Mayday Plays - Starforged 4

Episode Date: August 11, 2021

Caleb takes the helm on this week's installment of Starforged.

Once again, we find ourselves lost in space with the tribe of the Ironlands aboard whatever the ship is called. We don't think we actually have a name for this ship yet, with KB, our artificial intelligence. With me today, hello everyone by the way, my name is Sergio, I am your host and with me today is my elusive friend, Caleb, how are you Caleb? Doing well, I'm excited to be here, I'm excited to check out Starforge, finally be a part of it. That's right, this is your first session.

I'm really, yeah, I'm excited to bring all of my bad roles to space, it feels like a new frontier for my terrible hard misses, I think it's going to be great. Have you ever played any space TTRPGs in the past? So you know what, I have been trying to run a game of Starfinder that I wrote like three years back for a century and I've just never found a party for it. So I've never got the opportunity to do space, but if I ever did, I have this space western idea that I've tooled around for forever and I love the genre, I love science fiction light when it comes to space, I'm way more Han Solo than I am Captain Kirk, but my god I love

it. You're more Star Wars than Star Trek. Exactly, yeah. I see. I like the fancy robes in the making no sense about any sort of lore, you know, big creepy aliens that don't speak the language. It's funny because I kind of feel like the same way where I love Star Trek, I really do like a lot about it and you know, some of the more hard science and morality tales

and stuff. Yeah, yeah. I think a perfect future space world is the fantastic technology, it looks like magic type of aesthetic, you know what I mean? It should be mystical, it should be something that feels otherworldly. I love Star Trek, but so much of it feels like modern day, like oh yes, I could totally see how that becomes the philosophy, how that becomes our world. Star Wars, none of it makes sense.

We're all wearing parachute pants and shooting lasers, like incredible. What would you say our Starforged world is? Because we have people who just emerged out of a Iron Age-like society and are now riding around in a starship. It reminds me of like a 60s or 70s, you know, like 70s movie. Right, it feels a little like Flash Gordon B movie. You know, like reminiscent of the Lost in Time or... Battlestar Galactica.

Battlestar Galactica, 100%, you know, people who are drawn out of a life and brought into this high fantasy environment. I'm totally thinking, you know, B-movie roots of, you know, big tin space cans and David Bowie songs. With those B-movie roots in mind, let us jump in and see what we can do to help the people of the Iron Lands. So to recap, last session with Allegra, had its ups and downs. The downside was that our fearless leader, Ashana, on a previous mission, I think with

Amanda, got bit by something, was like a little raptor creature. And that creature through roles, we realized, had given us some kind of disease, some kind of sickness. And the roles were just not with us. And it ended with Ashana in cryostasis, just like her wife, Ila, or I forget what her name is. Anyway. It was Ila, right?

Yeah, it was something like that. Hopefully we see them again. The point is, we had to make a new character. And so we created this character, Nakata, who is kind of the opposite of Ashana. They are not a fighter. According to their assets, they're a naturalist. They brought along with them an upgrade to the ship's engine. And they have slightly different goals.

First of all, a major goal of their is to find a cure for Ashana, which we have no progress on. But thankfully, it's only a dangerous quest. We have the much more extreme quest of finding a new home for the Islanders tribe, something that is kind of always alluding us, unfortunately. And then finally, there is our current trajectory heading to the planet Sealy, which we as players know some stuff about, but as characters, we don't know much about. We survived a quick skirmish with some pirates that are out here, scavengers more than anything.

They really didn't put up much of a threat, and we mostly just ran away from them. Unfortunately, in the process, we lost an ally, or we called him Jenkins or something like that, you know, went out with the space shotgun and died saving us. He was our red shirt. He was our red shirt. But we lost a shotgun, the only shotgun we had. We lost a spacesuit, I think one of three that we have. And we lost an Islander.

We now have only 49 or 48 people left. So Nikata took a lot of spiritual punishment for that. There's spirits at it too. But we find ourselves at the end of that. Maybe we've been traveling for a little bit of time, and we know that we have four progress on our quest to Sealy. We could right now, if we wanted to get to Sealy, the chances of it being all rosy is probably minimal because we only have four progress, or if you'd like, you could continue

to undertake an expedition or do something else entirely. The floor is yours. I'm of the belief that we need to get to Sealy. I want to see this place. I mean, let's make an adventure out of this. It would not be a session with me if we didn't try and kill somebody. All right, so you're saying that with four progress, you're going to roll 2D10 and see if you can beat the progress of traveling to Sealy.

That's exactly what I'm saying. You wild man, let's do it. Okay. All right, give me one second, my keyboard's screwing out on you. That old keyboard. If you want, I could always do it for you too. Yeah. If you don't mind.

Roll 2D10. For the first time in Iron Sworn, Star Forge history, I am taking over. I am rolling the dice. I am the captain now. Let's see what we get. I'm sure it'll be better than whatever I would roll. Well, I'll say this. I'm all about it.

It's a five and a three, which is not bad. Yeah. That is considered a weak hit. Let me pull up our manual and look at the moves here on page 224. We are completing a ... Let's see. We are gathering information, filling ... We're kind of fulfilling the vow, but let me quickly make sure there's not a ... Oh, exploration. Finish an expedition.

Okay. Perfect. When your expedition comes to an end, roll the challenge die, which we did on a weak hit. You reach your destination or complete your survey. You may mark a reward on your discoveries legacy track. This was a ... We can figure that out now. This was a formidable journey, so we're going to mark one progress in our discovery legacy,

but you face an unforeseen complication at the end of your expedition. Make the legacy reward one rank lower and envision what you encounter. That means that ... Let me go to the traveling to Sealy. I'm sorry. We're going to go to our progress. We have ... Oh, I guess we didn't add that. We'll just do discovery right now, and we are not giving it a challenge rating, but we're saying it would have been one, but we're breaking it in half, so it's only two.

What that means now is, what is that unforeseen complication at the end of the expedition? Oh, okay. In my mind, and hopefully this works for you, I was envisioning a big storm, like a nebulous storm, big ol' meteorites and dust and swirling space lightning and all matter of weather that's happening out, and that's orbiting Sealy. The expedition goes fine, goes swimmingly. We're with an incredible pilot, obviously, but by the time we arrive at the actual orbit of the planet, we find that there's this massive storm circulating the entire planet.

I love that idea. I think that is interesting. I've moved the little red marker that denotes where we are to Sealy. Yeah, I imagine we come out of jump, and it's right into the storm, and it's like no storm we've ever seen, using radiation and magnetism and stuff. We have no idea what it would do to us. Exactly. I think facing danger, but let's try to think what is the best move here, because facing

danger makes sense. I think that is best to kind of define just how bad this is, or if we are able to kind of maneuver around it, right? Let's have you face danger. How are you doing this with what attribute? Remind me again how edge is sort of codified. What is that related to? Edge is the dexterity, mobility, agility, speed attribute.

It's probably her, Nikata's highest attribute, I believe. I was thinking in terms of that, some dexterous flying. I think we come out of jump, and immediately it's one of those we've got things flying at our ship immediately. We're having to veer right, and then pull back in, and practice all these evasive maneuvers to get around each of the flying objects that orbit around the planet. So I think it's all some clever, crafty, quick piloting on Nikata's side of things. Let's see how they do, roll plus edge.

