The Adventure Zone - Setup - The Adventure Zone: Dust Season 2

Episode Date: September 1, 2022

Travis returns to MC Season 2 of The Adventure Zone: Dust. Special guest Erika Ishii (@erikaishii on twitter) joins the adventure to Wild-West inspired Crescent City. Listen in as we create our characters and give a primer on the mechanics of the game.We’re playing Urban Shadows by Magpie Games: https://magpiegames.com/pages/products Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointaz

All right, everybody, first and foremost, welcome back to Adventure Zone Dust, but mostly welcome to Erica Ishii, new to Dust, new to, well, at least recorded Adventure Zone podcast. Hi, Erica. Hi, Erica. Hi, Erica. Hi, pals. I'm so excited to be here as well, because I've been planning Adventure Zone Dust Part 2 for about two years. So I'm very excited to be here. We're doing a session zero, which we don't formally, normally do. So I think the three kind of major, like, areas I want to hit in this, are character stuff, game mechanics, and kind of like house rule stuff. So do you guys want to start with characters? Because we've got some new PCs here. Is anybody playing the same PC as Dust 1? I am returning to my previous role. I will be playing

I'll be playing Augustus Parsons, the CEO in absentia, the GEO, Ghost Executive Officer of the Augustus Parsons, Cash, you know, no, excuse me. Excuse me. My enemy, Gareth Altizer, has changed the name of my beloved company.

What? Yes, he has retitled it. Cash Universe. That is a better name in Gair's defense. I love a portmanteau. Sure. I'm so sorry. It is a better name.

What a dagger through the heart. It could be all. It could also. My murderer and a lifelong death long enemy. That was not originally established. Garrett Altaxie did not murder you unless you're retconning that. I believe it was. No, he had me killed.

I owed him a debt as a result. I thought it was Flint Chittles. killed you, dude. Flint chittles. I thought it was chint flittles. Chittles. Okay, Flint chittles is the one I came up with, and then dad came up with chit flittles right afterwards.

It could have been so much, he could have named the company D's Nuts, which I would have definitely gone to. If I wanted to sort of, as a punishment, rename somebody's cashew company, that's probably what I would have gone with. We haven't even started an official episode yet, and I've, lost control. So, J-Man,

a couple questions I wanted to hit. Remembering your, the moves, the specter moves that you had chosen, right? Comes with manifest,

that's built in. Then I believe you... We should describe... So are we going to be approaching this like people did not listen to Dust 1? Because if so,

we have not even mentioned the game that we are playing in... Oh, sure, sure, sure, sure. So we are playing Urban Shadows from Magpie Games.

Urban Shadows is a game system built primarily on the interactions of factions within a city and those circles that those factions exist within. And so each of those will respect you in different ways. You'll make debt moves. You'll make connections between people, and that's like the major mechanics of urban shadows. If you want to hear more about it, we did do a dust setup. episode way back when we went way more in depth in it but it's uh i think a really cool game system and i enjoyed immensely we'll be going into the mechanics more later just to go over everything

together to make sure we're on the same page uh but augustus parsons is a specter uh that is that archetype that justin will be playing um he has the ability to manifest uh he can be seen heard or touched any two of those at any given time. And I think the other ones, if I'm remembering correctly, Justin, were Ghost Town and Wall, what wall? Is that correct? Correct. That is correct.

I refer to the wiki. Which I did a lot. Flint Chittles did kill me. Okay. Flint Chittles killed me. Fair. But you think maybe he might have been an agent of Altizer? I think that he was hired by Gareth Altizer, yes.

That is my theory. Then I think that that is a perfectly reasonable thing for Augustus to believe happened. That, like, maybe no, like, direct proof yet, but that is Augustus's belief. I like that. Okay. Fair enough. The other question I had is, so after playing through the first dust session, did you end up completing an advancement level as Augustus?

