Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Introducing: The Glass Cannon Podcast Shadowdark E1 | Probably the Moon

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

Hi Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry fans! This week, we're bringing you a couple episodes from another TTRPG podcast team that we love, Glass Cannon! Here's the first installment of their current series: Probably the Moon | The Glass Cannon Podcast Shadowdark E1 | Shadowdark RPG The war has ended, but for four battle-worn souls, their fight for survival has just begun. Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/fqN_K95yFng For more podcasts and livestreams, visit glasscannonnetwork.com Get BONUS CONTENT every week at jointhenaish.com, including After Dark, the exclusive Glass Cannon Podcast companion where we discuss and break down the latest episode, plus ad-free episodes, exclusive podcasts, and more. Foundry VTT is the official virtual tabletop of The Glass Cannon Podcast. See why gamers everywhere have made the switch at https://foundryvtt.com/gcp Norse Foundry is the official dice sponsor of The Glass Cannon Podcast. Meet your random number generating needs at https://norsefoundry.com Executive Producer and Gamemaster: Troy Lavallee Cast: Sydney Amanuel, Matthew Capodicasa, Skid Maher and Joe O'Brien Cinematographer: Matt Brodie Producer and Editor: Francis Mrema Audio Engineer and Graphics: CJ Paschall Production Coordinator: Michael Mooridian Art Direction: Josh Fisher Intro Song: "In the Shadowdark" by Jason Charles Miller Performed by: Jason Charles Miller with Sydney Amanuel Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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If you like what you hear, here's what we would like for you to do. I want you to like and subscribe at YouTube.com slash the glass cannon. I want you to download and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The other podcatchers don't matter. Just those two. So rude to the others. The only reviews that matter are Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Follow us, the Glass Cannon Network, on Instagram.

And if you want access to tons of exclusive content and all of our public shows without ads, subscribe today at join the nash.com. It's episode one day. It's time to tell you. Take this baby and push it out of our birth canals. Take them to first grade. It's been gestating for a while. So fast.

Yeah, that's how it works in this biz. Cats in the cradle and the sail of a spoon. That's a first that you made a Harry Chapin reference. I didn't say that I liked him. He can make a reference and regret it. I can make a reference and still ate something. How are you ready? Are you ready to do this?

I'm fucking ready, man. Very excited. I got to say, because we just had our retreat recently. Yes. And during that, I ran the village of Homlet, the one of the, I think the first, like, original AD&D adventure. I have it with me. Brought it with me.

Got a prop. And just, God, it was fun. It was just so fun. And it just got me even more excited to do this, like something, adhere it to that spirit. I'm just, I'm ready for it. You're geeked. You're ready. Yeah. I feel like it's going to feel like walking down memory lane.

Yeah. You know, you guys, Matthew and Siddy, you didn't play in the 80s. You weren't born yet, but we did. I was born. Matthew, just say thank you. Just say thank you. Let me see that license. Yeah, I feel like it's going to reignite memories that I forgot that I even had.

You all, the three, Sydney, Matthew, and Joe, you all ran Shadow Dark at our Nashville retreat as well. Yeah. It was a spectacular experience. I've heard the war stories now from several people. I was shocked, honestly, at how much fun and easy it was to run and play. Yeah. Because you get a little bit stressed when it's like, oh, well, there aren't too many guidelines. It is super open and creative.

For somebody like me, that's, I'm like, ugh, that's a little stressful. I like to have my lines to color in. I like to see exactly like what I can and can't do. And it flowed so easily. It was just amazing. And it got me really pumped. Did you run it for over a year? For a no

I ran it for two hours I wonder if it'll be as easy I'll let you know campaign level plays is going to be a little different How did your sash go? Great. Yeah.

We all committed I think to the random The random generation mechanics With the tables from the book So I rolled my map I rolled my dice to make the map Yeah And then if we encountered somebody I rolled for it It was like completely committed to the randomness

And it was super fun The emerging storytelling was really cool And it wasn't It wasn't only fun. Like, it was fun because it was great. Yeah. It was really like... It was fun because it was great.

Okay. Like, it was shocking. It was shocking what a good adventure it became. Yeah. With, like, no prep and no pre-written, you know, sort of handcrafted by a master of module writing. Like, you didn't need it to have a spectacularly memorable session. It was, I was shocked at how well it ran. I feel at my best in improv.

and that's what I love about TTRPGs and role play. But I was nervous for the same reason because everything was rolled randomly and I was like, what if it's something that I just don't know anything about? And the thing we rolled was like a large map. And I was like, fuck. And then we rolled a citadel.

And I was like, fuck. I already love this. I know nothing about it. But I was like freaking out because I'm like, I got to make a whole citadel on the spot. But it all came together. We rolled the name of what it was. and it was like ruins of a citadel named the Citadel of the Holy Flame.

And there was like... Oh, I just got chills. Yeah. The group, my group was fantastic. I love you guys. They came up with this idea because they were first level. And they were like, how about the A team already went in? And they, like the Citadel is destroyed.

The battle is fought. And we're like the cleanup crew who are supposed to just get this... Great idea. They're supposed to get like a hostage, like one guy. So they're like, we're just supposed to get this one guy. That's our whole mission is to get one guy. And it just, everything float. It came together.

My nerves went away and like the improv was so fun. No character deaths. Almost one. Yeah, I didn't get anybody either. Almost one. Wow. One went down and was unconscious. Two.

Nice. It was nice. I took two people down and they both rolled natural 20s to not only stabilize, but regained color. That's incredible. They had to roll a really high healing check and they rolled it. But yeah, it was touch and go. It was awesome.

But I had the same experience where the players were making the story, like, as they went along. And like, we say that a lot. But this was like, they really were because it was randomly rolled. And then they were thrown in these details. And I was like, who knew? Players could add so much to a game. Can you guys do that? Yeah.

Well, that's why I'm nervous today because I'm like, man, I got a lot of work to do. Like in these OSR games, you got to bring a lot. Yeah. You don't reference your character sheet to figure out what you can do. That's the thing that struck me, too, is listening to. some kind of philosophy like OSR kind of philosophy is that it really is there's so much more weight and responsibility placed on the players. One of the things that, again, Sly Flourish mentioned was that it's a, the sort of GM advice

was like, don't answer any question that isn't asked. So like, don't volunteer anything, but it's up to us to kind of say, like, I look behind that pillar. Yeah. Like, oh, okay, well, there's a goblin back. Whatever it is. It's just like it's on us to kind of force, you know, to drive the story. That agency is there that sort of isn't in a lot of the other games that we've played.

Yeah. Yeah. Is there a mirror on the wall or anything in here? Sure. Right. Obviously, you have a good idea of what to do with the mirror. Yeah. I'm like, ah, nah.

This was not a vain owner of this room. Mirrors are incredibly expensive objects. That's true. Yeah, yeah. There is a mirror, but it's cracked. I want to give you a treasure. Agatha Christie's been in here. Well, you have a lot of work to do, so I'm going to give you 59 seconds to think about it,

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We're back. Ready to start a brand new campaign. Only the third campaign of this network, you know, for the flagship show, for a Glass Canada podcast, you know, and the first playing a different game, playing Shadowdark. I'm really excited. I'm, I have the, I was saying earlier, like, I have those, you know, first day of school nerves and jitters. but I'm mainly excited because I've been working in a pseudo vacuum ever since session zero.

You guys have been playing. I haven't been playing. I've just been like rolling on tables and recording what I roll. And then I look at it and I'm like, what is, what do I think is going on here? And what is this thing? And then how does this connect to that? Yeah, how does this connect? Oh, maybe I'll change that to this and move stuff around.

And it's just such an interesting, kind of fascinating and new way to work for me. because I'm used to just reading something and putting my own spin on it. But now it's just kind of emerging out of dice rolls. So I'm interested, the last thing that I'm missing is you guys, is characters in this adventure. We built them last time. And now you've loaded them into Foundry Virtual Tabletop.

I want to thank Foundry Virtual Tabletop, one of our two sponsors thus far for our Shadow Dark campaign. Wait till you see the cool things we're going to do. You might even see it today. I want to like throw it out there today. Very, very excited about that. And our second sponsor, of course,

back again for our Shattered Dark campaign, Norse Foundry. You're going to need them. Norse Foundary. Yes. Those Nat 20s. Best dice in the business. I just rolled the 16 and a 19 on this beautiful Troy die. And we just got some newbies from North Foundry.

Their storybook line. Yeah. And it fits the shut. It looks like the book. It looks like the rulebook. Yeah. It's super dark with like the silver dragon sort of just poking through. Mine is called the tomb of the forbidden.

And I'm like, oh, that's so shadow dark coated. Oh, yeah. I was sold a natural 20. Oh. Mine is heart, heart of the desolate city. Oh, that's good. Another good shadow name. Mine is, why is it itchy down there?

It's dark down there. It's strange direction for Norse founded to take. guy. Mine is called the veil of the forgotten mage. Ooh, that's fun. I mean,

these sound like randomly generated shadow dark adventures. They do, yeah. Where do you see the name? It's on the label. It's on the sticky label on the back.

It's super tiny for a old guy's forest. That's fun. Ooh. Dead risen. Yeah. Oh, that's fun. Anyway,

I'm psyched to bring a new, I love a new die and a new die set for a new campaign. Yeah. I'm going to start rolling with a new die and see how this one goes.

Well, it's like buying, school supply. I say first day of school. It really is that you want to have your notebooks. You're like, I'm going to take great notes for this campaign. This is the campaign I'm going to take great notes for it. That lasts for like a week. This will be the one.

But a target, get a new traffic keeper. Sharpen all your pencils. A bunch of peachy folders. Who's that? Who's tracking loot? I mean, we all kind of have to because like we have our slots. Like we have to be able to fill up our slots. Yeah.

Not a lot of it's going to be a lot of like got to drop this. Right. Yeah. Yeah. someone's strong. I hate that. It's my least favorite thing in video game. And I'm a hoarder.

Oh my God. She picks up every single thing. Because I'm like, 10 spoons. I'll sell these later in town. You read every Skyrim book? You read every Skyrim book? I skip sometimes because sometimes they're a little long. I'm like, pass.

But I do like to pick up every book. I read it. And then I keep it because I'm like, I'll sell that later. You never know when you're going to. I read all the books in Baldersgate one and two. I thought there would be like an achievement. Not three. I didn't read them in three, but I read all one and two like I read them all. Oh, it's just a lot of lore.

Yeah. All right. So you're all going to be tracking loot. Okay. And I will be asking, can I read this book? Could I read every time? Yeah. Be prepared to improvise a whole book every time we walk into a library or something. I want to be better at tracking NPC names because I oftentimes. I don't know if you know this. I tend to make them up on the spot. Really? Do you have the sheet ready?

Yeah. I have the sheet ready. I have an NPC names sheet. Oh, so you want to be. That's all it does. Thank you. Could you share it with the class? Yeah, it's in our drive. It's on our shared John. Oh, okay. Yeah, I'll send you the link.

Any other questions? You guys, have you made any changes to your character? Yes. Oh, yeah, some tweaks. Okay. I chose spells. Oh, you chose spells. Right, okay.

Some last minute tweaks. Okay. I might have moved ability scores around a little bit, but same class, same, you know, top ability scores are still the same. Okay, okay. Let's go over our house rules. Because it's been, for you guys, it's been one week. For us, it's been like five or six since Session Zero.

Sydney, very graciously, I have them written down. You wrote your notes down. Very good. All right, so tell us our house rules, Sid. Okay, so, house rules. We agreed that there is no maximum to the amount of bottle caps we can have, our luck tokens. That's straight out of the book. Straight out of the book.

Not even a house rule. But we do bottle caps. So you said our cap economy will keep it flowing. Keep it flowing. No max. You get a cap at the start of each episode. Last time I checked, this was an episode. Starts as episode one.

I think you should put the cap in front of you, but it's your cap. You can do whatever you want with it. Caps, this is what we use for luck tokens. We use bottle caps. This came from Joe and Skid and I's old game master, Chris Merwin, because we used to drink a thousand beers. So he'd be like, here, you can use this. You had a really good role playing scene. Take a bottle cap.

