Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Part 1: All Hands on Deck | Starter Kit - 7th Sea Edition

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

Our Game Master, 7th Sea creator John Wick, helps our players build their characters. Then our party of pirates and their newly minted captain name their ship, pledge their allegiances, and set sail in the treacherous waters of the Widow’s Sea! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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or caps for sun-kissed bliss with immonade gelada, where zesty Brazilian lemonade accord meets coconut milk and golden brown sugar. Don't miss Sol de Janeiro's limited edition perfume mist collection only at Sephora. Welcome to the next edition of your starter kit. I'm Jason Charles Miller. Last round, we learned the basics of the granddaddy of modern role-playing games, Dungeons and Dragons. It was an amazing experience to introduce new players to a game that has meant so much to me. But D&D isn't the only role-playing game out there. This round, we're going to learn how to play a swash-buckling game of adventure, mystery, and magic on the high seas, a game called Seventh C. This time, I'm going to be on the other side of the GM screen, as one of the

players learning the game. But don't worry, I'm leaving you in literally the most capable hands possible. Guiding us through this adventure will be our GM, John Wick. Now there's no one who knows 7C better than John because he happens to be the creator of the game. John? Hi!

Hey! How you doing? Great. It's good to see you. Yeah, welcome to the show. I brought my mug. I love it. It's got a map on it and everything.

So I don't get lost. So tell us about the game 7C. Well, Seventh C is an amalgam of Errol Flynn, the Pirates of the Caribbean, the Princess Bride, all that kind of swashbuckly action stuff. And what I wanted in the game is I wanted players to make one roll of the dice and be able to jump on the table, grab the chandelier, swing across the room,

kick the bad guy in the face, and drink the beer, all with one roll. And that was our goal, and that's essentially what the game is. Awesome. Tell us about the world of Seventh C. Seven C takes place in the 17th century, in a world called Thea, which is kind of like an analog for Europe.

It's familiar enough that people can look at the geography and say, oh, I know what that is, I know what that is. But it was also fun to liberate ourselves from history and be more of a fictional world. And I like making the analog that it's like Alexander Dumas France, the France of the Three Musketeers, as opposed to the France of history. Well, I can't wait to play.

The table's yours. Thanks. I'm John Wick, the creator of Seventh C. and this is your starter kit. We're gonna make characters for 7C, and that's a little bit different than making characters for Dungeons and Dragons. There are no character classes,

but the nation your character comes from influences almost every choice you make when making a character. So, with that in mind, let's meet our players. Hi. Hi, I'm John. Amy, nice to meet you. It's nice to meet you.

Have a seat. So I understand that you're a Patrick Gubayan fan. Yes, I am. Oh, so am I. Good, perfect. really easy. We'll see. I hope so. So 7C is a swashbuckling role-playing game, so it's not just pirates, it's also the musketeers and all and all that kind of stuff. Like so the whole world. The whole world. So what we're going to do is first, I'm going to give you your starter kit.

This is for you. Oh, wow. Yeah, and this is a dice tray you're going to be able to use. So go ahead and open up the box. Oh, I like opening things. It's like, it's Christmas, but so much better. Oh, you have. Yeah. So you have a nameplate for your character? So tell us a little bit about your character. Her name's Essie, and she's very curious, kind of a discoverer, more of a scientist. She wants to be known for discovering the first of something,

and she doesn't care about, like, Glory, who cares, loot, whatever. Well, I guess she does care about Glory, just a very specific kind. Awesome. So like you said, do you have a nameplate? Also, open the scroll. Yeah, there she is. That's perfect. Let me see.

I love a good tartan. And you also have a backer Okay, we're gonna put these in the dice tray. Oh, those are pretty. Did I tell you guys blue was my favorite color? I don't know. But that worked out well. Oh, also, this is your book.

Boy, this is setting expectations so high for the next game I play. I'm gonna get there and be like, where's my gear? So here's the 7th C character sheet. And you've played role-playing games before, so you're a little familiar, yes. So in 7th C, you have five traits, and the traits kind of define the kinds of action

actions that your character takes. They are brawn, finesse, resolve, wits, and panache. And I like to explain that if you were in a burning room, the room is on fire, because of course it is. Because it's burning, sure. You use one of the traits to get out. And if you're going to use brawn, you're just going to bash down the wall.

Finesce is leaping between the flames and jumping out the window and gracefully falling into the hay bale below. And then resolve is just walking through the fire. It's the Bruce Willis diehard trait. Okay. And wits is your ability to look around the room, find something to your advantage, like a tapestry, and taking the tapestry down, throwing it over your head,

and walking, and getting through the fire. And then finally, Panash is your ability to convince someone to carry you out. So because you are a big hero, you're going to get two points in each of those traits. So go ahead and fill in the two bubbles for each of those traits. This reminds me of when you would take the tests in school.

