NADDPOD Listen Along: Eldermourne Episode 10, The Would Be King

Moral quandaries abound in this latest episode of Not Another D&D Podcast.

Well, that’s bound to happen when you come in between two armies of questionable ethics, especially when you’re trying to stop the gears of war from turning.

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The Hexbuds have found themselves back on a battlefield (of sorts), but need to use more than just their inhuman strength and dexterity to make it out of this one.

We’re back with Murph, Emily, Jake, and special guest Lou Wilson for episode 10 if NADDPOD’s Eldermourne campaign; The Would Be King.

Recap

The newly rejuvenated king Thirston Brightleap is absolutely amped about being alive, and wants his half-brother’s head.

His brother Wymer has marshalled an army in the nearby Pearl Hills in an attempt to seize power — thinking that Thirston was all but dead and being controlled like a puppet by Maxorra — so Thirston begins preparations to meet Wymer with his own army.

He assigns Jabari to lead his foot soldiers and Prophet Gideon to lead the cavalry. After some manipulations from Maxorra, the king decides that he shall stay behind at the castle, but that the army should march, and attack, at once.

Meanwhile, Tarragon and Corbeau are not feeling all that great about the ritual they just participated in, or about the upcoming war. Tarragon casts Detect Good and Evil and gets some undead vibes from the king and from Prophet Gideon. Maxorra, however, has the least weird energy of the bunch.

Prophet Kane looks at Tarragon’s wilting Dragonrose and seems to take an interest; “Thing that are rare like that, that really want to survive, those things have got the most life in them.”

As the army readies itself for travel, Jabari is ecstatic. He has clearly been waiting for this day for a long time, though it is unclear if he’s excited about killing again or just about being back with his friends. He even talks about resuscitating the Hexbloods as an organization after all this is over.

The Hexbuds speak with middle manager Captain Brythen who tells them of the “worthless toads” he leads as foot soldiers. They see that it is a pretty even mix of new recruits and old soldiers making up the army, while all the heavily armoured knights are part of Gideon’s cavalry.

The trio chats about what they should do when they arrive at Wymer’s camp. Not wanting to risk the unnecessary deaths of the toads, they devise a plan to infiltrate the enemy camp in an attempt to speak with Wymer and tell him that his half-brother Thirston is not in fact dead, or even on death’s door anymore.

….And if that doesn’t work, they’ll just kill him.

The entire army reaches the Pearl Hills, and though Gideon has been ordered to attack at once, Tarragon manages to roll a 19 and a 20 on a Deception check with disadvantage to convince him to wait the night and attack in the morning, giving the Hexbuds time to secretly break into Wymer’s camp.

Murph had set the DC at 25, so Tarragon’s 19 +7 just managed to do the trick.

The party easily sneaks out of their own camp and use their monk abilities to sprint through the tree’s over to Wymer’s.

Once there, they find that his army is in high alert, seemingly aware that Thirston’s soldiers have marched on him during the day and are ready to do battle.

The Hexbloods knock out three guards individually and take their uniforms (well, they knock out two and Jabari absolutely murders a third: “Jabari shot his face off” – Corbeau) in order to sneak through the bulk of the camp towards the king’s quarters.

They do just that thanks to a high perception check from Tarragon and a high deception check from Corbeau, but once they make it to the king’s tent Jabari rolls a 2 on a sleight of hand to lift up the side flap, and everyone rolls initiative.

The Hexbloods are attacked by knights, archers, guardsmen, and the king himself, but manage to bring the king down to 0 hp after two rounds of combat. Surrounded, the trio sees the unconcious king being dragged away by one of his knights.

“You see Wymer opens his eyes, blood trickling out of a sly smile, and as he’s dragged away, he says ‘another failed experiment.’ You hear war horns blaring, alerting the entire camp to your presence…. and that’s where we’ll end our session.”

Commentary

So we finally got to see what the Hexbloods are capable of, and daaaamn.

Tarragon, Corbeau, and — to a lesser extent — Jabari may have been out of the game for a while, but these super soldiers have still got it.

