of this circle of druids, while others, our...

are collecting. So the crowd is getting bigger and bigger and rowdier and rowdier as they collect and make their way up in a train-like fashion around the mountain to the summit during this great ascent. So it's getting louder, more boisterous. People are, hi, hi, hi, cheering and screaming. And you can see, in addition to people loving the food and drink, that there is a...

one major activity here, spin dizzy star finding. People are putting their head against rods and turning as quickly as possible and then when the sound goes off, a great clap from the judge, they look into the sky and they are then told what

constellation they need to find. It's the middle of the day, but it's now dim enough that you can actually spot out some of these major constellations. And they are laughing and crying from laughter as they fall over from the spins and still trying to figure out exactly where the star field is going. Additionally, you can see all the way on the other side of the

this outcropping that there's a person who is using their silver dragonborn breath to cool

these brands and give each other these marks on their body. These very specific or elaborate almost like tattoo-like marks on each other's body. And there's a line of people excited to mark this midwinter as special, possibly because they have guests or just because they feel like another brand this year. That is what you find yourself staring at as you make your way.

I do not rush to the food and the drink. Oh. I charge the Yornear first. I say, "Hey, Yornear, I just wanted to say my fingers are no longer two and a half feet long, so I feel like I'm in the right mind to start off by saying, one, thank you for carrying me, and two, I apologize if I was a little out of control. The conversation that we had back in the hot pool

I've been thinking about it a lot, especially while I was gargling my own teeth, and, uh... You know, it really set in what you said to me, and I believe that you wouldn't have any reason to lie to me, but... I'm not quite sure what the implications of... dying and coming back are here in these lands. I don't even know what that could mean. Do you? Unfortunately, I do not. This is why I was concerned when you first...

This wasn't... I've seen... I know that powerful druids can return life to the dead. Perhaps this was an extension of this, your hunger. It feels too connected to the beast. Something definitely doesn't feel right. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't scared. But... I don't know. I mean, I'm just kind of caught up in the events of today. I know that there's a...

That poor kid, and I'm hoping beyond all hope that what they say is true and he'll be back. But all I know is at the end of the day, I haven't seen the other beast since I've been here. And to me, things could be worse, you know? That is good news, and I may have thought that it was related to their own past if the same had not happened to Barnabas. But given that it did...

I think you're right. Either way, both of you are alive, both of you are not undead, I confirm that, and perhaps we can find a way to cure or at least help your hunger. Yeah, for now I'll just try to stave it off, but yeah, again, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little concerned about what it might mean for our future voyage.

Well, if anything changes, please let me know. Yeah. It may be degenerative. We do not know yet. Perhaps it starts off where you have a hunger and you will slowly turn into some kind of horrible creature. After some amount of time, if you are not feeding on the right things... Oh, good. Okay. Or perhaps it is some kind of...

Perhaps incurable infection. I'm not quite sure yet. Okay, well, you know, this was great. I'm gonna go help myself to some of that meat, and I think, you know, I've always wanted a tattoo, considering we may never get off this godforsaken land. What's the harm, right? What's the harm?

Thank you. Well, tattoos can come with a series of infections if they're not cared for properly. Oh, boy. Wow. Especially if you're out in the wilderness, there are all kinds of bacterias that can attach themselves to the wound and begin to eat away at the flesh. Man. It can be really dangerous. And I thought the dead kid was a buzzkill. Yeah, gonna go get the meat, and you know what? You only live once. Wait, these are just circular chicken frogs. Yes.

Oh, wait a minute! That's inside. That's inside. You guys are great. I can always count on all of you. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm gonna go get meat, and then I'm gonna get one for a tattoo. Okay, you do that. What are the rest of you doing? Alright, kids, you ready for another, uh, ready for another poem? They are with the procession.

I'm standing listening very intently. You form a circle, and there were kids who hadn't been at the little outcropping that have run and joined hands with their friends who have now come up, and they're like, oh, you've got to listen to this. It's the best. It's the best. Now, the last one I read to you is a common one from my hometown of Yonah. This is one I have written in the company of Scrim, Barnabos, Yornear, and Tashim.

Who's that? They're the four people I'm here with. Oh, okay. Yeah. When too many beans end up in your gut, they can make you yodel with your butt. So please don't let the badger loose squelch the honk of that trouser goose. Don't let all fluffy off the chain or let rip with a choo-choo train. That's the whole thing. Kelsey somewhere has doubled over in laughter. She doesn't know why. That's all.

The kids react with part confusion and others are like dying laughing. Even the ones who are confused are clearly loving it. It's about flatulence, kids. Make a performance check. Trouser goose will never not get me for the rest of my life. I've seen a few different types of trouser geese, you know what I mean?

One of the new kids throws you a token. Nice. But they're like, more, more, longer story. We like the... I got one. Queenie's so good at this. But do you all like scary, spooky poetry? Ooh, yeah. This one is told in a number of taverns about a horrible, terrible being that you hope

you never encounter in all the days of your life that you sailed the seven seas. You ready? How many of there are you? Y'all got tokens? Just like eight of them. Wow. Incredible. Her skin is pale. Her eyes are red. Her siren voice commands the dead to rise and sail beside their dreadful queen.

No mortal power escapes her thrall. Her hunger will consume us all. And even now, I hear her call. Jolene. Her teeth are sharp. Her mouth agape. Her claws rend flesh. There's no escape from the judgment of the Eldritch One, Jolene.

They scream about her in their sleep, and when they wake does naught but weep in terror of the one they call Jolene. Blackening the summer skies with burning wings and countless eyes, we tremble at the sight of you, Jolene. We cower here beneath your gaze that sets the earth in sky ablaze. Have mercy at the end of days, Jolene.

Make a performance check of advantage. I don't remember Dolly Parton saying that one. Holy shit. Well done. Somewhere Dolly Parton's laughing and she doesn't know why. So Cotton Eye Joe and Jolene are just magic. Apparently. Jolene. Jolene. Where, uh,

Where is that? Performance? 20. 20. Roll a d4 and take that mini, because some of the kids have already just given up what tokens they had to Taishen. Three! They're all so scared shitless. Three of them still had some tokens on them. One kid loved it so much because he loves scary stories, he gives you two. And they are absolutely just loving it. In this moment, Taishen and Yornir, what are you guys doing?

I would say make an interest-checking advantage.

14 plus five plus one, or yeah, so. Mega monster. So a dirty 20. With a dirty 20, it's when you have passed into the shadow of the mountain. You were...

trying to make sure that your friends were protected, worried about this new group of people. They seemed like they had their own rituals, their own traditions and everything, but still keeping an eye on everything to make sure that it was not danger. And then starting to get engaged with some of the games, making a fire, these sorts of things. But passing into the shadow of the mountain, you

You look up and this is the middle of the early afternoon, it's midday, and stars are in the sky in this way? There's no explanation for it, and looking at the horizon it's almost as if you are stuck in a twilight or a dawn now. It does seem evident that the sun is dimming. This is fucked up. I would be very concerned with that, but I wouldn't bring it up to anybody. Restart.

