User:Amake

Hi! I'm Amelie Wikström, aka TehAmelie in the twitch chat. I like Dice Friends, but may brain is not made to process a primarily verbal narrative. I can't keep track of the plot, my attention drifts constantly from the stream. With this in mind, I tried to transcribe it. Mostly for myself, though I hope there are some other people who like reading as much as I do. And let's not diminish the importance of getting some RNNs to generate more episodes for us.

So, the transcript of the first half of The Escape from Semolo Plateau episode 1. (Anyone who knows how this wiki works should feel free to put this text on its own page.)

(Disclaimer: English is not my first language, and I've never done anything like this before. So I'm sure there will be more questions and ambiguities than those I've marked, not to mention any number of parts I've missed entirely or heard all wrong or can't spell or needlessly left out. (Three minutes into this project, I already know no one needs to read all the "Yeah"s" and "um"s and grunts and laughs people do when they talk.) But feel free to edit if you know better.)

Dale: Hello and welcome to Dice Friends. Tonight we're beginning the inaugural storyline of Dice Friends, Escape from Semolo Plateau. So this is episode one of both the stream and the ongoing story. As we're starting out, we're playing Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition on the island continent of Chult, which doesn't apparently have a real world analog. It's just an island continent where everything's ridiculously venomous.

Graham: So Australia.

[Laughter.]

Paul: A totally original place!

Graham: It definitely feels like there's some south American influences in there, some "perhaps" Australian influences. But also there's dinosaurs.

Paul: Which is like Australia.

Graham: Jules Verney, land of the lost-y sort of. . .

Paul: There's dinosaurs in Australia, right?

Graham: Yeah. Are there dinosaurs in Australia? Probably.

Kathleen: There are a lot of birds in Australia.

Dale: There we go.

[General agreement; gestures indicating the fact that birds evolved from dinosaurs.]

Kathleen & Paul: They're probably poisonous.

Dale: So as we begin the inaugural session all of our heroes are in prison.

[Everyone looks innocent.]

Graham: Which is great.

Kathleen: We've been bad.

Graham: To be fair we knew that, we had to get that intro out there. But we know what happened beforehand, how we got there, but that's all we know/all right now. [?]

[Heather on the overlay: Everybody is in prison.] [This editor doesn't know when that showed up.]

Dale: So why don't we start with character introductions? Tell us who you are and why you're in jail, or more specifically why you're telling people you're in jail, cause that may or may not be what you're accused of. And if you want to you can throw in a story about something you've done in prison. Maybe you've had a negative encounter with the woman who controls the dumbwaiter that brings you food. ["Elevator" may have been a better word, alas.] She's a large lady, she goes by the name Pegleg.

Paul: Are we the only people in the prison?

Dale: There are thirty people in prison. There are no guards. Pegleg is a prisoner. This is a big cave. You're on a huge plateau, and a third of the way down from the top there's a huge cave. They don't bother giving you guards, they're just going to send you down on the dumbwaiter. Get off when you get down there or they'll just, you know, drop you. There's no reason to guard you if there's no way out.

Graham: The only way out is "down".

Dale: Right, several hundred feet. You want to try climbing that when there are like, undead pteranodons trying to peck you off the side of the cliff, go ahead. Maybe that's the story you're going to tell me.

Graham: They're not just pteranodons, they're undead pteranodons.

Dale: That's another thing Chult is known for, a lot of things are undead.

Paul: I guess if there's a lot of things that kill things you're just going to end up with a lot of undead in general, cause you have more dead.

Dale: Makes sense.

Paul: So this is called Escape from Semolo Plateau, so presumably that's what we're going to try to do here.

Graham: To be fair I didn't actually check that with Dale when I said that'd be a good name, I just assumed not the entire campaign would take place in the prison.

Paul: It's a bottle campaign.

Graham: It's true, it could be. I guess. . .

Kathleen: I guess we'll find out.

Paul: We can roleplay being good prisoners.

Dale: I'm going to be giving you some choices, and one of those choices is "Yes, we're just going to stay in prison the entire campaign". And I'll do my best to make it fun for you. Paul, why don't you start with the character introductions and we'll go around.

[Heather on the overlay: Character introduction time.]

Paul: Alright, my name is Dande and I'm here. I was framed, falsely accused of messing with the lizards that they really care about here, and I don't know quite who did it. I need to get out of here to find out who did it. In the meantime I've been traveling the world of Chult, which is effectively the whole world.

Graham: The world as you know it.

Paul: And I've been writing about my travels in my diary, which was also taken from me and I have to get back! But in the meantime I'm trying to be calm and continue my meditation and my Monk training. [Choking] But it's hard.

Graham: I can imagine.

Kathleen: Alright. I'm Morra and I'm an elf. I'm not from Chult, but I came here because did you know they're abusing lizards terribly? There's a certain type of lizard in Chult – could someone start playing "I will remember you" by Sarah McLachlan please.

Graham: Please don't.

Kathleen: There's a certain type of lizard, the Semolo lizard.

Dale: No Semolo is the fern. The lizard is available all over Chult, but only the red fern grows here. When they eat the fern they secrete poison on their backs.

Kathleen: So anyhow. They take these lizards and they force feed them these ferns, they keep them in little pens and they just jam ferns into their faces and then when they've eaten enough ferns they just smash the lizard's skull in and scrape all the poison off its back, it's extremely mean and cruel. so I came here to free the lizards! My mom thinks I'm on exchange but I'm here to free the lizards! Cause I'm Eco Warrior!

Paul: And so the plateau where they make their living by having these lizards were not super stoked about it eh?

Kathleen: No, they were extremely uninterested in hearing my point of view even though I think my point of view is correct and their lizard smashing ways are wrong. But I rescued "four" lizards before they threw me in jail, so I have the moral victory and am a great hero! Up and coming in the world! I will be victorious one day. No prison can hold me!

Paul: What happened to those four lizards?

Kathleen: I set them free in the jungle! And then a pteranodon ate them. But like I say, it was the moral victory!

Beej: Circle of life.

