Episode 1: The Quick Start Adventure

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!

Follow along at https://rajkevis.itch.io/

Transcript

Introduction to Daggerheart

SPEAKER_00 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.

SPEAKER_02 0:11

And I am Carl, the PC for this session.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

I appreciate that. I appreciate the idea 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 gonna be running an entire one-shot, in theory, from start to finish. And specifically we're gonna 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 corl-proof their session in advance.

SPEAKER_02 0:55

I'm not up to that many shenanigans.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

You're up to a fair number of shenanigans, most of the time, my friend. If you say so. Alright. So I think your other players are just too conservative. We'll find out, because I'm running this again for them the next week. So I will have this knowledge. Yeah, alright. Alright, so I'm gonna begin with a bit of background. The sable wood 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 roots 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 eeligator would see you later and watch itself out of the nearby river to snap you up as it is. Within the Sable Wood, 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 if I had to say, in the home of a member of the community. Many people of the Sable Wood at large still worship the Forgotten Gods, despite having no names to call them. And with that. So, we're quickly gonna cover the basics of what you need to know. 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 gonna 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. 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 hipcock big 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. 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 this off streams, this is mostly just for the mind palace of our audience is listening to this on the bus. So I'm not gonna 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. 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 game's skill system. For example, Royal Mage are things that a royal mage would know. Studies, mystical arts, filing paperwork, grant applications. Or 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. So for weap 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. 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 gonna run out of arrows, you're not gonna run out of snacks, you're not gonna run out of things unless they're relevant to the story. But if you tell me, oh, I'm gonna carry this dragon on my back, I'm like, alright, 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?

SPEAKER_02 6:09

Um sorry, it it costs stress to take something out of your inventory, or just to swatchwap weapons?

SPEAKER_00 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.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

Hmm. Okay, okay, so stress. Stress lets me quick swap. And similarly, um the domain features that I 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.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Excellent.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

By spending stress as well, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:45

Perfect. So I think you got it. The big thing they like 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 ta tier, which is much cleaner.

SPEAKER_02 6:59

That is clean. Alright. And then you repair your armor slots using downtime activities.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Correct. You get two downtime activities, and I'll like 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 the roof what's written in the little guide, now that we've looked at the character sheet, we're gonna talk a bit about dice. Yet again for your benefits and our listeners. This game uses two D12, called your duality dice. Decide which one represents hope and which represents fear. If you have 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.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

Um It looks like my hope dice is uh like uh translucent gold. Alright. Uh and my fear dice is a translucent purple.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Beautiful. So when you have your character do something 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 DD 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

Game Mechanics and Character Sheet

SPEAKER_00 8:23

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 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 six on the hope and a ten on the fear, that would be sixteen, and then your stat would bring it to eighteen. But if you roll higher with fear, you would tell me you got an 18 with fear. 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 tick down a dramatic countdown as a train piloted by a mustachioed man gets closer to running over its victim. Make sense so far? Excellent. As I'm re-explaining a game you read in advance for the sake of our listeners, so we can get to the roly part. And the last couple notes are the experience stat as we went over before. And then spellcasting roles are basically the same as regular action roles, 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.

SPEAKER_02 10:26

No, instinct seems to be my uh my spell casting trait.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Excellent. So, and the last little note is now that we know it about dice, I'll usually set a difficulty for the roll. Like six or fourteen or twenty-five, and your role 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 pay the part, where with hope you accomplish the goal and all is well, and fear means there'll 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 want 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 lock pick broke inside the door, and your seasonal effective disorder is kicked back in. And lastly, if you roll two of the same number, no matter what that number is, that's a critical and dagger heart. 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 twelve 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 it'd 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 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. If any of your cut rolls 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 I can if I have five dudes and I have five fear, I can attack you with five different dudes, but I'm not gonna 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. So there is an optional rule where each player would get three tokens, and once someone's gone 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 could do to make the best story. Right. Because I do love me a good story. And the last note is the roles 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 could easily move in a turn, close as it'd be difficult to move to a turn, far as would be really hard to do, and very far as you're sniping them.

SPEAKER_05 13:43

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

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, you finally made it to the Sablewood, a sprawling forest of colossal 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 Murph pigeons, and its unique hybrid animals. Even now, from within your carriage, you can hear strange sounds, the low calls of lark moss, the croaks of lemur toads, the skittering of a family of foxbacks 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?

SPEAKER_02 14:41

Oh, I noticed something unique about the Sablewood Forest.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

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

SPEAKER_02 14:48

Uh, the trees, um well, I mean, you it's the Sablewood Forest. Uh, that immediately makes me think of uh Sable Eye from Pokemon. Uh I'm gonna say that the trees look like they have little gemstone eyes.

SPEAKER_00 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. 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 driving this cart within reason?

SPEAKER_02 15:59

Uh, let's see. What do I have driving this cart? Um Well, it's gotta be some sort of hybrid animal so it fits into the into the forest. Um I am going to say uh it's a lizard bear.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Amazing. So I'm a s so this lizard bear, how I'm picturing it, is of course a scaly, except it has like almost like a mustache of uh 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. So as you see your steed pulls a carriage around a tight corner, one wheel's 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 garage steps a Strix wolf, large creature with the body of a wolf in the face of an owl, and large wings adorning

Entering the Sablewood Forest

SPEAKER_00 17:09

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, following 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 the your carriage come to a stop. What would you like to do?

SPEAKER_02 17:41

Alright, so given that it's a uh heart, like bird, howl, um I'm assuming that it's going to regurgitate the dead merchants for the for the pups.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

Roll a knowledge check?

SPEAKER_02 17:59

Uh knowledge check. Roll I got a 20 with fear.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Okay. So uh 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 it's making eye contact. Oh boy. It's staring you down. It's wary of your movement.

