Critical Role - Ménagerie a Trois | Daggerheart | Open Beta
Episode Date: June 27, 2024The Menagerie is back again! Join game master Matthew Mercer as he leads the cast of Critical Role through a LIVE One-Shot using the Daggerheart system! Though Daggerheart is still in Open Beta testi...ng, we hope this one-shot provides some insight for how the game can be played.Be sure to take a close look at the Change Log to get a sense of the updates, from major to minor: https://www.daggerheart.com/change-log 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 Maxwell James Graphic Design by Bryan Weiss & Jordyn TorrenceDP by Michael SchmidtTD by Athena RossSound by Chris WillmottCURRENT DAGGERHEART CREDITS:Lead Game Designer: Spenser StarkeAdditional Game Designers: Rowan Hall, Matthew Mercer, Alex Teplitz, Michael UnderwoodAdditional Writing: Layla Adelman, Carlos Cisco, Felix Isaacs, Erin Roberts, Eugenio VargasCombat Wheelchair Design: Mark ThompsonDevelopmental Editor: Laura HirsbrunnerArchivist: Dani GageSenior RPG Producer: Elise RezendesJunior Games Producer: Alex TeplitzAdditional Production: Alex UboldiArt Director: Anthony JonesAssociate Art Director: Leesha HanniganPlaytest Program Coordinator: Brieger CreativeLead Graphic Design: Matt Paquette & Co.Additional Graphic Design: John Harper, Vee HendroConsultants: Daniel Delgado, Rue Dickey, Rob Hebert, James Mendez Hodes, David Lezzi, Erin Roberts, Christine Sandquist, Rogan Shannon, Mark ThompsonLead Concept Artist: Shaun EllisCartographer: Marco BernardiniArtists: 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
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Hello, spellcasters, sages, and spectators.
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Twitch subscribers can watch the video on demand right away, or you can catch it the following Monday on YouTube.
As always, Critical Role will be available right here in podcast form on Thursdays, a week after the initial broadcast.
And now, let's scry into the story and see what mysteries it holds for us, shall we?
Hello, everyone, and welcome to tonight's episode
of The Menagerie, where a bunch of us
voice actors sit around and play the Daggerheart open beta.
Bells Hells will return next week.
We have our live show on Saturday this weekend,
and for the sanity of production,
the rate of release and everything,
we're taking our Daggerheart one shot tonight.
Three shot now, I guess?
Three shot? I guess it keeps going.
But nevertheless, today we'll be playing
Daggerheart version 1.4.2,
a little light update
that was released earlier this week,
but Bells Hells will be back next Thursday
if we don't see you at the Greek on Saturday.
But check out the changelog and download the new materials
on daggerheart.com, and you can also watch the VOD
of my Q&A with Spencer Stark, lead designer of the game,
for a walkthrough of the updates and some questions
that we took from the audience and our community.
So be sure to let us know what you think
via our official surveys as you try out Daggerheart.
We're getting closer and closer
to finishing this wonderful thing,
and it's already coming along so well,
and we would love you to continue to help us shape that
as you want to play it.
So that is my quick intro.
Travis, you have an announcement.
Oh yeah, the legend of Vox Bacchina is back, baby!
It's out right now.
You can watch all 12 episodes.
No, I'm fucking with you.
My heart jumped into my throat.
I'm going to kill us all in this fucking beta!
No, it's amazing.
Season three premieres October 3rd.
This fall on Prime Video, you can check out a little sneak peek of our new opening titles.
Did I get you two?
Yeah, you first said it, and I was like, wait, what?
Ashley Johnson.
We got new opening titles.
They're out there on the internets.
Check them out.
It's on our Instagram.
Now or during the break or whenever you want to see it.
During the break.
It'll be on the break, too.
But it's really hot.
New music from Neil Acri.
Amazing stuff from Studio Rev.
It's awesome.
Season three is going to be baller.
Can't wait to show you what we've been doing.
No!
It's so good.
It's so good, y'all.
All righty.
So Marisha.
Yeah, as Matt, you kind of already covered it.
We're doing Menagerie tonight
because we have the Greek show on Saturday,
which is the 15th.
So yes, Bell's Hells will return next Thursday.
So if you can't catch it live at the Greek this Saturday,
don't worry, June 20th, 7 p.m. Pacific on Twitch and YouTube
we will have, what am I?
Your nails are so horrible.
You're casting, you're casting.
I'm getting them done tomorrow for the live show.
But it doesn't matter.
Yes.
And beacon members.
Three, four.
Beacon members will get instant access to the VOD
as well as we're going to try something new.
We're doing a special live show edited version
that will be exclusive to Beacon.
So basically it won't be in the overlay
like you normally see us.
It'll be a more cinematic cut,
kind of like what the Candle Obscura live show was.
Experimentation.
So yes, you can check out that version.
That's exclusive to Beacon members,
but regular version will be out as per usual,
the usual time.
And also we'll be doing a cooldown for it as well
at the live show that Beacon members will get as well.
Hey, good job, Sam!
Yay! Good job!
Rakshasa! Laura, we're up next.
I'm up next.
Hey, guess what? What?
We have merch.
Well, I'll talk about this one first.
I'm going out of order. But we have this.
Are you wearing the merch?
I'm wearing the merch! I was chilly, and this warmed me up. It's our Oracle of the Moon
Tarot crew-neck sweatshirt. There's a gradient.
There's a skeleton.
Ooh. Featuring art by Camille Lilium and additional design by Jordan Torrens. I love you,
Jordan.
Jordan, you're the best.
In addition to that, we've also got this oracle,
I don't know if I'm holding it the right way.
Oracle of the Moon.
Just cover up your face.
Tarot blanket.
Oh, that's so rad.
It's featuring card art by Camille, Lilium, and Frey,
and additional art designed by Aaron Munroy.
I love you, Aaron. Yay!
I'm on the back.
It's so cozy.
It's really soft. Right?
I'm going to order this at break. Yeah. Is that the hunger sacrifice card that you're wearing?
I'm wearing...
Yep, it looks like hunger sacrifice.
Oh yes, I am.
Yeah, look at that.
Also, you guys, guess what?
What?
At the Greek, if you're there,
you might get to check out some sneaky peeky merch
that will be available in the merch booth,
including this.
No!
Whoa!
It's Laudna's dreaded balloon.
Why don't you ever show me these furs?
Sorry, B.E.
This is going to be available next week,
but it'll be at the Greek.
Dun-dun-dun-dun, it's by artist,
no, that's a lie, scroll down a little bit. It's by artist
Natalie Hall. I love you, Natalie. And then in addition to that, we also, okay, I love
these. These are our half crew socks. I love our socks. We have more socks now. We've got
Bell's Hell socks. We got Mighty Nein socks. We got Vox Magna socks. And we got ZR socks.
And they come in a four pack.
Da-da-da-da!
Are those a cotton blend?
Feel them! They're so comfy!
And the ones that are fat on the bottom.
Oh, yes!
These are good.
They're really good socks.
Elena Harris, artist.
I love you, Elena.
Wait, do we need to keep these here?
No, I'm going to steal these.
I'm going to take these ones.
These are great.
Thank you, Laura.
You're welcome. Ashley.
Oh my gosh!
I have an announcement to make.
Yeah, it's you!
Okay, so we are thrilled that for Pride Month,
we are, sorry, we are donating.
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
We are donating.
I'm just really excited.
He's a professional. He's got this.
I'm right Wilmot.
We are donating 10% of all regular proceeds
across all our shops to Outright International.
So this does not include licensed products and products that already support charity,
but everything else will help support this great organization.
They are so awesome.
Outright International is one of our longstanding partners at Critic Rural Foundation,
which works to protect the rights of LGBTQIA plus people worldwide.
So if any in the sh...
Oh.
You got the words. You got this.
Yeah, I know.
If anything in the shop has caught your...
I don't know, I'm really hot.
If anything in the shop has caught your eye,
now's a great time to check it out.
Okay, I'm all done.
Wonderful. To check it out.
Like a good neighbor.
Thank you, actually.
Well.
That being the case,
I think let's go ahead and jump into
tonight's episode of...
The Menagerie?
The Menage a Trois!
It is the Menagerie, it is the episode.
The Menagerie a Trois!
So. Pretty cool, huh?
Last we left off.
Sorry.
I was right.
Oh, we're going straight in.
Oh yeah.
Fucking pros over here.
Sorry. Yeah, there's no opening titles, y'all.
We go right in.
The Menagerie.
After encountering a strange new seed of the Seep,
this strange, corrupting, magical darkness within the emerald sky.
You were given a hint that the person who was responsible
for planting this within that vast, verdant forest
was a figure that you recognized from your hometown,
Bunny of Loelveil.
You went to that town, the Red Crystal City of Sin,
and there, within that space of boisterous commerce
and play and debauchery, you found this figure,
this Dyson figure, who told you under duress
that the people that hired him to do this,
no personal reason, was the Croatoa family,
Croatoa family, who are one of the various factions
of power within the city, who own the casino
and have other vested interests in some of the more
small recent mine constructions.
But you and the rest of your troop
went to find out exactly who and why.
You went through the sewers of the city,
busted through the wall into the hideout
of the Croatoana family,
and did battle with Mortimer himself,
as well as his sister Gemma
and a number of their compatriots.
At a certain point,
and the acquisition of a gem from around his throat,
you fled back out whence you came,
as it seemed that help and backup
was called by his sister Gemma.
Most of you managed to get past it.
Most of you.
But unfortunately, Bunny and Sweet Pea
were unable to traverse the Great Barricade,
as in the barricade that is of great.
Had to specify there.
Great barricade! You know.
It's really good.
And in trying to flee the other direction
and dazzle the relatively angry cluster
of goons following Mortimer,
you are captured, knocked unconscious,
and awoken a short time later,
both of you tied to chairs
in that very same basement hideout where you did battle.
There is the massive, corpulent, swollen frog form
of Mortimer Crotona.
Sits before you.
The rest of you have fled back through the sewers,
worried about what may be befalling your friends.
So.
Let's go ahead and first jump in with you four.
We're going to go in with Sir Dante,
Jarlowe, Kexin, and Oppy.
As you have now run down the waterlogged sewers,
heading back towards where you came,
you're huffing, you're running as hard as you can,
splashing through, darting into the shadows,
and as you all begin to collect
towards the ladder
that led you down here initially,
you begin to realize that your compatriots are not with you.
Shit.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
We're missing two.
What do we do? What do we do?
We leave him, okay.
No, no, we don't!
It's time to cut bait, let's go.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
We need a plan.
Clearly, we're not leaving anyone behind.
Do we go back in there?
I don't think I'm even paying attention right,
because this gem on a chain that I stole
has got an arresting property to it.
Looking at it in front of you.
I don't know, we need a plan.
Okay, so we got to get them out of there.
We could either go back the way we came,
or we could go topside and try and find
some kind of an entrance down
the way we saw the goons come down.
But that feels like a lot of backtracking.
They both feel like backtracking.
Everything has to be backtracking.
You left someone behind.
Of course there's going to be some backtracking.
You're right, you're right.
We got to go back.
What do you think, Zarlo?
I don't know.
Okay.
Oh!
Wait, wait, wait, what are you putting that on for?
Oh, too late.
You put it on,
and the magic pulses through the chain
and across your neck,
and the flash of history
or capability of this gem crosses into your mind.
Oh!
There are sheets.
I'm going to read it out.
Yeah.
Above the table.
Innervation gem.
When you consume this gem,
you gain the following attributes
until you choose to drop this form on your next rest.
You're twice your size.
Your strength, agility, and finesse rolls have advantage. Your physical attacks deal plus 1d10 damage. until you choose to drop this form on your next rest. You are twice your size.
Your strength, agility, and finesse rolls have advantage.
Your physical attacks deal plus 1d10 damage
whenever you succeed on an action roll with hope.
The GM gains a fear when this form drops.
You regurgitate the gem and roll a 1d6.
On a five or six, the gem cracks
and is no longer usable.
I love it.
Oh, it was his steroids.
So. Yeah, just a little juicing?
Right, so the tour.
He could have gotten so big.
Froggy was juicing.
He was juicing.
I had a backup menu that he didn't get to use.
Because you stole it before he could eat it.
We didn't see him juicing.
No! That was pre-juiced for him.
That was pre-juiced for him.
Wow.
You have his juice.
That's good. You got the juice.
That's really good, okay.
Maybe we go back in there and you just eat it.
All right, well.
We don't know where the door is from.
What if we make a trade?
That's not a plan, though.
Well, if we figured out where the topside entrance is,
we could say that we found the gem,
which clearly they think it was stolen.
They don't necessarily know it was us,
and we could try and make a trade for our people. They probably think it was stolen. They don't necessarily know it was us. And we could try and make a trade for our people.
They probably think it's us.
They do.
And we don't know where the door is.
We don't. Right.
We do know where this door is.
It's, yes, I suppose, but so do they.
Which we just ran from.
So our plan is to turn around
and fuck shit up?
Could be.
The shortest distance between A and B is a straight line. We could go up and look for the door down.
Excuse you.
But then all the guards and stuff
are going to see us up there.
Yeah, I mean, they got to die.
Clearly, they know where we went,
so they're probably going to be waiting for us
at this secret door that is now not so secret.
Like right there.
They know where we came from.
I think it would be much sneakier to-
Go up top? Up top.
Let's try it. Right.
All right.
Let's see if we can figure this out.
So we're going back to,
from where we were,
do we think that that underground room
was directly below roughly where the casino was?
From as well as some of you knew the city,
you were able to find that area
and listen for the sound and the hollowness of that wall
because it was where you assumed the casino was.
So you do think it is directly beneath it.
Also as a heads up, because we did level up to six between,
and this is open beta and we're trying things out,
technically you wouldn't level up in the middle of action in the middle of the story,
but fuck it, we're all level six now.
And you know, whatever your loadout is, it's fine.
So, because we're playing loosey-goosey
and having fun with it.
Mm-hmm.
But, all right.
I'm a pill to burn stress, but yeah, to clear my stress,
but that's a whole nother thing.
Okay, Oppy, lead us back to the casino
and charm your way into finding the door.
All right. Let's go. Okay, Oppy, lead us back to the casino and charm your way into finding the door.
All right.
Let's go!
I got this.
You got your magics?
Huh? You got your magics!
I got my magics!
All right.
Yeah. I hate this plan.
I'm very excited.
Can we navigate our way through the sewer
back to the entrance that we used to come down?
Yeah, you guys had reached that entrance
when you realized that your friends didn't follow suit.
So you all climb up out of the sewer
and back onto the nighttime glowing red streets of Lullvale
as we come back to the subterranean basement of the casino.
Bunny, Sweet Pea, the two of you are now
tied to adjacent chairs,
unable to move your hands or legs,
looking up in the dark, shattered interior
of this basement space.
There, the horrible briny breath
of Mortimer Croatoana
finds its way warmly across your faces
as he skulks low and nearby,
squatting his massive toed form.
Hey! Oh. Ooh. and nearby, squatting his massive toed form.
Immediately ignores you.
So who sends ya?
What? Who sent you to come and try and kill us?
Oh, no, no, nobody.
Nobody.
We didn't do that.
Why'd you come here?
You don't just stumble through the sewers
and bust open a wall and attack me and my family
for no reason!
Why?
Ooh.
We were, well, here's the thing.
We were walking through the sewer,
and then we saw this door, right?
And we were like, oh, that seems really interesting.
We should check it out.
And then we went in to it, and that's where you were.
And then you attacked us,
and we just didn't even know what was happening
and that's why we tried to run away.
Go ahead and make a presence roll for me
with disadvantage to try and lie to him.
Is that what you call presence when you're full of bullshit?
With disadvantage?
Yes, because he's already been lied to a few times.
How do I? Wait, I forget.
I already forget how to do it with a disadvantage.
Minus a d6? Correct.
So you roll your Hope and Fear die,
add it together, minus a d6.
Roll high and roll low.
On the correct choice.
Oh, oh.
Okay, 12, 13, 10.
With hope.
With hope, so you get a hope.
Ridiculous.
There's a pause as the smile curls
across your fungal lips.
Same with the question mark?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got lips.
Yeah, you do.
I got cutie little thin lips.
Yeah.
He just glares at you, inspecting your form.
His large hand, without even staring at you,
reaches over and palms Bunny's head.
Ooh!
Jesus.
And just gently begins to squeeze.
Oh.
Hey, mister.
You know, we was just really curious.
We just really want to know more about this
Seep business.
Just as good Samaritans doing a good Samaritan thing.
Good Samaritans. a Good Samaritan thing. Good Samaritans.
That's what you are.
Just wandering in and stabbing and lighting us on fire to be Good Samaritans.
Well, no, you know, I just, I do really feel like, you know, that was self-defense.
You know, you gotta, you gotta, you are a big, strong mister.
I'm sure you know things about Samaritans. That was part of my business!
Yeah, we were, were too taking a nice,
casual stroll in the sewers.
Yeah, we didn't even mean to find you.
Cut the bullshit,
and let's be a little honest here.
Sure.
Why did you come here?
Can I ask you a question, DM?
Yeah.
How many people are in this room?
Ah, so now you take in the space beyond him.
You can see his sister, Gemma, is about 10 feet behind him.
And at a quick glance in the low fire-lit chamber,
you can see three other people,
but your view is also only of this longer midroom.
There are openings to each side.
The left goes into the main chamber
with his big seat where you fought
a lot of the battle before,
and to the right leads into a small room
with the stairs that lead up into
what you assume is the casino above.
Good man. Okay.
Mortimer plus three people.
And a sister. And Jemma.
Where is my amulet?
Look, I really don't know what you're talking about
with that part of it, but okay.
So I was joking earlier.
We were looking for you.
Oh, see, now we're getting somewhere.
Now, and he scoots real close to you,
still holding, still palming Bunny's head.
His hand is large enough, the fingers wrap around it
and touch the back of it, curling past
the other side of his palm.
She has a show later on tonight,
so maybe just try not to mess up her hair too much.
It's true, curtain calls in an hour.
Answer the question.
Yes, so we were looking for you
because of this seep stuff.
What the fuck is seep?
Seep is, I'm not exactly sure.
It's like oozy and maybe like black
and sometimes it's kind of gooey.
You know, you know, it's that stuff
at the bottom of the canyon that's making things all weird.
He kind of releases his grip on you for a second.
Oh.
Okay, I think I know what you're talking about, yeah.
Yeah, you know, we're just doing our due diligence, you know.
You weren't supposed to kind of get caught in the crossfires here.
We were just trying to figure out some stuff about the seeps.
Crossfire.
You get caught up in the.
So you're looking for the seep, whatever's in there.
The Downravine Mines.
Okay, okay.
Well, I'll tell you what.
Since you both,
this is your last night here on the world,
why don't we trade?
Why don't we have a little conversation here?
How about that?
All right? I like trades.
All right.
You give me a little bit of information.
Okay.
Then I'll tell you what you're looking for.
Okay.
And then I'm going to ask you another question.
So it's kind of like truth or dare?
Sure, we'll call it that.
Okay. Truth and die.
On so high stakes, I love it.
I just don't know if I'm going to be very good at this,
because I don't really know what we're doing,
other than there's, like, Seep.
Wait, you've never played Truth or Die?
Ooh.
Ooh. Where's my amulet?
You got that question right.
I don't know.
Next.
That's true.
Ooh!
You then ran in, took it, and disappeared.
Where is he?
Where can I find him?
We don't know, because we're here!
We're here with you!
This feels like a very self-explanatory situation.
How are we supposed to know?
I don't have GPS or something
connected to wherever your necklace is.
All right, she got nothing to offer me.
That means you have no use to me.
No, no, no, no, no, no. We, look, she's really sexy.
It's true.
I like how you guys have decided to be tied
by your wrists in the front,
and you're tied by your wrists in the back.
I look like Trissky, so it makes sense.
Can I, GM, this whole time, be trying to pull my arms out of their bindings?
be trying to pull my arms out of their bindings?
And can I utilize Shibari Expert to help with that?
Yes, you may.
Okay. Yes.
All right, so I'd say you can make,
this would be an agility.
So go ahead and make an agility roll for me, if you could.
But you can add, if you want to spend a hope,
you can add your shibari expert experience to that.
I will. All righty.
Hang on, let me spend a hope.
Mark it up right there. Yep.
Oh wait, hang on, I got to do it.
Wait, do we? Special card. I got so much hope to Yep. Oh wait, hang on, I got to do it. Wait, do we? Special card.
I got so much hope to spend.
Oh no. Wait.
Spend your hope.
Can I spend a hope to help her?
You are adjacent to her.
Uh-huh.
And I'm a sneaky little mushroom.
You are indeed a sneaky little mushroom, yeah.
And me and Opi oftentimes tried to get out of punishment
from our elders,
so I was good at causing distractions.
So are you going to distract?
I'm helping her by distracting him.
Okay, yeah, well, that's to go ahead and spend the hope.
Water is thicker than blood, thank you very much.
And that's for when me and Oppy are doing things together.
Yeah, go ahead and spend the hope,
and then you can add a d6 to this.
I can add a d6? That's good.
Ooh!
I'm so excited!
Okay, 12, 14, 16,
20, two,
30, with fear.
30 with fear?
Yes.
I love that you have these now, it's so cool.
Elise built me these in a day.
So cool.
Shout out to you, Elise.
So.
You, as you are,
explain how you're distracting him, if you don't mind.
So now that you asked us a question,
do we get to ask you a question?
Because I have so many.
Like, you know your game upstairs?
The one where you roll the dice with this...
Is there any way?
We don't get to trade questions until you answer mine.
Oh, that makes sense.
Okay.
Because I have so...
Okay, yeah.
You go first.
Can I just kill them?
As this is happening,
you... pull your wrists out and manage to slightly loosen around your ankles. You're still holding it, but you are free of your bindings.
Great. I'm still pretending like I'm bound.
Okay. Looks back.
I'm sorry.
Your little monkey friend.
Yes.
Where's he staying?
I don't know. Where is he staying?
I don't know. Where is he sleeping?
I don't know.
If you don't give me an answer, I have nothing to give you, and I'll just kill you right now.
Well, look, you know, mister, we were supposed to be at the curtain call at the Lily Lockett Lounge in an hour,
so if you let us go, you know, he was probably going to help us in the show.
He was at least going to watch, but I was going to offer him to see if he wanted to
play the tambourine or something.
Okay, so you'll have him at the Lily Locket now.
Good to know. Yeah.
All right, that's enough for me.
Your question?
About the sea business.
Yeah. Sure, why not?
Well, see, me and my sisters,
we were approached by this weird, eccentric, wealthy baron out of Champion's Crown.
This fellow wanted to help us for a trade.
He offered to help us expand our mining influence
in the town if we helped him deliver
a weird stone-like package to the Emerald Sky.
Oh.
Now, we asked him why he wouldn't do it himself,
but he said he wasn't welcome in such natural spaces.
Kind of creepy, kind of...
I don't give a shit, to be honest.
He wasn't welcome in what kind of spaces?
Natural spaces. Ooh!
Isn't every space a natural space?
I don't fully understand. I don't fucking care!
All right, all right, keep talking.
Now, I wasn't interested in his whole business
until he showed me that necklace,
the one that your friend took.
There was something enticing about it,
and I really wanted it.
It was a beautiful gemstone.
He said he'd give it to me as part of the deal, and he did.
So we came to an agreement,
so long as he showed us how he'd help our operations,
that we'd go ahead and see that this thing was delivered into the Emerald Sky
for whatever purpose he had for it.
It was destroying the entire ecosystem.
I don't care.
But he showed us this strange little
black-purple gem, kind of a rough cut thing.
He said, be patient.
About a week later,
the entirety of the Gulch Bottom mine
had been shut down entirely.
The most powerful and largest competitor
of the red crystal mining here in this city
had a business.
And it's been booming ever since.
So he was good on his word,
so we had to be good on ours.
We found a schmuck who didn't have anything to lose.
Dyson made him go off and do this for us.
And it seems he told on us,
so we'll make sure he's taken care of, too.
But I think that answers your question.
I have one last question.
What are your last words?
Wait, why though? And you see him
as he's reaching back
for this nasty, gnarled-looking, jagged mace.