Let's say that you did, because, I mean, you went through it off. Yeah, that would be weird if I didn't. Yeah. At least maybe I did in the off time. So you're able to choose, uh, play. plus one status in anything, a new specter move, a move from another archetype, or you can change your circle. Say this all the time? You can add one status.

So basically you start off with status. For a specter, you have one status, status one in a knight, in any knight faction, and you have no status in any other ones. So as an advancement move, you can add plus one to your status with mortals, night, power, or wild. You can pick a new specter move to go along with Ghost Town and Wall What Wall. You can pick a move from another archetype, if you wish, or you can change your circle to go from night to something else. I will do, won't be ignored. Great, okay.

What is that? When I get in someone's way, I take a 10 plus instead of rolling. If I mislead, distract, or trick someone with an obvious supernatural display, role with spirit instead of mind. Great. Perfect. So that is a new Spectre move. Got it. Okay.

We'll go over starting debts together once we've introduced all of our characters because I want them to be linked. But I don't think that this was in addition one, but since we recorded the first one, edition two has come out. And as a Spector, you are going to choose four anchors that you have to the material world. And those anchors then allow

for different things that allow you, you know, a corruption move, advancement moves, all kind of different stuff. And do you have any thoughts as to what those four might be? I just just realize they exist. I mean, I just come into knowledge of their existence. I have a feeling like a location of personal importance might be one of them, that being your cash-y company. Yes, that's true. And a family member, because his daughter, Anacardium Parsons would definitely be one Ami Augustus Parsons Cashew Company

A marker of my success in life not claimed by another slam dunk Yeah for sure And A beloved possession of my youth Passed on to a new owner That was that would be good It's the first dollar I ever made

And dumbass Gareth Altizer has it hanging in his office Okay And uh And the last one, you picked a marker of your success in life, now claimed by another. Is that the CEO title? That's the company. Got it.

That's the company. Got it. Yeah. Not the physical business. Got it. Got it. Let's see. Do you want to go next, Erica?

I will go next. Perfect. Well, so Erica is from the first session, the dust session, we have an organization called the Grayson's, which are sort of their guns for, hire. They get jobs done as you need them. They are not a lawkeeping organization. Strictly there of like enforcement or tracking someone down or protection or whatever, what have you, right? And so that is what Griffin's character, Dad's character, and Justin are a member of. But Erica's character is a resident of Crescent City and a friend of Pearl Blackwell, who is a friend of, is the daughter of the Blackwells of Dry River

that you all will primarily be working with. So Erica, would you like to introduce your character? I will be playing Louise Lulu Kagayama. What are Lulu's pronouns? Lulu's pronouns are mostly she-her, but under demonic circumstances, it don't really matter none. Perfect.

Yeah, she is a tainted, has a connection to a demon which we will also get to. Let's see, let's start. We'll just go at the top and work our way down. What is Lulu's kind of general demeanor upon first interacting with her? Lulu is the vivacious proprietress of the well-known establishment in the city. She is always quick with a smile and a deft help in hand, and she does her. upmost to make all factions feel welcome in her establishment, which is Mazon Nihong, the gambling and pleasure club in town. But do not cross her because she has made an arrangement

with a very powerful patron. And in her more, less genteel form, she is, what would be referred to in the old country as an only. Perfect. Now that quick with a smile and welcoming demeanor, and you don't have to answer this now, the question, the answer might be, well,

we'll see, but how much that is kind of her natural, you know, kind of personality and how much that is like good business for running this establishment. Oh, it's genuine, through and through. Very,

she loves her community. And what would one see upon, looking at Lulu. At Lulu, you'd see that she's, most folks comment on her cute little flat button nose. She's got a little beauty mark on the left of it, her left, not the viewer's left. She's got a little moon-shaped face and hooded eyes

and dark, unmanageable curls piled high top her head with an artful twist. She's got light olive skin and generally will be dressed in a fashionable gown with black beaded fringe and a bustle pinned up in the back. Love it. I love a bustle. Man, I love a bustle. Okay.

