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verosvault · 2 months

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🚨SPOILERS FOR FANTASY HIGH JUNIOR YEAR EPISODE 8🚨

Dimension20 "Fantasy High Junior Year"

Episode 8 "Fracas at the Frostyfaire Folk Festival"

Timestamp: 00:06:23

Video Length: 4min. & 43sec.

The Disadvantages of Stress!!!

Brennan: "I'd like to know just mechanically, for people watching, where that stress actually ended up for everybody."

Zac: "Right."

Siobhan: "I was gonna game it, but then Emily made me feel bad about it, so-"

Emily: "No, I didn't! I didn't say anything to you about it!"

Siobhan: "No, you were like, 'I'm gonna take real things,' and then I was like, 'Well, I can't take disadvantage in-'"

Emily: "Okay, so it was my existence."

Brennan: "It was merely Emily's example, committing to the system."

Siobhan: "Yes, Emily did such a good job that I felt like I had to step up my game and take things that actually affected me."

Emily: "Well, I took it- 'cause you said if we weren't proficient, I had one, so you said if we weren't proficient, we had to take two, so I wanted to take Insight. In the 'Adventuring Party', I said I think I'm in a place where I'm not listening to my gut. All the stress is making me very indecisive. So that was Insight, and then I think also, this paladin curiosity, there's more pressure on it, and it's not coming to me as naturally as normal, so I think Religion is gonna be the other disadvantage."

Brennan: "Love it."

Emily: "I've never wanted to be good at something before. I've just accidentally been good at it. So that's why. There's stress with it now."

Brennan: "It's the intermediate slump where you go from beginner's luck into actually learning technique and having to get good at something."

Emily: "'Cause there's stakes. I need to do this for Kristen."

Brennan: "Zac, where's Gorgug's stress going?"

Zac: "So I have three stress tokens, meaning... I think I'm gonna do one in Initiative rolls."

Emily: "Oh."

Zac: "'Cause I'm already... I never roll good on Initiative anyway. I feel like that's fine. And then I'm gonna do the lobster bisque."

Siobhan: "You get a salad with that."

Zac: "Would you guys have some?"

Siobhan: "Yeah."

Lou: "I'd have a nibble."

Siobhan: "Yeah, I'd share a lobster bisque with you any day, Zac."

Zac: "Great, great. I'll get some straws. Disadvantage on two skills, so I think I might also do Insight."

Brennan: "Hell yeah, hell yeah."

Zac: "Go back to Gorgug's roots of just never-"

Brennan: "Not ever being good."

Emily: "Wow."

Lou: "Regressing."

Zac: "And then disadvantage in Deception."

Brennan: "Okay. So Gorgug, you're taking Initiative. Do you have proficiency in either Deception or Insight?"

Zac: "Oh, it has to be something I have-"

Brennan: "It's either got to be a skill you're proficient in, or if you're picking skills you're not proficient in, you gotta pick two."

Zac: "I'm not proficient in either of those."

Brennan: "You've got to take both. That's one."

Zac: "Okay, then disadvantage probably on Charisma saving throws."

Brennan: "Hell yeah."

Emily: "Ooh."

Brennan: "That lack of initiative, you are a distracted, stressed kid."

Zac: "What? Okay."

Brennan: "Hell yeah. What? Adaine."

Siobhan: "I'm also gonna do Initiative, 'cause I feel like Adaine's just in that, like, *gasps* 'Huh? What?' Very much in her own head."

Brennan: "Yes."

Siobhan: "And then I'm also gonna do two skills that I'm not proficient in. I'm gonna do Intimidation and Persuasion, 'cause I just feel like she's not socially on her game right now."

Brennan: "It's just- If I want to impress people, I'm gonna summon a bunch of mephits. I'm not gonna talk to anybody."

Siobhan: "I just can't talk to anybody right now."

Brennan: "Perfect. Fabian?"

Lou: "I'm gonna take disadvantage on all my tool proficiencies. There's just a bunch of half done calligraphy and glassblowing."

Brennan: "Your glassblowing!"

Lou: "My shop is a ****ing mess right now. I need to clean out the kiln. Just haven't gotten around to it."

Brennan's LAUGHTER! 😭✋

Siobhan: "This guy has so many unfinished hobbies."

Lou: "Several rooms in my house just haven't been touched. So I'll take disadvantage on those. I'll take disadvantage in History and Investigation, and then I will take disadvantage in Perception."

Brennan: "Ooh, one of your actual proficiencies."

Lou: "Yes."

Brennan: "Incredible. Kristen?"

Ally: "Disadvantage on Initiative. Disadvantage on Wisdom saving throws. Disadvantage on Medicine."

Brennan: "Hell yeah. Boom, meaty choices."

Ally: "She's not helpful for the party at all. She has no magic, disadvantage on Medicine."

Lou: "And you can't cast spells."

Ally: "Why even have a cleric?"

Zac: "****."

Brennan: "Hell yeah."

Siobhan: "'Cause you're the coolest girl in school!"

Lou: "Right? Right?"

Emily: "That's true! Who needs a cleric when you have a president?"

Lou: "Exactly."

Ally: "You're right!"

Lou: "Your class is 'President.'"

Brennan: "We're just gonna go to SW5E and steal the scholar class again and just make you a politician."

Ally: "Please, please!"

Brennan: "Please, please. And Riz?"

Murph: "I took disadvantage in four skills. I took disadvantage in Perception, because I feel like Riz is still good at Investigation and everything, but he's really in his head, so he's probably not noticing things around him. Survival, not taking good care of himself. Athletics, he was already not athletic, but he's even less so, and then Deception, 'cause I don't think he could pull off lying right now while he's so high strung."

Brennan: "So you've picked four of your non-proficient skills that are all disadvantage now."

Murph: "Yes."

Brennan: "Meaty, meaty choices across the board."

●・○・●・○・ ●・○・●・○・ ●・○・●・○

A list of the stress disadvantages on the characters for my own safe-keeping! 😂:

1. Fig: Insight, and Religion

2. Gorgug: Initiative, Insight, Deception, and Charisma Saving Throws

3. Adaine: Initiative, Intimidation, and Persuasion

4. Fabian: Tool Proficiencies, History, Investigation, and Perception

5. Kristen: Initiative, Medicine, and Wisdom Saving Throws

6. Riz: Perception, Survival, Athletics, and Deception

#dimension 20 #dimension20 #blog #fantasy high #fantasy high junior year #Fracas at the Frostyfaire Folk Festival #Fantasy High Fracas at the Frostyfaire Folk Festival #Fantasy High Junior Year Episode 8 #fhjy ep 8 #fantasy high scene #fantasy high junior year scene #dimension20 scene #queue #brennan lee mulligan #the bad kids #bad kids #the Intrepid heroes #intrepid Heroes #stress tokens

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unsleepingtales · 8 months

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Burrow’s End 3!

Starting this at midnight, will likely pause at some point and finish tomorrow morning :)

Yayyy new party name

And new british thing! How did we get to #36 already?

Just now realizing that these people are the reason that ‘famously’ has entered my lexicon

Yeah they all leveled up A Lot

Character makeup!!

What’s going on with Viola. The makeup has me concerned.

YESSSSS Lila arcane trickster rogue my fucking BELOVED I’m not just saying that bc I’m currently playing an arcane trickster I’m not biased at all what are you talking about

Oh I was so caught up in the arcane trickster stuff that I forgot an important lore thing was happening lemme go back and watch it

God those tongues were horrible

Aabria’s hair looks really nice in this episode

The way we declare things like sidebar in my home game is by loudly saying PAUSE and it’s funny every time

Present tense???

“I’m not him, but I’m here” jesus man

I’m reading way too far into everything but the fact that Jasper’s scar makeup has moved is interesting to me. Why. Was this just artistic choice? Is this indicative of a character thing? Idk

Swifter than the sun faster than the hills oh babe

You’re trying to be good and make your uncle happy but also cult. Be careful babe.

Ooh Erika’s makeup and hair are really cool

Look, check it out :D

Full macbeth

YES I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO THOUGHT THAT

Ohhh their colors. Everyone in earth tones except for Rashawn/Viola. Brennan/Tula and the kids in lighter colors, Erika/Ava in darker tones and shades of grey. Jasper/Thorn in dark tones but also blue. God this is why I love costuming. So cool.

Latin?? Dura Mater, Pia Mater

Children?? Prophetic vision??

“It always is what it is” cmon man

How does this cis man so deeply understand what being a daughter is and distill it so perfectly

Am I detecting some envy in having a husband who listens?

Oop

A mErRy BaNd

Ohhh the warning in saying that something she’s interested in is also one of their mother’s interests. That’s a family thing.

Custom background called stoat mom. Full long rest in short amount of time would be such a good feat and make so much sense for it.

Sometimer’s 😭

Funeral rite for the bear oh my god

Oh tears. Just tears.

TWENTY SEVEN INSIGHT

So many of your deeper thoughts must be put away for the sake of moving forward.

Oooooof

Familial duty is such a mindfuck

The FACE

Awww Ava backstory a bit <3

Thompson’s gonna make partner!

The white mascara is such a good touch it really makes the look

Ooh lore time

HAZMAT SUIT

Testing your power through blind fury? Super duper safe.

Let’s hear it for making bad rolls work within the plot!

Augh

Oh yeah this has all been ONE DAY

Healthy coping mechanism!

That was excellent

Speaking of their long rest. I’m gonna go to sleep. I’ll finish the ep in the morning! (Editor's note: I did not. I finished it the next evening. Such is life.)