And you see Jemma in the back is like,
and all the people are starting to come inward
and more folks are starting to appear
from the steps down.
I want to cast Dark Cloud.
Okay.
So you go ahead and cast Dark Cloud.
Do you have to roll for spell cast?
I have to roll spell cast.
All right, go for it.
Just ink fart.
That's my instinct roll.
I'm pretty sure.
Can you add an expelience?
Wait, do I instinct or finesse?
Foundation?
It's whatever you spellcast.
Finesse! Finesse!
Go ahead and make a finesse roll for me.
Okay, so that's these.
Do you want to add anything to it?
Yeah, can I add hope to it?
No, I can't do that.
It's better hope.
To add an experience.
Right, that's it, though.
This is not enough.
This wouldn't count as sneaky.
This is spellcasting abilities enough. Okay, so this it, though. This is not enough. This wouldn't count as sneaky as some of them. This is spellcasting abilities enough.
Okay, so this is just bleak Luke.
This one and this one.
And then I go like this.
Okay.
Oh no, that face.
That does not succeed.
You don't know. Is that with hope or fear?
It's with fear, and it doesn't succeed. You don't know. Is that with hope or fear? It's with fear, and it doesn't succeed.
I had to roll 15, and I rolled a 13.
Okay.
So, at this moment,
you begin to try and move your fingers.
They're still bound in the chair, and it's tough,
and the spell begins to curl around your hands.
You could feel the energy going,
but you're unable to completely coalesce it.
As your body moves, as he was staring over to the side,
grabbing the mace, he sees you wiggling
and the magic begin to apparate.
The black cloud begin to in the space.
Oh no, you don't. Wham!
He hits you across the head with the mace.
Immediately, blood spatters across the stone next to it.
You take...
No!
That's gross!
He doesn't give a shit.
That's going to be 16 points of physical damage.
Oh, not the toadstool!
Oh no, I can't even!
Okay, I take some major damage there.
So he's like,
See, now I get to have fun!
And he's going to lift up the mace again.
After he hits, I'm just going to be like,
oh, that's my cue, and release myself of the binds.
Okay.
And then can I take the rope and wrap it around,
whip it around his hand,
since I am technically also a whip expert,
to try and disarm him.
You want to try and disarm the weapon?
Sure. All right.
So go ahead and for that,
roll a finesse roll for me.
Yeah, I'm good at that.
Can I...
Well, that's, I guess, a damage dice thing.
I'll go ahead and let go.
Okay.
Okay. Okay.
Nine, 12, 14, 15, 17 with hope.
17 with hope?
Yeah, that'll succeed.
So you get a hope from that
and you wrap the whip around his hands
as he pulls him upward and gets caught backwards. He tries to tear free, and as you withdraw the whip around his hands as he pulls them upward and gets caught backwards.
He tries to tear free, and as you withdraw the whip,
you pull the mace out of his hands and it
hits the ground and scrapes to the floor next to you.
It's kinky.
Whip my fan attack.
Okay, go for it.
Okay, okay, okay.
That's a crit! That's a crit, okay.
That's a crit!
Wait, what happens?
Do I do max damage?
What happens?
I know, it's been a minute.
So you do max damage,
and then roll your damage dice on top of it.
So I do, so that's a 3d8 with my proficiency.
So that's 24.
Plus a roll.
Plus a roll of another 3d8.
Wow.
Love that.
I believe that's correct.
Okay, okay.
Wait, I wasn't prepared.
Ah, shit, shit.
Here we go, I'm good.
Okay, so wait, 24 plus 28.
32.
39 points of damage.
39 points of damage, that's well over severe.
So he takes three hit points, march.
As you pull the mace from his hands,
turn around and then whip him.
Where are you striking him with the whip?
Well, that was with, I did a whip to disarm
and then I hit with my fan.
Oh, with the fans, okay, right. Yes.
So it carves across the side of his head
and it falls to his knees that snap
as he puts his whole weight on them at the wrong direction.
He yells out, hitting the ground, looks back at you.
You can see one of his eyes is completely cut through and there's just like blood streaking down his face.
His massive ribbit mouth is open.
Kill him!
And she's still down.
Can I shadow bind him now that he's on his knees?
Sure.
And he won't be able to stand up, right?
He won't be able to move.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, can I try it?
Yeah, go ahead and roll.
Make a spell, cast roll.
And is anything else in close range?
Very close range?
In very close range to you or him?
Of me?
Of you, no, it's just him.
Oh, yay. Of me? Of you? No, it's just him. Yay!
16, 17, 18, 19, 20.
With hope.
To when that succeeds.
So she takes a hope, falls onto the ground
after being smashed in the face by Bunny's fans
as he's yelling at her and shouts, kill them.
You still manage to now bring your hand
to the side a little bit and finish the incantation. The shadow that fills most of this chamber,
the shadow that he's casting on the wall,
suddenly spreads out and digs into the rock,
like a tree taking root in a matter of seconds.
And he's like,
Not again!
And he's just clutching his eyes shut right now.
He's like, not again?
No, it's so annoying, I kept doing that to him.
Oh, that's right, you did.
Jemma on the back is like, Huh? Mortimer! Watching his eyes shut right now. You're saying, not again? No, it's so annoying. I kept doing that to him. Oh, that's right, you did.
Jemma on the back is like,
Huh? I'm Mortimer!
Can I pick and pull and try to undo my binds?
Yes, you can. Okay.
So go ahead and roll an agility or finesse,
your choice.
With advantage.
Yes, because if you're picking pull.
Yes.
Okay.
19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, with fear.
With fear, okay.
So that does indeed succeed.
You manage to rip out of your bindings
and both of you are now unbound from the chair.
However, it's now my go.
So I'm going to go ahead and spend two of these action tokens to get a fear, and then
Mortimer, angrily, in his space, because he's a big guy and he's still close to both of you, is
going to go ahead and the mace is gone, but he still has his cane sorted aside. He's going to
reach out and grab it and pull the head of the cane off, like a katana. Samurai slash out, does an arc out towards you,
since you're the one who gashed him last time.
That's going to be 14 to hit?
Yeah, that hits. That hits you? Okay.
So with that, this cane hit is a beefy one.
He's very pissed.
That's going to be 17 points of physical damage.
Ew.
Okay.
Actually, I'm going to be using a fear off that one
to do Watch Him Fall as part of that.
So it's actually against everyone within very close range,
means it hits you both for that.
Aw.
Oh, you're so close.
17? Does it 14 hits you?
Four, four, four, no, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, so 17 points of physical damage
to both of you.
I will...
Wait, 17 minus eight drops it down to nine.
My major threshold is nine.
So that would still be a major?
It would still be major.
That's annoying.
All my armor to drop it down to minor.
Oh, at least you have armor to use. Okay, I'm going to use a lot of armor to drop it from 17 minor. Oh, at least you have armor to use.
Okay, I'm going to use a lot of armor
to drop it from 17 down. Go for it.
That's what it's there for. Do it.
Yeah, I'll use three as well
to drop it down to a minor.
Okay.
A minor or a minor?
A minor. Not a minor.
I'm using a minor.
Okay.
Love you, Eddie. A minor. Not a minor. I'm using a minor. Okay. That was his activation there.
And then in the back,
the, you have. From the back?
No, he's in the space there.
He can't move and he's holding up the area
to get to you guys.
So the rest of the group can't get to you right now
because he's filling the area where you're held.
But in the back, his sister was going to go ahead
and fire with her scepter.
So I'm going to activate her.
She's going to roll and attack you.
That's going to be a 12.
It hits.
That hits, okay.
You take, that's not a great roll,
nine points of magic damage.
Nine points.
Sorry, I meant to say this, the previous one.
I want to do Never Upstaged.
Can I do that with this previous damage,
since this is all one attack round?
Sure, yeah. Okay.
I will drop it down to one more hit point.
Spinning an armor.
Never upstage when you attack, or sorry,
when you mark one or more hit points from an attack,
you may mark a stress, which I will do,
to place a number of tokens on this card
equal to the number of hit points you marked.
On your next attack, you may increase your proficiency
by plus one for each token on this card,
then clear all tokens.
So could I give two tokens from that?
Correct. Since I did? Okay.
Great.
I will do that and prep that for later.
All right, and now you get struck with the scepter
for nine points of magic damage from Jemma,
his sister in the back.
Yes, sorry, I counted that.
You did? Great. Yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
All right, that finishes my go.
The two of you are still in the midst of this fray now.
He's locked to the ground
and he's blocking the walkway to where you guys are
and you can see the rest of his thugs
are starting to rush up to try and get to you.
What are you doing?
Do you want to get the fuck out of Dodge?
Yeah, we should run away.
Okay, here's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to grab Sweet Pea
and pull her in and be like,
Where are you hurting us?
And I'm going to try and do Recant on Mortimer.
So he has to roll a reaction roll of 15.
Okay.
And I spend a hope to do that.
That's a four, that's a failure.
So he forgets the last minute of our conversation.
Ooh.
Okay, okay.
That's awesome!
That's cool. Dang.
I'm going to be like, what?
Don't hurt us, that's so mean.
We were never here, bamf, and teleport us out.
Okay, okay.
Do you have to roll anything before it just happens?
He rolls the reaction roll.
That's so mean. That's awesome.
That's so mean.
So he's on the ground and goes like,
like, up his one eye and goes like,
what were we?
What the fuck?
Who were you?
And right as he's looking back at the thugs
starting to rush in their weapons out in the gym, I'm going to be like Who are you? And right as he's looking back at the thugs starting to rush in their weapons out
and you see Jemma be like,
are you okay?
You okay, brother?
Go ahead and roll to see if you can teleport.
I, oh yeah, I do have to roll.
Oh god! I do have to roll.
Oh no!
I can't help you.
This is it. This is it.
You can try and help if you can think of a way to help.
You a spellcaster?
I'm a spellcaster.
Do you have any hope to spend?
I have so much hope to spend!
This is what it's there for.
I want to help her with a hope.
How do you help her?
Because I'm going to use my copycat skill
and I'm going to also just follow her lead and be like,
why? We're just sweet!
I'm just a sweet little mushroom?
I was a sweet little mushroom. I was a sweet little mushroom!
I don't know if you can apply the copycat skill.
If you're just spending a hope to help,
she just gets the d6.
And I'm just going to spend a hope to help.
Yeah.
I mean, you can say you use your copycat for it,
but usually your experience is helping roles you make.
Oh, well then shit.
If you're just helping somebody,
you just spend a hope to help them with a d6.
I'm just narratively asking, how do you about with that?
It's all good.
Once again, still learning the system.
I help her.
I help her.
A bunny can feel
Sweet Pea's magical essence
and it helps enhance it.
I'm going to help use my shadowy abilities
and so it'll bamf us shadowy as we teleport.
There we go.
So you call the shadows in closer.
The magical energy that you're used to calling
from the shadows helps to aid this moment.
That was so many shakes to get a roll.
Yeah, that was a wild roll, but it does succeed.
I got a 12 and a one, but that is 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, plus three,
which brings it to 20.
And I needed to roll a 16.
That is a success.
I'm going for that.
With a hope. With a hope.
With a hope, so you get a hope.
All righty.
So as you both clasp each other,
whining towards Mortimer,
as he just adjusts to the weirdness around him,
reaches over and grabs for the mace,
scrapes on the stone.
The rest of the thugs rushing in,
you both vanish from the space.
Where are you teleporting to?
Yeah, I realize, too, it has modifiers,
depending on how well I know the place.
Mm-hmm.
Which is at 2 health.
Can we teleport to outside of the grate?
How far can you teleport?
I feel like that's where we would go, right?
Or maybe even, I know, but we would...
Up here.
Up to the casino?
If your first spot is outside of the grate?
I think it would be.
The timing of all this, we would still be in the sewer.
Not outside the grate,
but I want to be on that tunnel entrance that we came in,
like on the cliff face where we even entered.
Oh, the very beginning.
Yes, before we went underground.
We'll go there, I guess.
Great, okay.
So both of you appear now out in the night air.
Just within visual shot of Lullvale,
past the rope bridge that goes across the open ravine
and leading you to the exterior.
You now have a beautiful view of the city.
Lullvale.
Well, I didn't want to be out,
because we went down into the sewers,
we went through the sewers, and then there was the grate.
Right. So I wanted to go
to that entrance, which I don't think was that far outside.
That's why I said at the beginning of the last adventure,
I thought you meant that one was the city.
No, no, no, entrance to the sewer.
Entrance to the sewer, okay.
You reloaded too far!
Which, shit!
Later save.
Next stop.
Exactly.
I'm systematic.
Scum safe, scum safe, good.
So as the, standing here in the middle
of the alley side street of Lowell Vale,
you can hear the familiar sound of nearby music
and laughter as people are now going about their business,
and you both apparate.
Still holding her.
That went so well.
I feel like they did so good.
The sewer lid pushes aside,
right as Zarlo's the first figure to step up.
Look at that.
Oh, the fucking lot of you that are here,
they're right in front of me.
They found us already, ready for an attack. We are here, they're right in front of me. Oh god, they found us already!
Ready for an attack!
We're going to! No, shh!
No!
How did you?
We were just looking behind and you weren't there,
and then you just.
Was miraculous, and she got out of her ropes,
and she teleported us.
What ropes? Is she right ahead of us, or?
We were in, we were tied up.
We were tied up.
It was very dramatic and kind of romantic
in like a romance novel kind of way.
But he was moaning a lot.
Whoa!
Cool.
And Mortimer was really angry.
Oh.
And?
He's real mad you took his necklace.
Yeah, ooh, yeah.
So how did you get out of there, then? And is he coming to kill me?
Yes, but he might forget where we were
because everything that you said, he's gonna forget.
Above table, do you think you wiped out
the mention of the show?
Was that a minute before that?
I feel like-
Go ahead and roll a d20 for me.
Ooh. I'll say on a six plus, yes.
On a six plus, yes, it wiped.
It wiped memory.
It was right on memory.
Because that combat was pretty quick.
That was super cocked.
That landed on everything.
12!
Okay, all right.
Yeah, you just managed to wipe out the last smidge of memory
as you mentioned that bit of information.
Yeah, you know, we did find out
some good information, though, about who wanted
to have all this seed business
and spread it all over the world.
That's great, let's walk and talk.
Let's walk and talk.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We can walk and not go to the facility.
Do I need to get out of town so that I can live?
No, I'm sure it's fine.
Well, it's a crime, you know, it's a crime,
a family, so there's many of them.
Oh no, it's totally fine.
I totally, you know. Ooh, wait a minute.
Let me see.
Danger lurks everywhere.
Plus, we have a show to get to, right?
Yeah.
This is a big opportunity for me.
I can't miss it.
Maybe you get rid of the necklace.
Oh my gosh, wait, no!
Here, I'm going to switch this out. Can't, no! Here, I'm going to switch this out.
Can't do that, lass.
I'm going to switch this out.
Yeah, and I'm going to,
well, when we get to,
I can make it to where they won't find us.
Some casting stress?
If we just, you know,
tuck away for a few minutes.
Look, we got the informations.
What do you mean?
I just need a few minutes to focus.
It takes a lot of focus.
Should we do that now?
Sure.
I don't argue with mushrooms in general.
Let's get a couple blocks away
and try and do a left and a right and a left
to just get some distance?
Sure. Okay.
You step into a particularly pungent alleyway
that comes to an end with a few piles of garbage
and what looks to be somebody who either passed out
or hasn't woke up in a few days,
but you're pretty sure you feel under the radar
and have some time to prep what you're prepping.
Okay, everybody gather around me in a circle.
Are you touchable to me?
Yeah.
Okay, now everybody lick my head.
What? Lick the top of my head.
Lick the top of your head? Lick the top of my head.
It's how I cast my spells.
Just lick the top. I'm just going to shoot
my tongue out.
Just keep your tongue on there.
And as your tongues. We have to hold our tongue.
Yeah, you have to touch.
So we have to go circle around you, you say?
That's what I said, circle really close.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, touch your nose.
Just do it, just do it.
We have to keep our tongues on your head?
Keep your tongues on our head.
This is going to be clipped out so quick.
Get your fucking tongue out of your head.
As everybody's licking my head.
Yeah.
They're slowly, from their tongue down their body,
everybody's going to start transforming
and they're going to look not like themselves.
What do we look like?
What do we look like?
Is there a certain type of people
that is in Lil'Ville the most?
Oh, you know what we're going to look like?
We're going to look like a bunch of sexy ladies
that work at...
The Lily Locker Lounge?
Yeah. All righty.
Oh, this will be even better
when you back me up at the show.
We're all sexy as fuck.
All righty.
This is wild, you guys.
Five sexy ladies licking a mushroom.
Because it's fun, let's go around the table.
Oppy, what does your sexy form look like?
Oh, wow.
So still blue.
Mm-hmm.
The color of my skin tone didn't change,
but just the biggest titties you ever did see.
Yes.
And just perfect little hourglass shape. And just perfect little hourglass shape.
And I think-
You stand up and show.
I'm like, my body.
No.
Deal with yourself, yeah.
No.
What is happening?
Like a leather bustier.
Yes.
Long, dark hair.
Still blue skin, yellow eyes.
Gorgeous. So beautiful.
So hot.
And little bloomers.
Great. A little ruffly ones?
A little ruffly ones. Hell yeah.
And then thigh-high boots.
All right, Jarlow.
Oh, I thought I was waiting for Travis.
No, I'm holding him last.
He's saving the best for last for me, Ted.
I also get to be a sexy lady, though.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, I get to use it.
I'm a broad-shouldered dame,
but I'm in a zip-up, skin-tight, black...
That's a pleather, full-body outfit,
and I have black hair that's pulled up tight
into a ponytail that's swinging over the top
with very Dargoth makeup.
Yo!
Wow, Matrix.
Perfect.
All right, Zarlo.
Oh yeah, I'm ready.
I'm still a simia, but I'm a tall, lanky,
I look more like a tamarin now,
and I have a big poof of orange fur, and I have a matching fur coat with feathers poking out on all sides,
and there's very little under the coat.
Wonderful. Sweet Pea?
Oh, I also elongate, and my skin turns pink, and I turn into a fairy. I sprout wings, and I've got long,
beautiful hot pink hair, and my whole outfit is gemstones and dangly, shaky bits.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Awesome. Asunante?
I honestly just have to be classical.
So I'm going for whatever the turtle version of...
Thank you so much, you just made me
completely leave my run on that.
The turtle version of Dolly Parton
and Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.
Great! Yes!
Big blonde hair just doing the whole thing,
and then a peach negligee that just sits
where it's supposed to, and then just nice mid-calf boots.
Nice. And some gloves.
Mid-calf. Oh, mid-calf.
There's a guy standing on the side of the road,
I like turtles.
And bunny. Oh, honey, I know.
You know, so like, you know what, you gotta show,
how long does this last?
An hour.
But I can do it again and just keep it going.
No, this is great.
You know, it'll probably time out perfectly,
so we have this like transformation moment
that's gonna blow the crowd's mind.
So with that in mind, I kind of want to have like,
like a little like black flapper bob,
like very like Catherine Zeta-Jones-esque.
Nice.
And her fans turn into the big,
feathered showgirl fans.
And then, yeah, she's going to be wearing a slinky,
kind of going with the flapper vibe,
like a little fringe, tiny micro dress.
She's wearing a Bob Mackie.
She's having her Mackie moment.
Amazing.
Yeah.
The fuck is a Bob Mackie?
Fashion. People will know.
We'll do black glittery.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I have an addendum.
My new necklace looks amazing with my tits.
Oh, yeah.
Great.
See, my tongue's still be numb, by the way.
If it's normal.
Okay.
I don't know, I'm supposed to walk in these.
They look so good off you.
I don't even know how my feet are fitting in these.
Oh my god.
They're just like...
You're holding onto the outside of them.
Yeah.
Fucking all the shoes.
Yeah.
Oh my god.
All right, work it, girls.
I need fan art of this immediately.
Freshly transformed and confident
that you're likely not to be followed by any surface,
at least not by the family for particular reasons,
you begin to walk through the night air,
heading back towards the Lilylocket Lounge,
where in due time, within the next hour,
your time on stage will transpire.
As you step into the-
Why is everyone looking at us and whistling?
Because we're so hot!
Every time I walk, I'm going to shift,
so my boots go.
Oh yeah.
Stepping within the interior of the Lilylocket Lounge,
the atmosphere has become vibrant.
People are swarmed in to pass their tickets over
and be brought into the main chamber.
You can see this is an evening performance that many, many denizens of the town are excited to
arrive at. As you step within, you can see there are the various ushers and employees and some of
the dancers who aren't performing tonight helping bring people to their seats and take tickets, and you can see the matron
looking a bit nervously, asking around,
and says,
You're not being recognized at First Gate.
There's a little bit of a hubbub and a worry
of where the full lineup is.
Oh wait, who was the name of the doorman again?
What was his name? Shit.
I don't remember.
It's been a minute.
Hang on.
I'm going to go find the notes here.
I didn't know anything.
Wildcullens.
Dyson, Roach, Wildcullens.
Shit.
I have whatever.
I go up to, um...
Give him a nickname. Ogden Brooms?
Yeah, sure, that's him.
I go up to Ogden.
That's the assistant to the matron,
but you do see him present.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's the orc man.
Psst, Harkonnen.
It's me, it's Bunny.
I know, right?
Boa.
We found him.
And the matron turns.
Oh my goodness, look at you.
I have this one over here
that's a sweet pea to thank.
It's part of the act.
People are going to, it's going to blow their minds
because there's going to be a transformation moment
in the middle.
It's going to be incredible.
It's going to be like a quick change, but better.
I'm excited to see it.
I didn't know you were going about and wandering abroad to collect an
entire new troupe of performing girls. This is exquisite. I don't know if we have time to sign
them all up on the registry of our performers, but based on what we see tonight, perhaps there is
room here on the docket.
They're just going to jump on stage. They know exactly what to do.
We've been rehearsing.
It's going to be fantastic.
I wasn't expecting an ensemble piece.
Lafawna might be a little frustrated,
as her backup dancers are part of her ensemble as well,
an ensemble into an ensemble.
I'll talk to her and make sure
that everything goes smoothly.
Well, you know.
You know, people are going to innovate. Times are going to change. She's going to have to keep up, you know. You know, people are going to innovate.
Times are going to change.
She's going to have to keep up, you know?
Well, the green rooms should be cleared.
You can take your time to prepare.
We have only, and she pulls out a little pocket watch,
only about 40-ish minutes until the performance begins,
and you, a little over that time
before your troop is to get on stage.
So take the time to rest and be ready when you are.
Oh, yes, Samael, it's been a while,
and then she wanders off to go say hi to some other people
and begin doing the social butterfly thing
before the performance.
Do I need to point out that when you make
your miraculous transformation,
which I'm sure is going to be extraordinary,
the rest of us are also going to make
an extraordinary transformation
that will be a little less enticing.
Does it have to work that way?
Oh, I mean, we can, we can,
we can, I can up it, I can re-up it
when we go to the dressing room.
Just bunny?
And just make it.
Transforms?
Yeah, you can drop it if you want, I think.
Just make some promises you can't keep.
You can end an effect when you want.
Yeah, but I can end it on just you if I want.
No, I think this is great,
because here's my inspirations.
I'm thinking that we do a little dance routine
about our experience together.
So when we transform, it's us as an adventuring troupe.
Is this going to be, you know, I think this is good
because I think it's going to be, I'm all about.
I need to be on stage for the performance?
I mean, we are supposed to be doing something
other than performing while we're here.
This is fucking wild.
We were just running from fucking gangsters.
Yeah, there's the source of...
It's detectives, more or less.
Yeah.
The only thing is, Bunny,
if we all transform back into ourselves,
then they're going to know it's us again.
Yeah, you have a point.
Do you think there's any of that frog family here?
Can I look around and see if there's that? Wait, you can cast it again?
Yeah. Okay.
So part of the show, one of the dance moves is,
we got to lick your head.
Yeah, and then I just
lay up and do something else.
I just need a few minutes of silence to focus.
So just shut up in the middle of the act.
For a few minutes. And the lights go down.