Love a hustle and a bustle. I love both of those things and I love how they rhyme. So her starting out circle ratings, she's got a one with mortals, a negative one with night, zero with power, and a one with wild. And you can add one to one of those. where would you like to add a plus one? Now, I think I would like to play this as, so circles are different than status.

Correct. And right now I have one status. I think that I'd like it to be where, the feeling where she wants everyone to feel welcome, so she wouldn't, she'd try her best to understand everybody in equal measure. So perhaps add one tonight to make it zero instead of negative one. I think that makes complete sense. Now, as a tainted, you begin with the move the devil inside.

That allows you a lot of really cool shit when you summon your demon form, your demonic movement, your demonic weapon, and your demonic senses. And if you're working on a job for your patron, you pick one more, and you can do even more if you mark corruption. And we'll talk about corruption in a little bit. But then you get to choose two more moves. You have a couple different ones there, toughest nails, invocation, tongue and silver, and dark bargain. Which two would you like to choose? I was thinking tongueed and silver because right now my mind's not the strongest part of me,

but I don't know if that's quite right because, you know, when you're looking at someone and you're trying to figure them out, it's just as much about intuition. your heart as it is with as it is your in intellect yeah um so i'd say tongueed and silver uh and let's go with dark bargain okay great and then you start off uh with one status in wild so you will have uh some moves related to that oh this is when it gets very fun with the patron uh you're going to choose two things related to your patron. Your soul has fallen into the hands of a dark patron, a powerful demon whose reputation precedes them, but whose true name is known to few. They have given you terms of employment, access to terrible power, and terrifying insight into their true

nature. And you get to choose two qualities that this patron possesses. I'd like to say that they they seduce all who come into contact with them with pleasantries, gifts, and vices. Mm-hmm. And they require deference from their minions to their strange obsession with a mortal pastime. Ooh, okay. Okay, we'll figure out what that pastime is as we play.

I was thinking about this, because urban shadows, by its nature, is kind of originally developed to be, modern times. Yeah. And so a lot of the starting gear includes like a smartphone and a car and stuff.

And I was like, but we don't have phones. And then I thought, this is a fantasy world. You guys have phones. It's just a different kind. It's magically powered or whatever. Who cares? You can communicate to each other via phones. Okay.

Yeah. Excellent. All right. It's like a little, you have a little tiny Morse code. You know, I don't know, whatever you want to do. Like a little handheld Morse code clicker.

I love that. Yeah, there you go. It's like a podcast. Pocket telegraph. A pocket telegraph machine. Yes. There you go. Let's go next to Dad.

So Dad and Griffin will be playing new PCs. And we'll talk about where your old PCs are in just a moment. But first, Dad, tell me about your new character. He's a hunter. That's the arch type named Callan. I think it's, I want to start out by saying, I think it is straight up baloney. that this is the character name that you chose

instead of the original character name because Travis did tell us the original character name and the fact that you had to change it is... Well, yeah, I gave into peer pressure. Okay, but here's pure pressure... This is pure pressure coming at you from the other side, pulling you toward this incredible first pass at the name.

And it's all of us versus Travis. Yeah, the original... Now I'm on Travis' CSI. Okay, so it's me and Erica versus Travis and Justin for the fate of dad's character's name. Okay. The original name, he's a gunfighter. Gunfighter for hire in this case, working for...

There's no context you're going to give that's going to make this name make sense. He's working for Grayson, right? Yes. And so I had the idea of naming him Darnel Tootin. Okay. And his friends called him... Darn El Tootin and his friends called him Darn. Darn Tootin.

And then as we refined the character and what I wanted to play, Travis said, I'm not sure that you told me. You said to me, I want to play like a hard ass like you said play against darn tooting. And I was like, well, that's good to me though. That makes sense to me. I mean, that's such a good, that's such a good, uh, uh, juxtaposition. I feel like that's such a good game to play of like, he's this hard and grissel. It's me. I'm darn tooting. I'm bringing this up. the audience will revolt if you do not name your character, darn Tootin. Oh.

