The Adventure Zone - The Adventure Zone: Ethersea — Prologue II: The Cost of Opportunity

Episode Date: May 13, 2021

Forgotten relics from the past are unearthed and put to use as the shoreside community continues plotting their undersea departure.Join us as we build our next campaign while playing The Quiet Year, a brilliant mapmaking game designed and written by Avery Alder. Learn more about The Quiet Year and purchase it for yourself here: https://buriedwithoutceremony.com/the-quiet-year See the maps here: http://bit.ly/EtherseaMaps 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

Hey folks, quick pre-programming announcement. Thanks for listening in to our setup episodes for the Ethersea. We're playing The Quiet Year, a game by Avery Alder that's all about map making and making wild choices to help build a community. You can find a link to where you can find and purchase and learn more about the game on the episode description. And also, if you want to follow along visually, we are uploading all the maps at the end of each of these sessions at bit.

EtherC Maps. And I think you need to capitalize Ethercy and Maps in order for that link to work, because that's how Bitley works. We heard some folks say they were having some trouble following along sort of visually. And if you need a little help with that, go to that link. I also think that if you go to our Twitter page, we will be uploading those maps alongside the episodes there as well. That's it. Here's the episode. The divine invitation that brought together our rag-tag group from the four corners of the world, it provided comfort and hope, but regrettably it provided few specifics beyond its two simple couplets. Indeed, those early days of spring gave rise to more questions than logistical solutions, more mysteries than actionable intelligence. And yes, our frustration mounted with each unexplained anomaly, the treacherous cavern, the staircase in the sea, the vanishing of the highlands above our heads and subsequent arrival of the Aynar spirits, the time we spent learning the truth behind these phenomena

was time we'd rather have spent developing the methods behind our prophesied exodus. By summer, though, we would mourn the loss of that innocence. As those truths were discovered, so too were the opportunities they enabled. As spring drew to a close, the backbone of our modern society began to coalesce around those opportunities and those bold enough to seize them. And so begins the entrance of our founder's names into the annals of history. Names like the cartographer Phineas Kahl. The rebellious architect, the Boyar Hermine. And of course the ruggedly handsome, intrepid creator of the educational apparatus

to which you are currently attuned, and yet those opportunities were, sadly, not only capitalized upon by the best of us. One cannot help, but envision the utopia we might have built, were it not for the unavoidable division that was sown from within and without our ranks. In those times of regret, I lean upon the wisdom of the benevolent teachings. the past cannot be changed but with steadfast determination it can be harnessed this map y'all this map's a hoot can you remind me Griffin which projects we have ongoing

um yes just from a this is probably a good catch-up because we due to scheduling issues it's been like a month since the first episode uh we it happens you know um we have have a few projects still on the map. I guess big things on the map right now. The trash geyser is, everybody's talking about the trash geyser. Everybody's psyched about that. We have the shit houses, which Dad created a project to kind of run inventory on the components

making it up to maybe create some weapons that we can use in the water, specifically against the blink sharks that are out there. Okay. Okay. Is that, I mean, is that not what that project was? I didn't intend for it to be specific to make weapons. Oh, okay. I thought it was to, like, for construction or barriers or...

Okay. I mean, defense, obviously, weapons would be part of it, but... Sure. We got the shipyard. It's a big one. Juice drew that. A very impressive looking shipyard, might I say. Thank you.

I felt good about it, you know? Thanks for recognizing that. We got five weeks left on that one, though. And then there's a project to investigate the cave down here at the bottom that nobody can seem to go into. And a friendly little ghost on there. And at the end of last week's episode, the big sort of world event,

of which I have several planned for this game, was the disappearance of the I and R plateau. And some of the sort of residual consciousness energy has started to cross back over into our side, and the camp is sort of haunted by these spirits. So that is a new thing to kind of think about and contend with. Let's keep going.

We're still in spring, and it's back to the top of the order, so I'm going to draw a card and see what we get. Ace of Spring. What group? The Ace of Spring? Are you going to do that? You can do that.

We will get to Ace of Spades eventually, and then you could just sing the song. Yeah. Just sit on that. What group has the highest status in the community? What must people do to gain inclusion in this group? Or are there distinct family units in the community? If so, what family structures are

common. I don't even know how to begin answering that second one. Answer the first one. Yeah, I think I'm going to have to answer the first one. What group has the highest status in the community? What must people do to get into conclusion? There's the big dog society. I think the people who have the highest status in the community right now are the sort of resource collectors, like the people whose job it is to to actually go out there and get the things that we all need to make this city. Specifically, this magic ore. I think, like, the people who go down there, like, can do favors for other people.

