Ep. 28 Eberron Reviewed 6

## Listen

Ep. 28 Eberron Reviewed 6

—Philip

Eric and Philip discuss the fun romp through Xen'drik, which started with a party in Stormreach where they got to flirt for a bit and ends in the tradgic death of Beric Rowan.

## Synopsis

### Alternatives to Xen'drik

They go over the places considered besides Xen'drik. Philip didn't feel Beric had enough reasons to go to Zilargo and it has close ties with Breland, where they were escaping from. Darguun would have been a fun place to go, but for a variety of reasons it made more sense for Beric to want to travel to Xen'drik. He learned that he's half-drow, and Xen'drik has mostly non-monstrous races, where in Darguun they would stand out more. It's unfortunate, as Eric had a *lot* planned for Darguun.

Interestingly enough, this is the second time one of Philip's characters has fled Breland via airship to Stormreach with Eric DMing, and even both had an in-depth character moment on the ship on the way over. Both parties had been set up, though Jak, Philip's character in Unfinished Wars, had chosen to throw in his lot with the crew who were fleeing.

If they had chosen to go to Sharn... it would have been hard. They'd be walking into the hotbed of people who wanted to find them. The campaign would have become very political thriller. The intent for Xen'drik was for it to be a fun, pulpy Indiana Jones type adventure, but that went horribly wrong.

### The Lost Episode

Sadly, the beginning of the Trials and Tribulations arch was lost from Eric's hard drive, so they give a quick recap of the more important or interesting parts.

While on their way to Stormreach, the *Roving Badger* is attacked! A fun-filled fight in the sky that no one will ever hear. The character had just leveled up. New abilities, and new spells. Beric got access to level three spells, one of which is Remove Curse. Jeff was fully aware of this, so when Beric put his hand on Dex's shoulder and declared he was casting his new spell, Jeff turned very serious for a moment, before Philip announced that the spell was Fly.

They were attacked by Vennet d'Lyrander, a member of House Lyrander with a Mark of Storm. He and Gerald, another person with a mark, albeit a smaller one, battled for control of the weather as the King's Swords invaded the ship. Amid this, a lightning bolt struck, causing both Gerald and Therudak to manifest Siberys marks, the most powerful version of dragonmarks.

At some point one of the cleric's on the ship cast Dispell Magic on Beric, immediately ending his Fly spell and causing Eric much alarm when he realized what he'd just done. If he hadn't had another spell slot, he would have tumbled out of the sky, but luckily he did and was able to recast it. They take control of Vennet's ship, throwing the captain overboard, and leave the *Roving Badger* drifting int he air.

*"Oh god, your wings just disappear."
—Eric*
### The Party

When they get to Lassite's dinner, Beric meets Paulo Omaren. Funnily enough, the character had been in a past campaign of Eric and Philip's as one of Philip's character's love interests. However, that was over forums, so there was no face-to-face flirting like this time.

*"This was a first for Philip and I to flirt with each other, and it felt so right."
—Eric*
In the episode Philip acknowledges that Beric is a twenty-five-year-old who ran away from seminary so isn't very smooth, but the redeeming factor is that he grew up in social situations like this one where he was forced to attend these kind of things and make meaningless small talk with anyone at any moment. There were also presumably young ladies he was being introduced to as potential matches. The party was a bit different though, with it not being quite what he was used to and she was obviously older and more outclassed than he was. He was able to not make a fool of himself but was not very smooth.

Once he came up with the idea of reverse Dinner for Schmucks, Eric knew he wanted to include this crazy painting. Keith Baker made mention in Manifest Zone of using the plane of madness as inspiration for art. The painting was supposed to be something like Savador Dali, M.C. Escher, and Jackson Pollock working together to make this incomprehensible mess of color and shapes, and anyone who looked at it would get a roll of the table of madness.

Eric wanted to introduce elements of Therudak's backstory, and so Sam "Swiftfoot" Moore appeared. It made sense with the amount of disenfranchised veterans who move to Stormreach, and it was a good tie-in to have one of Dak's old war buddies living there as a guide.

### Connor

There wasn't a lot of research done for how the Inspired would act, but after Jeff told Eric that his brothers were Inspired he figured it would be more interesting to have them act as themselves but as if they'd acquired more information and changed their minds. Throughout the conversation with Connor, there was some fear that Dex would be tricked and choose to go with his brother - Jeff never considered it. Connor was introduced as a way to give another player a Reduced episode, but their conversation ended to neatly that there was nothing more to be said between the two.