And I would always be running close on time, because I wanted to fill them in so perfectly. So your character, here's the map of the world. This is Thea, which is an analog for 17th century Europe, so it's the 1600s. So for example, here is Avalon, where Queen Elaine lives, Queen Elaine, who united the three kingdoms of Avalon. Down here is Montaigne, where the emperor of the world,

Leroy de Monde, with all of his musketeers lives. Over here is Vodache with the Machiavellian merchant princes and their fate witch wives. It's a great title. But you are gonna be over here from the Highland Marches. Excellent. So your character is a marcher. Nice.

Loyal to Queen Elaine who united the kingdoms because they were in civil war and it was bad and religious and bloody and awful. That sounds terrible. And Elaine. Good job Queen Elaine. Good job Queen Elaine. God save the Queen.

She united the kingdoms together. Now because you're from the Highland Marches, you're gonna get a bonus to one of two traits. So you can take a plus one brawn or a plus one finesse. Fennesse. Yeah, we're gonna do finesse. Okay. So now you get two more points to spend in your traits.

You can spend them anywhere you want. Let's, I'm gonna spread the trait, love. One in finesse and one more in wits. There you go. And now we're gonna pick your background. Now a background is a profession or something you did in the past, sort of things like aristocrats, army officer,

farm kid, things like that. And I have a couple choices for you. You can pick explorer. Oh, that sounds intriguing. Or you can pick scholar. Oh, oh, decisions. Mm-hmm. Let's do, let's do explorer.

Explorer, okay. So you're a member of the Explorers Society, which is a secret society of explorers and uncovering the ancient ruins of Thea because there was a race or a people or a civilization before the Thayans and they left all of these ruins everywhere and these strange devices that nobody can make sense of

except the Explorer Society, which you're a member of. Nice. So because you're an explorer, you're gonna get a quirk, and a quirk is an action. Only one? I have so many quirk. You're gonna get more. So your quirk is that is a heroic behavior

that is gonna reward you with a hero point. And I'll explain how those work when we get all together. Okay. You will get a hero point when you set your eyes upon a site that few, if any, have ever seen. Perfect. Now your background also gives you skills and advantages. So let's do your skills first.

Okay. The five skills that you're going to get are athletics because you're Indiana Jones. Okay, yeah, I need a little of that here. So go ahead and take a point of athletics. Okay. Convince, so you get a point of convince. You get a point in each of these.

You're also gonna get a point of empathy. Oh, okay. Which is reading how other people feel. You're also gonna get ride, and you get a point of sailing. Oh, well that's gonna be helpful. Yeah. Maybe not a point of it, but it's better than none. And your two advantages are over here,

are quick reflexes and second story work. Quick reflexes, you choose a skill, one of your skills, and you will always be faster with that skill. When other people are about to act, if you're gonna use that skill, you're gonna go before them. Okay. And then second story work is, well,

it's breaking into places that you shouldn't be, because, well, you explore. You had to explore things, I feel like that's a requirement. It's when you ignore the no trespassing signs. That's right. Not that I would know anything about that. No, not at all. So do you second story work,

you spend a hero point to locate a way into a building or restricted area. You can bring up to one other character with you, but everybody else has to find their own way in. So those are your backgrounds, and you get 10 more points to spend in your skills. Wow, so I should pick my quick, do I need to name my quick reflex?

Yeah, go ahead and underline it or circle it, and that way you know when you look at your skills that it's fast. I feel like let's do convince. Okay, that could be useful. Okay, and I get 10 other points distribute among any of these? Oh nice. The maximum you can put in a starting skill is three points. That makes sense because you don't want to start and be like, I'm the best ever at whatever it is,

because that wouldn't, okay. Oh, decisions, decisions. Probably going to want a point of scholarship. Yeah, at least one. Because that's knowing things. You may also want to put a point of theft. There is a hide skill. I feel like that could be useful. So I've used three. As a matter of fact, you may want to pick that is your quick reflexes skill. You think so? I think so. Okay. Because somebody walks, it's the somebody walks into a room and you're on the ceiling.

That's probably good too, since I'm not going to boost, like, I'm not going to go for brawn. And I'm not going to be real great at fighting out of situations. Now, aim is the skill you use to shoot pistols, throw knives, anything that you're throwing or shooting. And weaponry is using swords and whips and everything else that's hand to hand. Okay. Okay, let's do one there. And then I think I might want to spend my other ones balking up things I have.

So I have five more. So let's throw another one in Convince. Another one in scholarship. Do you have recommendations? Do you think hide? I would recommend hide. I feel like we're going to be hiding from a lot of things. I'm already very worried.

Do you want a point in notice, which is... Oh, like being aware. Being aware of things? Yes. Maybe a point in theft to, you know, pick up. up things and without people noticing. Perfect. Awesome.

So we're almost done. We have one step left. Okay. And remember I told you about the Vedace Fate Witches? Yeah, how could I forget the Fate Witches? They can see a heroic aura around certain people that are heroes in the world. And your character has such an aura. Oh boy.

