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Shardpoint
"Wait, all of that?!"
Austin Yorski, after hearing the full name of the headmaster's familiar.
Set just after Ilium, the Sharpoint one-shots have students and faculty of the Shardpoint academy searching for divinely-powered artifacts; Orryn Waite, the new headmaster of Sharpoint, wants to study them to see what effect the death of the gods has on their magic. Each episode focuses on a different artifact.- Dances and Balls: The third episode heavily involves the upcoming celebration that comes around every century. The PCO isn't actually one of the magic artifacts Orryn wanted to study; it's a part of the celebration that the Bard College is looking for, as they lose it in storage every hundred years.
- Genre Shift: The third episode plants the seeds to an overarching plot beyond Orryn's research with the discovery of imps hired to steal materials from the inter-dimensional storage closets for an unknown third party.
- Gratuitous Disco Sequence: The PCO causes these. It's a disco ball that, when activated by music, compels everyone in the vicinity to start dancing.
- Loophole Abuse: During the first session, Orryn reveals how he became headmaster seemingly out of nowhere. While the new headmaster traditionally goes through a number of confirmations and rituals, the only one required by the bylaws is that their name had to be signed onto the form specifying the new successor. Orryn simply stole the form, signed his name on it, and hid it away.
- The entire first episode is technically one. Due to a combination of legal issues and disciplinary issues, all four party members were going to have to do something quest-like. Since Orryn was going to have to send someone to get the Tome of Location anyway, he used the opportunity to send them all on a 'quest' to the library to fetch it.
- Off the Rails: Occurs almost immediately after the headmaster's familiar, a weasel named Jamerious Jenkins Jollygood, is introduced to the party. Supposedly Sophia was meant to be a laid back hippie, but becomes borderline sociopathic as soon as her goal becomes to get that Weasel.
- It gets to the point that Austin switches characters in episode three just so he can avoid an overload of weasel shenanigans.
- Self-Duplication: During the third episode, Orryn has to look into a possible instance of plagiarism where an Illusion student has allegedly copied off their own illusory double. By the end of the episode he finds that the original student is also an illusion and now has to track down the real one.
- Similar Squad: In episode 4. Coltash, Danamin, and Arvaad, a gunslinger, centaur, and silver dragonborn librarian respectively, run into Smith Wessington, Irving, and Garvel, a gunslinger, floating horse's head, and brass dragonborn librarian respectively. Each of them have history with their parallels and to top it off, the main squad works at Sharpoint Academy while the rival squad works at Rockedge Institute.
- They later meet Rockedge's headmaster, Aeolipile Shtap, who is physically similar to Orryn Waite and has a pet ferret simply named 'Sam'.
- Talking Weapon: The objective of the second hunt is a sword that banters on behalf of the wielder during battle. After its retrieval, the sword becomes a professor at Shardpoint.
- Treasure Map: The Tome of Location acts as one, revealing the location of magical artifacts around the world. Additionally, the party used one to find the Tome in the first place.
Law Offices of Guns, Puns, and Justice
A mini-season to provide content during the delay in Season 7's production. A legal mystery in the vein of Phoenix Wright and centered on the titular law firm as they attempt to prove the innocence of their client Kara Mitt in the murder of her wizarding mentor Siks.
- Appropriated Appellation: Initially the law firm is named Betty, Rose, and Finkwhistle. Damascus belittles their defense as consisting of 'guns and puns' which they like so much they change their name on the fly.Damascus: Is this all your defense team has brought to the table, is puns and guns?
Magnus: Well... and justice!
Betty: Can... can that be our new law firm? Can we be Guns, Puns, and Justice? - BFS: The murder weapon. It's not the biggest sword, but it's big enough that it becomes an important piece of evidence, since Kara's so small that she couldn't have used it without magic.
- False Confession: Kara and Riku both try to pull this, each to protect the other.
- Kangaroo Court: Based heavily on Phoenix Wright, it's not enough to disprove the suspect's guilt; the law firm has to prove someone else guilty in three days.
- At one point Betty asks if there are different degrees of guilt when it looks like they can at least prove Kara wasn't in control of her actions during the murder. The judge reveals that, absolutely regardless of circumstance, if Kara isn't proven innocent her life as she knows it will end.
- Law Procedural: The cast is made up of lawyers investigating a murder.
- Mysterious Employer: Guns, Puns, and Justice received an anonymous note informing them they would be defending Kara. They assume they were just the state ordered defense team while Damascus thinks whoever sent them in wants Kara found guilty.
- They meet their employer in episode three. He tries to stay anonymous despite his loud personality, so Elvira swipes his wallet and finds out his name's Zagdu.
- Too Dumb to Fool: Guns, Puns, and Justice. Zagdu tries to claim that he hired the defense team to ensure Kara a fair trial. The defense team counters that there are far better options for that.Magnus: Your honor, I think we've clearly demonstrated our complete and total incompetence up to this point. There's no way this man hired us to do good lawyering.
Rallyball
"Do you understand how many concussions I have suffered playing this game? My knowledge has expanded with each head injury."
Ellis Fartek, veteran Rallyball player.
