A Tale Of Two Kobolds
A Tale Of Two Kobolds is an actual-play D&D podcast where Jess and Hids alternate DMing adventures for each other. Their characters, two Kobolds, got separated and have to find their way back to each other! Follow their adventures! New episodes on the first of every month!
A Tale Of Two Kobolds
Of Muck Monsters And Water Nymphs - Bang
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We pick up this episode with Bang after his adventure to secure the magical lotus flower for Rasul. When Bang and Rasul reach the area of the broken bridge, they find a crew working to repair the bridge. While not a major trade route, the bridge does provide access to the mountains for hunting, trapping, mining and more.
After bidding Rasul farewell, Bang sets out on his own once more to search for his friend. He travels downriver, sometimes leaving the road to stay close to the riverbank. As night draws close, he makes camp near a cluster of rocks in a meadow between the road and the river. Danger comes in the night but just as Bang overcomes his adversaries, he feels himself being pulled into the mud…and into a place he’s never been before: The Fae Realm!
Well, if you missed last episode, let me catch you up a bit. I'm not much of a storyteller, so I'm just gonna kind of break it down really quick for you. I uh I left my group of tall people, bid farewell to Jack, and he uh gave me this magical dagger, which is just amazing because I've I've never had anything magical. Um but I set out looking for my best friend Fizz and traveled back down the river there towards Grizzly Pass where where she fell off the bridge and uh well about a day into my travel I met uh I met a man named Razul. Razul? Razul I kept saying his name wrong but I'm trying to get it. Uh he offered me a ride in his wagon, and uh so we were traveling along. I I took him up on that, it would seem like a good idea, saved me some walking time. And uh he told me about his people in the desert and how their water was drying up, and they were he was looking for this magical lotus that he could take back that's supposed to provide water. And uh he said he kind of figured it was in this area, and I helped him look for it a little bit. He had this magical compass. I was like holding two magic items at one time. I've never done that in my whole life. Um but I went searching in the forest and I I found a lake and uh climbed up in a tree to look around for danger and stuff, you know, because I'm just a little coballed. But uh saw in the middle of this lake I saw uh a flower or something. So I swam down or I well I climbed down from the tree and swam across the lake. Let's let's not get too tangled up in my storytelling. And it was this it was this locus, and uh it was beautiful. It was huge and beautiful and had roots that all went all the way down, and it took me a little bit and and I started to uh try to think how I could get that, you know, get something of it. I didn't want to cut a piece, but I found a little bud that the roots were all tangled up, and so I started untangling it, but then this giant water beetle attacked me, and uh it was it was a little touch and go there for a minute, but uh I guess I hit him pretty hard and he he ran off. He squirted ink everywhere and blocked out the water. I I couldn't see anything for a bit. Uh but then I I got back to it and eventually managed to get that little bud and all the roots untangled from the big plant and uh put it in the in this jar that Russell had given me for the purpose and I was tired, but I took got it loaded up and made my way back to camp and uh Russell bandaged up my leg where the beetle got me and and uh I just kind of slept for a while there and then he came back and showed me that he found this little small bud and uh he put that into a smaller jar and he gave it to me, which I thought was was pretty pretty cool. Um but yeah, that's that's kind of where we are. We're we're breaking up camp in the morning and getting ready to head the last little bit to the to the pass, and I I reckon we'll part ways there. Russell's gonna go back to his people, and I'm gonna keep on moving downriver looking for my friend Fifth.
SPEAKER_03Hi. Welcome to A Tale of Two Kobolds, episode four. I'm Jess. I'm Heads. And uh this is gonna be a continuation of Bang's adventure, and uh I am the DM. Yay!
SPEAKER_00Reckon that means I'm Bang.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And I'm everybody else. Yay! Yay. I guess, which is like Razul right now.
SPEAKER_00And then you could be the little donkey.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah, I can be uh Bita. Bita, the little donkey. All right, so uh yeah, that that was a good recap. Oh, thanks. Uh you are on the road with Razul and Bita traveling in the cart. Um what did it what oh shoot, what did I say?
SPEAKER_00It's uh I'm two days away from the party. From Jack and his party.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, from Jack and his party, and you're like a day away from the bridge. I do have in my notes that you will reach the bridge by mid-morning the next day. Okay, you just made camp with Razul. So you're like, you're super close to the bridge right now. Okay. Sweet. You've been making good time. So you wake up the next morning, pack up camp. It's uh a pretty quick uh travel time. Um, it goes by quickly, I guess. So Bita's got got a little pep in her step. Yeah, she does. She's for an old donkey. Uh I guess Razul would say, yeah, for an old donkey, she she can get going pretty good. And uh by mid-morning you uh find yourself uh approaching the broken bridge. And the first thing you notice, probably even before you notice that you're at the bridge, is you do see a few tents that have been set up in the area. And uh there is activity. Um, it looks like people are already at work trying to rebuild this bridge.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_03And Razul kind of slows, excuse me, Razul slows the cart and they, oh, dice. I need my dice too. Brings the cart to a stop and uh gets down to start uh unhitching Beta. And bang, as you kind of climb down from the wagon, uh a couple of people who presumably are here to work on the bridge, they're they kind of you know wave, wave uh at the two of you and start approaching. And one of these men will introduce himself as Weyland. I don't have a voice for Weyland. He'll he'll say, uh, um, sorry about this, but uh there's there's gonna be a delay in in your travels. You you're not in a hurry to get across the bridge, are you?
SPEAKER_00Uh well I I'm gonna look at Russul and be like, do you need the bridge to get home? Razul.
SPEAKER_03Razul with a Z.
SPEAKER_00Look. A little country boy.
SPEAKER_03Country people can pronounce their Z.
SPEAKER_00But I say Rosul. Um yeah, I'll look I'll look at him and uh I do you have to cross the bridge to get home? Or do you are you going back the other way? Well, now I don't know the map.
SPEAKER_03Does does he?
SPEAKER_00I think he can go either way.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Cause yeah, he would have the mountains are kind of they kind of run that mountain range kind of runs parallel to the desert. Yeah. So yeah, we'll say he was traveling through the Orso mountains. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Uh it's been a long journey for him. Man. He'll uh he'll say, well, uh no, I I can head back the way I came with Beta, but um this is where you wanted to go, right?
SPEAKER_00Well yeah, and uh I need to keep on going downriver. Um I kind of look around. Is there a way, like can I like I'm trying to think of how this area looks. I know it's kind of a gorge here where the river goes through kind of rough. Is there a way to like climb up yeah, no, I think I need the bridge. Hmm. Yeah, I guess I guess I I'm kind of stuck here.
SPEAKER_03Okay. No, I'm gonna I'm gonna pause for a second. Um maybe they have a sort of makeshift bridge. It's just not fit for carts.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's probably like a like a small footbridge that's they've strung some ropes across. Yeah, let's go with that. Cause yeah, because the the the villages on in town and everything is on the west side of the river, and we're on the east side now. So I feel like maybe that comes up and then they crossed over because the I know I'm sorry. Because the river, you know, like you have to build on a mountain where the mountain lets you build, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um so yeah, I think they crossed over and came to the eastern side to continue on. Yeah. So okay, yeah. So yeah, I think a footbridge.
SPEAKER_03Okay, that's sorry about that. I'll probably leave all that in. Oh no. This is us world building mid-game. Um yeah, we kind of had to figure out um how the workers got here, first of all. Because like I didn't even think about that. They came up to you and approached you and are talking to you, but they should have been on the other side of the bridge. So yeah. They kind of crossed the river. Yeah. Uh Wayland and all of the people that came with him are they have a way to cross the bridge. It's just not fit for carts. So they saw Razul and were like, oh, hey, I hope you're not meaning to cross anytime soon, because we have no way to get carts across. Okay, but but there is like a small little temporary footbridge. Okay. All right. Um, you can actually see now that you're here, you can see on the other side of the river, you can see where there are carts and horses um just kind of being taken care of over there. So there was like a big old construction site we have going on here on both sides of the bridge. Yeah, so uh Weyland once Razul says that he he can head back the way he came and was just like dropping bang off, Weylon uh looks a little more relieved. And he'll uh he'll he'll say that um, yeah, this this uh this bridge, it's it's not a vital trade route or anything, but we do have a need to get up into the mountains every once in a while for you know furs and game and and things like that. So we we actually came from uh the nearest town, which we don't have a name for. Boy, I prepared so much. If you would like to help us name things, become a patron. Um we'll oh my gosh, we'll have a name for it. This is hilarious because our our middle bit is about being prepared and knowing your settings. And I did not have a name for this little technical.
SPEAKER_00I feel like we did name it, and I just I didn't get the map out.
SPEAKER_03That's just uh we can retcon later. I'm so sorry, listeners. Um okay. Or if you have a name suggestion, we can. It's ne it's the one near Copper Bottom Lake. I do remember that. So yep.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm looking to see, I'm looking uh in my in our Discord channel to see if we actually did name it.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Um But Wayland will say, uh, yeah, as soon as we heard that the bridge uh collapsed, we gathered up a group of people willing and able to come fix the bridge. And Razul will actually like look at Bang and say, I think I might pay your kindness forward a little bit and see what I can do to help around here before I head back to my people. I might only stay a couple days. But I I I appreciate what you've done for me, Bang.
SPEAKER_00Oh um. Well that that's that's nice of you, Razul. I know um no, I'm I kind of feel like I should help a little bit, but I'm I don't really know much about construction.
SPEAKER_03You have your friend to go find.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I n I need to it's been a few days and I'm a yeah, I'm worried about her. I need to go on. Yeah, I mean if if I find her pretty quick and we start heading back, maybe maybe I'll see ya again. I hope so. And of course, you know, we're I'm gonna bring her out. We're gonna come out to the Dragon Hearth and Yes and see if we can find you.
SPEAKER_03You are definitely welcome anytime. Waylon is sort of nearby for this conversation. Uh there's there's activity all around, and he you can tell that he's kind of like the um the organizer of all of this. Um, but he overhears when Razul mentioned your lost friend, and he kind of approaches you and said, Do you you're looking for someone?
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, we were actually here when the when the bridge was damaged. Um I was happened? Uh yeah, it was uh actually it was bandits uh that were I was with a group of adventurers and we were, you know, off on a quest as adventurers do. And um when uh these bandits came after us and we were just about to get away from them, and uh I don't know if they did some some magic and damaged the bridge. And um my friend, my best friend, her her name's Fizz, and she's a little kobold like me. She kind of fell into the river and got swept away, and uh me and my group we looked for her, but uh couldn't find any trace of her and we moved on and then I just it just didn't sit right with me and uh I've come back to to find her.