Just a couple minutes of quiet,
contemplation.
Just a few minutes of licking my head.
It's your avant-garde. I will say, though,
unless we feel, by the way,
can we say as we walked in talk,
we filled, Sweet Pea and I filled everybody in
on the information that we got.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Good stuff you got. You know, unless we feel that we got. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, good stuff. Good stuff you got.
You know, unless we feel like we need more information,
then maybe my performance could be a good distraction.
We could also get the fuck out of Dodge
as soon as the show is over.
It's true, we should go down to the mines, right?
Do we need to?
Should we split seats?
I think we have to. Yeah to try to finish what we started.
This is good for a break.
That's what he said, there was a baron.
From Champion's Crown?
Crown?
Before we get to the stage, if you guys want to,
you can take a short rest to
put a little bit of downtime. As you have a little bit of time. Bottle service at the same time. you guys want to, you can take a short rest to a little bit of downtime.
As you have a little bit of time.
Bottle service at the same time.
Ooh, that sounds great.
Oh yeah, bottle service.
Definitely, for the lead performers of the night,
that can be arranged here at the Lilylock.
And then maybe we can mingle a bit.
Choose two options below.
So you could rearrange your loadout.
You can just figure out what's in your vault
and what's in your loadout,
your five cards max in your loadout.
And you can choose two of the options in them.
You can choose tend to wounds, clear stress, repair armor,
or you can gain two hope by preparing.
Oh man.
Okay, okay, okay.
All right.
I'm going to tend to my wounds.
I'm going to definitely tend to my wounds.
All right, so that's a d4 to heal.
Gets to do how many of these?
Two of them. Two, okay.
You can tend to somebody else's wounds, too,
if you don't need one else,
somebody who's particularly hurt.
Can you do one twice?
That's an odd question.
You may repeat the same action twice.
Oh, excellent.
Does anybody really fucking hurt?
I'm really fucking hurt.
Are you going to heal us before I heal myself?
Because I suck at it.
I'm pretty hurt.
I'm pretty hurt.
I am, I am. Well, I heal myself? Because I suck at it. Right, let me, yeah, I am.
Well, I'll only have two options.
One, actually.
I'm trying to find something.
Use your pencil.
Uh-huh.
Okay, well then I'm going to use this.
Can you heal us before the short rest?
I can heal you.
Oh.
Well. If you need it,
and I'm happy to.
I'm one, two, three, four, five hit points in.
Come here, darling, come here.
And I zhuzh the side of your frill, right?
And I think it just works.
It does once per long rest,
so this is mine for the day here, I'm doing it.
Use an action and touch a creature
to clear two hit points or two stress.
We'll clear the hit points because you're hurt.
Thank you. That's two.
Thank you. Then do for you for you.
Okay, then I'll still use mine and take another one off.
That's done for me. Okay.
And I'll, when you're,
say hello.
When you tend to wounds, you roll a d4?
It's 1d4? 1d4, yeah.
All right, all right.
And the only way to clear stress is through short rests,
or can you clear stress by spending a hope
and clearing a stress?
No. There's no other way.
You clear stress by either this downtime action
during the rest,
or if you roll a critical on any sort of action roll,
you gain a hope and clear a stress.
And certain abilities or spells in the game
that are on some domain cards
can also help you clear stress, like the heal spell that Sarla just used.
But those are, you also have a stamina potion.
If any of you have a stamina potion in your inventory,
the stamina potion can help you heal 1d4 stress as well.
Oh, cool.
I am, for myself, from a short rest of time,
both sending to wounds and repairing armor,
which I'm doing through my illusory fur coat
while we wait.
Oh, and the dogs are there still, too.
Twix and Twix?
Oh, fuck. Twix and Twix are in there
on either side of my boobies.
Let's have what you call them.
All right, I will.
I'm repairing my armor.
All righty.
Yes.
So yeah, you can clear 1d4 used slots.
I cleared a ton of stress.
One, two, three.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Oh.
Hmm.
And I will use some of my winnings from the casino
to get bottle service for the lot of us.
So we are swimming in, what do you think they have here?
Oh, anything you can imagine.
I can imagine a lot.
Then imagine something.
I'll have some fruit and rum drinks.
Ooh!
Yeah. Oh yeah.
Lots of little paper umbrellas.
Oh yeah, like a smattering of ones in the drinks
and on the side in case you want to pick and choose.
As well as some curly straws as part of it.
I want more drinks than I can drink, and I can drink a lot.
They bring you three trays that have the ice buckets in them for additional pre-mixed that you
can go ahead and pour into your cup. It's designed to probably wreck customers and often aren't
sent to the green room for performances, but you were very intent.
There's a bit of liquid courage for you, for the noise.
As time passes on, you all take this rest
until eventually the din of the audience falls to a hush
and one of the other dancers comes by and goes,
It's starting, get yourself ready.
Should I re-up our disguise?
Eden's up first. It's Eden, then you,
and then it's Mafana.
Look, you know, I am.
How long is Eden's act?
I'm going to say normally five minutes.
Okay. Do you all stay in or do you watch?
What? Look, you know, we do need to find out
some stuff about this wealthy baron.
So, you know, maybe I can just take
Sweepy and Kexin as my backup dancers.
And then the rest of you can do crown works.
That's great.
I think it's a brilliant idea.
I do, too.
That's, that's...
It doesn't have to be you, Kex too. That's, that's... I do, too.
It doesn't have to be you, Kex,
and it's really anyone who's feeling inspired.
Yeah, but I feel like, look how beautiful.
Does anybody have a really good presence?
I do.
You do have, oh.
I would be happy to be a backup dancer, if necessary.
Although, presence might be good
for talking to people, too. It would.
That's probably the most important.
Yes.
I'm at your disposal, as always.
Right before we go on,
while Eden's doing her number,
everybody's got to lick me.
I did this intentionally.
Don't think I don't know that.
It's the most you bullshit I can imagine.
So all of you quietly gather around Sweet Pea,
and for a few moments of silence,
all extend your tongues against the cap of the mushroom.
My disguised form also has a big hat on,
so they can just lick my hat.
Licking tap in the ass.
Yeah, a few moments into it, the door comes open.
All right, you're on deck!
Shh.
I need silence.
I'll mark a stress.
So you mark a stress, and all of you reclaim your performance forms for those who need it,
unless others are planning to take a different form.
Is everybody happy with the way they look?
I'm going to keep the same form.
I'm very happy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This is Grant.
All righty.
They look so good.
Who's the performance troupe?
I'm going to help.
I am good on silks.
Oh!
Bunny, we have Sweet Pea. Who else?
Okay, well, I'll take Zarlo.
Zarlo, okay.
He's athletic.
Do you want me working the crowd,
or do you want me on stage?
Well, if it's going that direction.
Well, I feel like you're, oh.
No, go ahead.
I was going to say, why don't you back me up?
Because two backup dancers is weird.
Three is just enough.
All right, then I'm ready for it.
How did I get here?
All right.
Well, Travis.
Good drawing of math.
11 or 12 years ago.
Oh.
Creston and Offee are crowd working.
So we're in the crowd, we're working the crowd.
We're supposed to be a boot maker.
All right.
We'll do a good job.
Because we feel like you've got this.
We've got a big crowd. We've got this.
Who this wealthy baron is.
I'll find this baron.
Yeah. Yeah.
I don't know what to do with my arms, so I'm just settling them on top of my tits.
Okay. Is this how you do it?
I think so.
That looks natural. Yeah, it does?
Yeah.
Turtle arms, I don't quite know.
You know what, no, I will get rid of this.
And you describe yourself as very boxy.
Very boxy. All right.
Very cruel.
So that's why I appear.
We're all the way up here for some reason.
It's the bustier.
It's the Ren Faire shelf.
It was the thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
All righty. I will, before we go on,
I will use...
I will use Telepathy
to open a line of mental communication
with Kexen in case shit hits the fan and we need to.
Spy shit.
You got it.
The two of you are mentally bound
and can converse telepathically.
Yes.
All right, so while the two of you
exit the chamber to head into the crowd space,
which, I mean, the seats are all sold,
so you'll be having to nestle in.
They're not individual seats, they're long benches.
They're really nice benches,
but people are sitting across them,
and there are three main sections of it
that spread out into the theater.
Is there a bar on the back?
There is a bar in the main entryway to the theater,
but nothing in the actual room.
Before we leave the dressing room, I'm going to cast,
I'm going to spend a hope to activate a Phantom Retreat.
Sure. Just in case.
In case you got to run, you got to.
All right, so you mark the space in the green room.
Little glyph appears on the ground and then fades
as it hides itself.
The troop, the four of, head to the backstage wings.
There's a centralized wing chamber
on each side of the stage.
As you step out, you can already hear the music playing
and this grinding sound that's like
As you four get to the side,
you can see the audience is cheering and clapping,
and Eden, this amazing Qatari dancer's latest performance,
is coming to a close.
You see her wearing this beautiful set of leather
and metallic armor on the shoulders,
incredible dark-looking makeup,
and has a metal pair of underwear on,
and has a mystical grinder,
is shooting sparks off the front,
into the front row of the audience
and showering everyone in the front
with just an arc of glowing metal embers.
Wow!
People are like, whoa!
They're catching them in the front row
and she's just laughing going,
Eden's a great warmup.
A great warmup.
But it's definitely going for being the memorable show of the night,
so it's already starting off strong.
What are we doing?
She is good.
That bitch.
All right.
She sucks.
What are we, how do we top that?
All right, so here's what we're going to do.
We're going to start off by being sensuals, right?
I'm going to use my Bigfeather fans.
We're going to be soft and girly.
Do whatever magic stuff you want to umph the whole thing.
Then I'm going to transform
and I'm going to go into my famous whip routine.
Okay.
Just go along with it. I trust you.
All right.
Zarnal just starts stretching
and one leg is up against his face, standing one-legged.
All right.
When we come on,
You're going to be amazing.
come and stand behind me, hide behind me.
Wait, we're doing the crowd work.
Oh, not you. It's all right.
You all line up behind me,
and then I'll peel off and reveal that you're behind me.
That's how we'll open, and then do something cool. So you're the're behind me. Okay. That's how we'll open,
and then do something cool. So you're the starter.
Yeah. And you'll introduce us
to the crowd, or reveal us, right?
Okay. Left, right.
Yes. The stage manager,
who's there off to the side,
she looks over and goes,
Bonnie, Bonnie, what's the name of your ensemble?
The Ménage à Trois.
Good name.
Goes over to the matron, who's off to the side waiting,
whispers in Matron Boa Adra's ear, she nods.
Good name.
As Eden finishes the performance,
the grinder comes to a close.
See the magical spinning metal rotary tool
goes and flips and goes into the side pocket,
almost like she's spinning a revolver into the side.
Gives a wink to the front row.
Everyone erupts into applause and cheers
as she gives a bow and then walks offstage
with a wink to the front.
A couple of shadow-dressed stagehands rush out
and pull her supplies and the table that she had off,
and begin to set up for the next performance
by changing the background
as the curtain comes to a close.
The matron, Adra, steps out.
Ah, one final round of applause for Eden
and her robust love of grinding.
For our
wondrous next act,
we have a longstanding performer of our
esteemed dancing populace.
Oh my god.
A majestic traveler who has only just recently returned,
our second returning dancer from abroad.
And at this point, you hear.
Like a, and you look off to the side
and you can see all, the four of you can glance over
and in a big pink
robe with a massive fluff boa around the edges, like a full on Dita Von T's long set of robe, you
see this mature, gorgeous fawn with this short blonde bob, these ears that curl up high,
these horns that curl outward,
and you see her holding half of a cheese sandwich
in one hand, and is just like,
Hello, bunny.
Oh my goodness, Mafana!
Oh my goodness!
It's an honor to be in your presence.
I hope you like what I have planned.
I look forward to all of you
wowing me and my performers.
Uh-huh.
And she walks offstage
as the matron walks back.
She's still fabulous.
Places, places.
Okay, so I line up and I bring out my...
I'm going to kind of, okay, so.
Currently, my fans are big, fluffy, pink fans.
Big, fluffy, pink ostrich feathers.
And my Bob Mackie situation is also pink.
And my black hair bob.
And then we're going to do, it's going to be a thing.
So I open the fans and I hit a pose
and I have them lined up, perfectly hidden behind me.
Doing the pose exactly like you?
Uh-huh. Okay.
All right.
That's you, too.
Like her.
Yep.
Flair.
I was in my mind palace, seeing it.
The white lights kick on as the curtain
slows open and the music swells in immediately.
What do you do, Bunny?
Yeah.
So you hear
a jazzy horn start to play,
and it's like,
.
I do not have jazzy horn on my stream deck,
so we're going to use our imagination, too.
It's this slow, sultry horn,
and Bunny, yeah, you need a little bit of a 10.
Then she peeks her face through the feathers.
Then as she does a jazz walk forward,
Bunny!
you see the other performers performers as you all,
you got to do left, then right, then left, then right.
Uh-huh.
And it starts off as this little sexy fan number, right?
That's very showgirl, very sultry.
Do any of us have fans, too, or we're just like...
Jazz hands?
You won't tell me.
If I may, after you kick things off,
Zarlo, using the plus four strength and look mano hands,
begins to almost somersault up a hanging silk
in the middle of the stage,
and is just hanging on by his tail
to allow his thighs to swing around
and take different poses and go upside down
so that you guys have more room down below to dance.
Great.
As you climb up the silk,
you glance up and see the rope
is mostly frayed halfway
and it's only hanging by two threads.
What do you do?
Have I been sabotaged?
It's Mopana!
Oh, jeez.
Em, Em, what do I do?
As you're spinning legs out, Akimbo.
Are there, is it the only rope?
You feel the rope go.
Or are there other ropes?
The Acme Jerk.
Yeah.
There are two other silks that aren't descended.
There's just the central silk at the moment.
The others don't have a cue yet to descend,
so they're just out of the actual stage framing,
but they're up.
All right.
Well, it's going to go, so I'm going to
swing forward and swing back and swing forward
and hope it holds long enough,
and then I will somersault off
and try to land in the splits.
Make an agility check for me, please.
Come on. In the splits. The an agility check for me, please. Come on.
The definition of death drop.
Yes!
I know what that is.
Yay!
All right, all right.
So it's just the d12s plus agility.
Is there anything else I can give myself
that I'm forgetting?
If you don't have an experience
that you think will pertain, then no.
Well, does Luckmaw No Hands,
dismounting from a rope, help?
Well, Luckmaw, in this instance.
I know!
There we go, it's happening.
It is a 16 with fear.
16 with fear, all right.
And I'm very afraid.
You pull back, and as you leap off, it detaches,
but as you begin to, it detaches,
but the momentum you pull puts you outward, and your tail catches the silk above you.
As you dangle, the whole audience
gives a giant collective gasp,
and then there's some light clapping down below.
Split open my thighs and then hold the dogs.
You're all right.
You're all right. She has her dogs.
She's got puppies, too!
And dogs. Oh, these dogs.
Yeah.
Uh-uh. All right.
So the silk fell onto the stage.
Swoosh, into the middle,
and there was a gasp, and then everyone's like,
oh, it's part of the show.
Left and right. Yeah.
Where you both grab one side of the silk.
Grab the silk and run to the other
and do a flowy thing.
And are starting to do a thing together with them.
All right, as you both go skittering off to the side,
you realize too late that there is a small oil slick
on the edge of the stage.
Guys, what the fuck? Oh my god.
100% that bitch.
Yes.
Oil slick?
Is it oil?
Yeah.
Mario Kart shit next to it.
Yep, yep.
It's Atari 2600.
Some sort of a viscous fluid that's clear
is on the wood stage, and the light just catches it
as you're scooting towards it.
Oh no!
So I need you to make either an agility
or a finesse roll.
Okay.
Your choice.
I will do a finesse roll.
And I'm going to use one of my seaborne abilities
and I'm going to add a fear thing
that I got to add a extra thing to that.
Okay. A plus one.
Oh, oh, that's a crit!
Ha ha ha! Yes!
Double nines, baby! Hell yeah.
You rolled with fear earlier, right?
Yes, yes.
So I get to add a hope and lose distress?
I just did so well.
Yeah.
That's slick.
So as it comes towards you, you kind of,
describe how you avoid this slippery part of the stage.
I don't avoid it, I go with it.
Yes.
And having watched the splits up above,
I drop into a death drop and...
So as you hit, you slide. I slide in.
It sends you towards the front
and the lip end of the stage,
and you actually go off the front of the stage,
but you're holding one end of the silk,
which Srdante's holding the other,
and what first is a scare if you've got to slide off,
instead, you get spun around
across and over the front row
as Ferdante swings you.
Yep.
You're in the front row.
All you see is just a collection of barely-lit faces going,
as you scoot by and then back onto the stage,
you catch her and both spin around
and get back to your feet.
Oh, I really want to be at this burlesque show.
Yes.
Seeing this, because I'm in tune with my performers,
we're all in the same wavelength.
Seeing this as Sweet Pea flies out,
I do a big flying jeté leap
as I leap over the ribbon
and Sweet Pea,
and then land on the other side,
working in sync with everybody.
Fantastic. Go ahead and make an agility roll for me.
All right, I can do that.
This is great.
You got it.
I got all this.
Oh my god! Mysterious donut drop.
Whoa.
That is dangerous.
It's a trap. I love you!
Why, why, why come?
La la la, no need, oh my.
Can I use my leap ability?
I can easily leap up to close range
across gaps or chasms without making an agility roll?
Yeah, then yeah, do you want to make a roll then?
Yeah, I don't make a roll because I'm a bunny
and I do a little, I'm a faun that looks like a bunny.
A faun. A faun-fawnee.
Or a pawnee. A pawnee. A faun-fawnee. A faun-fawnee. A faun-fawnee.
Yep, not even have to roll, just make the leap,
land amazing pose.
It feels, most like the jazzy intro,
a lot of this performance feels very avant-garde
and improvised, but then the moments of slickness,
the audience goes, oh no,
this is all deeply rehearsed to look improvised,
which is an incredible skill.
Fully rehearsed. Totally.
Oppy, what are you contributing to this performance?
Oh, I'm not in it.
Oh, no, sorry.
I'm out in the crowd. That's right.
Then you finish it.
Actually, each of you has gone and done some bit of this.
So Jante, you made an assist to the Sweet Pea.
What's your personal?
I'm now attempting to take the silk
and use it as sort of,
since you've finished up your flare move,
I'm then pulling it in and are you?
I'll spin out as you pull in.
And then I'm doing just some wonderful ribbon work with it
and just moving and sort of accentuating
everything the bunny's doing in the back,
just moving it like a wonderful.
You're putting it like between your legs?
Yeah, okay, so I'm wrapping it for you.
You have a floss?
I have a floss.
Okay.
I'll say go ahead and make a presence roll for me
to pull off the maneuver with this silk in a way
that both draws in the group's maneuvers as a whole
and feels like it's a cohesive unit
as opposed to you just showboating with this piece.
Yeah, of course.
I was going to say, because I would use,
I have a skill for this,
but an experience for this, but it might be too much.
Floshing.
Which is Haughty and a Half-Shell.
Oh, Haughty and a Half-Shell
would definitely contribute to this.
Yeah.
This is what you're made for, bro.
That's so true.
So spend a hope, and you can add
your proficiency bonus to this.
All right.
Spend a hope, and you experience bonus.
Sorry, yeah.
All right, this always makes me nervous.
That's, other than fear, it's pretty good.
That's a 25 with fear.
25 with fear, okay.
So you manage to pull off this fantastic display
with the silk, almost wrapping it around you
like a boa constrictor.
It almost seems to have a flare of its own.
And as you tether it around each of your friends
on stage with you, it almost seems to work
like a needle and thread,
tying all of their individual little perfunctory performances
into one solid, odd, but enticing piece.
As you come around the other side
and as your dance begins to come to a crescendo,
you hear this dozens, dozens,
maybe hundreds of tiny little clacks.
And this saint buzzing sound as you're all maneuvering
and you see a whole cluster of ball bearings
just pour onto stage from underneath the back curtain.
I need all of you to make a group action
agility roll to avoid this.
So who wants to be the leader of this action?
Can I ask a question?
Hmm?
Oh, no.
I can take a fear if I want to.
This action here is resulting from the fear roll.
But thank you.
Is there any kind of shadow on stage?
Any kind of shadow? Uh-huh.
I mean, there's the shadows you cast,
but the bright lights on you,
primarily outside of anything that you cast,
there's nothing behind you, nothing around you.
But there are shadows.
There are shadows.
And technically, a bunch of really tiny ones.
Is it possible to, as I see that start to happen,
to spin around and hit the shadow of Bunny
and disappear into the shadow?
Yeah, I don't have that.
Okay, I'm going to try to integrate it into the show.
I'll disappear into Bunny's shadow,
and then I'm going to reappear under a table
in front of the stage.
Okay.
So you go behind her,
right as all these ball bearings scoot out,
roll behind, and then just disappear from view.
It's almost like you just wiped camera and then vanished.
It was like, and then you pull out.
There's no table, but there are the long benches.
Oh, great. And you peer
underneath one of the front row long benches,
and the people sitting there go,
What?
Get up and stand on the bench and make a show.
In case anybody trips and falls,
I'll try to distract from that.
Simultaneously, Zarlo's tamarin form,
which is upside down, it has been for most of this time,
seems to almost plummet down the length of this silt,
but then stops short, held by tail and legs,
and I reach out my hands and I grab Bonnie's hands
and pull up with the tail just a few inches
so that she can flex, floating in midair, holding her there, reach out my hands and I grab Bonnie's hands and pull up with a tail just a few inches
so that she can flex floating in midair,
holding her there, and we start to twirl,
spinning in a circle. Great.
So the only person who is left to make a roll is you.
I was going to say, unless, of course,
you allow me to do a complex dance move
where I go and backspin on my shell.
On your shell, on ball bearings!
Let the ball bearings pass.
Oh god.
I'll allow that be the flavor
for the agility roll. The flavor of the agility roll.
You have to avoid it because this is
from the fear that you rolled.
Yes, of course.
Go ahead and roll, and if you succeed in this,
then indeed, you are able to do just that.
Yay!
Oh my god.
13 with hope.
13 with hope.
You, so you do manage to slide on them with your shell.
The momentum that you carry makes it challenging
to control the direction you go
once your shell hits the momentum.
So you do full-on
and you just go careening and spinning
like in an arc around the stage.
Roll a d20 for me.
Waddley, that's hockey puck.
Yeah.
God, look at that woman and her cams!
Eight.
Eight.
You go offstage, beyond the curtain and out of view,
and while you are all striking a finale pose
as the music crescendos, you hear
.
SAM and LAURA, SAM and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA,
SAM and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA,
SAM and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA,
SAM and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA,
SAM and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA,
SAM and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA,
SAM and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA,
SAM and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA,
SAM and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA,
SAM and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, SAM and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, SAM and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, SAM and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, SAM and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, and LAURA, It's all fine. It's all fine. It's all fine. Is the audience here? Does the jazzy music cover it up?
Kind of. I end with a big enrapture moment,
and that's when you see the pink slowly dissolve
to black, to my black, leathery dominatrixy outfit
as I'm using enrapture and my magic to hopefully distract.
Okay, so when you cast Enrapture,
it's a reaction roll or are you rolling against the targets?
I roll against the targets.
Okay, I'll say go ahead and make a roll
against the audience as a collective entity.
Okay, it's a spell cast roll.
Plus four for my presence.
Okay, 13. 13, now the audience. Plus four. Come on. For my presence. Okay.
13. 13, now the audience. With hope.
With hope.
The audience has already been pretty enthralled by this.
I'd say you managed to keep a lot of them enraptured.
What could have been a majestic ending
is now a very good one.
You mitigated some of it.
I'm so disappointed.
I know, it's so good.
But the audience still cheers, there's still claps.
The finale is glorious and well-appreciated.
Everyone starts really getting into the energy
and vibe of this.
A number of people give small standing ovations
off to the side.
Immediately, the stagehands rush off
and start setting up for the next performance
as the curtains come to a close.
In the interim, the two of you.
Yes. All of us.
What have you been up to?
