EXT. LAS VEGAS RAIDERS SHARED HOUSE – DAY

Establishing shot and title card.

ANNOUNCER BETH MOWINS: That’s The Way A Loss Tastes Raiders [sic] is filmed in front of a Life Cereal [sic] audience.

CUT TO – INT. LIVING ROOM – DAY

The house is curiously silent as DEREK CARR stands in front of the kitchen table that features a seated HUNTER RENFROW, KOLTON MILLER, and JONATHAN ABRAM.  KOLTON MILLER is munching from a big bag of Old Bay flavored potato chips.  All of them are focusing their attention on a miniature figurine that DEREK CARR has set down.

HUNTER RENFROW: …Ephesus the Unrepentant, Breaker of Oaths.  Got it.  I take it he’s of the Captain class?

DEREK CARR: [haughtily] He’s twenty-sixth generation Drow nobility, so yes, he’s of the Captain class.  Anything less would be a grievous insult to his family line. 

HUNTER: All right, all right, so he’s a Dark Elf…

DEREK: And also he’s a vampire.

HUNTER: Now hang on a second, you can’t just…

JONATHAN ABRAM: Kraken the Ravenous attempts to eat Ephesus’ brain!

JONATHAN picks up a 20-sided die and holds it over the table in anticipation.

JONATHAN: What do I need to roll? 

HUNTER: Hang on, you guys, damnit…

KOLTON MILLER continues munching his potato chips.

HUNTER: …first we have to roll for Ephesus’ character attributes…

HUNTER RENFROW reaches for several 6-sided dice but DEREK CARR interrupts him by setting down a sheet of paper on the table.

DEREK: I already rolled for them.

JONATHAN: [looking down at the sheet] Oh, bullshit.

HUNTER: Eighteen, sixteen, fourteen, TWENTY…oh, come on, Derek.

DEREK: I did it in my room!

HUNTER: Yeah, whatever.  

KOLTON: [looking out the window] Heads up, guys, Old Man Marinelli is on his way up the stairs.

HUNTER: Tell you what, Derek.  Show me the dice. 

DEREK: Huh?

HUNTER: Just show me the dice you used to supposedly roll all these ridiculously high S.C.R.A.P. scores. 

DEREK: No, I…uh, did it on my computer.  There’s a website that rolls for you.

HUNTER: Nice try.  [hands him the dice]  Go ahead and roll for your scores like everybody else.

DEREK CARR grumbles as he takes up the dice and proceeds to roll an impressive collection of scores, which he arranges as Strength 16, Constitution 9, Range 17, Agility 19, and Perception 17.

HUNTER: Damn, those are some solid scores.  It’s a shame that most of the action happens in the daylight, because as a dark elf vampire you’re going to suffer from a minus-4 penalty on every single attribute due to being an underground dweller.  

DEREK: Nuh-uh, Ephesus has a daywalker ring.  It negates the effect of sunlight on his abilities.

HUNTER: A daywalker ring?  Come on, Derek, you can’t just declare that you have some powerful relic that you heard of thanks to some teenage vampire show on the CW.  Like, you’re just starting out as an adventurer, where on earth would he have gotten such a thing?

DEREK: It’s a family heirloom from House Drag’gard.  His mother slipped it into his palm after he was cast out of the underworld when his elder brother ascended to the family seat of power. 

HUNTER: I don’t know…

JONATHAN: What if we all started out with one power item?  It’d probably make things more interesting to start.

HUNTER: Hmm.  Maybe.  But they can’t be too powerful.  Kolton, what would yours be?

KOLTON: [looks up from his bag of chips] I don’t know, some kind of magic…uh…bag?  

HUNTER: Okay, okay, sure.  A bag of infinite provisions.  That’s not too outrageously powerful and it would be quite useful when you’re doing overland campaigns. It’s not so bad in an underground scenario, either. How about you, Jonathan?

JONATHAN: My doll has some kind of staff, how about that? 

HUNTER: It’s not a doll, it’s a miniature.  And staffs are too high-level of an item for now.  Let’s give you an amulet that…

— [DOOR FLIES OPEN] —

COACH ROD MARINELLI: Good afternoon, young masters.

DEREK: [under his breath] Speaking of relics…

HUNTER: Oh, hey Coach Marinelli.

COACH MARINELLI: What are you kids up to? You’re not doing any devil-worshipping, are you?

HUNTER: [carefully slides miniatures out of sight] No sir!  We’re just getting ready to play a good old-fashioned game of Parcheesi.

COACH MARINELLI: Good good. Great game.  Finest game ever invented.  Boys, I’ve got some bad news.  They’re putting me out to pasture.  Which means I’d like to introduce you to your new defensive coordinator, Gus Bradley.

KEN WHISENHUNT: I keep telling you that I’m not Gus Bradley.

COACH MARINELLI: [laughs until he begins coughing] Good one, good one.  Boys, you get to know your new coach, I’m going to sit down and rest my eyes a little bit.

COACH MARINELLI ambles over to the couch, brushes aside some crumbs, and settles in.  Almost immediately after he closes his eyes he begins snoring lightly.

JONATHAN: Gosh, sorry about that, Coach Whisenhunt. 

KEN WHISENHUNT: The worst part is that he didn’t even tell me he thought I was Gus Bradley before he started driving me around.  I thought I’d been hired!

DEREK: Why don’t you just, like, ditch him?

KEN WHISENHUNT gestures to a handgun that COACH MARINELLI is openly carrying in a hip holster.  

KOLTON: Oh, that?  You don’t have to worry about that thing.

JONATHAN: We replaced his bullets with Mike and Ikes after he told us he was planning to attend the Biden inauguration.  

KEN WHISENHUNT: Huh.  The bright colors didn’t throw him off?

HUNTER: Oh, Coach Marinelli hasn’t been able to see color for at least ten years now.  It’s one of the reasons why so many of our defensive schemes have our cornerbacks covering our own safeties.  But just in case someone points it out to him we told him they were “gel-center sugarpoints” that we bought at the NRA’s liquidation sale.

KEN WHISENHUNT: Oh good.  Thanks, kids.  My wife’s been going crazy wondering where I am. 

HUNTER: She probably won’t miss you for a few more hours – why don’t you stick around and play a round of G&G with us?

KEN WHISENHUNT: G&G?

KOLTON: Guardians and Gladiators.  It’s really fun!

KEN WHISENHUNT: [shrugs] Why not.  [sits down at the table] Deal me in.