I will do that. Let's see how my rolls are treating me today. Oh, alright. That's a complication. I don't even know what the fuck that does, I think that's maybe the first deliver. Is that like a nat one? That is a critical failure, yes sir. Oh my god!

So on a miss, you fail, or a momentary success is undermined by a dire turn of events. Let's pay the price, 239, roll a D100, and let's see what you get. I mean if this isn't a crash landing, then this is not the space western I signed up for. 65. Your vehicle suffers damage. Oh, there you go. This is exactly what I wanted.

Yeah, it sounds like the storm is, you know, although you're maneuvering around it, there's these long strands of some kind of electricity or something that is striking the ship. The ship, go ahead. I think maybe it even pierces a hole, like we get shot with a piece of lightning that ships the wing or something to that effect where we're actually jostled and opened up. We are going to make a move that I don't think we've done yet where your ship is going to withstand damage. When your vehicle faces a damaging situation or environment, you're going to suffer minus

one integrity for minor damage, minus two for serious damage, or minus three for major. Let's classify this, unless you want to, I think minus one is probably fine. These are strikes to the ship. Yeah. So what you're going to do, just like when you lose health or something, you're going to go to the character sheet and you're going to reduce under your assets, you're going to reduce the ship's integrity from five, I think it is, to four. Okay.

Now that you've done that, you will roll plus integrity, but because we have kind of a character sheet that's more iron sworn built, if you want to just roll, what is it roll? It would be roll a D6 plus four, and then roll two D10. So the one D6 plus four is a nine total, and then roll two D10, we're looking at a nine total, which is a four and a five. A four and a five, interesting, it was, well, never mind, four and a five is a strong hit. So the ship is probably fine. On a strong hit, you either bypass the damage, and you can raise the integrity of the ship

back up to one, or you can keep that damage, but ride the momentum, take plus one momentum. I want to take the momentum. I think we take that wing hit, and we start to go into sort of a spiral, but Nikata is such an exceptional pilot, it doesn't really matter to her in the long run. It's more about getting to the planet surface in this storm, so we're going to take the momentum. Okay, so we increase the momentum to one, and the ship's integrity remains at four. Perfect.

So if you have it on, yep, so you increase that momentum, and we're here. We see the planet. Now, something that we discussed in session zero, which you were not here for, is that Ceeley is not uninhabited. Ceeley is supposedly inhabited by vampires. Don't do this to me. And what that means, I don't necessarily know if it's a whole culture of vampires, or if they're just kind of rabid animals.

But the point is, is like, go ahead. Are we talking like Dracula's, like old Eastern European men in robes? Or are we talking like mythical, like there are Polish vampires, which are just creatures that are 10 feet tall and made of flesh, and like think that. There's energy vampires that just drain the life out of that way. Exactly, yeah. I think it's whatever you want it to be. And the key thing we have to remember, though, is that I don't think the Islanders understand

this. I don't think they know about this. No. It's something that maybe- Sure not. Maybe through roles, we can find out whether they figure it out or not. But there is also an orbiting moon called Sirius. And we could always explore that as well.

I like the idea of this kind of creepy vampire planet surrounded by a storm. And maybe there's no sunlight coming in for that reason. The storm is surrounding the planet. The storm keeps them safe. It blocks out any sunlight. Oh, I love that. I think the idea of going to this moon might be really interesting, honestly, because we're seeing this storm, the storm chips the wing, we're losing traction, we're barreling

through it, and we see some danger and think, well, we can bypass it by making it to the moon first and waiting for safe passage into CLE. Gotcha. Reassess on the surface of Sirius. Gotcha. So we're heading to Sirius first. What do you want to do as the ship cruises and begins to orbit Sirius? Are we landing?

Are we doing any kind of reconnaissance? Hmm. I wanted to recon on CLE. I think that Nakata does not want to risk losing any additional people. Our spirit is low, our fearless leader is in cryo space. I mean, it's a dire situation and she doesn't want to risk losing any more morale. With that in mind, she's looking for a careful entry into CLE that will let her fly in under the radar and safe from the storm.

Okay. She is, I think actually Allegra decided that Nakata did not identify male or female. So they are probably gathering information then. Let's see real quick. You could also explore a waypoint, but it's not really a waypoint, it's kind of our destination. Let's see, face danger, compel, yeah, we could attempt to gather information. You would be making a wits roll if you were doing that. Yeah.

Let's give it a try. Let's also look at the assets because you have the naturalist. If you secure an advantage or gather information using your knowledge of life forms or planet side ecosystems, you can add plus one and plus one momentum on a hit. So go ahead and make that wits roll and add plus one to it. Okay. Not a bad asset. A weak hit.

There we go. I'll take it. Let me make sure the audience can see this. There we go. We hit. Let's look at what that means. On a strong, let's see, on a weak hit, the information provides new insight, but also complicates your quest.

Vision what you discover, then take plus one momentum. Okay. Let me hit the momentum first and then I'll let my brain simmer. So I think that we see a way in. I think that it's just more perilous than we were thinking. I think that maybe we see an enemy ship, maybe one of the vampire ships, whatever it may be, is in the similar pocket within the storm. So we found this entry point and maybe it's the entry point for all of the people from

CLE or the vampires moving in and out throughout the space system, but in order to get through that pocket and get to the surface safely, we're going to have to get around that ship. Okay. What do you think? Sounds interesting. There is an enemy ship. Sounds like you're deciding that the vampires kind of run it. The information provides new insight, but also complicates your quest.

Okay. So it sounds like then what would you optimally like to do? Try to get around them without them seeing you? Yeah. I think this is a stealth flight. Okay. I think that Nikata is trying to get in under their eyes. It sounds to me like you're trying to secure an advantage.

And how are you trying to do this? If you're trying to do it with stealth, you'd have to roll plus shadow. Yeah. I think, oh, well, damn Allegra. Again, you could use a plus one to secure this advantage, but you'd have to kind of give me the naturalist angle. What is the knowledge that this person is getting from their naturalist education that is giving them this advantage or possibly giving them the advantage?

You know, the ecosystem of the storm, maybe Nikata recognizes the flow of the wind patterns. I mean, there is no wind in space, right? But maybe they understand how the nebulas pass and the nebulas are responsible for the storm. So maybe it's like getting caught in the current of a river. If you slingshot yourself from the right advantage point, you go quick enough that you could slide by without being noticed. So that's my thought, is that she's looking for the exact time and place to shoot herself

through the current of the storm and pass the ship. I think you should definitely get that plus one, but it sounds like to me you're kind of using your wits to secure the advantage. So you're not necessarily hidden. So let's say that if you don't roll particularly well, they're probably going to notice you, right? Yeah. So roll plus wits, plus one to secure the advantage, and let's see how you do.

An opportunity. That's a critical success. Wow. My rolls are all over the place today. On a strong hit, you can take both plus two momentum and plus one on your next move that is not a progress move. And I'll let you know if that is or not, but credible. So plus two momentum and plus one on your next move.