All right, I'm going to grab a tray before leaving,
before we left out of the backstage.
From all the drinks I have here for you.
So I'm just going to walk around left out of the backstage. From all the drinks I have here for you.
So I'm just going to walk around
and pretend I'm a waiter here at this fine establishment
and try to just listen in
and see if I can find anybody that looks like a
rich baron.
Okay. Or just listen in.
Yeah.
Go ahead and make an instinct roll for me, if you don't mind. Okay. Or just listen in. Yeah. Go ahead and make an instinct roll for me, if you don't mind.
Okay.
I'll make an instinct roll.
Okay.
So we've got...
19 with hope. 19 with hope.
19 with hope. Yeah!
So you take a hope.
Okay.
I mean, listening in and keeping an eye out,
there's a lot of people that are dressed very well here.
There could be a number of people that are maybe barons.
You haven't really met any barons in your time.
You don't really know what a baron would look like
other than probably a rich person.
A few of these look like they're
fairly wealthy and well-dressed.
But based on what you had heard
from Sweet Pea and Bunny earlier,
the only conversation that really catches your attention,
though it does indeed catch your attention,
are a couple of individuals
complaining about how the closure
of the Gulch Bottom Mine
has stifled business frustratingly how the closure of the Gulchbottom Mine
has stifled business frustratingly,
and they can't seem to clear out the mine.
You hear one person be like, off to the side,
It's getting extremely difficult
to keep our partners at bay.
We tell them that we're just taking stock of what we have
and are dealing with a weather incident,
but it's just not safe to go in there.
And the individual goes, I understand,
but nevertheless, we have to ensure
that we get things rolling soon
or we're going to find ourselves in bankruptcy.
That's what you pick up on a passing conversation.
Okay.
What are you up to?
Miss Kexin?
I'm not as subtle.
You said they're benches, right?
It's not individual chairs?
Correct.
Like two to three people to a bench, usually.
So I'm just picking a random bro and
just walking through the room,
excuse, excuse,
excuse.
Just trying to pick up conversation as I move.
And then also going,
Champions Crown?
Champions Crown!
Oh!
Oh!
Mm!
Just moving, trying to be as much of an obstacle
in the crowd as I can be as I walk.
Saying buzzwords.
Seeing who picks up on it.
Seeing who turns their heads.
Yeah.
Okay, go ahead and make an instinct roll first
to pick up any wayward conversation.
That's a 15 with hope.
15 with hope, okay. Go ahead and take a hope.
Listening around and saying what you're saying,
you do catch up someone muttering nearby as you bump into them, what you're saying, you do catch up someone muttering nearby
as you bump into them.
You're like,
why is she talking about Champion's Crown?
Obviously, it looks like she's not even from there.
Good, good, good.
Yeah, that's what I need.
That's exactly what I need.
I start looking for Opie.
Opie.
Moo!
I'll try and find Appi near the back.
Okay.
All right, you got anything?
No!
Oh, you're doing a whole voice.
Are you not doing a voice?
No, I was just doing this.
Oh, that makes sense. But you're really
committing to the bit.
No, and I was just...
Aren't you a voice as well?
Did you find out anything?
No!
Well, yes, I did.
Yes, I did. I did.
There were some of these gentlemen over here to the side.
We're talking about getting into these big eaves.
Hey!
They were saying that it's really hard
to work in the mines, that they can't go down there
because, you know, the seep.
Yeah, what was the name of the mine?
It was the Gulch Mine.
The Gulch Bottom Mine?
Yeah. Oh, good.
That was the one.
That was the one that we're talking about.
We should go tell the others.
Well, they're in the middle of a show.
Is it going on or is it finished?
This is happening while they're performing,
and you're wandering around listening to the second part.
How good are they?
They are so good.
We're not watching you, liar.
No, sorry.
Excuse, excuse, excuse.
In listening back in to those individuals
that we're talking about, the mine,
as the performance comes to a close,
you also pick up one of them referring to,
well, I'll check in with Foreman Clive.
We'll see if the professor has what he needs
and perhaps can notify us
of how soon we can get back in there.
And the professor?
Yeah.
That sounds like a show from the 70s.
Foreman Clive and the Professor.
Probably grew up watching that on Nick at Night.
It's my prog rock band.
Yeah.
I just got a name.
Foreman Clive.
Great. And the professor.
Good deal.
Do you want to go sit with them and talk?
You know, do a little flirting?
Is that their names?
I don't know.
Yeah, let's go over.
Where are they? Point them out.
Follow me. Okay.
I don't know, I'm doing the walk
where instead of opposite arms with legs,
it's the same.
In my thigh boots.
In your thigh boots.
It's amazing. It's so hard walking!
I've decided I also have a cat of nine tails for no reason.
All right, now that you approached them directly,
as opposed to just overheating,
you can see one of them is a squat-looking dwarf gentleman
with this massive handlebar mustache
that curls almost back to his ears.
His hair parted in the middle.
It looks like a more muscular Pringles guy.
He is.
Sitting down with his little button-up vest
and overcoat with his chain on it.
Just your feet.
And to the right, you see this scrawny, older elf humanoid with a bit of a razor-thin gray
goatee, almost like a John Waters. Just couldn't stop and went around the entire front. His hair
is quaffed back into almost a lazy Wolverine flare.
It comes up on the sides.
He's got small little spectacles at the end of his nose.
He's dressed in a golden green suit,
and they're both sitting next to each other.
Good evening, gentlemen.
Oh, well, I'm coming.
I'll put two napkins down.
What can I get you to drink?
Usually they come with drink,
but the napkins is very, a lot of forethought.
I appreciate that.
Yes, it's just, some people are messy,
and you look like you would be messy.
Mm, excuse.
It's bold, I don't get that very often.
I appreciate that.
I like a bold woman. What would you like?
The bold woman, I take the Cat of Nine Tails
and I go.
Ow!
Oh!
Excuse.
And if I might ask, darling, what's your name?
Tartar.
Tartar? Tartar. Tartar? Tartar. Tartar.
Tintin. Tartar.
Tartar. Well, are you busy this evening?
Oh, excuse.
Right.
That could be arranged.
If, you know,
if you would like to also have a private moment with Tartar.
Is this good news?
Mm, excuse.
I don't recognize that accent.
Where are you from, Tartar?
Do you hit him again?
No.
Excuse?
He gives an elbow nudge to his compatriot.
I don't normally come this feisty
in the middle of a public space.
And his companion, the help, is like,
Well, this is making me a bit uncomfortable.
I panic grab one of the drinks.
I just chug it.
Excuse! And I leave to go refill the drink while Poppy handles this. Two whiskeys for me and my compatriot, and he hands a little paper over.
Let us know where my friend can find Tatar when the show is over.
Oh yes, I will absolutely let you know.
Of course.
What were your names, by the way?
Just, what were your names?
They both look a little...
Careful. Make a presence roll for me.
Okay.
Oh, you get advantage with presence rolls.
Oh, never to shrug off scrutiny, never mind.
Okay. Kind of scrutiny. If it ever gets to shrug off scrutiny. Never mind. Okay.
Oh, kind of scrutiny.
If it ever gets to that point, we'll get there.
Ooh!
Okay. That was annoying to see.
We've got...
That's where this goes.
That was amazing.
19 again with hope.
Great, take a hope.
I'm Thomas, and my compatriot.
Oh, I'm Uriyon, darling.
The dwarf's meaty hand that's barely fitting
through his sleeve grabs yours
and pulls it in for a kiss.
The hand is just so wet and slimy.
Is Urio Mr. Prungle?
Is he the one who has the Mr. Prungle?
Oh yeah, the big old Mr. Prungle mustache.
Thomas and Mr. Pringle mustache?
Thomas and Mr. Pringle.
Thomas and Uriah.
Uriah.
Uriah.
Uriah.
The irony of having a hat that couldn't fit into one of those cameras.
Uriah.
Uriah.
With an N.
You know what?
He pulls back and his mustache is already immediately frothy.
Ew. immediately just frothy. Ew!
Ew.
That's from you. Let me... I know.
Anyway.
I will get back to you about some alone time
with Tata and two whiskeys, correct?
Oh.
Indeed, indubitably.
We'll be back.
I apologize, my friend.
Oh, no need for apologies.
Enjoy the show.
In the meantime, as you all step off stage,
the matron, Audra, is like,
that was fantastic, well done.
Please do stick around for the final curtain call.
As she steps out, and for the final performance.
Wait!
She's already stepped out onto the stage,
and you see.
I levitate her.
I cast Levitate on her.
On?
I don't want her to break an ankle on the ball bearings.
Oh, they've all been cleared by the stagehands between.
Oh, well then fuck it, she's on her own.
Okay.
As it's closed, the stagehands rush out,
they clean everything, they bring out
and wheel out this massive curved set of stairs
that leads up 15 feet.
And there's a fountain thing
that's set towards the base of it
that's like a pool of water
that sprays water out
around it. They also put all these amazing silks up as well. They bring down the other two silks
that weren't part of your performance. They come around the sides, and you can see the stagehands
that set it all up rush off and take off their stagehand clothes. Now they're all in these
dancer's garb as Mifana steps out, takes off her robe, and is wearing this incredible leather bustier
with hooked horns that come up the front.
She has this long, tattered robe
of weird chiffon-type material
that flows as she walks,
as she gets behind the stage and prepared.
You all get to watch from the side
as the matron addresses,
and please enjoy for the night back here
after a long time abroad,
and hopefully for a residency for some time to come.
The world-renowned performer, Mofana.
She steps offstage.
The audience cheers for a bit and gets quiet. Curtains open. Lights kick on,
and this mystical music begins to play around the chamber, like a massive brass band out of
nowhere begins to blast the front row as she immediately goes into an amazing routine. Her five
backup dancers spreading around and all throwing left and right
various performing pieces.
The choreography is stunning already at the base.
Is she up the stairs or is she?
She's not up the stairs yet.
They're just performing around the stage.
Okay.
For some reason, I'm suddenly suspicious.
I want to keep an eye to see
if anything looks dangerous on stage.
Suddenly suspicious?
Well, I'm curious. I'm going to be keeping an eye to see if anything looks dangerous on stage. Something like suspicious? Well, I'm curious.
I'm going to be keeping an eye out.
I just want to see if anything looks like
it also has a little sabotage, just in case.
Oh, like it wasn't her?
If it wasn't her, yeah.
Make a present, oh sorry, an instinct roll for me, please.
Instinct roll, yes.
That's 18 with fear.
18 with fear.
The intensity of looking around the stage
as you're glancing forward,
you get near the curtain to try and inspect.
As one of the dancers swings wide
and gives you a stare, as you do,
you recoil immediately, almost getting caught by it.
You do take a stress from the passing by this performance,
but you do feel pretty confident.
The areas where they were placed,
where the slick was, they've already been cleaned up
by the same stagehands that changed into her backup dancers.
And you feel pretty confident that most of the things
that are said on the stage don't have
any immediate signs of damage.
Interesting.
The staircase that got wheeled out, is it hollow or was it solid?
I mean, it was only moved by two people, so it seems like it's likely hollow, but structurally
sound enough to take a singular faun to its top for a finale.
Okay.
You watch as the two silks, not get picked up by two of the dancers,
begin doing a trading silk,
almost like a trapeze on the silk scenario,
where they both use momentum to spin and twirl
and they come around and then switch sides
and then carry off into another bit of momentum,
their legs wide.
She's singing and throwing magical confetti into the air
as she does so.
She strolls out and leaps off the front of the stage and throwing magical confetti into the air as she does so. She strolls out and
leaps off the front of the stage and goes through the front of the audience as it does the other
dancers come on stage into a five-point performance array as they go left to right. Then
eventually they curl around. One of them pulls the cloth off the top of the water. She then
cartwheels back up onto the stage and lands on her feet, still singing, doesn't even miss a beat.
The other backup dancers begin to fan out
and you watch as they pull out their own fans
and Mafana, within her robe, pulls out
two beautiful gilded fans that immediately
burst into flames at the silence.
She begins to fire flame dance as she sings,
this amazing fire dance with them.
I could do that.
I know, I could do that.
There's a permit issue with that, I'm pretty sure.
I know, I know, I know.
I don't want to be a fire hazard.
The audience is enraptured.
As it eventually builds to this incredible,
musical, energetic crescendo,
the dancers all spread off into different rows,
and one by one, they bow as she continues singing,
as she takes off the armor and the bustier she had,
which comes down to this beautiful, silk, sparkly slip
that drags long behind her.
It tumbles out from underneath and goes into a train
that wasn't there for most of the dance.
Now she steps up the stairs.
I am going to Shadow Step,
and I'm going to bamf out underneath the steps.
Okay.
You appear within the hollow steps.
She's like up inside.
It's pretty tight, but you're there.
And you can hear that.
As I hear her get higher and higher,
I'm just going to hit the side of the step.
Make a strength roll for me. higher and higher, I'm just going to hit the side of the staff.
Make a strength roll for me.
I'm going to use this. I'm going to add my last fear additional thing.
I've got nothing to add to this.
So it's just going to be that and this.
Laura Bailey, the warfarin that you are.
Okay. 13 with fear.
13 with fear, okay.
So. I just need a little
jostle. You jostle it,
and you hear her, as she's in the process of singing,
she's like,
And you won't ever know the hap-
You hear the whole audience in a heavy gasp as you, all of a sudden, the intensity of not knowing if you just killed her or not hits you.
I'm not a fan of retreat.
You take a stress.
Okay, I take another stress.
Yes, you do.
Oh, Jesus.
That's too stressful now.
I'm going to spend a hope.
And you gain a hope from that roll. I'm going to spend a hope. And you gain a hope from that roll.
I'm going to spend a hope.
The music stops.
And I'm going to instantly phantom retreat
back to the green room.
All right, you appear back at the green room.
The rest of you just watched as Sweet Pea vanished,
and a moment later, the staircase shifts.
Mephanna just ass over tea kettle.
The dress becomes just a Sonic the Hedgehog
spin ball of silk as she twirls down, hits the ground,
skids out a bit, full-on spread eagle on the side,
dazed, a little blood trickling down her head,
and the backup dancers go,
Ta-da!
There's a couple of claps.
Is she moving?
She gets back up and is like,
and gives a big bow.
And she does the bow.
I'll go,
Mm, more fun, huh?
And I'll cast Timelock as she's bent over.
As being an inanimate object, what do you cast on?
Oh, it has to be an inanimate object. Never mind, I on? Oh, it has to be an inanimate object.
Never mind, I won't do it.
The bustier, the bustier.
The bustier, the bustier.
The Horden bustier.
Sure.
Well, she took off the Horden bustier.
Aww, man.
But she has bracelets on, she has,
I will say, because she's a little disheveled,
you do see the wig line.
Yes!
The wig line, that's good. Even line. Yes! The wig line is good.
Even better.
She goes into a bow.
Way worse.
And stays there. She can't come up with a bow?
That's hilarious.
Why is she not getting up?
What is going on?
Help me! Help me!
Help me!
She's shouting out, the backup dancers that come over
and they all try and lift her up.
The audience is getting up and looking strange over there.
Now, it's them trying to roll against your...
If they make a move against it,
they have to make a spell cast roll against them
to retain the spell.
All right, so make a spell cast roll for me.
We're going to try and pull her free.
Oh, that's not very good.
Nine with hope.
No, they rolled a 12.
So you do, poof, pull her free.
The wig comes up and is off kilter now at this point.
She goes and huffs offstage rapidly,
and right as she gets to the edge,
a hand stops her,
as it's the matron, Audra, who goes,
Quite the performance, dear.
Time for curtain call.
Performers, please, to the stage.
You watch as Eden steps out,
the rest of the backup dancers gather around.
Do you all join as well?
Yes.
The whole company, right?
Yeah. Why sweet pea?
Oh! Do you all join as well? Yes. Whole company, right? Yeah. Why sweet pea? Why?
Oh.
Should I come back? No.
I already saw you, right?
Wait, didn't you go back to the green room?
I went to the green room.
Can I just come join?
No, no, no.
Sure, I'll wander out
and see that curtain call's happening.
Okay, so as everyone scoots out there,
it's like all the performance,
the two performance troops in Eden all gather,
and then a moment later,
this little slightly lagging figure arrives.
Thank you all so much for coming
to this quite memorable and unexpected display
of Proud Falls and Follies
mixed with some fantastic,
worldly, experimental dance routines.
The athleticism on display tonight has been quite
unforeseen.
Anyway, please, Eden, our fantastic grinding Qatari,
as she gives a big bow,
the audience cheers and claps.
To Bunny and the Ménage a Trois,
audience loudly claps and cheers.
And our main performance is from abroad,
Mafana!
And Mafana gets the wig right, looks out,
and the audience is cheering a little bit.
You see people are starting to get up a little bit
and grumble.
They cheered for me more.
They cheered for me more.
You see the matron walks offstage.
Thank you all so much for coming.
Good night.
As she steps off and-
I cast a block on Mufana's foot.
Do you?
Do it!
On her shoe?
On her shoe? No.
She goes,
I get off the stage!
She looks back.
Does she see you? Oh no.
Well, she sees you moving something
behind your head.
I am done with this!
Looks at her backup dancers.
Get them!
And you watch the backup dancers all kind of,
all right, and then begin to encircle around her.
And the audience that was about to leave,
all of a sudden turned back
and began to get back to their seat.
As the matron from offstage goes,
what's going on?
And now you just have.
You just started a fight.
A fight, oh my god.
Sexy fight!
The four of them.
And the five backup dancers and Nirvana
now squaring off here in center stage.
Oh!
That's so cool!
Oh yes! This is the best, Emma!
I didn't dare to hope, and it's true!
Oh my god!
This is so cool!
What the hell, Fjord?
Oh my gosh.
He's ready for anything, at any time.
Look at the eyes!
You knew we were going to be
I knew there was a chance
you guys were going to be little shits.
Oh my god.
Oh my god.
Do I smile, literally?
And so we'll come back after break and see how this unfolds.
Oh my god.
Oh no, let me take my earrings off!
See you in a few minutes.
Why, hello there.
This is Critical Role's resident art dad, also known as Liam O'Brien.
We are continuously amazed at the artwork this community creates.
That's why each Thursday at 8 a.m. Pacific, we share a curated gallery of submitted fan art over on CritRole.com.
If you'd like to submit your art for consideration, visit CritRole.com slash submit. And thank you to all of the incredible artists
who share their talents with us week after week.
And welcome back.
All right, so as we left off here,
as we have the stage performance here
with the audience before us,
over here we have,
still in their general forms,
we have Kekin slash Tata
and Oppi over here in their shows.
I'm using this fern mini to represent Mafana
because it seems fitting.
This is her backup dance troupe over here
after taking a bow.
The rest of you are scattered here in this bit.
But in this aggressive point where the audience has stopped and looked forward,
I'm going to use one fear to get two action tokens,
and I'm going to spend those two action tokens
and that fear to have Mafahn be like,
Catch them, please!
And point over.
And the backup dancers are going to
use Choreographed Ensemble.
So they get to choose a target and activate all of them
within a close range of you,
which I think is all of them.
How fucking serious do these dancers look
as a physical threat?
Have you ever met a dancer? You'll find out in a minute, sir.
We're fucked.
Oh, they all charge you, Bunny?
They all move in on Bunny.
Very powerful legs.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. They all move in on Bunny. Very powerful legs. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
They make one shared attack roll.
One shared attack roll. That is going to be a 14.
Does that beat your evasion?
Yeah. All right.
So on a success, they deal six physical damage each.
That's five of them together,
so you take 30 points of physical damage.
Whoa!
What?
Okay, wait, it's 30?
Yeah, they all rush towards you
and do a giant spinning maneuver,
like a wonderful ensemble piece,
and as they do, you get pummeled as they turn.
From all sides.
As they all come to a landing flourish,
you fall to your knees,
feeling this whirlwind of impacts
that immediately bloodies your face.
Yep, fantastic.
Fucking here for it.
It's great, let's fucking go.
I'm going to take two armor
to drop it down to just major damage.
All right.
Boom, boom.
Because my severe, and then also, okay.
When you manage to place an armor token on the counter,
next thing you make your super-danger move,
put it on the card and then clear all tokens.
You have any token or any other token
when you take a long clear without much stress.
Okay, so it's the next attack,
which I don't think I've done an attack since I did.
Anyway, whatever.
I take two hit points.
You do. Yeah.
All righty.
Who wants to go?
I!
Ooh, wait.
Are there any shadows next to me?
I mean, the curtains cast shadows.
Behind here cast shadows.
I'm going to run over to the shadow next to me
and behind that curtain.
All right.
And I bamf out.
And I'm going to bamf out behind Mifana
and move forward.
Shoo, shunk.
Over here? Yeah.
I'm marking a stress. I'm almost out of my stress.
All righty. Shunk, shunk.
Move forward.
And I'm going to, I'm coming from hidden,
because when you come out of the shadow, you're hidden.
Correct.
So I successfully position myself.
Oh god, another stress.
Jeez Louise.
You're fast.
It's fine.
Vroom, vroom.
I'm going to put her in a chokehold!
Okay. I'm going to use my staff
and put it over and pull her into me.
All righty, so go ahead and roll for that chokehold.
Do I have to roll for it?
What's it say?
You can use an action to mark a stress
and pull them into a chokehold.
Oh, so you just pull them into it immediately.
I just do it. You do it.
And now she's vulnerable.
All righty, so as she's pointing at the troop,
grinning at the beatdown that she watched Bunny get,
out of nowhere, emerging from the shadows,
the tiny little sneaky mushroom.
Except I'm not a sneaky mushroom,
I'm a sexy pink fairy.
That's right.
Sneaky little sexy pink fairy
is now pulling her back and holding her by the throat.
Fantastic.
If that's what's happening,
I'm going to rush forward to what I see happening.
I'm going to use Deadly Focus
to apply all my focus towards this target.
Towards Mufana?
Towards Mufana. All right.
So that just adds plus one to my proficiency.
You got it.
So I am going to call off the Brute Squad
and I'm going to, as only Dolly Parton can,
just give a full smack hard across the face.
Sure.
All right, so go ahead and roll for that attack.
That would be, I'm just going to use my,
I think, grappler, since I would just be using that
as just a go for it.
Now she is vulnerable.
Yes, so. She's vulnerable.
So you get to go ahead and add a d6 to it.
Okay, so that's. Is it temporarily vulnerable
or just vulnerable?
As long as I have her in the chokehold.
How do you get out of the chokehold?
That's a good question, Matt.
Let me see.
Every attack roll against them
while they're vulnerable from your chokehold
adds 2d6 to the damage roll.
Which is pretty cool.
You add 2d6 to the damage roll.
Okay, so that'll be two d6.
1d6 to the actual attack and then 2d6 to the attack.
Okay, 1d6 for the actual attack.
And I'm just going to use.
Temporarily vulnerable, but I don't know.
Okay, temporarily means I can, okay.
I know how to get rid of it. Okay. All right. I can spend a fear, too, and a going to use it. Temporarily vulnerable, but I don't know. Okay, temporarily means I can, okay. I know how to get rid of it. Okay.
All right. I can spend a fear, too,
and a condition.
Got it.
That was all over the place,
and it was a terrible roll.
That's 16 with fear?
16 with fear. Oh wait, plus,
I'm using my lower thing, so the finesse.
17 with fear.
17 chest hits.
All righty. All right right, so that's a...
17 just hits?
17 just hits.
One, two, three.
She's got a lot of evasion.
One, two, three, four.
She's a dancer.
A renowned celebrity dancer.
And then you add a d6 to?
Two d6.
Okay, so that'll be three more d6 after these rolls.
Go for it.
All right.
Now.
Before you do that. Okay.
Because I just remembered something.
Before you roll that, roll a d6 for me.
Four.
She has a reaction ability called Distracting Beauty.
When a creature makes an attack roll
within close range of Mothana,
they have disadvantage on their attack.
So technically, that extra d6 you rolled earlier,
technically, it would have canceled out the d6 you did.
So I wouldn't have hit. Oh no!
So your attack missed.
Oh my god.
You would just miss that.
So as you're rearing up to strike in the chokehold,
you go to strike towards her,
and she catches you with that look.
