Ep. 9: Moonlighting - Chapter Three/Transcript

Transcript by the lovely volunteers at TAZscripts.

Griffin: Previously, on The Adventure Zone:


 * Taako and Merle: [singing] “And I would walk five hundred miles!”
 * Taako and Merle: [singing] “And I would walk five hundred miles!”
 * Taako and Merle: [singing] “And I would walk five hundred miles!”
 * Taako and Merle: [singing] “And I would walk five hundred miles!”



Griffin: You hear her say,



Travis: I wanna disable its hands without disabling the whole automaton.

Griffin: You very, very slowly tear his arms off.

[laughter]

Clint: Ooh! Ow!

Griffin: Something in your pack begins to rattle, feverishly. What you pull out is actually the umbrella that you found in Wave Echo Cave.

Travis: Oh, shit!

Justin: I’m gonna use Magic Missile.

Griffin: You point the umbrella at the ogre, blast him, and he falls over backwards.



[cheering]

Clint: Yeah!

Travis: Baller.



[THEME MUSIC: "Déjà Vu" by Mort Garson]

[1:43]

Griffin: Uh, the three of you are, uh, back in the Director’s office, essentially. Um.

Travis: Everyone’s high-fiving.

Griffin: Uh, yeah, there’s a-- it’s kinda like the end of Star Wars Episode Four. There’s a lot of people in the blue and white, uh, uniforms that are all sort of standing around applauding as you walk into the chamber. Uh. You hear c-cries from the audience of like, “I can’t believe you ripped that robot’s arms off! That was sick!” Li--

Travis: And I’m high-fiving him with the robot’s arms, and everyone’s kind of laughing at it, but also a little horrified.

Griffin: Yeah, they allowed you to keep that as a little, uh, a little trophy for your, uh, accomplishment. Um.

Travis: If you don’t think I’m writing that down and using it in a battle with a giant spider later, you are wrong.

Griffin: Yeah, you’ll- yeah, you’ll do any dumb shit. Um...

[Travis laughs]

Griffin: So, you uh, you three approach the--did we settle on how the word dais (“day-is”) was pronounced?

Travis: Yeah, that’s correct.

Clint: It is “day-is.”

Griffin: M’kay. The three of you approach the, uh, dais, and the Director, uh, is standing there doing a sort of queenly clap, very, like, very, [gentle, even patting sounds] Sort of a golf clap, if you will, and she says, uh,



Justin: Whoo!

Clint: Yeah!



Griffin: she says.

Clint: Bully!

Griffin: Um, and she claps, [two loud claps]



[someone laughs]

Griffin: Uh, and Davenport, the gnome butler, walks out carrying another tray. Uh. This tray has three bracers of varying sizes, um, uh, and the Director points out,



Clint: Whoa whoa whoa.



[Travis laughs]



[Justin laughs]

Griffin: Um… yeah, so Davenport hands you each of your, uh, bespoke bracer, and she says,



Clint: I put it on my left.

Travis: I’ll put it on my left.

Griffin: M’kay. Um. As you clasp it on, the clasps on these--these are, uh, pure silver bracers, uh, with the Bureau of Balance rune on it, um--and as you clasp them shut, the clasps themselves disappear.

Travis: Oh no, wait, my right!

[laughter]

Griffin: Leaving just a continuous band of uh, silver, uh, with the rune on it, and she says, uh,



Travis: Each.

Griffin: She said.



[Clint laughs]



[Griffin laughs]



Clint: I have a dog.

Griffin: You don’t have a dog; stop lying.

Travis: What? You have a dog? When’d you get a dog?

Clint: Ruby! That first episode! Ruby.

Travis: You forgot to feed Ruby for the last, like, eight episodes.

Justin: Yeah-- much like the daughter from Family Matters, it just kinda disappeared.

[laughter]

Griffin: Um. Uh.



she says.



Justin: “No Dogs Allowed on the Moon” is my favorite Weird Al album.

[laughter]

Justin: I love that cover when it’s like that dog with bug eyes and a spacesuit.

Clint: [singing] No dogs allowed on the moon…

Griffin: We actually have uhh--

Travis: [singing] This is ground control to Major Dog!

[laughter]



[laughter]



[laughter]

Travis: [imitating a Pokemon] “Davenport! Davenport!”

[laughter]

Clint: [also imitating a Pokemon] “Davenport Davenport Davenport!”

Griffin: Um, she says, um,



[chuckling]



Justin: [crosstalk with Griffin] A murder- murder- murder- suicide.



Griffin: And Davenport presents you with another tray with three large, uh, copper, very intricately printed, uh, tokens on it, uh, and hands one to each of you.

Travis: Mine says, “Good for one back rub.”

[Clint laughs]

Justin: And Davenport winks!

[laughter]

Justin: [imitating Davenport being flirty] “Davenport~”

Travis: [imitating Davenport being suggestive] “Davenport Davenport.” No, Davenport.

Griffin: Davenport, no.

Travis: Sprays him with a water bottle!

[laughter]



[Travis laughs]



[laughter]



Griffin:



she says.

Travis: [laughing] Okay.



[giggling]



Justin: [crosstalk with Travis]



[Griffin laughs]

Travis: Wait, is the seventh object Harry Potter? Was he the seventh object the whole time?



Travis: Will we have a way to identify the objects, or do we have to just keep bringing magical shit we find and say, “Is this one of them? Is this it?”