SPEAKER_02 18:35

It's wary of my movement. Well, I mean, I guess my uh my best bet is probably uh to keep staring it right in the eye and make myself as big as I as I can. Um larger than yourself. Well, so I kinda wanna may try this minor illusion to like uh like I spread all my arms and I want to make it look like I've like I have a squirrel wing suit, so I seem to seem even bigger. Excellent. I don't want to keep looking in its in its face and try to uh intimidate this thing so that it it will uh let me pass.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

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.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

No, no, I'm I'm I'm not wearing the squirrel suit. I I have a sorcerer class feature called minor illusion.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Okay, so you're making an illusionary giant version of yourself with squirrely arms.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

Uh yeah, I mean it I guess a minor visual illusion, no larger than yourself, with close range. Um it's convincing that you want a close range or further. Uh but basically I want to like spread my arms and make it look like I have like big wings. Uh maybe maybe uh make it look like uh like one of those moth faces.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

Alright, alright, I'm I I'm following you, I'm following you. So go ahead and make a spellcasting roll.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

Okay, so it says make a spellcast roll 10. Alright, that works for me. So spellcast roll, I got an eleven.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Uh fear or hope. 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 more hope. Oh. Uh it's it says you're only supposed to start with two. Well now you're up to three, and I respect your honesty. Have an extra hope for your honesty. Alright. Okay, so. As you do this, it starts s calmly trying to keep its pups out of danger. The group of them start backing up slowly, and with one last snarl, the pups clamor onto her back before she flies into the air, landing a nearby branch. Watching, but it seems to have its head down and it seems to be spooked. You have warded it off successfully. Alright. So now that it is out of way of the cart, and it doesn't look like it's gonna attack, as you look over again, it's doing that cat thing where every time you look, it's slightly further back until it seems to be out of sight.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

So now that you didn't murder a bunch of puppies, what would you like to do?

SPEAKER_02 21:41

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

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Okay, as you go closer, I'll have you. Either instinct or knowledge. See if you're trying to get it. So the difference in this case is if you go with instinct, you're trying to figure out what happened like emotionally. Like, what does it feel like is going on here? Five check. Knowledge is literally like I'm gonna index the things.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

Uh well, yeah, I I think I'm going with with instinct. Uh, because it is possible that this that this uh bear just or the animal just uh came upon the cart that was already tipped over. Alright. So roll an instinct. Roll Ooh an eight with fear. Nope. Not with fear. That is a critical success. I rolled two threes.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Well, that's opposite as like just imagine that I'm like moving an abacus to track my hero with an evil grin on my face, and like, mw-wow. Alright. Okay, so I gain gain a hope for the critical success. You do, and you get some interesting information. So you're you're actually pretty onto something where it w was just came across. So you see that the dead driver, it had his throat slit, his 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.

unknown 23:35

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

And you hear the sound of a branch snapping. It seems the overturned cart was a distraction, but their plan didn't work. 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 poisoned 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. It looks like uh either a halfling or globalid with a bow drawn, target aimed on you. And because you manage to see them coming, the hypothetical battle map is side in front of you. They're both about far distance from you. What would you like to do? You stand at the right hand and spotting them before they can ambush you.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

Okay, so I feel like I should probably try and uh just shoot the poison frog under the tree uh with my dual staff. Alright, go ahead and roll me your attack. Roll my attack. And seventeen with fear.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Alright, so 17 hits, so go ahead and roll damage.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Alright, and uh do you a one d6 plus okay one hmm?

SPEAKER_02 25:21

Oh yeah, yeah, okay, one d6. Because it's plus so that I was it was giving me a plus three, and I'm like, what? What does it mean wrong there? But it makes sense because that's proficiency plus my.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

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 much the weapon does.

SPEAKER_02 25:47

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

SPEAKER_00 25:55

So, for nine, 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.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

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

SPEAKER_00 26:17

So as a gem cracks into the frog and it falls to the ground. Because it's fear, I get to make a move. The other one in the tree, seeing his frog friend go down, and you don't know their backstory, maybe they're best friends, maybe they're enemies. It hardly matters. What raters now is they've been busted, and they don't want to go to jail again. It ain't happening. You aren't gonna catch them, copper. So, a parcourse 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. 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 wrist 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. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 27:19

So, um now the question becomes, like, my dual staff has a range of far.

SPEAKER_05 27:26

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Um I don't I don't see anywhere uh which is no downside in this.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

You don't get a disadvantage or anything for having them too close to you.

SPEAKER_02 27:43

Ah, okay, okay, so I can. As far as the maximum distance, but I can just shoot them at any range. I believe so. That may okay, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

I was just like didn't didn't see any ruling on that on the character sheet, so give me like 10 seconds to make sure, but Yes, if a weapon has close range, it can be used to get to target within close, very close or melee.

SPEAKER_02 28:10

Okay, so far as just my maximum distance, and I can, in fact. And these guys are close? Or they're very close.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

They're in within melee range at this point.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

Well, I mean I feel like it's not gonna be as effective the second time around, but this this little froggy needs to get shot in the face point blank.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

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.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

Yeah, but he's poisonous, so I really don't want to a 20 to hit with hope.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

That'll do it. That'll do it.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

Okay. Okay, so now I guess I roll for damage. Roll. And that's gonna be three hope to re-roll any number of damage dice on a tank. No, statistically speaking, I'm gonna get worse. So we'll just stick with the seven damage that I that I'm dealing.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

It's just enough to break his first threshold. So he goes ahead and takes

Ambush by Thistlefolk Bandits

SPEAKER_00 29:21

a point of damage. He's looking pretty rough. He is being shot repeatedly. And was that with hope or fear?

