Playable Races Deep Dive Pt. 5: Chorne & Greenleng

Vrahode is a world teeming with life and full of creatures and characters that you've never seen before in any fantasy world.

But what does that actually mean in practice?

This is part 5 of a 5-part deep dive into the playable races of Vrahode. We'll be talking about the Chrone and Greenleng, who rank among the most interesting warriors in all of Vrahode!

Vrahode will be coming to Kickstarter most likely in quarter one of 2024. When that campaign goes live, you will not only be able to buy the core game, Vrahode: The Calteeryn Ascension, but its three expansions as well.

 Trailer Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy5rapu8Dd4

Learn more about Vrahode on the website, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.      

Transcript

Brandon Rollins: A large spherical character just comes busting out of a wall. You invented the Kool Aid Man.

Jeff Irving: I did.

Brandon Rollins: That's exactly what you've done.

Jeff Irving: My name is Jeff Irving and this is the Vrahode Tavern Podcast. I am the creator of the Vrahode Game System. And in this podcast, we're going to do a deep dive into the lore and gameplay of Vrahode. I'm joined by Brandon Rollins, who will be acting as a stand in for you, asking many of the questions you might be curious about yourself.

Brandon, what are we talking about today? 

Brandon Rollins: All right, so for today's topic, I was thinking, let's go ahead and conclude our five part series, which is a deep dive into the 10 crafted races of Vrahode. 

So we've covered the other eight in the last four podcasts, so we've only got two more to do, and that is the Chorne and the Greenleng. 

And a little more information for anybody who's, who's just catching up on these. There are six crafted races, which you are able to play in the base game. And then there are four others that become playable as of the second expansion. And I actually don't know a whole lot about how these play myself.

So with that in mind, uh, where do you want to start?

Who are the Chrone & their pregen heroes?

Jeff Irving: Well, one thing I want to cover that we missed in, in the last episode, uh, we, we've talked about where all these races come from, but we, we neglected to talk about where the Sahrhune live. And so before we start our discussion about the Chorne and the Greenleng, I wanted to just real quickly mention where on the map, in the overlands, we find the Sahrhune, and they are located in region 39, which is on the stormward side. It's an island chain on the stormward side of Renduur. And so, because they, they spend their lives at sea and in the water. It only makes sense that the, their village of Stormhaven, um, would be on an island chain.

And so just wanted to cover that topic and apologize for missing, uh, describing that on our last podcast. Um, so as far as our discussion of the Chorne and the Greenleng, I think it makes sense, either, we can either stick to script or we can start with the pregen heroes. What do you think, Brandon?

What, what, what suits your fancy?

Brandon Rollins: I think let's go ahead and read from the description at the back of the card and then get right into the pre gen heroes.

Jeff Irving: Which do you want to do first? Chorne or Greenleng?

Brandon Rollins: Let's go with the Chorne.

Jeff Irving: Okay. We have a large lore section at the beginning of the quest book, in the core box. And we have a similar lore section in the book that comes with the second expansion and you'll learn a lot more detail about the Chorne in that book, but this is on the back of their card that'll be on the back of your heroes or custom hero cards about the race.

So here we go. It says some speculate that the Chorne cannot be counted in numbers the way other peoples are. For they are not, the thinking continues, the same as the rock they animate.

They are a continuity of spirit, which runs through our Vrahode and whether it is one spirit or many, no one can say, but when they awaken the pile of boulders, they do so only during times of greatest need so that you are see that you are on, let's see, see that you are the one who needs them. So there's the description of the Chorne.

And so we've got this kind of. Uh, obviously the Chorne are, they're these hulking stone beings, collections of boulders, rocks, if you will. And, um, they're very different. They're the, they're much larger than any of the other races. As far as their bulk, they're perhaps not as tall as the, the Toreln or the Mynoc, but they're two or three times as wide.

So, um, that's what they look like in appearance. You want to do the pre gen heroes at this point, you think?

Brandon Rollins: Yeah, I think go right into the pre gen heroes.

Jeff Irving: Okay, we only have one from the Chorne because they're, they're not really, they're, they're not really as much about male, female. They're just, they're just Chorne. So they're, they're kind of neuter, if you will, as far as they're, or androgynous, I think is a better way to say it. Um, and we have one hero and I say he, uh, he looked, it looks kind of male to me, but, uh, his name is Bierdyn.

He is a juggernaut. Okay. So what is a juggernaut? What is the role of a juggernaut? And, and so you have, you have this hulking pile of boulders. It makes sense that, that the role of juggernaut would be well suited for someone like that and Bierdyn fits that bill. He starts out with 62 life.