Okay. That's fair. Until it's too late. That's true. They'll have no recourse. It is in a vacuum. True. Trev?

Hey, listen, it's your character. It's your character, man. I really want to play him as a badass. I really want to play him as somebody who's aloof and is there for a job and doesn't care if people like him or not and doesn't want a cute name. So I'm going to save Darnell Tootin for. us three. Okay, perfect.

Perfect. When you're playing a cowboy clown, perfect, sounds great. Or when I die and I have to pull an Arlo Thacker and come back from the dead as a different character. Tell me about Callan's demeanor and you've already touched on it. You said he doesn't care if people like him and he's a bit of a hard-us. He's aloof. He's not a team player.

Doesn't give a shit what anybody thinks. He's not there to make friends. He's there to kill supernatural gullies. And he's very, you want me to play against Ty. I'm definitely going to try to play against type because he is not there for fancy patter or jokes, which I think is convenient in the,

you know, because I'm, you know, I'm, I don't want to have to strain to come up with the hilarious bon moths that I've come up with in the past. Yeah.

Let us carry this one, let me take that, let me take this burden off your shoulders of carrying the show. You've done so much, for your years of service. I'm going to say, strain,

you make it look effortless. Thank you. That's such a, a nice roast. Thank you. That's a great. That's a great bit. What does Callan look like?

He's got a t-shirt that says, my name's Darnel, too. And all I got was this lousy t-shirt. I've envisioned him as kind of a Lee Van Cleef, very lean, you know, kind of tall, but just that squinty, uh,

tanned by the sun, sunburn. leathery skin, just looking like a bad, like a snake in human form. So I envision him as being that guy. So your circles begin one in mortal, one in night, zero in power, and minus one in wilds. You can add one to those. Where would you like to add one? I'm going to put my one in power.

Okay, great. So it's basically one, one, one, and then minus one in one. Sounds good. So your hunter moves. You get to choose three from the list there. Which would you like to pick? Deadly. Uh-huh.

Which allows you to inflict extra harm. Prepared for anything, which means I have a very well-stocked armory. Great. With modern and ancient weapons. And then I decided to go with watch them closely. Because the other ones like safe house and this way and worse things out. tonight, we're all involved with him being involved. Yeah.

With somebody else, like protecting somebody or making a deal with somebody. And I don't think Callan would, would be like that. So watch them closely. With watch them closely, you're able to, with some extra observation, find weaknesses of supernatural creatures. Now we'll go on to, as a hunter, you belong to a society. and you need to pick a couple things with your society. First, what is like the main prey of your society and you have some options here? Is this a decision that you can inform at all with our mission and what we're going to be going after?

Well, I'll tell you this. Here's my justification. Here's the reason I'm asking is if we are. being brought into the story by Grayson. If Callan's being brought into the story by by Grayson, then there's a specific job they want him to do. Correct. I would say so this is different from Monster Week in that way in which the mission you guys are being sent on is less of a hunt and more of a, you know, more general than that. But I would say, this is one of those things where I can almost guarantee that whichever one you pick

there will be an encounter that will fit with it because I'll be telling the story and that's why I'm asking you the question. So it really just comes down to what flavor of hunter do you want to be because all of these are not just like a vampire. It's vampires who feed on the weak and coerced, demons who corrupt the good and the just. So it's like you can meet plenty of vampires that you're fine with. You can meet, now I will say this. If you want to add some drama to the story,

the main person you are trying to convince here to come home is Pearl Blackwell, a vampire. So if you want to have that vampire kind of inbuilt connection, where maybe you're a little untrustworthy of vampires or you know more about vampires than you know about anything else, that might be a good choice for why they sent you. But your job will not be to hunt her in the traditional sense. I think angels who subjugate the will of the faithful. Okay. Cool.