[laughter]

Justin: Whatever magical detritus hones into our field of vision--

Griffin: Right.

Justin: --we’ll bring to you like stray dogs.

Griffin: “This is a empty wine bottle!”



Clint: Or it’s charcoal.

Griffin:



She says.



Justin: [quietly] Great.

Clint: Hmm.



Justin: [sounding far away] Uh, as far as you know is there a, um--



[Clint laughs]

Justin: Uh, no, there’s--oh god, okay. Yeah, I, uh, my question is--



Justin: Sorr--no, I’m t- I was telling you guys-- my question is coming now.



[Clint laughs]



[Justin laughs]



Justin: All right, I’m walking away.

Travis: Okay.

Griffin: Okay.

Travis: We do that.

Justin: Did we level up, by the way? Are we still level two?

Griffin: You’re going to in the next--in fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes ‘til Level Up Town.

Justin: All right.

Clint: [like a gentle announcement] Fifteen minutes ‘til level up.

Justin: I don’t know what the hell we’re going to do in the artificer’s office that’s gonna make us level up, but fine.

Travis: [laughing] He says, “You’re leveled up now.”

Griffin: You enter into the artificer’s, uh, chambers, and it is a, uh--it’s a pretty strange looking room. There’s, um-- uh, there is a.- a gnome with a long, long, long white beard, uh, sitting behind a desk, uhh... and the desk has on it a book that is bigger than the gnome is. It’s- it’s a- a very, very--it’s an enormous tome. Um, and behind him, is a large machine, what looks like, uh, with a, uh, a huge glass tank on the top of it, um, containing, uh, a lot of smaller, spherical capsules inside. Uhhm. And on the front, there is a metallic base for this tank with a, uh, small slot in it--

[Travis chuckles]

Griffin: --and a large, round handle--

Travis: Griffin, did you remake the thing from Shenmue?

Griffin: And underneath the handle is a small door.

[Travis laughs]

Travis: Okay, Griffin.

Justin: Did you make the thing from Shenmue?

Travis: [chuckling] Griffin made the thing from Shenmue.

Griffin: You know, Shen-- Shenmue didn’t invent--!

Justin: Griffin put the capsule game from Shenmue into our game.

[laughter]

Griffin: Well, and also the capsule game from Kroger--

[Travis laughs]

Griffin: --and any number of grocery establishments. And the artificer says--oh, he needs a voice. Um,



[snickering]

Travis: No, not that one.



Travis: ...Yes.

Clint: Is that this gimcrackery we were given earlier?

Travis: Yeah! I take out my token and Taako’s because he couldn’t be trusted to keep track of his, and I hand it back to him.

Griffin: Okay. Uh, he says uh--



[Travis laughs]

Griffin: He- he says, uh,



Griffin: Man, this voice sucks. You’re right, Travis; I need something else. What--

Justin: Just lean into the George Takei-ness of that voice.

Clint: Yeah, I think if you just kinda--

Griffin: Okay.

Clint: --melt it.

Griffin: Um,



[laughter]

Clint: The Dragon Boner Spear!

Justin: That actually sounds pretty good.



Travis: I think that was supposed to be the awesome option.



Griffin:



He says, uh, and takes it off your hands, and looks it over, um, and says, uh,



[snickering]



[laughter]



[laughter]



[laughter]

Travis: [overlapping] “And their love of soccer!”



Justin: This is before they invented baggy shorts, and that-- they use those to conceal--

Travis: Mhm.

Justin: --all their magical items.



Travis: All the - the cargo pockets.



Griffin: Um, he says,



Travis: I hand in the warm rock I found and say,



Clint: “A cold rock.”



Clint: Beef! Beef!

Griffin: No, no--

Travis: Shut up, Davenport!

Clint: We have beef!

Griffin: You already had meat, so you need to calm down.

Clint: We didn’t have it ground, did we?

Griffin: No.

Justin: Yeah, the grinder ground it.

Clint: Aw, crap.

Griffin: Um, he says, uh,



Clint: And Merle hands him a tiny, pitiful, armless robot.

Griffin: Okay.

Travis: Aw. No, he wasn’t tiny.



Travis: Fate did this to the robot! [laughing]

Justin: If you think about it!



Clint: Okay, I take the coin, put it in the slot, and I start a-crankin’!

Griffin: All right, you start crankin’. Uh, I want you to roll a d20!

Clint: Okay.

Travis: Now, Griffin?

Griffin: Uh huh?

Travis: Is there a shitty--is there like a “what’s behind door number three, oh, there’s nothing”?

Griffin: Oh, there’s all kinds of items in the Fantasy Gachapon.

Travis: I want you to know--

Clint: Nineteen! Nineteen.

Griffin: Okay! Nineteen… Uh, okay! A very small capsule--very, very small, um, capsule pops out of the door at the bottom of the machine, the Fantasy Gachapon. Um, and as you, uh, pick it up and pop it open, you find a very small, uh, clasp, like a- like a, uh, earring? But like a clip-on type thing that sort of goes over the outside of your ear.



Travis: “Oh, you lose D&D!”



Griffin: Um, which, in game terms, means that, uh, on Insight checks, which are what you do to tell if somebody’s telling you the truth, or if they have an ulterior motive, sort of knowing the- the intention behind a person’s words and actions. Uh, whenever you make one of those checks, you’ll get +2 to it, and advantage on every Insight check.

Clint: Excellent.

Justin: Nice.

Clint: I put on the earring.