Kathleen: Chult is a terrible place.

Dale: I feel that was worth a point of inspiration. Well done.

[Pause until everyone starts looking at Beej.]

Beej: Chult is my home. I'm Bontan. I'm one of many albino dwarves who live here on Chult. We've split into many tribes since we were driven out from the underground by volcanic reactions. It's been nice to get to know you guys over the last four months, I've felt you're all really interesting people. Though I'm keen to just get out of here and get back to learning more about medicine and healing. I found out a little while ago I have a gift, and my tribe was very happy with the fact I was able to cure people who had poisons, and they made me the healer, so I thought the only way I can get back to my people would be to learn more and more about healing, so I went and found the only person we knew in the area who knew anything about magic and healing and medicine, a local Necromancer. Which is how I got this tattoo. He said whenever he takes on an apprentice he wants to make sure they have a tattoo so we all know each other on sight which was very nice.

Dale: And it detects as magical which is kind of cool.

Beej: Yeah, I was like, neat, that means I'm part of this magical group of people. I'm learning a lot, but I got captured cause apparently people around here don't take kindly to knowing much about magic. So here I am. I'd like to just go home if I could.

Paul: So this is like a Necromancer but you're specializing in the pre-necromancy part.

Beej: I know he raises the dead and things like that but you know, there's a lot of undead things around here, his focus is – you know, I think he gets a bad rap.

Kathleen: Sometimes sacrifices have to be made in the name of justice!

Beej: She gets it! It's not like we haven't smashed a few lizard heads ourselves, you know, you need poison to make anti-poison. That's what he taught me, we don't exactly see eye to eye on that but I'm saving more people than I'm hurting, I think.

Kathleen: Just scrape the lizard's back, that's all I ask.

Beej: They're very bitey.

Kathleen: I'm working on a tame lizard program.

Beej: That does sound interesting.

Kathleen: I've had a lot of time to think about it. I've been here for four months. I have many plans.

[Heather on the overlay: Lizards bite. Who knew?]

Graham: Speaking of not seeing eye to eye, I am three foot seven cause I rolled the lowest I possibly could. My name is Snak, I'm a bateri, which is what they call the goblins on Chult. Presumably Snak doesn't know there's other goblins, so, I'm a bateri. I'm in here, let me make this clear, they put me in here because they said I was a deserter. I don't want to talk about it, but I was in the militia, I was up top. [Points to the top of a stack.] They said I deserted, which I did not do. I was just making a couple of stockpiles of some amount of their equipment. I hadn't left the militia, it was just that some of their equipment had left. They thought I was going to leave, so they called me a deserter and threw me in here.

[Heather on the overlay: Tiny Snack. . .umm. . .Snak.]

Paul: It was the equipment that deserted really.

Graham: They took all the equipment (that they know about), they took all my earrings, they took my helmet which I'm really cranked off about, and then they chucked me in here like they don't even care about all the hard work I put in their dumb militia. I was on board!

Kathleen: Did you put in hard work in the militia?

Graham: I did! I was the third batiri ever in the militia of whatever the place is called. They never told me what it's called.

Dale: Semolo plateau.

Beej: That's where we all are.

Paul: Can I mention I'm a cat? I don't think I did.

Beej: Cat that walks on two legs.

Paul: I'm a tabaxi.

Dale: So there are other tabaxi on the plateau but they don't look anything like you. They're sort of sleek and you are not so much.

Paul: I'm sleek in my own way.

Graham: Densely packed but very fluffy.

Paul: Also very fluffy. [Kathleen makes ecstatic face.] Unfortunately the place where I'm from is nearer to the coast line and not so densely jungled, so I tend to pick up a lot of stuff whenever we're out on work detail or whatever we are when we're not here or walking through the underbrush, I tend to pick up a lot of "stuff". So as part of my meditative Monk practice I spend a certain amount of time every day cleaning myself, attempting to de-burr myself.

[Heather on the overlay: Not the sleekest of the cats.]

Graham: Cave life must have been great for you then.

Paul: It's great, while dusty. So we've all been here four months?

Dale: That's the minimum I set for you, and it sounds like what you've all chosen. So, you're the only four non-humans in this cave. The humans of Chult are almost entirely nomadic cause if you set up any kind of settlement it just gets trod on by megafauna or overwhelmed by the venomous fungus creatures or whatnot. But the plateau is very secure, so it's one of the few permanent settlements, so various tribes sometimes drop people off for a six month sentence in the jail, doing work detail and so forth to pay for it, so there's a variety of different humans, this is definitely a human area. So you're the four non-humans in prison.

Kathleen: We're a clique.

Dale: Well, Pegleg doesn't like any of you cause she's racist. She's the chief prisoner.

[Heather on the overlay: This is a human area. . .]

Graham: Well I don't like Pegleg.

Paul: Does Pegleg acually have a pegleg or is that just a weird nickname?

Dale: Yes. I thought of it because some people have just started calling me "Eyepatch", and I answer to it. If someone says "Hey Eyepatch", of course I'm going to turn. So I thought, well, she's Pegleg then. She's embracing it. "They call me Pegleg!"

Beej: What, all of them?

Graham: They sure do.

Paul: So a lot of people here are not actually prisoners of the plateau, other tribes just drop off prisoners who haven't necessarily done anything against the plateau itself?

Dale: Right. But the plateau takes them, there's usually some sort of gift involved to the mayor of the plateau.

[Heather on the overlay: Prisoner Plateau.]

Dale: So, if there are no more backstories anyone wants to tell, which I'm not trying to interrupt?

Beej: I think I got most of it out.

Dale: So. Once a day the dumbwaiter is lowered to give you guys food and so forth. Pegleg controls the dumbwaiter, she's got some people loyal to her.

Graham: Why is Pegleg in charge of the dumbwaiter?

Dale: She was in charge when you arrived four months ago, and she had five or six people who were her muscle.

Graham: Largely self-appointed.

Dale: Presumably.

Beej: She gets first pick on everything on the dumbwaiter then?

