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114: How to Befriend Your Landshark · Dungeonpedia

0:00
SPEAKER_00: You the adventurer?
0:02
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: Do you desire knowledge of immense worlds and arcane power?
0:07
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0:10
SPEAKER_00: Or perhaps simply easy listening for your daily commute?
0:13
SPEAKER_00: Then feast your eyes, or more accurately, yes, upon Dungeon Pedia.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: Shit's about to get nerdy in here.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: Taylor Peasley.
0:47
SPEAKER_01: And I'm Travis Peasley.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: Y'all, I love it when it's easy.
0:53
SPEAKER_03: When it's easy?
0:54
SPEAKER_01: It's easy.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: You know, I feel like I I feel like I I usually have a you know, if I don't just like start an episode with like fake vampire fangs on and whatever, like I feel like there's always like a winding story as to like how I ended up on the topic I ended up on instead of doing a part two to like any of the the threads I've left hanging.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: But this one is literally just last because like la because last week Travis did the gelatinous cube episode, and I don't even I don't exactly like I think we we were probably just talking about like old iconic monsters, iconic, very like specifically DD monsters, and we were like, oh, boulettes, we haven't done boulettes, and then I was like, Oh, I want to do boulettes.
1:43
SPEAKER_03: I remember it was the featured article.
1:46
SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.
1:47
SPEAKER_03: And it was I was like, oh my god, the picture of the old boulettes is just a little guy.
1:52
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's right.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
1:54
SPEAKER_01: And there are there are a lot of there are actually a I say a lot, there's like four pictures in this episode.
2:00
SPEAKER_01: Well, there's like three, I think, that aren't just pictures of stat blocks.
2:05
SPEAKER_01: We'll we'll those are we'll we'll we'll get into it.
2:09
SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, there's a there's a quote unquote lot of visual aids in this episode.
2:15
SPEAKER_03: I will uh do my best to download the visual aids and have them ready to go.
2:20
SPEAKER_01: But at the very least, they will be we'll just we'll tell the we'll tell you about how cute they are.
2:25
SPEAKER_03: We will tell you about how cute they are, and they will be in the final version video version uh of the episode.
2:32
SPEAKER_01: But they are in the dark.
2:33
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, um okay.
2:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I feel like I can't even name the thing.
2:40
SPEAKER_01: So it is it is technically pronounced boulet.
2:46
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
2:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it it is clearly a French word.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: We'll talk about the origins of the the the name kind of.
2:57
SPEAKER_01: It's a funny story.
2:58
SPEAKER_01: Um okay but it is technically in all sources where a pronunciation is given that aren't one funny dragon magazine article we're gonna mention.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: Um, the given pronunciation is boole.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: But I'm I'm I will I'm a person who I learned a lot of words.
3:20
SPEAKER_01: Boole was not one of those words, but I learned a lot of words from reading and not talking to people.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: So there's some words, you know, stuff.
3:29
SPEAKER_01: You learn a word from reading it, you don't know how it's pronounced, and then you say it for the first time, and everyone around you is like, that's not how it's pronounced, you fucking idiot.
3:37
SPEAKER_01: Right.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: And then you feel bad about yourself.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: Um, anyway, so like I get I get people's, you know, she see the word, whatever.
3:46
SPEAKER_01: Um, but it is technically pronounced boulet.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: I will be I will be cycling through like three different pronunciations this entire episode.
3:54
SPEAKER_01: I'm very sorry.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: Fair enough.
3:56
SPEAKER_01: I had to address the the the the the boulet in the room.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, in the room.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: I did have to address it, but anyway, so the uh iconic and truly deserving of the word iconic, I feel like, boolet, made its debut in the first issue of Dragon Magazine, which was published in 1976.
4:18
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh! Wow in the article uh Creature Features the Boulet by Tim Kask, which we will get into that specific article in a minute.
4:29
SPEAKER_01: And before we're gonna talk about a little background, I got to go to a forum for this one, it's very exciting.
4:35
SPEAKER_01: So, similarly to the previously discussed uh Rust Monster, I don't remember how much I went into this story in the Rust Monster episode because I didn't go back in a little comfari, but I know I talked about it.
4:48
SPEAKER_01: Right.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: The boulet was inspired by one of the these little plastic toys from a bag purchased at a dime store by Gary Gygax.
5:00
SPEAKER_01: And there's a little picture, the the the picture that's in the dock here, the third image in that little compilation, I believe, is the toy.
5:10
SPEAKER_01: So I guess I was thinking it certified little guy or certified little guy right from the beginning.
5:18
SPEAKER_03: He looks like if somebody crossed an armadillo with a shark in that picture.
5:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
5:25
SPEAKER_03: Um maybe a little antheater.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so this, so yeah.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: Interestingly, um, this is probably the only one.
5:35
SPEAKER_01: Well, I say the only one.
5:36
SPEAKER_01: I don't remember seeing any images of the other figures, but it looks like this figure may have been influenced by the that it would have been modeled after Gibbora, uh, which is a giant enemy creature from Ultraman.
5:56
SPEAKER_01: I don't know anything about Ultraman, I'm sorry.
5:58
SPEAKER_03: I also don't know anything about Ultraman.
6:00
SPEAKER_01: But Gibbora is pictured in this little collection of images, so you can see the the progression.
6:06
SPEAKER_03: Okay, yeah, potentially.
6:08
SPEAKER_01: Like you can see, it's the shape of the face, you know, stuff, the general general structure.
6:14
SPEAKER_01: But there's a little bit more about the kind of how we got from this little plastic toy to the DD monster from a forum post on the Dragon's Foot Forums by Tim Kask, who I learned sadly passed away last December.
6:31
SPEAKER_01: So like pressing these dude, like my sympathies to the cask fans.
6:36
SPEAKER_01: I was like, you know, like just kind of researching that coming up, and uh it said he passed away in I believe December 2025, and I was like Damn.
6:46
SPEAKER_01: But uh as far as I understand, the other the other little figures that were from this bag, Gary Gygax had kind of already, you know, gone through the one who kind of came up with like the Rust Monster and the Umber Hulk.
6:58
SPEAKER_01: But in a quote from this uh thread on the Dragon's Foot Forums, quote, I'll just I'll just be reading it straight, grammatical errors included, I guess.
7:07
SPEAKER_01: Quote, there was still had one that had not been taxon taxonomically identified and defined yet that intrigued me.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: They called it the bullet.
7:15
SPEAKER_01: I frogged up the name a bit.
7:17
SPEAKER_01: At this time, SNL was hitting its stride and had become a cultural phenomenon, and the Jaws movies were just hitting their stride, and SNL ran with the land shark parody.
7:26
SPEAKER_01: There's a bit I cut out of there.
7:29
SPEAKER_01: My excursive mind hooked them together as I imagined what a real in D D terms, real land shark might be.
7:36
SPEAKER_01: I had probably been watching a PBS program about moles or armadillos.
7:41
SPEAKER_03: Hell yeah.
7:42
SPEAKER_03: Also, I knew that armadillos were in building.
7:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: So also I didn't parse what he meant by frogged up at first.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: Did he mean like like as a euphemism for frenchifying it?
7:56
SPEAKER_01: That's what I think.
7:57
SPEAKER_01: Because I read that and I thought he was saying like messed up.
8:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like someone read it too.
8:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: Like the way that you would say that, like, oh well, I bungled that, or like yeah, I I fucked that or something.
8:11
SPEAKER_01: That you know what I mean though.
8:13
SPEAKER_01: Like biffed it.
8:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: You, you know, you you whiffed it, you you know, you biffed it, you bungled it, whatever.
8:20
SPEAKER_01: And then like two days later, after I wrote that, I was like at work in the break room on my phone, stone faced, and I realized that he probably actually meant that he took like he when he said he frogged it, that he like took the pronunciation and the spelling and made it sound more French.
8:40
SPEAKER_01: And I was like nothing for stone faced at work, and just started laughing at what what was essentially my own joke in my head.
8:51
SPEAKER_01: Um, anyway.
8:52
SPEAKER_03: Uh but in response to Tim's joke from God knows how many years ago.
8:57
SPEAKER_01: In response to to him saying that he he he frogged something to make it sound more French.
9:04
SPEAKER_01: Add that to the Urban Dictionary page.
9:06
SPEAKER_03: It might already be there because I think it's a good one.
9:09
SPEAKER_03: No, it wasn't.
9:10
SPEAKER_03: I looked it up.
9:11
SPEAKER_03: I looked it up.
9:12
SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.
9:12
SPEAKER_03: So like this was this was a deep dive into the history of jokes.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is a this is a gem from the from the 1970s, probably.
9:22
SPEAKER_01: There was also a joke in there about like how Gary Gygax had purchased these little figurines from a dime store.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: I I think the forum post was written.
9:30
SPEAKER_01: Well, actually, the forum post was written in 2007, I think.
9:33
SPEAKER_01: But but he he was like, Oh yeah, he bought them from a dime store, and then was like, today we'd call it a dollar store.
9:39
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, damn damn economic jokes.
9:44
SPEAKER_03: Today it'd be the dollar fifty store or the two dollar store.
9:48
SPEAKER_02: It's the two dollar store now, shit.
9:49
SPEAKER_02: Oh shit.
9:50
SPEAKER_03: This is everyone, are you ready for boomer-esque jokes about the economy?
9:55
SPEAKER_01: The economy from non-boomers.
9:58
SPEAKER_01: From non-boomers, yeah.
9:59
SPEAKER_01: From I mean, we're we're getting up there, guys.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: Boomer?
10:03
SPEAKER_01: Never mind.
10:05
SPEAKER_01: So back to the the dragon article.
10:07
SPEAKER_01: That's kind of the background of the the inspiration for the this guy.
10:12
SPEAKER_01: So the Boole, which is also known as a land shark, and it is is denoted as being pronounced Boole.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: Right.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: Was a cross of an armadillo and a snapping turtle, quote, thought to be extinct until recently.
10:27
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
10:28
SPEAKER_01: Alright.
10:29
SPEAKER_01: Alright, don't really know the context behind that, but okay.
10:32
SPEAKER_01: That's that's something that's a common theme with the boolet, is that like I guess in any given adventure module, they show up and people are like, oh shit, I thought these things were all dead.
10:44
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
10:45
SPEAKER_01: It's like I didn't know these existed, so cool.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: Right?
10:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's like it's like if I guess if it's like if we saw dinosaurs, I don't really know.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: I guess so, yeah.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: When fully grown, they were nine to eleven feet tall, and that they definitely mean tall, not long.
11:00
SPEAKER_01: They're big, they're very large.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: God damn.
11:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:02
SPEAKER_03: So is that from like all fours on ground?
11:06
SPEAKER_03: Or is that oh my god.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I believe also I believe also a later like manual describes like a particular specimen as being like 11 feet like thereabouts tall at the withers, which I don't really know where the withers are on a boulet, but okay.
11:23
SPEAKER_01: Uh sure.
11:25
SPEAKER_01: It's there somewhere.
11:26
SPEAKER_01: I where is that just that's the shoulder on a horse, right?
11:31
SPEAKER_03: Uh yeah, I'm pretty sure.
11:32
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
11:33
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
11:33
SPEAKER_03: I I I don't know.
11:35
SPEAKER_03: You were raised on a farm.
11:37
SPEAKER_03: We didn't have horses.
11:38
SPEAKER_03: But haunches are the haunches.
11:41
SPEAKER_03: Yes?
11:41
SPEAKER_02: Haunches are haunches.
11:44
SPEAKER_03: Is it the haun?
11:45
SPEAKER_01: No, the haunches the butt.
11:47
SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.
11:48
SPEAKER_01: Okay, the raised bony ridge looking at the base of the neck between the shoulder blades.
11:52
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I was so uh when fully grown uh in addition to being really fucking big, uh they also possessed low intelligence and aggressive dispositions, which is always a good combination on a big animal.
12:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, always the best.
12:06
SPEAKER_02: Low intelligence, aggressive dispositions.
12:08
SPEAKER_02: I mean, perfect combination, really.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: They had incredible appetites and a particular love for horse meat.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, we tie horses back to it.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: Uh though they would eat anything but elves and were not particularly fond of dwarves.
12:22
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why.
12:23
SPEAKER_01: They just and in fact, uh, in in like very early editions, they like would not go like knowingly go near elves at all.
12:34
SPEAKER_01: I don't really know what the deal is with that.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: They're too fancy.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: But but also I don't know that the that boulets know what fancy is.
12:43
SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't know that they have a regard for any of that.
12:46
SPEAKER_01: Oh well, that's true, because they're not then closed.
12:48
SPEAKER_01: They're not very smart.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: So there probably just was food-based like preferences then.
12:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I I I mean, I guess that's where that's that's where you like I feel like maybe the even the most garbage disposal people probably have like at least like one thing, you know.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're like, I draw the line here, and I guess for boulets it's elves, and then dwarves are like, if I gotta, you know.
13:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like if I was starving, I might eat this.
13:15
SPEAKER_03: And maybe the dwarf was just the issue that they were constantly decked out in like heavy armor.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: No, that doesn't really bother them.
13:22
SPEAKER_01: They can digest that.
13:23
SPEAKER_01: Oh, fun.
13:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:24
SPEAKER_01: So their primary weapon was their quote, awesome jaws, um, which dealt from four to forty-eight damage, followed by their clawed feet, which dealt three to eighteen damage.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: Um, despite their size, boulets were proficient in quiet stalking, being nearly impossible.
13:40
SPEAKER_01: They have a 90% chance to fail, to take them by surprise, and they could also jump up to eight feet.
13:47
SPEAKER_02: Good god.
13:48
SPEAKER_01: Eight-foot vertical leap.
13:50
SPEAKER_02: Eight-foot vertical leap.
13:52
SPEAKER_02: These things are nine to eleven feet tall, and they're stealthy as hell, and they have an eight-foot vertical leap.
13:59
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
13:59
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that's actually a like supposed to be as vertical leap.
14:03
SPEAKER_01: I just wanted to make the joke.
14:04
SPEAKER_01: It's probably not.
14:05
SPEAKER_03: It's probably like a like a like a forward jump, if I had to guess, because uh like eight-foot vertical leap won't even clear their own height.
14:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but it is very funny to imagine them just springing like straight up like a cat, you know.
14:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:20
SPEAKER_01: Um, they had two weak spots, their eyes, which were described as small, but also were eight inches across, because these things are really fucking big.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: But proportionally to the creature, obviously, that's pretty small.
14:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:34
SPEAKER_01: Um, so their eyes had an AC of four.
14:37
SPEAKER_01: The main body had an AC of negative two.
14:40
SPEAKER_01: Jesus.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: And there's like a particular spot on their back because their body is kind of made of these like segmented, like articulated, very hard plates.
14:53
SPEAKER_01: Sort of like an armadillo.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: Sort of like an armadillo.
14:57
SPEAKER_01: But there's like a a hinged kind of like portion, which I think is meant to be kind of where their like sort of shark fin-looking thing is.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: So they had the the underside of that hinged portion, which was normally not raised, it normally is only exposed when they were raising their crests.
15:15
SPEAKER_01: And this had an AC of six, and it was also about like a foot and a half in like kind of rough diameter.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: Um, so those are their two weak spots.
15:25
SPEAKER_01: The hard scales that made up their body were valuable in use as shield materials, and their teeth were also very valuable.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: That tracks.
15:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, the shield part tracks.
15:36
SPEAKER_01: I don't quite know about the teeth, but I think it charts kind of I think it kind of just is is like a little bit of just like a trophy?
15:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like a little bit of a trophy aspect.
15:46
SPEAKER_03: I'm just imagining arrowheads made out of their teeth, to be perfectly honest.
15:50
SPEAKER_01: Like and they're like, they're like for like ballistas, you know.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for like siege machines, because they're fucking huge.
15:56
SPEAKER_01: Because they're fucking huge.
15:58
SPEAKER_01: So, contrary to what most people probably think of when they picture a boulette nowadays, thanks to that motherfucker in Polder Scape 3, per this article, they never appear underground.
16:11
SPEAKER_01: By which I mean I I think it's meant to be that like if you're like in a cave deep in the earth, yeah.
16:18
SPEAKER_03: So like you're not going to encounter them in, say, the Underdark.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: The Underdark, for example.
16:23
SPEAKER_01: And there's also like not really uh like there's not really a lot about the mechanics that we associate with them about like kind of swimming through the earth, so to speak.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: Right.
16:36
SPEAKER_03: That's kind of lame.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:39
SPEAKER_01: But granted, uh, they do, you know, the obviously they do first appear in this dragon article, but they kind of make their way into mainstream like source books very quickly.
16:50
SPEAKER_01: So it gets expanded upon, I assume.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: So boulets were very rare and appeared only alone or in a mated pair.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: So at the very least, you're not gonna have to deal with like five of them at the same time.
17:03
SPEAKER_01: That's good.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: And uh heard the article, no baby, no like babies, no eggs, anything like that have ever been seen.
17:12
SPEAKER_03: So very early on in the uh ecological research on these bad boys, yeah.
17:19
SPEAKER_03: They were just kind of like, yeah, there's these guys.
17:23
SPEAKER_01: We don't know what we don't know why, we don't know what's going on.
17:26
SPEAKER_03: It's kind of like how, um, even though we know like a lot about how and why we don't totally understand everything about great white mating.
17:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, or like where they go.
17:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, babies just suddenly appear.
17:42
SPEAKER_01: Baby sharks.
17:45
SPEAKER_01: No, I'm sorry.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: I told myself I wasn't gonna do it, but you walked into that one.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: You opened the door for me on that one.
17:52
SPEAKER_01: I'm so sorry.
17:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, anyway, if it'll make you feel better, I do have a picture.
17:57
SPEAKER_01: Oh I think we literally looked at this picture last week, but like, come on.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah.
18:04
SPEAKER_01: Come on, look at him.
18:05
SPEAKER_02: He's such a little guy who's literally tearing down a tree.
18:09
SPEAKER_03: To describe him, he is the the height of the the presumably ginormous tree uh with like Michelin man style uh armor plates.
18:20
SPEAKER_03: That's the only way I can describe the art is Michelin man style.
18:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
18:24
SPEAKER_03: And then he looks like he's scratching at the tree like a cat.
18:28
SPEAKER_03: Yes, he does, except also destroying it because you know and he has like the most happy, relaxed face on on him.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he does.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: They're not happy or relaxed.
18:39
SPEAKER_03: But this this little guy.
18:41
SPEAKER_03: This one is you can't fool me.
18:42
SPEAKER_03: This little guy is.
18:44
SPEAKER_01: I do feel like Booleys, especially in a lot of their art, are very like, if not friend, why friend shaped?
18:49
SPEAKER_01: Why friend shaped?
18:50
SPEAKER_01: Like genuinely.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
18:53
SPEAKER_01: So I won't I won't include art.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: A lot of their art is like if not this caliber, is still like cool.
19:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's either cool or adorable.
19:03
SPEAKER_01: It's either cool or like this, you know, peak, friend-shaped, dangerous animal, you know.
19:09
SPEAKER_01: So this is the art from the Advanced Dungeons of Dragons monster manual, which was published in 1977.
19:15
SPEAKER_01: And similarly to sharks in the real world, which I actually I actually don't know if this is true or if this is just a thing people say, but it is a thing people say, about how like sharks haven't really changed much.
19:29
SPEAKER_01: That's true.
19:31
SPEAKER_01: Nature made a perfect aquatic killing machine.
19:36
SPEAKER_03: I wanna say not since I do know it's true.
19:40
SPEAKER_03: Late Cretaceous period have there been that many changes in sharks?
19:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I do know that it's true that sharks are older than trees, which I think about almost as much as I think about the Roman Empire.
19:53
SPEAKER_02: It's still an uncomfortable thought.
19:57
SPEAKER_01: But similarly to see like sharks in the real world, as far as we know, they didn't really change much because I guess if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
20:08
SPEAKER_01: Fair enough.
20:09
SPEAKER_01: And it also, I mean, granted, this was between 1976 and 77 from the article to the monster manual publication.
20:15
SPEAKER_01: But it is, it does kind of establish a theme.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: I will say that.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: Their origin as a recently rediscovered cross of an armadillo and a snapping turtle was spiced up as being an ancient wizard's experiment that also included a little bit of demon acre, kind of like uh, you know, a little bit of a chemical X, you know, powerpuff.
20:34
SPEAKER_02: Sugar spice and everything nice.
20:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sugar spice.
20:37
SPEAKER_02: Except in this case it's demon acre.
20:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and demon acre.
20:40
SPEAKER_03: Sugar spice and demon acre.