And I guess I would be looking up almost like as if I was stargazing with the rest of them, but not necessarily trying to compete. And I would just sort of be looking for every... I would probably be too concerned to keep enjoying myself. And I'll just sort of look for any other evidence as we're going through and as time's passing, any more evidence that the sun's shrinking or that the world's ending or whatever. Okay. Okay.

I would lay notice down and I would look to see if I could tell the story, if I could find the storyteller from before, from camp two. See him right here. You find her right away. She's actually enjoying some food and glad to be taking a break. She seems to be the sort of designated like storyteller and entertainer of the children. And she's just like on her lunch break now, having been exhausted from the morning activity.

I'm sorry to interrupt you. Yes. May I join you for a moment? You may. Please have a seat. I'll sit with her. Um... I heard your story from before. I've never heard anything quite like it. You spoke of, uh...

I don't know all the things I need to tell, but the... No, I know, I like to do that where I throw a bunch of crazy noise at you and it's like, find the signal. Yeah. You spoke of the Dawn Fathers and creatures of the night that would come and take people away if they did not come and chase them back into their lairs. How did you come upon this story? Is this a fable of your own creation?

It is a story that has been repeated for many generations. It is a story of our people. The nature of the dawn and the creatures and chasing is a metaphor, a symbol to soften the story of what happened to our civilization. Many centuries ago, we were a proud people that sprawled across Drakkar.

I mean the...

White dragon? She hunts you? I don't understand. Oh yes. It is... It was her will to see us erased. Erased from existence. As though we never were here to live under Karr in the first place. Such was her wrath. And did she cause you to make these sacrifices? Did she in some way...

hold sway over the dawn. No, these are not connected. She is on her own path, though it has been far too long since we have learned of her doings, her comings and goings. She never visits this place. She wouldn't be able to find it if she wanted to. But the dimming of the sun is...

as old as history itself. At least in Durkar, we know that we must follow these steps in this order, or there will be no spring, no rebirth. Have you ever not done it? We have failed to take the steps. It is a long year before one can try again. Okay. I'll let you get back to your meal. Have you been offered a gift?

Yes. Before. I've not yet accepted. Well, perhaps. She reaches into her pouch and she pulls out a small bundle. A little bindle with a leather strap that connects it. And she undoes the knot and pulls it aside. Would this interest you? I see the teapot hanging on your backpack there. And this is a very rare and exotic tea that is special to our people.

And you look in. There's a... Damn it. I just got my number. Birch leaf, thyme, fennel, and heather. If you take a smell, you get the sense that it would have a very bitter taste on the mouth at first, but a long evolution, a very pleasant, warming feeling. Oh. I've never smelled anything like this before. I mean...

I guess we have extra. It would be my pleasure. Well, thank you. I would be interested to learn more in your ways, Taishen. Perhaps there are more pleasures we could share. Here in the shadow of the mountain. Stop it. I would love to tell you more of where I come from. Maybe...

I don't know, show you a different way. I visited your land and I would love if sometime maybe we get through all this and you can come to my home in Janeshel and just see what it's like on warmer climes. But we can start enjoying this tea together. Let us make tea.

And if you change your mind, there is a cave opening just... Whoa! And as they say in Jade Shalvillis, get ooked in the duker. Yes, that is a saying of our people. Oh, my God.

If you want, I can recite a poem to get you in the mood. Let's start with the T. She starts with the T, and it's at this point after waiting for what feels like forever in line. Ah! Ah!

Oh, oh, oh, oh, my turn. I'm ready. Yes, come up, come up. Okay, well, I have a couple questions first. I waited in a really long line. I feel like you at least owe me a little information. First, is this like a, like how permanent is this tattoo? This is lifetime, forever. Oh, so like a real tattoo with ink. Oh, okay, good. No, I'm better. It's not tattoo. It's cold brand. Cold brand. All right, so it's going to hurt? Yes, it hurts very much. Oh, okay.

God, I waited in the whole line. Okay, you know what? We'll move forward. What does the tattoo say? I really don't want this to be a situation where I tell you I want a tattoo that says, like, strength, and then in reality I go back home and it says chicken or, like, fried rice. That's kind of fucked up, you know?

He gestures and there's a barrel. And out are dozens of metal rods. And you can, he pulls one out and twists it around and then shows you. Whoa. Easy. It's not cold yet. It's fine. Okay. This is the symbol for the 36th week. Oh, so we're just commemorating the day. No, it's what is your birth week? Oh. Oh. Oh.

No one's ever asked me that before. I mean, I came from like a clutch of like 900 goblins. We don't really celebrate birthdays. My magical room. Now I'm all a tizzy. I don't even know where to begin. You do not know birthday? Nah, I mean, well, you know, I just kind of celebrate once a year whenever I feel like it. Every day is my birthday. You know what I mean?

I think perhaps midwinter for you. This week. Yeah, let's keep it simple. Yeah, this seems like a pretty special day, you know, and who knows? There may not be another tomorrow, so hit me. Where did most people get these? Where do you want it? Well, upper body for sure. I was thinking maybe the bicep or right on my pectoral muscle.

He yells over... It's very fleshy and strong. Opia! Kresa! And two ladies show up. What are they for? They don't say a word, but they immediately start working their hands around your muscles. Actually touching you and giving you a massage, warming you up. Sorry, ladies. I'm just a little nervous. This is very specifically to release the pheromones and not just relax your body, but to wake your body up to what is to come. And you can see as this is happening, he is...

All right, well, this is fine. Day of firsts. Day of firsts. Blowing with very, very focused cold breath. Okay. And you can see the actual end of the metal start to go from iron black to colder and colder and colder, and it turns a light blue, almost as light blue as the cloaks that all of these druids wear. Is it common for me to have second thoughts at this point? Ah! Ah!

It's just there for a moment, but the pain is blinding. It actually stings all the way to the bone in it first. And you get the midwinter week symbol that you saw on the 48th stone. Right here on the chest. And... Winter break 2022! You take your victory.

Do you mind hitting me in the lower back too? You took six damage. Okay, done. Cold damage. Do we heal from the stuff from the bath or no? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. She said that wasn't your actual health. As soon as you went into the bath, you went all the way back to the back of the thing. All right. You probably just long rested. Queenie. Yeah. All right.

Do you enjoy the... You've been telling stories. Yeah, yeah. I made some beans. Okay, okay. Then I would propose that we move to the next game. I would like to try the star thing. If that's a quick endeavor. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's easy. I've navigated by the stars, full down, drunk on rum. I think I can play some little game. You...

jump in line and four or five of you are allowed into the circle and I can't find it where's the rules for this one moment

Ah, okay. So what you'll have to do is you'll have to make a perception check at disadvantage after spinning around just like you would with a baseball bat with your forehead against one of these sticks, turning and turning and turning and turning. And then they yell out one of the constellations. And what amazes you is that of all the constellations you've been hearing while you observe people playing this game, there seem to be some universals and adventurers. If someone says the crab, then you look and...

we're all in agreement of what that constellation looks like. Yeah, crap. You know that the... It looks like a fucking crap. It looks like a fucking crap, loser. So you can share in the activity without having to learn their own constellation history and names. Boy, they'd be so good with ancient estuary.

