Hello, everyone! And welcome to tonight's very special live "Daggerheart Open Beta One-Shot". (all cheering) Thank you all so much for joining us. This is also our nine year anniversary, so-- Travis: Nine years! Happy anniversary. Doesn't feel a year past 700. Liam: The marriage is still fresh! Exactly. So, I sincerely thank you all so much, all of you wonderful Critters out there for supporting us over these years. It's wild that we've been doing this this long and enjoy it every step of the way along with you all. It really just means a lot and y'all can expect a lot of rad stuff to come in the future. We're super excited. So, we're celebrating today by taking Daggerheart for a spin today with the official open beta play test materials available now on daggerheart.com. You can download the PDF. You can play at home with your group, you can craft characters solo. You can even play virtually with the Daggerheart Nexus on Demiplane and just make a bunch of characters and try 'em out. Travis: That's so good. However you decide that you wanna play, all of us here are eager to see what you think we can do to make the game better as we move forward on this. So please be sure to fill out the play test surveys on daggerheart.com so we can incorporate your amazing feedback and make this game as amazing as we possibly can. Marisha, you got some announcements as well? Yeah, just wanted to shout out that we also have a ton of Daggerheart content that is live right now on our YouTube channel. So if you're more of a visual learner, it's got a lot of really cool card graphics. It's really great. We have a Daggerheart 101 video with Matt and Spenser explaining the core game mechanics so that you can keep up with us. And then there's also a character building video with Travis and Matt, where they create Bertrand Bell in Daggerheart. It's great. He died. Liam: We all died. (Marisha and Matt laugh) We also uploaded our Session 0 for this One-Shot that we are about to play right now where we created these delightful characters you're about to see. So if you want a little bit more insight into how the Session 0s Work, you can go check it out and see how bat shit we all are. The VOD for tonight's One-Shot will be available immediately after the broadcast. And the podcast version will also be uploaded tomorrow, as in March 13th. Liam: Whoa!
Because tonight's the 12th. Liam: Whoa!
Marisha: 'Cause we're live! We are live! We are live!
We have to prove it. We have to prove it somehow. I know. I need a newspaper.
Get us a newspaper. (all laughing) Marisha: Damn it! Here, I'll show you my New York Times app. (all laughing) Regardless. So, yeah--
How do we prove it? What happened today? Sam: This is today's Myrtle. Oh, that's cool. Let's go live. Live, live, live.
Live, live, live! Hi, baby. Oh yeah.
That's right. He looks so handsome. Sam: No, no, no. (all laughing) Nice try. So yeah, excited to do this. This is still a newish rule set for us as well. We played a number of games and things have changed many times, so if we ever get loose goosey with it, just know that we're also testing it alongside you. But nevertheless, I believe that concludes our announcements. So let's go ahead and jump into tonight's episode of "Critical Role plays Daggerheart". (all cheering) Let's go! We don't have any opening titles, so now we just go into the game. (all cheering) Perfect. So, welcome one and all to the realm of Lockspire, a rolling collection of winding land masses that tumble from the mountains of creation into the surrounding seas that coil between the broken expanse of grassy hills, rocky crags, and mysterious overgrowth, from the length of the builder's bridge to the distant ruins of Nicks. Here beneath the hallows above, mortals mingle with the great many relics and ruins of ages long past now left to crumble beneath ambition and progress. Here the echoes of traumatic wars linger and unhealing scars that stretch the land, while remnants of vibrant and magical beings dance between the sunbeams and ancient places of thrumming power. Here, the common folks seek revelry and purpose in a world that churns in a constant state of change. Fortune and glory ever called to many. And life in Lockspire is rarely dull for those with an eye for opportunity and an eagerness to walk beyond what is comfortable. Even so, older and crueler wills lurk within the depth of every shadow and in the twisted heart of every city, even within the most sacred of natural places. And it is here where our story begins. In the late afternoon of a late summer day with an amass dappled cabin nestled within the outskirts of the divine timberland known as the Emerald Sky, home to the will of Andra, goddess of the wild and wooded places. Here among the ever climbing perimeter trees, within the home of the retired war hero, Everett Cole, a troop of journeyman adventurers, bonded through circumstance, finished their last meal before trekking into the ominous deep of the Emerald Sky. As we come in into the late afternoon golds and greens of the forest, past the moss and dust covered exterior window, we see the warmly lit interior of the humble cabin, the flames crackling in the nearby fireplace. We shift over to Sir Dante, if you wouldn't mind describing to me what you look like and what you are doing within the cabin. Oh. Oh my God! Matt, you're real good at this, by the way.
Oh my God, Not bad. No. Well, I am a approximately five foot 10 turtle, wearing a corsair's hat in brown leather with a lovely feather on top, a blue and white striped tunic and a half cape of golden royal blue, leather gloves, leather boots, although the toe's cut out, because turtle. I mean, of course. I have a very fancy rapier and a chained weapon of some kind with a claw on it. And at the moment I am attempting to... Oh, I also have a scar on my face. Just a little one of those, just something for some character. And I'm at the moment using my hat to fan the fire to just see if we can get it a bit warmer in here. As the smoke billows out from your hat movement, it fills that space a bit. And you hear the sound of the coughing of Everett Cole. You see the older human in his 60's, kind of a shaggy skullet on the weathered skin, deeply kind eyes that are almost hidden within a wrinkled brow that is now overtaken most of the front face, but a warm smile as he turns to you coughing. "Well, I appreciate your help there, sir Turtle." The fire's broken. "It'll be fine. "Let me handle the rest of the tea. "You all just relax a minute. "Now, I'm just curious about you all. "You there, big fella. "And sorry, the accommodations aren't quite to your scale." As we shift over to see Pango. Hello? Hi. Yes, I'm Pango. I am very tall. I don't really know heights too well. It's either seven or eight feet. My feet are bigger than yours. So I don't know how that factors in. But I'm big, and I squint when I'm outside a lot because I'm not used to being outside. I grew up underground, and now I'm out and traveling with my friends and having a grand old time. You might also notice that most of my purplish skin is covered up with some armor, but which is also tastefully covered up with some very green and very fancy duds that my friend, Sweetpea, and Oppy, stole from me. And in the next last town over. I'm looking pretty fresh. They say I look fresh. I don't know what that means, but it's... And right now I'm just staring over Xarlo's plate, just wondering if he's gonna finish all of it. 'Cause it looks... I need more. How about if you dry shite? Are you hungry still? Oh my God. I mean, I don't want to impose, but yeah, I could eat. I could make plenty of biscuits if that's what you need. No need to-- He is big. If that facker fell over, he'd be halfway home. Well, happy to get you a bit of food as well, I suppose. Whatever brings all you around. I'm a facker? Does that mean I fack? What me grandfather always used to say to me is, "Xarlo, don't say fucker, it's not polite. "Say facker instead." Oh, okay. I'll use that. Sort of a cheat. Okay.
"I've learned that. "All right. "Facker, I'm writing that down." As he goes and walks over to his bookcase. As you sit back and cross your arms in confidence, what does Xarlo look like? Well, Xarlo is the elder statesman of this group, even though he is not that old. He's been with the larger organization. Our people have been with this group has been with for quite some time. And while not a mentor per se, sometimes he has to be a bit of a babysitter. They get into trouble a lot. Xarlo is about four feet tall. He's a simiah. Lots of brown fur, has a very regal twined mustache down the sides of his face, a little bit scruff of a beard. And there's a shock of white in his brown hair. He has an always active tail that is as communicative as his hands tend to be. And he is wearing burning man pants and a pair of satchels going diagonally across his chest. These? Yeah, those right there. (all laughing) He's wearing Matt pants. They're more of a rust to brown. A lot of people think burning man pants are no pants. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not just Donald Duck. Sometimes it is those pants, but not today. (all laughing) In the trees no less. By the way, I am also perching to be in character like a monkey, but I feel like I might fart at any minute. But I'm living on the edge and I'm gonna do it anyway. Your character explodes. We're in the blast radius. That was just Liam, that was it. Yeah. (all laughing) In character gas. Perfect.
I'm good for now. And his cheeks are a little red right now 'cause he's probably had one or two cups too many today. Fair enough. Oh. "Oh yes. "Certainly quite the mildly crew who've stumbled in, "I don't get many visitors around here. "I'm happy to gauge... "Oh, you said you came out from Ford Overmarch, right? "About 15, 20 miles south of here. "Tell what brings you this side of the Emerald Sky?" He glances over towards the regal looking beetle figure who's been stoically standing, staring into the flames. (Travis chittering) (all laughing) Slap on--
Production can do that, right? So regel. Oh my God. "I'm sorry, the smoke's getting into you. "Here's some more tea. "Swallow." And he comes up and hands you a hefty mug of hot and steaming mint tea. His accent's a little thick. Right, right. Kexin is standing there holding onto his staff. He has a hard shell that's got blues and purples in it, kind of shiny with lighter bluish green eyes and large mandibles pointing out from his face. Very much like a stag beetle. He has some kick ass armored pauldrons with points. Just for flare and maybe a little bit of protection. And he has larger shells that are hiding translucent light blue wings underneath his back shell.
Work it. Yeah, and he's just-- That's one sexy bug. Sure is. And I'm moving a little trace of arcane energy in between my fingers. And I'll say, "We've been sent out by our larger group, "the grim wardens. "We're here to clean up any mess that we are tasked with. "It's important to us to make a name for ourselves." "Well, you are a part of the grim warden. "Don't normally walk this far "to the western side of the continent. "So it must be important business, I imagine." We're like a frontier group. We're called the Menagerie, right? Is that what we settled on? Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah.
"Menagerie. "All right. "All right. "Well, happy to stay as long as you like. "Be on your way and you friends as well. "I may not have enough to feed all of you, "but what I can find." Oh, we don't need very much, it's okay. Yeah. We eat pretty light. "I think the majority of it "went to your big friend over here." That's okay. I'm sorry. It's okay.
No, it's okay. I could try to barf it up if you want some. I don't know. I don't know. That's okay.
Sure. Okay. I'll work on it. Yeah, all right. In the back. In the back. Oh, go. In the back. Oh, I'm gonna look for a bucket. As the two of you begin to scramble looking for a bucket, can you describe what we see running around?
Oh, running around? You see one girl who is short, but she looks very tall compared to her friend here, very slender, with a giant cap. She is a fungril, very pale, almost a sea green color. And her clothes are very flowy. She wears a big oversized cardigan. And resting against the wall is her long... I think it's a long staff with a couple hooks on it. And she just looks very free and floaty. How short or tall is she again? About four foot. So I'm right around your size. Right. So we got about four foot, about four foot, about... I'm not sure yet. (all laughing) I'll let you know what it feels like. Alrighty. About five foot 10? Five eight, five 10. Five eight, five 10 feet. Yeah. Seven eight. I guess I could be a little taller. No, be your height. I'm kinda loving this. This is the anti silhouette test for animation. (all laughing) Everyone's chilling about the same. Every group photo, Tango's just out of the photo. Yep. It's the character from "Police Squad". You're like Gandalf with all the humming. That's true, yeah. Yes! And as you're scrambling for a bucket to help Django with his sudden need to-- Pango.
Pango. His name is Pango.
Sorry, Pango. My bad. Pango.
Pango. Django was my--
Django was your brother. My brother.
My bad. No, that was Wango.
Wango. Django was my father. Got it. (all laughing) Mango is just a food that we like to eat. (all laughing) Thank you, Pango. As you're running around the bucket, you excitedly preparing for whatever meal you might have regifted yourself. What are you doing, Oppy? Oh, I'm looking around too. I'm trying to help find a bucket. So I'm just a little ribbit. Just sapphire blue skin with a smattering of yellow freckles everywhere and huge yellow eyes. And my cloak is made out of leaves and a little hat made outta leaves as well. And my staff, which I found at the bottom of the river, and it's so sparkly and it was so shiny and I just had to get it. And it constantly billows smoke. What I don't know is, it's a cigarillo. (all laughing) But it's magical to me. I have little overalls and they're striped, and little tops of the overall that he calls his little puppenders. (all laughing) And little shoes that I shove my feet into. So I look real nice and smart and-- Puppenders. And my name's Oppy! "Well, thank you, Oppy. "I appreciate you both helping out." Oh, I didn't say my name. "What's your name?" I'm Sweetpea. "Sweetpea. "Oh, pleasure to make your acquaintance as well, Sweetpea. "Sweetpea and Oppy. "That's a pair." Pleasure to meet you. "Yeah, pleasure's mine." Again, even though we've been here for minute. "You have a perspective leader "of your troop of the Menagerie? "You seem to be rather presenter individual." Oh, goodness. My, is it always this chilly in the west? And I go over to Sir Dante and I take out my bladed fan and I just start helping him fan the flames just a little bit. And what you see is a stacked caked up fawn. Let's go! She is curvy. She has a light dusty rose fur tint to her. And even though she is a fawn, she has bunny ears almost like a jackalope. And she has really strappy leather armor and a little cropped leather jacket that barely covers anything. But she goes, oh, and she covers up. Are you cold, Miss Bunnie? I can give you my scarf. It's just a little chilly.
Cardigan? Oh, oh. I wouldn't wanna take anything from you. You're so dainty. She's got a garter that she has a little dagger built into. And then you see on her fan, it's serrated and has sharp edges for it that she uses as a weapon as well as has a little, a whip that she has wrapped around and fastened to her belt. Here, Dante. Oh. Thank you, dear. Thank you.
Here we go. That's good. I'm Bunnie, by the way. "Bunnie." Yeah. "Pleasure to meet you, Bunnie. "Well, the Menagerie, "you're here in some relatively dangerous realms beyond. "I don't know how familiar you are "with the Emerald Sky here, but the..." I'm a little familiar. "Oh, oh." I've skirted the outskirts of the woods here. Alright, so you're quite familiar. It is a very... a land suffused with the natural magics of the realm. Here, Ondra herself, her will exists towards the center lock that holds the life force and energy of the massive forest. Ah! I see you're of Ondra's folk. (chuckles) Well then perhaps not much of this will be a surprise to you then, but just know that natural magics of the world can be also rather tricksy. There's a reason I didn't build deeper into the forest. I like it out here. It's close enough to keep it interesting, but also far enough away where I don't get too caught up with the tricksters of the wood. Though, some of the Grove children came by speaking of a mighty storm not but a couple days ago. Isn't that who we were looking for? You ran into the Grove children? As we do that, we shift into a brief flashback, not but a day before within the city of Fort Overmarsh. Here, the once militaristic outpost that in peace time has kind of taken on a new form as a trading outpost, a ways to the south of the Emerald Sky, the bustle of the townsfolk are walking through the space. There's two open mines, one that's kind of falling out of use. One has been discovered, it's building up. You have stumbled into the town and made your relatively unseen or uncared for position in the city. What are you all doing here at Fort Overmarsh at the moment, in this flashback? Oh, shit. Uh huh, uh huh. Yep. We're doing stuff. We're doing stuff. It's real. You mean before? Is it wet here? This is the day before? This is the day before. It's raining, you said? Sure, it's raining. Okay, great. Then oh, in that case, I'm standing next to Oppy and giving him a little umbrella with my head. Okay. Oh my God, that's so cute. Anything that troubles you? Need a fix? Need something remedied. We're your fix. We're here to help. Call The Menagerie. Yeah. A group of four miners, themselves kind of like dust smeared, carrying materials and tools kind of stop and look at the rest of you and, yeah! And just keep trucking on through the rain. It's a bit of a heavy sell. Nobody takes us seriously though. I feel like we need more oomph, more showmanship. Look, they got dogs over here. (laughing) Look at 'em all. There's like seven of 'em. There's babies over here. Aw! Oh, that's it. We're just going to stay here for the day. I hope that's all right. This is precisely why nobody takes us seriously. Oh ho ho, look at that one. Look at his face. Aw. Maybe we need uniforms. Or pamphlets. You know, I hear people really love pamphlets. A pamplet?
Yeah. Pamphlet.
Pamphlet. Oh yeah. They're like business cards but with more obnoxious information on them. Oh, that sure sounds great. That's funny. Yeah. It's about this--
I think we just need to prove ourselves, you know? How do we do that? Like if we just get somebody to hire us or-- Just one person. Should we take a job for free just to prove ourselves? Let's not say that out loud. But I mean, if no one will hire us for money, maybe we do one for free just to sort of show that we're... Like a sample? A free sample. First one's free. Then they'll hire us for the second one. Please.
Ah. Help. (gasps) Anybody. Perfect. You kind of glance over and you see from the exterior of the fort itself, the wall that remains partially open, the guards just kind of lean back as you see four different flickering sparks like go darting through, along with two kind of humanoid figures that come rushing in kind of bundling themselves underneath the rain. At a quick glance you can see the guards kind of close the gate behind and they start swarming the guards and just speaking out loudly. Please. Anyone! You can immediately see the glimmer of what looks to be fairy dust and fay magic as a number of these fairy folk come flittering through the entryway and kind of circling the air and two other figures wearing shredded leathers and what looks to be heavy kind of tattered woolen cloaks kind of bundled around them also kind of look for anyone's gaze and they're mostly being ignored, much like you've been since you arrived. I elbow Pango in the knee. Oh, I think you manifested it, you fecker. Come on, let's go up and sort this out. My feck. We've run up and with a little bit of flourish and you hear almost like out of nowhere, like it's ethereal. You hear almost like this victory music like a da-da-daa. and we are perfectly backlit and I just say, it looks like you need The Menagerie. (laughs) As you all strike this pose. I do scary fingers. Thank you. Yeah. Cease bedazzling their security. I'm still holding two dogs. (laughing) As you all stand there frozen as if backlit from behind, the rain still soaking you all in the process, but majestic as it as be, you see the four fairy folk stop to kind of ooh all in unison together. While the two bundled folk drop their hoods and you can see they're both elven lineage. Their pointed ears curved up. You can see the mud itself kinda washing out in streaks from their face and they all look haggard, like they've been traveling in harsh weather probably for the better part of, I don't know, a day or more. Most other folks just kinda close the gate behind and are now ignoring this ridiculous display and getting on with the rest of their business. But as they begin to approach, the fairies then give out speed and start surrounding you, going, Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi.
Hello. Hello. The Menagerie. That's wonderful. Help us please! And they start swarming.
Are you okay? Well no, we had to leave. We had to leave. You see one of them flitters up closely and you get a good look at it beyond just the glow. You can see this like beautiful looking feminine form with elongated arms, these long claw-like fingers, but these bright, vibrant eyes of blue. I hold out my staff so they can land on it. It lands on it and as it does its body like clutches onto it like an insect, like the beautiful fairy all of a sudden becomes this odd kind of segmented creature looking at you with big eyes. We were sent from the Velvet Grove for help. We'll do it. We'll help you for free. Free samples.
Free samples. They all look at each other and the two elven figures go, that was far easier than we anticipated. That's very kind. We're still sort of trying out our whole Menagerie thing. Think of it like an open beta sort of, (laughing) we're just testing it out. Bong! (laughing) But you say there's something wrong in the Velvet Grove. I've heard tell of that place. Right. The two elven figures, now you see both their faces. They appear to be either, they're not identical twins but they definitely look like they are from the same family lineage. The one looks a bit older. They both have very, very pale almost translucent skin where you can almost see the veins almost appearing at parts but you also can't tell which part is the mud streak as well. Their eyes are a beautiful piercing dark green and as they both kinda look at you all with this kind of alien cocked head. Well we were indeed sent out of the Velvet Grove on the eastern side of the North Sky. Boko the Glen Warder, the fane guardian that looks over that portion of the sky sent us for our own protection. It looks over to the younger kind of female turns. Yes, the Humble Hillock himself. We're here on his behest. My, he has so many titles. Protection from what? It seems as if like the wildlife of the Eastern Sky has become strange. Unfamiliar, violent. The initial twin turns. The Exia River's grown murky, it's scent, sinister and pungent. The fairies kind of curl back onto their shoulders even the one that's still clutching onto your staff, like all in unison, they all say, and the water's worried. The water. That's Boko.
Boko. If indeed you see within your graces to aid us, you would be not just, indeed be within our debt to you as followers of Ondra, but within her light as well. Oh, oh, well I think I've figured it out. If your river got stinky then that's why everybody's so mad. It makes people act weird when they got stinky water. No, you're totally right. That's probably what it is. There might also be more that we should just follow up on so that we can give a thorough evaluation. Yeah, like what made the water stinky. Sounds like something--
That's the free sample. Thank you for your free sample. Are they also drinking this water? Well we believe that perhaps they had been, but so have we and we have been feeling fine. No stomach issues. You're fine? There's one of the fairies kind of lands up on your shoulder and it's like, oh, we've been fine. And just like smears your shoulder. Oh!
Oh. Oh. (laughs) And the source of the darkened river comes from further into the Emerald Sky than where you reside? Indeed. There is a spring within the Velvet Grove that feeds the river. That is what the Warder is investigating. Perhaps you could meet with him and together you might be able to save us from whatever strange ill intent seems to permeate our home. So something unnatural is polluting the will of Ondra. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Right. Well we will provide a free sample. Sort of obligated to as well, but it will be free. And in exchange you could make sure that the name The Menagerie is spread far and wide. Of course. And under the guiding light of the great Ondra, you will be considered friends of The Wilds as well. Great.
Sounds lovely. I suppose that's our thing.
Wonderful honor. Well I suppose we should go and meet with this Glen Warden out of, apparently, the kindness of our hearts. Sorry, Sir Dante. Is that okay? Yes. No, I'm prepared for it. Reputation is very important. It will be more like camping and less like glamping. Is that alright with you? I'll make do. As we shift away from the sound of rain, we pull back into Everett Cole's warm cabin interior as the sunset light begins to fade and finishes listening to the tale. Oh, I see that's why y'all are here to head towards the Velvet Grove then, looking for the Warder. And this Exia River? Exia River. Well there's two paths I know of that you could probably take there. Choice is yours really. You could follow the Wispallo Trail until it ends at Cleft Hand Rock. Wispalla, did you say? Wispallo. Wispallo. That's what I said. And?
Cleft Hand Rock and head towards the sound of the water at the Cleft Hand that'll lead you right to the Exia River and follow that upstream to its source, which is within the Velvet Grove. The other path would be to listen for the sounds of the ether carcrow. They tend to wallow in places of dark power in these spaces and are drawn to scavenge in the wake of tragedy. So if there's something going wrong here, their sounds are liable to lead you there regardless of the light. What was that? Sorry I couldn't make it through your accent. The ether? Ether carcrow. Ether carcrow. We follow the sound. Or we follow the path.
It will lead us to death. So we follow the path or we follow the sound. Oh, while you're heading out there, keep an eye out for Wild Cullen. He's a kind of a rugged ranger and he's a warden of Ondra's Southern Wood. He's an old acquaintance.
Is he a vampire? I certainly hope not. Shame on you. Shame on you. (laughs) Oh, 'cause of Edward Cullen. Jesus. (laughs) Oh god.
You marker him. (laughs) Oh no. (laughing) (exclaims indistinctly) He warned us. He warned us of the game.
Whoo hoo. Just adding a fear for no reason. Uh uh. No, he's passed through. Mentioned that there's some odd things he's looking into. Not long before you arrived at my place so he might be also looking around the same spaces and he's a capable fella. So try and hold what allies you can to you. Mm.
Yes. He's been keeping an eye on the Amma Ranch Logging Guilders of late. Amma Ranch. Now he mentions the Wild Cullen figure and you, Xarlo, you've actually had a brief meeting with this individual in the past. With Wild Cullen or? Wild Cullen.