Yes that is for real how sleep works and how I act when something insane happened in the middle of the night that I couldn’t deal with in the moment

Effective lessons in communication!

OOF

She wants to save her familyyyy

Siblings!

Those aren’t transferable 💀

No one should be mad at anyone, so if you’re ever feeling mad… don’t.

GOOD ONES

Ooh Jaysohn level of Rogue!

I love the overlapping conversations

Izzy and Siobhan are so good at embodying children’s randomness

Izzy WHAT

He’s a cool dude, he’s just being weird right now

Character choices :D

Ooooh the music being so heavily electronic is so interesting to me

Follow your instincts towards the Light?

Why would it have been bulgarian babe

Jesus

Oh that’s actually such a good way to explain that

Love a shenan!

Solid pigeon impression

Yeah a cult leader would have a +9 to performance wouldn’t he

I feel like this should be a wisdom save or smth to not go insane at what’s happening to him rn

W h a t

He is actually so cursed

WOOOOOOO

Oh that is HITTING

She’s so TIRED

Oooh okay next week looks Wild can't wait

#reactions #verbal component #burrow’s end #burrow's end

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everythingyouseetouchandfee-blog · 7 years

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Dave Chappelle and Why Some Legends Should Stay Dead

There are days that I still wonder what would the world be like if Tupac was alive, or came back from the death. Would he be an Oscar winner, revolutionary political figure, a king of an empire of his own…or a washed up sell out still singing about money and women? Watching the new Dave Chappelle standup for Netflix is a stark reminder that some legends should stay dead. That’s a harsh thing to say, I understand. Undoubtedly, Chappelle left at the height of his career; leaving a gaping hole in the world of incisive, political comedy, and entertainment. So, its natural for everyone to wonder about all the potentialities of his career, of what could have been, and sadly, Chappelle seems to have felt the same way. In the time he was gone, many comedians grew to fill the void left behind, to not only entertain but address the issues facing the changing times. At a point Chappelle laments about the Key and Peele show and how “he had to watch them do his show every week”. Key and Peele owe Chappelle for carving the way for their success. However, they filled the void he left behind and took his foundation to new heights. The question is, has Chappelle risen to meet those heights? The short answer is no. In the first episode of his stand up, Chappelle sets a loose foundation by breaking the special into 4 O.J Simpson stories. The O.J Simpson stories are good for the most part. The first segment is about himself and how public’s perception of him has changed. There are good laughs up until the end, where he basically says he doesn’t care about his fans or his performance. It would have been a funny bit, I found it clever, but this bit sort of exemplifies what ends up not working for most of the bits in this special. It’s that it wasn’t well thought out, it was lazy, and worst of all, especially for Chappelle, it felt sharp as your grandma with Alzheimer’s. This is a problem through out the special, as an example, he couldn’t even get “LGBTQ” in the right order, and hadn’t bother to know what Q stands for. It just reeked of thoughtlessness, and the bit wasn’t funny or incisive enough to justify it. Lesser comedians would have been forgiven, but when you are playing in the same league as Louis C.K, who does do very risky jokes, it falls flat. The difference is you can always tell there is intellectual weight behind Louis C.K’s jokes, a sense of empathy which ultimately pays off in making you laugh by cutting deeply through the issue with his joke. Dave Chappelle at his height is known for similar style. A laid back and relaxed delivery which lures you into sense of security only to hit you with a sharp social commentary. Here, he lacks all of that. His commentary is dull at best and deeply damaging/misleading at worst. A joke about driving under the influence, something he has done before with the character Chip to talk about how race changes interaction with the cops, but this time it felt as if the story served no purpose and was mildly amusing. The next offense comes at the story about skipping the Flint, Michigan Benefit show. This joke, though true, felt particularly mean spirited, and not sharp enough to justify it. Especially because he uses it to launch into a bit about him at the Oscars. The biggest of the problems start here. He pitches a story of a superhero who saves a lot of people but he can only do it if he rapes women. I am not sure what Dave’s intention were, but to me, and it would be hard to argue otherwise, it sounded as if his point was that the raping was evened out if the person did a lot of good otherwise. I can’t see the logic in this, or even the purpose of the analogy. As monstrous as it sounds, it may have even be forgivable as a miss, if he didn’t decide to close his whole special emphasizing this point as if it was some great paradox, mystery or a thing to have to think about. It isn’t. Bill Cosby’s heinous actions will forever taint his legacy, as it should, because otherwise we, as a society, would be just saying that it’s okay for powerful people to abuse the powerless as they see fit, because they do a lot of good elsewhere. The message…just seems, monstrous on its own. The rest of the special doesn’t get better. A bit where he talks about transgender people and fails to have understood that transgender people are killed by the police and driven to suicide so much so that their life expectancy is 25. It just seems lazy, to have not researched about transgender issues or speak to transgender individuals, if he wanted to make a joke about it. As a counter example of how this can be done really well and be funny is Michael Che’s Netflix special, which I would recommend.

It just feels as if he misses every opportunity to say something meaningful or thoughtful with his platform. The most eye-rolling bit comes after his 2nd O.J Simpsons story. Where he decides to go into the most cliché, old man rant about technology and how its ruining everything. Just about everything he says in this bit is misinformed. A lecture about how increased reporting and information has made our generation “less caring” is not only laughable but it just feels very un-Chappelle. The best part of the stand up is about Kevin Hart. It felt personal, it felt real, and there were good jokes in it too. Though, it pointed to Dave’s deeper issues of feeling insecure about missing out on the years since he left comedy. Then he goes to talk about Bill Cosby. Now, in the beginning I actually liked his perspective on Bill Cosby as his (and black Americans) hero, it was interesting, and maybe the only time during this show that I felt he was reaching for something bigger with his comedy. Until he decided to end it with the suggestion that Bill Cosby should be forgiven for his “alleged” crimes because he did “more” good for black entertainers. I just can’t see the reasoning in that, and it troubles me that it was such a big part of his show. I want to say that I am not a stickler for “offensive/edgey” comedy, when its done smartly, or even remotely thoughtful. Dave just didn’t try. I would like to refer to Neal Brennan’s recent Netflix special called “Three Mics”. Neal Brennan was a writer for Chappelle, and I conjecture that he probably played a part in Chappelle making this deal with Netflix. I bring this up because Three Mics was such a great special, in which Neal mentions that after Chappelle left, he forced himself to do stand up comedy. It took him 11 years of practice, but I would say he has surpassed his friend in this regard. Chappelle on the other hand, feels as if he has been left behind 11 years ago and has lost all of his insight. He hasn’t met the demand, the knowledge, or the effort required to make great jokes today. Comedians need to be smarter, more thoughtful and still be able to make people laugh. Chappelle wasn’t up for the challenge, and its not clear whether the world even needs Chappelle anymore when there are other rising comedians that are perhaps doing it better than him.

#DaveChappelle Netflix #MichaelChe nealBrennan

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jq37 · 1 year

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Twice Upon a Time - Neverafter Ep 2

Mirror, Mirror

What’s up y’all? A LOT has changed since the last episode and we have a lot to cover so I’m going to make the preamble short and jump right into the recap! Be warned that things do get a bit gnarly later on, but I’ll spare you the worst of the ick.

We pick back up at the campfire where the gang is circled up to eat as the caravan has stopped for the night. Tim Goose strikes up a conversation with Cole (the very jacked, former king of Jubilee) and asks him why he’s going to Shoeberg. Cole packs his pipe–unpracticed due to this usually being a servant's job (note: big ups to Zac because I asked the same question he did about why he was bad at pipe packing if he had so many of them) and says that he’s a bit directionless after the fall of his kingdom and is looking for hope and answers. It’s a sentiment that resonates with the rest of the party.

Tim rolls Insight on Cole and Brennan says he feels a strange sense of familiarity with this man he hasn’t met before. He also says that when he started talking about his fiddlers, he almost heard something, but with the crowd and fire, it was hard to hear. Tim wants to peel away from the larger crowd and ask Cole more questions. As he does this, Brennan mentions two NPCs in the crowd: a teenage girl talking to the Red Hen (who we don’t get more info about) and a tall slender man with blue cloak and eyepatch (who we’ll get more info about in a bit).

When they talk privately, Cole *also* says that Tim feels familiar to him. Tim muses that it might be their mutual grief that he’s sensing and asks about his fiddlers that were lost defending the kingdom. Cole says they were the greatest in the land. His kingdom was small and tucked away so he’d been able to dodge the hardships of the troubled times for a long while but when it finally came, he couldn’t shake the feeling that things were different somehow. This tracks with Tim’s experiences during the Times of Shadow.

Cole starts to talk wistfully about his fiddlers and, suddenly, Tim and Ger who’s close by hears muffled fiddle music. After a moment, Tim realizes that it’s coming from his book. When he opens it up, the music becomes un-muffled and everyone sees light pouring from the book (Brennan specifically mentions that the Red Hen and two mentioned NPCs look over and see this).

Cole looks at the motes of light pouring from the book and starts to weep. He seems to be seeing more than just light. Tim asks him to describe what he’s seeing and he says that he sees himself–not as he is now, ravaged by war. Fat and happy and prosperous. The faces of his fiddlers appear in the golden light. As he describes it, Tim is able to see the scene. Cole starts reciting the Old King Cole rhyme and Tim starts writing it down as quickly as he can.

On a 21 Arcana check, Tim realizes that they are at a tipping point of something very old and magical and profound–not necessarily bad but def big. And he has to either let it happen or stop it. It’s Ally so of course they choose to let it happen.