So he starts out with a ton of life.

Brandon Rollins: Oh my God, I mean like the, the, the Mahorii have like 12.

Jeff Irving: Well, no, this is, but you got to remember, this is.

Brandon Rollins: Oh, right, right, right, right. Second expansion.

Jeff Irving: Let's look at the life of the other heroes that are introduced in the second expansion so that we can compare it accurately. So, let's go. Okay, so if we look at Ulshaba, our marksman, she starts out at 59. Grotto, 59. Um. Spling, 56, Jazzu, 57, and Ajitti, 57.

So he's got more life than any of the other heroes introduced in the second expansion. 

Okay, but, but, now let's look at his movement. His movement is five. Okay. So... 

Brandon Rollins: That's not very far at all.

Jeff Irving: No, he is the slowest of all of the heroes. And I would say, as we look at this episode, as we look at the two heroes from, you know, uh, from the Chorne race and from the Greenleng race, what we're seeing here is the extremes.

These are the extremes. This is the largest race in the Chorne and the smallest race in the Greenleng. Uh, we're talking about something that is a living stone in the Chorne and something that's almost insect like when we, when we take a look at Spling, our Greenleng. And so they're very, very different. You play them extremely differently.

You just, you play them totally differently. So what we like to do is really push the boundaries of what's fun in a board game and what's doable without getting complex. And we've really done that with these two races and these heroes. So anyway, so as we look at him, we know he's got a lot of life, not he's super slow.

He starts out already with plate armor. You know, over the stone, he's got a heavy two handed hammer. Um, his skills are two in body and one in presence. So he's got one called Savage Blitz. So that's probably the mainstay of a juggernaut is the ability to do damage deep into enemy ranks instead of just on the front line.

So a juggernaut is going to have the ability to push through, to shoulder in, to do damage deeper. Um, and so he's going to be the one to do that. And so if you can, if you're up against a big group of enemies, uh, obviously the juggernaut should be the first in, to battle, first in, no question. Um, he's got one called volatile strike, so he can take a, a big, heavy weapon.

And he can hit an enemy in such a way that it does damage to them. It sends them airborne, and when they land, they go into a knockdown state because of the amount of damage and having flown through the air. So, you know, if you can imagine when men and elves fought Sauron back in the original battle for Middle Earth.

And you saw Sauron step up with this huge mace or flail, whatever it was he had, and begin to carve through the ranks of men and elves. He would swing it through them and three or four or five of them would go flying back into the ranks. That's what this volatile stripe does. But it only does it to one enemy.

But he can lift an entire enemy and send them flying. Pretty cool. And then 

Brandon Rollins: Oh yeah, definitely. That's, that's such a power move.

Jeff Irving: And then his present skill is called Iron Shoulder. And so basically what he's doing with this is he's dropping a shoulder and he's bull rushing, he's like blitzkrieging into the enemy ranks and he's causing a line of knockdown and things like that.

Just havoc among the enemy ranks. And so some of these are going to be more about damage. Some of these abilities are going to be more about disrupting the positioning. Of a large force of enemies. And so he's in a way just through his brute force, kind of a crowd control guy too.

And like I said, there's only one hero from this race, uh, that's, that's stepped forward to fight. Um, I will tell you that we see the Chorne earlier, uh, we see them in the core box and expansion one. We actually have, um, a summonable ally in a Chorne called Throm. Throm is, uh, is summonable through a, a, a magic item device that we can find, um, and we can summon Throm to fight with us.

So there is a, a Chorne that will fight with us, uh, during certain battles, and then he will leave. And then we also have. Um, um, Grolden, another Chorne that will often we'll run across Grolden as we explore the world and he will, um, he's just kind of a lonely fellow out wandering the world and he will join us and travel with us to a destination.

And so he'll just kind of accompany us and make a leg of our travel safer because he's just wanting friendship. And so by the time we get to be able to play Bierdyn, the Chorne as a hero, we're already pretty, pretty well introduced to, and, and fond of this hulking race of stone beings.

Brandon Rollins: Before we get into like, abilities and, and restrictions, I think it's interesting to, um, point out here, as you had mentioned in, I don't even know what episode at this point, one of the things that they do, just in general, is that they, they can create balacomes, which are like these historical records, right?