Dale: She does. She's the only overweight prisoner.

Graham: Must be nice. I weigh thirty-seven pounds.

Beej: That's why they call you Snak.

Graham: On the island of megafauna, I'm the smallest possible bateri there could be. That's why they named me Snak. I didn't get along with my tribe. I'm alive still. [Inaudible]...holes.

Dale: On this particular day the dumbwaiter comes down, and it's not too unusual there's a note stuck there, and she pulls it out and reads it, and she looks at you four and she reads it again, and she starts handing out food. She's like "You four don't eat any food today, you're going on work detail."

Graham: Have we been on work detail before?

Dale: Many times.

[Heather on the overlay: Food time! But not for you.]

Paul: We need "more" food cause we're on work detail.

Graham: What does work detail usually en-tail? [Mouths words to himself.]

Dale: I would think there's usually a variety of jobs they give to prisoners.

Beej: Mucking out latrines, or going in the big jungle to gather food, or that kind of thing. Oh, you are liking all this aren't you?

Dale: I am.

Kathleen: [Inaudible between everyone else, sorry.]

Paul: Stop suggesting terrible things.

Dale: You get a point of inspiration for that.

Beej: That's good for me.

Paul: Eating delicious food.

Dale: That does not earn you inspiration, but thanks for the suggestion.

Paul: Aw.

Dale: Wait a minute, I can work with that. Is that what you'd like your job to be today?

[Chorus of "no"]

Beej: Don't test her.

Kathleen: Stop giving Dale ideas.

[Heather on the overlay: Around here you have to earn your inspiration.]

Dale: So as we saw in that beautiful introduction which I just loved, it was so cool seeing all that art. [This editor must agree.]

Graham: I put that together on the plane. Shout outs to Featherweight by the way for all the wonderful art.

Dale: Yes. Nice work. I was delighted to see the dumbwaiter is "way" more dangerous than I've been envisioning it. It's just like, a plank, like a raft.

Graham: You may have had some kind of railing in mind. Would have been nice.

Paul: Featherweight has killed us all.

Beej: Good job, Featherweight.

Dale: I enjoyed it. But don't worry, even without rails it's going to be a relatively easy job to balance on your way up. So you load onto the dumbwaiter and you pull the little thing that signals you're ready to go up. And for the very first dice roll of Dice Friends, I need a dexterity save as the dumbwaiter lurches up. Super easy, I'm sure you'll all be fine.

Paul: So that's just roll and add your Dex bonus?

Dale: Correct.

[Everybody shuts up and rolls.]

Beej: Good start.

Kathleen: Fourteen.

Paul: also fourteen.

Graham: I have a very good Dex bonus and I got a nine.

Beej: Five.

Dale: Five is enough.

[Beej bends over covering his face in his hands.]

Kathleen: Thank Christ.

Dale: Nice and easy.

Graham: Makes an awful creak, I bet.

Paul: So this rock wall of the plateau, is it climbable at all or like, totally sheer?

[Heather on the overlay: Everythíng is FINE.]

Dale: It's wider at the top. "Sheer" to me implies vertical, and I think it goes "in" slightly all the way down.

Beej: Like a voodoo [?] almost.

[Heather on the overlay: Always wider at the top.]

Dale: There are occasional cracks, chunks where things have fallen away, it's not as hard as rock in a lot of places, there's a lot of clay, but there's also rocks you could look into [?] that wouldn't be dislodged if you were trying to climb. As you're heading towards the top you do see a note that's been wedged into some cracks. As the dumbwaiter passes, if you want to, you could try to lean out and grab the note.

Graham: You think I could reach it?

Dale: No I don't think that's an option that's available to Snak. You could have someone hold you out over the side.

[Heather on the overlay: Notes are just old styled texts.]

Graham: I'm dexterous enough to do it.

Paul: I'll make a grab for it. This is just another Dex check? That's a sixteen.

Dale: Sixteen is enough. Have a note.

Paul: I got a note!

Dale: I know we're not supposed to be nice to the podcast listeners, but do you want to read it out loud anyway?

Graham: We don't have to "actively" troll them. [Mumbling] Everything's looking so great, this overlay is gorgeous.

Paul: I want the note to be like "Oh God, I'm about to fall down! Aaaaaa-" and it sort of trails off.

Graham [quickly]: Why did I take the time to write this nooote?

Paul [Reading]: Prisoners.

Kathleen: That's us!

Paul: Do not trust the Mayor. I have a job offer for you which I'll explain when it's time to get cursed. Signed, Moga [?] in brackets The Sage.

Paul: Is that the guy you were talking to?

Beej: No, no. I need to get that note back so I can have the name of the Necromancer, I'm his student, I should know his name.

Graham: Time to get cursed?

Dale: You have done work parties before. If you're leaving the immediate village, going over the bridge, they give you a curse stone. The moment you take a curse stone out of the basket, you're cursed until the curse stone is put back into the basket. The curse starts out super mild, you know, I'm sure it's almost unnoticeable at first, but if you keep it for a long time things get bad. Does anybody have any stories about times they had a curse stone?

[Heather on the overlay: Time to get cursed. Don't worry, it's mild.]

Kathleen: Oh man, I got a rash all over my legs [?] and it was so itchy. It was the worst.

Paul: The worst curse.

Kathleen: Well, it's starting out mild right? But what's stopping is from throwing the curse stone away? There's guards? The curse doesn't break? Just checking.

Dale: You could try it, though. Maybe they were lying when they said that.

Graham: Do you know how big bateri ears are? You know how much hair you can get growing in your ears? I wasn't actually prepared to find out to be honest. But it started strong. Sounds mild. Like, you've got hairy ears, whatever. No. This was another level.

Paul: Yeah, I have hairy ears all the time. Hairy everything. [Whispering] Everything.

Dale: I hadn't thought of hairy ears. Have a point of inspiration.

[Graham pantomimes explosive ear hair growth.]

Beej: You'd think you guys have more to talk about. Except you can't hear each other.

Kathleen: Bet it's warm in the winter.