So you'll have to make it at disadvantage because of the piece, but you'll roll against the group. 12. A two and a one. Whoa! That's kind of like 12. That's 12, yeah. You turn, yeah, that's right. You turn and you glance up at the sky, and just as at that moment, you hear the unicorn yelled out, and you happen to be looking right at it, and even though they streak across the sky,

Almost like trails of light because of the dizziness you It's no different than when you've had some of your late grog nights on a ship and you point right at it What a majestic creature and you can take an additional dose Beans

And you enjoy your tea with the young miss. We leave the rest of that encounter to the imagination of any. And the five of you, the six of you, Daisy has been enjoying activities. She walks up to you and she's clearly got a cold brand on her arm as well. Oh, fuck. She's like, I was tend to stop. Oh.

And she has a different mark on her, she knew her birth week. And the five of you are swept up in the procession, starts to make your way up to what is the final camp before the summit.

You round the corner and escape the shadow of the mountain. And you're now on its northern face. And it's here at this outcropping you can see is one of the largest so far. Tremendous number of activities. People are enjoying what looks like a dessert. Puddings and honey, brown sugar desserts.

lemon, cinnamon, and there's some sort of a liqueur being passed around that's already on the air. It smells very sweet, especially to you, Scrim, and to you, Barnabas. The food so far has all been delectable, and it seems that they saved the best for last.

across the outcropping, the five of you, the six of you, including Daisy, your mute friend, you can see that there are people creating what looks like wreaths out of pine...

needle material. You can see there are people who are sitting cross-legged and facing each other, and they have strings attached to their ears, and they are pulling almost in a tug-of-war sense, doing this ear pull. They're grimacing, looking like they're struggling to see who breaks first. You can also see there's a hill that goes up almost to the summit, and there are people readying at the top of the hill,

when suddenly someone pushes a cheese wheel and it starts to roll down the side of the hill and all of a sudden they are off in a race attempting to try to capture this rolling wheel as it bounces off the rocky cliff face. You can also see there are

druids in another corner and they're playing some sort of game where they transform into beasts very specifically. In addition, there's a soup with some sort of thick, brothy meat, veggies, and puff pastry dumplings. This is the all-out camp before everyone finally gets to the summit in order to plead with the sun to return the child and return itself. All right, y'all ready for another poem?

Oh, yeah. I like your poems, Queenie. Thanks, it's really the best I can do. All right, kids. The kids were to spread, and every single kid and even a few adults are now sitting down, readying for the next poem. Have your parents told you about love? Oh, no. The birds and the bees? Bees! And I open up my honeypot and the bees fly up and create a heart.

You know what bees, why don't you help me with this one? This is a love poem. It goes out to all y'all who've had your first loves.

Susie Lee done fell in love. She planned to marry Joe. She was so happy about it all, she told her pappy so. Pappy told her, "Susie gal, you'll have to find another. I just as soon your ma don't know, but Joe is yo half-brother." So Susie put aside her Joe and planned to marry Will. But after telling pappy this, he said, "There's trouble still."

You can't marry Will, my gal, and please don't tell your mother. But Will and Joe and several Mo, I know is your half-brother. But Mama knew and said, my child, just do what makes you happy. Marry Will or marry Joe, you ain't no kin to Pappy. I mean, that's it. That's the whole thing. Make a performance check. Out of advantage. That's brutal. Oh.

What a sad tale. Damn. Poor everyone in that story. I think Pappy got a real... 15. Got a short end of the stick. Take two tokens. Thank you. That's satisfying. Can you pass me two? Wow. I will make you roll for it. Well, there you go, kids.

That is your, I guess, your poem for this tier. Cautionary tale. It's your cautionary tale. Make sure you know who you're marrying. They're already begging for more. What are the rest of you doing? I immediately walk up to the druids. Oh, hello. What are we doing here? Hello, how do you do, fellow druids? What is your name? I am called Jornir. I am Rukarun.

Rukarun. Rukarun? Rukarun. Yes. I almost got excited that your name was kind of like Rune. Well, and he looks at you and he gives you kind of an odd look for a moment. And then he smiles. Ristek Thirunar?

And you're blown away that this is the first... This is a Mamooshan saying. It is the first half of a call and response. And the first half is "Carve the rune for help?" a question. And you know that the response is "Rist ek ja runar" - "To carve the rune to protect." "Rist ek ja runar." Ah, from Mamut, yeah?

Yes, yes. How do you know this? I traveled the world long, long time ago. And I found myself on the other side of the world. And I found myself in Mammoth. It's a great land. Did you happen to... While you were in Mammoth, did you happen to go to Yhorm? This is where I learned the phrase that I spoke of. Yes, of course. This is where my...

"the plan is from, it's where I was born and raised." "It is nice to... I have not heard that in several months." "It is a pleasure." "A gift for you, I think." And he reaches down and he pulls out a bow. And this we've kept in our family for a long time. It's a small twig, really. But you can see that winding around this is mistletoe.

My eyes came wide. I may have these. I found it in another land. I gift it to you. Yes, that is what gift means. I will accept, yes. Take it with my pleasure. Would you like to play a game? Yes, I wish I had more to give you. Unfortunately, it's...

And they brought a couple of weeks. You look clean and well now. Yes. He's covered in kid blood. Oh. He got hot. Yeah, that's true. If you have the ability to change into Beast, we play a game of cat, mouse, and dog. I will play this game.

You choose in your mind which form you wish to assume. Mouse befriends dog. Dog chases cat. And cat catches mouse. Alright, I believe I understand the game, yes. Let us do this. He...

walks over to what is like a makeshift little arena and stares you down, starting to get a read on you, try to get a sense of you. And you can do mouse, which is thumb in like so. You can do cat, which is... A devil? Yeah, the devil horn. Or you can do dog, the nose of a... A snout. A snout. Oh, God.

This is giving me PTSD from shadow puffeting with Wretch. Anyways, yes. Understand? Yes. On go after... One, two, three. Yes. Yes, yes. Okay.

One, two, three, and be wild shape and become a cat. And he transforms into a dog and immediately starts chasing you around in a circle. And he accepts a token from the judge after immediately wild shaping out. Another? You got me, yes. Let us try again, yes. Just one more. Double or nothing. Double or nothing. Two out of three. Yeah. One, two, three. One.

He sniffs around and you are able to jump onto his back and crawl around as a mouse before... I'm gonna scratch with my little mouse hands. You start pulling his hair and he becomes a Master Chef. And you're rewarded a token for your... Nice! I'm not tokenless! Scrim's already resolved himself to being tokenless. Dachin, Barnabas, Scrim, what are you guys doing? You know, guys, I...

I was really hoping that these games would be more, you know, games of chance, aka things I could cheat at. Ah, it is. Look, I know when I've met my match. I know when, you know, not in my favor. I did notice that you became quite crestfallen when they said they were actually games of skill. Yeah, yeah. I know when I've been bested. So I'm going to go get a drink.