20:42
SPEAKER_04: Hmm.
20:42
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
20:43
SPEAKER_03: Doesn't quite have the same ring to it.
20:45
SPEAKER_03: It doesn't stay.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: No, I think it's good.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: So despite the demonic influence, they do have a neutral nature because I don't think they are smart enough to understand morality or laws or anything.
20:59
SPEAKER_01: Valid.
20:59
SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, yeah.
21:00
SPEAKER_01: So their hunger for horse flesh, um, their palate has been expanded to also include a love for halfling meat.
21:07
SPEAKER_01: Don't know why.
21:08
SPEAKER_01: Is such that they will attack like a large, well-equipped, like well-equipped uh traveling party just to eat some horses.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: Because again, also this is probably influenced also by their extremely low intelligence, because you know, they're not necessarily going to have the faculties to assess that like this is probably not a good idea.
21:28
SPEAKER_01: They just sense horses and they're like, I can take it.
21:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I gotta give me some of that.
21:34
SPEAKER_01: Also, they apparently get the name land shark because of the fin on their back that you know that is very present in a lot of art.
21:41
SPEAKER_01: Oh that fin will uh sometimes poke out of the ground while the blue layers like burns.
21:46
SPEAKER_02: Oh my god.
21:47
SPEAKER_02: I can just picture it and have it, and it's yeah.
21:50
SPEAKER_01: And land sharks are one of my favorite kinds of sharks after Thresher sharks.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: And like my favorite is the is the glass shark.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: That's an ancient bit.
22:02
SPEAKER_01: If y'all know the if y'all know the joke, I'm tired.
22:04
SPEAKER_01: Taylor knows it.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: He glass.
22:06
SPEAKER_01: He glass.
22:09
SPEAKER_02: I I don't know.
22:10
SPEAKER_02: Better swim.
22:11
SPEAKER_02: Pretend there's a horse at the other end of the pool.
22:15
SPEAKER_01: I don't know this bitch.
22:16
SPEAKER_01: Weem.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: So weem.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: We'll we'll we'll hold you captive and make you watch it later.
22:21
SPEAKER_01: Don't worry.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: So anyway.
22:24
SPEAKER_03: Sorry, just uh live live fact check sourced from chat.
22:30
SPEAKER_03: The oldest modern shark are from 195 million years ago, early Jurassic era.
22:35
SPEAKER_03: Source Natural History Museum website.
22:37
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I okay, so uh pretty close, yeah.
22:40
SPEAKER_01: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, also Glass Shark is a Justin Macroy bit.
22:45
SPEAKER_01: Look it up.
22:45
SPEAKER_01: It's it's very funny.
22:47
SPEAKER_01: It's a very funny, it's a very funny bit.
22:49
SPEAKER_01: It is one of my favorite bits of all time.
22:51
SPEAKER_01: Also, the last thing I'm gonna say about the pronunciation is and I'm mostly mentioning this because this this article title is really funny.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: But the pronunciation, so there's a uh a Dragon Magazine article in issue number 93, which was published in 1985, that suggests that the pronunciations boolet, beulet, boolet, and buulet were all suggested as legitimate.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: But the title of the article, I will spell it for you.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: A Y space, P-R-O-N-U-N-S-E-E, emphasis, a Y S H U N space, G Y D, also known as a pronunciation guy.
23:36
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I I saw that title and I was like, am I having a stroke?
23:40
SPEAKER_02: I have come across this article before and the thing is it cracks me up every time.
23:45
SPEAKER_01: It's actually very helpful because I feel like it denotes the like I feel like it's a good article, but like the title made me like I was like, wait a minute, hold on.
23:55
SPEAKER_01: This can't be right.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I yeah, I see it.
23:58
SPEAKER_01: But all official, like uh, you know, from like monster manuals or whatever that do include a pronunciation do say boulet, but I I do not parlez vous française, so I'm sorry.
24:11
SPEAKER_01: I might I I think I've been saying it right, but you know, if I don't, I'm so sorry.
24:16
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, ecology article.
24:18
SPEAKER_01: Ecology.
24:19
SPEAKER_01: We have an ecology article.
24:21
SPEAKER_01: Yes, we have an ecology article.
24:23
SPEAKER_01: It's not the first of ecology of these things that we'll be talking about today.
24:28
SPEAKER_01: But this is really funny.
24:29
SPEAKER_03: Did you say it's not the first?
24:31
SPEAKER_01: Yes, there's more ecology.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's it is the first.
24:36
SPEAKER_01: It is the first.
24:37
SPEAKER_03: Okay, I was like, did I black out?
24:40
SPEAKER_01: I think I did.
24:40
SPEAKER_01: I think I did have a stroke having to read the that dragon title again.
24:45
SPEAKER_01: A pronunciation guide.
24:46
SPEAKER_01: A pronunciation guide.
24:48
SPEAKER_01: It is this is uh the the the first of the ecologies of the boulet we will be talking about today, but it is not the last.
24:55
SPEAKER_01: Do not worry.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: So, another relevant dragon article comes from issue number 74, which was published in 1983, called The Ecology of the Boulet, written by Chris Elliott and Richard Edwards.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: And of course, as with many ecology articles, it is framed as like a in-universe narrative that is delivering this information.
25:14
SPEAKER_01: And it features the hunter Ahd, which is AHD, uh, from the land of Mourne.
25:21
SPEAKER_01: He's recounting his experiences hunting boolets to this guild of naturalists, you know, stuffy academic types.
25:31
SPEAKER_01: Lovely.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: As with other entries, this operates with the in-universe assumption we talked about earlier that quote, the teeth in the earth, which is such a good epithet for these guys.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm obsessed.
25:44
SPEAKER_01: Teeth in the earth.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: The teeth of the earth.
25:47
SPEAKER_03: The teeth of the earth is like that's very good.
25:50
SPEAKER_03: That's that sucks fantastic.
25:52
SPEAKER_01: Severely.
25:53
SPEAKER_03: Um, sorry, like this is so like maybe this is completely out of left field and not relevant or actually accurate at all.
26:02
SPEAKER_03: It also feels very like a transliteration of a different language because it specifically reminded me of in French potatoes are pom de terre.
26:12
SPEAKER_03: Pomme de terre, the apple of the earth.
26:14
SPEAKER_03: The apple of the earth, yeah.
26:15
SPEAKER_01: Earth apple.
26:16
SPEAKER_01: Except this is the the teeth of the earth, which I don't know.
26:20
SPEAKER_01: No, I think it's teeth, it's teeth in the earth, teeth in the earth, which are each, which I think is even cooler.
26:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
26:26
SPEAKER_01: Like, because it's like there's they're swimming around in there, you don't know where they are.
26:31
SPEAKER_01: I I love transliteration.
26:33
SPEAKER_01: I know, yeah.
26:34
SPEAKER_01: And I love when the things have names that I mean, boolets are pretty cool, but like the teeth in the earth, I feel like, is like you you could you could expect something that's maybe a little bit bigger, maybe.
26:47
SPEAKER_01: They are pretty big though.
26:49
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, uh it operates with the in-universe assumption that boolets are either extinct or just legends, whatever.
26:57
SPEAKER_01: So a Ab tells of his encounter with uh mournish tribes that would take the dirt from an area of a recent boolet rampage and then smear it on their plows, as it bore the property of softening the earth and making it easier to plow, hence their ability to, you know, swim around in the earth.
27:15
SPEAKER_01: Right.
27:15
SPEAKER_01: Um, so he theorizes that this could be from a slime secreted from the creature's skin that acts akin to like the effects of a certain stone softening magic potion.
27:28
SPEAKER_01: Uh though in the case of the boulet, this effect was considered weaker because it simply softened the like actual earth and did not affect like the rocks in the soil.
27:39
SPEAKER_01: So it's it's just ground types, not rock types.
27:43
SPEAKER_01: Um he also notes that their limbs could be retracted close to their body while they propel themselves through the ground with their tail.
27:51
SPEAKER_01: He also theorizes that they bear live young, but seeing as as of yet, no one has seen a baby or pregnant, gravid, whatever boulet, no one can really be sure.
28:02
SPEAKER_01: He just kind of says that.
28:04
SPEAKER_01: Um he just says it.
28:06
SPEAKER_03: It's just a theory.
28:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's just a theory.
28:09
SPEAKER_01: Uh ecology theory.
28:12
SPEAKER_01: So Aab later talks about his encounter with a very distinctive boolet that was terrorizing a local village.
28:19
SPEAKER_01: A very large uh a very this makes me laugh, I'm sorry.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: A very large albino specimen called Mob Edic, which translates to the big white one.
28:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a Moby Dick joke.
28:32
SPEAKER_02: I was like, that's a Moby Dick thing.
28:33
SPEAKER_01: Because his name and his name too, it's just an anagram with a height with a Moby Dick.
28:39
SPEAKER_01: Well, and the guy's name is just an anagram of Ahab.
28:43
SPEAKER_02: Oh my god.
28:45
SPEAKER_02: I didn't even catch that.
28:47
SPEAKER_02: Jesus Christ.
28:48
SPEAKER_01: Which I'll believe me if I actually caught that part first.
28:51
SPEAKER_01: Um, yes, actually.
28:54
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I was like, that's an interesting name.
28:56
SPEAKER_03: Like it looks, yeah.
28:59
SPEAKER_01: And then and then I saw a very large albino, or like a something to that effect.
29:06
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, wait, hold on.
29:08
SPEAKER_01: And then it hit me with the mo-dick, and I was like, okay.
29:11
SPEAKER_03: Even though it is a fantastic joke, I love the joke, A plus joke.
29:16
SPEAKER_03: It does bother me that mob mob edic uh is spelled that way because to me it reads like it's supposed to be Celtic, and that is not how you would pronounce that.
29:27
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
29:28
SPEAKER_02: I think it's supposed to pronounce mob, not mob.
29:31
SPEAKER_03: Or mob, I'm sorry.
29:32
SPEAKER_03: But um mob is how you would pronounce the first part if it were Celtic.
29:39
SPEAKER_01: The big white one.
29:40
SPEAKER_03: The big white one is very good.
29:43
SPEAKER_02: So it's just fucking Moby Dick, but on land.
29:46
SPEAKER_03: And uh a land shark instead of a whale.
29:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
29:49
SPEAKER_02: Jesus Christ.
29:51
SPEAKER_01: So for this part, I'm going to read verbatim his hunting method, because according to him, it's pretty easy once you get the hang of it.
