Critical Role - Critical Role Plays Daggerheart | Live One-Shot

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

Join game master Matthew Mercer as he leads players Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey, Taliesin Jaffe, Travis Willingham, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, and Liam O’Brien through a LIVE One-Shot using the Daggerheart system! Though Daggerheart is still in Beta testing, we hope this one-shot can give insight into how the game can be played. Our Daggerheart Open Beta Playtest is now open! Sign up at https://www.daggerheart.com/ Please play often and submit your surveys at https://www.daggerheart.com/play Learn more at https://critrole.com/daggerheart-open-beta-playtest-is-live/ All Daggerheart Open Beta Playtest materials can be accessed via PDF on https://www.daggerheart.com/ and https://drivethrurpg.com. Daggerheart digital character creator and Nexus are also available virtually at https://app.demiplane.com/. Produced by Kyle Shire and Maxwell James Graphic Design by Bryan Weiss & Jordyn Torrence DP by Michael Schmidt Sound by Kyle Pham Quickstart Adventure sketches and One Shot Artwork by Shaun Ellis CURRENT DAGGERHEART CREDITS: Lead Game Designer: Spenser Starke Additional Game Designers: Rowan Hall, Matthew Mercer, Alex Teplitz, Michael Underwood Additional Writing: Layla Adelman, Carlos Cisco, Felix Isaacs, Erin Roberts, Eugenio Vargas Combat Wheelchair Design: Mark Thompson Developmental Editor: Laura Hirsbrunner Archivist: Dani Gage Senior RPG Producer: Elise Rezendes Junior Games Producer: Alex Teplitz Additional Production: Alex Uboldi Art Director: Anthony Jones Associate Art Director: Leesha Hannigan Playtest Program Coordinator: Brieger Creative Lead Graphic Design: Matt Paquette & Co. Additional Graphic Design: John Harper, Vee Hendro Consultants: Daniel Delgado, Rue Dickey, Rob Hebert, James Mendez Hodes, David Lezzi, Erin Roberts, Christine Sandquist, Rogan Shannon, Mark Thompson Lead Concept Artist: Shaun Ellis Cartographer: Marco Bernardini Artists: Juan Salvador Almencion, Zoe Badini, Paul Scott Canavan, Kristina Carroll, Stephanie Cost, Nikki Dawes, Benjamin Ee, Geoffrey Ernault, Laura Galli, Juan Gutierrez, Leesha Hannigan, Hendry Iwanaga, Anthony Jones, Samantha Joanne Key, Priscilla Kim, Michael Lim, Linda Lithén, Samantha B. Lucas, Julia Metzger, Reiko Murakami, Jess Nguyen, Irina Nordsol, Tamara Osborn, Mike Pape, Simon Pape, Jen Pattison, Marzena Piwowar, Andreas Rocha, Ernanda Souza, Jenny Tan, Rafa Teruel, Mateusz Wilma Want even more games? Follow Darrington Press Website: https://darringtonpress.com Newsletter: https://darringtonpress.com/newsletter Twitter: https://twitter.com/DarringtonPress Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darringtonpress/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/darringtonpress

Hi there, this is Matthew Mercer, resident Game Master here at Critical Role, to welcome you to this podcast version of the show. If you'd like to watch the stream as it airs, you can catch it Thursdays at 7pm Pacific on twitch.tv slash criticalrole or youtube.com slash criticalrole. Twitch subscribers can access the video on demand immediately after the broadcast and it also becomes available on YouTube Mondays at 12 p.m. Pacific. Podcast episodes land right here on the Critical Role Podcast Network

on Thursdays, a week after the initial broadcast. Okay, with that info dump out of the way, let's dive into the story. Hello, everyone, and welcome to tonight's very special live Daggerheart open beta one-shot. Oh my god! Yeah! Thank you all so much for joining us.

This is also our nine-year anniversary, so. Five years! Anniversary. Happy anniversary! Doesn't feel a year past 700. The marriage is still fresh. Exactly. So I sincerely thank you all so much,

all of you wonderful critters out there for supporting us over these years. It's wild that we've been doing this this long and enjoy it every step of the way. Along with you all, it really just means a lot and y'all can expect a lot of rad stuff to come in the future. We're super excited.

So we're celebrating today by taking Daggerheart for a spin! Woo! With the official open beta playtest materials available now on daggerheart.com. You can download the PDF, you can play at home with your group, you can craft characters solo,

you can even play virtually with the Daggerheart Nexus on Demiplane and just make a bunch of characters and try them out. That's so good. However you decide that you want to play, all of us here are eager to see what you think we can do to make the game better as we move forward on this.

So please be sure to fill out the playtest surveys on daggerheart.com so we can incorporate your amazing feedback and make this game as amazing as you possibly can. Marisha, you got some announcements as well? Yeah, just wanted to shout out that we also have a ton of Daggerheart content that is live right now on our YouTube channel.

So if you're more of a visual learner, it's got a lot of really cool card graphics. It's really great. We have a Daggerheart 101 video with Matt and Spencer explaining the core game mechanics so that you can kind of keep up with us. And then there's also a character building video with Travis and Matt where they create Bertrand Bell

in Daggerheart in Scrae. He died. Well done. RIP. We also uploaded our Session Zero for this one shot that we are about to play right now, where we created these delightful characters you're about to see.

So if you want a little bit more insight into how the Session Zeros work, you can go check it out and see how much of, how batshit we all are. The VOD for tonight's one shot will be available immediately after the broadcast, and the podcast version will also be uploaded tomorrow, as in March 13th, because tonight's the 12th.

Whoa! Because we're live! We are! But how do we prove it? We have to prove it. I know, I need a newspaper! Get us a newspaper! Damn it! Here, I'll show you my New York Times app. Yeah. Regardless.

How do we prove it? What happened today? This is today's Myrtle. Oh, that's cool. Let's go live. Live, live, live. Live, baby. Oh, yeah, that's right. He looks so handsome. No.

No. No. Nice try. So yeah, excited to do this. This is still a newish rule set for us as well. We've played a number of games and things have changed many times. So if we ever get loosey-goosey with it, just know that we're also testing it alongside you. But nevertheless, I believe that concludes our announcements, so let's go ahead and jump into tonight's episode of Critical Role Playstack. Oh!

We don't have any opening titles, so now we just go into the game. Oh, god! There we go! Perfect. So. Welcome, one and all, to the realm of Lockspire. A rolling collection of winding landmasses

that tumble from the mountains of creation into the surrounding seas that coil between the broken expanse of grassy hills, rocky crags, and mysterious overgrowth from the length of the Builder's Bridge to the distant ruins of Nyx. Here beneath the hallows above, mortals mingle with the great many relics and ruins of ages long past, now left to crumble beneath ambition and progress. Here the echoes of traumatic wars linger in unhealing scars that stretch the land, while remnants of vibrant and magical beings

dance between the sunbeams in ancient places of thrumming power. Here, the common folk seek revelry and purpose in a world that churns in a constant state of change. Fortune and glory ever call to many, and life in Lockspire is rarely dull for those with an eye for opportunity and an eagerness to walk beyond what is comfortable. Even so, older and crueler wills lurk within the depth of every shadow and in the twisted heart of every city, even within the most sacred of natural places.

And it is here where our story begins. In the late afternoon of a late summer day, within a moss-dappled cabin nestled within the outskirts of the divine Timberland known as the Emerald Sky, home to the will of Ondra, Goddess of the Wild, and Wooded Places. Here among the ever-climbing perimeter trees, Chandra, goddess of the wild and wooded places. Here among the ever-climbing perimeter trees, within the home of the retired war hero Everett Cole,

a troop of journeymen adventurers bonded through circumstance, finish their last meal before trekking into the ominous deep of the Emerald Sky. As we come in into the late afternoon golds and greens of the forest, past the moss and dust-covered exterior window, we see the warmly lit interior of the Humble Cabin,

the flames crackling in the nearby fireplace. We shift over to Sir Dante. If you wouldn't mind, describe to me what you look like and what you are doing within the cabin. Oh. Oh my god. Matt, you're real good. Oh. Oh my god. No, you're real good at this. Oh my god.

I'm not doing much. Not bad. Well, I am a approximately 5'10 turtle, wearing a corsair's hat in brown leather with a lovely feather on top, a blue and white striped tunic and a half cape of gold and royal blue, leather gloves, leather boots, although the toe's cut out because, turtle. I mean, of course. I have a very fancy rapier and a chained weapon of some kind with a claw on it. At the moment, I am attempting to, oh, I also have a scar on my face, just a little, one of those, just something for some character.

And I'm at the moment using my hat to fan the fire to just see if we can get it a bit warmer in here. As the smoke billows out from your hat movement, it fills that space a bit, and you hear the sound of the coughing of Everett Cole. You see the older human in his 60s, a shaggy skullet on the weathered skin, deeply kind eyes that are almost hidden within a wrinkled brow that has now overtaken most of the front face, but a warm smile

as he turns to you, coughing, Well, I appreciate your help there, sure turtle. Your fire's broken. Well, I appreciate your help there, Sure Turtle, but. Your fire's broken. It'll be fine. Let me handle the rest of the tea. You all just relax a minute. Now, I'm just curious about you all.

You there, big fella. Sorry the accommodations aren't quite to your scale as we shift over to see Pango. Hi, yes, I'm Pango. I am very tall. I don't really know heights too well. It's either seven or eight feet. My feet are bigger than yours, so I don't know how that factors in. But I'm big and I squint when I'm outside a lot because I'm not used to being outside. I grew up underground and now I'm out and traveling with my friends and having a grand old time. You might also notice that most of my purplish skin is covered up with some armor, but which is also tastefully covered up with some very green and very fancy duds that my friends Sweet Pea and Oppi stole from

me in the last town over. I'm looking pretty fresh. They say I look fresh. I don't know what that means, but it's... Right now I'm just sort of staring over Zarlo's plate, just wondering if he's going to finish all of it, because it looks I need more. Have at it, you dry shite. Are you hungry still? Oh, my God.

I mean, I don't want to impose, but, like, I could yeah, I could eat. I can make plenty of biscuits if that's what you need. He is big. If that fecker fell over, he'd be halfway home. Well, I'm happy to get you a bit of food as well, I suppose.

Whatever brings all your arms. I'm a fecker? Does that mean I feck? What my grandfather always used to say to me is, Zarlo, don't say fucker, it's not polite. Say fecker instead. Oh, okay. I'll use that. Sort of a cheat. I've learned that. All right, fecker.

I'm writing that down as he goes and walks over to his bookcase. As you sit back and cross your arms with confidence, what does Zarlo look like? Well, Zarlo is sort of the elder statesman of this group, even though he's not that old. He's been with the larger organization our people have been with, this group has been with for quite some time. And while not a mentor per se, sometimes he has to be a bit of a babysitter.

They get into trouble a lot. Zarlo is about four feet tall. He's a simia. Lots of brown fur, has a very regal, twined mustache down the sides of his face, a little bit scruff of a beard, and there's a shock of white in his brown hair. He has an always active tail that is as communicative as his hands tend to be. And he is wearing Burning Man pants and a pair of stashes going diagonally across his chest. These? Yeah, those right there. They're more of a rusted to brain. A lot of people think Burning Man pants are no pants.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not just Donald Duck in those pants. Sometimes it is those pants, but not today. In the trees, no less. By the way, I am also perching to be in character like a monkey, but I feel like I might fart at any minute. But I'm living on the edge, and I'm going to do it anyway. In character, it's fine.

Ew! We were in the blast radius. That was just Liam, that was it. In character, yeah. Perfect. I'm good for now. And his cheeks are a little red right now because he's probably had one or two cups too many today. Fair enough.

Oh, this is certainly quite the motley crew we've stumbled in. I don't get many visitors around here. I'm happy to gauge you all. You said you came out from Fort Overmarsh, right about 15, 20 miles south of here. Pray tell, what brings you to this side of the Emerald Sky? He glances over towards the regal-looking beetle figure

who's been stoically standing, staring into the flames. That's how I talk. No, no, no! Sorry! I'm not doing that! I'm not doing that! You slap on the little thing. Production can do that, right?

So regal. Oh my god. I'm sorry, the smoke's getting to you, too. Here's some more tea to swallow, and he comes up and hands you a hefty mug of hot, steaming mint tea. His accent's a little kick too here, some more tea to swallow, and he comes up and hands you a hefty mug of hot, steaming mint tea. His accent's a little kick. Right, right.

Kexin is standing there, holding onto his staff. He has a hard shell that's got blues and purples in it, shiny with lighter bluish-green eyes and large mandibles pointing out from his face, very much like a stag beetle. He has some kick-ass armored pauldrons with points, just for flair and maybe a little bit of protection. He has larger shells that are hiding translucent light blue wings underneath his back shell. That's one sexy bug! Sure is. I'm moving a little trace of arcane energy in between my fingers, and I'll say, we've been sent out by our larger group,

the Grim Wardens. We're here to clean up any mess that we are tasked with. It's important to us to make a name for ourselves. Well, you're all part of the Grim Wardens, and that's a, don't normally work this far, this far to the western side of the continent, so it must be important business, I imagine. We're like a frontier group.

We're called the Menagerie, right? Is that what we settled on? Yeah. Okay, okay. Menagerie, right? Is that what we settled on? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, okay. Yeah. Menagerie. All right, all right. Well, I'm happy to stay as long as you like, if you're on your way.

You friends as well, I may not have enough to feed all of you, but you know what I can find. Oh, we don't need very much. It's okay. Yeah, we're pretty alive. I think the majority of it went to your big friend over here. That's okay. I'm sorry. No, don't be sorry. I could try to barf it up if you want some.

I don't know, I don't know. That's okay. Sure. Okay, I'll work on it. Yeah, all right. In the back, in the back, out we go. In the back. Oh, I'm going to look for a bucket. As the two of you begin to scramble looking for a bucket, can you describe what we see running around?

Oh, running around? You see one girl who is short, but she looks very tall compared to her friend here. Very slender with a giant cap. She is a fun girl. Very pale, almost a sea green color. And her clothes are very flowy. She wears a big oversized cardigan. And resting against the wall is her long, I think it's a long staff with a couple hooks on it. And she just looks very free and floaty. How short or tall is she again? About four foot, so I'm right around your size. All right. So we got about four foot, about four foot, about...

I'm not sure yet. But you know what it feels like. All righty. About five to ten? Five, eight, five, ten. Five, eight, five, ten. Eight feet. Yes.

Eight, seven, eight. I guess I could be a little taller. No, be your height. I'm kind of loving this. This is the anti-silhouette test for animation. Everyone's chilling about the set. In every group photo, Tango's just out of the photo. Yep. It's the character from Police Squad.

You're like Gandalf with all the homos. That's true, yeah. As you're scrambling for a bucket to help Jango with his sudden need to be- Pango. His name is Pango. Sorry, Panga, my bad. Jango. Jango was your brother. No, that was Wango. Wango. Jango was my name is Pango. Sorry, Panga, my bad. Jango was your brother.

No, that was Wango. Wango. Jango was my father. Got it. Bango is just a food that we like to eat. Thank you, Pango. As you're running around the bucket, you're excitedly preparing for whatever meal you might have regifted to yourself.

What are you doing on it? Oh, I'm looking around, too. I'm trying to help find a bucket. So I'm just a little ribbit. Just sapphire blue skin with a smattering of yellow freckles everywhere and huge yellow eyes. And my cloak is made out of leaves

and a little hat made out of leaves as well. And my staff, which I found at the bottom of a river, and it's so sparkly and it was so shiny and I just had to get it. And it constantly billows smoke. What I don't know is it's a cigarillo. But it's magical to me. I have little overalls, and they're striped,

and the little tops of the overall that he calls his little papenders. And little shoes that I shove my feet into. So I look real nice and smart. My name's Oppie. Thank you, Oppie. I appreciate you both helping out. I'm Sweet Pea.

Sweet Pea? Oh, pleasure to make your acquaintance as well, Sweet Pea. Sweet Pea and Appie, that's a pair. Pleasure to meet you. Pleasure's mine. Again, even though we've been here for a minute. Do you have a prospective leader of your troop with the menagerie? You seem to be a rather presentory individual. Oh goodness. Isn't it always this chilly in the west? I go over to Sir Dante and I take out my bladed fan and I start helping him fan the flames just a little bit. What you see is a stacked, caked-up faun.

Let's go! She is curvy. She has a light, dusty rose fur tint to her. Even though she is a faun, she has bunny ears, almost like a jackalope. She has really strappy leather armor and a little cropped leather jacket that barely covers anything, but she goes, and she covers up. Are you cold, Miss Bunny? I could give you my scarf.

It's just a little chilly. I wouldn't want to take anything from you. You're so dainty. She's got a garter that she has a little dagger built into, and then you see on her fan, it's serrated and has sharp edges for it that she uses as a weapon, as well as has a little whip that she has wrapped around and fastened to her belt. Here, Dante. Thank you, dear. Thank you. Here we go. That's good. I'm Bunny, by the way.

Bunny? Yeah. Pleasure to meet you, Bunny. Oh. Well, the menagerie, you're here in some relatively dangerous realms beyond. I don't know how familiar you are with the Emerald Sky here, but the... I'm a little familiar.

Oh. I've skirted the outskirts of the woods here. Oh, right, so you're quite familiar. It is a very... A land suffused with the natural magics of the realm. Here, Andra herself, her will exists towards the center lock that holds the life force and energy of the massive forest. Ah, I see you're of Andra's folk.

Well then, perhaps not much of this will be a surprise to you then, but just know that natural magics of the world can be also rather tricksy. There's a reason I didn't build deeper into the forest. I like it out here. It's close enough to keep it interesting, but also far enough away where I don't get too caught up

with the tricksters of the wood. Though some of the Grove Children came by speaking up a mighty storm not but a couple days ago. Isn't that who we were looking for? You ran into the Grove Children? As we do that, we shift into a brief flashback, not but a day before within the city of Fort Overmarsh. Here, the once militaristic outpost that in peacetime has taken on a new form as a trading outpost. Ways to the south of the

Emerald Sky, the bustle of the townsfolk are walking through the space. There's two open mines, one that's falling out of use, so one has been discovered as building up. You have stumbled into the town and made your relatively unseen or uncared for position in the city. What are you all doing here at Fort Overmarsh at the moment in this flashback? Oh shit, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.

Yep, we're doing stuff. We're doing stuff, it's real. You mean before? Is it wet here? This is the day before. It's the day before. It's raining, you said? Sure, it's raining. Okay, great.

Then, oh, in that case, I'm standing next to Opi and giving him a little umbrella with my hand. Okay. Oh my god, that's so cute. Anything that troubles you? Need a fix? Need something remedied? We're your fix. We're here to help!

Call the Menagerie. Yeah. A group of four miners themselves, dust-smeared, carrying materials and tools in them, stop and look at the rest of you and just keep trucking on through the rain. It's a bit of a heavy sell. Nobody takes us seriously, though.

I feel like we need more oomph, more showmanship. Look, they've got dogs over here! Look at them all! There's seven of them! There's babies over here! Oh! That's it, we're just going to stay here for the day. I hope that's all right.

This is precisely why nobody takes us seriously. Oh, oh, oh! Look at that one! Look at his face. Aw. Maybe we need uniforms. Or pamphlets. You know, I hear people really love pamphlets.

A pamphlet? Yeah. Pamphlet. Pamphlet. Oh, yeah. They're like business cards, but with more obnoxious information on them. That sure sounds great, Miss Bunny. Yeah.

It's about this. I think we just need to prove ourselves. You know? How do we do that? Like if we just get somebody to hire us. Or something. Should we take a job for free just to prove ourselves? Let's not say that out loud.

But I mean, if no one will hire us for money, maybe we do one for free just to show that we're... Like a sample? A free sample. First one's free, then they'll hire us for the second one. Please! Help! Anybody!

Perfect! You glance over and you see from the exterior of the fort itself, the wall that remains partially open, the guards lean back as you see four different flickering sparks go darting through, along with two humanoid figures that come rushing in, bundling themselves underneath the rain. At a quick glance, you can see the guards close the gate behind, and they start swarming the guards and speaking out loudly,

Please! Anyone! You can immediately see the glimmer of what looks to of fairy dust and fey magic as a number of these fairy folk come flittering through the entryway and circling the air, and two other figures wearing shredded leathers and heavy, tattered woolen cloaks bundled around them also look for anyone's gaze, and they're mostly being ignored, much like you've been since you arrived. Elbow pango on the knee. Oh, I think you manifested it, you fecker. Come on, let's go help these ones out.

We run up with a little bit of flourish, and you hear almost out of nowhere, it's ethereal, you hear this victory music, like a and we are perfectly backlit, and I just say, looks like you need the menagerie. As you all strike this pose. I just tear fingers. Thank you, yeah. Cease bedazzling the security. I'm still holding two dogs.

As you all stand there frozen, is it backlit from behind? The rain still soaking you all stand there frozen, there's a backlit from behind, the rain still soaking you all in the process, but majestic as it has been, you see the four fairy folk have stopped and all in unison together while the two bundled folk drop their hoods and you can see they're both elven lineage.

Their pointed ears curved up. You can see the mud itself washing down the streaks from their face. They all look haggard, like they've been traveling in harsh weather probably for the better part of a day or more. Most other folks close the gate behind and are now ignoring this ridiculous display and getting on with the rest of their business. But as they begin to approach, the fairies give up speed and start surrounding, going, Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!

Hello. Menagerie, that's wonderful. Help us, please! Are you okay? Oh no, you have to leave. We had to leave. You see one of them flitters up closely, and you get a good look at Bionj the Glow. You can see this beautiful-looking feminine form with elongated arms, these long, clawed-like fingers, but these bright, vibrant eyes of blue. I hold out my staff so they can land on him.

It lands on him, and as it does, its body clutches onto it like an insect, like the beautiful fairy all of a sudden becomes this odd, segmented creature, looking at you with big eyes. We were sent from the Velvet Grove for help. We'll do it. We'll help you. For free. Free samples. They all look at each other, and the two open fingers go, That was far easier than we anticipated. Yo, that's very kind. We're still trying out our whole menagerie thing.

Think of it like an open beta. Sort of a... Yeah. We're just testing it out. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. But would you say... But would you say there's something wrong

in the Velvet Grove? I've heard tell of that place. All right. To reach. The two Elven figures, which now that you see both their faces, they appear to be either, they're not identical twins, but they definitely look like they are from the same family lineage, though one looks a bit older. They both have very, very pale, almost translucent skin,

where you can almost see the veins appearing in parts of it, but you also can't tell which part is the mud streak as well. Their eyes are beautiful, piercing dark green. As they both look at you all with this alien cocked head, Well, we were indeed sent out to the Velvet Grove on the eastern side of the Emerald Sky.

Boko, the Glenwarder, the Fane Guardian that looks over that portion of the sky, sent us for our own protection. Looks over to the younger female interns. Yes, the humble hillock himself. We're here on his behest. My, he has so many titles. Protection from what?