Not in the face, right? Like the perfect cheekbones,
and you just go wide like, how could I possibly hit? Not in the face, right? The perfect cheekbones and you just go wide like,
how could I possibly hit?
Not in the face.
Oh, goddammit.
She also weaponizes the male gaze.
Or really, the any gaze.
Yeah.
Weaponize the gaze.
She weaponizes the gaze.
So that does bring it to a failure,
which then brings it to me.
Yes. I'm going to me. Yes.
I'm going to go ahead and...
Happy Pride!
All right.
I'm going to go ahead and activate Mafana
and one of the...
Actually, I'm going to hold on
to one of the other action tokens there.
I'm going to activate Mafana.
She's going to go ahead and use Kiss of Confusion.
So while she's still holed there,
she's going to use Kiss of Confusion. So while she's still hold there, she's going to glance over at...
Hmm.
Let's see.
No, actually, she's going to hold off on that.
Instead, I'm going to use those two things
to activate the backup dancers again for a choreographed ensemble dance. She's going to hold off on that. No, actually, she's going to hold off on that. Instead, I'm going to use those two things
to activate the backup dancers again
for a choreographed ensemble again on Bunny.
Again!
I haven't done anything.
You were too hot.
Too hot.
That's going to be a 13 to hit.
Yes.
I'm going to use my prayer diatribe,
my prayers and my holy presence
to subtract four from their attack.
That makes it to a nine.
Does that beat your attack? Miss!
So, that's rad.
So as you concentrate in a moment
and call upon the holy divine guidance of your goddess.
Find religion!
The ensemble goes into a spin
and as they all bring their hands up
into a lifted three-point swirl,
you duck down and they all scrape their knuckles
against each other and ow!
Landing.
Don't do that.
But miss you entirely.
And on the tail end of that, if I may.
You may.
I'll use my divine wielder ability,
spirit weapon, when I have a melee weapon equipped,
which I do, I can send it out flying, right?
And I'm going to throw it towards this mini here
without the shirt on, Ali, there, right?
Yeah.
And I'm going to simultaneously
run the opposite side of the circle,
grab a silk and spin around,
and I'm going to spend a stress
to target an additional target
so the axe is going to hit the first two in that circle, careening around Bunny's head, hitting those first two people, and then I will meet my axe at the
other side of the circle and catch it after it goes.
You got it. You mark that stress and then go ahead and lob that forward.
Right there's the stress.
Roll the attack.
And I add four crystals to that. Here we go. Seven of those, 12. 16 with hope.
16 succeeds.
Go ahead and roll damage.
That's two of them.
Yep.
So that's 3d10.
Where's my 10s?
I'll do it three times.
Three, 11.
Oh, that's a low roll.
That's a low roll, 12.
12, that's fine.
Both of them knocked on the ground immediately.
They only have one hit point.
They're minions.
So they both
and then fall on the ground unconscious.
Okay.
Fantastic. That finishes your go.
All right, I'll go.
What you got, Api?
All right, I'm going to step forward
and I'm going to see Mufana and just put my hand out
and I'm going to Unleash Chaos.
All right.
So. What's the range on that?
That is far range.
Far range, so yeah, you could.
Can I join?
Far range would be, yeah, she's in range from there.
You can move forward if you want,
or you can stay put, your call.
I will stay put because I kind of want,
if there's a way to even back up
so nobody can see that it's coming from me.
Excuse me.
No. We can certainly try.
I mean, Unleashing Chaos is pretty obvious.
Unleashing Chaos is pretty outwardly aggressive.
I have three tokens that are equal
to my spell cast trait for the card.
So I'm going to use all three of those to roll 3d10s.
Roll to see if you hit first.
Oh yeah, you're right.
That's kind of important.
I believe that's what it says, right?
Spellcast roll against the target?
You can make Spellcast roll against the target.
You got it.
Is it against Malphana?
Yes. Okay.
Now you are far, you are out of her range,
and she is currently choke hold,
so you do have advantage on the attack roll.
So add a d6 to it.
Ooh!
Okay.
So she is vulnerable.
Okay, okay.
So we got
1, 12,
13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19.
19 with fear.
19 with fear is a success,
but I will take that fear.
Okay.
And you get to add 2d6 to your attack.
Woo!
Okay, so I got 2d6 and 3d10s?
Correct. All in one day.
Badass.
All right, all right. Where are my d10s?
Those look like the little diamonds.
R and R.
Here's one. R and R.
Not a jointy one. That's what I need.
I don't think I have any d10s.
Okay, so we've got...
No, I don't. 10, 11, 13.
I mean, two more D10s.
13 plus 23. 23.
Plus five, 28.
28, that's a major wound on Mufana.
She marks two hit points. Yes!
Describe how the Unleashed Chaos
looks from the side of the audience.
What does everyone else see? So they just see,
they just hear a scream of just like,
like a banshee scream.
Okay. And it just sort of,
it's just like a circle of just sounds,
like, what am I thinking of?
Like sound waves?
Okay. So it's like
Outward? Yes.
So it's like spreading out and impacts Mufana.
As you see it coming,
so you move Mufana to be your shield as it
strikes into her.
Her body shakes from the impact,
unable to even dodge out of the way from your chokehold,
and takes the brunt of the impact.
I am also going to spend a stress
to hit an additional target
because of my Primal Origin Foundation.
Oh, because you can do that, yeah?
Yes, so, and hit whoever else is up in her troop.
All right, so a third member of the ensemble
goes down from the impact,
just blasts it off the side of it.
The curtain blows back for a second
before finding itself at rest.
All right, that finishes your go, because your roll with fear, it comes to me.
Yes.
Actually, I would take a roll from that there.
So top of this,
first I'm going to spend a fear to end the chokehold.
So that condition, as long as she breaks free angrily,
I'm going to go ahead and, let's see here.
I'm going to activate an action on Mafana.
She breaks free.
She'll say,
Don't you stand there!
Which is an action she uses.
She gets to mark a stress to restore one hit point
to a number of backup dancers equal to her unmarked stress,
which is five. Oh my god.
So each backup dancer gets back. Oh my god. So each backup dancer gets back up.
Oh my god.
Yeah. Okay, okay, okay.
She's going to maneuver back this way
to get behind them.
And they all immediately activate
and they're all going to unleash again on.
She just moved?
She did.
I'm going to use Attack of Opportunity.
Because you can do that as a warrior, yeah.
Go for it.
Make an agility reaction roll.
So that would be, come on.
Ooh, nine, 10, 12?
12 is not a hit, unfortunately.
No, but I'll take that hope.
Go for it.
They're all going to go ahead and unleash on you.
Okay. One more time.
Gosh, bunny. I know. That's a six. I have something to do ahead and unleash on you. Okay. One more time. Gosh, bunny.
I know.
That's a six. I have something to do,
but I haven't. Oh, miss!
They rolled a natural three.
Okay.
They all get up.
Three of them are woozy, and they go,
come on, get it together, friends!
And they all grab and have to lift them up,
but as they do, they're still messing
the synchronicity of their choreography,
and as they all go into a low lifting,
almost like a pyramid formation,
trying to crumble down on top of you,
you sidestep and hit the ground without issue,
and then reform back up into their defensive position.
Yeah, being a dancer,
I pick up on their choreography,
and I'm just like, oh, I see what we're doing.
So it's like, you know in showgirl routines,
how they'll be around the girl in the middle
and then she'll come down
and then come back up with the flourish.
Bunny does that and she's like,
Oh, I see what we're doing.
Then she comes down and I'm going to do
Rune Circle around me.
So I spin and you just see these magical runes blast out.
I'm going to burn my Never Upstaged points
to add two proficiency to that.
So any creatures in melee range of this circle
or who enter take 4d12 damage
with this boost.
4d12?
Yes, because I'm adding two from Never Upstaged.
Now, do you roll to cast the spell,
or does it just happen?
It says, use an action to mark a stress,
so I need to do that.
Bam.
And I create a magic circle on the ground around it.
Oh yeah, it just happens.
I think it just happens.
All right, so go ahead and roll.
That one's cocked.
Okay, okay.
Oh wait, do I add my spell proficiency to this,
or is it just?
No, it's just the damage of the spell, I'm pretty sure.
Just the damage to the spell.
Okay, so that is...
It will tell you to roll with proficiency if it did, but...
24.
28 damage.
Ooh!
You just clear them all out,
leaving this runic circle there,
as they're all just now laying out,
unconscious, in a semicircle around you.
They're all just groaning at their own pace.
I really want to know what the runic circle is.
You don't have to answer now, but at some point, I really need to know what the Runic Circle is. You don't have to answer now, but at some point,
I really need to know what actually is your Runic Circle.
It's a booby.
Does it follow you as you move,
or does it stay stationary?
I believe it stays stationary.
Okay.
So it's just three circles. Because I cast it on the ground.
Right.
Cool. All right, and you're staying put?
I guess for now,
because they keep taking damage if they are in it,
and they are pushed out of the circle
at the end of their action.
But it's at the end of their action.
At the end of their action, they're pushed out.
If they run into it, you mean.
Yes.
I'll say they get pushed out when they take the damage.
That's how it works.
Okay.
They all get scattered out across the stage.
All right, does that finish your go?
Who's up next? Anyone?
I think you haven't gone yet.
Can Kexin run towards the stage,
and then I'll use Arcane Door to disappear
and reappear close to where Mafana is.
It's within far range.
Far range, yeah, you can definitely get over here. Right near her.
So I make a spell cast roll to see if that works.
Actually, from where you were, far range.
Well, you moved up.
But you ran forward, yeah. Yeah, you can do that.
Beautiful.
That is a 19 with hope.
19 with hope, take a hope.
Beautiful.
And then once I land there,
can I use a shape materi-
I'm going to put my hand on the ground.
Okay. Like I'm taking a knee
in front of her and touch the ground.
Then I'll say, mind the trap door.
And I will shape material to create a door
in the floor right underneath her feet.
Oh! That's awesome!
Okay.
Ooh.
Okay.
Okay, I will give her a reaction roll That's awesome! Okay. Ooh. Okay. Yes! Okay.
I will give her a reaction roll to this
to try and avoid the trapdoor.
I'll roll this out here in the open because it's fun.
That is a 12.
What is your spell?
I'll say go ahead and roll your own reaction roll.
I won't consider this a hope or anything
just to see where it's at.
15.
15, no, she fails.
19, actually, yeah.
Yeah, there you go.
So she turns to you.
What do you mean?
Full on cartoon, like,
and falls and vanishes below into the ground.
I'll go ahead and put a little dark circle there
as to where the hole in the ground is,
and you just hear.
Oh!
Hot Dad steps up, turns back to everyone.
S'cuse.
S'cuse.
I'll say for that maneuver,
go ahead and roll a d8 for me.
A d8.
This'll be just the physical damage she takes
from the falling impact through the trapdoor.
I can identify a d8 and let's play the real.
Eight.
Yeah, all right, she takes another Eight. Eight, yeah, all right.
She takes another hit point into the ground.
All righty, that was pretty slick.
Who's up next?
So wait, is she gone?
She's gone through the stage.
She's in the underbelly.
Underbelly?
Yes, she is.
So what happens when you max out your stress?
When you max out your stress,
you are considered vulnerable.
Let her cry, Uncle.
I've maxed out my stress. Then you are considered your stress, you are considered vulnerable. Let her cry, uncle. I've maxed out my stress.
Then you are considered vulnerable.
And if you take any stress damage.
Wait, you still have one left, don't you?
No, I don't. That's wrong.
I have maxed out my stress.
So yes, you are vulnerable
until you bring any stress back.
All rolls against you have advantage.
And if you take any stress damage, one or more,
you take a hit point instead.
Does anybody have a potion for that?
Yes, I have a potion, so I can do that.
If you want to, yeah. Yeah, I'll take it.
Go ahead and take a stamina potion.
Take a stamina potion, and then what do I do?
You roll 1d4 and you clear that one stress.
Oh, amazing.
Big money.
Yes!
Slick. One more, baby.
No longer vulnerable.
Wow, well, they're all down.
Should we run? Actually, you know what?
I'm going to spend two of these here to gain a fear.
I'm going to spend that fear to take my GM action now,
and I'm going to activate Mifana.
She's down.
Activate Mifana.
It's like Minority Report.
She's going to leap back up out of this.
No!
Like, you!
Girl!
Ta-ta.
Ta-ta.
Ta-ta!
Is going to step back towards the backstage area
and say, what are you doing?
Don't you stand there!
And she can use that action.
She's going to do a thing?
To get these, all of these, to get back up.
She marks another stress.
Well, she marks the stress.
Actually, she can only get four up because she...
For what?
She only has four unmarked stress,
so only these four can get up.
Oh, it's based on her stress.
So does she pull up on stress?
No, no, she...
Just to cement one stress.
Yeah, so every time she uses it, she marks the stress and she can only get up a number of people based on stress? No, no, she, yeah.
So every time she uses it, she marks the stress
and she can only get up a number of people
based on how many unmarked stress she has.
She got full people up, which would tell you
she has four stress left.
A lot of creatures in encounters,
sometimes maxing out their stress
can prevent them from using abilities like this.
But they're going to now activate as part of the
Don't Just Stand there.
And they're all going to go ahead.
I don't have any more points to use that.
So now they're all just going to activate
and come in for individual swings on.
Ta-ta!
This one's just going to hit you.
The three of them are going to swarm you,
since you're the one who knocked her through the floor.
The one that's going against you, Zarlo,
is going to be a natural 20.
Oh! Now mind you, Zarlo, is going to be a natural 20. Oh!
Now mind you, it's a backup dancer.
It's a minion. It doesn't have any dice rolls for damage.
It's just a six physical damage.
I'll say as a crit, you take 12 points of physical damage.
12 points of physical damage.
I will use my prayer die to help myself,
which will get it below major damage,
and I'll take minor damage instead.
So one hit point to you.
But I can take an armor instead, correct?
Yes, you can. All right.
So Glances off my armor.
One more prayer die down.
And that is, they're all going to attack Kexin, correct?
The three other ones are, yeah.
So Kexin, against you, we have a 20 to hit.
Not a natural 20, but a 20.
Whoa, yeah, that hits.
That's six points of physical damage.
Okay. That is yeah, that hits. That's six points of physical damage. Okay.
That is a 13 to hit.
Yes, that, of course, it hits.
Six points of physical damage.
Okay.
And then nine to hit.
Wait, I have this School of War.
As long as I have two hope,
I can add my spellcasting trait to my evasion.
So with my knowledge, plus four, it makes it 12.
Oh, so it misses.
Yeah, third one misses.
First strike goes wild, but you take six points and then six points.
Great. Minor and minor.
All right, so that's two hit point marks on you.
That finishes their activation.
Who's up next?
I'm going to burn two armor slots and negate all of them.
Negate it? You got it.
I'm going to turn towards Mufana and say,
I just take the loss already, will you, Garline?
And I'll throw out my axe
and let the handle conquer in the forehead.
She's within close range, yeah.
All right, and I don't get her dili that affects her.
The gaze is not weaponized because I'm not in melee.
No, it's not in melee. It's within close range.
Close range.
When you're close enough to see her face,
the beauty distracts you.
Gaze weaponized.
Indeed.
Gaze is indeed weaponized.
So go ahead and make your attack roll.
Let's go, Gaze.
So reduce it by a d6.
By a d6.
All right.
So first I'll do the positive number
and then I'll subtract for that.
Well, that's pretty good.
See, it's 20 minus 6.
14 total. 14? Misses.
Oh, you bitch!
You lob it, and she does the full-on Madeline Kahn
and Young Frankenstein, just goes,
and ducks it as it passes by.
So that does miss and go wide.
Oh, I didn't read through my shit fast enough.
I could add a a prayer die.
I let it miss, I let it miss.
Okay, okay.
Was that with hope or fear?
Hope.
So you get a hope.
However, it does come back to me.
I do have one activation token.
I know this is the back and forth.
No, no, no, back and forth.
She is going to...
Hmm.
Yeah, seeing what you're capable of
as you bring your axe back and she looks at you and goes,
Oh, please, be as sweet to you, I don't you.
And she's going to go ahead
and use her Kiss of Confusion against you.
She casts this subtle spell under her breath
as she looks towards you
and blows a kiss in your direction.
You need to make an instinct reaction roll for me.
Instinct, how do I do that?
You just make an instinct roll,
but it doesn't, I'll give you hope.
Hope and fear don't matter, it's just the number.
Right, right, right, right.
Hope and fear don't matter.
I don't want to.
It's a crit.
Both 12s.
That's a success!
27 total.
Dang!
Now mind you, this is a reaction roll,
so you don't get hope or stress back,
but you automatically succeed on that.
Your shit is busted!
She got...
Ah! She screams, actually,
emotionally hurt by that.
All the confidence just crumbles in an instant.
Oh no.
Where is she?
That's right here.
Oh, she moved.
And she's going to go running offstage. Oh!
Oh! Oh!
Wait, really?
Should we run?
I'm going to take a...
I'm going to try and see if I can get a look on her.
I'm going to move towards the back of the stage,
and can I see where she is? Step over that guy.
Oh yeah. From here,
you can see where she is, yeah.
You step over into this entrance to it, and you can see her charging is? Step over that guy. Oh yeah. From here, you can see where she is, yeah. You can step over into this entrance to it
and you can see her charging off, trying to exit.
Oh yeah, I'm just going to pull around that other side.
I just need visual because I'm going to use my grappler.
So I can back up a bit.
I want to get her back on stage.
I'm so sorry, dear,
but they're demanding another curtain call.
Encore, I say!
And I point fire with Dramatic Flare.
That is the Dramatic Flare, so spend the hope.
He will over-talk everything!
That's so good.
And I'm going to use my grafter.
It's my favorite.
Three.
I don't know.
I love it.
It's like an overwritten comic book.
Why are you just talking?
Oh, I'm just going to finish winding up this toy
when I put it down.
Just wait.
Then you get to add your experience to that.
Yeah, and I have no advantage, but that's okay.
There's no way to get myself in there.
Did you range on that close?
It is close.
Then you have disadvantage because of her beauty.
So you get to make your roll with your bonuses
and then reduce it by a d6.
All right.
You can do it, Sir Dante.
I hope so.
Turtle power.
This is, well...
It's a 13.
13, unfortunately, misses.
It goes wide. I do get my hope back.
Sticks on you, you do get your hope back.
Yeah.
For this weird shite.
All right.
You're doing great.
Returning to her turn now, since you failed the roll,
she's going to spend that and turn back to you and be like,
Well, maybe you're a discerning eye
who appreciates women of beauty.
Does another kiss under her breath, and she casts this incantation with her fingers.
You see this glow of magical energy
blows in your direction.
I need you to make an instinct reaction roll.
Does she have nails?
She has long-ass nails.
Oh yeah, like big old awesome acrylics
that are like, we'll say they have the rhinestones
at the tip. Rolling like ass.
Yeah, yeah.
Are they squares?
Are they coffins?
Yeah.
Are they stilettos or coffins?
I am rolling so badly, that's a six.
That's a six.
You find yourself, as you pull back the grappler,
she looks towards you, blows you this kiss,
and for a second, you feel awful
for how you've attacked her,
and this aggression enters your mind
for those that have turned you against
such a beautiful creature,
you spin around and throw your grappler instead at Zarlo.
Oh!
I need you to go ahead and make an attack roll
with your grappler.
Okay.
That's, wow, best roll I've had all night.
14 with hope. 14 with hope? 14 with hope. What's your evasion? That's, wow, best roll I've had all night.
14 with hope. 14 with hope?
14 with hope. What's your evasion?
I, well, you can use this spent dice value
to reduce any add to it.
Oh, no, it doesn't, so he gets me.
All right, so go ahead and roll your cards.
Is Zarlo very close to me or too far,
or farther than that?
I can't tell from here.
Zarlo? Yeah.
Zarlo would be considered, yeah, very close.
Like within, because that's melee and it's very close.
Can I use Arcane Deflection
to protect Zarlo from mine own ally?
You can, yeah.
Ooh! Yes.
So as you throw the grappler out,
arching towards you, Zarlo, you see it opening
like the bladed mouth that it is in your direction.
Suddenly, this arcane shield blasts up
and deflects it off to the side.
Excuse.
I'm going to squeeze the fucking,
every drop out of this thing.
All right. Hey, buddy.
That's one's proof.
I'm going to use the stress to flip out a card.
I'll spend a hop, too.
Is she connected to the Seeper?
Is she just a bitch?
I'm pretty sure she's just a, I don't know.
You know, I don't know anything anymore,
but she is for sure a bitch.
But we could just try and get the fuck out of here.
Yeah, yeah.
If we don't, you know.
How about this? Yeah.
I'm going to do Hypnotic Shimmer.
So I'm going to take my fans
and I spin them around on my fingers.
And when I do this waves of glitter,
hit everything in close range.
So is that all the backup dancers?
So all the backup dancers.
And I do a spellcasting roll,
and on a success, they're stunned.
Okay.
Then maybe we can get the fuck out of here.
Go for it.
Okay, hang on.
On a success, make a spellcast roll,
so that's plus four to whatever I roll here.
Can I add to show my attention?
Cri- It doesn't fucking matter!
No!
Y'all don't know what's up!
The second that I was like,
go flat out, but I don't. All right, so you get a hope and clear stress. That's a fucking A! No! Y'all! Oh, stop! The second that I was like,
go flat out, but don't.
Yeah.
All right, so you gain hope and clear stress.
Oh yes, that's right.
Oh yes, that's right!
So as you craft this hypnotic shimmer,
the energy sparkles across the stage.
How do you describe your hypnotic shimmer?
It's like technicolor waves of glitter.
So it goes, it's like RGB pulsing as it
just fans out and just hits everybody.
People get glitter in their eyes and they're like,
ah, ah!
As the backup dancers get hit with it
and as the pulse of it's
they all just instinctively just start dancing.
They're all just like four cage dancers,
just on their own without a cage
in the middle of the stage.
Yes, yeah.
Everyone in the audience has been watching.
Everyone got up to run and then stayed to watch.
As this happens, you watch as the matron,
Abra, steps out of the front and goes like,
And I'm so glad you all stayed
for our magnificent, unexpected encore performance.
A fantastic display from both teams
of their own physical aptitude and ability
to make you believe in their conflict.
Ash turns back, get the fuck out of here right now.
Yeah, so they're all stunned.
They can't move or act, so let's go.
Great.
All right, at this point,
Thank you, thank you. Mafana has scattered off into the hallways of the event move or act, so let's go. Great. All right, at this point,
Mufana has scattered off into the hallways of the event.
The other side.
That sounds good.
All right.
On her way.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Great, Matt.
Great.
That was so much fun.
Just a little bunch of you.
With the conflict at an end,
Mofana gone, her compatriots locked on stage
for the time being in a dancing trance.
The rest of the audience is still in the throes
of cheers and conversations and debate
about how unique and real that battle really felt.
Someone was talking about how,
I think I saw blood on many of them,
and someone else was like,
oh, I've seen how they do those squibs.
It was really easy. It was too red.
It wasn't real.
Like, they're just.
No, that was fake.
Yeah, it was obviously scripted.
Oh, wow. Yeah.
But as you all dart off into the stage,
you can see Eden's like,
that was a magnificent performance.
I mean, that was incredible for all of you.
Where are you going? You were really great, too.
I love your grinding.
Oh, thanks. Wow.
I could come by and give you a lesson sometime, if you like.
That was sure.
Do we have another engagement?
Oh, yeah, later.
Of course, of course, you all have fun.
You continue down the stairs,
and as the next door opens,
you watch as Limon DiCello steps out with a crutch.
He goes like, oh my god,
all of you were incredible out there.
I was really sad I wasn't on stage,
but I am so relieved that I was taken off
in respect to allowing you all shine.
What a performance.
Hey, real quick, we got to run.
You know, we're really doing something else.
You're not staying for the after party?
Well...
No!
No, no, no!
We're so busy!
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
You know what, maybe later.
Well, it goes pretty late.
Oh, well, maybe we'll go a little late.
Arby!
What? We'll see, we'll see.
We'll put a pin in it.
We'll see how we do the rest of the night.
I like a little veil.