Graham: I don't lick my ear hair, or at least I didn't at the time. Got rid of it once I had the curse broken. [Pantomimes cutting a fistful of ear hair.]

Paul: Last time I was cursed it was just, unable to stop getting static electricity. All my hair was sticking straight out and every time I touched anything, bzzt.

Graham: You think he looks fluffy now.

Paul: It was the worst.

[Heather on the overlay: Time to get cursed. Don't worry it's mild. May contain ear hair. Electric ear hair.]

Beej: My skin started to glow. Like, really bright. Made it hard to sleep. Cause my eyelids were very bright, so when I'd close my eyes it was "oh God". [Pantomimes glowing, or possibly melting eyes.]

Paul: I appreciate the creativity in these curses.

Graham: Where do they get these stones?

[Silence]

Dale: Who're you asking?

Paul: Maybe the Sage knows.

Graham: Just thinking out loud. Okay, so we have context for what it means to be cursed. What did it say?

[Paul reads the note again.] I mean, I wasn't planning on trusting the Mayor.

Graham: We would know who the Mayor is, probably encountered them once or twice. What do we know about them? Without asking anybody, what do we already know?

[Heather on the overlay: Never trust the Mayor. Always trust the Mayor.]

Dale: He is the chief human of the area. He has a pretty strong rivalry with the Sage, they are the two most important, it's hard to even guess who the third most important is, maybe the carpenter, maybe the militia chief. Between the Mayor and the Sage, they make most of the laws, they're the people who run the place. For example, four months ago the Mayor's sister got married to a local chief's son and that was a huge deal, various nomadic groups came from all over.

[Heather on the overlay: Mayors run places.]

Graham: Yeah we heard. That was a real loud party up top.

Dale: It was the day after that party that you got "framed". So, you have the note, you're headed towards the top, there's a big pulley system, there's three lumbering, armored, they look like giant bugs, they're armored dinosaur-type things. You know that if one of them tried to go over the suspension bridge it probably would not hold them. They're all scales.

Graham: Right, the only way up to the plateau is that suspension bridge.

Dale: That we also saw in that lovely Featherweight drawing. Which is why the plateau can be a permanent settlement, because if something goes wrong and the dinosaurs are trying to cross it there's a security system, you can release your end of the bridge, and there's these big coils of rope, and the bridge just falls and all the dinosaurs go into the crevice and then you pull the ropes back up.

[Heather on the overlay: Oh the suspense of the suspension bridge!]

Beej: Very clever for a stone age society.

Dale: Well, they have interactions with the so-called civilized people of Faerun, they can go get educated in other places if they want to, they just don't have their own metallurgy.

Graham: There's a big port town like a week from here?

Dale: Port Nyanzaru [?] is off to the North. The bridge goes to the south, cause that's where the hill is that you can make a bridge to. It takes a group of heroes who make the journey either a week or two either direction.

Dale: So you get to the top of the dumbwaiter. There's some guards there waiting for you. You know the drill, you've done work groups before. They're going to take you to whoever's giving you the job. In this case they're taking you to see the Mayor.

Paul: Have we worked for the Mayor before?

Dale: The Mayor does work details on occasion, but often it's something lesser. Like if you're cleaning the latrines I don't think the Mayor would feel the need to be involved. I feel you can tell me if you've worked for the Mayor before.

Kathleen: I think this should be "no".

Graham: What does the Mayor want out of this? I worry.

[Heather on the overlay: We're off the see the Mayor!]

Dale: So you see the Mayor, there's a couple of guards still hanging out. The Mayor is not looking so good. His eyes are bloodshot, his skin is looking a bit on the pale side. He says, so you're here because we're having a big party. My sister's coming to town and I need some specific things. When you get back from your work detail of gathering nuts and berries I'd like an answer to my proposition. I'm going to need some people to go to Port Nyanzaru. Now, I can suspend your sentence if you're willing to go do this, and assuming you're successful in bringing me back the medical supplies I need I can have it ended entirely. Obviously you should take some time to think about this, you're going on your work detail first, but when you get back we should have a conversation.

Graham: I'm in.

Dale: Well, that works too.

Paul: Can I, I don't know, use my medicine skill, not examine him, but take a guess what's going on with the Mayor in terms of how he's sick?

Dale: Please make a roll. Eighteen? So whatever this is, it's not something you've seen before, and you've seen a lot of stuff. He's wasting away in some unusual way. Something new.

Graham: So what's the work? Let's get this over with. Get on the road.

Dale: Alright, I need you to get some nuts and berries on the other side of the suspension bridge. First you should talk to the poison master and the carpenter and they'll get you some gear. Then you can get cursed and head over the bridge.

Kathleen: Yaaay.

Dale: Here's your scavenger list. Are you in charge?

Kathleen: Sure. I'm the tallest.

[Graham grasps feebly in the air.]

Dale: I feel he handed it over directly over your head.

Kathleen: Alright guys, we need enough sweet white halna berries for a large dessert. Now do you mean a small portion of a large dessert or a large dessert served family style?

[Graham continues grasping, Kathleen holds note over her head.]

Dale: So when my sister and her leader.-family come in I want there to be a great big baked dessert they can all try.

Kathleen: Alright. At least seven white necronof berries, honey, twelve large maorbo tree leaves, bracket keep them pretty. Ah, for presentation.

Dale: Yeah, they're about this big [Gestures widely], we can set them out nicely over the chairs, yes, presentation.

Kathleen: My mother is very keen on presentation. Forty-two hanoba nuts, one live hindzim fly, three drops of venom from a gorbaga spider or its entire head. Well that seems easier, but could we not bring the spider back in a cage? I think that'd be more humane.

Dale: It would be difficult to maneuver that over the bridge, but yes, if you figure out some way to get the entire spider over, by all means.

Graham: Do I know how big one of those spiders is?

Dale: Do you have a nature skill – no – sure, make a roll.

Kathleen: Maybe if you're from around here, cause I mean, Morra would not.

Beej [Looking at dice]: How big are these spiders, Graham?