It seems as if the wildlife of the eastern sky has become strange. Unfamiliar. Violent. The initial twin turns. The Exia river's grown murky. It's scent, sinister and pungent. The fairies curl back onto their shoulders,

except for the one that's still clutching to your staff. All in unison, they all say, And the warder's worried! The Warder. The Warder's worried? That's Voko. Voko. If indeed you see within your graces to aid us, you would be, not just indeed be

within our debt to you as followers of Undra, but within her light as well. Oh. Well, I think I figured it out. If your river got stinky, then that's why everybody's so mad. It makes people act weird when they got stinky water. No, you're totally right. That's probably what it is.

There might also be more that we should just follow up on so that we can give a thorough evaluation of what it is. That's the free sample. Yeah. Thank you for your free sample. Are they also drinking this water? Well, we believe that perhaps they had been, but so have we, and we have been feeling fine.

No stomach issues. You're fine. One of the fairies lands over on your shoulder and is like, we've been fine. And smears your shoulder. Oh. Oh. The source of the darkness of the river

comes from further into the Emerald Sky than where you reside. Indeed, there is a spring within the Velvet Grove that feeds the river. That is what the Warder is investigating. Perhaps you could meet with him, and together you might be able to save us from whatever strange, ill intent seems to permeate our home.

So something unnatural is polluting the Will of Ondra. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Right. Well, we will provide a free sample. We're obligated to as well, but it will be free. And in exchange, you could make sure that the name The Menagerie is spread far and wide. Of course. And under the guiding light of the Great Ondra, you will be considered friends of the wilds as well. Great. Sounds lovely.

I suppose that sounds wonderful. Well, I suppose we should go and meet with this Glenwarden out of, apparently, the kindness of our hearts. Sorry, Sir Dante. Is that okay? Yes, no, I'm prepared for it. Reputation is very important. It will be more like camping and less like glamping. Is that all right with you? I make do. As we shift away from the sound of rain, we pull back into Everett Cole's warm cabin interior

as the sunset light begins to fade and finishes listening to the tale. Oh, well, you see, that's why y'all are here to head towards the Velvrogro Grove and looking for the warder. And there's Exia? Exia River. Exia River, oh. Well, there's two paths I know of that you could probably take there.

Choice is yours, really. You could follow the Wispalo Trail until it ends at Cleft Hand Rock. Wispala, did you say? Wispalo. Wispalo, until it ends at Clefthand Rock. Wispala, did you say? Wispalo. Wispalo, that's what I said. Clefthand Rock and head towards the Sound of the Water at the Clefthand.

That'll lead you right to the Exia River and follow that upstream to its source, which is within the Velvet Grove. The other path will be to listen for the sounds of the Aethercaw Crow. They tend to wallow in places of dark power in these spaces and are drawn to scavenge in the wake of tragedy.

So if there's something going wrong here, their sounds are liable to lead you there regardless of the light. Oh, is that sorry I couldn't make it through your accent? The Aether... Aethercaw Crow. Aethercaw Crow. We follow the sound.

Or we follow the path. Yes, to death. So we follow the path or we follow the sound. Oh! While you're heading out there, keep an eye out for Wild Cullen. He's a rugged ranger, and he's a warden of Andra's Southernwood.

He's an old acquaintance. Is he a vampire? I certainly hope not. Shame on you. Shame on you. Shame on you. Oh god, because I don't recall this at all. Call in reference to Jesus. We'll mark a hit point. Oh god.

Oh no! No! No! No! No! No! He warned us. He warned us!

He warned us for the game. Just out of fear for no reason. Uh-uh. No, he's passed through, mentioned that there's some odd things he's looking into. Not long before you arrived at my place, so he might be also looking around the same spaces. He's a capable fella,

so try and hold what allies you can to you. Mm. Yes. He's been keeping an eye on the Amaranth Logging Guilders of late. Amaranth. Now, you mentioned this Wild Cullen figure, and you, Zarlo, you've actually had a brief meeting

with this individual in the past. With Wild Cullen? Wild Cullen. Right. A brusque but honorable figure. You remember his bright ice blue eyes that pierced me with a tangled mop of dark hair, features that evoke both human and elven lineage. What were the circumstances in which the two of you met? Well, by that time, I had left my family behind,

the people of the Emerald Sky, and I was on my own. It was before I found these feckers. It was a rough patch, and I thought that maybe I'd just be a bit of a hermit for six or seven months and he encouraged me and told me that the walk of life I'd chosen for myself was too dangerous to go alone and that the gaps in my soul would be better filled by finding others, find some missing pieces.

As you pull back from your memory of this figure and knowing that he might be an ally to seek out there, another nugget of confidence seems to blossom within your heart. As Cullen goes, well, if you're going to go out, you ought to want to go soon before it gets too dark. You're welcome to stay here the night if you prefer to wait till the morning.

Don't know how much of a time push you're currently fighting against, but you tell me what you want to do. People are hurting now. I feel like we have to go help them as soon as possible. Very well. Let me bundle up the rest of my biscuits and send you with what you need. He wanders over and starts grabbing

a bunch of these extremely dense Bricks. Pardon, bricks, yeah. Puffy-tacked. What sort of damage do they do when you throw them? Only one way to find out. But nevertheless, packs up what little bit he has and sends you outside of the cabin. You can see the cloud cover has taken most of the sky

that's visible and before you the dense, incredibly tall treescape that eventually becomes the heart of the Emerald Sky looms before you. So what would you like to do? Well, there are options. There are two. Do we know how far off the Wisp Hollow is from this area, the trail?

Wisp Hollow Trail, Cullen tells you that it's kind of points in one direction. You can see there's markers among the trees. Looks like there's little carved Xs across the tree markers that mark the beginning of it. And as you step over to see where it is, it's a fairly plainly walked trail. It's not pressed flat with much foot traffic,

but you can see where over time, it's fairly easy to follow. How directly into the center of the forest does it lead? Is it just a straight shot? From your standing, seems like a straight shot. Let's just do this. Well, I mean, that seems dangerous. I mean, if anyone's going to head

towards the center of the forest, it would be this straight line. People would be expecting it, and it's famously dangerous. Actually, I think the solution might be a mix of both. We'll walk the trail until we maybe hear the crow. Did Cole tell us what the crow sounds like? Aetheri-caw-crow? Aether-caw-crow? Aether-car-crow? Aether-craw.

Aether-craw. Aether-craw. Aether-craw. Aether-car-claw. Yeah, it's that one. That's what it sounds like. Aether-craw. Aether-car-craw! No. Look up here! Aether-craw!

Look up here! Look up here! Aether-craw. He goes, It's a little difficult to describe. It's like a ghostly crying sound. You'll know it when you hear it. It's oddly human-like.

You can't tell her. I don't like that at all. Give us your impression of it, though, just so we have some sense of it. Yeah, I'm not much of a performer. I'm an old soldier, but I'm sure. They sound so sad. I don't know, I'd never seen one. I never went that deep in there.

Ever cold, don't sell yourself short, though. That's great. Well, thank you. I took some improv classes when I was younger. Same here. You can tell. There's a Wallet picture. What picture was that? Didn't make it to Sunday Company, but you know. I took some improv classes when I was younger. There's a wallet picture. Didn't make it to Sunday company, but you know.

Anyway, y'all stay safe, and well, you're from here. Just from the outside, my people, the Dolans, I'm calling it right now, the Dolan, we stuck to the outskirts of the Emerald Sky, so. Who's the Dolan's? That's his family. That's my family, that's my people.

Of course we knew that. The Dolan, the Dolan. Forget that S. Yep. I made it up. Zarlo, did you bring those dogs? Just two of them. One each dog, and two more. I've got two little Shar-Pei's, but they're Babi's, and they're like little, I've got two little Sharpays, but they're Babies

and they're just peeking. The Babies? I have to push you back in. You've had them this whole time? No, I mean, just for the last two days. What are you going to name them? They're going to be fine, I'll take care of them. I can take care of them.

Yeah, I can take care of them. I normally take care of moles, but these are like moles with eyes. What are you going to name them? Oh, jeez, we should do it right now, shouldn't we? Okay, this is Twix. Twix. And this is Twex.

Oh, Twix. Aw, that's cute. Twix and Twix. And then I just start mushing their faces, all the wrinkles, and make their eyes disappear. And then they pop out, and then their eyes disappear. You pop their eyes out? Okay, yes.

You really shouldn't do that. Shh, shh, shh. No. All right, well, Menagerie, the Grey Wardens, stay safe. And he goes ahead and shuffles back towards his cabin, and as he began to trek in towards the path. Tell everyone about us!

He didn't hear you. Okay. This is exciting. This is why we need a pamphlet. Bunny, how did you get people to come to your show? I mean, there's got to be a way to get the word out. Well, you know, sometimes it's great to have revolving acts, you know?

So we would have very famous burlesque performers come from all over the world. One of my favorite, who is Mafana. She was wonderful. She got a little too good for us, though, and then moved on. What a bitch. I know. But she's, I mean, she is fabulous. You don't need her, Bunny. No.

You're plenty on your own. But you know, sometimes it's good to just, you know, put yourself out there. Sometimes the girls would stand in front of the shop and we would bark and we would call and we would just drag people in. Sometimes a good drink discount always works. Solid marketing. We were also all fabulous fighters as well. So anytime the town was in trouble,

we did a little community service. Well known, actually, yes. Oh, really? Yeah. The stairs. This low, resonant moaning sound seems to drift through the nearby boughs, and then you see a shadow fly off.

Was that it? Was that another call? I'm going to go scurrying up the tree. Oh, that didn't feed the pup. Okay, you go ahead and climb up the side of it. Are you going all the way to the top? Yes, I am. All right, you know what?

Let's do it! Let's do it! First roll of the show, go! All right. Oh, jeez. Go, drop the dogs! But because I'm a simi, I have advantage on agility rolls on both bouncing and climbing.

Indeed. And I think this probably involves my experience. Luckmaw, no hands. So you're just using feet and tail, just whipping through the branches? Sure, all right, so spend a hope to add your experience. Oh, that's right, you have to use hope to do that. That's fine.

Then add the d6 for your attack. I want to kick off these mechanics. Yeah. So that's a total of, yeah, I'll get there. I'll get there. I'll get there. That's, and then it goes like that. Ooh!

That's a roll of a 14 with hope, plus two from my experience is 16, plus the advantage from being simier, 20. 20, fantastic, with hope, so you take the hope back. Nice. Indeed, as you. Did you say with fear? No, no. You watch as Zarlo leaps up

in a series of deft swings and rotations, and like a master trapeze artist, begins to ascend through multiple sides of this tree, vanishing into the canopy above, as you emerge with so much momentum that you actually fly out of the top of the canopy about 10 feet beyond. In that slow-motion bit, you have this beautiful view

of the sunset top of the forest. It extends for dozens of miles in all directions. You can see a manner of all different types of trees that poke out the top of the canopy, designating different regions of the interior of the Emerald Sky, each looking unique, dangerous, and alluring in their own way. Everything with just that top of gold coloration before the sun begins to vanish beyond the distant mountain ranges. As Zarlo flies up out of the tree cover, his tail scoops up and holds the two little dogs close to

his side, and then lands. You land, and you see the shape of one massive-looking, shadowy, winged entity that just dips away from you further into the forest. What the fuck are you? I wonder. Nothing natural, nothing good. Is he? But that's all I see, right?

That's all you see. I don't think he's ever coming down. How big did it look? Hard to make out the full distance, but it definitely seemed larger than a crow. Larger than a crow. All right, all right. And I saw the direction it just went further

into the emerald glass, emerald sky? It went further into the emerald sky, yeah. Roughly in the direction we were going. All right, so I swing and scurry back down, keeping the pups in place. The dogs are fine. That's a big fucking bird or something up there. Didn't look like anything you'd want to tangle with,

but it's going in, so we're going in. That's fine, can we see it again? We still have some good sunlight, or is it starting? You probably have another hour or so of sunlight before the evening before we leave. Let's move. That's okay. sunlight before the evening. Let's move. That's okay, the night is beautiful. Let's go. Okay.

Pushing further in, who's taking point on guiding you along this path? We're trying to be clever. Well, you know the way around. We're just walking down a little path right now, aren't we? Yeah, it's true. We're not hiding from anything. All right. Just doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo.

Does anyone have any foresty advantages? How do we know? If you're a wild-born or wild-born? Oh no, we're seaborne. I'm wild-born. I'm a bit of a scavenger, so if we were looking for items, that could be helpful, but I don't think we are.

No. Okay. I can just be very, very quiet if I need to, and I can help a couple other people be numb. You're smart. Why don't you take a leave for the first bit? Someone knighted you, right? So you got to be something.

Yes, extremely deadly with a sword and very polite when I choose to be. You know the best way. I grew up in these parts, sure, but the further in we go, the less familiar it's going to be. Well, you're still the most familiar. Well, we'll do it together, then. Together? Together. Together.

All right, so two of you keep a point forward. You march into, and the forest itself is undeniably gorgeous. The light that does pierce the canopy at this point is somewhat Faded and Dreamlike, carving these constantly shifting beams of gold that shift past green and then eventually fade into the nearby fauna. I say flora, not fauna. The Wellborn Path before you shifts off to one side, and as you begin to look back, it almost feels like the path you've come on is fading behind you to a certain point where about 30 or so minutes deeper in, it's almost like you don't even see the path that you were walking on from where you came.

You can still see it in front. Barely touched the ground the entire time. He's like 10 feet off the ground, just moving, using his feet and his hands and his tail to go. Love it. I'm just trying to be a bit quiet as I make my way. As Sweet Pea walks, her head kind of flops like a little cloudy slope.

That's super cute. Jellyfish, just sort of. And I'll keep my ears out for any sounds of crows. Yeah, both of them. Four of them. For the heck of it, because we're testing the sound. Go ahead and roll an instinct roll for me, if you don't mind, to see if you can pick up

any odd, distant, and challenging sounds amongst the audio of the wind pushing through the trees and the other skittering and calling creatures, the very densely lived-in Emerald Sky. All right. 13 with hope. 13 with hope. Okay, so you take a hope.

Oh wait, you can also act, don't you, Evan? No, you don't. No. No. Never mind. I'm not very instinctual. You take in the sounds around you and focus on the surrounding entities and creatures and insects and woodland chittering.

Nothing that calls your attention to danger before you. You do appreciate the oddly unwelcome beauty is the only way I can describe this forest. It has an ominous essence to it and its natural state. You can't help but feel a little bit like a trespasser in a wood that is aware of your transgression. You see Bunny, she loses the thread a little bit of what she's doing, and you see her dancing a little bit as she goes through the forest. Do you hear that? It's almost like music.

Huh? No. Do we hear it? You do not. What? What's it sound like? No, don't stop. I mean, no. Just the sounds of the forest. You know, the chittering of the bugs, the wind whispering through the trees. It's beautiful. It's got its own little rhythm.

I'm trying really hard to hear the rhythm. I hear everything but the rhythm at the moment. It's going to get you. I think I got it. The best you can think of as you listen out there is as the day begins to shift into night, the type of sounds that fill the air begin to become even further from welcoming.

It sounds scarier now. It does sound scarier. Yeah. It's shifted into a minor key. Yes, it is a little ominous, yeah. I like it. Maybe we should pick up the pace. Yeah, let's pick up the pace a little. Okay.

Pressing on, not more than five more minutes, you begin to notice some of the trees that are on the side of this, bearing the same marks of the path as you keep an eye out to make sure you're on the right trail, begin to grow more and more, I can only describe it as violent.

You see one tree trunk where, as opposed to the single marking, there are four massive marks, one cloven collection of gashes that have torn through one of the nearby trees. Massive clomax, you see. Should we maybe walk a little softer? Okay. Yeah.

I'm going to draw my sword, just in case. Yeah, I'm going to hold my staff in my hands. I'm going to walk up to where the marks are. Okay. And I'm just going to measure them. Just take them in and see if it seems any bit familiar to anything that I've ever seen before. Okay.

Go ahead and make a knowledge roll to analyze the details of these claw marks. Okay. Ooh! All right, that is a 15 with hope. 15 with hope? All right, so take a hope. You glance at these splintered sections, and one, they do appear to have been carved

by either a collection of blades or some sort of heavy impact that dragged across the side of this. But you also notice the interior of them is stained. Like a darker stain to each of these. But you also notice the interior of them is stained. Like a darker stain to each of these. Is it blood? Is it sap? Like at the deepest part of the groove? Yeah.

You take a stick and carve out from inside the groove and there is a material or a substance that lingers there. As you take it out and what light you have available, you can see it's like a bluish purple, like a sludge or a jam-type texture to it. Look at this. Do we have something to put that in?

I don't know what I'm going to do. I mean, she can, she'll probably be okay. Oh god. You touch it? Yeah. Your finger gets a little numb. Oh, I think it's a poison or something. Oh be okay. Oh god. You touch it? Yeah. Your finger gets a little numb. Oh, I think it's like a poison or something. Oh, okay. Can I go inspect it to see if it reminds me of

the Seep? The Seep? The Seep that claimed Ubi and caused your subterranean homeland to be sealed like a fantasy Chernobyl, was a deep, like a bright crimson coloration. And you recall those images of you and all of your family and companions yelling, grabbing what was important

and dropping things as you charged out from the subterranean caverns, watching this weird kind of red weed-like expansion. So, I mean, texture maybe, but the coloration is entirely different. It's more of a sap. Can I try to coat my staff in it? I want to get all the numbing stuff on my staff.

Okay. Is the staff going numb? I'm just curious. Are you still up in the trees? I mean, I'm like five or six feet above you at all times, moving through. I'll mark a stress and the back covers of my wings will open up, and right when they start fluttering, they flash for a second, using a little prestidigitation to create a little light as I lift up. I'll try and go up and around the tree. Are you bioluminescent?

Maybe. Oh! I'm bioluminescent! That's pretty cool. That's great. Only when I drink alcohol. I'll float up around the tree, and I'm also going to look for any of those groove marks

higher up the tree as well. Okay. That bug is lit. You lift up past the lower boughs and into the density of the immediate canopy that's there. As soon as you break past the first couple branches, your light fills the shadowed space there, and you immediately see the shine back of two pairs of massive eyes right there staring at you.

You see standing or sitting within the branch what would be a seven-foot-tall owl that is lurking in there with its heavy wings folded, staring at you. Not one, but two heads. Oh, I answered a seven-foot owl! As one that's staring at you is there, and the other one shifts around towards you.

Their eyes there. That's what you saw? Staring at you. there, and the other one shifts around towards you. Their eyes there. That's what you saw. Staring at you. Archimedes shirt. You hear that. The big, heavy, chest-expanding whoo that fills the space around you where your ears almost ring for a second

and its wings filter. It says, Who are you? Yells towards you. What do you do? We all heard that. I'll take my staff and I'll actually just make the tip go, We are with the menagerie. We are looking for children. No, not looking for children. Who are you?

Down, down. I think you should get down. And I'll just float down, just in case I'm in this creature's space. Facing, but never turning my back. As you watch Kextin begin to descend from above, the bit of light, you see the shift of movement of shadow above and a small handful of feathers

dropping out of Ares, these massive feathers scattering down as one of the branches seems to almost break or snap with a push off. You watch as this incredibly massive owl-like creature descends onto the ground. Now you see it was somewhat folded and crouched in the wood, but at its full height now, it's almost as tall as you are.

As it did that push off. Yeah. Oh god, I'm big. As it did that push off, did the talons have any of that familiar sludge on them? Go ahead and make an instinct roll to see if you can pick at that detail amongst all the chaos. Yeah, that's right.

There's low light here, but we can go ahead and give it a shot. That's an 18 with fear. 18 with fear. A 19 with fear. 19 with fear. All righty. So I'll get to add a fear here for myself.

So you do indeed get a quick glance at the talons. The heavily scaled skin that you see pushes across it. It has almost an armored exterior to it, but you can see the edges of it are The heavily scaled skin that you see pushes across it. It has almost an armored exterior to it, but you can see the edges of it are crusted and heavy callous. The talons themselves are jet black and are blades in their own right, deeply dangerous looking.

No sign of any sort of familiar liquid that was recently seen on the clawed sections, but as you drop down to the ground and it looms over on top of you, it's focused still on you, both heads both in the process, if you're not sure or two about to converse or pull you apart into several pieces, I need you to take a stress.

Ooh, back-to-back stresses! Oh, I'm hungry! Zaro's going to gingerly get in the middle of this. Ah, sure, you and I are neighbors, so we are. And these are my friends. I'm from a ways that way. And we're only here because we hear there's trouble in the Vale further in, and the river's all fucked up. We are Echo. We are Echo. Echo. We are Echo. Echo. I'm going to just subtly put my body

between the owl and Sweet Pea and Api, just to sort of agape. I'm going to, just, you're going to, my cap is just going to start to lower just a little and get more narrow towards my body, and I'm going to press myself up against the base of a tree. Outsiders bring portents of darkness. Well, I understand if you don't trust us off the bat.

That's fine. But we come with good intentions. And the innocent are the young. And I spell out, the poppy's a little bit. One of the heads looks over towards it. Oh no, he's going to eat the poppies! No, he's not. The other head shifts and is glancing, One of the heads looks over towards it. Oh no, he's going to eat the pufferys! No, he's not.

The other head shifts and is glancing past all of you, the entity. We have food if you need it! Oh no! They're just biscuits. Oh, we know. Not me! Don't eat me, please. You walk in Andra's realm. We are one of her children, and we will eat that which we do not trust.

We are very familiar with the Mother of Oath, and I hold up Zarlo's medallion with a leaf crest on it. She knows me well, and I know her. Make a presence roll for me. Come on, Zarlo. Can I also use Gift for Gab with this? Yes, you may, if you want to spend a hope to go ahead and add your experience to it, yeah. Gift for Gab, so plus one.

Fine. Hope is pretty fluid. You don't want to hold it. That is a 16 with hope, with a plus one is 17. Pretty good. Okay, that's pretty decent. Yes, I do, because I was with hope, so I spent it and got it back in 80s.

Amazing. You we can trust. The others are fresh meat. Rhythm turns to you. Tell us, Sheldathin, what is your proudest moment? My proudest moment is yet to come, when I find the best in sport the man who humiliated me. I am here to be just and well known as a hero. The one head pulls back and does the, the body shifts as the head stays in place,

because birds are awesome and weird. It's very unsettling. While the other head stares you and whispers into the side of the other one's head, He speaks true. Shifts over to Kecksin. What is your greatest fear? Is this owl, seven-foot owl, in melee with me?

It's very close range to you at the moment. It's fine. That I would let my family down and not represent my home well, and that I would go home empty-handed with no knowledge of where we came from. We got here. You see it turn its head to one side as the other head shifts back and whispers to the side, Purity for an outsider. He steps back a little bit from you, shifts over in your direction, sweet pea.

