Podcast / The Fallen Gods

Tuatha: I don't know why you're complaining, we were your first choice!
Mina: No, you weren't!
Tuatha: Well, guess we were the only qualified applicants then!

The Fallen Gods is a Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition Actual Play, and one of several games featured on Cool Kids Table.

Set in the world of Krynn, the tale begins with three adventurers being drawn together at a local tavern by the Goddess Mina. There she tells them of a war in heaven where the gods of good, evil, and neutrality fought against Chaos. They once sealed Chaos within the Graygem, but he has been released. Now the gods retreat from heaven, faking their deaths while hiding in the mortal realm within the Celestial Artifacts. These three heroes have been chosen to retrieve the scattered Artifacts and reunite the gods so that they may once again fight against Chaos.

...Unfortunately for her, the adventurers she picks keep on dying, so now she's down to the backup-backup-backup adventurers. What's more, they're not super-keen on following this so-called destiny. Between Tuatha, the half-elven sorcerer who would rather talk her way to victory than follow orders; Solvin, the elven assassin who almost solely works based on who's paying him and how much; and Flint, the human eldritch knight who's not always as smart as he'd like to be.

Together the trio make their way across the land of Krynn finding the Fallen Gods, battling monstrous foes, and making many enemies. But they also learn to...tolerate each other. But all the while, the forces of darkness are growing...

The cast can be reached through the CKTCast Twitter, as well as by using the hastag #TheFallenGods.

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This podcast provides examples of:

• Accidental Misnaming: Everywhere with nearly everyone and everything. If the party is able to get the name of a character right on the first try it's a miracle.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Delilah considers the party's plans to reunite her and her sister Missandere (such as stuffing them in a get-along shirt or disguising Delilah as Groucho Marx) rather amusing, though totally ineffectual.
• Aggressive Negotiations: Solvin suggests this to get better prices while buying new equipment, pointing out he still has plenty of arrows. Tuatha objects, saying they don't need any "Solvin Haggling".
• And I Must Scream: The enslaved merfolk in the Tower of Lunitari can only say "How may I serve you today?" in a sing-song voice, unless given a command that requires them to say something not related to their status as slaves. If one does allude to this they begin to freak out and become anxious, but literally cannot change their tune.
• Animal Companion: All three party members have pets. All three have horses that they have connections to as well.
  • Tuatha has a pet Cerberus-Yorkie whose three names (Susienka, Binggan, Keksi) all mean "biscuit" in Slovak, Mandarin, and Finnish respectively. It's referred to as "Triscuit" as a whole. Her horse is named Haku'Yethin.
  • Solvin has a hawk named Hag and clydesdale named Johann.
  • Flint has an owl named Gretchen and a horse named Ironstag.
• Anti-Magic: Dragons can resist most types of magic, and this property carries over to their bones, which makes them useful for armour like Flint's helmet.
• Appropriated Appellation: Tuatha's horse is named Haku'Yethin, which is goblin for "Pain in my Ass". Though Hak's a sweetheart, it was just the goblins that found him a pain.
• Bigger on the Inside: Chadrathar's tower contains rooms larger than the building.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: An in-universe one, thanks to the Wild Magic Table. No one really expected to Tuatha to try and cast fireball and instead summon a full-sized unicorn.
• Bishie Sparkle: An audio-variant as Josh mimics the noise when describing how tough Flint's pecs are.
• Body Horror: The party finds the remains of previous adventurers being stitched together in terrifying mashups in the basement of the Tower in Palanthis.
• Boom, Headshot!: Solvin one-hit kills a draconian with an arrow directly through its head.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: Solvin lifts a bell while inside the Tower of Lunitari, only to feel it disappear from his pocket. His response is "Fuck a wizard", to which Tuatha quickly agrees.
• Cain and Abel: Missandere wants to kill her half-sister Delilah. Delilah is far less violent, but will strike back if she needs to.
• Captain Obvious: Happens when Flint fails an Arcana check on the magic that's causing the party to shrink, and discovers that it's magic.
• Catchphrase: Tuatha has "Fuck a (blank)", which gets filled in with anything they're annoyed by.