Cole completes the rhymes and, for a moment, the fiddlers seem to become real. Cole looks fat and happy again. His fiddlers embrace him. And then, there’s a flash of light from the book and Cole and the fiddlers disappear.

The caravan flips the hell out despite Tim’s attempts to calm everyone down. The Red Hen grabs the teen girl from earlier and starts to bolt, calling Tim a witch. Pinocchio and Roz work on securing Cole’s ram chariot so they have at least some sort of transportation. Puss lures one of the guards from Lord B’s shoe carriage and then slaps the horse’s flank so it will run off without him, just to cause problems.

By the time the dust settles, the only one left is the man in the blue cloak who missed what happened but thinks it might be wise to follow the fleeing caravan. They intercept him and he introduces himself as Herr Drosselmeyer (who I will be calling Dross). They tell Dross that everyone left because of a super scary ostrich and he seems skeptical but willing to entertain them. He goes into the woods to investigate, leaving his carriage.

[Note: Herr Drosselmeyer is, quite appropriately for the season, the uncle of the main character in the Nutcracker. He is a toymaker and the one who gives the titular Nutcracker to Clara, the main character.]

So of course, Puss immediately uses his cat claws to pick the lock and break in. He is surprised when he sees that it’s a Tardis, bigge- on-the-inside situation. There’s a whole-ass alpine manor home in there and the room he steps into is specifically a hallway lined with clocks. We’ll get back to that.

The rest of the group haven’t bolted like the rest of the caravan but they would like to know what the heck just happened. Pinocchio touches the book because he wants to see if his hand will go through in the same way that Cole was sucked in. Brennan has him roll a Charisma save–something you never wanna hear your DM as for when you’re poking around.

As he touches it, an etching appears of an island of toys. As he jerks his hand away it starts to fade, but slowly. He’s spooked but Red is intrigued. She touches it and on her Nat 1 save (she opts for Con instead of Cha).

She starts to involuntarily shift, filling with shame as she splits the seams of her clothes. The images on the open pages of the book are filled with the red etching of a girl in a glade, straying from the path as she picks flowers. Tim notices something moving in the trees of the image and hurriedly closes the book right as the snarling maw of a wolf tries to leap out of it.

Red profusely apologizes as she shrinks back down to her normal height and goes to hide while Tim comforts her (obviously projecting a bit about his son as he does). Red feels shitty about the fact that when Pinocchio touched the book it was toys and when she did it, it was a wolf that tried to eat them but Pinocchio pipes up that the toy island was fun but not necessarily good.

[Note: To anyone who hadn’t read/seen Pinocchio, he’s referring to the Pleasure Island bit of his story where kids are lured to a seemingly fun locale that eventually turns them into donkeys that are sold to be used for labor. It is basically always the freakiest part of any Pinocchio adaptation.]

Ger, who has been thinking this book might be the way to solve his cruse problems since he heard the fiddle music coming from it, takes his turn at slapping his hand on it and, as he does, his hand starts to turn pink and human again. But the pages of the book seem to be rotting and a weird, spherical indent is appearing in the pages. Red yelps that he’s trying to take from the book and Tim slams it shut, scared of breaking the magic somehow. Ger’s hand returns back to normal which is to say froggy-normal, much to his disappointment.

Pinocchio is like, hey man. Maybe let’s slow down on all this book touching when you don’t really know what you're doing. Luckily, Roz has no desire to touch the book…until it’s mentioned that it might help her find her prince at which point she SLAMS her hand down as fast as she can.

At first, vines and roses appear and, at the center, a portrait of an extremely handsome prince she doesn’t recognize, looking out lovingly from the pages. She’s so overjoyed she starts openly weeping. Then, the image glitches out and it flickers to the face of a still handsome but somewhat less handsome man. She rolls an 18 save and notices something strange happening with the image. Something different than what happened with the others. It’s almost as if some force is asking the roses and the portrait to move aside so it can show her something else.

Roz just wants to stare at her hot, future-husband some more but the image fades and is replaced by the hurried sketch of an empty fireplace being made in charcoal. There is a woosh from the fireplace that shakes the trees in real life and a figure thuds into the fireplace. It’s a woman in glass armor who says, “Sister, you’re awake!”

Tim immediately slams the book shut.

[Note: Y’all know my ears prick the moment I hear the word “sister” is a D20 show so I was like Ally, noooooo even if it was a completely reasonable decision, lol.]

The group asks if Roz knows of a sister, but this is news to her as well. Tim gingerly opens the book again, trying to see if he can get a better look at the face of the woman and a gauntleted hand made out of paper reaches out and for his throat. He uses Silvery Barbs to make her re-roll her super high attack roll and manages to dodge and close the book. Maybe that’s enough screwing around for now.

Now, let’s check in with what Puss is doing.

Our favorite felonious feline rolls a Nat 20 investigation check and Brennan basically has to give him everything, starting with the fact that only one of the clocks in the hall is working and it has a weird little switch on it. When he flicks it, time stops so he has lots of time to leisurely look through the carriage/house.

He notices the proportions of the carriage are somehow strange (Brennan likens it to a dollhouse. Maybe it’s a Wonderland thing? Not sure).

In one room, Puss finds a room full of items collecting dust, most notably, a bigger object with a sheet thrown over it. As he enters the room, the temperature drops a bit. When he removes the sheet from the object, he sees that it’s a mirror, but it’s somewhat cloudy when he looks into it. He recognizes it as being from the kingdom of Tapestry which fell long ago and was full of dwarven craftsmen (a very clear sign of what fairytale is being invoked here, if the mirror wasn’t enough of a giveaway).

A feline face appears in the mirror that resembles Puss but doesn’t follow his movements. The mirror makes Puss go through the whole “mirror mirror, leaned up against the wall” spiel before it will answer questions.

Puss asks to see the kingdom of Marienne and the mirror obliges, showing the ruins of the kingdom. Puss is more emotional over this than he thought he’d be. He then asks the mirror for a suggestion for what to ask for and the mirror asks if he wants to be the fairest, the wisest, the most powerful? Puss says he really just wants to be the most comfortable.

The mirror shows him an image of all the horrors of his world being swallowed into a book. Then, the book opens again and shows him a world with all the strife and ruin removed. And on the last page of the book is an image of him, dressed in the finest boots and super comfy. Puss recognizes the book in the image as Tim’s book and knows he has to investigate.

The mirror asks for a favor of Puss–mention me to your puppet friend? Puss doesn’t *love* being told the terms of a bargain after the fact but agrees, not seeing the harm. Puss is about to leave when Brennan invokes the rule of 3’s and coaxes Puss into asking one last question. He’s already asked about the past and present. Why not ask about the future?

When he does, the mirror says that there is a road closed past the gates of Shoeberg where they’re headed. None who go there have come back since the Times of Shadow have fallen. The road is to Elegy–a kingdom that has fallen like most of the others. There is the first of many treasures that the book requires. That is their way forward, but it comes at a cost. But they must beware of the sisters of their new companion.

And with that, Puss rejoins the group. They mutually fill each other in on what they’ve learned/talked about and then Dross shows up with an ostrich on a leash (literally never explained why he did this lol). They kinda sidestep what they’ve been doing/the snooping in his carriage and ask him what his deal is. He says he’s on the way to Shoeberg to look for magic items. Red asks for specifics and he says that he’s a mechanic and a magician and he’s looking for a clockwork creation of his that ran off.

Dross in turn asks about what happened with Cole and Tim is pretty cagey in his answer. Red sees that while Dross isn’t calling them out, he has clocked the book that Tim holds.

Puss takes Pinnocchio off to the side and asks about what happened last episode when he went to talk to his mom/patron. Pinocchio brushes it off with a lie. Then, Puss informs him that the mirror wanted to talk to him. They mutually agree they should stick with the group because it’s easier than trying to grift people.

Back in the main conversation, Red asks Dross for full transparency and he obliges. The clockwork man he’s tracking down is someone he’d consider a godson and he’s out for some kind of grief-driven vengeance that he wants to stop. Dross says he’s not always been kind or dependable, but he knows a lot about magic and will try and help them if they ask and are forthright.

[Note: Seems like he is likely talking about the Nutcracker here, as mentioned earlier.]

Tim offers him the obviously magical book to touch and, when he does, he offers just a full info dump that I will do my best to summarize:

There are other books like Tim’s and other people are using them to try to save what they can.

The book needs something to be able to work.

There has always been danger in the Neverafter but whatever’s happening now is some sort of unnatural, deeper wound.

The six of them have been drawn together on purpose and if even one of them strays, they’re all doomed.

They only have a few chances to fix things and some of them may be traps.

Someone in the group knows what the first step is. Once they have the first thing they need, they will have friends with more answers.

There is a way to use the book to bring light back into the world and end the Times of Shadows. But the book is also a burden.

There are steps that could have been taken before things got to this point but they are well past that now.

Many will offer answers but they should only trust each other.

As he touches the book, his cape flares and becomes text and sheet music. His face begins to wither and turn owl-like and fill with light. And as offers his last warning, he turns to an owl and then text (it’s all things that ref the Nutcracker story or himself like the sugar plum fairy, the rat king, magician), and then he disappears.

[Note: Not clear if this is the same thing that happened to Cole or something else.]

Let’s cut back to our con-boys. While this has been happening, they’ve snuck back into the carriage to talk to the mirror again. They move the sheet and the mirror makes them do the mirror mirror chant (honestly, kinda seems like he gets off on it).This time, the mirror’s face resembles Pinocchio’s. “Bring me back to her!” the mirror pleads, almost demands. As this happens, the teapot carriage shatters and they manage to leap out just in time.

