The game begins with an argument over who starts the game – the twenty years after game, in which the PCs are in the Orsovan manor after clearing zombies out of the courtyard.

DM: How are we doing hit point-wise?
Ellerian: I don’t understand what you speak of when you refer to hit points, but I’m hale and hearty.
DM: I’m gonna stab you in the neck, Ellerian.
Ellerian: (voice skyrocketing in affront) Oh! My roleplaying!
C: I’m perfectly fine until I’m at one hit point. Then I’m at death’s door.

The DM complains bitterly about Anda’s AC. Somehow this leads into a weird worldbuilding discussion about the hunnerd gold campaign.

C: How have you not written a fantasy novel by now?
Ellerian: I have.
Sable: On to the next room, guys!
C: (smoothly ignoring Sable) How have you not had a fantasy novel published by now?
Ellerian: I couldn’t get an agent to take it.
C: Get – huh.

Ellerian shows the map to the telepresent players, irritating Erik to no end because they can actually make out the map. Ellerian proposes Sable open doors and search for traps, to Sable’s confusion because she is not a rogue.

Ellerian: I’m thinking that Sable is probably of the ones, aside from Morzan, best suited to take hits. I don’t see what Bex could do. If a trap went off in Bex’s face, he’d died.
Bex: I have 24 hit points, thank you.
Ellerian: You’re tiny.
Bex: So?
Ellerian: You have not yet earned the respect of Ellerian yet, especially with your ‘I’m gonna run like a coward’ performance in the first battle in here.
C: Ooooh ho ho ho ho!
Bex: What?!
Ellerian: You got into melee, shit your pants, and ran like hell.
Sable: Okay, Sable will yank open the door and Anda will jump in.
Ellerian: Ellerian… will drink.

The hall is only five feet wide, which is a major problem with a huge party. Sable gets confused over Anda’s very existence and they spend a moment clarifying for her.

C: It’s your pet. Anda. Or ‘P. Anda.’ I see what you did there.
Ellerian: (cracking up) I shoudn’t find that as funny as I do.
Erik: Check the door, open the door, Anda goes in.
DM: Are you just opening the door, Sable? Jumping the gun?
Sable: I waited till Anda was there, because she’ll listen to anything Ellerian says.
Ellerian: Sable makes poor life decisions. Truly Drusila’s child.
DM: Ha ha, damn.
Sable: Wisdom is not one of her highest stats.

The mansion blows up in a DBZ FighterZ destructive finish! The door opens, with minimal dramatics, even as the party aggressively tries to identify the hostiles within that they are convinced are in there. The scent rules are consulted, and Anda manages to identifies what are almost certainly wererats.

Erik: “Wererats… the scent of their disease is strong.”
Ellerian: Nobix, be ready. I know you don’t understand what I’m saying, Nobix, but be ready.
DM: Directly across from the doorway you say what appears to be a rug, and at an angle from where you’re standing you can see a bed.
Sable: Sable will go in and look around.
Ellerian: “Hold!”
Erik: Let Anda absorb the initial attack.
Sable: Am I already in the room or no?

Ellerian attempts to Appraise the rug. It goes poorly. He suggests they smoke the wererat out by igniting the apparently worthless rug.

Ellerian: …this is a stone manor, right?
DM: Yes
Ellerian: Okay. I was pretty sure. I seem to recall you describing that way, but I better double-check.
C: The whole dungeon’s on fire.
Ellerian: Welp, we solved that problem! Wererats and zombies all dead.
Morzan: And so are we.

An argument over smokesticks ensues. Bex has some by virtue of just grabbing them off the equipment list. They recall the animated rug from Castle Stormreach and its grappling success as they ignite the rug. It is super anticlimactic. SUPER. Smoke billows into the hallway. They volunteer Sable to close the door, but somehow this leads to Sable stepping into the room and getting attacked! Initiative erupts! The map is slowly displayed. Ellerian, who is cruising at +10 to initiative at this point, is up first and promptly lobs a Grease spell into the mix.