I wish to see a display of your capability to survive the darkness within. Is there any moonlight coming down from above? There's the faintest bit of moonlight visible this deep into the forest, but you can just see with the right shifting of your positions, the little glimmer of white peeking through. Okay. I'm going to spend a hope.

Oh, I changed it to book nerd. You experienced this? That's okay. I'm still going to spend a hope. Change it back. No, I'm going to spend a hope because I have an experience called Sneaky Little Mushroom. Sneaky Little Mushroom?

It's just Sneaky Little Mushroom. So little mushroom. Just a sneaky little mushroom. So I'm going to use that experience to look around and find the deepest shadow around me. Okay. Can I do that? Yeah, if you want to. Okay. What are you attempting to do? I'm attempting to find the deepest shadow and I'm going to step against the tree

and I'm going to fade into the tree. Okay. And bamf back out at the other shadow farther away. Okay. Whoa! So you're using your Shadow Step? Mm-hmm. Okay. Go ahead and roll a...

Let's go ahead and make this an agility check for me. Agility. To go ahead and see how quickly you could vanish into the shadow without the owls following what you're attempting to do. Okay. 17 with hope. Whoa! No fear at this table.

Ever. You said that. All right, so you switch backward into the tree and then almost seem to tumble back into shadow where the tree should be. The smoke goes. And he watches the bird's wings flip out and it clutters up quickly. The rest of you almost think it's reaching into snatch

or attack your friend and you feel your instinct of protective measures begin to crawl into order. From the deepest shadow, you just see two bright sea green eyes light up in the shadow on the other side. Before I step out. It doesn't even see you at the moment. It's currently at the tree you fell into, and is inspecting it, looking around each side.

Before, one of the heads looks back, while the other one's still inspecting in the front, and then... I with my staff onto the trunk. The other head turns, and the whole mass of owl spins around. MATT and LAURA MATT and LAURA say, MATT and LAURA exhale.

You may survive still. Do not let them sully the goddesses' name. They're good kids. The head turns around and you watch as they catch some of the faint moonbeams and you can see that brief glow in the eyes as their heads pass before they turn around. Breaking through the branches

and then vanishing up into the canopy. First of many odd guardians here within the Emerald Sky. We should have asked how far the cleft hand was. Or what that goop was. He was asking us all the questions. Maybe we can call him back down. Excuse me. Should we just keep going? I think we're fine.

I think we should just be glad he didn't swallow us down and then vomit us back out. I'm glad he didn't eat the puppies. Who would eat these little fellas? Look at these little faces! A giant owl would literally eat puppies. I think if you looked up giant two-headed owls, it eats puppies, kittens, small children. You hear the snapping of nearby branches.

No, let's just go. We should go. It's not fair. I think it's just going to be should go. Let's go. All right. It's not fair. I think it's just going to be more of this. We might as well get a move on. Continue on your trek on foot, watching around. You get the sense of that tension in the air and a somewhat iron-like smell that seems to follow through with the mists

that curl in through the deeper portions of the forest. That wasn't a hope, that was a stress I should have marked for the Shadowstep. Oh, gotcha, yeah. My bad. No worries. You hear the ever-following sound of rustling in the nearby wood, since your shouts to the sky

seem to have called something's attention, and when you stop to listen, it goes silent. Oh no. You swear you see something massive wandering through the nearby wood. You catch a catch glance, turn quickly, and you hear the faint growl.

How close does it sound? It sounds about 20 or so feet off. All right, I'm going to get its attention. You guys flank it. Uh-huh. What? Is that-huh. What? What is that? What?

What? Dun, dun, dun. Oh no. Oh, it's blank. Oh dear. Bunny starts doing a little dance. Does she put it in her face? And you hear a soft, jazzy tune.

And magically, the moonlight that Sweet Pea was using, a little patch opens above Bunny. She starts to dance and you hear the little soft horn, little soft French horn. She starts doing like a small little dance. Yeah, yeah, it's sexy. And I'm going to cast Enrapture. Huh?

To keep whatever is in view of me, their attention on me. Okay. And it drowns out any sound except for me and my voice. Okay, so make a spell cast roll towards the target. You see the shadow shifting in the nearby wood as it's lumbering in your direction slowly. Go ahead and roll for that. Does this affect targets or everyone around you? Because I'm 100% watching you do this.

Just as a target. I don't think you need the song for this. I will spend a hope to use The Show Must Go On, which is one of my experiences. I'm going to add my presence. Okay, I'm like... Okay, okay, okay. Let me see if this works.

So this is going to be three. I'm going to use my little pips, my little candies. Okay. I'm so nervous. Okay, that's good. I'm in 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 with Fear. 22 with Fear, thank you. Oh god, he's putting so many in there.

Is that a success? That is indeed a success. And as you are giving this fantastic performance here in the center of the shadowed core of the southern reaches of the Emerald Sky. The rest of you watch, emerging out of the nearby brush, a hulking, furred mass, a quadrupedal entity. You first catch it. It looks to be a hedge bear, which are these massive natural denizens of the wood.

But this one seems to walk with a slight limp on one side, and as it comes in the faint bit of light, you can see its thick fur looks matted and shiny in places. You watch as it takes a few steps out in your direction, its head hanging at one side. Its eyes seem to be a bit milky, and you can see from the

corners of its face and its snout and its ear, there is a dark liquid that drips and cakes within its fur. You can see there are bony plates that protrude from parts of its body. It looks to be an unnaturally malformed visage based on what you've previously experienced in your time here. You hear another growl across the way. Do they look aggro? They look bad? They look fucked up, yeah, they look bad! It's coming towards you like it's surrounding a prey that isn't trying to run.

And it's locked on to both of them. I am quietly sneaking around the back of this one. Spreading. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just looking around at my party, waiting backstage to see. Are we, where are we? Well, I'll show you right now. First map! This map is brought to you by

Daggerheart. Open beta available now. Go download it, check it out, try it for yourself. We're about to roll some dice. Everybody's still alive, first map. This is cool! As you're making your way through this center path here, we've got all these little fun bits around this space.

Nice! Look at that little bee. All right, we'll say that Bunny is up here doing this performance. Look at her! Mainstage. Mainstage. While you all are clambered over in this area.

I would've been hugging. I would've started to sneak around the back of this thing, because I've seen her do this before. I think Pango and Zarlo are actually sticking pretty close to Bunny. I would've been as close as I could be. Because we've seen her do this before

and she's drawing the danger to herself, so we've got the- That's not why I'm close. That's fine. So you'd be up here? Yeah, yeah. Close down with it? Okay. Yeah, so wherever it's coming, I would have been trying to get it out the back.

But the Drin the Healer, staying close by. I know there's two, but the first one. Massive beast is looking out of this side, rushing towards you. I guess it's Kill Trinket finally. And you hear a, you hear the growl coming out of this side, rushing towards you. I get to kill Trinket finally. You hear the growl coming out of the nearby wood in this region. So which direction is the? Oh, I see, it was over there.

And here is where you would roll over right now. Okay. I'm going to move actually a little closer to Sweet Pea because I'm going to stay under her cap. Sweet Pea. Okay. Sweet Pea. Right here? Yeah.

Yeah. All righty, you got it. And this bear is full-on charging at you. I am going to attempt to hit the bear with my grappler. With your grappler, go for it. Go ahead and roll an attack. It's a far attack. We can measure, remember?

Oh my gosh. Far attack. Yeah, it's within the paper there. That definitely has been arranged. It's happening. So it's a... Oh. I'm rolling, what do I add for this? It's been a Slap bracelet. So it's a... I don't know. I'm rolling, what do I add for this?

It's been a while. Definitely. So I roll a straight. One of these, I think. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Where's your pencil? I have the pencil. I am, it's just a straight roll, I believe,

or do I add a... No, it's just a straight roll plus whatever your trait is for it. Oh, okay, thank you. Which should be agility. I'm remembering again, which is agility. Yes, so that plus agility. Let's make this great, why don't we? I'll take it.

That's 18 with fear. I have no choice. That does succeed, as it's now charging towards Bunny. MATT and LAURA, MATT and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA. So on a successful attack, I pull my target into close range with me. Okay. So the chain reels back with the claw after it sinks into its flesh

as it comes barreling towards me. All right, are you pulling it all the way up to you? I'm pulling it about two-thirds of the way. Yeah, about there. All right, so you watch as you, now describe what your grappler looks like. It's this very long chain that seems to just wrap around my belt, but then it seems to also be

hidden underneath my tunic, and it's got these four very beautiful prongs, like a four-sided trident, like a quadrant, I suppose. When it rolls out, it then clamps in, and then when I pull it taut, it grabs, and the more I push, the more it reels in faster and pulls harder. All right, so go ahead and roll damage on that.

One of you watches, it's about to leap towards you. There's a flash of metal that catches the light, and you watch it get yanked and dragged over. I have full trust in Dante and the rest of the menagerie, so I don't even balk. Then I focus my attention, keeping up my enrapture at the other one in the woods. Okay, you got it. 14. 14 points of damage. All right. That's a major wound to that hedge bear as it gets dragged off

to the side. Coming to me then, since you rolled with fear, and now it comes to the GM's run, which you made your action there, I'm going to spend one fear to put two more tokens on the element here to spend. I will immediately spend this one to move this guy running here at a close range. Oh shit. Oh, we're not being hooked there. That'll get you right up to where Bunny is on that side there, to Pinsir. That one is going to rush forward and is going to take a strike with its claws towards you

for a... That's only a seven. What's your evasion? 10. 10. Nice. Expecting it to come at me. How do you avoid this attack as it runs towards you? So once again, I'm fully confident in what happens.

And as it comes to me, I do a pirouette out of the way. And as I do, I draw my bladed fan and I drop down to one knee and slice it across the front of its chest. Cool! So it's one move. Yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It stumbles off to the side of its chest. Cool! So it's like one move. Yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It stumbles off to the side and catches itself. And I will attack with my fan. Okay, once I finish my turn. If I can do that, once you finish your turn. Yeah, indeed. Vowit's going to spend this other one here to have a second one rushing out of the wood behind it. No, there's another one!

That's a little baby. It doesn't quite get up to the edge to do much, but it rushes out, following the others. Looks like this was a hunting, wandering pack. The one that you went after, I'm going to spend that token to activate it. It's going to charge up to you, now vengefully closing the gap after you tugged it

beyond where it was. It's going to go ahead. No! Let's see. Your first name's Sir, right? All right. So it's going to go ahead name's Sir, right? All right. So, you go ahead. Yes, Sir. Circumference.

Ha ha. That's going to be a 14 to hit. What's your evasion? My evasion is 13. 13, that is going to hit you. Yes. All righty. So taking those dice there,

I'm going to give it a 10s here. Great. Ooh! All right, I'm going to spend a fear to go ahead and use Corrupted Strength to add a d12 to that damage. Oh no! So that's going to be 20 points of damage to you. 20 points of damage? Well, I'm going to have to spend some armor then. I'm going to knock a point of armor off, which brings that down to 13 points of damage, I think, which is much better. I will take that.

That's a major. It's a major wound? Just to a major think, which is much better. I will take that, and that's a... Major. It's a major wound, so two points. Just to a major wound, which is two HP. Reaches out and takes one heavy swipe at you, watches its massive claw comes through the air. That long strings of a weird oily surface substance glimmers and a bit of light is there

as its heavy claws strike into your armor. You also get knocked back out of very close range. I don't get my retaliation attack, I take it. Unfortunately, it literally knocks you out of melee range before you get a chance, the force of its strength pushing you just beyond. You could. That finishes the GM's turn now.

You said you were about going next? Yes, I'm going to do this fan strike. Right across. Yeah, that's good. 17, 18, 19, 20 with fear. That definitely hits. I get a fear. Then that is 2d8 plus 2, because I am proficient in my fans. Oh, what is up? 15. 15 damage. 15 points of damage. All righty. This is to that one right in front of you? Yes. You got it. That's a major wound to it, so it takes two hit points. You slice it across through

your fan multiple times and it. You can see its jaw, the lower lip is quivering as the teeth itself torn into these big tusks. Oh my. What big teeth you have. All righty, that was with fear, you said? With fear. With fear, all righty. So with that, it's going to immediately, this one here is going to activate, spending that. It's going to rush in.

Oh boy. Oh, there's a third one? Yeah, there's a third. That's going to charge and activate on you and it's going to make a bite and drag attack on you. It's going to spend a fear from close range and it's going to attack you for an 11. What's your evasion? Yes, evasion is 13. 13, great.

So it goes to bite its massive jaws. Close, how do you dodge it? It's just a sneaky little mushroom. I just spin around really fast and all my skirts flare up in its face. You see it gets tangled with its nose for a second, and it's like a dog under the blanket. Amazing.

You yank around a little bit, but eventually you pull away and it's like. A dog under the blanket. All right, so that finishes its go. Can I tell, with these things charging up, if their condition looks at all? I've healed lots of animals, so does it look? They're all similarly corrupted,

I just have one mini with the cool bones. For sure, for sure. No, I understand that, but I'm just saying for all of them, and I'm using this one that's attacking Bunny as the example, do they look healable or do they look beyond, in my experience? In your experience, it's tough to tell. If you want to go ahead and make an instinct roll

to see if you can glean from your experience and understanding of nature and the creatures around you. I do, I do, I do. Or you can do knowledge if you prefer. One of the two. I'm going to do instinct, and I'm going to, no, I'm just going to do a straight roll. What do we got here?

Ooh, that is a 13 with fear. 13 with fear, all right. Damn, fear pack. All right, the corruption that's on them doesn't seem like it's completely pierced their essence. It just looks like a surface sickness that is getting worse. It may be healable. Okay, I'm going to run and jump on the back of the closest one that's now by Sweet Pea,

and I am going to do Healing Hands. I'm going to let my GM turn go, so I can bank some more of these. Right, I'm going to make a spell cast roll and target a creature other than myself in melee on a success mark of stress to heal the target. Two hit points or two stress. I'm going to try. Oh.

Yeah. So that is a 15 with hope, so that makes the roll, so I give it. I'm going to give it, I'm going to clear it of two stress. You cleared it of two stress. To hopefully calm the poor bastard down. Okay. A nicer guy, then. I know. As you reach out and grasp the side of this bear,

its terrifying fangs, the slobber and ichor that's dripping from it pulls back and it brings one heavy claw up as you reach out and gently touch the side of it. There's a flash of divine energy that filters through you. That's all right, lass, that's all right. As you grasp the side of it. There's a flash of divine energy that filters through you. That's all right, lass. That's all right.

As you grasp the side of it, it pulls away like it's recoiling from a burn. As it does, you can see the energy flow across it, and a lot of those strands of darkness begin to fade away, and the shape begins to shift ever so faintly smaller. You see it. It's not restored completely, but it definitely seems a bit confused at the moment. I'm considering it vulnerable for the moment. Oh. Yes. Oh. That's good. Oh, seeing it in its confused state,

we're still killing these things, right? I don't know what's going on, so I'm going to jump down between the two burrs. Would I be within very close range of both of them? You would be. Go to work. Go to work! I do what I do. So I take my gigantic phallic sword

and I'm going to swing away in a large arc that will hopefully hit both of these burrs. Okay. First, swinging at the vulnerable one. Do I add a d6 to that because it's vulnerable? We will, yeah. You make one roll, add it to both, and then you apply the d6 to that for that one target. Okay. I'm rolling with a greatsword. Do I just do a straight roll, right? Yeah. What's the trait for the weapon?

Is it strength? It's strength. Yeah, so you roll a 2d12 and then add your strength modifier. Oh, great, 2d12. Let's go, beefcake. Come on, come on. Great, great, great. Come on, come on. Not great. 13 with hope. 13 with hope.

You gain a hope, but as you swing wide with your weapon, well, it's 13 with hope. Did you add the d6 to it? Oh, is that the vulnerability? Against the one target. So it misses one of them. Plus six. Plus six. It hits the other. Which one do you want to hit? The one that you healed or the one that is behind you?

Do you. I want to hit the vulnerable one. Actually, no. That's exactly what it should have been. That's on me. You swing wide. The first one, the massive one that rushed into the field, dodges out of the way of your blade. The other one swings around and strikes the one that's currently pulling away from Zarlos. Go ahead and roll damage on that. As you swing, I'm above the bear going. I got you, sweet pea! It's 2d10 with mine, plus a whole bunch. So that's, holy shit, 20 points of damage. Plus, because I rolled with hope, that's another d6 on top. So that's 23 points of damage.

23 points of damage. That is a severe wound to it. That bear is looking wrecked as you swing past. You're blading the side of it. It was still in the middle of recoiling. It tumbles off to its side, falls and has to right itself. You can see there's a massive gash across the back of it, and it has that desperation in its eyes. It looks less terrified, or less terrifying than it was, and now it's starting to look a little terrified. Oh, I don't know. Should we feel bad? The quickest way is always the best!

What? What did you just say? The quickest way is always the best. The best? Yeah, but how? I'm going to, while Pango has distracted that one and he's attacking it, I imagine it's getting up, I'm going to dart away from it. Okay. And I'm going to run and I'm going to beeline straight for the one that Sir Dante has

attacked. And right as I run towards it, I'm going to slide down and try to sweep my staff under its legs and hit its legs. Great, go ahead, Holden. Can I add something for a tag team roll here? If you have the hope to spend it. How much hope is it? Three hope. Okay, so yeah, that's right, because they sent in two on me, I have to spend it.

I mean, you can help an ally for a hope and add a d6 to her roll. I will definitely help. All right, so go ahead and spend a hope, and you get to add a d6. Add a d6? Or you can roll a d6, then she can add it. Either way, it doesn't matter. That's fine.

Oh, that's bulls. But you're going to get a d6! Okay. A d6, okay. Doesn't matter. That's fine. Oh, that's bulls. But you're going to get a d6! Okay. D6, yeah, yeah, yeah. Roll a six. Yeah, that's good now. Okay, that's 13. 13 misses. Oh! But it was with hope. Did I get a hope?

So you get a hope back, at least. But as you slide under its legs, it picks one of its massive, bat-clawed legs up and almost stomps down on you, and you barely dodge out of the way, but it catches you off guard, which brings it back to me. Was that with your staff? It was.

Did you add your instinct? I did. Okay. Bummer. I love how she's checking your stuff and you're checking her stuff. Yeah. Plus four.

Yeah, no, that's not good. I'm going to spend both of those tokens there to activate both of these. This one's going to turn around on you. That would have been 15. While this one's going to shift. This one is still a bonus. I'm going to say this one's going to activate on you, Pango. The one that's spinning around and shifting its attention on the sweet pea is going to go ahead and make a giant swing towards you. That's going to be a 16 to hit.

No! Oh no! I'm going to use an armor. Okay. Well, that 16 to hit chits you. Oh, yeah, that hits me. The damage is going to be seven points of physical damage. Seven points, okay. I'm still going to use... That marks it down three.

That's your armor score, yeah. That would take it down to minor, so yeah. All right, so you only mark one hit point on that? Yeah. So your armor takes some of the blow as you get down to minor, so yeah. All right, so you only mark one hit point on that? Yeah. So your armor takes some of the blow as you get knocked back, the wind almost getting kicked out of you. My cardigan!

No! That's a really good piece. It's vintage. No! As you say that, the other one behind you goes to a giant swing towards you. That's going to be a five to hit. What's your evasion? My evasion is four.

Right as you finish your phrase, wham! You get hit from the side heavily. I'm going to go ahead and spend a fear on this. Go ahead and add decrepit strength to that for an additional d12 on that damage. Decrepit strength. That is going to be 16 points of physical damage. 16 points.

I will also spend an armor. No. I can spend hope for some, I have something here. What is it? What is it? Stalwart. I can spend a single hope to reduce the damage by nine. So just through my sheer force of anger at seeing a fine piece of clothing damaged, my whole body tenses up and the tense muscle, like a rock wall, takes most of the damage. Off your back. So I take a minor?

Minor wound, so just one hit point. Yeah, one hit point, okay. All righty. You do get marked on heavy attack, so that does push you back, but it just slams you into the other bear, since there's nowhere else for you to go in that regard. All right, that's going to finish my go there.

All right. Take that, Obby. Okay, so I see Sweet Pea taking off. This one's, I don't know, I feel bad about hitting this one. So I'm going to stick my tongue out and I'm going to swing from a branch. Okay. Cool.

Yeah, Obby! Yes, come on, Obby! And get over, and as I'm swinging, I get my staff going. Okay. Oh, nice! She's pumped? Yeah, I get it going.

I don't really know why it has to do this. As I go, my staff is going to shoot out some, smoke is going to come out the top and it's going to turn into a cinder grasp. It's going to go straight into the big boy over there. Over here? Can you swing by? Yes. Which is, on a success, the target instantly bursts into flames. Oh, wow.

Which is great in a forest! Dealing 1d20 magic damage! Great. Go ahead and roll against the target as you swing underneath the branch from your tongue, landing, letting the flames flicker off your staff and then land. Yeah, baby. First of all, yeah, see if you... Hit. Oh no! That's a six with fear! Now with the beta bees, I do it too!

Good! Oh, it's much bigger when they got closer! Which is, as you swing in the air, your staff, you're trying to light it up, and it's going. The flame's not igniting, and as you do, the bear turns around and opens its mouth towards you as you're rushing, and it's just not igniting, it's not igniting!

You have to biff at the last minute and roll out of the way and just let the spell go. Damn it! But as you stumble to the ground, shifting back its way, Take a stress. I'm going to spend a fear to add some more tokens to the action tracker here.

I just shout out, maybe Zarlo's right. Maybe we shouldn't make Andra angry. Fuck that! I just die. Then I come around and see an opi. You will in a second. Oh no! It's not going to take my turn now. You will in a second. Oh no! It's not going to take my turn now.

Because as you rush in there, because you rolled a fear, you failed with fear, which is really not great. So it comes to me, I got the fear on that one. I spend that to get some extra tokens. I'm going to spend them right now to activate all three of them. No!

I'm also going to spend a fear. I'm going to spend a fear to get rid of the vulnerability on that one. All three of them I'm going to activate now. Both of these are going to spend a fear to get rid of the vulnerability on that one. All three of them are going to activate now. Both of these are going to still focus on you, since you're the one with the massive swing that went around. That one, because you're the one who failed and you're the one who leaped in the air and you just managed to dodge it out of its mouth, the bear now above you is going to bring both of its claws up and try and swing down on top of you. That's going to be an 18 to hit. Oh no!

That's another fear. Yeah, that hits. Oh, that hits! Oh no. That's another fear to add the decrepit strength on that. Ooh, no. Okay, that's going to be a 22 points of physical damage. Oh boy, oh boy! Okay, okay, okay. I. How's that? I'm going to have to do an armor slot because that's my severe.

