Aaaaand we’re back!

Now that we’ve gotten the intro and episode one out of the way, we’re free to delve into the actual meat of the episodes.

• See also: 
  • NADDPOD Listen Along: Introduction
  • NADDPOD Listen Along: Eldermourne Episode 1, The Reaping Season
  • NADDPOD Listen Along: Eldermourne Episode 2, Jabs and Hooks
  • NADDPOD Listen Along: Eldermourne Episode 3, Broken Heart Banshee
  • NADDPOD Listen Along: Eldermourne Episode 4, Ghosts of Thornkirk
  • NADDPOD Listen Along: Eldermourne Episode 5, The Baroness
  • NADDPOD Listen Along: Eldermourne Episode 6, The Rook’s Gambit
  • NADDPOD Listen Along: Eldermourne Episode 7, Trial By Scale
  • NADDPOD Listen Along: Eldermourne Episode 8, Until We Meet Again

As previously mentioned, I’ve already listened to the first eight episodes of Campaign 2 (as well as everything else NADDPOD related as of January 2021) so I’m just knocking these bad boys out as fast as I can through relistens before catching back up to newly released content.

So, in that spirit, here’s Episode 2: Jabs and Hooks.

Recap

The start of the episode finds the party where we left them; at the river having just found a book titled Guardians of the Grove that Dr. Nebil had thrown into the river before being cut in half by the hooded Horror.

Zirk saves the dying sprite who had been floating on the book with Spare The Dying (Hey, Spritel! Welcome to the party!) resulting in some hilarious comments from Jake “That’s the tiniest CPR I’ve ever seen” and Emily “I’m going to need someone to speak at the funeral for all these other sprites.”

Henry notes that he had actually seen the hooded Horror before in a place called Scaletip Valley, as it had beat him up and tried to carve the shadow from his body. Yikes.

Fia asks Zirk if she can borrow the book, as it’s similar to one that her mentor, Batilda, had before disappearing, and Willy returns to the scene with the town watch, including Inspector Marcy. Murph notes that there’s not much that the Town Watch can do during the Reaping Season, and that it’s expected that the Rooks have agents embedded in the watch.

The group heads to Fia’s traincar for the night (with Fia sprinting), where the group finally has some downtime to chat.

While Bukvar cooks up some pizza “Do you know where the feta comes from? One time I make Bukvar be a goat and I take his milk,” Zirk fills Fia and Henry in on the fact that Nebil apparently had some friends he needed to help, but had been quite secretive about the whole situation.

The party have a few nice moments with Fia and Zirk asking if they could teach each other some magic and if Henry could show Zirk how to box “Henry looks at his hands and smiles for the first time” and they all decide to ask Syb where Nebil had been heading in order to get some more info about the hooded Horror.

Fia reads the book and finds that Nebil had made some notes about the Horror, named “The Prophet,” which doesn’t seem to have any weaknesses.

The book also mentions that “the Smiths forges the Blade,” and it is deduced that, while Nebil wasn’t a Blade himself, he was likely still a member of the Guardians of the Grove by helping out as a doctor.

Everyone goes home that morning before meeting up at the Rook-controlled Blackthorn Hall. Before going inside, the crew makes a promise to each other to be friends for life — a pact sealed by sprites. Zirk: “Yeah what the heck, I’m pretty lonely too why not.”

Once inside the hall, the team meet up with Syb whose fighter is losing badly in the boxing ring. They coerce Henry into fighting for them, stating that Zirk owes them at least 100 gold for having to hang out with Fergus after he was “blueballed” by not getting to kill anyone.

Zirk and Fia head upstairs to talk to the leader of the Rooks, Madame Whitlocke, who also happens to be Fergus’ sister.

She says that the had been meaning to speak to the two, as a number of her cronies have turned up dead seemingly from heart attacks — she thinks it is the work of a Horror, and says that she’ll tell the two where Nebil had been planning to go if they figure out what it is that is killing all her goons.

The two head into a back room to inspect a recently deceased Rook while Henry fights Willy in the fighting pit, knocking him out in one punch before taking on, and besting, a more formidable foe.