I feel like that's part of the festival, is it not? You know, I'm not really entirely sure how today's going to shake out, you know? So I'm just trying to enjoy myself for now and hoping beyond hope. You know, I'm starting to believe, though, that these folk aren't trustworthy. What makes you say that? Aren't? Are not. They said that there was no milk in the...

But they clearly have cheese up there. I forgot about the milkshake. I think you're a bunch of fucking liars. Ah, jeez, Barnabas, I don't have time for this. Come on, man. Oh, I think they might be a bunch of filthy fucking dirty lying rats. Based on milk? Has it dawned on you that maybe they don't have any milk because they made cheese? All the milk to make cheese. You see Daisy and

Oh yeah, you're here. How would they get all of this up here? It's mind-blowing. Where would they get milk of all the things that they've been able to serve us? You know, that thought briefly crossed my mind, and then another person shoved a drink in my face, which reminds me, and I go wander off, and I fetch myself a drink. You guys want a cheese roll? Uh...

I think I will get something to eat. We just race that cheese? Apparently, if you catch it, you get an extra token. I want racing that cheese. You want to race the cheese with me? Yeah, sure. Yeah, you ladies enjoy the cheese racing. I feel a little bit miffed about the milk fiasco. If anyone can catch that cheese, it's me.

All right. Taishan, Scrim, you can both go get drinks. And Queenie, you go all the way up. Yeah, you grab some pudding. It's plum pudding. It's delicious. And it has more of this pine cone honey, which the first time you're tasting it, it has a really, really tasty flavor to it. It's fine.

Queenie, you make your way up to the top, and they have a new fresh wheel. You can see that when it reaches the bottom, if it's not caught, that it slams into this makeshift wall and explodes, and the people who participate in the races are the only people who get to enjoy this woolly rhino cheese. Oh, I'm in. And...

For whatever reason, Daisy's like, dived into the deep end of this day. Like, of all the insanity that she's experienced, She's needed a day to chill. She needed a day for herself. And so, uh, she's just sort of trying to silently communicate, walk up, convey that she can't talk, and then, uh, engage as best she can with the, with basically everything except the storytelling. And she's standing right there next to you. I'm gonna win.

Sure. We'll see about that, Daisy. All right. All right. We will see. The winner gets the other person's cheese. You're on. Okay, then. All right. All right. Great. All right. Let's go. All right. Can I hug you first, though, so that we still know we're friends afterwards? I'm going to give her a big hug. She gives you a huge hug. But I'm still not going easy on you. I wish you wouldn't. I won't. All right. If you win, it's going to be because you earned it.

And the cheese wheel is set on this board and allowed to start to roll in its momentum. And as soon as it releases, you see the other Dragonborn, Queenie, immediately dart forward. I would like to use my rabbit hop to propel myself forward immediately and get a...

Oh. A running start. Mechanically, you may do that, maybe. Let me just make sure that I can read your rules. Depending on if it works with the game. A natural 20 will give you a chance to catch the cheese, assuming you are in first or second place. You choose how much you move.

then you're gonna make a dexterity check. If you meet your own DC, so I'm gonna go 15 feet, I'm gonna go 20 feet, I'm gonna go however much. If you meet or beat your own DC, you do not fall down the hill and land prone. If you do, then you go prone and it'll be the first person who can, in however many moves you can make, cross the 55 feet in order to win the race or catch the chief.

So because I'm a rabbit as my bonus action, can I use it in my rabbit hop to get 15 feet for free?

I would say that it contributes to your DC because it's a precarious 45 degree angle downward. You're running, so it would be very easy to lose your footing and then tumble forward. As you do when you cheese wheel race. People die. Do they? Yeah, they get fucked up. If you're running, there's a real thing. Is it a dexterity saving throw? It's not a saving throw, it's a check. Okay, okay, okay.

Yeah, sure. Okay. I know this thing. Yeah, I didn't know I didn't hear that. I thought it was some weird thing you came up with. Nah, this is very real. Is there a caber toss here? So when do I tell you I'm going to do... You say how much you're going to move, and then you make a dexterity check. And it is a dexterity check. Daisy chose 10 feet and rolled a 12. So she is now 10 feet. I'm going to do 20. Okay. Okay.

We got twists. Yeah, let me use a twist. I don't want to fail in the first one. I'm not going to make anyone. Everyone has to find a twist. No. Why? We can't even have a million of them. No.

- I fail, it's over. - You jump forward. - I have a plus eight to my dex. - Now hold on, now hold on. You jump forward and you land and you realize that this is a lot more precarious than you realize and some of the gravel goes out from underneath your feet. You fall down, you are now prone, but now we go again because the race isn't over. We're gonna keep going until we cross the finish line. - And you got a lot of momentum, you're good, keep going.

- You're 20 feet ahead, even though you're on your ass, and Daisy is still running down. She's gonna choose 10 feet to go again, and now you can use half your movement to stand up, but you still got 15 feet of movement left. - Yeah, I'm going 15. - All right. - Fuck yeah. - Screw this. - You stay in the lead. - Yeah.

- Destroyed it. - I can't believe it, she got a 10 and a 12 again. So she's at 20 and you're at 35. - On your feet. - On my feet. - And you're on your feet. She sees that you're really beating her. She's gonna go 20. And I need to actually know what her dex modifier is. - Searching images of cheese wheel races almost returns almost entirely images of people falling down.

People get fucked up. Really? No, they literally, they roll just like the cheese wheel does, only it's like face, then feet, then face, then feet. And they pick fucked up hills. These are not like perfectly flat plains. No, it's like rocks and shit. It's fucked up. It's actually fucked up. And I'm also going to pick 20. She falls on her ass, but she's- I got a natural 20. Fuck!

Very good. That gives you a 55. You land. Oh, but I was in first place. You were in first place. You have a chance of catching the cheese wheel. Make a...

Make another dexterity check at advantage. The DC is 10. This is for all the marbles. You got it with this. 23. Got it. Snatch that cheese. And 23. You jump next to the cheese wheel and then climb, like push it over. So it stops its forward rolling momentum and you're able to slide across the finish line. I'm like on my side, just like...

And Daisy has fallen on her ass, and she's like 20 feet behind you, and she just looks extremely defeated, and she's just like... She gets up and brushes herself off, and she walks over, dejected and defeated. Oh, Daisy, don't be sad. You can have as much of this cheese wheel as you want. She gives you one of her tokens. Oh, wow. You were in second place, man.

Adam, how many people were in the race? Just the two of us? It was just the two of you. You were in second place. That's amazing. That counts for something. It counts for something. Thanks. You know they say it's first loser. RM Jesus is blessed cleaning. I love that. RM Jesus. But you know, if we were chased by a bear, all I'd have to do is be faster than you. Which now we know I am, even going down the slope chasing cheese. Chased by a bear. Is it getting darker? Yeah.

This is for real? Well, the day is when, you know. It's the shortest day of the year. Fair enough. And she decides to go and get herself some of what apparently is cloudberry liqueur and a shot of water. She's...