So it works. You go into the storm and it covers the ship enough that it doesn't appear as if they notice you. Perfect. It's probably a lot of, you know, transmission issues or, you know, I mean to say that like radio probably doesn't work very well and that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

The white noise brought by the storm causes sort of a dark spot. Okay. You get past this person. You are now descending into the atmosphere of Sealy. We decided that Sealy, I don't think has a habitable atmosphere. This is getting better and better. The question then becomes, why are we here? Is there something that has brought us here?

Is there a signal or something that is driving us to check out Sealy? I was thinking in my mind that maybe we had some sort of transmission logged on the ship or amongst one of us, maybe from our travels that informed us that on the surface of Sealy somewhere, there are star maps to a star gate to a sort of a transferral out of this system. I think this sort of place has not been good to us so far and it doesn't look like Sealy is going to be any fucking better. So I think we're hinging our hopes on the fact that we can get to the star map, find the gate and blow the fuck out of here as fast as we can.

I love that because it makes it not impossible to get out of this sector of the forge. We've described before that we're like in the middle of nowhere, the country basically of the forge where big organizations like the jungle do their experiments and stuff. It's a great opportunity to kind of make some progress in our search for a new home. The way I think we can also justify that is I think in session one, maybe in session zero, no excuse me, it was the last session with Amanda in Ironsworn. We decided that the ship had some coordinates already in it like it was destined to go somewhere anyway, maybe it was heading to Sealy.

There we go. That works perfectly. All right. So we have our objective. Maybe we need to create a new vow here. We need to find those star maps, right? Yep. How difficult of a quest do you think this might be?

Oh man. I don't think my gut wanted to say dangerous because it's a little easier but in my mind they're probably formidable, right? Well, I mean, maybe we can go to formidable if stuff just keeps getting worse and worse but this is a matter of finding a coordinate on a planet which can't be that hard. And we have it. Right. Essentially.

We were sent here. We know what we're looking for. So the hard part is going to be being covert, being quiet, getting in and out quickly because we really don't have a battleship. Our ship is not particularly good at combat so that is our new vow. We'll keep it at dangerous. I put the menace as the space vampires so any failure we make is going to go one tick closer towards them succeeding against us.

Additionally, we have that find a cure for a Shauna. So keep that in mind. Maybe we find something on this planet. But sounds like we're going to try to get to this coordinate and land. So I think that we should face danger or maybe we can gather information to take a more tactical approach. But facing danger makes sense to just kind of find the coordinate and land and see what happens.

Yeah. What are you thinking? I'm thinking face danger. Let's do it. Okay. With what attribute are we using? I've got plus one on this roll, right? Because of my secure the advantage from before?

Yes, that's right. You do. Okay. Perfect. I think we're going to go with Edge. I think that Nikita's, Nikata's very happy that she pulled off the stealth mission in the first place to get past that first ship. And now they're not going to try their luck.

They're going to fly as fast as they can to the surface of the planet. Got it. Let us have you, it sounds like you're rolling with Edge then. Yeah. Okay. Plus Edge plus one. A strong hit. Nice.

Strong hit. Nice. Strong hit. That's good. On a strong hit, you are successful. Take plus one momentum. So increase that momentum and describe to me where is it that we land? What does it look like?

You want to roll for it? Oh man. I mean, I'm picturing like, you know, the entrance to Dagobah, you know, the big, the big fog and everything. But I mean, we've got to give it some sort of Barovia vibes too. Okay. I'm thinking big like canyons, like huge crevices of rock, right? That are like gray soot, purely gray.

And the surface of the planet all mirrors that same sort of gray. It almost looks like the dust of the nebula that surrounds the planet of Sealy is what coats the layers of rock that makes up its surface. So you're almost stepping on nebulae as you, you know, walk on the surface of Sealy. And I think that there is water that runs through some of the canyons, some of the mountainous regions, but I think the water is like eerily black. Cannot see past the surface constantly with this level of fog that runs over the top of it.

Not swampy. It's more like marshlands. I think of like, I think it's Return of the King when they're walking through the marshlands and the bodies are underneath the water. I'm thinking that level of water where it's sort of half terrain and then it dips into these deep pools and ponds and lakes. And I think we got to make it inhospitable too. So I think that there's less air, most likely, not a lot of oxygen on the surface.

Maybe there's some kind of poisonous air too. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe I'm thinking like you can see the gas or some level of that in the air. You know it's not safe to breathe. But then so what are we, what are we going to? What are we landing in front of that we know has these star maps? Oh, man.

Okay. Go with me. Hopefully you like this. I'm just thinking of Vampire of the Masquerade at this point. I think that it's an old settlement. Like whatever the vampires used to be, this is where we're landing. Their architecture, think of like a town that's been completely abandoned. They're landing in a ghost colony.

I'm thinking like brutalist buildings and outposts and research centers and clearly they were studying something here before they became whatever they are now. Interesting. You know there is one type of element of Star Forge that we have not yet really explored and that is the, where is it? They're called, they're called vaults. They're vaults and let me go to the page real quick. They're basically dungeons that have to do with pre-civilizations or ancient civilizations.

If we wanted to we could make this something like that and it would be a little bit of a dungeon delve. But otherwise it can just be a small little house and maybe there's just a couple of vampires to interact with or something. Hey, I'm all about interacting with new parts of the game. I totally want to see what this is. Okay, let's make it a vault. Okay, cool.

So let's decide, we have decided that it's planet side. Let's decide its scale and its form. Roll 2D hundreds and let's see what you get. So I've got a 28 and a 97. With a 28 is, it is a minor confined space and the 97, it is an incomprehensible form. Its form is incomprehensible, but its scale is minor and confined. Oh, I love that. That's bizarre.

I don't even know where to begin. Let's, let's go with the shape of this vault. Roll another D100. Okay. 65 again. Spires or towers? That's exactly what I was thinking too. Oh really?

Do you, you've seen like brutalist architecture where it's all overlapping boxes and rectangles and like that's exactly what I'm thinking. It reminds me a lot of like Lovecraftian, you know, he always described Cyclopean, you know, buildings and stuff like that. Exactly. Yeah. Right, right. What I'm thinking too is like, there's that game control too, where the, it takes place

inside of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but it's constantly moving and the rectangles are shifting like Jenga pieces. I think that could be a part of our, you know, the building can't be understood level is maybe it's constantly shifting and moving on its own. And just when you think you found a door, it shuts itself closed and, you know, it never stays the same for more than a second. I'm getting kind of a TARDIS, like you said, control vibe where it's like, it's incomprehensible because on the outside, it looks like a little, a little spike or a little tower and you go

inside and it's incomprehensibly big. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. What about the material? Let's roll a D 100 and decide what material this place is made of. This is a really cool little series of tables like this is rocking to put together. Would you get a three?

Yeah. I got a three. Metallic. Industrial. Oh, perfect. Totally fits with what we're doing. That's interesting. An industrial metallic like place.

There is an outer first look that maybe would help us if you want to roll one last D 100. Yeah. Let's see what it's got. 67. Okay. Perfectly preserved is all that it says. So whatever it is, it's, it doesn't appear to be run down. Got it.

