Daggerheart: A One-Shot Adventure Through the Sablewood

Richard and Karl venture into the dangerous world of Daggerheart, playing through the official quickstart adventure in a special one-on-one session to test the new game by Darrington Press. 

• Comprehensive overview of Daggerheart's core mechanics, including the hope/fear duality dice system, character experiences, and streamlined combat
• Exploration of the Sablewood Forest and its unique hybrid animals like lemur toads and strix wolves
• Encounter with bandit Thistlefolk who attempt to ambush and steal from our hero
• Visit to the peaceful village of Hush with its magical protective barrier and unusual customs
• Meeting with the eccentric Whitefire Arcanist, a fairy-like being with mysterious powers
• Epic final battle to protect a magical ritual that maintains the village's protective wards
• Demonstration of Daggerheart's death and sacrifice mechanics when our hero falls in battle
• Side-by-side comparison of how this system differs from D&D and other traditional TTRPGs

If you're interested in trying Daggerheart, the quickstart adventure we played is available for free on the Darrington Press website!

P.S, I got the crit mechanic wrong!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Daggerheart
• 8:23 Game Mechanics and Character Sheet
• 17:09 Entering the Sablewood Forest
• 29:21 Ambush by Thistlefolk Bandits
• 44:43 Arrival at the Village of Hush
• 1:04:46 Meeting the Whitefire Arcanist
• 1:29:30 Journey to the Open Veil
• 1:40:33 The Ritual and Final Battle
• 1:52:20 The Ultimate Sacrifice

Transcript

Richard: 0:00

Hello and welcome to a unique, special episode of Deep Space and Dragons. Richard and Carl Plays Daggerheart. I'm Richard, the Game Master for this session.

Karl: 0:12

And I am Karl, the PC for this session.

Richard: 0:15

I appreciate that. I appreciate the idea of that. I thought you were about to say the NPC and I would have given you bonus points. Alright, for just a little context before we get into it is we are attempting to try out Daggerheart, the new game by Darrington Press, and we're going to be running an entire one-shot, in theory, from start to finish, and specifically we're going to be running their quick start adventure. So mild spoilers if anyone's planning to have their GM run the adventure, but hopefully super helpful tool for a GM looking to run the adventure who just wants to Karl-proof their session in advance.

Karl: 0:55

I'm not up to that many shenanigans.

Richard: 0:57

You're up to a fair number of shenanigans most of the time, my friend.

Karl: 1:03

If you say so, all right. I think your other players are just too conservative.

Richard: 1:08

We'll find out, because I'm running this again for them the next week, so I will have this knowledge. Yeah, all right. All right, so I'm going to begin with a bit of background. The Sablewood is a seemingly endless forest of dark trees that reach hundreds of feet towards the sky. Some say that it's been here since the time before the Forgotten Gods. It's famous for its unique hybrid animals like lemur toads, tiger, elks and platypus platypuses, as well as its well-worn trade routes populated by traveling merchants. The hybrid animals in this place range from completely docile to extremely vicious. A cat squirrel might come feed gently from your hand, while an e-legator would see you later and launch itself out of the nearby river to snap you up as an easy meal. Within the Sablewood, there is a small friendly village known as Hush. There's no inns within Hush, and any travelers passing through are treated as honored guests and invited to stay in the home of a member of the community. Many people of the Sablewood at large still worship the Forgotten Gods, despite having no names to call them. And with that, so we're quickly going to cover the basics of what you need to know.

Richard: 2:27

First off, daggerheart is a collaborative, narrative-focused role-playing game. That means me and you will be working together to tell a story, and you're not just going to be a victim of my vengeance, but we will be using the mechanics of the game as our foundation. You will make choices for your character during the adventure and I'll describe the rest of the world reacting around them. Sometimes I'll ask you a question, things like what your character knows about a place or has heard about a person, and I will do my best to integrate your answers into the story we're telling. So we're building the world together.

Richard: 2:59

But be warned carlos, with a k, not actually named carlos, I know who you are and you like to mess with me. And if you say in the distance I see Cthulhu, I will try my best to integrate that into the story. Do you understand me? If you decide, oh, there's just a hip-gugging frog in the distance, that frog will rip out your heart in emotional triumph and that frog will be the most prized possession in your soul. Before I rip it away from you or I would like to, but daggerheart limits my power reasonably and limits your power reasonably we'll get to that but first your character sheet.

Richard: 3:39

I have also given you an additional page in our chat that's called the sidecar. That kind of explains what every notch on the character sheet does. If you're confused, we went for the off streams. This is mostly just for the mind palace of our audiences listening to this on the bus. So I'm not going to go over every component of the character sheet here, but some of the key takeaways are your evasion is what I'm rolling to hit you. Armor is when you get hit. You can take an armor to reduce damage. When you're hit, you see which damage threshold you go into and that's how much damage you take.

Richard: 4:12

Hope does things fear does things for me, hope does things for you. Experiences, like we kind of talked a bit before, stream, operate as the the game skill system, for example, royal mage, are things that a royal mage would know studies, mystical arts, filing paperwork, grant applications. Where not on my watch, a more verbiage, vermin might be a moment where you would literally yell out not on my watch, hooligans, as you go to stop a child from stealing your wallet or put up a wall to protect a cart right. And then the stats, key stats agility for sprinting, leaping and maneuvering, strength for lifting, smashing, grappling, finesse for control, hiding and tinkering, instinct for perceiving, sensing and navigating. Presence for Riz and knowledge for knowledge. Yeah, that's canon now.

Richard: 5:10

So for what your active weapons? You have a primary and a secondary, or just a primary. In this case, a lot of times prime, secondary will have like offhand effects, like shields or dual wielding, and you can spend a stress point which you have. Hp and stress are your main things. You track to switch between your primary weapons and those backup weapons in your inventory.

Richard: 5:33

Your inventory itself, your armor, is what determines those starting armor thresholds and how many shield points you get, and your inventory really is only designed to hold like five or six things, but this game assumes that basic stuff you have. You're not going to run out of arrows, you're not going to run out of snacks, you're not going to run out of things unless they're relevant to the story. But if you tell me, oh, I'm going to carry this dragon on my back, I'm like all right, mark up all five of those slots and I hate you and I will be very clear about the hate you part. Any questions on your character sheet. Or you think we're good. I hate you and I will be very clear about the hate you part.

Karl: 6:08

Any questions on your character sheet or you think we're good. Sorry, it costs stress to take something out of your inventory or just to switch weapons.

Richard: 6:16

Just to swap weapons in the moment. So if you want to swap weapons and not lose your turn, it will cost you a stress. If it's your entire action to do it, it will not.

Karl: 6:27

Okay, okay, so stress, stress lets me quick swap. And similarly, the domain features that I would get if I had a full set of domain features. I would be able to spend stress to swap ones that are in my vault slash inventory. Excellent, by spending stress as well, right, Perfect, so I think you got it.

Richard: 6:47

The big thing they changed between the beta and the current release is damage and thresholds used to require math, but now it's you spend an armor just to knock it down a tier, which is much cleaner.

Karl: 6:59

That is clean, all right. And then you repair your armor slots using downtime activities.

Richard: 7:05

Correct, you get two downtime activities and I'll refresh you when we get there, if you manage to get yourself any rest. You know what's great is we have epic adventure music playing during this part. Alright, so to go back to what's written in the little guide, now that we've looked at the character sheet, we're going to talk a bit about dice. Yet again, for your benefits and our listeners, this game uses 2D12, called your duality dice.

Richard: 7:30

Decide which one represents hope and which represents fear. If you're using a digital dice roller, describe to me what your hypothetical hope dice and hypothetical fear dice look like this is important for our fan artists later dice look like this is important for our fan artists later.

Karl: 7:50

Um, it looks like my hope dice is uh like a translucent gold. All right, uh, and my fear dice is a translucent purple, beautiful.

Richard: 8:01

So when you have your character do something in the story that's dangerous or could result in consequences, I'll probably ask you to make an action roll. I tend to. I know in D&D I've been known to like make you roll for a regular door to troll you, but Daggerheart tries to like make it that if there's no interesting outcome, you just get to do the thing. So as a general rule it'll be roll the two dice and add the applicable character trait to the result. I'll usually tell you which one it is. But you can also try and like negotiate. Let's say you're making an agility roll and you have a plus two. You can either.

Richard: 8:38

There's some rule in here about tokens where, if you wanted to, you could roll your dice with some beads so you can track what the pluses are. But for the sake of this, since we have digital, that should be unnecessary. But I appreciate the idea that on each of your stats you'd have beads and you pick those up with the stat and roll them with the dice and add them up, because math is for chumps. However, math is for chumps once you add the two numbers together, and I do believe in your ability to add two numbers together for the most part. If you roll a 6 on the hope and a 10 on the fear, that would be 16, and then your stat would bring it to 18. But if you roll higher with fear, you would tell me you got an 18 with fear.

Richard: 9:16

If you roll with hope, you'll mark a hope on your sheet. If you roll with fear, I mark a fear on my sheet and then I immediately get a GM turn. So, effectively, when you fail to do something, the board goes to me to give you some sort of complication or struggle or consequence to your action. In combat it's a little more direct. But out of combat, like, for example, if you roll with fear to kick down a door, I might give you a horrible splinter or a sore ankle and have you mark a stress, or simply have you take longer than you wanted to for the door and take down a dramatic countdown as a train piloted by a mustachioed man gets closer to running over its victim. Make sense.

Karl: 9:55

So far, this does make sense.

Richard: 9:58

Excellent, as I'm re-explaining a game you read in advance for the sake of our listeners so we can get to the really part. And the last couple notes are the experience stat, as we went over before, and then spellcasting rolls are basically the same as regular action rolls, but you'll have a foundation card that'll say which kind of stat you use For the case of your sorcerer. I believe it is instinct. Feel free to correct me if that's true.

Karl: 10:27

No, instinct seems to be my spellcasting trait.

Richard: 10:31

Excellent. So, and the last little note is now that we know about dice, I'll usually set a difficulty for the roll like 6 or 14 or 25, and your goal is to meet or beat that number. If an ability or a spell has a number on it, like spellcast 13, it tells the DC automatically for it. If you succeed, you get what you wanted. If you don't, you fail and something new happens in the story. Hope and fear also play a part where, with hope, you accomplish the goal and all is well, and fear means there will be a consequence. And then, if you fail with hope, you do still get some hope and things don't go as badly as they could have. A failure with hope is like oh, you went to pick the lock and it took longer than you thought and someone nearby noticed. Or your hand is sore. Where a failure with fear is, your lockpick broke inside the door and your seasonal, seasonal effective disorder is kicked back in.