It's going to come from the Fate Deck, the Sorté deck. This is the tool that Fate Witches used to teach younger Fate Witches how to see the aura. So you're going to draw two. cards and one of them is going to be your hubris, which is a heroic flaw. It's a deep heroic flaw. And then the other one is your virtue, which is your deep heroic virtue. And these are going to be very powerful. You can use them once per game. And they kind of break the game. So they're very, very powerful. Okay, good to know. So go ahead and shuffle a deck or cut the deck or whatever you like, and you can draw two cards from anywhere you want in the deck. So just pick one card here.

Yep, and put it down. The second one's your hubris, so cross your virtue with it. But it's always. Okay, got it. There we go. There we go. So let's find out what your virtue and your hubris are. Okay. Let's get the flaw. Let's get the flaw out of the way. The Thrones.

All right. The Thrones. This is your hubris. You are stubborn. You receive a hero point when your hero is stubborn and refuses to change her mind in the face of evidence. That's on point. Let's just say.

And now let's find out what your virtue is. The moonless night. The moonless night. Activate your virtue. you when you act behind the scenes from the shadows or through a proxy for the next time you roll dice when you determine raises every die counts as a raise. That's a little bit technical, but essentially what it means

is when you roll dice, every single die is a success. That's wonderful. Yeah, so you just count up your dice and every single die is a success. Nice. But you can only do it once per game and you have to spend a hero point to do it. All right, and you're all set. I'm excited.

Next thing we're gonna do is we're gonna get the whole crew together. Okay. We're gonna pick one more background together and then we're gonna set sail. I cannot wait. I'm gonna go take some drama mean right now. Yes. Hi Steve. Hello.

Come on in. I'm John. John, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. I love your shirt. Thank you so much. So we're gonna play 7C. To do that, we have to make a character and you've sent me a character idea. I did send you a character idea, yeah.

Yeah. And so you played D&D before, right? Sort of. I've played like D&D Light. Okay. Which is kind of like the version that you compress down into like a bite-sized video version. Yeah, that's cool. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna take your character idea and we're gonna translate it into Se. Oh great. Okay. It still works. It still works perfectly fine. Go ahead and tell them, tell me what your idea was.

Well, I wanted to be a dwarf bard who basically entertains people with his musical abilities. Okay, that sounds great. Yeah. So what we're gonna do, well, first of all, Let me give you your starter kit. John, where the hell are we? What is this place? Well, this is called the Broken Compass Tavern. I just don't remember getting here is the weird part. Well, you know, the Seventh C is a weird and magical place.

It must be, yeah. So this is your starter kit. Okay. So go ahead, you can open it up. Also, this is your copy of the Seventh C book. Okay, great. All right, awesome. So I can draw a little moustaches on people in here and stuff.

Oh yeah, it's yours. Okay, great, awesome. All right, so you want me to open this up? Oh yeah. It's not gonna spray me with anthrax, is it? No. Okay, good. Here we go.

Oh, good. Yes, all right. No anthrax, no spiders either. Oh, no, definitely not. Definitely not. Okay, so this is my name. Yeah, that's your character's name. Yeah, and I think I chose the nationality of a Spaniard as well.

And we're going to be able to do that too, so yeah. Okay, great, great. So, okay, so what am I looking at here? Open up the scroll? Open the scroll, okay. This is where the spiders are. No. Okay, no spider.

I guarantee you. There are no spiders. Okay, not yet. Oh, look at that. There he is. I love it. There's my boy. He's got bongos.

Yes, he does. That's so great. I love his kerchief. It's very nice. And you have a dice bag. All right. What'd you call me, sir? Just kidding.

I didn't say a dice bag. Here we go. Let me open this up and take a look at my dice. Are these like personalized dice? I've got my own color. You have your own color. Yeah. Cool.

This is great. So this is like, is this like gun metal, silver. Yeah, something like that. Cool. Man, this is a lot of dice. Yeah, we're gonna need all of them. What if I accidentally eat one? Don't. Okay, I'll try not to. Cause then spiders.

Oh, there you go, that's where the spiders come from. These are spider eggs! No, I'm very excited about this. I don't wanna lose any of these. So keep them in the bag. I'll keep them in the bag. We'll be using them in a bit. This is wonderful.

So what are these, are these, is this a certain type? It's a ten-sided die. A ten-sided die. And they're each ten-sided die. Yeah, all ten-sided dice for this game. Great, okay. All right, good to know. All right, so here's your key.

Character sheet, go ahead and put that on your book so you can write on it, because we're gonna be writing on it. Great, let's write. So this is the world, or at least the continent of Thea, where Seventh C takes place. Right. And each of the nations is kind of like an analog to a European nation. And over here is Castile, which is where you're from.

Ah, Castile. Castile is the home of the church, and the church in Thea is a place of learning. Because they believe that if you discover the world, if you discover the way the world works, you get closer to the mind of God. Ah, I'm into that. Except the Inquisition recently took over

and they're all about killing everybody who they don't like. Right, right, right, yeah. Similar to our own historical inquisition. Exactly. So because you played role-playing game before, you kind of know how this works. Yes.