This night has range.
I'm just wondering, can you point me in the direction
of where I might find a Foreman Clive and his professor?
Foreman Clive, he's come in here a couple of times.
Doesn't he work down at the ravine front mine yard there?
Goldspot?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think that's where we earned his coin.
He's kind of a big shot when it comes to the miners
down there, I suppose.
Easy to find the mine?
I mean, it's been closed for a bit,
but it's easy to find.
Point us in the right direction.
I mean, you know where it is, and you do.
It's hard to miss.
It's the largest mining operation in the ravine
right beneath Loval.
There are a number of side entrances,
but there is one major mining
where the initial and largest entrance is.
There's a whole series of buildings
and an equipment yard that's locked down
where the bulk of their work is.
It's also where the Seep,
where you both had met, was not that far from
and where it seems to have at least emanated from that space.
All right. You got any doit on him?
You know anything?
Not particularly.
I know he's ticklish behind his elbow.
Ooh! All right, that's good to know.
Okay, I love you so much.
Love you, too.
Have some champagne for me.
Oh, I will.
She goes back to the rest of the audience,
and as you step by into the hallway,
as people are starting to head out
into the main entryway where the bars are,
you hear the chatter and talking,
you do see four figures dressed in the garb
of the Croatoana.
We're still in.
Yeah, except for Bunny.
All except for Bunny.
But they are in the process of pushing through the crowd
and are looking.
Before we leave backstage,
those ball bearings,
are they around anywhere that got swept up?
Oh yeah, there was a handful of them
off the side of the stage,
and some of them that were kind of...
I'm going to scoop them up and put them in a spot.
Yeah, yeah.
So you got a few handfuls of ball bearings
that you managed to quickly grab and pocket.
Heck yeah.
I open the fan and block my face
as we get the fuck out of Dodge.
Okay.
I'll say go ahead and make either an agility
or a presence roll on your end.
It's not a very difficult one,
and I'll give you advantage on it.
Okay.
To just get through without any sort of,
not being noticed even in the slightest.
Are we moving through any doors?
You are. You're pushing through
the now slightly growing crowd of people
that are pushing into the main entryway
to the exit front doors.
There are two main doors
that leave the front of the establishment.
The one that's closest to you
is in the left-hand side of the theater.
If I'm moving through a door,
I might use.
We're in a clock to make sure it can't open.
I'm going to switch out and get stealth expertise
in my vault right now. What the fuck?
So that I can do that.
You got it.
What? You crit again?
What? You crit again?
Take another hope?
I crit again! Double time!
That's amazing.
What the fuck? Hollywood Park.
No, there's a casino right here.
I was about to say, yeah.
All right, so you just clear another stress, take another hope.
We'll be rich.
All right.
So yeah, so you scoot through.
A few people leave with you.
The bulk of the crowd is still behind you
as you all step out into the cold, mid-evening air.
It's now pushing closer to midnight,
especially with all their unbunctiousness
around the performance for the night.
You close the doors behind you,
and Kexin, you go ahead and whip around,
and you touch the side of the door,
which immediately flickers with a series of runes
that spiral out, set in, and then fade,
and the door just stays closed.
You hear a voice behind be like,
The door's, go around the other way.
People start adjusting accordingly,
like shopping at Ralph's late at night
when they close one of the doors.
It's annoying.
Oh, the shopping cart's in front of it.
Yeah.
The car's over there!
But you guys are now out into the main streets of Lullvale,
pretty certain that for the time being,
you're not being tailed.
Right.
Let's head to the mine.
Let's do it, Gulch Bottom Mines.
To the mines!
All right.
To the bottoms.
You all skitter out.
Let's get to the bottom of this gulch!
Weaving through the streets
until you come to the outskirts.
A little ways off from the rope bridge
that leads across the ravine into the main city,
there is the cliffside precipice
that then leads into a number of switchback walkways
and staircases that descend down.
There are a couple of rope-based elevators
that do descend on wenches,
but it looks like they're closed up for the night.
They aren't expecting a lot of foot traffic
into the ravine during this late hour.
So you can descend down the switchback staircases
and eventually lead you deeper in.
You can see there's little platforms along the way
that contain supplies,
sacks of a ground cement-type material,
as well as some simple mining tools
that look like they've been damaged
and are waiting to be brought up for repair.
But eventually you come to the base of the Gulch.
And down here you can see the deep red-brown earth
and dirt mingles with the broken shale
from the mining operation and the beautiful red crystals
that all glow throughout the bottom and interior of the space.
You can see that a lot of them are mined and broken
and pulled forth, but there are a number of them
that are still left with enough distance
that they still give off their general glowing red light
to make
the space not completely swallowed in darkness. So there has been some forethought to not fully
mining everything that's around this gulch bottom mine territory.
Heading down and following the pathway towards the main opening of the mine that you recall, you
can see the numerous mine buildings that are out there.
There's about a dozen or so that are scattered across.
There are fences put up, there are signs.
There are two figures patrolling the exterior,
but there's no work going on inside.
It is just dark within that ground
and all the bits of machinery, all the mine carts,
everything is, and you recall,
kind of working around the clock.
They had shifts moving so that they were always going,
and that bustle was part of the allure of the success.
It represented the progress and prosperity of Loa Vale.
And seeing it close the first time when you first met
was disconcerting.
Now returning to this quite some time later
and seeing it's still dark, it feels
sad. But as you begin to approach as a team, the first patrolling figure looks over and
approaches. It's not a heavily armored guard. This looks like an orcish fellow with a leather
tunic. It looks like he has a bandolier of daggers
and a chain put to the side.
Doesn't look like he's aggressive.
He just looks like he's a little rough and tumble,
but has a smile as he comes up to approach you.
He has this flop of brown hair
that looks like Leon Kennedy.
Leon Kennedy. Such a visual.
Do we all still look like beautiful women,
or has that passed?
Oh, has it been over an hour since?
Roll a d20 for me, Laerry.
On a nine or lower,
Don't take this away from Laura.
it drops as soon as you approach.
Awesome.
Nine or lower.
Come on.
19, baby!
Hell yeah.
So it's still going.
It's gay.
German dominatrix club look.
Evening, ladies.
It's Bolo Vermeer.
Can I help you?
You're wandering a bit far
from the night's festivities of this hour.
You been out drinking?
Mm-hmm.
Do you want a little nipper?
Looks over her shoulder.
I mean, if you're offered. I just so happen to have a flask, I do.
And I do.
Because I have, as a Wonderborn,
in my pneumatic pack, I add,
once per session, you can spend a hope
to reach into your pack and pull out a common item
that is useful to the situation.
Oh, that's cool!
Hell yeah.
Right, so there goes one hope, and I pull out a little bit of booze, useful to the situation. Oh, that's cool! Hell yeah.
Right, so there goes one hope,
and I pull out a little bit of booze,
and I share it with these gentlemen.
Takes a sip.
It's like a slightly smoky port.
It's delicious.
Great.
Smoky port, yeah.
He's like,
I haven't had a sip of something like this
since I was 19.
Drinking ages are a little younger here in Lowville.
Comes all the way from the Emerald Grove, actually.
Wow. That's a rare import.
Oh, appreciate that.
Thank you, lass. Give him a wink.
Do you have anywhere around here
that could give us a little privacy?
What are you looking to do?
I don't know.
Can we get into the mines?
You don't want to get into the mines, Little Miss.
It's real dangerous in there. What do you mean? It's just a mine.
I think she's suggesting we just want to get out of the open.
I mean, there's a...
Make a presence roll for me.
But I'm going to give you advantage,
because of the boos that you gave,
all presence rolls against him are pretty much at advantage during this encounter.
Okay, great. I'm going to add my fear from before. Okay, here we go.
Oh. Well, that was really good. 28 with hope.
Woo! Take that hope.
Okay.
Yeah, we can talk. There's a couple of sheds that have been in disuse,
just stored spaces if you wanted to get into a place
not quite so out in the elements.
Just give me about 20 seconds.
He looks at the other patrolmen,
goes around the corner, he's like,
Yeah, all right, come on in.
Pulls out his key ring and unlocks the outer gate
and leads you all into the inside of the...
Can't wait no more.
You got to follow Parkins.
Inside of the mine perimeter wall, perimeter fence.
Being hot is awesome!
Uh-huh, we call it pretty privilege.
Just.
Oh. What the, isn't it?
You don't have to tell me.
Turns around.
Oh, you're all?
We work as a team.
Mm.
Mm.
Roll to answers.
All right.
He goes off towards the shed
and is adjusting his collar a bit
and unbuttons the top of the thing a little bit
and goes to the door and unlocks it and turns around.
So anyway.
You know, it's a hard gig down here.
This time of the Low Vale, it's a little quiet.
It's a little lonely.
So it's nice to have a little bit of chatter.
And that pose, like, hit him with time lock.
Which part of him?
Oh yeah, it's just, oh, it's not the person!
His little bracelet?
Does he have a bracelet on? Does he have any bracelet gloves?
Oh yeah, no, he's got probably some metal bracers on.
Yeah, if he's posted up on the wall,
it'll lock something up there, just like.
So what do you, what's?
What's going on?
I'm asking you, do you want to get inside?
Yeah. Yeah.
I just start walking off.
Lead the way.
Head on in.
What's wrong? Lead the way.
I follow Kexen.
Wait, where are you going?
Where's the getting?
Oh, real quick, is there a foreman's quarters?
Foreman's over there.
He's going to start. Okay, great.
He's going to try and pull free from your,
go ahead and roll your spell cast.
12, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22.
22 with Fear.
With Fear, all right.
You release, or you concentrate on this spell.
I rolled a natural 20.
And so as you concentrate, he goes,
What happened?
I don't know.
I must have put my hand on something sticky.
That sequence catches you off guard,
and as he goes,
all right, well, wherever you're going,
well, I guess if you don't want to go in there,
I'll find another one.
He continues along with you, and you're like,
shit, you take a stress.
Okay.
Oh, that's so good, though.
He rolled so high.
He's like, ah. Worth it.
He takes his bracer off.
He's like, I got to get this thing looked at.
Are we trying to find the foreman
or are we just trying to get into the mine?
Well, because this, okay, above table talk.
Above table talk. Above table talk.
It was the wealthy baron of the mining operations
with the red crystal mines.
Well, it was a wealthy baron that wanted,
that shut down these mines for the Croatoana family.
And Croatoana family said that this mine shut down
after a couple of weeks of him taking the deal.
So there's probably seep happening in these mines.
In this mine, yeah.
So if we just go on in,
because they're saying it's dangerous,
there's something shitty that's in the mine.
So if we just go to the mine,
we're going to find the source.
We can locate the seep. The seep.
Right? So yeah, we don't need the former?
We don't really need to talk to anyone.
Wall of flame.
No.
All right, ladies, are you ready?
Ah!
Let's go.
How about you go in there
and you just get ready for us,
because we've got a show for you.
Take it all off, and then we're going to come in.
Just tell us when you're ready.
I'm not even having a conversation.
No. It's extremely forward.
I don't normally do this kind of thing.
Lucky day.
Make a presence roll for me with advantage.
Oh god.
Are there any other,
did we see anyone patrolling that has eyes on us?
There was another person patrolling the exterior
that doesn't have eyes on you yet.
He's just finishing his rotation on the other side
and is probably coming back shortly.
22 with fear.
22 with fear.
All right, I'll take that fear.
Ha ha!
Thank you, this is the best, as I remember it.
So he goes,
and under his breath, he's like,
I never thought it would happen to me.
Yeah, yeah, all right, let me. Boy confession.
Yeah.
I never thought it would happen to me.
Ladies, yeah, just a moment.
Let me go set the mood.
It's not very romantic in there,
so just give me a couple minutes to clean up.
He goes like a quick jog back to the room
and opens the door and closes it behind him carefully.
And you immediately hear
door locks in with time lock.
You hear rummaging inside and moving things around
as he's like,
I'll do runic lock instead of time lock
because that's harder to open.
Yeah.
You got it. Runic lock on the door.ock, because that's harder to open. Yeah. You got it.
Runic lock on the door.
It locks in.
And then we just go.
All right.
I was ready to seduce him.
Oh well.
I have an experience called Flick My No Hands.
I did finish Last Encounter with two action sounds. Before I did that, I converted them into a fear. Just so I have hands. We're back on track. I did finish the last encounter with two action summs.
Before I did that, I converted them into a figure,
just so I have that.
That's what you do with leftover action times.
Experience for re-fronts.
All right.
So, you all begin to approach
the exterior of the mines proper.
As you step through your footfalls,
finding the crunchy bits of loose shale
and pebbles and stonework, the occasional skittering and scattering of dust skinks catch your eye.
You notice dust skinks to be these semi-translucent lizard, little gecko-like spirits that
flits through some of the internal rock areas of these mountains, and they skitter off in a bit
and turn back and look at you with these bright, glowing turquoise eyes before they get.
Ooh, I like them.
It's beautiful, and they light the space around them slightly. You eventually step into the dark
interior of the mines and there is no light. It is pitch black.
I'm going to activate a Phantom Retreat right here.
All right.
Beginning of the mine.
I can also cast Prestidigitation to illuminate a room,
which I assume is just a small area around us.
So describe to me how your light apparates.
The shell on my back opens up
for the wings that are underneath,
and they start to
and they glow bug.
Oh, cool! So it hits a splash of light. That's so cute! What color is the light? Yeah. And they start to and they glow bug.
Oh, cool! So it hits a splash
of light on the floor. That's so cute!
What color's the light?
It's slightly yellowish green.
All right.
The whole room around Kexin glows around.
And stepping in, you can see the in-
Staring at your ass as we walk.
Right then, it drops.
Then it drops.
Aw, we're normal again.
Damn!
But here, the very massive entrance,
this well-mined cavern,
you can see all the braces that are set up
inside, as well as the numerous abandoned mine carts that have varying degrees of separate,
loosely gentle ore veins or chunks of crystal. But much like how you saw a little bit as you were
stepping in, now you can see where the red crystal does glow within, the faintest bit of glows, most of
it's gone. So there's very little interior light to here. And some of them, as you begin to walk
by and the light around Hexum begins to evaporate, there are crystals present in this room, but
they do not glow. Instead, the normal pinkish-red color of the crystal seems to be more of a faded gray,
with almost a darker interior to it.
So say it.
It looks a little seepy.
It's so ee-pee-ous.
It's so seepy.
It's so seedy.
It's so seedy.
It's an ominous vibe.
Uh-huh.
Your vibe is ominous.
Can I kick out the wings and I'll fly up a little bit
so the light starts to spread a little bit,
but it also helps me see.
Yeah.
The dust cascades out on all sides
as you're picking up wind and picking up,
it lights the space.
And you can see the chains that are connected
to help both hold and shift large pieces of machinery
that sit off to the sides.
There are multiple tunners.
There are multiple tunners.
Multiple tunnels that begin to divide
and snake off in different directions.
And as the sound of your flight picks up,
you also notice more of the dust skins
skittering out of the different shadowed corners
and either finding somewhere to hide
or exiting the cavern entirely.
But there are four different paths you can take.
Is a fork in front of us, like A, B, C, D?
You see one fork,
and then that fork divides into three different paths.
So it's one large one here,
a large one here, and then that large one scatters off.
Coming up to that first fork,
can I use Reveal?
And if anything is hidden within close range,
this roll would succeed against it
and it is no longer hidden?
Sure.
That's a 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, with Hope.
With Hope? All right, so you take a Hope.
You cast Reveal.
Nothing hidden is revealed within range to you.
Yeah.
Is there an area of one of the tunnels
that looks darker and more ominous than the other ones?
They all look fairly dark and ominous.
Go ahead and make an instinct roll for me.
Ow, that was a sharp dice.
They're your dice. I know!
11, 12, 13, 14.
14. 14 with fear.
With fear, all right.
The air inside the cavern itself,
the temperature seems to drop almost suddenly.
It catches you all off guard
as you feel the chills run up your spine
as I take a fear.
You do pick up a bit of a scent, though.
It's a combination of wet iron and rot.
And you, looking at the two different directions,
there's the large singular tunnel that goes
and the one that divides multiple times.
It seems stronger in the singular tunnel to the left.
We should go that way.
Go towards the stinky.
We should go towards the stinky.
Okay.
Stinky is seat stinky. Okay. Stinky as sepia.
Mm.
Continuing down this path for a few more moments,
you come to an area that looks like it was a rest spot.
There are a handful of tables and chairs
and looks to be a place for miners
that were finished in one area or taking a break.
The tunnel opens a bit and allows them a place to sit
and rest, drink water, prepare.
But the table is shattered.
You can see the portions of the well manicured
and braced wall have taken some damage
and it's cracked and part of it has collapsed.
There's signs of violence or struggle,
and you see a body of what looks to be a very well-armed figure that is currently half-crushed
under stone.
Oh, the foreman? No. Can we see it?
Yeah, you go ahead and inspect. You have no idea if it's a foreman or not, but the figure looks like it was,
it doesn't look like any of the guards
who are watching the mine,
and this individual is fairly well armed
for being a miner.
If you get a little close to it,
and the body itself is quite decomposed.
The drier air in here, in spite of the smell, it's mummified a bit so that
skin's pulled tight against the skull. You can see the eyes are now gone. And the vacant sockets
are there. The features look like it might have been a firbolg. You can make out elements of the now leathered ears that hang down, but very, very fine armor,
as well as what looks to be a strange,
it's like a vial, but it's mostly leather
with a glass cap with a little metal ring at the top
that holds it in.
We should definitely take that.
But I'm going to reach forward
and I'm going to touch his cheek
and I'm going to do a death connection.
Ooh, what?
Which is something that I can do as a fun girl.
What?
Ooh. Cool.
So I'm going to take a stress
so I can
extract one memory related to a specific event.
So I'm going to try to see what it was that killed him.
All right.
As you concentrate on this withered fear bulb,
you recall the final moments
and your vision pulls into the same darkened interior, but
torch in front. You see a vision of three other miners walking scared behind this figure. You see
them now fully healthy, this big mane of black hair that goes down the back, as well as a long beard that comes to a point
for the goatee. You all right?
I'm fine.
A Van Dyke sort of chin beard. Nice armor, spiked and bladed in ways. This figure, you get
the sense, was probably hired to come and see what was happening.
The miners are pointing,
and they traverse further into the cavern.
You can see where the crystals are no longer
any sign of red coloration,
but they're all just these gray, lifeless crystals
that emerge from the parts of the mine
that were still being pushed into.
There is a heavy roar and multiple roars.
The miners go fleeing and running.
The figure looks up and you see this pale bluish glow,
not unlike the dust skinks that were scattering through,
but larger, as multiple heads emerge from the shadow, biting in his direction.
And he sees this, turns and runs.
And as he runs, another snaps past
and he dodges out of the way.
Another one, he spins and tries to strike it with a blade.
It misses wide.
He carves into another and manages
to cleave one of its heads off.
And he feels a little more confident
as he watches the head regrow itself.
Oh shit.
At which point he turns to run
as the wall next to him cracks and crumbles into darkness.
Oh shit.
You guys, it's like this giant creature
that can regrow its heads.
Heads? Yeah, regrow its heads. Heads?
Yeah, there's multiple heads, and it glows blue.
Was it cute?
It looks scary.
I'm going to take that vial around its neck.
Should we leave?
It's not too late to go to the casino.
I actually think it genuinely is too late
to go to the casino, I think ever at this point.
Aren't they open 24-7?
They mess with the lighting so you can never
tell what time it is. They probably already
sketched us and put us on the walls.
Yeah, I was going to say, we're probably blacklisted.
We'll say the armor is actually quite nice as well.
Oh, ooh, he's got really fancy armor on.
Does anybody want it?
I would be very curious about such a thing.
I'm not sure. Let's get him naked.
In a tactful way. Does anybody want it? I would be very curious about such a thing. I'm not cool. Let's get him naked. An attacked foal.
Loot that body.
Loot that body.
Just lying there, right?
It's just lying there.
So it takes a little bit to rob this crushed corpse,
but you do find a usable set of spiked armor plating.
Spiked armor. Armor?
Ooh, who wears armor plating?
I mean, not I.
Can, what does it do?
Do you do attack, Kexin?
There you go, turtle. Become Shredder.
Let's see.
Wow.
Base armor's at six.. Base armor score six.
Me and I have won.
Do it, do it.
Do it.
Get naked! I suppose it just changes.
I'm not Koyashi. Get naked, Zerdante.
Get naked, Zerdante.
Yeah, I just lose a point of evasion,
but my base armor score is nuts.
That's great.
I will take it. Yeah!
Babies!
All right.
Do I?
What a conundrum.
You're lying! And Shredder became the turtle?
We am become Shredder.
You either die a turtle or live long enough
to become Shredder.
I'm trying to do math, you assholes.
Yeah, I just get and I put this thing on and I try and get it so that the cape does not catch on the spikes.
It looks really good.
It's a work. I like it.
It's a good look. It a work. I like it. It's a good look.
It smells awful.
I can't tell.
Great. Have you ever smelled a turtle before?
No.
I've never smelled that.
Wow. Yeah, I was waiting for that.
Okay, do we press forward? Going in.
After waiting for Sir Dante
to finish donning his new stinky armor.
Sir Dante, yeah, there we are.
Eventually, you begin.
How's people's HP, by the way?
Does anyone need healing?
No problem.
I mean, now is the time.
If anyone needs a little judging, I can help someone.
I have a lot of stress. I can help with use the time. If anyone needs a little judging, I can help someone. I have a lot of stress.
I can help with that as well.
With one person, it could be you.
But I don't, I already took your ability before.
Why not you again?
But he took a lot of hits before.
Whoever's most in need.
Who's got more than two stress marks?
How much stress you got there?
I got five stress.
Let's clear the stress.
Four.
So because I have a specialization as a Divine Wielder,
I can a second time use Sparing Touch,
and now we can clear you a two stress.
You can.
And that's the end of my Sparing Touch.
You got it.
And before we go in,
I will, as he's clearing stress,
Bunny is just like, you know,
let's just do a little group meditation.
And I do a little like,
Hmmmm.
And me and close allies heal one hit point.
Yay!
So if you are down one, just heal one.
Amazing!
All right. Who's leading the step forward
into the narrowing caverns before you?
Uh.
All right.
Nothing like a glowing target in the dark.
Right.
Kexen is you.
That's why Batman has Rob.
We think there's a big lizard down here.
We're pretty sure.
It's like Robat.
I'm going to eat this necklace, is what I'm going to do.
Okay.
Yeah, you are. Pop this Jolly Rancher.
You got it. Into my mouth.
Because it says you consume it,
and then later I regurgitate it.
Yeah. So Zarlo grows
eight feet tall.
And it's yoked out.
We'll use this as your mini for now.
Yeah!
Let's go Donkey Kong!
Yeah, you know it.
I'm pretty sure you know that.
Do do do do do do.
Goro!
Great, yeah, you know that shit.
All right.
Pushing forward, the tunnel narrows for a bit. You can see other side tunnels that are
partially collapsed and others that wander off deep into the mine, but the smell, the strong smell
just gets stronger and stronger, leading you further in. The crystals themselves, dull gray
ashen, almost have this sorrowful feeling and energy to them,
and it gets progressively colder and colder.
Stepping through, the chamber opens up a bit
and you can see other tunnels
that move off in different places,
but the rocks themselves have fallen as well.
And that's when the smell in here is extremely acrid.
You glance through and there are all these different clusters
of ashen crystals scattered throughout the room.
There is one in the far back as your light comes across
that you can see within the crystal,
this black mass that seems to be within it
pulsing and moving, not unlike the seep abscess that you had encountered
in the Emerald Sky.
You can see where the crystal has somewhat cracked
the blackened tendrils,
almost like tentacles or veins that are emerging,
just slightly move like weird feelers
of an urchin in the ocean.
What do you do?
Do we see any creatures around?
Any glowing?
Make an instinct roll for me.
Ah! Whoa, okay.
20 with fear. 20 with fear.
20 with fear.
All right.
As you all enter and begin looking around the chamber,
you point out that abscess
as you glance to see any sign of a creature.
