Murder Dice - A 5e Dungeons & Dragons Podcast · Dungeons and Dragons

Murder Dice - The Gates Ep.44

·58 min·5 clips

Naya sobs at an obelisk, confronting her failure to save Calcifer in a heart-wrenching D&D moment.

This episode of the Dungeons & Dragons podcast Murder Dice follows the player characters as they confront a mysterious void-like gate in their fantasy world. Host and Dungeon Master David guides players Kyle, Ben, Christina, and Mike through the narrative. The group must decide whether to venture through this dangerous portal to potentially end their long-running campaign. The party regroups at their library base, Old Home, with NPC allies Thomas Bird and the dragon-turned-pacifist Stoney Lonesome. They learn the gate may consume a person's soul, as evidenced by their friend Hendrix feeling diminished after guarding it. Ben's character uses a Comprehend Languages spell to study a book titled "Dante's Inferno," which describes poetic trials but offers no concrete gate information. The goddess Harmony contacts the party, stating this journey is "the beginning of the end" and that no magical aid can reach them beyond the gate. The characters say emotional goodbyes to Stoney before leaping into the portal together. They land in a silent, gray expanse featuring five massive obelisks, the only objects in sight. A disembodied voice instructs them to "find the right pillar for each of your souls" to receive forgiveness. Each obelisk bears an inscription confessing a specific failing: taking more than one's share, arrogance leading to downfall, turning one's back on a friend, raising a hand against the innocent in rage, and being cruel to oneself. The players spend significant time debating which confession aligns with which character, referencing past storylines like their conflict with the dragon Calcifer. They tentatively assign the "arrogance" pillar to Ben's former character, Brent, and consider the "rage" pillar for Kyle's character, Ubu, regarding Calcifer. The most interesting insights come from the players' meta-discussion about their characters' moral legacies within the game world. The obelisk inscriptions force a retrospective on key campaign actions, blurring the lines between player knowledge and character guilt. A surprising moment occurs when the goddess Harmony explicitly tells the players this path leads to "the risen land that the Reaper has claimed," raising the stakes for the finale. The episode is also punctuated by the group's humorous, off-topic tangents about real-life topics like awkward glory holes, vampire pop culture references, and a neighbor putting rocks in his children's Christmas stockings as punishment. The tone is highly conversational and improvisational, blending intense fantasy roleplay with frequent comedic digressions and group in-jokes. The style is collaborative, with the Dungeon Master presenting puzzles and lore while the players drive the investigation and decision-making through character interaction. Longtime listeners invested in the campaign's overarching plot and character arcs will love this episode for its pivotal story progression and deep character reflection. Listeners who prefer fast-paced combat or minimal table talk might skip it, as the episode focuses heavily on dialogue, puzzle-solving, and out-of-game humorous asides.

As heard by us

A ragged, funny take on a dangerous threshold.

The episode treats the gates as a tense threshold, one that feels both ominous and strangely conversational. Kendrick's warning that his soul has diminished and may be affected permanently gives the moment real weight, even as the rest of the table keeps draining some of that…

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a doom gate with jokes still flying.

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