Right. A brusque but honorable figure. You remember his bright ice-blue eyes that pierced beneath a tangled mop of dark hair, features that evoke both human and elven lineage. What were the circumstances in which the two of you met? Ah, well by that time I had left my family behind, the people of the Emerald Sky and I was on my own. It was before I found these feckers. And it was a rough patch and I thought that maybe I'd just be a bit of a hermit for six or seven months and... He encouraged me and told me that the walk of life I had chosen for myself was too dangerous to go alone and that the gaps in my soul would be better filled by finding others. Find some missing pieces. As you pull back from your memory of this figure and knowing that he might be an ally to seek out there, another nugget of confidence seems to blossom within your heart. As Cole goes, well, if you're gonna go out you gonna wanna go soon before it gets too dark. And you are welcome to stay here the night if you prefer to wait till the morning. Don't know how much of a time push you're currently fighting against, but you tell me what you wanna do. People are hurting now. I feel like we have to go help them as soon as possible. Very well. Let me bundle up the rest of my biscuits. Send you with what you need. (laughs) He wanders over and starts grabbing a bunch of these extremely dense-- Bricks?
Hardened bricks. Yeah. Puffy tacked. What sort of damage would they do when you throw them? One way to find out. (laughing) But nevertheless packs up what little bit he has and sends you outside of the cabin. You can see the cloud cover has taken most of the sky that's visible and before you, the dense, incredibly tall tree scape that eventually becomes the heart of the Emerald Sky looms before you. So what would you like to do? Well, there are options. Of course.
There are two. Do we know how far off the Wispallo is from this area? The trail? Wispallo Trail. Cole tells you that it kind of points in one direction. You can see there's markers among the trees. Cool. Looks like there's little kind of carved Xs across the tree markers that mark the beginning of it. And as you kind of step over to see where it is, it's a fairly plainly walked trail. It's not like, you know, pressed flat with much foot traffic, but you can see where over time, it's fairly easy to follow. How directly into the center of the forest does it lead? Is it just a straight shot? From where you're standing, seems like a straight shot. Let's just do this. Well, I mean that seems dangerous. I mean if anyone's going to head towards the center of the forest, it would be this straight line. People would be expecting it and it's famously dangerous. Actually, I think the solution might be a mix of both. We'll walk the trail until we maybe hear the crow. Did Cole tell us what the crow sounds like? (laughs) The etheri-carcrow? Ether carcrow? Ether crow.
Ether carcrow. Ether carkle. Yes, that one. That's what it sounds like. Ether-carkle! (laughing) Ether-carkle! (laughing) It's a little difficult to describe. It's kinda like a ghostly crying sound. You'll know it when you hear it. It's oddly human-like. Don't like that at all.
You can't give us your impression of it though, just so we have some sense of it. Yeah. Not much of a performer. I'm an old soldier, but I'm... (wailing) Ah, that's good.
They sound so sad. I don't know, I'd never seen one. I never went that deep in. Everett Cole, don't sell yourself short though. You're great.
Well, thank you. You painted a picture. I took some improv classes when I was younger. (laughing) You can tell. There's a wallet picture of that. Didn't make it to Sunday company but, you know. Anyway, y'all stay safe and, well, you're from here. Just from the outside. My people, the Dolans, I'm calling it right now. The Dolan-
I'm writing it down. We stuck to the outskirts of the Emerald Sky, so. The Dolans.
That's his family. That's my family, that's my people. Oh, got it.
The Dolan. The Dolan. Forget that S. Yep.
I made it up. Xarlo, did you bring those dogs? (laughs) Just two of them. (laughing) I've got a little pack and they're like little-- Are there puppies in your fur? I've got two like little Shar-Peis, but they're babbies and they're just peeking-- They're babbies. (laughs) Put them back in. You've had them this whole time. No, I mean. I just thought your nipples barked, just for-- For the last two days. What are gonna name them?
They're gonna be fine. I'll take care of them. I can take care of them. I can hold them.
You can't. Yeah, I can take care of them I normally take care of moles, but these are like moles with eyes. What are you gonna name them? Oh geez, we should do it right now, shouldn't we? Okay, this is Twix-
Twix. And this is Twix.
Oh. Oh, that's cute. Twix and Twix. And then I just start mushing their faces, all the wrinkles and make their eyes disappear and then they pop out and then their eyes disappear. You popped their eyes out? (laughing) You know, you shouldn't do that. No. Alright, well Menagerie and the Gray Wardens, stay safe. And he goes ahead and shuffles back towards this cabin. And as you begin to trek in towards the path-- Tell everyone about us. He didn't hear you.
Oh, okay. This is exciting. This is why we need a pamphlet. Honey, how did you get people to come to your show? I mean, there's gotta be a way to get the word out. Well, you know, sometimes it's great to have like revolving acts, you know, so we would have very famous burlesque performers come from all over the world. One of my favorites, who was Mafana. Yeah. She was wonderful. She got a little too good for us though, and then moved on. What a bitch. I know, but she is, I mean, she is fabulous. You don't need her, Bunnie. No. You're planning on, your on your own. But you know, sometimes it's good to just, you know, put yourself out there. Sometimes the girls would, you know, stand in front of the shop and we would bark and we would call and we would just, you know, drag people in. Sometimes a good drink discount always works. Solid marketing. We were also all fabulous fighters as well. So anytime the town was in trouble, you know, we did a little community service. Well known, actually. Yes. Oh really? This kind of low resonant kind of moaning sound seems to drift through the nearby boughs and then you see a shadow kind of, (imitates creature whooshing), fly off further into the forest. Is that it? Was that (indistinct). I'm gonna go scurrying up the tree. Oh that didn't feed the puppies. Okay, you go ahead and climb up the side of it. Are you going all the way to the top? Yes I am. Alright. You know what? Lets do it. This is the first show. Yeah.
Oh, shit. Don't drop the jugs. Because I'm a simiah, I have advantage on agility rolls on both balancing and climbing. Indeed. And I think this probably involves my experience. Look Ma, no hands. So you're just using-
You're just doing feet. Feet and tail just whipping through the branches. Mm-hmm.
Sure. All right, so spend a hope to add your experience. Oh, that's right, you have to use hope to do-- 14. That's fine. Then add the d6 for your-- I wanna kick off these mechanics. Yeah. So that's a total of... Yeah, I'll get there, I'll get there. I'll get there. That's, (clicks tongue) Then it goes like that. Ooh. That's a roll of a 14 with hope plus two from my experience is 16 plus the advantage from being a simiah. 20. 20, fantastic. With hope, so you take a hope back. Nice. Indeed, as you--
Did you say with fear? You watch as Xarlo just leaps up in a series of deft swings and rotations and like a master trapeze artist begins to ascend through multiple sides of this tree, vanishing into the canopy above. As you emerge with so much momentum that you actually kind of like fly out of the top of the canopy at like about 10 feet beyond and that slow motion bit, you have this beautiful view of the sunset, top of the forest. It extends for looks like dozens of miles in all directions. You could see a manner of all different types of trees that poke out the top of the canopy, designating different regions of the interior, of the Emerald Sky, each looking unique, dangerous, and alluring in their own way. Everything was just that top of gold coloration before the sun begins to vanish beyond the distant mountain ranges. As Xarlo flies up out of the tree cover, his tail scoops up and holds the two little dogs close to his side and then lands. (imitates Xarlo thumping) You land and you see the shape of one massive looking shadowy winged entity that it just kind of dips away from you further into the forest. What the fuck are you, I wonder? Nothing natural, nothing good. But that's all I see, right?
That's all you see. I don't think he's ever coming down. How big did it look, kind of? Hard to make out the full distance, but it definitely seemed larger than a crow. Larger than a crow. All right, all right. And I saw the direction, it just went further into the emerald glass, Emerald Sky? It went further into the Emerald Sky, yeah. Roughly in the direction we were going. Alright, so I swing and scurry back down, keeping the pups in place, the dogs are fine. That's a big fucking bird or something up there. Didn't look like anything you'd want to tangle with but it's going in. So, we're going in. We're going in. We still have some good sunlight or is it starting? You probably have another hour or so of sunlight before the--
Let's move. Evening is--
That's okay. The light is beautiful. Let's go. Okay. Pushing further in, who's kind of, who's taking point on guiding you along this path? We're trying to be clever. Well, you know the way around We're just walking down the path right now. I'm very good at being sneaky. That's true. We're not hiding from anything. All right. Just, ♪ Do do, do, do, do, do, do, do ♪ Does anyone have any like foresty advantages? How do we know? If you're like a wild born or... Oh no, we're sea born. I'm wild born. I'm a bit of a scavenger so if we were looking for items that could be helpful but I don't think we are. No. Okay.
We good? I can just be very, very quiet if I need to and I can help a couple other people be, you know. You're smart, why don't you take the lead for the first bit? What?
I mean, someone knighted you, right? So you gotta be something. Yes, extremely deadly with a sword and very polite when I choose to be. Do you know the best way? I think the two of us can-- I grew up in these parts, sure. But the further in we go, the less familiar it's gonna be. Well, you're still the most-- Well, we'll do it together then. All right.
Together? Together.
Together. Alright, so two of you keeping point forward. You march into and the forest itself is undeniably gorgeous. The light that does pierce the canopy at this point is somewhat faded and dreamlike, carving these constantly shifting beams of gold that shift past green and then eventually kind of fade into the nearby fauna. I said flora, not fauna. The well worn path before you shifts off to one side. And as you begin to look back, it almost feels like the path you've come on is fading behind you, to a certain point where about 30 or so minutes deeper in, it's almost like you don't even see the path that you are walking on. That's weird.
From where you came. You can still see it in front. Barely touched the ground the entire time. He's like 10 feet off the ground just moving, using his feet and his hands and his tail to go. Love it. Keeping his dogs with him. I'm just trying to be a bit quiet as I make my way. As Sweetpea walks her head kind of flops like-- (laughing) That's super cute. Jellyfish, just sort of--
Yeah. And I'll keep my ears out for any sounds of crows. Yeah.
Both of them. Four of them. For the heck of it, 'cause we're testing this out, go ahead and roll an instinct roll for me, if you don't mind, to see if you can pick up any odd distant and challenging sounds amongst the audio of the wind pushing through the trees and the other skittering and calling creatures, the very densely lived in and old sky. Okay. Alright. 13 with hope. 13 with hope.
Yeah. Okay, so you take a hope. Oh wait, you can also add. Don't you have a, no, you don't. No, no. Nevermind, I'm not very instinctual. You've taken the sounds around you and kind of focus on the surrounding entities and creatures and insects and woodland chittering, nothing that calls your attention to danger before you. You do appreciate the oddly unwelcome beauty, is the only way I can describe this forest. It has an ominous essence to it in it's natural state and you can't help but feel a little bit like a trespasser in a wood that is aware of your transgression. See, Bunnie kind of, she loses the thread a little bit of what she's doing. You see her kind of dancing a little bit as she goes through the forest. Do you hear that? It's almost like music. Huh? No.
Did hear anything? Do we hear it? You do not. What is, w-w-what? What's it sound like? No, don't stop.
Just-- I mean-- (laughing) Just the sounds of the forest. You know, the chittering of the bugs, the wind whispering through the trees. It's beautiful.
Could be a-- It's got its own little rhythm. I'm trying really hard to hear the rhythm. I hear everything but the rhythm at the moment. It's gonna get you. (laughing) I think I got it. The best you can make out as you listen out there, is as the day begins to shift into night, the type of sounds that fill the air begin to become even further from welcoming. Well, it-it-it sounds scarier now. It does sound scarier. Yeah, I can hear--
Yeah. It's like shifted into a minor key. Yes.
Yeah. It is a little ominous. Yeah.
I like it. Maybe we should pick up the pace. Yeah, let's-let's-let's pick up the pace. Okay. Pressing on.
Yep. Not more than five more minutes, you begin to notice some of the trees that are on the side of this bearing the same marks of the path as you keep an eye out to make sure you're on the right trail, begin to grow more and more, you can only describe it as violent. You see one tree trunk where, as opposed to the single marking, there are four massive marks, one cloven collection of what looks like gashes that have torn through one of the nearby trees. It's massive claw marks we're seeing. Should we maybe walk a little softer? Okay.
Yeah. I'm gonna draw my sword just in case. Yeah, I'm gonna hold my staff in my hands. I'm gonna walk up to where the marks are. Okay. And I'm just gonna measure them and just take them in and see if it seems any bit familiar to anything that I've ever seen before. Okay. Go ahead and make a knowledge roll to analyze the details of these claw marks. Okay. Oh. Ooh, all right, that is a 15 with hope. 15 with hope. Alright, so take a hope. You glance at these splintered sections and one, they do appear to have been carved by either a collection of blades or some sort of heavy impact that dragged across the side of this. But you also notice is there, the interior of them is stained, like a darker stain to each of these. Is it blood? Is it sap? Like at the deepest part of the-- Yeah.
Groove? You take a stick and kind of carve out segments of the groove. And there is a material or a substance that kind of lingers there. As you kind of take it up in what light you have available, you can see it's like a bluish purple, like a sludge or almost like a jam type texture to it. Look at this. Do we have something to put that in? (snarls) Are you touching-- Are you going to touch it, though? I mean, she can, she'll probably be okay. Oh god. You touch it?
Yeah. Okay. Your finger gets a little numb, you're like, mm. Oh, I think it's like a poison or something. Oh, okay. Can I go inspect it to see if it reminds me of the seep. The seep. (laughs) The seep that claimed Oobi and caused your subterranean homeland to be sealed like a fantasy Chernobyl was a deep, like a bright crimson coloration. And you recall those images of you and all of your family and companions yelling, grabbing what was important and dropping things as you charged out from the subterranean caverns watching this weird kind of red weed like expansion. So I mean texture maybe, but the coloration is entirely different. Hmm, it's more of a sap. Can I try to coat my staff in it? I wanna get all the numbing stuff on my staff so I can-- Okay. Is the staff going numb? I'm just curious. Are you still up on the trees? I mean, I am like five or six feet above you at all times, moving true. I'll mark a stress and the back sort of covers of my wings will open up and right when they start fluttering they kind of flash for a second using a little prestidigitation to just create a little light as I lift up, (imitates magic whooshing) and I'll just try and go up and around the tree. Are you bioluminescent? Maybe. Oh.
Oh. That's pretty cool.
That's great. Only when I drink alcohol. And I'll float up around the tree and I'm also just gonna look for an of those groove marks higher up the tree as well.
Okay. That bug is lit. You lift up past the lower boughs and kind of into the density of the immediate canopy that's there. As soon as you break past the first couple branches, your light fills the shadowed space there and you immediately see the shine back of two pairs of massive eyes right there staring at you. You see standing or sitting within the branch what looks to be, what would be a seven foot tall owl. Oh.
Ooh. That is lurking in there with its heavy wings folded, staring at you with not one but two heads. (gasping) Two heads on a seven foot owl! As one that's staring at you is there and the other one, (imitates head whooshing), shifts around towards you, their eyes there. That's what you saw?
Kind of staring at you. That's awesome. And you hear that, (imitates owl hooting) Like the big, heavy, chest expanding whoo that kind of fills the space around you. Your ears almost ring for a second and its wings, (imitates wings whooshing) filter and it says, "Who are you?" Oh.
Kinda yells towards you. What do you do? We all run fast. I'll take my staff and I'll actually just like make the tip glow. (imitates magic whooshing) We are with the, (clears throat) We are with the Menagerie and we are looking for a children. No, no, no, not looking for children. Who, who are you? Down! Down! I think you should get down. (buzzes) And I'll just kind of float down just in case I'm in this creature's space, facing but never turning my back. As you watch Kexon begin to descend from above the bit of light, you see the shift of movement of shadow above and a small handful of feathers kind of dropping out of the air, these massive feathers kind of scattering down as one of the branches seems to almost break or snap with a push off. And you watch, (imitates wings whooshing), as this incredibly massive owl like creature descends, (imitates owl thumping), onto the ground and now you see it was somewhat folded and crouched in the wood, but at its full height now, it's almost as tall as you are. As it did that push off. Yeah.
Oh god, how big-- As it did the push off, did the talons have any of that familiar sludge on them? Go ahead and make an instinct roll to see if you can pick out that detail amongst all the chaos. Yeah, that's-- There's low light here, but we can go ahead and give it a shot. That's an 18 with fear. 18 with fear. Oh, 19 with fear. 19 with fear. All righty. So I'll get to add of fear here for myself. So you do indeed get a quick glance at the talons. The heavily scaled skin that you see kind of pushes across it. It has almost like an armored exterior to it, but you can see the kind of the edges of it are kind of like crusted and heavy callous. The talons themselves are jet black and are blades in their own right, deeply dangerous looking. No sign of any sort of familiar liquid that was recently seen on the clawed sections. But as you drop down to the ground and it looms over on top of you, it's focused still on you, both heads kind of, (imitates heads thwacking), both in the process of, you're not sure, about to converse or pull you apart in several pieces, I need you to take a stress. Ooh.
Ooh, back to back stresses, (laughs) over here. Xarlo's gonna gingerly get in the middle of this. Ah, sure, you and I are neighbors, so we are so, and these are my friends. I'm from aways that way, and we're only here because we hear there's trouble in the Vale further in and the river's all fucked up. (imitates owl stomping) We are Echo, we are Echo. Echo.
Echo. I'm gonna just subtly just sort of put my body between the owl and Sweetpea and Oppy just to sort of-- Got you.
I'm gonna just, my cap is just gonna start to lower just a little and get more narrow towards my body and I'm gonna like press myself up against the base of a tree. Outsiders bring potents of darkness. Oh, I understand if you don't trust us off the bat, that's fine. But we come with good intentions and the innocent of the young. And I spill out the puppies a little bit. One of the heads looks over towards it. Oh no, he's going to eat the puppies! Oh no.
No, he's not. The other head shifts and is glancing, glancing past all of you, the entity. We have food if you need it! They're just biscuits. Oh, we know. No, not me! Don't eat me, please. You walk in Andra's Realm. Yeah. We are one of her children. Oh. And we will eat that which we do not trust. We are very--
Do not trust. Familiar with the mother above, and I hold up Zarlow's medallion with a leaf crest on it. She knows me well and I know her. Go, make a Presence roll for me. Come. Come on. ♪ Come on, Zarlow's roll ♪ Can I also use Gift For Gab with this? Yes, you may if you want to spend a Hope to go ahead and add your experience to it, yeah. Gift For Gab. So, plus one.
You're low on Hope there, friend.
I'm fine. Hope is pretty fluid. You don't want to hold onto it too long.
Ah, that is a 16 with Hope, with a plus one, is 17. Pretty good.
Okay, that's pretty decent. Right?
Yes, I do, because I lose my Hope. So, I spent it and got it back. I needed it.
Amazing. You, we can trust us. The others are fresh meat. One of them turns to you. (clicking tongue) Tell us, show the thing, what is your proudest moment? My proudest moment is yet to come. When I finally best in sport the man who humiliated me. Oh.
And I'm here to be just and well known as a hero. The one head pulls back and the body shifts as the head stays in place, because birds are awesome and weird. It's very unsettling.
Yeah. While the other head stares at you and whispers into the side of the other one's head. He speaks true. Shifts over to Kexin. (thudding) What is your greatest fear? Uh, uh... Is this owl, seven foot owl, in melee with me? It's very close range to you at the moment. It's fine. T-t-that I would, um, let my family down, and uh, not represent my home well, a-a-and that I would go empty-handed with no, no knowledge of where we came from or here. You see it turn its head to one side as the other head shifts back and whispers on the side. Purity for an outsider. (thudding) It steps back a little bit from you. Shifts over in your direction, Sweet Pea. I wish to see a display of your capability to survive the darkness within, within. (thudding) Um, is there any moonlight coming down from above? There's the faintest bit moonlight visible this deep into the forest, but you can just see with the right shifting of your position, just a little glimmer of white peeking through. Okay. I'm going to spend a Hope. Oh, I changed it to Book Nerd. New experiences. That's okay. I'm still going to spend a Hope. Change it back! No, I'm going to spend a Hope because I have an experience called Sneaky Little Mushroom. I'm just a Sneaky Little Mushroom, so I'm gonna use that experience to look around and find the deepest shadow around me. Okay. Can I do that? Yeah, if you want to.
Okay. What are you attempting to do? I'm attempting to find the deepest shadow and I'm going to step against the tree and I'm going to fade into the tree. Okay. And banf back out at the other shadow farther away. Okay. All right. So, you're using your Shadow Step? (hums) Okay. Go ahead and roll a... Let's go and make this an Agility Check for me. Agility. To go ahead and see how quickly you could vanish into the shadow without the owls following what you are attempting to do. Okay, okay. 17 with Hope. Whoa!
So, take a Hope. No fear at this table. She's moving, she's moving. After you said that. All right, so you go ahead and switch backward into the tree and then almost seem to tumble back into shadow where the tree should be.
The smoke goes (whooshes). (whooshes) And you watch as the bird's wings flip out and it clutters up quickly. The rest of you almost think it's reaching into snatch or attack your friend and you feel your instinctive, protective measures begin to crawl into order. From the deepest shadow you just see two bright sea green eyes light up in the shadow on the other side before I step out. It doesn't even see you at the moment. It's currently at the tree you fell into and it's inspecting it, looking around each side before one of the heads looks back while the other one's still inspecting in the front. And then I--
I (clicks) with my staff onto the trunk. The other head turns and the whole massive owl spins around. (hums) (deep exhaling) You may survive still. Do not let them sully the goddess's name. They're good kids. The head turns around, and you watch as they catch some of the faint moon beams and you can see that brief glow in the eyes as their heads pass before they turn around. (whooshes) Breaking through the branches and then vanishing up into the canopy. The first of many odd guardians here within the Emerald Sky. Oh, we should have asked how far the cleft hand was. Or what that goop was.
We didn't ask him any questions. He was asking us all the questions. I know. Maybe we can call him back down. Hey, hey. Excuse, excuse me. Or should we just keep going? I think we're fine. I think we just be glad--
My knees are shaking. He didn't swallow us down and then vomit us back out. I'm glad he didn't eat the puppies. Yeah. Who would eat these little fellers? Look as these faces.
A giant owl would literally eat puppies. I think if you looked up giant two-headed owls, it eats puppies, kittens.
True. Small children.
(snapping) You hear the snapping of nearby branches. Nope, let's just go.
Let's just go. Let's just walk.
All right. I think it's just going to be more of this. We might as well-- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Get a move on. Continue on your trek on foot, watching around. You get the sense that tension in the air and a somewhat iron-like smell that seems to follow through with the mists that curl in through the deeper portions of the forest. That wasn't a Hope, that was a Stress, I should have marked for the Shadow Step. Oh, got you. Yeah.
My bad. No worries. You hear the ever-following sound of rustling in the nearby wood. Since your shouts to the sky seem to have called something's attention, and when you stop to listen it goes silent. It's following around.
I know. You swear you see something massive wandering through the nearby wood. And you catch a glance, turn quickly, and you hear the faint growl. (growling) What is that noise? How close does it sound? It sounds about 20 or so feet off. All right, I'm going to get his attention. You guys flank it. O-o-oh, what? (singing)
What does that mean? ♪ Dunk ♪ What?
♪ Da da da ♪ Oh no.
Let's flank. Oh, dear.
Bunny starts doing a little dance.
I can't. And you hear a soft jazzy tune.
We all just watch her. And magically, the moonlight that Sweet Pea was using, a little patch opens above Bunny. She starts to dance and you hear the little soft horn, a little soft French horn. The sexiest instrument.
A small little dance. Yeah, yeah, the sexiest. (trumpeting) And I'm going to cast Enrapture. Uh? To keep whatever is in view of me, their attention on me. Okay.