Griffin: M’kay.

Travis: It looks very dashing.

Griffin: It is! It looks really good.

Clint: Thanks.

Justin: Pulling. It. Off.



Travis & Griffin: Okay.

[Travis laughs]



Justin: I hand him my coin.



[laughter]



Justin: I take the coin back.

[laughter]

Griffin: Okay.

Justin: I put it in the slot.



Justin: Now, I roll--I do Insight check.

[chuckling]

Griffin: Okay. [chuckling] On what?

Justin: On the guy to see if he’s telling the truth about turning right.

Griffin: [laughing] Okay, go ahead and roll a d20.

Justin: Fifteen.

Clint: Fifteen!

Griffin: Uh, yeah, he’s telling the absolute truth. You can try and turn it to the left.

Justin: I crank to the left.

Griffin: It doesn’t. It just doesn’t go.

[laughter]

Griffin: There’s some sort of mechanism that is preventing it from turning left.

Justin: I crank right.

Griffin: Okay. You crank it to the right; roll a d20 for me.

Justin: ...Sixteen.

Griffin: Sixteen! Okay, uh, another very small, uh, capsule pops out of the uh, door at the bottom of the chamber. Um, and you pop it open and find a, uh... a blue steel ring. Um...

Travis: It causes you to pose for modeling contracts, right?

Griffin: No, it is- it’s like a… cobalt ring.

Travis: Oh.

Griffin: Um, that is actually very cool to the touch. Um, and you hand it towards Leon, who says, uh,



Travis: No!



Justin: I think that’s against the rules, right? I mean, that thing--



Griffin:—he winks.

[Travis laughs]



[Justin laughs]



Griffin: He says,



Griffin: Uh, yeah, so, any beverage you hold while holding it in your ring of frost hand will be chilly and refreshing, uh, and you also have resistance to frost damage, which means you will take half damage from frost damage from now on.

Clint: Don’t drink coffee with it.

Travis: Unless you like it iced.

Griffin: Unless that’s your jam.

Justin: You want it chilled--

Griffin: Right. Yeah.

Travis: That might be his jam.

Clint: Yeah, true.



Travis: Uh, yeah, um, I pop my coin in, I turn the knob. I got a six.

Clint: [like a sad trombone] Wah wahh.

Travis: [laughs] Oh no!

Griffin: I mean this isn’t necessarily a “higher numbers, better thing;” it’s just I have different items set to different numbers. Um, six! Uh, a very large, uh, more ovular-shaped capsule, uh, pops out--

Travis: Magnus crosses his fingers.



Griffin: You pop open that capsule, uh, and inside is... an axe.}}

Griffin: A very, a very, um, uh, plain-looking axe with a long wooden handle and a red, uh, wedge head on the end of it, um, just sort of uh, just sort of a basic lumberjack’s axe, essentially, um, which you hand to Leon, and he says,



Justin: It’s good for him ‘cause he hates trees.



Griffin: Uh, so this is a +1 battleaxe means you get +1 to your, uh, attack and damage rolls with it.

Travis: Ooh!

Griffin: And like he said, once per day, you can use the Rail Splitter to fell any tree with one go.

Clint: And you grow a beard like Abe Lincoln.

Travis: Now, I wanna clear some things up. Magnus has a beard; he’s just got bushier sideburns than the rest of his beard.

Griffin: Nope, that’s not canonical.

Travis: That is canonical!

Griffin: No, you can’t just make shit up.

Travis: Day one! That is from day one I said that shit.

Justin: [crosstalk with Travis] Day one, he has said that.

Griffin: In all the art, though, it’s just the ‘burns.

Travis: I know! That’s why I’m clearing it up right now--

Griffin: No, artists, our legion of wonderful, incredible artists, don’t you listen to him.

[Clint laughs]

Justin: If you go back and- and listen to the first episode, he specifically says he has beards and a sideburn, but his beard--his sideburns--

Griffin: You can establish that, but in the next chapter I’m gonna make a dragon burn your goddamn beard off.

[laughter]

Travis: “Nair the Dragon burns your beard away.”



Griffin: Why don’t we go to Fantasy Costco, and you can level up while you’re walking around? Because you know, like, you can’t go to Costco and just, like, knock out a Costco run in ten minutes.

Travis: You gotta try--you gotta eat some snacks.

Griffin: Yeah, you’re gonna eat some--we have a new Kashi, it’s Kashi 2. You’re gonna love it. Um--

Travis: Even Kashi-er than before!

Griffin: You’re- you’re looking around, you’re doing some comparison shopping on some fruit leather…

[32:16-37:45 Jumbotron Break]

Griffin: [singing] Fantasy Costco, where all your dreams come true! We got it all!

[Clint laughs]

Justin: [sarcastically] I love Fantasy Costco. This place is great.

Griffin: Yeah, it’s got everything you need.

Travis: [sarcastically] Yeah, these deals are terrific I’m so glad I became a member.

Griffin: Do you need thirty-six pairs of Puma socks? Do you need a box with a hundred and forty-four strips of fruit leather in it? What do you need? ‘Cause we got it. We also have adventuring items.

Griffin: Uh, the- the four of you walk to the massive, massive Fantasy Costco building. It’s the biggest building and only non-domed-shaped structure on the campus, which you’re certain that the organizers of the- the Bureau of Balance are not so psyched about. But this is an independent retailer, uh, and, uh, which means that they are allowed to sell you magic items, um, without, uh, any interference by the Bureau. So, uh, all of that gold that you’ve been fucking nonstop complaining about, Justin, uh, you now can spend on things.