SPEAKER_02 29:28

Uh the dual staff attack roll was with hope. Alright, you sketch another move. I mean.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Reasonable. Reasonable and brutal.

SPEAKER_02 29:50

Blast him. Ooh, a 24 to hit, uh, but with fear. 24 absolutely hits. And then my dice roll is uh I'm going to uh spend three hole points to re-roll my dice roll. Alright. Should definitely and then re-roll.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

Uh alright, I got eight damage. Eight damage. 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 limbos under it, has the knife directly pressed against you, and it's time for his counter-attack. So he's gonna go ahead and make his strike. What is your evasion? My evasion is ten.

unknown 30:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

So he does manage to connect. Reasonable. And he manages to then damage you for ten points of damage.

SPEAKER_02 31:00

Oh boy. Uh, so my my major damage threshold is seven, so if I don't take an armor slot, you'll be looking at two. Correct. Sheesh. Uh yeah, I mean, I'm gonna take an armor slot to reduce that by one, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

I think I misspoked. 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.

SPEAKER_02 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 fourteen to get to three damage.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

Just making sure I understand. Three points marked. Excellent. So yes, the frog did get blasted as he did his awesome duck under slash maneuver.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

So he's still alive.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

He's still alive, and you still manage to get a cut on you.

SPEAKER_02 32:01

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

SPEAKER_00 32:09

That sounds correct. So you're probably feeling pretty rough from froggy there. And then I'm gonna 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. He rolled a four? He rolled a one and got plus three. Wow, so I'm- I managed to evade. So here's how this plays out in my brain. You limbo the frog limbos under your staff, gets a shoulder blasted, cuts you. The other one goes to swing at you dramatically, and you just kind of like do that like anime backhand block with the back of your hand thing. He did so poorly. It made you very cool. And I yield the spotlight back to you.

SPEAKER_02 33:12

Uh well, I mean, I I really just I've gotta 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 uh that he'll uh surrender and give me information.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

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

SPEAKER_02 33:38

I want to kill the frog first because I suspect that the frog like he he he's a seems to be some sort of poison frog you've mentioned. Uh, and I really don't want to get poisoned. Alright. Ah, but that is. Uh so I'm going to roll for ten. Okay. What did you get? I rolled a ten with hope. Ten with hope?

SPEAKER_00 34:02

So it's he's more evasive than me. Let's find out. So he'll take a s a ten will hit him. Ho ho!

SPEAKER_02 34:15

Roll for damage. Ugh. Wait, so that was a ten with hope. Yeah. So I get a hope for that. Which means it's definitely worthwhile to spend three hope to uh re-roll my my attack roll, because I rolled a one.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

Gotta spend it while you have it. Uh no, I bumped that up to six. Uh overall. Okay. So, six is enough to beat that threshold. How do you want to kill this frog?

SPEAKER_02 34:52

Um I uh so I do the cool like backhand, and then I take the staff and I stab it into his into the frog's foot, and then as the frog is is reeling backwards, I just point it at his chest and So as the frog explodes in a reign of gore, at this moment you're a little less hyper-focused and you realize something.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

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. Right. Hmm. Uh how how far away have they gotten? They have successfully climbed at this point, and they gave their first Yeah. Which is the noise that drew you towards it. So, sorry, you had hope or fear there? Uh, that would that attack rule was with hope. 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.

SPEAKER_02 36:07

Okay, so they're so they're not at a distance where I'd have to make a check to close the distance.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

You could close the distance. Also, there's just dead frog in front of your feet. Um.

SPEAKER_02 36:20

Okay, well. Do I know if the frog's skin and or blood is poisonous to touch?

SPEAKER_00 36:30

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

SPEAKER_02 36:42

I will use my last hope that I currently have, yes. Royal Mage. Wait, okay, so if I spend the hope, it it gives me the plus two? Correct. Okay. Roll.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

Uh I got a 23 with fear. Uh, not poisonous at all, it just looks poisonous. This is some bullshit. Alright. Because the roll was so high, even though it's fear and I get a GM move, my GM move is just letting you know that you're dodging poison for no reason because the frog looks poisonous. Back to you.

SPEAKER_02 37:26

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 on my cart, I am picking up the f the dead frog. Uh, and I'm like, I'm just all about intimidating these guys and trying to get them to either run off or surrender, so.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

I'm gonna say this will be a presence roll for that. A presence roll. But I will give you an advantage to get a roll an extra D6, because you are holding his dismembered body to scare him. Which feels pretty terrifying. I'm gonna be real.

SPEAKER_02 38:04

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

SPEAKER_00 38:12

Frog, hands up. Other guy drops his sword. Hands are up, ever no one's moving. They are terrified.

SPEAKER_02 38:29

Who do you work for? Trying to pull out my best Batman voice.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

My wife? To get money? Because I got fired before? Um Yeah!

SPEAKER_02 38:47

Uh my lookover at the goblin noid. What's your story?

SPEAKER_00 38:55

Go ahead and roll presents for me. Uh sorry, uh, instinct for me. Instinct. Alright, let's go with instincts.

SPEAKER_02 39:04

But I'm not getting the plus two. Ooh, only a 14. Oh, I didn't I am getting instinct. I can get re-roll that because apparently the plus two was just my modifier. 16 with hope.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

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

SPEAKER_02 39:28

Okay. Now let's let's step this back. Uh the 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.

SPEAKER_00 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 Hush.

SPEAKER_02 40:08

The town in in the middle of the forest.

SPEAKER_00 40:10

Yes. So you're basically told, bringing this, don't open it, to the town of Hush. And meet with the Archivist there. You'll know them when you see them. Okay. Oh. 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.

