Dungeons & Dragons Animated Series Ep. 14

 

Let's check out some more episodes of this old cartoon! There's a movie coming out soon, so we need to get caught up. 

You can buy the complete series right here.

I am looking to see if it is available on any streaming platforms. It's not! That seems like a bit of an oversight. Apparently, it did stream on the D&D Twitch channel in 2021.

Check out the previous episode recaps: 

Part One (Episodes 1-6)
Part Two (Episodes 7-13)
Episode 14
Episode 15
Episode 16
Episode 17
Episode 18
Episode 19
Episode 20
Episode 21
Episode 22
Episode 23
Episode 24
Episode 25
Episode 26
Episode 27
Episode 28

Episode 14 - The Girl Who Dreamed Tomorrow

We're going to see if there's any lore in here that you can use for your game. If you check out the previous posts, there's a ton of little things that you could use, including a couple of very cool adventure plots.

We start off with the heroes being chased by bullywugs. They swing on a vine across a gorge to escape them, but poor Eric remains on the rope and swings back. Two bullywugs grab and climb the rope, but Hank's superbow fires a lightning arrow and sends the bullywugs into the river below.

The Erik loop of misery goes like this: Erik rudely complains - something bad happens - everyone makes fun of him. It doesn't happen once per episode, it happens like.. every two minutes.

In the bushes nearby, they find a car from the Dungeons & Dragons ride that brought them to this realm. They eventually learn that this car brought a girl and her dog here from Earth.

The bullywugs chase the heroes away and smash the car.

The adventurers find the Earth girl that has been tied to a tree by some lizardfolk. A battle commences, with lots of clubs hitting the ground and a sprinkle of pole-vaulting.

Eventually the heroes trick the lizardfolk into fighting the bullywugs. 

The girl, named Terry, explains that she and her dog got drawn into this world via the ride. The group makes camp, and here comes Dungeon Master. 

He tells them that a portal to their homeworld lies within nearby mountains. "Before you leave, you must destroy it." The portal lies in the Maze of Darkness. To find it, you must first become lost.

Shadow Demon is creeping nearby. He flies to Venger's lair and tells him about the new girl.

Terry has a nightmare about a hydra attacking the group, and then getting lost in a deadly maze.

Shiela and Hank quietly discuss the girl and her dream. It's always these two.

It amuses me to think of the love triangle that the writers desperately wanted to put in this show, but could only barely hint at.

The next day, while walking through fields of flowers, a hydra attacks. The barbarian defeats it by smashing a wall and causing a flood of water to wash the creature away.

Venger has realized that the little girl is psychic. He gets on his evil horse and declares that he will steal her power.

Ooh, a good encounter. The group walks among rocks in the shape of twisted knives, taller than they are. Then Venger creates a whirlwind, scattering the group at or near the rocks.

They take refuge in a cave and boom, they're in the maze. At the center of the maze are steps and a glowing portal.

Encounters in the maze:

• Trap Door
• Moving Walls block paths/prevent them from backtracking
• An area that makes them violently turn on each other
• Walls collapse

The idea of a maze that has shifting walls sounds like it could be really cool if you can avoid it becoming frustrating. Mazes in general are really tough to run in D&D. I remember a friend of mine running us through a teleporting maze that we got so hopelessly lost in that we just gave up.

The Journey through the maze apparently takes days

When the group rests, Terry has a vision of seeing the barbarian at school. Dungeon Master appears. He confirms that she's seen the future. Then he reveals that Venger uses the maze for 1,000 years to entice travelers to find the portal. All have failed.

So... the realm is a place people have been getting pulled into for hundreds of years? Is there a specific reason for that?

If the group goes through the portal, it will remain... "luring countless others to their doom."

Collapsing walls make a path straight to the portal (that's a move a real life DM would do if their maze was getting boring). Venger stands in their path. He demands the girl.

Venger transforms into a.... I don't know what.

A dragon with a long spiked tail? It's cool-looking though.

This will probably shock you, but the girl and her dog go through the portal, but the rest of the group don't. Bobby smashes the portal and the dragon thing falls into the collapsed floor.

Fun stuff. I think, if you are going to run a D&D campaign with all of the classic things people expect, you'd need:

• A dungeon adventure
• A wilderness adventure
• A town adventure
• An adventure in a dragon's lair
• A wizard's tower
• A maze

Right? I'm sure I'm missing some things, but that's your basic D&D campaign.

We'd better continue tallying the various tropes.

Stuff that Presto's Hat Does:

37. Summons a door that a lizardperson runs through.. and disappears.
38. Summons 20 flying mouse-traps that snap onto a dragon-thing's tail.

Eric's Life is Horrible Because:

11. Nobody cares that he is being chased by lizardfolk.

Hank's Bow Can:

35. Sever a rope, causing two bullywugs to plunge into a river.
36. Shoot at the ground and cause clumps of lizardfolk to fly in the air.
37. Force a hydra to drop some grabbed allies by shooting near but not at the heads.
38. End a mind-altering effect turning the group violent by firing into the air.
39. Fire arrows that whiz past the head of a dragon-thing.

Thanks so much for reading and continuing to support me. You all still buy my DMs Guild products and I greatly appreciate it.