Twenty Sides: A DnD Podcast

They tied the tent shut from the inside. She was already in there.

Twenty Sides is a fast-paced, story-driven actual play Dungeons & Dragons podcast. This is Campaign 3: Crownfall, Episode 44.

The prism works exactly the way Zalkum said it would, right up until he holds it to the light and tells them to keep watching for the flash. There is a crack in it. Not a chip, a hairline, the kind you only see for half a second at a time, and it is enough to make the thing useless. Which leaves two options, and the first one ends with the portal staying open forever. The second one is a woman who lives in a thicket to the northwest, who can put it right, and who is described to them in terms that would make most people pick option one.

Back at the tent that night, somebody finally says out loud what the last four months have actually been like, and does something with a cup of water to prove to herself that any of it is happening. And in the morning, getting what they need out of the outpost turns out to cost something nobody saw coming.

New here? Crownfall is a self-contained D&D 5e campaign. Start at Episode 1 and you are caught up in a weekend. Episodes run about 30 minutes, tightly cut, no table admin.

0:00 Previously on Twenty Sides
0:36 Episode 44 begins
31:14 Outro

Start Crownfall at Episode 1 ➡️ https://shorturl.at/tFgXM
Exclusive Content ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/twentysides
Listen Here ➡️ https://linktr.ee/twentysidespod
Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/twentysidespod/
Discord ➡️ https://discord.gg/74kucBWZFh
Website ➡️ http://twentysides.com/

Atmospheric background tracks by Tabletop Audio ➡️ https://tabletopaudio.com

If Crownfall is landing for you, subscribe and leave a review. It's the single biggest thing that helps new adventurers find the table.

Twenty Sides is an actual play D&D podcast for anyone who likes their Dungeons and Dragons campaigns tight, character-driven and low on housekeeping. Campaign 3: Crownfall follows Quinn, Miller, Annabel and Thelandor across Averynth, in the world of Eclura. New episodes every week.

Want more Twenty Sides? Check the links below.

Patreon | www.patreon.com/twentysides
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/twentysidespod/
YouTube | https://youtube.com/@twentysidespodcast
Discord | https://discord.gg/74kucBWZFh

Something on the road opens its mouth and a human voice comes out. It is not its voice.

Twenty Sides is a fast-paced, story-driven actual play Dungeons & Dragons podcast. This is Campaign 3: Crownfall, Episode 43.

Two days of walking back toward the outpost with the prism, and on the second night the howling in the trees stops being distant. Six of them are coming up the road, five ordinary and one that is not, and they are not heading anywhere good. The party could let them pass. The party decides not to, and then immediately botches the approach badly enough that the things get to move first, which costs Miller more in one exchange than anything in the observatory managed.

What follows is the most lopsided fight this campaign has produced, in the other direction. Then one of the few still standing opens its mouth, and what comes out is worse than the howling was.

They get the prism to the one person at the outpost they trust with it, and he tells them exactly what it does by way of a story about his childhood that nobody asked for and nobody will forget.

New here? Crownfall is a self-contained D&D 5e campaign. Start at Episode 1 and you are caught up in a weekend. Episodes run about 30 minutes, tightly cut, no table admin.

0:00 Previously on Twenty Sides
0:41 Episode 43 begins
30:46 Outro

Atmospheric background tracks by Tabletop Audio ➡️ https://tabletopaudio.com

If Crownfall is landing for you, subscribe and leave a review. It's the single biggest thing that helps new adventurers find the table.

Twenty Sides is an actual play D&D podcast for anyone who likes their Dungeons and Dragons campaigns tight, character-driven and low on housekeeping. Campaign 3: Crownfall follows Quinn, Miller, Annabel and Thelandor across Avernth, in the world of Eclura. New episodes every week.

Want more Twenty Sides? Check the links below.

Patreon | www.patreon.com/twentysides
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/twentysidespod/
YouTube | https://youtube.com/@twentysidespodcast
Discord | https://discord.gg/74kucBWZFh

The prism is finally free. That is when the ceiling gives up.

Twenty Sides is a fast-paced, story-driven actual play Dungeons & Dragons podcast. This is Campaign 3: Crownfall, Episode 42.

Annabel gets the prism off its arms with a set of thieves' tools while a reptilian head the size of a table works its way in through the roof. The armored thing they were fighting takes one look and leaves. Thelandor goes up toward the creature instead of away from it, which is either the bravest or the stupidest decision anyone makes this week, and honestly it might be both. Then the whole thing drops into the room and opens its mouth, and the party finds out what it does at range.

