Snowy Days and Blueberries Always Get Me Down









[James, as Vrixx the sprite] Previously on
The Dimension Door Podcast Season One: One
summer's day, a wounded man gets drug into
the town of Heldren by the married couple
Marge and Norm Gunderson, two retired rat
folk who were previously in search of their
original home where they were raised. They
take him to the nearby healers where local
wise woman Vasilisa Morozova helps tend to
his wounds and discovers signs of frostbite
and cold exposure. Word travels fast in Heldren
and soon to arrive is Valdeen, a mercenary
who just so happened to be in the area. The
wounded man's name is Yuln. He soon comes
to consciousness and reveals his caravan was
attacked by bandits and cold dwelling monsters
after encountering a snowstorm. The caravan
was transporting Lady Argentea Malassene,
a noble woman traveling between the two largest
cities nearby. Lady Argentea was seen being
drug into the nearby forest and Yuln began
to limp his way along the road, trying to
reach the town for help. Vasilisa points out
that it is the centennial in Irrisen, a land
far to the north where every 100 years the
current queen is replaced by her successor
whom the greatest of all witches, Baba Yaga,
chooses. With the fear that Baba Yaga could
be invading or maybe even the kidnapped noble
woman may be the next forcibly chosen queen,
Heldren's head of town council, Ionnia Teppen,
asks for aid from the four individuals before
her--the wise woman, the mercenary and the
two retired rat folk. They are to go to the
forest, rescue the noble, and stop the cold
if possible. Before leaving, our newly formed
party goes to Vasilisa's home, where she performs
a Harrow reading. Looking to the cards for
guidance and premonitions of the future, she
binds their fates together, granting each
a special token which will hopefully draw
luck in its holder's favor. The group packs
up Vasilisa's donkey, Marigold, and Marge's
pet giant weasel, Ghost. Journeying south,
they soon come across the wrecked caravan
covered in snow with an icy wind blowing through.
The forest that lays behind it is also blanketed
in winter weather and a clear path is found
where it looks as though someone has been
drug against their will. Following the trail
proves to be challenging; traps, creatures,
and bone chilling cold. The parting later
finds bandits have taken over the High Sentinel
Lodge, an old guard post and hunting outpost
near the center of the woods. Here they begin
their siege on the lodge only to find that
when they begin to slay the bandits frozen
skeletons rise in their place. With the immediate
threats cleared up, the group searches the
lodge, uncovering a trapdoor leading to where
Lady Argentea is being held. They continue
to search the lodge, eventually finding a
sprite locked in a bird cage and half starved
to death. The sprite tries to escape, but
is swiftly captured and shoved in a jar for
later. A knock on the door to the lodge startles
the party. On the other side is...another
Lady Argentea?! with Heldren's woodcutter
and Vasilisa's special friend, Joseph, leaning
heavily on her. This is the real Lady Argentea;
the one the party found locked up was a decoy
who assumes the identity of the noble woman
for various occasions. When the caravan was
attacked, Lady Argentea fled into the woods
before coming across the injured Joseph. The
group learns that there is a portal that has
opened in the woods which is allowing the
weather and the creatures to invade from Irrisen,
the land of eternal winter thousands of miles
to the north. Lady Argentea, her double, and
Joseph head back to town while our heroes
head further into the forest, using the captured
sprite Vrixx to lead them directly to the
portal. Upon arrival, they meet the Black
Rider, one of the three heralds of Baba Yaga.
He reveals that Baba Yaga has actually been
captured by the current queen of Irrisen,
Queen Elvanna. Elvanna has opened portals
all over the planet and plans to conquer the
soon-to-be frozen world. Before dying, the
rider performs a blood magic ritual binding
the party's fates to Baba Yaga. They receive
the Mantle of the Black Rider, a nice boost
to their stats, and level up. However, they
are now bound by fate to save the Mother of
All Witches. With the portal secure, the party
returns to the town of Heldren to stock up
on supplies and say their goodbyes. After
having a short rest, they returned to the
Border Wood, stopping to spend the night at
the High Sentinel Lodge. During the night,
the lodge is raided by winter fey, surprising
the party in their sleep and bringing Norm
Gunderson's journey to an end. After defeating
the fey, the party buries Norm and pushes
forward. After entering the portal, the group
finds themselves in Irrisen, where they meet
Kapa, a ratfolk woman who looks exactly like
Marge's girlfriend from childhood, who also
died in her arms.
[Amanda laughs] Sorry [keeps laughing]
[James] I gotcha
[Zac] I mean, it is hilarious
[James] It is pretty funny
[Zac] How everyone you love dies in your arms
[Amanda stops laughing with a little 'oh']
[James, as Vrixx] This isn't the end of the
doppelgangers, though: Kapa takes the party
to the nearby town of Waldsby, which is a
spooky mirror version of Heldren; the same
frozen clock tower, the same statue in the
center of town, and even a gnome with a blue
pompadour who does woodworking. The gnome
turns out to be the long-lost brother of the
gnome of the same description in Heldren.