SPEAKER_03She got swept away in the river. Hmm.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well I I've been traveling along this river ever since we heard it was broken. I didn't uh didn't hear of or see any little cobalds travel traveling, at least not on the village side. Uh the west side?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. West.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Oh man. Um I need the map. But now occasionally the farms get raided by river pirates, and there was word of a ship here recently. They don't they never come up as far as the bridge, but if she got swept downriver, uh they might have picked her up.
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean I w well I I don't I don't really like I know about pirates on the ocean, but are they river pirates don't sound much better than that.
SPEAKER_03No, they're just as ruthless. Some can be.
SPEAKER_00Well that I guess that just makes me want to hurry up and move faster and see if I can I don't know. Do they just stay on the river? Do they go down all I how far does the river go? I've never been to this part of the the world here.
SPEAKER_03Well the the river, um the the farmland they like to raid is uh surrounding the copper bottom lake and and the river continues beyond the lake and goes all the way to the ocean. I don't think your friend got swept that far.
SPEAKER_00So I No, um she's a pretty good swimmer, but um obviously not and he kind of gestures to the little rapids below, not not in that. That that's enough to Yeah, she's a good swimmer. I think she's um I'm just gonna say she's doing all right somewhere.
SPEAKER_03I'm I'm sure she is. Uh but if you are headed toward the the village, uh well, you're welcome to to stay at my place. Um it's uh it's actually probably the first farm you'll come across if you follow the river. Uh it's a little uh the house the house is painted blue, the barn's painted red. Okay. And uh my wife and I we we have uh an apple orchard there. So look for look for apples. And um well, tell her I sent you. Hopefully you find your friend before you get to the village. Hopefully you don't have to travel that far.
SPEAKER_00How how far?
SPEAKER_03Uh two it's about it's about two days.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I hope uh hope I find her before then. I mean I figure if she's if she got ashore, she's probably working her way back up this way. So maybe we'll just we'll run into her. Oh yeah. I'm sure I'll run into her because I'll be traveling by myself.
SPEAKER_03I'm I'm sure you'll run into her.
SPEAKER_00I I uh I appreciate the offer of that. If I if I get that far down, I'll I'll definitely stop in at least. And uh maybe you'll be back by then.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, just um just stay watchful for those river pirates.
SPEAKER_00I I will. I I for sure will. I I'm a little worried now. Thing's like, hmm, I need to go. I need to hurry up. Uh so yeah, I think I think he'll turn back to Razul and and kind of pat Bita on the nose and tell her to be good.
SPEAKER_03And uh she does a little donkey that little whimper that they give.
SPEAKER_00I don't know. Yeah, I think I'll just like like offer a little hand to Razul and and uh thank him and shake his hand and wish him well. And yeah, we'll come see as soon as we we'll get get get back together with Fiz. She'll she'll like to meet you and it'd be great.
SPEAKER_03You know, we've never been to the desert, so take care of that little root that you have there.
SPEAKER_00And I kind of like pat my pack where it where I've stowed it and wrapped like all my clothes around it. And like, I I will indeed. I I appreciate that very much. I appreciate all your help and and uh speeding me on my way. And then I'll start off across the bridge before I uh just you know do that long goodbye where you're talking for two hours.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Okay. Uh yeah, so you head across the bridge. Um, you know, the workers they're you know, polite greetings and stuff, but they I think you're probably not the first traveler to have needed to cross the bridge. Yeah, this you uh you start making your way down on the other side of the river now, and you have most of the day ahead of you. How's how's Bang doing now that he's going solo again?
SPEAKER_00Um I think I think he's okay. Like he saw some people. It's not like he's like, okay, there's people, okay, there's like it's not. kind of just out in the wilds alone anymore. Um and I think like he's like now the fact that Fizz might be in danger is kind of speeding him up a little bit, but he's also like, ah, she's fine. She's not gonna get picked up by river pirates. She's got more sense than that. And um yeah I think yeah I think he's just kind of like okay I just need to I need to move on. I need to get some you know put the road behind me and get moving and keep an eye out. Like also yeah he'll be like um any place where the road kind of where the river is visible and he may even I think maybe even like find some like if the river like if the road kind of angles away because I think I picture it kind of sticking with the mountain the build he might like kind of climb down a little bit and maybe try to find like a path closer to the river. Okay. Maybe a game trail or something like that.
SPEAKER_03Staying as close to the river as possible.
SPEAKER_00Yeah just looking for any sign of you know um like maybe something of Fizz's belongings or you know or footprints or something. And I know it's been a few days but just any little kind of sign that would kind of give him a clue.
SPEAKER_03I think um okay yeah and it it definitely makes sense that there are uh smaller game trails close to the river because animals that's where they get their water so you're you're able to find uh some of those um but still kind of keeping your eye like on the road I feel like you're like okay road river road river yeah yeah and like I I feel like this kind of winds the road winds down the mountains you know and in some places it might run right along the river and then in some others it might you know kind of move away from a little bit but it stays with the river for the most part.
SPEAKER_00So there may be times where he's back on the road or back on the you know off on little paths making his own little way around.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So yeah you spend your day kind of uh keeping an eye out sort of simultaneously wanting to actually take your time and observe your surroundings looking for tracks and stuff but also trying to cover as much distance as possible. So you might you might not be covering as much distance as you would like to but at the same time you're like you gotta look for signs of fizz. So like um you don't see any signs of fizz. I'm not gonna make you roll for it. Mostly because as Fizz I don't know where I ended up in the river.
SPEAKER_00You ended up on the other side. Yeah looks like you're on the wrong side of the river Shen is just running in out of the room.
SPEAKER_03I keep seeing a little darts yeah anyway uh evening is approaching are you gonna look for a place to camp or like how how late into the night would you like to travel?
SPEAKER_00I think I I'm gonna go um I'm gonna push a little bit a little bit into like maybe like late twilight.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00Right you know right before it gets really dark. Yeah um I can see dark vision but like I also know like that's when the predators come out and I am very small. Um so yeah and then I I think I would look for either um if there's like maybe some like some rock like rock area that I could find a little play a little place to kind of curl up make a cave or um near a big tree or even maybe in a tree.
SPEAKER_03Like I don't know how close to the river are you wanting to camp?
SPEAKER_00Hmm I don't want to be too close to the river because I want to be able to hear over the the sound of it.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Um so maybe uh a little ways away not like mile you know not like I don't know how far the river from the road is here but like um you know just maybe like a hundred yards or so where it's not like if it's a if there's rapids or something it's not like okay the only sound I hear. I want to be able to hear if I can hear that you know something approaching.
SPEAKER_03Roll a survival check.
SPEAKER_00Oh that's good. That is a dirty 20 okay that is pretty good.
SPEAKER_03So you you find a place and you actually uh as you're walking starting to kind of look for a place the the terrain around you kind of flattens out a little bit and so you you're on the road and you see a small outcropping like between the road and the river.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_03And on the other side of this outcropping there's just kind of a a gently sloping hill down to the river. Like it's not like a any kind of drop down to the river. It's just it like slopes down quite nicely here. And uh as you're looking around you kind of go investigate the the rock outcropping and you kind of like make a a circuit of it and on the side that's nearest to the river um there's like a a muddy patch, a weird like mucky looking patch. So you're like, okay, well maybe don't don't camp there. Yeah but like we camp in the mud. Yeah you you kind of find sort of um like on the not the opposite side of the rock but yeah like you go around it a little bit and there's like a a nice little place for a little cobalt to nestle in um between like a couple crags of this this cluster of boulders I'll I'll say yeah so yeah you can um you can set up camp there if you would like yeah and last time you had a sort of tripwire system with a little bell I think I might I think I might try to set that up again. Maybe I'll put are there a lot of trees in this area still or we still have trees are we can kind of more there's trees uh like surrounding the road but right now you're kind of in like a a meadowy area and um there might be like trees dotting this this sloped hill that goes down to the river um but not like a ton.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Um I will yeah I will set up my little my little tripwire around my like around the front of the rock so I'm the rock at my back.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And I'll try to find leaves and stuff to kind of mask it a little bit um but I realize like I may not be able to completely hide it the way I could in in the deeper forest. Yeah. So but yeah but I'm also like that's okay like if people if something's coming and sees me hopefully I'll also see it. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah it's it's kind of an open area right here. So you're you are tucked into this little cluster of boulders but you have a pretty good view outside around you. Okay. Um yeah and I'll I'll say that like it's it's easy enough to kind of wrap that tripwire around some like outlying rocks. Okay. And you sort of have it like it doesn't like completely surround you or cover your perimeter. Yeah. Um but it's it's good enough. You figure you know the most likely approach if a predator were to come at you, you've got it covered. Uh I don't remember if I had you roll like sleight of hand to see how well you did that you set that thing up last time. I don't know I think I did I think I just said I did it. But yeah that's fine. We'll say that this is a skill that Bang already possesses. Yeah I mean well he used to camp and stuff yeah at home so go ahead and during the night roll me a perception check at disadvantage because you are sleeping um okay that is a 13 um and a 17.
SPEAKER_00So 18 would be my total with the disadvantage.
SPEAKER_03All right you you're sort of in that half asleep, half awake state and you hear a weird like squelching noise you're not quite sure what it is but since in your initial survival role you did see that puddle of mud and muck earlier you know that it's coming from that direction. Okay. So it's just like this squelching sound.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna like open my eyes and kind of peek around and um I think I'm gonna like I think I'm curled up with my blanket and my little my head might have been resting on my pack and I'm gonna like make sure my little my little lotus bud is okay. Yeah and kind of push that a little bit deeper in this little under the rocks so it's safe. I don't think I'm gonna go exploring because that's how you get killed. Don't go look for the sound. I think I feel safest with this rock at my back. So I'm going to I'll get my I think I'll get my little short bow out and I'll get some arrows and kind of set them next to me and have my dagger but I'm just gonna watch just in case. I don't know what's it might just be an animal walking in the mud. I don't know. Okay. I'm not gonna just shoot something for you know but yeah I'm just gonna wait. I'll just kinda now be awake and alert and kind of watching.