• Chekhov's Gunman: The unicorn that Tuatha accidentally summons with Wild Magic turns up several episodes later. It turns out he was the guardian of the Darken Wood, and his absence caused the forest to die.
• Conspicuously Light Patch: Discussed in episode 11 when the only information Mara gives the party on what she wants from the Tower is "you'll know it when you see it". They decide that this trope will be how they spot it.
• Cool Helmet: Flint has one made from the skull of a black dragon.
• The Corruption: The Ring of Sargonnas caused Solvin's father Yvalios to go mad with power, kill the rest of his village's leadership, and begin executing anyone who went against him.
• Covered in Gunge: Tuatha gets covered in oil when her spell's failure sets off the Wild Magic table.
• Creepy Child: Episode 6 ends with the party finding a small child standing in the centre of a draconian treasure horde with solid black eyes, the power to stop weapons from hitting it, and it wants to kill and eat them.
• Creepy Souvenir: Solvin loves collecting bits and bobs from opponents he kills, which can include anything from bones to skulls to teeth to tongues! He also braids hair from his kills into his own hair.
• Crossover: Episodes 18 and 19 are a crossover with associated podcast Jemjammer.
• Crossover Ship: In-universe; Tuatha lusts over Lachlan during The Fallen Jammer.
• Cute Monster: Tuatha's three-headed Cerberus Yorkie named Triscuit.
• Cynical Mentor: Mina becomes this to the trio due to her plan to save the gods failing time and time again, and having to fall back on the backup to the backup to the backup plan in the form of the game's party.
• Dance Party Ending: The Fallen Jammer crossover ends with everyone dancing at the Pub. Jylliana dances with Lachlan, Tuatha with Mr. Herst, Mara with Flint.
• A Day in the Limelight: Episodes 22 and 23 are focused on Solvin's backstory, and 24 and 25 focus on Flint's.
• Distracted by the Sexy:
  • When Tuatha fails several perception and intuition checks when the group is trying to procure a ship, it's chalked up to her being distracted by the hot fake ship's captain. She's also willing to employ this herself if it means she can avoid an actual fight.
  • There's also Mistress Mara the merchant, who causes this in everybody. Solvin has to step outside because it's so awkward he's about to crawl out of his skin.
• Don't Explain the Joke: When Josh asks if the draconians in the treasure area are stronger than the other one they encountered, Jake says yes because they scale.
  Jake: 'Cuz they're dragons. Get it everybody? Did you get my joke? They scale because they're dragons!
• Don't Go in the Woods: The Shoiken Grove that grows around the Tower of Sorcery in Palanthis are said to be cursed, as everyone who enters is never seen again. They're populated by living shadow monsters, and even if the adventurers manage to reach the Tower there are even worse horrors awaiting them.
• Draconic Humanoid: The party encounters draconians in the ruins of Xak Tsaroth, which were made by mutating dragon eggs using blood magic.
• Dragon Hoard: The party find the remains of one beneath the temple in Xak Tsaroth, and later the hoard itself deeper in.
• Dressing as the Enemy: Solvin infiltrates his own village like this, which is rather easy since he's still wearing the same uniform as the guards and just has to hide his face and fall in step with them in order to blend in.
• Erotic Dream: Implied when the party has a shared dream. Tuatha asks if the other two are real and not just her dreaming of them, and Flint and Solvin get grossed out when they realize what that could imply.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Solvin will happily steal, maim, murder, and torture, but draws the line at slavery. Or leaving a corpse naked. He's very complex!
• Exact Words: The mother Black Dragon swears that she shall slaughter the party if they "laid one hand" on her child. The party states that technically, nobody touched Boss Baby Dragon with their hands.
• The Exile: Evaan and Solvin are both banished from their village for differing reasons, Evaan for not following their more violent ways and Solvin for not being worthy of being the heir (though in his case he's not so much exiled as he is "encouraged to stay out until he can prove himself").
• Facial Markings: Solvin, Evaan, and all of their tribe have tattoos on their faces.
• Failed a Spot Check: Tuatha doesn't notice that the party's room at the inn has been disturbed and search because she's drop-dead drunk.