You can turn that in for a re-roll. And so it fits the luck token vibe. I got Aldo. Nice. I just started from Chris. It was his birthday a couple weeks ago. Oh, nice. Oh, nice.

Well, shout out to Merritt. So you can use a cap to do what? You can use a cap to re-roll a check after it's rolled. So you can just redo that check. You can use it to turn a hit into a crit. Nasty. And possibly my favorite and Troy's least favorite.

You can use it to give the GM disadvantage. Gross. You fought hard for this one. I was going to, I was thinking about it on the drive-in. I'm like, really? I still hate it, but you need all help you can get. And one more. Can we use it to give ourselves advantage?

Or is it just a re-roll? It's just a re-roll and you got to take the next roll. But also, if you hit on a roll, you can use it to get a crit, but you have to not roll your damage yet. We agreed on that as well. You also have to, Troy, if you use it against the GM, it's disadvantage. So you have to announce it before he rolls. Right.

So if he's like, I'm going to go ahead and attack. You know, it might be a little speed game there. Two 20s. Two natural 20s. We also did the House Rule for spell casting, which we talked about, which was a slight flourish one, and we all liked it. You have to pass your spell check before you lose that spell. So you can't, it's very. You get one successful casting before you lose it for the day.

So for example, if you go to cast, cure light wounds and you fail, we're going to say you don't lose the spell. mishap what happened is normal. You don't lose the spell. You also don't cast the spell. You just don't lose it for the whole day. You don't get it off. You're like trying to summon the magical energies and can't manage to. Try it again and fail.

You don't lose it. Try it again and succeed. Then any further failures you lose it for the day. We're going to try that one out for size. You use that in your... I used it in my AD&D game. I just think... I thought it was a massive improvement to the base sort of vansian rules of AD&D.

Like I would use it in every game like that. going for. Hey, I aim to please. If that's something you think is going to increase your joy at the table, who might have to stand in the way of your joy? The problem is, it's like, we have to sort of mitigate our mortality of our characters a little bit because, you know, spent money on this, the artwork and everything. So it's like, it'll die in the first session. It's a financial decision. It's a financial decision as much as anything. Okay. Okay. All right. So those are the house, any, any, anything else? We said starting with max hit points, but that was kind of like a decided on thing. Yeah, we like that.

And you only get your con bonus to your hit points at character creation. You know, we didn't decide that I'd love to decide now. I mean, we got some time here. But upon level up, we can roll for HP or we can roll twice and take the better like we used to do. Right. Well, actually, that's now what we used to do is I would roll. Yeah. And you would roll.

Yes, but it's two detour. So the GM rolls one, player rolls one, whoever rolled the higher, that's the hit point total for the level up. We just thought it was fun. And if you roll the same, you have to re-roll it. You can roll it. You can roll it. You got to rerall. I mean, that's, that's fun.

That's sure fun. We do that in legacy. It's fun. Yeah. We do do it in legacy still. Okay, yeah. Oh, the old days. Yeah, I think that's fun.

We'll see, you know, if we level up. Oh, this is one other thing I wanted to ask. Yes. Is, I don't know if we settled on this was if, God forbid, there's a character death. The new character, do they, what level do they come in? Oh. That is a good question. I think the game sort of intimates.

You come in at a first level. You come in at a first level. And I think that's how we did it. Pretty quickly. Yeah, that's the thing is if you come in and the other players are third, you're maybe two sessions away from catching up. But you'll also never totally catch up. I don't like.

Here's why I don't hate it as much as I thought I did. Until I, once I ran the game, I realized a little bit more. more, the lack of, of sort of CR, for lack of a better term, as a concept. Yeah, there's no such thing as encounter balance. There's no such thing as in counterbalance. There aren't, like, if you're a level one creature, you're not going to only fight level seven creatures because, you know, because the party's level seven.

Right. It's, you could fight a level seven creature at level one regardless. You could fight a level two creature at level five. It's like the witch. Regularly. Yeah. It's like, I can't go into this dungeon right now. Right.

Exactly. It depends on what you roll. So, like, I don't think it's that. crazy. Yeah, I don't know. It's up to you. Yeah, I feel like, we'll play it as it lies. Like, we're not there yet. I think it's worth playing a little bit and getting a feel for it. I think that you guys, in our practice sessions, you got to second level much quicker than we did in previous incarnations of this show with other games. Like, you get there quick. I think it's probably... It's 10 XP to second level. Yeah. So, you know, I just don't know. I don't know. I don't think we

have to decide right now. I don't think we have to. Yeah. Hopefully we don't have to decide ever. Yeah, and honestly, like, I'm interested in your opinion as well. If you want to get in on the conversation, subscribe. You can join our private Discord. It's a great place to discuss what you like and what you don't like. Comment on the YouTube video. Yeah.

Yeah. We'll be taking it all to heart. Anything else we can procrastinate. I'm hungry. Do you want to get some food? Yeah. I could eat. I could eat.

Quick break. Quick break. Go get some sambonies. I could go for like a, A 12 incher. Get a bomb. That's more than 12 inches. Go to South Chris and Charlies.

Get a bomb. Can we have this catered today? Yeah. Like, Dee, did you bring a charcutta replay? No. I didn't see a honeycomb in his bag. All right. Well, I guess we're going to start this.

Rip that band dude right off. Man, man. New campaign. I'm excited. I'm excited to do. I'm obviously super excited. But man, what is this strange? an interesting moment, not just for players, obviously, but for a GM, you know, the first

moments of a new campaign. Like, first, the opening. What's the opener? Now you're making, you're making it a lot worse. You're the mind that you're helping. No, I was trying to make it worse. You're trying to hurt me. Trying to challenge you. If it's any consolation, I just realized Joe is wearing a shadow dark shirt that espouses a GM philosophy, not a player philosophy. Attack the light. Attack the light. I am a shadow dark team. I just happen to be playing today. Oh. say shadow jerk shadow jerk jrash yeah have you been drinking

I was really nervous I started early I say the best time to drink is 7 a.m. It's out of your system by bed time. Is that what they say? It gives you time to sober up

for later in the day when your family really needs you. When your family needs you most when you come up dinner time. There was some Instagram account where this guy like eats like former presidents

and eats like former historical figures or eats like them It eats like them. I heard Eats former president. He goes to a graveyard, digs him up at Arlington. Ah, I'm going to not a chafferoy, boy. And there was one president I can't remember who like started the day, 6 a.m. with a bourbon. Oh.

And so he had to do that. He goes through his whole day eating the menu of these presidents. And I can't remember what it was. That's fun. But he was like, it was an interesting move because it was out of my system by noon. And I slept great. Who would start with a bourbon? I'm trying to think what president?

Many of them. Yeah. LBJ. I'm in Woodrow Wilson. That one's... My dad, he used to teach at this cooking studio, and he didn't teach this class, but they ran a class where they made the final meal in the first class dining room of the Titanic. It's preposterous. Like, if you look, you can find the menu online and it's just like, I mean, there's a lot of cream.

There's a lot of heavy cream. I was reading that menu, yeah. So they all had diarrhea and they died on a sinking chip. That sucks. Yeah, the menu looked kind of. Gross. The way to go down. It's like, you're like, oh, let me look at the first course.

And it's like, one dish in the first course would be enough, like, for more than one meal for me. It's like, and then it's like, all right, and then we'll bring out the filet. Well, hopefully your character's lives will fare better than those. We lost on the table. That's my segue. Segway. Segway. We open today on a ship.

ship in the North Atlantic Oh no Iceberg straight ahead It's cold out You can do anything in shit You randomly rolled the Titanic Is the setting for the first adventure There's a glacier

All right So We established some of the story Last time That we're jumping into The War Is Over No matter what side you fought on, what side you fought for, you lost.

And this isn't something said sanctimoniously, like the old adage, that there are no winners in war. The history books, if ever they talk of this dark time in history, will be unable to hide this chilling truth that both sides truly lost. In the midst of this great struggle, a third party. entered the battlefield and utterly decimated both sides. This party, this whatever, did not win per se. They were not crowned the victor. Whoever or whatever this power was

simply ended the war with apocalyptic force. And as the dust settles and the crows finish their feast, people will undoubtedly try to piece together what exactly happened. Each side may believe that there was a traitor in their midst. They may blame weapons and magic that got into the wrong hands. They may even blame the gods themselves because the destruction was so catastrophic,

it felt like a divine reset. Or maybe no one will ever know what happened because so few people survived. During the last military campaign that your characters were a part of, each of you were sent, not only far away from anything you've ever known or loved, if you had families, homes, set far away from that, but this war dropped you in the middle of wild uncharted land. And it is in that land that your world ended. A beam of light, an indescribable heat, the sound of,

of screams and bodies being torn apart is probably some of the last memories you have before the world went dark. But today, somehow, light has entered your world once more. You don't know where you are. You don't know how much time has passed as you try to move every inch of your body hurts. Let's roll for initiative here.

In Shadowdark, we may have mentioned this last week, you will find yourself in initiative a lot, even in role play moments or moments of pure exploration as well as, obviously, combat. It helps to not only keep things moving, but it gives everyone else a chance to shine at the table, though I don't worry about that at our table. Initiative is much simpler to keep track of as well as whoever rolls highest goes first, and then we go clockwise from there. So, who rolled highest? You want to add our Dex bonus of our character?

Yeah. I want you to roll initiative. I got a 13. I want you to do exactly what I just said to do. I didn't know if we were in character yet. I don't know if we were in character yet. We've only recorded 10,000 hours. But we're still getting nervous. I got a 13.

13. Lucky 13. I'm lower than that. I rolled a natural 19. Oh. We're an adjusted. 20. Okay.

I got a 7. 7. Oh, it's so. it only matters who rolled highest. Yeah, it only matters to the world highest. Right. All right. So then Matthew, we'll start with you.

Straight out of the init. All right. What do you, what do you see as your, these little eyes open up and light streams in? Where do you find yourself? Well, those I see initially are darkness. Because as we'll see, well, we'll zoom out a little bit, what we find is that just on a field of battle out, somewhere, you know, in this area we don't know. A mass

of bodies. It's totally scorched, torn asunder. There's just blood dried and also still gushing and viscera and like kind of severed limbs and just a pile of dead human. And it's completely still. And then it starts to stir. Because crawling out from underneath it is a blood-soaked human. He's tall, he's ganglety, he's in his late 20s, but his hair has gone shock white.

He's kind of managed to wrestle himself through the pile of all these other people and get to the top. And he just looks around. He's got very friendly features, but right now, obviously, they're weighted down with a horrified and wearied expression. And he just is trying to understand what he's looking at and he looks across the tree. in the nearby forest have just been shorn off at a certain level. Oh, I love that. Oh, that's awesome.

And he's staring at that. What did that? Why? I want to know. I have so many questions. And all of a sudden, he just look at a pan across his face, and he just starts, like, patting himself out. Like, looking in his pockets on his belt, and then he finally reaches into his tunic

and pulls out this small sheet of parchment. And on, he's looking at it on it is a sketch of a woman holding a girl who looks about five or six years old and he just stares at it and breathes a sigh of relief. It's like immense relief kind of falls across his body

and he tucks it away safely an extra safe spot within his tunic. And he starts to stand up and he winses and he pulls his leg out of the pile of bodies and sees a gash running down the side of it. So a few minutes later he's limping out into that shorn off forest and he finds himself,

he finds his way to her. a secluded grove where there are still herbs and flowers and all kinds of there's stuff that's still living and still growing and he takes him in and he picks through and he finds like the right herb and the right you know the right the right leaf of a particular plant and then he kind of he's grinding it with the butt of his dagger in a small a small little you know makeshift make shift mortar and pestle uh and then he kind of applies it to the wound and wraps it in a, you know, a strip of clothing he's torn off from another body. And then he steps back onto the field. He seems to me, seems to be the only one alive.