29:58
SPEAKER_01: So if anyone at home wants to try this, I want to, you know, make sure it's all there for you.
30:03
SPEAKER_01: Of course.
30:03
SPEAKER_01: Um so quote, from what I had been told, I figured that the boulet hunts by tracing vibrations in the earth rather than by scent.
30:11
SPEAKER_01: So I caught myself a kobold.
30:13
SPEAKER_01: A horse would work just as well, but they are much too valuable to use for boolet bait.
30:17
SPEAKER_01: I found a solitary tree, tied the kobold to the trunk on a short rope, and nestled myself in the branches with my heavy crossbow in hand.
30:25
SPEAKER_01: The kobold circled frantically.
30:27
SPEAKER_01: I sent an occasional reminder in its direction with my crossbow when it started to slow down, and after a while the constant movement of the kobold in the small area had done its task.
30:36
SPEAKER_01: I sighted a large fin weaving across the plain.
30:39
SPEAKER_01: It circled the tree, spiraling inward, and then abruptly made its final rush.
30:43
SPEAKER_01: As it burst forth from the earth, jaws wide open and mud streaming off its flanks, I let fly with a large coral smeared with poison right down its gullet.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: What's that?
30:53
SPEAKER_01: Yes, only one shot, thanks to the poison.
30:56
SPEAKER_01: Really, once you've got the technique down, it's quite easy.
30:58
SPEAKER_01: I've killed others since the first day, but there's always something special about the first one.
31:02
SPEAKER_01: I still keep the hide of the great white one as a memento.
31:06
SPEAKER_01: And then he he had this like curtain set up and he like you know pulls down the curtain and shows this like big hide, and then all these like stuffy academic naturalist dudes are like just climbing over each other to be the first person to like no, they're like they're like pushing each other out, they're just they want to get up there and touch it and stuff.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: Also, I do think the story's fun.
31:28
SPEAKER_01: Also, I I feel like it bears mention.
31:30
SPEAKER_01: I didn't mention this earlier, maybe I should have.
31:32
SPEAKER_01: Typical boulet coloring is you know, the the the plates are kind of like uh on the spectrum of like steely gray to like bluish green type colors, right?
31:44
SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, a little bit darker and like more brownish, like around like the the sort of like unarmored parts of the body, you know, like kind of in the face area and stuff.
31:54
SPEAKER_01: And obviously, as it often happens in nature, it is very usually very difficult for albino animals to survive because you know, their their coloration is just like, hey, hey, I'm over here, come eat me.
32:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:10
SPEAKER_01: So a lot of the time, albino animals that do survive into adulthood are like oftentimes do so by being very cantankerous and aggressive.
32:18
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they sort of establish themselves as too difficult to deal with.
32:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so like I would imagine this is a this would be a particular specimen to go after for your first kill.
32:29
SPEAKER_01: Also, like the the Moby Dick joke, man, it did get me.
32:33
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I look I was critical of it, but I love it.
32:37
SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, I wasn't critical.
32:38
SPEAKER_02: I immediately was like, Yes, I love this.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I read I read uh Ab's name and I was like, That's a weird name.
32:46
SPEAKER_01: That's an interesting name.
32:47
SPEAKER_01: It kind of is like and then I saw it kind of sounds like ACAB.
32:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then I and then I saw a big white boulet, and I was like, Okay, okay, I see what we're doing.
32:58
SPEAKER_02: You son of a bitch.
33:00
SPEAKER_02: I love how he's like, really, once you got the technique down, it's quite easy.
33:03
SPEAKER_02: The technique being catch a kobold and use it as bait.
33:07
SPEAKER_01: The technique being fucking camping.
33:12
SPEAKER_03: In fairness, I I do think that like a lot of people who go hunting for these things are probably used to camping.
33:19
SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah.
33:20
SPEAKER_01: Um also it is kind of like fishing.
33:22
SPEAKER_01: Like, I think most of it is kind of just you just gotta wait and be patient.
33:25
SPEAKER_01: I've never gone fishing.
33:27
SPEAKER_03: How could that possibly be true?
33:28
SPEAKER_03: You live in Oklahoma.
33:29
SPEAKER_01: That's I actually I said that.
33:31
SPEAKER_01: I said that, and it's not true.
33:33
SPEAKER_01: I have been fishing before, but not in a very long time.
33:35
SPEAKER_01: Okay, fair.
33:36
SPEAKER_01: Um, because like what am I gonna do with them?
33:38
SPEAKER_01: That that's true.
33:38
SPEAKER_03: What is the noted vegetarian going to do with fish?
33:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, noted, noted, saw noted soft-hearted woo-woo vegetarian.
33:46
SPEAKER_01: What am I gonna do with them?
33:47
SPEAKER_01: So, per the shark simile earlier, they still have not changed much as of the monstrous manual, which was uh, you know, obviously a compilation, they were in an early one, blah blah blah.
33:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, but this is all taken from the monstrous manual.
33:59
SPEAKER_01: So the monstrous manual contains the first concrete sort of well, I guess they did mention it in the dragon article earlier.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: But like a framework for it, yeah, more of a framework for the boulet using you know vibrations to detect their prey.
34:13
SPEAKER_01: Uh Ab was correct about that one.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: Their temperament is likened to a Wolverine, quote, stupid, mean, and fearless.
34:20
SPEAKER_01: God damn.
34:22
SPEAKER_01: No, they also I I don't know what it is about like second edition, but the monstrous manual roasts so many creatures so fucking hard.
34:31
SPEAKER_01: Like at one point in the article or entry, it refers to them as the stupid boulet.
34:36
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
34:41
SPEAKER_01: Like dude, he's right, but he shouldn't say it.
34:46
SPEAKER_01: They are always hungry and will attack anything they deem as edible, regardless of the size or strength of the foe.
34:52
SPEAKER_01: Also, it it's very interesting.
34:54
SPEAKER_01: It it says that, you know, because obviously they are very aggressive, they're hungry all the time, they attack anything, whatever, but it specifically describes them as being even like reviled by other monsters or animals just because of their temperament, which is like hysterical to me.
35:10
SPEAKER_03: I can think of a number of monsters that are just like this or worse.
35:14
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
35:16
SPEAKER_01: Um they have a devastating effect on the ecosystem of any place they settle, not only because of their voracious consumption, uh, but also because their underground movements, you know, uproot trees, cause uh landslides in hilly, rocky areas, so on and so forth.
35:35
SPEAKER_01: So the the monsters manual also does a lot of theorizing about boulets, uh, which is to say that it talks a lot about how nobody in the universe really knows anything about their origins beyond, oh yeah, some crazy wizard a long time ago probably made them, and there's probably some demon icker in there.
35:54
SPEAKER_01: Probably, yeah.
35:55
SPEAKER_01: They are described as presumably hatching from eggs, though some sages postulate that they bear live young, but of course neither of these can be confirmed, as no baby boulet has ever been seen.
36:07
SPEAKER_03: I I like the idea that it is just like sharks in that it is both.
36:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
36:12
SPEAKER_02: Um question real quick.
36:16
SPEAKER_02: How are these classified?
36:17
SPEAKER_02: Like, are they monsters?
36:19
SPEAKER_01: Are they um they are like uh I believe some editions classify them as magical beasts.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
36:27
SPEAKER_01: And some, I believe as a fifth edition, they are okay, yeah.
36:33
SPEAKER_01: Like in 3.5, they are magical beasts, and as a fifth edition, they are monstrosity.
36:40
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
36:41
SPEAKER_01: Makes sense.
36:42
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, but there's little to suggest that at basically at this point, which is to say, at the point that your campaign is taking place in, there's little to suggest that they basically haven't established themselves as basically being natural animals in some capacity.
37:00
SPEAKER_01: Now, whether or not they had origins as being uh demonic experiments that were then unleashed on the world to, you know, populate and you know destroy things uh endemic, if you will.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the you know, there's there's little to suggest that you know they're not kind of just like basically just like animals.
37:20
SPEAKER_01: So quote This is stupid.
37:23
SPEAKER_01: Quote, uh, there is also evidence that the boulet, like carp and sharks, grow larger as they get older.
37:29
SPEAKER_01: Which I read that and I was like, yeah, man, that's how that's how it works.
37:34
SPEAKER_01: Like I know what it's trying to say, the whole thing about like, you know, kind of essentially growing.
37:39
SPEAKER_01: Going forever as long as you eat.
37:41
SPEAKER_01: To the yeah, or like growing to the size of your container type of thing.
37:45
SPEAKER_01: But I read that and I was like, yeah, dummy, that's how it works.
37:48
SPEAKER_01: Like fucking duh.
37:50
unknown: Right.
37:51
SPEAKER_01: Like, I know that that's not what the power call was trying to say, but I did read it and I was like, yeah, duh.
37:57
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, there are boulets of over 11 feet tall that have been seen, and obviously, given everything about them as creatures, no one has ever seen the remains of the boulet that died of old age.
38:10
SPEAKER_01: There's also a a little bit of a callback to the thing mentioned in the ecology article about how the soil in an area that has been ravaged by a boulet becomes magically imbued with rock-dissolving properties, but it says that this is kind of unsubstantiated a little bit and also probably not worth having a boulet in the area to test for.
38:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, especially if you have horses and like yeah, like half lanes.
38:41
SPEAKER_01: Or half lanes.
38:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:42
SPEAKER_01: Like you get some some soil that's really easy to till, but you know, all your horses are gone, your whole family's dead, your house is destroyed.
38:53
SPEAKER_02: Not the best.
38:54
SPEAKER_01: It's still probably not worth it.
38:56
SPEAKER_02: Not a great trade-off.
38:57
SPEAKER_02: I guess unless you're an elf.
39:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the elves are just like, yeah, we love them.
39:02
SPEAKER_01: Well, there they are, we use them to till.
39:04
SPEAKER_01: Look at all this nice look at all this nice farmland.
39:07
SPEAKER_02: You know, elves could domesticate them.
39:10
SPEAKER_01: Uh no.
39:12
SPEAKER_01: Um.
39:15
SPEAKER_01: Just full stop.
39:16
SPEAKER_01: No.
39:17
SPEAKER_01: No.
39:17
SPEAKER_01: They're there, no.
39:20
SPEAKER_01: They're you won't even play in the space.
39:23
SPEAKER_01: Well, no, we'll play in the space later.