Graham: I dunno. I rolled a one, I'm the worst bateri ever.

Beej [Rolling]: Though I think I might know, cause if I work with spiders and venom and whatnot, sounds like a thing I might understand. That's a nine.

[Heather on the overlay: Get some gear and get cursed.]

Dale: So you've certainly never heard of one as small as you.

Kathleen: I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Beej: Bigger than me, and I'm four foot six, two hundred pounds.

Graham: Okay, I'm not doing that one. I'll find the honey or "something".

Beej: I've worked with those before, or seen them, never had to milk one for venom, but.

Kathleen: Seven intact mosquitoes, don't have to be alive but can't have any blood. I'm seeing some problems with some of these things. One cubic inch of spider web, one live spotted melfanda lizard that has never tasted red semolo fern.

Dale: That's the kind of lizard you've been liberating.

Kathleen [Unconvincing]: I'm well aware of that, thank you. And one T-rex eyeball, bracket fresh.

Graham: Question.

Paul: Can we just bring back the T-rex?

[Heather on the overlay: Spider Snak.]

Dale: Yes, thank you, that was a good question. Now it's time for your equipment. In the next room is the carpenter and the poison master. And one of the guards say [Gruff voice] Sir, the carpenter is not here. [Wheezing Mayor voice] Well I need the carpenter here. [Gruff voice] He says he's not coming. He's busy. [Mayor voice] But I'm the Mayor. [Gruff voice] The chief of the militia is here. [Mayor voice] Ah, well, I'll deal with him later. So, go to the next room where the chief of the militia and the poison master will give you your gear and then it's off to the stage for cursing. Good luck.

[Heather on the overlay: Everyone talks over Snak. . .]

Beej: Great. That's a little out of the ordinary.

Kathleen [Rereading list]: They eat weird food here in Chult.

Beej: We've had to eat some of that weird food.

Graham: I have a lot of worry.

Dale: I feel I was very weird/rude [?] to you in that encounter, I'm sorry Graham.

Graham: What? Noo that's fine.

Paul: When is this party?

Kathleen: Tomorrow.

Dale [hands out note cards]: This is your gear.

Beej: I feel someone more agile should be in charge of getting that T-rex eyeball.

Kathleen: Thank you. This gear sucks.

Paul: I don't suppose "T-rex eyeball" is the colloquial name for some kind of plant, is it?

Graham: We're getting this [gear] from the militia?

Dale: And the poison master.

Graham: Oh, "now" you're okay with me having gear.

Dale: I was always okay with you having gear "when you were doing your job".

Graham: I was still doing my job!

Dale: You left and went into some big jungle thing, you were gone for days!

Graham: Yeah, well, when I came back I was doing my job.

Dale: You're not allowed to just leave for days.

Graham: That was never part of the guidebook.

Dale: (Why do I work with bateri?) You can't just leave your job. You were assigned to the bridge. That doesn't mean you walk across the bridge, it means you stay at the bridge, on alert.

Graham: Mimimimimimimimim.

Paul: We have three arrows, is that what these little. . .?

Dale: Yes, you're only with three convicts, why would you need more than three arrows?

Beej: That stands to reason.

Paul: We do have to get that T-rex eyeball.

Beej: [Mumbled] never been that good at this.

Dale: I've never heard of anyone taking down a T-rex with a bow and arrow, so you'll have to get creative.

Paul: Maybe that's cause they only had three arrows.

Kathleen [raises hand]: This is a meta question. Is this normal for a work detail? It seems a really insane list.

Dale: You've never seen anything like this, or, I guess you asked a yes or no question, the answer is no.

Kathleen: This is nuts. Okay. Why do they want all this stuff for a feast? I get the berries and honey and stuff like that, but why do they need the spider web and the lizard and the T-rex eyeball for? Who eats this stuff? You guys?

Beej: I've never been served any of this stuff.

Paul: This isn't part of some magic thingamajig is it?

Beej: It stands to reason, that's not a bad idea. I can roll arcana, let's see if this is ingredients for some sort of mischief. I rolled eighteen.

Dale: The answer is yes. Some of these things sound like they're spell components.

Kathleen: Excuse me, militia head, could I have some more arrows please? Cause these are some very complicated things and I feel the "gorbaga spider" might, we have to get three drops of venom or its entire head, I feel we haven't been given enough supplies. Can I persuade you to give me more?

Dale: You can try.

Kathleen: Excellent. I have a plus five to persuasion rolls.

Graham: I also want to try something, but you go.

Kathleen: I have a twenty-one. I'm very persuasive. I have a list of point [?] I'll read you from my notes.

[Heather on the overlay: I takes a lot of arrows to cut off a head.]

Dale: So I didn't actually bring any extra arrows with me, but you have convinced me you need more. Snak, give me your arrows.

Graham: Can I use sleight of hand to try to hide one of my arrows? Twenty-three.

Dale: Yeah, you can hide one of your arrows.

[Heather on the overlay: I prepared this presentation earlier.]

Graham: I only got two. Okay, I'm hiding one of the not-crooked arrows. I've only got two and one of them is crooked.

Dale: Okay, give them to me. [To Kathleen] Here you are.

Kathleen: Yay, thank you. [Looks underwhelmed.]

Dale: When you need information on the crooked arrow, Graham has it. [To Graham] And you said you wanted to try something?

Graham: That was it, I wanted to hide one and go "Yo, I only got two arrows" but apparently he has no extra, so Snak rethought that plan.

[Heather on the overlay: Snak only big enough to hide one arrow.]

[Did Graham have two or three arrows? We may never know.]

Dale: Alright, I think it's time for you to go and get cursed.

Beej: Best part of my day.

Paul: It's like a cup of coffee, just. . . [Pantomimes being jolted awake]

[Heather on the overlay: Get your curse on!]

Graham: Are we being escorted to the. . .?

Dale: So you have two guards with you, not the militia master and poison master, they're just walking with you everywhere.

Graham: So they didn't just arm us and trust us to find the way to the bridge? Darn it.

Kathleen: They think of everything here!