SPEAKER_03All right. So as you're just sitting with your back to the rock you kind of got your bow at the ready uh a couple minutes go by and you don't hear anything but then you hear this the same noise again and it's a little bit louder. You can't tell if it's closer. It's coming from the same direction. You can't tell if it's closer or if it's just a louder noise in that mud puddle and from where you are right now you can't actually see the puddle it's kind of around like around the other yeah.
SPEAKER_00But okay you hear it again and again I'm curiosity has gotten me the the squelching noise was happening in real time over here. Okay I think I'm gonna yeah I'm I'm get my bow and my arrows and I'm gonna like I want to like creep slowly around the rock like in that direction because like the rock kind of curves around yeah yeah okay I just want to move really quietly and slowly and see if I can get a viewpoint on that puddle.
SPEAKER_03Uh roll stealth oh man okay no I'm a I'm a rogue I have stealth it's okay oh wow no that's an eight oh um so as you kind of creep around you're you're doing your best to be as quiet as you can but you you didn't notice before but this sort of puddle of muck sort of wraps around just the very edge of the rock and you hear squelching coming from your boots and you're like well crap I'm I'm in the mud but it did make a sound and you kind of freeze when that happens and you look over towards the bigger puddle that you noticed earlier and you do see movement. There are figures coming up out of this mud puddle okay what do what what do these figures look like can I think can I make it out look like mud they look oh gosh growth yeah just show me I'm showing a picture but um for the listeners who can't see what I'm currently showing HIDs they are humanoid figures they appear to just be slime monsters but like made of muck and mud and like like there there are two of them and they kind of have like twigs sticking out of them and just like clumps of grass. Uh they they move very zombie-esque but they did hear you when you squelched in the mud and they are heading your way okay uh right now they are probably about uh 30 feet away from you and shoot dang we're we're gonna go ahead and roll initiative I think shoot dang shoot dang oh I'm gonna start stimming with that word now I know just say it over and over and over what'd you get 23. Okay you're going first quick question was I supposed to level up no no okay okay I couldn't remember oh man these things definitely look wicked right they yeah they're they're moving in like this weird unnatural way and I don't know if Bang has come across undead before but they definitely have that sort of vibe like I guess it kind of depends on what adventures they've gone on with their tall people.
SPEAKER_00Yeah I don't know for sure we haven't like fully fleshed that out um but I think there would have been stories.
SPEAKER_03Yeah like he he would know of undead.
SPEAKER_00Yeah um and I think that like just the fact that these things have risen up out of this mud puddle and heard you and are currently coming toward you I yeah I I don't know I don't want to assume anything for Bang but yeah no I think yeah I think he's definitely heard stories um and that's kind of I mean that's kind of why he became an adventurer he heard the stories and he wanted to explore and see the world and yeah okay if he can tell that they are not a good thing definitely not okay. So you are going first. I am going first. Okay.
SPEAKER_03They're both about 30 feet away from you just say like one or two. So you when you left the cave you didn't bring any of your other belongings with you right?
SPEAKER_00No I left my pack and stuff back there so I just have my weapons on me. All right um okay I'm going to all I can really do I was like oh inquisitive rogue nope not yet um I'm not inquisitive yet I'm just a rogue um okay I am going to is one of them maybe closer to me we'll say number one is number one okay I will I'm going to fire a bow I mean I guess I could just run away but I also need to finish sleeping so I'm gonna I'm gonna shoot a bow. Okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Um okay there we are that is a 24 to hit what's my to hit on this um seven piercing okay it is non-magical that doesn't seem to matter it it definitely like it kind of like you hit it square in the shoulder and it kind of staggers back you can tell that it took the damage even though it's made of mud. Okay. It's not like bleeding or anything but like it did stagger back.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Um that's it I only have one one attack per action.
SPEAKER_03Okay so it is the one that you just hit it is that one's turn and it can get to you. Now that should have moved I know dumb okay sorry. Do you want a retcon? No no no no we're good we're good. Okay that's fine. So he's gonna come at you and he's actually uh got these these long arms and he's gonna swing at you with this just muck covered arm and that's gonna be 14 to hit 14 is my arm in class. So yes meets it beats it that's gonna be three points of bludgeoning damage. Three okay and this thing it it's like in it's hitting you in a way that you can tell that it is trying to knock you over. So I'm gonna need you to make a deck save too. Okay deck save oh no I rolled a one oh no six I rolled a six all right so you are knocked prone because of that but that's that's it that's all this thing can do. Unfortunately it is the other one's turn now. Yeah so it is also going to swing at you while you're prone which means it gets advantage and that's an 18 on the die so that's gonna hit um so take another three points of bludgeoning damage. But it's now your turn. So these things are kind of like they're not like hovering over you. Yeah they put their space to stand up because they have these big old long arms but it they are like right up on you. And yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_03I am going to I'm not gonna give you disadvantage if you want to use your bow on these guys.
SPEAKER_00Um that's okay um I'm gonna stand up which uses half of my movement and then I am going to bonus action first and disengage. Okay. I think yeah I'm gonna move just away from the rock like it kind of more towards the open field a little bit. I've got another 15 feet.
SPEAKER_03Okay as you as you try to move you look down and you notice that there is just muck kind of all over the place. So it is going to be difficult terrain.
SPEAKER_00Okay so I will move seven and a half feet away and um Grove and then I I'm gonna shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot with him I'm gonna shoot him with my dagger again. No my short Jeez Louise your bow I'm gonna shoot him with my bow again oh crap so I have the weapon mastery which I forgot. Oh yeah what is the what is um it's Vex so I did I have advantage on my next attack against that creature before the end of my next turn. Okay and that would also give you sneak attack yes it would nice so I'm gonna shoot that first one number one again um so advantage uh I can't I suddenly have forgotten how to do math that's a 14 to hit that'll hit yay okay what is my sneak attack two DC I think it's oh it's just one DC one yeah okay not so be it all I fit your little rogue um okay so okay so that's four plus three so seven points of piercing damage.
SPEAKER_03That was all you needed to knock this one out. Oh yay so when this when this muck creature number one falls down um it just kind of like splatters into muck and like some of it gets on your boots on you like it's it's just kind of everywhere but it's not like sentient it's not moving around anymore. Okay. You could tell you killed it. Okay. Okay. Uh all right so it is is that all for you? That is it I I moved my little few feet and uh it is still difficult terrain because now that that one is kind of all over you. Uh the other one is going to come up to you and swing at you with a 16 to hit. Oh gosh yeah that hits um make a deck save because this one's also trying to knock you over oh that's way better that's a 19 on the die so 24. Okay so you manage to stay upright but take five points of bludgeoning damage. Okay. Where where are your hit points I don't even I'm not I'm just you are still alive.
SPEAKER_00Oh wait I don't I don't have that yet no that's later levels uh when I can have that but yeah no I'm I'm still alive it's your turn um be fine I'm sure um okay I'm going to bonus action disengage again okay and move I just like I just don't yeah he's 15 oh I can do this I just learned okay is that a bonus Oh, that's a bonus action. Um you know what? I'm gonna do this instead. Okay, so I have as a kobold, I have a draconic cry.
SPEAKER_02Oh.
SPEAKER_00So it says you let out a cry at enemies within ten feet of me until the start of my next turn. Me and my allies have advantage on attacks rolls against the enemies that can hear you. Could so this cause this guy hear? Can he hear?
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00Oh well yeah, they they heard you. Oh yeah, they heard me squelching. Okay, so I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna like do this little dragon cute little cobalt dragon shriek. Like, okay. And uh and then I'm just gonna like grab my dagger and just slash at him with it, like stabby stabby. Okay. Um, with advantage now, which also gives me my sneak attack. Yeah. But my dagger's only a D4, so that's okay. Um, that is with advantage is a 17 to hit with my dagger. Yep. Um okay, oh cool. That is 10 points of dagger stabbing, piercing.
SPEAKER_02Dagger stabbing.
SPEAKER_00And I have mastery of that, which is That's Nick. That's the Nick property, I believe. Daggers. Okay, when you make the extra attack of the light property.
SPEAKER_03So I can make oh, you can make another little, I can make another. You can like make your offend attack without using my bow snatch, which is good because I just used that.
SPEAKER_00So okay, so I don't have advantage on this, but let me do that. Um that's just a 12 to hit. That does hit. Okay, so and that's just one D4 without your no modifier. Okay. Oh, yay, I rolled a four. Nice. So four more piercing.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Still up. Uh, and it's gonna take another swing at you. Okay. And it's a 14 hit. 14 hit? Yeah, yeah. Okay, make a deck save.
SPEAKER_003020.
SPEAKER_03Okay. You did not collapse. Okay, good. You are gonna take six more points of damage. Oh, Jesus Lord.
SPEAKER_00Oh, she dang. Um, okay. Okay. Oh man. I am going to, you know what, I'm just gonna scream again.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna scream again, and I am going to stab him again. Because now I'm like, ah, you're hurting me really badly, but I have to finish you. Um yeah, that's what I'm gonna do. Okay. Um, okay, that's an 18 on the die, so that's a 23 to hit. Yeah. My d4, my d6. Oh, that was bad. Um uh nine points total. Okay. And then I'll do my little extra stab. Okay. Um 21 to hit four. Oh, I rolled another four. I really like this D4. So four more stabbing with that.
SPEAKER_03That was all you needed. When this one goes down, it also kind of explodes into this nasty pile of muck. And I'm gonna need you to make another deck save to see if you can avoid slipping in it. Because you are now just covered in the stuff.
SPEAKER_00Okay, um, it's an 18. Yeah, 18.
SPEAKER_03So when this happens, you do like you kind of stagger back, but you manage to keep your feet. And when this happens, your your vision kind of blurs a little bit, like as you're kind of staggering, you got muck in your eyes, and you suddenly feel yourself. Uh, it's this weird, weird sensation of vertigo. You can feel your feet on the ground, you know you're not moving anywhere, you know you nailed that dex check, you're not gonna slip in the mud, but you suddenly feel like the world is just tilting and spinning around you. And you reach up to wipe the muck from your eyes. And as you kind of make that movement with your arms, you feel like you're swimming. It's such it's a weird sensation. Like you feel like your arms are moving through water, and then you get your hands up to your eyes, and like everything's kind of in slow motion. You're wiping the mud out of your face. And I'm gonna need you to make a con save.
SPEAKER_01Oh no.