Erik: Is it really a good idea to put Grease near fire?
DM: I don’t think Grease is flammable.
Ellerian: It was in 2nd Edition.

Morzan, up next, casts Bless. Nobix is up!

Nobix: Wow, I got a perfect roll on my go-first initiative and I’m still only third. Sheesh.

Nobix has no line of sight on anyone, to his immense irritation. He’s totally stuck on trying to get into the room, and this turns into a massive argument over the AOO rules and what ‘moving out of a threatened square’ means, should mean, sounds like it means… A wererat stands up after being greased, and Sable comes under attack again but is generally laughing off the saves. What exactly becomes of a person who succumbs to lycanthopy finally becomes such a burning question they have to go look it up.

C: There’s nothing I can do here. I can’t even see the target to study it.
Erik: There’s a door on the other side of Anda.
C: Yeah, I could go open that.

Erik takes this seriously, but no one else does. Anda scrambles in, to some debate as to how much movement it takes for Anda to jump on the bed. Feedback develops on the telepresence laptop, and the transcriber weeps knowing what is coming.

Erik: This greasy bed. You look into the mechanics. ‘Does a mattress absorb grease?’
DM: It’s old and porous.
Erik: It says, ‘Ask your GM for fuck’s sake. They didn’t think that much into it!’

Anda Power Attacks, but the wererats keep cruising with their irritating DR. Anuirean Archers appear somehow. Bex attacks and rolls basically no damage. The telepresence situation now devolves such that the game is now coming through someone’s laptop, resulting in an echo.

Sable: So what are Sable’s chances of picking up that rug and hurling it at the wererat?
Erik: Hoo hoo hoo!
Giles: Have you ever tried hurling a rug in real life before?
Sable: I don’t have 18 Strength in real life.
DM: The end you would be grabbing would be on fire.
C: Oh yeah.
Sable: She’s practically standing in the fire already.
DM: Your butt is pretty warm, yeah.
Ellerian: Sable’s gonna be a Manx cat.

Sable attacks with a silver dagger and promptly rolls a 2. Nobix heroically runs into the room, and now the echo is so bad C can’t stop laughing.

C: I’m picturing him speaking to an empty baseball stadium!
Ellerian: Hey Nobix, what day is it today?
Nobix T-t-today-y-y is S-s-s-Sunday-y-y-y-!

C nearly dies. Nobix hits with his pistol-whip, dealing almost no damage but knocking the wererat prone. Sable beseeches healing, but doesn’t need it so badly she wants to get out of combat. Ellerian swaps weapons, woo. Anda attacks, AOOs go out on a standing wererat.

DM: You trace a line across its abdomen which smokes and festers.
Erik: Oh man, we’re playing the Witcher.
Ellerian: We get it, you vape!
DM: Ellerian dies.

Nobix takes a hit, but apparently passes his saving throw, while Erik does a feeble 2 points of damage with a silver arrow. But hey, it pierces DR! C moves to take his attack, while Bex declares himself useless because he’s forgotten about sneak attack. Then Bex attacks, forgets about sneak attack damage yet, again, and finally lands a blow that drops the wererat! Sable hurls her silver dagger in melee for unclear reasons, while Ellerian despairs of fixing the sound quality as it gets worse and worse and none of the telepresent players will lift a finger to do anything. He finally, furiously forces Sable to do some basic testing.

Sable: I don’t understand how there could be echo in a headset…
DM: Did you have both mics on?!

It’s fixed? Ellerian and Erik argue whether Morzan walked through the fire, Morzan of course not looking at the map in the slightest, but Sable gets some healing. A wererat critically fumbles and injures its clawing hand!