And it drowns out any sound except for me and my voice. Okay, so make a Spell Cast roll towards the target. You see the shadow shifting in the nearby wood as it's lumbering in your direction slowly. Go ahead and roll for that. Okay.
Does this affect the targets, or everyone around you? Because I'm 100% watching you do this. Yes, just the target. I don't think you need a thought for this. I will spend a Hope to use The Show Must Go On. Okay.
Which is one of my experiences.
Nice. I'm going to add my Presence. (trumpeting)
Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Let me see if this works. So, that's going to be three. I'm going to use my little peps, my little candies. Okay. I'm so nervous. Okay, that's good. 11, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 with Fear. Okay, 22 with Fear. Thank you. Oh god, he's getting so many in there. Is that a success? That is indeed a success.
Okay, okay. And as you are giving this fantastic performance here in the center of the shadowed core of the southern reaches of the Emerald Sky, the rest of you watch, emerging out of the nearby brush a hulking furred mass, a quadrupedal entity. You first catch it. It looks to be a hedge bear, which are these massive natural denizens. They're fucking adorable.
Of the wood. But this one seems to walk with a slight limp on one side, and as it comes in a faint bit of light, you can see its thick fur looks matted and shiny in places. You watch as it takes a few steps out in your direction, it's head to hanging at one side. Its eyes seem to be a bit milky. And you can see from the corners of its face and its snout and its ear, there is a dark liquid that drips and cakes within its fur. You can see there are bony plates that protrude from parts of its body. It looks to be an unnaturally malformed visage based on what you've previously experienced in your time here. And you hear another growl across the way. (growling) Do they look aggro? Do they look bad?
They looked fucked up. Yeah, they look bad! It's coming towards you like it's surrounding a prey that isn't trying to run.
Uh huh. Ooh.
And it's locked onto-- I am quietly sneaking around the back of this one. Spread out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just looking around at my party waiting.
(thudding) Where are we? Well, I'll show you right now. (cheering)
Yay! First map!
Oh boy! This map is brought to you by Daggerheart. Ay! Open beta available now.
Oh, shit. Go download it and check it out, and try it for yourself.
♪ Open beta ♪ Oh, man.
We're about to roll some dice.
Everybody's still alive first map.
Gosh. This is cool! So, as you're making way through this center path here-- Okay.
We got all these little fun bits around this space. Nice!
That's our little baby. All right, we'll say that Bunny is up here doing this performance. Look at her!
Like a stage! Main stage. Main stage.
While you all are clambered over in this area. I would've been hugging--
I would've started to sneak around the back of this thing, because I've seen her do this before. Okay.
I think Pango and Zarlow are actually sticking pretty close to Bunny. I would've been as close as I could be. Because we've seen her do this before, and she's drawing the danger to herself so-- That's not why I'm close. That's fine. So you'd be up here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, so, wherever it's coming, I would've been trying to get around the back. Staying close by. I know there's two, but the first one.
There's one of these massive beasts.
Oh, god. On this side rushing towards you and you hear the growl coming out of the nearby wood in this region. So, which direction is the... Oh, I see. It's over there? Up in here is where you would-- Okay, I'm going to move actually a little closer to Sweet Pea because I'm going to stay under her cap. Okay, right here?
Sweet Pea. Yeah.
Yeah. All righty, you got it. And this bear is full on charging me? It is now charging at you.
I'm going to attempt to hit the bear with my grappler. With your grappler? Go for it. Go ahead and roll an Attack roll. Yeah, it's Far Attack. We can measure, remember?
Oh, my gosh. Far Attack.
Oh yeah. It's happening.
And put it right there, definitely within range.
It's happening! I'm rolling. What do I add?
For this, it's been awhile. Definitely. So, I roll--
One of these, I think. Yeah.
Okay. Or your pencil.
Pencil. It's a straight roll, I believe? Oh, it's just a straight roll plus whatever your trait is. Okay, thank you. I'm remembering again.
Which is Agility. Which is Agility, yes. So that, plus Agility. Let's make this great, why don't we? I'll take it. You have to.
That's 18 with Fear. I have no choice. All right, that does succeed, as it's now charging towards Bunny. (thudding) (growling) So, a successful attack?
You're up at the bear? I can't reach it. I pull my target into close range with me. Okay.
So the chain reels back with the claw after it sinks into its flesh.
Holy shit. As it comes barreling towards me. All right, are you pulling it all the way up to you? I'm pulling it about two-thirds of the way. All right, so...
Yeah, about there. All right, so you watch as... Now, describe what your grappler looks like. It's this very long chain that seems to just wrap around my belt, but then it seems to also be hidden underneath my tunic and it's got these four very beautiful prongs, like a four-sided trident. Like a quadrant, I suppose. When it rolls out, it then clamps in, and then when I pull it taut, it grabs. And the more I push, the more it reels in faster and pulls harder.
All right. So, go ahead and roll Damage on that. Bunny, you watch as it's about to leap towards you. It's a flash of metal that catches the light and you watch it yank and drag over.
I have full trust in Dante and the rest of the menagerie, and so I just don't even balk. Cool.
And then I focus my attention, keeping up my Enrapture at the other one in the woods. Okay, you got it.
14. 14 points of damage, all right. That's a major wound to that hedge bear as it gets dragged off to the side. Coming to me, then, since you rolled with Fear, and now comes the Damage run, which you made your action there. I'm going to go ahead and spend one Fear to put just two more tokens on the element here to spend. I'll immediately spend this one, to move this guy running here at a close range. Oh, shit.
Oh, god. That would be up there. Okay.
That'll get you right up to where Bunny is on that side there to pincer.
Oh no. That one is going to go ahead and rush forward. (growls) And is going to take a strike with its claws towards you. For a... That's only a seven. What's your Evasion? 10.
10. Nice!
Great! It's beginning to come at... How do you avoid this attack as it runs towards you? (growls) So, once again, I'm fully confident in what happens, and as it comes to me I do a pirouette out of the way, and as I do, I draw my bladed fan and I drop down to one knee and slice it across the front of its chest.
Ooh! Cool!
So it's one more. Hell yeah.
Yeah, yeah. It stumbles off to the side and catches itself. And I will attack with my fan. Okay, once I finish my turn.
If I can do that. Once you finish your turn.
Yeah, indeed. Now it's going to go ahead and spend this other one here to have a second one rushing in out of the wood behind him.
No, there's another one! That's a little baby. It doesn't quite get up to the edge to do much, but it rushes out, following the others. It looks like this was a hunting-wandering pack, and the one that you went after. I'll spend that token to activate it. It's going to go ahead and charge up to you, now vengefully closing the gap-- Sir, no!
After you've tugged it beyond where it was. It's going to go ahead-- No!
Let's see. Your first name's Sir, right? All right.
(laughs) So you go ahead.
To you, yes. Sir. Circumference. (laughs)
Roll to attack on that. That's going to be a 14 to hit. What's your Evasion? My Evasion is 13. 13! That is going to hit you. Yes! Alrighty. So taking those dice there. I need to get my d10s here. Great. Ooh woo! All right, I'm going to spend a Fear. Mm.
To go ahead and use Corrupted Strength to add a d12 to that damage. Oh, great.
Oh no! So that's going to be 20 points of damage to you. 20 points of damage! Well, I'm going to have to spend some armor then. I'm going to knock a point of armor off, which brings that down to 13 points of damage, I think, which is much better. I will take that. And that's a... Mm, yes.
That's Major. It's a Major wound?
I'll take 13. It's just to a Major room. Which is two HP.
So it reaches out and take one heavy swipe out at you. You watch as its massive claw comes through the air, that long strings of a weird oily surface substance glimmers in what bit of light is there as its heavy claws strike into your armor. You also-- Oh, also-- Get knocked back at a very close range. I don't get my Retaliation Attack, I take it? Unfortunately, it literally knocks you out of melee range before you get a chance, the force of its strength pushing you just beyond. You cur! (laughs) That finishes the GM's turn now. You said you were about going next. Yes. I'm going to do this Fan Strike Right, across. Yeah, that's good. 17, 18, 19, 20 with Fear. That definitely hits with a Fear And then that is 2d8 plus two because I am proficient in my Fans. Oh! What is up? 15. Eight, nine, 10. 15 damage. 15 points of damage! Alrighty. This is to that one right in front of you? Yes.
You got it. That's going to be two. That's a Major wound to it, so it takes two hit points. You slice across with your fan multiple times and it (growls) and you can see it's a jaw, the lower lip is quivering as the teeth itself, these big tusks threaten you.
Oh my! What big teeth you have! (laughs)
(growls) Alrighty. That was with Fear you said? With Fear. Fear. Alrighty. So with that, it's going to immediately, this one here is going to go ahead and activate, spending that. It's going to go ahead and rush in. (imitates footsteps) Oh boy!
Oh! There's a third one? Yeah, there's a third one.
Yes. That's going to charge an activate on you. And it's going to go ahead and make a Bite and Drag Attack on you. Going to spend a Fear close range, and it's going to attack you for an 11. Yes! Evasion is 13.
What's your Evasion? 13!
Woo! Great! So it goes to bite. It's massive jaws (growls) (whooshes)
Ooh! And close.
Oh! How do you dodge it?
I just spin around really fast and all my skirts flare up in its face. (whooshes) You see it's tangled its nose for a second. It's like a dog under the blanket, like (growls) (laughs) You're getting yanked around a little bit, but eventually, you pull away. (indistinct)
(wails) (growls)
A dog under a blanket! All right. So that finishes its go. Can I tell, with these things charging up, if their condition looks at all? I've healed lots of animals so does it-- They're all similarly (indistinct) I just have one mini with the cool bones. For sure. For sure.
(laughs) No, I understand that, but I'm just saying, for all of them, and I'm using this one that's attacking Bunnie as the example. Do they look healable or do they look beyond, in my experience? In your experience, it's tough to tell. If you want to go ahead and make an Instinct role to see if you can glean from your experience, understanding of nature and the creatures around you. I do, I do, I do. Or you can do Knowledge, if you prefer. One of the two. I'm going to do Instinct, and I'm going to... No, I'm just going to do a straight 'ol. What do we got here? Ooh! That is a 13 with Fear. 13 with Fear. All right. So I need that Fear back. All right. The corruption that's on them doesn't seem like it's completely pierced their essence, it just looks like a surface sickness that is getting worse. It may be healable. Okay, I'm going to run and jump on the back of the closest one that's now by Sweetpea, and I am going to do-- I'm going to let my GM turn go so I can bank some more of these. Continue.
(laughs) Right, I'm going to make a Spell Cast roll and target a creature other than myself in melee. On a success, mark a Stress to heal the target. Two hit points or two Stress. I'm going to try. Try to heal it?
Oh! Okay.
Yeah. Interesting.
So that is a 15 with Hope. So that makes the roll.
Yes! So I give it, I'm going to give it, I'm going to clear it of two Stress, Clear it of two Stress. To hopefully calm the poor bastard down. Okay.
You're a nicer guy than-- I know.
So as you reach out and grasp the side of this bear, its terrifying fangs, the slobber and ichor that's dripping from it, (growls) you see it pulls back and it brings one heavy claw up as you reach out and gently touch the side of it. There's a flash of divine energy that filters through you, like the-- That's all right, lass. That's all right. As you grasp the side of it, you (growls) pulls away, like it's recoiling from a burn. And as it does, you can see the energy flow across it and a lot of those strands of darkness begin to fade away and the shape begins to shift ever so faintly smaller. You see it (growls). It's not restored completely, but it definitely seems a bit confused at the moment. I'm considering it vulnerable for the moment. Oh!
Ooh! Yes! Oh!
That's good. Oh. Seeing it in its confused state, we're still killing these things, right? (laughs) I don't know what's going on, so I'm going to jump down between the two bears. Would I be within very close range of both of them? You would be. (laughs evilly) Go to work! Go to work!
I do what I do. Mm.
So I take my gigantic phallic sword
(laughs) and I'm going to swing away in a large arc that will hopefully hit both of these bears. Okay.
(laughs) First, swinging at the vulnerable ones. So do I add a d6 to that, because it's vulnerable? How does that work?
We will. Yeah. Okay.
So say you make one roll, add it to both and, and then you apply the d6 to that for that one target. Okay. And I'm rolling with a great sword. So do I just do a straight roll? Right? Yeah, what's the trait for the weapon? Is it Strength? It's Strength. Yeah, so you roll 2d12 and then add your Strength modifier. Oh, great! Oh, great! Great, great, great!
2d12. Let's go beef cake! Come on! Come on!
Okay, great! Great, great, great! Come on! Come on! Not great. (laughs) I can see it! 13 with Hope. 13 with Hope. You gain a Hope, but as you swing wide with your weapon... Well, yes. 13 with Hope. Did you add the d6 to it? Oh! Is that the vulnerability? Against the one target. So it misses one of them. Plus six. Plus six, it hits the other. Which one do you want to hit? The one that he healed or the one that is behind you? Do you. I want to hit the vulnerable one. Yeah, yeah!
(laughs) Actually, no. that's exactly how it should have been. Bah! It's on me. So yeah. So you swing wide. The first one, the massive one that just rushed into the field just dodges out of the way of your blade. The other one swings around and strikes the one that's currently pulling away from Xarlo. So go ahead and roll damage on that. Okay.
Right as you swing, I'm above the bear going (claps). (laughs) I got you, Sweetpea! So it's 2d10 with mine plus a whole bunch. So that's... Holy shit! 15. 20 points of damage. Ooh! Plus, because I rolled with Hope that's another d6 on top. So that's 23 points of damage. 23 points of damage. That is a severe wound to it. That bear is looking wrecked. As you swing past, your blade hitting the side of it, it was still in the middle of recoiling. It (wails) tumbles off to its side, (whooshes) falls and has to right itself and you can see there's a massive gash across the back of it, and it has that desperation in its eyes. It looks less terrified or thus terrifying than it was, and now it's starting to look a little terrified. Oh no!
Oh, I don't know! Should we feel bad? The quickest way isn't always the best! (laughs) (groans) What? What did you just say? He said the quickest--
The quickest way isn't always the best.
Isn't always the best. Yeah, but-- I'm going to, while Pango has distracted that one and he's attacking it, I imagine it's getting up. I'm going to dart away from it. Okay.
And I'm going to run and I'm going to beeline straight for the one that Sir Dante has attacked. Mm!
And right as I run towards it, I'm going to slide down and try to sweep my staff under its legs and hit its legs. Great! Go ahead and role damage.
Can I add something for a tag team roll here? If you have the Hope to spend it. How much Hope does he--
You nee three Hope. Three Hope.
Okay. Okay, so yeah, that's right. because they spent two on me. I have to spend it. I mean, you can help an ally for a Hope and add a d6 to her role. I will definitely help! All right, so go ahead and spend a Hope and you get to-- Add a d6.
Add a d6? Yep, or you can roll a d6, then you she can add it. Oh, okay.
Either way. Doesn't matter. That's fine. (wails) Oh. That's balls. But you're going to get a d6! Okay.
Six. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Roll a six.
Add four. Yeah, that's good now.
Okay. Okay. That's 13. 13 misses. (groans)
But it was with Hope. Do I get a Hope? So you get a hope back at least. But as you slide under its legs, it picks one of its massive back- clawed legs up and almost stomps down on you, and you barely dodge out of the way, but it catches you off guard, Which brings it back to me. Was that with your staff? It was.
Did you add your Instinct? I did.
Okay. Yeah.
(laughs) Bummer.
I love how she's checking your stuff and you're checking her stuff.
I only rolled a seven. (laughs) Yeah! Plus four. Yeah, no. That's not good.
All right. I'm going to spend both of those tokens there to activate both of these. This one's going to turn around on you. That would've been 15.
While this one's going to shift.
Ruh roh! That's okay. This one is still a vulnerable. I want to say this one's going to activate on you, Pango. So the one that's spinning around and shifting its attention onto Sweetpea is going to go ahead and make a giant swing with its claw towards you.
On Sweetpea? That's going to be a 16 to hit. No!
No, no! Oh no! I'm going to use an armor. Okay. Well, the 16 to hit hits you. Oh, that doesn't... Oh yeah, that hits. Okay. The damage is going to be seven points of physical damage. Seven points. Okay. I'm still going to use... That marks it down three? That's your Armor score. Yeah. That would take it down to Minor. So yeah. All right, so you only mark one hit point on that. Yeah. So your armor takes some of the blow as you get knocked back. The wind almost getting kicked out of you and you-- My cardigan! (laughs)
No! That's a really good piece! It's vintage!
I know! (laughs) As you say that, the other bear behind you (growls) goes to a giant swing towards you. That's going to be a five to hit. What's your Evasion? My Evasion is four. (laughs) Oh no!
Whoa! So right as you finish your phrase, wham, you going to hit from the side heavily, and I'm going to go ahead and spend a Fear on this. Go ahead and add Decrepit Strength to that for an additional d12 on that damage. Decrepit Strength! That is going to be 16 points of physical damage, 16 points. I will also spend an Armor. No! I can spend Hope for some. I have some thing here. What is it? What is it? Stalwart! I can spend a single Hope to reduce the damage by nine. So just through my sheer force of anger at seeing a fine piece of clothing damaged, my whole body tenses up and the tense muscles, sort of like a rock wall, takes most of the damage.
(imitates scratching) Off your back without-- So I take a Minor-- Minor wounds. Just one hit point on you there. Yeah, one hit point. Okay. Alrighty. You do get marked on a heavy attack, so it does push you back, but it slams you into the other bear since there's nowhere else for you to go in that regard. All right, that's going to finish my go there. All right. Take it, Ribbit! Okay. So I see Sweetpea taking off. This one's, I don't know! I feel bad about hitting this one. So I'm going to stick my tongue out and I'm going to swing from a branch. Okay.
Cool! Yeah, Oppy! Yes! Come on, Oppy! Kind of get over, and as I'm swinging, I (puffs) get my staff going. (laughs)
Okay. Oh! Oh nice!
Yes! (puffs) Get it going. And I don't really know why it has to do this. (laughs) And as I go, my staff is going to shoot out some, smoke is going to come out the top and it's going to turn into a cinder grasp and it's going to go straight under the big boy over there. Over here?
Cool. Yes!
Okay, swing by. Yes, which is, on a success the target instantly bursts into flames. Oh wow!
Which is great in a forest! (laughs) Dealing 1d20 Magic damage! Whoa!
Great. Go ahead and roll against the target. As you go ahead and swing underneath the branch from your tongue, landing, letting the flames flicker off your staff and then land.
That is so chaotic! 1d20? Yeah, baby! Well, first roll. Yeah, to see if you-- Hit.
Oh no! (laughs) That's a six with Fear! Oh no!
No! No, the Betabeans ain't doing too good! No! (laughs) Oh, it's much bigger when I got closer! (laughs) Which is as you swing in the air, and your staff, you're trying to light it up and it's going (puffs) Come on! The flame's not igniting.
(laughs) And as as you do, the bear turns around and (growls) opens its mouth towards you as you're rushing, and it's not igniting! It's not igniting! You just have to biff it the last minute and roll out of the way and just let the spell go. Damn it! But as you stumble to the ground, shifting back its way. I take a Stress.
Oh! I'm going to go ahead and spend a Fear to add some more tokens to the action tracker here. (groans) I just shout out, "Maybe Xarlo's, right! Maybe we shouldn't make Andre angry!" Fuck that! I start (indistinct)
(laughs) Then, I come around, seeing Oppy--
You will in a second. Oh no! Because I get to take my turn now! (laughs) As you rush in there, because you rolled a Fear, you failed with Fear, which is--
Oh, that's true. Really not great. So it comes to me. I got the Fear on that one. I spend that to get some extra tokens. I'm going to spend them right now to activate all three of them. Oh!
Oh! I'm also going to spend a Fear. (indistinct) I'm going to spend a Fear to get rid of the vulnerability on that one. All three of them are going to activate now. Both of these are going to... (gasps) Let's see. Yeah, both of these are going to still focus on you since you're the one with the massive swing that went around. Take it. That one, because you are the one who failed and you're the one who leaped in the air and you just managed to dodge out of its mouth, the bear now above you is going to bring both of its claws up, (growls) and try and swing down on top of you. (laughs) That's going to... Ooh, that's going to be 18 to hit. Oh no!
(squeals) Spend another Fear. Yeah, that hits. Oh, that hits! Oh goodness! Spend another Fear to add the Decrepit Strength on that. Oh no! Okay. That's going to be-- Oh no!
22 points of physical damage.
Oh boy, oh boy! Okay, okay, okay, okay. How's that?
So I'm going to have to do an Armor level because that's my Severe. So-- That would take it down to--
So I should take it. It'd just be three hit points. No big deal. Sure.
No, but if it-- No! (laughs) Wait, wait, wait. We just started! (laughs)
(indistinct) If it's over the Severe, then you just take that much. If you add it-- No, you take three hit points. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Minor is one, Major is two, and Severe is three. And if I use an Armor slot-- It doubles your Severe. Maybe it can knock it down to a number right in between? It takes me down to the Major. There should be just two hit points. It should be just two hit points. You can spend multiple armor slots too to reduce it multiple times, if it helps.
How many hit points you got? I mean, this is my first time getting hit, so I'm going to take all three. Yeah!
Alrighty! Come on.
That's a strong froggy. Let's go! Let's go. The other two are going after for you, Pango. That's going to be a six to hit Hits! Everything's going to hit. (laughs) That's going to be a nine to hit. Yes.
I'm going to save that Fear, so they're both going to do just straight damage to you. One of them is going to be 13 points of physical damage. Okay. That's my Major threshold. And the other's going to be six points of damage. Ow!
That's my Minor threshold. Can I knock the Major one down? Sure.
I'll spend another Hope and knock it down. So that's two Minors. Two Minors. That's just two hit points. Oof! Boy! And you're just being tackled from both sides of both of these bears.
At least it's not the little ones. I must protect the little ones. Alrighty. So that's going to finish my go. Xarlo. (laughs) Sorry, sorry. Kexon.
Come on! Come on! Kexon comes running around the side. Kexon! (imitates fast footsteps) And as I'm running, you see my mandibles start to light up. They start glowing in the front and the red and a little sphere of fire starts to coagulate right in the middle, and I'm going to use Wild Flame. So I'm moving right in between the bears alongside Pango, and I'm going to use Wild Flame to fire magical arcane fire at both of them. Great, great!
Nice. You're a magic person? I am a magic person. That is a 20 with Fear. Ooh!
Oh no! 20 with Fear. I'll take the Fear, but that is a success. And when I make an attack roll with Fear, being a wizard from the School of War, I add a d6 to the damage. Oh, nice!
That's cool. Which is sick! Oh, that's cool!
This is 2d6. So it's a good thing? It's a good thing to get a bad thing. Eight, nine. So nine points of damage to both of them. Nine points of damage. Alrighty. I'm sorry, 11 points of damage. I forgot to add--
11 points of damage. All right, so that's a Major to both of them. The one that you had (indistinct) ends up just getting knocked and falls to the ground, itself unconscious and hurt. You know, the flame is burning off to the side. (whooshes) It is now just no longer part of the fight. Actually, I'll just leave it there as a reminder. The other one takes the heavy flame hit and (growls) sees where you are as you rush by. And that was with the Fear. Yeah.
He's now going to go ahead and take his turn to activate both of those, using both of those tokens there on my turn. This one's going to spin, and ignoring Pango, is going to rush up towards you, while this one's just going to continue its assault on Oppy. The attack against Oppy is going to be, oh, a three. I'm pretty sure your Evasion beats a three, right? Yes!
All right. Wow!
So now it's just slamming in the ground.