Richard: 11:28

And lastly, if you roll two of the same number, no matter what that number is. That's a critical. In Daggerheart, you get a hope, you get a clear of stress and for an attack roll you do the maximum damage you could do. So if it was like a D8 plus four, it would be 12 damage. So if it was like a d8 plus 4, it would be 12 damage, which is fun because, to throw some shade at another game, maximum damage is better than those times you would get double damage and end up lower than a normal roll. Yeah, that's true, and then I'll quickly break over combat. But we'll get into it.

Richard: 12:02

When it actually happens, you make an action roll with a weapon. You use the trade it calls for. That's an attack roll. When it actually happens, you make an action roll with a weapon. You use the trade it calls for. That's an attack roll. If it succeeds, you make your damage roll. You look at the dice section of your weapon, roll the specified dice and tell me whether it's physical or magic.

Richard: 12:16

If any of your roles during combat are with fear or a failure, I'll often use my gm move to spotlight an adversary who is attacking you or doing something else important in that scene Additionally that fear I've been stockpiling. I can use it to take an additional turn, but I cannot move the same enemy twice in the same turn. So it's basically if I have five dudes and I have five fear, I can attack you with five different dudes, but I'm not going to attack you with the same dude five times. Typically, and because we're playing one-on-one, this doesn't come up as often. But there's no specified turn order in this game. You all get to do what you like in the order you like it, and I make moves in response. There is an optional rule where each player would get three tokens and once someone's went three times, they have to wait till everyone else has done three things before they refresh their tokens. But it's not. There's no counting initiative, there's no dramatic lockdown and it's best to think about the scene and the situation as a whole narrative moment and consider what you can do to make the best story right, because I do love me a good story.

Richard: 13:22

And the last note is the roles. The rolls being a 10's easy, a 15's medium, a 20's hard, distances are typically. Melee is when things are touching Very close is where you can easily move in a turn. Close is it'd be difficult to move to a turn. Far is, it'd be really hard to do. And very far is you're sniping them? Hmm, all right, you. And very far as you're sniping them, hmm, alright. And with that I've gotten the lengthy monologue out of the way in a cool 13 minutes the time it would take to review a Final Destination movie and we can get in this evening.

Richard: 14:02

You've finally made it to the Sablewood, a sprawling forest of colossal trees trees some say are even older than the Forgotten Gods. This place is renowned for two things Its sunken pathways that provide trail routes for many traveling merfolk engines and its unique hybrid animals. Even now, from within your carriage, you can hear strange sounds the low calls of lark moths, the croaks of lemur toads, the skittering of a family of fox bats in the underbrush and you are currently driving the carriage. You notice something unique about the looks here in this part of the Sablewood. What is it?

Karl: 14:41

Oh, I notice something unique about the Sablewood Forest.

Richard: 14:44

What catches your eyes about the look of the trees here?

Karl: 14:49

The trees. Well, I mean, it's the Sablewood Forest. That immediately makes me think of Sableye from Pokemon. Okay, okay, I'm going to say that the trees look like they have little gemstone eyes.

Richard: 15:04

I love it. So, as you look into and you see the scraggly trees, and one thing that's weird is in this world and it's not so weird to your character but to outside viewers in this part of the world, the day-night cycle are weeks long a week of daylight, a week of nighttime. Weeks long, a week of daylight, a week of nighttime. So you're expecting it to be dark and the trees almost as, like a way of adapting, have these gemstones that are reflecting the starlight and the moonlight and almost lighting up and some of them. You look and you see your own reflection. You see what looks like a frog, you see a bird and they're just kind of almost like when you're driving down the highway and you're seeing street signs and the street lights, but they're almost like streaking as you go past, like that kind of light effect and as you go through your steed, which, what do you have?

Karl: 15:56

driving this card within reason, oh, let's see what do I have driving this cart? Well, it's got to be some sort of hybrid animal so it fits into the forest. I am going to say it's a lizard bear, Amazing.

Richard: 16:26

So this lizard bear, how I'm picturing it is. Of course it's scaly, except it has almost like a mustache, like a muzzle of fur. It has the bear's wet nose, but the scales down the back, large grizzly bear teeth, massive forepaws, but a poofy bear tail. It needs the poofy bear tail, Alright.

Richard: 16:46

So as your steed pulls the carriage around a tight corner, one wheel is coming off the ground. For just a moment you see an overturned merchant's cart lying sideways in the path before you, blocking your way. A scattering of fruits and vegetables and kale litter the trail. From around the side of the carriage steps a strix wolf, a large creature with the body of a wolf in the face of an owl and large wings adorning its back. It's finishing chewing on its meal, the arm of a dead merchant, its sinew dripping down, its marrow being licked clean, and it stares at you curious, trying to judge whether you're friend or foe. And then you see falling clumsily behind a little ways away, a close distance away, two small pups are watching what you assume is their mother or uncle, cautiously, and you feel your carriage come to a stop. What would you like to do?

Karl: 17:40

Uh-huh, alright. So Given that it's a heart-like bird owl, I'm assuming that it's going to regurgitate the dead merchant for the pups. Roll a knowledge check, knowledge check, roll Roll. I got a 20 with fear.

Richard: 18:10

Okay, so it does not regurgitate for the pups, because it seems the beaks almost have like a serration in it for chewing meat. And as you look closely at its face, its head just whips and stares directly at you and is making eye contact. Oh boy, it's staring you down. It's wary of your movement.

Karl: 18:32

Hmm, it's wary of my movement. Well, I mean, I guess my best bet is probably to keep staring it right in the eye and make myself as big as I can. Okay, actually, let's see no larger than yourself, well, so I kind of want to try this minor illusion to like. Well, so I kind of want to try this minor illusion to like I spread out my arms and I want to make it look like I have a squirrel wingsuit so I seem even bigger, excellent.

Richard: 19:20

I don't want to keep looking in its face and try to intimidate this thing, so it will let me past. So first I'm going to have you describe what your character looks like at this moment, for advantage, because apparently you're wearing a squirrel-like suit and I need as much details as you can give me of what this character looks like. No, no.

Karl: 19:32

I'm not wearing the squirrel suit. I have a sorcerer class feature called Minor Illusion. Okay, so you're making an illusionary giant version of yourself with squirrely arms. Well, yeah, I mean I guess a minor visual illusion, no larger than yourself, with close range. It's convincingly you want to close range her further. But basically I want to like spread my arms and make it look like I have like big wings. Okay, maybe make it look like one of those moth faces.

Richard: 20:05

All right, all right, I'm following you. I'm following you, so go ahead and make a spellcasting roll.

Karl: 20:11

Okay. So it says, make a spellcast roll 10. All right, that works for me. So spellcast roll and roll. Ooh, I got an 11. Fear or hope.

Richard: 20:26

With hope, so go ahead and add a hope. Also, I think you're supposed to start with three hope, so you can just go ahead and have four hope.

Karl: 20:35

It says you're only supposed to start with two.

Richard: 20:37

Well, now you're up to three and I respect your honesty. Have an extra hope for your honesty, all right, alright. Okay. So as you do this, it starts calmly trying to keep its pups out of danger. The group of them start backing up slowly and with one last snarl, the pups clamber onto her back before she flies into the air, landing on a nearby branch Watching. But it seems to have its head down and it seems to be spooked. You have warded it off successfully, all right. So now that it is out of way of the and it doesn't look like it's going to attack as you look over and get, it's doing that cat thing where every time you look it's slightly further back until it seems to be out of sight. Okay, so now that you didn't murder a bunch of puppies, what would you like to do?

Karl: 21:42

Well, I mean, obviously this animal wouldn't have been interested in anything of actual value. So I suppose I need to check and see if maybe there's someone who survived and whether or not there's anything of value that is in this card.

Richard: 21:57

Okay, as you go closer, I'll have you roll either instinct or knowledge.

Karl: 22:06

To see if you're trying to get it.

Richard: 22:08

So the difference in this case is, if you go with instinct, you're trying to figure out what happened emotionally. What does it feel like is going on here? Five check Knowledge is literally like I'm going to index the things.

Karl: 22:21

Well, yeah, I think I'm going with instinct, because it is possible that this, that this uh bear just, or the animal just um, came upon the cart, those already tipped over. All right. So roll instinct, roll oh, an eight with fear. Nope, not with fear. That is a critical success. I rolled two, threes.

Richard: 22:49

Well, that's opposite. Just imagine that I'm moving an abacus to track my fear with an evil grin on my face. I'm like no.

Karl: 22:58

All right, okay, so I gain a hope for the critical success.

Richard: 23:01

You do and you get some interesting information For the critical success. You do and you get some interesting information. So you're actually pretty on to something when it just came across. So you see that the dead driver it had its throat slit, its neck cut open and it seems like the bird picked it over for food. Its arm was mangled, as you're aware. But your ears perk up a bit and you just you're suspicious that whatever jumped this as you kind of like get the feel for it, this feels like a trap, like an ambush is about to approach you and you hear the sound of a branch snapping. It seems the overturned cart was a distraction but their plan didn't work.

Richard: 23:46

You see, hiding in a tree, literally like leaves, just kind of stuck in randomly, one of those gems basically glued to their forehead. You see what looks like a poison dart frog with a dagger curved behind its back, off-colored spots around it. It's a beautiful red, like a beautiful ruby red, with its dagger drawn, ready to jump down. Not quite sure how it'll make that distance. Then you notice in another tree across it looks like either a halfling or globumoid with a bow drawn, target aimed on you. And because you managed to see them coming. The hypothetical battle map is set aside in front of you. They're both about far distance from you. What would you like to do?

Richard: 24:32

You stand at the ready having spotted them before they can ambush you.

Karl: 24:39

Okay, so I feel like I should probably try and just shoot the poison frog out of the tree with my dual staff.

Richard: 24:51

All right, go ahead and roll your attack. Roll my attack and 17 to hit with fear, all right. So 17 hits, so go.

Karl: 25:06

So 17 hits so go ahead and roll, damage Alright, and I do a 1d6 plus. Okay, 1 Roll Roll. Oh yeah, yeah, okay, 1d6. Because it's plus, so that it was giving me plus 3 and I'm like what, what's going on there?

