Do you like Dungeons and Dragons? Do you like podcasts? Then you’ll like Dungeons and Dragons podcasts, where you can listen to people play D&D if you don’t want to go to the effort of playing it yourself. One of my favorite D&D podcasts is Fables of Refuge. Unfortunately, each episode is about three and a half hours, and normal people have lives to live as opposed to sitting in the corner of your room listening to podcasts, so here we go: Fables of Refuge for People in a Hurry.
The players start, as most campaigns do, in a tavern. Tazu, the blue Dragonborn monk, was born and raised in the mountains and has just entered the real world. Marza, the red Tiefling sorcerer, is the mage of the adventuring party, using magic to manipulate and bring down her enemies. Shandri, the half-elf fighter, is the main offense of the party, bringing optimism and a fighting attitude to the table. Last but not least, Ash, the purple Tiefling ranger. Armed with a bow, and his “I’m a support character” excuse, Ash is ready to mend some wounds and miss some arrows. After meeting each other, the bartender/innkeeper tells them about a tournament for four hundred gold pieces. The tournament is four competitions: Quiz Archery, Pie and a Poke, Fighting a Magic Golem, and finally, a Dwarven Drinking Contest. However, when they ask around about the contests, they discover that people won’t tell them what the dwarven drinking contest actually entails. After some questionable archery from Ash, oyster and spinach pie, and a battle of epic proportions with the golem, it was time for the dwarven drinking contest, which turned out to be a dwarven not-drinking contest. Tazu decided to take on this challenge. The contestants would be served spicier and spicier food, with a tankard of ale in front of them, and the goal of the game was to finish each spicy dish and go as spicy as they can without drinking the ale. After rolling a twenty on her dice, Tazu was able to complete the contest in first place. After the tournament, as the party is going to celebrate their victory, bells toll, signifying that the city is being attacked. As smoke begins to rise in the distance, that’s where the first episode ends.
Article by: Tal Loren, ‘24