39:25
SPEAKER_01: Oh.
39:26
SPEAKER_01: Because it is it is stated basically that boulets are essentially too stupid and too aggressive to domesticate.
39:36
SPEAKER_01: And also, like, what are you gonna do?
39:37
SPEAKER_01: Put it in a pen, it's gonna burrow under the pen, you know?
39:41
SPEAKER_01: That's true.
39:41
SPEAKER_01: Um, we will play in magic.
39:43
SPEAKER_01: We will play in the space a little bit later, though.
39:46
SPEAKER_01: Um, so there has okay, so there's been a lot of a lot of theorizing.
39:52
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of mysteries about these guys, um, particularly about their origins, where they come from, i uh in a literal sense.
40:01
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, what came first, the boulet or the egg or the live birth.
40:06
SPEAKER_01: We are going to talk about that after we take a break.
40:10
SPEAKER_02: Oh fine.
40:18
SPEAKER_01: Hey everybody, thank you for checking out our episode on boolets.
40:23
SPEAKER_01: Classic, iconic.
40:27
SPEAKER_01: You know the bullet, the bullet bills.
40:30
SPEAKER_01: Um now I think we just have we just have umber hulks and then we're we'll we'll have all the the toy guys out of the way.
40:39
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
40:40
SPEAKER_01: Speaking of toys, if you want to get some toys from Fanroll Dice, we do have an affiliate partnership with them.
40:47
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you can use code Dungeon Pedia for 10% off your entire order at fanrolldice.com.
40:52
SPEAKER_03: Hell yeah.
40:53
SPEAKER_01: Hell yeah.
40:54
SPEAKER_01: Totally intentional.
40:55
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41:01
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42:12
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42:27
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42:37
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42:41
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42:43
SPEAKER_02: But let's go ahead and uh get back to the podcast because I need to know what's going on with this next section.
42:49
SPEAKER_03: I see the title.
42:51
unknown: Yep.
42:52
SPEAKER_02: So let's go.
42:54
SPEAKER_01: So um I did already kind of allude to what we were gonna be talking about um this one.
42:59
SPEAKER_01: And I actually I had a whole bit planned.
43:01
SPEAKER_01: It's whatever.
43:03
SPEAKER_01: Whatever.
43:04
SPEAKER_01: I messed it up.
43:05
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I did I did put the cart before the the tasty tasty horse a little bit with the title of the section in the notes that Taylor and Travis are looking at right now.
43:16
SPEAKER_02: And that is why the cart didn't go anywhere, because the boulet ate it.
43:20
SPEAKER_01: Yes, exactly.
43:21
SPEAKER_01: So for our listeners, I will go ahead and read you this this passage from this book before we talk about anything in detail.
43:28
SPEAKER_01: Quote: Everything about the Corminther Boulet is awful.
43:32
SPEAKER_01: The way it eats, by swallowing live prey, feet first, sometimes leaving the head, the way it sleeps, often napping in the middle of a meal, a victim squirming in its jaws, even the way it breathes, wheezing when it inhales, drooling when it exhales.
43:47
SPEAKER_01: Nothing is more awful than the way it mates.
43:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right.
43:52
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna talk about sex, baby.
43:56
SPEAKER_02: Let's go.
43:57
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna talk about
44:00
SPEAKER_03: The fact that it says that the way it mates is awful.
44:04
SPEAKER_03: Why are they like this?
44:06
SPEAKER_02: Because the other things are not good.
44:09
SPEAKER_02: They're not good.
44:10
SPEAKER_02: Like napping in the middle of a meal.
44:12
SPEAKER_02: Also, why would you leave the head?
44:14
SPEAKER_02: Like that's just a waste of food at that point.
44:15
SPEAKER_02: You took the time to get it.
44:16
SPEAKER_02: You might as well eat it.
44:20
SPEAKER_03: Brains don't taste good.
44:22
SPEAKER_01: That's why they're so dumb.
44:25
SPEAKER_01: Not that eating brains correlates with intelligence, but you know, I don't know.
44:29
SPEAKER_01: In case y'all forgotten, in case y'all forgot that these things are fucking stupid.
44:34
SPEAKER_01: Um, so I know everyone really wants to know where baby boulets come from.
44:40
SPEAKER_01: Very much.
44:41
SPEAKER_01: I didn't, but I did learn where they I didn't, well, I I didn't want the level of detail that I got, but here we are.
44:49
SPEAKER_01: Um and if I have to know about this, so do you guys.
44:52
SPEAKER_01: So, well, don't, you know, uh for for anyone who is curious, Elminster's Ecologies, which was published in 1994, is is here for us.
45:01
SPEAKER_01: Sex Ed Elminster.
45:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's the name of the section.
45:05
SPEAKER_01: Because Ed Greenwood was not, well, I'm sure he I'm sure he was involved in this.
45:10
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure he was involved, but this is Forgotten Realms, but he was not, he was not probably more of a consultant role than a positive writer role.
45:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they consulted with him, probably on this part specifically.
45:22
SPEAKER_01: Oh boy.
45:23
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so I had to Tyla Sex at Elminster.
45:26
SPEAKER_01: When I tell y'all this passage for Boulets, and it says Cormanther Boulet, I it is kind of meant to be the boulet you find in because Elminster Psychologies is split into I think nine different books, and eight of them go over different regions.
45:46
SPEAKER_01: And in some of those regions, you will that some of those regions that aren't just Cormanther, you will find Boulets.
45:53
SPEAKER_01: Right.
45:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, so I think it's like the Cormanther Boulet, I think, is kind of just meant to be a species, you know, that isn't necessarily just in Cormanther.
46:01
SPEAKER_01: Um when I tell y'all, this passage for the boulet is just about reproduction, to the extent where I felt the need to go and double check if the framing of this part of the book was supposed to be about reproduction for like all of them.
46:17
SPEAKER_01: No, just the boulet.
46:19
SPEAKER_01: Oh, just the boulet.
46:20
SPEAKER_01: Um lovely.
46:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh, which I do think is a little bit symptomatic of the sort of if it ain't broke, don't fix it kind of thing.
46:28
SPEAKER_01: Because I feel like they maybe didn't they didn't feel the need to go in and change a bunch of other details about the boolet.
46:34
SPEAKER_01: They might have just looked at it and kind of been like, okay, this is something that hasn't been expanded on.
46:38
SPEAKER_01: Right.
46:38
SPEAKER_01: So we're really gonna get in the paint here.
46:41
SPEAKER_01: And they got in the fucking painting.
46:44
SPEAKER_01: They got in the paint.
46:45
SPEAKER_01: Um, so anyway, um, boolets have very intricate mating rituals, which I didn't expect from creatures with an intelligence of like one.
46:56
SPEAKER_01: Um fair.
46:58
SPEAKER_01: But you know, boulets breed at the end of the summer, during which um a male will line the edge of his territory with carcasses of deer and boars and things.
47:10
SPEAKER_01: One specific, one kind of you know, thing about the ways, the way that boolets, you know, kind of live their lives is they they sort of patrol a roughly 30 square mile territory.
47:22
SPEAKER_01: That's what their territory is, roughly, usually.
47:25
SPEAKER_01: They don't keep a specific layer in their territory, they just kind of tunnel around searching for food, and then when they get tired, they just burrow into the ground and sleep, just kind of wherever.
47:37
SPEAKER_01: And then once they have completely just absolutely demolished that 30 square mile, roughly area, they just kind of move on.
47:46
SPEAKER_01: Um that was not included in this, that was in the monstrous manual, but I accidentally skipped over that paragraph.
47:54
SPEAKER_01: Um but that's kind of you know, that's what we're working with.
47:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
47:57
SPEAKER_01: Uh so during this, this, this, this ritual, the male will, you know, line his, you know, his area with all these carcasses, these animal carcasses, which of course usually attracts predators, which he then also kills and adds to the the corpse ring.
48:13
SPEAKER_02: Because, yeah, you know, why not?
48:15
SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, like what's a bear gonna do, you know.
48:18
SPEAKER_01: Um fucking fair enough.
48:21
SPEAKER_01: Get added to the corpse to the corpse circle.
48:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, get in the corpse pile.
48:25
SPEAKER_01: So he will then dig a pit, line it with bones, of which he has plenty, and then spend about a week chewing and grinding those bones into a fine powder, which he then spreads over the bottom of the pit before tunneling underground.
48:40
SPEAKER_01: Eventually, the smell, which I'm sure is pleasant fucking rank, all those corpses in the summer.
48:49
SPEAKER_01: Oh, um, but apparently the female boulets like it because eventually the the the smell uh will attract a female, um upon whose arrival the male sort of sort of bursts forth from the ground.
49:04
SPEAKER_01: The actual mating process is blessedly free of details.
49:08
SPEAKER_01: Good.
49:08
SPEAKER_01: Uh and the male leaves leaves the area while the female rests.
49:13
SPEAKER_01: So despite the fact that this this is such a process, their gestation is actually very quick.
49:19
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
49:19
SPEAKER_01: Occurs in less than 24 hours.
49:21
SPEAKER_01: Oh, good.
49:22
SPEAKER_01: Um God.
49:23
SPEAKER_01: Like it says, like the book says, I think specifically, like, you know, day of, they like do their thing or whatever.
49:29
SPEAKER_01: And then it says like by the next evening.
49:32
SPEAKER_01: So like pretty quick.
49:33
SPEAKER_03: Um turbopower gestation, I guess.
49:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
49:39
SPEAKER_01: Um, so after that roughly ish, 24 hours-ish period, the female lays up to a dozen eggs, and they're these hard kind of like spine, you know, they're they're covered in spines.
49:50
SPEAKER_01: I don't know exactly how large they are, but ow.
49:53
SPEAKER_01: You think you think that hurts.
49:55
SPEAKER_01: So about 12 hours after the eggs hatch, so we're looking at like a 36-hour turnaround.
50:00
SPEAKER_02: Like wait, so the eggs hatch like 12 hours later?
50:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so they are laid.
50:06
SPEAKER_01: What?
50:07
SPEAKER_01: They hatch about 12 hours later.
50:08
SPEAKER_01: So we're looking at a 36-hour turnaround from That is so fast.
50:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're looking at a 36-hour turnaround.
50:15
SPEAKER_03: Okay, like I was prepared, like, okay, 24 hours is pretty fast for like an egg lay for that big of a creature, but whatever.