You know cloudberries are a real thing. Yes, they are. I thought it was a bell. They're apparently very, very delicious. Yeah. Wow. They're extremely rare and botanists have had extremely difficult times trying to mass produce them. What other games are there that we haven't participated in? There's the Ear Pull, if you're so interested. I've got enough holes in my

already, all right? I don't need any more. I gotta keep those... You sit across from a dragonborn and they take what is clearly extremely strong, tight woven bark rope. And it's in a loop so that it cannot break. And they...

They explain, I don't know why I'm doing Daisy's mutinous. This is a game of endurance and will and willpower. I don't know if I'll be able to do that. You fasten it just behind your ear and you pull as hard as you can

Mechanically, you'll be making a Charisma check for the Will power, because it's gonna hurt. And then you're going to add your con modifier along with your Cha modifier. And it's best of three wins. Oh! Hmm! However...

If you lose all three times, you will lose your ear. Wow, that settles it. It will come free from your head. Thank you. I was really wondering what losing your ear meant. It will be torn from your head. Barnabus, are you sure you want to do this?

If he loses three times in a row, I rip his ear off. Yeah, but I mean, that goes for you, too. I mean, you're pretty tough, but like, we're talking about ears. Yeah, I'm tougher than this guy. Yeah, but how tough are your ears? Think about it, sir. They're real tough ears. How many of the villagers are missing ears? Do silver dragons want to have ears? No. No.

Yeah, I mean, they don't have these, right? But they've got their, like, crowny... I don't know, how do a fucking dragonborn hear if they don't have ears? They've got... These are ear holes. Oh, no. It's your ear versus the crown of his horn. I'll rip this guy's ear off. I don't care. You sit across from... That's a good point.

If the other guy has his ears, you know he's never lost this game, not even once. You sit across a stout woman, Dragonborn. You actually recognize this woman. Hello, Mata. Girls who was massaging you for the cold branding. Bonaparte, you don't stand a chance. She has very strong hands. Hello there, fine lady. How are you this evening? Good to meet you.

It's very nice to meet you too, or Opia? Opia. Are you related to... What was that? Onism? Onism? Onism? Oh, nice. We are all family here. Let us play. All right, all right. Careful, Bonobo, she looks like she can take a punch. She's thick as kick. And, okay, go ahead.

Like if they were going to make a pyramid of Dragonborn, she'd be on the bottom.

Her fingers were like biceps. Holy shit. Uh, alright. Uh, add your con-enshaw. I think I actually pulled a muscle in my shoulder from laughing. Thirteen. Nineteen. Oh, shit! You pull back and she... Oh, I think I'm getting the hang of this! Roll again.

- Uh oh. - No. - Uh oh. - It's a natural one. - Oh no! But she didn't lose all three. - No, no, no. It's a five. - 20. And so she like, almost as if the first one was a faint. - Okay, so no one's gonna hear.

- All of a sudden you realize that like the only thing keeping you from falling forward and being pulled over by her tremendous strength is the fact that you've got such a great huge belly. - See, this is all performance. - And it comes down to this final roll. Oh my goodness. - Seven. - Four.

And you're pulling, and you both come to an even staring match almost, and you're pulling and you're pulling, and she starts to feel like she's gonna lose her ear. She releases, and you pull back, and you fall back in victory. You get a token. Oh!

I feel very victorious. Very nice. Good game. Good game. Well played, well played. My ear really hurts. It's been a long time since I've had a game like this. Oh, I'm glad. Me too. Me too. I'm going to get some liquor. And she stands up and stomps away. I want to get some sweets.

I'm turning into the archbishop. I will have a chocolate and a cookie. That looks sinful. I suppose. No one's looking. This is going to go right to my ears. Three.

This is all fat free, right?

The amount of revelry and merriment, the songs being sung, the people cheering high as they take shots of water to keep them steady through all of the engorging of food and consuming, devouring of lots of liquor and ale and other alcoholic beverages, it starts to calm as the time approaches that we need to finish this procession and reach the summit.

Taishen, you're invited to once again pick up the young body of notice. And in this instance, you are asked to lead the way, lead the full circle, all of these druids along with your friends to the top.

I'll do so. Pick him up. I'll walk up the head. Five of you, including Daisy, are also allowed to take the front, and they are starting to sing this sort of similar hymnal song, that same song that you heard at the start, though you were full of adrenaline and horror in that moment. You now are hearing it in a very different light, and it is indeed a banger.

It is what the kids say. Slaps. Basically, while we're doing this, I want to be super fixed on the sun. If you've seen the film, I'm basically Kiefer Sutherland from Melancholia. That's a fucking weird movie. I doubt anyone's seen it. You've seen it. It's a good movie. Checking the sun and seeing if it's moving at all. Not only is it not

scanning on the horizon. It seems locked in place in that same position where it was aligned with the Wheel of Years. And it does indeed seem smaller, redder. It's almost at this stage the size of a pinhead. What would have been a full thumb whip now, it's disappeared. It is diminishing. I'm very concerned. It's filling me with dread. I no longer have hope.

You walk and listen to this hymn. Looking at the sun, all of you have started to recognize that it is as... will very soon approach as small as the stars in the sky are. The little dots of light. It appears to be vanishing. And another 200 feet of ascent slowly winding around this ever-shrinking...

top of the mountain. The tip making your way up to what is a flat top. A mesa. Of a mountain. The summit is adorned with massive monoliths.

Six total. Sorry, five total. Five total monoliths. And sitting in the center of this circle of additional stones at the crown of this mountain, you can see that there is someone who hasn't participated, that you haven't seen in any of the camps so far as you've made your ascent up this mountain. You are staring at what is very clearly a very old monument.

Dragonborn woman. She is sitting there and she is just staring into a campfire of perhaps her own making alone. Before you can reach that circle though, you can see that there's a sort of a great patch of earth, snowy earth, and you'll have to cross it in order to reach this central ritual area. The crowd of Dragonborn druids behind you stop

and wait for some sign. All you hear is the wind blowing, the darkening sky overhead, until you hear her voice. I must speak with them alone. Wait, there is time enough for this. And you hear a voice at your side, the same voice of Sander. It is up to the five of you. I think that she means you.

Why would she mean us? Seems like a lot of responsibility for everything that's, you know, going on right now. Yeah, we're not even part of your clan. She wants to speak to us alone. She is our leader, our seer. Are you all family? Not by blood. Oh, all right. Is she the one that is to bring this boy back? We will all bring her back, bring him back together. That is what we have been doing all day.

I'll nod. Alright. Like I said, this is why we are here. This is all part of our fate. And I'll sort of look and kind of silently kind of ask if it's okay to, I'll kind of, you know, give him a slight nod. I was like, huh? Can I go? Go, yes. Do not keep her waiting. There is not much time. And I'll start to cross. Yeah, I would scramble after you. Yep.

You cross the dirt patch and you find yourself around a humble fire at the center of this almost matching stone circle. It doesn't have the calendar on it. It instead has...

their most powerful runes, perhaps, carved under the faces of these massive stone pillars, wondering, gosh, how do you even get stone of this kind up a mountain of this size? When you approach, oh, my apologies. There's an additional detail that's very important. You're stopped before you approach. Do you have any metal on you?