The group is left alone with the ostrich Dross strived from the forest for some reason (they let him go) and his giant, sentient, talking rabbit–Eidelgrin.

Ger is all, “OK, the dude who just disappeared said one of us knows what we have to do next so does anyone wanna speak up?” Puss does, properly telling them what the mirror told him. On a Nat 20 Insight, Ger remembers the golden ball he fetched for his wife Elodie when they first met (this is from the OG Frog Prince story) and connects it to the indent that was made when he touched the book. He thinks that might be what the book wants from him but he doesn’t know where that ball is. Maybe it’s in the castle if Elodie kept it? He doesn’t know why the book would want it though. It’s not magical as far as he knows. Just of sentimental value.

[Note: Ger just wants to be put back to normal and is very OK with jumping into the book if that’s the move, even though the rest of the party is like maybe hold off on that bud. I’ll talk about this more when we have more information, but I’m not convinced that this book is the perfect solution it seems to be. I’m getting real Crown of Candy SPF vibes if you’ve seen that. And just knowing what Brennan is like as a storyteller, I feel like there had to be more to this than we know.]

The mirror mentioned Elegy and the royals know a bit about the kingdom. Roz remembers that in her time, it was a merchant town with a burgeoning middle class. Ger mainly remembers a weird event that happened a few years back where the prince of Elegy made every young woman try on a shoe. Roz dreamily thinks that that’s the epitome of true love and Tim is less impressed.

Tim checks the book again–it doesn’t seem to do weird things when he’s handling it, just when other people do–and sees a small illustration of Cole and his son feasting and dancing. They look happy together. There’s something cumulative happening here.

He also sees that a bit of the charcoal from Roz’s image has stayed. It moves to form the word “Elegy” and also the image of a spear made of glass dripping with some kind of ichor. Yikes! Also, in case you don’t know, and elegy is traditionally a poem for the dead! Also yikes!

Puss tells Roz that the mirror said something about her sisters being potentially a problem and Red is like welp,one more person I have to protect. Puss also remembers the scroll he stole earlier and looks at it. It’s a genealogy chart and shows how Lord B is related to the burgomeister (mayor) of Shoeberg. Her name is Cressida Lumley and she is 117 years old. Tim feels a strange familiarity here, like he did with Cole. He thinks it’s some kind of clue.

[Note: If she’s 117 that means she’s a contemporary of Roz who is 18+100 years of sleep. There’s no way this is throwaway info.]

The group deliberates on what to do as they don’t really want to risk an angry mob when they get to town since they spooked everyone so badly. After some back and forth about disguises that includes Red cutting off her braids and Tim wearing them (sure) and Roz offering to put her hair in a ponytail, The rabbit suggests there are other ways to get to Elegy rather than going through Shoeberg. For example, they can go through the woods! The cast clearly knows their fairy tales and/or their Sondheim because they are wary of the suggestion but the trees part for Disney Princess/Ranger Roz and they decide that that’s the move. They take both the rabbit and the ram-pulled chariot and, with Roz guiding the way, they have a shockingly smooth 1-2 day trek through the forest.

When they exit the forest, they find themselves in a small abandoned hamlet in Elegy. This is like a little peninsula and there’s more forest ahead of them. Still, it’s a safe place to rest for a while.

While Puss hits a Nat 20 check to find wine (of course), Roz, also true to princess-character, finds a larder full of talking mice. They’re worried Roz will hurt them and she assures them she won’t. They’re scared of some mysterious “her” transforming them. Roz assumes they’re the people of the town who’ve been turned into mice. Nope! They’re the mice of the town who were once turned into people.

[Note: Lol, Brennan totally caught me off guard with this one. Siobhan walked right into his Uno Reverse card.]

Thus begins a recounting of the Cinderella story from the POV of the poor innocent mice who got dragged into it. A couple of years ago there was a human girl who slept by the fireplace and was nice and fed them crumbs. But one day a fairy with wings and a crown showed up and forcibly turned them into humans and made them drive a coach and go to a ball and it was horrifying. The cast is fighting giggles this entire time as Brennan takes this tale with the seriousness of a ghost story but rest assured, the mice hated this and are horrified by the thought of this fairy turning things into other things against her will and on her own whims. As silly as it sounds, it is pretty messed up if you really consider the implications–which is what we love to do here.

The mice suddenly freak out because this fairy loves to meddle with the love lives and dreams of young women and Roz is a young woman. She tries to calm them down and Tim asks about the fairy. The mice say that she has ringlets and a crown but last time they saw her, things were different. The two daughters of the mistress of the house cut off their heel/toes in trying on the glass slipper (A plot point from the gnarly OG Cinderella story) and the new princess left the house. That’s when the storms started. And the fairy came back mad, with hollow eyes, turning animals into all sorts of things and making young women fall in love.

At some point, the princess (to be clear, Cinderella) came back because something had changed. The mistress of the house had changed into “something fierce”. The mice say one night, she called her daughters by the fireplace and then they never saw those girls again. Then she got on a horse and left. She’s had a name before but after that, no one could remember it.

[Note: Hmm, OK. This is giving me fae vibes. This is giving me “names have meaning”. This is giving me Nightmare King from fantasy High. What’s in a name? A lot when you’re talking magic. Let me come back to this later.]

Like I said, the princess came back because she knew something awful had happened, but the fairy followed her and told her to go back to her happy life. The princess called the fairy a “foul thing”, broke the heel off of her glass slipper, and threw that spear of glass into the fairy’s heart. I don’t know how that works logistically but it sounds sick as hell.

The group is told this happened by the well outside and Red confirms this, smelling fairy blood which Brennan says stains forever.

Meanwhile, Pinocchio, Puss, and Ger have found the motherload of fancy wine. They’re about to head back to the group when Pinocchio sees something that makes him tell the others to go ahead and he’ll catch up. Like before, he sees the door that always means his mother is calling him.

But, unlike always, this door is actually here. Like, here-here. It’s not some kind of magical manifestation. It’s an actual, normal, door. Pinocchio warily investigates, certain that if his mom knew he was seeing this, he’d be in trouble.

The door opens into what seems like the master bedroom of the house. There is a chair by the fireplace and something behind it. Pinocchio looks at what’s behind it.

It’s 2 skeletons. Both missing body parts. Both missing their toes and heels.

Cinderella’s stepsisters.

And there are bloody handprints all over the floor.

Pinocchio puts two and two together and comes to the awful conclusion that the stepmother–his stepmother–must have eaten both of her daughters on her hands and knees like an animal.

He KNOWS he can’t let his mom know he knows this but he also knows this is important. He looks around the room quickly and sees an etching of a paternal, kind looking man, a blood-stained carving knife, and he realizes that the doorknob is loose.

He takes the etching and the knife and after some mimed prompting from his party-mates, takes the doorknob as well. He feels powerful magic in the doorknob for a moment and then it feels like whatever is in the doorknob goes back to sleep.

[Note: That’s so gnarly. The OG Cinderella story is already kinda messed up with the foot chopping but the image of this high class madame on her hands and knees going full Kronos and eating her daughters? Bleh. I had a section of analysis here but it got super long so I’m going to tack it to the end instead.]

The group circles back up (though Roz quickly checks in with the mice to ask what color the fairy was wearing–the mice say purple and she says she doesn’t know her but I’m like, people change their clothes sometimes girl. You might know her!) and Puss investigates the well. It doesn’t seem to be a magical well, but Red realizes the blood trail goes into the forest. They, along with the rabbit and the ram (which Lou has unilaterally named “Senator” without telling anybody) track the blood to a sheer cliff where it seems like the fairy started flying. The ram and rabbit can’t follow so they send them back to the town to make nice wine and cheese pairings while they continue on.

Nearby, they see a road lined with corpses dragged off to the side of the road. They’re clearly merchants from Shoeberg based on their shattered shoe wagons. The attacks look more brutal than what regular highwayman activity would look like. Strangely, there is a pile of gold and some marks that look like someone dumped the gold out and dragged the chest away. (Pinocchio steals some of the gold, naturally.) There are also marks that look like someone dragging a claw foot armoire. After the talk with the mice, the party is wary there might be some transformation shenanigans afoot. Adding to that theory is the fact that a lot of the corpses seem to have died from weird blunt force trauma. There are merchant bodies then more heavily armored bodies like guards that were sent after the merchants and also never returned.

At this point they realize they might be next on the menu and Brennan starts making them roll stealth checks.

They move silently through the forest which is littered with brutally slaughtered animals (done by a weapon, not another animal) and strange, morbid sculptures like a birdhouse full of human finger bones.

They start to hear what almost sounds like voices as they reach the edge of the forest. Eventually, they realize what they’re hearing is furniture that is trying to speak without human vocal chords or windpipes. Awful, halfway transformations of things that were never meant to be alive at all, let alone halfway to human.

A high pitched, sickening voice calls the assembled furniture abominations to attention and tell them that there are interlopers in the forest that must be dealt with. She suspects they may be working with their “wayward young princess” who she fears is being spoiled and made to abandon her destiny. She says the princess must be returned to Elegy so it can be what it was always meant to be.

[Note: Lotta talk this season about how things are meant to be...]

The voice takes a pained, sinister tone as it says that once the princess returns she can GET THIS THING OUT OF HER.

The thing of course being the glass shard that Cinderella stabbed through her heart. As Puss confirms with a little tree climb, it is a ROUGH looking, almost gangrenous Fairy Godmother who is at the helm of this messed up Be Our Guest sequence, standing next to a rotting pumpkin carriage and surrounded by furniture soldiers.