Getting out means going up the outside of a dome that behaves like a wet water slide, with a very large animal trying to follow. And then, on the way, somebody finally mentions a detail he has been sitting on for several minutes that would have changed the entire plan.

New here? Crownfall is a self-contained D&D 5e campaign. Start at Episode 1 and you are caught up in a weekend. Episodes run about 30 minutes, tightly cut, no table admin.

0:00 Previously on Twenty Sides
0:35 Episode 42 begins
30:16 Outro

Start Crownfall at Episode 1 ➡️ https://shorturl.at/tFgXM
Exclusive Content ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/twentysides
Listen Here ➡️ https://linktr.ee/twentysidespod
Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/twentysidespod/
Discord ➡️ https://discord.gg/74kucBWZFh
Website ➡️ http://twentysides.com/

Atmospheric background tracks by Tabletop Audio ➡️ https://tabletopaudio.com

If Crownfall is landing for you, subscribe and leave a review. It's the single biggest thing that helps new adventurers find the table.

Twenty Sides is an actual play D&D podcast for anyone who likes their Dungeons and Dragons campaigns tight, character-driven and low on housekeeping. Campaign 3: Crownfall follows Quinn, Miller, Annabel and Thelandor across Averynth, in the world of Eclura. New episodes every week.

Want more Twenty Sides? Check the links below.

Patreon | www.patreon.com/twentysides
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/twentysidespod/
YouTube | https://youtube.com/@twentysidespodcast
Discord | https://discord.gg/74kucBWZFh

Two figures in full plate turn to face the party. There is nothing inside the helmets.

Twenty Sides is a fast-paced, story-driven actual play Dungeons & Dragons podcast. This is Campaign 3: Crownfall, Episode 41.

Another floor up in the sunken observatory is a room full of broken windows, and hanging in the middle of it on four metal arms is a prism catching light from every angle. One of the armored things is up a ladder working on the arms when the party walks in. Both of them draw. What follows is a fight the party is winning, except the prism itself keeps lighting up and firing on everyone not behind cover, and they want it off those arms in one piece.

Then something starts moving around on the floor above them. Then it stops moving. Nobody in this room, including the thing in the armor, is prepared for what comes through the ceiling next.

New here? Crownfall is a self-contained D&D 5e campaign. Start at Episode 1 and you are caught up in a weekend. Episodes run about 30 minutes, tightly cut, no table admin.

0:00 Previously on Twenty Sides

0:59 Episode 41 begins

31:40 Outro

Atmospheric background tracks by Tabletop Audio ➡️ https://tabletopaudio.com

If Crownfall is landing for you, subscribe and leave a review. It's the single biggest thing that helps new adventurers find the table.

Twenty Sides is an actual play D&D podcast for anyone who likes their Dungeons and Dragons campaigns tight, character-driven and low on housekeeping. Campaign 3: Crownfall follows Quinn, Miller, Annabel and Thelandor across Averynth, in the world of Eclura. New episodes every week.

Want more Twenty Sides? Check the links below.

Patreon | www.patreon.com/twentysides
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/twentysidespod/
YouTube | https://youtube.com/@twentysidespodcast
Discord | https://discord.gg/74kucBWZFh

There is one telescope left in the ruin that still works. Looking through it turns out to be a mistake.

Twenty Sides is a fast-paced, story-driven actual play Dungeons & Dragons podcast. This is Campaign 3: Crownfall, Episode 40.

They come out of the portal into ground they have never seen, black earth and burnt grass, two hundred feet from an observatory that has sunk into the ground. Something large has been climbing in and out through the torn roof, and something else has dug its own way down to the original doors. The party takes the doors. Inside, under the rubble of a collapsed hall, two things are purring in the dark, and when Quinn throws a lit stone to find out what they are, what comes out to grab it is not a paw.

Upstairs, five observation stations, three of them intact and only one still in working order. It takes two tries to get a picture. The first person to look through it sees someone they recognize standing out in the shroud, which would be fine except that she is also standing right here in the room. Then somebody else takes a turn.

New here? Crownfall is a self-contained D&D 5e campaign. Start at Episode 1 and you are caught up in a weekend. Episodes run about 30 minutes, tightly cut, no table admin.

0:00 Previously on Twenty Sides

0:44 Episode 40 begins

31:16 Outro

Atmospheric background tracks by Tabletop Audio ➡️ https://tabletopaudio.com

If Crownfall is landing for you, subscribe and leave a review. It's the single biggest thing that helps new adventurers find the table.