Um, a lot of the inventory of the Fantasy Costco was stocked by listeners of the show, um, so thank you everybody. I think we got, we got like a hundred and fifty different item submissions in for people. I will say that many of those items were Tex-Mex in nature. Thank you for those submissions, [someone snorts] but uh, I think I might handle the storytelling like at my own pace. Which is to say, accidentally saying uh, uh, taco-related keywords, um, and having, having that be canonical. Um, but yeah, have you guys thought about--each of you has six hundred gold pieces--have you thought about how you might like to spend it?

Travis: How much is a dog?

Griffin: Uh, nonexistent. Remember, no dogs on the moon. Even Fantasy Costco could not sneak one of those pups past--also, Travis, I don’t, like, believe in puppy mills, so that’s like sort of my thing. Sort of like--

Travis: No, they’re all rescue puppies.

[laughter]

Griffin: That they sell?

Travis: Yeah, at Fantasy Costco. [emotionally] As long as it’s a fantasy, why can’t it be my fantasy?

Clint: I’d like to observe that I think we have more than six hundred gold each. I mean, we got thirty gold from the sack of golden teeth.

Griffin: Are you g-- are you about to math--if you wanna math this out, if you have been actually calculating and tabulating all of the fake currency I’ve been throwing in your direction, then that’s fine. I was just sort of rounding it for brevity’s sake.

Clint: I think we need to go up to 750 just from what I’m looking at my--I have been writing it all down.

Griffin: Um, no… Are you sure-- are you a hundred percent sure?

Clint: No, I bluffed.

[Travis laughs]

Griffin: Okay.

[Justin laughs]

Griffin: Yeah, you just made a bluff roll against your own son.

[Clint laughs]

Griffin: Um. And failed. Uh, no, six hundred gold each, we got a lot of great items in here. Um, a few highlights, we have uh, the Stones of Farspeech from Greg Glass, those are a hundred gold pieces each. Uh, those basically function as little stone walkie-talkies, that’s neat. Uh, our very own Drew Davenport sent in an item, uh, called the Phantom Fist which allows you to knock enemies back with unarmed blows. Um, those could be nice, that’s a nice option. You got the Extreme Teen Bible, uh, which I added there, uh, which is a +1 holy symbol, which would make Merle’s uh, uh, spells a little bit more potent. Uhhm.

Justin: I like the Ring of Pointing from Daniel Kiefer: a copper ring with an inlaid ruby, uh, that can be used as--that shoots a laser out, and it can be used as a distraction or to highlight salient information during business presentations.

[laughter]

Griffin: Yeah, a lot--some of these items I had to tweak, uh, a little bit for simplification sake because I want to keep the game running fairly smoothly. By the way, the rest of this episode’s probably gonna be a little bit of table talk, which uh, may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but we gotta do a little bit of management because things are getting a little bit hairy in the rules department. Um, we need to level you guys up, for instance, which we haven’t done in, like, six years, so.

Travis: Mhm.

Griffin: Um, yeah, anybody- anybody wanna do some shopping real quick?

Travis: I was interested in that Phantom Fist.

Griffin: M’kay.

Travis: Is that- is that anything you guys were eyeballin’?

Clint: I was when I thought I was getting 750, but.

[chuckling]

Travis: Oh, I see, okay.

Griffin: So, Travis, you want to pick up the Phantom Fist?

Travis: I would like to purchase the Phantom Fist!

Griffin: Which was sent in by Drew Davenport, um, it makes your unarmed attacks a little bit stronger and allows you to knock back, uh, knock back enemies when you hit them with unarmed attacks.

Travis: Yes.

Griffin: Okay!



Griffin: says the cashier. Of Fantasy Costco.

Travis: So I’ve done that now…

Griffin: Sorry, actually, you’re probably not gonna like, buy each item individually, you’re gonna throw it into like a huge oversized cart. Um. And probably purchase it all at once, but. Uh.

Travis: Yes.

Clint: Is there no samples? I mean...these places usually have free samples.

Griffin: Yeah, “here, have a sample of Phantom Fist.” And then somebody punches you in the sternum. [Travis goes “mmm!” and makes lip smacking noises] Somebody punches you in the sternum a little bit and you go flying back like six inches.

Clint: Ah! That’s good Phantom Fist.



Clint: Daddy like!

Griffin & Justin: Uhhh…

Griffin: Anybody else buying stuff?

Justin: I, uh...I would like to ask about the Unlimited Pasta Pass for a hundred gold, from uh, Dianisthe23rd. It says, “can be used at any participating Olive Garden for free, unlimited pasta for the owner of the pass and free soft drinks for their guests.”

Griffin: Yeah.

Justin: That doesn’t seem to have huge implications for our game. [Travis laughs]

Griffin: Oh, and what’s great is I actually edited it, because the original description said it only lasted six weeks! So if you didn’t find a Fantasy Olive Garden in the first six weeks of the game… then, your pasta pass is going to be for naught.

Justin: Well, I’m- I’m clearly buying that.

Griffin: Okay.

Travis: And then never using it. [laughing]

Justin: And I’m buying the Ring of Pointing.

Griffin: M’kay.

Travis: Oh, were we supposed to just pick up everything we wanted?

Griffin: Yeah, just tell me what you want. Let’s move through this thing.

