What a great cliffhanger! Can't wait to find out what happens in the next episode.

"Dragon = Bad....news"

So I think because of the nature of this episode and how much of a mixed bag it was Im just going to go straight into my highlights section here first to get it out of the way… 0:28 “Made mincemeat out of my encounter”...I think you are about to experience some deja vu there GM. To be fair the eternal struggle of how to balance encounters with player levels is a very real thing, but I think in this case it has a lot to do with the sheer number of players including one very overpowered Druid. 1:40 Hanya would make a very good fantasy name. 4:12 Shadow is very resigned to his fate 6:39 SILENCE IN THE LIBRARY! (Like to take a moment to once again compliment the naming scheme of this episode) 8:23 Dorians exchange here is hilarious and gives us a good idea about his character 9:15 Jaren sees everything 13:30 See earlier note. The struggle is real. Especially when the GM rolls high on NPCs low on monsters 14:30 Careless Whisper moment 16:50 Audience thinks the music is mostly inaudible. Good when we are able to hear it. 18:30 Dorian will help…sort of. 25:05 Everyone loves the bard and the GM rolls really badly. 26:05 Slashing vs stabbing debate. GM cant win against his brother. 26:53 The horse provides moral support. 29:00 Cat monk does cool monk stuff without having to roll for it. 30:28 Keeping it PG 33:00 Liriel being a problem and literally destroying the encounter without even being there. 34:00 “Youre going to worry when Im not here” 38:50 The call back to episode 5 is priceless 39:55 Gotta fetch em all (I feel like almost as many pokemon references have been made as LotR) 41:29 START OF LORE! 47:40 Dragon=Bad 51:44 Yawning both in and out of character 53:45 Jaren/Dorian bonding over shared dislike of Stephen 56:00 Dorian displaying his savagery followed quickly by 56:25 Hannah showing she can dish out what she takes 1:01:17 “You can put the shovel down at any time…” Dorian out here acting like a dragon with that burn 1:07:15 “Yes, yes, you are heard…you are seen…you are smelled” 1:08:38 The Pokemon references continue while Alex references Oppenheimer 1:12:17 GM dropping hints 1:15:00 “Oh his name is Shadow…” Dorian is done with Shadow. 1:17:40 Shadow casts silence on Dorian 1:18:20 Shadow fights Dorian 1:22:35 Norrin being diplomatic and surprisingly mature 1:24:30 All is forgiven…mostly. 1:29:28 RENDER THE CHILD UNCONSCIOUS! (Again) 1:34:53 A dramatic end to a serious conversation 1:36:16 “The Art of Using a Rapier” 1:37:15 Deadpan “those are dead people” 1:38:23 Jarens song Where to begin. This episode had a whole lot of great humor in it and also a few tense moments and character development. Admittedly though as is pointed out in the episode itself, it is standard Dungeons and Dragons fair where the characters have not gone far outside of 50 mile radius in the entirety of the now 15(ish) sessions. There was a very brief fight at the beginning of this and then just a bunch of circular dialogue. That does not mean it wasn’t heavy on the lore moments and character driven stuff that really drives the story though. Once again the focus falls heavily on Shadow and his distrust of the organization that Dorian is a part of. The conversations with Norrin have proven that Shadow is extremely torn and flawed in what little knowledge he has of the world outside of the home that raised him. Once again the cat is caught in the corner with no real good answers as to where to go and I am SO eager to see the results in the coming episode. But speaking of Norrin so much of Alexs personality is just shining through especially in these quiet moments where he has to get down to business. While Norrin is decidedly *not* the right person to be leading the group he is in fact the most wisened of the group (even if his wisdom stats are pretty on par with everyone else though he does hold the highest INT) He is able to take situations at face value and weigh options with some degree of maturity (contrasting again with Norrins tendency to make really poor jokes… that he doesnt entirely think are jokes) By contrast Renya has been at the end of her rope for some time now. Trying desperately to keep things together despite the numerous bits of chaos around them I maintain that Renya is the most likely leader of the crew despite her apparent want to keep such titles away from herself. Pearl kind of sat in the background this time around. Similar to Harmon she took a quick liking to Dorian trusting him almost immediately. She did give a slight bit of insight when prompted about her own goals but otherwise she was pretty quiet in comparison to the others. Jaren is Jaren. He has seen so much conflict and is pretty much done at this point but with no where to go as he cant go home. Interested to see where this cliffhanger leads for him… With that there is *so* much to look forward to in the coming episode. I am eager to see where this goes…

as of 17:00 the music is inaudible, can hear it at 18:00