Richard: 25:30

but it makes sense because that's proficiency plus my yeah, because proficiency is the number of dice you roll in this one so, and it also adds to your damage overall, it seems are you sure? I think it's just built right into the weapon how how much the weapon does?

Karl: 25:47

So Well, I clicked on the sheet and it gave me 1d6 plus 3, and I managed to roll max damage for 9.

Richard: 25:54

Excellent. So for 9,. It's not a severe injury on this ambusher, but it's a pretty serious one, so describe how this spell impacts and nearly kills my froggy.

Karl: 26:12

Well, I mean, I think it goes straight for the gem on his forehead and cracks it.

Richard: 26:17

So, as the gem cracks into the frog and it falls to the ground because it's fear, I get to make a move.

Karl: 26:25

The other one in the tree seeing his frog friend go down.

Richard: 26:29

And you don't know their backstory, maybe their best friends, maybe their enemies, it hardly matters. What matters now is they've been busted and they don't want to go to jail again. It ain't happening. You aren't going to catch them, copper. So a parkour's down the tree and manages whether through magic, supernatural means or pure speed closes the distance and gets right up in your face with a serrated sword.

Richard: 26:55

I'm then, gonna spend my fear to have the frog then run down and flank. So they're both running straight at you. They branch rest and right and they're both on each side of you Because they had a fair amount of distance to cover. That is my go. They spent their moves getting to you and flanking you. So you are up.

Karl: 27:17

Okay, so, um, Now the question becomes like my dual staff has a range of far Mm-hmm and I don't see anywhere which.

Richard: 27:37

There is no downside in this. You don't get a disadvantage or anything for having them too close to you.

Karl: 27:43

Oh, okay, okay, so I can as far as the maximum distance, but I can just shoot them at any range.

Richard: 27:50

I believe so.

Karl: 27:53

Okay, that makes sense. I was just like didn't see any ruling on the character sheet, so Give you like 10 seconds to make sure.

Richard: 28:02

But yes, if a weapon has close range, it can be used to get the target from close, very close, or melee.

Karl: 28:10

Okay, so far it's just my maximum distance and I can, in fact and these guys are Close, no, they're very close.

Richard: 28:17

They're within melee range at this point.

Karl: 28:20

Ooh Well, I mean, I feel like it's not going to be as effective the second time around, but this little frog, he needs to get shot in the face, point blank alright, go ahead and roll your attack on poor point blank froggy. Maybe he has a wife and kids at home, you don't know yeah, but he's poisonous, so I really don't want a 20 to hit with hope That'll do it.

Richard: 28:47

That'll do it, okay.

Karl: 28:54

Okay, so now I guess I roll for damage, roll, roll and that you may spend three hope to roll any number of damage dice on a tank. No, statistically speaking I'm going to get worse, so we'll just stick with the seven damage that I'm dealing it's just enough to break his first threshold.

Richard: 29:19

So he goes ahead and takes a point of damage. He's looking pretty rough. He is being shot repeatedly, and was that with hope or fear?

Karl: 29:29

Uh, the dual staff attack roll was with hope. Alright, you just get another move. I mean I'm just gonna keep savagely shooting this frog because I don't want to get poisoned.

Richard: 29:42

Reasonable, reasonable and brutal.

Karl: 29:50

Blast him Ooh, 24 to hit but with fear.

Richard: 29:55

24 absolutely hits.

Karl: 29:58

And then my dice roll is. I'm going to spend three hope points to re-roll my dice roll. Alright, alright, and then re-roll Alright. I got eight damage, eight damage.

Richard: 30:23

Eight damage isn't quite enough for him to feel it. So you blast him. You blast him and then, like on the third blast, he kind of like half limbo's under it, has the knife directly pressed against you and it's time for his counterattack. Oh boy, he's going to go ahead and make his strike. What is your evasion?

Karl: 30:44

My evasion is 10.

Richard: 30:47

Okay. So he does manage to connect Reasonable and he manages to then damage you for 10 points of damage.

Karl: 31:00

Oh boy, so my major damage threshold is seven. So if I don't take an armor slot, I would check two Correct Sheesh. Yeah, I mean, I'm going to take an armor slot to reduce that by one, I guess.

Richard: 31:23

I think I misspoke. I do believe you did hit that frog for one damage, because it's I believe it's any amount of damage will do Like it goes one damage, then two, then three.

Karl: 31:34

Oh yeah, that's what it shows on my Like minor damage is one and then my threshold is seven to get to two, and then severe damage is 14 to get to three damage.

Richard: 31:46

Just making sure I got three points marked Excellent. So, yes, the frog did get blasted, as he did his awesome duck under slash maneuver, but he's still alive. He's still alive and he still managed to get a cut on you.

Karl: 32:02

And then I'm going to spend. So I take an armor slot, I reduce the damage and I mark one HP.

Richard: 32:09

That sounds correct. So you're probably feeling pretty rough from Froggy there and then I'm going to spend my last fear point. I have stockpiled from literally this roll you made to have the Goblinoid swing at you with its serrated, rusty blade, uh-oh, so that is coming at you. Oh, wow, for four.

Karl: 32:40

He rolled a four.

Richard: 32:41

He rolled a one and got plus three.

Karl: 32:47

Wow, so I managed to evade.

Richard: 32:49

So here's how this plays out in my brain the frog limbo's under your staff, gets his shoulder blasted, cuts you, the other one goes to swing at you dramatically and you just kind of do that anime backhand block with the back of your hand thing. Yeah, nice, nice, he did so poorly. It made you very cool and I yield the spotlight back to you.

Karl: 33:12

Uh well, I mean I, I really I've got to keep blasting this frog, because if I can blast the frog enough, then hopefully I'll be able to intimidate either the goblinoid to run away or that he'll surrender and give me information.

Richard: 33:29

Okay. So my question for you is the frogs looking pretty rough. Do you want to try and intimidate them now or do you want to kill this frog first?

Karl: 33:38

I want to kill the frog first, because I suspect that the frog seems to be some sort of poison frog you've mentioned and I really don't want to get poisoned.

Richard: 33:47

All right.

Karl: 33:51

Ah, that is so I'm going to roll for ten.

Richard: 33:56

Okay, what did you get?

Karl: 33:58

I rolled a ten with hope.

Richard: 34:00

Ten with hope so.

Karl: 34:03

Is he more evasive than me?

Richard: 34:05

let's find out so he'll take a 10 will hit him roll for damage.

Karl: 34:17

wow, oh wait, so that was a 10 with hope. Yeah, so I was a 10 with hope. Yeah, so I get a hope for that, which means it's definitely worthwhile to spend three hope to re-roll my attack roll because I rolled a one.

Richard: 34:37

Gotta spend it while you have it.

Karl: 34:41

No, I bumped that up to six Overall.

Richard: 34:45

Okay, so six is enough to beat that threshold. How do you want to kill this frog?

Karl: 34:55

So I do the cool like backhand, and then I take the staff and I stab it into the frog's foot, and then as the frog's foot, and then as the frog is reeling backwards.

Richard: 35:12

I just pointed at his chest, and so, as the frog explodes in a rain of gore, at this moment you're a little less hyper-focused and you realize something. A third frog is stealing your cart. Oh boy, it seems these two's goal was to keep your attention. A third frog is stealing your cart. Oh boy, it seems these two's goal was to keep your attention while a thief attempts to steal your carriage.

Karl: 35:33

Right, hmm, how far away have they gotten?

Richard: 35:38

They have successfully climbed at this point and they gave their first, which is the noise that drew you towards it. So sorry, you had hope or fear there.

Karl: 35:51

That attack roll was with hope.

Richard: 35:53

Okay, so they haven't started going yet, they've just climbed into it and it's exactly where it was and you really only got out of the cart and walked like a medium distance over to the other cart okay, so they're not at a distance where I'd have to make a check to close the distance you could close the distance also. There's just dead frog in front of your feet um, okay.

Karl: 36:20

Well, do I know if the frog's skin and or blood is poisonous to touch?

Richard: 36:30

Go ahead and roll knowledge and you can add your if you want to spend a hope to add your Imperial Scholar knowledge again.

Karl: 36:42

I will use my last hope that I currently have. Yes, royal Mage, wait, okay. So if I spend the hope, it gives me the plus two. Correct, yeah, okay, roll.

Richard: 37:07

I got a 23 with fear. Not poisonous at all, it just looks poisonous. This is some bullshit. All right, because the roll was so high, even though it's fear, and I get a gm move.

Karl: 37:20

My gm move is just letting you know that you're dodging poison for no reason, because the frog looks poisonous back to you uh, okay, well, I mean, I am going to, uh, if I can pick up the corpse, um and uh, carry like, as I'm running over to the frog to jump back on my cart. I am picking up the dead frog and I'm just all about intimidating these guys and trying to get them to either run off or surrender.

Richard: 37:48

So I'm going to say this will be a presence roll for that. A presence roll, but I will give you an advantage. So you get to roll an extra d6 because you are holding his dismembered body to scare him. A presence roll, but I will give you an advantage. So you get to roll an extra d6 because you are holding his dismembered body to scare him, which feels pretty terrifying. I'm going to be real.

Karl: 38:04

Okay, 29 with hope. Woohoo man this, you get hope like nobody's business in this game. That's pretty good.

Richard: 38:12

Frog hands up.

Karl: 38:14

No.

Richard: 38:15

I can't game that's pretty good.

Karl: 38:26

Frog hands up. Other guy drops a sword hands are up, no one's moving, they are terrified. Who do you work for trying to?

Richard: 38:35

pull out my best Batman voice. Um, my wife took their money because I got fired before Um.

Karl: 38:44

Yeah, uh, I look over at the Goblinoid. What's your story?

Richard: 38:55

Go ahead and roll. Presence for me, sorry. Instinct for me, instinct.

Karl: 39:01

All right, let's go, but I'm not getting the plus two, only a 14. Oh, I am getting it. I'm going to re-roll that because apparently the plus two was just my modifier 16 with hope.

Richard: 39:21

He stops. Don't work for no one. Just trying to make a living here with this guy.

Karl: 39:28

Okay, now let's step this back. The backstory to this campaign, which I think we kind of glossed over, is that I am delivering some sort of package that I'm not allowed to look at.

Richard: 39:42

Correct. So one of your good friends, an archivist who runs the city you come from, has I have a special assignment. I need to deliver this package from me to this other archivist. So you're attempting to go and deliver it to the archivist in that small town of.