Bad angels. What did you have to sacrifice to join? I think his soul. Oh, boy. Okay. That does fit with the angel thing. Great. And where does your society gather?

A hallowed religious ground. Perfect. And then finally, Griffin, you are up. Hi, you lied earlier in that I am not playing a brand new character. Yes, new to dust. I have retired Errol Wright House, who I think we had discussed his political career has finally proven fruitful. Well, yeah, I went back. Let me see how this grabs you because I went back and as I was re-listening to the first floor,

it occurs me that the dry river ends in quite disarray. Yeah. And that it would make complete sense for Errol to want to stick around as like a community organizer and then possibly as like an alderman of the city or something. Yeah, I think that that's great. Maybe even mayor. Ooh, that sounds good to me. Yeah. Yeah, so he's the mayor of Dry Creek. I am playing Indrid Cold, otherwise known as the Mothman from Taz Amnesty. Now, I obviously, there are so many questions associated to what exactly that means, and we'll get to that in a minute, but first, the mechanics of the character. Yes. What are Indrid's pronouns? He, him.

What are Callins as well? Sorry. He him. Got it. What is Indrid's demeanor? I mean, he's, I would say, almost annoyingly detached and vague with his manner of communicating with people. I think that that comes from him not necessarily being of this world and also being able to see into the future.

It gives one a certain amount of detachment from the here and now and everyone who is in there. Oh, in case it wasn't obvious, Indrid is an oracle. He's an oracle, is the archetype. Yeah, I basically saw the archetype and I was like, ooh, that would be, that would be fun if I could be the mothman again. Architech would be a little tiny baby. Just a little Oracle.

No, yeah, he's, yeah. I mean, go listen to Taz Amnesty. You'll know all about his demeanor. And his look, what are we looking at? In Amnesty, and I don't see any reason why it would be different. He was a sort of slender, pasty fellow with red circle glasses. I forget the name of what type of glasses those are, but...

Pinsnez? Not in Pinsnes. We can't use that again. We said the word poncigne is like 18,000 times in Dust One. Yeah. We can't do it again. But yeah, he is not a very, he does not dress in any kind of eye-catching manner. I think he tends to want to fly below the radar a little bit.

And so aside from his blood red glasses, I think he dresses rather plainly. You can add a plus one to any one of your circles. Currently, it is one in mortal, minus one in night, one in power, and zero in Wild. I think wild is like fay magic stuff, right? Yeah. I think it would be wild for me to not put one in there just because that sounds like Sylvain. Wow, you really need to have listened to a lot of the Adventure Zone to, hang with this mini arc.

But yeah, I mean, I think wild would be absolutely wild. Perfect. You get to choose two Oracle moves. What are you going with? So I don't know if maybe I was looking at an old playbook. But the one I was looking at had Seussayer already like unlocked. Is that not how it works? So that might have been first edition.

Now a second edition, Suez-Sayer is an option. You can choose psychometry, which is examining an object. I'm leaning towards that soothsayer and foresight, just because the other stuff isn't really like Mothman can't read your mind as far as I know. Foresight allows me to advance, keep your cool for any or all characters you choose in your presence, including yourself. And when you advance a move, you make it so that if somebody rolls very well, a 12 plus on the roll, it does the move does something extra and in this case it allows you to not only keep your cool

but to like destabilize the cool of your you know opponent in any given scenario um which feels right like if i can see the future really good then i think being a bit more untouchable in that regard uh makes makes the most sense so i think that's those are the two i'm going to go with um great So then your benefactor Yes That allows for these things If you're connecting it to like the Faye And the

You know to Sylvan then is it like Coming from wild It has to be right If that's the source of my power Yeah Yeah it's got to be wild What is the name of this benefactor Sylvain

Hmm Let's let's call it right now Name is question mark question mark question mark. Okay. Right. That like your,

this thing is happening and you can even have like the prophecy that connects you to them. Yeah. But, uh, there is a flaw, right? That is they have defenses against your site.