And he sees a cloak that's attached to a torso with no arms and no legs and no head. And he delicately unties the cloak, wraps it around himself. It doesn't sound like he needed to work that hard. Yeah, he could have just pulled it up. There's no head. Or he could just yank the cloak. Well, you've got to be respectful. Okay. Gotta be respectful of close

The dead Says a lot You're working really hard to pull that It was a lot about your character Right And then he starts walking In the first direction He can make of it

I love this Okay Let's take a look at this fella Oh yeah Shapal Poppa Oh Oh wow

It's that white Silver fuck Yeah I was gonna say Except he's like 28 Oh wow Oh he's young Yeah but he's seen things White hair

It's like Steve Martin. He's like a young Steve Steve Martin. He looked exactly like old Steve. He finds a banjo. He wakes up with an arrow stuck right through his head. He starts juggling. Bits.

He looks cool. Yeah, it's awesome. Is he pulling the hood down or putting the hood on? The image I gave to the artist for this was Luke pulling off his hood in Jabba's palace. Oh. Okay, cool. So he's a Jedi?

Yeah, I wish. That's cool. That's from Curse Scroll 4. Jedi class. Jedi class. Coming soon. It's spelled G-H-E-D-D-Y. Okay.

Right of Geddy. Awesome. I love this. You know how hard it was not to interrupt you and make the image you pulled out of your cloak something gross. Yes. I'm proud of myself. I was thinking it the whole time. I was like, Troy's grown.

I was like, ah. It's just a bit of a bit of a bit of. somebody on the toilet. Not sent to my... Oh, I still did it. I can't say it. I can't believe. I just thought of so many things

that it could be, but I didn't want to take away. Just some examples of the things I thought and didn't say. I will now think and say. I will now think and say, Joseph O'Brien. Pain, flashes of memories, but your eyes crack open. What do we see? say. You see, I'd say let's zoom all the way in to this guy's face while he's laying on his back on this,

on this torn asunder battlefield. And he is completely covered head to toe, as is the ground around him in just ash. It's his face, you can't recognize any life color to his face. Everything is like, white and gray. And the way that his head sort of like shapes into the large armor paldron that he's wearing. And the way that it crests on that, he has a very long beard that almost goes down to the center of his chest. And the way that that mixes with the chain mail that he's wearing, it's all one color. And he just, his eyes open and he's blinking ash out of them.

And you can see small tusks coming out. out from under his lower jaw up, uh, over his mouth, because he's a, he's a half fork, slightly pointed ears. And, uh, and, and he opens his eyes and all sound is sort of drowned into this deep, bassy sort of like giving like a, uh, like a disorienting, you know, the, the idea of like a, like a concussion or something at that, right? Like it's, and he opens his eyes and just like can't even move his body and like slowly turns maybe toward the camera and then we just see there's another body on the ground right next to him heavily armored a warrior a knight of some kind is on the ground with his just bottom half shorn off and just like entrails in the dust also

covered in ash there is this beautiful black steel sword on the ground in the clasp of this dead warrior. And a dead horse lies over what is probably his shield arm, crushing his arm and heavy, large helmet on this night. And he's just obviously dead. And he looks at this other night and starts to just try to move every inch's agony. And he starts to just crawl his way towards this man. Maybe as Matthew said, like, we can pull back a little bit and you just see there's other bodies everywhere, horses and men everywhere, just laying there in the distance, all kind of out of focus.

And the sound, again, is this is br-wh-wh-wh-r-oh-and he's just trying to breathe and trying to scrape his way. And he grabs this, this sword. And he's sort of, you can tell he's trying to like lift it towards the chest of the man who has fallen and try to. see if there's anything there that he can do and he just, even that amount of exertion completely shuts him down and his face just goes into the dust and he's out again for some unknown period of time. And then I imagine the sun starts to come through maybe a bit.

There's a little less ash. everything has kind of settled a little bit more and maybe some time has passed and you see him sort of like being like tugged and moved around a little bit and he's starting to like come to consciousness again

and this time as he opens his eyes he's flipped over and the sun is like kind of bright in his face and his armor is gone and he picks like just his head up and looks over and this knight that was next to him, his gleaming armor is gone.

This black steel sword is gone. And he like opens and looks in the distance and you see the silhouette of these figures that are just moving through the corpses, just looting as they go, just peeling things off of them. And he's just like trying to reach out a hand, trying to speak to say anything. And you can see just like rage in his young eyes. He's only 20 years old. And he's just trying so desperately to get that sword back.

And he starts to get up to one knee and the figures sort of like disappear into the like the fog in the distance. And he sets his eyes on them and manages to get to his feet and starts trying to walk after them. And we'll just end it there. Oh, I like that. Let's take a look at this. Ella, this tall, wazzle water. Ooh. That's when he had all of his shit.

But, yeah, his armor's been pulled off of him. His cloak is gone. I'd say Matthew took it, except that that guy was headless. And legless. And legless. And armless. And armless. It was Leggolus was there?

We should have art of him nude. You should just have nude. You have to dress him? When do you start to? Yeah. I'm an advocate of that. regardless, but I think this is actually all I could think of was Theorem, the movie Theorem. Yeah.

Pasolini movie at the end. Oh, yes, yes, yes. So you are, you're like almost, you're completely, you have nothing. Yeah, he has like the undergarments that you would wear under armor, this like sweaty, bloody armor. But strangely, he seems outside of what may be like a concussion or a lot of very serious contusions, like, unhurt, uninjured, hurt, but not injured, right? Compared to the devastation around him, it is kind of actually strange. And maybe those that were pulling the stuff off of him also presumed him dead.

But yeah, he's got nothing. And he just starts like, and you can see it's almost kind of pathetic. Like he's walking towards these people, but he'll never get to them. They disappear. And by the way, the figures are like, there's like, there's like a human. and then there's like a goblin and like a halfling. It's like a small crew of people that are different shapes and sizes. I like this crew.

Okay. Skid, where do we find your character as the light reenters your world? So my character is similarly to Joe's awoken. Well, a little different, that he is being, pride at by scavengers. And this wakes him. And he wakes as they're trying to pull his leather armor off of his body. They're trying to find the straps and they're moving him his torso around jiggling it.

Unfortunately, for my character, he has suffered a fractured skull. And so he awakens with this blinding pain instantly. And this causes him to shriek in this dry horse. cracking scream, which startles the scavengers and they scatter. And he blinks and tries it. Like he can, he can only open his right eye about halfway. But he just feels this, he can feel to crack, this blood streaming down his face.

He looks around desperately as his eyes flicker. And he sees that he is surrounded by, uh, no, not bodies, but just severed limbs, just sawn, hacked limbs, just all around him from different sizes of kinds of bodies, just like scattered all around, along with strands, long white strands of blood-stained bandages. He comes, finally remembers, like, his last moments in a field hospital. He was, he was like, I was working there. I was attending one of the bodies. And he remembers. a flash of a soldier that he had been disemboweled, holding his intestines into his stomach with his hands, screaming for his mother.

And he knelt next to him, feeling helpless and traumatized by all that he had seen in this war. And remember praying in a moment of extreme, desperation to a God that he barely acknowledged before now, the God of his people, the God of his people, the Gid. And somehow he felt this energy flow through him and into the man and his wound began to seal. And as he stood up and surprised, this impact shook the world. Whoa. And that was his last memory. So he

Pieces it together and he Tries in this moment To do the same to himself I'm gonna roll here He fails So he The power is gone Like perhaps it was only a momentary thing

He doesn't know But he He pulls himself up And he's in actually a crater surrounded by these severed limbs and he just sort of pulls himself out to the lip of the crater and despite himself he's crying for help. So you think these severed limbs were like

they were severed as part of the bandico? Yeah, they were sawn up at this field hospital. Like gangrene or something like, oh, we've got to remove the limb and so there's just a pile of these limbs and bandages. Okay, let's take a look at this fellow. Oh. Ooh.

Oh, cool. I love the hair. Yeah, he's got this braided hair. It's funny because we had just got done watching Breaking Bad again for me, first time for Samantha. And I was explaining this character to her. And I was saying, like, well, he's like physically very weak. He's pretty dumb.

But he's got the high wisdom and he's charismatic. And she was just like, oh, he's Jesse Pinkman. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Aaron Paul was the reference. That's great. Oh, that is great. Yeah, okay.

Very vivid image of this man. And then finally, we come upon your character, Sydney. What do they look like as they reemerge? Yeah, you see almost complete darkness. And you see the face of a young man, but it is like gaunt. It is very gaunt. He looks almost dead.

And as we kind of zoom out, we see that he's curled up in the fetal position and is nude, completely naked. He's in mud. And as we come out even further, there's something like dripping from a ceiling or something onto his face. And his eyes slowly open as he sits up

and it's just like mud around him. And as he sits up and he blearily through like this water or something that's in his eyes, he sees across from him a dead horse and rider. And it looks as if the horse has broken its legs and neck. And the rider too had like fallen with this horse. And he looks like very confused and looks up. And we pull out as he looks at start. starlight coming in through what is now like a broken door.

And we see that he is 10 feet in a pit of sorts. And he has this look of panic, of realization, of hope, all kind of at the same time. And he scrambles and climbs on top of this horse and this dead body. and is reaching to try to climb out of this pit. And he's like clawing at these earthen walls and like slipping. And he's able to prop this like body up a little bit to step on it and get a hand out of this broken indoor. And as he claws his way out, we see similarly to everybody else a battlefield that is completely an utter chaos. blood, bodies, still burning tents. No one moving in sight. He's like crawling out. He is

covered in mud. He's very gaunt. He looks a little sickly almost. And we now see in sort of these burning firelights and the starlight, he's got shorter kind of sandy, blondish, reddish hair. And he looks young, but he looks hardened and older just because of how, hardened he looks. And he starts just scrambling around towards these other dead bodies, flipping people over. He walks through like a tent that's been just ravaged and destroyed. And there's in the mud amongst blood and like viscera, he sees stomped on like bread and maybe like a chicken or like a turkey or something. And he just grabs handfuls with mud and blood and just is eating it. And he's like wild-eyed looking around.

And then he's still holding some of the food eating it, and he just starts pulling armor off of whoever is nearest, trying to find something that would fit. He's like yanking boots off of people. Some of the boots come off and the skin sloths off with the foot. And he just like tosses the boot back and just tries to find another boot, something he can wear. And again, he's completely nude when he comes out of this whole,

And as he's taking these pieces, he's kind of getting dressed, looking around always, constantly looking around, watching his back, making sure no one is coming. And lastly, before he just tries to flee this entire battlefield, he grabs a ring off of someone who might have been like a higher-up officer, or like a noble or something. He like just kind of sees it, you see him look around again, and he just snatches it off this hand and then makes his way.

We see the firelight and we see his silhouette kind of darting through areas as he disappears into the starlight night. It's like a wedding ring or like a insignet. It's more of like a signet. It's just a gold or silver, maybe not gold, like a silver ring. Just saw a glint of it and just grabbed it.

Well, let's take a look at this Sydney character. Oh, he's clothed. Okay, but picture him, nude first. We've been forced to picture all of them, maybe. I know, we have to. Is he wearing the ring? Is he wearing the ring? Yeah, maybe he's wearing the ring.

Oh, wow. Nice. I love the way he's holding the dagger. Yeah. Don't worry about this. Yeah, he's looking very conspiratorial, yeah. So I'm way into this podcast, but I feel like this is a great comic book now. Graphic novel.

This is a graphic novel, series for HBO. Yeah. I can see that. This feels like an HBO opening, doesn't it? Especially with all the nudity feels like HBO. Yeah, the nudity was purposeful, and I appreciate that. So I'm going to make some phone calls. We'll be right back.

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Exclusion supply, see Home Depot.com slash price match for details. We're back. I have decided upon further review and discussion to just focus on the podcast right now. I get excited. I think that's for the best. Too much penis for you? Not enough.

Not enough, to be honest. All right. Well, we have been introduced to our heroes. We have heroes. Well, that's being generous. Our characters, our cast of characters, our actors, according to Foundry Virtual Tabletop. I'm going to say some time passes.

Okay? We could discuss that if you want to. That's not my business. Some time passes. And in the distance, Both you and we, the audience, see a wooden palisade surrounding what appears to be a small village. You can see that it looks like part of this palisade was reconstructed recently. There's like a big chunk of it that has newer wood.