50:22
SPEAKER_03: And then the 12-hour turnaround from lay to hatch, what the fuck?
50:26
SPEAKER_01: No, they're they're going.
50:28
SPEAKER_01: They're going.
50:29
SPEAKER_01: So about 12 hours later, they hatch, which the mother announces by making a sound like an elephant.
50:35
SPEAKER_01: Um, and the babies immediately attach to the mother, and you say attach, like to to nurse, like a mammal?
50:43
SPEAKER_01: No.
50:44
SPEAKER_01: Nay.
50:45
SPEAKER_01: I wrote in my notes, nay.
50:47
SPEAKER_01: The babies attack any area of the mother they can reach, and in response, she attempts to eat as many of the babies as she can.
50:56
SPEAKER_01: Um this goes on until the mother eats all of the babies or they kill her, which is the more likely outcome.
51:04
SPEAKER_01: The surviving babies, which usually only number about two or three, celebrate by consuming their dead mother and siblings.
51:12
SPEAKER_02: Oh my god.
51:13
SPEAKER_02: What the fuck?
51:15
SPEAKER_01: I am traumatized.
51:17
SPEAKER_01: Quote, I told you it was awful.
51:20
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
51:21
SPEAKER_03: I read that and I was like, damn.
51:25
SPEAKER_03: Okay, sir, I will find you and I will end you.
51:29
SPEAKER_02: Mistra be damned.
51:32
SPEAKER_02: Well no, Mistra might be like, yeah, you know what, that kind of deserves it now.
51:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she's like, you didn't have to write all that.
51:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so that's uh that's so that's certainly a uh process.
51:47
SPEAKER_01: So there's a fun note about the bone powder I wrote found in the breeding pit, and then I put in brackets nope because I wanted to go back and change it so I didn't have to say the word breeding pit, but here we are.
51:58
SPEAKER_02: Breeding pit.
51:59
SPEAKER_01: As after as after it has been saturated, this this bone powder substance.
52:04
SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
52:05
SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, remember the grinding of the bones and the bone powder?
52:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
52:08
SPEAKER_01: Right.
52:09
SPEAKER_01: That it feels like a long time ago.
52:11
SPEAKER_01: Uh from all the violence.
52:14
SPEAKER_01: But but no, it was only about 36 hours ago.
52:18
SPEAKER_01: Um but after this bone powder has been saturated with the fluid from the eggs, sorry, uh, it acts as an extremely powerful fertilizer if isolated within 48 hours of the hatching.
52:32
SPEAKER_01: The effect is potent enough that when applied to a seedling, the resulting tree will grow twice as tall as normal and is even theorized that it could be so powerful as to cause plants to bloom out of season or in otherwise inhospitable environments.
52:47
SPEAKER_01: Thus, the author urges the reader to investigate the source of the mother boulet's quote, distinctive birth roar.
52:55
SPEAKER_01: Which I'm I'm not doing that, buddy.
52:57
SPEAKER_01: I'm so sorry.
52:59
SPEAKER_01: Nah, nah.
53:00
SPEAKER_02: Did you hear that?
53:01
SPEAKER_02: That's the distinctive sound of a boy mother giving birth.
53:04
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
53:05
SPEAKER_02: Let's go the opposite direction.
53:06
SPEAKER_02: Opposite direction.
53:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
53:07
SPEAKER_01: Which it's it's also funny because it's it's not even when she lays the eggs, it's when they hatch, which is very funny that that's how that works.
53:15
SPEAKER_01: I guess she's when she's when she's actually like delivering the eggs just stone cold, I guess.
53:20
SPEAKER_03: Sounds about right.
53:22
unknown: Woo! Yeah.
53:26
SPEAKER_02: So do we, bud.
53:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
53:28
SPEAKER_02: So do we.
53:31
SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
53:32
SPEAKER_01: I'm just like, if I had to, which uh again, none of the none of the elements of this really are utilized again, which I think might be for the best.
53:43
SPEAKER_01: But if I had to read the words distinctive birth roar, then like so do you guys.
53:48
SPEAKER_01: Um yeah.
53:49
SPEAKER_01: Though as terrible as this is, I I do know some freaks who would love to see all of this.
53:54
SPEAKER_01: Because per Faiths and Avatars, which was published in 1996, Beast Lords, which as far as I understand are high-level clergy of Malar.
54:02
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
54:02
SPEAKER_01: Uh, would breed unnatural creatures such as Boulets, probably for the express purpose of unleashing them on innocent populations.
54:11
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes in their free time, clerics of Malar would just in their free time, this is part of their worship.
54:17
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
54:18
SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, that's true.
54:19
SPEAKER_01: That's true.
54:20
SPEAKER_01: Breeding Boulet.
54:21
SPEAKER_01: Also, it's so funny that like I feel like so many of our episodes lately, even though they seem going in circles, even though, well, even though they seem like in such disparate parts, are like becoming connected.
54:32
SPEAKER_01: Because like Malar's here, uh in the episode about null, we mentioned Sigil.
54:38
SPEAKER_01: That's we're we're back there again.
54:41
SPEAKER_01: It's all connected.
54:42
SPEAKER_01: It's almost like it all takes place in the same universe.
54:45
SPEAKER_01: Shut up.
54:46
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean.
54:47
SPEAKER_01: I know, I know.
54:48
SPEAKER_01: You're right, though.
54:49
SPEAKER_03: It has like it has been quite a beautiful array.
54:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that freak would be like, yes.
54:56
SPEAKER_01: Yes, release the female into the breeding pit, you know.
55:00
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why I made Millar sound like that.
55:02
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why you made Millar sound like that either.
55:04
SPEAKER_01: Real quick, we are going to talk about kind of the main singular variant, um, I guess you could say, of Boulets, which is an underdark relative of the boulet from the Elithiad.
55:16
SPEAKER_03: Which is still one of the best titles for a book ever made.
55:22
SPEAKER_01: Best ever.
55:23
SPEAKER_01: Don't worry.
55:24
SPEAKER_01: It is not a mind flare, mind flare boulet.
55:27
SPEAKER_01: Don't worry.
55:28
SPEAKER_01: But it is a underdark relative of the boulet called the Golbrorn.
55:34
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
55:34
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
55:36
SPEAKER_01: Golbron was uh smaller than Boulet.
55:39
SPEAKER_01: They were about five to seven feet long and about five feet tall, which I'm five.
55:44
SPEAKER_01: I'm well, I'm I'm I'm I'm taller than five feet tall.
55:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I was gonna say I'm closer to five five feet even than you.
55:51
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know why I'm doing this like it would be down here.
55:54
SPEAKER_01: I am sitting down.
55:54
SPEAKER_01: I'm five three.
55:56
SPEAKER_01: So take three inches off of me.
55:58
SPEAKER_01: They were also considerably more intelligent, by which I mean uh average.
56:03
SPEAKER_01: They had an intelligence of eight to ten.
56:06
SPEAKER_02: Um I mean compared to the chemistry.
56:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but compared to the animal intelligence of like one that that their larger cousins have, geniuses, you know?
56:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, geniuses.
56:20
SPEAKER_01: And also they had a uh lawful evil alignment, just because Underdark, I guess, are I don't know.
56:27
SPEAKER_01: Uh they were described as cunning hunters that actually worked in groups as opposed to boulets who are very solitary, and they would use their natural camouflage abilities to set up ambushes.
56:39
SPEAKER_01: They they picked their prey in a much more intelligent way than than boulets, they would only engage with like actual tough foes if they thought they had a chance.
56:49
SPEAKER_01: Right.
56:49
SPEAKER_01: Um, they did a lot of hit and run tactics, things like that.
56:53
SPEAKER_01: Also, they uh they could store rocks in their in their gullets, which they would so they would, you know, be swimming around, whatever.
57:03
SPEAKER_01: Um find a nice rock.
57:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and they would just like eat boulders, you know.
57:08
SPEAKER_02: That's a nice boulder.
57:09
SPEAKER_01: That's and they would just they would, you know, they'd eat like eat a rock, whatever as they're swimming around through the earth, and then keep it kind of in their in their gullet to later use as a projectile weapon.
57:21
SPEAKER_01: So they would just kind of bam a rock at someone, which is very funny.
57:26
SPEAKER_01: I have a lot of questions about how that works on like a physiological level, um, but it is very funny to imagine.
57:33
SPEAKER_01: They also had a very had a special uh nictitating eyelid that filtered all light sort of above a a level um above candlelight.
57:42
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
57:43
SPEAKER_01: Um, which made them immune to blinding spells and was a valuable asset when hunting close to the surface world.
57:49
SPEAKER_01: That's really cool.
57:50
SPEAKER_01: They didn't really suffer from the the issues with sunlight that a lot of underdark natives kind of Yeah.
57:57
SPEAKER_03: Terrifying.
57:58
SPEAKER_03: I uh horrifying that these are the ones that have them, but cool nonetheless.
58:03
SPEAKER_02: I mean, yeah, that is really cool.
58:04
SPEAKER_02: Just, you know, don't think that you can blind them, I guess.
58:08
SPEAKER_01: And I love I love attention, I love attention to detail like that.
58:12
SPEAKER_01: That's like, you know, it kind of it brings in like interesting traits from like real-world animals and puts them in like a you know, makes it uh interesting in the context of like a fantasy game.
58:24
SPEAKER_01: They actually also had their own language that to any non-Goldborn sounded simply like rumble, like distant, faraway rumbling.
58:33
SPEAKER_01: Um, and the book states that while they could probably not mechanically imitate other languages, um, because obviously they're very different physiologically from like a human, they basically were smart enough to learn and understand other languages.
58:50
SPEAKER_01: So uh interestingly, the book provides a peek at the natural lifespan of a Golborne, because we still have it, we kind of still it seems nobody really knows exactly how long Boulets live for, because the majority of them die under very violent circumstances, and also they're so rare and isolated, kind of and everything.
59:10
SPEAKER_01: But uh it states that Goldborns tend to slow down at around 20 years old.
59:15
SPEAKER_01: And curiously, because Goldborn also it doesn't seem as though they share the breeding and birth rituals of above-ground uh boolets, but which might just be a factor that this book actually came out a year before Elminster's ecology, so maybe they hadn't uh thought about that yet.
59:33
SPEAKER_01: But it does state that Goldborn's essentially just a mated pair will kind of break off, go live in a cave for a while, have some babies, and they'll kind of protect the babies, like the eggs and the babies for a little bit, and then they'll peace out, you know.
