This is the detailed page for Crit Juice Prologue 3.

Achievements:

  • "A Bloody Mess" - Earned by getting bloodied three times in one encounter. Reward: "I'm just getting started!" Gain a free standard action on your turn. Unlocked by Gralford.
  • "Stand Your Ground" - Earned by not moving for an entire encounter. Reward: a healing potion. Unlocked by Arience.
  • "???" Earned by defeating King Godfrey. Reward: "Let's see that one again!" Regain the use of one encounter power you've already used. Unlocked by Gralford.
  • "Geronimo!" Earned by falling for 3d6 or more damage. Unlocked by Dar'Jjeeki.

Crit Deck Cards:

  • A wild-haired man from the neighboring town of Lorean just sideswiped his speeding cart into your enemy. In the midst of blood and fiery cart tracks, his cracked-voice companion just commented on the weight of the situation. The perk of this: your move is 88 feet per turn until the end of the encounter. Submitted by VindiKshawn. Rolled by Matt B.
  • The fierceness of this battle has swelled your need for combat and destruction. It has also caused swelling in your happy bits below. Despite trying to conceal your rage boner, this last attack was too sweet and too powerful for you to keep it any longer. Creatures within blast 2 are blinded, save ends. Submitted by Derek R. Rolled by Gary.

Crit Fails:

  • You stumble backward and step on an orphaned kitten that was hiding in the dungeon. You are a horrible person. -2 to saves, save ends. Submitted by Jennifer L. Rolled by Tom Fonss.
  • You've made two crucial mistakes. Number 1: you did not take the mandatory pre-fight shit. Number 2: you should never have ordered the spicy dragon wings for dinner last night, let alone finished three plates of them. Roll a d20. If it's even: in order to keep the disgusting fiery liquid from blasting out of you, you clench your ass-cheeks tight but are hobbled. You are slowed, save ends. If it's odd: you can't keep it in any longer and fiery doom bursts forth from your asshole, filling your armor and coating your lower half with feces. Take 2 ongoing damage from the fiery spices, save ends. Submitted by Gareth S. Rolled by Brian McGrath.

Jokes:

  • "We all Stand Up"
  • Sun-rod Stewart
  • "That happened to me in Amsterdam…"
  • More singing (Gub singing "Baby Don't Hurt Me")
  • Gary getting names wrong ("Ezekiel!")
  • "This episode brought to you by…"

Listen to this episode: Prologue 3


SUMMARY

Gub goes to attack a leech man, but steps on something with a splortch. He scrapes the remains of an orphaned kitten from his boot. Gralford falls from the rafter and is dying. As Doc attacks, Doc d'Lorean zooms through the battle with his cart, leaving burning cart tracks, and imparts super speed to Doc. Doc blasts apart a leech man, and gives Gralford a healing word. Wolf fails to strike the leech man draining the life blood from his neck. Dar'Jjeeki climbs down the rope and thunder-slams the rafters, raining them down "like a beautiful fountain of wood and death." Arience throws Halvek down the stairs. Gub brutally slams another leech man. The sniper in the rafters shoots Gralford again, bloodying him again. Doc climbs the rafters and runs around wildly until the sniper attacks him. He slams into the elven sniper, who mocks him "You'll have to do better than that!" right before the elf topples over the edge (with the help of "I know you can do better than that!"). Gralford hits the prone elf twice with booming blade, wracking him with thunder damage and healing himself with lightning. Wolf spots that the elf has a tattoo of the Veiled Eye on the elf and attacks, but is overwhelmed by his bowels and clenches his butt cheeks to avoid splattering his armor. The Veiled Eye sniper starts in surprise "An agent of The Keep!" and then, seeing Wolf doubled-over with bowel pain, weakly chuckles "If I die now, it will be a good death!"

Matt Cook goes into a long story about Amsterdam, shit and "24."

A leech man attacks Gub, and begins to suck his life blood. Dar'Jjeeki uses an action point to blow the leech man into splattered little leeches all over the room, and the blast jumps to the Veiled Eye sniper. Arience slams the Veiled Eye sniper with a magic missile. Gub stabs the Veiled Eye sniper, who rolls over and shoots at Gub again. Doc drops from the rafters onto the Veiled Eye sniper, spear first. Gralford hits the Veiled Eye sniper, his rage boner ("also known as a Dwarven Stronghold") blinds everyone in blast 2, except for Doc ("I've seen this boner before." He stares into its eye: "I've seen bigger"). Wolf finishes him off, and claims the magic bow (Deathstrike Bow +1) as his own. Ezra, who has not participated in the combat, praises the party for "what incredible puissance (the DM says "pussy-ance") in arms you all wield. I'm afraid that perhaps my family is under attack as well; that's what I would do if I was in this situation. Pray tell, good sirs, may I recruit your aid in returning me to my castle?" Halvek climbs the stairs, cursing at Arience, but both the Prince and Gub rebuke him. The shrine maidens return Dar'Jjeeki's golden amulet, and gives the church's holy symbol to Doc - the Symbol of the Holy Nimbus. The high priest is alive…no, wait, he's dead. But on his body is a strange amulet written in draconic: "The Last Hope: within the darkest pit, it will appear." The party takes a short rest, Arience finds a healing potion, and tells Halvek to get out of here. Halvek bristles at this (especially from the guy who threw him down the stairs), but Dar'Jjeeki interrupts: "We can be friends. Can I tell you something? You're greatly outnumbered." They all go to check out the castle.