So with all of this in mind, paint us a little bit of a picture, you know, of first of all, I think we can assume that Nikata probably puts on a space suit and do they go by themselves? They do have the ability to bring at least one of the person with them. Oh, I mean, it's space fantasy. We got to bring a red shirt. Okay. So we'll bring a friend. We definitely bring some, some crew members.

Yeah. All right. I think we only bring one because we've got three suits. We can't sacrifice all three. We only have two suits because I think the guy who was lost had one. Never mind. So with only two suits, Nikata plays recon alone. Ah, okay.

We can't sacrifice both suits. There's just no way Nikata would let that happen for the crew. I like that mindset. Paint us the picture of walking into this precursor vault. Well, I think first off, as soon as she, as soon as they step off the, the ship, the boot prints on this sort of nebula surface, I think as soon as the feet disturb the surface of the planet, the nebula starts to float and joins back into space. So with every step you have this drifting sort of floating dust and ether that follows

you through and with each approach to the obelisk or the tower that we're about to enter, it has this sort of optical illusion where it doesn't actually change size, but with every step it feels bigger in front of you. It's almost like even though you've closed an incredible amount of distance, it feels like you teleported in front of it. And then there's no real door as it shifts and changes, but you're enveloped by it almost. Like just by the mere fact of walking towards it, you're inside of it. It's like passing through a membrane or something.

Exactly right. There's this sort of ether surrounding it where you permeate it and become a part of the inside of it. I like the Commodorex explanation that it's a live Escher painting. I think that's a good way of describing it. Totally, totally. I'm thinking like the impossible staircase or the triangle that never ends. All those things that are, they look as though they could exist in real life, but when you

look for too long, it makes no sense. So we have done the exterior look and we have entered the site. Generally, you check the inner first look table on page 194 for initial impressions of what lies within. So let's roll a, let's go to 194, which we're at. Roll at the hundred and let's get our inner first look. We are rocking with the 66. Hovering around those sixties.

I know we've counted basically. This is 65, 66, 67. This is perfect. Scale does not match exterior. Yeah. There you go. It's crazy how this game really maps fate. I don't know what it is, but it always seems to know what I'm thinking before I think it.

So now that we have explained, you walk into this much larger space inside the vault. When you explore further, you're going to undertake an expedition. As you delve deeper into the vault, the corruption and strangeness of the place might take hold. Use the sanctum features on page 198. But in the meantime, we're going to page 196 and we are going to undertake an expedition. Let's remember 196. I'm going to write this down so we don't forget, but we're going to go to our moves and we're going to undertake that expedition.

With what stat are you using, edge, shadow, or wits? I think edge. I think that I'm trying to move quick, stay out of the eye of anyone that's on the surface and whatever's inside of here too. Cover as much ground as I can and report back to the ship when I'm done. Roll that edge and let's see how you do. All righty. An opportunity.

There we go. This is exciting. On a strong hit, you reach a waypoint, envision the location, and mark progress per the rank of your expedition. So first, let's just say find those star maps is part of this. This place is dangerous. I don't think there's any reason yet to increase the difficulty of it, but we'll say that we're traversing this vault and we have just made progress, which means two check marks.

Two full boxes and we reach a waypoint. Let me, 196 is the page that has the vault interior features. You can either decide what we come upon or we can roll to see what we come upon a waypoint of some kind. So I was thinking that we come upon a room that shifts gravity completely. I think we step into this room and then sort of almost flip in the air and then end up landing on the ceiling and Nikata starts to realize that the room only continues if you're moving from the top of the room from here on out.

There's a whole different world and subsection of the building that's made on its ceiling. So she's rocked across and she hits her back against the top of the ceiling and has to ground herself and stand up. I love that idea. Because we rolled with an opportunity, roll a D100 and we'll find an interior opportunity. Perfect. Hopefully it's something helpful. A two.

A two. A clue points the way to your destination or target. Oh, I think that maybe there's like a straight shot. Now of course it's deceptively straight shot from here because this building being such it is that there's no guarantee that that straight shot is going to maintain the entire way. But I think as soon as they're ported back onto the top of the ceiling, they ground themselves and pick themselves back up and fix their helmet, they're checking for leaks to make

sure they're not going to die in here from some break to the suit. And as soon as they regain focus and look up, they see that there's this massive, I'm thinking like super computer in this far off room at the very end of this massive hallway that sort of domes out down into this subsection where it's like a circular data point or module workstation, right? And then at the centers, there's this very large black crystal that projects light. It's sort of like a prism when presented with this light. And I think that Nikata recognizes this as a star map, that when light is projected onto

it at the exact right position using the data pad, using the coordinates given to us on the spaceship, we see the the star map it's trying to give us sort of like a planetarium almost in function. That's very cool. With that said, we have not found our objective yet because we have not made enough progress to do so. So we can come upon that, but it's got to be missing something. Maybe it's missing something, you know, you maybe Nikata tries to access it and use it,

but there's something about it that's not working. My mind, in my mind, at least I was thinking that we're way far away from actually getting into the room. Oh, I see. We're just aware of where it is. We could even have this moment where she goes, oh, or I'm sorry, they go, oh my God, I found it. And they go running down the hallways fast as they can.

And then the wall shuts in in front of them. So they know where it is. They don't know how to trick this building into letting them into that room. Gotcha. Wow, very house of mirrors type of stuff we're doing here. I think the only sensible thing is we continue to undertake our expedition. Are we moving with edge, shadow or wits? I think we're going to continue with edge.

I think that right now Nikata is hoping that they can outrun whatever weird riddles and machinations there are for blocking off these entrances. All right. We're relying on how quick they are. They're hoping they're fast. Roll plus edge. Yeah. Let's see how we do.

Oh, OK. If you like so much momentum, I'll burn it. OK. We are going to burn that momentum, which means, let's see, burn. It's going to reduce to two, but that is going to be a strong hit on a strong hit. You reach a waypoint, envision the location and mark progress per the rank of the expedition. There are two marks of progress and a new opportunity or excuse me, a new waypoint, which we could roll for if you'd like.

Yeah. Yeah. Let's roll for it. OK. So let's see. Going to, let's just do a description. Roll another D100, an interior feature. 21.

21, elevated path over chasm or shaft. I think that maybe a Nikata finds a way through that shows that super computer again, that crystal in the center, but it is almost like a, like a, God, I'm thinking diehard. What is that? A ventilation shaft. OK. It's about that size where they have to get into a, an elevator. Not that size where they have to get into a, an army crawl just to get through this very

claustrophobic, brutalist, you know, the, the room direct tangles to get to the other side as they're seeing the, the room again. And I think it's, it's terrifying because with every step of that army crawl, there's another aspect of the rectangles moving and vibrating and threatening to close on Nikata at any moment. I also like to think that, like, you know, Nikata was unable to get closer to the computer, so they make a left or something. And all of a sudden they're going in a, in a hole or a tube that is like above where

they just saw, like the, you know, the positioning is impossible and yet it's happening nonetheless. Yeah. Yeah. There's somehow worlds closer than they ever were just half a second ago, but now there are leagues above it instead of below it. And it's like the, the gravity of it and the physics of it makes no sense to them. We could continue to undertake an expedition or I would argue you could try to secure an advantage or gather information to like better understand the physics of this place and maybe

gain an advantage of some kind. I think Nikata being a naturalist, like we've said a precedent this episode of them trying to outthink situations, understanding the world around them. So I think gaining an advantage on this situation makes a lot of sense. I think that they're, after crawling through this chasm and getting into the next room, they're thinking, okay, I got through that. Now I need to understand why this is happening. How do I beat it?