SPEAKER_00Okay. This is gonna Oh, I hope these dice roll well because I am not built for con, and that's a seven.
SPEAKER_03A seven. Okay. So you wipe the muck away from your eyes, but like it's still just kind of blackness, and you're not sure what's going on. You you're still feeling this sense of vertigo, and it's getting worse and worse. And then suddenly you feel like you're being kind of pulled underground, even though you do still feel your feet on the ground, but it feels like like something is pulling you down. There's this weight.
SPEAKER_00And it's all that quicksand I learned about in school.
SPEAKER_03And then, but they never tell you how to get out of quicksand. Like it's just you just you go flat. Anyway.
SPEAKER_00Anyway. I gotta spread my arms out a little bit.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So you do that and it actually just makes the vertical worse. You're like, oh no, okay, okay. Um, but you this this sensation, you're not actually sure how long it lasts. That that con save wasn't great. And you're super disoriented, you're super dizzy, but you do suddenly feel this kind of rush of cool around you. And it does still sort of feel like you're underwater, but it's not, you don't feel that weight and that pressure that you felt a moment before. And I think that's where we're gonna break for the middle bit. Oh my gosh. I know. This is cool. Yep. Yep. Yep, bang's fine. Okay, good, because bang has one hit point right now. Okay, I figured you were getting pretty low, but bang is fine. Okay, all right. No, this is cool. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I'm so excited. Yeah. Okay, let's do the middle bit so we can get back to this. Okay. All right.
SPEAKER_03All right. Feeling good. I had a snack. We had some tea. Let's let's get into the middle bit. The middle bit time. Middle bit time. Uh, what are we what are we talking about? Oh, wait, no, no, no. Before we do, we gotta do the where to find us. Hang on. Um We're professionals. Yeah, so I mean, if you're listening to this, presumably you already know where to find us. But if you would like to support the podcast even more, that would be amazing. You can join our Patreon at patreon.com slash Jess and Hids, J-E-S-S-A-N-D, H I D S. We also have an active Discord server, which is pretty cool. We have a lot of fun in it. There are public channels as well as patron-only channels, and patrons get to help us build our world, like naming villages and NBC's wives. Important things. Yeah. Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_00We also have a rotating schedule of TTRPGs that we play with our patrons.
SPEAKER_03It's a little light in the summer, but we're hoping that when we get more patrons signing up for games, uh we can we can pick up the game skin.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. We I think everybody right now is in a campaign, yeah, which kind of takes the game playing time for the week because you know, adults have lives and jobs and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they can't sign up for every single game that we offer.
SPEAKER_00But we have DD games um and other D6-based TTRPGs, like we've played Inc. Badge Quest, Nancy Druid, we've played our own designed game called Food Truck Fortress that we created. So we have a lot of different options, and we we have a lot of actually source books that we want to kind of dive into in the future as well.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I really want to do like Monster of the Week things. But anyway, that's that's gonna be in the future when I have the brain space to actually learn a whole new gaming system. So Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But so you can follow us, you can follow our Patreon for free, but we would love it if you would support us. And you can find all of our social media stuff. Uh, look just look for Jessin Hids and check us out at jessinhids.com.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And be sure to check out our other podcast too, Jess and Hids Make a Podcast. We uh just talk about random things that we think are interesting.
SPEAKER_00Yep. And if you find something interesting and email us, we'll talk about that too.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. That's a lot of fun. Okay. Now what are we gonna talk about today?
SPEAKER_00We're gonna talk about uh game prep. Game prep. As the GM or you know, yeah, as the person running the game.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00What do you do to get ready for the game? Name your villages. And apparently you just write down a word village question mark and run with it. Yeah. Which, if that works for you, by all means roll with it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we're not we're not telling you what not to do. We're just like giving you the tips that work for us and we find make gameplay go a lot smoother. So like we're not like bashing on people who don't do a whole lot of prep and just wing it.
SPEAKER_00And we're not bashing on people who have everything written down and know every, you know, turn that your players could possibly take and have it all prepped out because you, you know, you hyper-fixated and know everything so well, and your attention to detail is scrupulous. Yeah. Um, but this stuff this is the stuff that just works for us and that we have found when we've played games, you know, we've talked to other GMs and what works for them. So we're kind of just pulling it in. Um and I don't want to take like forever on this, um, so I'm trying to stay focused because I want to know what's going on with the bang.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I kind of ended it at uh.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm like, wait, wait, what just happened? Um, and I have one hit point as bang right now, so yeah, it's great. Um so we have a quick few bullet points that if you know these few things, I feel like you can be ready for weird stuff that your players do that may take them off script.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's all about like thinking on the fly and like winging it if you if you have to. If your players throw you for a loop, you'll still know how to switch uh direction super quick without having to do a whole lot of scrambling, or as players say, Oh, I broke the game. No, you didn't. You just didn't do what the DM had originally planned. But like a good DM that is well prepared, players would never know that that wasn't what they had planned the whole time. So like, yeah, it's it always cracks me up when when I hear that, oh, we broke the game, we broke the DM.
SPEAKER_00No, like am I a weeping pile? No.
SPEAKER_03No, you did not break me.
SPEAKER_00You didn't break me. Uh but anyway, one of the first things if this is um either if you're doing out of a module or if you're if you've created a homebrew game, the biggest thing is to know your setting. Know the world that you're playing in, and know like your cities and your locations and and the magic system and kind of what the players can expect. And and keep in mind that they're from this world, so as they go through, but they don't know your story. Um, and especially if it's a homebrew, they may not know your world. So as they go through, you can say stuff like, so being from here, you would know that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that helps them to get to know your world without tons of exposition. Um, and it also lets them kind of feel like they're not just waiting for you to spoon feed everything, you know? Yeah. Um, but speaking of tons of exposition, in if you're running a module, there are pre-written notes, descriptions and information.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um do your best to try to make these notes your own. If you are reading from a module and you see your player's eyes glaze over while you're reading, or if you find out later that they have to ask for clarification on things that you just read from the module, it's a good hint that they do not process information when it's being read to them. And I am like that. If a DM reads from a module, I I tend, I it's so much harder for me to actually process the information you are giving me. You have to actually like look up, you know, animate your face in order for me to pay attention. I don't know like what the trick is, but it I usually retain it more if you put it in your own words instead of just reading from a book. Because my brain just goes, Oh, teachers reading from the textbook now, I don't have to pay attention.
SPEAKER_00Same. And I I don't know if that's an ADHD thing. It's definitely a neurodivergent thing, I think, because I know people who are like, oh, I understood every word of that four blocks of text you just read. And I'm like, I didn't understand it, and I read it, you know?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And like there are ways to make descriptions engaging for your characters. And I'm kind of jumping the notes a little bit. I think like knowing your PCs, your player characters is really important, especially with descriptions, because there are things that we'll use phys and bang as examples. There are definitely things if you walk into a new setting and to a new place, bang is gonna notice things that fizz would not, phys would notice things that bang would not. Just no checks required, no anything. That's just where our eyes naturally go, where the PC's eyes would naturally go. So, like your barbarian's gonna notice different things than maybe your cleric would, or like it it all depends on getting to know your player characters. And that would massive, massively help descriptions when you're coming into a new place. You can even pull your players in by saying, you know, oh, this character you would recognize, da-da-da-da-da. And this one you see over here, da-da-da-da-da. And like, oh, you're drawn to the the books in the corner, and you're drawn to like, and so instead of just reading this block of text that describes the room, pull your players into it by describing what their specific character would see first. And it's gonna be something different for all of them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and a way to do that, like when you're preparing for your game before you even get to the game, and you're reading through this module or you're making your homebrew notes. Um, if you have your book like and you don't mind writing in the margins, just write like, oh, um Bang would notice that you know there's some deep shadows over there that where somebody might could hide, or Fizz immediately sees that there's a a cat or a selection of plants in the window that draw her eye in. And you could just write that in, and then while you're describing the room, you know, you walk in and you could see like, oh, there's Fizz notices like there's a row of plants in the window, and bang, you kind of just scan the room, and you know, you're like, okay, there's three doors and four windows, you know, just kind of things that the player's class would notice. Yeah. And that is gonna make them like, oh, I heard my name, focus.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, oh okay, I do see that. Okay, yeah. And then there's also things that all of your players would notice. Like if you walk into a room and there's a dead body in the middle of the floor, all of your players would notice that. Lead with that. That's gonna be the first thing that everybody sees. Don't bury the lead there. Yeah, yeah. Like you're not like gonna describe this opulent room and huge stained glass windows, and oh, by the way, there's a body on the floor.
SPEAKER_00Like, unless you're going for that sort of suspense or whatever, like but the biggest thing you notice about this room is the fact that laying in the middle of the floor with a dagger in its back is a body. Like that does work.
SPEAKER_03It works, and you have to move it before your players start asking questions and things. Yeah. And you can easily like shut that down by like, oh well, but the biggest, you know, you can you can guide the conversation. Like, don't let your players be like, Well, I'm gonna go over here, I'm gonna go over here, I'm gonna go over here. That's your job to rein that in and say, Well, hold up. You all notice this big thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, but then they can go to the different corners of the room if they want to, but they choose not to investigate the big thing. But I really like that plan.
SPEAKER_03Um yeah. I will say though, as a little disclaimer about knowing your PCs, if you do not know your PCs, player characters, well enough to know what their eyes would be drawn to, that isn't necessarily your fault. Some some players don't even know their characters well enough to give you that information.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, especially early in a campaign.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It is a good opportunity to learn though, when you describe a scene, pay attention to what your characters want to do when they go into a room. If you do have a character that, you know, you don't know anything about, but you're you always find that they go investigate the bookshelf first, they must be into books or you know, uh know the value of learning or investigating bookcases or like whatever. Like, so that's something that you can take and file for later.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03That character is going to be drawn to the bookshelves and you know, things like that. So it's like if you don't know these things right from the beginning, just pay attention to what your characters actually do when you introduce a new uh environment.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and early in a game, especially if you're playing with newer players or or less experienced players, they're not gonna know what to do and they're gonna lean on you more. And that's fine. You may have to nudge a few things, you may have to say, like, well, you know, as a rogue, you might notice this, and and that's gonna help them kind of develop their characters too, because like you know, you do build your character and you have an idea, but I really think like you do get to know more and more about your character as they go through the game. So just making little notes, like either if you hand like to handwrite, have a little notebook that's you know setting next to your work and just be like, you know, uh fizz like purple plants, you know, or something like that. Just make a little, just quick little notes that kind of you can build kind of a profile of your of your character. Yeah. Um, so that when, you know, later on in the game you can kind of pull them in. And that makes even a module feel more personable, like it's for this team.