Can't catch me! (laughs) Ducking out of the way as you pull back while the one that comes lumbering towards you, the flames still burning off the edges of it's fur. (growls) (wails)
Go ahead. And that's going to be an eight. What's your--
Oh, Evasion seven. Evasion seven, so it hits you. Alrighty. So it swings heavily towards you. That's going to be a 15 points of physical damage. Jesus! (laughs) An Armor! Holy fuck! (laughs) These bitches are so squishy! (laughs) you said a 15? Yeah.
So knock it down to... Oh my god! (laughs) He's shaking in his boots. That's crazy!
But does it actually hit? Yeah, so now it becomes a Major. So I take two hit points. Two hit points in that one. Yeah. Okay, great. Early levels, man. (laughing)
Oof. I seem to have a moment where I'm right behind this thing. You do. So I'm gonna very quietly walk up, pull out my rapier and just stab it. Hopefully approximately where the sun would have shined if it wasn't undead.
(laughing) Fair enough. all righty. All right, that's all right. Let's roll. That's this plus Presence. Yes? Oh, those are not the wrong-- Just d8s, yeah.
I'm too nervous. Those are the wrong dice. That was damage. There we are. Come on. Oh, that's terrible. Ugh, it's 10 with Hope. 10 with Hope? Yes.
Ah, unfortunately that misses. But you do get to mark a Hope off that. Bringing it back to me, I'm gonna go ahead and spend the token that I just got to have it turn on you. Oh no!
No! And it's going to go ahead and make a strike at you. Sir! That's going to be an 18 to hit? That hits. That hits. And an awful damage roll. Four points of physical damage. That's below my minus, so I'll just take a Stress. You'll take a Stress on that point. And I'll also say I'm finally gonna use my Bloody Retaliation. "When I take damage from a creature in melee range, I may mark a Stress to immediately deal weapon damage to the creature at half proficiency." Great. So that's just, I roll it, and divide it in half if I recall? Well you just, the number of dice is your proficiency. So--
Oh, so half. So if proficiency is--
Oh, that's right. One, then you just roll one dice, yeah. 1d8 plus two. That's, oh, that's very nice. That's eight. Eight, all right. So it takes a minor wound. What approximate hit point? Yes, eight.
Eight. All right, yeah, so you retaliate. Go ahead and strike it back and retort, and as you hit it, it kind of pulls away. (laughs) The minor hit, but now it's ready to face off against you. Have ouch.
That finishes my go. (laughing) I'll jump in. Xarlo, hearing his friends starting to cry out in pain around him, look down at the poor bear badly hurt on the ground, and as is his fashion, kiss his palm and hold it out. And then instantly start to monkey lope towards Oppy and run up behind her and place-- Ashley: Him. Run up behind him, sorry. Ashley: I changed it. It's changed from the play test 'til now. Ashley: It's a little guy. It was a little guy, I had to. Right. And I'm going to place my hands on the top of his slimy head and use my Divine Wielder ability, Sparing Touch. It just works. "Once per long rest, you can touch a creature and heal. Take two hit points back." I just look straight up in your eyes as you're doing it. Just big eyes staring at you. He has pretty big brown eyes as well. Do you lick your eye? (laughing) And I feel my hand start to go a little bit numb and I just start shaking off the slime from him. All right, all right, all right, all right. Thank you Mr. Xarlo.
Thank you! I'm going to lift up my staff and swing it down, but instead of actually swinging it down, my eyes are going to light up and just like a bunch of spectral blades are going to form in the air and slam down into the bear in front of me. (cheering) What's that called? That's called Rain of Blades. Yeah! So go ahead and turn that Stress, or that Hope, and then go ahead and roll your roll. And that's an instinct. No. Yes, that's instinct. (exclaiming) That's really good. That's a 12 plus 11 for-- Damn.
Hope. And I didn't even add my six. So whatever that is.
You definitely succeed. (laughing) So I get a Hope back? Get a Hope back.
Okay. And then that does.
Cool, cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool. I guess it's not that great, it's just 1d10 magic damage. I would have done better hitting it with my staff, but that's okay. The fucking art is sick.
But it looks sick! I know.
I know. All right, go ahead and roll 1d10 magic damage. Three. (laughing)
Oh no! It's like a drizzle of blades. Yeah. Yeah.
(laughing) It's like one blade. (laughs) The bear's like, hm? Stick. That's under its minor threshold, so it takes a Stress.
I gotta work on that spell. (laughing) Side note, shout out to every artist who worked on these cards. Oh, man!
Both of us! Yeah! And there's still more to come. Yes, yes, yes!
Beautiful. All right.
So much more to come. Who wants to go next? All right, I'm going to look over at Pango, and--
I instinctively look away. (laughing) Pango, listen to me. Huh?
Pango, look at me. Okay.
(laughing) I don't want to look down.
(laughing) You are destined. You are destined for greatness. You know, me and you. It's just like you're looking, but you're looking up, and you're just seeing boobs and then-- You're just, yeah. (laughing) Just try not making eye contact. No, no, no, make eye contact. That's very weird. Make eye contact.
Top of the rabbit ears, and down.
Just look at me. Yes.
Listen to me. Just in. Me and you, I think we would make a great duo act. And first you're going to hear a heartbreaking song that starts to play. Me and all of my close allies can take a Hope. So anyone who's nearby can take a Hope. Are we close? Are any of us close?
Close allies would be-- Does that mean close as in relationship, or close as in proximity? Everybody but Sir Dante, unfortunately. Just out of the range. Yeah, it's all right.
Sir! Oh! And then I--
That's one Hope? And then I go, "Why don't we try a little duo act?" And I want to do a Team Up. Oh, you're going to do a tag team roll? Tag team! All right, that's three Hope cost on that. I'm going to spend all three of my Hope. I wouldn't have had three without that. All right, so what are you both doing then? What are we both doing? (laughs) You know that move in partner dances where like the one person bends over and the other uses the back to do like a-- Flips over their back?
Oh, oh, oh! Sure, sure.
Do that. Yeah, yeah.
Swinger step? Yeah, yeah, swing step. I'll do the kicking if you can launch me, and we can both attack this bear that's going after Kexon. You both--
Fire in the hole. Rush over here as like a dancing duet, like spinning over, blades and massive blades swinging as you do. Are you both making attack rolls with your weapons then as part of this tactic? I'm going to use my fans.
Using the fans? Yeah.
All right. Oh, and I can roll an attack as well? So with a tag team roll, one of you initiates and spends three Hope, and you can only initiate it once per session. Yeah.
But you both roll, and then you take the higher of the two for both of your actions.
Oh, shit! And if you're both doing damage, you add the damage together. Oh!
Sick! Hell yes!
Okay! So both of you, roll for your attacks.
So we both roll. Choose the better roll. For the two of you?
Yeah. Then you combine your-- My team up is two Hope. Use my Presence.
It is? If you team up with me, it's two Hope. So I will do as she said, and take her on my back, and spin around, but even though she said to just do it once, I'm going to try to go like around and around and around.
Okay, yeah! (laughs) You got it. Those swing moves where-- Yeah!
(laughing) Lindy Hop.
Yeah, exactly! Ring of fire!
Yeah! (laughing) Let's go!
Yep, this is great. That was the shit, man, it was awesome. And with the size differential, he's just like whoosh.
Yes. Yep.
17 Fear, or. Or? I'm rolling around--
Oh, wait, eight. Nine, 10. 15, 16 with Hope. Ooh!
Yes! I mean... If we take the Hope roll in a tag team move like this, do we both regain Hope? How does that work? In this instance-- I just broke the game.
Question. (laughing) If I recall, it's-- No, you're both getting the roll, so you would both get a Hope. Okay.
Yeah. Should we do that? It's one lower, but I think it'll hit. I think 16 will still hit.
16 will hit? Yeah.
Okay, we'll do 16 with Hope. I hope it will.
With Hope. Okay, 16 with Hope does hit.
(cheering) Okay, get that Hope back.
Woo! Excited about numbers. Yeah.
(laughing) So both of you guys roll your damage. He had a look on his face, I thought it didn't hit. There you go.
Okay. Mm, it hits. Okay, okay, okay.
2d8 plus two. Okay.
And a 16 with Hope. Even though she did for me. Eight, nine.
Yes. I got 11 damage.
This is amazing. Mine is 13, whoa. 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24.
Oh yeah. Turns the bear into pate. So 24 (laughs) plus 11.
Plus 11. So 35 points of damage. Yes. That is double its severe threshold, which means it does four hit points, which is what it had left. (gasps)
That's a-- So how do you want to do this? (cheering) On a tag team roll? Hell yeah. It's so hard. I feel like we're going to hit it straight into our bug friend. But we shan't do that. No, no!
(laughing) No, we shan't! How do you really want to do this? Well I feel like, okay, so we're doing... We maybe hit him a few times, hit him a few times, but then you do like a toss. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And I do like-- "Dirty Dancing"?
A barrel roll. Uh-huh.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And as I come down from the barrel roll, I'm just gonna impale him. Yes, and I will go up from underneath, and maybe we can just-- Oh, like skewer it in the middle? Skewer it in the middle. And it just kind of crumbles to ground as you both draw your blades out at the ready. Sorry, sweet beast. Alrighty.
Fuck that. Whoa.
(laughs) That was really... That was really fun. I told you you're a star. (laughing) I sort of bend over and walk away a little bit. (laughing) That one's paste, this one's bad, this one's up? That one's up still. Yeah. I see that happen as I watch one of my spectral blades go. (laughing) If you want to.
Let's try it. Let's tag team. All right, let's tag team. Yeah, why not? 23. Sir Dante! Yes, yes? Shall we try something together? (laughing) Just rolling out the fucking tag team! Lead the way, Mr. Oppy! Yes. There's definitely nothing bigger waiting towards the end of this game. Yeah.
No. Definitely not.
Spend it all, please. I want to use my staff then. Do it. Do it, that's what it's about. But you can do tag teams once per session? You can initiate one once per session. Oh, initiate one.
Oh, initiate one. So I can initiate one? So you--
Okay. It will cost you three Hope to do so though. Okay. So I get two apparently. Nice. All right, so I am gonna... Try something. Does it rebuild? (indistinct). (vocalizing) Let me see. Get him.
All right, I just want to try to use my staff, so I'm just going to get it going again. Yeah, okay. And try to--
I love that move. Well no, it's like a-- (laughing) Adults. (laughing) I'm going to toss around while you're doing that, and wave my hat with one of my arms and prepare for a strike on the other to-- Yes.
Foot of smoke. It's quite the fire-- Yes, yes, yes.
(laughing) It can moves, right?
Yes. And the smoke will try to sort of wrap itself around the bear. Okay, okay. And just slowly start to just squeeze. Ooh.
All right, great. What are you casting for this? Oh, I'm just using my staff. Hell yeah, go for it. All right.
(laughing) So go ahead and roll your respective attacks. Okay. I'm going to add Dramatic Flare, if that's all right.
Woo! By saying, "I'm afraid you're about to meet a grisly end!" (laughs) Sure.
I'm going for it. That's an extra Hope? That's an extra. You spend a Hope.
You spend a Hope. Yeah.
I'm into it. To apply it, so it's--
All right, wait, so do I spend it? Am I spending Hope since we're tag teaming? You spend two.
You're spending three. I'm spending two, great.
Or three. No, two because of me. Yes.
A good thing to know. "When an ally initiates a tag team roll with you, they only spend two Hope to do so." Great.
Oh great, yeah. So never mind, so that's just two for you. Awesome.
And then you spend one of your--
I spend one Hope for my, and that's... Added 1d8? Last feature. Definitely hope you rolled better. 14, 15, 16. 19. With Fear, unless you've got-- I rolled eight with Hope. 19 with Fear. Yeah. 19 with Fear, I'll take the Fear, but you both get to go ahead and combine your damage on this attack. Great. The smoke rolls around as you're kind of billowing it up with your hat, it begins to swirl and mass around the bear as it seems to be now completely invisible. I forgot to add my sneak attack damage on my previous roll. Okay.
Can I add it? Sure.
I just rolled it. It was seven damage. Whoa, that's way better than your-- I know! Dinky little dinky doodle. I know.
You got it. All right, so marking that on there. Which I imagine, can I add that to any attack or does it have to be melee? Hm? Well what does it say on the sneak attack? It just says when you would use an attack. Yeah, when you use an attack. So yes, you could add that. Wait, you always get sneak attack? No, when an ally is in melee. Oh. Yeah.
Yeah. For your-- "When you use sneak attack, you may also spend any number of Hope before the attack and add more dice."
Add extra dice. Based on how much--
But I didn't do that, so I'm only adding--
No worries. That does turn it into a hit point, so you got it. Mark that. All right, so--
Come on. What did you roll for damage? I rolled 12. 12 damage? And what'd you roll? I rolled five damage. Okay, so that's 17. Mm-hmm. Which is its severe threshold, which is three points of damage. How do you want to do this? (cheering) Yes! Yes! Go ahead. I think you've got him in the strangle. Yes.
In the smoking cloud. So the smoke that's coming out of my glorious staff, it's like, you know, a little pink, a little magenta, a little periwinkle with little sparkly celestial looking, and it's just wraps around the neck of the bear. And I--
Then the body, and it's just getting tighter and tighter. I do a little cartwheel underneath, get right under it, and give him a tracheoloby straight through the throat. (laughs) You withdraw and you see it like tumble to the ground as the weird liquid kind of seeps out of its wounds and out of its jaw. Oh no, Sir Dante.
The two slain bears are now lay to the sides, their suffering at an end. The partially healed one over there unconscious. And as you all kind of catch your breaths, kind of taking in, for most of you, the renewed understanding of the dangers that wander here, though from your experience, a different kind of danger than you were expecting, we're gonna go to break. Oh yeah!
Oh! We'll pick up for a post battle investigation and furthering of the adventure for this. That was fun.
That was fun! (laughing)
That was fun! That was fun!
Yeah! I love the tag teams.
Alrighty. We'll see you all here in about 15 minutes. Okay!
Woo-hoo! Sam: Daggerheart! Open Beta! And welcome back. So, ending of that combat, I had three tokens left over. I'm going to spend two of them to get a Fear. And that last one just goes away. So, here, as the adrenaline begins to fade and you all stand around the two deceased corrupted hedge bears and the one that hangs onto the edge. You take in the intensity of what's around you. What do you do? I'm going to gently lope up to this one that is barely hanging on--
Suck it. Barely hanging on? I'm going to lay hands on its ribs and see how she reacts. (groans) Ah, that's not your fault, girly. Does she seem calm to me? It's hurt, but calm in your presence. At least your hand is the one that brought her back from some brink. Can you fix her, Xarlo? We'll see. No one's ever so far from Andra's gaze. I will use a different feature. I'll use... Mending Touch. So this is for quieter, slower moments. I'm going to take a few moments, and the medallion around my neck starts to glow gently, illuminating the two dogs peeking out from my hip. (barking) And I will give this bear two hit points. Okay. And while he is taking that time. Everybody come, come close to where he is. And I'll also cast Mysterious Mist, and my wings will start to flutter and a little thick mist starts to surround us. Anyone within a very close distance, it makes us hidden.
Okay. Is there a Spell Cast roll for that one?
There is, yeah. It's a sulfur smell. Oh, I spend a Hope to do it. I'm going to mend my thing, feature wise, it should be one hit point unless I tell the person or creature I'm healing something about myself or learn about them. You know, when I was a young one, I met one of your cousins. And I was injured, had a broken leg. Can still feel it when it rains. And that one of your cousins, he actually grabbed me by the scruff, helped me onto my feet and limped me back to my home. So it pains me to see you like this, girly. But don't let it pain you. And I'll pull my hand away and hope that that's enough to close the wound. The wounds begin to seal over, not completely healed as the wounds that suffer, but definitely enough to recover in time. But more so than that, the signs of the corruption, the strange ichor leaking from its various wounds and body corners, subsides and evaporates into dust and vanishes as it rights itself. (thudding) And you see it looks around at you all, still a massive and intimidating hedge bear, but as it glances around, you don't sense outward aggression as it gets back up to its feet. And at its feet it's towering a good three feet above, your heads are low, but it bends down to sniff you. (sniffs) (slurps) Licks the side of your face and then, looking at the rest of you, begins to back away and then turns and begins to lumber into the shadow of the forest. Bye. Stops and turns back. (groans) Sorry. You see it looks towards the northeast with a sad look in it eyes and continues pushing westward. Guide her. Guide her well. So we hurt things and then we heal them. Is that our specialty?
No. I mean, you did the best you could. Corruption outpaced their hearts. We did it right? We solved the problem? Yeah, I think we destroyed the corruption. We can go home now. I think we did it. I am afraid that's just an example of what else is out there. Yeah, we haven't found the Cleft Hand or made it to the Xia River yet, so there's more to go. But lessons learned. The symptom, not the cause. That was exciting. It was.
Yes. Is your tongue all right? Yeah. I can do that all day. I've never seen you stretch it out that far. It is a little far. It feels a little stretched at the moment, but I'm okay. All right. We should have dropped the two puppies and taken the bear. Just saying. No. I thought about asking, but she left. Bears are very useful. You know, I saw her looking off that way. Maybe that's where she came from. Maybe that's where we should go. It's just a drama queen. Does the path go the way that the bear looked? Not directly. It looks like it's arcing semi-parallel, but slightly diverging in time. The call is yours. Seems like a clear sign to me. Let's follow the gaze of the bear. We won't get lost.
Bear gaze? Bear gaze?
Bear gaze? Let's do it.
I love it. I love bear gaze, too. Pretty great.
Yeah. All right. All right, may we lead the pack as so it were. All right. Snog up my baggy pants and make sure the pups are tight and I start to swing through the branches. All right.
You take the high road. Oh, that's terrible. No. Too real. Finally shaking your accent off. Talking like a normal person. (laughing) (laughing continues) The odd cadence of Sir Dante's cackle echoing through the shattered expanse. You press slightly off the path you've been following and trekking deeper northeast, hopefully in the direction of what you're seeking. It doesn't take too terribly long before you begin to hear the distant sounds of water rushing. Some semblance of a brook or some body of liquid itself crashing and shifting between the landscape. Do we see anything that might resemble the Cleft Hand rock? Go ahead and make an Instinct roll for me if you don't mind. To look for the specific details of what you're seeking as you're trekking along this unfamiliar land.
Oh right, because we're off the path. So we would have headed to the water anyway if we're looking at it.
I'm going to do a big sniff. I have a little bit of a better sense of smells from living underground for so long. So I'm going to just give a sniff to see if I can smell stinky water from the river. Okay, so both of you go ahead and make Instinct rolls to see. You're looking, and you're smelling. Well, that's a Critical. Whoa!
Whoa! It's two ones.
Which is a Critical in "Daggerheart." So that completely sidesteps the low amount, right?
Yeah, if you roll the same number on both 12s, that is a Critical Success. Whoa.
Phew! It looks scary, but it's dope!
But it's good. I got a 16 with Hope. 16 with Hope. Great. All right, you get a Hope, you get a Hope, and you clear a Stress if you have one. That's right.
Because of the Critical Success. I'm not a very stressed out person. So, as you diverge from your path, you do not have sight of Cleft Hand, but you've seemingly circumvented its necessity as indeed you can see what you can clearly understand here. You just feel the strong connection with nature around you and something about this just tells you this is the river that you've sought. You glance past to what you see the Xia River, and you can see a manor of trees that are growing on the side. Some of them are bent forward slightly, and you can see there are elements of trees surrounding the water that are diminished in the intensity of their leaves. Some that are even leafless right among the very edge of the wide... It's a river, it's wider than a brook could possibly be. And you do see there are elements where the river little ways up and a little further on, travels through rocks and small, three, four foot falls that's causing the sound of rushing that drew you here. You, picking up the scents of the wood. I mean, everything here, the further you get in, has a stagnation to it. But this close to the water, there is a particular kind of pungence. It is a combination of still water with heavy vegetation rot and something... It's hard to describe, and part of it makes you a bit uncomfortable. It's a familiar smell. You're not quite sure what it is. Hey, big man!
Is it obvious? You've got a face like a slapped arse. Are you all right? It just smells like a stink bug. No offense. Just kind of weird. Isn't she a frog?
Does it smell a bit like Oppy, no offense. They're totally different. None taken. I don't know, it stirs something in me. Oh goodness.
Do we see any more of that sludgy stuff anywhere? If you get closer to the river, you can see one, the edges of the water, as much as the trees themselves are leafless, the ground vegetation is deeply overgrown. You can see the various ferns and bushes themselves are massively swollen and wide, even though the coloration begins to shift into blues and purples beyond the natural greens of the forest. Which at first would be beautiful if not for just the stench that gets stronger and stronger the closer you get to the water. And you can see the water from here. You, being familiar with many of the crystalline waters of the Emerald Sky and its wondrous forest expanse, this is certainly a brackish brown muddy coloration. And the water itself, while it flows, it flows thicker than water should ever so faintly. There is a thickness and just a faint sluggishness to its flow that is unnatural and sets you on edge immediately. You reckon we should follow this to its source? Yeah. Definitely. Is there a stick bout? There are plenty of sticks about. I'm going to take a stick and prod it a bit and see if it's like a fungus, if it can be pulled up out of the water.
Okay. Like a skin?
Like a skin. You place it and lift it up. It doesn't carry on like a layer or anything that would stick to it beyond the fact that the edge of your stick now has almost an oil spill-type texture to it. And it has that same bluish purple coloration just faintly throughout the liquid and the residue as what was seen within the claw marks on that initial tree. By the way, when you described the bears. It's the same. You said that they had liquid on them. Was it the same coloration? Same kind of liquid as those claw marks as well? It indeed carried that kind of blue purple tint to it. Weird. Don't anybody touch it. We should avoid stepping in it for sure. I have a strange thought. I'm going to take my canteen that I have, and I'm going to down whatever water is left, I did it very quickly. And I'm going to see if there's a way to just scoop a bit of this gunk into it without touching anything. I would like to ask for a Finesse roll on that. All right.
This is specifically a challenging test. This may be--
Your control. Absolutely Hilarious.
Listen to this fucking shit right here. You've gotta be insane. Damn it, Sam. I canceled.
It's Daggerfart. Oh, my god. That's basically what I have. The fart! Oh my god, Sam.
This guy. Oh boy, do I have anything I can do to make this better? Not really. All right, here we go. Don't suck. Hey, that's much better! That's 15 with Hope.
15 with Hope. All right, you take a Hope. You go ahead and manage to just finagle an angle where your canteen accepts it and it has that odd (slurping) sound as it enters and begins to fill partially into the canteen. As you lift up, you can see that layer of clinging material, that foreign substance that is swirled and mixed in with the river water that slicks down the side and you shake it off after you close the lid.
And cap it and then use some foliage to dry it off and then put it back on my belt. So, mark it down. You have a half canteen of river sludge. Thank you.
Oh, god. You say that now. You know Xarlo, I just keep wondering if all this is connected to that seep stuff you were talking about. Well, I thought that too. I mean, it was liquidy.
Pango. Oh, Pango. I'm sorry.
What'd you call me? Called you Xarlo.
I called you Pango! It's pretty close.
Yeah. I mean, whenever she talks I just sort of listen. Do you want somebody called Pango? Answer to anything. Is it the same smell you think? I don't know. Is it the same smell? It was a traumatic day for me.
It was traumatic. It wasn't the same as the horrible caustic smell of the seep that filled the exodus from Uby. Nothing familiar? Nothing familiar? It's familiar, but it's different than that smell there. Maybe that was a test run, or maybe that was a refined version. Or maybe, you know how blood, when it's in your body it's bright red or whatever and then when you let it dry a little bit it gets all brown and gunky? Maybe the stuff that I saw was fresh and this is old. That's interesting.
