Cthulhu's Den

This week our adventurers pick up where they left off last week: facing off against (the slightly debated number of) two hill giants.  Rhogar learns that just because you're invisible doesn't mean you won't get hit.  Shi'Thead proves just as hard to kill as always and all in all the party makes relatively short work of the two giants.  As they camp following the battle, Arthur works as a translator as he and Krystiana have a fireside chat with some elementals (its fireside because they're fire elementals get it?).  The following day, our heroes finally get to whatever the name of the town they were going to only to find it partially destroyed.  But fear not, everyone's favorite troll merchant Jaycinn is there so our party can finally spend their money.  

This week our band of adventurers leave the temple and decide to head off somewhere where they can spend their sweet, sweet money.  Along the way, they get attacked by a familiar bandit and his bandit friends who attempt to do bandit things...such as banditry. Naturally, they fail spectacularly given a new trick where Krystiana gives us the debut of Tyrannosaurus Thargok....Thargokosaurus Rex...or whatever. The party defeats the bandits and continue on their merry way only to run into more trouble.....they may never get to spend money at this rate...I mean save Faerun and whatnot.

Our heroes face off with the prophet of air this week, and by face off I of course mean she takes off and summons a Djinn to kick the party's ass (and it would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for those meddling adventurers).  Shi'Thead and Rhogar take on the Djinn while Elgast, Thargok and Arthur take on pretty much everyone else.  Shi'Thead goes for a ride, Rhogar gets knocked out (and Connor manages to NOT fail almost all his death saves for once), Thargok learns that getting shanked starts to hurt after awhile, Elgast gets beat up by air apparently and Arthur manages to keep the party alive if not exactly standing.  

This week, our adventurers continue to explore the Howling Hatred Temple after a few attempts at taking a rest (and many dead cultists).  They delve deeper into the Temple and after being lulled into a false sense of how squishy the Cultists are, they proceed to nearly dying after a particularly difficult pair of battles back to back.  Arthur, Rhogar, and Shi'Thead all manage to narrowly escape death (Yay warlocks that refuse to stay down) and due to a series of fortunate circumstances (thank you "lucky" card) our heroes are finally able to take a bloody nap, which is all they really wanted to begin with.  Also a quick FYI: we apologize for the volume discrepancies between the intro/outro and the game play, our DM keeps the good mic for himself (he knows we can't be trust nice things as a group) and it's the good mic for a reason.

This week, we join our heroes as they delve into the Temple of Howling Hatred (aka 50 shades of wind dungeon).  As expected, slaughter ensues whenever our adventurers have a run in with cultists, kenku, and I guess I'll call them wannabe cultists. Rhogar does some manual labor while being  *cough* encouraged *cough* by Krystiana (and let's face it everyone else probably took a swing too) Shi'Thead does what Shi'Thead does best and very little overall progress into the temple was made.  As to the theme of the the night, trust me you'll know it.

Our intrepid adventurers return to Feathergale Spire to settle a score (technically they wanted to go explore the tunnels beneath the fire cult area but noooo, the DM didn't want to kill them all).  Upon re-entering the Spire,  they set the mounts of the knight free (fly free noble Chestnut), set a fire, played "race the fire" to the top of the tower and battled Merosska (if it could really be called a battle) before making their various epic escapes from the burning tower.  Also, to answer the question from the episode title: No. No they cannot.

Our heroes are joined by a guest for the week, a gold Dragonborn named Balthazar as they continue to fight the fire cult.  Also, cue the Queen and the Mannfred Mann's Earth Band as Kuori goes down and Krystiana gets blinded during a battle some magmins (if you don't get those music references shame on you).  Luckily, Connor had a backup character ready to go (multiple in game near death experiences made that a good idea) and we soon meet Rhogar as he is battling some fire cultists for fun or something.  With their new allies in tow, the party head's up to confront the leader of this group of cultists.  Violence ensues, the party is victorious and hopefully all will work out with their new allies.

No, this episode isn't about some random music festival in some random desert.  Our heroes umm..... mourn Pellan in their own unique ways before continuing their investigation of those gathered for the ritual.  To no one's surprise this quickly leads to violence and after dispatching some more (probably) suspicious people gathered, they make a new friend....or ally.....or at the very least, their goals are loosely aligned for the moment and that's good enough for them.  Through the I guess ingenuity of Krystiana, the party makes their way to the ritual area and infiltrate the obvious fire cultists the best way they know how.....more violence.  They actually do a lot better with more people (and less flammable party members).

We join our band of intrepid adventurers this week as they go to investigate a druid circle that seems like it may be up to some funny business.  As the resident druid, Pellan takes the lead for investigating and determines there's something wrong with the second "circle" that they talk to.  Cue epic battle music as Kuori tests his fairy tale princess powers in trying to free a bear and we all learn just exactly how flammable Pellan is (the answer for those wanting to read ahead is a lot).

Thanks to technical difficulties (someday we'll have good equipment) you get a dramatic telling of the first two hours of adventuring. We resume play with our band of heros realizing they should realize that following the Shi'Thead method of doing things might be the better option more often than they'd like when they are trapped in an ancient tribal tomb. They manage to free themselves and semi aid the barbarian tribe in avenging themselves on the halflings that trapped them (so much blood). Pellan gets angry and the wanton slaughter and Kuori and Shi'Thead do their good deed for the day and return the stolen artifacts to the tomb.

Our group of troublesome adventurers track down a spy which brings them right back to where they started in Red Larch...... of course this is after they take everything that isn't nailed down from Rivergard Keep (thirteen episodes in and they ended up right back where they started.....sounds just about right).  They manage to find the spy (ironically the dwarf ends up poisoned as a result) and then head to take care of some orc trouble at a farm.  Using a combination of brute force, diplomacy and what quite possibly amounted to severe psychological torture to resolve the problem....you know, like heroes do. 

Our band of merry adventurers decide to head back to Feathergale Spire after determining that there is something rotten in the state of Denmark....er um Faerun and decide to camp crash a group of water cultists.  Pellan spews some kumbaya nonsense and the party doesn't slaughter everything in sight (the murder dog was taking a nap).   After chatting and singing campfire songs with the surviving mercenaries, the party then decided to head to  Rivergard Keep to deal with the water cult's plundering of the countryside (see they do hero-y things sometimes).  We all also learn a little something about the kind of man....plant....whatever Pellan is.

After running for their lives, the party meets a friendly new merchant who they're sure to run into again and is recruited by the Zhentarim to guard a caravan and gets to slaughter bandits ( DM pity encounters to make them feel better about themselves).  Elgast has a bad night, Kuori sets a new record in kobold tossing, and Shi'thead discovers a new delicacy that rivals orc kidneys.

Our adventurers delve into the temple of The Black Earth Cult and come across a group of cultists in short order and Pellan attempts a peaceful approach (he's new here).  Battle ensues and they quickly find themselves getting their asses kicked by a land shark (doo doo doo doo) and take a page from the Knights of the Round Table and....RUN AWAY! (0/2 against cultists for those keeping score at home).

Our band of intrepid heroes show how incredibly suspicious they are of dirt, squish a big bug, and wander into the Black Earth Temple where they are promptly welcomed accordingly. (Oh and their new friend ran off to escort the rescued prisoners from last week but through podcast magic he'll hopefully be back next week).