There is a Motten Bailey hold standing atop a hill in the back where a river meets a bog. Google Mott and Bailey hold, if you want to see what a typical one of these looks like. But basically the hill that the keep sits on is known as the moth, like a mound where it's raised up. And the surrounding village with all the buildings and whatnot, that's the Bailey. There is a moat surrounding the palisade with water that's flowing in from the river. A drawbridge that would enter this palisade and this little village is up. and there are dozens of people gathered outside. It looks like some of them have actually been camping out there for some time,

waiting for something, perhaps. You come there as well. Do you think the four of you are among people that are just kind of rolling up on this, or do you think you have been camping out here for a while? And here's the reason you would be camping. There are rumors that from time to time, this place allows newcomers in. And so people wait for those times.

Do you think you've been kind of waiting for that? Or it can be a mix of both. Some of you just kind of rolling up. You hear noise. You hear fanfare. There were like horns blowing. And so it's attracting people out of the woods. It's kind of like a lot of zombie fiction and stuff.

Yeah. Like you have radio transmission. So it's like come to like so and so. Like it's safe. Salvation. Yeah. Walking Dead. Fall out.

That kind of thing. By the way, can we say that some, I guess probably not your character, but that someone, like, found me and helped me. Like, one of you, too, like, found me. Yeah. You want to? No, you too. Yeah.

He's dead wait. Okay. No. Either way, no, you do. Well, it makes it, if you had a wound that you were unable to heal, maybe I saw you and realized you're awake and kind of put a surgical dressing on your, yeah, yeah, okay. Stitch it together. Yeah.

So, like, maybe we were, like, traveling together for a while before we met. Yeah. You want to be there. You want to have Ben traveled and gotten there and we're waiting. We've been waiting for a while. Yeah, sure. Okay. Yeah.

And then what about you? Do you think you're rolling up or? I think he's, yeah, I think he's rolling up. I'm just picturing him, uh, with a, with like a small caravan, like a small, um, merchant caravan sort of vibe. Uh, and he's walking now he's looking a little bit hail or healthier. and he's still unarmored, just wearing regular clothes, but he's got sort of a tall pike, like a spear that's a wooden, like fire-hardened, very, very basic weapon spear.

And he's using it kind of as a walking stick at the moment. He's walking to the side of this kind of small cart as it approaches. Okay. What about you? I think he's been there, but he has kept his distance. He's not like camping amongst everybody else. He kind of breaks away. But he wants to know what's going on because he does want to get in.

But he's there and maybe he's playing dice. We see that he's also a little healthier, a little more full, his cheeks have filled in a bit more. And he looks young, like more young than he looked before. And yeah, maybe he's wearing some nicer looking armor that fits him right. And he's playing dice with somebody. Do you leaving that flashy ring out for everybody's sick? No. Okay.

All right. So this is the scene. There's probably, I said a dozen. Maybe it's like two dozen or more people. It's hard to tell how many people are sort of gathered here, but there's a good group. And a man sort of comes up on a guard tower on top of the Palisade and addresses everyone.

And he says, greetings. Welcome to Marinshold. I see we have some. Newcomers here. Welcome, welcome. Our leader, Reeve Tarley Winters, has graciously offered our village as a place of sanctuary to those affected by the recent conflict. Reve Winters answers only to the king and the gods. And thanks to both, we have been mostly unaffected by the goings-on that have forever reshaped our homeland. Well, from the looks of you lot, it doesn't appear that all of you were soldiers. I see some merchants among you and whatnot. It's important that you know this. Whatever side you fought on matters not once you enter these walls.

And old battles will not be waged inside of our harm. Do I make myself clear? Sort of nods as limply as Matthew. How big is this crowd of people? Like two dozen or so. Okay. For those who break this law or any of the laws of man, banishment may not be the only punishment you face.

And as many of you have spent considerable time wandering around these forests, you should know that what lies out there may offer a fate worse than death. If you enter Maron's hold this day, you leave the past behind, you might just get a chance at a new life. which begins today.

Beyond that, there is just one simple rule here. No magic within our walls. If you were born tainted by that disease or something happened in your life where you picked up what you believed to be a harmless trick or two, there is no place for that here. With that said, welcome to Marin's Old. And the drop-bridge creaks down.

and several armed guards come to the entryway, and they're inspecting everyone who walks through, asking questions, writing things down. Who is the first to approach? Maybe you two, you're already together, you're talking. What do you guys, you guys have known each other for a couple days a week? A couple days. I would say maybe a couple weeks traveling together.

I don't know. It seems like if they've already developed a policy around neutrality in the town, like this has been a moment since whatever happened to end of the war. Okay. Yeah. But yeah. So we've found each other, helped each other. Yeah.

And my, I thought initially that, so I'm traveling still, like, even though you patched up, like my wound on my head, I thought that this power was momentary, it was gone. But then trying again the next day, like, I'm able to, like, actually heal myself. and so... Or maybe you healed my leg too, even I patched it up, but you actually could... Yeah, like, but in the interim, like, we're both completely healthy

because of this. But yeah, so... It's just established a word full HP. Yeah. I know, I don't... I know what's being said. I'll read between the lines. I also have a magical sword now.

Yeah. But yeah, but we... So are these other, the rest of people, are they just refugees? Are they just... You can see some of them were soldiers, some of them fought. It's hard to know at this point.

They have all taken pains to hide any insignia that would designate them as being on one side or the other or the other. And I imagine you have as well not knowing what happened, not knowing like. Yeah, still, I mean, there's got to be just mass confusion. Someone higher this for us to the other side get some massive what you don't know. So it's safer to just sort of travel without showing your colors. And it's also, I assume, just super dangerous, just wandering the wilds, even like as, you know, with us, like as a pair. Oh, yeah. Super dangerous.

So, yeah, seeking refuge. Yeah, so we make our way up to the front. You see, the gods sort of inspecting your weapons. They might even, like, run a hand over. What do you have a mall or something? What is that? I just have a crossbow. Crossbow, okay.

Yeah. They're inspecting your weapons and they look at you instead. name please. Pharaoh. How do you spell there? F-A-R-O-E. Pharaoh. All right.

Last name? Sorry, I don't... I don't understand the question. It's all right. Okay, and you, sir? Ricks. Ellison Rix. How do you spell Rix?

R-I-X. That's fun. I have opinions I know People's names are they spelled You don't have a last name And yours is cute Very well

All right There are two buildings in town That serve as inns Currently But available rooms will be scarce Your best chance at securing a space Is making friends Quickly

Welcome to Marant's hold Thank you sir Thank you Thank you Get out of here You write our names down? Yeah, he did. He's recorded.

Literate. Yeah. Wow. Very impressive. You say that? He's literate. I can read. I rolled on the literacy table.

99. Can you read? I'm pretty sure I can't read. Joe looks like he's ready to roll play, so I can see it. I can see it. You had roleplay lips. That role play lips? Yeah.

Do some role play. All right. So let's go to Sydney. No, you're ready. You got words ready to pop out of your mouth. Spin up a little. a little more. I just pictured, I'm just thinking like this guy, if weeks have passed, like you guys said, which sounds good to me, I think that he's been traveling very briefly with this little crew to try to stay safe.

And for one reason or another, that, you know, we can, the specifics aren't important. That relationship has ended at the arrival of this place. He was sort of paid a pittance to guard this. Highered his muscle. is his muscle. And he knew that this was kind of the end of the line. But the whole time... He didn't pay very much because he still don't have anything.

No. Nobody has much. Like, nobody even in that caravan has money. Nobody's like, overflowing with wealth. It was just like you... They would feed you. Working for food, exactly. Like, and I can imagine them even asking him.

I said, I wouldn't go into details. But I imagine even asking him, like, for just a strap of like leather armor to put on, you know what I mean? And they don't have any, you know? It was just, like, maybe it was just wine. You know, maybe it's just, booze caravan or something. That's all they have.

But they're trying to protect it and sell it in this place. And so I imagine that he is, to one degree or another, always on the lookout and always on the hunt for whoever these looters were that took his stuff and this sword in particular. And there's a reason behind that. But I think in the moment, what we see is he's a big dude. dude, big hulking. And his... What's his strength?

His strength is 15. Yeah. Pretty good. He's a 15 strength. And his... Big-ish. His... That's pretty big.

Pretty good. As I said, he's skinny fat. He's a half-ork, but he leans a little bit more human in his looks, especially from afar. You might not be able to tell. The orc part definitely comes in the, just sort of the breadth of his shoulders and his chest are very large. and he's looking, scanning over the eyes of these like two dozen people. And I think that maybe his eyes land on Sydney's character, dicing. And he's just watching with this intent, these intense eyes.

Actually have dicing. No, you want to be right. Oh, my God. You just feel like I'm there outside the palace. Why are you miming dice? I was miming. There are more dice in this room than most places on earth. Oh, you won.

I got it. She won her game. Oh, wow. Wizards and thieves? No, anyway, he's just kind of looking over at these people playing dice thinking there's probably a lot of crossover between looters and bandits and dice playing, right? So he's just trying to see if he can recognize a form. All he really saw was a silhouette.

He's looking for goblins, halflings. traveling with a human, you know. Anyway. Can I roll like a, almost like a perception? See if you see him staring at you? Yeah, to feel the eyes on the back of my neck. Give me a wisdom check. Okay.

Wisdom? Oh, no. Roll the natural one. I have a minus two. We're wildly into this game. Yeah, so he's, that's cool though. So we're just seeing like the back of your head. And he's just trying to size it up to see if it makes any sense.

There's a profile. It's like shady people. Like that's what you're... Right. And, uh... But he just kind of keeps walking and he'll walk up toward this. Yeah, I like this. So you're like, staring at her and the guy's like, name.

Name. He's like, do you not to speak? Orchish, this guy isn't answering me. Name. To him, it's all like, I don't, I don't notice. Anyone, anyone speak, Orchish? Do you understand? What is your name?

And then he'll like, all of a sudden, it's very clearly like, what is your name? And he snaps back and turns around and looks and he says, sorry, sir. Um, Warwick. Sorry I didn't think you spoke our time. Warwick. Warwick. All right. Do you have a last name? Clan name?

Blackburn. Warwick Blackburn. Very well. Come on in, and they're looking up at you. You're tall. Yeah. Is there much need for labor in the city? Well, there's always need for labor.

Right. And for fighting as well. just uh you'll be found you stand out that's good and bad right um any particular place i should go uh to ask about i don't know work i'll find a place to stay first you'll make friends that way uh you'll need to uh you know find people that you can trust i'm sorry i i don't really have coin for uh for an inn well then you better be charming please Move along. We have a lot of people here.

And he'll just nod and put his head down and start walking into the city. Okay. You hear them kind of snickering back and forth. He like turns, breathes and starts walking forward again. He doesn't have any good. And you hear a cheer from the dice table.

Oh. As this young man stands up and he does look healthy again. And his hair cut, you said from the back of his head, he's got, my reference was Timothy Shalame in the king. So he's got like that undercut. Shalamay hair.

With the salamay hair, but with that kind of like curly floppy hair on top with the shaved under. Shala mullet. There we go. And you see him stand up and he kind of just like scoops the coin off the table

and drops it into his purse and kind of like nods and just kind of grins at the guy he was playing against and turns around. He picks up his. His dagger puts it in his belt. He picks up a short bow, puts it on his back. And then he picks up a string of squirrels

and kind of slings it on his shoulder too. And he just walks to the gate, to the line. All right. Name, please? Saint. Saint. You think you're some kind of a saint? He just smiles.

What is your actual name, sir? Saint. Does saints have a last name? Anthony. Joy Marin's Hold. I doubt you'll be here long. He looks, doesn't smile, and then flashes another grin and walks inside.

He just kind of follows you with his eyes, and you enter Marin's Hold. Sweet little town, there is some shops. There is a tavern called the crayfish. There are these two buildings that look like they've been repurposed into inns for all of the new people that have been rolling into town. One is called the feathered wish and one is called the weathered fish. That's funny. That's pretty good.