Maybe. This doesn't look like dried dried... Well, maybe. Although this isn't really dry yet, is it? Sir Dante and I, we came from... In the red crystal cavern, there was this thick mist and it was making everybody go all haywire. It's quite violent.
So, I don't know. Wait, did it look like this stuff? No, I just wonder if all, you know. It's like the world is sick. Oh, that's so sad.
I know. Well, we should trace it to its source. If the river's flowing downstream, we should go upstream. Follow it up. All right. Okay. What the grim wardens are all about. Going upstream. That's right because we're grim wardens. The menagerie.
True intro. Grim wardens subtitled menagerie. In parenthesis.
Yeah. Subsect.
Great, thanks for that. And lovingly. All right, who is helming it? Is it continuing to be Xarlo and Sir Dante?
Let's change it up. Let's change it up.
Yeah, let's mix it up. Ladies.
Oh, for sure. I'm going to stick my staff in. So great at navigating. And so we avoid the sludgies. All right. So you're testing the ground as you continue?
Yeah, speedwalk through. You got it, Sweetpea.
Sneaky little mushroom. All right.
I'm going to sneakily walk.
Sneaky Little Mushroom. And avoid the sludge. All right. As you continue to clamber-- I'm just a dumb, sneaky little mushroom. The river banks, you can see areas where some of the land has either fallen in or it's almost like a marsh element is expanding outward. The river itself seems to either be causing rapid erosion towards the edge of the river banks, or the water is beginning to fill. You're uncertain, but it seems to be pressing freshly beyond the long-carved boundaries of the river's previous flow. Sweetpea, you're the first to see something moving in the water about 50, 60 feet ahead of you. Something just shifting and moving along the surface. Oppy, get back, get back.
What? There's something in the water. Okay. Oh, oh, oh, oh, I see. There's something in the water, you guys. What? There's something in the water. You're very hard to hear. There's something in the water! Sh! Creatures...
(imitates skittering sound) Skitter out of the nearby tree tops. (laughs) Well, should we just walk around it or-- Yeah, we should just not walk in the water, probably. Okay.
I thought they already knew. (laughs) Okay. You move around the-- Do we have a wide berth? The wide berth of it and you can see there's something kind of floating in the water. But it looks like it's caught on one of the heavy roots and it's just kind of snagged and hanging along the edge. What does it look like? What is it? The shape of a person? You take a moment to focus and it does, indeed, look like a body. (gasps) How far away is it? It's the wide berth you guys are keeping. So about 30, 40 feet from where you are, as you're traveling around. Help someone who needs help. How far would you say it is... What's the distance--
What if it's a trap? Of 30 to 40 feet, would you say? It's close or just beyond close. I could try and grab it if you like. I'm going to pull out my hook. Oh, yeah, you do this. This is your thing. You grab things. I'm going to make a throw. Okay. Go ahead and make an attack roll. A standard difficulty of 10
(laughs) at this distance. All right.
To reach the target there. Where's my attack roll? There we are. Let's use this little thing. Come on. That's 13 with hope. 13, so... (imitates launching and clasping sound) And you give a tug and it takes a moment, because you can feel the body was carried downstream and the cloak got caught up in some of the roots along the bank and then just kind of tethered there for a bit but eventually it tears and one of the branches that it's caught on breaks and you pull it onto the surface and then as you drag it closer and closer, it's kind of leaving a trail of the continually brackish water in its wake. As you yank and pull, it hits like a rock and then flips over onto its back, revealing what looks to be a humanoid male figure, slightly bloated from being in the
(groans) water for a bit.
Oh no! It's Wild Colin! Is it? Is it? You take a glance toward it and see the familiar hair slicked, the piercing eyes and the human and Elven mixed lineage still recognizable beyond the (gasps) face of death. Ah, golly, Oh no. Drag him away from the water. Yup. I'm going to get my hook on him, too, on my staff and help you.
Panga, if you don't mind helping? Oh, sure, sure.
And three! I'll help to pull.
And between the three of us, carefully, we pull him carefully from the water.
Okay. As you pull it closer, you see the lower halfs of the legs below the knees are no longer there. (shrieks) It's interesting. There aren't heavy slashes or any real signs of open wounds. Though, you do immediately see the back of the head is caved in. Oh! Looks like some heavy blunt trauma that may have been responsible for this poor ranger's demise. Oh no!
A bludgeoned back of the head and missing the lower half of its legs. Yeah. Cleanly or is it a mess?
Yeah, what do the legs look like? I mean, you said it didn't look like they got-- You look down at them and they look, honestly, kind of chewed apart. Oh!
Dear. Wait, so it's only half of the body? No, it's the thighs up. The thighs up. Okay. So maybe he was attacked and then thrown in the river and then whatever that creature is ate him. The head wound, does it also look like a bite? Does it look like a weapon--
No, it looks like-- If you want to make a knowledge roll to see if you can analyze the extent of the wounds-- Probably not be the one to do that. Go for it. No.
Go for it! (laughs) You're clever. And you're a beetle. Does this...
(laughs) What would you make of this wound? We were just a band. It killed him. Yes, but does it look-- It killed him.
(laughs) Does it look like it might have been a rock? It might have been a bite, might have been an ax. I don't know. I will inspect the head wound but I will also use reveal from The Book of Vargas and just see if there's anything hidden within close range that would... If anything that would be hidden would be no longer hidden. That's just ugly cheating. Plus knowledge. Oh, damn! That is 23 with hope. Whoo!
Nice! Great, so as you-- I got to hope!
Yeah! So as you approach, before you analyze the body, you go ahead and pull out your grimoire, flip to the page of your reveal spell, begin to read the incantation. As you release the woven tethers of the arcane ether that surrounds the space around you, you go ahead and invoke this wave... (imitates wave emanating sound) Of glowing dust that seems to emanate from you. As it does, you can see, first thing you notice, the weapons on your friend here are not drawn, which first leads you to believe that-- Surprise attack, maybe? He was not expecting what ended him. Beyond that path to the edge of the river, too, the dust seems to catch on something that you see kind of hiding within the roots just beyond the water edge. Opposite riverbank? No, on this side of the riverbank.
This side. In the roots of one of the nearby trees, you see something that's long and thin tangled through them looking like part of the root structure itself. But the spell seems to leave it slightly glowing amongst the shaded hiding spot. That was 30 or 40 yards away. So I'll say, nobody move. I think it's unfortunate that this poor fellow didn't see whatever his demise was coming but there seems to be something watching us from the riverbank amongst the roots. Don't get caught unawares. Underwear? Unawares.
Don't get caught in your underwears.
Don't get your underwear caught.
Underwears. You glance across from where the riverbank is, where you pulled the body up and you can see these... Brown shapes beginning to kind of shift out of the water of a similar coloration but begin to claw up through the muck. It looks almost like... Like odd, low to the ground crustaceans, like little crab-like creatures that are climbing up and out of the muck of the nearby forest. But as they begin to climb out, they climb taller. And taller. And as they begin to sniff, seemingly searching for their unfinished meal-- I'm going to hide. You're going to hide? Yeah, I'm just going to get down to my--
I'm going to hide as well.
You just see my cap and I just look like part of the vegetation. Okay, so you just kind of get down low. Taking the dogs up into a tree. Alright.
(imitates climbing sound) Yeah, guess we'll all hide. Yeah. Alright.
Oh boy. Okay. I'll join you. Stand behind a tree. (laughs) I'll join you and I'm going give you... I think I can give-- Okay.
Yeah. I think Lightfoot might-- As you all begin to kind of carefully move out of sight, you see them. They've been sniffing around in the air like... (imitating sniffing sound) The slightest bit of movement, they all... (imitates turning sound) Zero in and... (imitates skittering sound) Go into a mass, skittering towards you. Damn!
(cheers) Oh my gosh! We're being spoiled! Oh my gosh! We did not rest!
Nevermind. We are bad! We are bad players! No!
Bad players! That is definitely poo water.
Drive it like you stole it! That is poo water.
That is poo water. It's stagnant as hell. You all kind of pull back in this vicinity.
It's just full of amoebas. Up that way is the Springfield Nuclear-- Uh huh. You said you leapt into the tree there? Yeah. . All righty. All right. The three of us were pulling a body out of the water, so we would've been closer. Well, the body was dragged about 30 or so feet. Okay, great.
So about there. Bunny and I started skittering towards the trees using my silence, using my ability to keep us silent. Okay.
Which is, yeah, and it's advantage on action rolls to make you move without being heard. Alright, so-- I burned a hope for it. Yeah, so I'd have the two of you go ahead and roll agility rolls for me, roll fast to go ahead and--
Both of us? Dart out of there with that ability, while the rest of you kind of begin to shift, right as they catch your attention. What you see... Oh and d6 to add to that. I do?
Yes, because I gave you advantage on this roll. Oh, that's right. So it's 11. Oh! 17. Whoo! 17 with hope for me. Oh no. 21 with hope for me. What? Fucking "Fallout" shit. They're like lobstrosities. Lobstrosities.
Oh, Lobstrosities! Oh, boy! Holy Moses! Wow.
Oh wows and whoa! One after another, after another, after another are emerging. It looks like-- I cast cataclysm. (laughs) Jeez. You got meteor storm? Meteor! Alright. (chattering) The body of your friend,
(laughs) which sits here on the ground after being dragged out. As soon as you all begin to scatter off to the side, first off, what did you roll? I rolled... You said it was 22 or something.
20, yeah. Yeah, it was 22 with hope. With hope? Okay, and-- And 17 With hope. 17 with hope, great. Yeah, you both kind of dart off to the side, while the rest of you kind of began to shift as they began to charge at you like... (imitates charging sound) Many of them start rushing with this... I was close--
(imitates skittering sound) Skittering sound.
To the body because I would've been trying to pick his pockets. (laughs) I sunk down into the vegetation. I'm just hiding there. So as this is happening, let me go ahead and spend a fear. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, sorry, spend two fear to take a GM action immediately and then spend both of these fear to give me four tokens at the top--
Thanks! On my immediately intrusive ambush GM turn here, I'm going to spend all four of these tokens to activate. Yeah! Whoa!
Four of these skitter fish. As they charge forward-- Skitter fish!
You see their kite-ness, front lobster-like jaws...
(imitates jaws opening sound) Open into these separate bisected jaw with teeth that kind of seem to wiggle and move. I see you, fam. I see you. Same, same. Mandible knows mandible. Ah! These four are going to activate here. ♪ They're very close to us ♪ They've got crabs. They're going to charge in. Alrighty. Wait, those are around me. You're very tall. I'm with you. I'm with you. I don't like this. Oh, dear. Oh, dear.
All right. So with that-- Hello, guys.
All four of them are going to attack you. Kiss!
Hello, guy. 16 to hit you. Yeah.
Oh, jeez. You take--
Yeah. Three physical damage. Three physical damage. What does that mean?
Correct. So you take a stress effect. Oh, just three? Yeah.
Oh, that's easy. From the first attack. The next one is a four to hit. Yeah.
Yeah, you take three physical damage. Well, my evasion is four. Does that--
Yeah, so it means it beats it.
Means it beats it. Okay, so I take how many on the next one? Three.
Okay. The next one is a seven to hit you. Yes. And the next one is three, three. So you take four stress, essentially. Oh boy. Whoo! Ow, ow, ow.
Mark your shit. Oh, yeah, sorry. Oh! Okay.
Alright. So in reaction to this, as they all swarm up and slam around Pango and immediately just start scrambling and swarming in from the sides.
Ah, ooh, ah, ah, ooh, ah! Who wants to go?
(laughs) Oh--
I do! Alright, go for it!
(laughs) I'm pissed! I grip my gigantic sword, my great sword and I, using my whirlwind feature ability, I swing out in a wide arc and I'm going to just fucking try to hit all of them. All righty.
Because I don't like when they bite people. That's not cool at all. You got it. I rolled a.. 20 with hope. 20 with hope? Nice. All right, and you're spending a-- So with whirlwind, you may also spend hope to use that roll against every other enemy within range. That hits all four of them. Dang! Let's go! Okay, and the same roll applies to all of them?
Every other one? Applies to all of them, yeah. So go ahead and--
Hell, yes. So go ahead and roll damage. Okay, damage. And it's half damage against the others? It is half damage--
Yeah. Against everyone but the the first one, yeah. Swing, batter, batter, batter, yeah! 2d10 plus two. And then, so that's... Crazier. 12, 13, 14 plus... Because of forceful... Nope, because of something. Body Basher, I get another three. So what did I say, 14? So it's 17 points to all of them.
17 points of damage. 17 points to one and the first one you hit and then half of that to all them. Doesn't matter, as minions, as they rushed you, you go ahead and... (imitating sweeping sound) Sweep around and carve all four of them immediately. Oh wow!
Knocking them to the ground. Okay.
Okay. As their sinew sort of flies in the air, I'm going to try to eat, so I love crab. (laughs) Take a few shreds from the entirety. A claw. All right and that was with hope, right? Crawfish.
That's with hope. You got it. All right.
I serve the cast and I was like, yeah. Yeah.
(laughs) Now there's still more clamoring out of the water. That's fine. Alright.
(laughs) Unless someone's got something, I might try something. Go for it, buddy.
Go for it. I'm going to step to the right, out of the tree line. All righty. I don't know if I can do this. We'll find out. I'm going to take my grappling hook and I'm going to fire it at the one in the back. Over here? Yeah. Yes. Is it close range? It is the... It is... Far. Oh, far? Yeah, it's definitely within range. I'm going to get the one in the back. ♪ You ♪
(imitating throwing sound) ♪ Are ♪ I'm going attempt to say... I'm going to attempt to quick to see if I can get my dramatic flare. If you'd like to, you can spend a hope to do that. I'll spend my hope and say-- We already know--
And me without my bib today. (laughs) And so that is... There's my d12s. Extra paper towels to table seven. (laughs) That is a crit. That is five and five. That is, indeed.
Yay! Alright, so you gain a hope and peer stress. I gain a hope.
Automatically hits. Go ahead and roll damage on that. As you toss it across that way and it... (imitates sinking sound) Sinks into the creature. So I have a crazy thing I want to do. All righty.
So this is 2d8 plus two. That's 11. I want to see if I can pull him all the way through and see if I can... Knock some of the other ones? Either just give them... Just knock them, trip them, do something just to break up the rank. I'll say you yank it through and they kind of... You push them apart, all out on a critical, especially, they kind of get broken up a bit over here and have to move out of the way as they kind of get knocked to the side. You drag half of it towards you because you literally pluck it from the torso off
(groans) and you have half of this crustacean creature kind of lands next to you.
(imitates landing sound) (imitates gurgling sound) And then just stops moving. Tonight we melt butter! (laughs) All right, fair enough.
Fantastic. All the lobster. Alright, Zarlow. What you got? While cradling my two babies close, Zarlow's tail reaches around and pulls the ax off his back and plants it into his hand. And I'm going to... I have a spirit weapon. When you have a melee weapon equipped, you can fly from your hand to strike an enemy and return to you. So I'm going to chuck it-- Cool.
At the nearest one. All righty. It's close range, right? Yeah, it's close range.
Close range. It's close range?
Right. Then, yeah, you can definitely... It's closer to here. Yeah, you can get that one right there. All right, is that okay? Or you're up here, yeah, so you can definitely get either of those two. Either of those? Cool, that is a 14 with fear. With fear. That's okay. That successfully hits. And I am going to mark a stress and oh, by the way, this ax is a silver sheen with the etching of a tree spreading wide along the head of the ax on each side. And it glints through the dappled light that's in here, shunks into the one and then I just yank with my hand and it flies from the first creature into the nearest. Alright.
So they each take... And I leveled up my proficiency, so that's going to be... Get ficked. No, he can get fucked. Oh. That would be 11 points of damage. To both of them, as you slam into each other, the ax carves through both their bodies before (imitating ax swooshing) returning to your grasp. Both of them just left in two pieces, each on the ground, the impact scattering them against the tree. You're barely protected from being splashed with lobster person spray, if not for the tree that you're hiding against. (laughing) You all hear sourceless from the nearby brush. No.
My tail-- Just whips around.
(laughing) My tail catches it, puts it back in. Rock-a-bye-bobbies.
(laughing) Bobbies. So because he rolled a fear, that triggers my rally die.
(laughing) Oh.
Class feature? My class, my bardic class feature. Fucking rally. When I increase it above six, I remove the die and I describe how I rally the party and give every character who is listening, a 1d6 rally die. They may spin this die to roll it and add the result to any action, reaction, or damage roll. Yes!
You all get a d6. A d6.
Nice. Sets you for basically for whatever you want. How long does this last? All right, so how do you rally them? How? How-how-how? Just from that little moan you gave. Yeah.
(laughing) Yeah, no, I love that. (laughing) I'm like, someone should heat up the butter. (laughing) So in that moment of levity and inspiration as it hits, as a mass number of these creatures have immediately been scattered to the ground, your sense of worry begins to fade, you rolled with fear, as you recall that strange thing that was revealed in the nearby roots of the trees. Oh, the roots.
Oh, no. All right.
Oh, no. As it begins to slither out from underneath. Shit! Shit! The massive timber serpent, itself-- Timber serpent.
As it pulls out, you can see the same streaks of weird icker swooping down its body and dripping from underneath its mouth and jaw. I'm gonna go ahead and spend one to activate that, and then one to activate one of these. That's gonna go ahead and charge in. This one's gonna go ahead and attempt to strike at you. Sir! That's gonna be, oh, that's gonna be a 16 to hit. That does hit. Three points physical damage. Three points, I'm gonna use a quick retaliation. So, immediately deal weapon damage to the creature at half proficiency. Okay.
So... I'm also adding a countdown here. That's three.
Garbage. A countdown?
Countdown. Three points of damage to that guy. A countdown for what?
Takes some damage. Retaliation. Oh, retaliation takes three damage. It destroys him. Literally runs up into you. Oh, three damage to destroy? (imitating striking serpent) (imitating serpent recoiling) And it crumbles immediately. Three points.
Oh, great, all right. I'm putting a countdown die. Oh no, what does that do? What is it for? Countdown for what? So that was--
♪ Do do do do do ♪ (laughing) Nice tune. That was it. ♪ Boop bo-do-boop-beep ♪ So countdown die for certain creature abilities, certain conditions will cause it to count up, and when it reaches a certain number, certain creatures can use special attacks and abilities-- Oh, no.
Oh, shit. No matter what's happening.
I don't like that. It's an account of one for the fear that was rolled there. I can complain about that feature. That's the one bad rule in the game. It's going to-- (laughing) Aah! Send it over to you--
Aah! Me? Yeah. (imitating creature swooshing) Through the ground. It's gonna streak up--
One sound. For an armor-piercing bite. (laughing) Let me see, do I have a fear to spend? You do. And I wanted to get outta here. No, you know what? It's gonna go ahead and instead shift up onto the top of this. I'm gonna spin that fear from activating it and do a spinning serpent attack. It will mark a stress. Spinning serpent. To make a fang attack against all targets within very close range. Why! Oh my god.
It's pretty close. Within very close range. It's going to be you three. That's going to be Sir Dante. That's going to be Sweet Pea. And that's going to be Pango. I am unable to be directly targeted by attacks. Because of?
Because I'm hidden. Oh, into the ground.
That's right, you did hide. Yeah.
That's true. All right, so, yeah, so I'll put you down here 'cause you are hidden. Just little sneaky little mushrooms. Sneaky little mushroom. You sneaky little mushroom. I don't even look like a person. If that's the case-
That's me back in there? It's gonna move right above you then. Oh, no.
Okay. Which will put, that will put Oppi in range. Okay. And, let me do that again. No, no, no. And Zarlo, yeah, all four of you. Whoa! I made it worse.
No. But you're safe.
You're selfish (indistinct). No, you're good.
You're just sneaky. You're just a sneaky little guy. Just don't get crushed. Nope, that's valid. You wouldn't hit a guy with lassies, would ya? (laughing) All right, so the rule of attack on that-- Lassies.
Here's the god. That's going to be a 13 to hit. Shit.
Who does it hit? It hits me. I'm 13, my evasion is 13.
Hits me. All right, so it does not hit you, Zarlo. You're up in the tree, you're outside of range. Oh, I thought you mentioned my name, all right. Sorry, no, I meant, sorry, Pango. Pango and Zarlo.
I know. Right next to each other, your names end in O. It's true.
That's not me. We're logged in Imogen.
So 13 definitely hits you. Did you say it was in range with me? It did, it shifted into that space 'cause she was hidden.
I'm sorry. What was the damage? What was the--
13. So, well, no, that was to hit, so 13 and then-- Yeah.
Okay. Yeah, so all of you take six points of physical damage. Okay. Whoa! Still just minor. I'm gonna spend a whole, oh yeah. I'm gonna take it. Well, let's see. If you reduce a hit below zero... You just take a stress. I do still take a stress? Well, no, I'm sorry, if you reduce it to zero? Yeah.
No damage at all. Then I'm gonna spend a hope to reduce it by nine to negative three. And I think I get hit points, yeah. That's not how it works, no. Sorry, yeah, no, if it's below your minor threshold, you take no damage. I'm gonna take my retaliation really quickly. Sure, go for it. That's five. Five points of damage to it? Yep. All right, that beats its minor, so it takes the hit point. That feature that I just used, by the way, it's my Stalwart feature, just insane. You got it.
Yeah. As it spins around and bites into each of you in a rapid series of strikes around you, as it pulls and recoils, it's hood spreads out (imitating serpent hissing) right as you (imitating blade swooshing) retaliate with your blade and strike it. (imitating serpent growling) And you see as it opens its fangs, its fangs are dripping with the venom and it looks like its throat is starting to swell. I'm right underneath it.
Yep. So I'm gonna spring up from hiding and I'm gonna stab it with the pointy end of my staff. You can indeed do that, go for it, Rogue. All right, I don't have a stabby end of my staff, but I'm just gonna hit it. (laughing) No worries. Now because you were hidden before, you-- I'm hidden, I gave advantage. You had advantage in the tackle, so you add a d4 to the roll you make for it. Yes. Okay. Okay.
Oh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Okay, that's, what is that? 18 with hope. Okay, 18 with hope.
Oh wait, no, no 20 with hope because that's an instinct rule, so 20 with hope. That definitely hits. You can take the hope for that. Great. In that case, I'm going to, since I succeeded, I'm going to add two hope to my damage roll so that I'm gonna spend two hope and I'm gonna get two extra d8s-- Great.
On top of the d8 that I already got for being a sneak attack. So go for it, that's 48 then. So that's four, that's 3d8-- 3d8 on top. And 2d10.
Oh, got it, yeah. That's a d10, that's great. So, ooh! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's 16 regular. Plus 13.
(clapping) Let's go. Plus another four.
Woo! All right.
I didn't add that. That's 29, 32. Oh, 33. That is definitely beyond, it's severe, so it's gonna take three hit points in that one strike. As it's over top and recoiling, getting ready to burble up, all of a sudden out of nowhere, springing from the brush beneath, this cap of color. Like spinning around and then slamming my staff. Wham! Over top. The creature's like (imitating serpent recoiling) gets pushed down into the muck, and as you're like holding your staff down on its head, it's trying to wiggle free and it manages to pull out. You can see as it's stunned in the minute, its head kind of spinning for a second. It has to right itself. That was a heavy damn hit.
Sweet. That was with hope, right?
This is way too intense. That was with hope. Can I use, I'm gonna use the Book of Vargas and I'm gonna cast Arcane Door because I'm not in melee with this snake thing. Can I use Arcane Door and I'm gonna do a spell cast roll of 13-- Yeah, I can play it.
And try and bamp the fuck outta here. Oh!