Right. I've got to start noticing the patterns here because there is some kind of pattern. Exactly. So it sounds to me like you're rolling plus widths. Yeah. And again, you're using the naturalist angle. You can add plus one to that. Perfect.

Let's see if that doesn't help. Oh, hell yeah. Oh my God. Your luck is turning around, Caleb. Don't say that, Serge. No, we were doing so good. Don't say it out loud. Oh no.

On a strong hit. I got a knock on wood. Yeah, yeah. I got doomed to repeat on Sunday. I cannot have people telling me I'm rolling good. Oh no. You are going to take plus two momentum. And on your next move, you're going to have plus one.

Awesome. Okay. So we're up to plus four momentum. Good. We've got a plus one on our next roll. I think we've got to continue delving. We've got to keep going forward and try and find that room. I really want to find that star map before we quit for today.

Yeah, for sure. Are we rolling with edge, shadow or widths? I think that widths really did well for us. I think this naturalist angle is working for us. I think that they are coming to an understanding that this place exists for a reason and it's for people to find these star maps. And so obviously there is a solution to the puzzle. And as soon as they become to the mindset that this thing isn't

sentient, it's patterned, they're trying to figure that out. And so I think they stop for a moment and maybe they even take a rock off the side and they start chalking out on the floor of the moving rectangles, the patterns that it takes on the hallway. I like to think that maybe they start a chalk drawing and the rectangle fucking disappears at the last second. They lose all work and they have to start again. But they're trying to understand it.

So for my mind, I think widths. All right, let's roll plus widths. You won't have a plus one on it, but let's see how you do. That's fair. I have a miss, unfortunately. On a miss, you are waylaid by a crisis or arrive at a waypoint to confront an immediate hardship or threat. Do not work progress.

Pay the price. Cool. Okay. If you like, we can try to pay the price now and let's see what that does if it doesn't inform us. Roll a D100. Yeah. Yeah, let's roll a D100.

An 18. You face the consequences of an earlier choice. Oh. You face the consequences of an earlier choice. The chalk comes to life and attacks you. I'm struggling with what that could be. Well, I'm thinking in the context of we could either do a choice that happened down here or in here in the obelisk, right?

Or we could do the fact that we stealthed under that ship. I think it would be really interesting that as they're working out this chalk puzzle on the ground, it's not necessarily that they don't have the pattern down. It's that they're interrupted as they hear sounds echoing back the way they came as much as the way they came as they can. Sure. The room is always changing.

But I think that now the vampires have entered in tracing the ship and trying to find its captain. Nakata is no longer alone in this place is what they realize. Exactly. I think it's the sound of that chalk echoing throughout the rectangles. And then as soon as the chalk comes to a screech, it's this skittering from another room.

It's this breathing and low conversation that immediately sends chills up Nakata's spine as they realize that whatever those things are, they're here. I know that they are too. I think we have to face danger or maybe try to secure an advantage to get hidden or stealth in some way. Find out what place to hide. So I'm thinking narratively this is purely as director here.

I would love to see secure an advantage to hide because I think that this would be a great opportunity to finally get a look at these guys to sort of develop what these guys look at like. So I think it would go with secure an advantage. I think that their first instinct is they're starting to understand these rectangles and the way this building works. I think that they try and use it to their advantage and hide

behind one of the moving walls or whatever it may be and wait for the vampires to pass. You've convinced me that rolling plus widths makes sense instead of shadow because you're kind of doing this from a naturalist angle of studying the enemy. And go ahead and add plus one because you are doing that. So widths plus one, let's see what you have. A weak hit.

There we go. Better than a miss. Yeah, I'll take it. On a weak hit, you can only choose one. You either get plus two momentum or plus one on your next move. Let me look at my momentum. My momentum's not bad. It's a plus four.

I'm going to go with a plus one on my next roll because that seems to help me out a whole lot more. What do you see as you like hide behind a pillar or something? So I think that the forms that we see are still vaguely humanoid, but they have become sort of bat like in feature. I think that I'm trying to remember. I think it's a Guillermo del Toro movie, but they're vampires that have lost their jaws.

That was blade two, I think had that. That's what it is. Blade two. I'm thinking that sort of musculature on the face, but then it elongates out at the ears and has wrapped out and sort of fanged out so that it really represents sort of like a vampire bat in appearance, but with human flesh with draped over skin and disgusting sort of waxy pulled too tight human flesh that forms out that bat like feature.

But outside of that, they're very human in the rest of themselves. Their haunches are a little more elongated and their feet have sort of broken out of their musculature of traditional human type or humanoid type. They just sort of melted and changed just enough to break open their face. Right. And I think that the sound of... Nakata. My own name.

Nakata. I keep wanting to say Nikita because of that damn movie. Nakata, I think just the sound alone triggers them very quickly. They're zooming around the room trying to locate that sound. Maybe they're drawn exclusively off Sonar and not off site. You and Commodore are thinking the same thing. They mentioned using echolocation, so that makes sense to me. My beloved partner, I would not be surprised that they would agree with me.

I'm glad that they're repping the right team here. Absolutely. Alright, so you see from a naturalist's angle, you see that they are mortal as well. They are flesh and blood, so they could be beat. They're not some unstoppable force, at least it seems so far. With that plus one, what's the next move? How do we get to the star map without getting caught by them? Yeah, you know it's tough because I don't think we have any sort of weapon, do we?

Not really. We did argue that the ship maybe had some laser weapons that we could just say were ranged weapons. You know what, Sergio? I don't need your pity lasers, okay? I will earn my own goddamn lasers. I am an independent person. I'm an independent iron lander. Exactly.

We could do it on our own. So what they are going to do, I think that they're... I don't know why I'm playing them so much like a wits character. You know what, this could probably be edge two though, if I make it right. I think that they are going to reveal themselves, but just long enough to bolt down the hallway and draw the attention of the vamps right after them, the fucking dracool to chase after them. Hoping and banking on the fact that they understand the pattern well enough and they're quick enough to dodge a rectangle at the last moment

and crush one of these fuckers with the changing wall. Interesting, interesting. So goading them into chasing me, running down the hall, timing it just right and hoping they get smashed by the walls closing on the other side. We could do this in one roll if you want to just face danger. We could break it up in trying to secure the advantage first and then facing the danger. We could try... See, I'm going to look at the combat moves real quick

because you could try to take decisive action, but that is a progress move and you can't use a plus one on that. When you fight a battle and it happens in a blur, you could do a battle, envision your objective. So that's a possible move you could do as well. I think we're facing danger. Because I don't think we're facing them head on yet. True. I think that we're trying to beat feet here and get away until we can actually take them on. This is more of a, hey fuck you, I'm going to get to the star map first.