So... That would take it down to... Just be three hit points, no big deal. Sure. No, but if it's... No! Wait, wait, wait! Just start it! It may do! It may do!

If it's over the severe, then you just take that much, or do you add it? No, you take three. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Minor is one, major is two, and severe is three. And if I use an armor slot? If it doubles your severe. Maybe it can knock it down to a number.

It takes me down to the next, to the major. There should be just two hit points. There should be just two hit points. You can spend multiple armor slots, too, to reduce it multiple times. How many hit points you got? If it helps. I mean, this is my first time getting hit, so I'm going to take all three.

Yeah! All righty. Come on! That's a strong party. Let's go, let's go. The other two are going after you. Pango, that's going to be a six to hit. Hits. Everything's going to hit. That's going to be a nine to hit. I'm going to save that fear,

so they're both going to do just straight damage to you. One of them is going to be a nine to hit. I'm going to save that fear, so they're both going to do just straight damage to you. One of them is going to be 13 points of physical damage. Okay, that's my major threshold. The other is going to be six points of damage. Ow! That's my minor threshold. Can I knock the major one down? Sure. I'll spend another hope

and knock it down, so that's two minors. Two minors, so that's just two hit points. Oh boy. You're just being tackled from both sides. At least it's not the little ones. I must protect the little ones. All righty. So that's going to finish my go.

Zarlo. Sorry, sorry, Kexin. Kexin comes running around the side. Kexin! And as I'm running, you see my mandibles start to light up, like they start glowing in the front in the red, and a little sphere of fire starts to coagulate right in the middle. I'm going to use Wild Flame, so I'm moving right in between the bears alongside

Pango, and I'm going to use Wild Flame to fire a magical arcane fire at both of them. Great. You're a magic person? I am a magic person. That is a knight, sorry, 20 with fear. Ooh! I'll take the fear, but that is a success. And when I make an attack roll with fear of being a wizard from the School of War,

I add a d6 to the damage. Oh, nice! That's cool. Which is sick, and this is 2d6. So it's like a good thing. It's a good thing to get a bad thing. So nine points of damage to both of them. Nine points of damage? All righty. I'm sorry, 11 points of damage.

11 points of damage. All right, so that's a major to both of them. The one that you had sent off, ends up just getting knocked and falls to the ground, itself unconscious and hurt. The flame is burning off to the side. It's going to is now just is burning off to the side. It's now no longer part of the fight. I'll actually just leave it there as a reminder. The other one takes the heavy flame

hit and sees where you are as you rush by. That was with fear. He's now going to go ahead and take his turn to activate both of those, using both of those tokens there. On my turn, this one's going to spin, and ignoring the pango, it's going to rush up towards you, while this one's just going to activate both of those, using both of those tokens there. On my turn, this one's going to spin, and ignoring the pango, it's going to rush up towards you, while this one's just going to continue its assault on Oppi. The attack against Oppi is going to be a three. I'm pretty sure your evasion beats a three, right? Yes. All right, so now it's just slamming in the ground. Take this, me!

Tucking out of the way as you pull back, while the one that comes lumbering towards you, the flame's still burning off the edges of its fur. That's going to be an eight. Oh, a Bajan, seven. A Bajan, seven, so it hits you. It swings heavily towards you. That's going to be 15 points of physical damage. Jeez! It's up in the bark! In armor! Holy fuck!

These bitches are so squishy! You saved 15? Yeah. So knock it down to, oh my god. He's shaking, he's like, oh my god, what is the last of the hit? That's crazy. Yeah, so now it becomes a major, so I take two hit points. Two hit points on that one, yeah.

Okay, great. Early levels, man. I seem to have a moment where I'm right behind this thing. You do. So I'm going to very quietly walk up, pull out my rapier, and just stab it, hopefully approximately where the sun would have shined if it wasn't undead.

Fair enough, already. All right, that's a roll. That's a this plus presence. Yes. Oh, those are not the wrong, All right, let's roll this plus presence. Those are not the wrong, I'm too nervous, those are the wrong dice, that was damage. There we are, come on. Oh, that's terrible. It's 10 with hope.

10 with hope? Unfortunately, that misses, but you do get to mark a hope off that, bringing it back to me. I'm going to spend the token that I just got to have it turn on you. Oh no! And it's going to make a strike at you. Sir! That's going to be an 18 to hit.

That hits. That hits. And an awful damage rolls, four points of physical damage. That's below my minus, so I'll just take a stress. Take a stress on that point. And I'll also say, I'm finally gonna use my bloody retaliation. When I take damage from a creature in melee range, I may mark a stress to immediately deal weapon damage

to the creature at half proficiency. Great. So that's just, I roll it and divide it in half, I recall? Well, the number of dice is your proficiency, so if proficiency is one, then you just roll one dice. One d8 plus two. Oh, that's very nice. That's eight.

Eight? All right. So it takes a minor wound, one knocks up a hit point. Yes, eight. Eight. All right, so you retie it, go ahead and strike it back and retort, and as you hit it, it pulls away. The minor hit, but now it's ready to face off against you. That finishes my go. I'll jump in. Zarlo, hearing his friends starting to cry out in pain around him, look down at the poor bear, bodily hurt on the ground, and as is his fashion, kiss his palm and hold it out, and then instantly start to monkey-lope towards Oppi and run up behind her and place, run up behind him, sorry.

I changed it. It's changed from the play test till now. It's a little guy, it was a little guy. Session zero, right. And I'm going to place my hands on the top of his slimy head and use my divine wielder ability, sparing touch, it just works. Once per long rest, you can touch a creature and heal, take two hit points back.

I just look straight up in your eyes as you're doing big eyes. Just staring at me. He has pretty big brown eyes as well. Do you look your eye? I feel my hands start to go a little bit numb, and I just start shaking off the slime from them. All right, all right, all right, all right! Thank you, Mr. Sauron! Thank you!

I'm going to lift up my staff and swing it down, but instead of actually swinging it down, my eyes are going to light up and a bunch of spectral blades are going to form in the air and slam down into the bear in front of me. What's that called? That's called Brain of Blaze! Yeah! So go ahead and spend that stress, or that hope, and then go ahead and roll your skull.

That's an instinct, no, yes, that's instinct. Woo hoo hoo! That's really good. That's a 12 plus 11 for hope, and I didn't even add my, so whatever that is. You definitely succeed. Okay.

That's great, so I get a hope back. Get a hope back. Okay, and then that does, I guess it's not that great. It's just 1d10 magic damage. I would have done better hitting it with my staff, but that's okay. Fucking art.

But it looks sick. I know. All right, go ahead and roll 1d10 magic damage. Three. Oh no! It's like a drizzle of blades. Yeah. It's like one blade.

Zing, zing. The bear's like, Shit. That's under its minor threshold, so it takes its breath. I got to work on that spell. Side note, shout out to every artist who worked on these cards. Oh my god. Oh, the best! Oh, man. And there's still out to every artist who worked on these cards. Oh my god!

Oh my god! Moment of it. And there's still more to come. Yes, yes, yes! Beautiful. So much more to come. Who wants to come up next? All right, I'm going to look over at Pango. I instinctively look away. Pango, listen to me.

Pango, look at me. Okay. I don't want to look down. You were destined for greatness. You know, me and you. You're looking up and you're just seeing boobs and then like, the cast goes. Just try not making eye contact. No, no, no, make eye contact.

That's very weird. Just look at me. Listen to me. Just in. Me and you, I think no, make eye contact. That's very weird. Just look at me. Yes, listen to me. Just in. Me and you, I think we would make a great duo act. And first, you're going to hear a heartbreaking song that starts to play. Me and all my close allies can take a hope,

so anyone who is nearby can take a hope. Are we close? Are we any of us close? Close allies should be. Does that mean close as in relationship, or close as in proximity? Everybody but Sir Dante, unfortunately. Just out of the range. Sir!

Then I go, why don't we try a little duo act? I want to do a team up. Are you going to do a tag team roll? Tag team! All right, that's three hope cost on that. I'm going to spend all three of my hope. I wouldn't have had three without that.

All right, so what are you both doing then? What are we both doing? You know that move in partner dances where one person bends over and the other uses the back to do a thing? Yeah, swing stuff. I'll do the kicking if you can launch me and we can both attack this bear that's going after Kexin. You both rush over here as a dancing duet,

spinning over blades and massive blades swinging as you do. Are you both making attack rolls with your weapons then as part of this tag team? I'm going to use my fans. Using the fans? All right. I can roll an attack as well? With the tag team roll, one of you initiates and spends three hope, and you can only initiate it once per session. But you both roll, and then you take the higher of the two for both

of your actions. If you're both doing damage, you add the damage together. Oh, shit! So both of you roll for your attacks. Choose the better roll. Then you combine your shots. My team up is two hope. Use my presence. If you team up with me, it's two hope.

So I will do as she said and take her on my back and spin around, but even though she said to just do it once, I'm going to try to go around and around and around. Yeah! You got it. Plus, those spring moves. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Psy-Carp. Lindy Hop. Yeah, Lindy Hop, exactly. Ring of Fire. Yeah. You got it. Plus, those spring moves. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Psy-Carp, Lindy Hop. Yeah, Lindy Hop, exactly. Ring of Fire. Yeah. Let's go. It's great. Shows the shit, man. It was awesome.

And with the size differential, he's just like, whoosh. 17 fear, or? Or? I run, ran, ran, ran, ran, ran. Nine, 10. 15, 16 with hope. Ooh! I mean, you take, I mean. If we take the hope roll in a tag team move like this,

do we both regain hope? How does that work? In this instance. I just broke the game. Good question. If I recall, it's, it's. No, you're both getting the roll, so you would both get a hope. Okay. Yeah.

Should we do that? It's one lower, but I think it'll hit. I think 16 will still hit. 16 will hit? Okay, we'll do 16 with hope. Okay. Should we do that? It's one lower, but I think it'll hit. I think 16 will still hit. Okay, we'll do 16 with hope. Okay, 16 with hope does hit. Yay! Okay, get that hope back. Excited about numbers.

Yeah! So both of you guys roll your damage and add them together. I'm not a genius. Okay. It hits. Okay, okay. So you have eight plus two.

Okay. Even though she did for me. Yes. I got 11 damage. Mine is 13, whoa. 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24. Oh yeah, you're going to turn our bear into pate. So 24 plus 11.

35 points of damage. Yes. That is double its severe threshold, which means it has four hit points, which is what it had left. So how do you want to do this? I'm hitting it so hard, I feel like we're going to hit it

straight into our bug friend, but we shan't do that. No, no, no, we shan't. How do you want to do this? Well, I feel like, okay, so we're doing, we hit him a few times, hit him a few times, but then you do a toss, and I do a barrel roll. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And as I come down from the barrel roll, I'm just going to impale him. Yes, and I will go up from underneath, and maybe we can just shoot. Oh, and skewer it in the middle? Ooh! Just crumbles to the ground as both draw your blades out at the ready. Sorry, sweet beast.

All righty. Fuck that. Whoa. That was really fun. I told you you're a star. I bend over and walk away a little bit. That's terrible. That one's paced, this one's bad. This one's up?

That one's up still, yeah. Yeah, I see that happen as I watch one of my spectral blades go. You can wind it on the other if you want to go. That's all right. Let's tag team. All right, let's tag team? All right, who's tag team? Oh, 23.

Sir Dante! Yes, yes. Shall we try something together? Who's rolling out the fucking tag team? Lien Hooray, Mr. Offenheim. There's definitely nothing bigger waiting towards the end of this game. No, you spend all.

I want to use my stamp. Do it, do it, that's what it's about. But you can do tag teams once per session? You can initiate one once per session. Oh, initiate one. So I could initiate one. It'll cost you three hope to do so, though. Okay.

I get two, apparently. Nice. All right. So I am going to... Twice for a change. Uh... Is it rebuilt? It's a bit of a downer. Dun, dun, dun! Let me see. All right, I I want to do? Dun, dun, dun!

Let me see. All right, I just want to try to use my staff, so I'm just going to get it going again. Yeah, yeah. I don't know about that move. Well, no, it's like a... Adults. I'm going to toss around while you're doing this and wave my hat with one of my arms and prepare for a

strike on the other to put the smoke, much like the fire, earlier. Yes, yes, yes. It moves. Yes. The smoke will try to wrap itself around the bear. Okay, okay. And just slowly start to just squeeze. All right, great. What are you casting And just slowly start to just squeeze. All right, great.

What are you casting for this? I'm just using my staff. Hell yeah, go for it. All right, so go ahead and roll your respective attacks. I'm going to add Dramatic Flare, if that's all right, by saying, I'm afraid you're about to meet a grizzly end. Sure, I'm going for it. That's an extra hope.

That's an extra, that's a hope. You spend a hope. I'm into it. All right, wait, so do I spend, am I spending hope since we're tag teaming? You're spending three. I'm spending two, great. Or three, no, two because of me.

That's a good thing to know. When an ally initiates a tag team role with you, they only spend two hope to do so. Oh great, yeah, so no points. That's just two for you. Awesome. I spend one hope for my, and that's, here we go. Added 1d8 on the last feature.

Oh no! 14. Hopefully I won't get rolled better. 14, 15, 16. 19 with fear, unless you've got. I rolled eight with hope. 19 with fear. Yeah. 19 with fear. Yeah.

19 with fear. I'll take the fear, but you both get to go ahead and combine your damage on this attack. The smoke whirls around as you're building it up with your hat. It can just swirl and mass around the bear as it seems to be now completely invisible. I forgot to add my sneak attack damage on my previous roll. Okay. Can I add it? Sure. I just rolled it, it was seven damage.

Whoa, that's way better than your dinky little dinky doodle. You got it, all right, so marking that on there. Can I add that to any attack, or does it have to be melee? Well, what does it say on the sneak attack? It just says when you use an attack. Yeah, when you use an attack, so yes, you could add that. Wait, you always get sneak attack?

No, when an ally is in melee. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Or you use an attack. So yes, you could add that. Wait, you always get sneak attack? No, when an ally is in melee. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Or you're hidden. When you use sneak attack, you may also spend any number of hope before the attack and add more dice. But I didn't do that, so I'm only adding one. No worries, that does turn it into a hit point. So you got it. Mark that.

All right, so what'd you roll for damage? I rolled 12. 12 damage, and what'd you roll for damage? I rolled 12. 12 damage, and what'd you roll? I rolled five damage. Okay, so that's 17, which is its severe threshold, which is three points of damage. How do you want to do it? Yes! Go ahead. I think you've got him in a strangle with your smoke and clam.

Yes. So the smoke that's coming out of my glorious staff, it's a little pink, a little magenta, a little periwinkle with a little sparkly, celestial looking, and it just wraps around the neck of the bear, and then the body, and it's just getting tighter and tighter. I do a little cartwheel underneath, get right under it, and give him a trichotomy straight through the throat. You withdraw and you see it crumble to the ground as the weird liquid seeps out of its wounds and out of its jaw. The two slain bears are now laid to the sides. They're suffering at an end. The partially healed one over there are unconscious. As you all catch your breaths, taking in for most of you the renewed understanding of the dangers that wander here,

though from your experience, a different kind of danger than you were expecting. We're going to go to break. Oh! We'll pick up for a post-battle investigation and furthering of the adventure for this. We're going to go to break. We'll pick up for a post-battle investigation and furthering of the adventure for this. That was fun. That was fun. That was fun. That was fun.

I love the time. All righty. We'll see you all here in about 15 minutes. Okay. Oh, hey there. Laura Bailey here to tell you all about the glorious goods we create inspired by our stories. Our stores are filled with the basics, like character-inspired t-shirts, dice sets and pins, as well as more specialty items like fancy jackets, puzzles featuring gorgeous artwork, the comfiest joggers and pajamas ever, and much, much more.

There's also a few special items that support charity efforts, like our dedicated Critical Role Foundation merch. You can check out all of our regional online stores by visiting the Shop tab on CritRole.com, or head straight to the US store at shop.critrole.com. Every purchase helps support our shows and the stories we tell. Speaking of which, let's get back to the story. And welcome back. So ending of that combat, I had three tokens left over. I'm going to spend two of them, so you get a fear, and that last one just goes away. So here, as the adrenaline begins to

fade and you all stand around the two deceased, corrupted hedge bears and the one that hangs on to the edge. You take in the intensity of what's around you. What do you do? I'm going to gently lope up to this one that is barely hanging on to the thing. Second. On my... Barely. I'm going to lay hands on its ribs

and see how she reacts. Ah, that's not your fault, Gerlin. Does she seem calm to me? She's hurt, but calm in your presence, at least. Your hand is the one that brought her back from Sunbrink. Can you fix her, Zarlo? We'll see. No one's ever so far from Andra's gaze.

I will use a different feature. I'll use Mending Touch. different feature. I'll use Mending Touch. So this is for quieter, slower moments. I'm going to take a few moments and the medallion around my neck starts to glow gently, illuminating the two dogs peeking out from my hip. Oh, what the hell? two dogs peeking out from my hip. And I will give this bear two hit points. Okay.

And while he's taking that time, everybody come close to where he is, and I'll also cast Mysterious Mist, and my wings will start to flutter, and a little thick mist starts to surround us, anyone within a very close distance, and it makes us hidden. Is there a spell cast roll for that one? There is, yeah. It's kind of the sulfur smell. Oh, I spend a hope to do it.

I'm going to amend my thing feature-wise. It should be one hit point, unless I tell the person or creature I'm healing something about myself or learn about them. You know, when I was a young one, I met one of your cousins, and I was injured. Had a broken leg. Can still feel it when it rains.

And that one, one of your cousins, he actually grabbed me by the scruff, held me on my feet and limped me back to my home. So it pains me to see you like this, Gerlain. But don't let it pain you. And I'll pull my hand away and hope that that's enough to close the wound.

The wounds begin to seal over. Not completely healed of the wounds that suffered, but definitely enough to recover in time. But more so than that, the signs of the wounds it suffered, but definitely enough to recover in time. But more so than that, the signs of the corruption, the strange ichor leaking from its various wounds and body corners subsides and evaporates into dust and vanishes as it rights itself. And you see it looks around at you all,

still a massive and intimidating hedge bear, but as it glances around, you don't sense outward aggression. As it gets back up to its feet, and at its feet, it's towering a good three feet above your heads are low, but it bends down to sniff you. Licks the side of your face,

and then looking at the rest of you, begins to back away, and then turns and begins to lumber into the shadow of the forest. Why? Stops and turns back. Sorry. You see it looks towards the northeast with a sad look in its eyes and continues pushing westward. Guide her. Guide her where?

So we hurt things and then we heal them? Is that like our specialty? I mean, you did the best you could. Corruption outpaced their hearts. We did it right. We solved the problem? Yeah, I think we destroyed the corruption. We can go home now. I think we did it. I'm afraid that's just an example of what else is out there. Yeah, we haven't found the cleft hand or made it to the sea the river yet, so there's more to go.

But lessons learned. The symptom, not the cause. That was exciting. It was. It is. Is your tongue all right? Yeah. I can do that all day. Never seen you stretch it out that far.

It is a little far. It feels a little stretched at the moment, but I'm okay. All right. We should have dropped the two puppies and taken the bear, just saying. No. I thought about asking, but she left.

There's a very useful. You know, I saw her looking off that way. Maybe that's where she came from. Maybe that's where she came from. Maybe that's where we should go. She's just a drama queen. Does the path go the way that the bear looked? Not directly. It looks like it's arcing semi-parallel,

but slightly diverging in time. The call is yours. Seems like a clear sign to me. Let's follow the gaze of the bear. We won't get lost. Bear gaze. Bear gaze. Bear gaze. Let's do it. I love it.

I love bear gaze, too. Pretty great. All right. Zahra, may we lead the pack, so it would work? All right. Snug up my baggy pants Sorry, sorry. Maybe lead the pack, so it would work. All right. Snug up my baggy pants and make sure the pups are tight, and I start to swing through the branches. We should walk away this time.

You take the high road. Oh, that's terrible, no. No, you don't. Too real. Finally shaking your accent off. Talking like a normal person. The odd cadence of Sir Dante's cackle echoing through the shattered expanse. You press slightly off the path

you've been following and trekking deeper east, northeast, hopefully in the direction of what you're seeking. It doesn't take too terribly long before you begin to hear the distant sounds of water rushing. Some semblance of a brook or some body of liquid itself crashing and shifting between the landscape. Do we see anything that might resemble

a left-hand rock? Go ahead and make an instinct roll for me, if you don't mind, to look for the specific details of what you're seeking as you're trekking along this unfamiliar path. Oh right, because we're off the path. So we would have had to the water anyway from the beginning. Yeah. I'm going to do a big sniff.

I have a little bit of a better sense of smells from living underground for so long. So I'm going to just give a sniff to see if I can smell stinky water from the rip. Okay, so both of you go ahead and make instinct rolls to see. You're looking and you're smelling. Well, that's a critical. Whoa! It's two ones.

Which is a critical in Daggerheart. That completely sidesteps the low amount. Yeah, if you roll the same number on both 12s, that is a critical success. Phew! It looks scary, but it's dope. That completely sidesteps the low amount. Yeah, if you roll the same number on both 12s, that is a critical success. It looks scary, but it's dope! I got a 16 with hope. 16 with hope, great. All right, well, you get a hope, you get a hope,

and you clear a stress if you have one. Ooh! Because of the critical success. I'm not a very stressed out person. So as you diverge from your path, you do not have sight of Clefthand, but you've seemingly circumvented its necessity, as indeed you can see what you can clearly understand here.

You just feel a strong connection with nature around you and something about this just tells you, this is the river that you've sought. You glance past what you see, the Exia River, and you can see a manner of trees that are growing on the sides. Some of them are bent forward slightly, and you can see there are elements of trees

surrounding the water that are diminished in the intensity of their leaves. Some that are even leafless, right among the very edge of the wide... it's a river. It's wider than a brook could possibly be. And you do see there are elements where the river, little ways up and a little further on, travels through rocks and small, three, four foot falls that's causing the sound of rushing that drew you here. You, picking up the scents of the wood, I mean, everything here, the further you get in, has a stagnation to it.

But this close to the water, there is a particular kind of pungence. It is a combination of still water with heavy vegetation rot and something... It's hard to describe, and part of it makes you a bit uncomfortable. It's a familiar smell. You're not quite sure what it is. Hey, big man. Is it up? You've got a face like a slapped arse. Are you all right?

It just smells like a stink bug. No offense. Just weird. Is it a bit like, does it smell a bit like hoppy? No offense. Totally different. I'm taking. I don't know, it's just, I don't know. It stirs something in me.

