The game begins with Hitler jokes.

Cruroar: Normilan…
DM: You’re not heiling enough…

The DM struggles to find motivation to run; the group fails to help him do so. Brunt cheerfully sings in the background.

Brunt: I’ve turned his prophecy into the Song That Never Ends. “Alone one will stand! Blade and staff in hand!”

The table is cleared, the players most assemble at it, and the DM calls for order and attention.

DM: Now, shut up.
Cruroar: (coughing)
DM: I said shut up!
Cruroar: (coughing more)
DM: SHUT UP! SHUT UP!
Cruroar: (coughing even harder)
DM: SHUT UP! FUCKING SHUT UP!
Tasha: Just die already so you stop making noise!
Cruroar: I can’t stop coughing like this, stop it!
Brunt: Now we’ll have to roll a new Cruroar.
Cruroar: (weakly) Fuck you, DM, it’s your own fault…
DM: Okay, NOW I feel like running a game.

The PCs wake from their night spent in their home village of Spindlethrift to find Sir Krostun’s troops preparing for a battle! Some of the villagers are stepping up to join the fight as well.

DM: One by one they step up and [the NPC] either sends them to get armor from their provisions, or sends them away.
Tasha: It’s like the Germans picking out Jews for the concentration camp! Either they get on the train, or they’re told to come back later!
DM: …I’ve been reading Maus lately. I can do this.
Eilnys: Aren’t we getting enough of that in the racism game? Save it for where it belongs!

Cruroar offers the DM a slice of giant cookie with the words “vampire monk” on it.

Cruroar: Now you can eat your own failure!

It takes a while to recover from this one. The DM no longer has motivation to run the game any more, and attempts to quit. The PCs head over to Sir Krostun. It takes several minutes for them to describe. The knight tells them that a goblin warband has been spotted and is advancing on the town, at three-to-one numbers.

Cruroar: “It’s a pity we don’t have a wizard who can cast mighty fireballs.” And I stare at the tower.
DM: A mighty fireball heads in your direction.
Cruroar: Aah! How could he hear me?!
DM: He’s a mighty wizard, douchebag.
Eilnys: Or a mighty douchebag wizard?
Cruroar: Where’s that unforeseen servant talking to me?
DM: Unforeseen servant? “I wish someone would hand me my – oh!”

Sir Krostun offers them the choice of heading off to reach the Baron, or staying to defend the town with him.

Tasha: Which course gives us more experience points?
DM: The one where you didn’t ask that question. PENALTY!
Cruroar: We need a sound of shattering whenever we break the fourth wall.
DM: “If you stay it will help defend the town, but Stern will have longer to poison the baron against us. Do what your conscience decides.”
Brunt: We end up in a dungeon, we don’t end up in a dungeon.

Sir Krostun promises to give them his signet ring to prove his authority, and that decides them: they will leave the town to his trust and head north. It dissolves into an argument over distance and travel time in Lord of the Rings. Eilnys’s stubby legs slow the group down, so they hustle a bit to get some time.

Cruroar: Tasha’s broken an ankle. “Sorry, lady.” (miming shooting her) Our true colors have finally shown.
Tasha: We have to hobble her!
Cruroar: “And you thought we were mean because of what we said when we first met you.” Bang! I call it the hobbler.
Tasha: “What’s funny is we actually like old ladies.”

They head onwards, taking some subdual damage before slowing to a better pace. Up ahead, they spy figures in the road!

DM: They’re obviously short creatures, whatever they are, swathed in cloaks and robes.
Eilnys: They’re Jawas!
Tasha: Brunt, throw this spear at them.
Normilan: Throw your hammer. “Here, catch.”

They continue at a normal pace, and as they approach the figures, said figures glance behind and then start hustling off the road at speed into some fallow fields. The group calls out to them, but their protestations of friendliness only make the NPCs scramble away faster.

DM: All right, you ignore them and move on… smoke curls up from the farmhouse in the distance!
Eilnys: What?
Tasha: Is it a good idea or a bad idea, guys, to waste time and break off…
Cruroar: This is what they call a red herring. He’s just trying to distract us.
Brunt: If we had started the game [on time], then we would have found what they were and who they were. Since it’s [two hours late], we press on! We can’t just stop and shake down ever traveler on the road… unless, of course, they’re evil NPCs.
Cruroar: “Freeze, asshole! We’re the Podunk Towny Police!”

The group continues on, deciding with some reservations that their mission takes priority over chasing down these odd travelers.

