It’s been a long two weeks, but we’re finally back to the NADDPOD Listen Along.

It’s Friday afternoon yall, so you know that means we’ve got a recap and commentary of Not Another D&D Podcast’s latest ep: Temple of the Guardians.

Check these out:

• NADDPOD Listen Along: Eldermourne Episode 15, Portrait of a Blade
• NADDPOD Listen Along: Eldermourne Episode 16, Curses & Cliffhangers
• NADDPOD Listen Along: Eldermourne Episode 17, Monsters of the Mountain
• NADDPOD Listen Along: Introduction

We last left off with poor Bukvar fleeing for his life from some bandits, a temple that needs exploring, and a long-lost mentor who may or may not still be alive.

(My money’s on still alive, but we’ll just have to wait to find out!)

Here we gooooo.

Recap

Bukvar, having scouted ahead to check out the entrance to the Temple of the Guardians, is being pursued by a posse of bandits as he flees back towards the Third Mates.

Fia explains what she sees through his eyes to Zirk and Henry, and once Bukvar returns they decide to hide and ambush his pursuers.

They aren’t the only ones with that idea, however, and a few bandits are spotted sneaking through the woods as the party takes cover by climbing a tree.

One bandit gets the drop on Henry, pressing a musket into his back.

Little does the bandit (whose nickname is, evidently, Horseshit) know that Henry has got some shadow magic, which he uses to skillfully switch places with Shank, and stabs the bandit in the back.

This prompts a volley of musket shots from the three other bandits all aimed right at Henry. He’s pumped full of lead and drops down unconscious.

The bandits attempt to use this as a way of making Zirk and Fia give up, but they obviously don’t — especially not after Fia realizes that it will take all of them a round to reload their cumbersome rifles.

Fia burns Horseshit alive via Bukvar’s dragon breath, though it takes one more dousing of flames for the rest of the bandits to surrender. They say that they’re part of Quick Blast Cass Callaway’s posse, and that there will be hell to pay once QB returns from the temple.

The Third Mates tie up the bandits, find their camp, and free their goats.

During a short rest at the camp, Zirk spots that there are a bunch of supplies with his mom’s V markings on them.

Zirk gathers some guns and some sticks of dynamite before heading into the temple.

The party is first greeted by a long hall with torches affixed to the walls. Once torch is missing, assumedly taken by QB.

Murals are painted on the rock walls depicting the transition of season as they head down the hallway. A bisecting hallway offers the ability to go forward, left, or right.

Fia casts Detect Magic. She senses magic everywhere, and Murph says that this all feels like a very tricky place.

The party goes right, following scene of spring which turn to summer. They reach a room that completes the mural.

“You see on the mural a pit of sand in a gladiatorial arena. On a balcony overlooking it is is a broad-shouldered woman with a stern face and wavy hair that stands like fire. You see she’s got a big flaming bow, she looks like a powerful warrior, you see she is shooting three humans in a pit below, and you see in the center of the painting in place of one of this greater fairies arrows, is a red key protruding from the wall.”

Fia grabs the key with a Mage Hand. No traps are triggered. Fia uses Identify to determine that it is a magical key.

The party heads back to the intersection and head down the left passageway, where the mural turns to winter.

At the end of the hall there’s a room with another large mural.

You see the figure of a large blue fairy, a sylvan creature with tall, elf-like ears. It looks like a lanky sullen young man with medium length hair hanging over one side of his face; very emo. This figure stands in a graveyard with a single tear dripping down his face. You see with one hand he holds a javelin, and in the other he’s got a large blue key that appears to protrude from the painting.

Fia takes the key with a Mage Hand. The protruding mechanism goes back into the wall. The summer key feels hot and the winter key feels cold.

The party heads down through the center passageway. There’s a massive door at the end of the hall, with depictions of the two fairies seen in the rooms. They have crossed javelins, and there’s a banner carved into the stone, and written in Sylvan is: “One path to reflect, one path to revenge, but only one path.”

It looks like either key fits in the key hole. They determine that winter = reflection, but before they use a key everyone kisses each other on the cheek, because Fia says they gotta. The winter key goes into the keyhole, which opens the door revealing a big circular room of stone. There are torn banners to the Trickster, and in the center is a huge, round, wooden table.

There are obvious signs of a struggle.

The blue emo winter fairy appears, noting how sad it is how what was once such a loving group fell into ruin. The Fairy notes how much he longs to be able to freeze time to keep things as they were.

Fia asks about Batilda, a name that the fairy recognizes. He shares with them “a memory forever frozen in my mind.”

He turns into wisps which tdepict a scene of Blades and Smiths sitting at the table. They seem to be arguing, with people ganging up on Kenley and Batilda. The next scene shows a sorceress addressing the table, which devolves into violence, with the sorceress summoning constructs and Kane attacking Batilda.

It looks like the blades are all on the same side except for Kane who is helping the sorceress. Nebil and Kenley escape through one doorway, while Batilda and Kane fight through the other. The vision fades, and Fia goes to check out the Batilda/Kane door. She finds some old blood at the doorway, and scrapes it into a vial.

The blue fairy has disappeared. Zirk checks for any sign of QB, spotting new footprints heading down the same way that Batilda went all those years ago.

The hall leads them to a large room with a domes ceiling with statues of winter fairies performing brave feats.

On an alter with a raised platform sits a statue of the same emo fairy they’d met previously. He is holding a giant blue sapphire, and there are offerings of gold and trinkets all around the statue.

