Episode 13: What Do We Owe A Captive Flame?

A quick detour through two-player greatness—Fox in the Forest, The Crew, and the new Lord of the Rings co-op trick-takers—turns into a full-blown design jam on how theme should shape mechanics, not just decorate them. That idea becomes our compass as we rejoin Daggerheart mid-battle, where grayscale koi bend time long enough for a desperate sprint to the boats and a hard-earned rest that unlocks a level 5 glow-up. We name our signature move—Precise Pressure Points—dial up combo potential, and feel how character growth can be both math and meaning.

Once aboard, the world gets thornier. The ship’s engine room hides a hamster wheel powered by a captive fire spirit, a “cleaner” alternative sold as pragmatic and humane. Is a storm a someone? Can you free a force that doesn’t negotiate? Before we can answer, the cafeteria becomes a stage: chili that burns a little too perfectly, four “nurses” with the wrong posture, a bandaged tattoo, and an engineer who’s awfully good at the captain’s lock. We lean on instincts and sleight-of-hand—apology dabs, quiet poisons, and a spinning kick that lights out three at once—then unmask the saboteur at the skull-and-crossbones door.

This one blends game design talk with crunchy tabletop moments: detecting lies in flavor text, reading a room like a hand of trumps, and deciding whether utility justifies a cage. We also get some real-life texture—DIY craft vs AI shortcuts, the joy of time reclaimed after a move, and why protests need clean asks to land. By the end, the assassins are in irons, our reputation with Haven soldiers spikes, and the moral question of the spirit engine still hums beneath the deck. Sail with us toward the glassed coast, where the choices only get sharper.

If you enjoyed the ride, follow and subscribe, share with a friend who loves card games and chaotic RPGs, and drop a review telling us: would you free the flame or keep the ship running?

Transcript

Cold Open, Banter, And Disclaimers

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, entire internet. We're still alive, probably. Welcome to Richard and Carl Play Daggerheart. Our podcast that allegedly was bi-weekly, but you know, things happen. I'm Richard, the main character. And I am Carl, the antagonist. Ooh, spicy. I thought you were about to say like cotagonist or other main character, but antagonist is fair. So just a formal disclaimer before we begin. Don't take anything we say seriously ever. If we say, hey, I believe this, don't. If you get medical advice from this, do not get your medical advice from tabletop gaming podcasts. Do not get your political advice from tabletop gaming podcasts. I'm not even sure you should get your tabletop gaming advice from tabletop gaming podcasts. This just seems like a terrible strategy for life. And if you take anything we say seriously, it is a you problem. I stand by it. I have to Our lawyers tell us that that should do it and be legally binding, right? Cool. We should probably get lawyers. So, before we get into me killing your character again, what's new with you? Actually, to be fair, we're playing Daggerheart. Before I pressure you into such unfathomable circumstances that you choose death over continuing the narrative thread, what's new in the Carlverse?

SPEAKER_04 1:26

Uh so, um I'm not a particularly patriotic uh person, um, but I do appreciate when I find a YouTube channel that's uh based in Canada.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Um I don't I can't fathom where this is going. On a scale of like commentary of the Iraq war to criticizing Israel, how in danger am I right now? Not at all, not at all.

SPEAKER_04 1:52

Uh okay, we'll see. Uh but so I uh was searching YouTube for uh the best two-player experience board

Two-Player Board Games And Strategy

SPEAKER_04 2:04

games. Ooh, that is a fine YouTube search.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

I approved this message.

SPEAKER_04 2:09

And I found a Canadian channel called Foster the Meeple.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Um based level like no search or something. Carl, we could have been calling our podcast maple meeples this entire time. That's so good. I I just want to let you know the chain of thoughts was.

SPEAKER_04 2:42

Oh, it does. If it didn't exist, it had to at least after we mentioned it, because that's we can we manifest these sorts of things.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

We are pretty good at manifesting things. Although I haven't played the new Kirby Air ride I manifested.

SPEAKER_04 2:58

Anyways, um they they had a uh a pretty good list, pretty like twenty games or something that they figured were really good for two-player games. Uh and one of them was a game called uh The Fox in the Forest. Um it's a it's a trick-taking game. Uh only two people, but it's still is pretty interesting.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Um basically I just had a piece come together of this puzzle.

SPEAKER_04 3:24

The uh uh the goal of the game is to uh get in one of the sweet spots of having the right number of tricks so the opponent doesn't have the right number of tricks. Uh with the best option being you get zero to three, and then they end up getting ten or more, and they get zero points, and you get max points. And then if you're between four to six, you get partial points, and if you're between seven and nine, you get full points, and the other person gets partial points.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Okay. I don't know if our tabletop audience came here to listen to us talk about points and systems. Well, the No, the joke is like it's actually completely on topic this week.

SPEAKER_04 4:04

The it's not exactly a review of of the game, it's just a brief overview. Uh, but I like the game a lot. The only flaw is that it's only two-player, so I don't actually get to talk about it a lot. Or it's actually kind of hard to share with people because you can't just like bring it to a party and be like, let's play Fox in the Forest.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

You can, I figured out how to do this. Oh? So I figured out the strategy for playing the board game you want to play at a party without alienating the people who aren't able to comprehend things more complex than Monopoly. You know, I'm the villain of the show, let's be honest. I I heard what I said out loud it was subjectively mean. But no, what you do, Carl, is you make sure to have an odd number of players. You bring a six-player game and a two-player game and invite eight people. So they're like, oh, we'll play this. It's like, oh, this is enough for players. I'm like, oh, I'll try out this game with Redacted then, and then I'll play the next round of your game with you guys, and we'll do like a rotation, and the rotation never comes. You've already achieved your goal.

SPEAKER_04 5:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

It's pretty good, right? Anyways.

SPEAKER_04 5:10

The point of one of the matter is uh that I like the game so much that when they released a sort of sequel, it was called Fox and the Forest Duet, I I considered buying

Trick-Taking Deep Dive: Fox In The Forest To The Crew

SPEAKER_04 5:20

it. I saw it on the shelf and I decided not to buy it that day. Uh, and the next time I went to the game store, it was it was sold out. It was gone. Deeply tragic. Uh but so then uh uh keep playing different trip-taking games, and I came across a game called the Crew, which is a cooperative trick-taking game.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

I think I've actually played that one, surprisingly.

SPEAKER_04 5:42

Yeah, each player gets a mission, uh, and then uh every player has to achieve their missions, like, you know, like take all the threes, or uh don't take any eights, or whatever it is. The crew journey to the ends of Earth, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Uh the one that I played specifically was the undersea mission. Uh, okay, but uh so I think I played the game, but in a different flavor.

SPEAKER_04 6:07

Yeah, well, I I hear they are a little bit mechanically different. Uh my sister says she thinks that the the undersea mission is better than the journey to the earth, or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Meh. Uh, but I mean to be fair, under the ocean is more interesting than under the dirt. Even though Team Magma did objectively have the better plan. Because we're land mammals.

SPEAKER_04 6:29

Well one of my problems with the crew is that the flavor doesn't mean anything. Like there's no the cards aren't really underwater scened, like the missions aren't really underwater scened.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Oh, I'm I'm so happy because I ranted at you so much about flavor having to match mechanics to make a good game. This makes me happy to hear. I gave this ranted class a while back. This is great.

SPEAKER_04 6:53

Well, I I think it's incredibly difficult for a cooperative trick and taking game to actually match the flavor. Because tricks like you've said before on not on plant, yes, but you said before that uh trick-taking games are kind of esoteric and arbitrary. Um matching the flavor to the trick-taking mechanics is a tr is a monumental task.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

It's absolutely doable for the record, but like You have to like really abstract what your your thought process on that one.

SPEAKER_04 7:28

The career is a fun game, but it's like uh it's the flavor doesn't really matter. But now, recently, they've released another cooperative trick-taking game called uh Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring trick cooperative trick-taking game, and then they also recently released the Two Towers, and assumably within the next year or two they'll release the uh You forgot the name of the You forgot the name.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

I I thought you were really about to say Return of the Jedi. Uh I I was waiting for it. I was prepared, I was going to mock you. Alas, maybe next time.

SPEAKER_04 8:06

I don't know, I just kind of brain parted there, but it's like Return of the King.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:11

I was gonna say like the Three Kings.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

I was actually really hoping you'd go. No, what would have been pretty good is Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers, and Lord of the Rings Tokyo Drift. That would have been a good bit.

SPEAKER_04 8:26

Anyways, um I feel like the uh the flavor uh is more incorporated

Theme Vs Mechanics: Lord Of The Rings Takes

SPEAKER_04 8:35

into the gameplay of the uh Lord of the Rings trick trick cooperative trick and taking games. Uh but the core mechanics, I mean, instead of choosing missions, quote unquote, you choose characters who have objectives. So it's kind of like just rescheme the missions. Uh fair. And I I do think the the flavor is a lot better in the Lord of the Rings ones. Uh but the design is better in the uh the crew games, I think.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Well, it's always interesting trying to match form and function. Like, as someone who rants about card games daily to my brother, like we'll be off to get a sub and I'll be like, you know, I'm really pissed off that Dragon Ball Super shifted from a character-focused fighting-based card game to a magic clone because it's not a character-based fantasy power fantasy, and he'll be like, okay. But the point is that, like, you get really good things when you try and make the media part of the message.

SPEAKER_04 9:35

But so that made me start thinking about co-operative-kicking games. Um and uh I I've actually talked to you at length, not on podcast, about well how how I might design it like a a dungeon crawling trick-taking game.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

I mean, we do have to have that full conversation, but I feel the need to confess something to our audience. Before stream, I had learned from the first time that the mic in my headset pulls out and extends after five years of using this mic. And my co-host said, Well, my mic worked the first time. Except that the first time he had put them in upside down in the wrong years. And I just feel like this need to make it into the episode because I thought it was so funny.

unknown 10:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

That's it. That level that level of competence is truly astounding, and we are good at our jobs.

SPEAKER_04 10:26

Uh but so uh I haven't actually sat down and written any rules for what I would do as a cooperative trick-kicking game yet, but I plan on it. Uh, but um I went to a game store, and the Fox in the Forest Du Met was on the show. And I look at it, I'm like, huh. What a strange coincidence. This sequel to the original Fox in the Forest is actually a cooperative trick-taking game. Interesting. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's only- again, it's only two players, so you know you do have to do some finagling to actually be able to share it with other people. And uh I feel like the more you play it, the like because the cards have ranks, so you can take the tricks, but some of the cards also have movement points uh and you move along the track uh in the direction of the player who took the trick based on the number of movement points that are in the trick. Yeah. Uh and so it if you really want to actually be good at the game, you have to know the distribution of movement points so that you can try and guesstimate what they have in their hand to be able to move in the right direction in the right at the right distance. Um but uh I I'm not sure if I really like it yet because we only played the one round, and then like I said, I'm not overly familiar with the distribution of the different cards.