Yeah. And I think that like you are not able to determine exactly right now at this moment exactly where these visions of the mortal plane are coming from. Yeah. I like that. We, and we can figure it out as, as we play.

And then the. other sort of thing that I have is foretellings, which is a lot like Ducks sort of prophecies that he got as the chosen back in Amnesty, where before the game starts, I get to sort of ask a prophetic question of the GM or the MC, as they are known in this one. Great. Okay, so those are our four characters, our four player characters. Now, when we talk about starting debt, right, we're going to have things that connect our characters. We can connect them to each other. We can connect them to things here in town or other people in town. Now, debt is a very powerful mechanic in urban shadows. So we'll start with Indrid, since that's where we left off.

You owe two debts to someone who helps you decipher your vision with unique, insights. Do you know who that is? I think that when Indrid rolled into town, not knowing anybody, he was just sort of naturally, magnetically drawn to supernatural stuff. And his powers aren't like particularly acute right now because of sort of the binding that he's under. But he met a ghost, a spirit that calls itself Micah that has inhabited a few forms that has lent him some aid in utilizing his powers even in their hampered form. Perfect. You had a dark vision about someone, but you gave them bad guidance and you owe them a debt.

Who would this be? Can it be that I sent a letter to Augustus Parsons, warning him to not trust Altizer, but did not tell him to keep an eye on Flint fucking chittles. And so I got him looking in the wrong direction. Yes. Got him iced. That also makes sense as to why without proof, Augustus is like, I think it's, I think it's, I think it's, I think it's Garret Altizer, but I don't have proof. but he's, yes.

And then someone interfered with your destiny and they owe you a debt. Can it be the, am I a Grayson? Do I have to be in your birth of the Grayson? You're at least an agent of the Grayson working here. It's not like a lifelong commitment or whatever. It's a job, but. Who's in charge of the Grayson's? Do we know that?

Huh. Probably someone. Yeah, someone with the last name of Grayson for sure. I'm going to say Dallas Grayson. Dallas Grayson is pretty good. I'm going to say Dallas Grayson, when Indrid came into the world through the gate, right, from Sylvain, Dallas Grayson did something thinking that he was some sort of monster, thinking that Indrid was some sort of monster who had come to interfere with the world, because that is how those gates work, as they are sort of. kindling for war between these two worlds. Yeah.

And so maybe Indrid was incarcerated or otherwise sort of... May I recommend? Yes, please. May I suggest that performed a binding on him to try to contain it, but what it did was limit his ability to shift to Mothman. Yeah. Well, it's not like a physical transformation. He doesn't actually...

I don't think, does Indrid turn into... I can't, man. It's been so... It takes the glasses off. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, so but with this binding, Dallas is working on undoing it currently. Yeah. Because it was done.

That's fucking great. Yeah. And so currently, Indra is stuck in the human disguise. Yeah, that's great. And not able to switch forms. Okay, let's go to Lulu. Lulu, you're protecting someone from a dark power, a rival and enemy of your demonic patron. And your charge owes you a debt.

Who is that? Can it be people that are owed and owed debts to other players? Oh, you should also know, for reference, there is in this like three-person friend group, it's you and Pearl and a woman named Lorelei. And Lorelei is part of like a family that runs a big livestock farm that supplies a lot of livestock to Crescent City. Pearl is of the Blackwells who run the copper mine in dry river. And then there is you as the third. So you can also have debt connections with them as well. Definitely for someone who is trying to save me from damnation and keep suffering for it.