Shit. I have a lot of metal on me. What kind of metal? If it is gold or silver, electrum, copper, adamantine, it won't be affected, but these are lodestones. Metal cannot pass inside that circle. Oh. What are we supposed to do with the things that we have that might be metal? Can we just, like, leave them here temporarily? We will watch them carefully, yes. Okay, um...

Just, you know, make sure I get these back. You know, you never know when they'll come in handy. And I hand him a small envelope. It's like a leather pouch. I just hand it over. He can look inside it once, but I don't openly say what it is. And for my DM knowledge, what's inside the cup? Thiefstools. Oh, okay. So a little hooky. I assume that there will be some metal in these. Yeah, they would absolutely be made of metal. And it clings into his hand as it drops and he holds onto it.

Okay, here's my anchor. There's five harpoons. Here's all of my tackle. This is my tin whistle. This... I think that's... Oh no, this is my pan. I swear to you, if anything happens to this, or any of this...

I will find you, and I will end you. I don't need these weapons to kill, you understand? All mean cooking utensils. Inside this giant pile of like metal. A number of people come over to help you, and they start to take the stuff, and just the anchor makes them collapse from the weight. They do not have your barbarian strength, so they struggle, but it lands on the ground. We'll watch it here, we'll watch it here.

Oh, Miss You Pan! Barnabus, grab my dagger from my side. Send them my dagger. I'll reach down, I'll grab your dagger, and I'll take both of mine and throw them into the dirt. Okay. That's all I got. All my ears are bone-tipped. What are you doing? I'll pass over all my metal stuff.

You do, and you start to make your way, and you cross the threshold of this circle, and you feel this place of power magic. You feel it hum through the air. You can feel that there's something almost passing through you. This very clearly is a naturally powerful place, one of the few sacred sites of Drakkar.

And you start to walk up, and next to this old lady is a small pedestal with what is a four feet long horn that tapers to a point fixed within the pedestal at the dead center of this monument, this circle. And the old woman looks up. I thought you would be here sooner. How could we have...

Gotten here sooner. We've been with the procession all day. I mean, you mean weeks ago? Hours ago? What? For many winters, I have looked into the fire. I have not seen your faces, but I felt that you would be coming. Oh, is that a good thing? Yes. You happy to see us? This is a good thing. I would like to hear it from her. She's the one seeing us in the flames. You're near.

I won't save you any day. It is neither a good or a bad thing, Queenie. I'm not sure why you're lying to us. It is a true thing that you are here to do good, but it will be very hard. I haven't shied away from hard work a day in my life. It is destiny that's brought you here. We can speak openly now. We can take this time, this last hour,

to understand what it is that you are doing here why you've been drawn to this space this spot this time now and I can commune with those who brought you here to understand better how you can accept your fates what do you mean? I am the first of the circle of the woolly rhino for centuries

I was the first to learn to bind myself to the land in the way that the others have. To be able to return on holy days, to celebrate midwinter, the beginning of spring, the equinoxes. It is a blessing that I have always been able to see. See into nature, see into the cosmos. If I share this gift with you, then perhaps you can understand.

what it is that you are meant for, what it is that you must do for Trakar, for that is why you are here. Look, I'm gonna be honest here. You only have to stop talking about fate and direction and where we need to be at all times, but I've been running, running for a long time, and I just happened to be in the tavern when I met them, and we got crashed on this island, this continent.

How can there be a purpose in that? It's all random chance. Fate is like a wind. It might pick you up and blow you around and your twisting might feel like your own choice. But the current of the wind still takes you where you are going. Or perhaps another way to put it, you are like a cheese wheel at the top of a hill. When someone gives you a push,

It may bounce left or right, but we all know it will end up at the bottom of the hill. Something has pushed you. You're offering to reach out to or talk to that entity that gave us the push? I'm inviting them to speak on your behalf. I don't know about that. I don't know if I want to agree to that.

Why would you not? What do you mean, why would I not? This might be your opportunity. You all saw what I went through! To end the chase. Or at least begin your path to ending the chase. No one could claim me right here while we stand here! I believe that is unlikely. I would very much like this. I believe this is all that we are supposed to do.

She said that fate was like the wind, right? That was a good thing. But what if it's all a trick? It's a terrible, we're brought here for dark purposes. Fate's more like a balloon and something bad happens. Or like a plastic bag blowing on the wind. You're really hung up on this whole milk thing. You're still on about that? All these fucking liars.

So far this land has not given us anything without exacting a terrible toll. It's hard to believe that she would offer a gift and there would be no price. We know that Dracar, the woolly rhino, is in some kind of danger. We've all seen it. I know that Dracar is just like Mahmud. There is no sinister nature to them.

These gods, they are gods of the land. They are the most important gods. Without them, there is no us. There is no land. There's no existence. At least this is what we believe. If all of this is true, I hope you understand that all of those men who boarded that ship were doomed from the very start, not because of any seabird.

Precisely right. It had nothing to do... But because of us... With the seabird. We killed all those men. It was not us. It was their fate. Because they would sail with us. Am I wrong in that assessment, Mr. Yorner? That is not up to us to decide. It happened to be their fate that they were on the same ship that would carry us. Yes, it was an unfortunate fate, but it was not our decision.

We did not decide that thing. Just like we didn't decide ours. You're right. I trust your judgment. You're the one with the magic eye that sees through the fates. Like the wind in the mood in my circle, there are trees that grow high on top of the fjords, and there's a strong wind that blows from off the ocean. Day and night, it blows and blows.

Those trees, do they grow tall? No. They grow outward. They start to go up and then they grow where they are pushed. Each of us can only grow the way the wind blows. Fate is that wind that is guiding how we grow. It is not bad. And like you said, it is not necessarily good. I believe this is a good thing because I have a purpose here.

I personally believe we all have a purpose here, but I will not attempt to convince you. I am ready. Elevator. Hear me. When you accept your fate, when it is plain to you, you will no longer be pushed by it. You will be the one driving. You will be the one making choices for yourselves from the moment you say yes. That will be when you

have accepted the mantle of this responsibility. I have seen many visions. I've seen a destructive fate for Drakkar, were it not for the five of you. This catastrophe can only be avoided because of some action that you take, some choice that you make, some... If you want to be free of fate,

Then you must find that thing. Own it. Become your own destiny. Look, darling, I don't got any other choice, so I agree to whatever this is. And I think the rest of us should, too. Because she's right. Right now, what choice do we have? But with knowledge, with more information, maybe then we'll have more of a choice. Tears are welling in the eyes of this nameless archdruid.

pouring down, she's clearly reliving what she's seen and finding the right memory to share. In what limited time she feels she has left to share this gift with you. There is only one way to prevent the fall of our great land, Dokkar. There is an artifact. It must be taken from here. The way a thorn can be pulled from the paw of a beast

Is it the hexagonal chamber thing? I know not of what you speak. What was it that weird iron man said? Hexagonal armament? Hexature? The hexature armament? Tell me more of this metal man and what you know of this hexature armament. When she speaks the words, it seems like those sounds in that order almost are weird to her.