Karl: 40:06

Hush, the town in the middle of the forest.

Richard: 40:10

Yes. So you're basically told bring this, don't open it to the town of Hush and meet with the archivist there. You'll know them when you see them.

Karl: 40:23

Okay, oh.

Richard: 40:31

Hmm, and these two are claiming to be just regular bandits setting up a trap to jump nearby pacifiers to take their stuff Because the economy is rough out here.

Karl: 40:43

Right, yeah, that makes sense.

Richard: 40:44

You feel scary enough that they're probably not like lying, like they might be, like misleading a bit, like maybe they're part of an organization but it's not like you're a specific job. That part feels authentic, that you were an easy mark. They're not that good to set up some elaborate trap to trap. They don't feel elaborate trappy so much as. Oh no, this person we tried to rob was a mage and my friend is dead.

Karl: 41:13

I'd prefer not to have any more blood on my hands. Perhaps you can help me find the town of Hush.

Richard: 41:21

They just point to the road you're already on and they're like so, do you want an escort? Are we free to go? We good, Hmm.

Karl: 41:33

Well, if this is the main road, I would assume there's more bandits like you.

Richard: 41:40

Ahead, yes or no look, man, I'm telling you, just us out here operating on this turf, not a big town, just I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Karl: 41:53

Hmm, uh, can I? Would that be an instinct check to incite them? Yes, I don't like the word turf, oh boy sticks with.

Richard: 42:14

Fear Varys is some sort of conspiracy. There's some kind of like mafiosa thing going on. This is all an elaborate trap. You're being lured into a false sense of security. Long story short, you don't get a good read on what's true or false. They're just really hard to read. The adrenaline's hitting you. You blew up that frog. You gag a little. So it's not that you believe or don't believe them, you're just a little overwhelmed. You're overstimulated at the moment.

Richard: 42:50

But to give you a bit of background knowledge your character would already have. So your knowledge is these are probably Thistlefolk, the Thistlefolk who take up residence in the place no one else dares. The thickest, thorniest brambles of the Sablewood are known for wearing armored clothing made of tiny polished stones that have been cut to fit together seamlessly like scale. This attire allows them to move through the brambled thickets and blended with the gemstone trees, because the only Thistlefolk who emerge from the conclusion of their hidden villages are often thieves coming to steal goods from unwitting travelers or sleepy merchants. They've received a reputation for being a syndicate of criminals, but in actuality most Thistlefolk are quite peaceful and vulnerable, choosing to live within the safety of the bramble for their own protection from large predator species who stalk the woods looking for an easy meal.

Karl: 43:40

Hmm, uh, you two should just get the hell out of here, agreed, and I'll dismiss them and send them off.

Richard: 43:56

They've run, they trip over themselves and they've just esconded into the, into the woods. So all right with that. For the sake of brevity, the path leads you further into the forest until you spot a large stone pillar carved top and top and bottom. In ancient Dwarven symbols this denotes one corner of the peaceful village of Hush. When you pass beyond the stone marker, you feel a small sensation like the pop of a bubble, and then the sounds of friendly chowder becomes louder, though the trees of Sablewood are unchanged. Here there's a distinctive safe and comforting air, a warm orb that's almost like a sundial, with a glowing sphere above it is in the center, making it feel more like daylight, like you walked out of the evening into a sunrise. And there's feels distinctively safe and comforting the atmosphere. A few smiling faces turn to you as your carriage rolls in, waving her. Actually, before they wave and greet, did you bring the dismembered frog with you?

Karl: 45:05

Uh, you know, I, uh, I was a little bit overwhelmed. I think I may have just left the dead frog on the seat next to me.

Richard: 45:14

Yes, they cast a friendly grin, but some side-eye you. But you do hear lively music drifting from your direction from a tavern at the center of town. You know you need to find the Whitefire Arcanist to deliver the package. The package not only was from your mentor, but was from the king to your mentor. What would you like to do? Just like the ambiance. I'm not sure of the background music we have going on this episode for our editors later will match the scene, but you're feeling pretty good about it. So disregard any ominous background music that may or may not be playing may or may not be playing.

Richard: 46:05

Um well, uh, I've noticed the people side eyeing me. I'm assuming. Oh, you most seem friendly, but a few, specifically a few ribbits frog folk are like why is there a the? Uh, you seem sketchier than you would be without a dead body. That's a real truth. You are like why is there a? You seem sketchier than you would be without a dead body. That's the real truth you have to kind of deal with here as you look over and realize there's a dead body still on the seat.

Karl: 46:28

Ah yes, do they have any sort of temple in here? Or is it like I realize now that I should probably pay my respects for the vanquished bandit?

Richard: 46:45

Well, the main structure, you see, is the tavern at the center of town, a few shops, and you know that, like this is a land of like of like forgotten gods, and it's unlikely you'd find a more traditional temple. But it's entirely possible that if you can find, like the archivist, arcanist would probably be a relatively revered figure. Maybe someone at the bar might know, maybe just yelling out to random people in the street.

Karl: 47:21

I am going to approach one of the ribbits and say, um hello. I was assaulted by bandits and I have unfortunately murdered one of them and I would like to pay respects for the dead. If there's any way I can do that, maybe you could help me find a priest or an archivist of this neighborhood here.

Richard: 47:52

So this frog, who, now that you've gotten close to, is actually about as tall as you, sets down what looks like a thick barrel of ale. Well, molo just keeps it there. Yeah, yeah, fair enough. We don't really have much way of holy folk around these parts. I mean, if you want to bury them, I could take you to like a plot out of town. I could help, I guess. Why'd you bring it with you?

Karl: 48:26

I was so overwhelmed by the whole experience I wanted to get out of there. I just it slipped my mind that it was on the cart.

Richard: 48:35

I just it slipped my mind that it was on the cart and, as you say that, what looks like a soft-smoking, like small, almost looks like a humanoid robot wanders over. You see a small number of scratches across its shoulder and there's a friendly fox bat on its other shoulder.

Karl: 48:55

It's like oh, you found a thistle folk, did you?

Richard: 49:03

Yeah, it seems they had laid an ambush down the road. Oh, that's, that's awful. Um, yeah, um, I don't think I bring a dead body to the bar. Um, and then the older woman's like come, come, and they kind of like start escorting you past the homes of the village, a little out into the farmlands, like you see the various crops, and they begin to cultivate a thin layer of glowing blue moss over the tops of the fruits and vegetables. They're almost pulsing like heartbeats. Oh, and among the groves you notice that the trees have hundreds of unique faces carved into the sides. They're gem-like eyes peering in every direction.

Richard: 49:42

And you see one tree taller than the rest and it looks like you see the archivist's home and it's like a treehouse is being suspended from it, like a fruit hanging from a tree, and a braided rope seems to be wrapped around and tied down at the base of the tree like a counterweight and it looks like a cabin-sized boulders at the base of the tree, marked with some symbols, with the rope wrapped around it holding the house.

Karl: 50:09

Wow, so basically it's like a hanging basket house.

Richard: 50:14

Yes, cool, and at this point it's like Frog looks at you still like just like drinking from a barrel of whiskey they're carrying. It's like that's probably your butt Best bet for rights and things.

Karl: 50:37

Thank you very much. I appreciate your help and I apologize for the inconvenience I have caused.

Richard: 50:47

No worries, little one. We've all had days where we just get overwhelmed Mental health matters, Like it's cool and the little robot's just kind of poking the dead body with a stick.

Karl: 51:03

Well, I mean, I guess I will go and knock on the door.

Richard: 51:10

You can't. It's hanging like about 30 feet in the air.

Karl: 51:13

Okay, so I have to like climb the tree to get to the house, or how do I get to the house?

Richard: 51:20

Go ahead and roll a knowledge check.

Karl: 51:22

A knowledge check. Oh Seven with fear.

Richard: 51:31

So you walk up and be like how the hell do I, hello? You say quietly enough that no one would really hear you stare at the rock, you stare at the rope, you stare at the house. You're like, I guess, do I climb? I know, and you're just kind of getting a little stressed out. You can go ahead and mark a stress as you're trying to figure out how you get into this house.

Karl: 51:56

Okay, stress marked Uh-oh.

Richard: 52:03

It's just kind of gently swaying there like an Airbnb hammock.

Karl: 52:22

Let's see. I'm trying to see if there's anything.

Richard: 52:28

Okay, I don't you're two friends at this point. She's sat down like a blanket and just kind of sitting there each sipping a drink, Just kind of watching you.

Karl: 52:50

I guess I'll start trying to climb the tree All right, go ahead and make an agility roll, all right. Roll 15, but with fear.

Richard: 53:06

So as you begin to climb the tree, you make it up pretty decently high, but one of the limbs of the tree and the branches gently wrap around you and gingerly put you back down on the forest floor. Huh, you didn't get whomping willowed. Like the branches, rustle your hair a bit as it returns to being a branch.

Karl: 53:31

Ah, and this tree has multiple faces, you said, or is this not?

Richard: 53:37

No faces on this one. But you do feel the other tree staring you and you actually notice like reflected in one of the gems. It looks like another frog humanoid in white robes, with a robe over its head, its arms kind of cross and just like shuffles behind a tree, and then you lose sight of it completely.

Karl: 53:57

Ah Well, um, I uh Not on my watch. I want to track that guy.

Richard: 54:09

Go ahead and roll the instinct.

Karl: 54:15

Instinct and I get the not on my watch nice, oh, still only a 15 with fear.

Richard: 54:25

So you're like I'm fearful today so you're watching amazing like whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. He seems to be getting enough distance that eventually he leaves your visual range like, okay, he was just kind of keeping tabs on you, but it would be a whole. You're not confident with that roll. You'd be able to catch up to him and successfully like subdue, this frog who's doing their massive vertical leaps from branch to branch, naruto tree running style.

Karl: 54:56

Okay, I'm sorry to bother you again, but how do I get to the house?

Richard: 55:10

She gives a deep sigh and just yells Amarass, what Amarass, just yells Amras, what Amras. And then the house starts, begin lowering itself down to the ground and has landed.

Karl: 55:27

Okay, so now the door is in a position where I could knock on it. Yes, yeah, I am going to gently knock on the door.

Richard: 55:36

So as you knock on the door, you see six fingers curl on the sides of the door frame as it slowly opens. You see, in the palm of its hands, eyes blinking as you look at a face that is like a completely blank face with just a smile, like a theater mask almost, with curly arms and large wings.

