Episode 3: Call of the Bloom

In this week’s Witherwild episode, Richard guides Karl’s character Leroy Von Braun—a disarmingly earnest frogman rogue—through the first harrowing chapters of Call of the Bloom. What starts as a simple scouting mission quickly blooms into something stranger, and more dangerous, than either of them planned.

• Leroy begins the journey to Nernwihr with a refusal to leave, after setting on his new gardener experence he spends his funds at a local carnaval.
•  After a series of identify theft related misdemeanors his cart requires repairs not fallling for Richard's Traps he mounts his trusty Hippobear into the wilds.
•  At the river crossing, Leroy tries to rescue a mysterious child stranded mid-current. This goes about as well as you’d expect—he’s nearly swept downstream by the undertow, tangles with a glass serpent, and ends up soaking wet, and somehow more determined than ever.
•  We discuss how Daggerheart’s countdown mechanics heighten tension without railroading the players
•  Upon reaching Nernwihr, Leroy confronts the consequences of delay: half the town is aflame, tangle brambles are everywhere, and the locals are one bad rumor away from riot. He keeps the bloomfields from burning—during his stealthy gardening exploits, but did consider letting the world burn.
• We also share GM tips on balancing environmental threats and combat, how to weave a character’s backstory into Witherwild’s living world, talk about shoe gods and countdowns
• Whether you’re curious about Daggerheart’s collaborative design or just want to watch Leroy try to reason with a sentient tumbleweed, this episode is a heartfelt, occasionally chaotic romp through the opening beats of Call of the Bloom.
• P.S. No frogs were harmed in this session despite true efforts.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, and welcome to Richard and Carl Play Daggerheart. Similar to Richard and Carl Present Deep Space and Dragons, but you haven't gotten to Deep Space or Dragons yet. I'm Richard, Game Master, self shameless self-promoter, and enjoyer of bulk dollar store jube jubes more than fancy name brand ones.

SPEAKER_06 0:21

Hmm, I am Carl, and I I also enjoy Dollar Store Candy. I really enjoy um the not so sour as sour gummy worms. I mean I've I've never found that that sour sugar is actually that sour, but I I love it. It's so good.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Excellent. So for those unfamiliar with this, because you decide to start on episode three, no problem. Fine place to join in. Episode one was us doing the test adventure, episode two was a session zero. Feel free to head back. And the idea for this podcast is we talk about what's new with us, we play some dagger heart, and then we talk about how the dagger heart went. Included with each episode will be a PDF of the adventure we ran that week, so you can run it yourself, show it to your friends, or just simply take screenshots about how bad my game design is and post it to Twitter.

SPEAKER_06 1:11

Wait, did that actually happen, or are you just trying to go to people into spreading your content for free?

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Yes. That one. It's all about that engagement, baby! Actually, honestly, the dagger heart community is relatively chill, other than well, some rules lawyering things where the like page two of the game's like, remember, this is rulings over rules, don't be pedantic. Check the Discord chat. So what if I want to switch my vaulted card mid-action for optimal value, and I'm just like, rules is written? You're fully misunderstanding paragraph two that says don't be that person. If you're trying to put damage on the stack, you're probably playing the game wrong. It's like the mechanicist in me who likes game mechanics is like, yeah, I'm pretty sure you could do that. Or maybe you can't do that, look for example citations. But I'm like, but kinda I I enjoy the dialogue, but the point is being missed. It's like debating whether or not stormtroopers deliberately miss their shots or not. But while you're having this discussion, rating Star Wars a one on IMBD because you hate it. It's like you're kind of missing the point of the discussion. But as is tradition, what is new with you?

SPEAKER_06 2:31

Uh well, also, as is tradition. I mean, this tradition kind of comes from our our main podcast.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Uh stole another picnic table, allegedly.

SPEAKER_06 2:40

No, no, I watched the movie Casablanca from 1942.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

You know, that's perfectly on track, but please continue.

SPEAKER_06 2:50

Um and uh I and it's a classic movie. Uh Humphrey Bogart is one of the biggest stars of the time. Um and I I really enjoyed the movie. Um for being what I thought I thought it was supposed to be a romance, and uh there were two characters who were very clearly in love, uh, but there wasn't actually any romance.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

I mean, I found the best to do that. Where Noir likes to be dance around romance without actually having it.

SPEAKER_06 3:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um in any event, uh TLDR uh Casablanca is a uh very watchable movie. It's in black and white for some reason. Uh which I know it didn't have to be because the Wizard of Oz came out in 1939 and that one's in color. I I don't know if it was a cost-saving thing or what, but maybe Humphrey Bogart has a has a horrible blemish that that uh black and white hides. I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

It's kind of funny because I'm immediately thinking that new what is it, Marshall King manga, where it's like, yeah, we put in color, but we're mostly back in white. I'm like, that looks really cool when you do it well, but he kind of overdone it. It's like lost some of its pizzazz, because like it was really good when gold was the only color. But now it's like doing blue isn't this y you had a s you had a style going. Like how Sin City's like, look at us only use like three colors on this thing.

SPEAKER_06 4:14

Well, and I bring up the Wizard of Oz, and they actually did deliberately use color, uh, like this the first portion of the movie is in black and white and when she gets like picked up by the tornado and then becomes color when she goes to the magical land. Um and color was a big thing about the movie in general. So it I mean it makes sense that the Wizard of Oz has color. I just uh I'm wondering, I'm a little bit curious when I see a black and white movie that didn't have to be in black and white why they chose like to go that way.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Money.

SPEAKER_06 4:46

Probably.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

In any event, so we're in the year 2025 for people listening to this in the future, right? And color ink still costs more, and color printing still costs more. So I have to imagine when you're filming Castle Blanca, color fail must have cost more, right?

unknown 5:05

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

So like when I say because money, I don't mean it in a sassy way. I mean literally those had to have been newer, more expensive cameras shooting a newer, more expensive film.

SPEAKER_06 5:15

Yeah, that's probably true. In any event, I mean that there's a good like fifteen minutes in the beginning, which is narrated at you, which I would have preferred to have been shown instead of told. Uh, but once you get through that, the rest of the movie is actually it's it's quite a quite a good movie. I liked it a lot. Uh but so then uh the other thing that's new with me uh is I've just been picking up random series on uh webtoon. Fair. And uh one one random series that I picked up is uh my my best friend is an Eldridge Horror.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

That's a great name.

SPEAKER_06 5:56

Yeah, um I I was enjoying it, and then it was like, oh, it's based on a novel. Uh and so I searched it up, and uh it turns out I'm sure there's plenty of examples, but it turns out this is another novel series that uh started on uh the website Royal Road, which uh people who are joining us this podcast from our other podcasts might recognize as the website that hosts Paranoid Mage.

SPEAKER_03 6:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 6:22

Uh which I found amusing, and I I started reading it. Turns out that he only has the first five chapters, and the rest you have to actually buy the published books on Amazon. Um which I'm so tempted to do, because I I have so far really, really enjoyed the Webtoon version. Uh, but when I read through Paranoid Mage on the Webtoon, uh I found that the books understandably have a lot more uh depth and are just more well-rounded stories. Um so I was like, I really, I really, really want to read the books for this Eldritch. My best friend is an Eldritch horror uh series, but I'm I might, for a while at least, wait until it as it comes out weekly on Wow Tune.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Reasonable and fair.

SPEAKER_06 7:14

But uh what's new with you there, Richard?

SPEAKER_00 7:17

So, I started the summer strong being a functional adult. Because I haven't had a summer vacation since I was like 16, which is about a billion years ago. So, like, for the first month, I was still putting on dress shirt, dress pants, button-up, sitting for my meetings, waking up in the morning early, clocking out at four, being a functional adult. Fast forward two months later into summer, and I was up till four in the morning playing Final Fantasy X.

SPEAKER_06 7:48

Which surprisingly has no lightning volcanoes.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Which surprisingly has no lightning volcanoes, but does have a Dodge Lightning mini game. And like, it holds up really well, like, because uh part of when I like Daggerheart came out as I started going through a bunch of JRPGs to like see what mechanics are good and bad. Like, this is my I justify it as research. Cause with my school job and my ghostwriting contract, and I'm like doing game design research and stuff as a hobby, creating like an infinite loop of procrastination, where if I'm always procrastinating doing something useful, then it's progress.

SPEAKER_03 8:26

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

So, what's new with me has largely been like if I don't go out for a walk, I end up staying up till like four in the morning, but it's like a billion degrees outside.

SPEAKER_06 8:37

Ah. It's it is summertime. It'll get hot around this area.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

So I have a sunburned forehead right now, but nothing else on me. As I've slowly devolved into a gremlin. And it's like pretty optimal because like realistically speaking, there is actually no reason I can't be racing chocobos to four in the morning. That's kind of the curse of being a freelance writer, is it's like, yes, I can just write for 24 hours in one day, pass out, and then spend the rest of the week slacking. I have that ability, but I shouldn't. I should try and stay structured, because I have grad school in the fall, and it might hit me like a sack of bricks to the face.

SPEAKER_06 9:21

That you too.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

So, what's new with me is largely just chaos grumbling about, like, I don't think I've had a summer where I didn't have like a full-time job since I was, yeah, like 17, 18 years old. So it's kind of wild to be like, huh, I finished my work for the week in two days. I guess I'll enjoy life. Huh. I guess it's allowed to do it.

SPEAKER_06 9:47

Wasn't that the entire point of your uh education was to be able to have a career that you could would let you enjoy your life?

SPEAKER_00 9:53

No. The entire point of my uh uh the entire point of going back to school was COVID happened, which meant I went from manager to dishwasher overnight, and I was trying to stall out until the world got less wild. So I went to school to get a degree, but what it was in didn't really matter to me. I just assumed it would give me office to a chair and a desk job.

SPEAKER_06 10:16

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

So it's actually a plot twist that my education is turned into my job. I wasn't expecting that. I was expecting to be lower middle management at a firm somewhere doing invoices or social media copy. The part that I actually gotta do what I went to school for was just a pleasant surprise. Because I literally went to school as a way to funding myself when work became unstable.

SPEAKER_06 10:44

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

I mean, I am also in crushing student loan debt, but that's a problem for future me. The solution to stall for that is to do more school.

SPEAKER_06 10:56

And just be a professional student.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

Pretty much. And then I'll talk about this a bit more at the end of the episode, but I had my three weekly slash monthly in-person DD group, so I like gotta test this adventure on them in advance. But so what's new with me, but it's also like uh directly relevant to this topic, so I'll probably put that on the back burner. But I will mention that three people showed up with Krispy Kreme donuts. Cause I, like, for the first time in a while had enough surplus income to actually bring something to board game night. Because I pretty much just come up with a basket being like, whatever food we don't eat, it's fine if that chicken wing has a bite out of it, I'm a student, I can probably turn it to soup or something. Right. So it's definitely like it was amusing because there was a Krispy Kreme attached to the train station. So when I saw there was already two boxes of Krispy Kreme there when I brought mine, I'm like, oh, everyone got it from the same place. I see how this happened. No, they went on like an hour-long adventure on the weekend to a different Krispy Kreme to acquire these donuts. Okay. So it's like the knowledge that they had to work hard and try to acquire the thing I just casually got on a whim amuses me far more than it should.