• Fantastic Racism: Solvin doesn't think much of Tuatha other than that she's the "half-human" of the group. On the other hand, Tuatha hates wizards (though she's quick to clarify that that's classism, not racism).
  • Missandere judges Tuatha for being a half-elf as well.
  • The Wood Elf tribe that Solvin and Evaan are racist against the more barbaric elves that roam deeper in the woods.
• Feed It a Bomb: Tuatha shoves a Chromatic Orb spell down the mouth of a dire wilve to poison it.
• Fertile Feet: Tuatha develops this while walking barefoot through The Ways thanks to connecting with the deep nature magic there.
• Fingore: Solvin shoots his father's finger off in order to separate him from a ring containing the god Sargonnas.
• Fisher Kingdom: When the Forest Master is taken from the Darken Wood and cannot return, the Wood begins to wither and die.
  • A similar thing happens to the woods around Solvin's home village when Yvalios is under the sway of Sargonnas' Ring. They're described as looking more dead than usual.
• Fish People: The party finds a merfolk at the bottom of the ocean. It's covered in scales and fins, has large sharp teeth, and a natural 20 dick.
• Flat World: The setting takes place on one, that sits on the back of four rhinos on top of a turtle.
• Forced Transformation: In episode 25, Tuatha's wild magic turns everyone in her vicinity into a farm animal. Tuatha's a goose, Solvin's a rooster, and the orc is a cow.
• Forgot About His Powers: Josh never looked at what Fighters get when they level up. As such he had no idea about Bonus Attacks, Action Surge, Second Wind...the only thing he was aware of was that he could dual-wield axes. He doesn't even question it until the Jemjammer cast ask why he's only attacking once per turn.
• Fork Fencing: When the group gets shrunk down in episode 4, the only weapons they can wield are forks and knives.
• Freudian Slip: As the party travels with Evaan to Solvin's home, Tuatha tries to say "can't wait to meet your dad". Except she accidentally swaps "meet" for "mate". She only walks it back a little.
• Full-Frontal Assault: The party has to fight a series of slugs and snails while nakey in episode 4 after they get shrunken down.
• Gender Flip: The god Paladine is normally male and the husband of Mishakal in the Dragonlance setting, but in this story Paladine is female and Mishakal's wife.
• Good Is Not Nice: Mara turns out to be on the party's side after some fairly ambiguous first interactions, but that doesn't stop her from shoving a hot poker into the stump of Jana's leg as punishment for enslaving dozens of merfolk.
• Gotta Catch 'Em All: The party is tasked with finding all the artifacts containing the hiding deities of the world in order to defeat Chaos.
• Grail in the Garbage: The Dragonlances were legendary artifacts that were all said to have been destroyed. When the party boards The Kestrel, they find one being used as a spit in the kitchen.
• Great Big Book of Everything: The book that Solvin finds in the library is this, since it's the Tobril, the book that contains the history of everything that's happened and also Gilean go do the book themself.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Tuatha is a half-elf.
• Have You Seen My God?: During the Jemjammer crossover, the two parties find Sister Takaris, a cleric to Mishakael who began to go mad when the gods of Krynn (including her own) disappeared. It doesn't help when she shows up on Lunitari worshipping a new god: the World Eater.
• Head Pet: Solvin ends up with a Maine Coon after Tuatha's wild magic summons several cats during a battle. It ends up sitting on his head most of the time. Fittingly, he names it Crown.
• Hidden Elf Village: Solvin is from one deep in the woods that can best be reached by travelling via The Ways.
• Hollywood Acid: The gold draconian dissolve into acid upon death. Boss Baby Dragon can also spit acid.
• Hypocrite: The top-tier wizards in the realm call themselves "The Towers of High Sorcery". They also hate sorcerers. Tuatha, a sorcerer, is suitably displeased by this.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Janna stands by this with regards to enslaving dozens of merfolk, saying that one must make difficult decisions in war time.
• Incredible Shrinking Man: Balrasht is a forest giant who's been shrunken down small enough to fit in Tuatha's hand. The party gets hit with this in episode 4 as well.
• It's Quiet… Too Quiet: The party picks up on the unnatural silence of the Darken Wood when they arrive. Flint and Tuatha are unnerved, but Solvin loves it until he realizes that silent means silent. Not even animals are making noise.
