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Description

With Road Distractions behind them and the in-progress Castle Ravenloft ahead, The Dragon Friends must create a cunning ruse to get face to face with the lord of the castle. Surely Four Such as These can devise a thematically appropriate cover story to get them beyond the gates.

(In this episode, the role of Michael Hing/Freezo Freezopherson will be played by Demi Lardner)

Synopsis

The Draggos arrive at Castle Ravenloft, still under construction and mainly made of wood this early in its history. Georgie reminds them it’s a suicide mission to get in and talk to Lord Ravenloft, so he’s not sticking around. When asked by Baston about the mage they encountered (“Thrumming Out Good Vibes” (8.05)), he dismisses “sound freaks” like him, and warns them to watch out for Deatlov, a “little shit of a man” (though he’s about the size of a Great Dane standing on its hind legs).

After Georgie leaves, Bobby comes up with a ruse: the Friends will pose as interior decorators, here to work on the castle interior. Each of the Dragon Friends takes a different tack, but they manage to talk their way past the guards at the gate and are taken to a tent in the grounds where they meet Deatlov, who is in reality about the size of two Great Danes standing side by side. They claim to be here at his invitation, and though Deatlov knows he definitely didn’t invite any additional workers, their Grand Designs style comments about the folly of Ravenloft “managing the build” himself convinces him to let them sketch Ravenloft - so long as the Lord agrees. He also makes it clear that if they speak to him or hand him anything, he will skip the traditional court-martial and kill them. He leaves to check with Ravenloft, and while he’s gone the Draggos notice there’s something oddly focussed about the other workers building the castle. They hatch a plan to get Ravenloft to pose with a prop sword, and get the message to him that way.

Deatlov returns and takes the Dragon Friends into Ravenloft’s chamber, where they are allowed to give him the sword with Boroff’s dossier attached. Deatlov watches from a landing above. Bobby signals to Boroff to check the handle of the sword, and Boroff very unsubtly does so, announcing he is reading something he’s found there; Deatlov comes down the stairs, calling for guards, who are momentarily confused by Freezo and Bobby calling out that they’re not needed. Philge throws a javelin through Deatlov’s heart (remembering first to remove the rubber she put on the end to disguise it as a giant pencil). Freezo casts a spell and blasts the stairs under Deatlov to nothing so completely that everyone in the castle forgets what stairs even are for a week. The fall combined with a javelin to the heart cause Deatlov to shit and piss himself before dying on the spot.

As armed guards enter and surround the Dragon Friends, Lord Ravenloft - the man the Dragon Friends were here to influence - looks at the corpse of his most trusted officer and the remains of his staircase, and decides what to do with these violent intruders...

Cast

Dragon Friends

NPCs

Georgie, a Barovian soldier under the command of Major Boroff
Deatlov, Lord Ravenloft’s most senior officer and trusted advisor (deceased)
Lord Ravenloft, commander of the Barovian army

Hams

Hamnote

Bestiary

No dogs (much to Demi Lardner’s disappointment)

Places

Barovia (the past, new timeline)
- Castle Ravenloft (still under construction)

Themes, tropes and running jokes

Baffling Reference for our International Listeners
- Demi refers to “bung fritz”, before remembering she’s in Sydney; “fritz” is the South Australian name of a pork luncheon meat known in most of the Eastern states of Australia as devon. (“Bung fritz” is specifically the kind made from pork bung - i.e. pig’s intestines.) Devon is also known as “polony” (a portmanteau of “pork baloney”) in Western Australia, “Windsor sausage” in parts of Queensland, and “luncheon” or “Belgium” in New Zealand and some parts of Australia.
- Alex uses a large “rubber” to disguise Philge’s javelin as a pencil; she later clarifies this means an “eraser” for international listeners.
Death By Witch Bolt - Demi as Freezo seems to use eldritch blast to destroy the stairs, but given the effect it has it feels appropriate to list it here.

Trivia

This episode and the previous one feature Ben Jenkins as the Dungeon Master, “doing his absolute best” - which in this episode especially includes “undoing Dave's past wrongs” (as Edan put it) in not describing critical hits messily instantly killing the players’ enemies. As Dave explains in “Doonaface Seems Relevant” (8.07), this is because he was away sick with COVID-19.
At the start of this episode the Dragon Friends bluff their way into Castle Ravenloft by imitating various characters and tropes from British architecture reality show Grand Designs, including Freezo using disguise self to appear as “Kevin MerCloud”, a fantasy version of Kevin McCloud whose bottom half is a cloud.

Quotes