Jeff Irving: Yes, a balacombe is a, is a history stone. And so basically, um, in the description of the Chorn, speaking of them kind of as like a, a collective that exists within the stones of the world of Vrahode, they, sometimes they grow weary of, of the road. Like for example, Grolden, this, this Chorne that we find sometimes as we travel, he may decide at one point, he's just tired of the road.

And he'll turn himself into a balacome and it's just a form of rest. And the other reason that Chorne will choose to become a balacome is to protect very important historical information. So, uh, not to give away too many spoilers, but there, is at least one balacome in existence, uh, in the world of Vrahode, and I will tell you that it's, it's with pretty high level of certainty that that balacome was formed or created by a Chorne in order to protect some very important information.

And so finding out that information will help us, uh, know more and move the story forward. Uh, it's one of the, it's one of the exciting, uh, turning points of our story. So I'll be excited for you guys to find, uh, maybe find out what happens with that balacome.

Brandon Rollins: Does this tie back into them as a playable race?

Jeff Irving: That's all I'm going to say at this point, because, you know, I'm really bad about, like, I'm good at keeping secrets, but I'm bad about like accidentally letting them go like, oh man, I didn't mean to say that kind of thing, you know?

Brandon Rollins: Mm hmm.

Jeff Irving: Uh, so I will stop there.

Brandon Rollins: We will actually leave it alone then. Yeah, so I guess moving on, um, what kind 

Jeff Irving: Talk about where they live.

Brandon Rollins: Yeah, let's talk about where they live.

Chrone lifestyle and abilities

Jeff Irving: The main island of, of Renduur on Vrahode is the main continent. And, um, you know, we've got, we've got the Cautuuk that live there. We've got the Athak-uul, we've got the Drelrhune, um, the Toreln live there. Um, and so the one, the race that lives probably the most iceward on Renduur is the Chorne, and so they're the ones to the far right of the map or the farthest, right?

I should say, and they live in the shadowed peaks in region 264 in a village called Rockroot. And so to visit the Chorne, you have to travel to a mountaintop because their village is on the very top of a mountain, oftentimes based on inversions and things, it's above the clouds.

And so, you know, it's, you don't take lightly going to travel to see the Chorne, um, But that is where, they live, there is plenty to do in and around the village of Rockroot. There's, lots of commissions to do in the mountains there to help the Chorne in certain ways. We can talk about that more later.

But yeah, that's where they live. So on the main island of Renduur, but on the, on the, on the iceward end.

Brandon Rollins: So, what kind of traits do they have?

Jeff Irving: Okay. So again, one of the things we talked about is that these races that we're talking about today are extremes.

Brandon Rollins: Mm hmm.

Jeff Irving: The, uh, the Chorne, their racial restrictions are, are many, um, they may not dual wield. They're, they're too slow moving and, um, just lumbering to, to, to manage two weapons, one in each hand.

So they can only single wield a weapon. They can only use long or heavy weapons. They cannot use their hands. Don't even work to grasp and manipulate a dagger or a hand ax. They need a big, they need something big to grasp a hold of. So a lot of times you'll see a, a Chorne using a big two handed ax or two handed hammer. 

Let's see what else. Oh, and they can't, they can't do any ranged physical attacks. They just don't have the dexterity or the, um, eye to hand coordination to move quickly enough to, I mean, they can't pull a bow string. Their, their hands are like hams, you know, they just have, so there's, they have to have big heavy weapons, you know, and that's, and, and no range.

They can't throw anything. Um, they're going to be melee only. Melee only.

So if I was going to be creating a custom Chorne hero, um, I would not be creating a caster.

Brandon Rollins: Yeah, no, that doesn't seem like it would be a good fit.

Jeff Irving: No, I think the best thing you can do if you don't want to play a juggernaut. Um, is any other, any other, um, melee role, um, would probably be the best. Cause they have to stay toe to toe and they have to use big stuff. So, so yeah, that's, that's really what, what they're suited for.

Brandon Rollins: And to that end, do they have any other restrictions?

Jeff Irving: No, just like I said, just, you know, only, only long or heavy. Um, no weapon. No, I mean, obviously they can put on whatever armor they want, you know? 

Brandon Rollins: I bet their abilities are killer.

Jeff Irving: Well, let's, let's talk about the racial traits first.

Brandon Rollins: Okay.

Jeff Irving: They're immune to bleed effects, and it only makes sense. Right?