59:49
SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah.
59:50
SPEAKER_01: Um, so there's not not a lot of killing and eating or anything, but they are pretty hands-off parents.
59:55
SPEAKER_01: Like once the babies are born, they're like, all right.
59:57
SPEAKER_03: You could like easily like paint that as it being like boulettes do their that version because of the fact that they don't work in groups and therefore like survival of the famous this is sort of how they evolved over time to make sure that the children have enough nutrients to survive.
1:00:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh, there's no other way to get nutrients than killing and eating your mom.
1:00:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's no other ways to get nutrients than that.
1:00:25
SPEAKER_01: Nope, you have to eat your mom.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_01: But uh despite the fact that Goldborn parenting is a little more hands-off, if not cannibalistic, members of a Goldborn pack will hunt for older members, and you know, yeah, which I think is is is nice because they're their their pack structure is is sort of structured around kind of like the strongest member being the leader, but it does seem like they do kind of have um a little bit of a leader and provider sort of thing.
1:00:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it does seem like they have a little bit of a respect for their elders type thing, which I think is cute.
1:00:56
SPEAKER_01: That is cute.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_01: They are evil, but they do respect their elders, so there's that.
1:01:03
SPEAKER_01: There is that, yeah.
1:01:05
SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, I do think these guys are pretty cool.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_01: Like, did we did we necessarily need a smarter, smaller variant of the boulet that lives in the underdark?
1:01:15
SPEAKER_01: We didn't necessarily need it.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_01: But I do think they're cool.
1:01:18
SPEAKER_01: And as of 5th edition, per couple of modules set in the underdark, it seems as though Golborn are no longer like that no longer refers to a distinct species, but instead is simply the dwarvous dwarvish word for boulet.
1:01:33
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so um whoever well, I guess uh in a little bit we'll see who won the uh the intelligence race.
1:01:42
SPEAKER_01: True, yeah, true.
1:01:44
SPEAKER_01: They were more intelligent, but they did not survive to to the modern day.
1:01:49
SPEAKER_01: So who really won?
1:01:52
SPEAKER_01: So this is this is maybe the shortest third edition segment I've ever done.
1:01:58
SPEAKER_03: Not not an intentional speedrun, but a speedrun nonetheless.
1:02:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I literally just put a screenshot of the stat block.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_01: I see this and the face of the speed.
1:02:10
SPEAKER_03: Which is a very good face.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_01: He looks like he's got a grumpy smile.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I do think they are so cute because their flavor description is basically literally no different than previous.
1:02:22
SPEAKER_01: They really said, We cooked with this one.
1:02:25
SPEAKER_01: Don't change a thing, he's perfect.
1:02:27
SPEAKER_01: I agree, but I did want to give a little bit of their kind of of their stats just to just to kind of see where we're at.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_01: So they have they average 94 HP, they have a 40-foot movement speed and a 10-foot burrow speed.
1:02:41
SPEAKER_01: I feel like they should be a little faster underground, but whatever.
1:02:45
SPEAKER_01: Same.
1:02:45
SPEAKER_01: That's like their home.
1:02:47
SPEAKER_01: They have a plus 16 bite attack, which is their kind of their their primary method of attack.
1:02:55
SPEAKER_01: They have dark vision, 60-foot dark vision, as well as low light vision, so they have good, they have good vision, but they do have a 60-foot tremor sense, which is their primary, you know, sort of sensing mechanism when underground.
1:03:09
SPEAKER_01: They have a strength stat of 27, a intelligence of two, and a charisma of six.
1:03:18
SPEAKER_01: I personally think they are very charismatic.
1:03:22
SPEAKER_01: Look at that face.
1:03:23
SPEAKER_01: Look at that face, it's a good face.
1:03:25
SPEAKER_01: It is a good face.
1:03:27
SPEAKER_01: They are always neutral, that's pretty consistent.
1:03:30
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, the gold one are a little different, so and they are classified as either huge or gargantuan based on their hit dice.
1:03:38
SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's kind of what we're working with in the third edition.
1:03:41
SPEAKER_01: They also do this fun thing sometimes where when they do their jump attack, they can essentially do like a little four-clawed, four-legged like flail attack, which is very funny to imagine.
1:03:51
SPEAKER_03: Why did they make them so fucking cute?
1:03:54
SPEAKER_03: They're so deadly, but they made them sound like that.
1:03:57
SPEAKER_03: They're like the bears of the real world.
1:04:00
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:04:01
SPEAKER_03: Wait.
1:04:02
SPEAKER_03: I said that, you know what I meant.
1:04:04
SPEAKER_01: No, they're like, yeah, no, like they literally are in the way that like they're so cute.
1:04:09
SPEAKER_01: And I feel like if boulets were real, I would see videos of them on the internet and I would be like, I'm different.
1:04:15
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm built different.
1:04:16
SPEAKER_01: I'm built different.
1:04:17
SPEAKER_01: I could be friends, I could be friends with one of those.
1:04:20
SPEAKER_01: They would they would sense my gentle spirit and they wouldn't eat me.
1:04:25
SPEAKER_02: True.
1:04:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm sure that that's how that would work.
1:04:27
SPEAKER_02: I'm not a horse.
1:04:28
SPEAKER_03: That's exactly how it would work, and it's the exact same way it would work if we encountered a bear.
1:04:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and then I would Lou and I have wanted to be friend of bear since we were children.
1:04:39
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, yeah, the ones and the ones at the bars just don't do it for me.
1:04:45
SPEAKER_01: I don't go to bars.
1:04:46
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine?
1:04:48
SPEAKER_01: So this I feel like you could really tell from the titles of the sections in my notes where I start to lose steam on making jokes in the notes.
1:04:58
SPEAKER_01: Like making jokes in the titles, I mean.
1:05:00
SPEAKER_03: Oh boy, what did fourth what fourth edition do?
1:05:03
SPEAKER_02: What fourth edition do?
1:05:04
SPEAKER_01: Not much.
1:05:07
SPEAKER_01: So boolets appear in the fourth edition monster manual, which was published in 2008.
1:05:12
SPEAKER_01: They did at least put the respect on the Boole's name to include them in the first fourth edition monster manual.
1:05:18
SPEAKER_01: But there's not really much going on.
1:05:20
SPEAKER_01: Though for once, I won't really blame fourth edition specifically for the lack of interesting lore content.
1:05:25
SPEAKER_03: Just because they nailed it with the first edition uh first iteration, and then they were like, we'll add a couple things here and there, but why fuck with it?
1:05:33
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:05:33
SPEAKER_02: Well, because that's their thing with fourth edition is taking everything that they've done and just fucking it.
1:05:38
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so be happy that they didn't.
1:05:40
SPEAKER_01: Or or alternatively, alternatively I am happy.
1:05:45
SPEAKER_01: Or alternatively, kind of just like it's either that or it's like, yes, girl, give us nothing.
1:05:52
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
1:05:53
SPEAKER_01: The only uh interesting notes are the introduction of a dire boole variant, which Which is just a big play.
1:06:02
SPEAKER_01: It's just what if it was really big, guys?
1:06:04
SPEAKER_02: We didn't need it, but okay.
1:06:06
SPEAKER_02: Um they were already big.
1:06:07
SPEAKER_02: Why not make it bigger?
1:06:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:06:10
SPEAKER_01: And they needed to make a whole separate, like they needed to make a whole separate stat block for that instead of just doing it like in the third edition one where it's like, oh, if it's 17 to 27 hit dice, it's gargantuan instead of huge.
1:06:22
SPEAKER_04: Right.
1:06:22
SPEAKER_04: Right.
1:06:23
SPEAKER_01: Um and also the lore descriptions, which by the way, it's so emblematic, I feel like, of fourth edition that like you're in the monster manual and there's like a description, but then like the lore is just like one eany weency, like shorter than what I have written in my notes paragraph.
1:06:46
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
1:06:46
SPEAKER_01: Like it feels so emblematic.
1:06:48
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, the lore description's use of the phrase, quote, earth insists to describe the dwelling of a bullet, which I felt was very evocative.
1:06:57
SPEAKER_03: I don't hate it.
1:06:58
SPEAKER_01: Like it's very um aggressive and yeah, I do kind of I do kind of hate it because of personal reasons, but it it is very evocative.
1:07:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is very evocative.
1:07:12
SPEAKER_01: I have a cyst excise last year, and it did feel like it could have been an earthen cyst.
1:07:18
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna lie, guys.
1:07:19
SPEAKER_01: But I do find it very evocative, which is not something I say about fourth edition very often.
1:07:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
1:07:25
SPEAKER_01: Also, the art of them in fourth edition is pretty cool.
1:07:27
SPEAKER_01: It's not, it's it's actually not very like little guy, but it does look pretty cool.
1:07:32
SPEAKER_01: And I do feel like a lot of the art in fourth edition is actually very nice.
1:07:35
SPEAKER_01: So, fifth edition.
1:07:37
SPEAKER_01: Fifth edition.
1:07:38
SPEAKER_01: They really said if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
1:07:42
SPEAKER_01: The fifth edition monster manual, which was published in 2014.
1:07:47
SPEAKER_01: I didn't write when it was published in my notes.
1:07:48
SPEAKER_01: I forgore.
1:07:49
SPEAKER_01: Something like that.
1:07:50
SPEAKER_01: I think it was 2014.
1:07:52
SPEAKER_03: So yes, that that I believe 2014 is correct.
1:07:55
SPEAKER_01: So the fifth edition monster manual contains a lot of details that have been present since the beginning, or at least for a very long time, such as like when I tell y'all these descriptions sounded like me trying to find different ways to rephrase the same point and trying to figure out which one sounded the best.
1:08:15
SPEAKER_01: A lot of these entries kind of sound like that.
1:08:18
SPEAKER_03: When you're in high school and they're teaching you about the summary paragraph at the end of your essay.
1:08:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, literally.
1:08:24
SPEAKER_01: So a lot of the details, such as the dislike of dwarf and elf meat, the specifically roughly 30 square mile territory, and even down to the use of the specific word erascible, which I haven't said this whole time, but has been in like 75% of the entries about the race.
1:08:45
SPEAKER_01: It's a really good word.
1:08:46
SPEAKER_01: And it does not help with their little guy vibes.
1:08:50
SPEAKER_01: No, it doesn't.