Yeah, tell me what you want to do here. Obviously, two of you have already met. You're side-eyeing one of them and you see people are just like, it's kind of like the beginning of a, a reality show where they're like, all right, form teams and then go find the golden, like people are just starting to talk to each other. It's like,

look out for each other. Yeah. Like, alliances like squid game or something. Yeah, and there's only, there's a huge line forming at both the feathered wish

and the weathered fish of groups of people that are like, because there's only so many rooms. Maybe I'll say, you want to take a line. You take one line, I'll take the other, and we'll check them both.

All right. All right. saint walks over and he strings up the squirrels near where those lines are. And he's like, squirrels, copper piece. Squirrels, copper piece. I'm calling out to anybody who seems starving and desperate. Okay. Already starting to sell on the street.

I like it. Hustling. Yeah, hustling. I'll walk up. Full squirrels, copper piece. Yeah. All right. So yeah, you see this big half work.

It starts like walking over to you. He kind of gets nervous for a second. You see him tense up. Using this spear as a walking stick. And he comes up. Just sort of like raises a hand. It's like copper, you say. One squirrel, one copper.

All right. I'll take one. And he starts to like go into a small coin pouch. It pulls out of copper. And then he thinks for a moment. He looks across at you. Is it, um, how would I cook it? Um, you have any idea?

You never eaten squirrel? No, I haven't, but I'm extremely hungry. Let me get you a, let me get you a big one. And he hands you like one of the fatter squirrels. They're not that big. And he goes, well, uh, I would skin it first and foremost. Um, I would get the innards out. You've got to go, you got to go through the ass.

Then once you peel that back, I... Unrelated. I looked over Troy, I was like, is he going to be able to resist now? Nope, nope. He tried for a split second. And... Like the damn breaking. First forth.

I tried my best. He hands it to you holding it by the tail. And he's like, the eyes are pretty good. I would leave those in. The tongue I would avoid. It's not... What about a, um, Maybe one more copper.

Could you clean it? I don't know how to do any of that. He kind of looks around. Sure. Thanks. She record those coppers on your sheet. Oh, yeah. He pulls the two coppers.

You're just... I'm rich. You're just arriving here as well. And you see he starts to carve around the tail, and then he just like rips the skin off the squirrel. Yep. He pulls the interns out through the ass He pulls the interns out through the ass

He uses like a stick He's looking over like he's looking over your gear He's looking to see if what you have matches Sort of what you are capable of having right in a way And without looking at you he says You alone you don't have much Yeah Yeah I'm alone at the moment yeah

I'm just sort of Trying to find a place to get some work is all You um Where'd you come from? West you South How was it down there

Everybody's dead He hands you back the fully skin squirrel Did you uh Did you uh Did you fight? Yeah Didn't you? Yeah

Who for? You can see him like There's like attention to him And he's just like waiting for you to fucking lie Uh He's like trying to bite it back He's very stone fit He looks as if this question

was like how's the weather. As he hands you the squirrel, and he just says, The League. Oh, yeah, me too. What's your name? Warwick. Saint, and he sticks out of hand.

Saint, just saint. Yeah. Pleasure. Just Warwick? Warwick Blackburn. Must meet you. A squire in the army. Calvary.

Did you, um, what, what regiment were you with? He, uh... Pick a number. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He, uh... There's like literally one number. Don't pick. Oh.

Thirteen. Again. 13! He is very cool. I don't see numbers. Cool, common collected. Um, and he, again, while talking to you, he's like, squirrels, copper. Uh, two.

At the start. infantry then you 10th cavalry yeah well thank you for this

you haven't in your travels happened to come across any any men traveling with a goblin and a halfling have you just just kind of like a group together

he kind of looks at you a little puzzled friends Uh, no, um, they took something from me. They're looters. And so I'm just trying to get some of my things back. Huh. They haven't sold them already. Good luck. Yeah. If I see anything, I'll find you. Thank you. And, um, he starts, yeah, he walks away. He starts looking towards one of these lines.

Allison and Farrow, you kind of split up to see which would be, uh, uh, he starts, he walks away. He starts looking towards one of these lines. Allison and Farrow, you kind of split up to see which would be a better option. Allison, you get out in front of the feathered wish and people, they're like starting to scramble. Somebody's saying, only fours now, only foursoms left. And then shortly thereafter at the weathered fish, the same thing, it's like, rooms of four, soon it'll be six. We're running low. I've got four. I've got four.

You've got four? I've got four. And coin. All right, bring the floor forward. I signal. Is your whole party here, sir? I can't see you. Damn it.

Sidney's late again. And I signal to you across the way. And I'm talking to someone in the other line. I see, it's like, oh, can't I just come running over? And then I see, and I see. Yeah, I'm walking back. I'm walking toward one of the lines, like looking where to go. Maybe it's when you're still talking.

And he's holding. And I see the two of them. I'm just like. They're still like standing together. Those two over there. Those two, they're with us. They're with you. The squirrel guy.

Bring them over. Bring them over. Squirrel. And I say, I wave to you as if I know you. He just grabs his line of squirrels thinking you want to buy a squirrel. Comes over. To buy the whole batch, the whole brace. And I say, and I was like, all right, we're all here.

All right. See that, young lady. She'll help you. And there's like a halfling woman behind a desk. you go in. Oh, hello. It's just the four of you, yes? Just the four of us, yes.

No. Yes. We need to stay inside tonight. We need to stay inside tonight. Oh, yes. Get out of the elements. Okay. And I'm looking at this shady squirrel merchant

and this giant nude man. Are you nude or no? And I was just like, what the, what the fuck is Ellison gotten us into this time? I think we've been an adventure. I think we've had like, there's a two week like the prequel, like the adventures of Ellison. It's like that we could get into. In those two weeks, we have six seasons of a sitcom.

Right, exactly. I want to see some of the flashbacks. Yeah, yeah. It's like when we can do a credit sequence. You guys might even be level two. Maybe. Maybe. We could go through the flashbacks and do the math.

I think we probably just avoided more trouble than we've actually encountered. But, uh, I think my thought process is he's got food and we can use some muscle. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it makes sense. Just had to grab people while other people in front of you were scrambling. And I actually like, the one thing that I do have on my side is this wisdom. And so I might be like, take a look at them and it be like, I think despite outward appearances, I think these two are okay.

Yeah. like he's he's so he's tall and his head is shaved like he's young he clearly shaves his head which you guys might know is a practice of people that follow the lost a lot of people that follow the lost ritually shave their heads regularly and uh but despite that sort of whatever intimidating look and size and the weapon that he's holding he has youthful eyes and a sort of honesty to him that I think your wisdom would pick up on. He looks young. All right.

I doesn't want to be with any old people. Wisdom will tell you. Don't check up with a senior citizen. No old people. Especially if you want to start adventuring. Yes. That's totally true. Dead weight.

That's right. I would say it would be nine gold a week or 15 a day. Am. 15 silver a day. 15 silver a day or nine gold a week. You may need some time to get... Her voice is higher. I need some time to get settled and find yourself work, but those are our prices.

We'll take it for the night and talk to you tomorrow. He's not caught a lot. He slips out 15, he counts out 15 silver pieces. And like... Actually, you can tell there's not much left in that purse. That's what you think. And he's like, we'll take it for the night and talk to you tomorrow. All right.

Very well. And if you end up staying the week, we'll go ahead and charge you the normal rate of a week. We can appreciate that. What's it called when you do that? Pro rating. We'll prorate it. I just invented that word. I've never heard that term.

What's your name is? My name is Mindy Featherdung. Featherdung? Feather tongue. Heather tongue. Another tongue. And this is at the feathered wish, not the weathered fish. Right, feathered wish.

Wait, where are we, the feathered wish? Feathered wish, yes. Mindy Feather Tongue. Well, Miss Feather Tongue is... I'm the proprietor here. We're very lucky to be here. Thank you for taking us. Yes, right now we're just in a makeshift inn.

We're still working on... There's thoughts of building a restaurant, but there's good food at the crayfish tavern or cheaper fare at some of the shops if you want to get to... some jerky. Thank you. Which room are we?

Oh, yes. Six. Six. Have to look at my legend. All right, we'll take the key and then we'll head upstairs. Upstairs, I assume. Yes.

All the way up, all the way six. On the sixth floor. Oh. One room per floor. Wow. We have an odd system. It's pretty impressive. This 50-story building.

Over again on the first floor. Yeah, the six-person rooms are on the third floor. Those are rooms, seven, eight, and nine. Enjoy your stay. As we're walking, Saint saddles up to you and says, well, I appreciate the kind hospitality of you paying for the room. I'd like to know why. I saw you out in the throng out there.

I assumed you wouldn't mind a place to stay. We needed it for. thought we could all do a little bit to help each other out. Well, I, I appreciate the gesture, sir, but I don't have any coin to pay yet. I'm sorry, I don't have work yet. I'm going to try, but... I think we all need to find work, but in the meantime, you could... It's a dangerous world out there and give us a little protection.

Yeah, that I can do. I think we could all use a friend or two. If you wanted to cook us up a squirrel or two, for tonight. He kind of shifts it on his shoulder. Call it even. Yeah. All right.

I've got three coffers left. He goes in and he pulls out his last three and he's like, you take that and then pay me what you like when you're ready. Allison thinks to refuse and then takes the covers. He expected you to take him. I can't believe he took the money. You just shake your head knowing me. All right, so you head up to your room, you open it, and there's four, like, cots.

You can tell that they have just turned some sort of building into this makeshift in as a way of trying to provide sanctuary to the few survivors of this war. it's it's way better than what you're accustomed to even like pre cataclysm like we haven't probably slept we haven't slept in doors yeah ever for a while yep yeah I think it's dead yeah yeah the last we knew was barracks barricing you know in the camp with the fox hole or whatever yeah yeah so um I'm I don't mean to speak for fairer but the two of us are healers. If you have any wounds, we would be happy to take a look at them. I've been feeling fine, actually, lately. Thank you. But I'm all right there. I'm just,

I'm just eager to get some work because I got to get, I got to get back on my feet here. I don't, I know everyone's struggling. And I heard that this town was calling people to it and employing people. And so that's what I'm here for. Same. I'm, I'm just trying to make enough money to get home. Yeah. What kind of healers? Saints in the corner putting his bow kind of down. It was a medic in the war.

I know herbs. That kind of thing. I was in attendant, but I can help. Saint just kind of nods looking both of you over, not looking like you guys are particularly big or strong. I'm Alison Ricks. The offer's hand, she. Saint, new offers his hand.

Warwick, and thank you very much for the room. I really appreciate it. Well, it's just for the night we can talk about it tomorrow. Hopefully we will find some work, and then we can just go. Ferro. Oh, fair. Ferro, sorry. Ferro.

Is there fire in the room? Like a... Fire place? All of rooms on fire. Oh. Oh. Why did she put us in this room? The last tenant left.

It was a trap. Left a cigarette. Oh, we didn't check for traps. We didn't check for traps. Oh, you fools. No, there's like a little woodpipe stove or something. Okay. Yeah, I think he starts preparing like the squirrels then,

and he starts adding to the woodpipe stove, pours like a pitcher of water in. I bring over the meat that I bought. It's like, I didn't think you were going to cook this for me, but. And I reach into my pouch, I pull out a sprig of rosemary. and a little twist of time.

Wow. Didn't think we would be eating so fancy right away. He tosses it in the pot. Just puts a... Just throws on the fire. There's a pot. Puts it in the pot. Put it on.

We're going to have stew. Yeah, we're going to have squirrel stew. Swirls stew. I'm so hungry too. And he says... I mean, this is the other thing. It's like this is... I have a strength of six.

I don't think I'm doing much hunt. I haven't been able to do much hunting. Like the idea of a few freshly cooked That's the thing is like both of us I've just been darting from shadow to shadow the entire two weeks just trying to avoid any threat because yeah my I'm six as well

so The idea of someone who's dexterous enough to catch a squirrel and who's strong enough to defend us is that's it And I think also like I have to pull back the current a little bit I have a little bit of gold left to everyone character creation because like what else are you going to buy Yeah

I literally had what did I have? I had five silver pieces left over from character creation. So, yeah. So I figured like maybe like we found some gold, like we've been scavenging. We found purses along the way.

