| The Black Market (Campaign 2 - Episode 108) |
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| Information | |
| Release Date: | August 19, 2024 |
| Recording Date: | August 13, 2024 |
| Episode Length: | 1:08:59 |
| Cast & Characters | |
| Michael DiMauro: | Dungeon Master |
| Tim Lanning: | T'Chuck |
| Jennifer Cheek: | Selene von Esper |
| Nika Howard: | R'Oarc |
| Mike Bachmann: | Screech Echo |
| Guide | |
| Previous Episode: | Next Episode: |
| Bad Guy Bar Fight | Pappy and the Sea Monster |
The rules of who are good or bad in all this is so confusing. Sure, we saved the life of someone because a bad guy who had a bounty on their head started making a ruckus but the person we saved also had a bounty on their head. But their crime was selling magical goods to folks not like killing folks and well, sometimes folks need magic items. So things are getting confusing is what we are saying.
Story[]
Long Story[]
Alright, here's what's going on. The party has just entered a secret room beneath "The Golden Grain", a seedy tavern in the small, sleepy town of Brookwillow. They are led there by Lucius Vale, a magical arms dealer with three things: a head of gorgeous golden hair, a pair of steely grey eyes, and a dark and mysterious voice. Except, not really. He decides to "drop the act" now that they are alone and secure. He begins using his true voice, which is either a 20's-style gangster voice, or is just Jay Leno. You decide.
Here's the thing about this episode. There's a lot of recounting the character's new Level 9 things, which is always cool. Then, there's a lot of talk about the various items Lucius Vale is willing to sell to them, and the rediculously high prices of those items. It's a great episode, but I'm not just gonna go beat by beat, and say when and why Vale decides to offer up the items he does. Instead, there's a table down at the bottom of the recap, with all of those items in it, and I'll just recap the rest of what happens in the episode, okay? Okay, cool. I knew you would understand.
Lucius Vale is a little bit of a stinker. He's been trading in magical items for a while, so long that he's been "afraid for his life" since forever. As a thank you for saving his life, he offers a 5% discount to the party for the items he wants to sell. But all of the items are SO EXPENSIVE! No one can afford these things, even with the discount! R'Oarc pulls the others aside, away from Vale's range of hearing, and suggests Suggestion. That is, using Suggestion to convince him to sell his items for a much more reasonable cost. Or, another idea is just to kill him and steal all his money. That doesn't go over with the much more good-aligned T'Chuck. Or even Screech, who hates magic, and is good at stealing. Even he has a code against doing something like this. What about just stealing from him, without the murder? As a test, R'Oarc throws a rock, then sneaks up behind T'Chuck while he's not looking. From his back pocket, she plucks a buckeye. I call that a pluckeye. Also, why did he have that? There's no way of knowing.
Suddenly, a broach on Vale's lapel begins to glow. He notices this, and tells R'Oarc that she better return the buckeye. Well, shit. He seems to have the ability to detect when thievery is taking place around him. Screech asks to try on one of the magical rings that he's offering to sell, just to try it on. Just to see how it feels, you know? Vale refuses. For one thing, he doesn't trust that Screech won't just walk out with it. For another thing, if he did try to walk out with it, "terrible things would happen to him". That sounds scary. He doesn't specify what will happen, but let's not find out, m'kay? Vale does prove the ring works, though, by trying it on for himself briefly. R'Oarc puts on all the charm she can muster, and asks him to, pretty please, make a deal with them. He acquiesces, agreeing to bring their total discount up to 10%. That's still not good enough, but it's better than nothing.
At one point, Vale offers to buy T'Chuck's Mace of Regnier, a powerful magical weapon he received a while ago. He says he'll pay 10,000 gold pieces for it, but T'Chuck refuses. This prompts Vale to say that he was only pulling his leg, and that "T'Chuck knows how much it's really worth". I'm not sure if that means the mace is worth more or less than the 10,000 gold. It's hard to say.
Alright, if they're having a hard time scraping some loose change together to be able to afford all of these amazing deals, Vale suggests that they take a closer look at the bulletin board outside. There are some odd jobs on there, some of which offer some pretty hefty rewards. Most notably, there's the Lake Monster quest, which could net them 5,000 gold if they are successful. He also reminds them that they have the head of a Goblin named Zarnock, the Cruel. There's a bounty on Zarnock's... head, for 500 gold. They should take it to the mayor down at the town hall, and collect their reward. Screech tries to sell Vale his Thieves' Tools, convinced that he's never really used them. We'll just throw in a quick flashback to Episode 97, where he used them, like 5 times in a row. Okay, more like 2 times. But still. Anyway, Vale will only pay 10 gold, since they're not magic, so Screech says NO DEAL!
