Episode 55: Contrapasso

April 8, 2026·41 min·3 clips

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1. Red Dirt D&D Episode 55, 'Contrapasso,' picks up immediately after the party's execution of a former priest of Varanex who failed to stop colleague Zalen Pierce's turn toward evil. 2. The player characters are Michael Kross as human cleric Dr. Elias Stone, Connor Chenault as half-elf rogue Sable, Johnny Payne as human fighter August E. Graymoor, Kiri Hester as tiefling bard Moxie, and Brett Bullock as Dungeon Master. 3. The episode's core tension is the party learning the full shape of villain Zalen Pierce's plan and each character independently confronting a layer of personal betrayal or complicity. 4. Dr. Stone breaks down outside his office when music Moxie played triggers fifteen to twenty years of suppressed memories; he tells her he is 'sick of warlords, power-hungry gambling addicts, and strongmen' destroying vulnerable people. 5. Moxie responds by describing her own decades of working for the downtrodden — running a medical clinic in Bridgetown and sheltering runaway girls at the Siren Song bar — framing both characters as long-term fighters against systemic injustice. 6. The group discusses logistics for the Haunted Isles expedition, including leaving the Siren Song operational to avoid alerting Zalen Pierce, and Moxie tasks kobold Coby — paid in maple syrup — with body disposal and tunnel access. 7. Dr. Stone recalls margin notes in the Manual of the Planes listing spider goddess Lolth as worshipped across multiple material worlds including Toril and Oerth, concluding that Zalen Pierce is summoning something never before seen on their planet. 8. The party determines Sable's friend Logan Mitchell is working with Zalen Pierce, may be in danger, and should be treated as an embedded contact for intelligence before the expedition. 9. They also conclude that automaton Sweep Up (dubbed 'Moxie 2') — captured by Zalen Pierce's forces — is likely to be present at the Haunted Isles as a sacrifice rather than requiring a separate rescue mission. 10. Moxie briefs Rhapsody on the full plan: Zalen Pierce has embedded soul fragments inside prosthetics distributed to children and amputees, plans to shatter the prosthetics and harvest the souls alongside full automatons as sacrificial fuel to open a gateway for Lolth. 11. Rhapsody, who had been preparing for a Haunted Isles trip based on a recurring dream she believes was magically sent by mermaid Marisol, confirms she already has a map and has engaged airship captain Winslow and his vessel the Second Kiss. 12. The party plans to depart the following Friday, giving Dr. Stone five business days of preparation; Rhapsody shows Moxie a seashell jewelry piece she is crafting and offers to make her a water-breathing necklace. 13. Moxie performs her regular fire-breathing bard routine at the Siren Song to maintain appearances of normalcy before speaking privately with Rhapsody. 14. Sable takes a circuitous route back to the Sapphire Society guild hall, notices the spider symbol on Minthra's door as 'uncomfortably similar' to Varanex iconography, and decides to investigate his mentor's office. 15. He disarms both a mundane gas trap and a magical glyph on the desk drawers, opening the ledger and cracking Minthra's internal code in approximately one minute using a 19 investigation roll. 16. The decoded ledger contains a list including operative casualties, civilian names, city guard, and — most alarmingly — approximately seven or eight children's names accompanied by ages. 17. Cross-referencing those names with notes he took during an earlier fishery mission reveals enough matches to eliminate coincidence, suggesting Minthra has been aware of or complicit in Zalen Pierce's child-targeting from the beginning. 18. Sable feels a wave of 'impending doom' and anger — particularly that Minthra had told him the harm being done to children 'didn't matter' — before a click from the bookshelf suggests a scrying alarm has triggered. 19. The episode ends on a cliffhanger as Sable attempts to flee Minthra's office, rolling a 28 on stealth without his expended Pass Without Trace, just barely escaping through the door as the episode closes. 20. Listeners who enjoy long-form narrative actual play D&D podcasts with developed character arcs, moral complexity, and ensemble cast banter will find this episode substantive and emotionally engaging.

As heard by us

A cleanup-heavy Red Dirt D&D episode with a dry comic streak and a calm, reflective finish.

Red Dirt D&D settles into the fallout after the action, with the group cleaning up blood, sorting out another body, and deciding who walks whom home.

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Why you'd press play

For the night after the cleanup, when the room goes quiet and the errand run keeps moving.

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