It is the 3d6 world, the hunnerd gold campaign! The DM is weirdly fired up today as he recaps their current situation: disguised and having just reached a new town, where some circus is in town and a hawker attempted to sell alleged brass dragon scales.

Brunt: I’m the Fist of the Seven Clans Under One Star. Guess what? (launching a series of high-pitched attacks)
DM: Brunt… has an aneurysm, apparently?

The group ponders how the salesman has these scales, which attracts the hawker’s attention. He rattles a chime to draw attention.

DM: “Yes, step on up, come see the one and only dragon’s scales! You will never have the chance to hold one of these in your life! Tremble at the thought of how close this beast is to you right now! Indeed, only our cages keep this foul being from ravaging your town, and though you may be in from across the seas or over mountain or over stream, surely you too have dragons there, lurking in the depths of your caves, ever waiting to leap out and plunder your villages!”
Eilnys: “I’ve never heard a bigger load of horseshyte in my life!”
DM: “Oh, we have a doubted in the audience. Someone who doesn’t BELIEVE in dragons!”
Eilnys: “I believe in dragons, but I don’t believe that color dragon would ever ravage a village, unless you mistreated it like you have, you son of a bitch!”
DM: “Oh, don’t respect the power of dragon, I see! They’re just innocent, misunderstood beasts! I supposed you’d go up to the Gatekeeper and offer him a ‘great big hug’, wouldn’t ya, lass!”
Cruroar: “Wait, hold up a second. How many have you sold?”
DM: “Twenty-three today, good sir, would you care to be number 24?”
Cruroar: “How much are you selling these for?”
DM: “Three gold!”
Cruroar: “Each?”
DM: “Of course, they’re from a dragon!”
Cruroar: “We had a corpse of a red dragon and no one thought to skin that son of a – aaaaah! I’m mad!” I walk back over to my cart. No more. I’m mad!
DM: “Yes, yes, we merchants are brave dragonslayers. Ha ha ha.”
Cruroar: “I’m Cruroar! I killed a dragon!”
Normilan: There went our disguise…
Cruroar: I walked away! I walked away. I’m already gone.

The whole exchange seems to have soured the local peasantry on the whole exchange. They start setting up their cart for sales, abruptly revealing Quirion.

DM: “Oh, hi guys, you remembered I was in there finally.”
Brunt: (heaving an immense sigh)
Eilnys: “Lad, what the fuck.”
DM: “What?! You wanted me to ride in there! You said it was safer!”

Normilan, with a Wisdom of 7, hurls pepper into peasants’ faces to demonstrate its quality. Cruroar patiently has a talk with him. A local shows up to collect their trading fee; Normilan hurls cinnamon in his face. Brunt is deployed to hold a brightly-colored arrow pointing their way.

Cruroar: If I add some RP flourish to it, will you let me add my Charisma bonus to my trading roll?
DM: (increasingly perplexed) What trading roll are you making anyway?
Cruroar: I bought that book! I thought I’d need Profession(trading) to make trades…

The DM puts this under Diplomacy, why not, and allows Gather Information checks to go out in the course of this. Cruroar rolls well and makes a profit in coin rather than livestock.

Cruroar: Out of character, the only moment I want is for somebody to fucking recognize my character.
DM: Aren’t you wearing a Hat of Disguise!?
Cruroar: No, I mean in the future. Whenever Cruroar goes into combat, there’s a bandit who goes, ‘Oh fuck, that’s fucking Cruroar!’ He just runs. I need that one moment.

Tasha attempts to purchase a weapon modifier, and also attempts to ignore all rules for magic items; the game pauses to address this whole nonsense. The Gather Information brings back weird rumors about the circus!

DM: Indeed, from everything they say, that have what appears to be a very lifelike dragon on display, along with other creatures of rare and exotic import. A strange cat that’s twice the size of a man and has curious stripes upon it. A horse that is similarly striped, and yet the paint does not wash off it when they cast water upon it.
Cruroar: Aww, this circus sounds way better than the one we had before.
DM: The fat lady… Jugglers, acrobats, all the accoutrements.
Cruroar: I wanna go!
Normilan: You’re our best salesman, so… fuck off.