Alright, so we are just rolling edge, huh? Because we're just running as fast as we can. Yeah, as fast as we can, we're going to take that plus one from our Secure the Advantage. I think that we definitely give a line of like, hey idiots over here, whatever great application they can get before running straight through. And we get a weak hit running through the other side. On a weak hit, you succeed, but at a troublesome cost and you must make a suffer move of some kind. So you can either endure stress or harm, or there's one other one I forget now that has been added. You can lose momentum. Which of those three would you like to attempt to do in this? Cool. Do you think my spirit can take more stress?

Well, you'd have to roll either spirit or heart, and I think at this point your heart might be higher than your spirit. I think we're the same, right? So you'd only be rolling a plus two against enduring stress. Okay. Okay, this is what we're going to do, and I know that I'm notorious for doing this, and every single fucking time that I do this, I get a message from someone from Mayday saying, hey, why do you do this? I think we're going to endure harm. Okay. I think that it works. It works swimmingly. It's exactly what we wanted, but the moment for the rectangle to hit hits too late by maybe half a second. I think it's this big chase, right, where the vampires hot on our heels, and the face just elongates and opens at the last second right before the rectangle hits.

We come face to face, and, you know, Nakata is holding them by the collarbone, pushing them off, hoping to God that none of those jaws and massive teeth that come out get them. And thankfully, the teeth get nowhere, but what happens is they vomit up this disgusting black red liquid that scars up over the collarbone of Nakata's space suit and incurs some sort of corrosive acid. Like their blood is bile, and as it shoots it, it burns off and hurts Nakata to a certain aspect. Alright, so we'll say it's minor harm, so you're going to reduce your health from five to four, and you're going to roll plus your health to see whether you get a strong hit. Okay. It's all about the aesthetic for a nice, on a strong hit, you can either shake it off and regain that plus one health, or you can gain plus one momentum. I think momentum. Fuck it. We can exist. We're going to take that momentum. We're going to use it. We're getting to that damn star map Sergio. We're doing this. We are ever closer. We still haven't made some progress in a minute, but now if we wanted to, we could undertake an expedition as you were now in some new space free of the vampires.

We are undertaking that expedition before the vampires can get hot on our heels. I think they're already skittering and yelling in their own language past the other side of the rectangle. There's now one of them squished a bit. The goop that comes with that sort of thing is now seeping on both sides. I think Nakata runs, I mean, beats feet trying to get out of there. Alright, they are rolling plus edge. Perfect. Eli says that we're going to blame the aesthetic if I don't get the star map, and I think that's fair with my fucking miss. On a miss. What do I play this game? You are once again waylaid by a crisis or arrive at a waypoint to confront an immediate hardship or threat. Do not mark progress and pay the price.

So first let's decide what is the waypoint that we reach. Okay. 196. We can roll for that one, right? Yeah, let's do a roll a D100 and we'll do an interior peril. Maybe we change it up a little bit. 24. Foes. Close in.

Foes. What did I say? The fate of this game. I love this game to pieces because for whatever reason it boils down storytelling so well that exactly what you think would happen is what comes to you. Yeah. It's all good. How are the foes closing in? I think that obviously they live on this planet. Obviously they have an understanding of how these buildings work as well too no matter how bestial they've become since they've become whatever they are. I think the smarter one on the other side, the one that was not just smashed to bits by me, has a device on his wrist that moves the rectangles for themselves.

That's when Nakata thinks that they've made some progress, that they've tricked and got the upper hand. They prove immediately that the enemy can always be smarter and they step through the other side. The other one primed with this big rifle and the first just ready to rip and tear and drink blood and give chase to Nakata right there. I think that we come face to face with the other two vampires. So are we running or are we fighting these people? You know what? We're running. Fuck that.

I was worried you were going to say the other thing. I took half a look at our stats thinking maybe and no, we're running. We're getting out of here. So we'll say this is technically a little bit of combat. We can get out of it if we roll well. We won't linger on it for too long. We're going to have to enter the fray when you initiate combat or are forced into a fight. Now, we don't necessarily say that you're fighting.

We'll say that you're running more than anything, but they are chasing you. Yeah. Are you moving with edge, heart, iron, shadow or wits? Okay. Hear me out. Hear me out and hopefully you can give me some natural bullshit for this because I'm going to need it, God knows. I think that Nikata has a fast idea. Seeing that thing on his wrist and seeing how well it works with this building, they immediately understand they're outmatched.

That they're fast, but they're not that fast. They need to get that thing off his wrist immediately. Yeah, for sure. So, unfortunately, that means getting close. I think that they're going to give as much run and chase as they can until they get an opportunity to trick the vampires into either running past, running opposite, running alternative. Whatever it is, they're waiting for an audible so that they can get that thing off the wrist, run through and get out before the vampires have any chance. Let's enter the fray to just set the scene and decide how good or bad things are in the present moment. Sounds like you're, I mean, I would argue you're using wits, but you could also be trying to use edge to just kind of run up on them quickly.

If I choose wits, are you giving me that naturalist bonus for how beautiful I'm thinking of the ecology of this planet? The problem is- The way this building works? I don't think the asset gives you for face danger. Okay, you bastard, then I'll just do edge. It's the same damn roll. It's three. Fine.

We follow the rules here at Mayday. Yeah, sure. We kid. We kid. On a week hit, you can choose one. You either maintain control or you take plus two momentum. Maintain control essentially means that I- You have the initiative.

You can keep rolling and making moves. If you don't have control, they make a move. I am maintaining control. Okay. I think that I take them into another chasm, another like shaft, another squirrelier place where it's harder for them to get through. With the way that their body and their shoulders are sort of fused together in that bat like body and the webbing between their elbows, the disgusting monsters that they've become. They don't fit as well as I do in places they used to. Okay.

And I think I use that to my advantage to get an opportunity as that thing's crawling in after me as it's scraping through and leaving claw marks along the sides of the rectangles that maybe I have a chance to dart for the wrist. Get that machine and get out of here. So let's see. I'm looking back at our moves here. We could either battle, which is to try to kind of get a particular objective, which is to get the wristband, or we could try to gain ground or strike. All of those flavor-wise could lead us towards progress and doing what we want. I think we got a battle. I think that Nikata knows that this is not a fight they want to be in.

That this is an objective they want to outsmart. You are using careful tactics to outsmart your foe, roll plus wits. Okay. God, help me. Oh, no. On a mission, you are defeated or the objective is lost to you. Pay the price. Roll a d100.

And let's see what that price is. Price is, I get it. It happens. 45. A new enemy is revealed. Shit. It's either more of these vampires or it's some denizen of this vault. Yeah.

Which could be used to your advantage if you play it right, you know, distraction or something. Yeah, I think that maybe this is a guardian. I think in the same way that the walls have served as a entrance for people who know the riddle and a avoidance for people who don't, I think that a guardian reveals itself. And I'm thinking like a golem that is made of the same shifting rectangular industrial metal that everything else in this place is. And so this constantly rectangular creature that shifts and forms and moves. And I think it...

I think it's waiting at the end of this mine shaft essentially, this sort of chasm we're stuck in. So it's not necessarily engaging you at the moment, but it's waiting at the end, whoever is successful, right? Yeah, it's definitely going to hit whatever comes out the other side. Meaning, unfortunately, that Nakata is sort of stuck in between a rock and a hard place. A vampire and a literal rock man. Alright, we continue to try to battle or face danger. We are in the middle of combat though. With that said, it was a miss.