And I owe them a debt. I'd say is Pearl Blackwell. We've been friends since we were a little and she knew me in the before times when I was a helian just running around. for I took over the family business, and so I'd say Pearl is someone I owe a debt to. Someone who owes me a debt, are there other underground organizations, or perhaps a Banshee might be good? I would say a good connection because she was in the first one,

and she is an inveterate gambler. And as you run Maison, Hon, she spends a lot of time there as well. So M, the ghost gambler. I would say that there is maybe somebody who is not happy with her. And so she is seeking refuge in your establishment as you seek to protect her. So she owes you a debt for that. And she's connected heavily with here in Crescent City, there's the Crossroads, which is the Spectre Territory.

so she's connected strongly with that territory. So she is a good ally to have, but also there's plenty of people who maybe don't like him. On my demonic patron's orders, Laurel's family was providing animal sacrifices for rival demon demon lord. And so under their orders, I had the family farm hit by like a hoof of mouth disease

for a season and it was devastating to the farm and it was very much against my wishes since Lorela and I have also been friends for quite a long time Does Lorelei know about that? I've been trying to tell her I know she knows that maybe I might have something to do with it

But we just, we can't, I can't bring myself to confess to her yet. And I'm so terribly ashamed. Okay. Callan, uh, someone helps you unwind and keeps you sane, despite the horrors of your hunt and you owe them a debt. Erica, what kind of, uh, what kind of services are provided at your place? Oh, all kinds. it's gambling and stage shows and refreshments of all sorts,

high-end ones too. It's just it'll help ease a lot of the tensions and tribulations of surviving in the Crescent territories. What you all are hearing right now is our dad balancing the fact that he wants to play a more straight shoot and serious character versus the fact that Erica has just introduced that he can send his character to theater camp if he does decide. And that's really hard for him. It's a really hard.

That's Callum's Secret Power is jazz hand. Yeah, it's like if I play a character, you know, they have impulse control problems. And if dad plays a character and there's theater involved, that's that's where he's going to end up, baby. Well, you know, I'm sure that trick shooting would really bring in the customers. Um Annie Oglie What I was In the dad's next character

is trick My name was trick shooting I'm a trick shooting I'm like a man who killed my brother darn tootin Darn Tooting Tonight Whoever killed them

I'm out to get them Um Would you have It's me Rudy Tootie What you have I'm the one what killed Darn Tootin There's the fresh and fruity

You ordered All right We're coming up now with brand new Kool-Aid flavors. I was thinking that whatever had happened to Callan in the past, his body is just nothing but scars. And I mean, and he's in constant pain. I was wondering if perhaps there would be somebody in the Maison who practices acupuncture.

Oh, absolutely. Acupuncture, massage therapy. Hot stones, you name it. I think that the, a matter of fact, I think even more than just relieving the paint, if he doesn't have this, he can't move, can't act, can't walk. So I think there is somebody who's very familiar with acupuncture. Mm-hmm. That works at the Maison. And, uh.

Absolutely. And this week, we have a special on chiropractor services. Get the balloon up your nose? Yeah. Is that thing? You're tumbling the whole bit. Your hunts incurred the wrath of a powerful person and someone helped smooth things over.

You owe them a debt. Who helps smooth things over? Well, let me tell you this. There's another person in town, right, who's going to be a major player here, and he is the prime bad guy, Jackson Blue, and he runs the Crescent City Bank

and has his fingers in all kinds of pies, owns a lot of the town and would be a person who could smooth things over with dangerous folks for the right price. So that's a possibility, especially since Callan once had a law man position here in Crescent City that I could see that being connected with him. I think I'd like to go with Lulu being that person if it's okay with Erica. I mean, I think they would have an association because of her business and because he used to be. Absolutely, absolutely. Finally, someone enlisted you to protect them from something dangerous,

and now they owe you a death. Well, I had this idea that he failed to save a church full of people. Whoa. Okay. 26 people died. Okay, I'm going to say to make it an hour. actionable debt, then you owe that debt to the entity of the church so that they can remind you of that debt. That way it's a mechanical, actionable thing.

Okay, so finally, we're going to jump back to Augustus, because Augustus, you had some, from the last run, someone or someone's progenitor was involved in your death. They owe you a debt. that's Flint Chittles, right? Yeah. Yeah. He was an important character last arc, and I have no doubt he'll be just important. Definitely come up again. I will say this.