Kathleen: I'd like to think I'm persuasive in the way that you just want me to stop talking, not that I'm charming.

Dale: It's probably the same game mechanic. So you head toward the Sage. How many of you have met the Sage?

Graham: I don't think I have, don't know what reason I would have.

Kathleen: I probably haven't either. Maybe Bontan?

Graham: Actually, I've lived here a while.

Kathleen: Yeah you guys [Chult natives] should have but not us.

Paul: I just got here, so I don't know.

[Heather on the overlay: Thyme, parsley, sage.]

Graham: You [Paul] just got here, you [Kathleen] got arrested, you [Beej] got arrested.

Beej: She took a bit of a special interest, I think, when she met me. Like, oh, you have that tattoo.

Graham: I guess I might have met the Sage once.

Dale: She accused you [Beej] of arcane spellcasting, which is illegal for anybody but her on the plateau.

Kathleen: So she's running a racket.

Graham: Well lah-di-da.

Dale: So that's actually why you were in jail. You were imprisoned for arcane spellcasting while Cleric.

Dale: So you head to the Sage. She's waiting outside for you, and she's coughing a lot. Her assistant is standing nearby looking nervous. As you approach you see she's looking very pale and has quite bloodshot eyes.

Kathleen: Is she looking bad in the same way as the Mayor?

Dale: What kind of skill do you have that'd make me say anything other than "Sure!"?

Kathleen: Probably none.

Dale: Sure!

Kathleen: Well, plus five to Investigation, I don't know.

Paul: Since I did look at the Mayor I guess I can take a look at her as well.

Dale: What harm?

Paul: Twelve.

Dale: It's certainly similar symptoms.

Beej: Could I? Sixteen.

Dale: Something weird is going on with the Sage. This isn't a normal medical thing, you know, what is it with these people?

Beej: Especially the two most important people having this similar problem.

Dale: You have heard both of them have been raised from the dead, in case that means any data point. In the Mayor's case that's because Pegleg tried to steal a whole bunch of poison and she spilled some, and when the resulting death was resolved he swore she would be imprisoned forever. You haven't heard the story of the Sage's death.

[Heather on the overlay: Raised from the dead and still sick.]

Dale: So she's coughing a lot. I think I'll spare the people listening to my microphone all those coughs.

Graham: We can infer.

Dale: She wheezes a bit which I can probably do. [Wheezing] I hope you got my note. I need a group of people to make a run to port Nyanzaru. I know it's evil, and you should hate Port Nyanzaru because it's affiliated with Faerun. [Leaning to Kathleen] I mean no disrespect, dear.

Kathleen: I'm in jail, I've been very disrespected, I mutter under my breath.

Dale: You sort of look at her and go "Wait a minute, that scarf she's wearing was the hem of my mom's cloak!" She's cut it off the bottom of the cloak and made it into a scarf. Do you want to tell the audience about the cloak?

Kathleen: So I'm supposed to be on exchange.

Graham: To where?

Dale: Waterdeep.

Kathleen: To see my second cousins, and my mom, cause she wanted to make a good impression, cause appearances are very important, sent me with the heirloom cloak that's been passed down for many generations. I don't know anything about it but I know it's very expensive. I tried not to take it cause I knew I was coming here, but my mom insisted. What am I going to do with a fur trim cloak in Chult anyhow? Oh my God, mom.

[Heather on the overlay: Morra's fashion cloak time.]

Graham: How old are you again?

Kathleen: I'm sixty. Which in dwarf years is like sixteen. Elf years. I'm like super young. And I get here and I liberate the lizards and I'm not wearing the cloak because I'm not stupid, but it's in my bag and when they take my bag they take my cloak and I'm like "I'm so dead". Like I'm pretty sure I'm going to get out of prison because I'm very smart and I'm on the side of justice, but that cloak is a real problem! And now it's been, I'm, there's magic and I can put it back together, I just need to get that scarf off that lady's neck. She's going to die soon probably, she looks real bad, she's not going to be using it, let's do this.

[Heather on the overlay: Cloak not so fashionable for lizard saving.]

Dale: I can only give you one point of inspiration. So, she's wheezing a bunch, going "Well, think about it", and then goes back inside.

Kathleen: Wait wait wait.

Beej: Damnit.

Graham: Wait, I want to talk to her.

Dale: The assistant is there. [Squeaky voice] I'm sure she'll get better soon. So, could I help you out and curse you for her so you can get back quickly? Is that good?

Kathleen: You know what would help me immensely? You know that little strip of fabric is very important to me, and I'd find it extremely motivating if I could take that with me into the jungle. It also has "magical elf properties" like they have in Faerun, and like we're this horrible cursed continent and we're terrible, and it would be so helpful if I could just get that back.

Dale: She said it was helping her not die. It's important my boss doesn't die.

[Heather on the overlay: Substitute curse giver.]

Kathleen: I mean it would also help her not die in a roundabout way?

Dale: I can ask her.

Kathleen: That'd be just peachy if you could.

Dale: I'll do that while you're out getting those nuts and berries, okay?

Kathleen [lying]: That's fine.

Dale: So I'm going to curse you now, okay?

Beej: Something benign this time.

Graham: So how does the cursing work?

Dale: It works, you reach into this basket [presents an upside down Devo hat] and pull out a curse stone. I'll just lean over a lot.

Paul: Both the Sage and the Mayor want us to. . .

Beej: Go to Nyanzaru ultimately.

Kathleen: Why don't we go to Nyanzaru and don't come back?

Graham: Before I look [Holding note from the hat], what are the mechanics of this, physically?

Dale: It's a rock, and you'll have a physical description there. What you've been told is, until someone puts that rock back in this basket, you're cursed. You're cursed right now. I have no new mechanics to give you at this time.

Graham: Do we just intuit what's on here or is it written on the rocks somehow?

Dale: It'll be a physical description of the rock, and unless you got the dud, it'll also give you a curse code. So if there's a thing in your handouts or I say "hey your curse activates", I need you to give me the code so I can look up what's going on.