Designing A Co‑op Trick-Taker

SPEAKER_04 12:00

But I just I just thought it was uh it was really interesting that it's like, huh.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

I mean how Trick Kiki games have come up surprisingly recently, like a friend of mine's going to gay Uchre Knight tomorrow.

unknown 12:13

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

And I'm not going because I I don't think I'd fit into Lesbian Uchre Knight. Like, I could probably pull it off, but like I think I'd have to shave half my head. You might. Mile stereotypes aside. To be fair, I'm not the person in the character design department who's decided that that's visual symbology for that orientation. But if you watch any show made after 2020 and someone has that haircut, it narrows it down to one of three possibilities. Yet again, I don't make these rules.

SPEAKER_04 12:50

Anyway, uh all that all of that ranting aside, uh, what's actually new with me uh is that uh I'm I'm getting married in like six months, um, and uh we designed our own invitations. Um which is just a face swap of our faces onto the Beetlejuice movie poster. Um and I I told my fiance I could do it myself, which I which I did. I did it myself. Yay. Um and and I I had it, the faces swapped in, the color was relatively matched, the graininess of the photo was kind of matched. Uh I don't think I did a very good job of of emulating this the style. Uh like it because older movie posters seem to be kind of like uh almost like paintings or photorealistic drawings. Um and I don't think I did a good job of matching the that style. But the faces are on there and they're color matched and kind of bringy so they don't just like stick out like sort of sore thumb. Um and I wanted to work on it more to get it to the style to match more, but eventually I was just like, you know what? Do you have to do it before the wedding? I did this myself. Uh I did it without the use of AI. It's good enough, we should just send it out.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

But I will say, having received this invitation and recently pulled it up on my email because my inbox has like a hundred thousand messages of it. The coral head in the hand is eloquently done enough that it's good. Like, there's some good stuff going on here.

DIY Wedding Invite And AI Debate

SPEAKER_01 14:21

So, like, if you succeeded your objective, yes. Yes, you did. Feel proud of yourself. This might be the most accomplishment, greatest accomplishment of your life. It peaks from here.

SPEAKER_04 14:34

Wow. Um but like if I had used AI, I wouldn't have been able to create a greater a better product that was beyond my skill level. Firmly disagree.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

You know you you don't think so? So here's the AI difficulty curve that I've experienced in my day-to-day job as a writer in my master's program, etc. etc. A person familiar with this skill set can use AI to reduce the time it takes to create something. But AI creates the most average thing imaginable. So if you were trained in composition and knew exactly the angles, the shots, the imagery, and what you were going for, AI probably could have made you a faster project product. It might have even been able to make you a better product. But that would require you to have the skills to be able to do it yourself, or also create an unbalanced average product. And you don't want your wedding invitation the most mathematically average wedding invitation you can make. Right, right, right. So it's like if you were like your job was to make a hundred posters, and you don't care. Yeah. But I do think your homemade one poster, because I can already see the messes up AI's gonna do. It's gonna have a consistent art style, it's gonna forget who Beetlejuice is, it's gonna off-center it, it's gonna change the ratio, and it's just not gonna make it poster-shaped. And once you figure that out, learning Photoshop may have been faster for what you were trying to do. Note, I'm not hating on AI tools. I'm not even saying using them. I'm saying taking what you made and going clean up this image to hide the like copy-paste lines would be a better use of it. So using it as a pocket calculator rather than a work generation tool is actually completely valid. But also, I'm legally obligated to hate on AI and then sell AI to people. Like, one job's like, AI will get you killed and is ruining the future, and other jobs like sell our AI course, please. Like, that was literally my day yesterday, is I had to make a brochure to attend an AI training course and then read a uh his primer on AI in the classroom, and was literally told if you see a student pull in a device to yell at them. So it's like if you see someone using AI, yell at them was my was my one job, and then my other job, both actually paid jobs was now sell this AI course to somebody.

SPEAKER_04 17:03

But so uh I guess my question is, um, like I I feel like I could have done more, but uh obsessed with perfectionism uh would have actually prevented me from actually completing the project and sending it out.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Oh, for sure. But like also it's a good product.

SPEAKER_04 17:22

But uh do you think there's any danger? Or rather, do you think that a product made without AI has inherent value because it was made without AI?

SPEAKER_01 17:34

100%. Because it won't be average. So my philosophy as a human being is I don't care if you're good or evil, you just can't be boring. So like AI-made text will be boring. Mostly because people won't be editing and refining it and doing anything with it. The idea that I'd have to grade someone that someone couldn't be bothered to read means it won't have any meat in it. You're it's a styro styrofoam sandwich.

unknown 18:01

Right.

SPEAKER_04 18:02

They have to read and edit their own materials, or well, the AI's material, which is supposedly theirs.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

So, like, for something like this graphic, A, it's made with love, which gives it innate value. B, say you did the animation style you've seen a lot of people posting AI comics of of like, I don't know, it's just like really bad. Uh it's really bland comics trippy. I'm seeing a lot of posting of it. And I'm just like, yeah, unless you want to like put in the specifics of the style of cinematography you're going for, it's not gonna really do anything. And but the most important thing is people buy the artist, not the art. So if you are selling movie posters and they're like, oh, I have a machine make it, and it's a thing I always tell people with their AI star-ups, oh I have this AI tool that does XYZ. I'm like, then what do I need you for? Wouldn't I just use the tool to do it myself? So like if you're just gonna use AI to quickly generate your wedding invitation, then I'm gonna quickly not read it. Like if you tell me you made it, I'm gonna actually look closely and see what you did. So that's my final, final takeaway. Is that yes, there's innate value A. If there wasn't, then the companies wouldn't be scraping and stealing new data to train their models in the first place. Because that's where the models came from. And they're starting to do inbreeding incestuous generation collapse, but that's a whole other story. But remember, we're not specialists, don't quote us on learn your AI knowledge from Richard and Carl play Daggerheart. That's just not a good life tactic.

SPEAKER_04 19:38

Anyway, that's that's enough of me ranting over with nothing in particular. Oh, what's with you there, Richard?

SPEAKER_01 19:43

So I finally moved from redacted to redacted, which should give people enough pieces if they have a cork board and pins to triangulate my position. Because now my walk to my work is a 22-minute walk instead of a two and a half hour commute on a good day. My apartment is a little bit smaller, but like it's also it's the little things in life you appreciate, like in sweet washer and dryers,

Moving, Life Upgrades, And Time Wins

SPEAKER_01 20:10

a dishwasher, natural light, not being in a cave. A garbage chute to get rid of our garbage and not having to wait two weeks to share a bin with a landlord. You know, little things. Right, right. So my brother put in a ton of hustle, and we're like 99% set up. It's mostly my room that needs to be set up.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

The apartment didn't really come with a door for my room, it's like a sliding glass panel. I'm told it's because to have a call it a bedroom, it needs to have a window. So it makes the door also the window. Yeah, okay. So I have these like awesome like the door escape room? Yeah. But I have these cool galaxy blackout curtain stickers that go over the door that let the light through where the stars are in the galaxy. Nice. So once I squeegee clings to stick those to my windows, and I have these cool like LED lamps that like was gifted to a friend of mine who I lost the charger for two years. But once I have that all set up, I will be happy. But I did have to move my desk into a shared space, since my room will not fit my computer and a bed. However, I get back about five hours a day. That seems like a fair trade. That is an it five hours a day, five days a week, is just an entire part-time job I gained back. Which is good because that's how much more it'll cost me to live here. Plus you have a pool, so not only do I have a pool and barbecue pits and foosball tables. Nice. And like D D board games and an in an apartment building Kiji app for some reason. And a and a cart. So if I order a cut litter, I can just load it on the cart and take the cart and the cat litter up, and then bring the cart. Back down if I don't feel like carrying cat litter. It's great. So there's tons of upside. I do need to get my rat claws on another book deal, which is what's new with me, is I finished a book deal and I'm on to the next one. Although, friends of the literary community will be like, um, actually, since you didn't explicit your manuscript through a publishing house, it's actually a book contract, not a book deal. And people will care. They will care about the difference. I'm like, I don't think the average person will care whether or not I wrote something they wanted me to write versus I wrote something I wanted me to write. It paid my rent. I think it I think it was a real book. The book exists. You can like buy it in a couple months when it comes out, but sure. Guess it doesn't count, sure. I think I would take the Chris as the more genuinely if they also had books. But sassiness aside, so I went to a protest this week. Oh. Protesting what? So Doug Ford or Douglas

Policy Rant: Grants, Loans, And Protests

SPEAKER_01 23:00

or Dougie or Dropout Doug or the right honorable private premier Doug Ford, whatever you feel like calling him.

SPEAKER_04 23:06

Uh side note, uh, Dougie is a famous homeless homeless person in my in my city, so you know.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

Uh, they're probably related.

SPEAKER_04 23:15

Anyways, go on carry on.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

So remember, disclaimer, this is a comedy tabletop role-playing podcast, so don't get your politics from me. To make a very long story short, he decided to switch what was the grant portion and what was the loan portion in the student loans. So instead of it being 80% grants, 20% loans, it went 80% loans, 20% grants.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Which means that instead of an Urse a nurse owing $20,000 when they finish their education, they now owe $100,000.

SPEAKER_03 23:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

That's also ended a tuition freeze, so tuition will go up 2% per year.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

And they went up in stage and said it's the kids' fault for choosing dumb degrees, and because they're taking courses like basket weaving, we have this problem. What? It's that third one that made me actually go March. So, like, I work for schools and I'm a student. So I understand ending tuition freeze because we cut the international student camp, we had to lay off a bunch of people, you need more money to come into school to adjust cost of living. That makes sense, right? Yeah, switching the grants to bursaries so you don't go bankrupt. I'd rather you just fund it, because apparently you have the money for all sorts of sketchy shenanigans like private spaws. But you know, I can hear the argument of it's the same you get the same amount of money, but it's more loans than grants. Maybe don't invert it, maybe like adjust it a little bit, like a few percent each year. Or even like because the tuition freeze ended, make the new money to match the new increased tuition go up as loans, so the ratio will slowly adjust itself over time, because as tuition raises and you raise loans, grant the percentage of grants will go down on its own. But also, of all the boomer ass bullshit to say these kids today need to take cut careers that have jobs while cutting nursing funding along with everyone else's. Because, like, yeah, the increased debt goes to everybody. So it's not like he was like, oh, I'm increasing the debt on humanities degrees. Also, the creative industries make up like 11% of Ontario's GPA, but whatever. It's not like people watch heated rivalry and things.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

Yeah, no no one ever It's funny how it comes time to like let's give awards for our amazing staff that worked on K-bop Demon Hunters and cut their funding. Like So I had my sign, I've made a c couple cameos on the news if you look closely. I did my protesty thing. I agreed with parts of the protest, because protesters like to conflate issues. So they're like, yeah, we want them to fund education and put more money into it, and not double triple student debt, and not try and offset the cost of education on the next generation and keep school accessible, and if we make it more harder for people to go to, then enrollment numbers will drop, and that's bad for everybody. Schools create jet like. But then people start going off the rails and going on unrelated side topics of like, also this war and this, I'm like, no, no, no, no. That was the protest last week. I'm here to protest this nonpartisan issue of not tripling student loan debt and maybe giving students some money. That's why I'm here. I don't want to pull up the ladder after me where I graduate and no one else can afford it anymore. Can we not try and like so as the audience starts chanting, fuck Doug Ford? I'm like, maybe not. That's not what we're here for today. We're here to say us 300,000 people don't want you to do the specific financial switch. This as this weirdly isn't about Epstein or Israel this week. Okay, can we just not? Because they like start being like, and at one point they go, and education is inherently colonialist, and we're on this land, and I'm like, okay. But I'm you're not wrong, but your protest was last week. Because I'm like, I I I'm not disagreeing with these other causes, but I'm not asking Doug Ford this week to return Toronto to its original owners. That's not what I'm my ask. My ask is to it could have been an overnight inversion of Grants and Bursaries to do a slow rollout over time while increasing the limits to make it less of a shock to the system. So we don't accidentally lower enrollment numbers. That's my argument. My argument's very clean and sensible. Like, I'm not even against the tuition freeze being removed. I'm like, okay, if you remove the tuition freeze, you have to increase the funding students can access to match it so that way the schools have more money. I was there for a very reasonable ask for a prime minister. And it's like, end all wars. I'm like, I don't have the power. I don't think he can do that. I don't think he can solve Iran right now. I don't think Doug has that power.

SPEAKER_04 27:55

As a related side note, uh, one of the things that I find particularly strange, um I mean people are free to protest whatever they would like. Oh yeah. But you know, I I live in Saskatchewan. I I find it weird uh that there are people even in the wintertime, there were people marching along the street protesting they're like uh doing Palestine protests. And it's like, you You're in Saskatchewan. Who are you protesting against? Like what what is the point of this demonstration?

SPEAKER_01 28:26

Well, like, here's a hot take that's gonna get me cancel culture. Thankfully, people have to go through like 400 hours of my hot takes to actually get me fired. So our loving audience. Go la la la and plug your ears when I go to this little bit, if you need to. But like, they're like devest from international trade that connects to these companies funding or I'm like, no, we need the money right now. Our protest is we need funding. I don't actually care where it from right now, because we need nurses and doctors and things and researchers, and the humanities not to be gutted, and the arts not to be gutted. So, like, I mean, I don't think now is the time to look at every single sponsor and blacklist sponsors giving us money if we don't agree with their political alignments, because that's contradictory to the exact thing we're marching for. So I'm like, no, no, no. I don't think right now we should be auditing where our funding comes from. We should be getting more. Like Yeah, I kind of agree. I'm like, okay, if Kim Jong-un feels a need to finance another hundred nurses, sure. Not sure why. I feel like there's some sketchy things going on in the background there. It's definitely worth its own protest. But today. Today I want students to be able to eat. That's my goal. Pretty straightforward goal. I want my students to be able to eat soup. And actually, like, be educated. Because when people are educated, they elect less Doug Boards. It's lovely.

SPEAKER_04 29:54

Well, I mean, speaking of educating, we should uh educate our our audience on playing Daggerheart and our campaign.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Uh yes. So the new with me is I've moved. I did not get pepper sprayed,

Back To Daggerheart: Battlefield Freeze

SPEAKER_01 30:05

much to the disappointment of my loved ones. And we're here together. To be fair, I didn't want to get pepper sprayed. But it'd be really funny if I got pepper sprayed. It came to my tutorial the next day. I still read from being pepper sprayed at a protest and tried to teach a clo like teach myself uh tutorial. That'd be great.

SPEAKER_04 30:26

Tony will wash it off your face. Still have all well, I mean I guess I don't know if pepper sprays.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

I'm pretty sure I'd still be injured the next day. Also, I'm very weak. Like the wind from the can probably knocked me over in this scenario. I basically have the physical constitution of Nicholas Famell from the amazing Harry Potter spin-off, Fantastic Beasts, where I'm just a 200-year-old man. Alright, so let's dagger some hearts. Do you have dice in a character sheet?

SPEAKER_04 31:01

Uh I mean I have virtual dice in a virtual character sheet. I even open up your little campaign that we uh actually set up through the demiplane nexus.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

Excellent. I also have that open right now. They're still adding features to it, and I'm excited when it functions fully, but for the most part, I can run this game entirely through demiplane at this point. So, like, I'm able to roll for all the character sheets and track them all by just opening tabs of them.

SPEAKER_04 31:30

Wait, so does that mean that you'll actually be able to see my roles now? I mean, I I've been honest. Just, you know, an honest person would definitely tell you if they were honest.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

Let me check that. That is a very good question, and unlike my ramblings about Palestine, directly relevant to the task at hand. For the record, I find this issue serious, but also when you make a clip like the Marxist party showed up at the protest, I'm like, listen. That's not helping today.

SPEAKER_04 32:02

Alright. Alright, so if I click on this and I make a roll, are you actually in the the- I guess I don't know if it's a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

Alright, so I'm in the roll, but I'm gonna see what happens if I like. Alright, try making the roll. I want to see if it pops up somewhere.

SPEAKER_04 32:18

Alright, I'll try again.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

Roll. No? Uh it doesn't look like it this time. So also though, even if it did show up, I would still probably have you read the rolls out loud because we're in audio format.

SPEAKER_04 32:35

Oh yeah, I mean I'm not saying I wouldn't read the roles out loud. I'm just you're just curious.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

I mean, I tried rolling on your character sheet, did it show up on yours?

SPEAKER_04 32:46

No. Dang. Did you make a roll?

SPEAKER_01 32:48

Yeah, I just say a regular duality roll on your character off your character sheet.

SPEAKER_04 32:52

Yeah, no, I didn't see it. I just see my two attack rolls.

SPEAKER_01 32:55

Eh, they're working on it. Also, they don't sponsor me, so like I'm nice to them because I genuinely like the tool. But they'd have to give me a bit of money for me to hype up this campaign feature. Alright, so, last time on Daggerheart, after a massive time skipped and several passive aggressive murders, your character had successfully found themselves at a high-paying, high-stressed job working at with a m uh a bastion of medical camp on the deep within the Withered Wild. And then you saw in the distance a turtle with a castle on its back and an entire marmy marching towards you. You made acids and poisons, you called for help, bout boats arrived, and then you ran up and much like the most recent chapters of Rooster Fighter, just beat the living heck out of count well, not countless soldiers, 30 plus soldiers. We were counting. So after this truly impressive rampage, you found yourself battered, winded. The two armies have met, you've managed to buy enough time for reinforcements, and the cacophony of blades. Damage, chaos, passive aggression, blood, gore, steel, and ash

Escape To The Boats

SPEAKER_01 34:10

have begun. The barrier around your bastion was damaged by a spell. You see what appears to be a druid atop this castle turtle, atop this battlefield, and as swords are scratch left and right, and screams are in the air. And you get up off the ground, dust yourself off. You see two three-eyed cloi fish swimming around each other in a circle directly in front of you. What would you like to do?

SPEAKER_04 34:38

Wait, the the cloifish are swimming like in the air?

SPEAKER_01 34:42

Kinda like a portal ring.

SPEAKER_04 34:49

Uh well, so does it look like a portal or does it just look like fish just swimming around?

SPEAKER_01 34:57

Kinda looks like a portal.

SPEAKER_04 35:00

Huh. Well. That is. Okay, so what what does it when you're when your stress is maxed out, you are vulnerable? Correct.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

So the vulnerable condition, as you can attach with the condition tracker in the top right corner next to downtime. When you're vulnerable, it is bad. And all rolls targeting you have advantage. Which is funny, because it says all rolls targeting you, so I've always uh rolled that to be attack rolls. And I haven't rolled that to be damage rolls. But I'm not sure that it's not damage rolls. What do you think? I'm pretty sure it's not. Didn't realize you could get it and it's on damage rolls. I don't think so. So I don't think you can get. But anywho, TLDR. There are fish swimming in front of you. You are stressed and a little beaten up.

SPEAKER_04 36:11

A lot beaten up. But full of hope. I am full of hope, that's true. I'm very full of hope. Um. Well, I think what I want to do is I wanna just punch one of these fish, see if I can break the portal, and then run back to the bastion and try and escape with all the rest of the people who are getting on the boats.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

Okay, go ahead and make an attack roll.

SPEAKER_04 36:46

I'm gonna attack with my unarmed charisma fists. A 14 was hope.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

14 hits. Go ahead and roll damage. Would you like to do a combo attack on this fish? Uh combos require stress, so I cannot. Alright. Go ahead and make your attack. Oh sorry, go ahead and roll.

SPEAKER_04 37:08

Roll for damage.

Rest, Level Up, And Signature Move

SPEAKER_01 37:11

And I rolled 25! So as you punch this fish, the two fish start swimming around your arm. Spiraling up your arm, up your shoulder, around your torso, and kind of like form a ring down to your feet and then up around your head and go up. Everything around you begins to slow down and looks like it's seeped of color, as everything is almost grayscale and everyone is moving in slow motion. Oh. The two fish are floating there staring at you. One of them with a black eye. You do remember this fish had once guided you out of a sewer complex.

SPEAKER_04 37:54

Oh. That's the same fish, okay. Um well then.

SPEAKER_01 38:01

It looks a little disappointed.

SPEAKER_04 38:05

Um what do I have for do I think?

SPEAKER_01 38:10

So everything's still moving, but it's moving in such a slow space. Like you look to your left and you just see what looks like a nurse goblin holding a syringe stabbing a guard in the throat. You see another knight just Sparta kicking a goat. It is chaos.

SPEAKER_04 38:27

Uh I am going to uh bow my head and offer a minor health potion uh to this fish as as uh an apology.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

It does not take the potion, but it appreciates the acknowledgement.

SPEAKER_04 38:47

Um everything's still all kinda serpia toned in slow-mo?

SPEAKER_01 38:54

Yes. Moving incredibly slowly, like you're in bullet time right now.

SPEAKER_02 39:00

Huh!

SPEAKER_04 39:06

Well Dang it. I guess Well, I'm gonna stick with the plan. I'm gonna head towards the boats because I wanna get out of here.

SPEAKER_01 39:18

Okay, go ahead and make a agility roll to weave through the people. You have the sneaking suspicion that if you hit anybody, this effect will probably end if you like physically interact with a person.

SPEAKER_04 39:31

I am gonna roll agility. Oh, I don't have advantage. Rolling agility.

SPEAKER_01 39:38

Ooh, only uh eight with hope. So I'm going to go ahead and spend a fear here. As you're running and weaving through, you like trip on a bear trap and land on your face, mark a hit point.

SPEAKER_04 39:53

Uh-oh. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

And you continue along. Go ahead and make another agility roll. You're about a third of the way where you need to be.

SPEAKER_04 40:05

Agility. Come on. Agileness. A nine with hope. I'm very hopeful, but not.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

I'm out of fear, or else you trip again, and that might be fatal. That might be. So you don't really get much closer this time. Like, you manage to like weave through, but it is a massive battle of chaos and things. Like, you're like, oh, gotta watch that fighter. Oh, that's a head mid decapitation as you try and weave through a bit more. Okay, okay. Go ahead and make an agility roll. Oh.

SPEAKER_04 40:37

Come on, big money. Critical success.

SPEAKER_01 40:42

So at this point you're starting to get momentum. You like parkour and like do one of those like arm tucking.

SPEAKER_04 40:48

Sorry, um, critical success. You clear a stress and get a strong. Clear a stress. And okay. Oh, it's not letting me clear my stress for some reason. Oh no, there we go.

SPEAKER_01 41:02

Clear stress, and I'm no longer vulnerable. So you've made it back to the bastion, and you see that none of the enemy troops have made it in yet, but the barrier has a hole in it, as many of the special plants protecting this space have been blighted away. You see, like, you know, you see people rushing, well, mid-frame running towards the boat to load up. I'd say about ha I believe it was twenty of your staff decided to stay and fight.

The Spirit-Powered Ship Reveal

SPEAKER_01 41:30

And you're mid-retreat right now. And with that, uh things are starting to regain their color. You feel like this effect will end shortly. You have enough time, you believe you could probably make it to the boat, and then time will resume as normal, your guardian fish having done their very best to save you.

SPEAKER_04 41:57

Ha, well. Yes, the guardian fish. Um, I'm not actually in charge of this camp, although everyone seemed to just kind of follow my lead when everyone when the badge showed up, so. You're not not in charge of the camp.

SPEAKER_01 42:15

Who's your boss?

SPEAKER_04 42:17

That's a good point. Who is my boss?

SPEAKER_01 42:22

Because if no one tells you to scrub the ta uh the flipped overgross table, then I guess you're in charge.

SPEAKER_04 42:33

Um, well, so I guess um maybe I should grab a crossbow and start shooting some people just because uh you feel like the people currently running to the boat will make it in time.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

You bought enough time to get everyone out.

SPEAKER_04 42:51

Yeah, I'm just trying to decide whether or not I should go like stay with the fortress to like try and option.

SPEAKER_01 43:00

Because you are pretty beaten to hell, if we're being completely honest. There is some like rusty knives still sticking out of you. Like it's pretty rough. Also, you did go and kill like twenty-five percent of their forces.

SPEAKER_04 43:20

Right, right. Um, I think I'm just No, I think I'm gonna head to the boat and I'm gonna retreat.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

So with that, you make it onto the boat. You see the captain, you see the troops are unloaded, you see what looks like the most cliche captain hat you've ever seen on this man. And it's a no that comes up to like your shin. But absolutely looks like the most grizzled sea captain, like full beard, hat, pipe, eye patch. He looks at you like stand, we goin', what's the plan?

SPEAKER_05 44:01

Uh uh I I I think we should we should we should leave. We should go.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

Uh sails up, and you see them like start pulling up the anchors. People are running on this boat, but just putting out the most comical amount of soon. Like, this is like a Fire Nation boat of environmental destruction. Just like a truly ridiculous amount of this boat is an upfront to nature. So, you see that a few people are still crossing on, stumbling on. And you figure, as the boat's loading, you have a couple options in front of you. Or something unexpected, as it is a tabletop roleplay game. You tell me how you'd like to spend the last five minutes before this boat takes off as they're pulling up the anchors and getting the engine running.

SPEAKER_02 44:50

Hmm.

SPEAKER_03 44:52

Uh well so.

SPEAKER_04 44:57

Hmm. In my inventory equipment.

Chili, Spies, And Silent Tells

SPEAKER_04 45:06

I have some Gorgon root poison. Apparently. I don't know if I still have any, but you've lost a lot of your supplies at this point. I supposedly have some drip fang poison. I don't I think I actually just want to like take a moment to like breathe and uh drink the minor health potion that um the fish did not take.

SPEAKER_01 45:28

Alright. So you drink your potion. And feel free to go ahead and roll that as people are just loading up, but you just take a moment. Just just a moment to catch your breath. Because you did just run like a whole marathon there and back.

SPEAKER_04 45:44

Immediately roll and declear 1d4 hit points for minor health potion. One. Oh. Well, at least I was able to take the bear trap off my foot.

SPEAKER_01 45:59

So, the boat begins chugging away. And at this point, you have two options. Well, more than two. You actually have quite a few options here, but the biggest question is: if you do nothing, the captain will take this boat where it was originally intended to go. Or you can go talk to them. You have a hide-up authority now with the Empire that you can not necessarily tell this captain what to do, but if you were to give him reasonable advice in a direction, it's likely he would at least you'd have a chance to roll to decide the fate. Does that make sense? So it's like you have enough authority that if you go up and start talking, they will listen. As it stands right now, you feel like the boat is planning to continue going south along the coast. So to the north is Cobblers Cove. As you remember, this river goes all the way past where there was once Wormhearth Crossing through the marshes all the way up north. Yeah, head south towards the thunder volcano, where there's another outpost at the bit post at the base of that mountain.

SPEAKER_04 47:13

Yeah, no, I I think uh I just wanted kick back and relax, because like that was uh that was a crazy, crazy battle. I need I need to rest and I was gonna let them. Because to the south is also um Alora, right?

SPEAKER_01 47:30

Uh Alora, yes. It's a little further into the woods, so the boat won't directly get you there.

SPEAKER_04 47:36

Right. But yeah. But it should get me closer, right? Correct. Although I Lara hasn't thought about uh Leroy in in years. Uh but now that we're heading in that direction, uh maybe uh we can she can pick up the trail and uh find his body and then resurrect him the beat him to death for abandoning her. Very reasonable.

SPEAKER_01 48:09

So you may take a short or long rest, your choice.

SPEAKER_04 48:14

Uh well, I am efficient, it says. Because I'm a homunculus. Uh when I take a short rest, I can use a long rest move instead of a short rest move.

SPEAKER_01 48:26

So you're just gonna take about an hour then?

SPEAKER_04 48:29

Uh yes.

SPEAKER_01 48:31

Alright, go ahead and the fish seem to have vanished again.

SPEAKER_04 48:37

Okay, now I know somewhere on my sheet there there was a rest option. Downtime? Downtime. Short rest. Except I'm allowed to take one long rest move and one short rest move. Which you're gonna repair all your armor on the short rest? I was aware of that.

Poison, Ambush, And Nonlethal Mayhem

SPEAKER_04 49:11

No, I see, I see. There it is. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 49:17

So whilst you're there tending to your wounds, you are aware that you conscripted about ten or so various interesting medical stuff to help defend, and then absolutely left them on the front rhine and ran. Like several of them ran into the battle proper, many of them were on the wall, a few of them were on the wall saw you running, and then came along with. But I'm gonna say retroactively, did you try and gather up your people on your retreat?

SPEAKER_04 49:51

I'll let you know. Uh no, I was kinda I was kind of freaked out by the the uh guardian fish.

SPEAKER_01 49:59

Alright, alright, fair enough. I just didn't want to put words in that.

SPEAKER_04 50:05

Tend to all wounds. Describe while you patch yourself up. Hmm. Hmm. Well, I mean, obviously I just like pull out all the daggers and and shrapnel and stuff. Uh, and uh wash up real quick, and then put my armor back on, even though my armor's all beat up too. Excellent. Uh, and then I'm going to clear stress, which is bathing is part of You were able to find a shower on the boat. 1D for okay, so I clear five stress.

SPEAKER_01 50:52

And I'm not sure if you can see our little Discord chat, but I'm putting the map in it for you.

SPEAKER_05 51:04

Alright.

SPEAKER_01 51:05

So this is gonna be incredibly enthralling podcast information. But for the maps, they'll have to use their minds I to see, or just download off the Daggerheart website because we're just using the default Witherwild map.

SPEAKER_03 51:21

Alright.

SPEAKER_01 51:22

So you are currently if we zoom up this map. When you started originally, you see the castle at the very northwest end that's by the bay to the north. Looks kind of like there's a little bridge going to the water. So it's a very top castle of the northeast. Okay. Northeast. It's a little castle to the northeast. So that is where Cobbler's Cove is. Okay. You headed south and you see where like that river branches to the coast, like the burst river you see heading south.

SPEAKER_02 52:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 52:02

Where you see where those three words are connected, that's where Rural Hearth Crossing is.

SPEAKER_04 52:08

Or was. It got destroyed. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 52:11

If you head down, like, I don't know, like 10, 20 pixels, that's where the bastion is. So you can see how this like opens up to the sea? That's where you're heading right now. That first mountain you see at the very edge, that's where the lightning's been coming up.

SPEAKER_02 52:26

Ah.

SPEAKER_01 52:27

And you know the city of the Lora is in the tree somewhere cut off between that river and that mountain range.

SPEAKER_02 52:34

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 52:35

You feel like the boat is planning to head all the way down along the coast and then head eastwards towards the next one of the large haven castles. Because there like really isn't another coast town for a while.

SPEAKER_04 52:51

Right.

SPEAKER_01 52:52

And the smaller towns don't quite make it up on the map. But this gives you a rough idea of the journey you've done so far. Where you see that lake in the middle that's like you go down till you get to the next river and you kinda like see a lake in the middle? That is the lake where Elroy got high on Purple Fumes. Because the eagle just dropped him in the middle of nowhere.

SPEAKER_02 53:19

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 53:20

So now that I've given you full negotiate uh abilities, where would you would you like to talk to the captain? Do you want to just chill? What would you like to do on this boat? The boat at this point has about its normal crew of. I'm actually gonna look up how much crew would go on this boat. And use my little boat stat

Engineer Unmasked, Engine Saved

SPEAKER_01 53:40

block that I made on the Discord for Danger Hart forever ago, which is literally the stat block says Bowie McBoat face. Body McBoat face.

unknown 53:49

Alright.

SPEAKER_01 53:51

So, there's about 30 people on this boat. And it's about the size of like a regular 1920 steamship. So there's some gunners, some officers, and some general crew. So you'd say about out of these 20 to 30 people, about 10 of them are more like military soldiers. But it is a military vessel, so like everyone's on there's trained, but like they do shifts from doing things like cooks, cleaning, what have you. And then you brought about a hundred doctors onto it.

SPEAKER_03 54:27

Right.

SPEAKER_01 54:27

Because you unloaded all of your troops. So you've effectively made it a medical boat. No one because of the way you did this, you know, fighting off the invading army by yourself for five minutes. No one's injured. Like everyone just kinda loaded up on the boat and evacuated successfully.

SPEAKER_04 54:50

So you uh so I panned in a bunch of people, but at least I got the majority of them on the boat uninjured.

SPEAKER_01 54:55

Did I level you up last session?

SPEAKER_04 54:58

Uh no, I didn't get arrest or anything.

SPEAKER_01 55:00

It was the killing 35 dudes. Okay. Like, sometimes I wait for milestone, but I'm like, you beat up so many dudes. Character builder. And now you're gonna hit the point where using stress to switch out your loadout out will actually matter.

SPEAKER_04 55:22

Level 5. Level up. Let's see what we got.

SPEAKER_01 55:28

Some of the cool things you gain at level 5 is if you wanted you could multi-class. You can up your proficiency, increasing your damage dice. I think your proficiency might just up at level 5 as well. And you're normally pick two options plus a level 5 card. Which have some fun ones.

SPEAKER_04 55:51

Okay. Permanently gain a hit point, permanently gain stress. Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 56:02

Feel free to narrate some of your options of what you're thinking about.

SPEAKER_04 56:06

Alright, well, no multi-class, you're right. Oh, I can increase my combo die again? Oh yeah. I definitely want to increase my combo die.

SPEAKER_01 56:14

Also, so that's Myra's experiences have shifted a bit for our listeners. They have medical training, amateur bioterrorist, and abandonment issues as the three experiences.

SPEAKER_04 56:25

Uh I have chosen to uh increase my combo die because the combo is sick. And increase again a stress draw, stress slot because doing combos requires stress. Excellent.

SPEAKER_01 56:37

And what card have you grabbed? Are you still thinking on that one?

SPEAKER_04 56:41

I must look to see what my new options are. My level 5 options. Armor. While you're wearing an armor, you gain a plus one bonus to your armor score. Armor score? So the number of slots. Number of slots, okay. Uh no thy enemy, when it was over your creature, you can insta roll to gain information about the target. Okay. Rousing strike. Once per rest, you can when you critically succeed on attack. Okay, that

Debrief, Reputation, And Next Steps

SPEAKER_04 57:10

one's you and all allies who can see or hear you clear one hit point or one D4 stress. That would be better if I was in a big party.

SPEAKER_01 57:21

I mean, there's always mercenaries and things. You usually have AMBC or two with you.

SPEAKER_04 57:26

I mean, that's that's true. I just uh Critical successes. Hmm. Anyways, uh last one for level 5 is name is signature move. It's just name and describe your signature move. Once per rest you can perform the signature Once per rest you can perform the signature move as a part of an action you're taking. You can roll a d20 as your hope die on a success clear of stress.

SPEAKER_01 58:00

It's gotta be signature move, right?

SPEAKER_04 58:03

I mean that does sound pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 58:08

Uh so I'll let you pick one each time, but like once you use it the first time, you kind of are committed to it for now.

SPEAKER_04 58:17

A signature move.

SPEAKER_01 58:19

So you could absolutely do the quarter-turn skull punch. Or the 50 pounds of weight on your fist. Or it could be a or if you really want to go full metal alchemist, you can like shape shift your hand into knives or something. Or like do like the fingernail extend.

SPEAKER_04 58:42

I I I think I do want signals removed, that just sounds cool.

SPEAKER_01 58:47

Well, it's interesting because it's no die some one of the things that's kind of weird about some of the dagger heart skills is like know thy enemy when you make an instinct roll against them. Getting to level 5 bone is so far to get in before realizing you care about instinct. Because I don't think there's any other skills that use instinct up till that point.

SPEAKER_04 59:08

Uh yeah, no, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 59:11

So I think Know Thy Enemy, because the approaching tactics one uses intelligence, uh sorry uses knowledge. I would make both of those use knowledge or instinct your choice. So that way you can go either way with it. That's just my favorite Daggerheart 5.5 is. Know thy enemy and tactical approach lets you pick between instinct or knowledge.

SPEAKER_04 59:31

Okay, so now I need to name my signature move.

SPEAKER_01 59:36

Um I'm fully willing as your DM to like let you let inspiration hit you and pick your name at the time.

SPEAKER_04 59:46

Uh no, I mean, um Sean and Jump recently released a new series called um Underdoctor.

SPEAKER_01 59:53

I love Underdoctor! Yeah, we haven't gotten around to talking about that yet. Underdoctor's great. Uh oh that's uh Yeah, 10 out of 10. I love Underdoctor.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:03

So I I I think uh Precise Pressure Points is probably gonna be the uh the name of the of the signature move.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:12

So for the record, Underdog ripped off your character concept, not the other way around. Ah, beautiful. Man, signature move's such a cool card. I would have put it at like level one. Like, it'd probably be too strong for them, but like, oh man, willing someone pick a signature move is just such a cool thing. Although about making people wait till like halfway through a campaign to move make their signature move. It might be a good place for it to be.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:44

Uh well, yeah, um, a signature move. Like a low-level character doesn't really have enough experience to have a signature move, you know? Like on the one hand, it's like it it you definitely could like design a character around having a signature move. On the other hand, it's like you aren't famous enough to have a signature move.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:12

I'll allow it, that tracks me. And yeah, that's my one note to the devs who are listening to our stream is I feel like Noah Enemy and Tactical Approach should let you pick which intelligent stat you use for them. Because it might be easier to make it to level 5 and be like, oh, I need instinct now. I mean, I would let people reallocate their stats around, but you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:35

Uh I feel like my new experience has to have something to do with uh being the Oh well pressure points.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:47

I think so, because think about it. You can use it when you're trying to heal people. If you go like the star points, you can be like or you can use it to add to your damage, where you can be like, oh, I spent a hope to pressure point, and then I'll use my signature move.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:00

To make it a D20 for my hope die. Right? Well, what you call it. Well, actually let's split it a bit.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:10

So pressure points is a signature move, right? So I think the experience would be something like uh I'm trying to remember the technical name for like knowing the pressure. Like, give me one second. Alright, alright. I need to look up a word. Um, let's go with Vital Points. Vital points the experience. Alright, alright. So there we go. So you got vital points, the experience of knowing where these points are, and then the signature move of hitting those points.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:52

Alright. And the character sheet updated. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:00

So the boat will take about two days to make it to the next Empire outpost down the coast. Which, if you recall, was there was a city there, but then recent uh lightning volcano eruptions have kind of turned into glass. But that is where the boat is currently heading. So, to like one last final reference to the map. So, yeah, the next Haven Outpost is pretty inland. And the and after that you'll be like heading straight into pure Feinwick territory where your points just kinda end. So you're heading very close to the southern border.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:44

Um, well, I mean, like I said, I'm gonna go up to the captain and be like, um well, I I appreciate you coming to rescue us.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:53

Uh but but I I have business in Alora that perhaps you could moor somewhere near the shore, and I I could when we're near Alora and I I could disembark.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:04

Boy, just G or you're taking your nurses with you, Lassie.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:08

Uh no, the the the nurses should should get to safety. Uh if you could bring them to the nearest nearest Haven Outpost.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:15

We're heading down to uh I'm gonna be honest with you. We're heading down to a former battle site because you're a bunch of doctors to try and treat some of the soldiers there. We're being a little greedy about this. Well I'm fine dropping you off. I can put you in one of the little dinghies when we get close. But I don't think we can really afford to stop for too long.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:38

Uh yes, that that would be that would be excellent if you if you don't mind.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:42

Yeah, no problem. Yeah. He has no problem letting you pausing the boat for you to get in the little rowboat and leave. And then continuing along south. Because it basically is taking your medical camp to a He's like, oh, I rescued this doctor about Borders Outpost. Let's bring you to a battlefield to then use those doctors. It's pretty efficient.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:03

Okay, so I th I as a more mm a meta note, as you mentioned, getting it's level five, uh the number of cards that you have is actually relevant. Um but I think I want to swap out my death maneuvers.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:21

So it's free to swap when you're not in combat. It only costs stress when you're in a stressful situation.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:29

I'm just gonna swap it out.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:32

Yeah. It's interesting because the card swapping adds a lot more strategy to it, where one of my players was talking about how Daggerheart didn't feel like its combat wasn't as complex, and like, that's because it ramps up a bit. Because now you kind of have to make choices.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:49

Well, I mean, so the uh the skill which I swapped out, death maneuvers, I did use last time. So once per rest, Marcus Rest was print anywhere within far range of time. Outmaking the agility roll to get there, you gain a plus one to bonus to attack rolls on that turn.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:09

And then after I've used it, swap it out for signature move.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:14

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:15

Since you can only use it once for arrest.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:22

Plus honest success, I do clear the stress that I use to swap it out, so.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:28

That's just kind of my strategy- my theory on that one. But you're the first person to hit level five in my campaigns because you killed the 30 plus people. So the boat should arrive within range of Alora in about a day.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:55

Oh well.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:58

Um at this point it's like mid-afternoon.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:07

Some of the people I worked with. Um there's uh one one guy. Um he uh refuses to wear a shirt. That's a bad end of a doctor. His body is is scarred and burnt from all the acid burns because part of the reason he doesn't wear a shirt is because he's always working with acid and he ruins his clothes. Okay, okay. Um his name is Joel. I like Joel. Ah, dang it, I hit the wrong button on my just one second here. I want earbuds is falling out, and I pushed it on the side, and I'll just be Remember when you told me earlier you would use your headset correctly first time?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:51

You did it.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:53

Yeah, I'm I'm technologically inept. Actually, no, I I just don't like I don't I appreciate these wireless earbuds. Uh but I don't exactly like wireless earbuds. Anyways, that's not really the point. Uh the point is that I missed what you said after I described Joel as the shirtless uh acid burnt man.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:17

Okay, describe two more for me.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:20

Okay, okay. Um there's a uh alien-looking uh dude. Kind of more like a like a penguin, uh, but they're like dressed in a parka because they uh find it very cold here for some reason. A penguin in a parka.

unknown 1:08:43

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:45

Uh and their name is uh Phyllis. They're Phyllis.

unknown 1:08:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:55

Uh and then um the last person um they uh bird person, regular person. Uh the last person seems to be a uh a dwarf. Um and uh they have an extremely unkempt beard uh and bags under their eyes, uh, because they uh have insomnia and they almost never sleep. Excellent. Uh and their name is uh Saul.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:35

Alright. And my last question for you is describe a weird room on this boat.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:44

Uh well, I mean most of the boat is just open to all the people on board, uh, including the captain's quarters. But there is one room that has Lyracurious because uh it has like a skull and crossbones lock on the door.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:05

So as you see the skull and crossbones lock in front of you, no one seems to be in this hallway. What would you like to do?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:17

Oh, do I want to taunt the audience and and not find out what's behind the door? Oh, oh man. Well, okay. Uh why not? You're I am gonna I'm gonna try and pick this lock.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:37

Alright, go ahead and roll a finesse check.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:40

Finesse 12 with fear. Uh-oh.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:46

So I'm gonna happily take my first fear of possession. The door opens. Inside the room, you see what looks like a giant hamster wheel. Okay to a bunch of pipes. And what looks like a kitty made of flame is running in the wheel.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:06

Oh no. Oh no, no. They're not running this ship on spirit power, are they?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:16

I could I go ahead and roll an intelligence check.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:21

Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:22

Instinct or uh knowledge.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:26

Knowledge, right, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:27

Okay, that makes sense. Instinct would work as well for this. It would change the way I give you the information.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:32

Oh, eight with fear.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:34

Probably. I'll mark my second fear. Probably running out of spirit power. Seems like that's what they would do.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:42

It does seem like that's what they would do. Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:49

It so you see it like stops moving, looks at you sadly. And then when the wheel stops, it like pulls back a piston that fires, and then it spritz with water and starts running again.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:04

This poor poor animal.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:07

Oh, okay, okay. Hmm. Alright. Do do uh is there anything nearby that I could use to set up like a like a time bomb?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:20

Uh, you tell me, because you seem to be in a steamship. That so this mechanism I'm using, because they have the spirit walking in a wheel that's heating like pipes inside the wheel to like pressurize steam stins to run them to different parts of the thing, and then smoke's coming off it to a smokestack. So they're like double dipping, they're using it as a heat source and using as a momentum source.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:43

Oh, geez.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:49

This is like this is bringing up tra trauma. Um you know what? No. Uh Lyra, I'm like, I I'm just going to uh I'm gonna leave the room, lock the door, and uh I'm gonna go uh I'm gonna are there any like engineer-looking people that uh are are anywhere on the ship? Like I I wanna ask some people about easy to find today. Well I wanna uh I wanna ask some people about how this ship actually works, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:29

Alright, so you do find it looks like a four-foot-tall fairy? And they seem to like have like a bunch of ring piercings in their wings, like as like a style thing. Like, picture the person they have as a c computer person every CSI show ever made, but a berry.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:46

Hmm. Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:47

But like four feet tall. And they like have like the like jeweler's eyepiece on it, and they're like, how can I help?

unknown 1:13:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:56

What yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:59

Several years ago, uh, I happened to be near W Wormsheart's crossing which when when uh the it exploded. And and and it it leaves me a little bit worried whenever whenever I'm on a ship like this with that that something similar might happen when I'm a little bit nervous.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:15

Can you explain to me how how this ship works and and and and let me leave me my fear that that it might just explode?

SPEAKER_01 1:14:22

Go ahead and roll a presence roll, please. And if you like, you can spend a hope to add abandonment issues to it.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:35

I will do that. Roll! 24 with fear.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:42

Oh, I'm gonna definitely mark I'm up to four fear now, that's right. Oh dear, don't worry at all. Oh. So Worm's Heart was interesting. So you have pretty high clearance here. Oh fuck it. Alright. So listen, theory. How it works is we take some of these federal monsters, these evil spirits, and we channel their power to move the boat. Wormsheart a bunch of terrorists broke in and sabotaged the system, causing an explosion. If no one were to break if someone were to break in and like put a pipe bomb next to it, yes it could explode. But it's much safer than coal power or regular steam power. The system has been tested, this boat has been in operation for over five years with no issues. If something goes wrong, we've designed that part of the boat to separate. But I wouldn't worry about it. It's basically just a kitty running on a treadmill powering the boat. We feed the kitty, we give it snacks, the boat moves forward.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:51

How do you how do you know that the that the the spirit is evil?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:56

Well, I don't believe the spirits are evil, much incongruence to the propaganda we're given from the capital. I believe the spirit is how can I put this? I don't think they think the same way we do. It's like you can't negotiate with a storm. You can't negotiate with an earthquake. So they're like, they're conscious, but they're not. So it's like we took a spirit that was burning down forests and gave it a job and gave it a safe. Does that make sense? Because when energy logo, they're just amalgamations of magical particles in the air. Or when the density of magical energy becomes too far, it forms kind of like a crystallization. Or like, oh you're a doctor, I can use a technical term. The energy crystallizes into a s into a form, and because there's so much energy compressed in that form, it starts lashing out and acting as if it's aware. But we have no scientific consensus to prove it isn't fact conscious.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:09

Thank you, thank you very much. That makes me feel much better.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:12

Oh, my pleasure. If you're still feeling a little unnervous about it, I would recommend going to the cafeteria getting a bite to eat. We have it's well, it was gonna be chili Tuesday, but it's now chili Wednesday because we got dispatched real quickly, but it's pretty good.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:29

Uh yes, I I I think I might do that. Uh I I am in fact gonna go down to the cafeteria for some comfort food.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:35

So it appears to basically be like they're putting chili on toast, and it's actually like it's pretty spicy, so go ahead and make a strength roll for me.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:45

A strength roll? Alright. That's alright. Four with help. Woohoo!

SPEAKER_01 1:17:53

It's pretty spicy. You're chugging down water. Like, this chili is kicking your ass. It's delicious, but it's a little too spicy for your negative one strength. Because I've decided strength is tied to spice tolerance. I don't know why, I've just decided this. Constitution doesn't exist in this game.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:11

It is kind of an interesting uh I I don't know if I'd say that's an oversight, but it is kind of interesting that there's no uh endurance type stat.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:19

Although to be fair, Constitution was terrible because you could never actively make a constitution. It was always like passive situations, and a lot of them were strength situations, like constitution for how far you can swim.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:32

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:33

That is true.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:37

Yeah, and then it had no skills associated with it, unlike all the other stats.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:42

I I think for spicy eating spicy food, I'd go either strength or presence. That feels like the most logical for it, but that's not super relevant right now. I would let someone make an argument to be like, I use my knowledge to adore the spicy food, I'm like, I guess I'll all that way. Um in this room, describe somebody in medical clothing you don't recognize.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:12

Ooh. Because there seems to be a table with four people, and you don't recognize any of them.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:20

Uh well, I mean, so there's a uh seven-foot-tall orc. Or at least they look like an orc. They have like the tusks sticking out from the lower jaw. Uh, but they're wearing the nurse outfit with like the little white hat with the plus sign on it. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:34

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:35

Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:38

Alright. So they're just kind of eating. One of the the orc looks over to you. Then like it's like can they see you and like look down in a way quickly?

SPEAKER_04 1:19:52

Oh, okay. Uh are they like bashful? Is that why they're looking away? Or are they like scared of me or something?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:02

Go ahead and roll an instinct jacket.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:05

Let's see what I got. 13 with hope.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:12

Your presence is making them uncomfortable. It's like they don't want you they don't want you to notice them.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:21

Oh, I see.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:27

Well then. And uh are they s are they s they're sitting at a table with people?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:36

Yeah, with three people. They kind of look like various varieties of elf with them.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:45

Hmm. Interesting. But I don't recognize any of them.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:51

Correct. They have their medical face masks on as well.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:56

Aha. Little holes for the tusks for the orc? Correct. Okay. Uh no, I'm on a mission. I uh oh. I am an amateur bioterrorist. Maybe I should just be an amateur terrorist. Cause they said that the the sector with the spirit will detach if something goes wrong.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:35

Yes. It's pretty much near the bottom south of the ship, or the I said.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:45

That is the engine of the ship, and these doctors are going to a war zone so that they can help treat more people.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:51

Correct.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:52

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:53

That is accurate.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:54

This isn't a necessary evil? Uh the boulder is confused.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:06

Excellent. I finally created a balanced moral quandary between these two factions. Took a while. Uh do you sabotage a doctor of Borer's boat because it's being powered by Cry Gitons?

unknown 1:22:23

Oh no.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:26

Uh no, um, okay, actually. Um, I don't I don't suppose I have anything that I can use to send a message to someone. I don't even know who I would send a message to, dang it.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:42

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:44

You tell me, you can just manifest an MPC right now. What yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell me who you're messaging and how you're messaging them. They have pigeon mail on this boat. They also seem to have like magical communication to the Empire.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:00

Yeah, except for the Empire obviously the Empire obviously condones this type of uh animal enslavement. Spirit enslavement?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:11

So I will say for context, to call the boat, you literally use like ascending stone in the lighthouse you were in that's like attached to the wall. So you know this boat has ascending stone that can send a message to any haven encampments.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:25

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:27

So if you had a doctor in the capital, for example, you could probably reach them by this poor, poor person who has all these glowing stones and touches one and touches another, like an old school network transmitter.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:41

Like a switchboard, okay. Hmm. No, no, I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:55

As you're having this like sitting at this table staring into your toast, you go ahead and roll a instinct reaction roll.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:06

Instinct reaction roll, okay. So fear and hope don't matter.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:11

Correct.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:13

Sixteen.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:14

We just catch a little bit of their conversation here. It's like, that's gonna be a problem, no shut up.

unknown 1:24:23

Huh.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:27

Well, then you've never seen these four people in your life, but they are dressed as medical staff.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:36

Uh-huh. I see. Okay. So I I kind of wanted to see if I can suddenly look for signs that they may be like armed or have uh means of terrorism on them, I guess. Alright, go ahead and run the phone. Like perhaps those spies. Yes! That's what I was going for. And uh I'm gonna go with instinct, because that seems 16 with fear. That's not good. You're gonna tell me that.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:21

So you do see like the shape of knives in one of their boots. One of them's hand is like resting in their coat, probably on the blade.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:30

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:31

You have a feeling, just from some of your time and some of the people you've encountered, that they feel similar in vibe to the people who came after you when you left Worms Arc Crossing the first time. These don't feel imperial. Their weapons are too makeshift. And you see, like, under the nurse outfits, like bits of mismatch patchwork armor. Feels more like the soldiers whose jaws you've snapped in the recent battle. But you're not sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:58

Okay. Okay, okay. So I still have some chillion toast, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:26:04

You're like halfway through it. You're like eating a little pork and night. It is delicious.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:08

It is delicious. Well, I mean, I'm gonna I'm gonna get up, uh, I'm gonna pretend like I didn't notice them, uh, and kind of walk, but I walk past them. Uh, and then uh, can I use my vital points experience to uh pretend to trip and throw chili in their eyes?

SPEAKER_00 1:26:26

What?

SPEAKER_04 1:26:27

Okay, go ahead and roll a finesse check on that check spend the whole for my vital points bonus. 15 with fear.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:42

So as you splash chili into their face. The first one is blinded. And go ahead and roll a presence check to see if they buy this as an accident.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:57

Okay. 22 with fear.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:00

So normally combat was switched to B, and they'd attack you, but they're not sure this was an accident or not. So you have about six seconds to do your next thing before they start reacting.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:11

Oh, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:13

I'm so sorry. Uh I'm gonna like scramble to try and grab a nap and to try and like wipe their wipe their clothes off, and I'm I'm gonna try to be all nervous and uh but all the while kind of like feeling around to see if they actually have armor and weapons on them.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:28

So while you're like getting the choice, like it's fine, it's fine, it's fine, they're buying your lies. Here's what you notice. They definitely have weapons on them. They're relatively well concealed, like you're like, okay, there's a boot knife with a couple daggers. You spot like inside the cloak underwards, you see, like, a vein wraith insignia on the orc, like a tattoo on your neck that's kinda like covered up by a band-aid. And you feel like these are absolutely not the best train. Killers, but are a group of assassins.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:04

Oh dear.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:07

Um it's like their equipment, they're not like swords and shields and armor. They're probably like you're getting a lot of information while chili dabbing them. There's a very good chance their objective is to sabotage this ship or kill the people on it. Probably at night while they're sleeping. But you're getting like super durable, like you're getting like, okay. These three, I feel like I could probably collapse their trachea pretty easily. The orc might be a bit more problematic.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:41

But no, I mean, I I don't want to just like murder these people. Uh I mean you killed 30 of them. Although, although the uh they're still eating, right? No, because you're dabbing chili off their face, and the other ones are like More so like they they still have food on the table, right? Oh yeah, they do. Oh, they do. Do I still have any poison?

SPEAKER_01 1:29:13

I probably. Give me a second. My brain clicked to what you were doing, it's it'd like, oh that's good. I mean, oh no.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:26

Oh. Alright, give me a big one.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:28

Because yeah, I mean you should still first off you do have a vial of like actual the plague, but that could be bad.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:37

Oh no, that would be terrible. I I mean I am a bioterrorist, but I got people on this boat that care about.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:42

Yeah, I believe you still have three doses of drip bank poison left.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:48

Ah, so I could poison most of them.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:51

I would say so drip bank poison, let me like ratio this for you. Drip bank poison does 80 10 direct magical damage.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:02

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:03

So I would say I would let you like distribute that among as many like how do you want to distribute that damage basically? So I'd roll that damage and then I would share it across them.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:14

Yeah, well, I mean I I if I can, while I'm nervously pretending to nervously uh dab their faces with help them, especially the blind guy. The blind guy's not gonna notice. I mean, hopefully he's not blind by the end of this, but you did get him in the face of Robin Arrow. But I would like to see if I could subtly uh poison their food.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:36

Go ahead and roll a finesse check.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:38

Hmm. Can I apply amateur bioterrorist?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:43

Yes. And medical training if you like.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:47

Oh what? You can apply two?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:49

If all three apply, you could apply all three, but it would use three hope.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:53

Well, yeah, but no, no, I I mean I only have two experiences that I think would apply, but Ness with medical training and amateur bioterrorist. Alright, that's plus five. Eighteen with hope!

SPEAKER_01 1:31:06

Woo-hoo! Alright, so you needed to get a 15 to successfully do this.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:13

Oh, alright.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:14

So you have poisoned the leader's food, and you still have two doses of poison left.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:19

Ooh, I only managed to poison one person's food? Dang it.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:23

You tell me, because you did say specifically you wanted to poison his food because he was wet.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:27

Well, yeah, yeah, okay. I mean, that one was the easiest. Uh, and I definitely No, I think I'm gonna leave it at that and um to see what kind of chaos ensues when their leader dies. If if they just fall apart and run away, or or if uh there's actually something I have to deal with.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:46

So do you finish eating before you leave? Or do you just like book it?

SPEAKER_04 1:31:50

Oh no, I I threw I threw my chili on them. I'm I'm I'm gonna apologize. I'm sorry. I'm so I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:56

Uh but I I really m I really want to go I apologize, I just want to And I I mean I just uh I walk away.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:03

Alright. Well, I guess I wanna go into into stealth so I can observe what happens when they uh Alright, go ahead and roll uh finestral to hide yourself somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:15

A finest roll? Uh 14 with hope.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:21

Alright, so as you're hidden, I'm gonna s uh you tell me where you're hiding. Just like outside the doors of the galley or under a table.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:31

Yeah, yeah, just outside the doors of the galley.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:33

Alright, now go ahead and roll 8d 10 for me, please.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:41

Uh okay. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:51

Fifty-three!

SPEAKER_01 1:32:55

So you see them be like and they start like coughing the blood and foaming at them out.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:02

Oh dear.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:03

And like the other three are panicking, they get up, and they start all running t uh the three guys start running towards the door to try and find you. He didn't seem to die from it.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:15

Oh dear.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:17

Uh oh my. Um. Well. He didn't he didn't actually die from that?

SPEAKER_01 1:33:32

No, but he that hurt. It did four damage out of seven. It did double his max threshold.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:43

Yeah, I kinda kind of figured my max threshold is 21, so.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:47

It was rough.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:50

Poor guy got chilly in his eyes and then got poisoned.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:55

That was a bad day.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:57

Okay. But so they're rushing to find me.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:00

Yeah, uh, you watch one of them like run out the doorway. Hasn't spotted you yet.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:10

Uh okay, okay. So I I recognize the Fainray tattoo on the orc's neck.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:18

Is that it was an oral borrow some raccoons.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:28

Oh, those three raccoons in the trench coat. Um well no, I see I think I think since there are military personnel on this boat, I I think I should probably uh well now how do I explain myself? No, they would they would know, because they're haven't haven soldiers. Um so uh yeah, I I think I uh do I have anything that I could use to detain the orc?

SPEAKER_01 1:35:01

Oh, do you?

SPEAKER_04 1:35:02

Uh I don't know. I I mean I have rope, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:05

Also, you could just you're on a boat, so if you're like, oh, I'm gonna grab this rope that's in this boat, or this inner tube to tie him up, like feel free to invent uh terrain if you need to. You're in a right outside a cafeteria in a boat.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:19

Uh I I actually do like the idea of taking an air tube and putting it over him and then like dragging him to the uh Well, I don't know. Because there's gotta be like um security type people like that things are happening. Uh well yeah, so I'm I would like to uh put the put the uh the life ring around the orc. Like grab a life ring, put it around the orc, and then drag him to the nearest uh officer to be like, hey, uh, this guy's a spy, and there's three other spies on the boat. Alright, go ahead and do an agility check.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:01

Agility.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:07

19 with fear.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:09

So as you run up to put an inner tube around the leader to restrain them. You successfully put this inner tube- You like come out of the shadows, go back into the room, put an inner tube around them. They are restrained. I'm gonna spend a beer to have the three guys start stabbing at you.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:25

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:26

Because there's three other people.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:28

Mm-hmm. So I'm gonna go ahead and use No, sorry, I'm just I'm just looking to see what I can what I can do in response, but I don't think I have any responses.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:41

Yeah, so I'm going to spend a fear to use group attack. Dice roller. Anywho. Yeah, you see, you can't just.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:11

In the bottom left corner?

SPEAKER_01 1:37:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:15

Weird.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:30

Describe the room while I pull this up. This cafeteria.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:36

I mean, I was kind of I guess it's a boat, so the craft cafeteria probably wouldn't be all like sanitary, like a military pub. Yeah, but I still imagine it'd be more like a pub with like wooden tables and floors and and like hanging lamps and and whatnot. Like I'm for initially I was thinking like a hospital cafeteria, but no, it wouldn't be a hospital cafeteria, despite it being a medical boat now.

unknown 1:38:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:04

So I almost got to my dice roller. Yeah, the dice roller was built into the I'm not sure what happened here, because I had these sheets open. Dad like built-in tracking on the creatures. And it doesn't seem to be here for the assassin sheet, and I don't know why. Oh well. Technology is in for this. Alright, so. Does a 14 hit you?

SPEAKER_04 1:38:38

14 is my evasion.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:40

Okay, so I spend a fear to use group attack. 12 points of physical damage as they all just kinda go and stab at you and make their shared attack.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:51

12 points. Uh, so my minor damage threshold is 12. Does that mean that I move it? Yeah, if it meets it before the major damage? Yep. If it meets it, beats. Ah. Well, I guess I take major damage, but I can spend two hope. Because I yeah, I still have two hope. I'm gonna spend two hope. Uh uh. Ferocity! When you caught when you cause an ad- Oh, I had that backwards. Never mind. When you cause an adversary to mark one or more hit points. I thought that was never mind. Good try. Anyway, uh I guess that's the I should have used that when I poisoned the guy, I guess. Oh well. Anyways, I take two points of of damage.

unknown 1:39:51

You do.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:52

And Turnorder is now yours.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:55

Turn order is now mine. Well, I mean. I just gotta turn around and punch these guys in the face, like.

unknown 1:40:05

Alright.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:06

Yeah, I'm gonna do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:06

I'm not trying to kill them, because I want to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:09

So to go meta. So what I learned is that if I just search up Assassin, it gives me the non-interactive sheet. But if I pull up the advertary bop option and click the open sheet button, it gives me the sheet that has a dice roller buttons built into it again. So I have fixed the check issue.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:26

There you go. If anyone's running a take a heart campaign through Demiplane, that's how you uh find the dice roller for your monsters. Excellent.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:35

So Anywho, sorry to interrupt.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:37

You were doing Uh, I mean, I was going to try and attempt to punch someone in the face.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:45

Do you want the damage to be lethal or non-lethal?

SPEAKER_04 1:40:48

Oh, non-lethal. We need to interrogate these guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:51

Okay, go ahead and make your attack.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:54

I will roll for my attack. 18 with spear.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:58

Oh, that'll hit.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:00

Uh. Okay. Uh, is it Is it worth it to combo off?

SPEAKER_01 1:41:08

So, because they have the minion ability. When it's defeated, it takes any damage for every six damage deal to it, defeat an additional minion within range.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:17

Okay, so it would be worth it to combo off then.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:20

I don't make that choice. I just figured I'd give you full info.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:24

I mark a stress, and I roll my bigger combo die. Okay, when it after making damage roll, okay, so I actually have to make the damage roll first.

unknown 1:41:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:42

So let's make our damage roll, which I mean, is actually pretty 34, holy.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:50

Well, that'll knock out all three of them. So, because it amuses me, as the three guards run towards you to stab you, you do a hand stand and a spinning bird kick and knock out all three. And the main one who is coping up poison in is tied up by an inner two. Is staring at you.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:14

What you wanna what? I mean, I'm just gonna punch him in the face, too. That's not that's the uh roll my attack. Roll 15 with fear.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:32

15 hits. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:35

Uh, alright, and I roll damage. 22 damage.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:42

That is one hit point.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:46

Uh well, in that case, I will spend the stress on a combo off. Alright. My new bigger hit dice, or combo dice, let's see. We roll a five. And if the value of the second roll is equal or greater than your first roll, so. Second roll. Was it two, so I only deal an additional seven damage.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:10

Bringing that to a total of twenty-nine. So that was enough to hit you into the next bracket. So it's he's looking pretty rough as you're just put-cha-ch- but I'm gonna spend a fear and he's gonna stomp the heel of his shoe down so a knife pops out of the tip of it and try and kick you in the gut.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:28

Uh-oh.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:30

Uh, okay, actually, when okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:33

Since I should have used his ferocity last time, I'm gonna use my ferocity, spend my two hope. Uh dang it. I clicked the button before I mark because he marked two hit points, right? Yep. So I spend the two hope. I gain plus two to evasion. So my evasion is now 16!

unknown 1:43:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:59

He's gonna try and shoe knife you. Does a 20 hit?