Goodness. Do we see any more of that sludgy stuff anywhere? If you get closer to the river, you can see, one, the edges of the water, as much as the trees themselves are leafless, the ground vegetation is deeply overgrown. You can see the various ferns and bushes themselves are massively swollen and wide,

even though the coloration begins to shift into blues and purples beyond the natural greens of the forest, which at first would be beautiful, if not for just the stench that gets stronger and stronger the closer you get to the water. You can see the water from here. You, being familiar with many of the crystalline waters of the Emerald Sky and its wondrous forest expanse, This is certainly a brackish brown muddy coloration. And the water itself, while it flows, it flows thicker than water should, ever so faintly. There is a thickness and a faint

sluggishness to its flow that is unnatural and sets you on edge immediately. You reckon we should follow this to its flow that is unnatural and sets you on edge immediately. You reckon we should follow this to its source? Mm-hmm. Definitely. I want to pick up a, is there a stick about? There are plenty of sticks about. I want to take a stick and prod it a bit

and see if it's like a fungus, if it can be pulled up out of the water. Like a skin? Like a skin. You place and lift it up. It doesn't carry on like a layer or anything that would stick to it, beyond the fact that the edge of your stick now has that kind of almost like an oil spill type

texture to it, and it has that same bluish-purple coloration faintly throughout the liquid and the residue as what was seen within the claw marks in that initial tree. By the way, when you described the bears, you said that they had liquid on them. Was it the same coloration, same kind of liquid as those claw marks as well? It indeed carried that blue-purple tint to it. Weird. I'm going to...

Don't let anybody touch it. We should avoid stepping in it, for sure. I have a strange thought. Mm-hmm? I'm going to take my canteen that I have, and I'm going to down whatever water is left of it very quickly, and I'm going to see if there's a way to just get a little scoop, a bit of this gunk into it

without touching anything. I would like to ask for a finesse roll on that. All right. This is specifically a challenging test of your control. This may be absolutely hilarious. Listen to this fucking shit right here. You got to be shitting me. Goddamn it, Sam. You're the. Absolutely hilarious. I'm missing this fucking shit right here. You got me. This is shitting me.

Goddamn it, Sam. You're the teeniest. I cancel. Let's dagger fart. Oh my god. That's basically what I have. That's fine. Oh my god, Sam.

This guy. Oh boy, do I have anything I can do to make this better? Not really. All right, here we go. Don't suck. Hey! That's much better. That's 15 with hope. 15 with hope? All right, you take a hope. You manage to just flangle an angle where your canteen accepts it, and it has that odd sound as it enters and begins to fill partially into the canteen. As you lift up, you can see that layer of clinging material, that foreign substance that is swirled and mixed in with the river water

that slicks down the side and you shake it off after you close the lid. Cap it and then use some foliage to dry it off and then put it back on my belt. So mark down, you have a half canteen of river sludge. Thank you. Oh god. You say that now. Uh-oh.

You know, Zarlo, I just keep wondering if all this is connected to that seep stuff you were talking about. Well, I thought that, too. I mean, it was liquidy. Oh, Pango. What'd you call me? I called you Pango.

It's kind of close. I mean, whenever she talks, I just listen. Do you want to call Pengo? Concerning anything. Is it the same smell, do you think? I don't know. Is it the same smell? It was a traumatic day. It was traumatic.

It wasn't the same as the horrible caustic smell of the seep that filled the exodus from Ubi. But... Nothing familiar, nothing similar? It's familiar, but it's different than that smell there. Maybe that was a test run, or maybe that was a refined version, or... Or maybe, you know how blood,

when it's in your body, it's bright red or whatever, and then when you let it dry a little bit, it gets all brown and gunky? Maybe the stuff that I saw was fresh, and this is old. That's interesting. This is more of a...

This doesn't look like dry... Well, maybe. Although this isn't really dry yet, is it? Sir Dante and I, where we came from, in the Red Crystal Cavern, there was this thick mist and it was making everybody go all haywire. It's quite violent. Wait, did it look like this stuff? No, I just wonder if it's all, you know, it's like the world is sick. Oh, that's so sad. I know.

We should trace it to its source. If the river's flowing downstream, we should go upstream. I would, yeah. All right. Okay. That's what the Grim Wardens are all about. Going upstream. That's right, because we're Grim Wardens are all about. Going upstream. That's right, because we're Grim Wardens. The Menagerie. True and true. Grim Wardens, subtitled Menagerie.

Yeah. Phrasings. Subsect. Great, thanks for that. Lovingly. All right, who is helming? Is it continuing to be Zarlo and Sardantra? Let's change it up.

I'm going to stick my staff in, so we avoid the Sludgees. All right. So you're testing the ground as you continue? Yeah, as we walk forward. You got it, Sweet Pea. I'm going to sneakily walk and avoid the Sludge. All righty. As you continue to clamber along the side. Just a dumb, sneaky little mushroom.

The riverbanks, you can see areas where some of the land has either fallen in, and it's almost like a marsh element is expanding outward. The river itself seems to either be causing a rapid erosion towards the edge of the river banks, or the water is beginning to fill. You're uncertain, but it seems to be pressing freshly beyond the long carved boundaries of the river's previous flow. Sweet Pea, you're the first to see something moving in the water about 50, 60 feet ahead of you.

Something just shifting and moving along the surface. There's, get back, get back. There's something in the water. Okay. Oh, oh, oh, oh, I see. What is that? There's something in the water, you guys. What?

There's something in the water. They're very hard to hear. There's something in the water! Oh, shh, shh, shh. There's something in the water. Creatures skitter out at the nearby treetops. Well, should we just walk around it? Yeah, we should just not walk in the water, probably.

Okay. I thought they were already dead. Okay. You move around the wide edge of it, wide berth of it, and you can see there's something floating in the water, but it looks like it's caught on one of the heavy roots, and it's just snagged and hanging along the edge.

What does it look like? Is it the shape of a person? You take a moment to focus, and it does indeed look like a body. How far away is it? That's the wide berth you guys were keeping, so about 30, 40 feet from where you are as you're traveling around.

What about someone who needs help? How far would you say it is? What's the distance of 30 to 40 feet, would you say? It's close or just beyond close. I could try and grab it if you like. You know, just pull out my hook. Oh yeah, you do this. This is your thing.

You grab things. I'm going to make a throw. Okay, go ahead and make an attack roll. This is a standard difficulty of 10 at this distance against the target there. Oh, where's my attack roll? There we are. Let's use this. Come on.

That's 13 with hook. 13, so. You give a tug,. It takes a moment, because you can feel like the body was carried downstream and the cloak got caught up in some of the roots along the bank and tethered there for a bit, but eventually it tears one of the branches that it's caught on breaks and you pull it onto the surface. As you drag it closer and closer, it's leaving a trail of the continually brackish water in its wake. As you yank and pull, it hits like a rock and then flips over onto its back,

revealing what looks to be a humanoid male figure, slightly bloated from being in the water for a bit. Oh no, it's Wild Cullen! Is it? Is it? You take a glance toward it and see the familiar hair slicked, the piercing eyes, and the human and elven mixed lineage

still recognizable beyond the face of death. Ah, Cully. Oh no. Drag him away from the water. Yep. Okay. I'm going to get my hook on him, too, on my staff. Hang up?

If you have nothing. Oh, sure. Sure, I'll help to pull. Between the three of us, get it carefully, we pull him carefully. Okay, as you pull it closer, you see the lower halves of the legs below carefully. We pull him carefully. Okay, as you pull it closer, you see the lower halves of the legs below the knees

are no longer there. It's interesting. There aren't heavy slashes or any real signs of open wounds, though you do immediately see the back of the head is caved in. Looks like some heavy, blunt trauma that may have been responsible for this poor ranger's demise. A bludgeoned back of the head and missing the lower half of the foot. Yeah. But no, what like...

Cleanly, or is it a mess? Yeah, what did the legs look like? I mean, or is it a mess? What did the legs look like? I mean, you said it didn't look like they got? You look down at them, and they look, honestly, kind of chewed apart. Oh dear. Wait, so it's only half of the body? Well, it's like the thigh's up.

The thigh's up. Okay. So maybe he was attacked, and then thrown in the river, and then whatever that creature is ate him. Well, is the head wound, does his arse look like a bite? Does it look weapon, like a weapon cleaned? I don't believe it.

If you want to make a knowledge roll to see if you can analyze the extent of the wounds. Probably not be the one to do that. Go for it. No. Go for it. No. Go for it. You're clever, and you're a beetle. Does this look... What would you make of this wound? It would just abandon you.

It killed him. Yes, but does it look like it might have been a rock, might have been a bite, might have been an axe? I don't know. I will inspect the head wound, but I will also use Reveal from the Book of Vargas and just see if there's anything hidden within close range that would... Anything that would be hidden would be no longer. That's cheating. Plus knowledge.

Oh, damn! That is a 23 with hope. Nice! Great, so as you. I got hope, yeah! So as you approach, before you analyze the body, you go ahead and pull out your grimoire, flip to the page of your reveal spell,

begin to weave the incantation. As you release the woven tethers of the arcane aether that surrounds the space around you, you invoke this wave of glowing dust that seems to emanate from you. As it does, you can see, first thing you notice, the weapons on your friend here are not drawn, which first leads you to believe that he was not expecting what ended him. Beyond that path to the edge of the river, too, the dust seems to catch on something that you see hiding within the roots, just beyond the water edge. Opposite riverbank?

No, on this side of the riverbank, in the roots of one of the nearby trees. You see something that's long and thin, tangled through them, looking like part of the root structure itself, but the spell seems to leave it slightly glowing amongst its shaded hiding spot. That was 30 or 40 yards away, so I'll say, nobody move. I think it's unfortunate that this poor fellow didn't see whatever his demise was coming, but there seems to be something watching us from the riverbank amongst the roots. Don't get caught under wears. Underwear? amongst the roots. Don't get caught under wears.

Don't underwear? Under wears. Don't get your underwear caught. Under wears. You glance across from where the riverbank is where you pulled the body up, and you can see these brown shapes beginning to shift out of the water

of a similar coloration, but begin to claw up through the muck. It looks almost like odd, low-to-the-ground crustaceans, like little crab-like creatures that are climbing up and out of the muck of the nearby forest, but as they begin to climb out, they climb taller and taller. As they begin to sniff, seemingly searching for their unfinished meal, they glance over. You're going to hide? Yeah, I'm just going to get down to where my cap is, and I just look like part of the vegetation.

Okay, so you get down low. Taking the dogs up into a tree. Yeah, guess what I'll hide? Oh boy. Okay. I'll all hide. Oh boy. Okay. I'll join you. Stand behind a tree. I'll join you and I'm going to give you,

I think I can give, I think Lightfoot might. As you all begin to carefully move out of sight, you see them, they've been sniffing around in the air. The slightest bit of movement, you see them. They've been sniffing around in the air. The slightest bit of movement, they all zero in and go into a mass skittering towards you. Damn! Oh my god!

That was a skitter! We are spoiled! Oh my god. We did not rest. We are bad. We are bad players. No! Bad players. That is definitely poo water.

I'm driving like a stolen! That is poo water. That is poo water that's stagnant as hail. You all in a pool back in this position. It's just full of amoebas. You've seen that water. Up that way is the Springfield nuclear factory. You said you looked into the tree there? Yeah. All righty.

All right. The three of us were pulling a body out of the water, so we would have been closer. And the body was dragged about 30 or so feet. Okay, great. And Bunny and I started skittering towards the trees using my silence, using my ability to keep us silent. Which is, yeah, it's advantage on action rolls

to make you move without being heard. But I burned a hope for it, so. Yeah, so I'd have the two of you go ahead and roll agility rolls for me real fast to go ahead and dart out of there with that ability, while the rest of you begin to shift right as they catch your attention. What you see is a d6. Oh, you get a d6 to add to that. I do?

Yeah, because I gave you advantage on this roll. That's right. So it's 11. Ooh! 17. Ooh! 17. Sorry. Oh, you're kidding. Ooh! 17 with hope for me.

Oh no. 21 with hope for me. Oh, that's fucking fallout shit. They're like lobstrocities. Lobstrocities. Oh, lobstrocities. Oh boy. Holy Moses.

Wow. Oh wow. Oh Moses! Wow. Wow. Oh my god. After another, after another, after another are emerging, it looks like... I cast Cataclysm. Jeez. You got Meteor Swarm too. Meteor! All right. I cast Hot Butter. I cast Terminate.

The body of your friend, which sits here on the ground after being dragged out. As soon as you all begin to scatter off to the side, first off, what did you roll? I rolled like... It was like 22 or something. Yeah, it was like 22 with hope. With hope, okay.

And 17 with hope. 17 with hope, great. You both dart off to the side while the rest of you begin to shift as they begin to charge at you. Many of them start rushing with this weird skittering sound. I was close to the body because I would have been trying to pick his pockets. Y'all got it. But I sunk down into the vegetation. I'm just hiding there. So as this is happening, I'm going to go ahead and spend a fear. Oh boy.

Oh boy. Oh sorry, I spend two fear to take a GM action immediately, and then spend both of these fear to give me four tokens at the top. On my immediately intrusive ambush GM turn here, I'm going to spend all four of these tokens to activate four of these skitterfish. As they charge forward, you see their chitinous front lobster-like jaws open into these separate bisected jaw with teeth that seem to wiggle and move. I see you, fam. I see you. Same thing.

Mandible. Mandible knows mandible. Ah! These four are going to activate here. They're very close to us. You've got crabs. They charge in. All righty.

Wait, those are around me. You're very tall. I'm with you. I'm with you. I don't like this. All right. Oh dear. So with that, all four of them are going to attack you. Hey, little guy. That is 16 to hit you.

Yeah. Oh jeez. You take three physical damage. Three physical damage? What does that mean? Correct. So you take a stress hit. Oh, just three? Good. Oh, that's easy.

From the first attack. The next one is a four to hit. Yeah. Yeah, you take three physical damage. Well, my evasion is four. Yeah, so it meets it. Beats it, beats it. So I take how many on the next one?

Three. The next one is a seven to hit you. Yes. And the next one is a seven to hit you. Yes. And the next one is three, three, so you take four stress, essentially. Oh boy. Ooh!

Ow, ow. Arc your shit. Ow, oh yeah, sorry. Oh, okay. All right. So in reaction to this, as they all swarm up and slam around Pango and immediately just start scrambling and swarming him from the sides,

who wants to go? I do. All right, go for it. around Pango and immediately start scrambling and swarming him from the sides. Fumoska. I do. All right, go for it. I'm pissed. I grip my gigantic sword, my greatsword, and using my whirlwind feature ability, I swing out in a wide arc, and I'm going to fucking try to hit all of them. All righty.

Because I don't like when they bite people. That's not cool at all. You got it. I rolled a 20 with hope. 20 with hope. Nice. All right, and you're spending a... So with Whirlwind, you may also spend hope to use that roll against every other enemy within range.

That hits all four of them. Dang! Let's go! Okay, and the same roll applies to all of them? It applies to all of them, yeah. So go ahead and roll damage. Okay, damage. It's half damage against the others? It is half damage against everyone but the first one, yeah. That's a cool cleave from Mass Fighter.

2d10 plus two, and then, so that's... Crazy. 12, 13, 14 plus, because of forceful, nope, because of something, Body Basher, I get another three. So what did I say, 14? So that's 17 points to all of them. 17 points to one, and the first one you hit, and then half of that to all of them.

Doesn't matter. As minions, as they rush to you, you go ahead and sweep around and carve all four of them immediately. Oh, wow! Yes! Okay. Okay.

As their sinew flies in the air, I'm going to try to eat so I love crap. Just take a few shreds from the ether. I'm going to buy a claw. All right, and that was with hope, right? That's with hope. You got it, all right. I started to cast, and I was like, yeah!

Now there's still more clambering out of the water. No, it's fine. All right. Unless someone's got something, I might try something. Go for it, buddy. I'm going to step to the right, out of the tree line. All righty. I don't know if I can do this. We'll find out. I'm going to take my grappling hook, and I'm going to fire at the one in the back.

Over here? Yeah, yes. Is it close range? It is far. Far? Yeah, he's definitely within range of fire. I'm going to get the one in the back. And. I'm going to attempt to say,

I'm going to attempt to quip to see if I can get my dramatic flare. If you'd like to, you can spend a hope to do that. I'll spend my hope and say, and me without my bib today. And so that is, there's my 12. Extra paper towels to table seven. That is a crit, that is five and five.

Yay! All right, so you gain a hope and fear stress. Gain a hope. Automatically hits. Go ahead and roll damage on that. As you toss it across that way, and it sinks into the creature. So I have a crazy thing I want to do. All right. This is 2d8 plus two.

That's 11. I want to see if I can pull him all the way through, and see if I can Knock some of the other ones? Either just give them, just knock them, trip them, do something just to break up the ring. I'll say you yank it through, and you push them apart, all them, trip them, do something just to break up the ring.

I'll say you yank it through and you push them apart, all out, on a critical especially. They get broken up a bit over here and have to move out of the way as they get knocked to the side. You drag half of it towards you because you literally pluck it from the torso off and you have half of this crustacean creature lands next to you and then just stops moving. Tonight, we melt butter. All right. Fantastic. All the love.

All right, Zarlo, what you got? Zarlo's, while cradling my two babbies close, Zarlo's tail reaches around and pulls the axe off his back and plants it into his hand. I I'm going to, I have a spirit weapon. When you have a melee weapon equipped, it can fly from your hand to strike an enemy and return to you, so I'm gonna chuck it at the nearest one. All righty, it's close range, right?

Yeah, it's close range. It's close range? Right. Then yeah, you can definitely, throw those over here. Yeah, you can get that one right there. All right, is the, okay. Or you're up here, yeah, so you can definitely get either of those, too.

Either of those. Cool,, is that okay? Or you're up here, yeah, so you can definitely get either of those, too. Either of those? Cool, that is a 14 with fear. Fear, that's okay, that successfully hits. And I am going to mark a stress and, oh, by the way, this ax is a silver sheen with the etching of a tree spreading wide along the head of the ax on each side, and it glints through the dappled light that's in here,

shrunks into the one, and then I yank with my hand, and it flies from the first creature into the nearest. All right. So they each take, and I level up my proficiency, so that's going to be... Get fucked. No, he can get fucked. That would be 11 points of damage.

You scuff to both of them as you slam into each other. The axe carves through both their bodies before returning to your grasp. Both of them just left in two pieces each on the ground, their impact scattering them against the tree. You're barely protected from being splashed with lobster person spray, if not for the tree that you're hiding against. You all hear sourcelessly from the nearby brush. My tail just whips around. My tail catches it, puts it back in. Rockabye bobbies. So because he rolled a fear, that triggers my rally die.

Class feature? My bardic class feature. When I increase it above six, I remove the die and I describe how I rally the party and give every character who is listening a 1d6 rally die. They may spin this die to roll it and add the result to any action, reaction, or damage rolls. So everyone gets a d6. For whatever they want. Basically whatever you want. How long does this last? All right, so how do you rally them?

Just from that little moan you gave? Yeah, yeah, yeah! No, I love that. Santa, baby! I'm okay, Santa. I'm awake! Someone should heat up the butter. So in that moment of levity and inspiration as it hits,

as a mass number of these creatures have immediately been scattered to the ground, your sense of worry begins to fade, you're rolled with fear, as you recall that strange thing that was revealed in the nearby roots of the tree. Oh no. As it begins to slither out from underneath, the massive timber serpent itself, as it pulls out, you can see the same streaks of weird ichor like sweeping down its body and dripping from underneath its mouth and jaw. I'm going to go ahead and spend one to activate that and then one to activate one of these. That's going to go ahead and charge in. This one's going to go ahead and attempt to strike at you.

Sir! That's going to be a 16 to hit. That does hit. Three points physical damage. Three points. I'm going to use a quick Retaliation. I immediately deal weapon damage to the creature at half proficiency. I'm also adding a countdown here. That's three. A countdown?

Three points of damage to that guy? Countdown for what? Three points of damage to that guy? A countdown for what? Takes three damage? Retaliation? Retaliation takes three damage. It destroys him. Literally runs up into you.

Oh. Three damage to the guy? Ha! And it crumbles immediately. Three points. Oh, great, all right. I'm putting a countdown die. Oh no, what does that do?

What does that do for work? Countdown for what? So that one. Do-do-do-do- that do? What does that do? Countdown for what? So that one. Do do do do do do. Nice, dude. Countdown for what? So, countdown die for certain creature abilities. Certain conditions will cause it to count up

and when it reaches a certain number, certain creatures can use special attacks and abilities no matter what's happening. I don't like that stuff. So anyway, it's an account of one for the fear that was rolled there. I complain about that feature for the open-ended rule. Sure, that's the one bad rule in the game.

No. It's going to... ...mother over to you, Jensen. Me?! Yeah. Through the ground, and it's going to streak up for an armor-piercing bite. Ah!

You see, I have a fear to spend... You do. I wanted to get out of here. No, you know what? It's going to go ahead and instead shift up I have a fear to spend. You do. I wanted to get out of here. No, you know what? It's going to go ahead and instead shift up onto the top of this. I'm going to spend that fear from activating it and do a Spinning Serpent attack. It will mark a stress. Spinning Serpent!

Make a feinting attack against all targets within very close range. Why? That's pretty close. Within very close range. It's going to be you three. That's going to be Sir Dante. That's pretty close. It's in very close range. It's going to be you three. That's going to be Sir Dante. That's going to be Sweet Pea, and that's going to be Pango. I am unable to be directly targeted by attacks. Because of? Because I'm hidden.

Oh, into the ground. That's right, you did hide. That's true. All right, so yeah, I'll put you down here. You're just a sneaky little mushroom. I'm a sneaky little mushroom? You sneaky little mushroom. I don't even look like a person.

If that's the case, it's going to move right above you then. Oh no. Which will put, that will put Oppy in range. Okay. And? I'm going to do that again.

No, no, no, no. And Zarlo, yeah, all four of you. Oh! I made it worse. But you're safe. No! No, you're good. You're sneaky, no, no. And Zarlo. Yeah, all four of you. Oh! I made it worse. But you're safe. No! No, you're good. You're sneaky little little guys.

You're just a sneaky little guy. Just don't get crushed. Nope, that's valid. You wouldn't hit a guy with lassies, would you? All right, so the roll of attack on that is Faker. That's going to be a 13 to hit. Shit. Who does it hit?

It hits me. I'm 13, my evasion is 13. All right, so it does not hit you, Zorla. You're up in the tree, you're outside of its range. Oh, I thought you had mentioned my name already. Sorry, no, I meant, sorry, Pango. Pango and Zorla. I know, you guys are right next to each other

and your names in an O. That's not me. We're allowed to name each other. All right, so 13 definitely hits you. Did you say it was in range with me? It shifted into that space because she was hidden. I'm sorry. What was the damage?

What was the damage? What was the? 13. Well, no, that was to hit. To hit. So 13, and then. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so all of you take six points of physical damage. Okay. I'm going to spend a whole. Oh, yeah.