Cruroar: We find another group. Your random encounters are groups. Not even fights, just encounters. Similar to Final Fantasy Chronicles. Normilan remembers those, every now and then some dude just drives past. Scene over. What was that about?
DM: So much for my next random encounter! Fuck you!
Cruroar: There’s a cart that drives up next to you. “Hello, friend!” “Hello.”
DM: God damn it! The day passes without fucking incident!
Cruroar: I’m sorry!
Eilnys: Way to piss off the DM…

The DM descends into a fury of bitter swearing, shocking the group – which should say something, considering the group takes a moment to congratulate themselves on how much they swear.

Cruroar: The only word we don’t say, we’re proud. We don’t say the “C” word.
DM: That’s true, you – chicken.

The DM asks for watch order… then demands they draw the camp setup, to the moaning and bitching of the group. A pointless argument ensues.

DM: How far did you step off the road?
Normilan: I dunno, how far did we step off the road?
DM: I dunno.

The group eagerly goes for the high ground for its bonus to severing limbs. Tents are drawn at incredibly incompatible scale.

DM: Position yourselves for the first watch.
Cruroar: You son of a -- (hysterical giggling) This can only lead to HILARITY.

The group takes a moment to figure out their minis. Cruroar attempts to invent a plateau that is perfectly secure and defensible, to the DM’s derision. Tasha, on first watch, botches a Listen check horribly, then blows a Spot check even worse. The DM plops a mini down directly behind her.

Tasha: Oh, I hope these are undead. TURN UNDEAD!
DM: Yes, the undead wander onto you in the middle of the farmland.
Tasha: It’s possible, with you as DM.
DM: …what’s THAT supposed to mean?!
Cruroar: That you poop.
DM: What’s THIS supposed to be? (pointing at something on the map)
Cruroar: The wandering cow.
DM: THE FIFTEEN FOOT BY FIFTEEN FOOT COW?!
Cruroar: Oh man, dude rolled up right on you, he’s gonna kiss you.
DM: The first sign of trouble you sense with your pathetic roll is the bare blade of a dagger being laid against your neck!
Tasha: No way, man, sense of smell -- (rolling) -- is a 4. Okay, we’re done.
DM: It got down to touch and even that was kind of iffy, but you managed to sense the dagger blade.
Tasha: “Hiiii!”
Eilnys: Oh, full-on Cissy voice.
DM: Hearing that voice, he slays you. “Toss down your weapons, lass. Nice… and slow…”
Tasha: I’m gonna cast Summon Monster real quick. “Get him, Dire Bee!”
DM: (just laughing)

Tasha tosses down her weapons, and another thug steps forward to search her, perhaps inappropriately. Tasha grabs her alchemist’s fire from her pack.

Cruroar: Please roll a 1. Please roll a 1. I want you to describe the 1.

Tasha gets 12 points of damage from the coup-de-gras as she goes for her weapon, and the one in front tries to punch her but hits her armor instead.

Tasha: I’m gonna smash it in the face of the guy in front.
DM: Make your attack roll.
Tasha: (rolls, then looks despairingly as the others laugh)
DM: A one, you drink it!
Cruroar: She rolled a 2.
Normilan: Into the tent.
Cruroar: Well, we’ll wake up at least.

The flask lands behind the guy, and Tasha screams; the DM calls for Listen checks, since sleeping IS a -10 penalty. They all wake up, but the guy with the dagger is at the top of initiative, and drops Tasha with another plunge of the knife. Eilnys bursts out of her tent to rage, while Brunt charges into the fray with a charging critical.

Brunt: That’s only 10 damage.
DM: You hew him mightily! He raises his own weapon to block but fails to do so.
Cruroar: Did you add Strength twice?
Brunt: Oh wait. A crit. I didn’t add anything.
Cruroar: Did you ROLL twice?!
Brunt: No. I forgot I critted. Because it never happens! Roll again! 22 damage.
Cruroar: Well, instead of attacking—
Tasha: He exploded.
DM: No, he did not exploded. He is still on his feet, though he’s bleeding mightily from the massive gash cut through his chain mail—
Brunt: Hold on, were you assuming I was using my longsword?
DM: I was assuming nothing.
Cruroar: What were you assuming, because you were the one telling him the damage.
Brunt: Well my default is the warhammer… the warhammer is x3. Which is why I default to the warhammer.
DM: THEN YOU KILLED HIM!
Cruroar: Then you gotta roll three times!
DM: Never mind! Anyway, he’s dead.
Brunt: Officially 33 damage.

Arrows fly out of the darkness, and a mage bursts from between the tent to cast Color Spray, which Cruroar and Eilnys completely laugh off.

Eilnys: I’m gonna turn around and fuck up the wizard.
DM: The wizard regrets his life choices swiftly.

Naturally, she one-shots him brutally. Brunt chases after the original foe, who had ducked behind a tent, but is unable to Spot him. Cruroar and Eilnys advance forward to spot the archers at the edge of their darkvision. Cruroar blasts one!