You can't make them bleed because they're, they're stone, um, in the mountains, when we enter mountain regions as any of the races, other than Chorne, it costs us to movement points, uh, to move. I mean, I'm sorry two fatigue. It's very fatiguing for the races to travel in mountains because of the verticality and the difficulty of the terrain, but not the Chorne. They're essentially at one with the stone of the mountain. And so they, it only costs them one fatigue per mountain region that they move through. Okay. The, the, the last racial trait of the Chorne is that they have plus two mitigation, period.

Brandon Rollins: Oh my gosh. These guys are defensive tanks.

Jeff Irving: That's it. They have plus two mitigation wearing nothing. Okay. So, so you're starting out with this, this, just this bulwark. Um, You know, granted, there's tons of restrictions on them. There's only certain things you're going to be able to do. No ranged, uh, you know, can't do ranged physical attacks. Now, I will say this, you could do, you could do a mage Chorne because their racial restriction says no ranged physical attacks.

That doesn't mean you can't cast lightning and things that are spells that work at a distance. So to me, a Chorne mage might be a really cool build.

Brandon Rollins: Yeah. It's like, cause normally you would think of a mage as being kind of squishy, easy to kill, but if they're like a defensive tank and you can keep them at a distance and have them as a, as a mage, I mean, that would be like a monstrously tough thing to try and fight.

Jeff Irving: The problem with the problem is this with the Chorne, okay, they start out with plus two mitigation, right? And their movement is only five. If a Chorne is wearing heavy banded mail, that's one more minus to their movement. Now they're down to four. If they're wearing any plate armor at all, they're down to three.

And if they wear the top tier plate armor, They're down to two. So a mage can't afford to be that immobile. Right? A mage has got to be able to move around. And so, you can see that this particular race and this particular role is very well matched together. Juggernaut, Corne, they belong together.

Brandon Rollins: Absolutely.

Jeff Irving: Okay, so now, uh, I've kept you waiting long enough and I will tell you what the racial abilities of the Chorne are. 

The first... Okay, and I meant, remember we're trying to match these racial abilities with the race. The first racial ability we have is called Tectonic Wave. So we're gonna mo, we're gonna make a wave of earth that causes two damage and knockdown to enemies in a line, orthogonal or diagonal, up to four spaces away.

Damage may not be mitigated.

Brandon Rollins: Good grief.

Jeff Irving: Okay, so I've got a line four spaces long, orthogonal or diagonal. It's only doing two damage to them, but it's knocking them down. And so now they're all prone. And so their mitigation goes down one. So they've got to waste an action and stand back up. Before they regain that lost mitigation and can do, do battle again.

So I'm a disruptor at this point. I'm just literally casting a line and knocking everything down and giving them a couple of points of damage. And so I'm acting as this complete, just juggernaut. I'm just destroying the battlefield.

Brandon Rollins: Oh yeah, if you've got a Chorne with a low initiative roll and a large party, and that means they get to go early, first, or maybe second, like... 

Jeff Irving: Now get ready for this second one. This one's gonna knock you for a loop. Okay, think about the Chorne. They're hulking. They're slow. But, they're part of a collective of souls that inhabits the stone of the world of Vrahode. So their second racial ability is called Metamorphic Soul. And this hero may move from the current space to any other unoccupied space on this encounter map at the beginning of their next turn.

Then take normal actions.

Brandon Rollins: Hold on, hold on. Is that basically a teleport?

Jeff Irving: It's a teleport.

Brandon Rollins: Oh my god.

Jeff Irving: So they can dissolve into the stone, move to any unoccupied square on the battlefield, reform their body up out of the ground, and then because it takes an entire round for that to happen, basically when I cast metamorphic soul, it wastes my turn. I do nothing that turn, but the next turn I get to rise up anywhere on the battlefield I want, and then do my normal actions.

Brandon Rollins: Oh, that's, that's, like, that's scary because like, you have no idea where it's gonna pop up and it doesn't matter where you move, you could be at risk.

Jeff Irving: Exactly. And so it's like, it totally flips the model of the slow moving Chorne on its head because its soul can dissolve down into the ground, into the rock, move, and then reform and grow up into a new Chorne.

Brandon Rollins: So, does that cost a lot of ruhl or something?

Jeff Irving: It's a racial ability.

Brandon Rollins: Oh my god, so it doesn't even cost ru hl. Oh, that's nuts.

Jeff Irving: Isn't that awesome?

Brandon Rollins: Yeah, that's crazy.

Jeff Irving: I love it. Yeah. And I mean, if I'm going to play a Chrone, that's probably why I'm going to play it is because of that racial ability.

Brandon Rollins: I was gonna say, it's like, that's probably your justification for a custom hero build of a Chorne.