### Tomb of Podcast Annihilation

For the creatures the party would fight in the dangerous jungles of Xen'drik, Eric had his truly random tables. Specifically this time from Tomb of Annihilation. The flail snail and the snakes that fell from the trees were both from the random tables. Things changed when a wereboar was rolled. They had taken out two werebears at level four no problem, surely they needed a bigger challenge than one wereboar. So Eric created one, in the form of two extra wereboars.

This brought on the cleric running up to Beric, Dex, Therudak, and Sam. The cleric begs to be killed, and it's one of a handful of moments that Philip has had to check himself in front of the audience. His first inclination was to Detect Magic on him, and kill him. That seemed a little dark for this family friendly podcast.

What might be darker is the story Eric came up with for this poor cleric in a matter of moments. The man was devoted to the Silver Flame and came to Stormreach on a missionary trip. He ventured into the jungle knowing there were lycanthropes about and brought wolfsbane as a safety measure. He got captured by what he thought were regular bandits, but when they took him back to their camp their infected him with lycanthropy. When the full moon came out they released him so they could hunt him.

The immediate thought in Philip's head after Beric got infected was that Beric was done. It's the hazard of traveling with a lycanthrope that you might get bit. Beric's first thought was that he needed to get his friends out of this situation, and then deal with this new issue after that.

Beric walks off into the jungle to look for the cleric's pack, which he says has wolfsbane in it. In Eric's head, he's not scrambling to save Beric at that point, he's scrambling to save the campaign. Dex is a bear in a tree, Beric's walking off in a random direction, and Therudak is alone with an old army buddy with a wereboar tied up to a tree. Philip didn't think he would find the pack; he was trying to put distance between Beric and the party and considering if it was okay to have his character off himself on a podcast.

### D&D Russian Roulette

Another thing on the tables for Tomb of Annihilation are story elements. What Eric did was replace those with things specific to this campaign. So when Beric was walking off by himself and Eric rolled on his table, Drakir showed up, and he had no idea what to do with that. Ten minute break commence.

*"I just dismissed that as you flailing for a way out of this of this terrible situation that your love of D&D Russian Roulette had accidentally resulted in."
—Philip*
Everyone goes outside for an awkward silence while Eric thinks through how this new element will affect the story and Philip considers how to be faithful to who Beric is and not wreck the campaign at the same time. He felt actual suicide was a bad idea. There's a story of an arctic expedition that one of the members becomes ill, and he does the calculations that at the rate he's slowing everyone down, they won't make it back. So one night he excuses himself, walks into a blizzard, and is never seen again. That's the idea for Beric walking off into the jungle, but it would have significant story repercussions so Philip wasn't sure what to do with that. When a drow appears with a knife at his throat, Beric is very interested to learn about this thing he's been passionate about and that manages to detail the Hamlet-like conversation happening in his head.

Beric wanted to go to the drow city by himself, and Philip assumed the other players wouldn't let that happen, and so they would all go and the plot would move forward. Then along comes Sam and his belladonna. It's the same thing as wolfsbane, but not in Eberron, as Eric has decided. It came with three difficult checks, all of which Beric failed. Before taking it, Beric considered the options of either he would be cured or he would die, and those were perfect because those were exactly the options he would like.

What Philip didn't know was that it didn't do damage, it drained strength. An item from an older edition that did 3d6 to strength score, which brought Beric's down to -2, killing him outright. It was an unceremonious death, falling in the middle of the jungle, and it made the whole room feel pretty bummed out.

### Stages of Grief

For about a half hour Philip had been letting go of Beric, which made it easier when it actually happened. It was still disappointing, having spent some time getting to know Beric as a character, but there was no justifiable target to get upset at. He'd chosen to eat this extremely poisonous plant. Beric was being true to Beric.

End of episode.

## Trivia

* The inspiration for how Gaulronak would speak comes from Kevin from The Office. Why use many word when few word do trick?

## References and Footnotes

1. ↑ Philip and Eric talk all about their 3-year-old campaign, Unfinished Wars, in episode 12 of The Knowledge Check.
2. ↑ Eric would never kill one of their characters.
3. ↑ That's what blind Fremen do in Dune, so naturally it appealed to Philip.
4. ↑ Not as much as after Into the Gloaming, of course.