[Heather on the overlay: If you have a problem with your curse please call customer service.]

Graham: Is there some way with sleight of hand I can look like I'm taking a rock and immediately put it back?

Dale: That'd be really tough but I don't want to say no.

Graham: I'll give it a shot. [What can they do, put him in jail?] Let's do this on the special camera cause if I nail this I'm going to be very excited about it.

[People react predictably to Graham rolling a one.]

Graham: I fumble and drop it and hit myself in the nose. Owie.

[Heather says something inaudible from off screen.]

Dale: No, I think it activates the curse. What's your curse code, why don't you tell us what's there? If it's the dud. . .

Graham: It's a dark gray rock with a faint crack in it though it's quite difficult to see. An oval mark has been painted in green on an uncracked part of the rock. Curse code four. Ow, my nose.

Paul: Did you get a nose hurting curse?

Graham [holding his nose]: No I, shut up Dande.

[Heather on the overlay: Sorry curses cannot be returned at this time.]

Dale: Four. That works out well. I'm just going to say your nose bleeds a lot.

Beej: I have my curse rock. I know better than to [Laughter.]

Paul: I was contemplating doing the same move but now I think I won't.

Graham: You also have sleight of hand?

Kathleen: So do I.

Paul: I do, it's just a Dexterity feat.

Dale: Anybody could try it.

Graham: Yeah but I have really good Dex.

Paul: So do I.

Kathleen: I'm going to try sneaking the rock back in while everyone's distracted by his bloody nose. It's just spurting blood everywhere, right? Excellent. Eighteen plus five for sleight of hand twenty-three.

Dale: I'll roll to see that, but it's going to be tough to match a twenty-three. Seventeen, he does "not" have plus six, so you put yours back in the basket.

Graham: Dangit. So much blood.

Paul: I guess I'll try as well, though I'm not that good.

Graham: I'm not even that big, how much blood do I have?

Dale: Before that happens, what was your curse code again Graham? Four, yeah, I think once you cheat the curse system the fingernails on your hand that you're using to keep your nose closed start to bleed. [To Beej] What's your curse code? Zero nine?

[Heather on the overlay: Curse successfully returned. Thank you for shopping at Curse Mart.]

Beej: Oh, it's one of "these" campaigns.

Graham: Can I draw a different curse? This is going to make all the things we're supposed to do really difficult.

Dale: That's what curses do, they're not supposed to help. I should explain. A curse is a thing that happens to you supernaturally, through necromancy.

Graham: Well I understand that.

Dale: I don't know, you're way down there and getting blood everywhere and you seem to think it's bad.

Graham: But do you want us to collect this stuff or not? How are we supposed –

Dale: I don't care. That's the Mayor's thing, I don't like him.

Graham: How are we supposed to help the "Sage" if we don't come back?

Dale: You should come back and help the Sage.

Graham: Can I try and intimidate this guy?

Dale: Yes, but I have to resolve this thing first.

Graham: Yeah do that. But I have intimidation. The thing about Snak is, he's very small but he's real scary when he wants to be.

Paul: Also he's covered in blood now.

Kathleen: He's just a screaming, blood-covered goblin.

Graham: He's got blood coming out of his nose and his right thumb and index finger.

Dale [to Beej]: You have a very bad ringing in your ears.

Beej: Sounds about right. We're not talking like crippling, just really irritating, right? I had this one before. [Groans.]

Dale: So you [Paul] haven't drawn your rock yet. You [Kathleen] have drawn yours and put it back and made theirs worse. And you [Graham] want to try intimidating him before he gives Dande his rock, is that right?

Graham: I can't have this much stuff going on, I have enough to worry about. Alright, seven.

Kathleen: You're blood-covered but maybe not that intimidating.

At least he's not rolling very well.

Paul: I guess he knows it's your blood.

Graham: I've rolled one twice already, less than an hour into the first session.

Kathleen: Get that out of the way early in the campaign, it's fine.

Dale: You know you had inspiration, you could have rolled that twice.

Graham: Oh, that's how inspiration works.

[Heather on the overlay: How does inspiration work?]

[By Bontan's portrait: Curse: Bad rining in ears.]

[By Snak's portrait: Curse: Bleeding from nose and fingers.]

Dale: Oh, sorry. Inspiration is a thing you have or don't have. While you have it at any time you can spend that point of inspiration to have advantage on something. Apologies for not explaining.

Graham: I just forgot. It's been a while since I "played" 5E. I'd like to do that.

Dale: Technically we can't do it afterwards, but since you forgot the rules, if you want to we can just say so.

Graham: Wouldn't I just roll a second dice, and if it's greater then that's it and if it's less than seven we run with that?

Dale: Yes, but normally when you have advantage you have to have it before you roll your first die, you can't just roll one and see if it's bad. . .

Kathleen: Oh, and then decide to use it.

Graham: Of course, it's okay.

Dale: I feel it's okay for each person to have one mulligan if like "I got that wrong, I actually hit on a seventeen not a fourteen like I said". If you want to mulligan, go ahead.

Kathleen: Go for it, Graham.

Beej: Is it worth it?

Graham: That's what I'm worried about. I can't just be bleeding all the time.

[Heather on the overlay: Inspired mulligan time?]

Paul: Do we know, will the curses come and go? It's not like once it's activated he's going to bleed forever?

Dale: The curses are very chaotic.

Graham: Okay, I'm going to, it's hard to read your dice Beej.

Beej: Yeah, do you want to use this instead?

Graham: Sure, alright, let's do this on the camera. Well, there's the four I rolled the first time. But this is a nineteen. So that's a twenty-two to intimidate this poor man.

Dale: So he screams and he's hiding [?] "aah, aah, give me your rock" [Collects everyone's rocks]. Give me a rock, give me a rock, [to Kathleen] give me a roll.

Paul: I guess I haven't taken this one.

Kathleen: Okay, uh oh, oh no, it's a nine.

Dale: I also have a nine. And we've established your modifier is higher than mine.

Kathleen: It's a plus three on Dexterity checks, so, nine "with" the modifier.