DM: The figure you just shot draws back an arrow –
Brunt: Bowstring!
DM: Aims keenly, and bowstrings you cleanly in the gut for 7 point of damage. It quivers as it sinks into your spine… from the other side.
Cruroar: …I’ll probably go back to healing.
DM: The wizard bleeds.
Brunt: That should be the title of this game report.
Tasha: I kinda like ‘eat your failure’.

The rogue bursts out of the shadows and sneak-attacks Brunt for 12, which is nowhere near enough to take him out. Eilnys zooms around the tent and annihilates him. Cruroar snipes at one of the archers.

Brunt: Cruroar Biceps Wreck-Gar!
Cruroar: 15?
DM: Yes. The dice have been very kind to your to-hit rolls tonight. Everybody’s.
Tasha: Except for mine!

Cruroar drops his target, and Normilan charges ahead with his Fists of Stone!

Normilan: And, with my new strength… 23?
DM: Yes, that hits easily.
Cruroar: What’s your new Strength?
Normilan: It is +6.
Cruroar: God damn, you are the strongest wizard in the world.
Normilan: Max damage. 15.
DM: Damn. The now-headless figure slumps to its knees, and then, thanks to the Havoc engine, stays there.

Cruroar frantically tries to activate a magic wand with UMD, but fails every single roll as Tasha bleeds down to -8. Eilnys leaps in and stabilizes Tasha as a flurry of arguments erupt over how the actual skill works. Cruroar finally manages to get some juice out of the wand and brings Tasha up. The traditional looting begins! It isn’t a lot.

Normilan: Man, they would’ve been a LOT richer if they’d gotten to us.
Brunt: That’s why they came after us, they saw all the weight of our jangling gold pouch, which is the weight of the Grinch’s sack.
Cruroar: Actually yeah, I’m pretty fucking rich.
DM: A mysterious staff…
Brunt: Uh-oh, blade and staff in hand!
Cruroar: Miiiiine!
DM: This was the staff you saw in the hands of one of the robed and cloaked people you chased off the road earlier.
Tasha: Oh, this must by them.
DM: …yeah, yeah, this is them, except these guys are all –
Cruroar: Tall.
Tasha: From a distance, they LOOKED small.
Cruroar: Damn you, DM. Damn you. Now we have to go find them… return their stuff…
Tasha: What? No. Keep it. Just move on.
Cruroar: …Wow. The cleric said that.
Normilan: Yeah, the cleric who said, “I want to see how you treat and old woman, you three guys are assholes. Fuck it, let’s keep it, move on!” You are a very conflicted person, you know that?

Cruroar starts attempting to activate the staff blindly, cheerfully convinced he will succeed in rolling high enough to succeed before he rolls low enough to fail by 10 and incur a mishap. He is very wrong.

Cruroar: He just laughs more…
Tasha: What are you rolling for?
Cruroar: I want to try the staff more, but he just keeps laughing and not doing the mishap, so if I die, I die.
DM: Out of curiosity, do you speak the Draconic tongue?
Cruroar: Common, Celestial, Infernal.
DM: All right, as you shake the staff and mutter random—
Cruroar: I’m assuming there’s a far more complicated process than that.
DM: You’re trying to activate it blindly. You have no idea what it does, so you’re trying common ways to work it. Gestures, waving it in a particular pattern, speaking words over it, to see if anything gets a reaction out of it. As you speak over it, suddenly the eyes on the staff glow a brilliant red.
Eilnys: Uh-oh.
DM: A dark voice speaks out of the staff. Speaking in Draconic. “Who seeks to control the power of the staaaaaff?”
Brunt: The Count of Seacrest.
DM: We’re done. We’re out. Game over. Pack it up.
Cruroar: Anywaaaays. Say in Draconic that I wish to find out of using the staff will aid us in returning it to its owner.
DM: As the bearer does not directly answer it, the eyes glow brighter. You are shocked for one point of damage.
Cruroar: I said it out loud!
DM: It doesn’t consider that an answer.
Cruroar: I turn to the staff and I say what I just said.
Brunt: It’s going to shock you again.
DM: “Speak properly!” it hisses at you in Draconic, which you still don’t understand.
Normilan: “Give me the staff.”
DM: “You, feeble mage! Are you the one who seeks to control the power of the STAFF?”
Normilan: “NAY! I wish to return it to its owner.”
DM: “Return it to its owner!”
Normilan: “WHO is its owner?”
DM: “Retuuuuuurn it!”
Normilan: “WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO is its owner?”
DM: You are shocked for two points of damage.
Normilan: I AM DEAD! I’m just kidding.
DM: The wood of the staff begins to crackle and crumble. Lines of energy begin to run through it, defining each individual scale. Claws burst free, and the image leaps forward.
Normilan: It IS gonna kill me, isn’t it.
DM: It seizes you by the shoulders. Its eyes stare balefully into your own. Make a Will saving through.
Normilan: Aww, not my worst one!
Cruroar: That’s an odd save for a wizard to have the weakest.
Normilan: Well I do have a minus to my Wisdom. 12.
DM: Insufficient. Normilan begins screaming in Draconic. Something about returning it to its rightful master. The pilgrims must reach the shrine.
Brunt: WHO is its master?
DM: Little flecks of flame are bursting out of his mouth as the staff appears to be clinging to his back!
Tasha: Can I grab the staff and pull it off him?
DM: Normilan, all you know is you must prevent this interloper from separating you from the staff.
Cruroar: Don’t – don’t hurt him too much, he’s very beat up.
DM: Fortunately, your Fists of Stone spell has faded by now, or else this turn would be grim indeed.
Brunt: Well, I can toss him my warhammer.