Got it. You were regular. 14, 15, 16 with hope. Yeah, how far can you do that? I would burn a hope and I'll get it right back because I rolled with hope and it can take me far. Where you wanna go? Far range, I'm gonna go up on that cliff, up close to you, yeah, just so I can get it over with. Got it, so you just... Appearing over on top of that cliff. (imitating animal bleating)
(laughing) Seeing how intense things are getting, to help the rest of my party, you hear-- Oh, sorry, you're right, I did. You hear like--
Why am I still here? (laughing) My bad. This thing was about to get on us, fuck. That's on me. That bench was hard. (laughing) All right.
You just hear like ♪ Ta-Da-Da-Da-Da-Da-Da-Da ♪ ♪ Where have all the good boys gone ♪ (laughing) And I bust out into a little jaunty jazz number and I play an epic song during-- ♪ It's raining men ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, it's raining men ♪ And then "Flashdance" moment and water comes out of nowhere and drenches Bunny. It's a medley, I guess? And yeah, it's a mashup, all right. It's a "Follies" show, just go with it. (laughing) ♪ It took so long ♪ (laughing) And I play an epic song during battle. I guess I was doing "Barracuda." Yeah.
(laughing) ♪ Barracuda ♪ The target is vulnerable. That's it. All of that.
Okay, yeah. All of that.
To say that the target is vulnerable. So this guy here becomes vulnerable? Yeah. Serpent, you got it. He's the only one. He's like, "That guy." But it ends up you go first. No, it's good. The views were coming in. As it's still kind of reeling from the strike from Sweet Pea over here, you emerge and begin to unleash the magical presence of your dynamic towards it.
Yeah. It kind of glances back towards you and you can see it's in the process of still trying to take in its atmosphere. One eye is rolling around like a Chuck Jones cartoon. Good one.
Fantastic. All right. Yep.
Oppi, what you got? Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna... I'm gonna, I'm gonna... Is it possible to move away during my turn? If you want to, yeah.
After I hit it, can I just back away? I'll back away too. To the tree, I just wanna get out of-- You can move as part of your action as long as you move in closer range without having to roll. Okay, great, yes. Me too, me too. Out jazz walk back. Jazzy. All righty, you got it. Okay.
Fussy, fussy, fussy. Oh man, I'm just, I'm nervous and I'm gonna go for it. Just straight out, I'm gonna warm up my staff again and I'm gonna Unleash Chaos. Okay.
So... Unleash Chaos? Unleash Chaos, so...
Not me. What I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna make my spell casting roll. Yes! (laughing) All right.
What did you get? Really good. Oh, I'm also gonna do this. Okay, so we got, that would be, that's 24 with hope. With hope, great, so go ahead and take a hope on that. And add that on there. And I'm spending three of my tokens. So then it's gonna be 3d10. Ooh!
So 3d10 damage? So I'm using my... Yes, okay. What did you just ask me? Sorry. It's 3d10 damage, you said?
Yes, okay. Three hope. That goes with three hope you used? Those tokens?
No, those-- Those are my-- Oh, you have special tokens? Yes, I have special tokens For the Unleash Chaos ability. Yes.
Oh. So and then I have to spend stress to replenish them at the end of this. That's some sorcerer shit? Yes.
Sorcerer shit. No big deal.
That's cool. (laughing) So let me get my 10s. 10 start here. All right, so we got a 13 and-- One more, 13 plus... Four. All right, so 17 points of damage. Nice. That's a major wound to it, so it takes two more hit points. Describe to me how you Unleash Chaos on this creature. All right. I get excited by the rally cry from Bunny and I see, I see Sweet Pea pop up and go for it, so I gather my courage and I shoot out my staff and out of it comes the sparkly magic and just unleashes just absolute chaos all over his body. (laughing) Become a little sparkly on the inside under his belly. Okay.
You? No, him.
Oh. So as the energy strikes and it rolls through it. Now it's like pretty. That's cool. The serpent seems to recoil and try and pull back into the muck instinctually. It's in a severe amount of pain, and as it pulls back into try and hide in the muck, it can't hide at the moment because the chaotic energies that you've unleashed within are like still crackling between and underneath its scales and you can see it glowing like the inside of a burning ember. That's awesome. That's what you get for trying to eat Cullen. (laughing) Yeah. Am I able to sort of-- (all speaking at once) Get my own writers. Claim some points. No, that was not that way. Okay, all right. Who hasn't gone here in a minute? I haven't.
You haven't gone. But we're still facing the snack, right. Yeah. How's the snack looking? And one--
Looking great. Okay.
And one lobster. I liked killing lobster, though, it was easy. I'll take a swing at the sneck. Sea sneck. Yeah, I'm gonna try to stab down-- Take the sea sneck. And try to pin it to the ground so it can't move. Is that a thing?
(laughing) If you have an ability to make it-- I don't.
(laughing) If you wanna attempt to grapple it, you can try that. Oh, yeah.
Damage it or hold it in place. I'm gonna try to grapple it, but I'll, yeah, flavor it with whatever I'm stabbing down and pin it to the ground.
Yeah, sure. All right, so go ahead and make a strength. A strength roll? A strength roll for me, if you don't mind. Does that blade have a name, by the way? The blade doesn't have a name. Should it have a name?
Absolute. It needs to earn one, if you want to. It does need to earn. Snake pinner. (laughing) Rabbit Killer. Well, wait till the roll first. Slap Snickers.
Okay. 13 with fear. 13 with fear.
Snake Slapper. Because I'm adding strength to that, right? You are.
Yeah, 13 with fear. 13 with fear, unfortunately, it's Isis. My medallion and it starts to glow and I look at the big lug's face and I'm going to use three of my prayer dice to carry him through. Carry him.
All three of the dice? Three, I am adding three numbers to his attack. What number did you roll?
One, two, three, or? I thought that prayer dice, I get to add these prayer dice at my discretion to incoming damage, to reduce incoming damage.
Right, so roll them first. Oh, they're not dice, they're tokens. At the beginning of a session, roll a number of d4 dice equal to your spell cast trait and store them to your side. Correct.
You can exhaust them at any time to use their value in reducing incoming damage, adding to a roll result.
Correct. What did you roll in the d4s? Oh, seven total at the beginning of the game. Total seven.
So I got seven sitting here. So you're spending all seven on this right now? I'm giving Pango-- Three of them
Three. Oh, I see. He had seven.
I have seven. Spending three.
I'm spending three to try to get this through. How many is tree? So, that will carry you over. That is a success.
Oh! (cheering)
(clapping) That's where the seraph comes in. So, the extra focus from the divine power focusing through Zarlo stills you with supernatural strength, and as the serpent almost escapes from your grasp, you hit it with your hand and then take your blade and pin it into its tail, holding it to the ground. Yes.
So yeah, it is currently restrained, it cannot move. Cool.
Amazing. Yes.
Cool. Should we talk to it or kill it? Well, with the fear move... It's just a giant Napoleon (indistinct). It was a fear move. Fear move, that's now gone to me. What up?
I'm gonna go ahead and-- Hey, Tina, can I get some ham? Activate three over here as three more of these creatures emerge from the wall. Oh! What? Oh, shit, aah. (gasping)
Why? Oh, Bunny! (laughing) Bunny has crabs. This also takes up to a two. Bunny has crabs. Still attracted to me.
We all knew that. (laughing) All righty, those three over there. I'm gonna go ahead and spend a fear for them to go and do a group attack. Oh, no.
So for you... Oh, no. Spend a fear to activate all adversaries within very close range. This one actually comes in and joins it as well. Oh no.
So. Quadruple jamming.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So actually, I don't need to... You're loaded up.
Let's go. You're loaded up. Yeah, I don't need to spend all those, actually. I can spend one of them. Damn fear, need as many. Yeah, so all right, I will go ahead spend fear to activate all of them. They give me the close range. Make an attack roll against you. That is gonna be hard. That was close. That's gonna be an eight to hit you or evasion. 10.
10. So none hit?
So none hit. What?
Whoa! Now--
Lego dance. Now the group attack with minions like that, if it does succeed for all that are around you, all the damage stacks up. Oh.
Oh, wow. And so you can get swarmed and just take it to-- Oh, like our tag teams, they can do that to us? Well, yeah, like right there he would've-- Spencer, strike it. (laughing) They would've done three damage each, which would've have been total 12 damage just instantly. Oh, wow. And minion swarms can get much larger. Nevertheless, that finishes their go. This fellow over here, I'm gonna go ahead and activate and he's gonna go ahead and go for an armor-piercing bite against you. No. But, okay.
(laughing) I do have armor. That's going to be a 20 to hit you. Is that piercing? Yeah, of course. Okay. Four. Four. That is going to be not great. Five points of physical damage, but you mark an armor slot. Oh, 'cause it is-- 'Cause it pierced your armor. It pierced my armor! So it's five points of damage, which is a stress.
Five points. Okay. But you do mark an arm slot regardless. Okay, I did. I marked them both. All righty.
I marked them both. So you're full up on stress? Barf? Both. That's how Irish people talk. They add "ar"s to everything. No. Are you full up on stress? Top of the morning to ya. Oh no. I'm not full on stress. I have one extra stress left because of a class ability, I think. Okay.
Ancestry ability. Let's leave those there for now. All righty. That finishes my GM move. Who wants to go? I'm a little freaked out, so I do my death drop. I'm going to get up and I'm going to turn around and I'm going to pull out my whip. God, she's amazing! And I'm still unsure if I have to target someone or if I can just do this with a whip crack, but I ultimately want to mark a stress and do a whip crack and I scatter. Let me do that right now. Boop. And I mark stress and scatter enemies back from me to close range. To close range, so yeah. So anything in melee range scatters back. So you crack. These all move back. Ooh, that's a lot of back. Cool move. Into the water. Death drop. New game. Who this? Yeah.
Because you just, whoosh, crack, and they all instinctually back up out of the way. Back, you crabs! (grunts) (laughs) All righty. We can help you cull 'em out later! Yeah. I'm just going to take a second. I'm just seeing this thing pinned down. Do I get a vantage on attacking the snake if they're pinned or grappled? They all just scatter.
No, they're just unable to move.
They just can't move. That's fine. Just seeing that-- You pull out a massive fine-tooth comb. We've got him where we want him. I'm going to just take an attack and just go for it. Haha, haha, haha! I think I'm going to try and go straight through the eye. Sure. Go for it. Ooh.
All right. Wait, what's your weapon? Is it just the grabber thing or do you have a sword? No. I'm using my rapier. Haha, haha!
I'm using my rapier. Rapier. I'm using my rapier. That's how you say it.
Rapier. And I'm burning the die that you-- You have studied your rapier. Yes. Don't forget your inspo rally dies. My inspo, because I really want to hit this thing, and good I did. 7, 11, 16 with Hope. 16 with Hope does succeed. That rally die made the difference. Woo!
Aha! So go ahead and roll damage on that. All right. There we are. (sputters) Seven. Seven? That's only gonna be a minor wound, but it only had one more hit point left. How do you wanna do this?
Hey! Yeah! I'm going to go around. I'm going to grab on to. I know you're having a difficult time. I'm going to use you as a pivot point to come around and get the sword right through both eyes. It carves through on one side, pokes out the other, and it kind of stands there and its jaw just goes and it hangs limp on the blade before it. You're so good at the work you do. And then I pull out and I'm going to head towards Bunnie, or I'm going to head towards the one. All right, we'll say, at this point, after the whip crack and the change of the tides, the strange kind of crustacean folk began to skitter and all began rushing into the waters. Ashley: The crabs are leaving! And begin to just vanish beneath the current down below. So you feel in the moment that the danger has subsided.
Victory is ours. I'm going to run over and give Pango's legs a hug. Oh, thank you. That was a really stressful battle, but as long as you're safe, it's okay. I might need some new clothes though. They're getting all torn up. I know. What's happening? Bunnie! Huh? Are you okay? Oh, yeah. That was amazing work. I think, everyone, we are all so talented. I think so. Yeah. I think we make a pretty good team. We do.
I agree. Can I check Collin's pockets? Sure. Yeah. As you're having this check-in, this cute little fungus walks over and it just starts rolling the body of the dead. Yeah. You find two handfuls of gold. Yay!
Whoa. Within him. Within him? Pushed into his body. No, no. Within his attire. He's dead, filled with gold! (laughs) His armor looks very nice. For all the challenges that the weathering has brought to this, to his currently post-life experience, and his weapons are also quite nice, sheathed, but those are the things of worth you see on him. Pango, I found you some new armor. Oh, cool. Maybe we can just add it to my existing and make a cool, okay. So, in-- Well. We should take a look at that. I'm going to have you roll a finesse roll. Me? To get-- This is a super water-logged swollen carcass. Yeah, a bloated body that has sausaged within their own armor. (groans) Would you like some assistance with this, Bunnie? Oh, yeah. That'd be great. Oh. Ew. Does that mean I roll a six? That means you can spend a Hope to add a D6 to her roll.
I'll spend a Hope for this. Oh, and you give me the six? Yeah.
Yes. Okay. That's an 11 with Hope, and then you can add a six for me. Add a D6. Oh, yes. Of course. That's a 14. A 14. Okay, that's good enough. Okay. You don't quite pop the pinata. Do I add a Hope?
Ugh, gross. Do I add a Hope because I rolled with Hope? You do. Yes. (trills) That was a stressful item. But you do manage to slide the armor off of him, and it is quite nice. The armor is Atiris soft armor, which is Armor 5 with the ability called Quiet. Oh, shit. Which means a +2 to any rolls to move without being heard. Oh.
Ooh. Is it leather armor? It's not leather. It's soft. It's an Armor 5 and it doesn't have any penalties. It just adds plus two to any rolls to move without being heard. Who needs to be quiet is the question. Well, hang on, you guys, I mean. What's your name? Xarlo, wasn't this your friend? I just don't want to seem disrespectful, you know? Yeah, I'd like to take a few minutes, if that's all right. Oh, sure. I have a question for you. Yeah? I don't know what the protocol here is, but in Outrus Forest, should we bury him? Well, I was gonna put together a cairn and let Andra do the work. Okay. I can help you if you need. Right. Help me collect up some rocks then. Okay. We'll spend the next couple of minutes piling rocks and making a cairn over his body. Fair enough, which is a often respectful and practiced druidic and rite of those who live in natural spaces, and you gather from what time you have spent together, he would likely appreciate that. Do you think he'd appreciate being buried with his weapons too? Probably not. Well, forests can't reclaim those. You're right. It's made of metal. Put 'em to use. Okay. I would hope you would all take my things--
What does he have? If I were to fall in battle. I give consent.
Same. We definitely will. An improved saber. You have cool stuff. When I die. Sure. Only then. Sure. So an improved saber is an agility-based melee weapon. Okay. That is a d8 plus 2 physical damage, and an improved dagger, which is a finesse weapon that is a d8 plus 2 physical damage. Wait, which is which? Jesus, where were you? (laughs) I was busy checking. I mean, it's agility-- Agility and finesse.
Agility and finesse. Agility and finesse. All right.
Both d8s plus 2 physical damage, which effectively improves the minimum value of the damage it can deal. Once we have Collin taken care of. I'm going to go from person to person and climb up him because he's so fucking tall and look in each others' eyes and see who most needs help, and I'm going to land on Kexon. You look fucking knackered. Come here, man. Yeah. I'm going to lay hands on the side of his shimmering skull there, and I'm really low on Hope, so I'm going to use another three of my prayer dice to get me up to four Hope total and then spend it all to heal two of your health points. Ooh, that is gracious. Thank you very much. We're finally going to take a short rest while we're here, since we are going to be mourning one of our own. Is that a thing? Should we do a short rest? Thank you. Should we do a rest?
Oh, sure. Should we rest a bit? Well, what-- Yes. I mean, oh, yeah, but I mean, is there a safe place? I don't think anyone will mess with us here. I think we've officially chased anything away. There's also clearly the cadaver of a very vicious beast. I think this might keep everything away quite well. We can at least climb up to that cliff thing. Yeah. What a lovely view. That's nice.
Yes. It's not Boco, is it? Wasn't Boco a hill? That rock? I don't know. I don't know what. GM, is that terrain piece Boco? Why don't you walk over and ask? You know, just walk over and ask. You can go and inspect it.
I'll just go over and say, "Excuse me, hello? Are you Boco?" Mr. Boco. Boco the Humble Hill. I bet Boco is a girl. Oh, Ms. Humble, yes? Are you a lady?
Listen. You take a moment to focus. Look, I just saw a hill. Yourself being of giant lineage and having a strong connection to creatures of the stone and rock of the planet. So I did. Well done. Suddenly, you realize nothing is happening. Okay. You son of a B. He was about to be so embarrassed. I was so excited. So why don't we all sit in a ring facing out with the poppies in the middle and take a breather? Poppies.
Take a breeder? If you want to. We're going to breed the poppies. That's the plan. May I-- I was talking about a shag, but okay. (laughs) Use an experience that I have? What would you like to do? Fade into the background and sort of look around and see if I can sort of fashion a place for us all to be safe. Leaves, branches, you know, like how I have with my hat where I just kind of get short and you can't see me anymore. Sure, if you wanna do that. Sort of build a little cover for us. Sure. All right, so you go ahead. Go ahead, and I'll say for that, I'll say go ahead and make an instinct roll for me. Okay. It's going to be about kind of knowing the environment here and using your understanding of how creatures seek things in the natural wilds. Make us a ghillie suit tent. Yeah. More or less. I will, while we take this moment of calm, you see Bunnie kind of magically, it's almost like harp strings start to form in midair, and she starts plucking just a very soft little harp tune, and I will play a relaxing song and anyone who needs to can heal one hit point. Dang!
Ooh! That is clutch! That's great. Bards, man.
Ooh! It's just very soft and gentle. All right, so if you're taking a short rest here-- Yeah.
Yeah. As well as hearing this music here kind of quelling your spirit, quelling your mind, you each can take two downtime activities. Two downtime activities. We get two? I believe, what is it? Or it might be one downtime. I think we get one. There's one for a short rest. Oh, sorry. One for the short rest. Oh, wait, no, hold on. No, then choose two of the-- Choose two of the options below. Two of the options below. I thought it was two below. They're not as effective as the long. Ooh!
We have the two. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
I rolled a 20 with Hope. 20 with Hope. All righty, so you-- So I took my Hope back that I got rid of. You spent, yeah. So you go ahead and recoup that. Sorry, but I didn't add the, 22. 22. Okay. That's successful enough. I'm going to clear a stress. You can-- And I will, by doing that, I extend my wings and I use my rear legs to kind of clean off the wings and sort of brush my antennae as like a self-sooth. (chuckles) Nice. Just getting it all nice and shiny. That's awesome. I'm going to pull out some thread and a needle and I'm going to take my cardigan off and I'm going to start stitching it to fix my armor, stitching it, and it's really... Yeah, it feels really good to just blank my mind and do that. So it's going to clear a stress point as I'm doing that too. Okay. You got it. And then as a Seaborne, we get an extra downtime action for a short rest and long rest as well.
Great, yeah. So I'm going to just start singing and humming along with Bunnie's music playing, and I'm going to just sing a little ditty about how we're going to get up the river and we're going to find Boco and it's going to be so great, and I'm going to give me a Hope, nobody else. I'm trying to follow along. And it's so wonderful. So Bunnie gets a hope, you said? Nope. Just me. Just you? All right, you got it. (laughs) All righty. I'm going to de-stress by trying to, I have a pink scarf thing. Bunnie, oh, no, she gets a stress. And I'm going to learn some new knots, some new ascot-type knots, trying to that. It's about presentation. Yeah. Yeah. I would love to take a look at those two weapons that you found and see if anything... Boop, boop. Yes. It's a saber. One's a saber, and what's the other? And a dagger. And they both do the same, more or less? Both do 1d8 plus 2 physical damage, One's agility. One's finesse. Can I--
Okay, 1d8. Can I use the finesse one? Unless you're a finesse guy. Actually, I'm fine with either actually. I'm fine. Oh, I'm an instinct gally. Oh, 1d8 plus 2. If you have it, I'll take the... I can actually take either. Let's take the agility, I suppose. Okay. All right, so improved saber is what the weapon's called. Or, yeah, I'll take the dagger, actually. Oh, okay. Thank you. Question, is anyone else still-- Unless anyone else wants it. That's all. I feel great. Yeah? I mean, yeah. That's okay. I'm okay. I mean, I'm repairing some armor as well. You can heal yourself on short rest. All right, so you repair some armor slots. Sir Dante, do you have anything in your secondary weapon slot? I have the grappler, but I have a thing called ignore burden when equipping weapons, and you may place primary weapons in your secondary weapon slot. That's true, yeah.
So I believe that means I can just switch them out. Is that correct?
Correct, but if you want the grappler away and you want to put the dagger in your offhand, it just adds a +2 to the damage of your main weapon, if you want to, just having it there. What, the dagger? Just having it adds a +2?
Yeah, so you could have rapier and dagger, if you want to, and whenever you attack, it's your rapier damage plus two, with the dagger's +2 on top of that, so. I took my stress away. I didn't know I got the bonus from the dagger also to the saber. That's the good thing about a secondary weapon is it gives you little bonuses. That's amazing. Okay, so I can just pull the grappler when I need it. For my two short rest action, I'm going to gather up some moss near the edge of the river where it's clear of whatever is afflicting it, and I'm going to climb up Pango's back and shoulders and I'm going to start creating a poultice on his back and humming quietly to myself, and that heals him. This says you can tend to wounds and do it to someone else, so you get back four hit points. Yeah. Whoa. That's a lot. You're clear. I'm clear. And then I'm gonna take, it says describe how you bring hope to myself, and I bring hope to myself by healing Pango. Okay.
Aw. That's wonderful. Yeah, and for the most part, on the outward surface, everyone has only seen Bunnie being very extroverted and performative, but you see this kind of rare moment of her just kind of go into herself and be very quiet and meditative as she's focusing on the music and Sweetpea's little song, and so I'm going to heal a stress, or get rid of a stress, as well as prepare a Hope as I just kind of meditate and get lost in my magical harp strumming. Fantastic. You hear Xarlo, from up on the giant's shoulder, mutter to himself, "If music be the food of love, play on." Aw. Did you write that? Definitely. I think I've decided that, now, that Kexon is going to be, he's about five feet tall. Oh. But the pauldrons that he has are magically enchanted and were given to him so it increases his size as long as the pauldrons are on him. That's cool.
Ooh. Oh, that's cool. Otherwise, he would be smaller. I dig that. Okay. So, wait, five feet is his grown size? Yeah. Okay, that's cool.
That's cute. I like that.
I don't know why, but all I care about is height. So you're five feet tall. How tall are you? I'm a faun, so I'm pretty tall. Six foot? Six foot, so second tallest in the group. But is that with or without the ears and horns? Oh, yeah, do the ears add height? Yeah.
Yeah. Oh, okay.
(laughs) And what about you, sir? Oh, about five-10, about five-10. I suppose.
Right. So, tallest.
Five-eight. Normally, I'd be about one and a half, two feet tall. One and a half to two? You go up to five feet?
I'm a faerie. The faeries that came in, landed on her staff.
Wow, up to five feet though, I love that differential, that's fuckin' cool. Well, their sizes can shift all over. That's cool. All right, so tonight.
You are crazy, compared to the rest of us.
What I'm gonna do. (laughs) Yeah.
You are so big! I'm getting rid of one hit point and a stress. You roll the d4 for the hit points? Yeah. And I'm also gonna get a Hope, and by doing that, something I like to do at night is I've been starting to make a map of everywhere I've been.
Ooh. And so far, we started at the Sermon Terts. Yeah, Sermon Terts.