The party also meets Bolka, a local dwarf
cleric who helps the party escape from a group
of [???] guards that ride into town. With
some magic distraction and only a minimum
amount of violence, the guards who are still
alive leave town and head back to the tower,
but not before capturing Marigold the donkey,
burning down Kapa's house and branding her
a traitor to the crown. Marge, Valdeen, Vasilisa,
Bolka, Vrixx the sprite and his cousin Hatch
the house spirit, Kapa, Kapa's children, and
Arbagazer the gnome come together in Kapa's
secret hideout in the woods, where they make
their plan to infiltrate the Pale Tower in
order to shut down the portal leading back
to Taldor and Heldren. Our heroes, along with
Vrixx and Hatch, head to the Pale Tower, hoping
to close the portal and save Kapa's youngest
child, Thora, who has been taken prisoner.
Arbagazer sets off to the portal in order
to join his brother on the non-frozen side
of the portal, while Kapa stays in the hideout
with her two children in order to keep them
safe. Making their way to the tower, the group
sneaks in at night, avoiding combat where
they can and jumping from floor to floor of
the tower using magical keys that allow them
to step through giant ice mirrors. At the
top of the tower, they find a magic spinning
globe of the planet and an angry goat who
lets out a scream alerting the towers current
guardian, Radosek Pavril, witch apprentice
to the region's White Witch. Battle ensues!
Valdeen recognizes the face of Radosek as
someone he might have known back in Taldor,
but before he can be asked questions he comes
to a swift death, in large part thanks to
Ghost the giant white weasel. The party searches
the top floor, finding a dungeon guarded by
a magical trap which curses Marge. The dungeon
is empty and the child known as Thora is nowhere
to be found. Vasilisa identifies the magic
of the big spinning globe to be the key to
closing the portal and that Heldren and Waldsby
are physically linked through a magical ley
line. Vasilisa is able to figure out and close
the portal; however, it leaves the party stranded
in Irrisen and unable to return to their homeland.
With the first step to stopping Elvanna and
freeing Baba Yaga completed, the spirit of
the Black Rider appears again, this time taking
on the guise of the deceased Norm. By manipulating
Vasilisa's Harrow cards, the spirit transfers
the blood magic that tied Norm to freeing
Baba Yaga over to Bolka. With the fourth member
of the party now adorned with the Mantle of
the Black Rider and a step closer to saving
the Mother of Witches, magic surges as the
spirit of Norm vanishes and the party levels
up.
[Music: opening theme plays (“Jelly Castle
(orchestral remix)” by MDK Music)]
[laughter of the players]
[Zac] Wait, is that really what happened?
[Elizabeth, sing-song] We survived a book!
[Amanda] I love that last part, where the
party levels up again
[David] Yes!
[Elizabeth, still sing-song] We're level 5!
[Amanda] Woo-hoo! And I love how everyone
Marge has ever loved, besides her kids, has
died in her arms.
[Elizabeth] You might actually want to avoid
reuniting with your kids in case they decide
to climb into your arms and die.
[David] Yeah
[Amanda] Exactly. Oh boy
[Elizabeth] Not good
[David] No more hugs
[Amanda] No more hugs!
[Elizabeth] If any of our party is wounded,
we'll just be lying on the ground and be like,
'just keep Marge away, we might die; don't
let her embrace us in her arms!'
[Amanda] 'Don't let Marge hold me!'
[James] and so we rejoin our party exactly
where Season One, Book One, left off at the
top of the tower, uh, the-the portal closed,
the magic surges, the spirit of Norm Gunderson
disappears, and we look around the room. Elizabeth,
what's going on with Vasilisa?
[Elizabeth] Well, Vasilisa Morozova is looking
really tense right now. You can tell that
this is all starting to really get to her.
Her freckles on her cheeks are now kind of
hidden by the reddened skin from being exposed
to the cold of Irrisen and in this ice tower
for so long. Her- she's, she's clearly uncomfortable
with the magical illusion of the clothes that
she's wearing, with this drab Irrisen merchant
garb, and she just wants her bright warm colors
to be free and out there again. She's-she's
cold, she's tense, and right now specifically,
she is clutching this card and looking down
at one of her Harrow cards and the one thing
that she really inherited from her mom is
her eyes so she's got these eyes that are
the color of the ice of the tower around them,
this piercing blue, and right now her eyes
are just pinned to the card of The Mountain
Man that, once again, her Harrow cards escaped
her control and this card was chosen by Bolka
or chose Bolka in some mutual way and she's
just caught in this moment, looking definitely
frazzled, definitely the worse for wear, and
cold, and puzzled-it's so uncomfortable that
her cards have once again done something of
their own volition.