SPEAKER_02 40:42

Right, yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 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.

SPEAKER_04 41:16

Perhaps you can help me find the town of Hush.

SPEAKER_00 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.

SPEAKER_04 41:32

Well. If this is the main road, I would assume there's more bandits like you ahead. Yes or no?

SPEAKER_00 41:43

Look, man, I'm telling ya, just us out here operating on this turf, not a big town, just I wouldn't worry about it too much.

SPEAKER_05 41:53

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 41:54

Uh can I Would that be an instinct check to insight them?

SPEAKER_00 42:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 42:05

Because I don't like the word turf. Oh boy.

SPEAKER_00 42:12

Oh boy. Uh sticks with fear. Versus 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.

SPEAKER_05 42:45

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

But to give you a bit of background knowledge, your character would already have. So your knowledge is these are probably thistle folk. The thistle folk who take up residence in the place no one else dares, the thickest, thorniest bare amples 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 attire allows them to move through the brambled thickets and blended with the gemstone trees. Because the only thistle folk 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 thistle folk are quite peaceful and vaultable, choosing to live within the safe of the Bramble for their own protection from large predator species who stalk the woods looking for an easy meal.

SPEAKER_04 43:45

Uh you two should just get the hell out of here.

SPEAKER_05 43:52

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

Agreed! And I'll dismiss them and send them off. They run, they trip over themselves. And they've just esconded into the into the woods. So 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 bottom in ancient dwarf 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. So the trees of Stablewood 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

Arrival at the Village of Hush

SPEAKER_00 44:43

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 or actually, before they wave and greet, did you bring the dismembered frog with you?

SPEAKER_02 45:05

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

SPEAKER_00 45:15

They cast a friendly gring, but some side-eye you. But you do hear lively music drifting from your 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 if 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.

SPEAKER_02 45:56

Um well, uh I've I've noticed the people side-eyeing me, I'm assuming.

SPEAKER_00 46:05

Oh, you most seem friendly, but a few specifically, a few ribbets, frog folk, are like, why is there a the uh you seem l sketchier than you would be without a dead body. That it's a real truth you have to kind of deal with here. As you look over and realize there's a dead body still at the seat. Ah.

SPEAKER_02 46:30

Yes. Um it Do they have any sort of uh temple in here, like besides or is it like um I realize now that I I should probably uh pay my respects uh for the for the vanquished bandit.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

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 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 Archiv 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.

SPEAKER_02 47:20

I am going to uh approach one of the the rivets and say, um, hello.

SPEAKER_04 47:28

Um I was assaulted by bandits, and I uh I have unfortunately uh murdered one of them, but and I would like to uh pay respects for the dead, if if there's any way I can do that.

SPEAKER_02 47:44

Maybe maybe you could help me find uh uh a priest or s or the an archivist of uh of this neighborhood here.

SPEAKER_00 47:52

So this frog, who now that we've gotten close to you, is actually about as tall as you sets down what looks like a thick barrel of ale. Well uh well no just keeps it there. Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Um we don't really have much way of holy folk around this part. Um I mean, if you want to bury him, I can take you to like a plot out of town, I could help, I guess. Um why'd you Why'd you bring it with you?

SPEAKER_04 48:25

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

SPEAKER_00 48:36

And as you say that, what looks like uh 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. It's like, oh, you found a thistle soap, did ya?

SPEAKER_04 48:54

Uh yeah, uh it seems they uh have laid an ambush down the road.

SPEAKER_00 49:01

Oh, that's that's awful. Um, 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. And among the groves you notice that the trees have hundreds of unique faces carved into the sides, their gem-like eyes peering in every direction. And you see one tree taller than the rest. And it looks like you see the archivist home, and it's like a tree house 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 like a cabin-sized boulders at the base of the tree, marked with some symbols with the rope round around it holding the house.

unknown 50:09

Ah.

SPEAKER_02 50:11

So basically it's like a hanging basket house.

SPEAKER_00 50:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 50:16

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 50:18

And at this point, it's like the 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.

SPEAKER_04 50:37

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

SPEAKER_00 50:46

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

SPEAKER_02 51:03

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

SPEAKER_00 51:09

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

SPEAKER_02 51:13

Okay, so I have to like climb the tree to get to the to the house. Or how do I get to the house? Um, go ahead and roll a knowledge check. A knowledge check.

SPEAKER_00 51:28

Seven with fear. So you walk up and be like, how the hell do I? Hello? You say quietly enough that no one would really hear you. 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. Okay, stress marked. Uh-oh. And it's just kind of gently swaying there, like a Airbnb hammock.

SPEAKER_01 52:23

Trying to see if there's anything.

SPEAKER_00 52:41

Just kinda watching you.

SPEAKER_02 52:50

I I guess I'll uh start trying to climb the tree. Alright. Go ahead and make an agility roll. Alright.

SPEAKER_00 53:02

Roll 15, but with fear. So, as you begin to climb the tree, you make it up pretty decently high, but one of the limbs of the tree, the branches like gently wrap around you and gingerly putting you back down on the forest floor. You didn't get womping, Willowed. Like the branches like rustle your hair a bit as it like returns to being a branch. Ah.

SPEAKER_02 53:32

Um. And the this tree has multiple faces, you said, or is this not? Uh, no faces on this one.

SPEAKER_00 53:39

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 crossed, and just like shuffles behind a tree, and then you lose sight of it completely.

SPEAKER_02 53:59

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

SPEAKER_00 54:09

Go ahead and roll. Instinct.

SPEAKER_01 54:14

Instinct, and I get the knot on my watch. Nice.

SPEAKER_02 54:21

Uh. Still only a 15 with fear. So you're like, I'm fearful today.

