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Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Dice, Camera, Action: Episode 90 - Tomb of Annihilation



Episode 90 - Vicious Mockeries
Final episode of the season! Special Guest: Jerry from Acquisitions, Inc.!

Chris is using his phone, He's in Burbank, California.

 The Party

(Anna) Evelyn - Human Paladin of Lathander
(ProJared) Diath - Human Rogue
(Holly) Strix - Tiefling Sorcerer
(Nathan) Paultin - Human Bard
(Jerry) Omin Dran - Half-Elf Cleric


Chris recaps the last episode, which includes the whole "womb for the box" thing.Jerry wonders aloud what they're doing on this show. The group points out that Jerry's group gets treated nicely by Chris. The waffle crew are the "whipping boys".

The group is in Port Nyanzaru, where their evil clones are wandering around.

Evelyn is in heaven.

A little girl had purloined the magical spectacles and took off, running. Diath chases after her. He catches up and grabs her.

She starts making a scene in the street, and a crowd is forming. He tries to grab the glasses: Sleight of Hand check: 32. A big tortle tells Diath that what he's doing isn't very nice.

The girl is demanding payment. The group catches up to them, and Paultin casts suggestion on her. It works. The group has the spectacles again.

Now that the group once again has all of the things they need, Diath asks Strix to read X the Mystic's Arcane Grimoire. Once she has, then they'll hand it over to Shemeshka.

It begins to rain. People dart for awnings. Raincatchers start collecting water. The group ducks into "Sebata's Snake Pies", a little establishment that sells meat pits.

Strix finds a paper with the Acquisitions Inc. letterhead on it. It appeared in her hat. It's correspondence from Omin Dran. She wants Omin to come and raise Evelyn and Simon from the dead.

She receives a magical sending from Omin: "Strix, where are you? I don't want to teleport into a hole."

Her response: "I'm at Sebata's Snake Pies."

Omin appears in neatly polished armor. He sees Strix, standing in the rain.

He is with a 30ish something woman named Vajra. She is black, slight and has a noble bearing. In her hand is an obsidian black staff.

Diath drops his pie and steps between Omin and Strix, fuming with rage. Omin has used the infernal contract to summon Strix away from the group before, and he doesn't like it.

Paultin draws his sword, confused. Vajra uses her staff to magically make the sword rusty and useless.

Diath goes off on him. Omin says, "You're acting like this is your girlfriend or something. What?" The other heroes stifle laughter.

Omin: "Listen, Dorth. I owe her. Let me do my work."

Omin says the price has already been paid.

The group rolls out the remains of Evelyn and Simon right on the street .Omin kneels down and examines them.

Port Nyanzaru guards are approaching the group. Paultin casts invisibility on himself.

An armored guard calls out, "Stop! Put your weapons down on the ground."

The guards think the group are the evil doubles. Citizens begin to gather. Some of them recognize the group.

The guards try to forcibly arrest everyone, including Omin. They hold Waffles at spear point. Strix casts gaseous form on her.

Paultin tells a guard he slept with his wife last night. Paultin rolls a 24, but it doesn't work out. The guard is gay. "I don't have a wife. Stop lying."

Omin demands to be allowed to collect the bodies before being taken away. The guards agree to it. The guards then march the group through the city.

They pass under a bridge. The heroes spot the evil clones looking down at them from atop the bridge.

Diath curses when he spots them and points them out to the guards.

Time to roll initiative!


The players actually play both their regular characters and their evil counterparts.

Anna is playing Evil Evelyn (her name is pronounced "Eh-velyn"). Evil Evelyn spots Omin's symbol of Tymora and dry heaves.

Evil Diath touches evil Evelyn on the small of her back and says, "This one's for you." He kisses her and swings on a rope down toward the group.

Paultin is thrilled with this new Diath. He says aloud, "One's my friend but one's... hotter."

Omin casts hold person on Evil Strix. She is held.

Evil Paultin casts crown of madness on Strix. Holly rolls her saving throw.. 15. She made it. That would have been bad!

The underside of the bridge has stone carvings of monkeys hanging from it. Strix casts animate object on a pair of them. Two stone monkeys break away and claw their way up to the top.

Paultin attacks evil Diath and drops him with the sunsword. This enrages Evil Evelyn, who shouts "Cower before Evelyn of Shar!"

Evil casts phantasmal force.. everyone but Omin fails. They drop their weapons and run! It appears that Evil Evelyn is higher level than the clones, who are 3rd level.

Phantasmal force manifests their deepest fears. What's their fear?
  • Strix: Everyone's dead.
  • Diath: His mirrored self. He hates the idea that everyone sees him as that guy. Also, Strix collared, shackled, enslaved and near death.
  • Paultin:Wearing the ring of winter and being alone in a frozen realm.
Strix casts magic weapon on her hands. She has claws. She kills Evil Strix.

Omin wants to casts stone shape on the bridge. Evil Evelyn fails her save. The ground under her feet softens and she falls through the bridge and lands on the ground below. Evil Paultin remains on the bridge, battling a stone monkey.

Evil Evelyn lays on hands with evil Diath by making out with him. He regains 20 hit points. Gutter is right near him. Evil Evelyn grabs the sunsword. Evil Diath grabs Gutter. This is bad!

Diath finally snaps out of it. He sprints back and throws a dagger at Evil Diath. He hits and is most pleased.

Evil Paultin thunderwaves the other monkey and destroys it.

Strix doesn't like Evil Evelyn and drops a 5th level fireball on both her and Evil Diath. 40 damage. Evil Diath is burned to a crisp.

Evil Evelyn lets out a shriek of rage.

Paultin casts dissonant whispers on Evil Evelyn, which causes her to malfunction and collapse. She's dropped to exactly 0 hit points.

Evil Paultin sees his whole team is fallen and flees.

The total live viewer count hits 2,432 at 8:58.

Omin says, "This was way harder than I expected. What if I need more than you, next time?"

Strix offers that the waffle crew could help the AI group if they need it. The group is brought to a guard quarter.

Evil Paultin makes a stealth check. He evades and escapes the guards. End of session.

It sounds like Jerry will be back in two weeks on the season premiere. Chris shows us a dicebag Anna made for Chris out of DCA costume pieces.

Overall

I love the idea of the evil clones, and I liked this. I expected some kind of twist, cliffhanger, or clue as to what season 4 will hold, but nothing stuck out to me.

While I was mortified at the idea of Evil Diath wielding Gutter, I really like Evil Diath and Evil Evelyn and I hope we see them again somehow.

I am enjoying the show, and I'm hoping they go all the way to 20th level.

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