DM: C!
Ellerian: Finish it! You get flanking bonuses at this point. That’s a +2.
DM: Plus your +1 from Bless, too.
Ellerian: That’s a +3.
C: Plus my +1 from…
Erik: You being awesome.
C: No. Studying the target. I’ll still roll poorly. (rolling) 19.
Ellerian: You should have been a Radiant Servant of Pelor.
C: I should have been anything other than what I rolled. Character’s pretty useless.
Erik: Radiant Servant of Pelor is pretty fucking awesome. That’s what Cruroar was.
Ellerian: No, Aiden.
Erik: Aiden.
C: But you could run around going, “C the light!”

Attacks rain down on the wererats, missing or doing little damage. Bex at last drops it with a macey sneak attack.

Bex: Also as a side-note, I don’t know how… ‘kay-eye’ points work.
DM: Ki points?
Bex: Because I’m a ninja? I don’t know how those work.
DM: You probably have special abilities that use ki points.
Bex: Okay. Great.

The group attempts to persuade Bex to read his class abilities. Ellerian eats the life force of the wererats.

Erik: No. Make him RP, WoW style, undead eating corpses. Raaaaagh.
Ellerian: It’s not corpses!
DM: The room is yours. You’re now the proud owners of a musty greasy bed—
Erik: And a burnt-down rug.
Ellerian: “Sable. When the plan is to send Anda in first, this is why. Let’s send Anda in first from now on, and not have us all in a giant scrum trying to get through the door.”
C: Scrum.
Erik: Scrub.
Sable: “Hold on a second. Maybe there was a miscommunication but I heard somebody say to close the door.”
Ellerian: “We were sincerely hoping you could accomplish this without stepping in. If we need tools to accomplish this… next time I’ll just Mage Hand it shut.”
Sable: Okay, now I understand why he’s an asshole.
C: That was the one character in the party who had your back too.
DM: I know. Now it’s gone.
Sable: I don’t know that Sable will actually understand that he’s a dick, she’ll just hang her head in shame.
C: Oh, Sable. Don’t be his punching bag.
Ellerian: I whip the comforter or sheet off the bed and use it to beat out the fire.
DM: I wish it was flammable grease. You peel the comforter off the bed and pour it onto the fire.

They search the room, even as the grease violates all rules of magic by refusing to dissipate, and find treasure under the bed! None of it is magical, to their irritation, but with precedent set they go to rummage under other beds in non-infested room. Bex searches a door for traps, and finds it devoid of them and open.

Sable: All right, Sable will fashion a crowbar from her multi-tool—
Bex: I have a crowbar.
Ellerian: This – this got weird.
DM: It’s not locked!
Erik: Hold on! (rummaging motions) Crowbar! From my magical sack! What do we need? A hot air balloon? Not big enough? A dirigigigible!

They crack the door open, then send Anda in. Ellerian begins spraying the table with cleaning solution.

Erik: Why do you spray like we’re going to run out of the Legacy of Clean?
Ellerian: Because SOAKING it doesn’t seem like a good idea. I put enough on.

A pause.

Ellerian: This isn’t even the Legacy of Clean, it’s glass cleaner.
Erik: Shut up!
Ellerian: Plant-based glass cleaner.
DM: Yeah, we gotta find the Legacy of Clean. We need that in our house.
Erik: I’d really like to have some Awesome Foil again… Is this the door we went in first? Or is this one? No, we opened this one first.
DM: As Anda goes in, obviously nothing here – oh wait. I forgot a door. Aliarra, door-kicker… DM, door-forgetter.

They wander their way into a bedroom suite, and insist on searching under every bed because they found treasure under one. It turns into several episodes of filler.

Bex: Twenty…. I can do math, 22 to open the door.
DM: You slip your lockpicks into the lock.
Ellerian: They don’t come back.
DM: Goodbye!

The smell of a sewer strikes them as they open this door, and Anda bursts in to go off on whatever lurks behind, which isn’t much. They’ve found the latrine.

Ellerian: Your -- your Eidolon should be a powerful servant of justice. A hound archon.
Erik: I could change its shape…
Ellerian: And be REALLY Lawful Good.

