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Sunday, October 22, 2017

Dice, Camera, Action: Episode 65 - Tomb of Annihilation


Episode 65: Bait and Twitch
This is a live show that was held at TwitchCon 2017. There are two guest stars: Geoff Robinson and Ross, Holly's husband.

Game Grumps is starting an online D&D game, which Jared is DMing and Holly is playing in. Being woefully out of touch, I've never watched Game Grumps before, so I checked it out. They did a playthrough of one of my favorite video games of all time - Shadow of the Colossus.

I watched the final hour of it because I wanted to see their reaction to some things that happen near the end of the game, which legit made me cry in real life.

The one player was suitably weepy, and I was most pleased. Seems like a fun show!

There were major technical difficulties with this stream, so we only really get to see the last half hour. That half hour is very good, so it's worth checking out.

(Anna) Evelyn - Human Paladin of Lathander
(ProJared) Diath - Human Rogue
(Holly) Strix - Tiefling Sorcerer
(Geoff) Chumba - Batiri Goblin
(Ross) Wumba - Batiri Goblin

The group is in the Jungle of Chult. They're trying to end the death curse, which is slowly killing three members of the party. Last time, they were visited by the Sewn Sisters, who gave them a second soul. This should save them if they die - the second soul will be drawn into the Soulmonger.

The group travels for 3 days down a river. Waffles runs on the shore to follow. Evelyn flies next to the boat.

They spot a wukka nut tree. Wukka nuts glow.

We miss a bunch of stuff. We come back to the group having made camp. Wumba is now with them. The goblins have formed a battle stack, which is a thing goblins do in Tomb of Annihilation. They ride on each others shoulders and attack as one entity. In this case, the bottom of the two goblins is invisible.

A zombie t. rex enters their camp and Holly transforms it into an axebeak. Polymorph lasts for 1 hour. I love the zombie t. rex, very cool that Chris decided to use it at this show!

Chumba wants to go swing at the polymorphed dinosaur. The group begs him not to. He doesn't know that hitting it will turn it back into its original form.

Diath tries to stop him, but poor Jared rolls bad. The goblin muscles him out of the way.

Chumba attacks but misses. He action surges! He attacks again. He hits it.. and it turns back into the t. rex.

Wumba takes a selfie with his scrying orb, even though he's invisible. Chumba disengages and flees, abandoning his brother. The t. rex pursues Chumba and hits him doing 24 points of damage. It swallows him! Dragonbait climbs in to a hole inside the t. rex's torso to try to save the goblin.

Strix casts enlarge on Evelyn, so she can have a kaiju battle with the undead dinosaur. Evelyn is now 10 feet tall. The t. rex is 30 feet tall.

Evelyn does a pile of damage. The t. rex is bloodied. Dragonbait climbs inside the t. rex to look for Chumba. Diath goes, "Don't you dare find him!" Jared is very much not a fan of the goblins.

Wumba throws his last will and testament at Diath, does a shadow of the colossus climb and tries to hack into the t. rex. His roll: a 2. Wumba is swallowed!

Chumba makes his first death save. A 2. Strix fireballs the t. rex, assuming the goblins are dead. Dragonbait's in there, too!

Diath attacks the t. rex and does a measly 4 damage. It only had 2 left! It's dead and topples over. Things are moving in there. Evelyn assumes its Dragonbait.

She slices it open with treebane and Dragonbait falls out. He's got Chumba. 5 zombies come crawling out after him.

The heroes start hacking into the zombies. Chumba wakes up1 He's alive.

Holly polymorphs a zombie into an axebeak. The group quickly destroys the zombies.

The heroes retrieve Wumba's body. Wumba makes a death save... natural 20! He's up!

The end.

Overall

Very good from what we got to see!


The zombies and the fireball should have made the goblins dead-dead, but maybe Chris wanted them alive so they could appear on the next episode (which they will be).


Ross seems like a very funny person and he definitely added to the game. I know a lot of us were hoping for Dee, but I guess the Erika Ishii ship has sailed, at least for now. I know she's got some other game going on Game and Sundry, so we could always check her out there.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here's a recap that someone put on the subreddit page. Part I