As you look up, you look to see something shift above,
and that blue glow begins to emanate
as the slumbering entity becomes aware of your presence
and slams into the ground,
separating you and the two separate groups
in the center of the chamber. Oh no.
As you see it slams onto the floor,
its heavy, multi-ton weight hitting the ground.
The multiple long necks emerge
as some sort of heavily mutated dust skink
that has these long heads, four in total,
that all re-rupt.
LAURA and LAURA and LAURA and LAURA and LAURA.
LAURA and LAURA and LAURA and LAURA and LAURA and LAURA.
Oh!
Let me go ahead and get the other one.
Yeah! Did I tell you go ahead and get the other one. Yeah!
Who's the man?
Did I tell you guys when I saw the memory
that it re-grew its heads?
Yes.
Okay, okay, okay.
It re-grew its heads, yeah.
Okay, great, great.
While he gets the map,
Bunny is going to crack her pants.
Oh shit.
Be like, just like Sir Dante said,
it's time for an encore!
I'm going to give a rally die to this.
I did say that, didn't I?
You did say that,
but you said it in a much longer way.
It's very fast.
Whoa!
Whoa!
Whoa!
Chill, man, chill!
It's so much bigger than I thought it was!
What the hell? That's beautiful.
That's where that is?
I like the red lights.
Crazy.
So everyone gets a d6.
Oh, oh, for what?
I'm rallying everybody.
For anything?
Yes, this is your rally die
that you can use for anything.
Anyone who takes a rally die
can also choose to either gain a hope or clear a stress.
Oh!
Amazing.
Can we choose that at any time?
When you receive the rally die,
when you receive it, so now.
So I can do, and we still get the dice?
100%.
100%!
100%, so you get a d6. Amazing.
The rally dice, you can use this
by adding it to an action roll, a reaction roll,
a damage roll. Fuck yes.
Or clearing stress.
It's my D&D.
Oh!
What?
Ah! You're level six!
It's a d8!
Woo!
Even better! It increases to a d8
when you reach level five.
Yes. No doubt.
Even better. So you get a d8 when you reach level five. Yes. No doubt. Even better.
So you get a d8 that you can use whenever you want.
So. I have a d8.
Whoa! Do you want a d8?
As it slams into the ground,
scattering you to different sides
as part of the fear reaction there,
I'm going to go ahead and spend a fear.
No!
To immediately get you two things there
to activate the...
Oh shit.
Rat row.
A creature in question,
as of yet unnamed,
unidentified, multi-headed fuckface.
Boy, oh boy, oh boy.
As the Seep Hydra.
By the way, this is the crystal that you saw
the abscess sitting within.
The Seep Hydra is going to go ahead and activate, well, first it has its ability called Relentless, which means it can
activate an X number of times, which X is the number of heads the Hydra has. It can activate four
times this turn. That that being the case,
I activated it twice there,
so we get to make two attacks against,
let's see, in a close range.
It's going to go ahead and first,
it's going to strike you, Oppy.
Okay.
Then it's going to strike at you, Zarlo.
All right, you're actually this dude.
Yeah.
So it's going to be against Oppy and Zarlo. All right, you're actually this dude. Yeah. So it's going to be against Oppy and Zarlo.
Both get a strike from the Seep Hydra.
That's going to be 13 against you, Zarlo.
13 will hit.
I will...
So I take major damage, yeah. I take major damage.
Well, now it takes to hit.
No, no, no, just to hit. To hit, all right.
Damage is going to be 12 points of physical damage.
12?
Oh, it's right on my major damage.
Yeah, I take two, I'm going to go to armor.
All right, so reducing that down?
Yeah. All right.
Fucking up me armor. And then, Offee?
That's going to be a 12 to hit.
That hits!
All right.
Did it do you a minor or take it out completely?
It was a major damage.
You take 12 points of physical damage.
Okay, so.
My armor, not my hit points.
I will do that.
All right.
No, but did it bring your damage?
Your armor reduces.
So you would still take a minor hit point.
But you would just go down one?
So if I, how's it work?
So if you have a- So if you spend an armor,
you reduce the damage by your armor score.
Oh, so I spend one.
Yeah.
And what's- Taking it down to 11,
so I take one hit point down.
Yes. Thank you, everybody.
But your armor is a one, or what's your armor?
It's your armor score. Nine.
So that would take it from a 12 down to a?
To a three. To a three.
To a three?
Yeah, you reduce it by the armor score.
I still take one.
Yeah, you still take a hit point,
but just that's going to keep my.
Minus nine, minus nine. Correct, yeah.
He's got some good armor.
Yeah.
Serves him, making worse than his armor.
All right, it's going to spend a secondary fear
to get two of these back.
It only used two of its heads, right?
Instead of all four?
Correct. Okay.
Going to spend the other two to use Terrifying Chorus.
All the heads at once.
You're going to scream.
The whole room quakes.
You all cover your ears and fall to your knees.
All of you lose two hope.
Whoa!
Whoa, whoa!
How dare! Can I? Is this? All of you lose two hope. Whoa! Whoa, whoa!
How dare!
Can I? Is this?
Mm-mm-mm.
Is this a spell or magical effect that is taking place?
No.
It's just a scream.
It's just a yell.
It's just a really shitty song.
But that's going to finish my go.
Who goes first?
Oh.
Let's piss this fucking bastard out!
We're going to get it on like Donkey Kong!
I'm just going to take a swipe at it
to see how much I can hurt it.
So with my new-
You're moving to melee? Do you want to move anywhere?
Nah, that seems dangerous for the moment,
so I'm going to stay back and I'm going to chuck
my tiny little axe.
But I get a plus 10 for damage if I hit.
That's if I hit.
A d10, yeah.
Yeah.
So, but there's no advantage or anything
for the attack roll.
It's just the attack roll.
That is total balls.
So five of those, mm-hmm.
Do I want to do anything for this?
I don't think I do.
I think I'm just going to take the loss.
My tiny ax is so small that I'm not used to throwing it.
And it goes between two heads.
It's so small.
Little help?
All right.
So that finishes your go.
That brings it to me, because of the failed roll.
The hydra is now going to?
Oh, and you get a fear,
because that's what you rolled with fear.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll take that.
I will spend one of those fear
to convert that into two action tokens,
and then I will activate three hydra heads
from where it stands. Damn!
Yikes!
So all of a sudden, as it's going to go ahead
and stand there in the center,
it's primed in its position
because it can reach all of you. It's going to go ahead and stand there in the center, it's primed in its position because it can reach all of you.
It's going to go ahead and
just take three quick strikes in a row.
That's going to bring us to...
It's not too worried about you.
It's going to go...
Actually, it's going to go all three right here.
It's just going to...
It's going to be against you, Sir Dante.
That's going to be a 15 to hit.
That hits.
You take
14 points of physical damage. 14. I'm going to spend an armor
and bring that down
to a six and just take the one HP.
I'm also, I do have a thing called Retaliation.
So I'm going to mark a stress and
I am in, am I melee with him or I'm not?
You are not.
Oh, nevermind, I'm not doing that.
Melee, melee, melee.
Against you, Bunny, that's going to be a seven.
Miss.
You manage to dodge it the way
it is not quite quick enough to catch you on your feet.
And then against you again, Oppy,
that's going to be a 15 to hit.
That hits.
You take 20 points of physical damage.
Ooh!
All right.
All right, I'm going to use some armors.
Do it.
Some armor slots.
So that was 20, you said?
Yes.
Let's see.
Soak up that damage with your armor slots.
You'd have to use all of your armor in order to get.
So maybe we'll just take it.
All right, nevermind.
I'm just going to take it.
All right, go for it.
Because that would be all.
All right, that finishes the jam's move.
Who's up?
All right, first I'm going to,
you know, as I crack my fans,
it creates a little rhythm that you hear
and it starts bouncing off the cave wall
and it's like
and I play an epic song and I make it vulnerable.
Okay.
Sick.
I know.
Whatever you want to do.
I say this marks it as vulnerable here.
You stay where you are.
Yeah, I'm going to do a little, will you pitch it?
Are you ready, Bunny?
Yes, I stay ready.
Here we go. I'm going to spend three hope.
Was it an action to do that, or just an ability?
It's da-ba-da-ba-da, ba-da-ba-da-ba-da.
Describe what you're paying.
You can use an action.
I use an action.
You use an action, all right.
Got it, thank you for that.
So I'm spending three hope
so that we can do a tag team attack.
Go for it.
So I'm going to take out my whip
and I'm going to crack it
and start almost like a ringleader.
I'm going to be like,
over here, you little beastie.
Hell yeah.
I crack it to get attention
and I'm almost shielding Dante until he's ready.
You got it.
I'm going to run around the side
as it comes in and
Trying to bait it this way.
Takes a look at you. Over here?
No, no, we were hoping it was baiting towards her,
so I'm going to jump over the head
and try and just take a nice big
plummeting attack around its neck,
just around her, so I end up on the other side
of that group. Over here?
Yes. You got it.
All right.
It's not worth throwing Dramatic Flare at that.
Perfect, all right. So both of worth throwing Dramatic Flare at that. Perfect, all right.
So both of you can go ahead and make your rolls.
Yeah, as I distract it and it swings,
as soon as he goes, then I'm going to come down with a fan.
Got it, so go ahead and roll, both of you.
This is, okay, I get a couple things out of this.
I use a d20 for my hope die.
You do.
Which is cool.
And then, yeah, and then I also have that,
I'm going to add this one.
Okay.
Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.
24 for me.
With? Hope.
Okay.
I'm at 26 with fear, so we might do 24 with hope.
Might be the better way to go.
I'm good with that.
All right, 24 with hope, that is success.
You both take a hope on that,
and go ahead and roll your damage and add it together.
Yes!
Whole garden.
Meet me in the garden.
Whole garden.
Oh my god.
Okay.
Do I get anything else?
More of that.
Okay, but.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
12 damage for me.
12 plus.
10, 29,
10, 19,
20, 1, 22, 23, 24, 25. Big whammies! 25. No. 25, so 37 20, 1.2, something.
Big whammies. 25.
No.
So 37 points of damage.
That is exactly its severe threshold.
Ooh! So it takes three.
37? 37 is its severe?
Yeah. Damn.
So it takes three hit points
are marked on that hit. Okay, that's great.
Good job, guys. Great job.
And it was vulnerable. And you cut
one of its heads off.
Oh, yes!
You carve it, and one of the four heads
hits the ground like,
Yeah!
Glowing, the glowing blue energy.
Does anyone have fire?
Y'all, burn it before it goes back.
Here's my question.
Were both those physical attacks, right?
Yes. Okay, cool.
I'm also going to,
since I did actually,
I did the hop over the neck,
came down with the sword as the fan came through,
if I actually have an interesting attack,
I do actually get to mark them a stress,
if I'm willing to take a stress.
Mark a stress on them? Yep.
All right, yeah, go for it.
So they take a stress. They take a stress, indeed.
Amazing. All righty.
What does vulnerable mean
when the creature's vulnerable again?
It means you add a d6 to your attack rolls.
To everybody gets it?
We all add a d6 to our attack rolls.
Yeah, when a target is vulnerable,
all attacks against it have a plus a d6.
An additional d6, that's good to know.
I did not do that.
Not the best.
I'm going to step back into Zarlo's shadow
and then bamf out behind the beastie.
So I'm technically hidden as I bamf out.
Over here?
Yeah, that's a stress point.
And.
Shadow would be here,
facing with the light that Zarlo's giving off.
Sure, and then I'll run forward.
I'm technically hidden, so I'm going to run forward
and attack it with advantage.
Go for it.
Right, when I was hidden, I attack with advantage?
Yes.
Yep, so go ahead and roll your attack and add a DCs.
And then that is plus three for proficiency?
Mm-hmm. Okay.
Or plus three for your,
whatever attribute you're adding to it,
whenever you're, the proficiency's the damage you deal.
Oh, oh, oh.
So that would be instinct.
Yeah, so three.
Okay.
And then...
Can I add anything else to this?
You got that die to the bunny?
I know, I want to add the die to the bunny
because I'm afraid I'm going to miss him.
Oh, and I'm going to use a hope.
Okay. To add to damage. Oh, for sneak attack? to use a hope. Okay.
To add to damage.
Oh, for sneak attack? For that, yeah.
Yeah, okay.
Did you add a plus six because he's vulnerable?
Or d6, she did.
I, that's for damage.
But I haven't done the damage. No, no, it's just a hit.
Just a hit.
Oh.
Oh, then I did need to use this eight
if I'd have known that.
I did the same thing. Just take one of them out. What'd you roll on the eight? Take the eight out and then I'd have known that. Mm. I did the same thing.
Just take one of them out.
What'd you roll on the eight?
Take the eight out and then I'll add another six.
Sure. Okay.
Then, okay. Yeah.
Okay, so that's
21, 22, 23, 24.
So you added a d6 to it already?
Yeah, but that's from a sneak attack.
Sneak attack, you add the d6 to damage.
But I roll with advantage.
Right, okay, yeah. When I come out of sneak attack.
Sorry. So you have advantage out of that,
which means the advantage that you already had
wouldn't have added an extra d6.
You just have advantage.
You can't have advantage multiple times.
Got it.
So yeah, so you should add the six.
Okay, okay.
Sorry, I was trying to figure out the dice here.
That's okay, that's okay.
21, 27, 28, 29, 30.
Oh yeah, you hit. With hope.
You hit so hard with hope.
So hard.
The weird dusk kink hydra creature,
after its first head gets cut off,
it recoils, the neck is writhing in the air,
and you appear, rush around the corner from the shadow,
and just, what's your weapon?
I have a quarterstaff.
A quarterstaff.
And you just crack it, but you crack it right where one of its discs was herniated
from the mutation and it just goes.
Okay.
Go ahead and roll damage.
You add the d6 here for sneak attack.
So that's when I add my d6 and I did a hope
so I get another d6.
Correct.
And then I can add Bunny's d8 this time.
Yep.
Okay, and then I do 3d10.
Ooh.
Nice.
D10.
Wait, I can't find, it's fine, I'll just add another one.
Okay, and then my proficiency thingies.
Oh, that's shit!
Nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17.
Okay, 17.
18, 19, 27. 27 points damage, that is a major wound. It takes two more hit points. Okay, okay, 19, 27. 27 points damage, that is a major wound.
It takes two more hit points.
Okay, okay, okay, okay.
You cut off a secondary head,
or more like you hit it in the back in a way.
Yeah, I'm trying to hit it in the back.
That's why I bammed behind,
because I don't want it to take off a head.
I was trying to hit its spine.
Right, you hit the spine, and as it rears back,
as a reaction, I was back, as a reaction,
What if I hit it so hard its bosoms come flying out?
As a reaction, after that first head was cut off,
it rears back and that gives Sir Dante an opening
who reactionarily cuts off a secondary head.
Nice. Oh, not amazing.
That's two less attacks that it can make with its head.
Okay, great. I want to jump in
with something I should have started with to help you all.
Zone of protection.
Whoa.
I'm going to add my rally die, for feck's sake.
Okay, I just make it 16.
Zone of protection on a success.
Once per long rest, you can designate a point
within far range of you, underneath the skink's ass.
And a visible zone of protection for my allies within close range, which is why I put it underneath the skink's ass, in a visible zone of protection for my allies
within close range, which is why I put it
under the skink, I place a d8 out,
and every time one of you gets hit,
you minus what's on the die from the damage.
So the first person to partake gets eight minused,
then the next person seven.
How big's the zone?
It's close range, so shooting out to everyone
centered on the skin.
So that entire area there?
Yeah. Nice.
Cool.
All right, so yeah.
Close range is gonna be most of it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Should've led with it.
That's great.
Cool.
All righty.
Can I kick up with my wings
and I'm gonna burn two stress to change out
a Book of Typhar for the Book of Exada.
Did you make a roll for that, Zerlo? Or is it just happens? I did make aar for the Book of Exodda.
Did you make a roll for that, Zerlo?
Or is it just happens?
I did make a roll for it.
Right, thank you.
Oh, and it's with hope.
Yep, there you go, take a hope.
So with the Book of Typhar, I'm gonna kick up
using my wings and fly up towards this thing
with now two of its heads chopped off.
Yeah.
And I'm gonna use Wild Flame to make a spell cast roll
against up to three enemies in melee range of me.
Flame erupts from my hand, dealing 2d6 magic damage
and the stress and need that I succeed against.
Go for it. Okay.
Carverize those back.
Just in case it's like a hydra.
He's well read, he's read about monsters and stuff.
Okay, plus four, 16. So 20 with Fear.
20 with Fear, that hits.
That definitely succeeds.
Okay, and School of War,
now with my School of War specialization,
I deal 2d10 extra damage on an attack roll with Fear.
Correct. Okay.
So yeah. Oh, great.
He does more damage when he succeeds with Fear.
Oh, nice.
Mo damage when I'm scared.
So that's 14 extra damage on top of 2d6.
14, 24.
24 points of damage plus four, 28 points of damage.
28 points of damage?
To three different targets?
Dang, all right. To three different targets? Dang, all right.
To three different targets?
It says against up to three enemies in melee range of you.
Oh, does that count as multiple heads?
No, because it's still one creature.
Gotcha.
But you do burn off a third head.
Yes!
So the third head smolders and cracks away
as the ashen, charcoaled head drops off the stump as it pulls away
the blackened exterior of it, still present.
There's just the one snapping head now.
Got it.
That finish your turn? Yes, it does.
All right, that brings it to me.
I'm going to go ahead and activate Spend a Fear to use,
that was magic damage?
Yes, spell cast roll.
Okay. Yeah, 2d6 magic damage. Yeah, spell cast roll. Okay.
Yeah, 2d6 magic damage.
Yeah, so.
And he marks his stress.
That's true.
Okay, so.
And he marks his stress, yeah.
Yes.
So because that was magic damage, he is dazed.
Oh! And confused, bro.
Hey!
See you at the moon tower.
Right, all right, all right.
Let me see.
You're not cooler if you did.
I am going to spend a fear
to remove the vulnerable condition.
Shit.
No longer vulnerable.
Aw.
It's not a thing.
But it's dazed.
While dazed, it cannot use its own regeneration ability.
Sweet.
But it's now immune to magic damage
until it's no longer dazed.
Immune to magic damage. Until it's no longer dazed. Immune to magic damage. Until it's no longer dazed.
So while it's dazed, it's immune.
I will activate the Crystal Seep Abscess over here.
Hey!
It will use its action to use Regeneration Pulse.
So while it can't regenerate itself,
the pulse, the Seep, through and through all the crystals
that are ashen around also flash black.
As it does, the hydra regains a hit point
and regenerates a head.
This little quartzite pimple.
Okay, that's good.
Now the hydra's going to use,
now that has two heads, I'm going to take both of those
to attack twice with the hydra.
With this, it's going to turn and both strikes are on you.
Oh no.
First attack is going to be 15 to hit.
15 hits.
You take 25 points of physical damage.
Whoa!
Minus eight because of zone of protection.
Yep. 25 minus eight, so 17.
And I'll burn an armor to make that 11.
No, I won't burn an armor,
because it's all the fucking same.
Okay, so that's major damage.
Okay.
Wait, did you drop him down?
I did.
Actually, I'll burn two, and then I'll get it to one.
All right.
And that is a natural 20.
Damn!
What happens with my zone of protection?
It still reduces the damage,
but the damage is going to be maxed and then a dice roll.
Oh, that was a hit.
Oye, oye.
I'm ready. My body's ready.
Oh, he's making the face.
Yeah, he's going to do a lot.
I can't do that. I can't do that.
You take 51 points of damage.
Minus seven.
Right. Minus seven, minus seven.
Minus seven. Because if it doubles seven, minus seven. Minus seven.
Because if it doubles the severe.
Which is four hit points.
44, right?
Holy heck.
What's your severe?
44, 26.
So it doesn't double it.
Yeah, no, no. Barely.
That's going to save you. 26 minus seven.
Jeez Louise.
What do you mean 26 minus seven?
Because his zone of protection thing that he did.
No, he knocked it down seven.
So from the 54.
51, right? Yeah.
So 40.
Right, so that'd be three hit points onto you.
Ooh!
44 minus six, 12, 18.
Help, math!
Whoa.
Help.
Help. Help.
Help.
Shit.
26.
Oh, that makes exactly three hit points.
Okay.
I'm going to burn those three.
Okay.
Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.
That finishes my GM turn.
I'm going to burn my last armor, actually,
to make it a major damage.
There you go.
Now I'm out of armor.
Okay.
Fuuuuh!
Shit, shit. You're out of armor
and you have three hit points.
And the weekly top 40!
I got three more hit points, I'm fine.
Somebody got to maybe go over
and attack that crystal or something.
Yeah.
He's still dazed.
For the time being, yeah.
So maybe magic people focus on the crystal.
Actually, at the end of his turn, sorry.
They show me the Hydra activates, and we roll the dice real fast. Well, actually, at the end of his turn, sorry. They show me the Hydra activates,
and we roll the dice real fast.
Everyone, boys, Matthew.
No, that's an eight. No longer dazed.
Oh!
But no longer immune to magic damage, at least.
All right, so who wants to go next?
Okay. Yeah?
You haven't gone yet? Okay, no.
So I'm going to spend,
I'm spending a stress to replenish my Unleash Chaos tokens.
You got it.
And I am going to make my way
over to the crystal.
Over here? Yes.
I want to try to, yeah, let me try to get,
well, I don't know if I want to be close to the crystals.
Whatever.
That's great. I'm going to stay right there.
Matt, you can put me up in front of the mouth
because I was right up in his biz
on that little platform if you want to.
Yeah, sure. So you flap up here.
That's right, I was, yeah.
Yeah, go for it.
And I am going to Unleash Chaos
yet again on the crystal, the Seep.
Yep, against the crystal Seep, Abscess.
Go ahead and roll an attack.
Okay, okay, okay, the Seep. Yep, against the crystal Seep, Abscess. Go ahead and roll an attack. Okay, okay, okay, okay.
Okay.
Come on.
Come on, come on, come on.
Ooh, all right.
So 13 with hope.
13 with hope, you take a hope.
That just misses. Oh, damn, wait! a hope. That is, that just misses.
Oh!
Damn, wait!
You have your rally die.
Wait!
Your rally die!
Wait, okay, wait.
That just misses?
Right.
Okay, but I'm going to use my rally die?
Yeah, got it.
It just needs one point, so it's an auto.
It's plus seven, so.
So that plus seven on that?
Yeah. That definitely hits.
Go ahead and roll damage.
Okay, so. Yeah, yeah, that's what the rally die's for.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, so.
Can I use your d10 again?
Yeah, go for it.
Here you go. Okay, thank you.
It does say you can add it to the results
of an action roll, so I think you can add it retroactively.
You can add it.
Generally, it's like you roll and then you add it
before I confirm whether or not it succeeds or not.
But we're learning it here, so I'm being wibbly-wobbly.
Before you confirm.
Yeah, so it's like, I'm going to spend it.
And then I tell you.
That's another eight.
17. Nine.
Oh, seven plus nine, 26.
26.
26.
Plus. 29.
29 points of damage.
That's a major wound to the Crystal Seat of Absence.
It takes two hit points.
It's going to use its reaction, Protective Burrow.
Oh! What? It's going under. It's going to use its reaction, Protective Burrow. Oh! What?
It's going under!
It's going under!
This crystal crumbles into nothing,
and the abscess vanishes within.
All the other crystals around pulse with darkness,
and you still feel its presence.
You get the sense it's in one of these crystals.
It could be anywhere.
Oh, sneaky, sneaky.
It's a sneaky crystal.
Hogarth!
It's a sneaky little crystal.
Sneaky little crystal.
But we don't immediately see it.
It's going to be like a...
To be forward with this,
whenever anybody just breaks a crystal,
roll a d6 on a four plus.
It's in that crystal.
Okay.
I'm going to jump in with a helping hand.
I'm going to jump up by kicks and say,
Come here, you wee feckingin' chitinous bastard!
And I'll do healing hands.
Five.
I don't make the, I don't roll high enough,
but I still, so it's not as good,
but you heal one hit point, one stress.
I'll take it. I'll take both of those.
Okay, so you did not succeed on the?