I'm going to take the hit. Well, let's see. If you reduce a hit below zero. You just take a stress. I do still take a stress? Well, no, sorry. If you reduce it to zero, no damage at all. Then I'm going to spend a hope to reduce it

by nine to negative three, and I think I get hit points. Ah, that's that one. I think that's that one. Sorry, yeah, no. If it's below your minor threshold, you take no damage. I'm going to take my retaliation really quickly. Sure, go for it.

That's five. Five points of damage to it? Yep. All right, that beats its minor, so it takes your hit point. That feature that I just used, by the way, is my stalwart feature. Just saying.

You got it. All right, as it spins around, bites into each of you, and a rapid series of strikes around you. As it pulls and recoils, its hood spreads out. As you retaliate with your blade and strike it, it opens its fangs. Its fangs are dripping with venom, and it looks like its throat's starting to swell. I'm right underneath it, so I'm going to spring up from hiding, and I'm going to stab it with the pointy end of my staff.

You can indeed do that. Go for it, rogue. All right. I don't have a stabby end on my staff, but I'm just going to hit it. No worries. Now, because you were hidden before, I'm hidden, I get advantage. You have advantage and you tackle.

So you add a d6 to the roll you make for it? Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay. That's 18 with hope. Okay, 18 with hope. Oh, wait, no, no, 20 with hope, because that's an instinct roll, so 20 with hope. That definitely hits. You take the hope for that. Great. In that case, since I succeeded, I'm going to add two hope to my damage roll. I'm going to spend two

hope and I'm going to get two extra d8s on top of the d8 that I already got for being a sneak attack. Let's go for it. That's 4d8, then? That's 3d8 and 2d10. Oh, got it. yeah. That's a 2d10. That's great. Ooh! That's 16 regular, plus 13. Let's go. Plus another four. All right.

I didn't add that. That's 29, 32? Oh, 33 points. That is definitely beyond its severe, so it's going to take three hit points in that one strike. As it's over top and recoiling, getting ready to burble up, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, springing from the brush beneath, this cap of color. Spinning around and then slamming my head. Wham! Over top, the creature's like. It gets pushed down into the muck, and as you're holding your staff down on its head, it has to wiggle free, and it manages to pull out. You can

see as it's stunned in the minute, its head is spinning for a second and it has to right itself. That was a heavy damn hit. Sweet. That was with hope, right? This is way too intense. That was with hope. Can I use the Book of Argus and I'm going to cast Arcane Door because I'm not in melee with this snake thing. Can I use Arcane Door and I'm going to do a spell cast roll of 13 to try and

bamf the fuck out of here. You got it. 14, 15, 16 with hope. Yeah, how far can you do that? I would burn a hope, but I'll get it right back because I rolled with hope and it can take me far. Where do you want to go? Far range. I'm going to go up on that cliff close to you, yeah, just so I can get overwatching away. Appearing over on top on that cliff close to you, yeah. Just so I can get overwatching away.

Appearing over on top of that cliff up there. Seeing how intense things are getting to help the rest of my party, you hear like, Oh, sorry. You're right, I did. You hear like, Why am I still here? My bad. Why do I have to figure this magic out?

That's on me. That's hard. Shoo! All right. You just hear like, Where have all the good boys gone? And then I bust out into a little jaunty jazz number, and I play an epic song during medley. It's raining men! Hallelujah! It's raining men!

Then a flash dance moment, and water comes out of nowhere and drenches Bunny. Medley, I guess? Yeah, it's a mashup. All right? It's a Folly show. Just go with it. It is. I feel like an epic song during battle. I guess I was doing Barracuda. Yeah, it was Barracuda. Barracuda.

The target is vulnerable. That's it. All of that. Yeah, yeah. All of that. So this guy here becomes vulnerable? Yeah. You got it.

He's the only one. It's that sad guy. It was a long walk, but it was a beautiful walk. No, it's good. As it's still reeling from the strike from Sweet Pea over here, you emerge and begin to unleash the magical presence of your dynamic towards it.

It glances back towards you, and you can see it's in the process of still trying to take in its atmosphere, one of the eyes rolling around like a Chuck Jones cartoon. Good run. Fantastic. All right. Yeah. Appi, what you got?

Okay. I'm going to... Is it possible to move away during my turn? If you want to. After I hit it? Can I just back away? I'll back away, too. To the tree? I just want to get out of like... You can move as part of your action. You can move within close range without having to roll. Okay, great, yes. Me too, me too.

I'll just walk back. Jossie, Jossie. All righty, you got it. Fosse, Fosse, Fosse, Fosse. Oh man, I'm just, I'm nervous and I'm going to go for it. Just straight out, I'm going to warm up my staff again,

and I'm going to Unleash Chaos. Okay. So. Unleash Chaos? Unleash Chaos. So. What I'm going to do is I'm going to make my spellcasting roll.

Yes! That was so cute! All right, what did you get? Really good. Oh, I'm also going to do this. Okay, so cute! All right. What did you get? Really good. Oh, I'm also going to do this. Okay, so we got, that would be, that's 24 with hope. With hope, great, so go ahead and take a hope on that.

And, let me get that on there. And I'm spending three of my tokens, so then it's going to be 3d10. Ooh, so I'm using my, yes, okay. What did you just ask me, sorry? 3d10 damage, you said? Yes, okay. Right, those were three hope you used?

Those tokens? Those are my, yes. Oh, you have special tokens? I have special tokens. For the Unleash Chaos ability. Yes, and then I have to spend Stress to replenish them at the end of the day. That's some sorcerer shit? Yeah. Some sorcerer shit! replenish them. That's a sorcerer's shit? Yeah.

It's a sorcerer's shit. No big deal. That's cool. All right, so let me get my tans. I've got two to start. All right, so, ooh. Okay, so we got a 13, and? One more, 13 plus. Four.

All right, so 17 points of damage. That's a major wound to it, so it takes two more hit points. Describe to me how you unleash chaos on this creature. All right. I get excited by the rally cry from Bunny, and I see Sweet Pea pop up and go for it, so I gather my courage and I shoot out my staff

and out of it comes the sparkly magic and unleashes absolute chaos all over his body. Become a little sparkly on the inside under his belly. Okay. You? No, him. Oh. So as the energy strikes and rolls through it. Yeah, I was like, wait. All right, let's go. Oh. So as the energy strikes and rolls through it. Wait. That's cool.

The serpent seems to recoil and try and pull back into the muck instinctually. It's in a severe amount of pain, and as it pulls back in to try and hide in the muck, it can't hide at the moment, because the chaotic energies that you've unleashed within are still crackling between and underneath its scales, and you can see it glowing like the inside of a burning ember.

That's awesome. That's what you get for trying to eat Cullen. Am I able to try to get out of it? My own writer's room. Behind the tree or something? I know, that was not done. Great. Got it. Okay, all right.

Who hasn't gone here in a minute? I haven't, but we're still facing the snack, right? Yeah. How's the snack looking? It's probably looking great. Okay. I'm a lobster. I liked killing lobsters.

That was easy. I'll take a swing at the snack. Snee-snack. Yeah, I'm going to try to stab down and try to pin it to the ground so it can't move. Is that a thing? If you have an ability to make it a thing. I don't.

If you want to attempt to grapple it, you can try that. Damage it or hold it in place. I'm going to try to grapple it, but I'll flavor it with it that I'm stabbing down and pinning it to the ground. Yeah, sure. All right, so go ahead and make a strength. A strength roll? A strength roll for me, if you don't mind. Does my blade have a name, by the way? The blade doesn't have a name. Should it have a name?

Absolutely. It needs to earn one, if you want to. It does need to earn one. Sneck pinner. Well, wait to the roll first. Slap, slap. Okay, 13 with fear. 13 with fear.

Snacks. Because I'm adding strength to that, right? You are. Yeah, 13 with fear. 13 with fear, unfortunately. I hold my medallion and it starts to glow and I look at the big lug's face and I'm going to use three of my prayer dice to carry him through.

So all three of the dice? I am adding three numbers to his attack roll. What numbers did you roll? One, two, three? I thought that prayer dice, I get to add these prayer dice at my discretion to reduce incoming damage. So roll them first. Oh, they're not dice, they're tokens.

At the beginning of a session, roll a number of d4 dice equal to your spell cast traits and store them to your side. You can exhaust them at any time to use their value in reducing incoming damage, adding to a roll result. Correct. What is your roll on the d4s? Oh, seven total at the beginning of the game, so I got seven sitting here. So you're spending all seven on this right now? Giving Pango three.

Oh, I see. He had seven. I have seven. I'm giving Pango three. Oh, I see. He had seven. I have seven. I'm spending three to try to get this true. How many is three? So that will carry you over. That is a success. Oh!

That's where the seraph comes in. So the extra focus from the divine power focusing through Zarlo stills you with pretty natural strength, and as the serpent almost escapes from your grasp, you hit it with your hand and then take your blade and pin it into its tail, holding it to the ground. So yeah, it is currently restrained. It cannot move.

Yes. Cool. Should we talk to it or kill it? Well, with a fear move. It's just a giant Napoleon. Why is it fear move? With a fear move, that's now gone to me. I'm going to go ahead and activate three over here as three more of these creatures emerge from the wall. Oh shit.

Oh no! Why? Funny! What are you saying? Funny as crap. This also takes up to a two. Funny as crap. Still attracted takes up to a two. Funny as crap. Still attracted to it.

We all knew. All righty. Those three over there, I'm going to spend a fear for them to go ahead and do a group attack. Oh no. So for you, spend a fear to activate all adversaries with a nice name within very close range.

This one actually comes in and joins it as well. Oh no! Okay. Sorry, yeah, yeah, yeah. So actually, I don't need to. We've loaded up. Let's go, it's good. Yeah, I don't need to spend all those, actually.

I can just spend one of them. Damn, if you need as many. Yeah. So all right, I will go ahead and spend a few to activate all of them. They go in the close range. Make an attack roll against you. That is going to be, that was cocked.

That's going to be an eight to hit you with your evasion. 10. 10. So none hit? So none hit. What? Now, the group attacks with minions like that, if it does succeed for all that are around you,

all the damage stacks up. Oh, wow. So you can get swarmed and just take it. Oh, like our tag teams? They can do that to us? Well, yeah. Right there, he would have... Spencer, strike it. They would have done three damage each, which would give them a total of 12 damage just instantly. And minions, swarms can get much larger. Nevertheless, that finishes their go.

This fellow over here I'm going to go ahead and activate, and he's going to go ahead and go for an armor-piercing bite against you. Okay. I do have armor. That's going to be a 20 to hit you. Yeah, of course. Okay. Four. That is going to be not great. Five points of physical damage, but you mark an armor slot. Oh, because it pierced your armor.

It pierced my armor. So it's five points of damage, which is distress. But you do mark an armor slot regardless. Okay, I did. I marked them both. I marked them both. So you full up on stress? Barth. That's how Irish people talk. They add r's to everything. Nuh. Are you full up on stress?

Tarpa the marnintarga. I'm not full on stress. I have one extra stress slot because of a class ability, I think, ancestry ability. I'll leave those there for now. All righty, so that finishes my GM move. Who wants to go? I'm a little freaked out.

So I do my death drop. I'm going to get up and I'm going to turn around. I'm going to pull out my whip. God, she's amazing! And I'm still unsure if I have to target someone or if I can just do this with a whip crack, but I ultimately want to mark a stress and do a whip crack, and I scatter. Let me do that right now. Boop. And I mark stress

and scatter enemies back from me to close range. So anything in melee range scatters back. So you crack, these all move back. Ooh, that's a lot of back. Cool move. Into the water. Death draw. New game, who dis? Yeah.

You just crack, and they all instinctually back up out of the way. Back, you crabs! All righty. We can help you call them out later. Yeah. I'm just going to take a second. I'm just seeing this thing pinned down.

Do I get advantage on attacking the snake with their pin or grapple? Cross-grabs. They're just catmuling. That's fine. I'm going to, just seeing that... You've got a massive fine tooth going. We've got him where we want him.

I'm going to just take an attack and just go for it. Ha ha! I think I'm going to try and go straight through the eye. Sure, go for it. All right. Wait, what's your weapon? Is it just the grabber thing, or do you have a sword? No, I'm using my rapier. That's how you tell me.

Rapier. I'm burning the die that you got as well. Yes, don't forget your inspo rally dice. Because I really want to hit this thing. And good I did. 16 with hope. 16 with hope does succeed. That rally die made the difference. So go ahead and roll damage on that.

All right, there we are. Seven. Seven, that's only going to be a minor wound, but it only had one more hit point left. I'm going to go around. I'm going to grab on. I know you're having a difficult time. I'm going to use you as a pivot point to come around and get the sword right through both eyes. Shoot! It carves through on one side, pokes out the other, and it stands there, and its jaw just goes and it hangs limp on the blade before it. You're so good at the work you do.

And then I pull out, and I'm going to head towards Bunny. Or I'm going to head towards the one. All right. We'll say at this point, after the whip crack and the change of the tides, the strange crustacean folk begin to skitter and all begin rushing into the waters. Crabs are leaving! And begin to just vanish beneath the current rushing into the waters. Crabs are leaving! And begin to just vanish beneath the current down below. You feel in the moment that the danger has subsided. I'm going to run over and give Pango's legs a hug.

Thank you. That was a really stressful battle, but as long as you're safe, it's okay. I might need some new clothes, though. They're all getting it's okay. I might need some new clothes, though, but they're all getting all torn up. I know, what's happening? Bonnie! Huh? Are you okay? Oh, yeah. That was amazing work.

I think everyone, we are all so talented. I think so. Yeah. I think we make a pretty good team. We do. I agree. Can I check Cullen's pockets? Sure, yeah. As they're having this check-in, this cute little fungus walks over

and it just starts rolling the body of the dead. Yeah, you find two handfuls of gold. Yay! Within him. Within him? No, he pushed it into his body. No, no. He's dead. Within his attire.

He's with gold. His armor looks very nice. For all the challenges that the weathering has brought to his currently post-life experience, and his weapons are also quite nice if sheathed. But those are the things of worth you see on him. Pango, I found you some new armor. Oh, cool. Maybe we can just add it to my existing and make it like a cool, okay.

So let's take a look at everything. I'm going to have you roll a finesse roll. Me? To get, to get. This is a super waterlogged, Yeah, bloated body that has sausageed within their own armor. Oh! Would you like some assistance with this?

Oh yeah, that'd be great. Does that mean I roll a six? That means you can spend a hope to add a d6 to her roll. Oh, and you give me the six? Yeah. Okay, that's an 11 with hope, and then you can add a six for me? Add a d6.

Yes, of course. That's a 14. A 14, okay. That's good enough. You don't quite pop the pinata. Do I add a hope because I rolled with hope? You do, yeah. That was a strike. But you do manage to slide the armor off of him. It is quite nice. The armor is a Tiris Soft Armor, which is armor five.

Ooh! With the ability called Quiet, it gains a plus two to any rolls to move without being heard. Oh. Is it leather armor? It's not leather. Soft.

It's an armor five, and it doesn't have any penalties. It just adds plus two to any rolls to move without being heard. Ooh. Who needs to be quiet. Good question. Well, hang on, you guys. I mean... What's your name? Sarlo. Wasn't this your friend? I just don't want to seem disrespectful, you know?

Yeah, I'd like to take a few minutes if that's all right. Oh, sure. I have a question for you. Yeah? Is there, I don't know what the protocol here is, but in Andra's forest, should we bury him? I was going to put together a cairn and let Andra do the work. Okay. I can help you if you need. put together a cairn and let Andra do the work. Okay, I can help you if you need. All right.

Help me collect up some rocks, then. Okay. We'll spend the next couple of minutes piling rocks and making a cairn over his body. Fair enough. Which is a often respectful and practiced druidic and right of those who live in natural spaces. You gather from what time you have spent together,

he would likely appreciate that. Do you think he'd appreciate being buried with his weapons, too? Probably not. Well, forests can't reclaim those. You're right, it's made of metal. Put them to use. Okay.

What does he have? I give consent. We definitely would. An Improved Saber. When I die. Sure. Only then. Sure. An Improved Saber is an agility-based melee weapon that is a d8 plus two physical damage.

And an Improved Dagger, which is a finesse weapon that is a d8 plus two physical damage, and an improved dagger, which is a finesse weapon that is a d8 plus two physical damage. Which is which? Jesus, where were you? I was busy checking. I mean, it's agility and finesse. Agility and finesse. Both d8s plus two physical damage,

which effectively improves the minimum value of the damage it can take. Once we have Cullen taken care of, I'm going to go from person to person, climb up him because he's so fucking tall, and look in each of their eyes and see who most needs help. I'm going to land on Kexin. You look fucking knackered. Come here, man. Yeah! Kexin, you look fucking knockered. Come here, man. I'm going to lay hands on the side of his shimmering skull there. I'm really low on hope, so I'm going to use another three of my prayer dice to get me up to four hope total, and then spend it all to heal two of your hit points.

Ooh, that is gracious. Thank you. We're finally going to take a short rest while we're here, since we are going to be mourning one of our own. Is that a thing? Should we do a short rest? Oh, sure. Should we do a rest? Should we rest a bit?

Well, what else? Yes. But I mean, is there a safe place? I don't think anyone will mess with us here. I think we've officially chased anything away. There's also clearly the cadaver of a very vicious beast. I think this might keep everything away quite well. We can at least climb up to that cliff thing.

Yeah. Oh, what a lovely view. That's nice. Yes. It's not Boko, is it? Wasn't Boko a hill? That rock? I don't know. I don't know what it is. GM, is that terrain piece Boko?

Yeah, just walk over your house. I'll just go over and say, excuse me, hello? Are you Boko? Mr. Boko. Boko the humble hillock? I thought Boko was a girl. Oh, Miss Hung.

Oh. Lady Boko. You take a moment to focus, yourself being of giant lineage and having a strong connection to creatures of the stone and rock of the planet. So it is, why not? Suddenly, you realize nothing has happened.

Okay. You son of a bee. It was about to be so hilarious. I was so excited. So why don't we all sit in a ring facing out with the puppies in the middle and take a breather? Take a breather, if you want to? We're going to breed the puppies. Is that the plan?

May I? Let's talk about the Shag, but okay. Use an experience that I have? May I use an experience that I have? What would you like to do? Fade into the background and look around and see if I can fashion a place for us all to be safe.

Leaves, branches, like how I have with my hat, where I just get short and you can't see me. Sure, if you want to do that. Build a little cover for us. Sure, all right. So you go ahead and I'll save for that. I'd say go ahead and make an instinct roll for me. This is going to be about knowing the environment here

and using your understanding of how creatures seek things in the natural wilds. Make us a ghillie suit. More or less. I will, while we take this moment of calm, you see Bunny magically, it's almost like harp strings start to form in midair, and she starts plucking just a very soft little harp tune, and I will play a relaxing song,

and anyone who needs to can heal one hit point. Ooh! Got it. What? Great. Bards, man. Ooh! It's just very soft and gentle.

All right, so if you're taking a short rest here, hearing this music here, kind of quelling your spirit, quelling your mind, you each can take two downtime activities. Two downtime? We get two? I believe it's, what is it, for a second?

Or maybe one for the downtime? I think we get one for the short rest. Oh, sorry, one for the short rest. Oh, no, hold on. No, then choose two of the options below. I thought it was two below. They're not as effective as the long. Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I rolled a 20. 20 with hope. 20 with hope, all righty. So I took my hope back that I got ready for you. So you go ahead and recoup that. Sorry, but I didn't add the 22. 22, okay.

I was prepared. I'm successful enough. I'm going to clear a stress, and I will, by doing that, extend my wings and I use my rear legs to clean off the wings and brush my antennae as a self-soothe. Just getting it all nice and shiny. That's awesome. I'm going to pull out some thread and a needle and I'm going to take my cardigan off and I'm going to start stitching it to fix my armor.

Just stitching it. And it's really... Yeah, it feels really good to just blank my mind and do that, so it's going to clear a stress point as I'm doing that, too. Okay, you got it. And then, as a seaborn, we get an extra downtime action for short rests and all this as well. Great, yeah.

So I'm gonna just start singing and humming along with Bunny's music playing, and I'm gonna just sing a little ditty about how we're going to get up the river and we're going to find Bogor and it's going to be so great. And I'm going to give us all, well, me a hope, nobody else. I'm trying to follow along. And it's so wonderful. Somebody gets a hope, you said? Nope, just me.

Just you? All right, you got it. All righty. I'm going to de-stress by trying to, I have a pink scarf thing. Somebody gets a Hobbeson. No, she gets a Smokies. I'm going to learn some new knots, some new ascot-type knots. It's about presentation.

Yeah, yeah. I would love to take a look at those two weapons that you found and see if anything... It's... Yes. It's a saber. One's a saber. And a dagger. And they both do the same, more or less? Both do 1d8 plus two physical damage. One's agility, one's finesse. One d8.

Can I use the finesse one, unless you're a finesse guy? Actually, I'm fine with either. Oh, I'm an instinct, Gally. Oh, 1d8 plus you. I'll take, if you have it, I'll take the... I can actually take either. Let's take the agility, I suppose. Okay. Improved saber is what the weapon's called. I'll take the dagger, actually take either. Let's take the agility, I suppose. Okay. All right, so improved saber is what the weapon's called. Or, yeah, I'll take the dagger, actually.

Oh, okay. Thank you. Question, is anyone else doing the dagger? Unless someone else wants it. That's all. I feel great. Yeah? But that's okay, I'm okay.

I mean, I'm repairing some armor as well. You can heal yourself on short rafting. All right, so you repair some armor slots. Shredante, do you have anything in your secondary weapon slot? I have the grappler, but I have a thing called ignore burden when equipping weapons, and you may place primary weapons

in your secondary weapon slots a lot. So that means I can just switch them out. Is that correct? Correct. But if you want the grappler away and you want to put the dagger in your offhand, it just adds a plus two to the damage of your main weapon if you want to, just having it there. What, the dagger to put the dagger in your offhand, it just adds a plus two to the damage of your main weapon if you want to, just having it there. What, the dagger just having the dagger adds a plus two?

Yeah, so you have rapier and dagger if you want to, and then whenever you attack, it's your rapier damage plus two, the dagger's plus two on top of that. I didn't know I got the bonus from the dagger also to the saber. That's the good thing about a secondary weapon, is it gives you little bonuses. That's amazing. Okay, so I can just pull the grapple when I need it. For my two short rest actions, I'm going to gather up some moss near the edge of the river, where it's clear of whatever is afflicting it. I'm going to climb up Pango's back and shoulders. I'm going to start creating a poultice on his back and humming quietly to myself. That heals him. You can tend to wounds and do it to someone else, so you get back four hit points.