Oh, I don't know. We just met him. Well, not really met. There's... We were with some kobolds and this metal man showed up and said he was gonna kill everyone if we didn't give him the hexature armament thing and we didn't have it and they didn't have it and he finally realized that was the case and he left. It was a being of order looking for some, like you say, presumably some sort of artifact. He was a machine of a man on a machine of a horse.

He mentioned Nirvana. What have you seen? She begins to describe...

her vision's in full. It takes a few minutes for her to complete her tale, but you each recognize moments from the time that the lights swept you up, these curtains that took you into your own memories and the changes where you saw the woolly rhino.

either dying or the horn, which you realize looks almost identical to the one that is here, filling with blood spilling out in Jornir's memory. And then an apocalyptic vision of organic nature shattering but then being remade and transforming into straight lines, rigid edges. And it...

It feels like what she's describing is parallel. It feels like truth. We have seen the same. We have all had visions of this. I am so glad to finally meet you, champions each. I do not envy your journey, but I am grateful. To accept your fate, we must... We must consult the lights that you saw...

in your journey, when you were accepted here by Dakar, when you went from foreigners to... What's the word for citizens? It's not as ugly as citizens. For people of the land. I invite you to the edge.

And she stands and very sort of slowly makes her way over to the edge of this cliff, looking straight out at what is a dying sun. And in this moment, she invites you to join her. This is very clearly the place where Notas had jumped 12, 15 hours ago. I will join her. Yeah, I would follow her very cautiously. She sits. For me to channel this energy...

I will need to mute myself as much as possible. It's prop time. One moment. Derek is putting on a blindfold. This is very interesting. Oh, for the podcast. For podcasters. Derek is putting on a blindfold.

He looks down at his notes. He looks up. He adjusts the blindfold. It's not tight enough. He can tell. Right. I'm not going to be able to do this with blindfold on, so... She blindfolds herself. That was a lot of pompadour. Yeah, yeah, no. I thought I could do it, but I can't. Oh, it's a nice thought. She does this, and then she...

Reaches out and her voice booms out. Instead of this quiet, older dragonborn lady voice, she booms out. Let each champion speak in turn in the order that answered the call. Barnabas, you turn and off the cliffs, you see a swirling ocean blue light start to emerge and you hear the voice of the archdruid.

You must walk out to meet with her. I will. I'll reach down to my side. I'll pull out my shell. I know you're with me as far as I am from the sea. I'll put it back and I will completely immediately get covered in seawater and barnacles and starfish as both of my hands turn to crab claws and I will step. You walk to the edge of the cliff and

and you can see this shifting light in all directions. And you look down, and you look up, and it's as beautiful as the reflection of water, bright blues and dark... bright whites and dark blues shifting, just like the surface of the sea when you're underneath it looking up. And you take a step, expecting perhaps to fall, but...

You step and you land on air and you are walking out onto a plane of almost nothingness. And five feet, 10 feet, you're out beyond the edge of the cliff, staring out to the sky, staring, looking around wherever you might, perhaps just looking at the light that is swimming around you and, and, and, uh, uh, surrounding you. And you hear the voice of the woman in the shell, uh,

You all hear Barnabas speak out loud. The voice says, Drakkar calls for aid, and the goddess of the sea will answer. First to answer, we commit Tidehunter Barnabas Dreadwake, our champion, to lend our support in fighting the coming catastrophe and defending Drakkar. They are strong, experienced, determined.

What are you feeling in this moment, Barnabas? If I hear her voice, I'm feeling fucking great. Horny. You hear this voice clearer than you've ever heard it. It's not quiet and small and in your ear the way it is when it comes to you from the shell. I feel light. You feel... Yes. And you hear the voice of the seer in this moment as you feel these feelings. What say thee, Barnabas? Believe it or not, I'm walking on air. I never thought I could feel so free.

I pledge my anchor, my claws, my teeth and tail to prevent calamity. You're now level six. Whoa! And you turn and walk back to the summit. If we decline as a trap door and open, we could die. You fuck around and find out. Fuck around and find out. Yeah.

You see the light shift from that ocean blue to a familiar green that you've seen before. The same green that you experienced in a village just before sharing your long story with your companions. I guess I'll walk to the edge and I will... I guess, did I... I saw Barnabo straight up walk on air. Good question. I was going to ask the same.

I will look at my companions. I'll give a deep nod. And I'll sort of tighten the mammoth tusks that are fastened to my back. And I will put my staff out first and then take a step out. You take a step out and your foot lands. Sure. Your footfall after footfall after footfall, you're walking out and you're amazed that this...

You're supported by some protective force. Drakkar calls for aid. You feel the voice come out of your lips, but it sounds like three voices. Oh, shit. Drakkar calls for aid, and the gods of the land will answer. You hear Yornir, the four of you. Second to answer, we commit Shaman Yornir, our champion, to lend our support in fighting the coming catastrophe and defending Drakkar.

They are devout, selfless, vigilant. How do you feel in this moment, Yorneir? I will feel incredibly blessed, renewed, and filled with hope, I'll say. This is confirmation of everything I've been feeling since

where I believed I've had actual faith up until this point, where I just, I believed that this was the path and then I've, this is finally the confirmation. So I'm like, I'm actually like, there are tears in my eyes. - You feel, it's an orgasmic feeling. What say the, what say the you hear a voice as you're overwhelmed by emotion?

Yes, this is my destiny. I will complete my pilgrimage. Your will is mine. And I'll sort of bow my head deeply in reverence. And when you raise your head and start to turn, you feel this surge of confidence in you. You're now level six. No trapdoor, you're lucky. The licking green lights fade away.

And a yellow, sunflower yellow, suddenly rises up, curtains, almost making a floor, inviting you, Queenie. All right, well, so far, two for two, so I'm gonna move forward and tap my little foot just right over the edge. All right. I'm gonna jump and then jump back.

Alright! I'm just gonna walk out. You tested the waters a little bit, and it isn't until you commit that you feel something sturdy, like foundation under your feet. When you actually just did a little bit of a dip, the hop worked, but the dip did not. You actually needed to faithfully jump into this moment. When you reach five, ten feet out, you hear Queenie's voice.

Dracar calls for aid. The Valor of the Vantress will answer. Third to answer, we commit Queenie of Foxbridge, our champion, to lend our support in fighting the coming catastrophe and defending Dracar. They are brave, kind, wise. When you hear these words, how do you feel in this moment? What voice am I hearing? Do I recognize it? You don't recognize it. You've never heard this voice. Okay. But... What does that mean?

There is a lilt to the cadence of it in your ears. Not Queenie's voice, but in the way that you hear this voice. That makes you think of Eldred. I'll smile and Queenie feels like warmth at the memory of her best friend. And she'll grab onto the bow on her back and she'll present it. You have my bow. As soon as you say these words...