You know, you got the hookup on that good magic ore. Let me get at that. And I'll make sure that your kids get into the good preschool or whatever. I think those people are probably the most. highly sought after. In fact, that there's what you have to do to gain entry into that, I think you have to be sort of chosen

or else everybody's going to go out and collect stuff and that'll be bad for the sort of unity of the entire project if everybody's just hoarding their own stuff. As an extension of that, does that mean that the resources are being guarded so that people can't just go out and start picking stuff up?

Yeah, that's probably a good way of thinking about it. Guarded is sort of I don't know. I don't think there's anything necessarily sinister about how they're being guarded, but it's more, we have so much work to do

and we can't, like, get distracted by vanity projects. Okay, so it's being managed in a somewhat restrictive way. Yeah. So I'll draw a little person collecting this ore, and that person's going to look,

like, super cool. Okay. And we'll do that real quick. This is just a quick little Legenta person And they're getting this whole I know that quiet year discourages labeling

But I also bet quiet year discourages you taking a month off In between drawing the thing Because this is utterly Screwable I know everything that's on this map What are you talking about Justin? There's a jungle gym up by the river Yeah

There's a gaping asshole that's cheating in diarrhea There's a giant pub Down on the bottom left hand It appears to be a Okay near the piece Is that a big donut? What is that? That's the bathosphere that washed up on shore.

Oh, right, right, right, right. I also was thinking big inner tube. We're going to use a tube in later. Just so you all, I guess, know, these are the tide pools with the magic stuff up here. That's the bathosphere, the magical spring. This is the ore. This is the calm patch of water, and that's the spiral staircase. I move those over from the water.

Oh, okay. All right. Okay. Dad, your project to run inventory on the shithouses has completed. What is, what do, I believe it was the Delmer that were sort of doing said cataloging. What sort of meaningful conclusion did they come to? That material, not the outside of the buildings, not the outside of the, of them, but some things like the framing and the basic structure of them could be used.

it would hold up well underwater that could be used for things like dwellings, or at least the framework of dwellings, to be used in like whatever the basics of it, the skeleton on which to put the rest of the body. But that for the most part, none of the other stuff is going to last this stuff. The little crappy old driftwood shingles and, you know, the planks and everything else, None of that is going to serve in good stead. Maybe to be used in things like ship construction, maybe. Yeah.

Okay, I think maybe then the practical thing for us then is when it comes time to tear down this project, maybe we give another project like a turbo boost to like represent that this work that was done was meaningful. That when we don't need this house anymore, we can, you know, cash it into, you know, have all of these. resources that we know how to spend. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. And I get to either discover something, start a project, or hold a discussion.

I'm going to start a project to figure out how to sort of communicate with the INR spirits. And I don't know. I mean, this world is very sort of magicy, so I don't know, like, how long that would take. I don't know that like divination like this is something that folks are like particularly experienced in. Yeah, is this the first time any kind of like spirit has ever been present in this world? Um, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say yes. I think this is weird shit. I don't think that this would be, uh, I don't think that this is something that the, well, I drew a speech bubble next to my ghost, but the speech bubble just kind of looks like a big ghost, considering that's what the other one

looks like. Anyway, I'm going to say this takes, this is going to take a whole month. Oh, okay. And that is it for my turn. Next up is Travis. Okay, can you flip a card for me? The 9 of Spring. A charismatic young girl convinces Minnie to help her with an elaborate scheme. What is it who joins the endeavors, start a project to reflect, or a charismatic young girl tries to tempt many into sinful or dangerous activity. Why does she do this? How does the community respond?

Um, yeah, you know what? I'm going to say a charismatic young girl convinces, uh, some young Delmers to attempt to take some resources. Uh-oh. For, uh, their own project. Uh, because, uh, her, her, justification is that this is moving too slowly. The Delmoner is now how to get stuff done. They don't need the approval of the rest of the council.

So they are going to under the cover of night take some of the resources to fix the bathysphere. Okay. Take the resources from where? Like where are they, what are they taking the resources? Like, from the shipyard. Okay. then I don't think the shipyard clocks down this week.

I think it's going to stay at four. And then, I mean, do you want to make this a project? Oh, that's what you do. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, start a project to reflect. So I'm going to say that that is a, what do you think? Two-week project? I mean, it's just fixing the bathysphere.