Karl: 55:56

I was kind of imagining like a ditto face, but but we'll see, I guess I'll allow it.

Richard: 56:03

it has a ditto face, yes, okay, anyways, but it seems to be a seven foot tall mix of humanoid and firefly, a humanoid firefly. So, as far as you can tell with your background, the Arcanist is a fairy and it seems to be moving in a combination of both very slow, suddenly jerky motions. Her expressions are difficult to read but her emotions are very clear in her voice, old but spry, as she eyes you mischievously. Are you the group Amorous, sent from the capital? Oh my, you're rather late, aren't you? Can I have your name?

Karl: 56:47

My name is Marlow Fairwind.

Richard: 56:51

You feel a shiver go up your spine. Come in, come in.

Karl: 56:59

Uh, do I shiver? Go up your spine, come in, come in. Do I think I just like entered some sort of weird act with this fairy? Or are fairies mischievous in that way in this?

Richard: 57:08

I'm gonna have you do a knowledge roll for that one, because that's more fairy lore.

Karl: 57:16

Sorry, would I have advantage because of my well-read?

Richard: 57:23

Well, you could spend a hope to oh wait, well-read's a class feature. Yes, yes, you may Advantage. I am so fearful I got a 26 with fear, so I'm going to just grab that fear.

Karl: 57:38

Yeah, you've got lots of fear stocked up now.

Richard: 57:40

You had a moment where, if that fairy wanted to, they could just legally have taken possession of your name. They chose not to, but they could have. Ooh, so it's like they have the ability to word game trick you into a trap. They know they could have, and then they chose not to to let you in. You rolled pretty high on that. Ah, so did you enter?

Karl: 58:04

I will enter their house.

Richard: 58:07

It's surprisingly spacious. Main room is a crowd of potion bottles, spell books, runes, plants, small creatures, what looks like a regular platypus, but it's really hard to tell. It's full, but no one would classify it as messy. It's clear that if anyone moved a single item, even an inch, the fairy would know.

Karl: 58:30

Well, so yes, I have come to deliver this package and I unfortunately was ambushed by a thistle falcon, and I was hoping you could help me pay respects to the bandit that I killed.

Richard: 58:45

Oh, okay, Well, let's get that in here. And then the house unfurls like a flower and they gesture for you to like. So I'm assuming, when you went up with your group of friends a little retroactively, did they ride up in you with the cart or did you just carry a body and leave your cart and your precious cargo went down?

Karl: 59:03

uh, I'm assuming that I rode up here with the cart. I am well trusted to deliver this package, so I I would not leave it so far out of my excellent range.

Richard: 59:15

So as you bring the package in and set it down, the flower closes back up and the entire house lifts off the ground. And then she opens the package. Inside the package lies a massive stone with a lion's face carved into it he recognizes as the keystone of the capital city gate's main archway. The arcanist nods sanely as he sees it, saying oh, of course. To keep this, oh, ominous warning, she begins to unfurl her house in again. All right, well, we must travel to the open vale to revitalize the ward Ward. I would highly advise you come with, as the magic will attract dangerous creatures from the darkest reaches, and I'm pretty competent. You'd be upset if your delivery that keeps your people from being swiped out by the wiles stops the snake viper toxin from turning you to stone and liquefying your organs. I just feel like they'd like you to keep your eye on it and return the package. But you don't have to come with, it's fine.

Karl: 1:00:32

No, I will accompany you. It would be best to keep it safe, and there's safety in numbers. So as you begin to leave the cultures of the Thistlefolk, I was hoping you could help me give this poor bandit a proper burial.

Richard: 1:01:03

Oh, I see they walk up, or more like linger up, kind of like a Slenderman walk Frisk over the frog person, take their coin pouch, put it in their pocket, walk away and then, like a large Venus 5 crab trap, fly, just skunk, shud and eats it Huh. Well then, thus is the culture of our people of our people Very, very well.

Karl: 1:01:41

I'm glad that I would not be angering anyone with this death.

Richard: 1:01:43

Oh, you have absolutely angered people here. Have a rock and you're handed a rock.

Karl: 1:01:55

Does it look like one of the gemstones from a tree?

Richard: 1:01:58

It looks like they swiped it off the frog. That is a returning stone. The small stone can be placed anywhere and will teleport to your hand under one of the following conditions. And you pick the condition Someone comes close to the rock, someone very close to the rock's dealt damage, a certain amount of time passes, or you speak a key word Ah, it is a returning stone. That is all it does is you set a condition and then the rock comes back to you.

Karl: 1:02:27

I see Interesting.

Richard: 1:02:33

And at this point, the other frog's like, like we done here we good.

Karl: 1:02:38

Yes, yes, thank you. Thank you so much for your help. I do not wish to cause any further trouble, so I think it's probably best that we be on our way soon.

Richard: 1:02:48

They're holding out a mug and shaking it like expectantly.

Karl: 1:02:54

But they want me to pay them coin.

Richard: 1:02:56

Probably uh, but they.

Karl: 1:02:59

They want me to pay them coin, probably, uh, wow, I guess. Uh, I have one coin, it looks like, so I'm gonna give them a coin yeah, uh, feel free to mark off.

Richard: 1:03:06

Well, this currency, this game, is more a handful of coins. So basically, if you give away enough little bit of coins, you'd knock off a handful. So I'm not going to like bill you for the coin, but if you do it enough, ah, if you do it enough, okay, so describe your time traveling with the eccentric wildfire arcanist.

Karl: 1:03:34

Um, hmm, so we are headed to the veil. She said, right, yes, the open veil, the open veil, um, and this is somewhere in the forest yes, so you will end up leaving the town's bubble right, right, right uh, and then it'll be dusk or night time or as we're traveling, right, yes, with my last few rolls. So Marlow is just like skittishly looking around, startled by sudden movements of the archivist, but then still mesmerized and entranced by the slow, gentle movements that are interspersed.

Richard: 1:04:31

All right. So, sensing your disease and the fey nature of them, so I first forged these pillars on the four sides to keep the village safe from the horrors of the night. I almost died in that ritual as unknown darkness approached, and I'm reluctant to say more for fear of angering the forgotten gods that dwell deep within the forest.

Karl: 1:05:00

Yes, yes. Is there power confined to the forest? How could a god become so forgotten?

Richard: 1:05:12

It's weird when you create, people remember the creation, but through stories, their own beliefs, spreading their wills, adding addendums, repurposing holidays and ceremonies to their new faiths, the old ways just kind of get lost and absorbs into the tradition of the new.

Karl: 1:05:31

Yes, I can see how some of these, hmm now, yes, I can see how that some of these forgotten gods may become resentful.

Richard: 1:05:43

Yes, and around that moment, the arcanist of Tanai perks up in a disconcerting way. This is good, stop stop here. Yes, now come help me. I'm old, and she waves her hands and your carriage unfolds like a flower, like her house did. Okay, and she's just standing over the crate humming. Okay, I will need about an hour of time to prepare you all. Enjoy the night air while you can, so you get a short rest here. You can tend to wounds, clear stress, repair armor or prepare for the path ahead.

Richard: 1:06:28

Since you don't have one or more members of your party to prepare with. Had you brought along one of these NPCs, I would have allowed that as a substitution. So if you declare that you brought the frog alcoholic with you, I would let you take two hope to prepare and the frog alcoholic would just be here for the seat.

Karl: 1:06:46

Uh, no, no, I, I, I, uh didn't, wasn't the? The village? No, warm and comforting, was still also kind of disconcerting. The customs are unusual and I just wanted out of there. But I think I do want to take some time to repair my armor and knock off a hit point damage.

Richard: 1:07:14

Excellent, and for my downtime bonus I gained three fear.

Karl: 1:07:21

So that was my two downtime activities was reducing or repairing armor and reducing damage.

Richard: 1:07:28

Yes, do you have an elf ability that has something to do with downtime?

Karl: 1:07:33

Oh, I, actually I do. That would actually be Mark of Stress. No, that's not, I do that would. That would actually be, uh, marcus, stress. Nope, that's not the one Celestial trance drawing you down. Rest, you can drop into a chance to choose an additional downtime move.

Richard: 1:07:47

I must be kind before I murder you.

Karl: 1:07:51

Fair enough, uh, so yeah, I am going to reduce my stress with my last downtime activity.

Richard: 1:07:59

All right. So as you sit there, meditating, centering yourself, you've had a very, very eventful day. Your mind is focused, calm, for the first time, listening to the gentle trilling of the copybara bees, appreciating the. You're not even sure what that was.

Richard: 1:08:21

I think it's like a turtle, pheasant and a bird of paradise that looks suspiciously like a reversed version of the flower, like the derpiest looking bird of paradise you've ever seen. And as you're just toning out, you hear Keystone is suspended. Quickly, surround me. Surround me. The ritual must begin or I'll lose the pathway. Hurry. Her body begins going brighter and brighter as her eyes roll backwards into her head and the entire carriage lifts a foot off the ground and you hear a concoffiny, a concollection of unearcy, screeches from the woods as nearby creatures are alerted to the arcane energy. Uh-oh, you feel the rumble as four ancient skeletons emerge from the ground, rusted swords in hand, disturbedous, mysterious, like an angry cloud, like a soft liquid, almost spongy and pink, with mean, almost hard tendrils that branch off it and stretch like a cancer to the forest around it.

Richard: 1:09:32

I'm going to start a countdown die for this ritual. I have placed a D8. You see it in front of you. The 8 is facing up and it will count down based on things you do. If it gets to 0, the ritual will be completed.

Karl: 1:09:49

That is all the knowledge you get. So Sorry, describe the sponge again.

Richard: 1:09:58

So the weird sponge creature in the distance looks like almost like if black smoke was a tumor, with spiky spindles coming off it and the nearby plants and creatures around it like withering near it. Have you seen?

Karl: 1:10:13

Fern Gully Perhaps. Well, like they have the Smoke Tar Monster, I'm just wondering if that's kind of an apt comparison. Yes, okay, smokey Tar Monster.

Richard: 1:10:30

Yes, and the skeletons that are shambling in are about very far distance right now.

Karl: 1:10:36

And how far away is this sponge smoke monster?

Richard: 1:10:40

It's really hard to gauge the distance with it. Probably within a medium range or so.

Karl: 1:10:49

Okay, so it would be within a far range then.

Richard: 1:10:52

Correct. So it would be within close, so not quite very close, somewhere between close and far. If you wanted be within close, so not quite very close, somewhere between close and far, if you wanted to get to it in a round, you could.