Your character has five traits that are kind of like how your character gets things done. Okay, right. And the five traits are brawn, finesse, resolve, wits, and panache. Sure. You are a big hero in this game. Right, okay. You're not starting off as a first level,

Nobody. So you get two points, two bubbles in each of the traits. So go ahead and fill those in. Okay, great. This is wonderful. And then because you are from Castile, you get a bonus point in one of your traits. Okay. And it can be either finesse or wits. Okay, and I was hoping it would come down to those because as you were describing them, I felt like wits and finesse were kind of like my, like they fit more towards my actual personality. You know, I use my wits, use my finesse. You haven't seen me do a backwness. I've seen me do a back flip yet, but you will. Oh, I count on it. Yeah, you're going to see it eventually. Can you guys do that with special effects in post? Greetings, adventurers.

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Okay, so I get an extra finesse? Yep, or wits. Or an extra wits. So I'm gonna go wits. All right. Now you get two more points to spend anywhere you want on your traits. Anywhere I want, okay, okay, yeah,

I think I'm gonna add some more to panache. Yeah, you have one more point to spend anywhere you want on the sheet. One more point, okay. So maybe I want a little bit of strength in there. I want a little bit more strength. So now that your traits are done, we're gonna pick your background.

Now your background is something that you've done in the past. So for example, you were, a servant or a ship's captain or a soldier or something like that. Right. Now, there is a performer background. Okay, good. And I know that you're going to dig that.

Yeah. And because you are from Castile. Now, I have a question for you. Sure. Do you want to be just a straight up street performer, or are you a performer who was trained by the church? I like street performer. Okay, good.

School of Hard Knocks. School of Hard Knocks. There we go. So write performer under background. Okay. And because you have that background, you get a quirk, which is a heroic behavior because you were a performer. Okay.

And whenever you do it, I'm gonna give you a hero point. All right. And you'll learn how to spend these in a minute. Okay, great. When we all get back together. So you get a hero point when you use your crowd-pleasing skills for something more than making money. Okay.

Now, your background also gives you a set of skills. All right. So go ahead and put one point in each of these skills. All right. You're gonna get athletics, empathy, perform, Got it. Tempt, which is convincing somebody with something that they want.

Okay. And theft. Now you also get these advantages. You get two advantages. You get virtuoso and inspire generosity. So I'm gonna write that down. So inspire generosity is that you can spend a hero point when you're trying to convince somebody to be generous

and they will do it. No dice rolls, no nothing. You're like, this is my moment where I make the speech and the guy does the generous. thing. Now, the other one is virtuoso. Yeah. Choose one performance type, such as singing, playing a specific musical instrument or dancing.

You gain a bonus die whenever you make a perform risk using that. And you can choose that later. You don't have to choose it now. Great. Because so like sometime in the game you're like, I need to do this thing. That's my virtuoso. Right, right. All right.

All right. All right. So now you get 10 more points to spend on skills. Okay. And you can spend them anywhere you want. but you can't have more than three points in a scale. Okay, okay. So I'm gonna go ahead and give myself some more empathy

because I feel like that's an important trait. Okay. Explain to me notice. Notice is noticing small details and important things in a scene? I like that one. I'm gonna add me, I'm gonna give me two notice, just like my apartment complex where they wanna kick me out,

they gave me two notices. That's right. I think convince and panache kind of go hand in hand a little bit, don't they? Yes, they do. Yes, I do. So I'm going to give myself two convince as well. Okay, so I'm going to definitely put some sailing in there maybe because I think that might be an important trade if we're going to be on a boat.

We're going to be on a ship. So I'm going to give myself two there as well. So is scholarship smarts? It's knowing things. And because you're Castilian, that's kind of important. Okay, so yeah, I'm going to give myself. How many do I have left? You have three left.

Okay, then I'm going to give the rest of those three to the scholarship. Okay, cool. Yeah. You're an educated Castilian. Yeah. For once I'm an educated person. There you go. There's one thing left to do.

Okay. You got to choose your skills, you got to choose your traits, but you don't get to choose your fate. Oh, okay. So what we're going to do is we're going to take the fate deck, and you're going to shuffle it or whatever you want to do. Okay. And then you're going to draw two cards. The first card is going to be your virtue, which is your heroic virtue. It's an ability that breaks the rules that you can do once per game.

Okay. And the second one is your hubris, and it's your great. deep, heroic flaw. Oh, okay. And when you use your hubris, when your character does his hubris, I'm gonna give you a hero point. Oh, okay. So you can pick two cards anywhere in the deck

and then put one face down like that and put the other face across it like that. Okay, all right, here we go. So I'm gonna, I'm just gonna pull the top to here. Where'd you like. Okay, so there's that one. That's your virtue. And then here's that one.