It will be open late, though! As the day comes to an end, they lock up the wagon – then unlock the wagon, let Quirion out, and lock up the wagon again – and head for the bad, finding the bartender to be the one who collected their fee. Normilan hurls spices in his face as they pay their trade fee of seven silver. They agree to leave their wagons in the square.

DM: “We don’t have crime around here, you won’t be disturbed.”
Cruroar: All of a sudden – pow papowpow, ‘YeeeeeeHA!’
DM: ‘That’s just the Seven Clans Under One Star.’
Brunt: It’s Wild Dog!
Cruroar: It’s Wild Star.
DM: It’s just the Seven Yosemites Under One Sam.
Cruroar: Do I need to do anything for the horses?
Tasha: HOBBLE! HOBBLE THE HORSES!

Tasha discovers that Create Food can create horse food. The DM cheerfully agrees to let her spend spell slots on that instead of combat. Somehow the entire game derails over hunks of cheese, with the DM gamely soldiering on with the flavor text while the players maniacally giggle and ask stupid questions. Tasha has given up drinking this week, so she passes her ale to Eilnys. Then, off they all go to the circus, leaving Bimmy and Jimmy behind to deal with cart theft. Spot checks erupt!

DM: You hear music in the distance. It sounds like an organ. What’s an organ doing out here?
Brunt: I know about organs.
DM: Yes, you smash them out of people all the time.
Brunt: Not those organs. That’s a bad pun.
Cruroar: Oh, that’s what he leaves behind. An organ trail.
DM: And the tents loom up before you as you step out. They are lit, strangely enough. Seems the tents are glowing.
Einlys: Just means they have a mage.
Cruroar: One of them has zombie paper on the ground.
DM: This isn’t Earthbound!
Cruroar: YES!
DM: Okay! You fight the tent! Fine. Whatever, you’re in your own game, I’m in mind.
Normilan: He’s been eating that special chili we got and he’s been hallucinating.

A fence surrounds the circus, funneling people towards the entrance, where a barker bangs up business.

DM: ”Yes, that’s right, come see the finest show in the land! You’ll see things here you’ve never seen before and will never see again, you’ll see magnificent wonders, puissant powers, acts of derring-do, acrobatic, athletics, chirugery, catastrophe!” Banging the cane each time. “Come right in, come right in! Five silver for person, half for the little ones!”
Eilnys: “I’m hoping I don’t count as a little one…”
DM: “Well, lady dwarf, you’re as stout as can be, and I’m sure you have a heart of stone, but inside you’re going to find things that will make even you feel like an ant beneath the magnificence of the gods!

They pay and enter, finding one large main tent with several smaller ones. The ground vibrates, and something emerges from the back! The group is horrified, even as an amplified voice reports the beast comes from the south and is harmless. Light illuminates the allosaurus!

Brunt: A dinosaur?
DM: Yes.
Cruroar: So it’s not a dragon.
DM: No!
Normilan: I no longer feel bad.
Giles: So it’s an owlbeast thing?

Tasha attempts to wrestle it, while the group wonders if this creature is in fact supposed to be extinct, and if not, how did they train it? Horrible Jurassic Park kazoo themes erupt. They decide to keep poking around, trying to figure out if the bearded lady is just an Enlarged dwarf, and being called at by a tightrope walker above them.

Cruroar: A Robin will be born tonight.
Normilan: All right, Manyjaws.
Brunt: Manyjaws?! Aww shit!
Normilan: What am I? I’m Neutral Good. Damn,
DM: Stop murdering the performers, Normilan! That’s something I expect out of Tasha, not you!

Brunt and Eilnys make Spot checks. Their martially-trained eyes note that the carnival has many well-armed staff members.

Brunt: Are they randomly spaced, or are they clearly…
DM: They seem to be going about doing business. Most of them seem to be content doing mundane tasks like picking up things, cleaning, directing people, that sort of thing. You all have seen a tent with a picture on the outside featuring many curious beasts, if you’re looking for the strange and curious animals that were described to you.
Brunt: This place is probably a front.

Another worker stops them, promising that within a totally rare beast lies within for an upcharge. They get really snooty over the cost.

Normilan: No, that’s the platinum bag… sorry. There’s the gold. I don’t have five silver, can you make change?
DM: ‘Why you keep giving me this shit silver, DM? Just give it to me in gold, you fucker.’