• Karmic Transformation: In order to punish him for trying to break into the house of someone smaller than him, Chandrathar the wizard curses Balrasht the giant to be incredibly small.
• Kill It with Fire: The dust golems that the party are attacked by are highly susceptible to fire, allowing them to be destroyed easily once they light some things on fire. Except for the one that Tuatha cleaned, leaving it just a swirling core of magic.
• King Incognito: Tuatha is secretly the Elven princess of Qualinost.
• Knight in Shining Armor: The Solemnic Knights are the good knights of Krynn, and literally have this appearance.
• Lampshade Hanging: Mina gathers Tuatha, Solvin, and Flint in a tavern to give them their quest because…that's where all the tales say adventurers meet and begin their journeys.
• Laser-Guided Karma: A Tower full of Wizards who enslaved dozens of merfolk end up getting torn apart by them as soon as the spell is broken.
• Literal Split Personality: Missandere and Delilah are two halves of the same soul split in two by their mother in an attempt to protect them. It didn't work as well as she'd like.
• Macross Missile Massacre: Tuatha tries to dispel the undead magic on the dragon, but fails and uses the Wild Magic...unleashing a volley of Magic Missiles instead.
  Kit: You know in Mechwarrior where you fire all your weapons at once?
  Jake: Yeah!
  Annie: Yeah it Robotechs! It Macrosses!
  Kit: You Macross this fucking dragon.
• Magic Pants: Alan decided Tuatha has these because didn't think it made sense for all of her clothes to remain unchanged when her height keeps getting altered.
• Mind Screw: Flint has a tough time wrapping his head around enchanting a dragon skull to make a helmet.
  Flint: So you're gonna take the thing that's resistant to magic…and use magic on it…to raise its resistance to magic?
• Monster Is a Mommy: After defeating the Boss Baby Dragon, the party quickly surmises that it probably had a mother somewhere nearby. sure enough, they encounter it at the end of episode 8.
• Multiple Head Case: Tuatha has a pet Cerberus-Yorkie whose three names (Susienka, Binggan, Keksi) all mean "biscuit" in Slovak, Mandarin, and Finnish respectively. They also disagree often, with one having opposite opinions from another and the third acting as a neutral party..
• Mundane Utility: Flint uses the Tobril, the book that contains all knowledge of everything that has ever happened up until now to try and see who's face he saw in the window of the Tower the night before. Tuatha uses it to look up the names of everyone she made out with the night before.
• Non-Action Guy: Evaan hates fighting, and while the party infiltrate his village to confront Yvalios he just disappears and gets high under a tree.
• Noodle Incident: Solvin has had severed body parts in his bag before, so he doesn't mind sticking Janna's foot in there.
  • He's also the reason his mother is missing from his village, though he makes it clear that she's not dead and he didn't kill her.
• No Ontological Inertia: After Sister Takaris is taken out, all her copies and her Draconian army disintegrate painfully or explode.
• No-Sell: During an attack from dire wilves, Flint is able to shrug off several bites thanks to his high Armour Class. He claims it's because his pecs are too huge.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Tuatha. The only way to get uncomfortably close to her is if someones goes inside or through her body.
• Off the Rails: A slight one occurs when the party goes to the basement of the Tower in Palanthis instead of the top like Alan had hoped. A major one happens when instead of going through a portal to return to Mara, they throw the wizard who opened the portal through instead.
• Oh, Crap!: When Alan asks the party to roll deception to act natural in episode 16, the next things out of Shannon and Jake's mouths are "oh no".
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Flint once saw a ghost in a window and got spooked. Solvin and Tuatha are constantly ribbing him about it.
• Only the Pure of Heart: The Forest Master is a unicorn that will gore anyone who approaches it who is not pure of heart. It turns out that Solvin falls under that category, but Solvin argues that he’s pure evil and was able to get close to it on a technicality.
• "Open!" Says Me: Flint spends most of episode 11 wanting to kick a door open. Fortunately, they find one that really needs to be kicked later on.
• Our Elves Are Different: And a little racist against everyone else (or at least High Elves are).