Night has fallen, and an ocean of fog has rolled in, covering and silencing the entire city. Wolf faintly hears an ominous whisper "Amon Rath…" Everyone scatters before the mists close on them. The party enters a square, and sees the Princess on one side, and on the other side, a young peasant woman with her baby (think Kirsten Dunst in "Wag the Dog"). Halvek gets tears in his eyes as the party saves the peasant woman and her baby. Because they didn't choose to save her, the Princess is engulfed in the mist, and Ezra chases after her. Dar'Jjeeki has a brief hallucination that the peasant woman's baby turns to him, eyes glowing with incredibly radiant energies, and speaks "Dar'Jjeeki! You've come at last!" He snaps out of it, and the party continues to the castle with Halvek, the young peasant woman, and her baby in tow.

Ascending stairs in the castle, they arrive at a room with a sacrificial altar, on which lies the supine body of the Princess. The room is spattered with blood, and they see the darkness-shrouded figure that they last saw in the Shrine of Man. It cries "You'll never stop me!" as it brandishes a dagger at the Princess. Wolf shoots him. Dar'Jjeeki uses the ol' One-Two and energy strobes the shadow, then chromatic orbs him with poison. The shadow aura boils off. Doc misses, Gub misses, and then says "If you hurt that pointed-hatted Princess, I'm gonna punch your pussy out!" and breathes fire on him. Arience pushes the figure away from the Princess, and Gralford hammers him, stunning him. He falls, dead, and the party recognizes him as the King Godfrey. "My immortality robbed, my ritual, ruined. You have wreaked such destruction, with no one to control the ritual…" A portal opens, boulders are thrown across the room, and the players go into a long riff of "X-Men the Arcade Game."

Doc remembers that in the Black Scrolls of Malachi - which are forbidden to read! - there is a drawing of a gaping pit that leads to hell. This pit is the same. A giant hand emerges and pulls up the body of a pus giant demon prince, easily 100' tall, its skin one giant scab and giant three eyes. Wolf hears a whining noise and calls to Dar'Jjeeki, God of Chaos and Death, cries a threat and is ignored by the demon. Doc reckons that this is Amon Rath, the Lesser Demon Lord of pus, of anything in the gutters, and so he nonchalantly starts to roll back a carpet to look for trap doors. Halvek encourages Gub: "Together, you and me - we'll rush it!" Beneath the tentacles of its head, there is a gaping maw. "I figure that we're gonna fuckin' go up there and cut it to pieces!" "OK, you're really, really more headstrong than me. I was just gonna try to get it to pee its pants a little bit. I wasn't going to try to…" "Be a hero, for once? FOR ONCE??"
The demon burbles in primordial: "I am Amon Rath, from the deepest pit of hell. Your reckoning has come!" The "Last Hope" amulet which Gralford bears is vibrating and glowing fiercely. Gralford begins to climb the cracked scabs of Amon Rath's body. Wolf shoots Amon Rath, Dar'Jjeeki changes form into a rabbit, jumps onto Amon Rath and begins scaling it like the fuzzy rodent he is. Arience readies a magic missile. Doc opens the trap door and begins to ransack the Royal Armory below. Gub and Halvek runs up to the pit, Gub jumps onto the pus demon, and Halvek goes "Whoa! That's too much for me. Good luck, buddy." Arience pushes Gralford up the body of the pus demon, to the fringe of tentacles, where he fights his way through the tendrils as they wrap around him. Amon Rath attempts to swat Gub from his body, but misses. Wolf shoots and misses. Dar'Jjeeki slips and falls. Doc emerges from the armory with bulging packs, heals Dar'Jjeeki, rolls back the carpet, and curiously examines a statue. Gub climbs. Arience re-readies a magic missile and shoots the amulet when Gralford throws it in the demon's mouth. A blast of white light erupts, a beam of energy explodes from Amon Rath's mouth, and everyone is thrown from his body as Amon Rath bursts to pieces. In the white light, everyone sees the golden gates of heaven, and glowing figures emerge to tell them good things, things they want to hear. Oh, and also: "We give you our strength. This is the Last Hope for humanity. Bear it nobly."

The white light fades and the party comes to, all prone on the broken and cracked stones of the room, with the brand of the Last Hope on the palms of their hands. Oh, and they advance to level 3.


Previous episode: Prologue 2
Next episode: Episode 1
List of episodes
Table of Contents