Like it's not really ours. Yeah. Yeah. We found scavenged some cash. And Saint looks well fed. Doesn't look dirty. Yeah. I'm pretty grimy.

Yeah. Like it seemed, he seems maybe a little like out of place odd, but also maybe not. Maybe he just had a string of good luck. It seems like a survivor. Yeah. Like somebody that knows how to subsist on what's available, no matter what it is in this case,

even if it's in the wild, grab some squirrels. So cool. That's boiling. He kind of sits down. He like picks at his nails with his dagger. And he says, that'll take a while to boil. The meat's got to break down.

Squirrel's pretty tough. So, and he, He's talking to... What was your name again? Ellison. Ellison, right. He's talking to Allison, and he, like, puts... Sits down on a stool.

It's sort of like creeks here. He sits down, so where is it home? Cragons Bridge? I don't know it. You wouldn't? It's a tiny little village to the north. Hmm. A long way from here.

I assume all of you are sent what are we calling this land where we are, like this specific area where we were sent? You, I don't think you know what this area is called. It would have been called, you were sent south, but you don't know what this specific area is. In fact, I think it's safe to say by the time you get to Marin's hold, you've traveled through other chunks, swathes of land.

So you're not quite sure where you are located at this moment. Okay. You were sent south from where home is. Okay, so I sent south. So maybe I meant north. He's from the north. And then, yeah, we've been moving, maybe we've been moving north from our battlefield, you know. But no, he just said we've been moving south, right?

We are south. To war. And now I was figuring we're moving north trying to get back to where we're from, right? Or is the other way around? However you want to put it, it's the idea is that you were originally sent south. You were part of a southern. You were sent south. Okay.

So we can be moving. North. You could be moving north from there. You said Kragans Bridge? Yeah. How do you spell that? C-R-A-G-G-I-N-S. With an apostrophe. Cragans. Cragans. Fun. Nice. I can take so many notes for everything you guys say. I know.

I'm just making it up as I go along. Exactly. That's so cool. It's a tiny little town. Not moan from much, just farmers, mostly. My family were the, uh, the herbalists. Oh. Right. And that's what you did for the Army? I know. I was infantry until they, until someone noticed.

Oh, so was he. Oh, yeah. Well, they pulled me out pretty fast when they noticed I had some knowledge of the herbs and flowers and plants. Move me to the medic corps. You were. Cavalry, 10th. Yeah. And if you know some stuff about the Army, you might know that there's a, a rep for this regiment, the 10th cavalry, as being almost like a special forces sort of division that were kind of like a first in kind of unit. And very hard to get into and very dangerous to fight in. But yeah, you may know that, you may not, you can decide it as you wish.

He doesn't seem to recognize it when you say it. Okay. So he just says it, doesn't say anything else about it. Yeah, I'm, I'd like to get north. as well, but I've left some things behind. And, um, I'd like to find them. I'd like to find whoever managed to do this. Whatever. I mean, have you heard anything about how Ordos did it? What that was?

A spell? Was it a spell? I, I don't, I don't know. I, I, I haven't, I've heard a lot. I've heard some, stories that maybe it was a god maybe it was wasn't ordos at all it was just yeah what makes you think ordos did it i mean

it must have had to have they're the only ones that crazy to try to put that many wizards together to pull off something like that i mean the power of the gods they lost the war too they're everywhere no one won well i'm not saying it was a good idea and i'm not saying that they didn't blow themselves up they must have done it.

I think like, I think Pharaoh on some level is convinced that he's responsible because it happened to coincide with him his faith. Feeling that power from him for the first time. Like it happened to split second later. So I think he wonders.

He hasn't said anything. He's just like, I don't want them to know that I'm the one who did this. But I think he, you know, he gets kind of quiet when it gets brought up. Is there any indication that you're a priest? Did you say anything along those lines? Or is there anything you're wearing that would indicate that? Not at all.

He said that we both could heal. Right. They said you were healers and you said you basically were a medic. Like worked in a medical tent. Infirmary. What about you? What do you think? You think that gods did this or?

Ordos. He's stammering. I, probably, the moon? Moon? I probably probably came from the moon.

I mean, might as well of. I mean, you were cavalry, right? Cavalry, right? Yeah. So you never saw orders up close then, probably. Oh, I saw him up close. Did you? Yeah.

Plenty. And you didn't? No, I did. Hmm. And they were men like us. Right. I don't think they were capable of whatever that was. Maybe it was the moon.

Yeah, it's the moon. What I mean? Any of you wizards? Any of you know how to cast these kind of rituals they do? You cast a ritual that would wipe out all the armies across all the fields of battle? I don't know. Destroy the land. I don't know anything about sorcery.

Shear off the tops of the trees of an entire fire. If I was a wizard, I wouldn't be in Marin's hole, I'll tell you that. More to wizardry than destruction. Anyway, we should probably look, eat, and see if we can find some work for tomorrow. Check's the stew. Smells done. It smells, it smells delicious. Thank you, St.

It smells a bad. It's so hungry. He's trying to not like, he's played a meal. He's hungry, too. He's hungry, too. With actual herbs? Yeah. Oh, my God.

Time. Yeah, time. Rosemary? Come on. R.C. Sage. Rosemary. Yeah. These little labels.

I imagine. Yeah, I imagine that work has been eating a lot of stale bread, like for weeks, maybe. If that. Yeah. And gruel. And so, yeah, having some flavor, I mean, just amazing. So, yeah, we'll start eating it. And St.

kind of stretches out with a bowl. I could get used to this. Looking around the room. Used to what? Real room. A bed? Yeah. Sleeping inside again.

I don't know what this town is like. And they said there's no fighting in the town, but those guards took our names. It seems suspicious. Not better to get inside for the night. Yeah, I don't believe them. When they say that no one in here is fighting, I bet you it's happening all the time.

War is done, but bad blood last. longer than wars. Yeah. I've seen you before. He says the saint. I don't think that's true. I've seen you somewhere.

Well, probably were you second regiment? Probably on the battlefield. And he like touches the spot on his skull where the fracture was and he says I can't remember.

But never mind. Never mind. You don't look familiar to me. Did I say second regiment or fifth to you? Yeah, he said second. I said second. He like sips a soup, kind of side-eyeing pharaoh.

Looks at Ellison kind of like, what's up with this guy? He just kind of looks at you. How'd you two meet? Oh, it's a long story. We'll flash back to it soon enough. What is that? No, we found each other. Both of us were wounded.

We helped patch each other up, and then we figured two were better than one, especially when we were trying to find civilization. You hit your head or something? No, I'm fine. I knew a guy who hit his head once. Couldn't remember his own name. They put him down. They shot him like a dog.

Shot him with what? Aros. They all lined up. They just stood him there, lined up. Why would you shoot a dog with an arrow? Watch it run. People are cruel. Let's just tell him, come here and then just hit him on the head with a club or something.

Is that how you'd kill a dog? Thought much about killing dogs? What about not wasting arrows? They'd go to the size. These are expensive. You're telling me. Shoot a dog? Probably wouldn't shoot a dog at all, but certainly wouldn't.

I swear to the gods I've seen you before. I know I have. Maybe. It'll come to me. The, um, whatever it was, when it went off, um, did you get hurt? Yeah.

How? Roof fell in on me. Oh, you were inside? Yeah. And, uh, did anyone around you survive? Not that I know. I was on the, on the field. Fighting was all around me.

I was, trying to put a turnicet on a soldier who'd fallen the arm had been sliced nearly fully off, I was trying to time off, and then just everything went white. Yeah. When I woke up, everyone was dead.

There was ash everywhere. Like, um, like it had singed everything. Burned the trees and the, and the men. Everything. The horses. Everything was on fire. That's why I thought, you know, sorcery, gone awry. I'm having a panic attack.

Like, Pharaoh is on the verge of a panic attack right now. What do you get him? And he just stands up spilling the stew, like on the floor. And just leaves, he leaves the room. Is your friend okay? He's fine. He seems pretty shucking up. He keeps touching his head, I think.

I don't think I have to explain. to any of you, the just the horrific, horrific nature of what it was like to be there on that battlefield. He was in a field hospital when it happened. Was his head injured? Yes. He hit his head at some point during the battle. Well, they're dangerous, and they can keep coming back as all. Head injuries can mess with you. Like he said.

I think he's all right. You're talking about the moon. Don't seem all right to me. Are any of us all right? War. You don't need to talk about it. What kind of work you think we're going to find in this town? I don't know, but now that my stomach's full, I'm thinking it's time to start looking.

I'd love to just lay down right now. I'd love it, but I just can't. What time of day is it? I think it's early evening. Maybe we can go out, like, hit one of these taverns and ask around about work? Yeah, I think St. Greyfish, start to meet some people. Yeah, St.

stands up when you say like we should start he just stands up and he's like I'm off to the crayfish it's a good idea I'll come with you see if I can find if anyone who need any kind of healing services or something I can help yeah yeah I'll go let's all go so if Farrow we're going in the crayfish to see if we can get it if we can scare up any work maybe get nail I'm gone he's he left oh you're calling out I was going on I'm gone So Farrell, let's cut to you. You go right outside of the end. You go right to get some fresh air?

Yeah, I just like step outside. Like I'm hyperventilating, heart is beating a million times a minute. And I am just like looking around see if anyone has any tobacco. You see a couple of fisher folk milling around outside of a shop that they're closing up and it looked like the smoking type

and I sort of walk up as this evening can I have got any uh got any pipe wheat uh they kind of eye you wearily I can pee and I like fish like a couple of silvers

like a... it's fine it's fine A little extra. You have something to smoke it out of? I've got, yeah. And he just pulls out like a little parchment. And he's just like, in there, like, folds it up. It's just like, in here, please. And he just pulls a little out of his pouch and sprinkles it in.

Not a lot. He just rolls it up, like licks it closed. And it's like fishing in his pouch for like the flint and steel. It's like, like, like, like, just, ah. Oh, catch his fire. He just like, lets his head fall back. And it's like this wave of relaxation and like washes over him. And he just sort of like more slowly, more evenly walks back over to the feathered wish.

And it sort of like leans against the wall next to the door. It's just like smoking his cigarette. As the three of you come out, we're going to go. go to the crayfish and see if we can scare up some work. Maybe get a nail. Right. And he puts it out on his tongue, talks it into his pouch. So, let's go.

It's a bunch of people outside. You can tell they didn't get a room. Maybe like five or six, you know, because there was enough space for the small crowd. But it's five or six that weren't able to scramble fast enough to form a group. So they're just kind of like talking and chatting and looking at you. enviously as you make your way across town to the crayfish tavern. As you take in the town, obviously, there's that keep that's looming.

It's a very modest keep. This isn't a big town. But you do notice that several of the buildings towards the front of the palisade look like they're under construction, like they're having some work done to them. It's just like Village of Hamlet. Exactly what's happening in Village of Homeland. And you had saw that the part of the Palisade looked like it was redone recently as well.

So you head into the crayfish and there's a ton of people in there. It's like a, this looks like a town of fishermen and reavers. And they're just... Probably like bursting at the seams. Oh, yeah. And a bunch of new people in town. Obviously the new people are getting the side eye from the regular inhabitants. There's got to be, I would imagine there's quite a bit of tension too.

Oh, yeah. Any influx of refugees with the existing, like, people who live there. It's like there's going to be some friction. And here we are, night one at the crayfish tavern. Bustling with people that are in your exact position, maybe former soldiers, maybe some of those merchants that you travel with, some people you were gambling with, as well as people who belong to Merrin's hold. Were they here pre-war?

Did Merrin's hole, how long were you? what? I don't know. What do you want to talk to you? Want to get a drink? Yes. Everything's a happy hour. It's happy hour. Yeah. I get two. It's two for one. It's not two for one. I think, yeah. Drinks are a copper. I think St. Walks in and walks straight up to the bar. There's a woman, a busty wench back there, and she says, oh, hello. So, what can I get you? Beer, please. Beer, all right.

You're new in town. Aren't we all? No. Yikes. I have a business here. He sips his beer. He sips his beer. And he has like a little foam mustache and he goes, that's a good point.