• Phallic Weapon: Well not a weapon necessarily, but the spoon-turned-dowsing rod is warm and veiny and (according to Jake and Josh) fleshy and throbbing, making it fall close to this category.
• Portal Cut: Janna's foot gets cut off after getting shoved through a portal.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: When Solven attacks a slug with a fork: "It's time to fork-give and fork-get!"
• Previously on…: Like most stories, though this one takes the form of Alan taking the role of an unnamed bard telling the tale to the audience rather than the usual bombastic voice in other Previously Ons.
• Pun: When the party visits the library in episode 10, Alan tells them that there are several pages (the person) around. For a moment they all think he means pages (the pieces of paper).
• Rain of Something Unusual: Setting off the Wild Magic table in episode twelve causes a rain of twelve cats and one dog to occur in a dungeon.
• Raised by Orcs: Flint was kidnapped by orcs as a child during a raid on his village and raised to be a warrior by them.
• Random Effect Spell: The Wild Magic table, though altered from the traditional D&D variant. Here Tuatha can invoke it to re-roll a 1, have opponents re-roll a 20, or even action surge. But, doing so causes her to roll on the table. It's also greatly expanded with submissions from listeners.
• Really 700 Years Old: Solvin is a hundred and twenty years old, but in elf years that’s still pretty young. He's basically a child, and Evaan calls him "baby brother" still.
• Running Gag:
  • Tuatha's disdain for wizards (or as she puts it, "fuck a wizard").
  • Flint insisting that he's not scared, even when he obviously is, and Solvin and Tuatha roasting him about it.
  • Whenever Flint fails an important roll, Josh announces he'll have to roll a new character named "Flont", complete with a funny voice.
  • Tuatha saying that she must've missed a class when she fails a history roll, or when it's funny.
• Salt Solution: Fighting with slugs and a flail snail calls for this, though it requires a strength check because the party's been shrunken and the shaker is almost as big as they are.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Solvin lives by one rule: "fuck you, pay me". Though he does exhibit other morals along the way and tells Janna that he hates slavers more than he likes money.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: In episode sixteen, when Mara demands the party return to their quest after disappearing for six months. They refuse, as they've just discovered a Tower of enslaved merfolk that they are adamant about liberating no matter what.
• Shout-Out:
  • Alan sings the victory jingle from Final Fantasy after the party defeats the dire wilves, which earns him a ban from Jake because no crossovers.
  • The fight with the slugs in episode 4 has references to both Mystery Men and Austin Powers.
  • Episode 5 starts with several to Power Rangers so that Alan can skirt the line around the "no crossovers" rule. The more Jake gets irked, the more references Alan adds in.
  • Josh is the only one who doesn't want to fight a child in episode 7, commenting "he's the baby, gotta love him!"
  • When trying to figure out what to do with their bag of holding full of gold, Solvin points out it's basically a Scrooge McDuck vault, and Flint suggests they swim in it.
  • When trying to remember the name of the blacksmith Blovey, Tuatha suggests Blofeld.
  • When they get into the hotel at Palanthis, Flint says that he needs food badly.
  • Shannon and Alan have decided that the party's home plane is flat, and sits on the back of four rhinos on top of a turtle (the rhinos are to make it different).
  • When asked by Delilah in episode 14 if she's a magician, Tuatha clarifies that she's a sorceress and Solvin adds that she does illusions, Michael.
• "Shut Up" Kiss: Tuatha gives one to Missandere to try and throw her off her game. Missandere reciprocates, but doesn't change her stance and makes Tuatha think she's been poisoned.
• Skeletons in the Coat Closet: Solvin decorates his outfits and armour with bones and skulls that he collects. He also uses them to spruce up his apartment.
• Slave Race: The merfolk are enslaved by the Wizards in the Tower of Lunitari, and those who are lucky enough to evade this regularly try to free the others. The party is able to successfully liberate the others by way of slaughtering everyone in the Tower.
• Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: When the party found out that the Wizards in the Tower of Lunitari were keeping merfolk as slaves, they stopped all other plans they had to focus on tearing the place down and freeing everyone.