Judgmental silence.

Ellerian: What?
Morzan: Where is this going?
Ellerian: Well, when criminals in this world appear and break the laws that they should fear and frighten all who see or hear the cry goes up both far and near for Anda-dog.
Morzan: Oh my god.

Weary sighs. Erik tries to poison Ellerian.

DM: How long was that brewing? Seriously?
Ellerian: That one popped out almost entirely full-formed.
DM: (disgusted noise)
Ellerian: I did not have to work on that one too much, which I am proud of.
DM: You have a weird gift, Ellerian, you really do.
Erik: I search around, seeing if perhaps one of them was busted or looks like something came up through it.
DM: Nope, nothing seems to be out of the ordinary with these. Do you care to strike a match?
Erik: No!
C: You’ll burn the hams.
Morzan: Aurora borealis?!
Erik: Is there toilet paper, or were these people savages?
Morzan: No, there’s corn cobs.
C: Corn --?!
Erik: WHAT?! I’m pretty sure they had something to clean asses with, whether it was paper – this is a mansion! Of course they had toilet paper!
Ellerian: They had unforeseen servants.
DM: They always commit suicide, strangely enough.
Ellerian: “Well this isn’t – please, back Anda out and let’s shut the door and never speak of this again. Ugh, I’ve learned more about humans this day than I ever wanted to.”
DM: He spent an entire adventure inside a human sewer.
Ellerian: I learned more than I ever wanted to about humans THEN! This has been a most UNCOMFORTABLY educational journey I’ve been on!
Nobix: “You look a little ticked off there, sir, can I help you?”
DM: Ellerian writes a book. ‘Humans and their Fecal Matter.’
Ellerian: ‘SO much of human life is devoted to managing their feces. It is shocking and unfathomable.’
Erik: Pity he has never discovered the truth of his own people.
Sable: Pity they have not yet discovered the use of the litterbox.
Ellerian: There’s the high elves, there’s the grey elves, there’s the wood elves, there’s the sea elves, then there’s the secret fifth race, the poop elves. They’re the elves who have absorbed the poop of their entire people. They do nothing but sit around and poop all day long so the other elf races don’t have to.
DM: Ugh, that’s weird.
Morzan: Is that why drow are black?
Ellerian: They are the cursed, unchosen race…
DM: But black poop means bleeding internally.
Ellerian: If you were pooping that much, you’d be bleeding internally too. No wonder Drizz’t do’Urden rebelled against his people.
C: He was never specific about poop…
Ellerian: His figurine of wondrous power? His colon shaped that himself.
C: He pooped out Gwenivar.
Ellerian: What’s your explanation then?
C: HIS. He stole it from the person who had it.
DM: Upon closer examination of the next door, this one’s slightly ajar.
Ellerin: I’ll pop my keen elven earring -- hearing. I didn’t say I was going to use my keen elven speechification, so it stands.

He hears scrounging! They question what it could be, then send Bex sneaking in to find out. The DM laboriously draws doors, as the players question what other options they had to deal with Kalroth’s parts. The DM just shrugs and says he was winging it. The players envision becoming a sentai team, each with the power of different parts. Bex discovers a kitchen with a trapdoor in it! He sneaks back and reports to the others.

Ellerian: “Morzan, a proposition. Seize furniture from the bedroom and plant it over the trapdoor.”
C: ‘I left my furniture in the bedroom?’

The DM attempts to rule that they’d torn the furniture down to boards and nails with their Search checks. The players don’t go for this.

Sable: Can we jam the trapdoor with a jamming tool?
Bex: A crowbar?
Nobix: A jamming tool, that’s very specific…

They hurriedly drop the dresser on the trapdoor with little fanfare, leading them to wonder if they’d just done the equivalent of attacking a dumbwaiter. They start searching the kitchen as Nobix grumbles about being unable to understand Ellerian. The DM calls for a Perception check from Nobix – and then his flat-footed AC! Nobix gets clobbered for a hefty amount of subdual damage while in the pantry! Initiative! Morzan is first.