Well, it sounds like the party is going to need to leave, do some work to make a bunch of money, and then come back. Vale says that he can usually be found up at his table in the tavern. He's actually a part owner of the Golden Grain, but that's a secret! Don't tell anyone! That could work for the next few days, but what about beyond that? They're going to be leaving soon, for... wait, where again? Throughout the last several episodes, several town names have been thrown out. Let's actually stop and review the plan on a macro sense: Selene's family is in danger, back in the capitol city of Farhold. Also, Emperor Beauregard has been replaced with a clone, seemingly under the control of Durian Brexleyshire. So, they need to get to Farhold, but it's dangerous to travel. They'll need to sneak into the city, in a sneakily sneaky kind of way. To that end, they've enlisted the help of a traveling circus, named The Big Top Traveling Circus and Magnificent Menagerie. The circus is headed to Farhold, to compete in the upcoming Battle of the Circuses, so the party ingratiated themselves into the circus. However, since it's a traveling circus, they need to make several stops on the way to Farhold. They had mentioned at one point stopping in the city of Brunnell, and then later, there was also mention that, before stopping in Brunnell, they would stop in Brookwillow. Brookwillow is where they are now. So, from what I can remember, Brunnell is supposed to be their next stop. Now, however, they all seem to remember stopping at Brunnell previously, and so their NEXT stop is actually the capitol, Farhold. So, Brunnell's out. There's no more Brunnell. The circus had also stopped at Frostmount several months back, before the party joined. That's where Dick Goodie was picked up.
Anyway, all of that to say, they will be leaving in 3 days for Farhold. What if they can't come up with the money in time? Vale says that he might know of a guy over in Farhold, who does a similar type of business to what Vale does. But, that's insider knowledge; he can't just tell them who or where he is. Instead, he says that he can tell the party how to find this guy, IF they make one purchase here, with him. The cheapest thing he sells is a Potion of Superior Healing, which goes for 450 gold (I believe that's before their 10% discount). The party decides to come back later and buy some stuff, after they've made a little money. They leave, saying goodbye to bartender on the way out the door as well.
The party makes their way across the city, to the town hall. There they are met by someone, who's either the mayor, or just a receptionist. It's unclear. They show Zarnock's head to this unidentifiable figure, and R'Oarc is able to use her R'Oarc powers to convince him to pay them a little extra. They collect 600 gold as a reward for killing Zarnock (though it's not mentioned whether or not they give the head over to the guy). Awesome, they've made a little money! Now what?
Well, they could always go and slay that Lake Monster...
Short[]
A sexy arms dealer named Lucius Vale offers to sell them a bunch of magical artifacts. But they're all too expensive! They'll need to do some odd jobs to make a bit of money. After collecting the 600 gold reward for killing Zarnock the Cruel, the party decides to next go after a larger bounty. 5,000 gold pieces for slaying a Lake Monster.
Items sold by Lucius Vale[]
NOTE: At one point, Vale offered the party a 5% discount for all items. He later increased this to 10%. I believe, however, that the prices listed below DON'T reflect that discount. The discount would be applied on top of the listed price
| Item | Price | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Trivia[]
- The party have leveled up! They are now Level 9! (Well, total. Some of them are multi-classing.) Here's all of their new exciting features (although some of this is not just from the leveling up, they just mention some of their skills throughout the episode):
- T'Chuck
- 57 total HP (48 "fixed HP", and 9 from CON bonuses)
- CON = 12-13 (+1)
- WIS = 18-19 (+5)
- Proficiency Bonus increase
- 3 new 5th level spells:
- Greater Restoration
- Rary's Telepathic Bond
- Summon Celestial
- R'Oarc
- 75 total HP (48 "fixed HP", and 27 from CON bonuses)
- CON = 16 (+3)
- Nika is multi-classing! She took one level of Warlock, making her a Bard 8, Warlock 1.
- She decided to go with the Genie subclass, so that she could think of it as a demon, and have a hot demon boyfriend. She also has a vessel she can hide in.
- Slight of Hand = +6
- 3 new spells:
- Eldritch Blast (cantrip)
- Sanctuary (1st level)
- Armor of Agathys (1st level)
- Selene
- 56 total HP
- WIS = 14-15 (+2)
- Proficiency Bonus increase
- Charisma is Selene's top stat, and Constitution is second.
- Strength and Intelligence are her "dump stats".
- 2 new spells:
- Seeming (5th level)
- Misty Step (2nd level)
- She got rid of the spell Alter Self
- Screech
- 53 total HP
- CON = 10-11 (+0)
- WIS = 12-13 (+1)
- Took one level in Ranger, for a total of 3 ranger levels. He chose the Gloomstalker archetype.
- He can use an action, and a spell slot, to get a general vibe of if there are celestials or dragons around.
- He can also use magic! He has three spells slots, but only one spell, Disguise Self.
- Has "Dread Ambush", which increases his Initiative.
- Also has "Umbral Sight", so he can see better in darkness, and can hide more easily in darkness, even to creatures that use darkvision.
- T'Chuck
- R'Oarc forgot that her "husband", Fizzlebang Glimmerstone, just died.
- She also seems to forget that they weren't married. He was just her fiance. And only for, like 15 minutes.
- T'Chuck claims to have two Drider longswords in his inventory, but I'm pretty sure he gave those away a long time ago.
- Lucius Vale has a ton of invisibility items. The reason for this is that he's afraid all of the time, so he wants to be hidden.
- R'Oarc has Thieves' Tools.
- R'Oarc has taken gymnastics classes when she was younger, but it sounds like she didn't really do anything when she was there.
In This Episode...[]
Cast and Player Characters[]
- Michael DiMauro - Dungeon Master
- Tim Lanning - T'Chuck
- Jennifer Cheek - Selene von Esper
- Nika Howard - R'Oarc
- Mike Bachmann - Screech Echo
Non-Player Characters[]
- Lucius Vale
- The Golden Grain's bartender
- Some dude at town hall, either the mayor, or just a receptionist
Locations[]
- Drunkeros
- Brookwillow
- The Golden Grain Tavern
- Town Hall
- Brookwillow
Inventory[]
| T'Chuck | Selene von Esper | R'Oarc | Screech Echo | General Inventory | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Quest Board[]
- [NEW][Active] - Make enough money to buy something from Lucius Vale
- [NEW][Active] - Slay the Lake Monster
- [On-Hold] - Save Selene's family!
- [Abandoned?] - Go to Brunnell
- [On-Hold] - Wait for Ratma Ritmo to arrive in Brookwillow
- [On-Hold] - Recruit the help of Hortentia Calamore
- [On-Hold] - Travel to Vhur'endal
- [On-Hold] - Recruit the help of House Bartell
- [On-Hold] - Travel to Anchordowns
- [Abandoned?] - Go to Brunnell
- [On-Hold] - Find a cure for Thaldin Emberbrew
- [On-Hold] - Go to the nearby Drow city, probably Vhur'endal
- [On-hold] - Investigate "Bill, the Necromancer", in the far off city by the coast
- [On-hold] - Take the disembodied lips to the oceanfront, for a burial at sea
Quotes[]
- "If you kill fast enough, you don't have to have Constitution." ~ Mike Bachmann
- "I thought, it totally makes sense that R'Oarc would be, like, a little goth kid. And she of course is gonna sell her soul to some demon, some cool ass demon, so that she can get a boyfriend. She wants to kiss a boy! Bring the Jokester back! I don't care what. Just give her this cute bad boy boyfriend." ~ Nika Howard
- "Whenever Nika starts to want to do something that confuses me, I get scared, and I want to say no. Whereas if Bachmann wants to do something, I'm like, 'It's not... Nothing's gonna happen. It's fine. It's fine.'" ~ Michael DiMauro
- "There's 110% chance he has, like, a laser beam, or like, a robot that's gonna eat your head." ~ T'Chuck
Rolls[]
- T'Chuck does an Insight check to see what Lucius Vale's pain is - 15
- T'Chuck thinks that Vale feels like he needs to put on a tough guy, because he fears for his life.
- R'Oarc rolls Slight of Hand to try to steal something from T'Chuck - Nat 20 + 6
- Against T'Chuck's Perception - 20
- She successfully steals T'Chuck's buckeye, which is a kind of a nut.
- Against T'Chuck's Perception - 20
- R'Oarc rolls Persuasion to convince Lucius Vale to come to a "business agreement" with her - 24
- He agrees to give her a little discount. Not a full discount. Just the tip.
- R'Oarc rolls Persuasion to convince the town hall guy to give them a larger reward - 25
- He throws in an extra 50 gold.
- She rolls again to make it an extra 100 (with Disadvantage) - 22
- He adds an extra 100, for a total of 600.
- She rolls again to make it an extra 100 (with Disadvantage) - 22
- He throws in an extra 50 gold.