The team figures that if they take out the fairy godmother, the soldiers will just stop being animated so they have one team to distract the soldiers (Roz, Red, Pinocchio) while the rest go for the Godmother. But they take so long planning and are so loud that they lose the element of surprise.

It’s combat time baybee! And everyone is level one! What could possibly go wrong?

[Note: OK, as I said during my liveblog, I need to redo my conspiracy board. So it seems like the stepmother is indeed the stepmother and, as I said she must have if she were to become a patron, she’s done some sort of awful magic ritual to give herself power. Magic so strong it untethered herself from her name which is serious business in fairy tales.

But it seems like The Stepmother–who is Cinderella’s stepmother and also Pinocchio's Stepmother is maybe also Snow White’s Stepmother? Because the Magic Mirror asked Pinocchio to be brought back to “her”. And, of course, the Magic Mirror is famously an item that belongs to the Evil Queen from Snow White. It seems like the stepmother has positioned herself as some kind of eldritch uber stepmom. An amalgamation of all of the worst ones (and maybe expanding her market share because Pinocchio traditionally doesn't have a step-mom).

If this stepmom is Cinderella and Snow White’s stepmom, that makes them sisters in a way. And the lady-knight in glass armor drawn in ash is almost certainly Cinderella. And she called Roz her sister. So that could make Cinderella and Snow the sisters that are coming for Roz. I’m hedging because I’m not sure how many sisters we’re talking here. If we’re thinking Disney canon–which isn’t THE canon but it’s a good enough touchstone–Snow, Cinderella, and Sleeping (in that order) are the OG 3 princesses. It would make sense for Brennan to put them at the center of something (especially if this is some elaborate dig at the Disney corporation and their exploitation and sanitization of fairy tales lol). They’re also the Disney Princesses that have the most life outside of the Disney versions, you know? There are lots of versions of Cinderella and Snow White. But like, Princess Jasmine is tied to Disney. The only princess outside of that trio that I think has a similar amount of play outside of her Disney version is Belle so I wouldn’t be shocked if she makes an appearance. But I do think just the core 3 is likely because 3 is an important number in fairy tales. Brennan says it himself when Puss is talking to the mirror.

But there’s also the matter of timeline. We now have confirmation that the Cinderella story took place just a couple of years ago–after which the Stepmom got all magick-y. And it seems like Roz really was asleep for the past 100 years. And we don’t know when the Snow White story took place yet. But again it’s like, how do these stories fit together in time?

Also, are the sisters trying to hurt Roz? Help her? Something in between? Are they even working in tandem? I trust them more than I trust the woman who ATE HER DAUGHTERS–Cinderella’s actions with her fairy at least seem to show that she’s good. But we’re clearly missing info here.

Why does the Stepmother want Roz? She wants to keep her away from her sisters but, again, she ate her kids. I’m sure she doesn’t want Roz for a good reason.

I was thinking about what these princesses have in common besides being the Disney OG 3 (which, again, could be the connection is Brennan wants to get a bit meta with it and he’s made his PCs fight Robert Moses and Amazon so that’s not out of the question). Snow and Roz are both sleeping princesses. Snow and Cindy are both princesses with stepmoms. Cindy and Roz both have fairy connections. Maybe the Stepmom wants to adopt Roz too for some ritualistic reason? Maybe this is some Kingdom Hearts, princess of heart thing. I don’t know anything about Kingdom Hearts but it felt like a thing to mention.

Also, let’s talk fairies for a second. We have at least one confirmed fucked up fairy godmother–even though it doesn’t seem like it’s the same fairy from Pinocchio's story (no confirmation but it doesn’t seem like it). I want to consider again the possibility of fairy tale overlap. Because Roz’s story starts with 4 fairies. The 3 who blessed her and the 1 that cursed her. There’s no reason those fairies couldn’t turn up again as other fairies we’ll encounter in the story. And it’s been 100 years. Fairies are exactly the type of creature that causally live that long. I don’t remember if I mentioned it, but I was wondering if the fairy Pinocchio met was also the one that cursed Roz. I don’t have an answer here. We’re still at the looking-for-edge-pieces part of putting together this puzzle. But that’s what stuck out to me this episode. I will see you guys next time! Brennan, don’t do anything to Eidelgrin and Senator!]

#dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #neverafter #neverafter spoilers #twice upon a time #as always feel free to hit me up with question of theories you wanna add to the conspiracy board

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jq37 · 3 years

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The Case File – Mice and Murder Ep 4

The Case of the Puzzling Painting

Welcome back to Loam Hall where our Sylvan Sleuths are still hanging out in a room with a dead body. When we left off, Gangie had been snooping into Sly’s conversation about Fletcher Cottonbottom and now, he uses his Criminal Contacts feature to see what he knows, if anything, about a recent return. With a 26 he knows that his family used to be well respected but after the whole business with the insurance fraud and Sly busting it, the family kind of fell out of favor. So Fletcher was in a weird position where he was rich and a part of high society and had enough dirt on everyone to get them to do things for him but couldn’t actually show his face because he was disgraced. Gangie also knows that it’s rumored that Fletcher’s weapons running scheme was actually a front for moving art.

With regard to more recent news about Fletcher, Gangie was never in direct contact with him but he knows that 3-4 years ago, his most trusted henchmen started going missing--people attributed it to some kind of “Cottonbottom Curse” and that rumor is part of why Gangie decided to get out of dodge in the first place.

Buck does an insight check on the rest of the PCs and, with an 18, doesn’t clock anyone there as especially suspicious (Lars isn’t there but like..it’s Lars). Ian tries to give Squire Badger his last rites but ends up pulling the knife out, putting it back in, flapping blood everywhere with his feathers, and sending Constance into a badger rage. Buck tries to help smooth over things, claiming his big screw up was a new style of avant garde church ritual (Ian appreciates the support--who ministers to the ministers, you know?) and in the process sees his knife for the first time. Which, you know. He obviously suspected before but never nice to see.

While this is going on, Daisy sneaks off to try and check on the secret door and everyone sees her do it/eventually follows her but we’ll get back to her once we check in with Lars who is en route to the kitchen. Once in the hallway, they do a perception check and, on a 15, there are 3 doors and Ally gets to pick one. There’s a kitchen where Gilfoyle is talking to a group, a door where someone is crying behind it, and a door where they can hear nothing. Ally, the galaxy brained genius, goes for the quiet door. That’s the money door and with their ears pressed against the door, they can hear Edwina and Carolyn--the two mice maids that overheard Buck’s conversation with the Badger--whispering about what happened there and wondering if they should pay back the money they were paid to by Buck.

Gilfoyle walks out and sees Lars snooping but on a Nat 20 deception check, Lars is able to play dumb and skate by suspiciousness. Also, with a dirty 20 perception check, when the mice maids leave, Lars sees that they’ve been stealing silverware.

OK, back to Daisy who is getting to the séance room as quickly as possible. She has two rounds before people catch up to her so she’s trying to make the most of it by Investigating the painting she noticed was bolted to the wall earlier. She first rolls an 11, getting no new information. This is so frustrating to her. She’s good at this dammit! But being around Sly is rattling her terribly. She has feelings for him--strong ones. But she isn’t herself around him. How can she be with him if he makes her so unlike herself? Her introspection is enough to earn her advantage from Brennan on her second roll and boom! 25! Daisy is back.

With that roll, she notices that the eyes in the painting actually move and can be used as a spying post on the other side. Then Sly runs in and they start bickering immediately. Daisy throws a crystal ball at him and absolutely brains him on a nat 20--the first combat roll of this very RP oriented season.

Buck and Ian are still in the room with the body for the moment and Buck asks Ian about the first few names on the list Gangie gave him. There were a bunch of members of the Burrows family--a working class family that all died of a consumptive illness. And then the Diggories who died in a carriage accident. The connecting thread? All badgers. Buck then zooms away to follow Daisy, Ian follows, and Lars, seeing them as they leave the kitchens, also follows.

So all the PCs are in the séance room now and they kinda have the sense of, “OK y’all, we’re all screwed but we’re al screwed together so we better throw our lot in with each other and start working together so we don’t die because no one else here is on our side.” Buck proposes an alliance and they all agree to share info. Sly asks about Buck’s knife and Buck admits it’s his but says he didn’t do it. Sly believes him--not because he wouldn’t do it but because he has no motive (that he knows about anyway. Buck doesn’t spill about the contract).

Gangie shares the list of names from before with the whole group.It’s like half badgers and then some other critters (full list here). Sly doesn’t share any of his secret info Grant got texted. Daisy and Buck don’t share about the key (though Sly you’ll remember sat her steal it). Buck does however mention his suspicion about the fact that Gilfoyle wasn’t around when Squire Badger gave his speech and Daisy does the same about the fact that he said he would call the cops but the cops haven’t arrived yet. Lar’s remembers that Jez’s husband is gunning for at seat in parliament and wonders if this is related somehow. Daisy mentions the eyes in the painting and everyone is like way to bury the lede dude! Especially when they’ve just all spilled their secrets. Everyone checks on the painting and with a 25 Gangie can intuit that this is probably used to spy on rich people when they’re mid-séance and vulnerable and spilling secrets (which he doesn’t share but Daisy comes to a similar conclusion on her own). Buck on a 23 can smell ledgers (idk how but the DM said so and I’m reporting it) and guesses that that’s where the Squire’s real office is which means that’s probably where the contract he needs to find and destroy is too.

The group makes a list of their loose ends which are what’s on the other side of the painting, what’s up with Fletcher, and the smell of ozone. Plus Ian remembers that the date on the bust in the study is wrong and shares with the class.