Flint Chittles will be equally important in Dust 2 as he was in Dust 1. They're on teeth. And then the church, specifically leader Janet. The church has been watching. I owe a debt to the church. Maybe two deaths. You would do. It's two dead.

Because they've been watching my daughter. They've been protecting my daughter, Anacardium, since my pasting. And someone almost destroyed one of your anchors, perhaps by accident or carelessness. They owe you two deaths. And that sounds like Altizer and the business. Yeah. Yeah. Great.

Two little mechanics that I'm adding into it. I was actually just watching a game of Urban Shadows on the channel Saving Throw run by Abria. And I don't know if it's built in, but I haven't seen anywhere. but she added advantage and disadvantage. Oh, fine. Where with it, basically you roll three dice instead of just two. And for advantage, you take the two highest. And for disadvantage, you take the two lowest.

So I'll be adding that in. Also, if you are a Grayson, I'm adding in a mechanic called Flash Your Badge, which you can use to try to say like, you can tell me I'm a Grayson. But if you do, you will need to mark a corruption point, one, for you. using the power of your badge to convince someone to help you. And two, the rolling will be how that person feels about the Grayson's. Okay. So there's a chance that if you do a miss, they're like, the Grayson's are terrible and I hate

them. And you lose any chance for them to help you. And, you know, mixed success. It's like, well, I've heard about that, but I don't know. You know what I mean? So that's a mechanic that any Grayson can do, but there's a risk associated with it. and pushing your badge means corruption. Okay.

I think the last thing I wanted to hit before we go, so we know what happened to Errol. What happened to Gandhi? Why isn't Gandhi traveling? Where is Gandhi at currently? So when we left off at the end of Dust 1, she had gained the Chaos Demon book and was making plans to go over that with Uncle Oni.

So it's quite possible that makes of sugar. Yes, I think she's studying and she's gaining in power. and wisdom, but she basically had- She got a dog. Yeah, whatever. She got a dog named Lewis. Got a dog named Lewis. Cool.

Yeah. What do you feel like baseline? We need to, Griffin alluded to it, but I do think we should agree on what do we assume the person knows about, like, have we assumed what's in the dust? Here's all you need to know. At the end of dust, the Blackwell's eldest son, who was set to take over the Blackwell copper mining industry had been murdered.

And so that now they need to bring Pearl Blackwell home so that she can act as heir and successor. And I think that's the major thing you need to know. We've already mentioned the Banshee is like a criminal, you know, overlord who runs many different criminal industries in the Crescent Territory. Oh, the Crescent Territories is a Old West-esque area that's unincorporated into the greater area within. So it is fairly lawless as far as, like, government goes. But there are agencies within, like the Grayson's, like the law, like the church, that act to try to keep some kind of order. And also, this game system is a setup of powered by the apocalypse. where you will roll two D6s on a six or below, it is a miss.

On a seven to nine, it is a mixed success. And on a 10 or above, it is a complete success. And if on a 12, there's usually added benefits, as Griffin mentioned earlier, and you will add your different stats and such to it. I will also say just as a general rule, the rating that we're looking out on this that everyone agreed to is it might get upwards of our rating in terms of movies and such. So if that's a thing that you are not comfortable listening to with children,

that makes sense. There will also be guns present in this Old West-esque story. And there will be, you know, probably some violence related to that. But I wanted everyone to know about it going into it. So nobody's surprised by that kind of thing. I mean, and also, there's going to be blood. If that's a thing that you... There will be blood. There will be blood. If that's a thing that makes you uncomfortable. There will be mention of blood as we, you know, there's going to be stuff with vampires and everything like that. So just go into that, uh, ready for it. And so excited to begin. Thank you, Erica. Thank you everybody, uh, for joining us for episode zero. Join us again for episode one. Bye.

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