Whoa! That's a lot! I'm clear! Then I'm going to take it. It says to describe how you bring hope to yourself, and I bring hope to myself by healing Pango. Okay. Oh shit. That's wonderful. Yeah, and you've, for the most part, on the outward surface, everyone has only seen Bunny

being very extroverted and performative, but you see this rare moment of her just go into herself and be very quiet and meditative as she's focusing on the music and Sweet Pea's little song. I'm going to heal a stress, or get rid of a stress, as well as prepare a hope as I meditate and get lost in my magical harp strumming. Fantastic. You hear Zarlo from up on the giant's shoulder muttered to himself,

if music be the food of love, play on. Did you write that? Definitely. I think I've decided that now, that Kexin is going to be, he's about five feet tall, but the pauldrons that he has are magically enchanted and were given to him, so it increases his size as long as the pauldrons are on.

That's cool. Otherwise he would be smaller. I dig that. So wait, five feet is his grown size? Yeah. Okay, that's cool. I don't know why, but all I care about is height. You're five feet tall. How tall are you? I'm a fun, so I'm pretty tall. Six foot?

Six foot. So second tallest in the group. Is that with or without the ears and horns? Oh yeah, do the ears add height? Yeah. Okay. What about you, sir? About 5'10". So, tallest. Normally I'd be about 3.09.

One and a half to two and you go up to five feet? The fairies that came in landed on her staff. Up to five feet, though, I love that differential. Their sizes can shift all over. All right, so tonight, what I'm going to do, you are so big. I'm getting rid of one hit point. All of us stacked together.

Roll the d4 for the hit points. Yeah. Almost. And I'm also going to get a hope. And by doing that, something I like to do at night is I've been starting to make a map of everywhere I've been. And so far, we started at the sermon turrets. Yeah, sermon turrets.

And then we went to Ubi, and now we're in Emerald Sky, so I got a long way to go. But right here, I have an asterisk that says, found half a dead body, killed a snake and some crabs. And so, I'm just going to keep adding to it. It calms me down. It's good.

It's like a diary map? It's like a diary map. I'm like, I'm going to see the world. You should write down here, that's where we found the giant. Which is the borders of the map. Yeah, found a giant. Found a giant. Named Pango.

That's me. That's you. Yeah. The cold gets ever colder here as you finish up your rest, the early night creeping even later. The smell of the nearby waters growing harsher and harsher, it seems, as each moment passes, uncertain if that's psychological or a symptom.

But nevertheless, the sluggish waters continue to run, and as you gather yourselves, Grim Wardens, do you trek onward? Yeah. Oh, I do, yeah. Okay. It's not a terrible distance, the smell itself a strong guide as you push through the now ever-swelling mists here on this side of the emerald sky. Eventually, you begin to see the wild overgrowth that was clustered at the edges of this river begin to spread beyond those boundaries, and you find yourselves having

to push alongside and push through this heavy underbrush. You can see heavy vines and twisted branches, long thin fingers that rake across your armor and bodies as you push through or have to carve your way. Eventually, it begins to give way to this wide, open grove in the center. That's a somewhat rising hill, plateaus at the top, where you can see the water itself rushing down. The brackish brown quality of it now

even more unnatural. Almost a direct purplish, thick, sludgy liquid, just barely seeping like a molasses, pushing in the downward slope outward. You can see the occasional trees reaching up, their leafless arms pushing to the sky like they're clasping for a hope as they expire, their bark itself graying and cracking. The smell here is almost overwhelming, it's so heavy. bark itself graying and cracking. The smell here is almost overwhelming. It's so heavy. Now that we're seeing the water

in a more pungent state, could I try and use Well-Read from my Loreborn to make a roll on anything that has to do with the history, culture, politics or a prominent person or place? Does this jog my memory

of anything I've heard or read on the board? You can certainly give it a shot. Make a knowledge roll for me. 15 with hope. 15 with hope, all right, so take your hope. What you can understand in your studies, and you are fairly learned. Of all the various fey creatures that you've encountered,

you've always been more of a bookish type than others, straight-laced and focused on acquiring knowledge of the world, even in this part of the natural world. And what you can gather is changes in spaces like this to this degree requires a very particular seated power. This here, this grove, you know, the Velvet Grove is the center of a powerful fane. This is a core part of magical power

that is disseminated into the surrounding lands. And this being the source of this corruption means that something here is poisoning the very heart of this side of the Emerald Sky. We should move on. I imagine we'll find the source of this soon, but is anyone else smelling that? Yeah.

Mm. Mm. It's not pleasant. You can taste it. Yeah. Mm. Yeah. Mm. It's not pleasant. You can taste it. Yeah. Has this changed anything for you? I don't think so. I mean, it all feels vaguely familiar,

but I haven't landed on anything yet. How high is this hill? The incline in place, it's not a hefty climb. There are some rocky cliff areas and some four or five foot elements you have to clamber up a bit, but it rises up maybe a solid 20 or so feet from where you stand at the edge of the glade, and then it plateaus.

Does the hill look alive? Does it look humble? The humble hill. Hello? What color is the soil on the, what color is the soil? The soil, most of the growth that's permeated at all still sits in that gray, black, bluish tint.

The soil itself seems dirty, dark brown to black itself, with ash and sparks throughout. Yeah. This hill's supposed to be alive, yeah? Some hill, not necessarily this one. Only one way to find out. Sing to it, because the hills are alive with the sound of Stop.

I'm going to hit it with my stick. Hitting the stone? Yeah. Okay. As you hit it, the sound of your staff on the stone were causing this clattering that echoes through the space. Nearby creatures and birds that gather in the nearby trees scatter off,

being spooked by the sudden sound of the impact. Doesn't seem to react at the moment. One of me puppies starts to do a little baby howl. Aw. I will use telepathy and open a line of mental communication with a target that I see. Can I...

Can I speak to the hill? Can I think at the hill? What rim work? Speak to the hill. This is the Book of Iliad, out of the Book of Iliad by Telepathy. Iliad. Okay, Iliad.

You thumb through the pages and then mutter the incantation and focus towards the hill. It's just rock, at least the area that you're at right now. I don't know if this is the one. Perhaps we should get to the top. I'll burn his dress and send out my wings and I'll fly up towards the top.

You scatter up and as you push through the somewhat scattered about chunks of still-living trees that sit in this space, you come over the crest and look. You can see the spring that is the source of this river, the thick purple morass that is slowly sliming through. The smell is strong. You can see there's something within the center of this spring. You can see a tangled mass of darkened vines that seem to be knotted and woven like some sort of a barrier.

As you inspect it from above, you can see it pulse slightly. As it does, with each pulse, the thick, viscous water around it spills out and the flow quickens for a moment before it continues its leisurely. You should get up here and see this. Stay wide, though. Okay. We're coming. Yeah, it's. You climb up the hill, clambering to the top. That ever-present

sound of the slow-moving slime river. The smell is getting more familiar the more you climb this hill. Oh. Is it me? Are you smelling this? I can still smell you. The color's wrong.

But it's triggering some trauma. As you crest over the top of it and you all take in the sight of this spring and this strange, unnatural abscess that seems to pulse and sit within the center of it. You watch as some of the nearby vines in the ground snake and recoil back into the underbrush. What do you do?

The vines are? Some of the nearby vines pull back. Pull back and like. But not from the central, the middle part? From the edges of the hilltop. Okay. Do you know what I understand? I just hit things. I don't know.

Should we? All right, I have a question. Yeah. When you got hit, when you were there, when the seep happened, do you remember anything about how it behaved? I close my eyes and think about it for a second. I just remember the color.

It was like a brighter red, and it was everywhere dripping on us. It didn't get a lot on me. It didn't hurt, but people were screaming, and it was chaotic, and I saw people fall. Did it recoil from anything? Did it recoil from anything? You didn't see it recoil, you saw it consume.

A blob. A blob? Like a block. And some got on me, but it wasn't painful. At least not to me. Let's perhaps spread out a bit. You're at the top of the hill, okay. And we can see it?

You can see, yeah. There's the rocky outcroppings and bits of the land itself is uneven and broken, but in the middle of this area is where, amongst the various pointed trees that are leafless and bowing, slightly withered and sad in the presence of this corruption, you see the spring right there before you with the strange abscess pulsing.

Are we supposed to just attack the thingy? Is there a way to plug it, pal? Perhaps somebody have some magic? I'm going to take my little side satchel off with the dogs and I'm going to put it over Oppi's head. I got him. We're going to use the puppies to plug it, of course. Genius. I walk away from Oppi.

I'm going to walk forward towards the source of this. And Matt, in my made-up-on-the-flyback story from session zero, my brother, Wango, who perished in the chaos, did I see him fall, or was he? Did you? Apparently, well. I mean, I did, but I don't know what happened to him afterwards.

Is his body still down there somewhere? It could be, because it was sealed behind you. The survivors that made it out. The odd thing you do recall is that the people Afterwards, is his body still down there somewhere? It could be, because it was sealed behind you. The survivors that made it out. The odd thing you do recall is that the people were screaming because they stopped resisting. Oh. They were screaming.

Meaning they were running, and their bodies just began to slow, and then the Seep just took them. But they were still aware that they couldn't move their bodies? They were still yelling. I don't like any of that. Meanwhile, Zarlo is walking towards the center of this. For Wanko.

Holding a medallion and mutters under his breath, Andra, be amongst your children. Be here now and reclaim this place. Reach your divine hand through me. The quaking sound suddenly fills the space around you. You watch as one of the nearby mounds of rock shudders, and dust and root tumble off of it. You watch as a massive chunk of the nearby landscape begins to rise and stand tall. A massive, hulking, stone-constructed beast.

Itself, one of the Fane Guardians, rises. As it does, you can see its glowing eyes themselves dimmed with a faint purple light and the same seeping liquid now coursing across its body in streaks. Oh no! Oh no! We're doing this? We're doing this?

We're doing this? Is this much? We can't kill her. We've got to cure her. We've got to save her. It's either her or the dogs. We've got to choose. She killed Wango. No, she didn't. Not this hill. This hill didn't.

She did it. It was the same hill. Damn, Matt! We got three! Three maps! Maps, maps, maps, maps! We can do this. Oh, there's a hole there! There it is!

Look at that skull. Look, there's a hole right there. There is a hole. Wait, how did you do that? There's a hole in the fucking thing! You're the one who's the one who's the one who's the one! So you've stepped up to the edge there, Zarlo. Right.

The rest of you have come up from this side. This is the center of the spring. I was flying close and above. Yeah, you're hovering up in the sky, you said, still? Yeah. On the hill is this tree, or are you about to reveal something early? Oh no. All right, so you're up.

What's happening? The rest of you are clustered as a troop over here. Okay. This is the central, unnatural abscess in the middle of the spring, and this. Oh! Oh shit. Oh! Oh!

Oh! What is that? Nice! That's real awesome. That's Boko. Boko! That looks more like Boko. Boko's having a...

Boko doesn't seem to be friendly. Oh no. What are you doing? Oh! We got a helper! Boko has got rivulets of this coloration all across the body. You see odd little vines coming up to the ground

as it steps. Some of them tear free. Shit. As his foot hits, more vines rise up to meet it and it's moving across in your direction. We're going to have to bring her down before we heal. Liam knows this is stupid, but Zarlo is going to run and try to climb up Boko's body. Okay. You're going to try and leap across or go through the river?

I'll leap across. You're Boko, man. You know what? Go ahead and make an agility roll for me, if you don't mind. If you get in the water, monkeys know. Monkeys like to swim. That is, it's not bad, well, that's a 15 with fear. 15 with fear, okay. That's not bad. You leap and barely make it across,

like catching the bank and then having to balance yourself before riding yourself. However, upon landing, you can follow up after this, but it comes to Boko's turn. So my movement is the whole turn? Well, as soon as you finish a roll and it comes to the GM, then when I finish, it can come back to you.

Great. Step on me, Dottie. So Boko, the Glenwarder is slow, which means it takes two tokens for me to activate them. I only have one, so I can't activate them. What I will activate, though, is the Seep Abscess. The Seep Abscess? That's the Abscess.

This is your fault. I did this! I made this up on the spot and now it's a thing! Is it cool name? And Boko has a time counter, starting on the one. We'll see if that happens. Nevertheless, as Boko stands there before you, the Seep Abscess is going to use Call of the Wicked Wild. Vines on the ground begin to sneak around, and one of them's

going to shift over past the way, within far range. It's going to go for you, Bunny. Oh no! All of a sudden, as you were looking over the way, you hear, you look down, and it's like these vines are shooting through the ground like rapid serpents. Oh no no no no! It's going to streak out towards you. You immediately... oh, that's going to be 10? Does 10 hit you? 10 is my evasion.

That hits you. All right,. On a success for that one. That's what happens, first blood, yo. Yeah. You take six points of physical damage. Oh no, bun bun. And you... Just a Street Fighter death reaction. You use a Conqueror's Dress.

You are restrained. I'm restrained. Not a lot of damage, but the vine wraps around your legs and holds you to the ground. You have to break that with a strength roll if you want to. Oh, beat to mid, yeah, so you're still going to hit point. So I would still take a hit point, right? So I might as well just do it.

Okay, I'll take a hit point. Okay, so you take a hit point and you are currently restrained to the ground. The vine's holding you there. You have to make a strength roll to break free. So finishing my goes, the GM, we can come back to Zarlo since you were in the middle of your maneuver. What do you want to show?

I would say the second half of this is using my turn to try to climb up onto the head of this beast. Okay. You're a monkey. I am a monkey. This is a massive creature that's currently too slow to maneuver out of the way. So you just kind of... Look, Mondo hands. Clamber up. And that feels like a lot to me, to jump across a poisonous river and climb a beast like that, so I'm good to pass on.

Okay, if somebody else want to go? Yeah, I'll jump in later. I think that's enough. Can I, I don't know if I can do this. I don't know, you can certainly try. I'll try to do this first part. Can I run to the tree and use a stress, and as I run to the tree, I'm going to run into the shadow of the tree and disappear into the shadow. Then I'm going to

bamf up into the shadow right underneath. Oh, he's casting quite a shadow. Yeah, that's so I can see it. Yeah, you can definitely do that. Awesome. I imagine I'm hiding. Boko wouldn't even know I'm there. You are deeply hidden right beneath Boko. You appear there as this massive dark shape above you.

I'm going to bamf right there and then hide. Okay, so you're just hidden in the moment? I'm hidden in the moment. You haven't made a roll. You can continue your turn. Oh, I can still do something? Okay, I wasn't sure. The fun thing about not having initiative here is you can make small maneuvers and keep going if you want to. Okay, okay. Then in that case, what I'm

You can still have done what you wanted, but also I appreciate you being generous to the players around you. What I wanted to do was I'm going to cast Shadowbind on Boko. Sure. So the shadow underneath Boko is going to reach up and hold on to Boko's leg so that it can't cross to get to us. Go ahead and roll a spellcraft for that. Okay. Okay. I'm going to add the d6 that you gave us, the rally die. I don't know if this is going to work. That's a 12 with fear.

Where are you, Allie? Are you across the line? I'm under Boko. Under Boko's taint. This counts as Allie close range. Did you do something? Yeah, I could use Luckbender, where once per session, it's a fairy feat, after you and Allie in close range makes an action roll, you can mark a stress

to allow a reroll of the duality dice. Okay! You are within close range. Okay! Yay! The pencil has ruled. That's so much better! It worked! I'm a good fucking fairy! I believe in fairy! I believe in fairy! I believe in spirits!

I believe in spirits! I'm very young! One lung, Linda. 21 with hope. 21 with hope, I don't get that fear. So there you go, that's a success. You go ahead and take your hope. To that point. Power couple move.

Boko is now restrained. Yay! The dark shadows that loom beneath, you watch almost completely cause Sweet Pea to vanish as they seem to rise up like tethers. These blackened ropes of magical midnight energy just tether in a hole, and you watch as Boko tries to lift one leg to step almost across the river, and it gets maybe three feet up before it gets pulled down, and you see Boko now currently slowly struggling

from its ability to move. Nice. Fuck. Fantastic. Cool. What's next? Are you going to? No, that was all hope stuff. Yeah, it changed to a hope roll, so I'm still. I'm fine with you going first.

I am just fueled by the sight and the memory of the Seep and the memory of Wango. I am going to activate my class feature, Unstoppable. So I have resistance to physical damage and I get to add extra d6 to damage rolls and I can reroll shit. It's awesome.

Basically, I'm fueled by vengeance, and I'm ready to kick ass. So I draw my blade. So you put down a dice. Yes, it's a d4. A d4, and so every time you make a roll, that counts down. Yes.

So I get four things. You got it. All right, what are you doing? I'd like to get close to it. Is that, how much move can I do? That's beyond close range, so you can attempt it. All right, what are you doing? I'd like to get close to it. Is that, how much move can I do? That's beyond close range, so you can attempt it. You just have to make an agility roll to try and cross that distance. I am not agile. Let's do it.

I was going to say, before you go, we could team up. Oh. If you're in the mood to do a quick team. I am, but we're not close. How will we get close? Is there a team up where I could fire the grappling hook and the two of us could try and pull it down and trip it? To pull down the creature?

Oh, that's big. Since it's already got its head cut. We can give it a shot. We can give it a shot. It's already cut. All right, let's do it. All right, so I'm going to. Describe it with panache.

So what I'm going to do is take out the grappling, my little grappling chain. When we get as close to the edge of the group. I'll go with him. And here we go. And I'm going to do is take out my grappling chain. I want to get as close to the edge. I'll go with him. And here we go. I'm going to attach it. I'm going to make that throw. I don't know quite how you want this throw to work. It would be the attack of the weapon. It would be a strength roll. You both are rolling, throwing it together, so you take the better of the two rolls. It still costs you three.

Three health. And I still have my strength to the roll? Yeah, well, you both roll strength rolls, and then the higher the two numbers will work. And just for fun, I'm going to add, I can't add Dramatics, never mind, but I'm going to say it anyway. No, I'm going to save it. Never mind. All right, here we go. I got 15 with hope. 16 with hope. 16 with hope. 16 with hope. All right. That difficulty will succeed. Yes! So you both take a hope, because of the higher roll on that one.

Oh, great! As you fire the grapple up, you can go ahead and roll damage. Since you're both rolling on the same thing, both of you roll grapple damage, which is? Grapple damage is 2d8 plus two. Oh, 2d8, and then I add two, so. Right, so it'd be 2d8 for each of you. You can add that together. And then I get the two.

Oh, add it together. I rolled a 10. I rolled a 10 plus two, so that's 12. So 22. 22. 22, that is above its, that's a major wound. So it takes two hit points. That's great.

Does it, does it? And it gets drawn down. Ooh, nice. Slamming into the ground. It actually just pulls over you. It looks like it's forward. It plummets out of the space. I will say, because on top of it is Zarlo. You are currently on the back of the chair as it's falling into the space. I get so many types of stilettos to go. Because on top of it is Zarlo.

You are currently on the back of the creature as it's falling into the water. Sure. What do you want to do as you're falling? I want to use Look Ma No Hands to stay on this fucking thing as I use two hands, two feet, my tail to hold on. Make a strength roll and then spend your hope

to add Look Ma No Hands. I have no hope. You can't use these, experience is personal, so just make a strength roll. Strength roll. 16 with a strength roll. Do I add that? 19. 19? Yeah. With hope. With hope, yeah. You get a hope back. You clutch onto the back of it as it falls and as it slams into the water, the liquid splashing out on the sides. I will say, because of that impact,

it does cause a bit of a splash radius that coats both of you and you, since you're that close to the water. All of you, as it hits you, your body begins to go numb. Oh yeah, this is what it felt like on my finger. As... While you are numb, your evasion is reduced by two. Your evasion is...

Reduced by two until you spend two hope to get rid of it. Is that all right? Same for me up in the... No, you're on the back of it, so you're in the middle, guarded from the outward splash. Is it still shadow-bound, even though they pulled it down?

Did that ruin my? No, it's still bound by the shadow. It's held there currently. We used the shadow to help pull it down. Indeed. If I may, I would like to, as I'm gripping as hard as I can, I would like to dig my fingers

into some of the muck that's on this thing's back and try to, while they're whittling away at it, take this from the other side and use Healing Hands and try to use my connection to Andra to try to clear some of the corruption in this thing. Okay, all right. How much do you heal? Well, I have to make, I'm using Healing Hands,

so that's a spell roll. All right, go for it. For this thing. Ooh, that is not good. Ooh, but I have the d6. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Use it, use it, use it. Uh, nine, 14. 14 clears it because of that die roll, right.

Because of her shaking her thing. My rally. The rally. So I take a stress and I'm going to heal. Two stress in this thing feels more right than healing hit points. You got it. So as you do that, you watch as some of the vine tethers

and the blackened corruption that fills Boko begins to pull away and evaporate in the space. As your divine power pulses through and burns it, like the fuse on the outside of a cannon, just. Let this child of Andra go! Was that roll with hope or fear? It was with hope. Okay, got it. Cool. All right, so that finishes up. No, I'm wrong. That's a fear. That's for you.

All right. Great. Now it's my go. I'm a fear. Uh. Oh, anyway, if I add one, it goes to that. There. So I'm going to go ahead and spend the Seep Abscess. Oh! That's disgusting. Is relentless, which means I can spend more than one token to activate more than once per round,

so you activate it twice. I'm just going to empty my goiter. Oh, gross. In my mouth. No, no! Boiliter. Oh, gross. In my mouth. No, no! Boil, weep, boom! It's going to call the wicked to both of you to attack each of you.

That's going to be a five against you. No. Nope. You dodge it away as a vine tries to rise up to grapple you to the ground. And to you, it's going to be a five as well. I rolled three twice. My evasion is currently two. Currently two.

So indeed, you do get, you take three points of physical damage. Now, because I am unstoppable. Unstoppable, unstoppable. I am resistant to physical damage. You take half that, so. We'll say one. One.

Take one physical damage. Yeah, you get. But that'll say one. One. Take one physical damage. But that's still a stress. That's still a stress. And you are currently restrained. You cannot move. I'm restrained and cannot move? Until you make a strength roll to break free. That's finishing those two.

I'm also now going to activate Boko with two because he's slow, they're slow. I'm going to use a fear on my turn I activate Boko with two because they're slow. I'm going to use a fear on my turn to go ahead and break the Shadowbind. Okay. So I can do that. Break the Shadowbind.

It's going to get up. Oh gosh. Oh! Whoa! Whoa! It's like Bambi. 3.5. It's going to make a boulder fist attack

at very close range. It's going to shift up to here, and it's going to go for you. At very close? At very close, yeah. That's going to be an 18 to hit. That hits, does that count as a, that's not a ranged attack, that's just a very close attack.

You see Abscess is going to spend a fear to bolster his strength on that as well. That's not a ranged attack. Stoke Fury. Abscess. That's not a ranged attack, that's just a very close attack. Yes, it is. Okay, that's fine. All right, so it does hit you? Oh yes, it does.

All righty, so you take on impact here. Bring it. Awesome, I can take on impact here. Bring it. Awesome. I can hear that. Yeah. It's counting. Still counting. 25 points of physical damage.