1:08:52
SPEAKER_01: So the only interesting add-on from the monster manual is a pared down, thankfully, mention of their mating habits, which now includes the tidbit, which okay, that is to say, I don't know if it's meant to be implied that they maybe do still do the thing where the babies eat their mom or whatever.
1:09:12
SPEAKER_01: But it it it includes the tidbit that the process is, quote, a bloody act of claws and teeth, end quote, that usually ends with the male being killed and eaten.
1:09:22
SPEAKER_01: So someone's getting eaten.
1:09:24
SPEAKER_02: Someone's getting eaten.
1:09:25
SPEAKER_02: Maybe not the mother this time.
1:09:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:09:28
SPEAKER_02: Equality.
1:09:30
SPEAKER_01: I guess.
1:09:31
SPEAKER_02: I guess, yeah.
1:09:32
SPEAKER_01: I guess it doesn't it doesn't specifically say that the babies don't then go on to also kill their mom, so who knows?
1:09:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean a little uh spider mating habit vibes, yeah.
1:09:44
SPEAKER_01: And so I did also include the stat block from fifth edition, just you know, so that way we know where we're at.
1:09:50
SPEAKER_01: And I'm realizing that it's basically the same.
1:09:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:09:54
SPEAKER_01: They have an AC of 17, again, roughly 94 hit points.
1:09:58
SPEAKER_01: Their charisma has dropped to a five.
1:10:01
SPEAKER_01: I see this.
1:10:02
SPEAKER_01: Their burn speed is a bit faster.
1:10:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they got they got 40 feet burrow speed to match their 40 feet regular movement speed.
1:10:09
SPEAKER_03: I mean, uh I like that because it kind of implies shows that they are not impeded by the terrain at all.
1:10:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
1:10:16
SPEAKER_01: Um, and they are a challenge rating of five.
1:10:20
SPEAKER_01: Which I feel like is is fair.
1:10:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:10:24
SPEAKER_01: I think if you have a you know, if you have an adventuring party of people who can use their brains, I feel like that's fair.
1:10:29
SPEAKER_01: And you know, obviously that's a very different experience from like a like a farmer, yeah.
1:10:35
SPEAKER_01: Farmer who's just doing their best.
1:10:37
SPEAKER_03: You definitely don't want to go up against this on a one-on-one early on in your adventuring days, but like a a group of you could probably take it.
1:10:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:10:46
SPEAKER_01: Um, so the last thing we're gonna touch on is the burrow shark, um, which is not an epithet for the boulet.
1:10:53
SPEAKER_01: It is actually the name given to the writer of a boulet from the module Princes of the Apocalypse, which was published in 2015.
1:11:00
SPEAKER_01: I told y'all we were gonna play in the space a little bit.
1:11:03
SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay, yeah.
1:11:06
SPEAKER_01: So many times the boulets have been described as being literally too stupid and ravenous to train.
1:11:13
SPEAKER_03: Like, like every single time they're mentioned, like a like a lot.
1:11:17
SPEAKER_01: They saw they saw people like me and Taylor who think these guys are so cute, and they were like, don't they're stupid and mean, and like don't even try.
1:11:25
SPEAKER_01: Don't even try.
1:11:27
SPEAKER_01: However, in areas where elemental evil takes hold of an area, I don't I don't really know how to explain what that is.
1:11:35
SPEAKER_03: It it's elemental evil, capital E, capital E.
1:11:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:11:39
SPEAKER_01: Um essentially, in the context of this module, um, these these princes of the apocalypse are sort of in conflict with each other.
1:11:48
SPEAKER_01: They each kind of represent a different element, you know, it's very elemental chaos vibes.
1:11:53
SPEAKER_01: Four horsemen, four elements.
1:11:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:11:56
SPEAKER_01: So they're they're they're kind of in opposition to one another, but they also kind of serve the same like originator, which is the elemental evil.
1:12:06
SPEAKER_01: And also, of course, there's respective cults that have formed around these princes, because of course, yeah, um, so in areas where the elemental evil takes hold, creatures of the earth, such as boulets, are compelled to accept members of the cult of the black earth as allies.
1:12:22
SPEAKER_01: So it's a little bit of a little bit of magical compelling.
1:12:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a little bit of magical mumbo jumbo going on.
1:12:29
SPEAKER_01: So the training process, which unfortunately is not very detailed, it's it's not really explained exactly what the process is, but it takes about a month.
1:12:38
SPEAKER_01: And after this, the burrow sharks, which are the the people that ride the boulets, are magically bound to their mounts, giving them the ability to sense as the boulet does while they are mounted, which is very cool.
1:12:53
SPEAKER_01: They kind of can, you know, warg into the boulet a little bit, and also ride them without, you know, suffocating underground.
1:13:01
SPEAKER_03: Getting hit with a big chunk of rock.
1:13:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, without whatever whatever would happen there.
1:13:08
SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, uh like there there is a little bit of like the module itself, it it sort of does talk about like different areas that have been kind of been taken over by the the the cult of the black earth, and you know, the thing they get they've got like pens and stuff, they got pens with like baby boulets in them and stuff like that, um, that are otherwise acting pretty docile that you would than you would expect from that.
1:13:33
SPEAKER_01: But there's not necessarily much kind of talked about what that relationship is like in the way that you know someone like me would want.
1:13:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, who like anytime I saw a book about like a person with a big dragon companion and they they ride.
1:13:50
SPEAKER_01: I want to know about the bonding process, yeah.
1:13:52
SPEAKER_01: Like I want to know what that's like.
1:13:54
SPEAKER_01: Lou and I's like big fiction of choice uh in like elementary school was bonding with large animals, yeah, bonding with large animals and briding them into battle type thing.
1:14:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:14:06
SPEAKER_01: Um, but they do also have the power of looking really fucking sick.
1:14:11
SPEAKER_01: This is the last visual aid of the episode before we're gonna end it.
1:14:15
SPEAKER_01: It looks so sick.
1:14:17
SPEAKER_03: He is riding on the little guy who's actually a big guy uh behind the the fin.
1:14:25
SPEAKER_03: The fin yeah uh the the guy, the little guy has got a little smirk.
1:14:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and like he's holding a thick ass spear, and they wear cool to like a harpoon looking, actually.
1:14:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're right.
1:14:42
SPEAKER_01: And I think that they could be friends, they are friends, I think they understand each other on a level.
1:14:50
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, that's the episode.
1:14:52
SPEAKER_01: That's the episode.
1:14:54
SPEAKER_01: So you know what?
1:14:54
SPEAKER_01: Your your your dreams of making friends with the boulet are not completely out of the picture.
1:15:01
SPEAKER_01: You just have to join a cult, you just have to join a cult and live underground, yeah, and and um issue things like mines and things dug up from mines and um like farmland.
1:15:18
SPEAKER_03: Well, unfortunately, I don't think I don't think that he can eschew things dug up from mines.
1:15:24
SPEAKER_03: That's like a blacksmith.
1:15:26
SPEAKER_01: That's yeah, that's true.
1:15:28
SPEAKER_01: But you know, uh you know, blacksmithing, boulet best friend, you know, it's a trade.
1:15:35
SPEAKER_01: You kind of have to pick.
1:15:36
SPEAKER_01: It's a it's a tough, it's a tough choice.
1:15:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:15:38
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so your um, you know, your your dreams of maybe making friends at the boulet are not completely off the table.
1:15:45
SPEAKER_01: I just have to make a few sacrifices.
1:15:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you just have to that's that's with anything in life.
1:15:50
SPEAKER_01: That's true.
1:15:50
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and this is something that like I always kind of thought about in the back of my mind.
1:15:59
SPEAKER_01: Like it was weirdly kind of like a a little bit of a like a fallback for me.
1:16:05
SPEAKER_01: Because I I did have in mind that I figured they would be relatively straightforward, you know?
1:16:12
SPEAKER_01: Like there wouldn't necessarily be like a you know, and yeah, they they were and they're so they're so iconic though.
1:16:20
SPEAKER_01: Like they're so they're so DD monster.
1:16:24
SPEAKER_01: And then also I feel like it just kind of been brought back to the forefront a little bit because the fucking boulet in Baldur's Gate 3 is also so iconic here.
1:16:34
SPEAKER_01: It pisses me off every time.
1:16:38
SPEAKER_01: I love that thing.
1:16:39
SPEAKER_02: Dude, that thing wrecked my shit the first time I came across this thing.
1:16:43
SPEAKER_03: And then it runs away.
1:16:44
SPEAKER_03: Like No, no, no, no, come back here.
1:16:47
SPEAKER_01: Which is actually very which is actually very different from Yeah, I I think that I should write an angry email to Larian about that.
1:16:55
SPEAKER_03: Just write a blog post.
1:16:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:16:59
SPEAKER_01: Write about how like this isn't how the boulet would actually admit, you know.
1:17:05
SPEAKER_03: Thank you guys so much for listening.
1:17:06
SPEAKER_03: Don't forget to follow us on threads, on Instagram, on TikTok, wherever you want to uh get reminded of our episodes, or just you know, we we do short form content and and things like that.
1:17:17
SPEAKER_03: Spread the word to it.
1:17:18
SPEAKER_01: Join our cult.
1:17:19
SPEAKER_03: Join our cult, yeah.
1:17:20
SPEAKER_03: It'll be great.
1:17:21
SPEAKER_01: You get a free boulet, friend.
1:17:22
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and one good thing about our cult, you don't have to assure your friends and family.
1:17:26
SPEAKER_03: In fact, we want you to bring them in.
1:17:28
SPEAKER_03: Spread the word to them, in fact.
1:17:30
SPEAKER_01: Tell them to join our cult.
1:17:32
SPEAKER_02: Which is not how normal cults work at all.
1:17:36
SPEAKER_02: Uh, if you have anything that you would like to suggest as a topic for us to cover, feel free to email us at dungeonpedia.podcast at gmail.com, or if you join the Discord server, go there.
1:17:47
SPEAKER_02: Just any way you feel like communicating with us.
1:17:50
SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you once again for listening, and we'll catch you next week here on Dungeonpedia.
1:17:56
SPEAKER_02: Okay, but they're so small to us, but they're fucking huge.
1:18:04
SPEAKER_01: Just like us.
1:18:06
SPEAKER_01: He wouldn't know, he would be friendly.
1:18:08
SPEAKER_01: I don't think he would know.
1:18:09
SPEAKER_01: He's kind of intelligent too, dog.
1:18:11
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's gonna happen.