SPEAKER_03And I would I would even say that knowing little things like that about the player characters is more important than knowing what's on their character sheets. Because there are some DMs that have all of their players' character sheets, they know what their perceptions are, they know what their, you know, passive scores for all the things are, and they know that, but I think it's the little little glimpses of humanity, humanity, like personality, yeah. That you get for your player characters that will actually lure them to where you want to them to go. You know, if there is a dead body that fizz, I use dead bodies for an example a lot, and I don't know what is wrong with me, but like Fizz likes purple flowers, and you need Fizz to find a certain thing, you can put that thing near a bush with purple flowers because you know Fizz is going to be drawn to that bush. Yeah. So like little things like that is is better than like, say, if you were relying on Fizz's passive perception or a perception role to find the thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I think like roles are good and like important because obviously we're we buy dice and you you're you know, you have these skills, but there are some things like we talked about it in the first session, like don't roll for every single solitary check. Like there's a lot of things that you're just gonna notice when you walk in a room. You're gonna see the dead body on the floor unless you are, you know, unless it's covered by something really not paying attention.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So like you don't have to roll for every little thing, but like knowing where your characters are um and what they would be interested in can help you just flesh out a a block of text to make it your own words. And you could even like um with your notebook, oh, where it says this, you know, let me just change those words. Words around and just kind of make it your own. And I think, like, when I do that with modules, it makes me enjoy the game more. Yeah. You know, instead of just being the voice, you know.
SPEAKER_03Same. Like I could read a description from a module, but then like I find myself not processing it either as the DM. So I'm like, okay, I have to read this several times to actually picture it in my head. And now that it's there, I can then convey that information to my players.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And keep in mind, you know, if you have players in the group who don't visualize very well, you might have to just like do your description, and then if you see some blank faces out there, kind of scale it back and say, so okay, so you've got the big overview of the room, bringing it down. There's a desk, there's a table, there's a door, three windows, four plants, and a body. You know, just to kind of bring it in.
SPEAKER_03There's a desk, there's a body.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And, you know, some loose papers scattered around the floor. Like whatever.
SPEAKER_00It's like break the scene down and the scene and then, you know, bring out the details, the highlights that you they would immediately notice too. So yeah, it's just it's just really knowing your setting and knowing how to deliver that, bringing that in to your own words. Yeah. Um, and along with knowing your setting is our next point.
SPEAKER_03Um know your NPCs. Is that where we're at?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So like um a lot of the information delivery from DM to player happens through NPCs. And that's why it's super important to know your NPCs and know what they know. Um, it also really helps to flesh them out if you know um what motivates your NPC. Um an example further down in the notes is like if something happened in a busy market, like in a in a crowd somewhere that you would like to question people on some of the more details of that you that your party missed or something. There's you could talk to a busy vendor, or you can talk to somebody who's just kind of sitting quietly and seems to be observing like people watching. So, like the busy vendor, you as the DM would know that that that vendor probably didn't see as much because they're busy. They've been helping customers, they've been making sure they're nobody's stealing from their open cart or whatever. Um, and obviously the the crowd member who seems to be just pupil watching might have noticed details that this busy vendor didn't. So, like it it is up to your players to decide which one they want to talk to. But if they choose the vendor, that's gonna be less information. The vendor's gonna say, sorry, I I I didn't see much, I don't know what to tell you. They they're not gonna be unless your vendor has this whole backstory where they're hella observant and they can watch five different things at once, yeah. Then yeah. And like again, that is up to your players, but you have to know the limits of the NPCs. They're not just gonna info dump everything.
SPEAKER_00And like comparing it to video games, you can always tell in a video game the player the NPC that has the quest. And so you're just like, run over there, get the quest, da-da-da-da-da. It's different in DD where you kind of are like building the world and there's a little more engagement and conversational stuff more than just I would like you to find this thing, you know, or whatever. Um, so but knowing you mentioned motivation, and that's um like one of the key things that like you don't have to know your NPC's entire backstory in your game prep. You could just say, like, yeah, you know, you go in here and I want them to talk to this person. What what will this person tell them based on what they ask? And if this is a guy who uh it's the town gossip, he might spill a lot of information, but he may also like you know, tap the tap the counter for some coin, you know, like hey, you know, well he can know some stuff, or is he motivated by just pure gossip? Is he motivated by he knows he can make some money by sharing thing what he knows, you know? So is he motivated by money? Is he motivated just by talking?
SPEAKER_03Does he genuinely want to help by answering all your questions? Or like does he does he even trust you enough to answer your questions? Are you just these new people that barged into town and are pretending to be able to solve all their problems? Why should they trust you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um yeah, it it that that's up to you as the DM to decide how trusting these MPCs are, how uh forthcoming they'll be with information, what they actually know, and you know how the MP or the PCs, how your players can get that information from them.
SPEAKER_00And you may have built this character who's willing to talk, and then your and your players come in and just like are very aggressive or you know, or like rude or whatever, and just start demanding, and that your NPC may just clam up and be like, why should you know, why should I help you?
SPEAKER_03I'm not gonna tell you anymore.
SPEAKER_00Like, oh yeah, I don't know anything, you know, and and they they might miss valuable information.
SPEAKER_03Um, but yeah, like it's just kind of a fun thing of fleshing out and kind of knowing and yeah, and uh it's a way to make your the your players' actions have consequences as they should. So like if your players are gonna go around bullying people into telling them information, sooner or later they're not gonna be able to get anything because people are gonna clam up. Like yeah, just the way you would in real life if somebody just started getting in your face about something and be like, I don't have to tell you anything. This isn't information that I'm like trying to keep a secret, but now I don't even want to talk to you.
SPEAKER_02So yeah.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, just knowing knowing motivation of of your things and tying into knowing your MPC um NPC names. Like if you go to a name generator for elves, you're gonna get uh I pulled one up, Filverel Silrona. And it sounds great, but um don't want to say that name again. Yeah, it's gonna be hard for players to remember. It's gonna be your note takers are gonna be like, I'm sorry, can you spell that name for me? Yeah, you know, so it's if you need a big fancy name for a personage for a reason, that's great. But it's totally okay to keep names simple.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because you have to remember them, you have to pronounce them, your players have to remember, your players have to pronounce them. I mean, so many times are in a game we end up like, what was that guy's name? What was it? Yeah, we're just calling him this. Because we, you know, like you can't remember the big name-generated thing. So um, unless there's a purpose to having something that's difficult to pronounce or say, just keep it simple. Yeah. Just yeah.
SPEAKER_03I remember you went through a phase where like none of the names you gave us had vowels at all. Like you were into like the the Scandinavian sounding names? Yeah, yeah. The one that's popping. No, the one the other one that's popping into my head is like skilder. Oh yes. S-K-Y-L-D-R. There was some other letters in there too, but like no vowels. And I just ended up calling them Skitter. Yeah. But like, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was I had a theme for some of that stuff, and it was just like, oh, I'm gonna find some like Norse or Scandinavian names, and it was like, wow, okay, never mind. This was a bad idea. Yeah. But yeah, Skitter and and I think uh oh, there were a couple more I can't remember.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But yeah. So yeah, so that don't do what I did. Just make give give easy names.
SPEAKER_02Mul near mew.
SPEAKER_00It's mew mew. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, just oh man. The skunk smell.
SPEAKER_03Oh, is it not the skunk smell? No, that's a toot smell. That's a cake toot.
SPEAKER_00Oh okay, okay. Let's get back to it. I well, it's with wafting, it's coming. So okay, sorry, back to okay, so back to game prep. So knowing your NPC is giving them names that you can deal with uh in the future, even though it sounds really cool now, you'll hate it in three sessions. Um the next thing I have for prep um is is basically like streamlining things. If if you're going to let the dice decide like on a situation, um it's it's totally fine if you're like um yeah, I mean, yeah, okay. You if you want to do it, but it's easier just to make all these decisions about like what's in the vendor cart, what's this person that, or whatever, just little little stuff, just make that ahead of time. Yeah, make a note about it instead of just like hang on, let me decide, let's have the let's have the dice roll and see on this table what's gonna happen. Get all that out of the way so that you can just keep rolling with the conversation with your players, let them kind of stay in in the little fantasy world you've created.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and like sometimes role tables are fun, but other times it can detract from the actual role play that is going on. So that's up to you to decide, like in the moment. Just like read the room. If your players are actively role-playing and it's a good conversation and everybody's having fun, don't pull away from it by being like, Well, there's this role table that I'm gonna do, da da da. And like that just kind of takes people out of the game. Unless your players are like really super into role tables, because they know people like that too. So that comes down to knowing your players perfectly, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like, and if they're in a in like a deep role play, um don't if they're like conversing with each other about something, don't step out and plan your next steps.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Pay attention to what they're saying because you're gonna learn so much about your characters while they're talking with each other, even if they're just kind of goofing back and forth with each other in character, you're gonna learn about them. Yeah. And you can be like, oh, they this character keeps mentioning, you know, this one thing that isn't really part of the game, but you can later kind of pull that in, you know, or they talk about this and that, and you could pull that in.
SPEAKER_03And and that's like that encourages role play so heavily because if you have a character that just really seems to love fart jokes, and later you have an NPC that needs to endear themselves to the group, you can start with a fart joke, and that character is gonna be like, I like that guy. That's so great. That was a good one.
SPEAKER_00I hadn't heard that one before. But yeah, just really like, and that's be because you've prepped ahead of time, you don't have to prep mid-game for the next thing. Um, you've got it already laid out and you can pay attention to what you're like if you're doing something while your players are role-playing, you should be making notes about what they're saying.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So that you're like, okay, learning about them and maybe like, I'm gonna, you know what, that might come in three sessions from now. That might come back.
SPEAKER_03You as the DM are not involved in this role play, and that's that's another thing. Like, if your characters are role-playing, don't interject as the DM. Unless I think we've talked about this before, but unless they say something like completely wrong and off the wall that like you know they should have the correct information, then you can be like, oh, quick correction. But even then, that can be after the role play has passed. Um, just to kind of avoid commute uh confusion um among the other players. But like if your players are role playing among themselves, you do not have a character in this. Yeah. Uh let it happen. Pay attention to what's going on, but don't get involved in the role play.