A sports-themed one-shot set some time between Valentine and Markov, in a parallel universe where Rallyball is a popular sport. The episode stars the Gabriel Pangolins, a Rallyball team trying to make their way to the championship. And then their Coach-Mascot goes missing by the end of the first episode.- Big Game: The episode takes place as the teams are working their way to a championship game. Most winners never go back to Rallyball because they're so rich they don't need to play anymore.
- Blood Sport: Rallyball has everyone fighting for real; the only reason nobody dies is because mages will teleport players out just before they would have been killed. The downed players sit out the next round being magically healed.
- In fact, Jacq primarily plays because it lets him hit things. He outright forgets there's a ball-based point scoring element (which he calls the boring part) until the ball rolls to his feet.
- Genre Shift: The end of the episode sets up the next as a murder mystery because everyone thought it would be funny. They also imply that any further episodes would have a similar genre shift.
- Parody: Due to being a sports-themed one-shot, Chris takes the opportunity to parody a few different real-life sports teams and players. Of note is a particularly disheveled Eagle Aarakocra; or as one player put it, a Phil-thy Eagle.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: After clearing the arena of enemy players, the Pangolins try to score on an open goal. They keep trying crazy Shaolin Soccer style kicks, but the added complexity means they keep failing their rolls. Then the ball lands at Jacq's feet and, remembering the 'boring' part of the game, he just tosses it in with absolutely no flair.
- Sequel Hook: The episode ends with the lights in the stadium going out, then turning back on to reveal Coach-Mascot Pennysworth's pangolin outfit(?) lying in the middle of the field.
Mr. Spooky's House of Fun
A Halloween-themed one-shot without a set time frame. The players are a trio of gamblers who have decided to explore Mr. Spooky's House of Fun, an upside-down casino staffed by talking animals.
- Betting Minigame: Being set in a casino, there are lots of these. After getting into the 'winner's room' the gamblers find that there are more dangerous minigames based on betting, i.e. a card game that requires the player to deal 21 damage exactly to the dealer while avoiding taking damage themselves.
- Funny Animals: The staff. Notably differentiated between them and the players, two of whom are anthropomorphic animals.
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Inspiration for the Work: Apparently, the one-shot got its start after Lauren saw the name 'Chance Hamlin' and thought it sounded like a gambling pig, leading to the setting of a casino staffed by animals. - Mascot: The proprietor of Mr. Spooky's House of Fun likes animals and gambling in no particular order. As such, the 'gambimals' were created, animals with personalities based around gambling, as mascots for the casino.
- Pungeon Master: Lauren as the Dungeon Master, fittingly. All of the games at Mr. Spooky's are some kind of pun on the animal running them, from a pig running porker to a sloth running slotth machines to a crab running crabps.
- Schmuck Bait: Considering the gamblers were taken to the 'winner's room' after losing several games, it can be inferred that it's probably less a room for winning and more a room for gouging the particularly bad players.
Three Octopuses in a Trench Coat
"Octopus sex cult! Octopus sex cult!"
Jane
A one-shot using the one-page RPG of the same name. Three octopi try to escape from a laboratory.
- Doppelgänger: Seducing Susan lets the octopi figure out how faces work, letting them look exactly like Susan.
- Refuge in Audacity: They seduce Susan in the hopes that three octopi making love to a scientist in the middle of a hallway will confuse onlookers enough that they won't call security. It kind of works, too.
- Totem Pole Trench: The name and premise evoke the trope, although rather than children the participants are octopi.
Inheritors
Set in the Dice Funk setting post-Ilium. Just before the goddess Mystra died she sent shards of her essence to various mortals, granting them powers that typically flourish in their teenage years.
- Magical Girl: The one-shot is based around the magical girl genre, albeit tweaked to fit into Dice Funk's D&D-derived setting.
- Monster of the Week: Queen Asherin's strategy to plunge the world into darkness seems to be sending in a new villain every week.
- Rule of Cool: Chris plays pretty loose with the rules specifically so the players can have fun with the magical girl premise.
- Water Source Tampering: General Darkhelm's goal is to poison the water supply in the Fishberg zoo with a mutagen causing the animals to become violent abominations during the upcoming festival.
- This turns out to be a distraction for Asherin's real plan, which also involves this trope; by turning the wishing well at the Founder's Day festival into a portal to her plane, she hopes to redirect children's wishes to her, and in granting those wishes, would gain warlock pacts with all participants.
Kill Frosty
A holiday-themed one-shot where questionable assassins are hired by a questionable mayor to kill a rampaging giant fleshy snowman so that profitable festivities can commence unimpeded.
- Aborted Arc: Frosty's existence is described as having signs of divine influence. No one really investigates this and he's dead before it can come up again.
- Downer Ending: It's hinted that Frosty's rampage is due to Little Whiskers' father being forced to work by Gorbo over the holiday. Gorbo, who has become quite clearly the worst person involved in this mess, survives and starts plotting to assassinate and coup the mayor at the end of the episode.
- His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Mayor Richman's first name is actually Mayor.
- You Mean "Xmas": Very obviously Christmas-inspired but never actually called Christmas. In addition, their Santa Claus variant is named Father Winter.