DM: You step into the pantry and you see… two Nobix?!
Morzan: I’m not buying that for a dollar!
Sable: Which one is swearing?
Ellerian: Both of them.
Morzan: I’m going to speak in common and say that there are two of him!
DM: One of the Nobix says, “Quick! Get him! He slinked out of the shadows to get me! Help!”
Ellerian: Well that one is the one we clearly need to kill, because it’s not actually Nobix saying it, it’s the DM.
DM: Yes, yes, meta as fuck.
Erik: Don’t cheat! Stop your cheating ways, Ellerian!

Ellerian doesn’t stop, even as both protest that THEY are Nobix. Erik feeds him spatula cake, which he only barely resists.

Ellerian: I call out in Draconic, “Nobix!”
Morzan: I don’t think he knows Draconic.
Ellerian: Yes, I’m trying to see if one of them thinks that he does..
C: Well, ‘Nobix’ in Draconic is just ‘Nobix’—
Ellerian: Shut it! Stop ruining the trick!

The two Nobixes argue over which is real, so Morzan proposes knocking them both out. Erik decides to roleplay football concussions. Nobix is holding his gun but the DM insists this is no evidence of which one is real. Morzan starts swinging at the Nobixes, while Erik sees this frenzy and C encourages everyone to attack Morzan, who’s apparently crazy.

Erik: Do I see anything nearby? Out of character do I see in-character the mirror that he doesn’t know about that’s there? That may or may not be there?
DM: There’s no mirror… I’m gonna tell you right now, it’s a doppelganger. Because apparently my description sucks.

People try to figure out what the hell is going on with various knowledges. They wax aggressively meta.

Morzan: One’s got a gun and one doesn’t.
DM: The other one does say, “He took the gun!”
Morzan: From what little I know of Nobix, he would NOT let his gun go willingly.
DM: TOOK it from him does not mean he let it go willingly!
Ellerian: Man, that really bums me out! If only I could roleplay with Nobix I could have discovered that the gun doesn’t work in anybody’s hands but his own.
Nobix: It actually doesn’t.
Ellerian: I know! Out of character I know that. IN character, if our characters were able to communicate, I would have found that out by now.
Erik: How that would have come up in conversation…
Ellerian: Because Ellerian is really curious about his weapon.

C gets confused as to who Ellerian is complaining about. Erik, at least, has identified the doppelganger, but not which one is which. The DM bemoans that Ellerian wasn’t the victim.

DM: ‘Hey guys, what’s going on?’ ‘What the--?!’
Ellerian: Let them fight it out. Whichever one wins is the better Nobix.
Erik: If only this was a doppelganger like in the games we played so far, where all of a sudden Nobix is running in from the entrance.

Ace Attorney music begins as they try to figure out this conundrum (and discuss Genesis knockoffs). The doppelganger cracks Nobix on the head, dealing 5 subdual damage. Erik flashes lovingly back to the second Birthright game.

Erik: That’s what I tried to do with homeboy over here.
Ellerian: It worked GREAT!
DM: We shut him down like a champ
Ellerian: Honestly, at what point did you guys figure out I was a doppelganger?
Erik: LITERALLY the first words out of his mouth. “Doppelganger.” God DAMN it!
DM: You played it off well enough, but I think I had that weird intuition. I’m not even trying to put myself up.
Ellerian: I lapsed directly into obvious Aibghalien things, experimenting with crystals! There was no sign!
DM: There were no signs whatsoever, it’s true, but it just went that route. ‘The stars aligned, it’s time for a doppelganger incident.’
Ellerian: You shouldn’t have told him ahead of time that the name of the campaign was, ‘the Doppler Effect’.

Sable catches up to the entire plot thus far since the dresser thing. C questions in subdued agony if there’s anything he can do. Sable and Ellerian are up!