SPEAKER_04 1:44:04

That's right. My hope was worthless. A 20 does hit. Good.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:10

You take he's coming at you for 15 points of damage.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:15

Hmm. I am gonna mark my last armor slot. I'm gonna mark my last armor slot to uh reduce that to minor damage. I mark one hit point.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:26

And turn order falls to you, because I only have the one dude that you're aware of.

SPEAKER_05 1:44:33

Uh well.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:40

Is there anything interesting? Well I think I want to spend a stress to swap out my depth maneuvers with uh actually, do I need to spend the stress manually? Let's see. Uh swapped. Alright, so I'm swapping out my signature move or size pressure points. Uh now. Signature move?

SPEAKER_01 1:45:18

So I'm gonna spend a fear, and the Grindlet Venom inside the chili UA kicks in, and you're considered vulnerable until you clear an HP because they poisoned you.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:28

But they poisoned me.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:29

They poisoned the chili. Oh dang it. Which is why I was laughing so hard when you poisoned them.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:37

Um I okay, so vulnerable doesn't do anything on my attack roll still, right? Correct. Alright, so then I rolled a 22 with hope because my hope died was a d20 for this attack. And that means I clear the stress that I spent to swap out my moves, and I roll for damage. As I pressure point him right in the jugular.

unknown 1:46:07

Oof.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:09

For 31 damage.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:10

Yeah, he's out. So you have three unconscious people on the floor, one tied up with the minor tube, and you don't feel so good from the chili. It might be food poisoning, you're not sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:26

Alright. Well, I mean, I uh I need to tie up the thriller on the floor.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:32

Easy enough. No roll required.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:35

And then I guess I need to find a uh an officer to be like, hey, I'm pretty sure these guys are fine right spies.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:43

So it doesn't take long because you hear like people running towards you, because they kind of heard the blh bleh bleh. What's going on, Joe? A copper dragonborn shows up.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:59

Uh I uh do I know that I'm poisoned?

SPEAKER_01 1:47:07

You're pretty sure. Like, with your experiences, you would know that you've been mildly poisoned. And you're a little annoyed that they thought to poison you before you thought to poison them. Like you're a doctor, you're like, oh no. Like you even know it's Grindle's venom.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:30

Nurses are medical. They're actually Feinwraith spies. And they point they attempted to poison me.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:36

If he puts a hand on you, you heal a hit point and are no longer poisoned.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:40

Yeah. Uh and then I will show the uh the Feignraith tattoo on the orc's neck just to prove that they are in fact spies.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:51

Good work. And at this point, he like whispers to you is like, yeah, the officer, someone through this telescope saw what you did. Like, damn, man. Smacked. And like there's urban legends going around you, that one doctor who ran into a battlefield and thought fought 30 dudes.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:18

Alright.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:19

Yeah, you're gaining a bit of notoriety among the Haven soldiers for that one doctor who went and drop kicked like 30 garb soldiers.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:28

Um, can you re-describe the guy that sent me to the hall for chili, though?

SPEAKER_01 1:48:32

That was a fairy with a bunch of piercings that looked like a CSI Grime scene tacker.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:40

Hmm. Because if they poisoned me with the chili, and that's the guy that sent me here. Now I'm suspicious of him.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:52

What would you like to do?

SPEAKER_05 1:48:53

Uh there was a I I'm fairly certain they poisoned me through the chili, and that was a uh an engineer I I spoke to earlier that set me down here. I'm just wondering, are you familiar with with the fairy that has a little uh monocle that is an engineer put the ship here?

SPEAKER_04 1:49:16

I asked the guard or the officer.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:19

Oh, um, one second. So an he gestures to another Haven soldier, a human that looks very generic and uninteresting, who basically like puts like a sign up that says do not eat on the chili.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:34

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:35

And it's kinda like he's like, officer, you deal with these three, and then he's like, Alright, and then this dragon board starts escorting you down the hallway, like, so where did you see this guy?

SPEAKER_04 1:49:45

Uh well, I mean, I will lead them to where I found the engineer.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:49

So as you round the corner, you see the engineer trying to pick the lock to the skull board.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:54

Oh.

unknown 1:49:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:59

Alright, well I mean, yeah, I'll just run up and punch them in the back of the head.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:04

Make your attack roll. And as you do that, the guard, like, pulls out a handle, flicks it, and a flaming sword comes out of the handle.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:12

Oh, they have friggin' lightsabers?

SPEAKER_01 1:50:14

That particular copper dragon is dope.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:20

Uh 21 with hope.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:22

Oh, that'll hit. As their base is stunned. I'm gonna like. You had an advantage, but it doesn't matter. We can roll it to see if you get a crit. Because you want them off guard. They were not expecting someone to come running down the hallway and dropkick them.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:38

Well, I dropkicked them for 40 damage.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:44

However, full disclosure, so you do double their max threshold, and they have more hit points, this will knock them unconscious or kill them, your choice. So as you drop kick this poor spy clean in the face, he's out cold on the ground. Like you literally see like the bottle of like his flask hit the ground, it splashes a bit and there's poison in it. He has a dagger and a lockpick, and what looks like some kind of like jar of explosive fireflies. And this person was absolutely gonna free the spirit in this room.

SPEAKER_04 1:51:29

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:31

And are absolutely out cold on the floor. And this the guards like pulls out a sword, this like trade soldier is like, oh, but it's kinda like puts it away. And this like handcuffs this uncold, conscious person.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:48

Wow. Oh dear. Then thank you for your help, officer.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:57

Sure. What is his name?

SPEAKER_04 1:52:02

What does he have like a name tag or anything?

SPEAKER_01 1:52:04

Or like one second to check my notes, because he has a named character. Yes, this is named characters everything. His name is Oxydrax.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:34

Oxydrax. I really gotta think of like better, like mostly I've just been using like generic human people names. Beautiful for the emperor. I gotta think of better. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:48

Oxy Drax.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:51

And he's like you're like, thanks for the help, Elixir. I'm gonna be honest. I didn't do nothing. Good job. So, for the sake of time blending, you're now on the other side of the brick, and the full five of them are just locked up in it. Handcuffed, bars in front of them. One of them dribbling a bit from their ears. Ate a crap ton of poison. What would you like to do? Or we could wrap up here.

SPEAKER_04 1:53:34

Yeah, I mean I was gonna say, I mean, I don't know if I want to actively interrogate them, but I do want to listen in on the interrogation because they might have intel on why the encampment was attacked. Uh but we could definitely um especially like a natural stopping point, so I don't know. Alright. Unless you wanted to go through the new interrogation.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:59

But how did you feel about this session?

SPEAKER_04 1:54:04

Uh I I very much so enjoyed it. Um I mean uh leveling up to level five, uh the uh increase in damage is ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:20

Because you did go up a tier.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:23

Yeah, uh, this like cheese.

SPEAKER_05 1:54:31

Um like pull back the thing a little bit.

unknown 1:54:35

So I had to deploy the like take an moment. For what I would expect in attacking a goal with, you were either going to go on the boat and I would run my boat back.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:50

You're going to have a giant battle and continue this battle and break into a castle. Or you're gonna like go through and end up in the video.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:00

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:00

So my encounter I had planned was to lead assassin and four assassin dudes, and then an unrelated poisoner to poison your bird. I was just gonna drop that in whatever environment you ended up in. So, like the next time you got to a safe space, I was just gonna use the same assessment.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:16

Ah yeah, okay.

unknown 1:55:17

The boat's a fun touch. I I enjoy that you're on the boat, that gives me a lot of people to play with.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:23

But the session was designed that would have worked out pretty much the exact same at whatever haven outpost you ended up at.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:30

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:31

But had you rushed and broken back into battle, I don't cannot predict how the session was. I kind of gambled on you retreating to the boat.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:43

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:44

But what'd you think?

SPEAKER_04 1:55:45

Uh well no. I I I had a lot of fun. Um because I didn't get that rest between sessions, um, it was uh going back to battle just would have not been I I I almost guaranteed would have been knocked out and then sex coifish to be like, alright, let's let him start the session field up a bit. Hmm. I didn't even think of the idea of potentially using the short rest at that point.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:16

Because yeah, the idea was like, okay, you have a moment of s I'm literally in character, giving your character a moment to think about what they wanted you. And I'm like, yeah, if you punch somebody, the one hour long short rest bubble I gave you ends. And you're like, screw it, I'm out. I'm like, well that works even better if we do that. But yeah, I wanted to try and play the assassins like actual assassins, but I'm like, I feel like you spotted them, and I'm like, okay, this is fun. Like that was like the whole idea of making you make that roll was for whether they jumped you or you jumped them. Came down to that instinct reaction role, basically.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:57

Ah, okay. Because there's two I noticed that.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:00

Yeah, because there's two environment effects. There's the ambusher and ambushed. And I would have used the ambushed event, which just gives me more fear in the shot with spotlight gives to them. Or there's the ambusher event, where I lose two fear and your first attack has abandoned. So you did the ambushers when you saw him in the hallway.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:25

Yeah, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:27

And yeah, the idea was always three assassins that you could spot. The lead assassin has like powers that like activate minions and things, and then an oison will try and mess with you before the fight starts, and then come around near the end of it. Because like he was gonna run down the hallway, smoke bomb, and then they were going to jump out and steal your boat, like the little boat, and escape. But you move so fast that there's no way. Like you poison the guy, and then you spun kick him, and then you immediately call the cops. And their day is done.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:03

Their day is done.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:05

I am curious to see where this goes, because it's like you have a reputation with the Empire now. I'm happy with the moral choice I gave you to make you suffer a bit.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:16

That was awful. I mean it was great, but it was awful.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:19

Oh, do you appreciate that the spy was like, oh yeah, spirits don't have feelings because they're stupid? Like, I literally had them say cartoonishly evil things because they're a spy pretending to be umpire.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:36

Uh and I and I rolled with beer, so I had no idea that they were weren't just like were just lying to me.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:43

No, they're telling you the truth. They just were telling you the truth for their own like. Pretending to be an engineer is a great strategy to sabotage an engine.

SPEAKER_03 1:58:53

That's true, that's true.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:57

But yes, so thank you everybody for tuning in. At some point I have to do my job.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:06

Uh-oh. Technical difficulties. I think. You're still connected, but you seem to be silent. Thanks for tuning in.