“Standing atop the platform is a short woman. about 4.5 feet tall, cowboy hat and duster, a red mask covering the bottom half of her face, dark hair comes out from under her hat. You see she has a bag, looks to be some kind of magical item, because she is just full on pulling in whatever trinkets she can get, and as you guys enter the room, without even looking at you guys, you hear her go ‘not so fast now, I was here first.’”

The Third Mates give her some shit for looting the religious area. Two mechanical arms emerge from her duster holding pistols, and she tells them to back up. She grabs the sapphire, which causes the room to rumble, while she takes off sliding under the closing door at the far end of the room.

The door closes, swinging blades begin to descend from the ceiling, pillars start moving, and the eyes of the fairy statue begin to glow blue.

Everyone rolls initiative.

Cold air blowing from the statue threatens to freeze the PCs in place. Blades swing down from above, while the pillars attempt to crush them. 

Both Bukvar and Spritle are trying their best to approximate the weight of the sapphire. Fia and Zirk are so proud of their kids for putting on a play as sapphires, but they’re both doing a terrible job. 

Emily crits on Bukvar’s performance check, which stops all the death traps. “This room has been conquered in the stupidest way possible.” – Murph.

A doorway, the same doorway that QB ran through, opens at the far end of the room.

In the next room the party finds a long stone bridge in the center of a cavern. There’s a dark abyss on either side, with waterfalls coming down. On the other end is a stone statue of the winter fairy blocking another door.

Quick Blast Cass Callaway steps out of a shadow and grabs Zirk as they walk into the room. She holds him over the edge.

“All right now, give me your weapons, step back, and then this guy won’t have to go for a swim here, huh? …And that’s where we’ll end our session.”

Commentary

The episode really put the “dungeon” in Dungeons and Dragons.

And rightly so, because are temples not just the dungeons of religion?

But before we get into all that, let’s head back out into the forest for that gunslinging showdown against Quick Blast Cass Callaway’s posse.

I completely forgot that The Third Mates had exhausted some significant resources even getting to the temple (remember that Cyclops from last ep?) so the whole time I was wondering why Fia wasn’t Chronal Shifting enemy crits, or how it was that Henry managed to get taken out in the first round.

But I guess that’s what happens when you’re up against four loaded muskets.

I like the way that firearms are being handled in Eldermourne. I know that Deadeye and Ol’ Cobb were both slinging some guns in the Bahumia campaign, but I can’t quite recall a time when guns were used against the players, so it was hard to figure out how the mechanics worked and just how much damage they were capable of doing.

The fact that these Eldermourne muskets can do some significant damage on a hit, but require a full action to reload, makes for some interesting fights. I’m assuming that QB uses the same tactics of some American Revolutionary War soldiers by keeping multiple loaded firearms on them, allowing to shoot multiple times before having to reload anything.

I don’t think I’m the only one who thought that QB may very well be Zirk’s estranged mother. I mean, her initials are all over the posse’s supplies, and an eventual confrontation has been foreshadowed through flashbacks and items that have been breadcrumbed throughout the past few episodes.

Given that QB has gotten close enough to see Zirk without recognizing him makes the theory much less likely, but maybe there’s a reason that Murph gave her that mask in the first place.

We’ll just have to wait and see.

I loved the imagery of the temple of the Guardians, with the murals on the walls and the different keys to choose from. My guess is that, had they used the fire/red key, they would have been greeted by the Fiery Fairie and may even have come up against a completely (or at least somewhat) different version of the temple than the one that they’d seen.

The fairy statue in the trap room may have shot fire instead of frost, for example, and maybe the bridge beyond would be spanning lava rather than water.

Though I guess it was stated in past episodes that the whole temple had flooded, so maybe it wouldn’t have gone so far as to introduce flowing lava a la Mount Doom, but one can dream. 

The trap room was an interesting encounter, given that there weren’t really any enemies to fight. Sure, they could use attack actions to try mangle the devices throughout the room, but asking the players to do more than just kill-or-be-killed always makes for a memorable combat encounter.

I do also wonder what the proper way of “solving” the room would have been, seeing as Murph kept prodding the players to try out something different than getting the familiars to act as Sapphires, and the once it succeeded (on a crit), Murph had actually said that it was solved in the dumbest way possible.

Oh! Also I loved the way that Murph showed what had happened at the round table all those years ago through a misted vision. It set an interesting scene as well as offering up some information that helped the players move along through the dungeon.

I said it before following the crypt sequence in Thornkirk, but I feel like NADDPOD is doing a little more dungeon-delving in this campaign than in its predecessor. It makes sense, too; Eldermourne just has that kind of darker, more dangerous feel to it, whereas Bahumia seemed a little… brighter? More open?

Anyway, I’m assuming that Batilda will be the “boss” of this dungeon, though whether that means they’ll have to fight a crazed witch, convince her they’re on her side, or free her from some unknown horror is yet to be seen.

All I’m sure of is that I’m stoked for the next ep!

Roses:

• The dynamic of QB’s posse was hilarious
• Spritle and Bukvar failing to act as sapphires
• Spritle losing some of their raw emotions and as they gain sentience (which has some big Stormlight Archives energy — I see you Murph)
• Quick Blast Cass Callaway’s name but also how badass she is
• Henry’s little shadow Hank switch maneuver

Thorns:

• Was really holding my breath for a mama Vervain reveal all ep

Buds:

• Looking forward to Zirk getting good with them firearms. Yeehaw!

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

Episode 17, Monsters of the Mountain

Check these out:

• NADDPOD Listen Along: Eldermourne Episode 15, Portrait of a Blade
• NADDPOD Listen Along: Eldermourne Episode 16, Curses & Cliffhangers
• NADDPOD Listen Along: Eldermourne Episode 17, Monsters of the Mountain
• NADDPOD Listen Along: Introduction