It was with hope, but it wasn't high enough,
according to the rules.
If I had succeeded on the roll,
we would've gotten two hit points and two stress.
Totally. But it was low,
so it was one hit point and one stress.
Okay, but because it's still a failed roll,
it still comes to me.
All right, all right.
So that finishes your go.
Great.
On my activation here, I'm going to go ahead and
I'm going to activate the Hydra.
I'm going to spend the sphere to do it.
Sorry, question.
Yes.
Because of the gem I ate, it says your strength, agility,
and finesse rolls have advantage.
Since my spellcasting modifier is strength,
would that be an advantage, that roll?
Because of this rule, your strength? my spellcasting modifier strength, would that be an advantage to that roll?
Because of this rule, your strength? It would be, yeah.
Nah.
Good try, good try, good try.
But spending that fear off the activation,
it can now regenerate since it's no longer dazed,
so it's going to heal two hit points.
Dang.
Yeah! We got to break crystals. And it regrows a third head. longer dazed, so it's going to heal two hit points. Dang. Oh, no!
We got to break crystals.
And it regrows a third head.
Oh, fuck.
Okay.
And wherever the crystal is, it's going to activate.
It's going to use Regeneration Pulse
to heal a hit point on the hydra.
Shit.
What do you see if I try to find the new crystal?
And it regrows its fourth head.
Just hit crystals and you will die.
If we break a crystal, there's a chance
we'll hit the sixth thing.
That finishes my activation.
Who's next?
Well, fuck this.
I'm turning. Yeah.
I'm turning. Do you want to go?
No, I was going to just hit some crystals.
I'm going to hit crystals.
I'm going to do the same thing at the same time.
We're going to run and hit crystals.
We're going to hit crystals.
Ah, I'm going to hit that one.
So you're going to this one here?
Sure.
I'll run farther away.
How about the one right behind?
There? Sure.
Okay.
You rush up there.
All right.
Who wants to roll for what first?
I'll go!
Oh, it's close.
It was close to another crit, but it's not.
Maddy, would you put my monkey by the bog?
Here? Thanks, yeah.
You got it. Four. so wait, that's...
Did you say daddy?
12, 14.
15, 16?
16 hits.
Hits, okay.
Go ahead and roll damage.
If you want to roll for an attack as well,
since you guys are doing this at the same time.
Come on.
16 with what, though?
With what? Oh, with fear.
God, thank you. With fear.
I'm going to add my rally die.
So, pulled up on that, actually.
Oh, I'm not here, just kidding.
I'm adding my rally die.
Okay.
Seven, ten, 15 damage.
15 damage. That is a minor wound. It takes a hit point.
Or actually, no, this is a hit, sorry, this is a minor wound. It takes a hit point.
Or actually, no, this is the hit, sorry, this is to hit the crystal.
Now roll a d6 to see if it's there.
So and if four up, it's there?
Four up, it's there, yeah.
Come on.
Four! Four.
Wow.
Well, technically, the crystal is still there.
Oh no, it shatters the crystal, it takes the damage,
and then it's going to use its reaction
to disseminate into other crystals.
So the seed takes the damage.
Protect the burrows again,
but it does take another hit point.
Okay, okay, okay.
If you didn't find it,
you'd send it back under the ground.
Correct, you found it and did damage.
So it is taking hit points every time we do it.
So now maybe you're lucky.
Yeah, after the hydra gets to go now.
Now it comes to my go.
With the fear I got from that,
I'm going to go ahead and spend that fear
to get two more action tokens.
I'm going to activate the hydra three times
to do its attack with its heads.
Run away, you bitch.
That's going to be...
Give me three attacks on you.
Yeah!
Oh no!
We've gone for one!
Oh no!
We're good, we're good, we're good, we're good.
He's got no, he tore through his armor, man.
Yeah, yeah.
He's the chewiest target.
Oh no!
All right, that's a natural one.
Oh! Hey!
Natural one.
We're third of the way there.
All right, that's going to be 14 to hit.
It hits. All right. that's going to be 14 to hit. 14 to hit.
All right.
No!
What if I use a prayer die to minus four from it?
Does 10 hit?
Down to 10.
10 misses.
Done.
All right, so that's two misses.
Because I've got my spellcasting trait
to add to my evasion because of School of War.
That's true. And then that's going to be another 12 to hit you. a spellcasting trait to add to my evasion because of School of War.
That's true.
And then that's going to be another 12 to hit you.
12 is my evasion.
So that does hit you. Okay.
All right, so you take 22 points of physical damage.
Whoa!
Minus six.
Minus six. Because of the zone of protection.
Yep. Great.
So that brings it to a 16.
Beautiful, I'll take it.
Nice.
That finishes my activation. Who's up? I'll take it. Nice. That finishes my activation.
Who's up?
I hit a crystal.
All right, this is going to move over here a little bit.
Shift around.
This space.
I'm attacking a crystal.
Go for it, roll for the attack.
Slick, that was awesome.
And then I add my proficiency.
No. No.
Proficiency is for damage.
I roll my instinct, three plus. No. Proficiency's for damage. I roll my instinct.
Three plus three.
So eight plus five.
Eight plus five, 13.
Plus three is 16.
16 would hit the crystal.
Go ahead and roll a d6 for me.
Six. Six, all right.
So that is striking the abscess.
So go ahead and roll damage for that.
Okay.
Three d10. Nice.
Plus three, and I'm going to add these as well.
Go for it.
That's one, two, three.
Okay.
Okay, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19.
19.
That is going to be a minor wound on it.
It takes another hit point.
The crystal is shattered and the abscess
submerges once more and scatters somewhere
to another crystal in the space.
Okay, okay, okay, okay.
Could I please go before I get squished?
Yeah. Amazing.
Getting rocked.
Can I use my action to mark a stress?
That was with hope, by the way.
Thank you.
Mark a stress, and I'm going to create
a temporary wall of magical flame
between two points within far range.
Can I tuck it in the corner on these big crystals
and run it right by Zarlo?
Yes, Zarlo straight into whatever the hell that thing is.
So bisecting it.
How far do you want it?
Just into the corner as much as possible,
but not getting into, yeah, that's great.
Right, so it's in this space here.
Yeah, is there any way to do it so it's like this?
Oh, like this, yeah.
Yeah, so we can hit these big boys down here.
Yeah, sure.
Take those out of the equation.
Spell cast.
Nope, no spell casting roll.
It does take 4d10 damage.
Which is dumb, because I was hoping to roll some magic.
Do you roll for attack on the hydra for that?
No, it says just use an action to mark a stress,
create a temporal wall of magical flame.
Oh great, and then?
Anything passes through it makes 40, 10 magic damage.
All right.
Which it hasn't moved through it, but it's in it,
so we'll just wait for now.
I'd say when it moves or on its activation,
I'll go ahead and use it. Great, I'll hold those dice
right there then.
Okay, great, that's it.
That's my, oh, and can I get the fuck out of there?
Yeah, if you want to.
I know I'll take an attack of opportunity,
but it sucks being out there.
There's no attacks of opportunity in this system.
Oh!
Unless you have it as part of a class feed.
I dig it.
Whoa!
I'm going to go hide in the corner.
Over here?
Got it. Okay.
Actually, I'm on a line with him.
Was he on any line and stuff?
I'll just stay back there.
Okay, protect me, see me. All right, that finishes your go. Who's up next? I'd like to try something, if it's okay. What's stuff? I'll just stay back there. Okay. Protect me, Simian.
All right, that finishes your go. Who's up next?
I'd like to try something if it's okay.
What's up? Go for it, Zola.
You have to tell me if this is possible,
because it seems like a lot,
but I have one prayer die left that I'd like to,
I can use on my own hope.
I'm maxing out my hope.
I have, at 5th-level, I have Smite.
Spend three hope to charge up a powerful Smite
on the next successful attack.
Double your proficiency on the damage roll.
And I say, hey, green machine, be my sword!
And I run over and pick up Sir Dante,
and I want to combo attack.
Yeah. And I want to attack
this thing with the turtle.
So you're going to move over
and then fastball special him?
Yeah. Hell yeah.
Great. That's spiky armor, it's great.
Yep. All right, so both of you go ahead
and roll your attacks for your respective weapons,
but you get to have advantage on yours
because of your size.
Okay.
Mine is a presence attack.
20 for me.
20 with?
Fear.
All right.
You definitely are, yeah, you're definitely better than mine. Mine was terrible. So 20 with? Fear. All right. You definitely, yeah, you're definitely better than mine.
Mine was terrible.
So 20 with fear.
So that succeeds, and because you are your roge form,
when you succeed on an action roll, I gain a fear.
All right, that's true.
I get two fear for that.
But that does indeed hit.
So both of you guys go ahead and roll your damage
and add them together.
So I am doubling my proficiency, which is four,
which is eight, plus, because of the size,
I had an additional d10, so it's 9d10 for me currently.
That is correct.
Wow. Dang!
Wow.
That's insane.
Woo-woo! Four, five.
This is rad. Six.
Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo! Nine. Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo! It's insane. Four, five. This is rad. Six. This doesn't count.
Six, seven, eight, nine.
Two, three, four.
Stop!
Jesus Christ.
We're inspiring him.
He's like, I'm fucking Irish.
38, 38, 48,
48, 52, 57. Plus 25.
For me, plus 25.
Sheesh!
That's 82.
What?
That doubled it!
77 to 82, yeah.
That doubles, that's four hit points.
Woohoo!
So I grab Dante by the waist.
He's got his blade in his hand,
and I just pick him up and he's my sword.
Holy shit.
You wield Sir Dante, who is wielding his own weapon.
That is fantastic.
With a stab and a cut through,
it's a double cleave into this entity.
Just. One of its head just goes flying through, it's a double cleave into this entity.
One of its head just goes flying
and vanishes into the back of the chamber.
Let's let me, have you let go of me,
or are you holding on?
Well, put me in melee range with the damn thing.
I think I did it.
You both would probably move up to do that anyway.
All righty.
Fantastic. That finishes your go.
Done.
That comes back to me with a fear. All right, I got some points here to spend. It's going to
spend a fear to regenerate. It heals two of those hit points and gets its head back. It's one
activation there, and the other three are going to activate. With that, it's going to go ahead and...
Damn.
It's going to move.
Is it going to move? It is.
Because first, I'm going to take a little swing at it.
You do.
I'll follow up with my Wall of Fire afterwards.
Trap of Opportunity?
All right, try to sleep me, make an attack.
Make an agility reaction roll, excuse me.
Let's just try to find my stuff.
Agility reaction roll.
So.
Agility reaction roll against their,
I don't make it, it's nine.
No, unfortunately.
Goes wide.
Does it matter on the, no, it's a reaction roll.
37 points of fire damage.
37.
4d10 plus your rally.
It's severe.
That takes off a secondary, head gets burned off.
It only has two heads at the moment.
And it only had two more of those,
so I'm going to activate both those heads.
Does it happen to destroy those crystals at all?
Not the same.
Unfortunately, the crystals are immune to manual damage.
Boo!
Oh! Good to know.
Or the ones that it's not in.
Okay.
So you know what? No, actually, to that point then,
go ahead and roll a d6 for each of these crystals.
Because now that was the part that was exposed earlier
when you hit it, but now it's hiding within the crystals.
How many are there?
And this would be two.
Come on, come on.
Killed a sea. Two and a three. Two and a three? What's that in there How many are there? This would be two. Come on, come on.
Killed a sea. Two and a three.
Two and a three? It's not in there.
No.
It was worth the randomization of it, though.
What about those crystals destroyed?
These crystals, I'd say
These big, giant bamboos?
are destroyed. Those tatas.
If I've got the... Tatas.
Is it still your run?
It is. Okay.
So he took that damage.
One of the heads burned off.
It only has two heads at the moment.
It's going to activate both those heads
and it's coming for you again.
It's in the corner?
Yep. Really?
Well, it can hit everything in close range, too.
Because of you, I learned a prayer.
Wow.
Texan is out of my zone of protection now
because it doesn't move with the Hydroid.
It is on is spot. Yeah! Yeah! Oh my god!
Oh my god!
I'm excited!
I don't know why he came over here!
Ah!
22?
Yeah, okay.
Okay.
Oh, it's so high.
15, 20 points of physical damage.
Oh yeah, okay.
Oh my god.
Oh no.
And the next hit.
My last two hit points.
Going to be...
I feel like this is Chetney, just like a.
18.
Hits.
For...
He's trying to kill your ass.
23 points of physical damage.
Oh!
No!
Now, well, here's the thing.
Now we come to a death move.
You have three choices here.
You can either Blaze of Glory, where you get to immediately take an action
that's an auto-critical success,
but Kexin is dead.
Or you could avoid death and face consequences.
You just turn unconscious until you are healed,
and then you roll a fear die to see
if you perhaps lose a permanent hope slot,
but you're out of the fight until healed.
Or you could risk it all and just roll your duality dice.
If the hope is higher, you stay on your feet,
you clear hit points and stress equal
to the number that you rolled.
And if a crit is rolled,
you stay on your feet and clear all of it.
Or if your fear is higher, you die immediately.
What do you want to do here?
The last one.
Gamble.
Gamble! Gamble!
My spells don't do anything powerful enough
that a crit would really make it exciting.
Just the ones that I have selected aren't there.
So 2d12, my duality does.
You just roll them and tell me which one's higher.
How does it work again?
Do you just have to?
It's just rollies against yourself.
Fear, he dies. Hope, he gets up.
Ta-ta, ta-ta. Oh my god.
It's a 12 with hope.
Ooh!
An 11 and a one.
Ooh!
So Kexin stays up,
and because you rolled a 12 on the hope die,
you clear 12 hit points and stress.
Whoa! 12 hit points and stress. Whoa!
12 hit points and stress?
Yeah.
You stay on your feet and you clear HP and or stress
equal to the number rolled.
So you have 12 points you can distribute to heal
between the stress and your hit points.
Great.
That is wild.
That brings you to the next round.
So Travis. Yes.
Or Kexton.
Describe to me how you get knocked to the edge of death,
pull yourself free, and come back stronger than you were.
The snapping jaws lift you up
and slam you into the ground.
A second one grabs,
and as they both bite into your shoulder,
you hear something crack,
and the darkness begins to tunnel vision your expression.
In that moment, what do you see?
What do you think?
I hear my family's voice in my head saying,
Be the one.
Make a name for the family.
And I go.
I fly forward with my pincers
and they jam into the beast's belly.
And for some reason, I could.
I start sucking life out of the beast.
Invigorated.
My wings.
Vampire. With a new bright light. And nobody saw it. My wink.
With a new bright light.
And nobody saw it.
Yeah, I'm over here in my corner.
Hexen driven by memory of the family.
Yep, obviously.
All right, that finishes its go.
Who's up?
I would love to take a nice little cartwheel tumble
to get around the fire and head towards that crystal
that I can see right before me.
Right here? Yes.
I just want to take the one to my right.
Oh, here? That one.
And I just want to take a nice, wonderful slash at it.
Do it.
All right.
There's one of your least favorite things.
Yeah, man. I'll hold a T2.
Yes.
That is a Witch's Witch.
Oh, I'm trying to remember which is which.
Oh yes, that's right.
It's a 21.
Yeah, I know.
Is that right?
Or which one did you have as hope?
Technically, this one is hope,
but I fucked up the run, so, but it's okay.
Yeah.
So 21 with? Yeah, I rolled the wrong turn die. With hope. 21 with hope, but it's okay. Yeah. So 21 with?
Yeah, I rolled the wrong turn die.
With hope.
21 with hope.
Okay, so take the hope.
That is a hit, so go ahead and roll a d6.
I should start using these, because it's more easy.
All right, and let's...
That's my own damn fault.
Wait, did you do the fire yet?
Where's the d8s?
I did.
So did it stay up when you died?
Well, he didn't die. He didn't die.
Behind.
D8, D8.
Yeah, and that's the instance with that,
is you stay on your feet.
You basically, before you fully go under, you like.
Jeez, that's such a gamble.
It is.
That's a gamble.
It's a high reward, but high risk.
Yes, yes.
And that's a...
Oh, that went over to the toast.
Seven, eight, nine, seven,
eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19.
Just 20.
Okay, would you roll on the d6?
Oh, I didn't roll the d6 yet.
That's a five.
Five, that would be it.
So that will be the final hit point.
You strike the crystal, and it cracks a little bit,
and you feel something twitch within, trying to recoil.
In that moment, you push with all your might,
and you divide the crystal as it cracks in the center.
The abscess itself, bleeding out black ichor,
as you jam your blade into it, you feel it shudder,
and then begin to liquefy and pour out the sides of the broken crystal.
The abscess destroys you.
Yes!
I have nothing really to say.
This is just disgusting.
This is just disgusting.
You're disgusting.
The hydra begins to screech and roil.
You watch as its glowing, mutated form,
the corners of its body
begin to turn that kind of ash and gray color.
It can no longer regenerate.
Oh, great.
And it is vulnerable.
Ooh!
Yeah, yeah.
I turn around to Zarlo,
and I say, hey, give me a boost,
and I want to do a combo attack with Zarlo.
Go for it. Going up? Going up. Give me a boost! And I want to do a combo attack with Zarlo.
Go for it. Going up.
Going up!
So I imagine, you know, like a cheerleader basket toss?
Oh, sure.
You take me and you launch me into the air.
I'm going to send you like a javelin.
Oh, all right!
Come here, lass!
And I take my fans, and I have both my fans,
I'm going to put them together so it's like
this 180 flying blade, and I'm just going to
and nosedive into it.
Hell yeah.
Just a pizza slicer with bunny ears.
Yep.
Awesome.
All right, both of you guys go ahead and roll.
You have advantage on the rolls,
so you should add a d6 to it.
Right, right, right.
Because it is vulnerable.
24 with fear for me. Okay, it. Right, right, right. Is it a Disbonerable? 24 with fear for me.
Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.
There we go.
Ooh, well, that one's cocked.
Okay.
Okay.
That is going to be 18 with hope.
Which do you prefer, 18 with hope?
Or 24 with fear? 24 with fear.
I don't remember what we needed to make.
I don't remember what it was.
I feel like it's over 20.
I do, too, so let's take the 24 with fear.
Let's do 24 with fear.
Okay, 24 with fear.
That gives me a fear, which I'll take.
And we add up our damage. And that's a success.
Because it is a success for you, I get another fear.
All right. I'm sorry I fucked up.
But it's okay, we already made the call.
Yep. I forgot to add my abilities.
Yeah, you got to remember that.
But nevertheless, we already chose.
Go ahead and roll your damage and add them together.
I rolled three 10s.
Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo! On my five 10s.
Yes, dude.
Okay, you're going to do the eight here.
36 total.
I rolled real bad.
10 total.
10 total. 10 total.
46, all told.
46.
How do you want to do this?
Oh!
Yeah!
Well, all I'm doing is sending you on your way.
Yes, yes, yes.
You tell me how it gets fucked up.
Fuck it up to the tempo, girl!
The two heads that are still functional
turn back to try and snap at you with the air.
What do you do?
So yeah, I have my two fans.
And you know that moment with Trinity in the Matrix
where she's flying through the window
and she turns?
And she turns?
Yes!
It's like that.
Fuck yes.
And they're like, corn screws.
Yeah, makes no sense.
Like, wait, what?
Why did you do that?
It didn't then and it does it now.
No. And the blade's like a really wide drool.
Yes, yes, it just goes like through it.
With the Seep Abscess destroyed,
the actual form of the hydra is quite unstable,
and as you impact, it seems to bend and rip,
and you tear through,
and you feel many things moving around you
as you pull and emerge the other side,
landing, catching yourself, blade out.
Yes.
What little bit of blood there is,
you scatter off, immaculate, untouched by the gore within.
Gorgeous.
As the body collapses onto the ground,
as it does, you watch the body tear apart,
and hundreds of dust skinks emerge from the inside
and just scatter.
Oh!
Frightened?
You've got to be in this. Frightened?
They were cute.
They're not cute anymore.
No, no, no, I don't like it.
I don't like it.
You freed them.
Yeah.
Do you hear a little old, like, beep, beep?
It's like, oogie boogie.
A little bit, yeah.
Whoa!
Mom?
Whoa, whoa.
Mama.
I'm the boogie man.
As you take a moment to breathe,
you can already see the faintest bit of red glow
beginning to gently return
to some of the nearby crystals
as the localized source of Seep has been destroyed.
The scattered blue glow of the various Duskings
vanishing into the darkness of the caverns.
But it looks like, for now,
this particular source, the second source
of recently set up in Seep has been annihilated.
The Kroatona family is going to be so pissed.
We're going to have to probably lay low for a while.
This night had everything.
Amphibian mafia.
It had a fantastical magical burlesque.
It had spy shit.
We seduced some poor chump and threw him in a shed.
And then this.
Which, by the way, as you guys emerge from the cave,
like talking about this, the door,
he's like,
I don't know how I locked myself in there. Oh.
Who are you?
I'm so sorry, can I help you?
Just in his briefs, ready for action.
Oh yeah, no, he's, he's, he's, he's.
Nakers. Naked.
Yeah.
Have a good night!
Hello?
Yeah, because we're.
Where's the ghouls?
Oh.
They were waiting for you.
Yeah, they got tired.
As long as they could.
They left. They couldn't get back in.
It was six.
It was locked.
Oh shit. But instead,
I found these friends.
Hello.
And we took care of your seat problem.
You were sleeping.
We had a wild time. We killed a big thing.
That's fine, whatever.
Like, oh.
We missed it. We have wild toy. That's fine, whatever. Like, oh. We missed it.
It's the worst.
My cell phone died.
Oh.
Oh man.
All right, well, have a good night.
And he walks in and closes the door behind him.
Not even realizing that he doesn't know who you are.
Doesn't know how he got in here.
Come on over, my friends are coming over.
Where are you? Okay, we're going to sleep.
Shit.
Nobody.
No!
Nobody go in that shed.
Last thing you hear is,
you're never going to believe me.
Yeah.
As the door closes.
But here, as you recover from a harrowing experience
in the near demise of your friend Kexin,
this source of sleep destroyed,
this strange, mysterious baron still exists out there,
the one who masterminded these various seeds
of corruption throughout the world.
And the one note you have is you seem to hail
from a location not far from here.
Notice the Champion's Crown,
a city of great commerce
and great competitive battle for glory.
So maybe we'll do that another story.
Oh!
We'll end that here tonight for this third,
this menage a trois.
Menage a trois.
For the menagerie.
As part of this Daggerheart open beta.
Thank you so much for hanging with us.
I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.
Great job, man.
That was chaos.
Yay!
That was so much fun.
That was so much fun.
I never thought this would happen to me.
Yeah.
And I was right.
Can we all do a last roll to do a gamble?
Yeah, I'm into it.
To see if we would live or die?
To see if we would live or die?
Live or die.
Death roll.
Death roll.
Who would live to tell your story?
I lived, three to three.
I lived, baby!
I would die.
I'm alive!
It would have been great knowing y'all.
Oh, I would live.
These rolls, these dice, three to three.
That was cool, though.
Two dead. I died. Four to three. Dead, which would have. These rolls, these dice, three, three alive, two dead. I like four to two.
Dead, which would have been real awkward.
Ooh!
Oh my goodness.
Well, who knows?
Maybe we'll have a chance to continue the story
in the future or try other characters and other things.
We got some fun.
We have so much cool shit with Daggerheart.
And to that point, thank you all so much for watching.
If you haven't had a chance to dig into this game,
you can download all the materials of the open beta
right now at daggerheart.com.
And if you have already and continue to do so,
thank you so much for helping us
make this game better and better.
Sincerely, all of your feedback and submissions to the surveys,
both as players and GMs,
have been astronomically important
and have helped make this just that much colder
with each step.
We're zeroing in on getting this to its final form
in the months to come.
So if you haven't had a chance to test it out yet
and you want to get us your feedback,
now's the time to do it.
So please do.
But thank you all so very, very much.
We'll see some of you live at the Greek this Saturday.
Or Bells Hells Chaos.
It's a win.
But nevertheless, we love you very much.
And is it Thursday yet?
Good night.
Thank you for listening to Critical Role.
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Until next time, dear critters,
adventure awaits!