Let me get that. I wanted that. That was mine. He was feeling sexy. Paid for it. Flash from that Scrubs moment. You're Zach Braff Scrubs moment. I guess I say there's also a full menu in Village of Homlet.

What are we working with? There is, you can get a pint of small beer for five copper. A pint of heavy beer for one silver. Okay. You were undercharging for those squirrels. Yeah. Yeah, you, well, I don't know. Squirrel?

Not prepared. Nasty squirrel. Yeah. Squirrel fresh meat. Not skin, not prepared. Me, in this economy? I'll come up and get an a, an aspirate. Oh, hello, sir.

Hello, could I have an ale, please? One ale, all right, one copper? That's two silver. He said one copper. It's happy hour. It is happy hour, so what do I know? What the GM says is law. And as you walk up to, St.

It's kind of propped up on the bar looking around. So who, uh, who is it new around here? You can usually tell at first who's, uh, new to town. They've got the look of someone that just saw some terrible things. But things haven't always been easy around here either. After a while, we all sort of blend together. Just keep your head down. And you'll do fine here.

Remy, by the way, Remy Barton. St. This is my establishment. Alison. It was my father's before me. He passed. And so now I do my best to run the place. Excuse me, I've got to take some orders.

Yes, sir. Is it crowded? Yeah, yeah. Is it bustling? Yeah. Yeah. It's a good, good feeling in the air. Although the people there are kind of grim and dour. You caught a whiff of that from the guards.

Yeah. But probably nice too, like after weeks in the wild and not being able to trust anybody to at least come to a place where people are convening in this way. You got to believe it's, I feel like, I feel like, I feel like, I feel like, this is a player, but I also feel, I think my character would feel that it's, I still just don't trust anyone, right? No, no, you still don't, but at least like people are together and they're not actively killing and robbing each other in a big room. I just feel like there's still, it's like, I don't, yeah, just don't trust anybody. It's also just like a sense of unreality, right? Like, we've just been through a horrible war

that ended in the most horrific fashion, this kind of unexplained. Still don't know. Still don't understand what happened. Like, how much worse would that be? Just horrible thing happened and no one knows. No one knows why. Or how, what was? The sheer, like, the sheer tonnage of death that we have kind of crawled out from under. And then to come to a place. You quite literally. Me quite literally.

And then to come to a place where there's just, like, life is happening. And there are businesses and people buy drinks. And, you know, just, it feels, I think Allison is kind of standing at the center of the crowd with his ale and hand, just kind of, like, staring at everything. Like, it doesn't quite make sense. Like he was like, deer hunter or something. Yeah, exactly. where it's like it doesn't it's I kind of went through the motions that I like

what you would do you would go to a tavern you order an nail and then you talk to the barkeep and then you turn around he just turns around it's like the entire world feels like an illusion yeah yeah yeah yeah you're gawking what you're staring at people just doesn't seem real seems like it's all wrong

you know no I don't know what you mean all wrong? This makes sense. Be here. Sorry. Ignore me. I'm scanning the room for a man,

a halfling and a goblin traveling together. You know, there's a lot of people in this room, so he's just scanning. See if he sees that at all. Plenty of men. Handful of halflings. You don't see any goblins.

No goblins. Also, no one that really gives off that bandit vibe. Yeah. A lot of soldiers. and workers and stuff. What about somebody that might look like, or you know, you said that there were a couple of guards

that might look off guard. Are there a couple of laborers that might look off duty? Oh, yeah. Builders, construction? Yeah, yeah, people that maybe are working on some of this construction. They're sitting around. They've got dirty faces. They haven't even taken a chance to wash up after a day's work

and they're a couple glasses deep. I'll walk over to that table. And they kind of look at you like, what? I apologize. I don't mean to interrupt, but I'm just, I just got into town and I'm looking for work. I'm curious if any of you are a foreman or a manager or no one that might be able to help me get some work building here? I don't know anybody that is looking for builders. Please. Sid, you say you're new here. You just came in with the batch that... Yes. He sits down. I worked for a caravan on the way here. garden it, but the man running it didn't need me anymore once we arrived here at Marin's

Hold, and now I'm just looking for work, and I'd be obliged for any I could get. Do you know if they're higher in there at the wall? Not at the moment. I mean, usually able-bodied soldiers are found and conscripted, so someone your size and look, I'm sure they'll come asking. I don't know what it pays. In terms of work outside of that, you know, there's There's always stuff to do beyond the walls, but that's dangerous stuff. Well, there's problems that need to be dealt with. There was a woman, a merchant here in town, went missing recently. Well, at least that's what they say.

She was traveling north along the road with three of her guards and just never returned. It's unlike Regina. to not come back after going out there looking to trade. So I could always investigate that. This woman, who does she... Who is she working for here? Anybody in particular that...

Because if I could talk to them and maybe say I'd go looking for... Because he's starting to think, like, what if these things are connected, right? Like, what if this woman goes out with her guards? which is exactly what I was doing. It's very dangerous territory. This wouldn't be surprising at all for them to get jumped. You know, what if they got jumped by the same people I'm looking for,

the same bandits I'm looking for? You know, so he's like just jumping on this right away before the guy says anything else. Who would I talk to about that? There's a man or a business partner. He's still in town. They have a cot. Her name's Regina Spence.

And his name is Martin. Short. Modern short. It is a short last name. I can't recall it. Modern Godok. Gardock. I literally wrote down Martin Short.

He's actually quite tall. I was like Martin Short, okay. Wait, who was Martin Short? Sorry. Or Martin Garter. It's over. Martin Short is an entrepreneur. No, stop.

Stop. Stop. I'm sorry with Ed Grimley. Martin Gardock. Martin Gardock, her business partner, they have a cart in town. And he doesn't happen to be here tonight, right? Someone I could find during the day.

I don't see, man, he's not much of a drinker. They came into town a while ago and just kind of stayed here, but they have connections all over. He's probably distraught. It's enough so that someone like me knows about it. Right. I'm sure he'd pay a good price to get information about where she is, what happened.

Thank you very much. Did you... Was there anything else? Anyone else looking to hire? No, but I'll keep an eye out. You know, you seem strong and, you know, people get hurt all the time. Maybe something will open up.

All right. Thank you. Yes. Enjoy your night. You too. And tell us stand up and... Walk back over to you guys unless you wanted to do something while that was happening. Let's check in with Pharaoh.

Farrow's been... You had a bit of a moment there where he rushed out of the room at the inn, found solace in tobacco. Now you're in here, a lot of people. Is that making you nervous? Or how do you feel? I think the tobacco is still comfortable.

Like he relights his cigarette when like from a, like a candle on the table, say. And he's just sitting there waiting for his associates to come back. And he's just looking around at like, all the people, the everyday people that are gathered here in this tavern. It's like the laborers like sitting at the table with their dirty faces and, you know, exhausted farmers and vendors and merchants and everything. And he's just, he's just thinking about how miserable their lives look, looking at them.

And he's just thinking about, you know, he's been thinking about, like, what he would do with himself, like once he got here to some place of relative safety and it's just like do I try to eke out a living like doing manual labor or as an apprentice to a leather worker or something and and he's just like is that really the life I want like he's looking at these these people and he's like and he thinks to himself like no it's like I want a bigger payday I want if I'm if I'm going to work for some money I want it to be something significant. I don't want to live like these people.

So, and he just sort of like, his hand sort of like drifts to his crossbow. And he's just, he gets this like look of determination like on his face as they like draws another drag off the cigarette. And you see this as well as everybody in the bar, there's a man that's like he's sitting by himself drinking and he starts like crying. and he starts crying like so loudly. It's almost like comically loud. And he pushes his Stein off the table and it shatters. And it's kind of like a record scratch. Everybody looks over.

You being new people, you don't know who this guy is. He's just like slumped over, wasted. And a couple of these builders actually get up and they talk to each other. And guys like, I'll take care of him. He says, oh, go ahead. It's all right. It's all right. It's all right. And they walk him out of the bar.

I'll lean over. Maybe I'm still kind of standing a little bit, not quite in touch with reality at the bar. And I lean over to Remy. Who was that? She looks and she says, he's a regular here. He lost his wife recently.

Just having a tough go. Lost his wife in the war? No, no. No, just a bit of an accident. Excuse me for a moment. Saint leans back over. He was kind of like a little further away from you and he leans back over to you.

Did she just say accident? She did say accident. He looks back out where the guy left and then he puts his beer down and he's going to walk out of the bar following the builders. Oh, interesting. Okay.

Where are you going? Wait, wait, wait. He does not. A saint. Come, saint. You, let's stay on you. You follow this guy out and maybe 20 paces ahead of you. One of the builders is walking this man to his house.

And he's just, he's being kind of unruly. The guy's like, it's all right. It's all right, Mr. Jones or whatever. And they're just, they're walking. Like I said, 20 pages ahead of you. And he's kind of falling and the guy's picking him up and trying to just bring him back to his home. I think Saint just wants to stay in the shadows. And his plan was to just hear a name, see where he lives, just gather any information he can.

Ace the joint for later. Ace the joint for later. Okay. So he walks halfway across town where there's these small little houses that are right on top of each other. and he brings him into one of these buildings. You know exactly where it is now. And he didn't hear an actual name. No.

Okay. Yeah, he'll just like stand outside watching, I'm assuming the builders come back out of the house. Yeah, after a while, the builder comes back out. You know, if you stand there for a while, light goes on, and then you assume he's putting him to bed or something. All right. Yeah, he'll slink kind of back into the shadow

and just mosey back towards the crayfish. in a while the crayfish Yeah, I'd say like the the ruckus is going Saint has walked out and now and now Warwick comes back up and there's no sign of Saint. He doesn't think too much of it for the moment

he just sort of like comes up and leans on the bar right up next to Ellison and he's like I might have a line on some work what kind of work? He kind of looks around a little bit he's like I'm a dangerous kind but you said you're a good at

patching people up, right? Yes. I have a few other skills, too. Oh, yeah? Like what? I'd just say I can come in handy when the situation calls for it. That's vague and mysterious. He, um, there's a merchant in town.

Lost his business partner to, I think, bandits probably on the road. Might pay pretty well if we find out what happened or recover some of what was lost. wouldn't the bandits? He's like perked up. He's like more excited than he was earlier. Wouldn't the bandits have just made off with anything they took? Well, even it being bandits is just an assumption at this point. I don't know for sure, but he might pay even just for answers.

Interesting. Yeah. Is he here? No, he's not. But maybe tomorrow when he opens up his stall, we could speak with him. Wait, was he Martin? He was Martin. Yeah.

Yeah. His name's Martin Gardock. And yeah, he runs a business here in town And it might be an easy way to get some money If we just find out what happened to them Of course, it could also turn a little bit dangerous If we can recover some of it But it sounds like it might pay a lot

Like what we'd make Working on the wall for a month That is enough to spark Allison's interest Because like he's just trying to make enough money to get home Right? And it's like to overland travel You know, a vast distance All right I mean, do you think that's something that Pharaoh would

Do or should we just leave him behind? No, Pharaoh's, Pharaoh can also come in handy And Saint just walked out of here You followed that man that was crying Yeah, I heard that He seemed like he was just a drunk Feeling he might be interested in well, as well Yeah, Saint

Doesn't look at, but at first glance But you can tell He's good with a knife he's good with a number of things you could tell like he was looking at the way that he skinned the animal the way that he was like so easily picking his fingers with his fingernails

with an extremely sharp and dangerous blade and not missing him Nick he's like man's good with a knife I know the type from the war certain kind of person always seems to know where to get things yeah yeah he seems very useful

and where's Pharaoh right now Just in the bar smoking. Yeah, I'm at the table. I found a table. Smoking, yeah. Well, he's your friend, see if you, what? Something strange about this town, isn't there? It just seems so untouched by the war.

I mean, the refugees and that kind of, those of us wandered in, but the tension's there, but just going about their lives, nothing happened. I'm sure they're just trying to build it back up. I mean, people want to forget. Some of us don't, but some do. Just a week ago, weeks ago, I don't know, it just feels so... I'll ask Farrow. And I go over and I've kind of pushed through the crowd, you know, I'm carrying my ale and it's...