SPEAKER_00Unless you, of course, yeah, Mm. Unless they say, out of character, hey, can I clarify this or clarify that? Yeah. And if they're saying stuff that is just their hunch, let them run with their hunch. Like don't you don't have to correct their hunch.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And it it's, I mean, it's up to you if later you want to be like, well, that was what you assumed is going on, but that has not been confirmed. Like you, you are more than welcome to do that just for the sake of the other players because if they don't know what's going on either, they might think that you know, this hunch is the real thing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And but sometimes it could be fun to just let them follow that hunch. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And be like, okay. Yeah. Well, cool. Sure.
SPEAKER_00So yeah. Um, okay. I'm going, we're gonna start. I know we're we tend to ramble. Um the other thing with prepping when you are gonna have an initiative role and you are gonna have combat, it's really fun to kind of throw a lot of stuff at your players, and especially as they get to higher levels. You wanna make it a little more difficult. But if you throw a big bandit crowd of 25 people at your five players, that's 30 turns. Um, break break those guys up into groups, and you know, you have four groups or five groups that you're running on one initiative roll. Um, they can all take a turn, but simplify those things. Don't have five wizards casting spells. One wizard, five guys with swords, that sort of thing. Yeah. Um, you know, just kind of streamlining it so that you, the GM, are not taking 50% or 60% of the turns on the board. Um, you know, this is your players. Let them, you know, get their turns and stuff. Because I do notice like when you okay, roll initiative, people immediately start going, okay, what am I gonna do for my turn? And if then if you have like 10 10 NPCs who are going, yeah, the other person is gonna start like I'm gonna look at my phone. Well, this is I don't have to pay attention to this. Um so do kind of like do batch initiative. That's always a good thing. Um, you can roll your enemy initiative pre-game and just have it written down and then have your players roll and fill those in. Um, and if you're using something like roll 20, you can all have that all set up ahead of time. Yeah. Um and it just helps move the game a little faster and keeps them engaged. Um and describe the action. You know, you if it's if you get really bogged down in too much description, you kind of lose it too. But also like uh 15 that hits, uh you get stabbed, carry on. 15 that hits, you get stabbed, carry on. Like, you know, get a little bit of description in there, get a little flavor and um you don't have to get super gory.
SPEAKER_03Let your players add flavor. Like, how does this look? Like the first time they try something new that they've never done before, like say after a level up, you can ask, like, so nobody has seen this before. How does this look? What is your character doing right now? And are the other characters going to absolutely lose their minds over it? Like, you know, yeah, I love that. And I know wizard casts fireball for the first time, and everybody's like, holy crap, 20 20 foot radius of fire just happened. That was so cool, dude. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I like one thing we like to do in our games is allow your characters to have to flavor their spells and stuff. Like the spell works the same, but like what does this look like for your player? Yeah, and you know, you may get like a spiritual weapon that is um instead of it just being a glowing radiant sword, it's uh one character in one of our games has a crab, you know. Yeah, like it's a crab, it's a glowing radiant crab that comes out and and snaps, and because it fits their character's personality.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, there was another one in my game that was a rolling pin, I think.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you had a rolling pin. Um I feel like oh, one was a biscuit. We had a biscuit. Yeah. So yeah, it's just like letting that kind of come in, and then that helps your players go, you know, like, oh yeah, my I'm gonna call my biscuit, you know. I'm gonna they are a little more into the game. And you know, it gives you it makes it exciting for the GM too to see what they're gonna come with, you know, for their description too. But I think like in battles, it's fun to have a big battle, but batch initiative kind of keeps it moving along quicker. Yeah. Um, and you can just kind of roll through it. And I think that's just like a big part of prep is being ready and knowing like what you're gonna do, what for your enemies.
SPEAKER_03What your enemies can do. Like make sure you read the the stat block and all of their abilities, and yeah, it's it's super important. So like you're not taking forever on your turn. Yeah. Um, which is a lot, especially for new DMs. Yeah. But um it can be over. You can even you can simplify it as much as possible. You can be like, okay, they they have these, you know, they have three possible attacks that they could make. I'm just gonna stick with one. And that's totally fine. Yeah. Your players are never gonna know the difference.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And if you have a a group of five, let's say you have five guys, you know, you have five initiatives with five different guys in each group, one of those guys can be kind of the tougher one, and the other little guys are like his little minions right there. Yeah. You know, so they all just are gonna spear, and he's got the big two hits with the big great axe or a club or something. Like he's the bigger guy, and they're kind of just around him, you know, like as part of the army or whatever. So you can have some shake it up and make different things and make it interesting that way, but just keeping the action moving, yeah, because you've got this stuff happening.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Let you let the initiative linger on your players, not on you. Yeah. That sort of thing. Yeah. Um I think that's kind of the most of what we have here is just like knowing your setting, know your NPCs, know your players, and set up as much stuff for combat ahead of time so you're not trying to figure it out on the fly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And yeah, names, easy names. Yeah. Easy to remember names. It's great.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00Um, but yeah, have fun with it. And like if you have questions for us, feel free to drop us an email and be like, well, what do you, you know, give me some tips. I'll we'll give you more tips. We're we love helping people with our give us scenarios and we'll be like, well, here's what we would do. Yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah, I think just really making notes and paying attention to uh you can run a good game and feel like you know everything and make your players in awe of you. And you know, you're just like, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's fun to do that. But for now, I think um let's get back and see what's gonna happen with Bang. Yeah, let's get back to Bang.
SPEAKER_02What's going on?
SPEAKER_00Bang in his one whole hit point right now.
SPEAKER_02Dizzy now.
SPEAKER_00He's all dizzy and confused and uh beat up. Yeah. Oh, poor thing. Back to it.
SPEAKER_02Okay, bye.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Okay. Hopefully, you guys all liked that uh advice about being prepared. Something that I could uh do more of.
SPEAKER_00I mean, yeah. I just mean, wow, that sounded really mean. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_03I was just gonna say, like, yeah, but like you just got a computer yesterday, so Oh yeah, that also um tech issues have been great for the past week and a half or so. Oh my goodness, yeah. Okay, what bang? Okay, so bang, you are no idea what's going on. You're still dizzy. Your uh your senses are sort of starting to come back to you, your equilibrium is sort of started to come back to you with this this rush of coolness that you felt, um, temperature-wise, not like cool. Can I breathe? Like am I able okay yeah, you can, which is weird because you your vision clears and you you look around and you are in a pool of water. It's shallow, you you're kind of like standing in it. Um, and on bang it would be about waist high. Okay. And splash, splash. Yeah, it's it's nice cool water. You can see the the muck that was on you is kind of like you know spreading out from you, being washed away uh by being in this water. And that's that's useful. You look down at your feet and it's kind of like not like smooth polished stone, but it's it's stone, like a stone basin type at at the the bottom of this water. Uh another thing that you see is you are now underground.
SPEAKER_00So no sky above me.
SPEAKER_03No sky above you. You appear to be in an underground cave system or possibly a grotto of some kind. This pool that you're standing in has a slightly bluish glow to it. And when you look around, you see other pools kind of like on different levels all up the cave walls, similar to the one you're standing in. And there's like some of them are connected by little waterfalls, all of this faintly glowy blue water. Uh, the walls are like you see patches of luminescent moss glowing in like shades of pinks and purples and greens, and it's nothing like you've ever seen before. You're not sure what happened. You were like one second you were covered in this muck, and then you started getting really dizzy and felt this weight and this pressure, and then like at one point you could have been totally flipped upside down, you wouldn't have even known it. And now you're you're standing in this pool of clear water.
SPEAKER_00Okay, I still do I still have my like I had my dagger in one hand and my so I still have my stuff. Yeah, like you were able to to to uh keep holding on to your weapons. If I look around, do I see my pack anywhere? I had left it where I had slept, but it's like if I pour I don't know what happened, like do I see anything of mine? You do see your pack.
SPEAKER_03Oh, okay. It's sort of over like on the on the edge of the basin that you're standing.
SPEAKER_00Okay, I want to go towards that. Okay. Um no problem. Okay, I'm gonna move, I'm gonna move like try to like I'm not gonna go splash, splash, splash. I'm gonna just kind of try to move as quietly as I can through the water and slowly. So and I want to watch and make sure like I don't see anything moving watching me, I guess. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03Like um make a perception check. Okay. 11. 16. Okay. Uh you can hear like the the faint trickles of these various little waterfalls that are flowing from one pool to the other. Um, there's other drops of water that you can hear coming from just like you're in a cave full of water. So nothing that doesn't seem like it would be out of place. Okay. Okay, yeah. You can get to the edge of the pool and get to your stuff. It's not a very big pool, it's full. It's not a very big pool, it's maybe like ten feet wide.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Yeah, I'm gonna okay, I'll go get my stuff and um check on my little or my little lotus. It it's okay.
unknownOkay, good.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, your your pack is there, your bedroll is there, but it it hasn't been like rolled up or anything. It looks like somebody just kind of like scooped it up and dumped it.
SPEAKER_00Hmm. I'm gonna like roll it up, tuck it in my pack and kind of look around like is there hmm. Okay, so these there's these pools on the wall, and then the water's Oh, oops, sorry. The water's kind of coming down. Is there like a way I can huh? Yeah, I just kind of want to like look around and do I see any way to get out? I don't know. Like, I'm just trying to figure out where I'm I think I'm just really confused. Yeah. And um, I want to kind of see if I can see a way to like I'm underground, so I want to see a way up, I guess, or or out.
SPEAKER_03Like uh make a perception check again as you're kind of exploring the space a little bit.
SPEAKER_00No, that was a one on the die, so six, man.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Um you like you look up and it's kind of dark up there, but you're you're pretty sure maybe not an opening. It is nighttime, so you can't really tell.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03And you look around and there are like places in this cave that you can't see. Like it's not very well lit. There is the luminescent moss, bioluminescent uh moss around, but it's not lighting it enough. So, like, you know, a a crevice in over there might it might just be a crevice or it might be a passage. Like there's there's no way of knowing just by looking around. You would actually have to uh start walking toward a thing. Okay. Um in a direction or whatever.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, okay. I think I'll take a minute, kind of get all my stuff together, and um pick I'm going to start walking to the right. To the right. Yeah. I mean, like from wherever my pack was. Yeah, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna go, yeah, just pick a random direction.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Okay. Uh you walk toward the right, and as you do, you're passing by another one of these pools, and um you you hear a voice coming from it. Um I stop walking. I need a voice. And this voice is like, oh, you're awake. Um hi.