Jeff Irving: Yeah, because I mean, how many times do you want to get behind the enemy ranks? Right?

That does it. Boom. Now, granted it wastes a turn. It's slow. Just like the Chorne is he has to waste a turn to do it, but then he comes up and does normal actions. I mean, that is just brilliant.

Brandon Rollins: A large spherical character just comes busting out of a wall. You invented the Kool Aid Man.

Jeff Irving: I did.

Brandon Rollins: That's exactly what you've done.

Jeff Irving: That's so funny.

Brandon Rollins: Just, Yeah, That's exactly what you've done.

Who are the Greenleng?

Jeff Irving: All right, well, let's talk about, let's read the, let's read the description for the Greenleng. How about that?

Brandon Rollins: Yeah.

Jeff Irving: All right. Well, little is known of the Greenleng and even less is understood. They are believed to live in a, in large groups among the trees and swamps, almost hive like, many have said, though few now travel in these dark places and fewer come back from them.

But of this race, this much is known with certainty. They are strongest when they are greatest in their numbers. Their enemies should be so advised. Overlook them to your peril.

Okay. So what does that tell you? That tells you that they're reclusive, like most of the races are. That they live in, in swamps and dark places and that they're stronger in numbers, right? So probably weaker individually, maybe. Sounds right.

So with, with that description, let's talk about the pre gen, um, the pre gen Greenleng, and this is going to give you a lot better idea of, of the Greenleng culture. So we have one hero and we're, we're Bierdyn is kind of, this is a kind of seems male, but the Chorne are kind of asexual, if you will, whatever, neuter. Um, the Greenleng society is completely dominated by females. We don't see males. Males live to serve the females of the Greenleng race.

They are extremely diminutive. They're between about a foot or two feet. They're tiny. Okay. And our, our hero from the Greenleng race, her name is Spling. And her role in the group is she is a nature priest. Why do we care about a nature priest? Well, she wears simple studded armor. She has a serpentine dagger and she has an apothecary kit.

Remember that, it's important. Okay, when we look at her life as compared to the others, Bierdyn starts with 62 life, she starts with 56, so way less life. Bierdyn starts, his movement is 5. Spling's movement is eight. Okay. So her skills, she has two in spirit and one in mind. Her spirit skills are Nature's Absolution, Favor of the Wilds, and her mind skill is called Nature's Accord. 

Her role restrictions are she can wear fancy studded armor or less. So leather or less, she's going to stay light and fly around. The difference between Spling and Grendlem and Drista is that the Athak-uul are short flyers. The Greenleng are perma flyers. What distinguishes a perma flyer from a short flyer like the Athak-uul?

She can remain aloft at the end of her turn. She can attack from a flight height. She does not have to land. And when she is at flight height, she is immune to melee attacks.

Brandon Rollins: That's kinda huge in and of its own self. Yeah, like...

Jeff Irving: It's huge. It's huge. It's, it's quite huge. Permaflying is really great, especially if you have a ranged attack. Now you're vulnerable to ranged attacks. You're a vulnerable, you're vulnerable to anything ranged, but she's able to fly above the battlefield, um, and, and remain there.

Her skills are really more utilitarian for a group. Um, I'm not sure I could make it very far playing a nature priest solo in the game. I'm, I'm sure I could, but, but it would be a challenge. Um, their, their ability to fly above things is huge. Um, but her skills are focused on getting the most from the land.

In other words, she can go into a region and she can use her skill, I believe it's favor of the wilds. And when she uses favor of the wilds, she can literally locate the desired regional item that she's looking for. In other words, the plant or root or seed pod or mold that she's wanting.

She can just use that skill and find it automatically. She doesn't have to fight tons of monsters to get it. Um, and let me tell you that when you have people in your party that are suffering from horrible afflictions, that is decimating their skills, their roles. And you're traveling to try to find a cure for it. If you have spleen with you and you know, the cure for a given ailment comes from a region type.

You go into that region type. She uses the skill favor of the wilds and she gets your cure for you going. Your, your, your affliction is cured. Okay. that's important because again, the world of Vrahode has three enemy types, the world, your inventory and flesh and blood enemies. And she's going to mitigate some of those, uh, the teeth in some of those enemies because of her ability to find things on demand.

Another thing she has, um, she has an ability called nature's accord, which basically says that she can use her apothecary kit to attempt to create a potion, to generate a potion, whenever she uses her skill and she's going to make, um, she's going to roll off of a table to try to, um, generate a potion, but potions when you generate them, they're the nice thing about them is they stay with you.