Lars tries to get to the other side of the room by ripping the painting off the hinges with a very impressive 26 but there is fully a wall behind it and the noise brings Gilfoyle, Harding, and the Badger kids running. Lars notes that in the stone behind the painting it says “⅓” and then hurriedly puts the painting back. Daisy thinks that might refer to a secret third floor or basement accessible by the elevator (but my first thought was that there were 2 other spying paintings in the house somewhere).

Everyone in the room hears the Gilfoyle and co. coming and try to act natural. There is a group stealth check that they all tank so heavily that all the suspicious staff and kids need to do to suss them out is roll above a 5.

AND THEY ROLL A TWO.

With that, Lucretia appears, totally buys that they’re doing very important spiritual work in there, and in fact guards the door for them. They use the privacy bought by their very vigilant sentry to plan their next steps. Sly, Daisy, and Ian will check out the study while they rest of them check out the elevator. As they exit, Lucretia asks if they got the answers they needed out of the spirits.

Oh yes, says Daisy, echoing Lucretia’s nonsense prediction from last episode. Either something good or bad might happen. Either way, I’m excited!

Case Notes

How baller of a player move is it to say a line so poignant that the DM is forced to let you roll with advantage? I have been on the other side of that as the DM and it’s so great. MAD respect to Rekha for that. AND THEN THE DICE COOPERATED. You simply love to see it.

The other best Rekha line is Daisy to Sly upon being called out about stealing the key in his normal, coy, quippy way: You saw me bitch.

Shout out to Grant also for being constantly on as Sly. The guy is on point always. Impeccable.

I am SO SO SO happy Daisy and Sly are on the same mission team. If I was friends with either of them I’d be like, “This is a toxic relationship, they make you too crazy.” But as an outside viewer I want them to be within crystal ball throwing distance always.

The question I’m sure we’re all asking: Is Brennan enough of a minx to invoke the butler did it trope? I know everyone at the table is thinking it even if none of them have said it outright. I figured the reason the cops haven’t showed up yet was the storm but who knows?

Two pieces of housekeeping, only Buck and Gangie know what the room behind the painting is with their high rolls and, after the bit of passing it back and forth with Buck, Daisy has the key.

I really can’t do the bit about Gangie’s mom justice. I wish there was a comedy Emmy for actual play DnD shows so D20 could get the accolades it deserves just for that bit.

Brennan indicated that the conversation between the mice maids was the most interesting info (Gilfoyle convo to staff was too public to be juicy/they could get the info from one of the many gathered staff people and crying is info on its own--though I am curious about who the crying person was) but I’m wondering what he meant by that. Because the fact that Buck paid them might be interesting if Buck did it. But we know he didn’t. Is it the fact that they were in the room at all? Again, info that the party knows if not Lars specifically. The fact that they were stealing silverware? What’s Brennan’s game here?

#dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #mice and murder #mice and murder spoilers #the case file

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jq37 · 4 years

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The Royal Report– A Crown of Candy Ep 14 Encounter in the Ice Cream Temple

We All Scream

We return to the Ice Cream Temple after the absolute bombshell that the SPF engineered Jet’s death as a way to get the Candians to her lair and gear up for the fight that that revelation obviously triggered. We get a better idea of the battlefield with the amazing Rick Perry set--like even by his standards it’s amazing, fog is involved. The party is on a ledge on one side of the room and there are huge levitating Popsicles and ice cream cones between them and a massive tower of frozen desserts which has the chocolate egg stuck in it in a little alcove.

As the fight begins, the SPF quickly cycles through all her glamours before revealing her true form, a huge, blue/purple, many-faced, many-winged, angelic type being--but angel in the, “We’re saying ‘be not afraid’ not as a formality but because we know we look scary,” sense. And with a Nat 20 initiative she goes to cast something in a cone that would have hit everyone for 8d8 damage but Rina dispels it with a clutch 5th level Counterspell (rolling exactly the DC without even adding her mod), absolutely foiling Brennan. In celebration, she finally puts the crown on Amethar tossed to her a couple of eps back.

Cumulus does some crazy monk movement to jump all the way across to the alcove with the egg. Unfortunately, the SPF immediately uses a legendary action to hit him with with a Ray of Frost for 27 damage and then gets a lair action to skewer him with an icicle, fully dropping him to death saves. The one small mercy is that Cumulus falls towards the egg, not into the mist.

Liam takes some shots at the SPF, and learns that she has both a really high AC and some kind of Mirror Image spell going to take some of her hits. He also eats the Peppermint Heart Seed the SPF returned to them, hoping it will give him flight like it did to Preston (almost jumping off the ledge to test it) but Brennan rolls on the Wild Magic Table and it instead makes the entire party Invisible.

Ruby (at Brennan’s mischievous suggestion) jumps off the edge so she’ll be in range to use Mage Hand, ties it to the end of the rope to the closest floating Popsicles (the orange one), and hangs on. In the distance, she can hear her aunts cheering for her. The SPF blasts her with some cold damage, insisting she just wants to take her somewhere safe but Ruby is having none of that.

Amethar throws some javelins which just gets rid of some of the illusions. The SPF does some more damage to Ruby.

Theo, student of Lazuli, realizes that the SPF is like a dragon sitting atop all this magical treasure but she’s not the source of the magic per se and they should be able to get the floating Popsicles to move at their command. He tells everyone and then holds his turn to see if Rina does anything crazy. Rina Thundersteps herself and Theo to the Popsicle Ruby is hanging onto and uses Winterscoop like an oar to try and move it (DC 10 Wis check w/ advantage--Brennan’s one small mercy). She gets it and yells to her guys to jump onto the other Popsicle (the red one) but they aren’t able to move it. With the rest of his held turn, Theo cast Protection From Evil and Good on Rina.

The SPF tries to blast Rina’s group with another cone attack but Rina stops it cold (ha) with another Counterspell, viably breaking Brennan.

Cumulus fails a death save. Theo takes some cold damage which he lessens with Absorb Elements. Then the SPF casts a spell on Ruby, entering her mind and saying, “You came to me in the glade. Wherever you go, I go.” And she hears a scream from Jet as the SPF begins stitching her own shadow to Ruby. (Spooky, hate that!)

Liam jumps on the red Popsicle and attacks the SPF again, getting rid of the last of her protective illusion.

Ruby swings up to where Cumulus and the egg is. She the rope to Cumulus and pushes him off the edge (Zac’s Face: *Immediate Concern*) so they can pull him up and help him. She also does an Insight check on the egg and feels that the outside is cold but there’s a deep rumbling from within.

Amethar jumps onto the red Popsicle and is finally able to move it. He gets closer to the SPF to throw some javelins and gets a hit this time but, unfortunately, as the SPF is hit, an identical wound dealing half damage appears on Ruby. Ruby yells this info to everyone else.

Theo again delays his action to wait for Rina to act. Rina Healing Word’s Cumulus both because he’s down and to boost her movement by ten (she gets that free 10 feet of Fly when she casts a spell) and she uses that movement to get within range of the egg and cast Bonfire (a cantrip) on the egg (Ruby insisting she could have done it without help). Brennan, womped thrice, needs a 12 or higher on 2d8 to damage the egg. Rina gets a 13 on the dice without having to even do any Sorcery shenanigans.

The egg cracks, releasing hot steam, the smell of cinnamon and the most ADORABLE baby dragon that imprints on Rina immediately. Rina coos that she finally has a family.”

“That is mine,” the SPF says.

“Not anymore,” Rina replies.

Ruby’s Big Day

Jon Bon nails the SPF with a throwing ax, doing half damage to Ruby again.

The SPF does a ton of damage to the red Popsicle peeps and Swifty and Gooey look ROUGH.

Cumulus (after determining that the SPF connection with Ruby will fade soon) jumps and grapples the SPF, doing a successful Stunning Strike, but the SPF uses a legendary resistance to come out of stun and then attacks him, paralyzing him and leaving him to fall.

Ruby tries to figure out if she can do something and Rina says if she trusts her and holds her action, she can do something to help. But it’s not necessary because, on his turn, Liam hits the SPF with a crossbow bolt (Ruby takes no damage as the connection has faded) and then moves the Popsicle under where Cumulus is going to land. The SPF hits Liam for 25 points of damage, taking him down to 9.

Even though she doesn’t need it to save Cumulus anymore, Ruby still delays her turn to get movement help from Rina (reluctantly). Amethar catches Cumulus out of the air before he hits the Popsicle and then does almost 50 points of damage to the SPF with Payment Day now that he’s in melee range.

Theo moves the orange Popsicle closer to where the action is happening, Misty Steps to the floating ice cream cone between his Popsicle and the other one, then tries to boomerang his sword to hit the SPF, but it doesn’t hit.

Rina (slipping into a very Fig manner of speech for a second) asks Ruby, “You wanna go for a ride?” Ruby accepts and Rina (after telling Cinnamon--the newly christened dragon--to fly over to her when he has a chance) Thundersteps herself and Ruby over to the very crowded orange Popsicle with the SPF. She also casts Create Bonfire on the SPF which does double damage--24.

And Ruby decides to take her held turn.

She casts Green Flame Blade on Flickerish--Jet’s sword--and says, “For Jet, bitch.”

Yak flies over to give her advantage (and make this as cinematic as possible).

Nat 20 bay-bee!

So she’s getting extra dice from Green Flame Blade, Rogue Sneak Attack, Flickerish’s Superiority Dice, and the Nat 20. Siobhan is rolling a DM number of dice here and you truly love to see it.