Twenty Sides is an actual play D&D podcast for anyone who likes their Dungeons and Dragons campaigns tight, character-driven and low on housekeeping. Campaign 3: Crownfall follows Quinn, Miller, Annabel and Thelandor across Averynth, in the world of Eclura. New episodes every week.

Want more Twenty Sides? Check the links below.

Patreon | www.patreon.com/twentysides
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/twentysidespod/
YouTube | https://youtube.com/@twentysidespodcast
Discord | https://discord.gg/74kucBWZFh

A bat flies into the tent, looks around, and flies back out. Nobody at the table thinks it was a bat.

Twenty Sides is a fast-paced, story-driven actual play Dungeons & Dragons podcast. This is Campaign 3: Crownfall, Episode 39.

This picks up the same night. Zalkum leaves them with one instruction, tell no one, and a reason to take it seriously that has nothing to do with devils and everything to do with who is running the outpost. Then the party sits in the dark and starts doing the arithmetic out loud: what order any of this has to happen in, whether you close the portal before or after you free what is behind it, and how a person is supposed to reach the Hells in the first place.

By morning they are the talk of the camp. Brother Havoc lets himself into the tent without knocking, and he has questions: the fortress, the map, and whether any of it matches the reports he already has from a world nobody has walked in before. A debrief with command is waiting after that. The interesting part is not what they report. It is the short, quiet conversation they have first about what they are going to leave out.

New here? Crownfall is a self-contained D&D 5e campaign. Start at Episode 1 and you are caught up in a weekend. Episodes run about 30 minutes, tightly cut, no table admin.

Atmospheric background tracks by Tabletop Audio ➡️ https://tabletopaudio.com

If Crownfall is landing for you, subscribe and leave a review. It's the single biggest thing that helps new adventurers find the table.

Twenty Sides is an actual play D&D podcast for anyone who likes their Dungeons and Dragons campaigns tight, character-driven and low on housekeeping. Campaign 3: Crownfall follows Quinn, Miller, Annabel and Thelandor across Averynth, in the world of Eclura. New episodes every week.

Want more Twenty Sides? Check the links below.

Patreon | www.patreon.com/twentysides
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/twentysidespod/
YouTube | https://youtube.com/@twentysidespodcast
Discord | https://discord.gg/74kucBWZFh

They were inside the portal for an afternoon. Everyone at the outpost says they were gone four days.

Twenty Sides is a fast-paced, story-driven actual play Dungeons & Dragons podcast. This is Campaign 3: Crownfall, Episode 38.

No combat this week. The party gets back through the gate with Miller's hood pulled low and a deception check standing between him and being turned away, and then they go and fetch the one person at the outpost who might be able to explain what happened to his eyes. They find him buried in three and a half days of scrolls, damaged texts and planar studies, because while they were gone he has been chasing a single question: why does a portal whisper? Portals don't whisper. What he found instead is the reason the party's whole understanding of that thing in the woods has been wrong, most portals are doors, but some of them are windows, and a window works in both directions.

Then he ties the tent shut, tells them he hasn't breathed a word of any of this to a single guard or commander, and asks Quinn what her name is.

New here? Crownfall is a self-contained D&D 5e campaign, start at Episode 1 and you're caught up in a weekend. Episodes run about 30 minutes, tightly cut, no table admin.

If Crownfall is landing for you, subscribe and leave a review, it's the single biggest thing that helps new adventurers find the table.

Twenty Sides is an actual play D&D podcast for anyone who likes their Dungeons and Dragons campaigns tight, character-driven and low on housekeeping. Campaign 3: Crownfall follows Quinn, Miller, Annabel and Thelandor across Avernth, in the world of Eclura. New episodes every week.

Want more Twenty Sides? Check the links below.

Patreon | www.patreon.com/twentysides
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/twentysidespod/
YouTube | https://youtube.com/@twentysidespodcast
Discord | https://discord.gg/74kucBWZFh

Three of them make it through the portal. One of them doesn't, and nobody notices until it's too late.

The chapel fight ends here, and it ends strangely. The party has worked out the rule by now: every spirit they destroy adds another piece to the portal forming against the back wall, so the way out gets built one kill at a time. What they haven't worked out is what the spirits actually wanted. One of them sheds a tear before Annabel puts a dagger through its chest, and the table spends a moment deciding what that means. Two more appear kneeling at the altar, and somebody finally says the thing nobody wanted to say: we're trying to help them, and they have no idea.

Thelandor is down to four maximum hit points, which means one more coin puts him on the floor until the party can manage a long rest. The portal is barely wide enough to shimmy through. And every spirit that dies still has to pass through Miller to get there.