Justin: And I’m think--’cause that gets me at three hundred, and I think I’d also like the Wand of Switcheroo from Evan Abrams--

Griffin: I wanna- I wanna knock that--I need to change the Wand of Switcheroo. Before you decide to buy it, it has three charges; that seems like way crazy powerful, and I didn’t think about that. I think- I think just one per day is probably enough.

Justin: Okay.

Griffin: Um, so, go-- you go ahead and say it, but just keep in mind.

Justin: “When pointed at another creature of similar size within a hundred feet and activated, the holder will switch places with the target if it is willing. If the target is unwilling, it must exceed a DC17 Constitution, uh, saving throw to remain in place. Holds three charges,” but apparently one now, “and it regains one charge after a long rest.”

Griffin: Yeah. Three charges, you could just be fuckin’ switchin-- switcheroo-in’ all day every day.

Travis: Just Nightcrawler-ing all over the place.

Griffin: Yeah, yeah.

Clint: Yeah.

Griffin: Um, so, that brings you to six hundred, if nobody else wants any of those other items.

Clint: Well, I--wait a minute!

Griffin: Uh oh.

Clint: I, uh, I want the Scuttle Buddy.

Griffin: Okay.

Travis: [singing] Scuttle Buddy…

Griffin: Who sent in the uh, Scuttle Buddy?

Clint: Jason Haygle sent in the Scuttle Buddy. “It’s a, uh, mechanical beetle that you can use as a spy. It will talk to you, but it won’t have [laughing] anything interesting to say beyond its primary functions. Uh. And you can only wind it up four times before it breaks.” Uhm. And I’m gonna name him Ted.

Griffin: Ted the Scuttle Buddy. Um, so this is--you can use it to bug a room, to scout out an area, um, it’s very fragile so it can be destroyed if anybody notices it while you’re spying on them. Uh. You can only use it four times. Uh, it can’t fly, but it can crawl around and stick to walls and stuff like that. It also can’t collect items or interact with the environment for you.

Clint: And I want a Slim Jim.



[laughter]



Griffin: You’re getting haggled. They do a lot of haggling at Costco. A lot of people don’t know that. It’s a little Cos--it’s a real life Costco hack. Just, like, start arguing with them about the prices that they--

Justin: [laughing] It’s really a suggestion.

Griffin: Uh huh. Really, any restaurant, Chipotle will, will do that too, um, Footlocker, uh, houses, uh, cars. What do we want--

Clint: Is there a Fantasy Chipotle?

Griffin: Uh, no. Nice try.

Travis: Quick question.

Griffin: Great way to set that trap up, and I jumped right over it. What is it, Travis?

Travis: Um, now that I’ve got the Rail Splitter, is there a system put in place to, like, sell my old axe, or is it just gone?

Griffin: Um... no, nobody’s gonna wanna buy that shit.

Travis: [slightly hurt] Oh, I see.

Griffin: Garbage. I didn’t- I didn’t wanna tell you because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings, but you’ve been using a garbage axe this whole time.

Travis: [laughing] Okay…

Clint: Well, how much we got left, Ditto?

Griffin: I haven’t been- you- I was hoping that you would keep track of your own finances.

Justin: I spent all my money.

Travis: Yeah, I did too.

Justin: Taako’s-- out.

Clint: Well I should have at least… two-fifty--

Griffin: [overlapping] You got two-fifty left. Almost enough for that Extreme Teen Bible!

Clint: I know!

Griffin: But not quite.

Clint: Do they have any left?

Griffin: No, they’re both out.

Travis: When you say, “almost as m- enough,” you mean, like, “half the amount you need”.

Griffin: Yeah.

Clint: That’s not “almost”.

Griffin: Will you read the description of the Extreme Teen Bible?

Clint: [sighs, disappointed] Yeah, I know.

Griffin: Will you re- just read it out loud.

Clint: “A plus one holy symbol--”

Justin: He thought you wanted him to read it to himself! [laughter] Contemplate it!

Clint: I was reading it to myself! [laughing] “A plus one holy symbol, the cover features a rad skateboarder, allows the user to more easily spread the good word of Marthammor Duin to teens.” [cackles]

Travis: Before we check out at the checkout line, if I may, I...dad, my advice, I think you’ll get way more use out of that than the Scuttle Buddy. The Scuttle Buddy seems cool, but--

Griffin: Hey, let Dad spend his money how he wants to spend it!

Justin: Who’s fuckin’ this dog?

Travis: [laughing] What!?

Griffin: There are no dogs on the moon!

Travis: No dogs on the moon.



Justin: Don’t, stop. You’re yelling! You got a microphone.

Clint: Sorry, I got excited. Uh, I’ll offer you six hundred--

Griffin: [loudly] Hey, you calm the fuck down, sir! [boys laughing] There’s no yelling at Fantasy Costco!



[Justin laughs]



Justin: [In Taako voice] I wrote down the word ‘goo’ on my sheet, at some point did I get some goo?

Clint: No, you had goo on your sheets.



[Justin laughs]



Justin: This is exactly what the Statue of Liberty says at the bottom, right? I know this.

[Griffin laughs loudly]

Clint: Give me--

Justin: Give me your gooey sex sheets--

Clint: Give me your gooey sheets, your poor--

Justin: Your armless robot--

Griffin: Your armless sex robot (said like “robit”)--

Clint: Yearning to be free…



Griffin: This nameless cashier says,



[laughter]



Griffin: You trade in all of that junk and six hundred dollars-- six hundred gold dollars-- uh, and you, uh, you get the Extreme Teen Bible and the Scuttle Buddy.