Brennan, sensing that, writes a number on a folded piece of paper and hands it to her. The amount of HP the SPF has left. Then he has her roll in the Box of Doom. She lets those colorful dice fly and counts them up--while Brennan looks on with increasing consternation in the background.

59.

She opens the piece of paper.

52!

Ruby lands graceful, balancing with her circus training, shadow of Jet being cast tall on the wall of the cavern.

“Can’t you come home with me?” asks the SPF.

“Why don’t you come home with me?”

Ruby thrusts the sword forward and the SPF (who Brennan says was literally just about to use her 9th level spell slot to cast Wish and restore all her HP) is no more.

Cold Shoulder

Fight over, the mist begins to clear. They see the floor of the cavern is just magical items on magical items and Swifty is stoked as hell. The magic of this place goes from painfully freezing cold and sickly sweet to the good kind of crisp cold and welcoming availability.

Ruby in her ear hears 4 voices:

“Proud of you, kid.”

“You make it look effortless. I am so proud.”

“Sweetheart, I don’t know where we’re going next. It was nice to be here, but we’re gonna go somewhere we don’t know, but we’re gonna go there together.”

“I was fourth in line and I didn’t know that we were all gonna say something. They didn’t tell me.”

“Look after her please,” Ruby says.

“I wouldn’t dream of doing anything else.”

Then she feels the embrace of her shadow and it returns to its place.

(“I love you so much. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”)

Rina says to Ruby that she could have finished off the SPF herself but she wanted to let her have the killing blow because it clearly meant a lot to her. She doesn’t know if that will mean anything to her now and she feels that maybe she’s wasting her time continually trying to reach out to her but maybe, someday, it will get through to her.

Rina’s guys escort her away and she can tell that Gooey has something on her mind. Rina gives her permission to speak freely and Gooey (with Swifty and Jon Bon chiming in) basically says, “Fuck the Candians. They treat you like shit. We’re your real family. You’re gonna be a dope ass queen.”

“You know, it’s funny. That’s the first time someone has called me queen and it hasn’t felt uncomfortable. It actually felt really good.”

Ruby takes another moment of silence for Jet. Theo says that it was always Jet’s dream to be fighting with and for the common people which is Rina’s whole thing. They should be rallying behind her. Ruby and Amethar never even wanted to rule--now he gets to be a warrior again like he wanted. Amethar shoots back with his perspective on the last 4 weeks: his daughter died, he died twice, he decided he was gonna finally man up and bam, it turns out he’s not even king anymore. So excuse him for not being the most gung ho person in the world.

Theo says that he trusts that Amethar is on board but Rina doesn’t know him. From her POV, this is just unprovoked shunning.

“You have two living daughters.”

Ruby goes to talk to Rina and, on a Nat 20 Insight, sees that all her guys are fully ready to remorselessly kill her if given the order. Still, she presses on, laying out her cards: Her entire worldview has imploded in a matter of weeks. Her twin sister just died. She’s going through so much and now this too? She can’t accept Rina as both her sister and her queen. She has to pick one.

“I understand that you lost everything,” Rina says, “but I was born with nothing.” She says that she was actually very excited to meet Ruby and have a sister and finally not be alone anymore, tears cracking through her cold facade for a moment. But then she gathers herself.

“If I must choose, then I choose to be your queen.”

“Very well.”

Rina and her crew exit the Temple and start down the mountain. Everyone except for Liam follows them. Liam goes to check on the hoard and rolls a 24 Investigation check. At the base of the tower he sees an old lair with ancient chocolate eggshells. He knows this is the dark space from his dreams and he knows this was once a dragon lair. At the center of the nest (which is still somehow warm), there’s a little ember that glows brighter as he approaches. It grows red and bright, filling his vision, a hand reaches out, grabs his throat and pulls and we end the ep!

Medal of Honor

Killing a god should be enough to get anyone this spot.

But killing a god with only a 7 point margin on a Nat 20 in order to avenger your sister’s death with her own sword a turn before said god was about to down a Full Restore?

Ooh, man. All hail Princess Ruby Rocks baby!

Things I’m Concerned About

OK, I mentioned last week I was worried about Rina doing a Cat's in the Cradle but I said I’d elaborate later and what I feared seems to be materializing so I’m going to talk about it now. Rina clearly had a certain vision of what she wanted this family reunion to look like and, for valid reasons, it’s not happening that way. They’re not really bonding. So what this ends up being is them relying on her in battle but brushing her off socially--at least that’s what it looks like from her POV. And like, she’s been around for like 2 days so it’s kind of unreasonable for her to expect them to be fully on board already but I see where she’s coming from. If I grew up as basically a Dickensian orphan and a princess told me a sob story (however valid) I wouldn’t be impressed. It would be a complicated situation even without a war happening in the background. On top of that, Rina is surrounded by Yes-Men which concerned me from the start when Gooey pulled her aside that first time. The last time we had the potential for serious party conflict in D20 (not counting Bloodkeep because I maintain that, despite the setup and Brennan’s best efforts, that was never going to happen) was the Kingston/Pete situation and that ended up fizzling out but idk man. That conversation Rina had about how it felt kinda nice to be called queen? That def set off some alarm bells in my head. I don’t know enough about GoT to know if this is a totally valid statement but when she got the dragon and then that convo happened I was like...hmm...how does Dany’s story end again?

Lol also, whatever the heck is going on with Liam and the dragon. Really this should be first but, I’m gonna be real, the Rina thing was so much that I fully forgot this was a thing that also happened.

I’m concerned about whatever happens next ep that was so bad they’ve been talking about it for ages. Feeling pretty trepid about that my guys.

We haven’t heard from Annabelle and Primsy in a while and that doesn’t necessarily mean anything bad but...hmm...

Five A Few More Things

Ah yes, the return of the, “Why can’t a butterscotch bird help me perform first aid?” argument. “Are you telling me a bird can’t save someone’s life?”

“Give me the child.” Brennan, I know I say this a lot but if anything happens to Cinnamon...a single thing...a solitary hitpoint...Brennan…

There's a bit where Cumulus rolls like a 9 and Ally goes, “Can he get advantage from the egg?” And Siobhan makes a face like, “Fully what?” but then a second later is like, “That’s a great question,” totally straight-faced and it’s so funny.

I wonder if Rina’s peeps feel the way they do about the whole party? Because Theo is honestly (in Murph’s words) also one of her goons practically and Cumulus pledged the orders’ services to her. You’d think they’d get consideration.

When Cinnamon gives Rina a Help action she goes, “I’ve never gotten Help action before,” and I understand what she meant but also, lol, she gets Help actions like every turn from her guys.

“Don’t come after my distant cousin!”

Very happy that if combat is happening in our story eps we’re getting some story in our combat eps. Getting a significant chunk of immediate aftermath is very cool and something I often wished for in the other main seasons.

FYI: Celestial is Liam’s Greater Favored Enemy.

Brennan really does love to undercut the tenseness of the situations of his dark world by reminding us all that it’s also deeply stupid and made of candy and I think that’s great.

One More Thing

Two big fandom art things are happening right now that I want to shout out:

(1) Until the 24th, D20 is accepting CoC fanart for their finale montage. The email is [email protected] and the details are on their Twitter.

(2) A fan run event is also happening--as big bang (which is a fanfic-visual art team-up thing that I’m learning about for the first time but seems really cool). Info for that is here.

#dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #a crown of candy #a crown of candy spoilers #the royal report

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jq37 · 5 years

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May we have a recap, please? :)

**spoilers for panic at the art show and home for the holidays**

OK people. I actually don’t have a ton of commentary on these two so I’m gonna try and keep it (relatively) short and sweet [Edit from Future Me: Failed Step 1].

Also, iirc, this is the week Dropout starts streaming new Fantasy High eps on Wednesdays which is very dope and I am very excited for. I probably won’t do full on recaps like I do for normal eps because, lbr, I don’t strictly have the time to be recapping these eps at all and it’s pure stubbornness that keeps me from making wiser time management decisions. But, rest assured, if I have an Opinion, you will hear it whether you want to or not.

Anyway, on with the show.

Last recap, I mentioned that this ep was giving me Aelwen house party vibes and now it reminds me of that ep in another way: Everyone rolled like TRASH almost the entire ep. It was so frustrating! They barely got any hits in until like halfway through the ep.

(Aw man, I just realized I’m gonna have to remember which spelling of Aelwen is correct again now that FH is coming back.)

I love how Murph is immediately like, “I need to make sure my wife doesn’t die during this fight avenging her fictional husband.”

Isabella also has Aelwen’s trick of poofing around the battlefield which is annoying as hell (ha) for the group.

Siobhan hilariously casts fear on Priya just to be spiteful. I thought she was doing it to help the evac process but no. It was a purely spiteful action. Bless.

When Kug turns into an ape he, of course, turns into *the* NY ape, King Kong.

“I roll a nat 20 on an epic shit.”

When Brennan was describing Kingston’s spectral New Yorker Guardians I was already thinking about that one part of Spiderman 2 (the OG Toby Mac version) and then he straight up said, “You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us,” and I lost it.

“Deny the stairs the pleasure of my feet.” Emily is a poet.

I want to know what makes a pigeon spicy more than anything.

The fact that Brennan killed Ox AGAIN and then immediately looked into the camera and let the audience know the dog was fine because he clearly Oracle stared into the future between eps and saw the entire internet sharpening their pitchforks was so funny.

About midway through the ep, Pete tries and fails to send Isabella back to hell and Isabella starts monologing about her plans and connection with Robert Moses (she stole the list from Santa and is/was gonna marry Moses apparently). I wonder if Brennan was like, “These players are for sure gonna murder her without getting any useful info out of her unless she goes full Bond Villain right now.”