Yeah, but we kind of talked about how, like, nobody alive today really knows how to use this thing. Okay, I'm going to say three then because I think that that, incorporates the time to squirrel the resources away so that's one week and then two weeks to like figure it out and patch it up

cool no I like it I like having lots of juicy projects so the shipyard's not going to count down this week nor does the project that Travis just started the world clock the cave does though yeah the cave is finished

I had an idea actually for what the cave is that I'm kind of excited about. They finally, the cave, the project there was that some hominine sort of scholars were trying to get inside. And they finally do, once they realize sort of the nature of what was keeping them out, was just like a taboo that was just built into their like DNA. And when they go inside the cave and explore, they realize exactly what it was.

this cave is not a cave, it is a skull. And what they realize is there is an old sort of Einar fable, like an ancient underdog story about this one vestige that just went around just killing other vestiges. That was like its whole lot in life was it was just this war vestige. And in this fable, a little girl tricks this warring vestige to fall off of the Einar Plateau and shatter when it hits the ground below. And what they discover is that that is not a fictional story at all. And in fact, this skull and the pieces of magic ore spread all around the beach are the body of this dead vestige. that is that is why it is so sort of susceptible to magic and so sort of the ore is so good

because it is like god body essentially uh stand god body yeah what that also means though i i'm gonna move magic ore over to scarcity right because like now we know what it is and we found some by digging into the pebbles but like it's the body of a vestige so there's not like naturally occurring. We're not going to find more of it. No, no. And I think the demand for this magic ore is going to get even hotter now because people know that there's a limit to it. And yeah, that is what, I'll try to think of a name for this dead vestige because I think that'd probably be good to have. Okay. So this, this is the, when you talk about the ore, that's the, the little chunks on the,

the prestige salt. No, prestige salt's its own thing. That's like salt that has, dried out of the salt water that is just concentrated magic. Right. Okay. Got it. That is what I was trying to figure out. It's a different thing. The ore is what we found that is like easily susceptible to magic.

And like when it's heated, is very flexible. And when it cools, he's like very formidable. It's one might say the ideal if you were trying to build something underwater. Yes. I am going to start a project. Okay. to send a small expedition, like three people, to go check out this magical pool that we've sighted

from the shipyard and everything. And, you know, the hominine folks are like, that seems magic to me. So we're going to go check it out. Okay. Oh, no, too big. Hey, here's some people going to study it. One of them has a gigantic head.

And I'm going to say, That's not a hard. It's just observation, just two weeks. Okay. Uh, I will, I can add the number. So what's happening over there? Those people are, the light blue. Yeah, that is a, those are big boys, Trave.

I hope you realize. I don't know how, like, I know we don't have to do things to scale, but your boys are bigger than the shipyard, and that seems fucking wide. I'm sorry, we can erase them. I can't erase them. They should, are they helping with the shipyard?

Because they're so big. I'm sorry. They should be helping with the shipyard. Can make it in the afternoon. I don't know how to erase them. erase them either. I'm so sorry. You can try making them bigger. I don't know. Yeah. Oh, here's what I can do, Trave. We can manually shrink them down. Yeah, think, do that. And what are they doing besides hulking over the environment? No, they're going to investigate that pool of water. Okay. That is it for Travis's turn. Dad.

three of spring someone new arrives who or two of the community's younger members get into a fight what provoked them um i think somebody new arrives um from the uh archipelago i know it's archipelago that's funny i was going to say something dad um that's not like a word made up for this game. I was going to see something like that, you know? They are an oceanographer who studies, like, not necessarily marine biology or anything like that, but like the oceans themselves, the ocean floor. An oceanographer?

Is that a thing? Yeah. Okay. An oceanographer? I don't know if that's a thing. That was the way Jacques Cousteau was. I think. Does that feel right, Dad?

It's Jacques Cousteau. That's, yeah, I mean, it's, it can't, hold on. It can't be. I will spell it different. Oh, okay, yeah. It's a oceanographer. They are, I mean, and being from the Southern Archipelago, they are more familiar. I mean, they have had more exposure to the water and life in the water.

And so he's, he arrives at the build site, ready to contribute whatever, whatever he can. And I think, and is this where I can? come up with a project? No, it doesn't, it's specific, it doesn't ask you to start a project here. So you would start the project later on. You would just draw, uh, on the map, probably this person's, come here purposefully looking to help these people. Yeah, I'm, I have a lot of questions actually before maybe we move on from anything else.

Because I think a person who is braving these oceans right now and is dedicated to like studying the ocean floor is going to be a fairly like bonkers individual. who like... What's his name, Dad? Who is he? His name is Phineas, except it's spelled with an F.