Tasha rips the staff away and wraps it up in wizard robes. Normilan, still under its control, attempts to pimp-slap Tasha but misses.

Cruroar: “Somebody subdue him! He’s kinda weak from the battle, we might be able to knock him out!”
Normilan: Yes, subdual damage please…

Cruroar hits on the idea of just letting him go, while the DM repeatedly tells Normilan to use ANY METHODS, ANY METHODS to take the staff back and head out. He comes up with the absolutely amazing spell Babau Slime, which deals damage to anyone who attempts to attack him – absolutely brutal in this situation. Cruroar advocates letting him go; Tasha proposes they kill him. Cruroar rolls Knowlede(religion) to figure this out.

DM: Most likely, whatever has happened is that a power or being with a particular interest in either the questor who was carrying the staff, or the staff itself, has taken an interest thanks to your misuse of its magic, and is now exerting its influence directly.
Cruroar: Oh wow, this mishap is fun. This happen all the time with mishaps?
DM: No. Sometimes it’s just straight 2d6 damage per level of the spell effect.

The group desperately tries to decide whether they should split up or all go with him. The DM finally forces them to make a decision; everyone goes but Brunt, who works on hurriedly packing up camp. They travel a couple of hours before they spot a fire in the distance; Cruroar immediately starts bellowing desperate please for them not to flee this time, for the love of god!

DM: You enter the ring of the campfire light in time to see the hooded figures fleeing from the light, but the voice in your throat bellows at them in Draconic, commanding them not to leave. They immediately stop as one. You now can see them, their hoods are down. These are kobolds.
Cruroar: That makes sense.
Eilnys: That explains a lot.
DM: Dramatically you fling the wizard robes aside and brandish the staff over your head. The eyes in it glowing red.
Cruroar: “I now have a body to lead you!”
Normilan: Uh-oh.

Normilan passes on the staff and promptly takes 12 points of subdual damage, which drops him. He attempts to cast Inopportune Servant.

Normilan: “WE SHALL CHARGE INTO THEIR FLANK, AND –“ “Here’s your toasty-warm underwear, sir.” “…not the right opportunity to do this now!”
Cruroar: “Here’s a hot sandwich, sir.” “I needed some toilet paper.”
DM: You’re on the can, pooping out diarrhea – “I’ve escorted your girlfriend in to see you, sir.”

Cruroar plans to use a huge Intimidate to scare them off and rescue Normilan. Cruroar and Tasha furiously argue over what Tasha should say to them.

DM: One of the kobolds has come up to Normilan’s body and has knelt beside him.
Cruroar: Scream now! Go now!
Eilnys: I’m taking myself up there!
Tasha: I’m going up there too.
Brunt: Bah weep grah nah weep ninny bong…

They attempt to recognize the spell, but roll crappily all around.

DM: Energy courses through your body.
Cruroar: You are raised as undead.
Normilan: I’m not DEAD dead, I’m just knocked out!
DM: Your wounds are healed.

Tasha speaks to the kobold; the leader identifies him as Kilik, and their group as pilgrims on their way to the great shrine. The group deduces that they’re heading for the capital of the human kingdom. The staff, as it turns out, is sacred to the great dragon god they follow! The PCs tell the kobolds of their prophecy, and the priest amongst them says that the kobold people have not received any prophecies of their own in a very long time. He offers to cast some divination spells for the PCs, and allows them to share their fire.

Cruroar: I love how we’re leaving Brunt out! Like we’re like, “WE CAN’T LEAVE NORMILAN BEHIND! WE GOTTA FOLLOW HIM!” Brunt’s back there…

With Brunt still separated from the group and the DM snickering over the fact, the game comes to an ominous end…