And accept. You turn and you feel your bravery redouble. You're now level six. Beautiful. The light shifts and changes. That yellow light warms, turning into a brilliant sunset red.

far more fiery than the thin line of the dawn, twilight, sunset, dying star that is on the horizon. But even thinking of that, Taishan, you feel drawn by the color that let you relive your memories, share your story with your friends at a campfire many months ago. What do you do?

I would walk to the edge and before attempting to step out, I would look over my shoulder back at Notice, who I would have put down on the ground in between the lodestones, look down at my claws, and then step out.

When you make your first step, there's that leaping moment in your heart where, is this going to work? It's worked for the others. And you're so glad to feel your footfall land on something, on matter. And you make it five, ten feet out, and suddenly you feel this great swell. In your mind, you hear the voice of Fuzao.

Very clearly. It rings as clearly as the day you met him on a mountaintop many, many hundreds of miles from here. Drakkar calls for aid, and the setting sun Fu Zhao will answer. Forth to answer, we commit Taishen Fireblossom, our champion, to lend our support in fighting the coming catastrophe and defending Drakkar. They are generous, flexible, mindful.

What say the Taishen? You hear a voice call out from the archdruid behind you. How are you feeling in this moment? I think, uh... I think kind of heavy. Like, hoping that, you know, these are not the... What's happened, what's brought us here so far, the sacrifice to get to this trial is not the kind of acts that are going to be required to heal this land. But...

I want to help you, and I'll pledge myself to that. You make this pledge with a mindful heart, and turning, you return, feel a renewed flame starting to kindle as you are thinking on these thoughts, and you are now level 6.

Scrim, you burst into flames. Yeah, I'll say. I'm gonna need a trapdoor and a little helm screen. The sunset red curtains shift and disappear. It's dark. You can see the stars in the sky. It's cloudless. The wind howls all around you. And the four of you turn. The archdrawer turns, looking at Scrim. A fifth champion.

Champion's a little strong, don't you think? There is power in five. You have been chosen. Go accept your fate. Stupid coin. Bastard man of that tavern. God's damn contract. Fine. I don't really have a choice here. Like Queenie said, so be it. You walk up to the edge of the cliff, and the wind seems to be blowing harder than ever. You're...

Companions don't seem to say or notice anything, but you do not see the lights. It is blank air. You can see so clearly on a visible day like this that it's just air. And looking down, it's so dark, but you can still see that tiny little circle right at the bottom of the cliff face. You can almost, maybe it's your imagination, swear that you can see the blood still.

I will visibly quake, visibly quaking. I will close my eyes and almost silently under my breath say, like, please, you're going to be right. Please, you're going to be right. I will step out. With eyes closed, I will step out. I'll put one foot out. Eyes closed, you put your foot out and you land on something. Do you put one foot in front of the other? You open your eyes.

Once I feel like I am, uh, I found purchase, yeah, I will open my eyes. You don't fall, but you take a step forward, a step forward, a step forward. Cold air swimming all around you. Four, five, six, seven, eight steps. What are you doing? I'm, I'm

looking around to see where I am, if I've made it out over the ledge. You are eight steps away from the cliff, and you look down, and your foot is not standing on curtains of pewter gray light. Two clawed paws suspend your feet.

As you look down, you can see a terrifying hound's face looking up at you, grinning, drool, pulling, pulled by gravity and falling down this terrible distance. It seems to have been mirroring your steps. I'm too scared to jump. Like, I would normally, that would scare me and I would jump, but I'm too scared to jump for fear that I will plummet however many hundreds of feet to my doom. And it...

almost like a cat extending its claws around your feet. It pulls in and tightens around. It doesn't pierce your boots or anything like that, but it seems to understand that you're thinking about jumping for this moment and dig in for just a moment, and then you hear it. Yeah, I'm completely frozen in fear. You four are waiting, waiting to hear Scrim's voice, the way that you've heard each other's voices. The Archdruid is...

making her way back and forth, channeling energy, trying to help with the communion that you're enjoying. No voice comes out of your lungs. I will look this creature in the face to the best of my ability. It's violently shaking. It stares at you with its black evil eyes, red glowing embers. Please, please. I just want to go home.

You whisper these words and they aren't picked up by your friends. You seem almost to be speaking in silence. You don't know if you're even making sound when you hear a voice in response inside of your mind.

Speak the word. Jesus. Uh, yeah, okay, okay. Uh, I, I pledge myself as champion, uh, to Jakar and all that jazz and all the good stuff, et cetera, et cetera, the fine print, whatever there may be. Please, please, I pledge myself champion. I'll fix it. You see a nod as you accept this twisted fate, and that's when the curtains do emerge.

In this moment, you see this grinning, terrifying dark hound staring up at you, becoming obfuscated by the lights that you were met with so long ago when you told your story. And it looks around almost a little bit surprised by this, but then looks at you and gives you a we've done what we needed to do here look.

and releases your feet. You find yourself standing on a curtain of light. Do I feel that I've achieved what I needed to achieve, and then I can walk back to the ledge, or do I feel... All of you hear him pledge his...

fate to Drakkar that you need to be as scared as he sounded. You heard him agree. As soon as I feel that my boots have been released, I would almost sprint back. You turn and you run and you make it back to solid ground. My friends would be able to tell that I am as pale as a green goblin can possibly be. And you are now level 6.

And I collapse in the snow. A titan's goblin rocket jump back. You make it back to the top of the summit and the five of you are standing transformed. This has been an eventful day. It has not just been a day of revelry and a day of shock, but now a day that feels extremely intimately personal for each of you and for your friends, knowing that you are all

bound in some way together. The archdruid lifts up and pulls her blindfold off. She stands, stretching a little. Thank you. Thank you for what it is that you have to do. I have no idea. Not truly. I will continue to watch with great interest. But before we can discuss further, we must save the seasons. We must save spring.

We must call the sun back to us. Yes, yes. How can we assist? Let us first determine who is Midwinter and father and mother. They will be required for this final step. Are they going to perform public sex in?

Yes. I knew it. I just felt it in my bones. The ritual is called the Onism. Oh, shit. Is that why? Oh, that's why they're all called Onism. Actually, I'm going to say that that is where we're going to call tonight's session. Because...

- This ritual will take it a little bit longer and I enjoy a cliffhanger. Let's find out if we save the sun in September. - Yeah, no, I think all of us were waiting. You said like, it's time for us to like save the thing. And we're like, of course he's gonna say that's all in the session.

Yes. So did she really answer yes to Queenie's question? No. Oh. No, that's just goofy. Do you want to determine, or would you determine the...

The bean thing now? Presumably that's the father and mother thing. At the start of next session, we'll find out if the person with the most beans exceeds the dragonborn, who are also participating and competing for tokens all day. And they will participate in the ritual to resurrect Nodal. I definitely hope it's not a public sex thing, because I'm pretty sure that if we win, it's me and part of those. LAUGHTER

You have seven and I have eight. Is our fan artist still in? There's a lot of bait there. A lot of fan art bait. A lot of magical realm. A lot of magical realm. Thanks for playing. Thank you so much for listening to the Legends of Avantra's podcast.

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