Ellerian: I’ll solve this problem, with magic, as always. Morzan, brace yourself.
Morzan: All right…
Ellerian: Step in behind that lineup of three people? COLOR SPRAY!
Erik: HOLY SHIT!
Bex: What’s that do?
Erik: A LOT!
DM: Kills them all.
Erik: Blind, deafness… um, dizzy? Daze?
DM: It’s not prismatic.
Ellerian: No, I’m not sending them to other planes and turning them to stone and shit.
Morzan: I rolled a 19. So I shook it off.
Ellerian: Good. I expected Morzan would.
Nobix: Um, I failed.
Ellerian: You are blinded and stunned for 1d4 rounds.
DM: Hooray!
Nobix: I have +0 to my Will save.
Morzan: Is that how we know it’s him, that he failed?
Ellerian: EXACTLY!
DM: (bursting into laughter and clapping) That’s garbage!
Ellerian: It is not! It is raw arrogance on Ellerian’s part.
Sable: I don’t understand why the doppelganger wouldn’t be blinded too.
DM: He saved.
Ellerian: I assume that it’s a monster of greater power.
Sable: Because monsters always save… never mind.
Nobix: I guess I don’t get to do anything this combat…
Erik: (laughing feebly) He’s blind and deaf…
Nobix: You do realize there’s going to be many more butchered elven curses coming your way. They’re going to be butchered on purpose.
Ellerian: Ellerian points at the Nobix who is still standing and does not have a gun. “There’s your imposter.”

The DM just glares at Ellerian.

Ellerian: 100%, if Nobix had saved and the doppelganger had failed, I would have done the same thing, I promise you.
DM: Okay. I’ll give it to you.
Erik: I’d rather have the DM just go, “Nobix, you’re unconscious…”
Ellerian: It just happened to work out that way.

Bex, up next, ponders options. Morzan encourages him to sap the one that’s still up, but it’s hard for him to get in the room. Ellerian insists they just shoot him.

Ellerian: We don’t need to sap the one that’s standing, I’ve already identified it as our enemy.
Erik: How’d you do that?
Ellerian: By casting a spell and seeing that it withstood it. The actual Nobix wouldn’t have been able to withstand my arcane might.
Erik: (incredulous, uproarious laughter)

Everyone is torn between disbelief that Ellerian actually did that, anger that it worked, and reluctant acknowledgment that Ellerian didn’t control the dice rolls and it was irritatingly in-character. Sable and the DM angrily argue over whether or not she was acting.

Sable: I decided I will go get myself one scoop of ice cream for every time you guys didn’t respond to me, so here I am.
Ellerian: SHE’S GOING TO DIE!
DM: I DID respond to you, so go put that scoop of ice cream back!

Bex doesn’t even have throwing stars as a ninja. Ellerian steals the DM’s dice bag by placing a limb from a sectional dragon miniature on it.

Ellerian: DM, your dice bag is now mine.
DM: Aww. I get yours.
Ellerian: No. I claimed it. If you liked it you should’ve put a wing on it.

Lethal silence.

Erik: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW. HO WOW. HOLY GOD. Holy shit!
Ellerian: Erik can’t handle me tonight. He’s tapping out!
Erik: Coach! Where’s the towel!

Morzan tries to give Nobix his gun back; it doesn’t work, he’s stunned. They beat the crap out of the doppelganger, so the DM skips a few rounds ahead to Nobix coming back to awareness.

Nobix: I’m gonna start shouting dwarven cuss words. That is not fit for civilized ears.

Erik proposes they interrogate the doppelganger (since Ellerian doesn’t suck memories or knowledge out of people when he absorbs their life force). He also explains the concept of the doppelganger to Nobix, who has some understandable questions. They debate over whether Nobix should get his nonlethal damage cured; it ends with him bitterly drinking a potion. And that’s about how the game ends too!