Karl: 1:11:03

No, no. I want to try my Unleash Chaos spell. So I make a spell, cast roll against a target within far range and spend any number of tokens. I only have two, so I'm going to spend two To channel raw energy from within yourself against them. On a success roll, the number to be 10 is equal to the number of tokens, which is going to be two. Then if I want to reuse this, I have to mark a stress to replenish my tokens.

Richard: 1:11:31

Okay, go ahead and let the chaos reign.

Karl: 1:11:36

Unleash chaos. That is only a seven with hope. So, as you begin to oh, go ahead, I get my hope token for rolling with hope. Right, that is correct. Okay, I get it.

Richard: 1:11:55

So, as you go and you build up the arcane energy within you, this massive spell, you practice it. You've read the book. You've done this in a controlled setting. You go to unleash the chaotic magic and a lemur flies directly in front of it, hits it, it explodes. That was not the target you were aiming for? Oh, no, so as it's exploding, you see, the wraith has dived through the ground, has raised up directly in front of you.

Richard: 1:12:27

It's going to go ahead and make an attack roll here. What is your evasion Ten? So if it meets, it beats. So it flies into melee and places its hand upon your cheek. Describe a terrifying moment from your character's childhood.

Richard: 1:12:54

Marlow fell down a well as a child, okay, and uh was down there in the dark for several hours before anyone realized what had happened so as you feel the hand on you and you feel the spindle start piercing into your flesh, a sense of vertical hits you as you fall backwards. But there's no ground beneath you, it's just falling, falling, falling, falling, tunneling down. At this exact moment, you realize this grove has a clear, empty sky, where there's no trees covering it, and there's a perfect blue moon above you that's getting more and more distant. As you fall downward and downward, you take boop-a-doop-boop nine magic damage Oof.

Karl: 1:13:40

That is bad news, bears.

Richard: 1:13:44

Alright.

Karl: 1:13:50

I think I'm going to tick off an armor slot to reduce that threshold and only take mark 1 hit point. Tick off an armor slot to reduce that threshold and only take mark one hit point.

Richard: 1:14:00

Alright. However, you are considered vulnerable at the moment, which I guess the best way I can put it is rolls targeting you while you feel yourself falling into an endless pit. Have advantage until you take an action to try and shake yourself loose and free of this. I'm going to then spend three of my stockpiled fear to have all four skeletons get within close range of you as they approach. Uh-oh, and for context, where were you positioned near the floating archivist when this went down?

Karl: 1:14:40

Um, so For context, where were you positioned near the floating archivist when this went down? So you described the blue moon above and the grove, so I assume the archivist is kind of in the middle of the grove, correct? I would say I was probably just like a few meters off to the side of the of the archivist in the first place okay.

Richard: 1:15:04

So, even though you feel yourself falling down a well in terror, you look over and the skeletons aren't going for you. They're going towards the archivist. Ooh, the spotlight is on you.

Karl: 1:15:16

Well, I have a spell called reign of blades. I can spend a hope to make a spell cast roll conjuring, throwing blades that strike out at all targets within very close range.

Richard: 1:15:27

So I guess I have to move within very close range you do, but you should be able to, although you're suffering terrible vertigo not related, so as you stumble towards them, they've all taken like fundamental, terrible vertigo, not related. So as you stumble towards them, they've all taken fundamental positions around this flower and they basically formed a circle around it. They look pretty frail because they're just skellies you know how skellies be but you are able to.

Richard: 1:15:55

Because of where they're positioned around the flower. I'd say you can get three of them within range, but probably not all four.

Karl: 1:16:01

All right, so I will roll for my attack. Roll Ooh a 10 with fear.

Richard: 1:16:12

I'm sorry they're not very durable, but something about feeling like you're in a perpetual, infinite ball is not going great for you.

Karl: 1:16:21

Oh, dang, it Okay so.

Richard: 1:16:25

I believe that makes it my go, then Okay, wait wait, wait, wait, wait, I'm waiting, I'm waiting.

Karl: 1:16:32

So I have this Primal Origin. I can manipulate magic. The Primal Origin allows you to modify the essence of magic itself. After you cast a spell or make an attack using a weapon that deals magic damage, you can mark a stress to do one of the following Extend the spell's attack range, gain a plus two bonus to the action roll's result, deal double the damage or hit an additional target.

Richard: 1:16:53

Okay, so normally I would make you do that before the spell, but I'm going to allow it.

Karl: 1:16:58

Before the spell. Well, it does say after you cast the spell oh really. Or make an attack roll.

Richard: 1:17:04

Huh, after you make the roll Sick, go ahead then. So you're going to add? I'll just let you know, if you add two, it will hit all three of them. You were close, they're pretty easy to hit. I am definitely going to make that into a 12. 12? It meets, it beats.

Karl: 1:17:22

Alright, so then I can roll my damage, which is proficiency d8 plus 2. And then I can roll, oh man, only a five damage.

Richard: 1:17:38

So five damage Black, black, black as you just cover them in shots. Three of them look very injured and then, as their heads turn 360 degrees around towards you, I'm going to spend a fear to use their group attack feature. All three of them will now circle you and they'll make one shared attack roll, okay.

Karl: 1:18:02

Roll.

Richard: 1:18:14

Okay, okay, so does 13 meet your evasion, 13 beats it. Oh boy, so you take four damage per skeleton. So that's 12 damage coming at you as all of them just swarm, you actually I guess it would be yeah, 16 damage, because there's four of them.

Karl: 1:18:38

Ooh, yeah, no, I definitely have to spend an armor slot to tick that down.

Richard: 1:18:45

So you are swarmed by skeletons. So I think I'm just going to sit on this last sphere and let the spotlight go back to you. Just hold it in my hand, my precious treasure. Okay.

Karl: 1:19:06

Well, now that they're all swarmed around me, they're all within close range, right.

Richard: 1:19:09

Absolutely. They're all within melee range.

Karl: 1:19:13

I'm spending another hope to AOE, another Rain of Blades.

Richard: 1:19:20

Alright, go ahead and roll your attack.

Karl: 1:19:24

Roll Ooh A 20 with hope That'll do it. Go ahead and roll damage. Roll my damage and that's 10 damage.

Richard: 1:19:40

So and roll damage, Roll my damage and that's 10 damage. So, with your 10 damage, as you go to create this fan of blades, a series describe how you wipe out all four of these skeletons.

Karl: 1:19:54

Um I uh, skeletons, um I uh like to think that, uh, I I send out the blades and they kind of like, uh, curve around all the skeletons, and then the skeletons kind of like, do I like, because they think I missed. And then the blades come back and like, straight through their, uh, through the base of their necks, and their heads pop off.

Richard: 1:20:17

Beautiful. I love a good boomerang joke. It always comes back around, but those skeletons. The ritual proceeds and you see me dramatically take my counter down from eight to four.

Karl: 1:20:32

All right.

Richard: 1:20:35

So I rolled with. Hope you get another go.

Karl: 1:20:39

So, uh, the uh smoke sponge monster is still indeterminate distance away. I would say it's within close, but not very close, because you did run from it to blast some skellies, Right right, um, if I take my action to try and um, so I take my action to try and uh, negate my vulnerability yes, so you describe how you would want to try and shake it off in this case.

Richard: 1:21:14

So, based on what you tell me you do to try and fix this vertigo, I can then set the appropriate DC for it.

Karl: 1:21:21

Right, right, hmm, how would I want to fix the vertigo? Okay, so can I put one of the skeletons heads on, like the skull on my head, and then, just like kind of like, clack my hands together against the skeleton to try and rattle my head straight I'm gonna have you roll your spell casting stat because this feels more ritual and instinct than anything logical, but but I'll allow it. I'm going to say the.

Richard: 1:21:59

DC is pretty medium for that. That feels medium, the not most likely solution.

Karl: 1:22:06

Alright, Come on heart of the dice 19 with fear.

Richard: 1:22:12

So you rattled. You're no longer vulnerable, wearing your weird skeleton helmet. If the fairy's eyes weren't staring up at the moon gathering magic, they'd probably shake their head at you. But no one saw this except you and you feel awesome. Alright, so I'm going to take my fear and the forest race is going to fly towards you. It's going to attempt to fly directly through you by me spending a fear. So, oh boy, I make my attack roll here.

Karl: 1:22:50

Seven does seven hit you seven, does not? I managed to dodge.

Richard: 1:22:55

So as you dodge out the way and this ghost flew through your body, you have a moment where you realize had it actually connected and went through you, it probably would have separated your soul from your body.

Karl: 1:23:06

You just you've read enough books to know that this would have been real bad, but the spotlight passes back to you, so, as it passes by me, do I spot anything that looks like it might be a vulnerability? And would I be?

Richard: 1:23:30

able to apply my royal mage knowledge to increase my odds of spotting such vulnerability. I will have you roll knowledge but yes, you can add that to it To look for a vulnerability.

Karl: 1:23:39

But I get plus two for being Okay.

Richard: 1:23:40

I have to spend a hope to do that, though, right, yes, yes, you do Okay Roll, but I got a 17 with hope 17 so by inspecting it you do see that like one of the faces on its like weird tumory body is skull shaped. You almost see like a structure of like angry eyebrows and eye holes and a nose. You're like so you feel like this thing would have been really resistant to physical damage and you feel like that's the spot okay. So I'm gonna say, because you pointed that out, any attack you make you can feel free to spend hope, to add your knowledge to any attacks for the rest of this fight, to add my knowledge.

Richard: 1:24:31

Oh, dad, you're that's not royal scholar to things ah, okay, okay, okay, okay that's what I meant to say. Is your expertise now applies to any attacks on this creature, because you've spotted a weakness, okay?

Karl: 1:24:44

all right. Um then, so my Unleash Chaos. I can market stress to replenish the tokens. Is that an action?

Richard: 1:25:06

No, an action typically is anything that requires a roll.

Karl: 1:25:10

Okay, so I can replenish my tokens. Yeah, unless it says specifically is an action or requires a roll. Okay, so I can replenish my tokens.

Richard: 1:25:13

Unless it says specifically is an action or requires a roll, I'll let it be free.

Karl: 1:25:18

And then I can make my spellcasting roll again and I am going to spend the hope to give it plus two, alright, and let's roll some 19 with fear.

Richard: 1:25:35

Well, 19 will hit it.

Karl: 1:25:38

Alright, alright, two. Okay, I see now no plus damage, so let's roll these dice. I got five damage.