Warwick might have a line on some work for us. Might be a bit more dangerous than just some work around the town. We might have to venture out, but I thought you might be interested. Some merchant caravan went missing, so... Who knows what they could pay? Could be something pretty good. And these caravans are going missing because these bandits are working the roads. And if it is bandits, I mean, I can handle it.

And takes another drag off of his makeshift cigarette. And he, like, looks again at these, like, lifeless faces. As he sees them, like, way in this place. It's like, yeah. Yeah, sounds great. All right. That's three then. We'll cut to Saint coming back into the bar. And as you approach the doorstep, there's a guy standing outside.

It's like, oy, you're looking to play your little dice game in there as well. He cleaned me out pretty good. Was he the guy from outside? Yeah, one of the guys that you're... Ugh. Saint just stopped. They're still alive. It's been like five hours.

When I walked away, they don't exist. No object permanence. Never thought I'd see them again. They were an NPC. Say it stops and looks up. You want to play again? Double or nothing. Oh, no.

But you seem like someone that's interested in coin. I know where you can find some real coin. I think I'm all right. And he goes to walk inside. Your loss. And he just leans, against the edge of the crayfish tavern. St. stops in the threshold of the door, comes back outside.

Oh, ha, ha, ha. And kind of saddles up next to him, leans also against the wall. They're both leaning. Oh, man. We're having a lean off. Mutual lean. Classic thief lean. Classic thief lean.

One arm up. It's like a movie. Directed by David Lean. My favorite director. The Lean Chronicles. This is well, you know, this information comes at a price. Maybe I could get some of that money back you took from me. Maybe you could win it back.

All right, all right. Listen, I'm giving this to you because you seem like you might be able to do something about it. It might help me get out of this place. Who knows I don't want to be here for long? There was some foragers that went out west recently, and evidently there's a camp of bandits camping out near some huge marrow tree near Wardenwood. Have you ever been? Maybe I passed through it on the way here.

It's one of the few fragile bastions of mankind out here, a village full of trappers, hunters, and woodcutters. Anyways, if you're looking for some serious coin, I'm sure the good people of Wardenwood would be happy to get rid of these bandits that are prowling their roads. Out west? Oh yeah, just west from here. Not too far away. Other side of the lake.

And what's the fee? You get a cut for the work I do? Well, I mean, that would be the honorable thing to do. Order among thieves and whatnot. I would go, but I've got a bum leg. Wouldn't be much in a fight. Well, thanks for the information You'll have to let me know if you head that way

You could work something out Maybe I can remember some more information That might be helpful to you on your journey Saint kind of gives him like a half smile I'll let you know All right then And he just walks back into the crayfish Spies the table

Walks over Saint We got a line on a job and then we start talking it through. And then he doesn't mention his job yet because he wants to hear what yours is. Yeah. Let me tell you about it.

Yeah. He says, all right. Is it to the west? No. To the north, they said. To the north she went. Why do you ask? He's trying to get my bearings.

Have you heard anything about a bandit camp west of you? Yeah. You look like, you look like you just heard about a bandit camp to the West. I'm trying to remember if I remember. You got that look about you. Maybe I'm misreading. What's the word you're using, bandit camp? Huh?

That might keep us alive. No, when you say it might be bandits. Like that's your whole idea. You're like, it's probably bandits. He's like, well, there is a bandit camp to the west. I don't know much about it. They think there is a village out there. Maybe if we clear out the bandits, the village tosses us some coin.

Two birds, one stone. Could be the same. Could be. Could hit the west first, take out the camp. Maybe there's scouts and stragglers up north. Yeah. Or vice versa? Is that all the information you have?

Yeah. I don't like... I don't know. I'm like heading out there without knowing how many there are. All I know is there's a landmark. A marrow tree. It's near a woodcutter. village called a wardenwood never heard of it wardenwood never heard of it either i could try to get more

information but it it costs and we don't really know what they pay no but we do know we can talk to this man tomorrow this martin we'll know what he'll pay and he may even pay a small advance to even start the operation so i think we start there start there tomorrow and maybe we find these bandits maybe they jumped that caravan and headed back to where they're based in the west. Maybe that woman's at their camp. Right. But there's a lot of speculate. I don't know.

I'm going to turn in. And you can see he's never bought anything. He doesn't have any money. He never bought a drink or anything. It's just like, I'm going to turn in and get some rest. And let's talk to this merchant in the morning. Two people on the other side of the bar is another like sound of glass shattering. And they stand up.

and they like grab each other by the shirt and they're about to come to blows and the four guards that were sitting at the table just stand up, hand on the hilt of their sword and the guys are like, let each other go and rush themselves up and one of them just storms out and the other guy standing there like

staring at the guards and just sits down picks up the broken glass and you realize like as he's doing it he like cuts his hand and he just wipes the blood and smile just keeps picking up the glass

sorry sorry Remy the guards sit down I don't like it here I think we're done with the next and so you go back to the feathered wish room six

sixth floor six floor but yeah on the way And we wave to Mindy. Out of curiosity, how many rooms are in this in? There's 42. It's 42, yes. We really lucked out.

The way we do it is one, two, three, four, five, six. Then we start back over seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. At the time, it seemed like a good way of room. My father had his own. I think he was blind. It was a madman. It was blind and insane. It wasn't the blindness so much as the insanity.

You just wanted to do things different. Six would be on the first floor next door. But you're safe up there. Are you enjoying your stay here in Marensthold? Do you think you'll be taking us up on the weekly rate? We're going to invest. You see about some work in the morning and then we'll let you know. Well, best of luck to you.

Best of luck. Thank you. And you go upstairs and start to turn in. If some of you want to like wash off imagine there's like some sort of like pump mechanism that just shoots water. That would be nice. That would be incredibly really, really nice.

We're filthy. Yeah. We probably have to carry water up. Yeah, I assume there's a pump. I don't think they have a water pump capable of pumping up six floors. I'm sure there's a pump in the center of town and you just I want to make as easy as possible.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got some water. We see you bathing in this. We each bathe in front of each other. Right. We slowly bends ourselves as everybody else watches. And do you, I mean, you're in a hotel or an inn, rather.

You've got a door that you can lock, but you're used to a much different way of life. You're used to like watches and sleeping out under the stars. And then since waking up, who knows what you've been accustomed to? Even worse than that. Are you keeping, are you like, what is the, conversation about like, should we just all go to sleep or? I mean, I only, I, we're sharing room with a thief.

Yeah, it's like we don't, we don't have, we wouldn't completely trust these other two people anyway. Like, I think Matthew's character and I like have grown to come to some sort of a level of trust over the course of the weeks we've been together. But yeah, we have good reason not to trust at least, especially saint. And I do think that I, I have seen her, him before. I do think I've seen. Oh, I love this thread. I can't place it, I do think. But there is something that's like a little, a little shady there. So, yeah, I don't know.

I don't know. Yeah, I would definitely say, you know, I would say, we need to do a watch. Someone has to stay up. Saint is like tying leather strips together and he ties it around the handle of the door. And he's like tying it as you're saying that. And he's like, I agree. My, my, my pa taught me this. And then he just nails the leather strip into the, like, uses his shoe and just nails it into the wall.

So it's sort of like. With one of your spikes? Yeah, with one of my iron spikes. Your iron spikes. Um, so you can't like open the door because the leather strip stops it, even if you were to pick the lock of the door. Right. Um, that's good. Yeah.

I, I just didn't like the way those people were looking at us when we left to go out to the tavern. There's a lot of people here that need a place to stay and haven't gotten one. And I'm not sure what they might be willing to do to, make sure they get inside. All right. I'll take the first watch. Happy, too. I'll take the second.

Third. I'll get up early anyway. Right. All right. I'll turn in then. I head over to the bed. And on the way, I just sort of try to surreptitiously kind of tug at the leather

to see if it's not some kind of like trick knot or something. It's sad. Put on there. It's tight. Yeah. Who had a second watch? Second watch, okay. So you are...

I see those dice rolls over there. Oh, no. And St. Sleep with his dagger. Sleep with your dagger. Okay. But you're up. You're keeping the watch

and you're laying there and you hear a shriek from like beyond the window outside. He goes to the window I mean Go to the window And you look out And you see there's like a

This is middle of the night now Okay There's a bit of a commotion You see the town guard And It looks like they've got some people And they're kind of like Dragging them

To the drawbridge Can I open the window? Is it openable? Yeah yeah I'm going to try to open it And just listen Try to hear And you

hear like a woman's voice. It's not true. It's not true. Being muffled. Can I see anything else? I see a woman? Bunch of guards. And they've got a couple of people, maybe a couple of women. It looks like three people that they're dragging to the drawbridge and the drawbridge is starting to be lowered. I heard she was getting into some magic. That's what he's thinking. Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding It's not true Um The witch

She's a witch I'm going to Saint goes to the door Undoes his knot Leaves it hanging loose Closes the door Quietly behind him And I would like to sneak

Outside Leaving all of us sleep With an unlocked door Yeah I'm gonna sneak I said Can't trust Saint Something about Saint

Sneak outside By the way It's your name's St Anthony Right Yeah I just want to point out the actual historical St. Anthony is the patron saint of, among other things, sterility. Which is why I picked it.

And not the most known thing. The patron saint of lost items. Lost items? Like sperm? Well, no. Where did my sperm go? Where did he go? No problem.

That's what he's known for. He's famous for it. He's bring it back. I get back, St. Anthony. Please. He just wants to sneak outside, not get too close. But he wants to hear, see if he can pick up on any other conversation of what is going on. Okay.

I want you to roll some dice here. You're sneaking. I'm so good. Let's get a little dexie midnight runner here. Okay. Let me just make sure. Because my thievery, what does it give me? Okay.

I'm trained in the following task. I have advantage on any. associated check, including sneaking. Yeah, it's dark, you're a thief, give yourself advantage on a dexterity check. Advantage. I'm going to roll a different die. Okay, by turning in your bottle

cap? No, advantage. Okay, yes. Why don't you roll them at the same time? Yeah, you're crazy. I'm going to turn in my bottom. Oh, wow. Dab and a cap! Oh, oh, Oh, wow. And you get to,

I mean, you're rolling four dice now, so Roll twice, take the better. I'm going to tell you right now, I set the DC at 12. It's normal because it's dark. Good thing I use that cap. Oh, my God. I rolled another natural one, which is what I rolled the first time. Wow.

And 16, 17, 19. 19. Okay. Okay. All right. So you get out there hiding in the shadows and you just hear more of this. No, it's not true. It's not true.

It's not true. Quiet. Quiet. He's like, by a building. Come, come, come. And they're just shuffling, like, three people out the gate. And then they signal to the guards. Just, chich, chich, chich, chich, chich, chich, chich, chich, chich, chich.

Just one moment you said? No, like three. Three. Three, yeah. All women? At least two of them were. Tch, ching, ching, ching, ching, ching, ching, ching, ching, ching, what do you do? He'll just stand behind this building, waiting.

Here's a dog bark in the distance. Oh, hush, ah, ah. Waiting. Bark. Bark! Bark! Bark! Arc.

You get scared. Dog forgot his lines. It's a sick dog. Miao. Oh, no. Wait, let me do it again. Line. This town is so fucked up.

Dog sound like cats. He'll, he waits, and then he'll go back. I said jokingly that this would be not so jokingly, a great HBO prestige series. But I always think of these episodes in terms of like TV shows and your great TV shows. end with like popular music. And so I was just thinking of what would be a great song for this. And there's a version by Annie Lettics of I Put a Spell on You. Oh.

It's just like this piano. Screaming Jay Hawkins. This piano comes in and we just, we kind of pan up in this motton ballet hold and watching Saint go back to the feathered wishes. Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. I put a spell on you because you're mine. And that just plays out. And we'll see you next one.

Oh, man. What is going on? It is town. Some shady-ass cards, man. We can't play it. It costs too much money, but listen. Yeah, just listen to it. Go play that.

I love that, like, pop music over the shadow dark vibe. It's so great. It has begun. It has been. It's so many options. Oh, God. The right window treatments change everything. Your sleep, your privacy, the way every room looks and feels.

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