[laughter]

Griffin: Which is the purchase price of the Scuttle Buddy.

Clint: Yeah, okay.

Griffin: Uh, so you all check out with your new items--please, please, please, sweet Jesus write those down, um, because I am not going to.

Travis: And each of you now has one of the Stones of Farspeech, like I’m just gonna go ahead and hand them out.

Griffin: So you guys can be in, like, your different… tree forts… your different treehouses in different parts of town, just like “Hey, you up? Hey, guess--”

Travis: We’ll come up with a--we’ll come up with a special language that only we can understand later.

Griffin: “Hey, A/S/L?”

Travis: [chuckles] No, not that.

Griffin: Um, alright, let’s level you guys up.

Clint: Yeah!

Griffin: Because we need to level you up desperately. Uhh, do I need to grab my player’s handbook, or do you guys have yours?

Travis: I’m already leveled up.

Justin: You might as well have it Griffin, just to use.

Griffin: Yeah, I’mma get mine real quick. So yeah, we need to level you guys up-- I also want to, uh, let you guys pick your character specializations. So, in Dungeons and Dragons, each class has basically different, uh, paths that they can go down? And the problem is that, uh, Travis you made your own character because you had a little bit more experience, but, uh, Taako and Merle were both, like, these pre-rolled characters. Um, and I want you guys to be able to come up with your own sort of paths for them. ‘Cause, I mean, a lot of people think the rules are boring or whatever but I think it’s kind of an important part of character development too, so... um, I wanted to give you guys the opportunity to pick your specializations and I’m gonna level you up to level four.

Clint: Whoa!

Griffin: You’re level two right now, so I’m gonna jump you up- jump you up a couple. You, I mean, you’ve done a lot of stuff, I’ve just sorta been slacking on the character management side of it. So let’s move through this, like... relatively quickly. Magnus -

Clint: [sarcastically] Yeah, ‘cause we’re known for that.

Justin: Why don’t--why don’t you choose one at a time, Griffin, and just like, go through it with that person--

Griffin: Well, let’s start, let’s start with Travis because I know that Magnus-- you’ve already picked sort of, a-- a path for Magnus.

Travis: Yeaah. And I can go ahead and explain the basic, like, choices.

Griffin: Yeah, explain what it is and then.. And then.. you can… so, because you leveled up, every time you level up you get additional hit points, so you’ll roll your hit dice and add your constitution modifier to that, and that gets added to your total hit points, and then you’ll do that again, ‘cause you get two levels worth, um, and go ahead and pick your specialization--

Travis: Great.

Griffin: And tell us what it, uh, is.

Travis: So… 9, 4--13, and then constitution modifier? Okay, great. So then that’s 41.

Griffin: Okay--Jesus! What a tank!

Travis: Yeah. What a tank, folks!

Griffin: Built like a brick shithouse!

Travis: So basically, uh, at least as far as fighter goes, with the specializations, you have three choices: Champion, Battle Master--

Griffin: [interrupting] Just tell us-- just explain the one that you’re actually picking, because, there is a neat one where you can do magic and shit? But, something tells me you’re gonna leave that one.

Travis: Yeah, I choose against that one because we already have two casters in the party. Um, so I chose Battle Master? Um. Which has a lot of cool stuff that goes along with it, but the main things are: One, uh, combat superiority, which at level three, um, you learn maneuvers, which are basically taking the place of like the special skills that you got in like, previous editions. Um, and then you learn addit-- so you get three of those to start out with, and then you learn additional ones as you level up. Um, and you use something called sup- uh, superiority dice to do that. [sound of page turning] You start with four of those, and then you gain more, um, at higher levels. Um... and you also get an ability called Student of War. Uhm. At third level you gain proficiency with one type of artisan tools of your choice. The idea being, with Battle Master, that you’re an expert of all different forms of, like, battle and combat, so like, you’ve studied outside of just fighting.

Griffin: So, with these superiority dice, you can spend those in battle to do these special maneuvers that will allow you to do things like disarm an enemy or parry or riposte or something like that.

Travis: Yeah, those are the three maneuvers I’ve chosen, you nailed them.

Griffin: Oh, shit. Cool.

Travis: Um, disarming means I, like, roll to--

Griffin: Yeah I think-- I think we can figure… the idea. Um, what- what uh, what special artisan-- I’m curious to hear, what trade craft you’ve picked out.

Travis: Well… it’s a great question, ‘cause I’d said cook, but now, now I’m feeling like, maybe glassblower… uh... maybe calligrapher?

Griffin: [laughing] So you can make your own--your own paraphernalia?

Travis: Yeah, y’know, wink-wink.

Griffin: For that-- for that, good, good Middle Earth grass.

Travis: For that [laughs] that Hobbit kush.

Griffin: That kind Hobbit kush.

Travis: Um, so... come back to me on that. But yeah, so, I went with Battle Master, um, riposte, parry, and disarming attack, and I start with four dice. It also, um, at level four you get to add two ability points, um, to either--

Griffin: [cutting off] To any of your six main stats or one and one.

Travis: Yeah. And so I went with, uh, constitution to bump it up to 16 and wisdom to bump it up to 9, so I no longer have a negative wisdom modifier.

Griffin: 8 and 9 is still negative 1.