And, proving my point, Emily immediately does 56 points of damage, royally f-ing Isabella up.

This is a really civilian heavy fight which feels weird in a way the FH fights never did. Like, these aren’t even civilians who live in an adventuring town in a fantasy world. These are just normal ass civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Pete fails a wild magic roll after failing to teleport into the building and then gets a choice of getting really strong (which prob would have let him bust down the door) or to teleport in (which is what he does and exactly what he wanted). Very clutch when the dice rolls play into the story like that.

Kingston lightning bolts Isabella’s hair off which is just malicious but also totally called for.

On her next turn, Sophie gets hurt on purpose to get low enough to activate her ring, lets her hair burn for long enough to shorten it to a cute bob, insults Isabella, then knocks her tf out.

I love that Emily took one of her teeth (a seemingly crazy move) and when called out by Lou was like, “It’s a link to Robert Moses” (a completely reasonable answer). That’s the Axford one-two punch.

I didn’t mention it before but, Willie the golem is here, first immobile but then brought back by Misty. Post fight, he says he was somehow brought here by one of the evil factions of the city and says they’ll talk about it later. Also, Misty makes out with him (DON’T KINKSHAME HER).

With a high insight roll, Kingston is able to deduce that the group was ambushed (though not by Priya) and that their victory was a really important one for the fate of the city.

(Sidenote: The amount that Pete is Over Priya in this ep is so funny.)

Back at Wally’s (which is where Kug is now staying) Wally has gotten Kug a dog bed to sleep in and fancy charcuterie cheese because he and Ricky are the only pure-hearted people in NYC.

At the same time, Pete and Kingston have a very sweet heart to heart and then settle down at Kingston’s place to chill and listen to jazz. Idk how else we expected this to resolve, considering this is a Brennan Lee Mulligan DM’d show where the sacred pillars are Teamwork, Friendship, Communication, and Making up an NPC on the Fly Because One of Your PC’s Decided to do an Insane Thing.

Next up is the Christmas ep and Brennan, Emily, and Zac are in sweaters for the occasion.

Well,actually it’s the 21st and Emily immediately clocks that that’s the solstice.

Are cookies the good carb?/Absolutely not. But have fun with your life. (I love Ricky’s soft jock energy.)

“I run deliveries,” Pete says to Kingston’s parents, not technically lying but also not being completely truthful. Misty would be proud.

Going over to Misty, it seems pretty clear at this point (and it’s confirmed in the promo for next ep) that Misty’s fairy business is some kind of de-aging/reincarnation for herself. I wonder how many of these she’s done so far. She said she’s been around for, what? 200, 300 years? Assuming she’s been doing then reincarnations at about 65-70 years old and she reincarnates to around 25? Maybe 6 times? Idk. Just spitballing.

Saucer of milk to keep the faeries from stealing her (non-existing) children. Faerie lore is wild y'all.

Did you take another level of warlock?/Yeah bitch.

The fact that since Sophie has joined a monastery, she’s only taken Warlock levels and no Monk levels is very funny from a story perspective. It’s like, she finally comes to this sacred place to be trained to her full potential and she’s just spending what should be her sparring time playing with her cat in exchange for spells. Wild.

Emily’s cat-like, self-satisfied grin when Brennan is like, “So you just jerry-rigged yourself clairvoyance powers, huh?” is so good.

And she did it on the fly because Emily Axford is winning D&D. There are no points but she’s winning.

So, uh, Emily does, two things, very in character right after the other:

Thing number one: She send her unseen servant to spy on her family. Her dad seems hardline, “F, Dale. Whatever. Family first. She needs to get over it.” On the other side of the spectrum is her mom who is very upset about the whole affair with her siblings falling in the middle.

The second thing she does, very casually I might add, is have her unseen servant BURN DOWN HER HOUSE SO SHE CAN COMMIT INSURANCE FRAUD.

EMILY

Everyone loses their minds and rightfully so. What a wild-ass swing that no one could have seen coming. I love it.

“I look in my backpack which is now my home[…]"

I almost forgot that Ricky was a fire fighter who would not abide that nonsense until Brennan decided to cut to him.

Ricky just dolphin swims across the Hudson in 2.5 mins to go put out the fire that Sophie set. Amazing.

Ally mocking Emily/Sophie: Truthfully, I don’t know what happened.

"I love John McClane, because he loves his wife.” WALLY

Wally: Oh we’re gonna tell a lie on Christmas.

“This is what winning looks like.”

I would really like to know what trace stuff what on the drugs Pete got from 7 but Ally rolled too low to figure it out.

“I disassociate fully."

Well it took him a long ass time but glad to have Pete on the selling drugs to kids is bad train. Choo-choo, dude.

7 saying you can hack in real life in reference to his AK-47 has the same energy as Hardison using the word hack in literally any semi-weird episode of Leverage.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS VOLUNTARY PANOPTICON

So Kug goes with Wally to David’s house disguised as a dog and, despite that, blurts out that he’s his dad immediately. Well, he tries to. The Umbral Arcana stops him, unfortunately.

"I lick my son’s face.” KUUUUG.

Sophie showing up with a raw goose and hellish rebuking it is so metal and it’s a shame no one got to appreciate it.

Me when Sophie’s Mom changes into black top in solidarity for Sophie’s mourning: F EVERY OTHER NON-SOPHIE BICICLETA. I RESPECT YOU.

Kingston is hustling very hard to get his man Pete a job which is a very Kingston move. That’s how guys like that show affection.

Didn’t mention it before but Kingston’s parents and Mom specifically adopting Pete is very cute.

Sidenote: Idk what 7 was talking about Pete trying to stay low profile. He wears a cowboy hat (now a ZEBRA STRIPED one, courtesy of Kingston). I think the subtlety train has sailed my guy.

Esther shows up at the firehouse, carrying presents for her mom and grandma and looking for Ricky. The says that she’s kinda dealing with something and it feels good to be around him (beat) magically speaking. Sure. I’m gonna keep my Hercules soundtrack on hand just in case anyway.

I think Ricky is the only person who, with no pretense, could give his crush a sexy calendar featuring him.

Anyway, turns out Esther’s mom and grandma are the furies of Tompkins Square and she’s fated to join them or something.

Esther causally: I defy you, I defy the prophecy.

The fury thing would explain why Esther’s mom would have cursed Kug. They are famously magical punishers.

Ricky is a magically certified Good Boy but we been knew.

Zac’s restraint to respect Esther’s personal boundaries in lieu of getting a lore drop to stay true to Ricky’s character is amazing. Mad props.

So we slide over to Misty’s Christmas party which Stephen Sondhein is attending and him having a character card kinda killed me.

There’s a post on tumblr somewhere about playing faerie incapability for impoliteness against a vampires need to be invited in and that’s what I thought about when Moses and his vamp friends showed up at Misty’s house.

Robert tries to talk Misty into striking a deal with him for protection from Titania. She’s very much not having it.

“You know Robert, I love a comedy and I love a farce. I’d like to remind you of who it is that started this and it’s not me and it’s not my friends but I can assure you Robert Moses that we will be the ones to end it if you do not. Do you understand me?” Damn. That’s a mic drop from Misty.

[As I’m editing this, I’m realizing I somehow lost a BIG chunk of text. I’m not gonna write it all up again but the Cliffnotes are as follows:

Between the Solstice and Christmas, the gang goes Grand Central Station to see the clockwork gnomes that live there because trouble is apparently afoot. Some size changing nonsense happens and Pete shoots a dog (with mini bullets, the dog is fine). Lou is enchanted even though Kingston is not (a common theme with him). Ally and Emily are on the same nonsense wavelength (as usual).

There are dope magical dragon trains under Grand Central Station that go to the shadow realm which is a place I’d like to know about. Kingston has never seen these trains before even though you’d really think he would have.

Murph says Gnome Rights which is wild if you know what Naddpod is like.

Anyway, the high priestess of the gnomes passed out the other day and they figure out it was due to pixie magic which is suspicious. They also know they pixies have access to a “time stone” which leads me to believe that it’s Brennan and not Aguefort who thinks that Chronomancy is the most powerful magic of all.

Sophie and Jackson go to Dale’s grave on Christmas. Jackson explains that the Order of the Concrete Fist is basically a literal school of hard knocks. A counterbalance to all the reach for the stars dreaminess that comes with NYC.

Dale was their chosen one who was supposed to stop the monastery from falling when some unspecified badness crossed over to this side, but when he went to the place where he was supposed to get guidance, there was no one there (clearly tying in to what Dale said to Sophie last time they talked. I wonder what she needs to get to the top of? Empire State maybe?).

Watching Murph watching Emily, his real life spouse, play at grief for her fictional husband and do some truly insane things is so funny because you can clearly see him thinking, “I am married to this woman,” which, in fairness, is probably the main thing he’s thinking when he’s playing D&D with Emily.

I’m probably missing something but that’s all I remember. Back to post-Christmas!]

So it’s opening night at Misty’s show and, somehow, Ricky’s first show ever.

I love that Don Confetti is there because of Siobhan’s offhanded comment for a handful of eps ago about him being a supporter of the arts.

Anyway, everything is going great until the second act when Titania busts in through the mirror which is *not* is storage as Misty requested but on stage. It’s a theater fight, y'all! And not the West Side Story kind although if that doesn’t come up I will be very surprised.

“Let’s kill Titania!” –Misty in the promo

Just going straight to 11, huh Misty?

See y'all then!

#dimension 20 #the unsleeping city #d20 #asks #kickmuncher3

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