SPEAKER_05 12:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

So yeah, and also I guess the last thing new with me is I was late for a recording session because I was trying out a new like pork bolognese recipe. So I've gotten into so my slow cooker has a saute session s uh function, right?

SPEAKER_06 12:30

So I've gotten into-cooker has a saute ability? Does it have like like uh hydraulics, like a like like one of those bouncy cars and just like makes the the food jump? Like how how is your slow cooker gonna saute your food?

SPEAKER_00 12:43

So you push the saute button for the temperature, right? But really I'm there with the spatula flip uh doing the flipping manually. Ah, okay. But what I've been doing is like throwing in my vegetables and making my roux directly in the slow cooker and then adding the sauce to make my pasta sauce so the sauce stays warm and then making the pa spaghetti later. And I miss time the spaghetti, but it turned out delicious.

SPEAKER_06 13:09

So yeah. You did mistime the spaghetti. I I even showed up a little bit early because I thought there might be some technical stuff we would have to go over, but uh then uh nope.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

I mean the technical stuff can still hit us. Part of why we're recording this is to let other people know what not to do through our personal errors. We did get caught on getting critical hits wrong, and I found that so amusing that I actually got caught on that, because that means someone listened to us ramble for two hours to find my error. So all the power to you, loyal listener viewers. Oh yeah, oh yeah, one other new thing with me that's kinda game related, but not really. So, one of my catchphrases I like to say is picture it, imagine it, paint it in your mind, type stuff, right? I have an acquaintance that actually physically can't picture things in their mind as part of their neurodivergence, like they can't picture images in their mind.

SPEAKER_05 14:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

So I was like, use your imagination. Like, I literally can't, I have a doctor's note. I'm like, oh, oh no. Right, not everyone can make 3D images in their brain. Oops. I guess miniatures are an accessibility feature now. Right. So I go and set up the miniatures with the little jemmy things and the little standees. Being like, oh, when I said imagine it, I forgot that that's not actually universally applicable. They're pretty sure the rest of us are just lying when we say we can picture things in our head. It would be an easy, easy lie, by the way. If people are just like, oh yeah, I just imagined this beautiful sunset. It's like, how can you prove they're full of it? You can't.

SPEAKER_06 14:51

Oh. Uh, somewhat game-related topic. Um nice. So you have tasked me with with creating landmarks, and uh the first two that I've I've made have been uh to your to your liking. Um but I'm trying to think of something else uh creative and and unique, and I'm I'm stuck on rainbows for no particular reason.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

I respect that.

SPEAKER_06 15:19

But uh I was I was reading about why are our rainbows arcs. Um and uh apparently has to do with the degree of the angle that the light reflects and whatever, blah blah blah blah. But then one article's like, yeah, rainbows don't actually uh have a physical existence, they're they're like purely mental. That's like they don't exist until the light beams hit our eyes.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Yeah, kind of on that note, I had a player ask me a question that required like actual research. So the weeks are seven days of daylight, seven days of nighttime, right? Does that make solar eclipse more or less common? Right?

SPEAKER_06 16:04

Well, I mean one would assume that the moon cycles would be also seven times longer. But right? In any event, uh I I'm trying to figure out what to do with a uh essentially metaphysical landmark.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Well, it is interesting, because like there's nothing stopping you from metaphysical landmarks.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

But yeah, realistically speaking, unless your scenario unless the this changes the moon's orbit or the tilt of the earth, your eclipses would just kind of stay the same frequency. And I'm like, do I want more eclipses? Because that's the real problem. The physics bend to me. Oh, that's another funny thing that always happens in the TTRPG Discord space is and I mean that like in discussion spaces, is like when my character's on fire and I jump in the water, it should put out the fire. But then people immediately like, physics don't apply in games. It's like in all of these games though, I have never had a pillar just be like physics don't apply and not try and pull out a protractor or some other nonsense. Like, no, none of my players are ever accepting physics don't apply as an answer to a problem. Ever. Never will that work. Like I can't I jump into water and put out the fire, I can't just be like, no, because the game rule said no.

SPEAKER_06 17:36

Yeah, that would be weird.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

That would just be poor form. But I digress. Are we ready to get into this game? I think so. Do you have your character sheet? And is it level two?

SPEAKER_06 17:51

Oh, I was supposed to level up. Alright.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

You should be at level two to help balance the fact that you're one person doing a multiplayer campaign session. Okay, so let's give a recap for camera. What is the name of your character, your class, and your appearance?

SPEAKER_06 18:08

Uh I am Leroy von Wolfholm. Nice. I am a highborn human ribbot hybrid. Uh my class is Rogue, uh, my subclass being Nightwalker.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

Excellent. And I believe the description appears mostly human, with anime-esque giant eyes and possibly hidden webbed toes. Where did we land on that, my friend?

SPEAKER_06 18:32

Uh, I mean, uh nowhere in particular. Uh, I hadn't really uh Okay. Um the main thing is that uh as far as humans go, he mostly you know flies under the radar, everyone thinks he's just human. Um let's see.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

So when you hit level two, your proficiency will go up one, which increases the number of dice you roll when everything calls for proficiency. Since unlike 5e proficiency, they decide to foolishly use the same name for the number of dice you roll for damage effects and occasional spell effects. That was a poor decision.

SPEAKER_06 19:20

Okay, so I so I get each of these four things. I get a create an experience, I get to increase my proficiency, correct. I get two level up options, and I get to choose a new domain effect.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

That is correct. For creating an experience, I would highly recommend you picking something based on your first section, or if you want to leave it blank, you can add an experience that feels narratively appropriate as we go.

SPEAKER_06 19:44

Well, I mean um amateur gardener sounds like uh sounds like a good one.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

I am so happy you said that, because I was about to suggest, based on session zero, gardener would be something you've proven quite skilled at.

SPEAKER_06 20:03

Amateur Gardener.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

So it definitely counts as working with your GM if we just have the exact same thought at the same time psychically. Amateur Gardener. I also really enjoy the running joke that you can't hear the background audio, nor can I, but I know it's some sort of heroic epic fantasy music playing right now as we discuss leveling up on the Jeet.

SPEAKER_06 20:25

Alright, so oh I got two options. I can increase my invasion, which I am probably just gonna select that because Yep. I can choose another domain card. Hmm, okay. I can increase experiences, increase stress, increase HP, okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

And the stat ones they were kind of interesting in this one where if you level up two stats, you can't level up those same stats till you hit the next tier. So it's like if you level up finesse, you won't be able to level up finesse again until around level five, I think.

SPEAKER_06 21:05

Well I th- I'm trying to go with this stress build, so I'm gonna I'm gonna gain in the stress slot.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Interesting. You have a vision, and I'm happy to help see that through until you die mid-session, and then we have to flash make another character, and that's what the episode becomes. That's actually how I have this plan, by the way, is if you just die completely during our actual play, we just stop and build another character.

SPEAKER_06 21:34

Okay, so I feel like this deft deceiver uh might be a good one.

unknown 21:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 21:41

And to hope to gain advantage on a a roll to deceiver trick. Although I d Hmm I don't know. You have an advantage on the extra rules to take non-magical locks.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Well, I'm gonna give you the same house rule I gave my player. Is if you want to change your cards between sessions, you can. So I literally keep all my cards in a binder, and so people don't keep their cards with them. It's just write down the number of card slots you have on your sheet, and then a star of each week will prepare your spells, and you'll just pass the binder around and grab what you want.

SPEAKER_06 22:19

Make a spellcast roll to make adversaries adversaries with a very close range temporarily restrained. Can you pull up what it means to be restrained in this?

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Your movement speed is zero until I spend a year to have a character free of themselves. I'm starting to learn things. It's getting also the game only has three status conditions.

SPEAKER_06 22:42

I mean that's fair. Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 22:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 22:49

Oh, I think. You know what? I'm just gonna go with uh tell no lies. Take that one. And now I am level two.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Beautiful. So I'm gonna give a bit of a recap of things because I have it written in this free PDF available by clicking the Itch Diato link in the episode description. Although it does say pay what you want, so if you guys are enjoying this content, give us money. Wha wow. You know, one of these days I'll be good a self-promo. Alright. So.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Alright, you've made we've done session zero and made the characters. This is just a fast refresher, so we can jump right into the story from this part. Danger.

SPEAKER_06 23:37

Okay, wait, I uh I gotta I gotta pull up my journal. Um I wrote down a note for Feinwraith. Uh but I actually do um there were two other important characters. Uh one of them was my benefactor, who was named Ed or something. Edwin? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

He goes by Ed.

SPEAKER_06 24:01

Benefactor. Ed. And he is the um leader of this uh no man's land outpost between the two uh warring factions?

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Yes, he's technically a king, because there's an emperor and a bunch of smaller kings over different thiefs, kind of like a warring state situation.

SPEAKER_06 24:26

King of a neutral fiefdom.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Yes. I believe we named it last week. Did either of us think to write that down?

SPEAKER_06 24:34

Uh I assumed that uh you had that written down since it should be in your little adventure book, but uh no, it says here, ask your player what you would like to name their keep town.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

So, what do you want to name?

SPEAKER_06 24:48

You said a name, uh you said a name and I I did not oh wow. What do I want to name it?

SPEAKER_00 24:53

Yeah. Um and if any eagle-eyed viewers are like, no, no, he already called it this. That was the name of the neighborhood he was in and not the keep foli, okay.

SPEAKER_06 25:10

Okay. Um I'm I'm all about Gred, the uh the minor deity of shoes. Uh so let's call this uh this thief dome, we'll call it uh cobbler's cove.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Ooh, cobbler's cove. Got it. Known as the cobbler's cove. I actually wrote it down this time. Alright. So to give the Krill. Oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_06 25:45

Sorry, the other important character uh is the um spy master?

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Yes. Krill Dern.

SPEAKER_06 25:54

Who's Grill Dern?

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Krill K-R E L E I L.

SPEAKER_06 26:02

K-R E L E I I L. Yeah, D-I-R-N. D-I-R-N. Is that all one word?

SPEAKER_00 26:12

No, there's a space between Krill and Dern.

SPEAKER_06 26:16

Okay, Krill Dern. The spy master.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

Excellent.

SPEAKER_06 26:23

Who has leased out my skills to investigate.

SPEAKER_03 26:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 26:32

Fein Wraith. So and Fane Wraith uh is uh attempting to steal the other eye from the owl that caused the infinite summer, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:47

As long as you're uh as well as far as you're aware, yes.

SPEAKER_06 26:52

Okay. I was just I realized that I didn't write down those important characters in detail and locations. I was like, we should I that kind of works as a as a sort of root root sort of recap.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Oh yeah, I had most of it in a box text I was gonna read you.

SPEAKER_06 27:11

But uh I mean feel free to read your little uh text box, I suppose, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:15

I don't know if I want to anymore. Alright. So the rules recap, which is more relevant for my we play every three weeks, is Daggerheart narrative first, collaborative RPG, you describe what you do, I describe how it reacts. We use diality dice duality dice, the two d12s, to resolve interesting things. You pick one d12 for hope, one for fear, and roll both when I call for an action. You add your relevant trait, finesse, pres presence, instinct, etc. to the total, whatever high is higher determines if the action leans towards hope. Yay, you gain hope or fear. Oh no, I gained fear, that's tragic. If the dice match, it's a critical success. You get a hope and clear a stress. Your character sheet has your stats, armor, weapons, experiences, and hope. And you should be at full health, full stress, with two hope to start.

SPEAKER_06 28:05

Every session?

SPEAKER_00 28:06

No. Just this one.

SPEAKER_06 28:09

Just this one, okay. Yeah. Full hope, full stress. Or all two hope. No hit points marked, and no stress marked.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

Accurately play phrased, well done. Just a reminder of numbers on your sheet. Evasion is the equivalency to AC, that's what I'm ruling to hit you. Armor score is how many times you can reduce the threshold of a hit. The thresholds are minor, one HP, major two HP, and severe three HP. And if you get double severe, we're using the optional four HP rule.

SPEAKER_06 28:40

Uh, rules question, just to double check. I'm pretty sure this is how it is is written. Uh if I am in the minor damage category and I mark an armor slot to reduce the damage, I take no damage? Correct. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

And your thresholds will be what's written on your armor plus your level. So now that you're level two, both your thresholds went up by one.

SPEAKER_06 29:03

Excellent.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

You have hope, which you can use it to activate an experience, help an ally, or trigger certain clash features. Typically you need to spend the hope before the roll, but I'm pretty loosey-goosey with that right now.

SPEAKER_06 29:17

Activating the experience costs two hope? One hope. One hope, okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

And then Excellent. Lastly, stress. If you run out of stress, you start taking damage when you would mark a stress, and you're considered vulnerable, where my rolls get an extra d6 towards them. Then your weapons say which stat you roll, the range, the damage dice, and the features. If it's not active in your inventory, it's not usable. You can switch weapons by spending a stress. So you'll have your main weapon, your primary one, and a secondary one, and then you'll have backup weapons in the slot if you so desire.

SPEAKER_06 29:53

Okay, uh, I do actually have another rules question. Uh the small dagger uh has the paired feature, tier one, uh, which is plus two damage to primary weapon uh when a target is within melee range.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Correct.

SPEAKER_06 30:09

Uh it doesn't matter what the primary weapon is, I just get that plus two bonus, and there's no like roll or anything to it.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Correct. So the theory is to replace dual wielding because you only really get one action a roll anyway, is that to represent you quickly stabbing with your offhand dagger or throwing your off-hand dagger?

SPEAKER_06 30:28

Right. So for in this case stabbing, because it's it's limited to melee range, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

So like if you want to say, oh, I swing down my broadsword and then quickly stab them with my knife. Or if you want to be fancy with it, it'd be like, I use my primary whip and then using paired, I use my shoe knife to kick them in the stab. Yes, kick them in the stab. I'd probably allow it.

SPEAKER_06 30:52

Uh well, I the the main reason I ask is because um, for whatever reason, uh D 5th edition has a uh disadvantage for being too close to someone when you use a melee when you use a ranged weapon, uh, where this system doesn't appear to have that disadvantage, you just make your attack as normal. Uh and so I was just double checking that if I am using a uh ranged weapon at melee range, if I would still get that bonus.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

Yes. And I encourage you to be like, mention out loud I'm using paired, and be like, so as I shoot, I also stab you. Feel free to have some fun with it.

SPEAKER_06 31:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gotta uh embellish a bit for sure.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

Alright. And the last part of the recap is that the combat is no strict turnover. You say what you do, we build the moment together, if you attack, I tell you if the target's in ranged, roll your action, roll your damage, if you fail, or uh roll with fear, I get to make a GM move. Sometimes there's optional bonus rules where each player has three tokens to take actions, and once they've spent all three, it refreshes, so that way if someone does three things, they then get to sit there and wait until everyone else gets a move. Doesn't really matter for us, but I figured I'd say it allowed R Alright. Two last pieces of recap and we're good to go. So, Fainwick is a turtle took is a cursed tangle of forest, bog, and petty gods. Most too weird to trust and too small to ignore. Locals called Wicklings are tough as old roots and convinced their way is the only way. They managed just fine until Haven got sick. Haven, the no gods allowed empire, killed a god, built a city on his corpse, and mined him for power. Somehow this backfired. The dust turned into the serpent's sickness, a creeping petrification plague. The only cure are rare red flowers that grows in Fainwick fields. One in many, many, many. So of course, Haven invaded, while they're at it, stole the reaping eye of Nikata, the goddess of balance, and now Feinwick stuck in an endless spring. No decay, no death, just overgrowth, swelling beasts, and vines that don't know when to quit. Officially, you serve Haven. In practice, you answer to Lord Elric, or Ed for short, a shrewd border warren playing both sides to keep the peace. But you're not just a peacekeeper. You might be the only thing standing between a plague ridden empire and a forest that's growing wilder by the minute. So the first question I would have here for our Eagle Eared viewers is the name of your keep. Which, as this point, is Cobbler's Cove. And I'm gonna immediately use a house rule to anger our fans at our rules as written purists, because this is what I use for my home game. You can earn an extra hope by telling me what events that happened in the last session were most important to your character.

SPEAKER_06 33:39

What events that happened in the last session that were most important to my character.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

So a character point of view recap if you were, if you would.

SPEAKER_06 33:59

Okay, well, so last session, I mean we we didn't really we played just a very small amount. I you know. Um I I feel like this character is becoming somewhat of a of a botanist. Uh entomologist?

SPEAKER_00 34:22

I think that's insect, but yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 34:24

Well yeah, well, he's he's the Lord of the Flies. Uh my potting experience on the fact that he's part frog, um, and then also an amateur gardener. Um so I would say that the uh the most relevant experience uh to him uh was the uh being attacked by the creeping uh by the creeping mouthplant monsters.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 34:51

Um because it's somewhat interesting to him that uh this spymaster uh would choose uh this location. It's almost like maybe uh uh my character was being tested.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

Excellent.

SPEAKER_06 35:07

Although he did also uh get my name wrong because it I I uh my name my character's name is Leroy, and he called my character Elroy, uh, which uh listeners of Leroy's backstory from the previous session would recognize as the uh grave that Leroy was resurrected from. Uh and Elroy is currently a whereabouts unknown.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Excellent. So, with that you can take your extra hope and we'll get into it. But I do have one question for you. So, as you're aware, week and night and day are full week-long cycles. During the day, the road is clearer, visibility is better, but more predators are awake and on the prowl. At night, luminescent fungus will light the path, fireflies, but stranger, weirder creatures roam at night. So my first question to you is do you want to head out immediately? On the request you were given to check out a spire in a nearby town? Or do you want to sleep for a bit and head out on a different time, day or night? When do you choose to leave?

SPEAKER_06 36:19

Well, okay, so it's currently daytime, right?

SPEAKER_00 36:22

We did not decide upon that, so I'm gonna let you like maybe soft retcon, whatever, you can declare what time it is to start this campaign.

SPEAKER_06 36:30

I had definitely thought that it was daytime, uh, hence the uh creeping flowers that were being creepy.

SPEAKER_00 36:40

So daytime it is. Do you want to whe wait until night? Or are you good to head out in the day?

SPEAKER_06 36:46

Uh well, I mean, uh another small detail uh that um you had asked me to add to the story was that there's some sort of festival, which the spy master uh suggested might be part of um a cover for whatever activities this Fainwraith character is performing in town. So I think Um That would be the that would be the first location that that uh my character would like to check out.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Alright. So, as you head out into the town proper, morning breaks soft and golden, you wake in your room, sent us spice bread, breakfast. And you do recall, though, that yesterday, when you met with Ed and were given the map in the instructions to check out a spire to the west that's holding back the sickness, the flames and report, the idea that the barrier protecting the nearby town may be going down. But before you head out, you would like to check out this festival, is that correct?

SPEAKER_06 37:51

Well, I mean, uh they did keep me waiting. I at least need to get some like uh some spud nuts or something.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

I don't m I don't know what the the in-world equivalent would be, but as you head down the stone steps from this garden basin, going to say that it's the same day, even though you're still fully rested, no real reason to move the clock too far ahead. You see, in the town square, this is a very profitable merchant town. It's basically the only technically it's Haven territory, but the denizens of the Fainwick that live near it use it as a primary trade route. And because this keep is located on the coast, with a pote route directly to the Haven's former capital, this is where most of the spices, liquors, contraband, drugs, rock and roll head through on their way to the much more rivided structure of Haven. So when this town parties, this town parties, it is almost a full carnival energy. Like you see brightly covered ribbets with wreaths of d of white flowers juggling in the streets. You see various stands with food items, deep fried from horrifying deep fried butters to delicious funnel cakes. You see little games where you could spend handfuls of gold to try your luck at winning tacky prizes. And what's interesting about this is much like certain denominational holidays I'm not gonna mention for sphere of demonetization, it seems they took a lot of the local more spirit festivals and grouped them together under Haven's more monothetic destructions. So it's like what could have been a former somber prayer to the god of shoes is now toss the boot and win a prize. What used to be praying towards the owl for a bangtiful harvest is instead a ring toss type affair. So you're seeing what feels like extreme commercialization of local deities going on down here. And it's completely running across the entire core town of the city through its various bridges and rivers. Think of the town's like structure as more like a stone, not quite Venice with gondolas going around, but many bridges and lots of fresh water run a watch of salt water running through. So very much a nice coastal, bright, energetic town. And you can just when you look up to see if you can see a rainbow, you can't see rainbows in the city because of the magical barrier that protects it. So it's kind of like looking up and seeing like a dirty plastic bubble around the city. So it kind of mutes the colors a bit. And it they've kind of compensated by painting things in really bright, prismatic tones.

SPEAKER_02 40:42

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

And as you're just kind of taking in the sights and sounds, what would you like to do? What is calling to you at this festival?

SPEAKER_06 40:52

Um Okay. Well, I would like to um spend uh a hope, if I may, on my amateur gardener uh ability to um see what I re- see what I can recall about um local uh delicacies and foods that like uh specifically I'm looking for something uh potato-like in in in world, but uh right, go ahead and make your roll.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

Somehow this is the first role in the session.

SPEAKER_06 41:29

Um, so what am I searching doing knowledge or I'm gonna say knowledge on this one. Knowledge, okay. And I get plus two for being an amateur gardener. I know I know some stuff about plants of the area. I have rolled a 23 with fear.

SPEAKER_00 41:51

Interesting. So as you're trying to remember local delicacies, something comes to mind that's it's like, hmm, how can I put this? One of your favorite things to eat isn't bugs. Not that you're opposed to eating bugs. But what you really enjoy is a nice fresh-baked honey glazed donut.

unknown 42:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

So you imagine you find yourself an equivalent of ye old honey cruelers, and they're shaped like little figure eights.

SPEAKER_02 42:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 42:21

And you can go ahead and for the sake of the narrative, if you'd like to buy some of those, you can knock a couple handfuls of uh you can knock a handful of gold off your inventory for festival shopping.

SPEAKER_05 42:33

And knock a handful of gold oh man. That's all my gold, all my gold.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

But go ahead and add to your inventory snap powder. So snap powder. The idea is by eating these baked goods later in your journey, it allow you to mark a stress and clear a hit point as you eat and get a sugar rush temporarily.

SPEAKER_06 42:56

Uh mark a stress to keep to re reduce the hit point?

SPEAKER_00 43:00

To clear one hit point.

SPEAKER_06 43:02

Okay, so snap powder. How do I even add that to my inventory?

SPEAKER_00 43:07

That was more of a technical thing with the with the uh next semi plane website that we're using to uh Yeah, if you go over to the equipment tab, there should be an add an item button there.

SPEAKER_06 43:21

Equipment tab, da ba da ba da ba da Manage equipment.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

Because somehow it didn't occur to me you'd go to the bakery. In fact, this adventure is written assumption that you've already left town. But I digress. I am prepared for your games.

SPEAKER_06 43:41

Okay. Mark of stress and clear hit point. Nice. Perfect for my stress build here. I like it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 43:50

Uh so. Fresh pastries in hand. As you're heading down the thoroughfare, I want you to go ahead and make an instinct reaction roll. This one hope or fear doesn't apply.

SPEAKER_06 44:03

Uh, okay, so this this is uh akin to a saving uh instinct you said roll not finesse instinct but akin to the saving throws uh in DD.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

Correct. So it's simply doesn't affect the combat or turn order or hope or fear. And it it's that way to it's yeah, just straight up as you said, a saving throat equivalency.

SPEAKER_06 44:27

Uh so I got a 15.

SPEAKER_00 44:30

So, as you're going through the festival, you see what looks like a small, almost like a metallic golem, a clank. He's a slightly yellow off-yellow color, big eyes, and his hand halfway into your coin purse trying to pitpocket you, but there's no money there. And he looks kind of defeated. Um you feel like even though Clanks may not naturally age, they d this does look like it was designed to be a 12-year-old. Not really sure of the logistics here.

SPEAKER_02 45:11

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 45:12

So just a little above board, because your character would know this. Clanks in this setting come in two main varieties. There's the Haven-built Clanks, which typically involve taking minor deities or spirits and shoving them into metallic frames to do tasks. Or the more holistic haven clanks that are like golems carved of natural materials. That spirits So the Fainwood Clanks, you mean? Yeah. That are more willing to let natural spirits choose to embody them. So this was built for a purpose, this type of clank, and that purpose seems to be robbing you. But picture the face of Tinny Tim from Futurama.

SPEAKER_06 45:50

Sorry, Tony Pym?

SPEAKER_00 45:52

Uh Tinny Tim.

SPEAKER_06 45:53

So picture like a Charles Dickens and sad orphan boy robot. Okay, so he's definitely a humanoid robot.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 46:02

That's good, that's good. Um. Okay, well. I don't actually ooh. Well no, okay, so I I was what what is in basic supplies? It's just basic supplies.

SPEAKER_00 46:20

Like I can I basically just have like rope and And you're assumed to have basic adventuring supplies like food and a tent and what have you.

SPEAKER_06 46:28

Yeah, yeah, okay, okay. Um well, I'm just gonna look at look at this little guy and be like, hey, uh, whatcha doin'?

SPEAKER_01 46:41

And he's gonna look at you and go like, well, I was trying to get some money for a scrap to eat, but you seem more worse off than me, so well.

SPEAKER_07 46:58

I've seen better days, that's true.

SPEAKER_06 47:09

What do I want to get to know from this little robot guy?

SPEAKER_07 47:14

Uh I don't have anything. I wish I had something to give you, but uh I uh I spent my last money.

SPEAKER_06 47:28

Um lost it at one of those little carnival games.

SPEAKER_00 47:33

Um it's kind enough if you just let me leave, sir. That would be very charitable of you.

SPEAKER_05 47:42

Hmm. Right, I'll be on my way then.

SPEAKER_00 47:48

With that, you made a friend of sorts. So as you head down the thoroughfare to like the stables, you are waved down by looks like a haven soldier who absolutely has to work today and have the facial expression of someone who's a security guard at Carnival who doesn't get to enjoy said Carnival. And seems to be literally beckoning you over. And they seem to be a large catfolk. Standing tall and feline. Okay. And they're just kind of like, yeah, get over here.

SPEAKER_06 48:32

Are you the passage which uh sorry I gotta look at the button? Oh are you the uh passage which Krill set up for me?

SPEAKER_00 48:46

Here's your payment, he like throws a bag of gold at you. Oh, I get a bag of gold. Mm-hmm. Worth ten handles. Nice. And the Qatari goes, I Krill gave you a cart, gave you a bag of coin, you're supposed to write your expenses down, and you can get reimbursed later. Very good, very well. Cart's yours, full of supplies. Good luck to ya. And they have an expression of they're happy not to be you.

SPEAKER_06 49:26

Uh, okay, so this uh town that I'm supposed to be going to, is it further in it's in Feinwick territory?

SPEAKER_00 49:33

Yes. So you're heading deeper into Feinwick. It's a haven outpost, and from some little snooping around in a bit of your background, picking up details, it is effectively a to call it a town is charitable. It's more a military fort with farms around it. And you know how cranberry logs, you like flood the cranberries so they float and then you scoop them? Yeah. It's kind of one of those for crimson bloom lilies. Alright. Well. So, my first question is do you want to travel by cart or by foot? Cart will probably cut your travel time in half there's a place.

SPEAKER_06 50:18

Well, I'm definitely gonna travel by cart.

SPEAKER_00 50:21

Um what creature pulls your cart? You tell me.

SPEAKER_06 50:25

Oh. Um well, just to be quick with the top of head, I'm gonna say that it's a it's a hippo bear that pulls the cart.

SPEAKER_00 50:35

Got it. So, as this horrifying hippo bear-like domesticated creature, possibly the most deadly animal imaginable, if it wasn't a smaller desk domesticated, it's like the mule of hippo bears. A full-size hippo bear, if you took an animal with the size of a hippo and the build of a bear and the temperament of a hippo, would be truly terrifying. But this is like the mule of the hippo bears, it's well more about the size of a large horse. It absolutely could murder a bandit, though. Alright.

SPEAKER_06 51:08

So, uh, once I'm out of view of that uh Qatar guard, uh I want to use my um uncanny disguise ability uh to take his form.

SPEAKER_00 51:24

Ooh, no issue at all. You're definitely gonna jock that style.

SPEAKER_06 51:32

Alright, so I mark a stress, and now I am disguised until I take two actions.

SPEAKER_00 51:41

Excellent. So, as you head out under the blistering sun. The trail marked on your map is pretty overgrown, but it's clear enough, like, enough carts go through that it's like you can almost see like the vines already trying to reclaim the trail as soon as you go out through that bubble, you feel the heat on your skin. The twitching roots, and like you swear you watch some of the nearby flowers blink with their crystalline growths in them.

SPEAKER_06 52:14

And as you begin to head, um are these similar flowers to the ones that were creeping on the on the tower?

SPEAKER_00 52:22

Not quite. They seem more natural and less malicious. Less tumbleweedy.

SPEAKER_02 52:28

Yeah, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, alright, alright.

SPEAKER_00 52:31

So, describe one thing you receive from Ed to help you on your journey that's loaded in this cart.

SPEAKER_06 52:39

One thing that I received from Ed.

unknown 52:42

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 52:43

And if you go full ballista, it may not be the highest quality of ballista, but I will be forced by GM Law to give you a ballista.

SPEAKER_06 52:55

Uh no, no. Um, I I'm gonna say that he gave me uh a dossier of uh the who is who of of this uh town that I'm going to investigate.

SPEAKER_00 53:06

Excellent. So as you begin to head down the path and you travel through your journey, your first day is relatively uneventful.

SPEAKER_02 53:15

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 53:16

And you start heading into the second day, and since there isn't like a set day-night cycle, it's more like your first twelve hours before you felt in the need to take a nap. But somewhere around day two or three, your cart starts to shudder, slows, and then roughly groans to a jolting stop.

SPEAKER_02 53:36

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 53:37

So, what did you hit? What did I hit?

SPEAKER_06 53:43

What did you hit? Mmm. Um let's see. Uh, I would say I hit there's a small patch of of rocks hidden under the underbrush. Um uh that kind of jolt the cart a bit, and then uh just past the rocks, there's a uh soft spot in the dirt that's also hidden under the underbrush that my my cart sinks into.

SPEAKER_00 54:16

So, as your cart sinks into effectively a gravelly sinkhole, this crisis may actually have been a small blessing. Because now that your cart's halted, you hear it faintly in the wind. Steel screams and roars. Looking around in the distance, you see a thin line of smoke rising steadily into the sigh, curling like a finger. As distant as sounds bad. You know the town you were originally heading to, Nerwinter, was about at this point of your journey, about eight hours away. And it's just far enough in the distance. You feel like that's where the sounds are coming from, you feel like that's where the smoke is coming from, and I'm dramatically setting a D 20 on the table with a 20 face up. So pitcher and match the gathering spindle dice.

SPEAKER_05 55:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:07

It's sitting at a 20.

SPEAKER_05 55:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 55:09

This is tracking the worsening crisis that's happening there.

unknown 55:13

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 55:15

So, you have a broken cart, and you know some chaos is going on. The choice is yours. And just to give you a bit of above board information, you could try and fix the cart with more supplies, and you might be able to make up the time. Or you can say screw it and start running. As this is a place, as I mentioned, you can get to carts going through these thick, dense jungles, aren't quite twice your speed. They're like a fifty percent speed boost at best. It's really more about conserving energy and moving stuff, because you are driving through the brush.

SPEAKER_06 55:50

Right, right. Um, everything that's in my equipment on my sheet is stuff that I could carry with me, right? Correct.

SPEAKER_00 56:01

The card is extra food, supplies, and as you brought a ballista, a ballista. But since you brought a dossier, I feel like most of your books can fit in your pack.

SPEAKER_06 56:14

Um, yeah, so I mean, I'm going to uh Is there a s saddle for the hippo bear?

SPEAKER_00 56:23

I'm gonna say if you packed one, there is one. Did you think uh roll knowledge for me? If you get hope and above a ten, I'll say yes. Roll knowledge.

SPEAKER_06 56:35

Uh yet. Ooh, 13 but with fear.

SPEAKER_00 56:40

So, yes, there's a hippo saddle. You're not sure how much it will enjoy being ridden, but you did prepare for this. I'm gonna go ahead and take a fear for that. The dice ticks down to 19 ominously.

SPEAKER_06 56:54

Uh well, I mean, I'm definitely uh going to attempt to ride this hippo bear. Uh leave leave the cart behind, but I am obviously going to take my uh dossier.

SPEAKER_00 57:05

Excellent. So as you head into the distance on your hippo bear, not giving you any trouble so far, actually probably making faster time than when you were with the cart. Hmm. You're heading on no issues. But you do eventually come to where the bridge is supposed to be. The path Nareware hovers a s hugs a steep gorge, where the forest thins and a raging river cuts through the land. There's supposed to be a bridge here. There's no bridge here. Just remains of rope strung between mossy stones. And there's a narrow sandbar in the middle of the river. On that sandbar lays a small child, a roan small, still, and watching you. They're wet and curled up in the fetal position in the middle of this river. The spin smoke still curls in the sky to the west. Darker. The distant metal and screams louder. So this is about four hours into your journey. You're over halfway there at this point.

SPEAKER_06 58:06

Uh, so a child, uh, clearly a humanoid child. Um. And I am still in disguise as the Haven. Guard, yes, no?

SPEAKER_00 58:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 58:26

Um, does the child seem to be scared of me?

SPEAKER_00 58:30

Uh, as their eyes meet yours, they're kind of like start waving. Help! Help.

SPEAKER_06 58:39

Okay. So obviously Haven is not the one causing or well, is not causing this character's distress.

SPEAKER_00 58:47

It's probably that they perhaps from your natural instincts, you have a sneaking suspicion they were crossing the bridge and then the bridge broke, and now they're in the sand.

SPEAKER_06 58:58

Uh, well, I mean how fast is the river raging? Can my Hippo Bear uh make it to the sandbar?

SPEAKER_00 59:07

Um, do you want to take the time to try and calculate and figure it out?

SPEAKER_06 59:12

Well, no, I I'm my my character's just gonna rush in without thinking too much about it, but I'm I'm just wondering I guess I guess Hippo Bear and I are trying to ford the river to this sandbar.

SPEAKER_00 59:23

Alright, roll an instinct roll.

SPEAKER_06 59:26

Roll an inst uh. Does that make my second roll? I think it does. Oh well, instinct, let's go.

SPEAKER_00 59:33

So what is the cost to keep up your disguise? Like, what did the spell originally cost you to use?

SPEAKER_06 59:39

Uh I ticked one stress, uh, and then I get two tokens, uh, which are removed when I do uh action rolls uh when I have no tokens left, then my disguise drops.

SPEAKER_00 59:49

I'm gonna say that I'm gonna only really make you remove those tokens if you're interacting with a person to stay disguised. I'm not gonna count just living your life.

SPEAKER_06 59:58

Yeah, okay, okay, so I'm gonna roll.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:00

So I'll say you have one token left after this.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:03

Okay. Um my instinct roll is a 12 with fear. I'm I'm not very hopeful today.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:10

So, you're like, okay, you're a hippo bear. You should be able to swim. You're about a quarter of the way across this river, about halfway to the sandbar. Hippo bear is swimming. No issue at all. I'm going to spend a fear, bringing me to two fear. You see a large fin start swimming towards you in the river. Uh-oh. So you're exactly in the middle of the river, and a large fin is swimming towards you. I'm going to use my GM move. It is the fin is about within melee range of you now.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:48

Uh-oh.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:49

I'll put the spotlight back to you.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:54

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:59

Uh Let's see, what do I what do I even want it?

SPEAKER_06 1:01:18

This isn't a plant, it's not an insect. It might kill me. Uh or it might just go for the hippo bear. Hmm. Do I abandon the hippo bear?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:32

That's a good question.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:39

Okay, so it's within melee range.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:44

Um.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:46

At this point, you're seeing that data's about the size of the hippo bear.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:52

Yeah, okay. Definitely not wine wise to fight this thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:56

Um And as it's moving through the water, you're seeing like little flakes of it float off, and it looks like like little shards of glass behind it.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:09

Oh boy. Um. Well, I think I just need to. Is it gonna be faster for me to just try and jump off the hippo bear and swim? Maybe. I think I I think I'm gonna have to abandon the hippo bear because I think this is a this is danger. Danger, danger, Will Robinson.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:31

Go ahead and make an agility roll. To jump off the hippo bear to the sandbank, if I'm understanding your train of thought here.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:38

Uh, well, I mean, hopefully that it's close enough. But yes, that is my plan. I'm going to uh agility. Plus one. Yeah, yeah, okay. I'm gonna roll. Fearfully, I roll an eleven.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:55

Okay. So as you jump off, and it's close, you barely make it. Like, you don't get all the way to the shore, you have to swim a bit, and then you watch the colossal jaws of the sea serpent come up and bite down on your hippo. The hippo bear isn't dead yet, but it is absolutely being eaten by this serpent. You would say it would probably take a couple bites to finish it off. So I'm gonna use my GM move there to have it grapple and start consuming your hippo bear. But you've made it to the sandbank. What would you like to do? Spotlight is back to you.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:31

Uh okay. Did that use my token to uh drop my disguise?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:37

You can spend another stress to maintain it if you want to charge up two more tokens.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:51

Yeah, I mean I'm I am going to maintain my my disguise.

unknown 1:03:57

Alright.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:58

Um and uh I'm going to look at the let's say here can jump on my back uh and uh try and pick him up and okay, so he's stuck on this sandbar because it's in the rivers. She's she is stuck.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:16

Um I I guess I'm gonna tie her to my back and and attempt to Oh, I'm not strong, but I'm gonna do attempt to tie her to my back and swim to the other side of the river while the first I'm gonna have to roll presence here to convince them to let this happen.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:37

Well, see, I do get advantage on presence checks to avoid scrutiny. Are they scrutinizing me?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:45

Because I'm assuming I'm gonna say you get advantage on this because of what you're the So why you're trying to do here of passing yourself off as a cop trying to save them, I'll say you get advantage.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:57

Yeah, alright, alright. So a presence check with advantage. And I come on uh 12 with hope. Woo-hoo!

SPEAKER_00 1:05:11

Okay, spotlight is still on you. She agrees to this. Now I'm gonna have you roll finesse, and your giant d20 is down to 16 now. But roll with finesse to tie them to you and start swimming. I'm considering that like one motion. So the finesse is this chain of events and how long it takes.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:28

Alright. Roll. Oh, only a 10, but with fear.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:34

I'll happily take that fear. So you're feeling pretty you're feeling pretty confident here. At this point, I'm going to use my free GM move. You just see red where your hippo once was. And the fin goes under the water.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:49

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:52

And spotlight's back on.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:55

I mean, we we gotta we gotta roll and we gotta we. We gotta try and get to back to the other side of the of the river.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:04

Alright, go ahead and roll agility to swim across this river. Or strength, your choice.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:10

Uh I don't think it actually makes a difference, so let's just roll some agility. I feel more agile than strong.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:16

Reasonable.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:17

And 13 with hope! Woo-hoo!

SPEAKER_00 1:06:21

So, you swim and you're about three-quarters of the way across this river. And you see the fin emerges on the other side of the sandbank, and it's approaching you, it's within very close range.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:33

Uh-oh. It's within very close range, huh?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:36

The spotlight's still on you. And I'm hoarding my fear at the moment to have fun with it.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:51

Well, I have gotten enough hope to activate my rogue hope. Spend three hope to gain a plus two bonus to your invasion until your next attack succeeds against you. Otherwise, this bonus lasts until your next rest. So I am in fact going to spend three hope to activate. Um. And uh I'm just gonna keep swimming.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:19

Alright, go ahead and roll agility for me to just keep swimming.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:23

Just keep swimming.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:28

Twenty-two with hope!

SPEAKER_00 1:07:31

So, you've made it to the edge of the river. I'm gonna spend a fear to activate the river's ability of undertow. Make an agility reaction roll.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:42

Oh boy. Oh boy.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:46

I am down to one.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:47

A twenty with hope.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:48

Oh snap. You don't get the hope though for a reaction roll.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:52

Oh, right. Okay, sorry, I forgot about the reaction roll.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:54

Oh, no worries. So, as it like you feel like a rip current about to grab you, drag you into the river, and have a serpent devour you as you're hopeless and afraid. You're like, not today, and you just that inner frog energy kicks in. As you frog y stroke and you make it onto the beach. Finn's still chasing you, but you've successfully crossed the river. What would you like to do?

SPEAKER_06 1:08:16

Is the little girl still tied to my back? I'm I'm a little worried about that. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:24

She is still tied to your back.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:26

Have any of my action roles depleted my tokens?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:31

If you want to keep it up, you need to spend another stress.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:35

Just it. Uh this is getting stressful.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:44

Yeah, you're swimming through a sea serpent, keeping a disguise up and holding a child on your back. Yes. That would in fact be stressful. You are correct.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:53

I am gonna mark another stress. I maintain my disguise. Um I guess uh I gotta I feel like we gotta get away from the river river a bit and maybe try and like hide ourselves in. Is there any like trees or anything nearby that we can try and hide ourselves in?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:17

Uh yeah, if you move to maximum limits of your movement, you can definitely get like within the trees and roll a finesse check to try and hide. You'll probably hide better if the child not tied to your back.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:29

Well, I mean, that's that's fair.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:33

Uh so I'm gonna say go ahead and roll finesse to get into the trees and start hiding.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:39

Alright, alright. Rolling finesse.

unknown 1:09:42

Quick.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:44

An 18 with fear.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:46

Okay. So you're feeling very hidden. You see the fin like go back into the water and disappear. You're holding your breath, you're like muting the child a bit.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:58

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:59

And at this point, the giant novelty D20 is sitting at a 13. You're out of wind, but you're no longer feeling like the snake is interested. It it isn't a land snake. You're like, okay, good, it's it's amphibi it's not amphibious. So at this point you've pushed forward, soaked, shaken from the river crossing. The wind shifts, and with it the scent. Not just bloom and blood, but uh you're feeling like like an oily aftersmell. And you can see it now in range that the smoke is growing more, and you've have a hunch that part of the field is on fire. But you have an option. If you wish, you can spend a bit of time here and take a short rest, but it will tick down the giant novelty dice by a couple points. Or you could keep going. Right. Resting here would let you recover, but the longer you wait, the more of Narewinter burns.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:01

Uh well, I mean, I'm gonna turn to the child and be like. Is that the place? I Okay. Um in my journal I wrote down you called it Nairwinter. Uh, but Fein Wraith.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:20

Is in a town of Allura.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:23

Allura?

SPEAKER_06 1:11:24

Allura. So to give you a I spelt it as A-L-L-A, but not Allura.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:29

So visualize in your mind's eye, and if this is ableist, I will be showing a real map to players. So there's three towns between here and your end goal. There's Nairware, a town you were told by Lorda to check out of the spire. Shield was still working. Then there's Worm's Crossing, which is the pathway between the valley and the mountains, and then it's Alora on the other side. So there's three towns on the main trade route to get where you're going. This town is somewhat optional as a stop in, but the other one's like the main border crossing. Well, it was a border crossing and now it's just a base.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:06

Yeah, okay, so I mean, uh, but the border crossing one is the one that I'm supposed to investigate to see if the um barrier is still working.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:16

Uh, near where you're supposed to see if the barrier is still working. And you have the sneaking suspicion it's probably not if the town's on fire.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:36

Well, kid. It looks like I'm heading into trouble. You coming with me, or are you gonna try and find your own way?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:45

I'll come along.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:46

Me and Sparky can help. And then you see next the little girl what looks like a small dog, and then you look a little closer and it's a dry bones dog, like a skeletal dog? Huh.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:02

Well, we probably don't want to take the main road. Uh you know any other ways to get into town?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:09

Um they're not happy if we do that. But yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:16

Who's they? Who's they?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:19

The people in the town weren't very nice to me.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:26

I see. Well, who cares if they're happy, if they weren't nice to you? Let's let's just we need to find a way into town that we won't be noticed.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:39

Alright. So as she begins like leading you through like a side path, you kind of crest a ridge, and you see in the distance, outside the town, blooms the size of barrels are coiled around guard posts, their thorns cracking into stone. Dozens of those tangle brambles are tumbling outside the town like animals, and the gate to the town is up. Guards are fighting fiercely, but you see a small fire burns a far distance away, and the area around the source of flames is burning brightly. You watch as one of those tumbleweed brambles gets a little too close and bursts into flames.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:15

Oh dear.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:16

The guards are on one-on-one fights barely holding their ground. Uh half the brambles are about far range with you, and the other half are double that distance. And it's looking like So at this point, you see your giant novelty 13. It looks like there's about seven dead guards that have died to these brambles. And there's 13 guards fighting brambles one-on-one. So of the 20 original Brambles, the faster you got here, the more guards that were alive to fight them off. So the less that would be your problem. However, as you suggested, you could just break into town. The child has given you the hints that they have fled this town, try to make it to the next town, the bridge collapsed, and now they're sticking with you. So, it's entirely possible the villagers did not care for this model of orphan child. Or if they're an orphan, you don't know. So, for all you know, is they left from here and they know a way in. So you could just ignore all this. I say awkwardly putting a battle map under the table that was about to put on top of it. But ye could. It is your prerogative.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:25

Well, okay, so these these guards are wearing uh haven outfits then?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:31

Yes. And you do see, like, a couple dead farmers. And it looks like so, as I mentioned, these plants are harvested in like a cranberry bog type situation. And you see a knocked over lantern, and the top of the water is on fire, and it's spreading.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:49

I see.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:49

So the penicillin farm is on fire.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:54

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:55

Which is bad for the Brambles. But also not great for a nation to watch your vaccine factory be on fire. But as you mentioned, this could just not be your problem.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:11

Okay, um. So. But this seems like it would be the work of Fainrays. Hmm. But if I take too many actions, I'm gonna get too stressed out and drop my disguise at an inopportune time. And also be, you know, stressed out.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:34

This is true.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:37

And we're currently still hidden, yes no?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:41

You are currently still hidden from everybody involved. You've kind of like snuck up to the top of the hill, and are just kind of observing this.

unknown 1:16:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:49

If this was a physical game, I'd probably put a dramatic hourglass on the table to give you about a minute to decide before the fight continues. Right, right, right. Because if you jump into the fight, the giant dramatic D20 stops ticking down. And it becomes a case of can you deal with the remaining seven tangle blooms uh remaining seven tangle blooms? And if you can, then you're able to help out these guards. But as you mentioned, they're guards, they're doing their job. This doesn't have to be your problem.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:23

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:25

And you bought these things because.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:27

I don't really have any. You know. Um, so according to my rogue class features, because I'm hidden, I'm actually cloaked. Correct. Um. Which doesn't actually do much for me at this point. Um while cloaked, you remain unseen if you are stationary. When an adversary moves to where they would normally see you, after you make attack or and a move with the line side of an adversary, you are no longer cloaked. And attack is the main benefit I get from bandage too. Uh the main benefit that I get from being cloaked uh is that um I can add two d6 to my damage roll. Um so I would be rolling 4d6 plus 1 if I use a crossbow, which is a fairly significant chunk of damage. I think I could probably take out a few of these uh a few of these brambles. Um I'm gonna turn turn turn to the little girl. And I'm gonna say, stay here, stay out of sight.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:53

She's gonna uh put her hand on your arm and say good luck. And you're gonna feel some warmth go up your body from that, and you have advantage uh an extra uh you have plus two to whatever you do.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:09

Well, I mean, I'm I'm going to um making sure that I end my move out of line of sight of any any uh of the brambles that I can.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:20

No issue. So about half of them are within far range, and the other half are very far. So of the seven brambles, four of them are within far range, and three more are past that. Because you actually made really good time on that rumor.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:40

I am going to uh just um Am I in line of sight of the little girl? If you choose to be. I do not choose to be.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:51

You vanish completely.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:52

Um well mostly because uh I'm I'm just going to make my attack roll um the nearest bramble that I can using my crossbow. Um and um I guess you said I get a plus two to that roll?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:14

Yes. I was gonna give you advantage, but you already have advantage. Technically how advantage stacking works in this game, which is kind of funny, is if you have two sources of advantage, you get the higher roll on the two. So you would roll with advantage, and then roll another d6 if it's higher than your advantage and you get that one.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:34

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:35

Um that's technically physical dice this would be a lot easier, but with words it gets a little messy.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:44

Yeah. Alright, so I roll my 2d12, 1d6, plus 4, and I get a measly 11 with hope.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:56

So 11 is what you needed. Go ahead and roll damage to shoot a plant. Uh I'm surprised you didn't spend the hope to add your gardening feature to this.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:10

Yeah, I did not think about that. I should have. I'll I'll keep that in mind for later. Um, okay, so 2d6 plus 1. Uh and then I get an additional 2d6 for being tier 2 sneak attack.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:29

Yep. To try and make you up to not being four people.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:33

Uh so that makes me a total of 16 damage.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:39

So as you learn from session zero, but you are player a new player may not know this at this point, and my players I ran this through on the weekend certainly didn't. Every four damage you dealt jumps to another tangle bramble because they're considered minions. So how many damage was that? 16. So here's what happens. You fire, you go fire shoot like fanning a revolver. You fire four crossbow bolts in under three seconds and just shoot all four of them. Four are dead. And you're rolled with hope. You would have to move closer. And you're no longer considered hitten.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:24

Right, but uh the threshold for actually killing a bunch of them goes down significantly, although, statistically speaking, it's unlikely I would be able to.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:35

So you've killed four of them, which means now they only outnumber the guards by three, which means those guards will probably lose. But they won't lose as hard as they were losing. And that small fire on the penicillin is still growing.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:52

Right. I don't know what I can do about that. But I am going to take uh. Does it take an action to move from very far to far range?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:05

So because of where you're at right now, yes, it would take an agility roll to make it within range of the next set of them.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:13

Well, I mean, I guess I'm just gonna. The fire is definitely gonna be the guard's problems, uh, but my uh experience in gardening has let me know that uh these brambles are not that much of a threat, so I am going to make use my agility roll to move uh within range.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:32

Go ahead and roll. So, I'm gonna go ahead and spend one of my fear here to interrupt you. So as you run and get within range, I'm gonna spend my first fear to move my brambles closer to you. Once you're within range, and then gonna send my second fear, i.e. my last fear, to have them initiate a group attack.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:01

So I'm gonna go ahead and roll this here, dice. Eighteen! Does eighteen hit your evasion?

SPEAKER_06 1:24:14

Aw, dang it! It does.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:17

So you take six damage.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:20

Until it's next time. Dang it, now it's not active.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:24

It's close though.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:28

So you're taking So how much damage should I take?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:33

Eight damage.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:37

Eight damage, wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:38

And what happens here is kinda horrifying. You got lucky earlier when you're fighting them as a garden, because you didn't know this would happen. But the roots begin to weave together as the three brambles kind of form like an exoskeleton around you and start crushing down on your body. They're now a tangled bramble swarm. You are considered to now be have them wrapped around you, but the spotlight is back to you. You're not quite restrained yet, but if they keep weaving and growing around you, you could find yourself restrained shortly.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:13

Okay, well, I'm going to spend a hope to activate my Reign of Blades. Uh, and make a spellcasting roll uh to all targets within very close range. Since they hit me, they must be in mainly range.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:30

They are, but they're considered a single target now. Because they went from being a into a horde.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:38

I'm just I'm still gonna do this uh I think this is Alright.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:45

Huh.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:46

Okay. Yeah, uh plus two spell. Okay, making my spellcast roll. And uh can I apply my gardener feature? Oh, yeah.

unknown 1:25:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:57

It seems like using a circle of knives to cut yourself out of a shrub.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:02

Okay. And I roll a measly nine. Wow. Nine.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:10

So I'll happily take that fear token, because things are going a little too good for you. Alright, so now that you're wrapped up in the Tangle Bramble Swarm, I get a few powers I gotta make. So first, I'm going to attack you with the swarm.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:29

Come on, big money. I need to put some fear in your eyes.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:35

Six! Oh. Oh, yeah, I made that. Like nobody's biz. Oh wait, I took eight damage you said?

SPEAKER_00 1:26:44

Oh, from the previous one? Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:46

Okay.

unknown 1:26:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:51

And if you want to spend armor at that time to blunt it, you could have.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:55

No, no, I didn't bother spending armor.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:58

Alright. So my first attack whiffed terribly, so I'm gonna spend my last fear. Normally I'd have to activate a different enemy, but I don't have any left, so I'll give you activate this guy again.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:08

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:09

14.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:12

Uh, if it meets it hits? Yep. Ah, I am hit.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:18

Okay, so you take nine physical damage here. I've got a really good roll.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:28

Uh, I am going to activate an armor slot to reduce that uh to a minor damage threshold, and only take one hit point.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:37

Alright, so you're considered to now have a Bramble token, which means you are restrained in this location.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:43

I see.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:46

And you're feeling the roost get thicker and thicker, like it's planning to crush you in about three or so tokens.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:54

Uh I mean. Think I need to um spend another hope with my amateur gardener feature uh and just roll for uh another attack, but this time I'm just gonna attack with my dagger. No, yeah, I'm just gonna attack with my dagger.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:17

Alright.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:20

Finesse.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:23

And at this point your disguise has absolutely dropped.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:27

Oh, yeah, I definitely. Ooh, 19 with hope.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:31

19 with hope. So that'll hit the thing. Go ahead and roll damage there. As you're attempting to like hedge maze yourself out of being part of the hedge maze.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:45

I managed to get nine damage.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:48

So, nine damage isn't quite enough to cut yourself free of being restrained. There's a certain amount of damage you can do to break free. It is, however, enough to do two hit points of damage to it. Considering it was only assembled out of three rambles, it's hanging on by a single point.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:06

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:08

And the spotlight is still in.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:09

Oh man, I didn't. I mean, uh let's just uh keep this gardening up.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:20

And uh attack again with my with my dagger, because I'm not gonna spend hope to do the circle of blades.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:30

Okay. Ah!

SPEAKER_06 1:29:32

A nine with fear.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:34

Nine does not do that for you. Oh boy. So, I'll take my fear token. And I will use my GM move to activate the swarm.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:48

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:53

Twelve.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:56

A twelve does not hit.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:58

Alright, spotlight is back to you. As you feel it's trying to crush you, but can't quite get purpose, you're a little slippier than you should be. Uh well. See what I did there? Slippier.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:17

This time I feel like I need to shoot him with shoot at it with my crossbow. Uh, and then hopefully as it's rearing back from the crossbow, I can stab it in the heart with my dagger.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:31

Go right ahead.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:32

Um, so I'm gonna roll with my crossbow. Uh adding my gardener feature. Roll Critical success!

SPEAKER_00 1:30:49

Alright, so you get maximum value on any damage dice you would roll, and then you still roll them.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:59

Okay. Um I guess. So roll for damage. And I get an additional uh two for my dagger. Uh so that makes ten on the dice, plus my what seven on the dice, plus three, and then plus twelve, because I was rolling two d6, so that's twenty-two damage.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:26

So, here's how I'm gonna play out the scene. So as you stab this one in the heart, you fire four seven shots and shoot every other bramble that's fighting the guards. So as the last one falls off the guy, twitch curls, and dies. You see the thorn stuck in you, you rip that out, it starts to form into another bramble, you shoot it in the face. But the fire is still absolutely burning. And this point has probably hit about half the crop.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:00

Oh my.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:02

You're hearing civilians screaming, you hear a guard yelling.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:09

Uh, well, I mean now that I've come in and saved the day, um, I am just going to try and slink off into the into the chaos and hide and go and find the little girl again.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:26

Go ahead and roll a finest role to just kind of like kill shoot a bunch of things and then blend back into the crowd.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:35

Um. I am also going to uh activate my uncanny disguise again.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:46

Alright.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:48

Uh, to look like the same guard.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:51

You are committed, and I respect that.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:54

Um. Which is a finesse roll. Okay, it doesn't really matter. Uh uh, it gives me advantage on presence rolls to avoid scrutiny. Uh, but since I'm finessing and not.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:10

Wouldn't this be presence? Because it's like the difference between the assassin creed hide in a hay battle, or the assassin's creed just kind of walk. And you're just kind of doing the walk one, so I'll let that be presence.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:21

Okay, okay. Uh presence. I don't know if that's actually better because I have minus one to my presence, but I do have advantage. So statistically, yeah, probably. I'll probably come ahead, I think. Nope, I got a nine.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:37

So, with hope or fear.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:39

With hope, though.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:40

Okay. So, as you try and shramble in and go into the ground, you hear Oi! And someone's trying to beckon you over.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:50

Hmm. Uh well, I mean I guess I guess I I I will Are they also a guard?

SPEAKER_00 1:34:02

Yes. They seem to be a lieutenant based on their outfit.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:08

I mean, I'm I'm just gonna run up to him and see what he needs me to do.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:13

Help! Put out some fire! And then a bunch of guards arrive with buckets, and they're also running with a bucket to put out the fire.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:22

Well, I guess now I have a bucket of water, so I'm gonna go start trying to help put out the fire.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:27

Go ahead and roll strength.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:30

Strength.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:34

18 with hope. Okay. So you managed to help the guards get the fire under control. I'm gonna go ahead and spend a fear to have you mark a stress.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:46

Uh-oh.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:48

Okay. And you've met back up with the guards. So what would you like to do now that you put out the fire?

SPEAKER_06 1:34:57

Oh, I uh after putting out the fire, I'm still trying to take advantage of the chaos to slink off and and uh Alright, go ahead and roll a presence with the other. Meet up with the little girl again. Presence with advantage. A twelve with fear.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:15

I'll happily take that fear. So, you do manage to slink away yet again. This time they didn't catch you in the fire putting out shuffle. You actually literally hear Lieutenant be like, where the heck did that new guard go? Like, visibly confused. But I am gonna spend one of my fear to give you a stress.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:35

Hmm, this is I'm getting pretty stressed out.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:40

That is. I yeah. You've been pretending to be a fake guard while fighting a battle, putting out a fire, and disguising yourself to a random little girl, but you have made it back to the little girl. Uh she is hiding under a tree, petting her skeleton dog, eating an apple. In seemingly good spirits. And you do see what looks like a dead petangle bloom with a dagger in it.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:11

Um does this look like an acceptable place to just take a rest?

SPEAKER_00 1:36:16

Yeah, you're feeling pretty hidden. Yeah, you can probably get away with it.

SPEAKER_07 1:36:23

Uh- I just need to take a quick little rest here. What's your name, girl?

SPEAKER_01 1:36:30

Um I don't remember.

SPEAKER_07 1:36:39

Hmm. Well, I'll deal with that when I wake up. And I'm I'm just gonna Ugh. Just try to keep watch, make sure nobody sneaks up on us.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:50

So, short rest reminder is you gonna choose two moves. You can heal a d4 HP plus your tier, clear a d4 stress plus your tier, repair a d4 armor plus your tier, or prepare for the path of head to gain a hope. If you choose to prepare with one or more members of your party, you each gain two hope. For the purposes of this solo adventure, the little girl would count as a member of your party.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:18

Well, I mean, and I get a D4 fear.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:23

I am clearing stress, that's what I'm doing.

unknown 1:37:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:32

Um and uh my my way of de stressing is just this like uh internal monologue uh of uh trying to get into the character of uh my uh guard, who is uh, you know. All I really know about him is that he was done with the day because he was sad that he had to work uh during the festival.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:58

But alright, as you practice your character acting, go ahead and take your rewards for your short rest.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:07

Okay. Woohoo! Got a four on my first d4.

unknown 1:38:12

Nice.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:13

And I managed to get a four on my second d4. Wow, I have cleared all my stress.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:21

Excellent. Good job. And now I roll a d4 for my fear. I I'll have you do it. Roll a d4 for my fear.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:29

Roll a d4, okay. Um. Okay. I don't actually have somewhere on this character sheet.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:39

Uh bottom left, there's a manual dice roller.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:43

Bottom.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:45

Ah, I see. Part of why I'm making you do it is so you can find that button later.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:50

Roll!

SPEAKER_00 1:38:53

Uh, I got a one. Alright, I only got one big fear back from this. Bringing me to a mighty singular fear. Alright.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:07

And then my Okay. Then my hope feature has reset. Which is good. Alright.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:20

Okay. So. At this point we're about halfway through this adventure. Would you like to wrap up here and continue next week or push on through?

SPEAKER_06 1:39:31

Uh, I think it would probably be best to wrap up here and continue, well, in two weeks. Uh, hopefully our listeners aren't right on the edge of their seat about what's going to happen next.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:41

Excellent. So, for time we trying to time this to fit in our window. You did do a bonus mini adventure in the town at the start.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:51

But this is a pretty natural spot. At this point, we're at part C of five. So we're gonna go into the post-chats uh post-game chat session. And seems like a natural thing. You're outside the city, planning a secret route in to not be spotted. Spent this entire session disguised as a cat person so far. So, I'm gonna give you how this played out up to this point in the story with my other two playtest sessions, if you're curious.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:19

I am curious.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:20

So the first time I ran this was a test session with my editor. Responsible for the beautiful formatting that our fans will see when they download the PDF tomorrow when this airs. Is that they just died to the blooms outright the first try.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:37

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:38

So that is the reason that the blooms are spent with half of them in far range and half of them in double far range, is originally all the blooms at once with a single player murdered them dead.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:51

Yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:52

I made one GM error where I'm pretty sure if I've moved all my units, I just kinda have to pass this botlight back to you, and I can't just spend a fear to then move it again because I only have one unit left. That was on me. My bad. That was a mistake I made in the moment. So that's alright. The big difference between this and the other times I ran it was I started them in Media Res on the road already, since it a lot of times it followed after the playtest adventure where they're already told to go check out a spire at the end of it. So starting you in the town was largely because you die during the playtest adventure.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:27

Ah, right.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:29

So that was a bit of a difference from what's from navigating as written, and I didn't account for that, which is on me really. It's like I did account for it, but didn't, because like it's literally in here start the media res, so they don't do that. But my carl wants to do things. I don't have my heart to say no. So the first group just died to the bramble to play test, just died to the brambles. The second playtest, they killed the brambles, they ran out and put out the fire immediately. And then proceeded to clear out the brambles. It was a close, tough, intense fight. To the point where it's written in this book that the players go down. You were familiar with your three death moves of exit the scene, risk it all, or blaze of glory. Right. I have notes in here to the GM to say remind your players you're outside of town, there's guards nearby, you will be saved if you die here. Cause if someone just starts with this adventure and doesn't do the playtest one first, this would be session one, and I'm not gonna have them die in the first fight of session one.

SPEAKER_06 1:42:33

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:34

So when I ran it for my other group, the number of brambles is four times the number of players, plus twenty minus the death counter.

SPEAKER_06 1:42:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:43

So for you that resulted in there being seven brambles. Where it could have been like, I could have ruled it that it was eleven, but I'm like, no, seven seems about right.

SPEAKER_06 1:42:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:56

But if you had an extra person, it would have been eleven, if you had two people it would have been fourteen. Enough that each person can be attacked by a bramble golem.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:05

Right. And and then the bramble golems just get one hit point per uh fuse for bramble.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:14

Yeah, yeah. Although the rules of Ritzon were confusing about that, because the stat block for the Bramble Golem says six HP, but the individual says when they combine, they get HP for each one. So it's a different stat block if I purple to play them three Brambles formed. And it took me the first couple playtests to figure that out.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:35

And it feels better to have it be the HP equal to the Bramble, so if you kill one of the four, it's not as shanky.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:43

Yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:44

So when I ran it for my full group, one of my players died to the Brambles. And I gave my speech that if you just choose to exit the scene, it's fine. And then they, in an open act of defiance to the idea that even suggested, they choose to roll for it and died, and were just dead.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:04

Fair.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:05

So I implemented a new house rule that when a character dies, they can give an experience to another party member based on what they went through together. As a way to remember them by.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:16

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:17

Also, when I ran it for that group, the little girl was a player character instead of an NPC. Huh. Which might have been one of the smoothest ways of added in a new character for a party member.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:28

But like the book has written their little girls and NPC for this one-on-one session. Partly it's because they can give you advantage on things, or you can move them around for positioning to kind of move up the damage a bit. But things aren't gonna naturally target the little girl NPC. I'm not gonna probably kill a small child.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:47

Ah, I see.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:49

So, it's funny as when they crossed the river, they felt the need to kill the serpent, skin it, and take its scales.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:57

But also they got there at like a seven on the death counter.

SPEAKER_06 1:45:04

I mean, I don't know anything about this serpent. I'm assuming it's one of the uh glass serpents that you mentioned when I uh put the notes for the glass river.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:13

Yeah, so part of how Daggerheart works is so the river has a stat block called Raging River.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:20

And on the river stat block, it lists potential enemies, but it has its own features. And its features are crossing the river requires the party to complete a progress counter of four, a player who rolls a failure with fears immediately targeted by an uh an undertow and dragged a medium rage down the river. Wow. And I can spend a fear to summon a glass snake within close range of the chosen PC. The snake appears in or near the river and immediately takes a spotlight to use their spinning serpent action.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:48

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:49

So I spawned in the serpent, and then the serpent can bite you, but the serpent is a five-hit point creature, difficulty fourteen, six threshold, so it's like a reasonable fight. Arguably the plant golem's actually more obnoxious than it. Right. But it designed it to be an obstacle. So you sacrificing your mount to it, I'm like, that is a very fair trade, which is why instead of me using the spinning serpent action, I just had it kill your mount.

SPEAKER_06 1:46:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:21

Because I wasn't I didn't feel the need to roll dice for it to eat the mount. I'm like, it just eats the mount. I think he'll be fine with that. He's not gonna argue. How much HP should a bear hippo have? It could have.

SPEAKER_06 1:46:34

That's true, I could have.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:36

And then the serpent would have went to D Max. So, how'd you feel about the putting a d20 counter for a battle going and then having you cross the like how did you feel about this?

SPEAKER_06 1:46:50

Uh I absolutely love the the death clock. I don't it's I don't know if that's a specifically a dagger heart thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:56

Yeah, they've all sectioned on different types of countdowns. So, like, it's um the counting down for literally how many NPCs is like how I interpreted to use it. But they do recommend rules for setting clocks for things.

SPEAKER_06 1:47:10

Um, I think that's something that DD uh could could use. I mean, it's something you could very easily implement into DD, but uh having an actual rule set to give you a basis for how you set up your encounters. Uh because I have found it very difficult to um design meaningfully different encounters. Um besides just like the number of creatures or the types of creatures is like um it's nice that uh there's a clock to be like, hey, you need to try and figure out what actions to perform to stop this clock from ticking down, because when it gets to zero, that's the worst outcome.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:52

Yeah, so for this one, like, the as it's in the book, when you introduce a countdown, you either directly tell the players what you've done so, or imply it through your narration. It's up to you to keep whether you want to keep the dice visible or not. I love keeping it visible. And then it's like when designing a countdown can serve three elements. Activation, what starts it, advancement, what advances it, for example, a countdown might advance when a PC makes an action roll or it might only on certain roll results, and the effect when it ends, for example, a countdown might trigger a powerful enemy attack or a wave of allies arriving to save the day. I kind of use like, because I'm trying to write these adventure sort of rules as written for the most part. And that was my interpretation of a wave of allies is the countdown is how many allies are left and how hard the tango fight. Because the rules always want you to have like alternate win conditions in every encounter. So the river is you can save the NPC, or you could just ignore them. Right. The choice is you could fix your cart or just ignore it. Also, I really enjoy being like choose one free item that's in your cart. Hey, you want to save the cart. As you can imagine, my full party had more things, also books, weirdly, that they ended up having to leave behind. That's funny. And the NPC order's a little different. Where in this one, in the keep is originally where you met the spy master in this town, but I moved it up earlier.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:24

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:25

So I had to restructure how that's gonna play out for you, which people have to tune in next session to find out.

SPEAKER_06 1:49:32

Makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:33

But yeah, the big things, mechanics I wanted to demo with this are I use the timers in a few different ways. Like the river literally has that progress counter built into the river stat block of crossing the river requires the party to complete a progress count on four. A PC rolls a failure, drowns, they roll a success. If they get four successes, they cross the river. And then a snake. A tier one standard serpent.

SPEAKER_06 1:50:01

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:02

And yeah, the choice in that one was do you save the girl or not? But saving the girl will take time, and roles you use to save this save the girl don't count as roles towards crossing the river. But I thought that paired really nicely with the big counter, so I didn't show you the four-step counter to cross the river. Because I thought showing you the big counter ticking down would kind of give you the idea. But I used it in the narration specifically where I said, you're a quarter across the river, you're halfway across, you're three quarters across, you're across the river.

SPEAKER_06 1:50:32

Yeah. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:34

And one of my party members just flew across with a rope. But the joke is, so the fairy flies across the river, while the frog assassin jumps into the river and swims up to the girl, while the spellcasters blast the serpent. But as we tested with you, had they all just swam across, it would have taken less time. And they would have got to down faster had they just swam across. So I thought that was personally really amusing to me. That you got there the fastest by just swimming across the river, grabbing the child, continuing to swim across the river and calling it a day. Where on my second time I ran this, they like doubled back with the cart and found a crossing to go across. Like they swam to the girl, swam back to the cart, drove the cart around, found a crossing, and got the cart to the swarthes.

SPEAKER_06 1:51:29

No wonder they got murderized by the brambles. They got murdered so dead.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:35

To the point where I adjusted the brambles, but I wasn't sure I wanted to, because I'm like, no, no, this is almost as designed for you to be smalt there. I also so I leveled up my home game party to level two because one of my players had to make a new character on the fly because they were killed by Brambles and refused my offer of mercy. Just outright like, no, you can't. You're the player you think it is is the player. You're not allowed to use their names on this, but the player you think it is who won Waters Deep was the one that refused to die.

SPEAKER_06 1:52:08

They did win Water Deep.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:10

Well, sorry, they refused to live. Actively refused my offer of survival. But what I learned is in the time it took everyone to hit level two, they were able to build a new character to relative success. And it was my favorite way of players ever introduced a new character ever, because they just walked the group was doing a funeral, and this character just walked and sat down at the funeral, and just traveled with the group.

unknown 1:52:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:40

Like they were like a wanderborn character, and they're like, oh yeah, I just wander on. I'm a member of the party now. And I'm like, I was prepared to give you like I originally offered their new character to each make a connection with each existing party member and just be someone who lives in that town that knew three of them. It's like, no, no one knows me. I'm just showing up as this character, and I'm in part of the party, and I'm like, that is a reverse Panicorn. They just joined the party and it just happened, and then they had okay. Like, I honestly didn't know how to handle it because I kept trying to like help them integrate, and there was no reason to, because I just could do nothing. Sometimes just ending up in what my players do things is one of my weaknesses as a GM. But yeah. And the decision, like I mentioned, how all the fights I try and give two choices to. The choice in this fight is the fire growing kills the brambles, so each turn you ignore it, more brambles die, but also pisses off everyone in the town because your supplies are being burned. So people will be much nicer to you if you put out the fire swiftly. Right. You didn't get too bad because you ended the fight in four turns.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:45

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:45

So, A, that was four or less brambles you had to fight. Because there was four of them hidden. Like I said, you were somewhere between seven and eleven of them.

SPEAKER_06 1:53:56

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:57

So there was four camouflage brambles you didn't have to fight because they burned to death. But this town just lost its opium supply. Which is not good for the town. And we'll see how that plays out on the next session, but we got like a few more minutes here to wrap up. So what are your closing thoughts now that I largely monologued about my design thoughts?

SPEAKER_06 1:54:18

Okay. Well, I mean, like I said, my my closing thoughts are, um, I love this love the countdowns. I I think they're uh excellent addition. Um Aside from that, like I don't know, like this is I've definitely enjoyed um the freedom of how to approach things. Like you say, like it's like I just swam across the river, grabbed the girl, and went on with uh, you know, just the different uh ways that characters and players handle these situations is interesting for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:58

Well what's funny is I was gossiping about you with one of my friends yesterday. And I was talking about the difference between you and another player that used to play with us at the time. And my distinction for Carl as a player is Carl chooses to be a doof when he wants to be a doof, but is completely competent to being an adult when he feels like it. Cause like some of our players have PTSD for when you played a low intelligence character well. So Carl summoning a stone boat to cross this river is always a possibility. But you're like, no, I'm just going to swim across the river times a factor I need to get there. I'm like, this is such prudent choices happening right now. Where it's funny because you're like, no, no, I'm gonna stop in this town. I'm like, oh man, I tried to teleport you out of the town and you blocked me. Alright, this is happening now.

SPEAKER_06 1:55:51

Well, I got the all-important, hopefully not ruined by the water, uh snap powder, so that's so I pretty much just had to like pick an item from the table to be like, okay, what would make sense?

SPEAKER_00 1:56:02

Uh I think I'm gonna actually have you swap that out with a stamina potion instead.

SPEAKER_06 1:56:07

Another stamina potion?

SPEAKER_00 1:56:09

Yeah, I feel like you'd appreciate having a stamina potion.

SPEAKER_06 1:56:12

See, I already have a stamina- I I I really do like the snap powder. Oh, then you can keep it.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:16

I thought this was a passive aggressive jive at your freebie.

SPEAKER_06 1:56:21

No, no, I I I love it. I I like I said, I'm I'm going all in on this stress build.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:28

I am curious though, how close were you to dying? Because I'm trying to keep these fights intense, but this is also theoretically the first fight of the campaign. And I did put in like a you can take a short rest, but you have to fight two more brambles as like a straight-up threat to my players after you fight the snake.

SPEAKER_06 1:56:43

Um so uh as a quick technical question technical note, I'm sure you'll be fine with this, but uh I didn't realize uh rolling a four on my clearing stress, I also could add my tier, which is six. So it would be six. So I didn't actually need to spend a second action um clearing more stress.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:04

Oh, you can take a home or fix an armor or fix an HP.

SPEAKER_06 1:57:08

I'm gonna fix an HP, uh 10 to wounds.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:11

But yeah, how close were you to dead? Uh not super.

SPEAKER_06 1:57:17

Um I had taken I had marked three points out of hit points. Uh and I had marked six stress points. Uh three plus six hit points. And and six out of eight stress points.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:34

Okay, because it's the stress that would have got you in some trouble, because so how this creature works is it does a d6 plus three for its basic thorns, and each one of those gives you a bramble token. One bramble token restrains you. Three make you vulnerable. If you try and roll finesse to remove a bramble token, it spawns a tangle bramble. If you do severe damage to the plant swarm, it clears one of these tokens. When you have three or more bramble tokens, I get to do two d6 plus eight direct physical damage. So you can't use armor on it to crush you. So that's what killed my player was I got I managed to roll a 20.

unknown 1:58:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:22

So as you mentioned, you had what, six hit points left?

SPEAKER_06 1:58:25

Uh I went into the fight with full hit points, and they deal dealt three damage to me throughout the course of the fight.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:34

Yeah. So that could have done another three damage to you pretty easily with just one more roll of the dice. So I don't think it would have killed you. But it would have been rough. Like, there's definitely a version of this first fight where you can die. I think the real thing is had you got there and had to fight another four Strambles, that would have been a different story.

SPEAKER_06 1:59:00

Oh, yeah. My best role tonight was to multi-kill four Brambles in one go.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:07

I like how I didn't even cheat with that. It's literally the Bramble is defeated when it takes any damage, free, free four damage a PC deals to a tangle bramble, defeated additional minion with a range, the attack would have succeeded against. Yeah. Although the group attack's weird, because it's spend a fear to choose a target, spotlight all triangle braggas with a close range, the minions move into melee range and make a shared attack roll. So it's like I spend fear to move them, and then I like cloop you. Because their expertise is on they literally have an expertise on being camouflage, so it's like, yeah, no, I'm gonna have to plant jump out and so I am curious to know if we would have got through the entire thing had we not did that opening prologue, maybe. So for next week, we'll finish it up and then see where we are from there if we end up going to the next adventure or not. Right. But with that, thank you everybody for tuning in to the adventures of Fraug.

SPEAKER_06 2:00:04

Leroy Von Wolfholm.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:06

And or Elroy, depending if you're the feds. Also, the idea that you've stayed stealthed as a guard to this kid the entire time is just so amusing to me. And I'm really curious to see where this long con goes.

SPEAKER_06 2:00:22

Yeah, I mean, I was thinking about just dropping the facade. Uh but clearly clearly the the girl has no uh allegiance to uh Haven in particular.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:36

But it's also worth noting your character would know this. They don't have any animosity to Haven either. They waved you over for help. Right. But got kicked out of town. So we'll figure out how that goes next time. Thank you everyone for tuning in. Feel free to dip download the PDF to this adventure that will be attached to the itch.io, attached to this podcast. And if you want to have us keep playing, feel free to download that file. Possibly throw money our way, that'd be great. Put it out that change box. I have no shame. But realistically, I want to try and put out a free PDF of every one of these sessions because I enjoy doing that. Mm bye. Uh, it is funny that this session that you didn't come that close to death, but there's like a 50% murder rate somehow? I balanced it. I did numbers. Technically the party should win if they get there with all of the brambles still there.

SPEAKER_06 2:01:43

Oh well Right, because four brambles isn't actually that dangerous for a single player to take down.

SPEAKER_00 2:01:50

It's really just numbers and fates.

SPEAKER_06 2:01:54

Yeah.