Zirk and Fia enter a cellar, where the body is being held in a freezer. (Here’s where Spritel gets his name!) They feel a cold breeze in the room, and realize that the person is missing their heart just as the Rook goon at the door loses his heart, the door closes, and metal meathooks in the room begin to attack.

The two manage to escape the room and neutralize the threats, all while Henry continues to fight new opponents. Eventually Fergus decides to get into the ring, and Syb convinces Henry that he could win a lot of money if he manages to simply survive and Fergus gets disqualified by cheating.

Zirk and Fia get to the second floor of the fighting ring just in time to see Fergus kicking Henry’s ass, and Fia sends a Guidance spell to Henry via Bukvar. The spell is noticed by the ref, however, who calls off the match and disqualifies Henry for cheating.

The entire hall erupts in anger.

Commentary

Nothing quite like a little bit of downtime to create friendships and flesh out some characters.

As a DM, there’s nothing better than seeing your party carry RP conversations without any urging on your part, especially so when they find a nice balance between hilarious bits and delving into the questions of the campaign.

We got just that at Fia’s (incredibly described) train car, with Bukvar making pizzas, Henry boxing bats, and Fia delving into the Guardians of the Grove book that was found at the end of last episode, sparking even more curiosity about this now-disappeared order of Blades.

A group of adventurers coming together to form a party is a logistical necessity for any D&D campaign, which usually means that some characters (especially the edgy loners) need to act a little out of character to justify going along with the hook and befriending the rest of the group.

It didn’t seem like my disbelief had to be at all suspended when Fia, Zirk, and Henry — all misfit outcasts in their own ways — decided to become “friends for life,” because it felt like something that each of these characters had long been waiting for.

Quick note to give a kudos to Murph for fastforwarding through the entire next day of Zirk going back to the morgue and Henry heading home to change his shirt. I feel like a lot of DMs would feel the need to describe these short excursions, and maybe even throw in some RP or a trip to the shop, but given that it is the very start of a campaign (and a podcast, no less), it makes sense to keep the main story moving forward by bringing the trio back together at Blackthorn Hall ASAP.

Henry hopping into the boxing ring at Syb’s behest did a lot to paint a picture of the old, wirey, down-on-his-luck sailor that Jake has created (especially with Syb’s well-meaning yet insulting coaching), and I really enjoyed the system that Murph used (I think it was from Kobold Press?) for the boxing matches.

Fergus hopping into the ring was an understandable escalation, given Syb’s info about how he was thirsting for blood after the night before, though I do wonder what would have happened had Henry refused the obviously lethal fight. I suppose the hall would have erupted into a riot, regardless, failing some miraculous Charisma save on Henry’s part.

The realization that the dead Rooks were missing their hearts really hammered home that this campaign is going to be a bit darker and grittier than its predecessor, and I loved that Murph allowed Bukvar to go guard the door just to turn around and say that, as a book with no hands, obviously he can’t open it.

The Horror causing the missing hearts adds yet another mystery on top of the ongoing list from episode one, proving again that Murph is not holding back this time around with any sort of tutorial arc.

The more straightforward opening arc to the Bahumia campaign makes a lot of sense in retrospect as well, given that Jake had been brand spanking new to D&D, and it makes sense that Murph is more willing to present messier, more complex problems for the party to solve off the get-go for Eldermourne.

I’m looking forward to the imminent bar brawl that is the start of episode 3!

Roses:

• Emily describing Fia as “a fast, tall, gangly girlchild.”
• The descriptions of the overgrown train station and the quaint and cozy train car
• Bonkginya being Syb’s secret last name
• All of Syb’s coaching
• Henry managing to do so poorly on all his Charisma checks to win the crowd to his side
• Zirk’s fast thinking to use acid to break the freezer door’s lock

Thorns:

• Hate (but also love) when episodes end on such a cliffhanger
• It seemed a little out of character for Henry to be down to go into the ring with Fergus
• While the crowd never ended up on Henry’s side, a success would have been so well-deserved

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

Episode 1: The Reaping Season | Episode 3: Broken Heart Banshee