Travis: ...Oh. I see.

Griffin: Does that change your decision at all?

Travis: It does.

Griffin: You can put ‘em both into wisdom, and that’ll be 0.

Travis: Yeah, but then-- fuck wisdom, like, I’m not gonna use it. Well, y’know what? I’m gonna put them both into strength, then. And bump me up to 18.

Griffin: Okay.

Travis: Like if I’m going for tank, I’m gonna stick with tank.

Griffin: Okay, so that brings you up to 18, which I think gives you a +4  modifier, so now you get one additional on any strength-based… attack or roll or whatever. Okay, cool. Uh, so Travis is good to go, um… Dad, you wanna go next?

Clint: Sure.

Griffin: Uh, okay, so… clerics have what are called “domains” and that basically informs, like, special powers that you get as you level up--

Clint: Right.

Griffin: --um, and it also gives you certain spells that you don’t have to prepare; you just have them on-hand at any given time. Um, Merle started out as a… life domain one, which is just--life domain is all about healing and stuff like that. And that may be what you wanna go with, but there’s other cool ones like, uh, tempest, which gives you, like, storm-based powers?

Clint: Right.

Griffin: Um, or light, which lets you blind and burn enemies, um--

Clint: Well, I was kinda thinking of maybe nature.

Griffin: Interesting! I’ve never pictured you as the Captain Planet type, but uh--

Clint: Well, I really wanted something that worked with machines, but I, I don’t see anything there.

Griffin: Okay, um, so what is--what does the nature thing do?

Clint: Well, uh, “gods of nature are as varied as the natural world itself.”

Griffin: Are you just reading from the book? ‘Cause that’ll take six years.

Clint: Okay. Um, actually, this, uh, they use this to help, uh, interact with nature, with plants, and with animals, and, um... Yeah. It’s more of a plant and animal--

Griffin: So you’re going in more like a druidic direction.

Clint: A little bit. A little bit.

Griffin: M’kay.

Clint: Yep!

Griffin: I expect you to roleplay a little bit earthier then, maybe a little bit crunchier with your vibe.

[Travis laughs]

Clint: I will be a little bit crunchier. I’ll, uh, I’ll add some granola to my--

Griffin: We’ll do--we’ll do a crunchy retcon on Merle Highchurch.

Clint: There we go. That means I gotta change gods.

Griffin: Oh shit!

Clint: Yeah.

Griffin: Oh, Morthammor Duin is going to be so hurt when he finds out!

Travis: Especially since he just bought that bible.

Clint: Can I-- can that transfer over?

Griffin: Yeah yeah, any--it’s, it is, uh, agnostic; it can- it can preach the good word of any god, but it’s just really good at getting that word out to the teen population.

Clint: Well, I still wanna stick with reaching out and evangelizing the teen--

Griffin: Yeah.

Clint: --but I want to do it for Pan.

Griffin: Pan.

Justin: You know a great way to reach teens, is you go to teengoogle.com.

[Travis and Griffin giggle]

Justin: And you can really get in touch with teens--

Clint: I’ll check that out!

Justin: --at teengoogle.com. That’s a URL. Dad, you don’t know this yet. That’s a URL we bought. We own teengoogle.com.

Clint: Oh.

Justin: Yeah, so whatever you--if you got a good idea for that, good moneymaking idea, we bought teengoogle.com

Clint: Cool.

Griffin: Um, okay, so we can figure out you’re, uh--because you’re-- because you have the nature domain, you are now proficient with heavy armor, which means you can wear heavy armor and, um, cast spells still. In order to cast spells wearing armor, you have to be proficient in that type of armor, so now you can put on bulky stuff. But I think the life domain also had that, so you should be good there. Um, and you will get, uh, proficiency in either animal handling, nature, or survival.

Clint: I think animal handling.

Griffin: M’kay. Just to piss Travis off, or...?

Clint: Yeah. Exactly.

Travis: You son of a bitch!

Clint: ‘Cause Travis doesn’t get everything.

Griffin: M’kay.

Travis: But I do have animal handling.

Griffin: So you can channel divinity, um, which is something you can do I think twice per day, and you can use that to either turn undead, which is something every cleric can do, um, which is kind of… uh, self-explanatory. If undead are near, you cast that and they have to move away from you. Um, but the nature domain lets you also charm animals and plants using channel divinity. Yeah, you can make any animal or [amused] plant, which is interesting, friendly to you, um... for like thirty minutes or something like that. Or one minute--sorry, one minute. Um, so yeah. That’s your new stuff. Yeah, I think the only- the only thing you need to do now is get some extra health, so roll a D8--

Clint: Five.

Griffin: A five? And what’s your constitution modifier?

Clint: +2

Griffin: So seven, and then do it again.

Clint: Four and two, that’s six.

Griffin: So thirteen, you get thirteen extra hit points.

Clint: Cool!

Griffin: Uh, you can assign two stat points.

Clint: Um…

Griffin: Basically every even number, you move up to another modifier, so if you have something that’s an odd number, you may wanna think about throwing a point into that.

Clint: Say constitution is 15.

Griffin: Yeah, so if you added 1 to that, it would move up to +3.

Clint: Okay, I tell ya, I don’t like having a negative in anything, so I’m gonna throw both of ‘em into dexterity.

Griffin: Okay! Yeah, so you’re gonna--okay, that’s a good idea because you use dexterity for a lot of stuff and having a -1 there is going to be really bad. So, you have bumped that score up to 10, which changes the modifier to 0. So now, you no longer have basically a dexterity penalty.