All right. 25? Five points. One second. Five! So I'm going to lower that, obviously. Yeah, jeez. So let's make this... Oh my gosh. I'm going to spend that, obviously. Yeah, jeez. So let's make this a... Oh gosh.

I'm going to spend two armor for that. If you double your severe hit point. Four hit points. Four hit points. Woo-hoo! I'm going to spend two armor and lower that to 17, I believe. Okay.

And so that, or below that, 25 goes to 18, 18 goes to, so I have seven, 18 goes to 11. 18 goes to, so I have seven. 18 goes to 11. So I'm only going to take two armor to rock it down to two hit points. Okay. So I'm going to take two hit points from that.

There you go. And lose two armor. That finishes my go. Fun! So now it's up to you guys again. All right, I'm going to. Get it up, yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on, up, up. I'm going to make a run for the tree and get myself up in that tree.

Did you use your tongue? Yep. Huh? Did you use your tongue? Yeah, I did. I'm up here, and all right. I will look over to this seepy abscess. Yeah. And then I'm going to cast Cinder Grasp.

Okay. And I'm going to set it aflame. What's the range on Cinder Grasp? Shit! It's melee range. Can't you get to the edge of that tree there? Yeah, how close is melee range? Is melee range very close? Melee range is right next to it. Just jump on his damn hand. Now, well, that's if you're going for the abscess, you said, right? Yeah, I'm going melee ranger? Is it very close? Melee ranger's right next to you.

Just jump on his damn hand. Well, that's if you're going for the abscess, you said, right? Yeah, I'm going for the abscess. The abscess, you have to get into the water to do. Oh no, Oppy! You can't swim, though. Wait, but you're a frog! You really, she is.

Yeah, that's the fall of Thorin. But they've got a swimming issue. They've really got a swimming issue. I sink! I can't swim! Okay, all right. Oh. We got to teach you how to swim!

I'll believe in you. You can swim just by believing in yourself. Okay, here's the thing. I have a question for you, and you can say no. Sure. So instead of, I forgot about my tokens and our downtime. Oh yeah, so you can spend the stress to regain them. I wanted to do that instead of adding the hope,

so I would add an extra stress instead of gaining an extra hope, if that's okay. You can just take a stress any time to refill the tokens. To refill? Oh, I don't have to do it on the downtime. Okay, great. Correct. Yeah, you can do that in the middle of battle if you want. So then, since this is further,

I am going to Mark of Stress, which I did, and then I am going to cast Unleash Chaos again on the abscess, because that is far range. Using all three tokens, you say? Yes, using all three tokens. Well, first roll to see if you succeed before you remove the token. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Okay, okay. So go ahead and roll your spell cast roll against the target. Come on!

Come on! Come on, Abbey, Come on. Come on. Come on, Abby, come on, Abby. Oh! All right, I don't think that's going to do anything. What'd you get? Six. Do you still have your die? Oh, the rally dice!

Where you at, where you at? Nine with hope. Ribbit. I'm going to reach deep and I'm going to use from my Splendor spell, Reassurance, once per short rest after an ally attempts an action roll, but before the concepts take place, you can offer assistance or words of support. Obby, you can do this! They may re-roll their dice. They may accept the result of this new roll.

Come on! I stabbed him in the build! Good stab. Splendor, baby. Come on. You got this. You got this. Oh, okay. Okay. Is it fairy good? It's fairy good.

I'm going to destroy you. We're going to die. Cooking him up. 17 with hope? 17 with hope does succeed. All right, all right, all right. That's 3d10 magical damage against the target. Come on! And a hope refill.

That's a 12. Here, I have 10s. 10, 10, 10. Okay. All right. What do you got? Eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 17. Whoa, that's great. 17. That's above the major threshold,

so it takes two hit points. Yes! As you're up in the tree, you're holding onto the branch, and you describe to me how this chaos happens. I'm just looking around, and I'm up there, and I'm on the tree, but I'm slowly slipping because I'm so slippery. I keep readjusting. I say to my staff, and I'm like, come on, you can do it! Then out it

shoots from the bottom, the sparkly, what do they call those? What's at the bottom of a cigar? Embers? The embers just float over and sit on the abscess. Yeah! As they detonate, you see some of the vines are burnt to a crisp and pulled back, and beneath where they are tangled, as they pull open, you can see this dull red glow that's also like. We're talking about this thingy?

Yes! Yeah! Pango! Can I assist you, buddy? I'm still stuck in these, but I mean, yeah. How do you get out of those things? I've got to do a strength check, apparently. But you can do, and then continue your turn if you want. Yeah, can I try it? Are you done? Can I relay to everybody what I see in there?

Yeah, you shout it out to the crowd. Can everybody hear me? Okay. It's in there! There's a red thing in there! The heart of the problem! Yep. Okay, can I try to break out of this? You can. Go ahead and make a strength roll. I was like, do you?

Oh. I'm not good at strength. Oh, okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Well, it's with fear. It's with fear, but it's okay. It is a 15 with fear. A 15 does succeed.

You break free. You are no longer. 14, minus one on strength. 14's still worth it. Give it to me. Yes! You're right, you're right, you on strength. 14's still worth it. Give it to me! Yes! You're right, you're right, you're right.

So you break free and prepare yourself. Hold onto the thought of your next maneuver because it comes to me for this instance now. I'm going to burn two of these and activate Boko. I'm going to spend a fear to use Cruel Throw. Boko has gotten back up to the ground, reaches off to the side, and grabs a section

of the nearby river with its massive hand. Rips this massive rock free and looks over its shoulder. Did it do that? Oh. And lobs it right towards you. Oh! Hexen. It's not the plug!

What's your evasion? So many! Does a 22 hit? What? Does a 22 hit your evasion? What do you mean, does a 22 hit? Hexen. Knock the plug! What's your vision? So dizzy. Does a 22 hit? What? Does a 22 hit your vision? What do you mean, does a 22 hit? It's my favorite thing to ask!

Let me have my thing! All that's left of my wings is. I'm windshield fodder. You went down, we can hear the zap. Yeah. It's not even electricity. A direct hit. Just pulls out one of those trash rackets.

19 points of physical damage. I'm going to burn an armor slot, which brings it down to 12, which is a major steal, so that's two hit points, okay. That clicks up to three. Oh no! That's another fear roll from earlier. All righty, as it finishes throwing the rock,

we come back to you. Tag team! Let's go! We're both going to run forward towards the... The abscess. And I'm going to help Bunny by running forward and using my hook and grabbing it and try to pull some of the vine back

so she can attack the inside. That's cool. Okay, so you're going up to the edge, and you're... sorry. I'm trying to attack the vine and yank some of the vine and pull it to the side so that she can attack the inside. Okay. Are you rushing across the water to it? Yeah. Okay. So you rush from this distance to there. That is... yeah, you can get close range, though the water will slow it down. Okay. So you rush from this distance to there. That is, yeah, you can get close range,

though the water will slow it down. Okay. So I will say make an agility roll for me to see if you can make the distance with the thick sludge you're having to wade into to get there. Oh, right. Okay, okay, okay. Come on.

Okay, okay. Oh yeah. Okay. That's a 12 with fear. 12 is fine. 12 is just what you needed to do there. But it was with fear. Yes, it was with fear. Do I take a stress if I rolled with fear? No. No, I can tell you to

if I want to. Okay, okay. Because I'm not taking my fear action on this, or taking my gym action on this, I am going to do stress to you, though. Okay. But you do manage to get up to it there. Am I able to make it in the range? You also have to make an agility check to try and get there, because it's a longer run you stress to you, though. Okay. But you do manage to get up to it there. Am I able to make it in the range? You also have to make an agility check

to try and get there, because it's a longer run you have to make, and you're just like. You got a lot of agility. You're good, you're good. Yeah, I do, I do, I do. Are you trying to jump over the water, or the brackish water? Yeah, can I?

So yeah, definitely an agility roll to try and leap over to see if you can miss the lick. Can I do some Indiana Jones shit and almost use my whip off of Boko to swing across and come down? You can definitely try that. Yeah, go ahead and roll an agility roll for me. Okay.

Do that. Swing this way. Come on, buddy. Plus two. Using the villain as leverage to swing. That's icky as fuck. So terrible. Six, seven, eight, nine, 10. You go ahead and wrap your rope around Boko's arm

and swing right as Boko returns from throwing the rock. Oh no! One more! Runs this way. One more prayer. Yeah? To knock it up one. Yeah.

Put up one point. One point? That do it? You had a 10? It needs to be a 10. It needs to be a 12. 12. Oh! But worth the shot. Yeah. It needs to be a 10. It needs to be a 12. 12. But worth the shot.

As it goes wide and as it does, you all of a sudden get yanked. Can I just hope to add the show must go on? I got to do that beforehand, don't I? Yeah, all right. Okay. Also, show must go on is more performance-based than an actual skillful thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know. Weaponizing the male gaze? Yeah.

Oh no! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but you know. Weaponizing the male gears? Yeah. Oh no! The face, feet, body, and chest. Experiences can be situationally applied. We're still feeling it out with ourselves as well. That's okay. But oh my god! But you get flung off to the side, which sends you flying as a failure throws you

into the drink next to it. So you are submerged. You also have the minus two evasion. Does that waste our tag team? Or can I try and Hail Mary it with something else? It doesn't waste it. You're preparing and setting up for the tag team. However, because you failed on that, it comes back to me and I have a chance to take a turn before it comes back to you. Okay. This is where the economy goes back and forth. This is where the dramatic tension is like, you do a thing, I

got to do a thing, you got to do a thing, I got to do a thing, depending on how the rolls play out for it. This is coming back to me. I'm going to activate Boko again. So have I used my three hope for the tag team yet? Not yet. Not yet. It'll come at the end of this, since you both were just rolling to get up there. Okay. Damn. Boko is now going to go ahead and, turning around and seeing you on the ground, is going to go ahead and spend another fear to grab another boulder. I know, me too.

Oh no, boulders suck. They're real low. Are we getting spiked with a boulder? This is counting up to a four. Boulder fist? Can I use Two Hope to get my evasion back? No, if you want it right now, yeah, if you got it to spend. Yeah.

I'll allow it. All right, you got your evasion back. That's going to be an 18 against you. What, against you? Because it doesn't even see you, because you're under the water. You're the one who's visible off to the side and you're currently about to pry on the side of the asset. But she's just a mushroom.

I'm just a mushroom. I don't know. It's a bargaining. I love that, though. That big cap looks like a target. Okay, that's going to be 23 physical damage. Whoa! Okay, well, I put on that fancy new armor,

so I'm going to take two things to it. So that knocks it down 10. Correct. So you said 25? Yeah, so now it'll be 15 points of damage. That takes me under severe, so I will take two hit points. Correct.

Wowzers. Okay. All right. And that's going to end my GM turn. Now you both can continue. Okay. Okay. So wait, I get a minus two to what? I did. Evasion. Oh.

While they're thinking, I'm going to strength try to pull out of this grapple. Go for it, make a strength roll. Okay. It's a critical seven and seven. Let's go! That'll do. You break free of that shit. You also clear a stress and get a stress.

And get a hope? Yeah, that's what critical success does. All right, so while you break free, we come back to both of you prepping up for this. This has been this running scenario here. Now we're going to attack it. Do I get, because she's within melee range of it, do I get a sneak attack on the abscess? Yeah, I don't know. I agree. So I'm going to attack it. Do I get, because she's within melee range of it, do I get a sneak

attack on the abscess? Yeah, I don't know. All right, great. So I'm going to attack it. Oh yeah. It took a lot to get there, so this is the benefit of that back and forth. So we're both pulling attack rolls. All right, now I spend my three hope. Now you spend your three hope for the tag team maneuver. Both of you make the rolls for the

according actions you're taking, and we take the higher for both of you. So are you both making attack rolls on this? Yes. actions you're taking and we take the higher for both of you. So are you both making attack rolls on this? Yes. Yeah, a question. I have an arcane barrage, which just automatically hits and I can dump hope into it. How would that apply here?

This would not apply, because it would be action rolls that tag team here. You can do that on your next activation. Okay, then great. I will use my fan. You got it, all right. I'm setting up a tag team with a server. Oh, nice. Yeah, that's great. You got it, all right. I'm setting up a tag team with Sarah. Oh, nice! Yeah, that's great.

You got to be better than me. You're better than me. We're going to use your shit. 19, 23, 25 with hope. One time of the hope definitely hits. So both of your attacks hit. Go ahead and roll your independent damage and add them together.

Ooh, she's a fun girl. I'm going to drop, oh, I don't. I'm going to drop one hope because I just got a hope back. So I'm going to drop one hope in it to get another d8 of damage. OK, so that's 2d10 and 2d8. Come on, roll big. I rolled mediocre. I rolled great.

Yes! 19, 27, plus four is 31. 31? I rolled eight damage. So it's 39 points of damage. That's great, that's over it severe. So since Sweepy is definitely the MVP in this moment, I'm going to clamber out of this sludgy lake,

and all I'm going to do is use my fan and wedge it in it and pry it back like it's an artichoke to give her a better opportunity to the heart of this ring. Yeah, I'll take my long staff and slam it down into the inside as she pulls it back. So as you both tear it back and slam it on the inside Suddenly, this burst of toxic fume billows out of it. You watch as all the nearby trees that you now see are wrapped by these long vines that are deeply rooted through the ground and through the center of this spring, whatever this strange growth is, all then shake and pull against as the pain emerges from the inside. It's definitely reacting to

these hits. Nice. It's still up, though. It's still up. Oh yeah. Okay, okay, okay, okay. We got a vibe. Is it his turn or ours? While they finish their go there, you guys can go. Inspired by their tag team action,

I'm going to do it also. And I turn over to my friend, Sir, over here, and noticing that his shell forms a frisbee shape, I'm going to pick him up. I'm going to put my, I'm tucking my feet in, and I look at you, Discus, and I look at you, let's make a molehill out of this mountain. And I'll spin around.

Yes! Spin around, and I'm going to throw like a discus. Hell yeah. I am coming down like a spinny fucking buzzsaw. All right, so you can both roll for your attacks on this, and they can add your weapon damage, and we'll just consider your weapon damage as part of it. Well, I'm staying on shore.

Because I'm throwing him, I'm staying on shore. Is this still adding weapon damage from the force? Because the fun of the tag team, it's your momentum of your attack into his one, so I'm allowing it, because it's fun. Okay. And that's a crit. Oh, wow.

Well, shit, that means you both get a hope and you both clear stress. That's an automatic success. Come on! So go ahead and add your damage up on this. Okay, get a hope, clear stress. If I recall, if it's a crit on an attack, you get one of your,

you get an additional full damage die. It's max, right? Oh, yes. A max damage die. Oh, you get to add an additional full damage die. Oh my gosh! A max damage die. Oh yeah, you add it in a different way. And I'm still adding mine, and they both do, right? They both do, yeah. I'm adding my damage, oh my god. This is the optimal fucking scenario for attack.

I don't roll a third die, I just add the max third die. Correct. Oh my god, this is going to be bad. I love this so much. There's so many dice right here. Come on. Oh, that's a one. Did one of yours hit the edge?

No, it was just locked in. This is against Boko, or is this against the Abscess? The Abscess. You got it. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. Tally-ho! 21 points from me. Tally-ho-ho!

16, 20, because I'm using my unstoppable feats to Unstoppable! Unstoppable! feature to add an extra step. Mine is 18. But you did check. So a total of? Nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. Yeah, 18.

18, and what was yours? 21. 21, oh yeah, that's 39. How do you want to do this? The two of you together, please, describe the scene as you build momentum, swinging your turtle friend, Tordante, around. Dagger and the other, just so I've got the two blades,

I've pulled my legs, arms, and head in as far as I can go. Just blue fabric and blade. And as I release, a single tear from the loss of Wango propels him even higher into the sky, and almost like, you know how you throw a frisbee too high and it goes too far, but then it comes back? Oh yeah! Frisbee golfed it.

Yeah. As you land, full-on Levi Ackerman, just slicing into this fucking abscess. Into it, you are both completely just coated in some odd alien viscera, and there in the middle of this no longer pulsing growth that is currently slowly separating into the nearby and freshly emerging clean spring water from beneath.

You see your now deeply coated and now bobbing turtle friend. Head comes out, legs, arms. No one dies on this hill today. Oh! Wow! Yes! Not on the point tonight!

It's fucking going. This is on blue rivet ship. As that happens, Boko stands up angrily, fists raised, and is about to reach to try and slap and smash Zarlo on the back before the purplish coloration of the eyes begins to fade into a pure white. Its slam fist turns instead to a platform.

Wild flame! I am sorry, little friend. How long has it been this way? I don't even know. I've sent away my children. Places you on the ground. I want to know why. But then I lost myself.

We are sorry. He sits down. You can already hear the sounds of returning chirps of nearby creatures that have been in hiding that can sense the shift in energy. It slowly looks around with each turn. You hear the crumbling and scraping of stone on stone, the thick patches of moss that surround parts of its body as it sweeps over and scoops both of you up

from within the brackish waters as they slowly filter out, and you as well, and sets you all onto the ground before. I hope to one day repay you for what you have done for us. The forest is made up of many trees. You're not alone. Never alone. He looks back over towards the spring. I should have been more careful. You know, it's no use blaming yourself. It's not your fault.

Careful how? I've been known to be too trusting. Did someone betray you? I don't know. There are those Sheepish, odd, with nature. I offered guidance and he refused. Took his own walkabout. He seemed confused at best and dubious at worst, but we kept a distant eye as we wandered, the pernicious of our belt.

He left without issue thereafter, and not but a day later, this began to grow. It reaches out and grabs the still lingering husk of that growth and rips it from the center of the spring. Oh, I reach out, I grab a little patch. Just a piece, in case we find more of it. Tears a chunk of it and sets it on the ground for you.

Then just crushes the rest in its palm until there's nothing left. And you can see that anger and fear as it clenches its jaw. What did he look like? Did he give it a name? No name. As it looks to you, to answer your question,

its face breaks into a hundred small stones that shift and finish. They seem to swirl and rotate, and then form a new face. Fucking crap. An image of an older man, well-detailed in stone. Kind of sagging jowls,

balding head. Foreign to most of you, except for you, Bunny. Oh! You know this man. A con man in Cad named Dillon Broche, who is an occasional patron of the Lilylocket Lounge in Lovevale. And that's where we're going to end the night. Oh! and love you. And that's where we're going to end tonight.

Oh! Oh! Red Grumps! Red Grumps! No Red Grumps. If we ever come back to something, we can pick up from there. That was fucking awesome!

Dang! You can't dangle that from us! The Fanguardian is awesome! That was fun. I was one fear roll away from getting to his Rage of the Land. Oh no. What would it have done? He's got to count down Luke five

and it ticks up whenever anybody fails a roll or rolls with fear. And when it triggers, he slams the ground and every PC within close range gets hit with a stone from underneath for d20 bludgeoning damage. Oh jeez! So it fails a roll or with fear. If you fail with fear, does it stack?

No, it would just be a single thing. Okay. I believe so. Hey, we can change it if we like it another way. Because we're still an open beta! That's okay. This was so much fun! I forgot, there was so much stuff I forgot to use in my foundation that I could use.

Are we doing this again? Set to play again. No, this is the last time we ever do this. Maybe we level up and the menagerie continues. That could be done, actually. We could do that. Cool. We could do that.

Play this again. You got a thread. Two, we go to Menagerie Trois. Well. Menagerie Trois. That was good as shit. Ah, I love the chaos. I love the cinematic ability to jump around and jump in the moment. I do, too.

I know it's scary at first. It is. Because as a person that grew up playing with initiative and everything, there's a comfort to that. And you could definitely incorporate a type of initiative into this where you just go in a certain order or around the table if you want to. But I love the idea of being able to jump in and follow the impulse of the narrative, or if something goes wrong when you're planning for

something and it gives power back, we can still continue back to that loop to get to that release of what you're planning before it pays off. I don't know. It's open beta. We're still figuring stuff out. I also love how the tag teaming makes it feel like a team. You know what I mean? It really creates that teamwork as you're going. Yeah. That's really funny. And it's still consequential, because even if somebody makes a roll with fear,

it can totally fuck up what you might've been wanting. Yeah, if you both roll poorly, then you wasted three hope and your use of that, and you both take the higher roll, which could be a nine. And if you both roll poorly, then you wasted three hope and your use of that, and you both take the higher roll, which could be a nine. Yeah. Yeah. And if you both roll with fear, then it's two fear that I get, and then it comes back to me.

I also think if you're fighting a giant rock monster, you'd be like, I'm going to, should I? Okay. Oh, okay. Okay, now! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Before it opened up, my initial thought was to run by you and try and cut the vine before you, but then a bunch of other shit happened.

I was like, yeah, you'll be fine. That's how it works out, yeah. It does help to not, it makes you think on your feet, though, whereas with initiative, you're obsessing about what to do. Yeah, and then it can change, and you want to change it in your fuck.

Which isn't bad, either. It's a different way of playing. Yeah, for sure. As a more timid player, sometimes, I was nervous about not having an initiative, but I love it. You were not timid at all. Yeah! You were killing it.

Oh, who, me? All hail Oppy. All hail Oppy with his. Are the dogs okay? They're fine. All right. Yeah, Twixt and Twix are fine. Yes, up in the tree. Yeah. Aw.

Well, yeah, maybe the audience can tell us if they want to see the return of the Menagerie of the Grim Wardens of Lockspire. Let us know what you think. It's layered. Okay. Indeed. Of Dagger. Of the Dolmio.

Obebada! That's all the time we have for this one-shot tonight. Thank you all so much for joining us for this. I hope you enjoyed it along with us. Yeah, love it. It's been a bit. That was scary. I know.

But yeah, hope you all had fun. I'm excited for all of you to have fun playing this. So to learn more and join this open beta play test, go check out daggerheart.com. So gather your party, make some characters, just create all sorts of chaos, play a ribbon and other weird shit, or bring in all the classics, bring in your elves,

bring in your humans, bring in your dwarves, they're all there, and all the cool kids are doing it. So just be sure to tell us your thoughts about the system, the things that you like, the things that you think could use some work, some things that could possibly see some shifting or some tweaks. Like, it's a wonderful thing about

our official Daggerhub and beta, and using those surveys is it helps us make this game better for all of us. But we are determined to make this game as good as possible, and those surveys are invaluable part of that process. So please do so. Amazing work for the team! I know. All hail the god of the Seep.

Chats. God of the Seep? Turning on us. Aw, no. That's what I call my dick. On that note, good night, everybody. We love you very much. And is it Tuesday? I don't know.

Thursday. Bye. Bye. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Critical Role. If you enjoyed the adventure, please leave a rating and review wherever you stream the Critical Role Podcast Network. Your story might inspire another listener to join the journey. Be sure to tune in to the next adventure. Until next time, this is Taliesin Jaffe. See you soon.