[James] and Zac, how's Bolka reacting after
all of this? What-what's he looking like right
now?
[Zac] So, he always-he always looks like a
dwarf, even though he's a little bit thin
and a little bit tall, but he looks more-his
expression is a little bit more gaunt now
than usual like he's also always a little
bit underfed, um, and but you see now his
eyes look a little bit darker and a little
bit more sunken like 'oh my god' and um yeah
his-his beard is a little bit frazzled from
the ring that he had from the the wedding
that he did for uh Kapa and her husband that
he took out and was used and uh is to become
blood tied to these people and blood tied
to this quest. So the ring is now in his hand
and his beard's frazzled and his eyes are
sunken. His robe has goat blood on it, his
mace has goat blood on it, plus maybe a little
like little piece of lettuce too um from-from
hitting the lettuce baby earlier
[James] that was perfect. That's perfect
[Zac] Yeah, so he looks very frazzled and
if you were to try and do like a sense motive
or read his face like he's unsure he went
with it and rolled with it because it was
like it seemed so important and intense and
he does have this feeling like he was destined
for something, but this doesn't feel like
what it was supposed to be; this feels so
much darker than he had imagined his purpose
would be.
[James] and then we look over at Marge, who
just watched her husband appear, completely
ignore her, and then vanish again. Amanda,
what's Marge looking like?
[Amanda] Her eyes are darting between everybody
in the room and where she last saw Norm. She
doesn't understand what happened and why there
was no communication between them; that was
her Norm. um. She's a sturdy rat woman and
you can tell she's strong--with with her armor
and her shield and her sword she's obviously
strong, but she has a look of frailty about
her; in her face you can see the pain of,
well, being cursed and of losing her husband
and the reminder of another loved one that
she's lost before. Her sword is stained red
and blue, and she smells faintly of blueberries.
[Elizabeth] That's Hatch's fault
[Amanda] You remember that--exactly.
[Zac] the blue sword
[Elizabeth] he made you smell like blueberry's,
right
[Amanda] but she's standing next to this large
giant white weasel that's got blood all over
its face; it looks menacing, I'm sure to anybody
else who who's looking at it. I'm sure Bolka
might be a little taken aback as well, seeing
what Ghost has done and-
[Zac] She was cute when I met her!
[Amanda] Exactly! So just this this strong
duo of Ghost and Marge, but yet there's this
this feeling of frailty and of maybe a little
fear, but also anger and there's just a lot
you can read in her face and in the way she's
carrying her-her body uh on the back of Ghost.
Yeah
[James] Yeah
[Elizabeth] That's really good
[James] uh and then we finally look over to
Valdeen. David, what's going on with Valdeen?
[David] Valdeen's olive skin and gold eyes
kind of stand out in contrast to the environment
we're in; there's blue and white ice everywhere
around us. And the normally maybe cool calm
collected expression on Valdeen's face is
replaced with one that is switching between
a lack of understanding or confusion and back
to a somewhat of a pained expression that
kind of stares off and then shakes off and
comes back to the present moment. He's clearly
struggling between something current happening
now in the moment and something in his past
that has come back to haunt him through the
visage of Radosek, a face he never thought
he would see again. Valdeen's presence in
the group--he's been acting as a protector
trying to uh guide and lead with as much leadership
of strategy as he can, yet he is not um a
strong warrior; he's more of a strategic fighter.
So, he's had to learn a different kind of
way of being in a group, that is a mix, like
this, of a ratfolk, now a dwarf, and a witch
that throws cards.
[Zac] She's human, too, right?
[James] Yeah she's human, too
[David] Yeah
[James] That was really good. And here we
are. Norm's spirit is poofed and we've obviously
hit a really high note: everyone's leveled
up, you closed the portal, everything's great
in absolutely everyone's lives right now,
um... No, this is a depressing victory is
what this is.
[David] I know: we killed a goat!
[Amanda] and we couldn't find Thora and then
Norm and then...
[James] You haven't found Thora, yet, yeah,
and here you guys are
[Elizabeth] Marge got cursed
[Amanda] Marge is cursed (laughs)
[James] um, welcome to level five, first of
all. um As was our last level up, this magical
surge automatically grants you everything
hit points, blah blah, class features, abilities,
all of that kind of stuff um and our good
friend Bolka also got the Mantle of the Black
Rider which boosts an ability score and everyone's
happy and full; the only thing that you don't
have is getting spells that you need to prepare.
You have to do that at your regularly chosen
spell time. So you guys are, you're sitting
in this ritual chamber: what do you guys want
to do? What happens? What is-what does the
moment after Norm disappear look like? We
saw the freeze frame: What happens next?
[David] oof
[Zac] What are these around the walls? Are
those benches or-?