F-O-O- That's how you know it's weird. Yeah. Finius... Finneus Call. Finius call. Call C-A-L-L. C-A-W-L.

Okay. Hey, Dad. I was ready for you to give like a silly name. That's a really cool name. That is. In fact, we're not a lot. We're not supposed to make

characters in the quiet year, but that one's so good. I think he's got to be there. Hey, listen, check this out. Call of the sea. Well, there kind of already was a call from the sea. Hey, Griffin, shut up. Yeah, it's called parallelism. It's called what?

Parallelism. It's parallelololism. It's parallelolololism. Read a book. Wait a minute. I've got to do my... He's got to draw a bad picture of him. Don't make them too big or you'll never hear the end of it.

I'll just shrink them down again. Remember, iconography is idolatry and therefore sinful, so don't make them too human-like. And don't make them a giant. I see one stubby arm looking good so far back. That could be a leg. That could be two legs. Or that could be torso in one arm. Finiast call, that great hero of the Atari 2,600.

It's a logo. It's just a logo. It's just a logo. It's just a logo. It's a logo. It's a circle with a fin. I'm already looking ahead to branding, boys. Okay, that's fine.

Penn of the month. He kind of looks like a fortune cookie. Is that what you're going for? No, I'm thinking, well, wait, here, I can do this. It looks like a circle with a fin in the middle. Yeah. Oh, okay. I have named the dead vestige.

It's coda, and all of the ore people start calling codite. Codeite, okay. All right, do I need to put, I don't put. a number, right? Next to Phineas. That it's just there. Yep. Yep.

And project clocks. The exploration of the spring goes to one. Shipyards at three, bathesphere's at two, talking to ghosts is at two. World clock drops to five. This is talking to ghosts with Griffin McRoehl. All right, dad,

now you can discover something, start a project, or hold a discussion. I think I want to start a project. I think I want Phineas to, map out the area at the bottom of the ocean to try to give them some kind of reference as to where to at least begin this community that they're going to build. Okay, two quick questions then. Did Phineas hear the, like no pun of his last name intended, like that, that voice, that call from the ocean, is that what brought Phineas?

Because other way, I worry about the sort of coincidental nature of here's the oceanographer that can show you where to build your city underwater unless this person, you know, it is on a sort of divine fate. Are there not people at the build site from the Southern Archipelago? Oh, absolutely there are, but this person just showed up. So I guess why are they? Griffin, can I ask you a clarification question then for the world? Yeah. Right?

So it's been a couple weeks. We're like at this point, 10 weeks into this, right? Yeah. So do people throughout the world know that there was this section of people that was called to this area? Like, don't people notice like? Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's fair. Okay, yeah, then, yeah.

I guess word has gotten out about this settlement. Right. I mean, it's been almost three months now. Right. Have we established that the whole population is dead set on moving into living in the ocean? Yeah, we kind of. Could that be a, could that, could that be something that Phineas brings to the table? a suggestion.

I think every, I mean, it was in the call. The call was a home for all beneath the tides. Like, everybody here knows which direction they're going. But I think it would make sense if this oceanographer who has studied like ocean like geography here is like, wait, there's a bunch of people who are like attempting to like move underwater. Yeah. I got to be there. That's kind of what I was thinking that was that he, you know, coming to volunteer his services. All right, let's, I think this is going to take a while, yes?

Yeah. Yeah, because, I mean, we haven't established levels of technology or anything, but I would have to think that they don't, I mean, he's going to have to snorkel to do it. Yeah, I know. Like, we, I don't know what kind of tech he's using. I think for just to keep things consistent, like, I don't, I don't think he has a bathysphere. I don't think he has a thing to actually get down low. maybe it's some sort of weird sounding tech where he just, you know, they used to just drop a rope off the boat and see like how deep it went.

Because if he has like super, if he has a submarine, then a lot of the projects on the board right now are fucking meaningless. No, I don't think. I don't, yeah, but there's a method. I'll, I'll think about it. I'll come up with something. But how long? I think it's going to take a while. I mean, he's got all that area.

It can go up to six weeks. Well, okay, to be realistic, four or five. Probably five, I think of what he's trying to do? He's going to map out the ocean. Map out the ocean. That's good. We haven't done that in all of human history, but he should be able to bang it out in a month.

Well, no, I never intended him for the entire ocean, but the area off the shore would seem to make the most sense without going too far afield, at least to start the community. Okay. Because you're going to have to get materials there. Everybody's going to have to get there. So obviously he doesn't want to go too far. Just to keep building on things, though, I think also if he is checking out the calm patch of ocean, just to see what the fuck is up there.