The hubris. Okay. Okay, so which do you wanna see first? I'd like to see the hubris. I'd like to see the hubris. All right, so go ahead and flip it over. All right. Your hubris is the glyph.

The glyph. Dun, dun, dun, dun. Oh, man, this is heavy stuff. I'm nervous. Oh, you should be nervous. Okay, so your hubris is that you're superstitious. Oh, dig it. You receive a hero point when you refuse to solve a problem

using sorcery, an artifact, or some other mystical effect that you don't trust. Okay, okay. So now let's find out what your virtue is. All right, I'm ready for this, I'm scared. The reunion. Oh, there we go, the reunion. Activate your virtue and choose another hero

in the same scene. You get to pool all of your dice together. Okay. And take actions from that shared pool. Oh, so we can like, it's almost like a big collective. Wow, so if we're in trouble. Yep, you activate your virtue by spending a hero point, and you and the other player roll all of your dice together.

Okay, so just me and one other play. One other play. God, I got it. That's a great virtue. It is a great virtue. Yeah, okay. I'm glad you picked that one. Yeah, me too.

All right, you're all set. You have your virtues and your skills and all of your good stuff and we're gonna get together with the rest of the crew. John, I'm excited. Awesome. Let's do this. Let's do it. Hi.

Hi. Yeah, it's nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. I'm John. Dreya. Have a seat. Thank you. So, I saw your character create your character idea.

You want to tell me a little bit, a little about it? Yes, well, she's known as Back from the Dead Red. Yes. No one actually knows her real name. She's had a lot of years, decades of experience, as a buccaneer. She prefers strategy and mind games over swords play. She just doesn't wanna get messy with blood.

Well, that's great, because in 7th C, it's very much about all of the archetypes, the swashbuckling archetypes. So red fits perfect. So I understand you've played computer role-playing games before. I've played some like strategy board games. Okay. I've never played a like a true traditional tabletop RPG.

So, Seventh C's gonna be your first time. Yes. That's awesome. So let's get started. This is your starter kit. Awesome. So go ahead and open that up. Okay. All right.

So I have my own nameplate. You have your own nameplate, yeah. Undo the scroll. Undo the scroll. Okay. All right. I love it. There she is.

Yes. Oh, that's awesome. And you have a bag of dice, so those are your dice. Everybody has a different color. I think it should be red, but you might surprise me. Oh, they are! Beautiful! Ooh, I like it.

What we're gonna do is we're gonna make your character. This is a character sheet, and the character sheet is a way for you to communicate to me what you want your character to be good at. There are five traits in the game that describe your character's biggest strengths. And they are brawn, finesse, resolve, wits, and panache. Because you are a superhero,

because this is the game about being Errol Flynn or about being characters from the Princess Bride, you get two points in all of the traits for free. In the world of 7C, it's kind of like a fake Europe. However, your character isn't gonna be from here. Your character's gonna be from a different place. Your character's gonna be from the Pirate Nations. And the Pirate Nation

are far, far away, and I'm going to suggest that you come from an island called Jaragua, or Haragua, depending on how you want to pronounce it. Kind of an analog of Jamaica and Haiti. Because you are from Haragua, you're gonna get a bonus point in one of your traits. You get a plus one brawn or a plus one finesse. I think I will go with finesse.

I think that matches your character better, because you want your character to be quick and agile and that kind of thing. Right, so I just bubble that in. Go ahead and bubble that in. You said two? A one. Oh, just checking.

Yeah. However, now you get two more points to spend anywhere you want on the character sheet. Okay. Because your character wants to find ways out of things, wants to be clever and all that, I'm going to suggest that you already have a three in finesse. That's really good.

I would suggest putting a point in wits and panache. So that way you can bluff your way through things and you can find things to help you around. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. So that's awesome. So next what we're gonna do is we're gonna pick your character's background.

So here are the Haragua backgrounds and they're very specific to the problem in Haragua. Haragua used to be a slave colony that the slaves overthrew the evil Adabayan trading company and liberated their land. So each of these, each of these backgrounds, it has a little description for what they all are. And they kind of require a little bit of Haragua knowledge,

but that's okay if you don't, yeah. And then, so they also give you the advantages that you get and the skills you get. Well, I'm a little bit intrigued by the provocateur. That makes sense. So would you like that to be your first background? Yeah, I think so. Okay.

That'll be good. Your skills, and what you're gonna do is you're gonna put a point in each of the skills that I read, and then we'll go through the skills and you can see what they are. Okay. You get one point in brawl, which is fisticuffs. You also get a point in empathy,

which is knowing how other people feel. You get a point of hide, you get a point in tempt, which is getting people to change their mind based on something that they want. So that could be money, it could be power, it could be anything. Finally, you get a point of theft, so stealing things. Now your two advantages are connection,

which means you're gonna, once per game, you can say you're in a foreign port and you're like, oh yeah, I know somebody here who can help us, because you've been in various ports all over the place. I know people. You know the right people. You know the right people.