New here? Crownfall is a self-contained D&D 5e campaign — start at Episode 1 and you're caught up in a weekend. Episodes run about 30 minutes, tightly cut, no table admin.

CHAPTERS

0:00 Previously on Twenty Sides
0:25 Episode 37 begins — Crownfall
0:57 Annabel's steady aim and sneak attack
1:52 An ethereal tear
2:06 Round three — how much portal do we need?
3:00 Thelandor's critical hit and divine smite
3:33 Another spirit passes through Miller
4:52 Life drain and uncanny dodge
5:55 What happens when maximum hit points reach zero
7:25 Miller's action surge
8:02 The portal takes shape
9:45 Two spirits kneeling at the altar
10:05 "We're trying to help them"
13:01 Wide enough to shimmy through
14:36 Through the portal
15:50 Two more stand up
20:44 The other side
22:26 A plan
25:27 Out
26:23 Getting their bearings
29:12 Quinn tries something
31:48 Outro

If Crownfall is landing for you, subscribe and leave a review — it's the single biggest thing that helps new adventurers find the table.

Want more Twenty Sides? Check the links below.

Patreon | www.patreon.com/twentysides
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/twentysidespod/
YouTube | https://youtube.com/@twentysidespodcast
Discord | https://discord.gg/74kucBWZFh

The figures in the pews don't look hostile. They also don't look like they're coming to say hello.

Twenty Sides is a fast-paced, story-driven actual play Dungeons & Dragons podcast. This is Campaign 3: Crownfall, Episode 36.

Episode 35 ended on initiative being rolled in a dark chapel, before anyone had taken a single turn. This one opens with the party finding out what the spirits' tokens actually do — and it is not a blessing.

What follows is a full episode of combat, and it's the strangest fight this campaign has run. The spirits don't simply die. Each one comes apart, travels to the back wall, and starts building something. Piece by piece, kill by kill, a way out assembles itself from the things the party is destroying — which leaves them doing arithmetic nobody wants to say out loud: how many more do we need?

The room keeps refilling. Two of them rise in a pew where they'd been sitting side by side, holding hands. And every time one passes through Miller on its way to the back wall, the party notices something about him is worse than it was.

New here? Crownfall is a self-contained D&D 5e campaign — start at Episode 1 and you're caught up in a weekend. Episodes run about 30 minutes, tightly cut, no table admin.

If Crownfall is landing for you, subscribe and leave a review — it's the single biggest thing that helps new adventurers find the table.

CREDITS
Atmospheric background tracks by Tabletop Audio ➡️ https://tabletopaudio.com

Twenty Sides is an actual play D&D podcast for anyone who likes their Dungeons and Dragons campaigns tight, character-driven and low on housekeeping. Campaign 3: Crownfall follows Quinn, Miller, Annabel and Thelandor across Avernth, in the world of Eclura. New episodes every week.

Want more Twenty Sides? Check the links below.

Patreon | www.patreon.com/twentysides
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/twentysidespod/
YouTube | https://youtube.com/@twentysidespodcast
Discord | https://discord.gg/74kucBWZFh

A thousand-year-old hymn finally tells the party what this place was really built for — and why the people who kept the watch never left.

Twenty Sides is a fast-paced, story-driven actual play Dungeons & Dragons podcast. This is Campaign 3: Crownfall, Episode 35.

The skeleton is down. Miller's eyes are still glowing blue.

Before anyone can work out why, the party spots a faint light burning under a dead guard's armor — and it isn't the only one. In the barracks they find letters that were never sent, written by soldiers who were afraid but certain their god would protect them. They also find a prayer to that same god carved into the bed frames again and again, and crossed out every single time.

In a ten-by-ten stone offering room, the party uncovers the Hymn of Vigil and Binding: a full liturgy about a king crowned in dawn, a name broken beyond repair, and a watch that was never meant to end. Then there's a final verse, in different handwriting, that the people who wrote it clearly never expected anyone to read.

What the party pieces together from it reframes everything on the other side of the portal — and it has consequences back home that nobody there has noticed yet.

There are stairs going down. Obviously they take them.

Two floors down is the quietest room they've walked into yet. It's already praying.

New to us? Campaign 3: Crownfall starts at Episode 1 and you can be caught up in a weekend.

Want more Twenty Sides? Check the links below.

Patreon | www.patreon.com/twentysides
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/twentysidespod/
YouTube | https://youtube.com/@twentysidespodcast
Discord | https://discord.gg/74kucBWZFh