Seeing the nuts, Evelyn proceeds to take massive handfuls of them and feeds one to Waffles, and luckily the nuts seem to not be particularly dangerous. Wumba (Ross' character) is hiding in the bushes/trees, waiting for the boats to come down the river. Hidden because of his good roll and everyone's poor perception, Wumba decides to throw a spear into the boat Diath, Paultin, and Simon are riding in, landing a nat 20. I think it was at this point that Ross began dabbing, which he would also later do at moments when he is particularly successful at things that usually tend to be unfavorable for the rest of the Waffle Crew; the Waffle Crew eventually comes to associate dabbing as a very negative goblin gesture. The boat begins to fill with water and so Paultin, using Simon as a flotation device, and Diath begin to swim onto one of the river banks, with Diath having leeches (some potentially on his testicles) that he begins to remove. Strix threatens to burn the entire jungle down, and Wumba dumps his waterskin of water on himself as a precaution, but Strix gives up on her threat. Evelyn begins wildly throwing nuts into the trees and bushes in an attempt to hit their hidden attacker, but with no luck, and proceeds to zoom around the trees in a manner similar to the swoop bike scene in Return of the Jedi, and still has no luck finding Wumba.
Wumba says something to taunt Evelyn, which allows Chumba to recognize the voice of his brother. Wamba comes out from hiding and explains he thought Chumba was their slave and was trying to free him; Chumba says he was just an indentured servant, which Wumba says is a slave. I believe at this point Chumba and Wumba refereed to the Waffle Crew's suboptimal nature in Common (to make sure they could hear and understand it), Wumba explained some of his backstory, namely that he was a follower of Dendar the Night Serpent, and that through some means, he had obtained a flute that Chumba was especially fond of. Wumba begins to hand Chumba his flute, when Strix decides to fly at the exchange and try to snatch the flute. Wumba was too fast for Strix, who failed, causing Strix to fly straight into some bushes and causing birds to fly out of it in a panic. Strix ends up angering some wasps or hornets that were in the bush and charges into the river to avoid being attacked by them. Evelyn pulled the damaged and partially submerged boat out of the water so that they can dump out the water and Umbril can use Mend to repair it. The group proceeded to continue down the river on their boats.
Eventually, the group found themselves at Camp Righteous, a camp that was formerly maintained by the Order of the Gauntlet until a horde of undead came across the camp and attacked it, leaving a mostly destroyed camp and numerous rotting dead bodies behind. Paultin and Simon immediately jump into their hut as Diath proceeds to take off his shirt, belt, and vest so that they can dry off. I believe it was Strix that found an Axe Beak locked in a cage, and she let it out. It immediately went over to chop at Evelyn, but she wasn't particularly damaged by its attempts. The group came across the foot of an enormous statue of a crocodile being carried piggyback by a human carved into the side of the mountain next to the camp. And Wumba, with some help from Chumba, told the Waffle Crew the mythology of the statue, which amounted to something along the lines of a human carried a crocodile and they were best buds forever (an incorrect interpretation of the myth which I'll put in full at the bottom of the post) - information they had obtained from some people in the past that Chumba and Wumba had proceeded to eat.

Anonymous said...

Part II

I believe the bird started running off (maybe towards the inside of the statue?) and Evelyn and Strix both chased after it, failing their perception rolls, and getting themselves caught by nets with weights made of bone; Evelyn lets out a scream that the rest of the party can hear. Initiative is rolled and Chumba, makes his way over and sees that Evelyn and Strix have been caught by two sets of six war mask-wearing goblins standing on top of each other to sort of form living totem poles. Chumba identifies them as being from a rival tribe and is able to successfully intimidate/negotiate for them, in Goblin, to let Evelyn go (as she is inedible) and for them to go and take Strix. Diath puts on his vest and belt and arrives at the scene and cuts Evelyn free. Eventually, Wumba arrives after been busy peeing in a bush, and, in Goblin, successfully offers up Diath as well, with Chumba and Wumba agreeing that it's fine to give up Strix since her smell will prevent her from being eaten and that she'll likely be let go shortly after. The two totem poles of goblins turn to stare at Diath. Evelyn, believing negotiations aren't going well due to a lack of understanding Goblin, knocks over a totem pole of Goblins, trying to get them to all relax and stop fighting. At some point Evelyn asked if Chumba and Wamba knew the names of the rival Goblins and if they're all variations of "-umba", and is quickly derided as a racist by Chumba and Wumba. Dragonbait arrives and frees Strix who proceeds to ignite a Fireball. Chris asks Strix who she'll be protecting, and she replies the group and their allies, which causes the enemy goblins and the axe beak (who Holly forgot about) to be burned to a crisp. A saddened Strix feeds the roasted axe beak to Waffles, and somebody mentions "chicken and waffles".
Soon after the group begins to hear and feel large thuds approaching. Evelyn flies up, and although unable to get above the 100-foot trees, is able to discern that a T-Rex, who is rotting and obviously undead, is approaching. Holly and Ross play with some of their water in a Jurassic Park fashion, and Chris confirms he was indeed waiting for Holly to pull out a fireball so that he could bring the undead T-Rex out. Evelyn briefly gets excited at the possibility of a pet dinosaur and informs the group of what's coming. Everyone except Evelyn takes off running, and Paultin and Simon continue to relax in their hut. Still flying and now waiting for the T-Rex, Evelyn uses her Channel Divinity for the Nature's Wrath effect in the hopes of stopping the undead T-Rex long enough for the group to escape it. [This is where the video starts]
And here's the full human-crocodile myth that was improperly relayed to the Waffle Crew by Chumba and Wumba:
In the early days of the world, Man stood by the banks of a river, frightened. Crocodile raised his head from the water and asked, "What troubles you, cousin Man?"
Man said, "I must cross this river, but I fear to enter the water alone, because it teems with your brethren."
Crocodile replied, "It's true, you would not be safe. But I will carry you across the river safely on my back, if you promise to return the favor." Man agreed, and Crocodile bore him safely across the water.
When they reached the far bank, Man asked, "How can I repay you?" Crocodile replied, "I wish to see the realm of Humans, but I fear to go there alone, because it teems with your brethren. You must carry me on your back across your realm." Man had been tricked, but a promise is a promise, so he carried Crocodile safely on his back across the entire realm of humans, a journey that lasted many years. He also swore, in his anger, that never again would Men and Crocodiles be friends, and so it has remained to this day.