You can use them when you need them. And so she's able to build to generate these potions as she travels around the world and give them to her party mates and everybody's got the potions that they need.

And so she's a resource for all those potions. And then if she does the right roll on her skill, she can actually make the exact potion she wants. She can't do it automatically, but if she gets within like one point of the number she says she's going to roll, she can actually make the potion on demand that she wants.

So it's a very potent skill and you can kind of see how the Greenleng race works. They're in league with the plants and vines that they were created from. Their magic comes from the plants and vines and things, the small plants of the world. And the insects, that's the, you know, that's kind of what the Greenleng race was crafted from insects, plants and vines.

And that's why the race exists.

Brandon Rollins: Yeah, and I think it's worthwhile to point out again that I think you had mentioned a long time ago that the Accourish just kind of created races out of whatever was already existing in the world of Vrahode, right?

Jeff Irving: That's why there's three reptile races. There was a healthy, um, diversity of reptiles on Vrahode and they went around to different parts of the world and, and, and imbued animals and kind of combined an animal with. A human like soul to craft a new race, you know, their, their magic tends to be combinative, uh, the magic tends to be kind of combinative, uh, powerful, uh, and, and that's the way the Greenland came about was they, they saw the insects and, and that area of the world, they, they crafted that and they imbued it with sentience and, and look what happened.

You know, you got the Greenleng, um, talk, let's talk about racial restrictions though. Um, obviously no longer heavy weapons, right? We're talking about one foot to two foot tall beings, no 

Brandon Rollins: Yeah, they're, they're not going to be carrying around like your heavy battle axes.

Jeff Irving: Important thing about the Greenleng is they are immune to poison. Come on. That's great.

Brandon Rollins: Oh yeah, that's really useful.

Jeff Irving: Um, let's talk about the fact that they're a perma flyer. I mean, that's, that's huge, right? Perma flyer. 

Brandon Rollins: Like, that's probably, like, reason number one why you would choose him as your custom hero.

Greenleng abilities 

Jeff Irving: Then let's look at their, um, let's look at their racial abilities. Shall we?

Okay. So their 1st racial ability is called Infectious Wounds. It adds poison effect to successful ranged attack. So these guys are used to using little like blowguns and darts and, and small ranged weapons, right?

And so they're going to add poison to their ranged attacks.

Brandon Rollins: That's really good if you're in a long, drawn out battle, too.

Jeff Irving: Yep. You can just hit them from a distance and let them get poisoned over time. Um, the other thing, the other thing that's neat is because the Greenleng are stronger in numbers, they're second ability, racial ability is called Hive Might. And so what it does is it adds plus one to mind skill roles for this hero, for each additional party member, this battle.

So let's say Spling is in your party and there's four of you. She gets plus three because there's three other people in her party to her mind roles, if she uses that hive might ability.

Brandon Rollins: Plus three, plus three to which rolls exactly?

Jeff Irving: Her mind rolls,

Brandon Rollins: Okay, that,. And, cause that's where a lot of her skills are based. That's 

Jeff Irving: Right.

Brandon Rollins: A big modifier. Mm.

Jeff Irving: Spling is primarily spirit, secondarily mind, okay? And so if you had, let's say you chose to be a Greenleng mage, or I mean, a Greenleng spark. Think about how potent a Greenleng spark would be with the ability to give her plus three to cast her spells.

Brandon Rollins: Oh yeah, definitely.

Jeff Irving: It's a big deal.

Brandon Rollins: That's a big addition.

Jeff Irving: Yep. So they're very potent in magic. They're very weak physically. You're not going to see, you're not going to see a Greenleng on the front lines. You're just not.

Brandon Rollins: No, physically weak, but extremely mobile. Very powerful mind skills.

Jeff Irving: Yep. Now, keep in mind, she's got to kind of waste a turn in order to acquire that help from her friends, right? She's got to kind of pull that, pull that source and waste a turn with that racial ability. But once she's done that, that plus three to her roles last the entire battle.

Brandon Rollins: Hmm.

Jeff Irving: So she's only got to do that once.

Brandon Rollins: Yeah, if you're up against a lot of enemies, that could be really, really, really helpful.

Jeff Irving: Yeah.

Brandon Rollins: Especially when you start, when you start stacking that on top of poison effects too.

Jeff Irving: Yep.

I really like the Greenleng. I like the fact that they're the, the complete opposite of the Chorne. I mean, they're just, they're, they're night and day, you know.