Richard: 1:25:50

Five damage is enough for it to take a point of damage.

Karl: 1:25:56

All right.

Richard: 1:25:56

As combat hunts back to me. I'll spend a fear as two more skeletons emerge from the ground within very close range of you on either side. Oh boy, and then for my GM action. So I'm going to have it just do its regular attack, nothing fancy. My fear economy isn't that loaded right now. I've been pretty greedy, but I think an 18 hits you.

Karl: 1:26:26

An 18 definitely does hit, so you will take eight points of damage.

Richard: 1:26:31

eight points of damage.

Karl: 1:26:34

Eight points of damage. I gotta spend my last armor slot to reduce that by one, I think.

Richard: 1:26:42

As you see it, like swipe towards you, you feel it miss, but it's like you feel its fingernails catch into something and you swear. You see like a spectral version of a piece of your face get torn off by its hands. Ugh, that is no good. And the spotlight passes back to you.

Karl: 1:27:03

Okay, so you said the skeletons are in close range.

Richard: 1:27:07

Yes, as they're just kind of climbing out of the ground, one of their heads shaking a bit. Another one seems to be a frog skeleton. You're pretty sure you've seen one of those today.

Karl: 1:27:18

And the forest wraith is also within close range.

Richard: 1:27:22

Yes.

Karl: 1:27:25

All right. Well then, I am going to. Well then, I am going to spend my hope to do my Rain of Blades. But I am going to manipulate magic so, out of stress, to increase the range from very close to close. Nice Spellcasting roll, oh.

Richard: 1:28:03

I don't have advantage, we'll do it.

Karl: 1:28:07

I clicked the wrong button. Roll Well, I only rolled a seven with fear, that was.

Richard: 1:28:20

Unfortunately as you go to throw your boomerangs you thought you did the math excellently and they all swing back around, but a bunch of them just kind of collide midair and sadly fall to the ground. Dang it, oh boy, For my GM action I'm going to spend a fear to do that beautiful swarming attack with my skelly bellies. They're going to go ahead and do their group attack here, 11? Does 11 hit you?

Karl: 1:28:56

11 hits.

Richard: 1:28:58

That'll be 8 points of physical damage.

Karl: 1:29:02

Ooh, I don't have any armor slots left. That's all 6 of my hit points marked.

Richard: 1:29:07

You have 3 options when you're downed in Daggerheart. Option the first you can let the seed end be played at my mercy. You roll a dice to see if you get a scar that permanently reduces your hope and your fate is left up completely to me, which means it's left up to these skeletons and I am honor-bound as a DM to let the skellies do their job. Option the second is you can go out in a Glaze of Glory. You get one last turn where all your dice rolls are considered critical successes and then you die. And option the third is you can roll for it.

Karl: 1:29:46

I like the Glaze of Glory. I just, I know I just failed to do this thing, but I really like the Reign of Blades with the increased range and just going out into Blaze of Glory, to like.

Richard: 1:30:03

So, as you choose the Blaze of Glory, what is the maximum value of damage that can do?

Karl: 1:30:13

1d8 plus 2, so I guess that would be 10.

Richard: 1:30:16

So, as you curve the blades, knowing you're about to go down, you release the swarm of them. The two skeletons are crushed instantly as the two blades meet in the center and manage to hit the wraith, the wraith having been hit once by you, successfully, if memory serves. Yes, and how many points of damage does the blades? Ten that will be enough to drop the forest wraith down. So as the skeleton goes, a tick goes up, the next skeleton goes, a tick goes up, and then the wraith is struck down. The timer ends. The light gathering fills the rune stone. As the flower descends to the ground, the archivist sees you bleeding out on the ground, your eyes starting to roll back. What are your last words?

Karl: 1:31:12

What are my last words? What are my last words?

Richard: 1:31:30

My last words would be uh, tell my mentor, I'm sorry the archivist walks over, looks down on you, gives a bit of a sigh. You fought hard. I I'm not surprised, of course the king keeps good company. I'm very glad you were there. The keystone will need a week, maybe more, and I'll watch it carefully to ensure nothing cracks or becomes sentient or anything of the like. You know how it is. In the meantime, I ask you to rest, to let things go and know that your job is done. And with those words, you feel moisture as a plant starts to grow around you, wrapping you like a rose in bloom, before it closes down, chomps in and you can feel life fade away. And that is Daggerheart. You did complete the quest. You successfully beat the mission, congratulations. Welcome to level two.

Richard: 1:32:45

But also, you are most definitely dead. You are dead, but just for the lulz. Go ahead and do a hope and fear dice. If hope wins, you would have got back up with one hit point, and if fear wins, you would have died on the spot.

Karl: 1:32:59

Ah, hope won.

Richard: 1:33:02

So, in theory, had you bet on the fates, you may have came out of that still. So with that we've hit not that much longer than one of our normal episodes. Admittedly, how you feeling that way pretty good.

Karl: 1:33:22

Uh, that's, it's definitely interesting. Um, I think some of this is more so a difference in writing style between fifth edition and dagger heart, but it was setting the scene did feel much more like like whatever was prompting. You felt like it was prompting for me to collaborate more with setting the scene than what, than what D and D would normally do.

Richard: 1:33:51

I thought that was interesting Because I basically read all the boxes verbatim. I worked in a pun or two. I enjoy my platypus joke that in a forest of fused animals, how could you tell if it was a platypus?

Karl: 1:34:02

Right right.

Richard: 1:34:04

But I basically wrote this as is, and I will say, when running for a single player, one, that I get a fear and I get an action is a little rough. Yeah, however, like, did you end up leveling up your character or did you just run them at level one?

Karl: 1:34:21

I just ran them at level one.

Richard: 1:34:23

So, running it one on one, I'd say it worked because, like, if we think about the difficulty curve, you could have won that fight. Yeah, yeah, I definitely could have won that fight. Yeah, yeah, I definitely could have.

Karl: 1:34:36

I mean, the difference between life or death was you missed with the boomerangs and the skeletons came back and stabbed the shit out of you yeah, I, I had some pretty, uh pretty fearful roles that time there was there was quite a bit of fear on, like uh fear in a row.

Richard: 1:34:51

So yeah, so for context, the adventure would have ended with them like giving you a heads up that there's a spire you could go explore. You did end up asking one question I wasn't prepared for, which was more about the bandits, but they had a little like supplementary file and I was able to look up who the bandits were oh, so they actually did have information on who the bandits were.

Richard: 1:35:13

Yeah, the chunk about the Thistlefolk I read verbatim, okay, and then I had to retroactively like I got lucky. I got lucky when it said that people think they're an organization but they're not, because I gave this full monologue about that and then fact-checked and was right.

Karl: 1:35:36

Definitely monologue about that and then fact checked and was right. Um, definitely, I guess, if compared to dnd, like low level dnd also feels very um like uh, scrappy I guess, but the level of hit points and the damage thresholds it's, it definitely felt like I was in danger at all times. I only have like six hit points and I'm always going to take at least one if they hit me. It definitely felt like I was in danger at all times.

Richard: 1:36:14

I was like I only have six hit points and I'm always going to take at least one if they hit me. Well, what's funny is there's a couple parts where I realized after the first fight that I was wrong, that if you hit between the thresholds they take a damage. So there's a couple parts in that first fight where they should have went down a little earlier. And there's also a glitch. So I opened a tab to keep track of my creatures, right, and I didn't realize it. But one of the tabs was upping the threshold numbers. When I was upping the hit points from, like, some sort of literal glitch, okay, so it's like I'm like fighting with the frog and it's like the frog has four hit points. The frog has five hit points. I'm like, oh no, instead of lowering its hit points, I was raising its max. Yeah, this frog should be dead.

Richard: 1:36:56

But to be fair, there's originally three ambushers and one commander. So I'm like, all right, I reduced an ambusher at the start because that just seemed like the thing to do. And it did say use the ambushers to keep the party's attention while the thief attempts to steal their carriage. And I love that, because I love fights that aren't just whack with a stick, but there's something else going on, right. And it's like at the start you can make the Strixwolf lower its head and wag its tail, make it run away. You can fight it, but if you fight it the pups just run away.

Richard: 1:37:36

And there's one where it howls for support and calls in its partner. And that is where, like, the roles really start and like there's a bit where, like I adjusted the roles because you suggested doing the thing before, like the rule book prompted me to do it, because it was like they have a text for see them coming and a text for ambush. But it's like when the moment feels right or one of the above scenarios trigger it, as the pc who seems like they're paying attention, to make an instinct role, and you're like, oh, I'm gonna do an instinct role and investigate this. I'm like, oh, okay, you're just gonna do it sweet, and I really try to keep up with the gem motif throughout, because that was the first thing you described uh, yeah, well, like I said, the sable forest is like sable eye, sable eye trees and the dead frog body.

Richard: 1:38:25

So I did reskin one of the npcs in the town to be a frog because I thought it'd be funnier that is funnier because the origin.

Karl: 1:38:34

I should have taken you up on the offer to have that uh, the frog there with me.

Richard: 1:38:38

That probably also would have won me the fight so the frog was actually a wild-born dwarf, as written, and was an older woman with a thick beard carrying a barrel of arrow, and I'm like that's the funniest one of this list of NPCs to be the frog. It's like it says, if the PCs approach, she wants to know if everyone's in the party, and it was like going to ask about their weapons and things like now. And then the staff below is like ask about the Thistlefolk. I'm like that's also funny, so I'll use that one. And there was okay.

Richard: 1:39:13

So the things you didn't end up doing is the tavern had a couple npcs in it and there was an optional festival where you guys could have came during a party. Ah, yeah, okay. And there's like there's a good nature arm wrestling, competition, a stone painting class, a marketplace full of trinkets. If you were playing with your partner this week, I probably would have used the mini games, but that's like pcs on pcs make that much more interesting, right, right. And then you would go to the tavern and then they tell you the arcanist is busy, but you can go visit them. Like okay, dead body is as good excuse as any to visit the arcanist okay.

Karl: 1:39:50

So I mean, the only thing, uh, that I didn't use, I don't think you know, the only feature on my character sheet, uh, I think, is the um well, the quick reaction, marcus stress to gain advantage on a reaction roll. I mean, I didn't read the rules in depth, but when and how do you use reaction rolls?

Richard: 1:40:21

That's a good question, Because reaction rolls, to my knowledge, are built into monsters typically. So there's things that I'll say.