I wonder if we lost our...let me check combat moves real quick. So we tried to battle on a miss, you're defeated, the objective is lost to you. So basically you don't get the wrist watch, right? Is it lost for good? It doesn't seem to be. I mean, I feel like on a miss you would lose your initiative, but we could say you still have initiative. Here's the thing, you can have my initiative as long as I can still have the wrist rocket. As long as I can have another shot at getting that thing off his wrist, I'm okay losing the initiative.

We'll say that you still have the initiative, you don't have the wrist, but you can if you want to try again. Okay, so I have an opportunity. Yes. I think that realizing that that big hulking golem on the other side is right there, they know that now more than ever, it's so important to get that thing off his wrist and I think they're going to try again. Are you going to try to battle? Yeah, battle absolutely. And I think that this is, they're not trying to be as smart about it this time.

I think it's like a swift kick in the face as fast as they can. Like little rabbit kicks as best they can at the vampire itself to distract it and then pull the wrist data pad while they can. Using edge might work. Rolling iron probably makes more sense, but I know that that stat isn't particularly good. I'll roll iron if you think that's more appropriate. Whatever you think. For edge, you'd be fighting at range or using your speed and the environment to your advantage, which I could argue that's probably kind of what you're doing right now.

Yeah, like kicking them into the side of the rectangle. Using the chasm I think is like a leverage for he's stuck. I'm not, I'm going to bounce him off the side. So let's battle with edge. Okay, you sure that's enough justice? Yeah, yeah, I think so. I don't want you just to give it to me. It doesn't take much to justify anything in this game, so it's just, you know.

I'm just saying Sergio, you've never given me anything that I didn't deserve in my whole life, so don't do it now. I've got a strong hit. Nice. On a strong hit, you achieve your objective unconditionally. You and your allies take plus two momentum. Okay. All right. So this is how, how's this for Mayday Cinema, right?

Okay. You're going to love it. All right. Okay. There's this big swift kick in the face that closes the big jaws and teeth and keeps them at bay just long enough to slip the infinity gauntlet off his wrist and get it strapped onto mine. There's a short glimpse of the golem that's reaching in its big rectangular hands into the chasm and the vampire that's going for another dive, a dive that looks like it's going to work this time. They've got themselves stuck from the shift, right, stuck from the chasm and brought themselves free. At the very last second, Nakata slams that wrist pad and the bottom falls out underneath them just enough that they fall through the ground into another room, sealing the one above, trapping the vampire and the golem up in the chasm and at least giving a small breath of air between the two.

Amazing. Hopefully that works. I don't know if that breaks our combat. That's a great moment. I love it. I think that, yeah, we're out of combat. We don't have to worry about this, about completing it in any way. We are kind of back to a safe position where I think we can continue to undertake an expedition, right?

Yeah. Are we moving with Edge or Wits? We're moving with Edge. Moving with Edge and now we have this device that kind of helps control the situation, right? Yes, yes, because the Wits are less important now. Now that that device understands that we're a part of the community, I think we can move at least freer. Just because you have this device, I think we can allow a plus one to that undertake as well. It's kind of a skeleton key to this place.

It's your captain's badge. A weak hit. Even then, it's a weak hit. I know. You are going to mark progress. So let me first do that where we now have six boxes of progress, six out of ten, which is pretty good. Beautiful. You could roll it now if you wanted to.

I need four more, right? To fill it all up. But I mean, you could roll right now to try to find the star maps now if you wanted to. With that, I would have what? Like a 60% chance? Yeah, six out of ten, yeah. So now here's the thing. The progress has to cost you in some way.

You either make a suffer move or you face a peril at the new waypoint and then you can envision what you encounter. Oh, I've got suffer move. Let's do a peril. Okay. So first, let's decide what is the what is the waypoint that we come upon? We pull up these... Well, I actually have interior peril. Maybe we can just roll that.

Let's just roll that and we can decide kind of what room we come into. So roll a D100. Okay. A 17. With a 17, a dire warning is left by other explorers. A dire warning left by other explorers. Oh, okay. All right.

So I think we fall into what is like essentially like a comms room. Okay. It's like a data pad that I think is close enough in culture or at least understanding that Nikata recognizes it or feels like they could operate it. I think the curiosity gets the better of them and they make sure first off that they can't hear the vampires or the golem, wherever that is. And once they're sure they're alone and they're blocked off in this room, there's no way they can't go through without listening back to the logs. Okay. And I think the logs go into the creation of these vampires. I think we're going to call the Dracool.

The Dracool. I like it. Yeah, the Dracool. And I think it starts out as this capitalist movement of a company who came too silly to discover the things that made the planet operate. I mean, there is a vault here. Maybe they came to study this vault. Exactly. And I think that it came down to the nebula storms that the vault generates, that draws.

And there's a lot of power behind the nebula itself. But I think that with each new log, you know, it starts off with this scientist who's explaining how excited they are about the project, how they had, you know, 200 or so members on those planet surface, and there's more coming from the colonies. And there's going to be a whole movement to colonize the planet. And it's all hinged on this study of the vault, a study of whatever is happening inside of this place and why it brings the nebulous to them. And then it goes into sort of the minutia of the research and everything until it hits a particular data point where the breathing changes and the speech changes. And the same researcher who has been going through all of these exciting findings and these developments and these experiments explains that there was a movement to experiment with the idea of the nebula dust as a component for genetic mutation. After finding that the nebula dust could be linked to extending human life. The researchers thought there was this key to immortality behind the nebula.

And they thought the only way you could find it was by modifying the human genome with that nebula dust, infusing stardust into... But obviously in the next few logs, it's all about how these creatures became what they are. And it's through being infused with this dust and how it can be transfused through the blood now. Interesting. And so that sort of explains what they are and they give it a code name. It's experiment Dracul. And the last message, and I think this will be our foreboding warning. I know I'm doing a huge lore dump here, but I think the warning is that they cannot be allowed to reach the star maps.

For whatever reason, the researchers were worried for what would happen if that fell into their hands. So maybe they put the star maps in this place that is incomprehensible and always changing so it became very difficult to find. Yeah. I think this is great. This is the lore dump that we've been needing for a while, so I love all of that. With six progress, we could attempt now to try to get these star maps. Otherwise, the only other sensible thing is we continue to undertake an expedition. Here's the thing. I don't feel comfortable with that 60% knowing my roles. And I also think that these data pads would be really good inspiration for better understanding of how to get to that room and operate it.

So I think using that information from the comm systems, we're going to delve just one more time, take our chances, and then hope to God that we can finish off the star maps after that. Okay, once again, you're going to undertake an expedition. I think you can use plus one, whether you're making an edge or wits roll, but you let me know. I think we're going to do edge with that plus one using the maps from the comms, the understanding of what's at stake here. Yeah, and the wrist pad. So let's see. A strong hit. Very good. You reach a new waypoint, envision the location, and mark progress on your quest. So now we have eight out of 10.