SPEAKER_00Are you okay? Well, I mean I look like I'm like all bruised up and uh I I felt better. Who are you where am I? Who am I talking to?
SPEAKER_03Uh you look over to this pool that you were passing and you see these wide green eyes looking up at you from the pool, and then like from the pool, a figure stands up, and it is uh, or she is uh I don't know if you've ever seen anything like her before. I'm gonna send you a picture and describe what you see. She she's got long flowing like forest green hair and these big green eyes, and her skin is like a shade of green too. She's like very she's got green going on. Um, and she's emerging from this slightly glowing pool, and she'll say, um, sorry, I I saw you were in trouble, and I I thought I could help. Um I meant to just pull you away from the thing. I didn't mean to actually pull you down here. Um but sometimes that happens in in thin places.
SPEAKER_00Thin okay. Was that the m uh thank you, I guess would be the first thing. Um thank you for saving me. I appreciate that. But where where's here? Um I I um uh I'm paying by the way.
SPEAKER_03Oh hi. Sorry. I'm I'm Melita. Um I'm I'm a water nymph. I I ca I kinda live here and and I sort of I'm sort of tasked with protecting uh the river. Uh just this section of the river, really.
SPEAKER_00I've I've heard about water nests, but I've never met one. It's it's nice to meet you, Melita. Oh. Thank and thank you again. I I'm gonna sit down.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you you don't look so good. I don't know any healing.
SPEAKER_00Um actually, I might have something for that. I believe I have a potion. Um yeah. I was down to one hit point. Oh man. Um inventory. I do have, yeah, I haven't used it. I'm going to take a potion. It says I have two. Did somebody give me one? I think we both started with two potions. With two, okay. Okay. I'm gonna I'm going to use one. Yeah. And it is a basic, so that is two D4 plus two. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03All right. So, bang, you're you're digging through your pack for this potion, and Melita, she'll she'll come, she'll come out of the pool and just kind of sit on the edge of it. And um, she does like you can like look at her and like she's got this weird watery quality to her. Her hair, like I said, it was a forish green color, but it also looks kind of like it's rippling like water, like even if she's like out of the water. Really cool. Yeah. And um her skin is just smooth and green and and it's probably nothing like you've ever seen before. And she'll say, um, well, um, have you ever crossed through a thin place before?
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna have to say no. I don't really know what a thin place is. Oh hmm.
SPEAKER_03Well, don't freak out, but you're kind of in the Faye realm right now. I didn't I didn't do it on purpose, so but sometimes it happens.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_03I'm kinda clumsy.
SPEAKER_02But I got your stuff.
SPEAKER_00I do appreciate you getting my stuff. Um I would have been really sad to to have lost that. Um the Fey realm.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, thin thin places are sort of places where you can cross between your world and mine. And sometimes people stumble through them on accident. Sometimes people get accidentally pulled through by water nymphs that really didn't mean to.
SPEAKER_00Well, um all right. You know what?
SPEAKER_03You're you're the second cobalt I've helped recently. You've seen another another cobalt? Yeah. She was kind of like your size, but had like pretty pretty magenta scales.
SPEAKER_00Oh, well, I'm I think I'm looking for her. That's that's what I'm uh her name's Fizz. My uh she's my best friend.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's a cute name.
SPEAKER_00Do you where where is she? Is she here? And I'm like looking around like like I'm gonna expect to see Fizz anywhere. Like, um Melita kind of is like um no.
SPEAKER_03I um she's okay, right? I I saw her floating in the river, and I I pulled her out, and then I saw like this the staff, I wasn't sure what if it was hers, but it was broken, and so I I pulled that out too, and I I kind of put it next to her, and like I said, I don't know any healing or anything, so I was she looked kind of in bad shape. I got her to the side of the river, didn't pull her here on accident because I know that can be a little jarring, so I wanted to keep her in her world. So I went to go get like some food or something for her for when she wakes up. But then what I got back, I s I saw some pirates. I saw a pirate ship. And they hunt people like me.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's rude.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. But I think oh, I think they might have gotten your friend.
SPEAKER_00I need I need to get back and see if I can find her. Poor little bang is just like what a roller coaster. I I I appreciate you helping her and and actually like knowing that that she got out of the river is a is a is a good thing. I've been really worried. We we've been separated a good few days and um thank you for that. That that's that's a little bit of a weight off me, just knowing she's she's okay. Well, or she was okay. I I appreciate you helping helping her for that.
SPEAKER_03Well, I'm sorry I didn't um save her from the pirates. Uh I feel bad about that.
SPEAKER_00That's not your fault. I mean, you went to get help and they just got there before you got back. I mean, and you can't I mean, yeah, don't you couldn't put yourself in danger. That's all right. That's I hope she's okay. Um she's she's pretty resourceful, I I think.
SPEAKER_03But I can tell you, I don't know if this is helpful. It might not even be a good thing, but I do know that the pirates haven't been back here.
SPEAKER_00I don't I don't know if that's good or bad. Yeah, I don't know if that's anything, really, but um Um Well you and you said this is the Fey realm.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00And it is there a way to get can I go back through that thin place? Yeah. Okay. You should probably rest though.
SPEAKER_03It's it's safe here. Do you want to rest here? I could take you back wherever, but um those mud muddy, mucky creatures were kind of gross. Yeah, they weren't really great. I know there aren't any of those here.
SPEAKER_00Um Yeah, uh as much as I worry about about Fizz, I do need to I've been traveling pretty hard and today and or yesterday. I fell s you know, I did get some rest, but I do think I need to I don't think it's been nighttime for very long.
SPEAKER_03I don't know, time is weird here.
SPEAKER_00Okay, well, if I can get a few hours of sleep and and you say it's safe here, I'll I'll do that and then I'll I'll get back to To looking for Fizz if you can take me back up there and I can get on my way and maybe if I can just get down the river and see if anybody else has seen those pirates, maybe I can can learn a little bit about where she might be. I hope so. Yeah. Um I think like he's like there's part of him who just like wants to go, go, go, but he's just been beat into one hit point of his life. Um uh so he is like, I think like now that he's like sitting down and kind of not in that adrenaline rush again, everything's starting to hurt and feel like yeah, he's not feeling so great. Yeah. Um see, I think, I think, yeah. He'll take a little just give me a few hours and and then if you'll wake me up and then take me back so I can look for my friend.
SPEAKER_03Okay. And I can do that. I kind of feel like it's the very, very least that I can do for causing so much trouble.
SPEAKER_00Well, no, I mean, I I greatly appreciate you saving me, and I really appreciate you pulling fizz out of the river. Might not have gone well for her. Just yeah, no, don't feel bad. I mean, stuff like that happens. Mistakes happen, it's okay. I well, I mean, I I've never been pulled into a different realm before, so I don't know how often that happens, but you know, I mean, I guess we all I I appreciate that you helped me, and and that's all that that we need to worry about. I mean, I appreciate that. Don't don't you worry about feeling bad about it.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Um, do you have food? I can get food.
SPEAKER_00I I think I've got some stuff in my bag. Uh that's good. Okay.
SPEAKER_03The water is safe. It only glows like that because it's reacting to the mineral minerals in the rock.
SPEAKER_00Oh, it's really pretty. This is a really pretty place, I will say that.
SPEAKER_02I like it.
SPEAKER_00This is this is where you live here. That's I mean, I might miss the sun a bit, but this is a nice place.
SPEAKER_03Well, I can go up to to your world and oh, is that where you see the sun? Yeah. Well, that's pretty well I mean. The sun hmm. If pharaoh, it's different. Sometimes there's sun, sometimes there's not. Sometimes there's like three moons. Sometimes there's not. It's weird. It's weird here.
SPEAKER_00Okay. You know, if I weren't looking for my friend, I'd want to just stick around and and uh explore. But it's quite pretty. I mean, it this is beautiful. I've never seen anything like this.
unknownOh my god.
SPEAKER_03The cats are going crazy right now. Yeah, I I can I can send you back. Whenever you're ready, I'll send you back to through through a thin spot.
SPEAKER_00Okay. I I'd appreciate that. And uh I again I appreciate you pulling me out of there and and uh keeping me safe and uh giving me a place to rest.
SPEAKER_03You're welcome. She looks really happy with like the the thanks, the praise. Um uh no insight check required. You kind of get the feeling that she's like maybe considered by other water nymphs as to like a bit of a screw up. Like she she does things wrong, she's kind of clumsy. Um but yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's cute. She's the picture you sent me is really cute. I want to draw her.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So go ahead and take a long rest and level up. Yay! Yay, level three.
SPEAKER_00Level three. And this is where I actually do become an inquisitive rogue and get a little more hit points. Sweet.
SPEAKER_03So inquisitive is for sure where you're going.
SPEAKER_00I haven't, I mean, I will say, like, if if you'll allow it, uh if I find a homebrew, oh yeah, I might look around for different a different homebrew that might fit. But like he's not gonna go assassin, he's not gonna become a thief. Like, that doesn't fit the character, um, which is why I was going inquisitive. I think he's more like curious about the world around him and that sort of thing. So that makes sense. Um yeah, I think as far as that goes, I might look for some homebrew type stuff and see if there's a fun little subclass. And I haven't like there's a bunch of new stuff that has come out. So I want to check into that too.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like Fiz got some got her uh subclass from the Obojima source book. So I know we have access to a lot, a lot of source books. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think I'll I'll dig around and see if I could find anything because there's not and yeah, like just looking really quick at this stuff, like there's the arcane trickster, which doesn't feel bang, um, and soul knife, which doesn't feel bang. Um there's something called the scout I might look at, but uh haven't scout, scout. At a gush. Um skilled in stealth, surviving okay, let me read what this says. Sorry. You're skilled in stealth and surviving far from the streets of a city, allowing you to scout ahead of your companions. Rogues who embrace this archetype are at home in the wilderness, and many scouts serve as the ears and eyes and ears of war bands. Okay, ambush or spy bounty hunter are a few of the rules they assume. I mean that that's a maybe. Yeah. But I don't I'm gonna I'm gonna look through some home breaks. I love I love homebrew and I love like non-core stuff. So um yeah, I'm gonna dig around because you definitely don't have to decide right away.