Sometimes you know the wrong, wrong the people. And then you also get one called Sweeten the Pot. And Sweeten the Pot lets you spend a point of wealth to make your role better. There you go. Now you get 10 more points to spend on the skills. So you can spend the skills,

you can spend those 10 points wherever you want. So just off the bat, I think I should know something about sailing and warfare, since that's sort of the landscape we're talking about. You are going to get a point of sailing when we take Pirate. But if you want to have more, that's perfectly okay. So at least get one there. And then two in warfare.

Sure. Strategy and tactics. I think I'll go with then a point in aim. Okay. I don't want to be so close that I have to be. You want to be over there. Athletics. Yep, definitely.

So that seems useful. So one there for now. Convince seems useful. So maybe I'll do two in there. In Convince? So maybe one in scholarship. Yeah, you know things are true about the world. You've been around.

Yes. Now, did you also want to take a point in notice? Because it will give you more dice to notice things around and use those to your advantage. And that sounds like something your character is about. So I've got now two left. Two left. So either one in intimidate and one in notice or both in notice. What are your thoughts?

I would like, it'd be interesting if your character doesn't know how to intimidate people. Okay. So two in notice? Two in notice would be fun. Okay, let's do that. Now, the last thing we're going to do is, we're going to cast your character's fate. And it comes in two parts.

One is your virtue, which is kind of the game-breaking advantage that you get. And then you have a hubris. And your hubris is your heroic flaw. It's the thing that you will never leave someone behind, or I always fall in love with the wrong person, or something like that. And because you can't choose your fate,

we're going to draw from the fate deck. So go ahead and shuffle or the cards if you like. cards if you like. Okay. So you can pick any card from the deck. You can pick the top card, the bottom card, whichever one you want. And the first one will be your virtue.

Mm-hmm. And the second one will be your hubris. All right. Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the Unreal College deal.

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tea on soil and mulch. Dig into spring garden deals for four days at the Home Depot. Now through May 10th. Exclusion supply, see Home Depot.com slash price match for details. So the first one is the hanged man. The virtue for the hanged man is altruistic.

And what that means is if something bad happens to any character in the game, you can spend a hero point and it happens to you instead. Okay. So you save that character. And then go ahead and pick another card and put it across. so it crosses it like that.

And that one is coins with death. Hubris for coins is relentless. You receive a hero point when you refuse to leave well enough alone. Okay. And that's it. You're all set? Thank you. That was fun. Now we have one more thing to do is we're going to meet together

as a crew. We're all going to take the pirate background and then we're gonna start our adventure. I'm excited. Hey. How did we switch places like that? I'm back. Good, good, good, have a seat. Thanks.

So you have an idea of what your character, what you want your character to be. I told you that it's going to have something to do with a pirate ship, and you came up with... I came up with a sort of disgraced noble character from the island of Avalon, which is loosely based on jolly old England.

Jolly old, yeah, the whole United Kingdom part, yeah. Right. I came up with the most British name I could think of, Benedict Royston is my name. That sounds fantastic. And what is your role going to be on the ship, do you think? Well, my idea was because he comes from a nobleman's background,

he has quite a large general education. So his attitude, I think, is he's just trying to escape his past, and he's willing to do anything on the ship, anything that's neat. Well, that, you know, a ship is a good way to escape your past. So that sounds awesome. All right, great. Well, let's start making your character. Okay.

But before we do that, this is your starter kit. Whoa, cool. Awesome. So here's your character sheet, and I think that we can use this book here for you right now. Awesome, great. Can I open my little scroll here? Oh, there he is.

Oh, that's awesome. I'm guessing this is dice. That would make sense, that would be dice. As a player, I would guess. Ooh, very nice. All right, awesome. Let's start making your character. Okay.

So grab the pencil. The first thing that you wanna do is decide your nation, which you have. You're gonna be from Avalon, so go ahead and write that down your character sheet. Great. Now in Seventh C, there are five traits that define kind of how your character does things,

and the five traits are brawn, finesse, resolve, wits, and panache. Oh, nice. So those are the five traits, and they're kind of like the five heroic swashbuckling archetypes. Sure. So because you are a big hero, you get two points for free and all of the traits.

Oh, okay, so everything is two. Everything starts at two. And then because of your nation, you're gonna get a bonus to one of your traits. Because you're from Avalon, you can have a plus one panache or a plus one resolve, either way. I'll take resolve.

Okay, so go ahead and put another point resolve and now you get two more points to put anywhere on your traits. Right. I feel like I would take wits and brawn. Wits and brawn? Yeah. Okay, so go ahead and put a point in each wits and brawn. Right, because he's strong enough to bash the door down, but he's smart enough to realize that he needs to hit it right in this spot. So because you were a courtier in you're a part of the Queens court and you did something that was scandalous and we don't know what that is yet, but maybe we'll

find out during play. I may or may not want to reveal that. That's right. You're going to have the courtier background. Okay, great. So go ahead and write that. Now, a background is something that your character has done in the past, and it comes with skills and advantages.