Karl: 1:40:30

So they're more like a uh saving or saving throw from dnd to compare yes.

Richard: 1:40:36

So it's like, okay, the wraith didn't actually have one. I'm surprised it didn't, for it's like memory delve, which I love. That, by the way, the ask the player to describe a terrifying moment from their childhood. It's just a good line of text. To be on an attack, yeah, yeah, like that just made me happy. But yeah, I think the only reaction role I think is if you were ambushed, I think there would have been one and okay, I'm just like checking the adventure right now, because it really wasn't that many pages, although it no one year d of us

Richard: 1:41:11

I have to say each additional player probably adds an hour to the session. Like I'm probably going to beef it up a bit for my session on the weekend and then, like, increase the number of mooks a bit, but because of how the action economy works, I really don't have to adjust it by much. Yeah, because with less you just got to attack more. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I'm not seeing a ton of reaction rolls so it didn't come up. But yeah, it would have been written on stuff to make a reaction roll.

Karl: 1:41:50

Right. So reaction roll is somewhat equivalent to a saving throw. And then you just there are no reactions. But you get way more actions, especially if you succeed in a long chain of successes.

Richard: 1:42:00

I guess. Yeah, I think the warrior class has a feature that lets it make reaction rolls. That is just straight up. It gets attacks of opportunity. That's its thing.

Richard: 1:42:11

So there's some character abilities that might get it too, and then yeah, for this fight. It basically said like if the players are being overwhelmed, have things attack the countdown or instead. And how the countdown worked mechanically is, every time the arcanist is hit, the countdown would go up one, and every time you kill an enemy it went down to kind of like describe how the fight plays. How'd you feel about that? Because it's weird for me, it's mechanically weird that I can spend sphere to summon skeletons for you to kill so you can win the fight faster. Also, it had two wraiths originally and I went no, you can fight one, um, I think originally, and I went no, you can fight one.

Karl: 1:42:54

Um, I think that is interesting. Uh again, um, having played and ran a lot of dnd. Um, there aren't that many encounters written, as is from fifth edition that I played. Uh, where there are alternative objectives to combat, and I appreciate the big timer counter as well as giving players obvious ways to interact with said counter. I think that's.

Karl: 1:43:31

I think that's good design it is a little bit mechanically weird that you can just summon more mooks to help me succeed, but you also do summon mooks which could also end up being terribly bad, such as when my character died.

Richard: 1:43:45

Yeah, it's interesting because, like I read the ability of it's just spend a fear to summon two additional skeletons and I'm like my first brain was like, oh, that could win the fight faster, like that is absolutely what killed them 100.

Karl: 1:43:58

That is the turn that killed you for sure well, like I said I, I had a lot of uh, mediocre roles.

Richard: 1:44:07

I think the funniest one is so the vulnerable condition was actually vulnerable until their next rest, as written. But the rules say that, like a lot of things, can give temporary conditions and then the condition will have a DC. You beat to clear the condition. I'm like, okay, even if I wasn't like trying to make it like you're not going to get to a next rest, so I'm not just going to leave you vulnerable for the entire fight but also for just like rules as written. I think I would always like give players, if they want to spend their turn, to not be vulnerable. I kind of enjoy that. Their examples are scrambling to keep your balance caught off guard magically and feeble. I'm like, no, you're just falling down a well while you're fighting and then the the pass-through action is just mean Because on success you pass through pushing their soul from their body, making them untethered. They can't act again until the ritual counter ticks down. If the entire party's untethered, they all mark two hit points to get their souls to return to their body.

Karl: 1:45:06

Ooh yeah, that would have been pretty savage.

Richard: 1:45:10

Also it says here if a pc ever marks their last hit point, they make a death mood for the purpose of quick start adventure. They fall unconscious until they're healed or the danger passes like no. So what would have happened if you just chose to pass out? You would have woken up, the gem, the stone would have been broken and the monsters would have been murdered by the arcanist. So the ritual would have failed and he would have then murdered the shit out of them and saved your life.

Karl: 1:45:42

Okay, so this is. You sent me a picture of the forest wraith, how'd you like?

Richard: 1:45:48

my description of it just being a horrifying cancerous forest tumor monster is pretty accurate. Yeah, I'm not going to send you a photo of the skellies because there's no reason. They're exactly what you're imagining, although I did make my arcanist way sketchier than as written.

Karl: 1:46:07

So here's what it looks like. Oh oh yeah, that's not sketchy at all.

Richard: 1:46:13

And I'm like but the description where it's like you can't read its face but you can hear its emotions, like yeah, I'm going to go full Pan's Labyrinth on this for no particular reason, because you gave me that eye imagery and I want to use it later. I want to use it where I could. Right, if the trees are staring at you, I'm going to ham that up.

Richard: 1:46:32

Right right, but yeah, glad you had fun. I have no idea how well this episode's going to do. It ran a little longer because I was fully intending it to, because we did a recap afterward. Yeah, but what do you think? Would you run this game at your table?

Karl: 1:46:52

I would definitely be willing to give this a try. Character creation seems fairly straightforward. The general mechanics seem fairly straightforward.

Richard: 1:47:06

I mean, there's one thing I ad hoc. That was kind of odd though. So I'm pretty sure you can just apply your experience to attacks if it makes sense and you're like I roll this to find a weakness. I'm like, ok, I'll give you some info off a stat block and then remind you of a thing you could already do. I think I'm pretty sure you can just apply your experience to attacks if it's thematically makes sense, but I'm not actually certain.

Karl: 1:47:33

Yeah, the experience is probably the thing that was the least clear in the rules to me. I would have to reread that and see what it is, because, like you say, it's kind of like the skill system but kind of not. And then, as we went over at the beginning, they're like purposely vague but specific. So, yeah, you absolutely could have added it to attacks.

Richard: 1:47:58

There's no rule that says you can't, because an action role or reaction role is like an attack role is an action role, yeah, ok. So what's funny is like in the book they're like examples include backgrounds like assassin and blacksmith, specialties like acrobat, gambler, healer phrases like jimmy can. But here's where experience is cool. So say you lived through this advantage to hit level two, you write a new experience that you would write based on what happened to this adventure. So what would you have written your experience to be, had you? Let's say that the archivist resurrects you for the sake of a happy ending.

Richard: 1:48:35

It's not what happened, but let's pull a disney and change the ending and put you in child protective services instead okay, um, so let's go through that yeah, let's go through the rigmarole of what would happen if you hit level two, which I think you can pull on your sheet if you click the character builder.

Karl: 1:48:59

Uh, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Uh, I don't see how to level this character sheet up.

Richard: 1:49:07

Uh, there's like a little like circle-y thing in the top left corner and you can click on like character builder there maybe.

Karl: 1:49:13

Characters Daggerheart.

Richard: 1:49:17

And if not, I'll pull it up and just read it off to you, since I'm more familiar with this and like this entire adventure's free off their site. Like you can just download and run this adventure.

Karl: 1:49:28

Edit character Level let's go level two. Adventure Edit character Level. Let's go level two.

Richard: 1:49:35

So first, it would be a new experience, right? I know what I would recommend as your DM, but I'm curious to see what you would think of first.

Karl: 1:49:47

I see. So create an experience, increase proficiency, get level up options.

Richard: 1:49:56

And it's cool that you just pick your favorite two options on the list.

Karl: 1:50:01

And then domain deck card. Okay, that's actually one other thing which I guess, if you're playing in person, it makes sense just have a deck of cards and you're like, yeah, these are the things you can choose. And then you choose tar cards and build your loadout. Just reading the rule books I get it, but it also seems superfluous.

Richard: 1:50:31

Well, it's interesting because it's like in person. I see the logic and on the website there's literally just a slot on the character sheet where you can just write down what the feature does. So if you skip out the cards and just write down your AnswerS3 community domain card, you absolutely can do it that way. They also have an online character creator where you can put your character's artwork on your character's cards and then, like I think they're planning to expand that you can have your custom cards printed. So, like I like it because it's portable rules, right, like for character building for a session, because they have really extensive session zeros and just I do think just handing people it than trying to pass a book around. It makes sense if you're planning to run session zeros in person Hmm, people with than trying to pass a book around. It makes sense if you're planning to run.

Karl: 1:51:13

Session Zeros in person.

Richard: 1:51:17

Hmm, but I can't see the like you don't? It's like a way of them being like here's our feats. I'm like, yeah, the feats are all just in the book and you can just write them down on the boxes, on your sheet, if you wanted.

Karl: 1:51:26

Hmm.

Richard: 1:51:30

But I digress. Also, the rulebook has full Delicious in the Dungeon rules. They call it Beast Feast and it's just rules to have the Dungeon Meshier campaign.

Karl: 1:51:42

Well, I think, with that, we should probably call it a night.

Richard: 1:51:46

Yeah, I don't think we get a random question this week, Actually I will ask you a random question. Random question. Think we get a random question this week.

Karl: 1:52:00

Actually, I will ask you a random question, random question after this experience, what class would you play if you were to make a character for this game? Oh um, rogue has always been my favorite, so I probably actually want to try rogue next um, would you keep the throwing blade spell, do they? Have that same domain, because that was a sick spell.

Richard: 1:52:13

Yeah, so they get the darkness domain and I think they get the stabby domain as well, where you got the darkness and the magic.

Karl: 1:52:22

I like the blade spell that would be on a rogue yeah.

Richard: 1:52:28

Awesome To prove a point on their Discord server because I always pop in. People are like I want to make a new class for a Gish. I'm like actually the rules for this game you could just give a sword to a wizard and I built a war wizard that was a melee hit stuff build and I'm like that's definitely what I would play. Is this wizard who just pulls out a cloud sword and starts beating you? Who's high status strength? Yeah, starts beating you? Who's high status strength? Yeah, all right. So thank you for everyone who tuned into this special episode and let us know if you want me to make carl play more ttrpgs on stream in their entire days yeah, I mean, let let richard know, uh, because I'm not the analytics dude, that's.

Richard: 1:53:10

That's richard, I mean to be fair, if anyone actually sends you like a letter, we would do the thing like if you ever received a communication successfully from a fan for how much harder we've made that for this world we would do the thing if I ever successfully received communication but happy gaming, happy D&D and happy not giving Wizards of the Coast money as they send mercenaries after people. Bye, bye. Legal disclaimer Don't sue us Wizards, don't sue us Critical Role, don't sue us Daggerheart. We don't have money. Bye, bye.