(laughs) And then we went to Ubi, and now we're in Emerald Sky, so I got a long way to go, and right here, I have an asterisk that says, found half a dead body, killed a snake and some crabs. And so, you know,
(laughs) I'm just gonna keep adding to it, it calms me down. It's good. It's like a diary map? It's like a diary map. (laughs) I'm gonna see the whole world. You should write down here, that's where we found-- Which is the borders of the map. Yeah, found a giant!
(laughs) Found a giant named Pango. (laughs) That's me.
That's you. Yeah. The cold gets ever colder here as you finish up your rest, the early night creeping even later, the smell of the nearby waters growing harsher and harsher, it seems, as each moment passes, uncertain if that's psychological or a symptom, but nevertheless, the sluggish waters continue to run, and as you gather yourselves, Grim Wardens, do you trek onward? Yeah.
After the short rest. Always.
We do, yeah. Okay. It's not a terrible distance, the smell itself a strong guide as you push through the now ever-swelling mists here on this side of the Emerald Sky. Eventually, you begin to see the wild overgrowth that was kind of clustered at the edges of this river begin to spread beyond those boundaries, and you find yourselves having to push alongside and push through this heavy underbrush. You can see heavy vines and twisted branches, like long, thin fingers that rake across your armor and bodies as you push through or have to carve your way. Eventually, it begins to give way to this wide open grove in the center, as kind of a somewhat rising hill plateaus at the top, where you can see the water itself rushing down, the brackish, brown quality of it now even more unnatural, almost a direct purplish, thick, sludgy liquid, just barely seeping, like a molasses, kind of (mimics slime oozing) pushing in the downward slope, outward. You can see the occasional trees reaching up, their leafless arms kind of pushing to the sky, like they're clasping for hope as they expire, their bark itself graying and cracking. The smell here is almost overwhelming, it's so heavy. Now that we're seeing the water in a more pungent state, can I try and use Well Read from my lore-born to make a roll on anything that has to do with the history, culture, politics or a prominent person or place? Does this jog my memory of anything I've heard or read on before?
Certainly give it a shot, make a Knowledge roll for me. 15 with Hope. 15 with Hope? All right, so take a Hope. What you can understand in your studies, and you are fairly learned, of all the various fae creatures that you've encountered, you've always been more of a bookish type than others, straight-laced and focused on acquiring knowledge of the world, even in this part of the natural world, and what you can gather is, changes in spaces like this, to this degree, requires a very particular, seated power. This here, this grove, you know the Velvet Grove is the center of a powerful feign. This is a core part of magical power that has disseminated into the surrounding lands, and this being the source of this corruption means that something here is poisoning the very heart of this side of the Emerald Sky. We should move on. Why, I imagine we'll find the source of this soon, but is anyone else smelling that? Yeah.
Mm. Mm.
Yeah. It's not pleasant. (smacks lips) I can taste it. Yeah. Yeah. This changing anything for you? I don't think so, I mean, it all feels vaguely familiar, but I haven't landed on anything yet. How high is this hill? The incline, it's not a hefty climb, there are some kind of rocky cliff areas and some four or five-foot elements you have to kinda clamber up a bit, but it rises up maybe a solid 20 or so feet from where you stand at the edge of the glade, and then it kind of plateaus. Does the hill look alive? Does it look humble? (laughs) The humble hill? Hello? What color is the soil? What color is the soil? The soil, most of the growth that's permeated it all still sits in that kind of gray, black, kind of blueish tint. The soil itself seems kind of dirty, dark brown to black itself, with ash and sparks throughout. Yeah. This hill's supposed to be alive, yeah? Some hill, not necessarily this one. Only one way to find out. Sing to it, 'cause the hills are alive with the sound of- Stop it. I'm gonna hit it with my, start poking it with my stick. Hitting the stone? Yeah.
(mimics thumping) Okay, as you hit it and kind of, (mimics thumping) the sound of your staff on the stonework kind of, you know, causing this clattering that echoes through the space, nearby creatures and birds that gather in the nearby trees kind of (mimics feathers fluttering) scatter off, being spooked by the sudden sound of the impact, it doesn't seem to react at the moment. One of me puppies starts to do a little baby howl. Oh.
(mimics puppy howling) I will use Telepathy (gasps) and open a line of mental communication with a target that I see. Can I... (laughs) Can I speak to the--
Think at the hill? Can I think at the hill?
What Grim lore is it out of? This is the Book of Elliot, out of the Book of Elliot, my Telepathy ability. Elliot. (laughs)
Elliot, Elliot. You thumb through the pages, and then mutter the incantation and focus towards the hill. It's just rock, at least the area that you're at right now. I don't know if this is the one. Perhaps we should get to the top. I'll burn a stress and send out my wings and I'll (mimics feathers fluttering) fly up towards the top.
(mimics feather fluttering) You scatter up, and as you kind of push through the somewhat kind of scattered about chunks of still living trees that sit in this space, you come over the crest and look, and you can see the spring that is the source of this river, the thick, purple morass that is slowly sliming through, the smell itself strong, you can see there's something within the center of this spring. You can see a tangled mass of darkened vines that seem to be knotted and woven, like some sort of a barrier. And as you kind of inspect it from above, you can see it kind of (mimics heart beating) pulse slightly. (mimics heart beating) And as it does, with each pulse, the thick, viscous water around it kind of (mimics slime oozing) spills out and the flow kind of quickens for a moment before it continues its leisurely-- You should get up here and see this! Stay wide, though. Okay.
Okay, we're comin'. (grunts) (laughs) Start climbing up. Yeah. Climb up the hill, kind of clambering to the top, that ever-present kind of (mimics slime oozing) sound of the slow-moving slime river, the smell is getting more familiar, the more you climb this hill. Oh. Is it me? Are you smelling this? Oh!
You smell the same. I can still smell you--
The color is wrong, but it's triggering some trauma. (gasps) As you crest over the top of it and you all take in the sight of this spring and this strange, unnatural abscess that seems to just pulse and sit within the center of it, you watch as some of the nearby vines on the ground kind of (mimics vines slithering) snake and recoil back into the underbrush. What do you do? The vines-- Some of the nearby vines kind of-- Pull back? Pull back and-- But not from the central, (mimics heart beating) the middle part.
No. From the edges of the hilltop. Okay. Wait, I don't understand.
I just hit things, I don't know, should we-- All right, I have a question. Yeah.
When you got hit, when you were there when the seep happened. Yeah. Do you remember anything about how it behaved? I close my eyes and think about it for a second and I just remember the color, it was a brighter red, and it was everywhere, dripping on us. Didn't get a lot on me. It didn't hurt, but people were screaming and it was chaotic, and I saw people fall. Did it recoil from anything? Did it recoil?
You didn't see it recoil, you saw it consume. "The Blob". "The Blob"?
It would consume. Like "The Blob", kinda.
And some got on me, but it wasn't painful, at least not to me. (sighs) Let's perhaps spread out a bit.
Are we at the top? You're at the top of the hill. And we can see it? You can see, yeah, there's kind of the rocky outcroppings and bits of the land itself is uneven and broken, but in the middle of this area is where, amongst the various pointed trees that are leafless and kind of bowing, kind of slightly withered and kind of sad in the presence of this corruption, you see the spring right there before you, with the strange abscess pulsing. Are we supposed to just attack the thingy? Is there a way to plug it, perhaps? Somebody have some magic? I'm gonna take my little side satchel off with the dogs and I'm gonna put it over Oppy's head. I got 'em. We're gonna use the puppies to plug it, of course. I'll take care of 'em.
(laughs) Genius.
I walk away from Oppy, I'm going to walk
(laughs) forward towards the source of this. There'll be dogs anywhere. And Matt, in my made up on the fly backstory from session zero, my brother Wango, (laughs) who perished in the chaos, did I see him fall or was he-- Did you? I mean, I did, but I don't know what happened to him afterwards. Is his body still down there, somewhere? It could be, 'cause it was sealed behind you, the survivors that made it out. The odd thing you do recall is that the people were screaming because they stopped resisting. Oh. They were screaming-- Meaning, they were running and their bodies just began to slow and then the seep just took them. Oh. But they were still aware that they couldn't move their bodies? They were still yelling. Oh.
I don't like any of that. Meanwhile, Xarlo is walking towards the center of this.
For Wango. Okay.
I'm holding-- (mimics heart beating) Wango. For Wango.
The medallion, and mutters under his breath, Andrepi amongst your children, be here now and reclaim this place. Reach your divine hand through me. (mimics rocks shifting) The quaking sound suddenly fills the space around you. You watch as one of the nearby mounds of rock shudders and dust and root kind of (mimics rocks crumbling) tumble off of it. (mimics rocks shifting) You watch as a massive chunk of the nearby landscape begins to rise and stand tall, a massive, hulking, stone-constructed beast, itself one of the feign guardians rises. And as it does, you can see its glowing eyes themselves, dimmed with a feint purple light, and the same seeping liquid now coursing across its body in streaks.
Oh no! Oh no!
Oh no! We're doing this?
(screams) We're doing this?
Oh no, no! We can't kill her, we've gotta cure her! We've gotta save her!
It's either her or the dogs, we gotta choose! (laughs) She killed Wango. No, she didn't.
No, she didn't! Not this hill, this hill didn't. It was the thing. She did it.
This hill's been infected. No!
Damn, Matt, we did three?
Three maps! Maps, maps, maps, maps!
(claps) And we can do this. Oh, there's a hole!
There it is, there it is! Look at that skull! Look, there's a hole right there! There is a hole. Wait, how did you do that? ♪ There's a hole in the bucket ♪ ♪ Dear Liza, dear Liza ♪ So, you've stepped up to the edge there, Xarlo. Right.
The rest of you have kinda come up from this side, this is the center of the spring.
Oh no, I fell in a hole. Several holes!
I was flying close and above. (mimics faerie hovering) Yeah, you were kind of hovering up in the sky, you said still? Yeah.
And the hill is this tree or are you about to reveal something gnarly? Oh no. All right, so you were kind of up, looking in the distance.
What's happening? The rest of you are kind of clustered as a troop over here. Okay. This is the kind of central, unnatural abscess in the middle of the spring, and this... (gasps)
Oh shit! What is that?
Oh my gosh! Whoa! That's Boko. Boko!
Boko! That looks rad! (laughs) That looks dope. Boko doesn't seem to be friendly. Oh no. What are you doing?
We have to help Boko. (screams) We've gotta help her!
And Boko has got rivulets of this coloration all across the body? Goos!
You see odd, little vines coming up through the ground as it steps, some of them tear free, and as its foot hits--
Dim eyes. More vines rise up to meet it, and it's kind of moving across in your direction. (mimics rocks shifting)
We're going to have to bring her down before we--
Liam knows this is stupid, but Xarlo is going to run and try to climb up Boko's body. Okay. (sighs)
(mimics rocks shifting) Gonna try and leap across or go through the river? I'll leap across. All righty.
You Boko, man. Oh no.
You know what? Go ahead and make an Agility roll for me, if you don't mind. ♪ If you get in the water, monkeys like to swim ♪ That is, it's not bad, well, that's a 15 with Fear. 15 with Fear, okay. That's not bad.
It's a good roll. You leap and barely make it across, catching the bank and having to balance yourself before righting yourself. However, upon landing, you can follow up after this, but it comes to Boko's turn. Already!
So, my movement is the whole turn? Well, as soon as you finish a roll and it comes to the GM, then when I finish, it can come back to you. All right, great.
Now, mind you. Step on me, daddy. So, Boko,
(laughs) Boko the Glen Warder is slow, which means it takes two tokens for me to activate them. All right.
Okay. I only have one, so I can't activate them. What I will activate though, is the Seep Abscess. The Seep Abscess?
Seep Abscess. Gross.
That's the abscess? This is your fault. You made this.
I did this, I made this up on the spot and now it's a thing. It's a cool name. And Boko has a time counter
♪ The beauty of Daggerheart ♪ Starting on the one.
(gasps) No! Oh!
We'll see if that happens. Nevertheless, as Boko stands there before you, the Seep Abscess is gonna use Call of the Wicked Wild, suddenly vines in the ground begin to (mimics vines slithering) snake around, and one of them is gonna (mimics vine slithering) shift over, past the way, let's see, within far range, far range is gonna be, okay, it's going to go for you, Bunnie. Oh no! All of a sudden, as you're looking over the way, you hear (imitating swooshing). You look down and it's like these vines are shooting through the ground like rapid serpents.
Oh, no, no, no, no. And it's gonna streak out towards you. You immediately, oh, that's gonna be 10. Does 10 hit you? 10 is my evasion.
Ooh. All right, so on success for that. See what happens first blood, yo. Yeah. You take six points of physical damage. Oh!
Oh, bundling. Aah! And you... Just a street fighter death reaction. (laughing) Oh! Aah!
You are restrained. Ooh.
I'm restrained. Not a lot of damage, but the vine wraps around your legs and holds you to the ground. You have to break that with a strength roll if you want to. Oh, yeah, so you would still get a hit point. So I would still take a hit point, right, so I might as well just do it. Okay, I'll take a hit point. Okay, so you take a hit point and you are currently restrained to the ground. The vine's holding you there. You have to make a strength roll to break free. So, finishing my go is the gem, we can come back to Zarlo, since you were in the middle of your maneuver, what do you wanna finish up with? I would say the second half of this is using my turn to try to climb up onto the head of this beast. Okay.
But still... You're a monkey. I am a monkey. This is a massive creature that's currently, it's too slow to maneuver out of the way, so you just kind of... Look, Ma, No Hands. Climb her up. And that feels like a lot to me to jump across a poisonous river and climb a beast like that, so I'm good to pass on. Okay. Somebody else wanna go? Yeah, I'll jump in later. I think that's enough. Can I? I don't know if I can do this. I don't know. You can certainly try. I'll try to do this first part. Can I run to the tree and use a stress, and as I run to the tree, I'm gonna run into the shadow of the tree and disappear into the shadow. And then I'm gonna bamp up into the shadow right underneath. Oh, he's casting quite a shadow. Yeah, I can see it.
Yeah, you can definitely do that.
Awesome. Boof!
Boof! Boof!
And like-- You just (imitating character swooshing). I imagine I'm hiding. Boco wouldn't even know I'm there because I out of the-- You are deeply hidden right beneath Boco. You just kind of appear there as this massive dark shape above you kind of like (imitating Boco stomping). I'm gonna bamp right there and then hide. Okay, so you're just hidden in the moment? I'm hidden in the moment. You haven't made a roll, you can still, remember, you continue to turn. I can still do something?
Yeah. I wasn't sure. Like the fun thing about not having an initiative here is you can make small maneuvers and keep going if you want to just to be special. Then in that case--
You could've still done what you wanted, but also I appreciate you being generous to the players around. What I wanted to do was-- He's a generous lover. I'm gonna cast Shadow Bind-- Nice. On Boco.
Sure. So the shadow underneath Boco is gonna reach up and hold on to Boco's legs so that it can't cross to get to us. Go ahead and roll a spell craft for that. Cool.
Okay. (groaning) Okay. I'm gonna add the--
The rally die. You gave us the rally die. I don't know if this gonna, this is not gonna work. That is--
Good movie. That's a 12 with fear. She's big, she's big. Where are you, though? Are you across the way? I'm under Boco.
Under Boco's teat. Ooh, see, yeah, this counts as close range. Did you get something? Yeah, I could use Luck Bender where once per session, it's a faerie feat after you and ally in close range makes an action roll, you can mark a stress to allow a re-roll of the duality dice. Oh, okay!
You are within close range. Okay.
Yay! Oh, the pencil has ruled. That's so much better! (laughing) It worked! (laughing) I'm a good fucking faerie! (laughing) (clapping) I believe in faeries.
Very good. Well done, Linda, well done. 21 with hope. 21 with hope, I think with that fear. Yay!
(clapping) So, there you go, that's a success. You go ahead and take your hope. To that point--
Power couple move. Boco is now restrained. Yay! The dark shadows that kind of loom beneath, you watch almost completely cause Sweet Pea to vanish as they seem to rise up like tethers, these blackened ropes of magical midnight energy just (imitating tethers whooshing) tether and hold and you watch as Boco tries to lift one leg to step almost across the river and it gets maybe three feet up before it (imitating Boco thudding) gets pulled down and you see Boco now currently slowly struggling from its ability to move. Nice.
Sick. Fantastic.
Cool. Who want to go next? Are you gonna, no, that was all hope stuff. Yeah, change it to a hope role, so I'm still-- I'm fine with you going first. I am just fueled by the sight and the memory of the seep and the memory of wanko. (laughing) I am going to activate my class feature Unstoppable. So, I have resistance to physical damage and I get to add extra d6 to damage rolls and I can re-roll shit, it's awesome. Basically I'm fueled by vengeance and I'm ready to kick ass, so I draw my blade.
So, you put down a dice. Yes, it's a d4. A d4, and so every time you make a roll, that counts down-- Yes.
Until it's nothing. So I get four things.
You got it. All right, what are you doing? I'd like to get close to it. How much move can I do? That's beyond close range, so you can attempt it, you just have to make an agility roll to try and cross that distance. Oh, oh.
I am not agile. Let's do it. I was gonna say, but before you go-- Okay.
We could team up. Oh. If you're in the mood to do a quick team. I am, but we're not close. How will we get close? Is there a team up where I could fire the grappling hook and the two of us could try and pull it down and trip it? To pull down the creature? Oh, it's big. Since it's already tied.
We can give it a shot. We can give it a shot.
It already... All right, let's do it. All right, so I'm going to... Describe it with panache. So what I'm going to do is take out the grappling, my little grappling chain, want to get as close to the edge-- I'll go with him.
And here we go. And I'm going to attach it. I'm gonna make that throw and I don't, yeah, I suppose that's going to be, I don't know quite how you want this throw to work. It would be the attack of the weapon, so it'd be a strength roll. You both are rolling, throwing it together, and so you take the better of the two rolls. It still costs you three hope to do this. Don't squish me.
And I still have my strength to the roll? Yeah, well, you both roll strength rolls, and then the higher of the two numbers will work for this. And just for fun, I'm going to add, I can't add dramatic, nevermind, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Probably don't have that. Nah, I'm gonna save it, nevermind. (laughing) All right, here we go. I got 15 with hope. 16 with hope. 16 with hope, all right, that difficulty will succeed. Ooh.
Yes. So you both take a hope, 'cause the higher roll on that one. Okay, great. As you fire the grapple up, you can go ahead and roll damage, and since you're both rolling on the same thing, both of you roll grapple damage, which is... Grapple damage is 2d8 plus two. Or 2d8 and then I add two. Right, so it'd be 2d8 for each of you. You can add that together. And then I get the two.
Oh, add it together? I rolled a 10. I rolled a 10 plus two, so that's 12. So 12.
22. 22.
22, that is above, that's a major wound, so it takes two hit points. Hey, that's great. Does it, does it-- And it kind of (imitating Boco crashing) gets drawn down. Ooh, nice.
Did I just get squished? Slamming into the ground. It actually just pulls over you. It looks like it's forward. It kind of plummets out of the space. Oh. Like it's so many takes too much to get--
I will say, because on top of it is Zarlo. You are currently on the back as it's falling into the water. Sure. What do you wanna do as you're falling? I want to use Look, Ma, No Hands to stay on this fucking thing as I use four, two hands, two feet, my tail to hold on. Make a strength roll, and then spend your hope to add Look, Ma, No Hands. I have no... Hope.
I have no hope. Then you can't use these experience, unfortunately--
I don't wanna do it. So make a strength roll. Strength roll, 16, with a strength roll, and I add that? 19. 19.
With hope. With hope.
With hope, yeah, so you go by, you clutch onto the back of it as it falls and it slams in the water, the liquid (imitating liquid splooshing) splashing out on the sides. I will say because of that impact, it does cause a bit of a splash radius that coats both of you and you--
Oh, no! Since you're that close to the water. Sorry. All of you, as it hits you, your body begins to go numb. Oh, yeah, this is what it felt like on my finger. (laughing) While you are numb, your evasion is reduced by two. Your evasion is-- Reduced by two--
By two. Until you spend two hope to get rid of it. Is that all the same for me up in the-- No, you're on the back of it, so you actually, you're in the middle, kind of guarded from the outward splash. Is it still shadow-bound? Even though they pulled it down, did that ruin my-- No, it's still bound by the shadow. It's held there currently. We used the shadow to help pull it down. Okay.
Indeed. If I may, I would like to, as I'm gripping as hard as I can, I would like to dig my fingers into some of the muck that's on this thing's back and try to, while they're whittling away at it, take this from the other side and use Healing Hands and try to use my connection to Andra to try to clear some of the corruption in this thing. Okay, all right, how much do you heal? Well, I have to make, I'm using Healing Hands, so that's a spell roll-- All right, go for it.
For this thing. Ooh, that is not good. Ooh, but I have the d6. You gotta it, yeah, yeah yeah. Use it, use it, use it. Nine, 14. 14 clears it because of that die roll, right, because of her shaking her thing. That rally.
The rally. So I take a stress and I'm going to heal, two stress in this thing feels more right than healing hit points. You got it, so as you do that, you watch as some of the vine tethers in the blacken corruption that fills Boco begins to pull away and evaporate in the spaces. Your divine power kind of pulses through and burns it like the fuse on the outside of a cannon, just... (imitating fuse swooshing) Let this trial of Andra go! I'm done for me. Was that roll with hope or fear? Oh, it was with hope.
Hope, okay, got it, cool. All right, so that finishes up Carlos. No, I'm wrong, that's with fear. Oh!
That's for you. All right.
All fear. Oh, no.
Great, now it's my go. Ugh. So...
I'm a fear. Anyway, added one of those to that there. So I'm gonna go ahead and spend the Seep Abscess. Whoa.
That's disgusting. It's relentless, which means-- Oh, gross.
I can spend more than one token to activate more than once per round, so we activate it twice. I'm just gonna empty my goiter. Oh, gross.
In my mouth. (gagging) Oh, no, no, no. It's going to call the wicked to both of you (imitating spell swooshing) to attack each of you.
All the wicked? That's gonna be a five against you. No. Nope, you dodge out of the way as a vine tries to rise up to grapple you to the ground-- Aah-aah. And to you is gonna be a five as well. I rolled three twice in a row. My evasion is currently two. Currently two, so indeed, you do get, you take (laughing) three points of physical damage. Now, because I am unstoppable-- Unstoppable, unstoppable. I'm resistant to physical damage. You take half that, so we'll say one. One.
Take one physical damage. Yeah. But that's still a stress. That's still a stress, and you are currently restrained. You cannot move. I'm restrained and cannot move? Until you make a strength roll to break free. That's finishing those two. I'm also now going to activate Boco with two because he's slow, they're slow.
Boco. I'm gonna use a fear on my turn to go ahead and break the Shadow Bind. Okay.
So I can do that. Break the shadow.
Oh. It's going to go ahead and let's get up. Oh, gosh.
Whoa. Whoa.
Whoa. It's like Bambi.
Three points of damage. (laughing) And it's gonna go ahead and make a boulder fist attack-- Geez.
At very close range. Oh, the fist. It's going to shift up to here and it's gonna go ahead and go for you. At very close?
At very close. Mmm.
Uh. That's gonna be an 18 to hit. That hits, does that count as a, that's not arranged attack, that's just a very close attack. You see, abscess is gonna spend a fear to bolster his strength on that as well. That's not arranged attack.
He's gonna stoke fury. It's abscess. That's not arranged attack. That's just a very close.
Yes. Okay, oh, that's fine. All right, so it does hit you. Oh yes, it does. All righty, so you take on impact here... Bring it. Awesome.
I can hear that. Yeah.
He's counting. Still counting. 25 points of physical damage. All right, 25. 25 points?
