The Lickening

"The Lickening" is the first episode of Season 1: The Symmetry War as well as the first episode overall of The Symmetry War. It aired on Twtich on April 1, 2022 and was uploaded to the DnDorks Youtube on April 4, 2022 and to the Spotify in August 2022

## Short Description

**Spotify:** Sit back, relax, and listen as our party members Glib, Canyon, and SG meet and travel to the city of Rift Reach and lick a bunch of items unnecessarily.

## Plot

### Oh God, It's Glib.

The story begins with Glib arriving to the town of Lauterton in search of a possible magical artifact that could de-frog him. After getting a little lost, he spotted an old merchant that was staring at him from afar and promptly walked up to the stand, asking him if he happened to have an Amulet of Unfroggening. The merchant pulled out a necklace and attempted to pursuade Glib to take it, however, after Glib realised it was a fake, he eldritch blasted the gem, shattering it. This frightened the merchant , causing him to flee down a nearby alleyway. Glib tells the people nearby that the merchant tried to sell him an exploding gem, which apparently was regular for the merchant. Glib then walks away from the commotion, walking deeper into the market place.

Doing so, Glib manages to get even more lost. From a storefront, Glib is beckoned by a mysterious man who does not look happy to see him. Glib, being the awkward frog he is, simply waves. The man proceeds to beckon Glib more furiously. Once Glib and the Mystery Man get inside the shop, Mystery Man proceeded to yell at Glib for being out in the public and blasting the merchant's stall. Glib tells the Mystery Man that he wishes to not be frog, to which Mystery Man sympathises about the not wanting to be frog. Mystery Man dirrected Glib towards [[Eovard's Fortress]] after telling Glib that no such amulet exists within the town. After being ushered out the door, Glib meets an unknown man in a robin hood hat that Mystery Man told him about and they head towards the fortress, walking in silence. After asking a few questions, they keep walking until about 30 minutes out of the City. At that point, the man pulls a knife on Glib, apologising for the murder that is going to occur.

### And from the Wild Wood, a Canyon Appears

Canyon was in the market when he heard the explosion of the ammulet occur, seeing Glib flee the sceen. He then continued to follow Glib throughout the market and our of the city. Once out in the woods, He watches Glib about to be murdered. Right before anything happens, Canyon emerges from the surrounding woods and places his hand on the Man's shoulder, intervening in the attempted murder. The man was taken abback by this, especially after Canyon asked to take the knife. After getting refusal, Canyon whips the knife out of his hand and Glib paralyzes him. Canyon then kills the man with his own knife and then sets the knife down next to the body. After that, they both head towards the fortress with Glib trying to put on the pants of the man they just killed. Before they fully leave the area, Glib turns back around and drinks the blood of the body. Then they leave towards the fortress.

After a while, the duo enters a tunnel and arrive to a gate enterence of the fortress. They approached the puzzle to open the gate and Glib pulled the gold chain. This causes Glib to flinch after hearing a gutteral scream eminate from behind the door. Canyon then pulled on the silver chain and hears a hissing sound. He then proceeded to glare at Glib for his seeminly dramaticised reaction. They discuss what they heard, they each pull the opposite chains, double checking that each other heard what they did. Canyon then starts spinning the snake compass, watching the bees in jar die and resurect as the compass moves. After seeing the compass affect the bees, Glib got an idea and told Canyon to dirrect the compass to the silver chain's dirrection while Glib pulls on it. This causes the Right-most crystal above the door turn blue. They do it with the other chain and the left-most crystal above the door turns Red. Canyon proceeds to use the hilt of his rapier to smash open the jar of bees, to Glib's horror. However this does not succeed. Glib cowers on the wall in fear while Canyon attempts with a bigger weapon, shattering the glass and triggering the bees. This did not do anything beneficial for them. Glib then sits on the wall, waving a torch around, screaming, as the bees fly around everywhere. Both characters take 2 damage.

After about 2 minutes, most of the bees have either left the tunnel or been eaten by Glib. Canyon attempts to look through the glass, but does not see anything of note. Glib crawled through the hole after Canyon breaks the other side of the jar. Once on the other side, Glib noticed that the door was not locked the entire time. Glib opened the door, filled with regret, spitting out a bee as he glared at canyon. They then continued on into the fortress.

### SG Has Been Here the Whole Time; Ask No Questions

SG speaks up and the other two remember that their party is a trio, chalking it up to just being that the commotion of the bees 'caused' them to 'forget' that they existed. SG was in the town investigating the fortress and Eovard the Malignant when, much like Canyon, they heard the explosion and saw a small frog-man flee the scene. They also, much like Canyon, decided to follow to Eovard's Fortress. After catching up over the events that had completely occurred and were totally not just an effort to slide SG into the campaign with a lot of gaslighting, they all enter the fortress.

Once inside the gate, SG continues their quest of looking for Eovard's cat. When attempting to call for the cat, their calls attract Canyon's attention, which causes him to pull his rapier out on them. In an attempt to attract the cat, SG shapeshifts into Eovard, hoping that it will compel the cat to come out even more. The other two are taken aback by this, unsettled by the sudden change of SG turning into the necromancer. After this happens, the party hears a scuffle from afar. SG, taking this as a sign that the cat is close, prestidigitates the scent of catnip in hopes of further persuading the feline. This, once again, triggers Canyon, causing him to start casually looking around for the source of the catnip. From inside the castle, they hear a voice telling them to get out or they will attack in numbers. After a moment, a hoard of goblins appear.

## Appearances

### Characters

#### Players

* Dungeon Master - Matthew Selle
* Glib - Jay Morton
* Mystery of the Canyon - Nikhil Clayton
* SG - Momo

#### NPCs

* Old Merchant
* Mystery Man

## Trivia

* This episode marks the first time Nikhil and Panda have ever played Dungeons & Dragons
* Originally Moose\_o was supposed to join the campaign in the next episode, however, due to unforseen cirmcumstances, this did not happen.
* As Canyon and Glib were approaching the puzzle to open the gate, Matt's friends, who he borrowed the puzzle from, texted him, telling him "how dare [he] for putting them through [that] puzzle right now now"
	+ Matt explained that he put them through this puzzle to expose them to the critical component of D&D since this was their first ever session
		- This critical component was not puzzles as the players thought. The component was "not everything is as it seems.

### Tech issues

* At the very beginin of the Episode, Matt promised the audience that the tech issues would not be recurring while fixing Nikhil's Camera. This was a promise he has yet to keep
* Matt's prefered mic did not want to import properly at the start of the episode
* Nikhil's camera feed started out too big, overlapping Panda's. When Matt tried to fix it, it made Panda's camera feed too small.
	+ Nikhil's feed was large enough that Matt had to change the dimesions of the Box encasing the players so it would no longer show underneath it.
	+ This was temporarily fixed by Matt bringing Panda's feed forward so it would lap over Nikhil's feed
* In the middle of Panda explaining Glib's backstory, the stream crashed,
	+ Matt blamed it on the ammount of people in the audience near 1,000
	+ Matt turned it into a joke about Glib being so unlucky that he caused the stream to crash

## Gallery

The Symmetry War - Session 1 (The Lickening) - D&DorksD&DorksThe card that appears when introducing GlibThe card that appears when introducing CanyonThe Card that appears when introducing SG