• Spare a Messenger: Tuatha tells Naetara to say this when she returns to Tuatha's stepfather, so that she can avoid punishment when Tuatha explains that said stepfather is trying to kill her.
• Squishy Wizard: Lampshaded by Tuatha when talking about how easy it is to kill wizards.
• Stay on the Path: Travelling by The Ways can mess with time, and Evaan warns the others not to stray from the path lest they get lost in the unending and ethereal forests.
• Stuff Blowing Up: The party encounters silver Draconians, who explode upon death. Not enough to cause any massive damage, though.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Mina is described as having eyes like amber.
• Sustained Misunderstanding: Alan describes Mina transforming a wooden spoon into a dowsing rod as it heating up and becoming covered in veins of mystical ore. The party interpreted it as becoming warm, fleshy, and veiny, and even after Alan makes it clear that that's not the correct description they still claim that it very much feels like a penis.
• Take That!: Jake (via Tuatha) calls out the infamous case of wizards pooping in hallways and magicking it away from Harry Potter, and would never do that. Because that's wizard shit.
• Teleportation Rescue: A variant occurs thanks to Mishakal's intervention, teleporting the party to a temple of Paladine when they're about to be attacked by the mother Black Dragon.
• Tempting Fate: During the Jemjammer crossover, despite almost everyone causing distracting noises—Tuatha hurling fireballs and talking loudly, Cacophony tripping on her heels and hitting something metal, Mr. Herst being a giant hippo man—the Draconians on Lunitari repeatedly fail their perception checks and ignore the group.
  Jylliana: Maybe we can get out of this without anybody noticing us.
  Solvin: *fires arrow, hits Draconian dead on*
  *Draconian screams in agony, and Jylliana immediately looks at Tuatha.*
• Time Dilation: In the few hours that pass between the party heading to space from the Palanthis Tower and arriving at the one in the Blood Sea, over six months pass on their home plane.
• Token Evil Teammate: Solvin is lawful evil, the most willing to deal with problems underhandedly, the most bloodthirsty, and the most willing to steal things. If that didn't make things obvious, he's hurt by everything having to do with Mishakal. She's the goddess of healing, restoration, and general goodness, and clearly does not like him.
• Unequal Rites: Wizards really don't like sorcerers, and the feeling is mutual on Tuatha's end.
• Unflinching Walk: Flint does one after lighting a dust golem on fire.
• Uniqueness Value: All the Dragonlances were supposed to be destroyed, so when even a lesser one is found on The Kestrel, Mara is eager to obtain it.
• The Unpronounceable: The name of Boss Mom Black Dragon is a series of snarls and growls. Tuatha is able to repeat it back perfectly (as in, Jake states that she is able to repeat it back perfectly without actually saying the name himself).
• Vapor Wear: Mistress Mara the merchant is covered head to toe in a silk outfit that clings to her body and leaves nothing to the imagination.
• Verbal Judo: Tuatha would much rather talk her way out of things than fight, though talking does sometimes turn into flirting.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Flint only wears armour in battle, outside of it he usually just wears pants, or sometimes just a furry loincloth.
• Waxing Lyrical: When Tuatha succeeds her constitution saving throw in episode 10, Solvin asks her if she woke up feeling like P. Diddy.
• Weapon Specialization: Flint wields dual battle axes. He upgrades to a magical one he finds in the ruins in of Xak Tsaroth.
• Wicked Stepfather: Tuatha's stepfather tried to kill her, which is why she's on her adventure.
• Would Hurt a Child: Tuatha and Flint are both perfectly willing to fight and kill a child in episode 7. Flint, less so. To be fair, it does want to kill and eat them.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside:
  • When they get stuck in wildspace, the party's adventure lasts a few hours. By the time they land back in Palanthis, Mara tells them that several months have passed. The magical portals may have played into it.
  • The party spent around an hour inside the Tomb of Horrors, but when they get out they find out that a week has passed.
• You Kill It You Boughtit: Yvalios became the chief of Solvin's village when he killed the previous leader. Though it doesn't work like this exclusively, as Solvin is in line to inherit the title when he proves himself worthy.
• You Say Tomato: Tuatha drops this regularly in episode 2, even when it doesn't actually apply.

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