SPEAKER_00 54:27

So you're watching him and he's like. Whoosh whoosh-whoosh. And he seems to be getting enough distance that eventually he leaves your visual range. You're like, okay. He was just kind of keeping tabs on you. Hmm. But it would be a whole at you you're not confident with that role. 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. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 54:58

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

SPEAKER_00 55:10

Uh she gives a deep sigh and just yells, hmm. AMRAS! What? Amoras! And then the house starts begin lowering itself down to the ground and has landed.

SPEAKER_02 55:26

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

SPEAKER_00 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 of just a smile, like a theater mask almost. With curly large wings.

SPEAKER_02 55:56

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

SPEAKER_00 56:01

I'll allow it. It has a ditto face, yes. Okay, anyways. But it is seems to be a seven-foot-tall mix of humanoid and firefly.

SPEAKER_02 56:12

A humanoid firefly.

SPEAKER_00 56:16

So, as far as you can tell with your background, the Arcanus 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 emirs sent from the capital? Oh my! You're rather late, aren't you? Can I have your name?

SPEAKER_03 56:46

Uh my name is is uh Marlo Fairwind.

SPEAKER_00 56:51

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

SPEAKER_02 56:57

Uh do I think I just like entered some sort of weird pact with this fairy, or are are fairies mischievous in that way in this uh Um I'm gonna have you do a knowledge roll for that one, because that's more fairy lore. Um that um Would I have advantage because of my well red?

SPEAKER_00 57:21

Well, you could spend a hope to uh oh wait, well red's a class feature. Yes! Yes, you may advantage.

SPEAKER_02 57:29

I am so fearful. Uh I got a 26 with fear.

SPEAKER_00 57:34

So I'ma just grab that fear.

SPEAKER_02 57:37

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

SPEAKER_00 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.

SPEAKER_05 57:48

Ooh.

SPEAKER_00 57:49

So it's like they had the ability to word game trick you into a trap. They know they could have, and then they chose not to to let you, and you roll pretty high on that. Ah. So you enter. Uh I I will enter their house. 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. Hmm. 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.

SPEAKER_03 58:30

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

SPEAKER_00 58:45

Oh, okay. Um well let's get that in here, and then the house like unfurls like a flower. And they like 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?

SPEAKER_02 59:03

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

SPEAKER_00 59:14

Ah range. 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. You recognize this as the keystone of the Capital City Gate's main archway. The Arcanist nodes sanely assues as he sees it, saying, Oh, of course, to keep this delivery a secret, if anyone knew your city no longer had a barrier up, you'd be conquered before sunrise. With this ominous warning, she begins to unfurl her house in again. Alright, well, we must travel to the open vale to revitalize the word. Ward. I would highly advise you come with, as the magic will attract dangerous creatures from the darkest reaches. And I'm pretty competent. But I think 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 park package. But you don't have to come with it, it's fine.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:35

It would be best to keep it safe. And there's there's safety in numbers.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:39

So, as you begin to leave the house, the frog person looks at you, looks at the dead body on a picking blanket, looks at you, and goes, I'm familiar with the culture. Someone closed the rock. Someone very close to the rock. I'm not gonna like it.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:13

Um just like scarcely looking around startled by sudden movements of the of the archivist. Uh then still mesmerized and entranced by the by the slow, gentle movements that are interspersed.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:31

Alright. So sensing your disease and the fe 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

Meeting the Whitefire Arcanist

SPEAKER_00 1:04:46

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.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:04

How are we confined to the forest? How could a god become so forgotten?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:11

It's it's weird. When you when you create people remember the creation. Spreading their wills, adding addendums, repurposing holidays and ceremonies to their new ways. The old ways just kind of get lost and absorbed into the tradition of the new. 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. Yes! You can tend to wounds, clear stress, repair armor, or prepare for the path ahead. 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.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:45

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

SPEAKER_00 1:07:14

Excellent. And for my downtown downtime bonus, I gained three fear.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:21

Uh so that was that was my two downtime activities was reducing or repairing armor and reducing damage?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:28

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

SPEAKER_02 1:07:33

Ooh, I actually I do. That would that would actually be uh Mark of Stress. Nope, that's not the one. Celestial trance, turning you down. Rest you can drop into a chance to choose an additional downtime move. I must be kind before I murder you. Fair enough. Uh so yeah, I am going to uh reduce my stress with my last downtime activity.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:59

Alright. So as you sit there meditating, centering yourself, you've had a very, very eventful day. Your your mind is focused, calm for the first time, listening to the gentle trilling of the copy barra bees, appreciating the you're not even sure what that was. 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 du derpiest looking bird of paradise you've ever seen. And as you're just toning out, you hear the keystone has suspounded! 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 concohony, a conclection of unearthy 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, disturbed by the forces of magic being used by the Arcanist. And in the distance you see something strange, amorphous, 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. I'm going to start a countdown die for this ritual. I have placed a D8, you see it in front of you. The eight is facing up. Ever and it will count down based on things you do. If it gets to zero, the ritual will be completed. That is all the knowledge you get. So Okay. So sorry, describe the the sponge again. So the weird sponge creature in the distance looks like almost like if black smoke was a tumor, with ten like spiky spindles coming off it, and the nearby plants and creatures around it like withering near it.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:12

Have you seen Fern Gully? Perhaps.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:24

Yes. Okay. That is in fact an apt comparison. Yes. And the skeletons that are shambling in are about very far distance right now.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:36

Uh and how far away is is this uh sponge smoke monster?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:40

It's really hard to gauge the distance with it. Probably within a medium range or so. Okay, so it's like it would be within a far range then. Correct. So it'd 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.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:02