With their hands marked, they are beckoned in. Brunt pays in tapestries, the universal currency. They get snarkier and snarkier as they enter the tent.

DM: Immediately to your left, a hissing, snarling, shaking comes. A large ape creature clings to bars—
Normilan: FIREBALL! Oh wait…
DM: Shaking them angrily as it tries to get to you. One long ape arm stretches out, groping at you, barely coming close.
Tasha: Tasha looking at it. “Ah, this reminds me of my old days.”
Normilan: Wait a minute. I’m gonna study the shit out of it. Get familiarity with it!
DM: Yes, polymorph into an ape. A little further on the other side is the legendary striped horse. Black and white stripes go across it.
Normilan: That’s a funny-looking horse.
DM: “I see you look with a skeptical eye!” says the staff member standing next to it. “I’ll show you, ‘tis no horse indeed!” He seizes a bucket of water from among several that stand next to him and hurls it at the striped horse. The water splashes off of its coat but no paint washes off! If you were in any way convinced before that perhaps this was some deception, now it is clearly a STRIPED horse. Natural.
Cruroar: Perhaps it should have its own name. Perhaps you should call it a zebra?
DM: Do you have Knowledge(nature)?
Cruroar: No! Let me get in character… “Whoooooooa! It has stripes!”
DM: “You’ve never seen such a thing as this before… nor our tallbird!” Again, where he points, within a cage is a strange and curious bird, black with a seemingly bald head. Long of leg and neck!
Cruroar: (gasping laughter)
DM: Why are you giving me that look?!
Brunt: I dunno…
Cruroar: I just – it’s so hard to, in-character, never have seen these creatures before and us know all of this!
Brunt: It’s like.. we’re 18th century white folks who haven’t gone on safari.

The staff member claims these all come from the south, while Normilan bemoans the unsubtle components of his illusion spells so he can’t screw around with the show. They speculate the tallbird may put its head in the ground. The DM next describes an angry pacing lizard creature.

Cruroar: Is it a lizardfolk?
DM: No, no! It’s a veloc—it’s a Utahraptor, in fact. They don’t call them Utahraptors in this campaign, though…

Giles notes how cranky all the enemies before, even as the carnie whips aside a curtain to reveal a displacer beast, then jabs its projected image with a pole to show it is not where it is! Some of the group rolls to see if they know about the creature, but none of them can talk about it as innocent merchants. Then, on to the prize of the show… in a back section of the tent.

DM: “This may terrify you, this may alarm you, this may disturb you. But it may be the greatest sight you have ever seen.”
Tasha: You take 150 subdual damage to the back of the head.
DM: He yanks forward the curtain. Light shines forth on the unmistakable form of a dragon, imprisoned in a cage that is almost too small for it.
Cruroar: I was so crossing my fingers that it was somehow the dragon from the dwarven kingdom who had some bad luck. Some bad bets.
Tasha: ‘Where’s my Rod of Extend, you bastard?!’
DM: ‘That was the worst game of Dice Throne ever.’
Cruroar: It’s just his head. Nothing else is caged.

Indeed, a brass dragon is imprisoned here, its wings bound and its jaw muzzled. The DM emphasizes this isn’t impressive given what they’ve seen. The carnies explains the dragon is kept on a liquid diet, and they’re keeping it from ravaging the countryside.

Tasha: “Aren’t you worried about its mother?”
DM: “Ha ha ha! Dragons don’t have mothers. They’re born from the greed of mankind.”
Tasha: “Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.”
DM: “That’s why they’re so greedy!”
Cruroar: Have we met the DM in-game?

Giles verifies that the scales look identical to those on sale, and some rolling identifies the dragon as very young. Tasha attempts to Gather Information, only to discover it doesn’t work that way, and quickly swaps to Diplomacy to find out how they got the dragon.

DM: “Why, great master Gundar brought the ravaging beast to heel, just as he did with all of these here.”
Tasha: “Master Gundar? I would love to meet him.”
DM: “You’ll see him in the circus. He’s our ringmaster. Bask in his glory!”

Tasha keeps the staff member distracted while the group mutters about finding out the schedule. They attempt to talk to the dragon, but are shooed away by the staff member.