Greenlengs as custom heroes

Brandon Rollins: Hmm. When do you think you might use, um, a Greenleng in a custom hero build?

Jeff Irving: Okay. So let's look at it. We got Permaflyer, so we've got the ability to stay away from melee. But obviously we're vulnerable to ranged attacks at that point, you know, things are going to try to shoot us out of the air and the way you have to look at that to perma flyers when they get shot in the air, there's a special set of rules to handle perma flyers if someone attacks you while you're flying.

With a physical object, whether it be an arrow, a dagger, a spear, or a hand ax, or anything like that, any thrown weapon, you have, you cannot then attack from the air anymore. You have to land down to fight height, remove that weapon, and then you can resume normal activity.

So the rules around perma flyers is that they can attack from the air. Okay. Short flyers cannot, short flyers, basically, they fly, they move, they land, then they can attack, but they're on the ground when they attack perma flyers can remain flying even at the end of their turn, and they can launch an attack arranged attack from flight height and stay there. That's a big difference that changes everything. Um, so yeah, I think that's a huge, that's huge. And then if I'm doing a custom build of a Greenleng, I like the idea that I'm adding poison to ranged attacks because again, I want to stay at range. I want to stay flying. And if I can add a poison effect to a ranged attack, that just makes me that much more potent from the air.

Brandon Rollins: Mm hmm. 

Yeah, and that's like, that's something you wouldn't normally associate with a ranged attack too, is, is poison.

Jeff Irving: How about this for a build? How about this? How about, how about an Oracle or an Arbiter build? Okay. So we know that the Orator is, um, no, I'm sorry. Oracle, not Orator, the Oracle build, which is Shiroku is the Arbiter and Harna is the Oracle. Those two builds, those two roles, one of them is spirit heavy with a secondary mind, and one of them is mind heavy with a secondary spirit.

I would say either one of those would be my preferred build for a Greenleng because you're able to not only do direct damage, from a distance, but also flying, but then you also have the ability to heal your, your friends in battle while you're flying, that's the difference of a perma flyer is that you can do it from the air, which means you can probably get in closer in some battles when the enemies don't have a ranged attack and basically heal your friends from above.

Brandon Rollins: Ooh, that would make you a very good party member.

Jeff Irving: No, I think the Greenleng is like the ultimate, um, like ultimate best way to finish out a party.

Jeff's ideal 4-player party build

Brandon Rollins: So, I, I guess on that note, cause like, we, we've covered all of the crafted races at this point. If you're making like, an ideal party for a four player game, what do you want on your team?

Jeff Irving: Four players?

Brandon Rollins: Mm hmm.

Jeff Irving: Alright, with four, I've got to have a Blade. I've got to have my standard fight, you know, warrior, uh, with access to the body deck. Okay, I'm, and this is going to be pre expansion too. I'm just going to say core box, ultimate, ultimate four player, uh, group in the core box. I'm going to say, I want a blade, I want a spark.

Let's see. Do I want a spark? No. I want a blade. I want a shadow. I want a blade, a shadow. I want a, an Augur, which is my, uh, Kenezzrha, my Mynoc guy. And then the last one I need has got to be mage first and then spirit. So, Oracle. Yeah, Oracle, Augur, Blade, Shadow. That's my ultimate four player prior to the expansions.

Brandon Rollins: What's your logic?

Jeff Irving: Okay, I've got to have my, I've got to have my, my, my tank. Damage output, but durable. That's the blade. My shadow is going to help me for the situations that are tough. Anywhere underground, I'm going to be able to unlock stuff. I'm going to be able to pick locks. I'm going to be able to disarm traps.

That's really important because when you get into the underlands, if you don't have a shadow, sorry, um, you're going to be hitting a lot of traps and you're going to be bashing a lot of doors, which creates a lot of noise, which, which in turn draws wandering monsters. So I love the shadow for the versatility.

Um, I love Kinezra and I love his off tank healing ability. So we've got a little bit more of a healer there. And then I love the fact that Harna, uh, the oracle is gonna bring in, um, primarily our mage capacity with a little bit more healing. So I've kinda got two weak healers instead of one strong one.

I've got, yeah, that's, that's my ideal. Now, if you wanna talk to me about after a four party build after expansion two or starting an expansion two, I'm going to switch out the blade for the, um, the Slayer, um, cause I want to want that critical strike ability, um, or I could, I could also trade out the, um, the blade for the, the weapons master.