Uh no, no. I I I want to um try uh my unleash chaos spell. Um so I make a spellcast roll against a target within far range and spend any number of tokens. I only have two, so I'm gonna spend two. Uh to channel raw energy from you within yourself against them. On a success, roll number to be tens equal to the number of tokens, which is gonna be two. Uh then if I want to reuse this, I have to mark a stress to replenish my tokens.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:31

Okay, go ahead and let the chaos reign. Unleash chaos.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:41

Uh, that is only a seven with hope. So as you begin to Oh, go ahead. I get my hop I get my hope token for rolling with hope, right? That is correct. Okay, I get so.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:56

As you go and you build up the arcane energy within you, this massive spell, you've practiced 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 is dived through the ground, has raised up directly in front of you. It's gonna 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.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:50

Uh uh Marlowe uh fell down a well as a child.

unknown 1:12:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:59

And uh was down there in the dark for several hours before anyone realized what had happened.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:04

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, tunneling down. At this exact moment, you realize this grove has a clear empty sky where there's no trees covering it, and if 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.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:39

That is that is not that is bad news bears.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:44

Alright.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:45

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

SPEAKER_00 1:14:00

Alright. However, you are considered vulnerable at the moment. In 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?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:38

Um So the You describe the blue moon above and the the grove. So I assume the archivist is kind of in the middle of the grove? Correct. Um I would say I was probably just like a few meters off to the side of the of the uh archivist in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:03

Okay. 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.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:15

Uh well, I have a spell called Reign of Blades. Uh I can spend a hope to make a spellcast roll, conjuring throwing blades uh that strike out at all targets within very close range. So I guess I have to move within very close range. You do, but you should be able to.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:30

Although you're suffering terrible vertigo. Uh not related. So as you stumble towards them, they've all taken like fundamental like 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 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. Alright, so I will I will roll for my attack.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:07

Roll!

SPEAKER_00 1:16:08

Oof, a ten with fear. I'm sorry. They're not very durable, but something about feeling like you're in a perpetual infinite fall is not going great for you.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:20

Oh, dang it.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:23

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

SPEAKER_02 1:16:32

So I have this primal origin. I can manipulate magic. The primal origin allows you to manipulate 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.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:53

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

SPEAKER_02 1:16:58

Before the spell. Well, it does say after you cast the spell.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:02

Oh, really? Or make an attack roll. Huh. After you make the roll. Sick. Go ahead then. So you're gonna add if I'll just let you know, if you add two, it will hit all three of them. They're di you are close. They're pretty easy to hit.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:15

I am definitely going to make that into a 12.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:19

12, it meets it beats.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:22

Alright, so then I can roll my damage, which is proficiency di proficiency d8 plus two. Uh and then I can roll. Oh man. Only a five damage.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:38

So five damage. The whack walk whack. As he just covers 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. Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do roll. Okay, okay. So, does thirteen meet your evasion? Thirteen beats it. Oh boy. So you take four damage per skeleton. So that's twelve 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.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:38

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

SPEAKER_00 1:18:45

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

SPEAKER_02 1:19:01

Okay.

unknown 1:19:03

So three.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:04

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

SPEAKER_00 1:19:10

They're all within melee range.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:13

Uh I'm spending another hope to s to sp AoE another reign of blades.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:19

Alright, go ahead and roll your attack.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:24

Roll Ooh! A 20 with hope.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:29

That'll do it. Go ahead and roll damage.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:33

Roll my damage. And that's 10 damage.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:40

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.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:54

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 the eye like 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.

SPEAKER_00 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 tick my counter down from eight to four. Oof, alright. So, you rolled with hope, you get another go.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:39

So, uh the uh smoke sponge monster is still indeterminate distance away?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:46

I would say it's within close, but not very close, because you did run from it to uh blast some skellies.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:53

Right, right. Um if I take my action to try and um So I I could take my action to try and r uh negate my vulnerability?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:08

Yes. So you describe how you would want to try and shake it off in this case. So based on what you tell me you do to try and fix this vertigo, I can then set the appropriate DC for it. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:25

Um, how would I want to fix the vertigo?

SPEAKER_02 1:21:32

That's 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?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:50

I'm gonna have you roll your spellcasting scat, because this feels more ritual and instinct than anything logical. But I'll allow it. I'm gonna say the DC is pretty medium for that. That feels medium, the not most likely solution.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:07

Come on, heart of the dice.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:10

19 with fear. So you rattled, you're no longer vulnerable wearing your weird skeleton helmet. If the fai 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 gonna take my fear, and the forest race is gonna fly towards you. It's gonna attempt to fly directly through you by me spending a fear. So Oh boy. I make my attack roll here. Seven. Does seven hit you? Woo! Seven does not. I managed to dodge. So as you dodge out of 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. You just you've read enough books to know that this would have been real bad. But the spotlight passes back to you.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:17

Uh, so as it passes by me, uh, do I spot anything that looks like I might be a vulnerability? And would I be able to apply my royal mage knowledge to uh increase my odds of spotting such vulnerability?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:30

I will have you roll knowledge, but yes, you can add that to it. To look for a vulnerability.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:38

But I get plus two for being Okay, I have to spend a hope to do that though, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:43

Yes. Yes, you do.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:46

Okay. Roll uh But I got a 17 with hope.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:54

17. So by inspecting it, you do see that like one of the faces on its like weird tumor-y body is skull-shaped, and 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.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:30

To add my knowledge uh to add your Royal Scholar to things. Ah, okay, okay, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:37

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. Alright.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:45

Um then so my unleash chaos. Um I can mark a stress to replenish the tokens.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:57

Um uh is that an action? Um no. An action typically is anything that requires a roll. Okay, so I can I can replenish my tokens. Yeah, unless it says specifically is an action or requires a roll, I'll let it be free.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:18