One second. 25! That's close. I'm gonna lower that, obviously. Yeah, geez. So he's slow, but he packs a punch. Oh gosh. I'm gonna spend two armor for that. If you double your severe hit point-- Four hit points. Four hit points.
Woo-hoo! I'm gonna spend two armor and lower that to 17, I believe. Okay.
And so that, or below that, 25 goes to 18. 18 goes to, so I have seven, 18 goes to 11. So I'm only gonna take, I'm gonna take two armor to rock it down to two hit points. Okay.
So I'm gonna take two hit points from that. There you go.
And use two armor. That finishes my game--
Oh, fun. So, now it's back to you guys again. I'm gonna-
Get it up here. What about her? I'm gonna make a run for the tree and get myself up in that tree. Did you use your tongue?
Huh? Did you use your tongue for that? Yeah, I did. (imitating tongue slobbering, swooshing) I'm up here and, all right, I-- It's a complicated attack for this. Look over to this seepy abscess. Yeah. (gagging)
(laughing) And then I am going to cast Sender Grasp and I'm gonna set it aflame. What's the range on Sender Grasp? Shit! (laughing) It's melee range. Well, can't you get to the edge of that tree there? Yeah, how--
There's a bridge. How close is, melee range is very close? Melee range is like right next to it. Just jump on his damn hand. Well, that's where you're going for the abscess, you said, right?
Yeah, I'm going for the abscess. The abscess, you have to get into the water to, (gasping)
which you can do. Oh, no, I'll be... You can't swim though.
Wait, but you're a frog. You really?
See, I'm so slick. She is a ribbet. But they've got a swimming issue. They've really got a swimming issue. I sink! I can't swim. What you doing now? Okay, all right. We got to teach her how to swim! I believe in you. You can swim just by believing in yourself. Okay.
That's how it works. It's the weirdest thing. I have a question for you and you can say no. Sure.
So instead of, I forgot about my tokens and our downtime. Oh yeah, so you can save a stress for me. And I wanted to do that instead of adding the hope. So I would add an extra stress instead of gaining an extra hope, if that's okay. You can just take a stress any time to refill the to tokens.
To refill. Oh, I don't have to do it on the downtime. Correct, yeah, you can do that in the middle of battle if you want. So then since this is further, I am going to mark a stress, which I did, and then I am going to cast, I unleashed chaos again on the abscess because that is-- Yes.
That's far range. Yes, it does.
All three tokens, you said? Yes, I'm doing all three tokens. Well, first roll to see I you succeed before you remove the tokens.
Oh, yes, okay, that's right. So go ahead and roll your spell cast roll against the target of the... Come on. Come on. Come up, Rabby, come on, Rabby. Oh!
Oh. All right, I don't think that's gonna do anything. What'd you get?
Six, nine. Do you still have your die? I used it.
Oh. Where you at? Where you at? Nine, with hope. Ribbet. I'm gonna reach deep and I'm gonna use from my Splendor spell reassurance. Once per short rest, after an ally attempts an actual roll, but before the council takes advice, you can offer assistance or words of support. Aubrey, you can do this! What do wanna do? They may re-roll their dice. They may accept the result of this new role. I stepped into the goods. Yeah, Splendor, baby. Come on. You got this. You got this. That's two. Oh, okay! Okay! Wait.
Is it fairy good? Oh!
It's fairy good. So we got--
I'm going to destroy you. Fairy good! Book and die. Bringing them up, bringing them up. 17 with Hope. 17 with Hope does succeed. All right, all right, all right, all right. So, we got--
That's 3d10 magical damage against the target.
3d10. Woo!
Come on! And a Hope refill.
Those are 12. That's a 12. Here, I have 10s. 10, 10, 10. Okay. All right, what do you got? Eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. 17.
17! Whoa, that's great.
17. That's above the major threshold, so it takes two hit points. Yes!
Yeah! As you're up in the tree, you're holding onto the branch and you... (groans) Release it. Describe to me how this chaos activates. I'm just looking around and I'm up there. I'm on the tree, but I'm slowly slipping because I'm so slippery. And I keep readjusting. And I swing my staff, and I'm like, come on, you can do it! And then (whooshes) out it shoots from the bottom. The sparkly, what do they call those? What's at the bottom of a cigarette? Embers?
Embers! The embers just float over and then sit on the abcess. (booming)
Yeah. As they detonate.
Did it work? You see some of the vines are in now burnt to a crisp and pulled back. And beneath where they were tangled, as they pull open, you can see this dull, red glow that's also like. (pulsating) Oh!
We're talking about this thingy?
Over there, yeah. Yeah!
All right, all right, all right, all right.
Pango! Can I assist you, buddy?
That's the thing? I'm still stuck in these, but I mean, yeah. How do you get out of those things? I got to do a Strength check. Oh, okay.
Which you could do, and then continue your turn if you want. Yeah, can I try it? Oh, are you done? Can I relay to everybody what I see in there? Yeah, you should.
Can everybody hear me? Okay. It's in there. There's a red thing in there! The heart of the problem. Yep, yep. Okay, can I try to break out of this? You can, go ahead and make a Strength roll. Thank you. I was like--
Oh, oh. I'm not good at Strength. Ugh, okay. Yes!
Okay! Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.
Oh. Well, it's with Fear.
It's with Fear. It's with Fear, but it's okay. It is a 15 with Fear. A 15 does succeed.
Plus Strength. You break free, you are no longer-- Oh, 14. Minus one on Strength.
14's still a 14. Yes!
You're right, you're right, you're right, you're right. So, you break free and prepare yourself. Hold on to the thought of your next maneuver, because it comes to me for this instance now. I'm going to go ahead and burn two of these, and I'm going to activate Boko. I'm going to go ahead and spend a Fear-- Oh, god.
To use Cruel Throw. Oh no.
Boko has back up to the ground, reaches off to the side, and grabs a section of the nearby river with its massive hand. Uh oh.
Rips this massive rock free and looks over its shoulder. Oh. And lobs it right towards you. (screaming) Kexon.
Not the bug! What's your Vision? (buzzing) Does a 22 hit? What? Does a 22 hit your Evasion?
What do you mean does a 22 hit?
Oh no. It's my favorite thing to ask! Let me have my thing! All that's left is my wings, just poof. I'm windshield fodder. Oh no.
We can hear the zap. Yeah.
A direct hit for-- Just pulls out one of those tennis rackets. 19 points of Physical Damage against you. Whoa! I'm going to burn an armor slot, which brings it down to 12-- Okay, okay.
Which is a Major still. So that's two hit points, okay. Okay. That clicks up to three. Oh no!
That's the other Fear roll from earlier. All righty, as it finishes throwing the rock, we come back to you.
Tag team! Let's go!
Whoa! We're both going to run forward towards the-- The abscess.
The abscess. And I'm going to help Bunnie by running forward and using my hook and grabbing it and try to pull some of the vine back so she can attack the inside. Ooh!
That's cool. Okay, so you're going up to the edge, and you're... Sorry--
I'm trying to attack the vine and yank some of the vine and pull it to the side so that she can attack the inside. Okay, are you rushing across the water to it? Yeah. Okay, so you rush from this distance to there. That is... Yeah, you can get to close range, though the water will slow it down. Okay. So I will say make an Agility roll for me to see if you can make the distance with the thick sludge you're having to wade into. Oh, right. Okay, okay, okay. Come on. Okay, okay.
Fuck. What do you got?
Okay. That's a 12 with Fear. 12 is fine. 12 is just what you needed to do there. But it was with Fear. Yes, it was with Fear. Whoa.
Do I take a Stress if I rolled with Fear? No.
No. I can tell you to if I want to. Okay, okay. Because I'm not taking my Fear action on this, or taking my action on this, I am going to deal Stress to you though. Okay. But you do manage to get up to it there. Am I able to make it in three? You also have to make an Agility Check to try and get there in time. Because it's a longer run you have to make, and you're just like-- You've got a lot of Agility. You're good, you're good. Yeah, I do. I do, I do, I do. Are you trying to jump over the brackish water? Yeah. Can I-- So yeah, definitely an Agility roll to try and leap over to see if you can miss the-- Can I do some Indiana Jones shit, and almost use my whip off Boko to swing across and come down?
Oh, you can definitely try that. Yeah, go ahead and roll an Agility roll for me. Okay.
Do that. Swing this way.
Come on, buddy. Plus two.
Using villain as leverage to swing.
That's icky as fuck. Terrible.
Six, seven, eight, nine, 10. You go ahead and wrap your rope around Boko's arm and swing right as Boko returns from pulling the rock.
Oh no. As Boko runs this way, you get-- One more prayer.
Yeah? Prayer die.
So do I put up one? Yeah.
Put up one point. One point?
Would that do it? You had a 10? It needs to be, I think--
It needs to be a 12. 12?
Oh! But worth a shot.
Yeah. As it goes wide, and it does you all of sudden. (shouts) Get yanked and--
Can I do the Hope to add The Show Must Go On? I gotta that beforehand, don't I?
Do it beforehand, yeah. Sorry.
Ugh! Okay. Also Show Must Go On is more of a performance-based thing than an actual skillful thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know--
Weaponizing the male gaze. Yeah! Oh no. Experiences can be situationally applied, we're still feeling it out with ourselves as well. But that's okay. But I got!
But you get (whoosh) flung off to the side, which sends you flying as a failure pulls you.
Oh no! Sploosh!
Oh, shit. Into the drink next to it.
Oh no. So, you are submerged, you also have the minus to Evasion. Question. Does that waste our Tag Team? Or can I try and hail Mary it into something else? It doesn't waste it. You were preparing and setting up for the Tag Team, however, because you failed on that, it comes back to me and I have a chance to take a turn before it comes back to you. Okay.
Okay. This is where the economy goes back and forth. This is where the dramatic tension is like: you do a thing, I get to do a thing, you get to do a thing, I get to do a thing depending on how the rolls play out for it. Okay.
It's coming back to me. I'm going to go ahead and activate Boko again. So, have I used my three Hope for the Tag Team yet? Not yet.
Not yet. Okay.
It will come at the end of this.
Okay. Since you both were just rolling to get up there. Okay.
Okay. Damn. Boko is now going to go ahead, and turning around and seeing you on the ground. I'm just going to go ahead and spend another Fear to grab onto the boulder.
I know, me too. Oh no, more boulders.
These boulders suck. Whoa, whoa. And this is counting up to a four. Boulderfisted.
Can I use two Hope to get my Evasion back? If you want it right now. Yeah, if you got it to spend. Yeah.
I'll allow it. All right, you got your Evasion back. That's going to be an 18 against you. Whoa.
What? Against you? Oh no.
It doesn't even see you because you're under the water. You're the one who's visible off to the side. You're currently about--
Oh no. To pry on the side of the abscess. I'm just a sneaky little mushroom! I know.
I know. The bargaining. I love it.
That big cap looks like a target, then.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, that's going to be 23 Physical Damage. Whoa.
Oh shit. Okay, well, I put on that fancy new armor. So, I'm going to take two things to it. By 10s.
That knocks it down 10. Correct. You said 25?
Yes, so now we have 15 points of Damage. That takes me under Severe, so I will take two hit points. Correct.
Oof. Wowzers. Okay.
All right. And that's going to end my GM turn. Now you can continue. Okay.
Okay. So wait, I get a minus two to what? Evasion.
Oh. While they're thinking, I'm going to Strength, try to pull out of this grapple. Go for it, make a Strength roll. Okay. It's a Critical, seven and seven. Let's go!
That'll do! You break free of that shit. You also clear a Stress and get a Hope. Stress. And get a Hope!
Yeah. Amazing.
What Critical Success does. All right, so while you break free, we come back to both of you.
Okay. Prepping up for this. This has been this running scenario here. Now we're going to attack it. Because she's within melee range of it, do I get a Sneak Attack on the abscess? Yeah, I'll allow it.
All right, great. So I'm going to attack it.
Oh, yeah. Okay.
It took a lot to get there, so this is the benefit of this back-and-forth. All right, now I spend my three Hope. Now you spend your three Hope for the Tag Team maneuver.
Okay. Both of you make the rolls for the according actions you're taking, and we take the higher from both of you. So, are you both making Attack rolls on this? Yes.
Yeah. Question, I have an Arcane Barrage, which just automatically hits and I can dump Hope into it. How would that apply here? This would not apply, because it would be Action rolls that Tag Team here.
Okay. You can do that on your next activation if you wanted to.
Okay, then great. I will use my fan. You got it. All right. I'm setting up a Tag Team with Sir-- Oh, nice!
Yeah, that's great. You got to be better than me. You're better than me.
So much better. 19, 23, 25 with Hope. 25 with Hope definitely hits. Both of your attacks hit--
Yas queen, yas queen. Go ahead and roll your independent damage and add them together. Oh, she's a fun girl! I'm going to drop one Hope because I just got a Hope back. So I'm going to drop one Hope in it to get another d8 of damage.
Sure. Okay, so that's 2d10 and 2d8. Come on. Roll big, I rolled mediocre. I rolled great. Yes!
Yes! 19, 27 plus four is 31. 31. I rolled eight damage. So it's 39 points of damage. Whoa!
Really? That's great, that's over its Severe. Takes three hit points.
So, Sweetpea is definitely the MVP in this moment, I'm going to clamber out of this sludgy lake and all I'm going to do is use my fan and wedge it in it and pry it back like it's an artichoke. Yeah!
To just give her a better opportunity to the heart of this thing. Yeah, I'll take my long staff and slam it down into the inside. Heck yeah.
As she pulls it back. So as you both tear it back and you slam it on the inside, suddenly this burst of toxic fume billows out of it. You watch as all the nearby trees that you see are wrapped by these long vines that are deeply rooted through the ground and through the center of this spring and whatever this strange growth is, all then shake and pull against as the pain emerges inside of it. It's definitely reacting to these hits. Nice!
Great, great, great. Oh, it's still up though, it's still up. Oh yeah.
Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.
We got a bond. Let's go.
Is it theirs or ours? While they finish their go there, you guys can go. Inspired by their Tag Team action, I'm going to ♪ Boop boop be do ♪ It also and I turn over to my friend Sir over here, and noticing that his shell forms a Frisbee shape, I'm going to pick him up. I'm tucking my feet in. (laughing) Let's make a molehill out of this mountain. (shouting) And I'll spin him around.
Yes! Spin him around!
Yes! And I'm going to throw him like a discus. Hell yeah.
And I am coming down, spinning like a fucking buzz saw. All right, so you can both roll for your Attacks on this, and then we can add your weapon damage, and we'll just consider your weapon damage as part of it.
Because I'm throwing him, I'm staying on shore.
Right. Is it still adding weapon damage from the force? Because the fun of the Tag Team, it's the momentum of your attack into his one, so I'm allowing it--
Okay. Because it's fun. And that's a Crit. Oh wow.
Hey! Well shit, that means you both get a Hope and you both clear a Stress. All right.
And it's an automatic success.
Come on, you guys. So, go ahead and add your Damage up on this. All right, okay.
Let's go, let's go. Get a Hope, clear a Stress. And if I recall, if it's a Crit on an Attack, you get to add an additional full damage die.
Yes, it's max. Oh my gosh!
Oh! A max damage die.
You add it in? And I'm still adding mine.
This is nasty. And they both do it, right? They both do it, yeah. Oh.
Oh my gosh. Oh my god-- This is the optimal fucking scenario for a Tag Team Damage roll.
I don't roll a third die, I just add the max third die. Correct. Oh, my god, this is going to be bad. I love this so much. There's so many dice right here. Come on.
Wow. Oh, that's a one. Did one of yours hit the edge? No, it was just flopped up there. Oh, it was just there, okay. This is against Boko? Or is this against the abscess? The abscess.
You got it. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. Tally-ho! 21 points from me. ♪ Tally ho ♪ Because I'm using my Unstoppable Force. ♪ Unstoppable ♪ I believe mine is 18. So a total of--
Nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. Yeah, 18.
18, and what was yours? 21.
21. Oh yeah, that's 39. How do you want to do this? Oh! The two of you together, please, describe the scene as you build momentum, swinging your turtle friend Sir Dante around.
Dagger in the other, so I've got the two blades, I've pulled my legs, arms and head in far as it can go. Just blue fabric and blade. And as I release, a single tear from the loss of Wango, it just propels him even higher into the sky and almost like, you know how you throw a Frisbee too high and it goes too far? Uh huh.
And then it comes back? Oh, yeah. Frisbee-golfed it.
Yeah. As you land, flying like Levi Ackerman, just slicing into this fucking abscess. Just (growls) into it. You are both completely, just coated in some odd alien viscera. And there in the middle of this no-longer pulsing growth that is currently slowly separating into the nearby. And freshly emerging clean spring water from beneath. Yay.
You see you're now deeply coated and now bobbing turtle heads. Head comes out, legs, arms. No one dies on this hill today. Oh.
(shouting) You're on the point tonight! We're fucking going. This is some blue ribbon shit. As that happens, Boko stands up angrily, fists raised and is about to reach to try and slap and smash Xarlo on the back before the purplish coloration of the eyes begins to fade into a pure white. Its slim fist turns instead into a platform. Yay. (clicking) Wild Flame! (laughing) I am sorry, little friend. How long has it been this way? I don't even know. I sent away my children. Places you on the ground. I want to know why, but then I lost myself. We are sorry. (imitates creature squelching) Kind of sits down. You can already hear the sounds of returning chirps of nearby creatures that have been in hiding that can sense the shift in energy. It slowly looks around with each turn. You hear the crumbling and scraping of stone on stone. The thick patches of moss that surround parts of its body as it sweeps over and scoops both of you up from within the brackish waters as they slowly filter out, and you as well, and sets you all onto the ground before, I hope to one day repay you for what you have done for us. Forest is made up of many trees. You're not alone. Never. Looks back over towards the spring. I should have been more careful. You know, it's no use blaming yourself. It's not your fault. Careful how? I've been known to be too trusting. Did someone betray you? I don't know. There are those that travel here seeking guidance, seeking peace. A man came through a week before, sheepish, odd, pitiful. He was seeking to commune with Andra, with nature. I offered guidance and he refused. Took his own walk about. He seemed confused at best and dubious at worst. But we kept a distant eye as he wandered the perimeters of our belt. He left without issue thereafter and not but a day later this began to grow. It reaches out and grabs the still kind of lingering husk of that growth and rips it from the center of the spring. (imitates creature zooming) I reach out, I grab a little patch. Just a piece in case we find more of it. (imitates object squelching) Tears a chunk of it and kind of sets it on the ground for you and then just crushes the rest in it's palm until there's nothing left. And you can see that anger and fear as it clenches its jaw. What did he look like? Did he give a name? No. And as it looks to you to answer your question, its face breaks into a hundred small stones that shift, (imitates face whooshing) It seemed to swirl and rotate, and then form a new face, an image of an older man. Well detailed in stone, kind of sagging jowls, balding head. Foreign to most of you, except for you, Bunnie. (gasps) (imitates dramatic whooshing) (laughing) You know this man, a conman and cad named Dylan Broche, who is an occasional patron of the Lily Locket Lounge in Loveville. And that's where we end tonight. (cheering) Breadcrumbs, breadcrumbs. That was freaking great. We'll be back, should we ever come back to something, we can make up from there. Awesome. Dang. You can't dangle that in front of us. I was one-- The Fane Guardian was awesome. That was fun, I was one fear roll away from getting to his rage of the land. Oh, no.
Rage of the land. He's gotta countdown loop five and it ticks up whenever anybody fails a roll or rolls with fear and when it triggers he slams the ground. And every PC within close range gets hit with a stone from underneath for d20 bludgeoning damage. Oh shit. (laughing)
Oh, geez. So wait, fails a roll or with fear? Fear.
It'll trickle down. If you fail with fear-- If you fail a fear, does it stack? No, it would just be a single thing. Okay.
I believe so. Hey, we can change it if we like another way. No, no.
Steal an open beta. This was so much fun.
It was really fun. I forgot, there was so much stuff I forgot to use in my foundation that I used. Are we doing this again. We just have to play again. No, because of last time--
Yeah. And then I'll go--
No. Maybe we level up and the Menagerie continues. I would love that. That could be done, actually. We have to find out about Dylan Broche. We could do that.
Lets play this again. You got the thread.
Yeah, fuzz. With a Menagerie trois. (laughing) Yeah. Well.
Menagerie trois. Love the chaos. I love the cinematic ability to jump around and jump in the moment too. I do too.
Yeah. I know it's scary at first.
It is. It's like as a person that grew up playing with initiative and everything, there's a comfort to that. And you could definitely incorporate a type of initiative into this where you just kind of go in a certain order or around table if you want to. But I love the idea that being able to jump in, like follow the impulse of the narrative or if something goes wrong--
Yeah. When you're planning for something and it gives power back. We can still continue back to that loop to get to that, you know, release of what you're planning before it puts on. I don't know, it's still in beta. We're still figuring stuff out, but. I also love how the tag teaming makes it feel like a team. Yeah, it does.
You know what I mean? Like it really creates that teamwork as you're going. Yeah.
It's really fun. And it's still consequential. 'cause even if somebody makes a roll with fear, it can totally fuck up what you might have been wanting to do. Yeah, if you both roll poorly, then you wasted three hope and your use of that and you both take the higher roll, which could be a nine. Yeah.
Yeah. And if you both roll with fear, then it's two fear that I get and then it comes back to me. I also think if you're fighting a giant rock monster, you'd be like, I'm gonna, should I, okay. Well I, oh, okay, what, okay now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Before it opened up, my initial thought was to run by you and try and cut the vine before you, but then a bunch of other shit happened and I was like, yeah, you'll be fine. That's how it works out, yeah. Yeah. It does help to not, it makes you think on your feet though. Whereas like with initiative, you're obsessing about what to do. Yeah.
When your turn comes up. And then it can change. And then immediately changes. And then you're fucked. Which isn't bad either.
No. It's just, it's a different way of playing. Yeah.
For sure. As a more timid player sometimes I was nervous about not having an initiative, but I loved it. You were not timid at all. Yeah.
You were killing it. Oh who, me? All hail Oppy. All hail Oppy with this. (imitates creature moaning) Are the dogs okay? They're fine.
Alright. Yeah, Twixt and Twixt are fine. Yes, up in the tree. (imitates dog whining) Yeah.
Oh. Alright. Maybe the audience can tell us if they wanna see the return of the Menagerie of the Grim Wardens of Larkspire. (laughing) Let us know what you think. It's layered. You know, maybe we'll--
Indeed. Of Daggerheart. Of the dome, y'all. (shouting) That's all the time we have for this one shot tonight. Thank you all so much for joining us for this. I hope you enjoyed it along with us. Yeah. (cheering) Felt good, it's been a bit. Laura: Felt scary. I know. But yeah, hope you all had fun and I'm excited for all of you to have fun playing this. So to learn more and join this open beta play test, go check out daggerheart.com. So gather your party, make some characters, just create all sorts of chaos. Play a ribbon and other weird shit. Or bring in all the classics, bring in your elves, bring in your humans, bring in your dwarves. They're all there and all the cool kids are doing it, so. Can we have a laugh, or... Just be sure to tell us your thoughts about the system, the things that you liked, the things that you think could use some work, some things that, you know, could possibly see some shifting or some tweaks. That's the wonderful thing about our official Daggerheart open beta and using those surveys, is it helps us make this game better for all of us. But we are determined to make this game as good as possible and those surveys are a valuable part of that process, so-- Ashley: Amazing work today, team. I know. All hail the god of the Seep. Chats. (laughing) God of the Seep.
Turning on us. Oh, no. That's what I call my dick. (laughing) On that note, goodnight everybody. We love you very much. And is it, Tuesday? Yeah, I don't know. Thursday. Bye. (cheering and clapping)