Brunt: Iglar sidles up to the dragon with a keg, and puts it down. ‘Let’s have a drink here, friend, and get all of my friends thrown in prison!’
Cruroar: I hate you, Iglar, why are we in jail!

The DM explains that today’s performance is ‘Cruroar On Ice’, where a Cruroar figure hurls paper mache at elves and dragons to slay them. Tasha tries to bribe the staff member to meet the ringmaster, and the DM calls for Spot checks!

DM: You guys who saw it notice his eyes briefly unfocus before snapping back onto Tasha’s face with a genial smile. “I’m sorry, it’s appreciated, ha ha! But the ringleader is really very busy.” And he’s a little bit more forcibly trying to usher you out of the dragon room.
Tasha: Would Knowledge(arcana) be able to recognize anything?
DM: Nope. In fact I am certain no one has the knowledge to recognize this thing.
Eilnys: Psionics.
Normilan: Is this a –
Normilan and Brunt: Thrallherd.
DM: Everybody’s going the same place at the same time, I love it.
Normilan: Same place the DM went.
Cruroar: You can see in his eyes… his family, his long-lost family. He misses them dearly.

Normilan remembers he has a poor Will save. He immediately becomes a thrall.

Cruroar: He kills off five dudes, and the DM’s like, ‘and that’s the end of the campaign. You all loyally served your new master from this point further.’
DM: I’m insulted, Cruroar. You think I wouldn’t run the shit out of that?

The DM graphically describes the end of that campaign, in which the PCs are eaten by the adventuring party. The carnie flirts with Tasha, who sees opportunity and arranges a meeting with him later (blowing her disguise in the process). Outside the tent, they see other tents, which somehow leads to them meeting Gambit and getting blown up with cards, and also the ringmaster is Professor X. The DM bemoans their meta guess of the carnival’s premise. They go into the main tent, just in time for the carnival to commit copyright infringement and get shut down.

DM: Stepping out into the magically-lit tent is a tall, thin gentleman wearing the classic ringmaster’s outfit. Coat, tails, a top hat around which swirl magical sigils. He doffs his hat and sweeps a bow to the audience! Curiously, the sigils stay around his head, and as he puts it back on, he launches into his performance.
Eilnys: Is he bald?
DM: Yes.
Eilnys: He’s an illumian, isn’t he.

Silence.

DM: Stop knowing things!
Brunt: Illumian?!
DM: Also stop flicking me off! I’ll penalize your experience! I’ll come over there! I’ll throw things.
Brunt: I don’t know what that is.
DM: The important thing is, fuck Eilnys!

The performance is amazing, no matter how the PCs refuse to acknowledge it. Giraffes support capering halflings on their heads. Normilan is super-bored, as a wizard. The performance ends…

DM: You cynical bastards are soon the only ones left, frowning down at this utterly uninteresting performance, apparently.
Normilan: I’m teasing, teasing!
DM: Roleplay, you assholes!
Normilan: Transcriber? DM is crying.
Brunt: I want to know whether or not to disbelieve this…

They wander down to the circus floor to investigate a little, then head out after finding nothing blatantly obvious. Cruroar suggests they dare not act immediately, while the DM accuses Brunt of cynicism when he claims he’s just angry about the dragon. They hurry off to consume fried dough. The players are convinced they need to recognize the dragon.

Tasha: I guess I could disguise myself using my disguising abilities…
Brunt: Heh, like we’re all disguised…
Normilan: We got Hats of Disguise, we could MAKE ourselves look like other people.
Brunt: Or we could clobber one of the guards and take a uniform.
Normilan: We’ve gotta do stuff Tasha’s been trying to do this entire game…
Brunt: Not KILL the guards.

The players debate whether they should talk out of character, to anger the cake-getting DM, or talk in-character to awe him. They choose the latter, apparently very willing to roleplay so long as the DM is absent. They wonder if they can petition the king for aid, leading to weird digressions.

Brunt: How does one obtain legal documentation that says it’s okay to abuse dragons?

Between bites of cake, the players continue to discuss – or in Brunt’s case, request suggestions for a new group bingo board.

DM: Tasha says something idiotic or evil?
Normilan: Tasha asks to perform evil acts?
Cruroar: I was gonna say, creates water?
Brunt: It can’t just be a Tasha board, we’re not gonna dogpile. We could make her own board…
Tasha: God damn it!