And it also comes with a quirk. And the quirk is how you earn hero points, which we'll talk about in a bit. So you will earn a hero point when you turn the tide of violence with charm and flare. Now turn the tide of violence, could that mean either or just stopping violence? That means either way.

Okay. I could incite violence with charm and flare as well. That's right. Now, you also get these skills, and go ahead and put one point in each of the skills. You get a point in empathy, which is sensing how other people feel. You get a point in perform.

You get a point in ride. You get a point in tempt. And you get a point in weaponry, which is using hand-to-hand weapons. And then you get these advantages. You get an honest misunderstanding. And what that does is you spend a hero point, and you can re-edit something that someone had just said

in a more favorable way. Nice. What my friend meant to say, Your Majesty, and that way you can edit it so that the other character will take it more favorably. The other advantage you have is friend at court, which means if you go to a more civilized part of the world, you know somebody there and you spend a hero point

and you say, oh, I have a friend here, I can go and talk about to him. Those are your two advantages and then you get 10 more points to spend on your skills and then we're going to do your Arcana. Okay. So while you're doing that, I'm going to explain what your Arcana is. It is a heroic halo and it separates you from the rest of the world. The world has chosen you to be a hero. Your Arcana has two parts. It has a virtue, which gives you a huge big in-game bonus, but it also has a hubris, which is a hero, a deep heroic flaw because you cannot choose your fate. We are going to draw from the deck

to see what your virtue and hubris are. Oh boy, I better take at least one in sailing. Yeah, well you are, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead and cut the deck and now take any card you like from the deck. You don't have to take it from the top.

You could, but take any card you want from the deck. Okay. I think I'll take the first one from the top. All right, this is your virtue. So go ahead and pull it out. The magician. So, the magician card. So your virtue is willful.

You activate your virtue by spending a hero point and target a villain. Until the end of this scene, you cannot spend hero points and the villain cannot spend danger points. And I'll explain with that how, you'll understand how that works when we get to the rest of the system.

So that's your virtue. Now pick one more card and cross it across your virtue, and that's your hubris. All right. You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save?

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The prophet. The prophet. The prophet is overzealous. Mm. You receive a hero point when your hero strongly defends one of her opinions when the time or place is inappropriate. Right. So if someone insults the queen or insults Avalon or anything else that you strongly believe in, I will give you a hero point if you, if that causes trouble for you and your friends.

Does that make sense? Yes. Awesome. And you're about set. We'll finish all this up when you meet the rest of the crew. the rest of the crew. Great. Awesome.

So now that we have the whole crew together, it's time to vote on who's the captain. Oh. Oh. So what I'd like each of you to do is to give me a very brief introduction of your character and why you should be captain. Let's start with Red. Okay, so I'm back from the Dead Red, and I've had many years of experience as a female pirate. I use strategy, wit, cunning, I'm particularly smart, and I'll get the job done.

Excellent. And over here we have... My name is Benedict Royston. I'm from the Royal House of Royston's, although I'm now on the run. I do not want to be the captain. Do not vote for me. This is my first day as a pirate.

Awesome. And then over here we have... I'm Essie Duned, and I am an explorer slash scientist. I am along for the ride for the sake of discovery. I also do not want to be the captain because I don't care about getting money or loot. I just want to find neat science-y stuff. Oh, okay. And finally, I am Romero. Just simply Romero. I'm a bard and I like to travel and I'm a good performer too like if you guys are feeling kind of sad play a little tune on my bongos or my lute. Awesome. I don't really

want to be the captain. But, but, but, I would be the captain if you'd like me to. So with that mind, we are on a pirate ship and pirates vote. So we're going to vote on who the captain is. Now, I'm going to be playing the rest of the crew. So I'm the bosun and the cook and everything else. So I'm going to get one vote. All right.

So we're going to vote on who gets to be captain. Are you ready? Should Red be captain? Everyone say, raise your hand? Aye. Done. I'm red, Captain! You've been fallen told.

You're the only person. You're the only person that didn't say you didn't want to be captain. But you didn't say you're experienced pirate. All right, I'll take it. I think it might also, we also might want to pick the ship's doctor. Okay. Yes. Yes.

Hi, how are you? So everyone who wants Essie to be the ship's doctor, raise your hand. Done, I am so good a doctoring, just wait. We also need a shanty man. Well, that's- Vote for the shanty man, one, two, three. Done. Go to be the shanty man.

Now we also need someone who knows people, the quartermaster, and the quartermaster is the one who buys things and supplies the ship. That would be me. That would be you. So voting for the quartermaster, vote? Done. So we have the officers of the ship, awesome.