Then then I can make my spell casting roll again. And I am going to spend the hope to give it plus two. Alright. And let's roll some uh 19 with fear.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:34

Well, 19 will hit it.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:38

Alright.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:42

Two okay, I see now.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:44

No plus damage. So let's roll these dice. Oh. I got five damage.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:50

Five damage is enough for it to take a point of damage. Alright, 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 gonna 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. An eighteen definitely does hit. So you will take eight points of damage.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:34

Eight points of damage.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:42

As you see it like swiped 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. And that is no good. The spotlight passes back to you.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:03

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

SPEAKER_00 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.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:17

Uh, and the the forest wraith is also within close range? Yes. Alright. Well, then I am going to um to do my reign of blades. Uh, but I am going to uh manipulate magic, so out of stress, uh, to increase the range from very close to close. Nice. Uh spellcasting rule. Oh, I don't have advantage. Whop womp? I clicked the wrong button. Roll Well, I only rolled a seven with fear.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:17

That was Unfortunately, as you go to throw your boomerangs, you thought you did the math excellently? And they all swing back around, but like a bunch of them just kind of collide mid-air and sadly fall to the ground. Dang it. Oh boy. For my GM action, I'm gonna spend a fear to do that beautiful swarming attack with my skelly bellies. They're gonna go ahead and do a group their group attack here. 11? Does eleven hit you? Eleven hits. That'll be eight points of physical damage.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:01

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

SPEAKER_00 1:29:06

So, you have three options when you're downed in dagger heart. Option the first. You can let the seed end be played at my mercy. You roll a dice to see to 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.

Journey to the Open Veil

SPEAKER_00 1:29:30

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.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:45

Uh I I like the Blaze of Glory. Um I just uh uh I know I know I just failed to do this this thing, but like uh the I I really like the the reign of blades with the increased range and just going out in the blaze of glory to like.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:03

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

SPEAKER_02 1:30:12

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

SPEAKER_00 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 of memory serves, yes? Mm-hmm. And how many points of damage is the blades? Uh ten. Ten? That will be enough to drop the forest wraith down. So as a skeleton goes, a tick goes up. The next skeleton go, 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?

SPEAKER_02 1:31:12

What are my last words?

SPEAKER_01 1:31:30

My last words would be Tell my mentor I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:41

The archivist walks over, looks down on you, gives a bit of a sigh. You fought hard. 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 Dagger Heart. You did complete the quest. You successfully beat the mission. Congratulations. Welcome to level two. But also you are most definitely dead. You are dead. But just for the walls, go ahead and do a hope and fear dice. If hope wins, you would have got back up of one hit point, and if fear wins, you would have died on the spot. Uh hope won. 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 are you feeling?

SPEAKER_02 1:33:22

Uh that's it's definitely interesting. Um I think some of this is more so uh a difference in writing style between uh 5th edition and Daggerheart. Uh, but it was um setting the scene uh 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 DD would normally do. I agree.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:51

And I thought that was interesting. Because like I basically read all the boxes for Vatum. Like I worked in a punter too. I enjoy my platypus joke that in a forest if used animals, how could you tell if it was a platypus? Right, right. But like 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.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:16

However, like, did you end up leveling up your character or did you just run them at level one? I just ran them at level one. 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.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:32

Yeah, yeah, I definitely could have.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:34

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.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:42

Yeah, uh 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, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:53

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.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:10

Oh, so they actually did have information on who the bandits were.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:12

Yeah, the chunk about the thistle folk, I read verbatim. Okay. And then I had to like retroactively like you I got lucky. I got lucky when it said that they're kids 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.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:33

Um definitely I guess if compared to DD, like low-level DD all also feels very um like uh scrappy, I guess. Um but uh the level the level of hit points and the the um damage thresholds, um it's uh it definitely felt like I was in danger like at all times. It's like I only have like six hit points, and I'm always gonna take one at least one if they hit me.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:15

Like well, it's funny is like 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 like they should have gone 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, 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. But to be fair, there's originally three ambushers and one commander. So I'm like, alright, 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 like make the bird, the Strix wolf, 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. 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 robot 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 roll. And you're like, oh, I'm gonna do an instinct roll 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.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:15

Uh yeah. Well, like I said, the sable forest is like, hmm, sable eye. Sable eye trees.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:23

And the dead frog body. So I did reskin one of the NPCs in the town to be a frog because I thought it'd be funnier.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:34

I should have taken you up on the offer to have that uh the the frog there with me. That probably also would have won me the fight.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:41

So the frog was actually a wildborn dwarf, is 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 approached, she wants to know the name of everyone's in the party, and it was like gonna ask about their weapons and things. I'm like, nah. And then the ta Stapa looked below, is like, asks about the thistle folk. I'm like, that's also funny, so I'll use that one. And there was 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 Archonist is busy, but you can go visit them. I'm like, okay, dead body is as good an excuse as any to visit the Arcanist.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:50

Okay, so I mean the the only thing uh that I didn't use, I don't think. The only feature on my character sheet uh I think is the um well the quick reaction mark of stress to gain advantage on a reaction roll. Um I I mean I didn't read the rules in depth, but like when and how do you use reaction roles?

SPEAKER_00 1:40:21

That's a good question. Because reaction roles, to my knowledge, are like built into monsters typically.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:29

So there's things that'll be so they're more more like a uh saving

The Ritual and Final Battle

SPEAKER_02 1:40:33

saving throw from DD to compare?