Beautiful. On that progress, what is the new place we come to? I think with everything we've learned and what we know about the creatures we've, you know, ran into in the past here with the Drakkul, I think that Nakata finds that room again. It's almost like fate, you know? It's like the building was waiting until we understood. And the next room that we find, it's like it was always there, like it was always on the other side of the wall. And just as that last log ends, and there's that earnest warning of, please, don't let them get it, don't let them leave, let our mistakes die unceasingly, I think the doors part, and there's that black crystal looming over the massive supercomputer and a chance at a new life for the Ironlanders. All right, we can attempt right now to finish this expedition.

Let me confirm real quick, because I know that being in a vault, there's a very particular way of doing this stuff. Let's see, we have, as you delve deeper into the vault, the corruption strangeness of the place takes hold, use the sanctum features on page 198. Let's see what that looks like. All right, let's decide. Well, we've kind of already decided what it looks like. There's a crystal floating in the middle of this room and a computer system. Let's try to finish this expedition, and hopefully the rolls are good, and we can get what we want. You are going to, technically, you're fulfilling a vow in a way too, but let's finish the expedition. Roll 2d10, and you want to get at least one above an eight.

Oh my god. Good rolls. Very good, an eight and a five, that's a weak hit. On a weak hit, you reach your destination and complete your survey. You may mark a reward towards your discovery legacy track, but you face an unforeseen complication at the end of your expedition. Make the legacy reward one rank lower and envision what you encounter. So under your progress of discoveries, you now have one full box. You have technically gotten access to these star maps, but what is the complication?

Oh man, I mean, it's poetry, right? We reach in, we get to the data pad, we strike up the computer on these old ancient lights, blur on these old LED screens, and the crystal comes to light after we touch the wrist pad to the computer and type in the coordinates from our spaceship, and immediately it shoots this planetarium view of these white light of the stars above us, and you can see exactly where Ceeley and Sirius sit, and there is this big, blurring, blinking light that's to the north of where we are now that signifies exactly where we're supposed to be, the gate itself. And just as Nakata is caught up in that vision, in that exuberance of knowing that, oh my god, there's a chance my people could live, there's a chance we could get out of this hellhole,

that's when the rectangles part, the doors open, and the last surviving Dracul, the one who's given us so much trouble, the smarter gentleman with the wrist gauntlet or used to, is carrying the laser rifle from his dead compatriot who drags behind himself, and he's battered and broken, but he is also tossing the remains of the golem down into the center computer. Whenever he did, he took care of that thing in the other room, and now, even worse, he's come for us. Oh my gosh, that's a pretty good place to end the session, unless you want to try to get out of here real quick. What? No, that's for whoever comes next, baby. I did what I came to do, those star maps were recovered. You recovered the star maps, let's make sure we mark some progress for this, so let's see,

found the star maps, we fulfilled this vow, ignore that, that was just me doing this. We'll clear this, and we'll say that this should be marked as some experience. We'll say you get, I forget how exactly to mark the experience, but I'll put two for now. The point is, yes, we got the star maps, but now we have to get out of here, so we'll worry about that next time. There is Zacchea and Aaron left, why don't you roll a d4, evens Aaron, odds Zacchea. Part of me just wants to pick one. If you don't like the outcome, you could always pick one. We got one.

So that is odds for Zacchea, I said, right? Yeah, oh, Zac will be great for this, are you kidding? Zac will be great, we will go in next session with some experience. I have to send them an apology already. I mean, you did pretty good, you did pretty good, you just went down one health. Yeah, that's not so bad. I thought you had some great, great moments. Thank you, yeah, and I'm glad we got some lore out, we got some momentum up, we're in a good place.

And I've added to our map on our star map here a new location, the star gate, that if we can undertake a journey to this star gate and get out of here, we could head to the next sector and possibly find a new home. I will also say that finding these star maps is definitely progress towards finding a new home and we'll go up one mark. Awesome. We are that much closer to finding a home. What do you think about this whole nonsense with the nebula dust possibly being a cure for Ashana? You mentioned it having regenerative life extending properties. So I think that it's absolutely a possibility. I think that the trouble is, and maybe we can put this, you know, sort of retrofit this into the logs that we found.

Maybe there's this explanation that when the drakul were made, it was because the company that was running this sort of capitalist venture on Selie, they were stressing the scientists to crunch the serum, right? They were extending medicine before it was ready. And so maybe that scientist stresses in that last log that there's a possibility it could work if only it was synthesized correctly, but it would take some exceptional mind to do it. So maybe there's a name for the company or whatever it is or the scientist or maybe there's some other incredible minds that are out there in our Starforged universe, but it's going to take an Einstein to synthesize it. I'm going to mark progress for finding a cure for Ashana as it is a possible lead. This session will decide with Zakiya, maybe she grabs a handful of space dust and, you know, of this nebula dust and keeps it for someone else to study. But it's a step forward and I think we can mark that progress.

So all around a lot of progress made this session. Thank you, Caleb. That was a lot of fun. Of course. Oh, it was incredible, man. This has been my favorite session so far. I just love when players take the reins and lore dump away because I really think that it helps just, you know, it's so often we don't want to step on each other's toes, but it's just nice when somebody is like, this is what happens and we just run with it. Yeah.

Well, it's so great having your support on it too, because I think that we bounce really well in terms of making something happen that looks really great on paper. Right. What I felt about this session is everything felt super cinematic and built our world a little bit so that, you know, maybe the drug will come back and there, you know, there are trying to think of Klingons or whatever it might be. I mean, they do have their own ship. We've already established that so they can follow us. Well, we'll find out. We definitely don't like us. Yeah.

We'll find out what happens next week with Zakiya if they can make it. Everyone who is watching, thank you for joining us once again. We are loving running this game. If you are enjoying us watching, there is Star Forge the Kickstarter, which I think you can if you wanted to now give some money and get the physical copy or the PDF. We're using the PDF now because the physical copy isn't out, but support independent artists. Sean Tomkin has been very kind to us, has often retweeted us, and we really appreciate that. Maybe one day we can get him on here for some reason, so we can make that happen. Another way, guys, if you're enjoying us is you could support us on Patreon.

We have this fun thing we're doing right now. We have stickers, and if you apply at the $5 range, you can get that sticker. We will mail it to you. Fun little incentive to support us. We're looking forward to seeing. We're already getting photos trickling in of our patrons showing us where they are putting those stickers. Thanks to you guys. I think that's pretty much it.

We have no heroes you should know. We'll have Zakiya this Friday doing an art stream, which I'm very excited about. You know what we have in the next two weeks? We're looking at questions that are part of our debrief for Ashoka, our most recent D&D stream or podcast season. If any of you have questions or opinions or anything you thought during your watch or listen to Ashoka, then please send those in via Twitter on our Patreon Discord. However you want to get to us, we'd love to answer those questions for you and then have you tune in live for when we answer them here on stream. Yeah, those shows are going to be next week.

We'll be the first one and then the following week will be the second one. Absolutely. And then this week is Zakiya on Friday, probably around seven with her chill art stream. Looking forward to seeing what art she makes. And I think that's it for now. We've got a bunch of other fun stuff coming, but we'll just kind of announce it one week at a time. Exactly. Alright, well thank you again Caleb.

Thank you again guys for watching and we will see you next time. Absolutely, good night guys. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye.