Bonus Action! Neverlight Grove & Beyond Episodes 69-80 Q&A

Join us as we talk Q&A for episodes 69-80, the Neverlight Grove arc! If you would like to submit questions for us to answer during future Bonus Action segments, email us at TheMadnessTable[at]gmail.com or shoot us a DM over on Discord, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook!

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Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition playthrough of Out of the Abyss adventure module, written by Wizards of the Coast.

Dungeon Master: William Johnston
All NPCs: William Johnston
Star Caller: Andrew Walker
Hestor: Brendan Proal
Scylla: Sam Conklin

AUDIO:
Ice Cavern | Tabletop Audio
Latin Electro #10 | Dmyra
Cosa Peluda | Dmyra
Endgame | Tabletop Audio
Blackberry's Hedge | Secret Jane
Nerbuldar | Ambient Mixer
And Darkness Grew Like a Tree | Doctor Turtle
Night Sky | Jar of Flies
Kevin Macleod | Air Prelude
Kevin Macleod | Dreams Become Real

Dnd 5e, underdark, drow, wizard, cleric, warlock, ttrpg, Dungeons and Dragons, gaming, actual play, The Madness Table, D&D

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Transcript

0:01

without further Ado welcome to the madness table monus action on this deifying question and answer session we will be delving into the heart of issues related to The neverlight Grove and the bridge during uh and these are episodes 69 to 78 um in which the es crew um as all are want to do skip out on legal fees and leave the kingdom of Ember and almost immediately meet a strange friend Ivan after this chance encounter heavy quotes uh stool guides them to a Spore zombie infested never likee Grove which has a wi of a weird vibe to say the least after taking a close look and finding out that yet another Demon Lord and world ending threat uh the party decided to burn it to the ground and run um the the second best character we've ever had do not correct the spelling of this document Samantha that's me I did wow I this is unbelievable wow um Rec cover I would like to apologize to Samantha and the listeners at large um will is uh correcting my spelling in our Q&A document and I was deeply offended and I uh I'm used to Sam I'm correcting me so I no okay so so I only correct you when it's going to be something that gets put on a public facing thing like if you send me something spelled wrong for YouTube I fix it yeah Will corrects you when he wants you to feel bad that's right hey I do it for you will does it for himself well Will's taking out his last question um yeah but we'll get to that in a moment I'm sorry Sam please forgive me of course I'm sorry Mrs Conlin[ __ ] uh I I was provoked because um I was thinking about the tragedy of stool leaving the party um leading refugees back to the Grove um after that the party encountered yet more demons and of course the bridge yeah but before we get there let's talk about Ivan um Brandon Sam yeah I scale 1 to 10 how much you trust Ivan negative3 three not much absolute value three excellent excellent yeah I I was thinking r a four or five but you know CH each their own hey so will about the goat man um he is is what's his class cuz he seems to kind of his flavor and mechanics are kind of uh fluid as it were can you tell us a little bit about um his class structure uh he has some cleric Vibes for sure that's what we were thinking what was that I I think that's what we were thinking initially like that was the first little bit of him that we saw uh no he's definitely got some cleric Vibes but uh Ivan Ivan is a a tricky interesting character and um I will not elaborate further cool so that that brings us to our next question so like he rolls with demon Lords right what you mean he rolls with demon Lords like literally rolls or like he's to them or they see me roll and like like like that kind of rolls yeah yeah uh I mean he's white and dirty but um nice he I don't not necessarily no well so so he was talking yeah he was talking about the mother or like something of of that kind I don't remember if she was a Demon Lord or just like more uh culian like outer being I was getting like fa Vibes but well he he he is a Seder so he's definitely of the F variety um but the mother actually is a reference to another uh culian horror right um and I'm I'm blanking on her name right now but she is like known as like a mother of monsters essentially um and she is sometimes I think she is sometimes called like the black goat um even though if you were to look up her name or her images it looks absolutely nothing like that uh but that's just how every culian horror goes right um but yeah he was he had some [ __ ] up stuff going on there uh with who he worshiped excellent um what Ivan did join us after a bit of um dream [ __ ] I guess is the only polite way to describe what he was doing um they made it to the Grove now I want to talk to brenn and Sam they'll get to Will here I'll share as well Brandon Sam what were you expecting of the never life Grove having stool um you know that Beacon of a character um as kind of like our introduction like what were you guys expecting I personally was expecting some like the most Akin we would get to the Fay in the underd dark I was expecting very like um Fantastical I was definitely expecting weird like but in those kind of Vibes you know similar to the way that stool was I I guess I should have expected that there were darker things going on there and there you know things would be twisted but I I genuinely did not I just expected weird Vibes yeah I think I was envisioning like a like a beautiful like uh bright little Cavern where all the mushrooms just like sing and dance together or just like and when they sleep they just like plop in place and like it's just a beautiful little place that's not what it was it was not yeah I I was a similar my analogy is more K like I was thinking oh it's going to be like it's a small world after all but everything's a mushroom yeah yeah 100% we're we're all kind of saying the same thing it it was not that bring us to our next question um so will how much of like the general [ __ ] upness of the Grove is from you and how much can we attribute to Wizards of the Coast um all of never like Grove is exactly as it is out of the book um wow yeah no that is 100% wizards of the of the coast the including the garden of welcome and and zck Mo's Cavern yeah everything is straight out of the book The only thing they didn't do was make the back half of the map for never like Grove and like a more detailed map of the garden of Welcome or as they call it in here the garden of horror um but there's also there was also a lot more potential but like I felt you guys did a really good job especially with how you solidified your relationship with stool there's a whole like there's a whole other beginning section where you you actually have to do some favors for the sovereigns speci UA and Fila or bidia and pH Pho um where you actually have to go back into the beginning area which is known as like the fungal Wilds um and you have to take care of some of the um the like zombiie creatures that they had taken over because they started kind of going mad and this is the first time that bidia is supposed to like come to party and be like hey not everything's okay here can you go check it out and that's supposed to be like your first inkling of like okay that's weird that these like this is supposed to be something totally normal these spores creatures should be totally under their control um but you you did a really good job of one being good friends with stool and using those relationships to like get in there that I was like it's so unnecessary for you guys to have to go through that whole moment um but yeah it was it was 100% all Wizards of the Coast there um and like I this image that I showed you guys that's her Tower um that's straight out of the book for for what you get is to like you know if we were playing in person this is what I would have shown you and it and it's called yig morgus that's what that giant musroom power is it's supposed to be like yrail um but this dark fungal version of it like the tree of death basic yeah yeah fun fact too I was going through my notes of the section you you had actually mentioned when we did uh when we try to get information on zmy she shares a layer of the Abyss with jubil X he does she does yeah um so there's a lot of lot of interesting lore there as well um but going really quickly to your your thoughts as to how you thought never light Grove was supposed to be um if if Zug Moy wasn't there in like trying to exert her control basically all your images are spot on it and like you would have if she hadn't been corrupting circles it really would have been like they spend their evenings like Sam thought they like go plunk themselves in their little circles and they literally sing to each other like Kumbaya and just sit there and wiggle as little mushrooms and then they they spend their entire time during the day like Gardeners of themselves they cultivate new mikid spores and sprouts and all that stuff and it's supposed to be truly one of the most idic places which makes Zuck moy's influence so much more horrifying um later on well and I I personally like the wedding processional scene was just like so deeply creepy to me so dark I mean it really is both between the wedding and never light it's a it's a true Corruption of things that should be totally pure yeah yeah they did a they did a really this is like one of the shortest chapters and they did a really good job laying on the creep Factor yeah yeah and one of my favorite things and this is like kind of less of a question more of just like a I guess but like the Grove and what came soon after really set the stage for how truly prolific these demon Lords are in the underdog there are so many you we're stum on one and the other which just you know when think about how vast the underd dark is and how infinitely more vast the abyss is um we got some problem over here um like if you're going to Ballpark a number wheel how many demon Lords are you say like you know like not just like named demon Lords but like if you're going to like gut check it like how many demon Lords are out here you mean in the terms of this book or how many in DND D Mythos just like how many demon Lords are in your under dark I can't tell you that you're legally required the Dead Silence of that he's only re yeah uh I will I will have my lawyer send over my NDA but I'm afraid I can't disclose that information at this time I mean a good answer like an answer acceptable at least two at least two you've got at least two there's at least two hey you know what you know what I'll throw you a bone there's at least three damn four guys we have full we have fully met five okay have we yeah uh we got we got um the boy from the cover right right um we got got demorgan sagua right Deon well so yeah so these are not all the same classification of monsters that we like we've started a hint at that or like figure that out is like some of them are demon princes some of them make demon princes scared like oh true I I think deeon Falls more in the second category yeah you're the creature who was in The Abyss before the abyss was po ated by demons yeah yeah that might be a problem um yeah grats um we meet Yu in the next few episodes um orcus who y the the null guy yeah the N guy who make of the N oh yeah that's how you said well you didn't you also like uh the sagua that was an aspect that him true you knowed talk of you haven't met uh jubil you've only heard mention of their name and you met a an empowered servant so like you're dead you're dead on like you have seen demma Corin you've seen zck Moy and uh one of your characters was linked to grait so like uh and then there's dayon so you know you've got four for sure that are [ __ ] up [ __ ] in the underd dark right now well let's not forget uh we'll talk about this maybe shortly yeah but another one is now very linked to one of the current party members MH um actually let's go ahead let's get head over heels in after we commit um we meet zugo we say no thank you uh we commit regicide we send um the fungal Battalion with stool back to denar and we find ourselves back on the road meeting the the the first we meet a a funny little Allen um who gives us a map that warns us about some stuff that we then find out is it actually a huge problem because we find ourselves at the bridge yeah pretty sure one of the papers that we got from the Allen was like don't go to the bridge y yeah 100% we were being chased by all those noes it's true and we find ourselves there and facing off again a couple minor on a thin piece of rock things did not go as planned does anyone have any um regrets uh and also let me just real quick spoiler alert spoiler alert this is all reference to the fact that uh both Ivan and safel get punted off the bridge like so many deflated soccer balls um after what I will say is one of our most intense battles yeah not nearly the CR of some of the fights taking on but the threat of falling creates an incredible tense atmosphere to this battle um was there anything y would have done differently it was the threat of falling and the fact that our spells weren't working because we had teleportation yeah but my misstep didn't work my dimension door didn't work seel's vortex work didn't work and it was a it was a random role to determine which school of magic would be affected by the FZ uh and that's where it came up on cuz it's usually um you guys have figured it out because I was asking early on in the beginning like an idiot instead of just looking up the Spells you were casting uh it's usually div divination or Divine magic that gets messed up the most by the FES but there are sections where it's like anything can happen with it uh and then sometimes it just legitimately won't work um and we we rolled for that so that instantly boosts boosts the the CR up the threat of falling boosts the CR up um because if I can't I think minitar are only a CR three uh in 5e yeah they got a high strength score and home field advantage yeah yeah and it and one of their uh gnarliest attacks is is due to their charge which we were on a straight line path the whole time nowhere to go I think you and I talked about this Andrew that our biggest regret was we should have just went in and kept swinging and swinging and swinging and instead we were like I think we were trying to move and like trying to save people who were like starting to fall and had we just been hitting the minitar we'd have been okay yeah one of this is one of the fights where I very much learned as the Paladin you're DPS and the thing you do best is hit hard and hit fast and pump HP out of your enemies yeah uh and I try I play try to play too much finesse in this case tried to outthink it where I got to out hit it yeah I wouldn't call it a regret but like that was very much the only thing s could do I I remember every single round my entire turn went to uh the magic was I believe a rolled chance it it was like the forz was [ __ ] with spells you had to roll to see if your spell worked and I got lucky quite a few times uh to be able to use Vortex warp otherwise multiple times there were people going over the edge um but that was my entire turn every time so I I really felt hair like I couldn't do anything in that fight other than nope get back up there nope get back up there yeah exactly it really um rang a bell for me with like I remember in one of our first fights in like the the broken castle with will he was kind be like what school of magic is that n school Magic ah dang and it's like oh this is the kind of effect that the FZ can have yeah it can be a game altering combat altering in the same way that these Madness roles um like the stress our characters are under and the environment of the undar itself really can conspire with or against your character uh which makes these encounters all the more exciting um I will I will say I think this was the first combat that you guys had been introduced to where I also set out with the intention of while not like blatantly trying to antagonize you and just be like I'm I'm going to out DPS you and put you in the ground this was the first time that has kind of set a new precedent for me as a DM to you all especially for this campaign of Designing encounters that may not always necessarily be a fight for your life but it is going to challenge you in Far different ways um because like you guys have designed amazing characters both roleplay and mechanically um and this was like the first time cuz like I'm thinking about our episode 100s and then getting into the pudding King fight where like to me that was one of the most satisfying moments and this was this moment before that where I was like that felt great because it challenged you guys in a different way both as players and as characters and like I don't know if you guys ever noticed it but both your characters and how you play the game really changed a lot after this fight and it was so cool to watch as no I I remember us talking uh personally away from game after that because I was frustrated after everything I was like that was such a like such a stupid fight like that shouldn't have been hard and it was like we are players or we were players that were very used to combat is all about bags of hit points and one of them will fall before the other and this was one of the first ones that it was really this is difficult not because of HP but because of the environment because of external factors yeah well you know the one that was that stood out for me before the bridge was way at the beginning and it was in the water against the gril yeah yeah that was hard huge that was a big turning point for us like as a team and like y i remember there was a lot of frustration of like nobody can swim yeah well none of us knew how drowning worked like right Suffocation who yeah yeah yeah no that's true yeah we did have a hint of that very early on you're right yeah absolutely and uh this like that fight that um that battle with the gril and this one involved a character falling beneath the others um in this case it was not able to be retrieved um seel the final original member of the party goes down and your New Year's resolution officially fails well how you how you feeling Bud yeah no you're right uh I think I was at peace with the fact that Cel was gonna die about halfway through that battle um because the whole slipping thing I if I remember correct it like it was all strength checks it was um I think it deck checks uh deck it was like to catch yourself and then it might have been I think I think it was strength to pull yourself back up or something but either way like two things that seel is not good at so as soon as that became a factor I was like oh he cannot be the one on the receiving end of this or it's not going to go well yeah and then the fact that I was losing entire turns to keeping other people alive and then I I was at the mercy of whatever happened that round um I knew that like I I just had a feeling that seel was going over um so when it happened I was like yeah this like it was not a matter of if it was when well there yeah it hurt yeah I feel like I feel like the followup question for will is like why did Ivan die what was Ivan going to do yeah why did he Swan Dive um he Swan dived I can't reveal any of that actually [ __ ] why I [ __ ] know why I've said it he won't admit it but I've said it well say it here say it now uh I think what we're we're getting into the stuff that happens after the fall but I think that Ivan and orcus are connected in some way interesting spicy spicy because because one goat man uh was on top of the bridge and then a similar goat bull creature uh was under the bridge it's all I'm saying yeah uh cuz cel's dead but he certainly ain't gone but um br will take us through the discussion we'll talk more about sael and his journeys in a future episode um but this decision for cell to die to then very quickly realize he is not gone from us as we get a scene right after the fall of orcus raising him yeah but then he decides to go away who's or how is that decision reached to take seel out of the party for a while as he gets his life together so that was entirely my decision that was um so sael fell will painted this beautiful scene post game he he asked me to stay after the recording and basically there was a conversation of this this is the rundown with orcus this is the situation and I sat with it for I think a day or two I can't remember how quickly I messaged him it was it was a couple of days yeah but I I I think I I messaged him first and then I called him on the way home from work and I was like I can't see a scenario where seel just gets back with the party and moves on to bling and stone like nothing happened like the game has shifted so much for him as a character that is so about control especially over himself uh that's sort of been a through line for him through everything has been his ability to control himself and through that other things and the complete lack of control the the fact of him being at the mercy of something so awful and so much bigger than him that he could not see a way out of and the tactician in him that was always is very if someone is not a help to you they are a hindrance if someone is not helping you survive they are slowly killing you he could not be that for the party so I called will and I'm like I like it might be an episode it might be 10 I don't know but he can't he can't just get back up on that bridge and walk you ready to hear first folks s had to walk away but a new character walked into our lives his name was Hester Brendan[Laughter] why uh so Hester uh well obviously because my My First Love died um no Hester was meant originally to Simply Be you know like in full honesty I build him as a transition character uh I built him as like this person needs to have a shortterm goal he he should be more connected with the city of bonstone than he is with the party and basically he is there to help them with their current goal for the sake of you know for the sake of the narrative for the sake of making sense to be with them um and then they would help him and he would ultimately either stay with them until they they found their recently lost friend or um you know until he came back or or whatever it was sort Hester originally was just a stop gap of okay well if I'm volunteering sael to walk away who's there in the interim um and then will and I talked about him and just like the lore got so much deeper the the connections got so much deeper as they do um and yeah I've grown I've grown rather fun his goal hasn't changed like he he is and always will be a gnome uh who is you know while he has that traditional wander lust uh he's a homeboy he's a homeboy and he he's there for his people and he always will be um yeah that was that was sort of the the start anyway beautiful I I think it's a beautiful place to leave we have a lot more to get into we get into blon stone during our next bonus action but behind the scenes here friends we have a little thing to get into because um back when we were recording these last few episodes will made a reference to being a part of a horny online production of Julius Caesar I do remember that he said that he would tell us about it if we brought it up in a bonus action so will how did you blaspheme The Bard um in sensual production all right let's let's not pretend like Shakespeare wasn't a horn dog yeah no if you if you if anybody ever says Shakespeare was not perverted uh they know nothing about The Bard um yeah so as many people know I uh I'm an actor and this was in the midst of covid you know the the heavy heavy times and there was like nothing going on but this small new company decided they were going to put on a bunch of like one act plays um and what they did is they held a competition for writers uh and they could submit and then the company chose five that they were then going to put on and then they held auditions I had a friend who was like Hey they've got some really good one acts I know the director they've seen you in another show they'd love for you to audition so I did it I didn't have a choice as to what I was going to be casting but I got cast in two both were um definit of the uh almost verging on uh smut well one was almost verging on that the other one was a straight up like play about a porno um and that is I I looked up I went through my email and I pulled it up uh it's called Octavian Augustus a tale of topping by Nick a sommerfield oh my God yep and um and incredible yeah so we were we were sent links on um non sexual like behind the scenes how porn actors act because they wanted us to have the dramaturgy on like how to properly be if we were like on a porn set um oh my God directions on how to dress like I had to wear a togga with no shirt there was a whole scene where like no joke um um we like we played out partial porn scenes and we were supposed to like there was a moment where I'm supposed to be potentially getting like a a[ __ ] um and this was done live online in front of an audience of people of course like we're all on our own Zoom screens and people are like blacked out when you can't see um and then there's this moment where I am supposed to spill like this Goblet of grape juice That's supposed to be wine like all over myself and I'm supposed to be like oh yes yes and there's like a couple other actors that are supposed to be pretending on screen that they're like licking it off of me oh my God yeah [ __ ] gets wild and then what's so [ __ ] funny about this this little play is that it like there are moments where the director actually comes in and goes cut cut cut cut cut we got to go back we got to redo this scene so I had to do the Great juice dropping on myself bit twice um and then it cuts away from the actual porno and it's following the actors in my character who's supposed to be um uh Anthony uh who is like this new young hot shot to the porn industry is working on alongside this guy who's playing Octavian um who's like been there uh and I remember I think his name was Fox this very handsome goodlook um big Burly black guy and I was like and the the ending of the script which is so funny is Anthony goes up to the director and was like Hey so I don't really like I didn't get this in the script what do you mean that like Octavian and Anthony it just says here like get into it what do you mean by that and the director's like well octavian's going to [ __ ] Anthony and Anthony's like wait what I'm straight what do you mean and it just like dives into this whole thing where the actors the porn actors confront each other who Octavian and Anthony and Octavian the act the actor of them literally calls out um the actor of Anthony and is like dude you wouldn't be doing this if you weren't by at the very least and it gets like it it actually gets very serious and it dives into like your question your sexuality and stuff like that it had some really good stuff but it was it was very much like starts off spoof horny and then it just gets to the end where like totally yeah questioning him himself and like what is his sexual belief is he just repressed who he is this entire time um but it uses some Shakespearean language during the porn scenes uh it was it was very interesting so I have two follow-up questions uh one does this exist in video anywhere I was going to ask that too yeah how do I get access to this it happened live so somewhere I I'm assuming it does I don't know if it's on YouTube or not um okay feel free to look it up uh I'm already embarrassed enough um but yeah it's called Octavian Augustus a tale of topping by Nick sommerfield all I'm saying is if I find it it becomes the first uh paid subscription to for the podcast yeah yeah um no it was it was really funny and then the second one I did was a uh second show I did was um yeah nobody cares well no you you'll like this because it another it was another deep on YouTube right now I had to be I had to be shirtless and it was um Achilles and patrickus and they or petle they had me say his name wrong the entire time I actually fought with the writer of this script I was like that's not how you say a [ __ ] name um but yeah I had to be shirtless and that took on it was um it was before the book Achilles came out that everybody's into where it like really deep dived into their actual relationship uh not just as friends for all those old male translators they were roommates yeah they were roommates confirmed Bachelors yeah so it was it was very interesting because it was the first time I ever got cast in shows where I had to um portray someone who was either uh by or gay or you know anything else um which was very interesting so yeah that's there you go wow wow wow wow you honestly this answer did not uh disappoint that was a I possibly dreamed of yeah what what did your now wife think of these shows yeah um she would come out before we started the performances because I had to do that show three times online uh she would always come out and be like nice toga and walk away remember you're straight right yeah no she uh she she would tease me endlessly about it um but she got a real kick out of it yeah we love Danny yep so there you go I legally answered your questions wow strong strong you know sometimes the buildup is worth it and this is such a case yeah I agree it's about that would you say the edging is finally over Pati yes I would agree well thank you very much for joining us for a very special episode of action uh hope you can join us next time um next time we bonus action anyway we are going to get into the meat of bigon stone yeah will do one episode will it be two I don't know yet that's a lot more episodes than we covered in this past one so we might have to cut that up we'll see how we're feel may we do an extra long who knows we also need to talk about that little bit at the bottom of the chasm where Sila had that encounter with Deon yeah to lead into it and then I I have sorry wrap up it's fine yeah I'll ignore Brandon as usual thank you very much it's been a great time um and always keep it class at San dieago and if you're still watching that means you're on the YouTube like follow comment subscribe send it to your dad maybe it'll find L warm his[Music] heart