Somehow this becomes a discussion on why zebras aren’t called zebras. Also the DM is bitter. Cruroar justifies this by going super meta about thrallherds, though none of them know what an illumian can do. A long, long, long discussion occurs which ends with the DM being a domestic abuser?! What the hell, gaming group of the past. Quirion, of all people, points out this rescue could endanger their primary mission.

Tasha: I say we just go in there and kill everybody.

The group engages in an actual interesting and legitimate debate about the ethics of freeing the other animals, though Quirion complains he’ll be seeing the tallbird in his nightmares.

Tasha: So burn all the tents and we can free the dragon…

But Tasha actually has the good idea of Dimension Door to escape! Cruroar decides to be their getaway driver, more or less. With their Hats of Disguise, they can assume various guises to make this happy, so Tasha balances out her good idea with an insistence on liquoring up the guy who was hitting on her and stealing his uniform.

EIlnys: What’s one of the big dangers when you’re at a circus? Fire.
DM: Carnies.
Eilnys: Well, that too.

The players are surprisingly prepared for this adventure – why does Normilan have Rust Ray memorized? Quirion has no languages written down and sobs that he cannot speak to anything, though they quickly decide he speaks Celestia, Abyssal, and Infernal. The players are remarkably concerned about being able to speak to the dragon.

Tasha: Does anybody else in our group speak Draconic besides Normilan and myself?
Eilnys: No, I do not.
Brunt: It’s not Brunt’s forte.
DM: Brunt speak smash.

They plan to interrogate the carnie with a weird overuse of the word ‘glean’. And a lot of implication that Tasha will reward him.

Tasha: Brunt, I need your assistance. When I take him up to the room I need you to knock his ass unconscious because I’m really not trying to sleep with this guy.
Brunt: Ummmmmm.
Normilan: Dungeoncrash him!
Eilnys: Brunt’s reluctance is because, number one, his specialty is…
Cruroar: Destroying bodies.
Eilnys: Making people into raspberry jam.
DM: Also he’s an officer of the law…
Brunt: Yeah, I can’t willy-nilly go about murdering people.

Tasha proposes to use Heal to fix up the dragon, to the incredulity of all. And disappointment, since it would work awesomely!

Brunt: Do we have a Senzu bean or something?
Tasha: Damn it. At fifth level I have Teleport. I want to teleport back to the king, be like, ‘King, we’re going to rescue a small brass dragon.’
DM: ‘Didn’t I send you on a mission to kidnap someone?!’
Tasha: ‘Shut up! I’m talking to you right now, king.’
DM: (mimes handing Brunt an envelope) Orders…
Cruroar: ‘We got turned around.’ Kidnap Maximo’s brother and take him to the Seven Kingdoms.
DM: Good old King Maximo.
Cruroar: Maximiano. I’m sorry.
DM: Thank you, Cruroar.

Tasha attempts to shop for wands in this Podunk towny village, to the DM’s disgust. The planning continues with surprising effectiveness.

Tasha: So here’s a rundown of the plan. Brunt is going to sit in his room quietly by himself, since he wants nothing to do with this.
DM: Is that really Brunt’s contribution? Brunt was gonna club a dude on the head.
Tasha: Eilnys says she’s gonna club the guy on the head, Brunt’s gonna stay with Curoar.
Cruroar: I figure we’re gonna need us to have the wagon ready to go by the time we’re finished.
Tasha: Brunt and Cruroar get the wagons ready.
Normilan: Bimmy and Jimmy too.
Tasha: Giles is going to sneak in and start the fire. Giles, as soon as you start the fire – should we wait for Dimension Door for Giles to join us, or just trust that he can get out and get to everyone on time?
Normilan: He’s a sneaky one…

Eilnys plans a pony escape with Giles, and that seems to firm up their plan.