Clint: M’kay.

Griffin: And I think that’s it for you.

Clint: All right.

Griffin: And, uh, Taako.

Justin: Yes.

Griffin: Uh, so I think Taako the, like, build that came with the game that we were using for a while was just an evocation school? So-- so wizards choose different schools of magic, and that does sort of that same thing as cleric domains. Um, uh, and the one that the pre-rolled version was the school of evocation which is basically damaging magic?

Justin: Mhm.

Griffin: Um. But that may not be what you wanna go into. There’s other stuff like necromancy, or, um, alteration, or, um... all kinds of different stuff. Have you thought about what school you wanted to go with?

Justin: Yeah, I’m gonna be joining the school of transmutation.

Griffin: ‘kay. It’s not--I don’t think it’s an actual school. I don’t think that there’s like a Hogwarts--

Justin: Some--well, some are, you know? Um, some of the-- some of the schools do have actual, physical schools, uh, connected to them.

Griffin: Okay.

Travis: So there!

Justin: A wizard might study at the school of illusion in- in some towns, and another wizard studies across town at the school of enchantment. There’s sometimes physical schools.

Griffin: And there’s--they have uh,--they have a very contentious football rivalry, between them.

Justin: Right. They’re, they’re uh--last year in the final championship game, it was two to zero. It was the highest scoring game they’d ever had.

Griffin: [crosstalk] Yeah there was one--

Justin: [crosstalk] It was physically, just hugely weak.

Griffin: Yeah, very feeble. Very feeble.

Justin: Feeble. Super feeble people. So yeah, transmutation is sort of the changing energy in matter from one thing to another thing, basically. Not-- not-- you know, sort of- of the magical version of alchemy, I guess. Not to say that alchemy isn’t magical, but you know what I mean. Not a chemical thing, but literally changing something to something else.

Griffin: M’kay. Um, so what does that allow you to do?

Justin: Well, at my second level, uh, I get copying transmutation spells is--

Griffin: Right. We really haven’t been--we haven’t been doing that.

Justin: We’re not really doing that though, so that ain’t that great. And I also, um, can temporari- I get minor alchemy, uh, so I can temporarily alter the physical properties of one non-magical object, changing it from one substance to another. You perform a special alchemic procedure on one object composed entirely of wood, stone, iron, copper, or silver transforming it into a different one of those materials. Um, for each ten minutes you spend performing the procedure, you can transform up to one cubic feet of material. So, um... not super fast acting.

Griffin: Okay. So you can change wood, stone--

Justin: It’ll last for an hour.

Griffin: --iron, copper, or silver into any one of those other things.

Justin: [simultaneously with Griffin] Yeah, any one of those other things.

Griffin: Okay! Yeah, that could be fun. You could do some fun stuff with that. And you get some dope shit later on in this tree.

Justin: Yeah, later it gets--it gets live. And then I got some new spells and stuff that I’ll--I can either tell you now or I can just…

Griffin: No, if you--What are the, uh, you- you get four new spells, an’ two for each level, right? And I, I think your spell slots, you should be able to start learning second level spells. So--

Justin: Yeah, I actually picked up second level spells at, uhhh… level 3, I think.

Griffin: So, if you-for--in layman’s terms, that just means you and, uh, Merle also have moved on to, like, another echelon of magic. Second level spells are more powerful than… first level spells. Um, in fact I accidentally let Merle use a second level spell when he shouldn’t have been able to,

Clint: [interrupting] Yeah, I thought that too.

Griffin: …Yep, goofed on that! But y’know what, accidents are gonna happen.

Justin: Uhh… I’m also going to put 2 points into my, uh, charisma? Uh…

Griffin: Oh, interesting. Okay.

Justin: Let’s get it from 8 to 10, ‘cause it was 0.

Griffin: It was -1 before, now it’s 0.

Justin: Yes, right.

Griffin: Okay. Uh, yeah, so you’re-- you’re... I see what you’re saying. You’re doing the same thing, kinda, that Merle did with his dexterity.

Justin: Yeah, yup.

Griffin: Okay. And you also need to roll a D6 and add your constitution modifier, and then do that again.

Justin: I already did that. I’m up to, um, I’m up to 26… overall… hit points.

Griffin: Beefy! Beefy boy!

Justin: Fairly beefy boy, I guess.

Griffin: I guess it’s--you’re a beefy boy!

Griffin: Okay, um… cool! So that’s where you guys are at, and now you’re ready for the next stage of the adventure. Uh… join us next time on The Adventure Zone, where we don’t do precise stat calculations for a half hour, I promise.

Travis: But feel free to tell us if we did something wrong, ‘cause I feel like I did something wrong.

Justin: Don’t, like--stuff it, I don’t care.

[Griffin laughing]

Clint: Yeah, I don’t wanna know if I did something wrong.

Justin: It’s just jokes and jokes and jokes, folks.

Griffin: But it’s also storytelling, excitement, adventure…

Justin: [interrupting] Keep your fucking feedback to yourself!

Griffin: …romance-- Well, no, don’t, ‘cause we love it.

Justin: Stuff it in your magical ass.

Griffin: …Okay. You guys actually--you didn’t buy the magic ass at Fantasy Costco.

[laughter]

Griffin: It’s like a bag- it’s like a bag of holding, but for an ass.

[Theme song plays, episode ends.]