u/CardInternational753

"Here is a decent, ordinary fellow MaxFun Member, who in broad daylight in my own subreddit says to me, his Podfather, that the community will not be worth living in for his furbabies. I simply do not have the right to shrug my shoulders and think about something else. What he is saying, thousands and hundreds of thousands are saying and thinking—not throughout the Greater Los Angeles Area, perhaps, but in the areas that are already undergoing the total transformation to which there is no parallel in a thousand years of podcasting history. Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. We must be mad, literally mad, as a community to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 free listeners, who are for the most part the material of the future growth of the listening audience population. It is like watching a community busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre. So insane are we that we actually permit free listeners to listen for the purpose of founding a taste for the show without any intention of ever subscribing."

WHAT'S UP, YOU FREELOADING SHITBIRDS. WELCOME TO MAXFUN DRIVE 2026. NOW, MORE THAN EVER, YOU SHOULD BE IGNORING YOUR OWN FINANCIAL REALITIES AND GIVING EVERY CENT OF YOUR INCOME, DISPOSABLE OR OTHERWISE, TO OUR EXCELLENT PODCAST NETWORK. HAVE YOU LAUGHED ONE SINGLE TIME AT MBMBAM OR TAZ IN THE PAST CALENDAR YEAR? GIVE US MONEY!

Welcome back to The Adventure Zone: Royale, a media property I have been told by my legal team I can legally refer to as 'a podcast that exists'. Last time out, we began the Trial of Necromancy, which mostly involved Griffin establishing a turn order and then running through vignettes with various characters that didn't really move the plot or trial along. We have already lost 2 of the 12 aspirants that began the trial - Tommy Falcon was dropkicked out a window by Lorevith and subsequently consumed by a horde of zombies. Meanwhile, The Spider was crushed to death after Burgerman toppled a bookcase onto him while Lorevith watched.

The most important thing to note about this trial is that while PvP is technically enabled, any sort of violent action toward other contestants (or the zombies themselves) causes the remaining zombies to target you. Again, I question why the Octave is so insistent on the participants in their 'winner takes all' death game being as averse to violence as possible.

At the end of the last episode, Lorevith was gleefully watching one horde of zombies make a beeline for Burgerman in the library, while Rictus and Helgrammit were about to flee from a second horde that had just broken into the kitchen. Let's get into the (god I hope) resolution of this thrilling trial.

• Before we start, how the fuck have we not talked about the fact that this year's TAZ BoCo content is Charlieverse 4 and a BTS episode for Charlieverse 4? Like two whole episodes of TTRPGs was too much for ya bud?
• UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. The episode literally starts the MaxFun Drive pitch (Also very funny to listen to this on MaxFun and see that the MFD total is still at less than 50%, god they are so cooked)
• Justin starts by talking about how much he loves Lorevith and how much he's going to miss him when they are done recording. This, to me, is the final nail in the coffin that character deaths were never on the table. I'm glad he likes his character but fuck you, I was actually excited for a death game and you couldn't do that even a little bit.
• "I dont know what any of you are going to do next" - Griffin, this is not the compliment that you think it is.
• GOD FUCKING PLAY D&D
• We return to Lorevith and his murder voyeurism
• Justin casts shield on himself and then powerbombs the mound of corpses trying to get to Burgerman. That's not how shield works, of course, because shield is a reactive defensive spell, not a proactive one like mage armor.
• Justin is playing some serious D&D today, chaining actions and everything. I guess he took his adderall today because he is locked! in!
• So Lorevith gets chomped, takes 20+ damage, and nat 1s a con save. He has to be single digits hp or close to it now. Griffin I swear to god. ANOTHER NINE POINTS? SORRY, LOREVITH JUST TOOK 31 POINTS OF DAMAGE IN A SINGLE TURN. COME ON, HE HAS TO BE CLOSE TO FUCKING DEATH RIGHT NOW.
• We leave Lorevith to the other group of players, who were running away from the tsunami of zombies.
• Helgrammit bails on the scene to go help Lorevith
• Rictus uses time stop. Griffin pauses the podcast to try and explain his super broken version of time stop. Either Rictus can expend nine spell slots to cast it at ninth level/full power, or he can cast a weakened version of it at 3rd level. And this folks is why we don't try to reverse engineer spells into weaker versions of themselves but holy shit Griffin what are you talking about.
• Griffin has all of a sudden got really pedantic about DCs. Almost as if he has seen our recaps calling him out for allowing 4s and 5s to survive a life and death roll.
• So Rictus beefs his time stop resistance and basically just freezes himself, but is immediately saved by Pranklin because why should the PCs face any sort of consequences?
• Eyeing my phone as I am going to have to pause this shit to do work in a moment I think, but for now we ball
• Rictus ganks some zombies because no! PC! peril! allowed!
• Work needs me in 30 minutes. 41 minutes left in podcast. Oh my god is this trial going to go a third episode?
• Another joke about getting sued for just saying the name of a fictional character
• We're back to Lorevith, who should be fucking dying after taking 31 points of damage last turn. He does spider climb to lure the zombies away from Burgerman
• "We're not in initiative right now" - Griffin you literally had them roll initiative last session. What are you fucking talking about.
• JUSTIN IS PLAYING THE ROLE OF RULES LAWYER TODAY FOR NO REASON
• The MAXFUN PLEDGE COUNTER IS UPDATING LIVE?? They have acquired less than 100 new and upgrading members since I started working on this. I believe the drive formally ends tomorrow?
• JUSTIN TAKES SIX MORE DAMAGE - HE HAS NOW TAKEN 37 DAMAGE WITH NO HEALING. Okay so Lorevith should be fucking dead at this point. Wizards are a d6 hit dice, meaning that Lorevith can't have more than mid-30s in terms of hit points at level five. HOW THE FUCK IS HE STILL ALIVE.
• Oh cool, 35 points of healing from a random healing potion
• Frantic piano - guess it's time to threaten Doober (and let Rachel play weird piano music)