Tasha: Now. Out of character. Dungeon Master. Were you planning on us, or hoping that we would rescue this dragon?
DM: I was interested to see what you would do with the moral conundrum of, ‘oh, there’s a good dragon being imprisoned here, but we have a mission to accomplish.’
Cruroar: Are we sure – what edition are we in again?
Giles: 3.5.
Cruroar: What world?
DM: …mine.
Tasha: Are we sure this is a good dragon?
Cruroar: Are we SURE brass is a good dragon?! And not chaos-infused terror?! Can we please be sure brass are good?!
DM: Someone roll a Knowledge(arcana).
Normilan: 30.
DM: If it had only been a natural 1.
Cruroar: As we’re flying to the afterlife. ‘Oh, yeah, rescue the dragon!’
DM: ‘Gentlemen, ladies, the last group I sent out has not come back. I need to send you out to do a kidnapping instead. Bruroar, Count of Brole, I would like you to be the leader, accompanied by Basha, Beilnys, Bormilan, Biles, and Bundt. Here are your cowboy hats of disguise and goatees.’


No sooner is their plan formed than they hear a cheery whistle to signify the approach of the keeper-carnie for the event. The conversation gets WEIRD.

DM: Normilan turns into an ostrich. ‘Pretty cool, huh? That’s my animality.’

Up comes Tasha’s date, pausing to remark on the crowd with curiosity, and then the two are off for drinks. Rocko works a sex line, until the DM forces them to roleplay as the suave, confident, cool carnie chats up Tasha.

Cruroar: You should have made her roll a die. If she rolls a 1, her panties just drop.
Tasha: Out of character, if there’s something I don’t think of, please tell me to ask.
Normilan: Nope, you’re on your own.
DM: Although if the other guys hang out at a table relatively nearby and overhear, I’m fine with that.
Normilan: (immensely fake cough)

The carnie claims the dragon is under Master Gundar’s control, and that he has no fear at all. Tasha continues to probe.

Tasha: “Do you do it all by yourself? Do you have others who do it with you?”
DM: “Oh we have shifts, of course. I work the shows—“
Tasha: (going for a character cheat sheet which is going around the table) Just a second, sorry…
DM: (dissolving into muted babbling)

The DM continues to babble in between denying every guess Brunt makes about the inspiration for this adventure. Tasha finally looks up from the sheet.

DM: “…so anyway, that’s how an intrepid group would manage to rescue the dragon. But of course, that will never happen!
Cruroar: The DM’s using our desire to play Fallout quests against us with all these sidequests.
DM: I DID particularly enjoy how having Keyvarin’s sidequest added to your journal really just ate at you, that you couldn’t go pursue it before chasing the main quest first… I want you to roll me a Diplomacy check. Let’s see how persuasively you can coax information out of him.
Tasha: 34.
DM: Pretty good! He tells you to shut your whore mouth.
Tasha: …wow! Apparently I didn’t do as good as I thought again.
DM: Sure you did! He didn’t use profanity.
Giles: (cracking up)
DM: Giles liked it, that’s enough for me.

They get some more information about the keepers, but with some good rolling, Tasha and Eilnys get the impression of a very tightly run and tightly organized camp with a strict schedule – more hints at the thrallherd thing OOC.

DM: You’d be inclined to guess that maybe these people have just worked together so long they move like a well-oiled machine, or that their players communicate out of character in the span of a combat round so this is why it takes five minutes out of character and three seconds in.
Cruroar: …salty as FUCK!
Tasha: Jesus, dude.
DM: (laughing his ass off)

Tasha works on getting out of sleeping with the guy, even as the DM demand she roll to relapse. Eilnys sneaks upstairs as they toast, and Tasha lures him upstairs with some unsubtle flirting. Normilan, hearing the incredible seduction rolls the NPC is making, moves to save the day!

Normilan: Ugh, 3 on the cockblock.
DM: I imagine Normilan is like Kermit leaning in. (miming shoving Normilan’s face away as he does a Miss Piggy tone) ‘Not now, frog!’ Tasha’s only hope is that she’s SO seduced she forgets to call off Eilnys.

Despite all this, the plan goes off without a hitch, and Eilnys drops the dude with a blow from the flat of her axe.

DM: He drops bonelessly.
Tasha: She hit him so hard all his bones flew out!
DM: And emerged as a skeleton! Roll for initiative!
Normilan: ‘Morden’thal’s got NOTHING on me.’

Cruroar begs, BEGS the other players to stick to the plan and not go Lorrithrik on them and get an NPC regent murdered after political shenanigans. They tie up the dude with a full 50 feet of rope, suffocating him and causing him to return as a rope haunt. On that… note? The game ends, with promise of shenanigans next time.