Now, we need to name the ship. Now each of you submitted a name for the ship. So what was the name of the ship? So I suggested under tow, because I was thinking of like, a, you know, not an ostentatious, you know, massive thing, just something that kind of creeps along. And when you don't, you know, when you,

when it's unexpected, you'll be taken under. And I think that was pretty menacing. Yeah. Do you remember what your suggestion? I suggested the black razor. Ooh. Because it sounds menacing. Wonderful. So do you remember yours?

Yes, roaming banshee, because banschees are badass and why wouldn't you name a ship after them? That's true. And I chose the gilded peasant because. So you couldn't pick which sides. You put them together. Yeah, you're kind of both. You're a man, a woman of the streets

or like a royal awesome person. Awesome. So we're gonna vote. Everyone who wants the undertow. Raise your hand. I don't even want my own. Okay. I was like, these others are so awesome.

The black razor. I'm in the black razor. Oh, okay. So the black razor is the name of the ship. So now the next part is we're gonna decide what kind of pirate ship you are. Are you a ship that is a freebooter? In other words, you are free pirates.

You go out and you raid and plunder wherever you want. That sounds very piraty. That sounds very priority. You can also be part of the Republic of Pirates, which is kind of like the Brotherhood of the Coast. It's a group of pirates that have all signed a charter that agrees to help each other when they see each other in trouble.

they come to a common island and share their wealth and distributed amongst the other pirates, that whole kind of thing, so we can be part of the Republic of Pirates. We could also be privateers, which is we sign under a monarch, one of the monarchs of Thea, and we have that monarch's protection. So for example, with Queen Elaine, the best queen ever. God said the queen, if we are under the protection

of Queen Elaine, as long as we are in Avalon waters, we're safe, because the Navy will protect us and all of the ports of Avalon are open to help us. So do you guys want to be freebooters? Do you want to be part of the Republic of Pirates or do you want to be privateers? Look, I like the Republic of Pirates in a way

because it keeps like a nice big group of pirates that have our back if we are ever in trouble. I feel like if we go with like the royalty side where we kind of like choose allegiance with like a king or a queen or something, then we like run into trouble with other kings Yeah, like kind of makes us a target. And armies, exactly, yeah.

But I don't like the idea of just free-forming it. You want to be a freebeater? I like the idea of having some backup when things go back, because I feel like that. But you also have obligations. If you see another member of the Republican trouble, you have to help them. I mean, that could create new friendships

and new opportunities and any thoughts? I'm curious as how many rules the Republic of Pirates has. Oh, you are not allowed to fire unless it's the Adabayan Trading Company. And the Adabian Trading Company are this evil global corporation that captures pirates and sends them to slave islands. Oh my. So they're terrible.

As a matter of fact, your character comes from Haragua, which was one of those slave islands. And her people liberated themselves. Yes, we did. From the evil Advean Trading Company, or the ATC, as we call them. It seems like that, those people would be a problem no matter which we choose. That's pretty much true. That's fair point.

How does it sound? It sounds like you guys kind of want to do the Republican Pirates, maybe, no? Kind of into it. What do you think? No, I think it's a good idea. I think it's the right amount of independence and allegiance, and we're gonna run into some trouble anyway, because of this guy.

Oh, that's true. That's probably absolutely accurate, so. All right, so let's take a vote. Let's vote for the Republic of Pirates, the Brother of the Coast. Come on, it's good. Hey! You're not allowed to shoot at anybody

that doesn't shoot at you first, unless it's the ATC. You always, if Poplar's, if possible, take prisoners instead of killing them. And when you release the prisoners, you release them on an island that is near trade waters with enough food and water so they can survive. Oh, well, that's very friendly on us.

Wow, this is a well-established pirate. It is a republic. A republic. So we have a ship, we have a crew, we have a captain, we know that we're all members of the Brotherhood of the Coast. And you set sail in the widow's sea just south of Montaigne. waiting for treasure ships from the ATC returning from the Adabian Sea.

And next time, we'll find out what happens when you run into one. Join us, and you'll get to see what happens too. Next time on Starter Kit. The ship is on fire. Wow. Is what's happening evil business? We don't want no part of a cursed ship. Set sail.

Aye, sir, set sail. He's going to be due for a reframent if he comes back alive. Oh, no. The war is over. And both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered like bones in the dust. Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight.

But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins. This is old school adventuring at its most cruel. Your torch ticks down in real time. And when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job. This is a brutal rules-light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make. This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s. And man, it is so good to be back. Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the Shadow Dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on YouTube.com slash the glass cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day.

See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark. The world of Sonic the Hedgehog. has been thrust into a not-so-dark, not-so-stormy, hard-boiled detective story that probably nobody saw coming. Follow Sonic and the Intrepid Chaotic's Detective Agency, as they take on their biggest case yet. This high-flying, action-packed adventure will take them across the world, fighting for every quill they can fight.

It's one heck of a tale, which is good, because this story might be the only. only thing that can save their lives. Well, if that's all, I can just dispose of you. Wait, what? All will be revealed in. Sonic the Hedgehog presents the Chaotics Case Files. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.

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