[Heather on the overlay: All the screaming. This is going well.]

Dale: Nine is your modified number? So he sees you're not putting a rock back in. [Squeaky voice] It's actually better if you give me your rock. I'll go get the Sage but you should give me your rock when we come back. [Dale voice] And he runs inside.

Kathleen: I find any fucking pebble on the ground and go "my curse is back!"

Beej: That went off as a work bench [?]

Paul: Should I give you this back?

Dale: You should, cause you never took it. So, you should write a new curse rock cert that's just a rock. Describe the rock and we'll put it in there.

Paul: So now there's two duds in there.

Kathleen [Writing]: A small gray stone.

Dale: Now, you're going to be able to feel that so if you have no objection, if you're taking more curse rocks today I'll pull them for you. It'd be difficult not to metagame feeling for the piece of paper.

Kathleen: So I grab a small gray stone and look around, look at Snak and run a finger through all of the blood on him and put a smear on the rock.

Graham: Gross.

Dale: One of the guards notices you doing this and gets the giggles.

Graham: Oh right, those two.

Kathleen: Don't doubt my elvish ways!

Beej: So glad there's factions.

Dale: So the Sage comes out. [Wheezing voice] Bebbo says you don't want to take the curse rocks, so you can put them back in and I'll arrange for you to go back down and I'll get Pegleg up here to do the list.

[Everyone noes.]

[Heather on the overlay: Turns out curse rocks are bad.]

Graham: It's just the curses are going to make collecting all this stuff really difficult.

Dale: Well, yes. And I wish I could tell you you didn't have to be cursed. But I'm not going to.

Beej: Whose policy is this?

Paul: Could we get like a delay so we can go do the stuff "before" he starts bleeding from every orifice?

Dale: [Wheezing voice] Kind of a joint policy. And I'm unclear about why his curse activated so quickly. [Dale voice] The bleeding is now just normal bleeding, nothing supernatural about it, so it'll stop in a normal amount of time.

Beej: I think our friend was just clumsy and hit himself in the nose with the rock and it just activated out of nowhere.

Dale: [Wheezing] Bebbo, I think you foolishly misunderstood what was happening. [Squeaky] I'm sorry, I'm just going to give you your curse rocks now. Or do you want to go back down?

[Everyone goes no again, Beej wipes forehead.]

Dale: Here you are and here you are and here you are and here you are.

Graham: So we just grabbed our rocks. I have a small gray stone.

Beej: I have a dark gray rock with a faint crack in it though it's quite difficult to see. An oval mark has been painted in green on an uncracked part of the rock.

Graham: Oh, that one sucks.

Beej: Yeah, I heard.

[Heather on the overlay: "Normal bleeding".]

Kathleen: I have a dark gray stone with an orange spiral counter-clockwise from the center painted on one side.

Paul: I have a dark gray stone that looks ordinary.

Dale: Does it have a curse code?

Paul: Yes.

Dale: Oh.

Beej: Ah, you're going to hate that one.

Paul: It's ordinary.

[Heather on the overlay: Pretty rocks for everyone.]

Dale: I'm sure it's fine. It's probably the dud even though it has a curse code on it.

Graham: Mine has [Licking] my blood on it. Put it in my pocket, and away we go.

Kathleen: It all worked out for you in the end. What's your luck stat like? [Checks papers.]

Graham: No such thing.

Kathleen: I feel in actuality it has to be quite high.

Graham: It kind of has to be for him to be alive statistically.

Dale: Should I look for a spot for a break or are we just pushing through the whole thing?

Kathleen: Let's just keep going. I turned that into such a motley [laugh].

Paul: We have this list.

Graham: It's a Hell of a shopping list.

Dale: You're escorted to the bridge. There's a big boulder and a woman, all her stuff is purple which is a sign she's in the militia. This is a post you [Graham] have done in the past. She's leaning against the boulder, she's wearing a big broad-brimmed hat and she's smoking a pipe. She's like "Heey". She's eaten some snacks. Her name is Senny, you've met her before. [Hands Graham imaginary pipe.]

Graham: Yes please, thank you. [Huffs, is immediately stone, hands pipe back.]

Dale: And she leans back against the boulder.

Paul: She's like, the bridge guard at the moment?

Graham: I guess I should describe what I'm wearing now that we have all this gear.

Dale: Are you [Graham] trying to stop off in the village for anything else, as the only person whose background gave him extra stuff in the village?

Graham: Yeah but wouldn't, there's guards with us?

Dale: I'm not saying it would be easy, I'm asking if you're going to try. You've tried other stuff that was maybe unwise.

Graham: Yeeah. What do I have secreted in this village? Secret-ed, not secrete-d.

Dale: That's what you have the lizards for. [?]

Beej: No that was just a "bunch" of blood.

Graham: I've done plenty of secreting for one day. Where is my cache at the village? It just says in the village.

[Heather on the overlay: Please try unwise things! All of them!]

Dale: We never really defined that. You have one place in the village where you hid a bunch of stuff, and one place further in the jungle where you hid a bunch of stuff. It's all stolen.

Graham: And another one that they "found".

Dale: I mean I don't know if you need anything now that you have stuff but I wanted to check before you crossed the bridge.

Graham: No armor, is there? My concern is that I don't know how I'd make that not glaringly obvious that suddenly I have armor.

Paul: Armor is pretty hard to conceal.

Graham: So is a longbow.

Paul: With it being long and all.

Dale: The longbow is much taller than you. Much like the maul they just gave you. The weapon is larger than you are.

[Heather on the overlay: I've always had this armor. . .don't worry about it. . .]

Graham: I might need some of those arrows, being as I actually have a proficiency in archery.

Dale: So I have other stuff I want to do. (This is one of the guards.) Can you just cross the bridge so we can stop following you around?

Kathleen: Everyone here seems really laid back despite the fact we're in a prison.

Paul: I think it's what happens when you're a guard in a place no one can get to.

Graham: Do they also smoke those ferns?

Dale: It's not the fern that she's smoking. Was that your question?