Um, the one weak part about my, my, my ideal party is ranged physical attacks. And so I might. I might want to trade out Kenezzrha for, um, Ulshaba and get that marksman in there, um, that there, because she's going to hit farther and with more damage. And so I might swap out Kenezzrha for Ulshaba there. Um, I don't know.

I mean, I think you could start going once you go beyond that four base party and you start going up into like five and six, that's where I'm going to bring in Spling, or I'm going to bring in the juggernaut, maybe. Or, um, even a, even a lore master. I mean, the, the idea that the bigger the party gets, the more often enemies are going to have behaviors because the behaviors is kind of a scaling mechanism in the game, having someone who can disarm enemy behaviors or neutralize them is going to become really important.

So don't discount the lore master in a big group either.

Brandon Rollins: And I feel like one of the, one of the good things is that there's no like objective best party. You just kind of mix and match and combine based on the, your preferences and the play style of the folks that you're working with.

Jeff Irving: Well, and quickly, as you start to get, um, meaningful hero advancements, which in our game system, the way you get meaningful hero advancements is by either doing quests, playing through the campaign or procedurally, you get meaningful hero advancements through doing what we call commissions. And commissions are mini quests that are done in and around villages, and so if you want to gain the trust of the, of the locals, you do commissions for them.

And at the end of each tier of commissions, um, is when you get those meaningful hero advancements. And so in the core box, you're offered three tiers of commissions in each of the six starting villages. And then in expansion one, you get tier four, uh, commissions in each of those six starting villages.

And then when we start with expansion two, you get tier five commissions in all 10 of the crafted race villages then. And then in the third expansion, you get tier six of all 10 of the starting villages that are then available to you. And so, you can get meaningful hero advancements numerous ways in our game system, and it's very satisfying.

Uh, so like, if you're playing in a quest, if you're questing for advancement, or you're campaigning for advancement, you can't come into the commission system and get those meaningful hero advancements. Instead, you'll be rewarded with a nice item or something. But you will not get... That you cannot double dip on advancement, or you'll find that your heroes are overpowered, and you'll find that the challenge is the challenge level is not satisfying for you.

And so we do that in order to prevent you from becoming. Just extremely overpowered.

Brandon Rollins: That makes perfect sense.

So with that in mind, is there anything else you want to mention about these two?

Jeff Irving: Um, let's see, if we talk about the Chorne and the Greenleng, I, I mean, it's, they're coming late game, right? We're over, a little bit over halfway through the story arc when we see these two. Um, this is, this is when, you know, all the races are trying to put forth their greatest heroes to help us defend, um, uh, Vrahode from, you know, destruction.

And, and it would be lovely to think that a group of three heroes that had been playing the game would find a couple of friends to help them make the final push and play through the second expansion and then the final third expansion. And that would be really when you would want to see the Greenleng and/or the Chorne come into play and be added to a party because what they bring is just. It's, it's potent, you know, you've either got this flying, this flying repository of magic and healing, uh, that has almost no life, or you have this, this just Rolling Boulder of death and destruction that you can, that you can call upon. And what a fun way to add new people to a party, right? To come in and get to play those roles would be great.

So that's all I would say about, that's all I would say really about the Greenleng and the, and the Chorne. 

Um, but I will say this, what I would like to do, um, Brandon, and it, it won't happen until we, I won't be able to do it until I get back from GenCon, but I would like to record a podcast that covers, let's talk about the rest of the races of Vrahode, the ones that aren't crafted. Let's talk about the Accourish. Uh, let's talk about, um, the Barjadeem. Let's talk about the Quayan. Let's talk about the Priuul that are no longer on Vrahode but have left remnants behind that we still run into. Let's talk about those and maybe try to do it all in one episode.

Brandon Rollins: Oh, that could be good. 

Jeff Irving: Okay, well, let's try it. When I get back from Gen Con, um, and, uh, when you have time, let's, let's do it.

Brandon Rollins: All right. That sounds good.

Jeff Irving: Awesome.

Brandon Rollins: In the meantime, you want to go ahead and take us out on this 

Jeff Irving: No, I 

Brandon Rollins: one?

Jeff Irving: Thank you for listening to the Vrahode Tavern podcast. If you've enjoyed this show, take a moment and subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. If you're on Apple Podcasts, please leave a five star review. It helps more than, you know. You can learn more about Vrahode on Vrahode. com. That's V R A H O D E. com. Link in the show notes.

You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, where we're @Vrahode. Thank you again for listening. We really appreciate it and keep an eye out for our next episode in two weeks.