SPEAKER_00 1:40:36

Yes. So it's like Okay, the Wraith didn't actually have one. I I'm surprised it didn't. For its like memory di delve, which I love that by the way. The ask the player to describe a terrifying moment from their childhood is just a good line of text to be on an attack. Yeah, yeah. Like that just made me happy. But uh yeah, I think the only reaction role I think is if you were ambushed, I think there would have been one. And I'm just like checking the adventure right now, because it really wasn't that many pages. Although it really D was I have to say each additional player probably adds an hour to the session. Like I'm probably gonna beef it up a bit for my session on the weekend. Mm-hmm. And then like increase the number of MOOCs a bit. But because of how the action economy works, I really don't have to adjust it by much.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:28

Because with fewer players, you just got to attack more. So Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah, I'm not seeing a ton of reaction rolls. So it did come up, but like, yeah, it would have been like written on stuff to make a reaction roll.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:45

Right. So so uh reaction roll is uh is somewhat equivalent to a saving throw. Uh and then you just there are no reactions, but you get way more actions, especially if you succeed in a long chain of successes, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:00

Yeah, I think the fighter call the warrior class has like it can make a like has a feature that lets it make reaction rolls that is just straight up it gets attacks of opportunity, that's its thing. 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 Arcness 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.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:50

Um think that is interesting. Uh again, um having played and ran a lot of DD, um, there aren't that many encounters written as is from 5th edition that I've played, uh, where there are alternative objectives to combat. Um and I appreciate the big uh time timer counter uh as well as giving players obvious ways to interact with said counter. Um I I think that's I think that's good design. It is a little bit mechanically weird that you can just summon more MOOCs to help me succeed, but you also do summon MOOCs, which can also end up being terribly bad, such as when my character died.

SPEAKER_00 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 can win the fight faster. I'm like, that is absolutely what killed him. 100%. That is the turn that killed you for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:02

Well, I like I said, I I had a lot of uh mediocre roles.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:07

I think the funniest one is so the vulnerable condition was actually vulnerable until their next rest is 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 even if I wasn't like trying to make it like you're not gonna get to a next rest, so I'm not just gonna 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 enfeebled. I'm like, no, you're just falling down a well while you're fighting. And then 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. Ugh.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:08

Yeah, that would have been pretty savage.

SPEAKER_00 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 the quickstar adventure, they fall unconscious until they're healed or the danger passes. Like, haha, no. So I don't know 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.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:42

Okay, so this this is you sent me a picture of the uh forest wraith.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:48

How'd you like my description of it just being a horrifying cancerous forest tumor monster? That is pretty accurate. Yeah. I'm not gonna send you a photo of the Skelly's because there's no reason. They're exactly what you're imagining. Although I did make my Arcanist way sketchier than as written. So here's what it looks like. Oh, yeah, that's not sketchy at all. And I'm like, but the description where it's like you can't read its face, but you can hear its emotions. I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna go full panz 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 gonna ham that up. Right, right. But yeah, glad you had fun. I have no idea how well this episode's gonna 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?

SPEAKER_02 1:46:51

Uh I would definitely be willing to give this a try. Um, character creation seems fairly straightforward. The general mechanics seem fairly straightforward.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:04

Um 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, okay, I'll give you some info off a stat lot, and then remind you of a thing you could already do. Hmm. 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.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:33

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

SPEAKER_00 1:47:54

Um so yeah, you absolutely could have added it to attacks. There's no rule that says you can't, because an action role or reaction role is like an attack role is an action roll. Yeah, okay. 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 Kit 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 known? Let's say that the archivist resurrects you for the sake of a happy ending. 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 let's go through the yeah, let's go through the rigorous mole of what would happen if you hit level two. Which I think you can pull on your sheet if you click like the character builder.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:53

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

SPEAKER_00 1:49:06

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. Characters.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:15

Dagger heart.

SPEAKER_00 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 then like this entire adventure's free off their site. Like you can just download and run this adventure.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:27

And a character. Level let's go level two.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:34

Alright. 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.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:47

I see.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:48

So creating experience, increase proficiency. Get level up options.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:56

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

SPEAKER_02 1:50:01

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

SPEAKER_00 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 like if you skip out the cards and just write down your ancestry 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 then trying to pass a book around. It makes sense if you're planning to run session zeros in person. But I can see the like you don't it's surfa it's like a way of them being like, here's our feats. I'm like, yeah, yeah, the feats are all just in the book, and you could just write them down on the boxes on your sheet if you wanted. But I digress. Also, the robok has full delicious in the dungeon rules. They like call it like beast feast, and it's just rules to have a dungeon mesh here campaign.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:42

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

SPEAKER_00 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. After this experience, what class would you play if you were to make a character for this game?

SPEAKER_02 1:52:00

Oh um rogue has always been my favorite, so I probably actually want to try rogue next.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:06

Um would you keep the throwing blade spell?

SPEAKER_02 1:52:10

Oh, do they have that same domain? Because that was a sick spell.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:13

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

The Ultimate Sacrifice

SPEAKER_00 1:52:20

the magic.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:22

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

SPEAKER_00 1:52:28

Awesome. Uh to prove a point on their like Discord server, because always popping, people are like, I want to make a new class for a Gish. And I'm like, actually at the rules for this game, you could just give a sword to a wizard, and I built like a war wizard that was a melee hit stuff build. And I'm like, that's definitely what I would play. It's this wizard who just pulls out like a cloud sword and starts beating you, whose high status strength. Yeah. Alright. So thank you for everyone who tuned into this special episode. And let us know if you want me to make Carl play more DTRPGs on stream in their entireties.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:03

Yeah, that I mean let Richard know. Uh, because I'm I'm not the analytics dude. That's that's Richard.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:11

I mean, to be fair, if anyone actually sends you like a letter, you 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.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:25

We would do the thing if I ever successfully receive communication.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:29

Uh but happy gaming, happy DD, and happy not giving wizards of the coast money as they send mercenaries after people. 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.