Ad Break

• Last weekend's con was solid but not super my vibe, put way less emphasis on panels than I expected, and was so! fucking! crowded! Please, and I don't care how busy the convention is, don't fucking touch me to try and physically move me out of your way. Getting in line for Matt Mercer's table is not that important
• My Dress Up Darling fucking slaps. I love it so much (though I hate Netflix's 'We release Season 1 one month and Season 2 the next). Marin and Gojo are amazing. I can't remember the last time I intentionally laughed so much at a TV show. The fanservice is excessive in the best way, but also masterfully done imo. God I love these fucking idiots.
• Book recommendation for y'all - Bimbos of the Death Sun. It's a 1980s murder mystery set at a fantasy and sci-fi convention, where an engineering professor and his situationship have to (reluctantly) navigate fan conventions and, unsurprisingly, the murder of one of the other con guests. If you can find a copy, it's a fantastic sub-300-page read.
• Ohhhhhh my god "We are pretty far behind if you are listening to this on release day. We're not even halfway to our goal, so we need your help uh pretty desperately." GRIFFIN, GOOD LORD.
• "Keep MaxFun afloat for another year" - WAIT DOES THE NETWORK GO UNDER IF THEY DON'T GET NEARLY 9000 NEW AND UPGRADING MEMBERS IN THE NEXT COUPLE DAYS?

Back to TAZ after the MaxFun Drive begging (and is quite literally begging)

• Helgrammit fights zombie Pip the Gnome to save Doober. Pip is pushed back out the window...and then just runs away. Okay then.
• God this is going to go a third episode for no reason.
• Hasty Jane is killing Hippocrates. Good to see that she's here and is having a heel turn for no reason. Rictus 'Killing is bad, guys' Ravenwood has nothing but a mildly chill reaction to this. Hasty Jane runs away.
• Pranklin and Scorpo don't want to help the dying Hippocrates but Scorpo reluctantly does with Rictus
• Pranklin is now in peril. Travis tries to do a full spell slot burn of time stop but doesn't have enough spell slots. Travis really wants to be allowed to do it to help Pranklin, a character he has interacted with twice (?) prior to this trial.
• Work duties call with 8 minutes left in the episode
• Work duties concluded, the MFD has cracked 7700 in the interm.
• Rictus freezes himself again and he is forced to watch as Pranklin slowly gets ripped apart. Death appears to fucking dunk on Rictus for his hubris about controlling time and death. This would be cool if I didn't hate these motherfuckers
• Rictus' motive changes again, yaaaay
• There is some Rictus bullshit happening. Rictus gives himself to Death, whatever that means
• Yay, third trial episode. Ya-hoo. This is what the people WANT.
• See you in two weeks, where I be coming to you from uhhhhhh Boise, Idaho as I prepare for my next con.