Before we get into the meat of the camp infiltration, I obviously need to address the roll that this entire episode centers around; Tarragon’s disadvantaged deception roll (or was it persuasion?) to convince Gideon to wait out the night and attack in the morning.

I don’t usually include any info from the Short Rests in these articles (NADDPOD’s aftershow that is available for members of their Patreon, which I highly recommend joining), but I will say that it confirmed what I was already assuming; that Murph had no intention of postponing the battle.

When that happened, NADDPOD entered into full improv mode for the camp infiltration. I’m sure that post-session editing helped, but I still must commend Murph, because the mechanics and DCs and situations he pulled off on the fly were smooth as hell.

The whole episode from that point onwards also showcased one of the most exciting things about D&D; that the story really is influenced by the characters.

It reminds me of Ta’veren in the Wheel of Time series. For those who may be unaware, Ta’veren essentially describes people who bend the Web of Destiny around them, unknowingly affecting the destinies of others who they come into contact with.

Well, you’re not going to find stronger Ta’veren than D&D players, unless you count the DM.

Now, most players (at least the non-Chaotic Evil ones) will err away from taking a D&D session completely off the rails. There is an understanding at the table that the DM can only prepare so much, so deciding to Plane Shift into the Nine Hells just to see what’s going on down there in the middle of the session will, quite obviously, leave your DM scrambling.

But when given the opportunity to redirect the trolley in an effort to kill fewer NPCs — while staying in the general area that the DM has prepped for — you really can’t blame the players for steering a bit off the intended course, and all good DMs take such situations as an opportunity rather than a disaster.

You always hear about those railroady DMs that won’t allow anything to happen except for what they’ve meticulously crafted, and I feel that the fatal flaw in those tables is that the DMs don’t realize that D&D is about collaborative storytelling, and that the PCs are not just improv actors that are there to be directed.

Though I am a little sad that we won’t get to hear Murph’s system for largescale battles, because I was definitely planning on stealing that for a later campaign as well. Here’s hoping we hear it somewhere down the line.

As for the rest of the episode, I do think that something sinister may be coming for the entirety of the royal army, given that Maxorra decided to convince Thirston to stick around at Jakelope Keep.

I’m worried about how the Hexbuds will get out of the sticky situation they’ve found themselves in. I know they’re fast, but they’re also in the very heart of an enemy war camp… that’s a lot of opportunity attacks if they do decide to make a break for it.

I also may have less of a keen ear that I’d initially thought, because when Wymer said “Another failed experiment,” I had no idea what he was talking about.

I gave it some thought, and maaaaaaybe it could be the Mage Merowyn trying to take vengeance on Thirston? And the failed experiment actually refers to Wymer? I guess we’ll just have to wait to find out.

Could Maxorra be Merowyn?????? Is that even the proper way to spell either of those names???????

These are the questions that haunt me.

I do also have to touch on the morality struggles faced by the Hexbuds (well, 2/3rds of them anyway) this episode. I was worried that Tarragon would take a fully pacifist approach to all combat, which would have made things a bit more difficult, but I love that both her and Corbeau are electing for non-lethal damage. It’s a hilarious juxtaposition to Jabari’s gleeful bloodlust, which gives me the same vibes as a past high school football star playing a game of touch football with his old buddies and tackling waaaay too hard — but absolutely loving it.

Anyway, I’ve also decided to include a new category for Roses and Thorns given its inclusion in the latest Short Rest.

Roses:

  • The entire dry toads bit
  • The huge, spectral headed monster of a man Gideon actually being somewhat reasonable
  • Cool! Monk! Abilities!
  • Lake coming along for the stealth mission

Thorns:

  • Missing out on Murph’s new battle mechanics

Buds:

  • I’m excited to see what happens when Raynard and Jabari come face to face again, which is likely to happen next ep

That’s it for this ep! Find other NADDPOD Listen Alongs here and share your takes, predictions, roses, and thorns in the comments below.

Episode 9, Hexblood | Episode 11, Killshot

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