SPEAKER_03I I don't have any more combat plans. Okay, cool. Cool, cool, cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um yeah, I'll just I did give myself I I have now have 23 hit points. Yay! I might not I might not die. So that's cool. Um okay. So yeah, I took a long rest and I'll figure that other out.
SPEAKER_03Sweet. So you wake up, um, Melita will kind of like nudge you awake.
SPEAKER_00And I feel like I wake up and I'm like, oh, oh, yeah, oh, it's me.
SPEAKER_03Hi. Hi.
SPEAKER_00Uh just forgot where I was for a minute.
SPEAKER_03Sorry. That's all right. Phae Rome.
SPEAKER_00Phae Realm.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Melita.
SPEAKER_03Melita. Yeah. You got it. Yeah. Um you said to wake you up after a few hours. How how do you feel? I feel a lot, I feel a lot better.
SPEAKER_00Pretty sure it's been a few hours. I I feel like I've slept for quite some time. So I I feel well rested. I appreciate that. Cool. I'm gonna pack up my little stuff again. Um, real quick, like did I my rope and bell are still back at camp, right?
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah, they would probably still be back there.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_03Um so Melita, she'll uh she'll kind of like wade into one of those pools and like hold out her hand to you and be like, come on, come on.
SPEAKER_00Okay, I'll take your hand. Okay.
SPEAKER_03So you might get dizzy. You might feel like you're being flipped upside down. I I think. I mean, it doesn't feel like that for me, but other other people from your world have said that that's what it feels like.
SPEAKER_00It felt really weird when uh came through before.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so are you ready? Yeah. All right, and she just like flops backward into the pool and pulls you with there. And like you don't you don't feel that going underwater sensation, but you do like you are still able to breathe. You do feel the the dizziness, all of the stuff. So go ahead and make con save, but do it at advantage because you do still you feel um Melita's hand.
SPEAKER_00Okay, at advantage, okay. Yeah. That is a 14.
SPEAKER_03Okay. That is better than your last roll.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, twice as better as my last roll.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, you you do still feel all those things. You're not as disoriented. You the the grip that you have on on Melita's hand is kind of keeping you grounded a little bit. And you uh after what could only be a few seconds but might feel like a little bit longer, I don't know, everything is distorted, including the passage of time. Uh, you feel uh ground under your feet. It's a little bit mushy ground, but it's not like the nasty mucky stuff. Okay. Um so you you open your eyes and it's daylight. Oh, it's bright. Um I I don't huh. So Melita's kind of looking around, and now you are too, now that your your vision kind of clears and you you don't feel as dizzy. And you see trees, but they're not forest trees. It's an orchard. And you are standing on the edge of this river, and Melita is kind of like standing like in the river a little bit, like a couple steps behind you, still holding on to your hands, but um and she's like, Oh, this isn't the same place, is it?
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_03Oh no, this is the village.
SPEAKER_00Um Well, no, wait. That's alright. Is it? They m yeah, no, that's alright. This actually works. It might actually be better. Because I can ask around and see if they've seen the pirates at all.
SPEAKER_03And do you think your friend's here?
SPEAKER_00I mean, if she got away from the pirates, she might be. And if if she didn't and she's still with them, maybe these people can tell me where I could find them. Oh good. Maybe. I don't know, but this is this is good. This is good.
SPEAKER_03That's good. Um it's not many times I screw up and it's actually f for the best.
SPEAKER_00That's happened twice now. That's uh that's good. Well, three times because you help fizz too.
SPEAKER_03Well I I pulled it out of the water.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um that that was good. See, we don't breathe real well underwater, so Oh right, yeah. People that people don't we don't, yeah. So that was good.
SPEAKER_03That must be so weird. It is a little bit more. Anyway, um okay, well, I I would hmm, I would offer to go with you and help find your friend, but I can't actually like I mean I can leave the water for a little bit at a time, but not like a long time.
SPEAKER_00Well, no, that's I appreciate you bringing me here and uh helping me. Uh but yeah, I wouldn't ask you to leave your your river. And uh, you know, there might be people who I mean you said the pirates hunt you and Yeah, I have to protect the river. Yeah, you do. It's a it's a really pretty river.
SPEAKER_03Thank you.
SPEAKER_00See yeah I I appreciate your help, Melita. And uh you know, I'm sure I'm gonna be traveling along this river again. I might see you again.
SPEAKER_03You know what? If you need me, you could just put your hand in the river or any part in the river and just like say my name. That's all you have to do, and then I'll hear you. That's how that works. That I'm like so connected to this river.
SPEAKER_00That is really, really cool. I am gonna uh you know, I'm I'm gonna do that next time I'm by this river and maybe I just want to maybe just want to talk to you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That'll be fun.
SPEAKER_03Alright. And like tell me if you see if you've if you find your friend.
SPEAKER_00I will, because if I find her, I'm gonna I'm gonna introduce her to you. Okay. Got stuck on my words there.
SPEAKER_03I'm like, I feel myself slipping into Fizz's voice with Melita. She is very like it's a very bright, bubbly voice.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I can picture it. Uh if I find when I I'm not gonna say it. When I find Fizz, I'm gonna I'm gonna When I find her manifest it. I am I like that. Manifest it. When I find Fizz, manifestation.
SPEAKER_03Write it down. Sorry, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Uh no, you're fine. Interrupting again. Oh my gosh. I I like it. It's fine. Uh when I find Fizz, I'm gonna definitely bring her to the river and and and she'll just be so excited to meet you.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Yeah, I'm excited to meet her.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Malia.
SPEAKER_03She had really pretty scales.
SPEAKER_00She does have really pretty scales. Yeah. You have really pretty hair.
SPEAKER_03Thank you. And she kind of like takes it and like messes with the over her shoulder. That is where I'm gonna end the episode. Excellent. Sweet. Melita will say goodbye and kind of like, yep, just like fall back into the water. Oh, I love Melita. Bye. And uh yeah, you are now uh looking at this orchard. And oh, I will say, like, you look at it even more and you see a blue house and a red barn. I was gonna ask, like, is there a red barn nearby? It is Wayland's house, and I will have a name for his wife. I almost asked you. You got a retcon that Bang did ask you for uh and like he would have said, like, oh, my wife's name is this, and like my kids are this, and yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00All right, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that was fun. Be prepared, DMs. Don't make the mistake that I did.
SPEAKER_00About preparation and um do as we say, not as we do. Yeah. All the cats have our zoomies. I have one in my lap. Oh my goodness. And she's like doing her little thing where she attacks my hand, but not with actual claws.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I do want to say the term thin place comes from Celtic mythology, and it is places where you can cross over to the pha room.
SPEAKER_00I love that. Yeah. I want like little fairy circles or yeah. Let's plant some fairy circles. Okay. Can can we plant them?
SPEAKER_03I think you just you have to be fairies to make them, I think. But if we find a fairy circle, you better believe I'm gonna just walk right away. Wait for me and let's go. This is exactly where I want to be. I'm gonna sit down and be like, okay, fairies, let's go. Come on.
SPEAKER_00Let's take, let's go.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Let's go.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Episode four.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Wrapped. This is this has been episode four. And thank you so much for listening. And uh, if you want to know where to find us, go back and listen to our middle bit again because that's where we tell you all of that information. But we will see you next month with fizz. I think we are just gonna do that. Yeah, I think we can do that.
SPEAKER_00I've like the kind of the flip-flop.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So we'll see what fizz and twig have been up to.
SPEAKER_00It also helps if we flip-flop. If I it helps me keep like the days. The timeline. The timeline from getting too too far apart, too distant.
SPEAKER_03I don't know how much time has passed. Oh no. Okay. I don't know either. I just like it. Yeah, fairy moment weird. Time is weird, so it could be could be a couple days. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But that would be wild. Yeah, we'll see. I'll figure it out. All right.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah. I love little bang. He's fun. It's fun. And it was fun coming up with this little adventure for him. Yeah. Well done. I enjoyed it. Oh, thank you.
SPEAKER_00Fun.
unknownOh.
SPEAKER_00You get to go plan Fizz's next adventure.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um oh, never mind. She explained that. I was gonna say, like, oh, by the way, like the Disney dizziness and all that, like, nothing to do with the muck monsters. They were dead. But like, yeah, it was Melita just like saw you were in trouble and you killed it, but she was already sort of in the process of pulling you.
SPEAKER_00That's so funny because like for half a second, Fizz was like, I killed. Or bang. He was like, dang it, I had already killed him. I was safe. I killed the one and never happened.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's like, yeah, no, he's he's fine. I think like just getting that experience is gonna be fun. And um, yeah, and I did I was listening to um the first episode with the bang, and I was like, he does sketch, so if he gets a moment, he might sketch that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Which means I'm totally gonna sketch that.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00That'd be cool. Yeah. He hasn't sketched much. Maybe he did a little bit. I think he drew the the lotus in the pond, like uh while he was in the wagon with with Razul. Yeah. Um, so he probably has that, but I think like that's part of his like journal thing. Like he'll write something down and then do some artwork with it. So yeah.
SPEAKER_03That's cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so when he gets a minute, he might he'll draw, he might sketch Melita, he might sketch the rock pools. Have some fun with that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And I think I never actually I didn't do a great job describing her, but she's like not much taller than Bang.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_03Like she is humanoid, but I think she's like maybe, maybe three feet tall. Maybe she's got a foot on her. A bit foot on it.
SPEAKER_00I didn't picture her very large, I picture her kind of very slight and like watery, like which sounds weird to say out loud, but I I have the image of her in my like what she kind of looks like. The the hair that kind of flows.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and it just like always looks like it's rippling water. Um yeah. Cat.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, that was fun. Yeah. And we'll be back August. No, July. Wait, what is this? This is July 1st. We'll be back August 1st with our next episode. Yeah. Um, so thank you guys. Thank you everyone for listening, for uh downloading our episodes. Spread the word about us. Tell your friends. Yeah. And um, yeah, we'll see you next time.
SPEAKER_03Also, like get in our Discord. I know we're we mentioned this in the middle bit, but get in our Discord and help us build this world. Let us let's name this village. Yeah, we need to name this village before next month. Yeah. Um, and Wayland's wife and kids. Yeah. I'm gonna say two kids to go crazy. Okay. All right. All right, bye.