That's, okay. That would be his starting point. Yeah, I love that idea. Cool. Then that's it for your turn. Choose. Yes, sir. We are ready.

Okay. Oh, boy. There's a large body of water on the map. Where is it? What does it look like? You know, in lots of games, this wouldn't be that big of a question, but I think with this map, you know, who knows? Before the next. session I'm going to switch these two fucking panels so Justin will stop complaining about it.

Or there's a giant man-made structure on the map. Where is it? Why is it abandoned? This is definitely new. Yeah, this is- We haven't done this? Yeah, I swear to God, I thought we did. I mean, no. Neither one of the, why the river? Because that was- That was one of the type of topographical features that you added to the map at the very beginning. All right, I see. All right, I see. Okay, a giant, I think it's getting neat. I feel like we're pretty well covered with bodies of water. I can't. introduce another one of those. There's a giant man-made structure on the map. Just so I have an idea, when I'm looking at the land that we're sort of cataloging here, how big are you guys envisioning this area that we are sort of cataloging? Our scale is beyond fuck, so I'm trying to get an idea.

I would say maybe like from, you know, the beach into the water, like, maybe a half mile. So that... May I suggest you make that a little bigger? Yeah. Like two square miles. Two square miles. Here's the only reason I say that is because...

And again, I know it's not to scale, but if you think about building a great big shipyard and building all these buildings for people to be housed in, that would be a lot to take up a... Yeah, that's fair. Okay. And we are in hominine? No, we...

Oh, yeah, technically we are. although we are so far from the capital city that it is not, we are not under the watchful eye of like benevolence and the, you know, whoever rules that kingdom. This is, this is so far away. In fact that like, y'all haven't heard anything from them yet because it would take them a while to get here.

What is it when you have a, a little, a country in a different country has a little building. Embassy. Embassy, yeah. What about like an INR embassy in hominine? Because they're so close to the border there of the INR plateau, there had to be some collaboration between the two.

And I feel like we've abandoned that idea now. So there's this embassy that was operating in hominine that hominine. Yeah, hominine. You say different ways depending on where you're from. Yeah. Right. Like Hurricane. And it's an INR embassy in hominine.

Can it be like a lift? Like it's some sort of, do you know what I mean? Like if it's a, if it's a bridge between the Iinar and hominine. Oh, because Iinar's a plateau. Einar is like way up there. So like there would have to be. Yeah, I love that idea. It's like when you come down, it's like a almost like kind of an outpost of INR where people like are.

And there's like a flow of people and people in this area were like using this as a way to get back and forth between the two. But we don't need this. And like the time for this. And it's a feat of. engineering. People just call it the crystal ascendance. And we don't need it anymore. Okay. But we have, there's tons of

like, really old engineering that went into it from a time, we don't even have those skills anymore. No one quite knows how it works. Okay, I think probably I would draw it somewhere close to the edge of the map that we haven't really said where Einar is in relation to this, but... Yeah, kind of in there. And I'll make kind of a beautiful representation of what you know. Okay, I want to start counting down

the clocks because we have a lot of them now. World clocks at four. Travis, the pond expedition. Yes. The hominine magic folk were going to figure out the magic properties of that water. So what they find

in this water is a species of fish that as far as they can tell is new, is undocumented. And they're fairly small about the size of like a half-top. but their life cycles, like from egg to fully grown, is rapid, like, 48 hours. And they seem to be, like, rampant in this pond.

And from the study, it's, okay, oh, boy, Justin. No, it's not a penis yet. Okay. Let him finish. Okay. And they collect some of them into like a glass container to study. And within 48 hours they've comfortably but like filled the vessel. Okay.

Because of breeding or because of growing? Because of breeding. Yeah. So like it is a fishy like what's the way I'm looking for? When you like farm, it's sustainable, like sustainable fish. Okay. Can you come up with a name for those fish? It sounds, based on what I think, what need, I believe you're trying to fill with them,

you may as well just call them munchers or snackums or yum pops. They're called, they're called tasty boys. Munches. No. No. They're, I wanted to call them speed daters, but that's not it. We'll come back to that. Okay.

I've counted down all the other clocks and, uh, Nothing else hit zero. So, juice, now you get to... Oh, they call them filler fish, because they'll fill the space that they're... Fillers, yeah, that's good. I'm going to add that then to the list of resources, since it sounds like they are wildly abundant. Yep. Justin, now you get to actually take an action.

I want to hold a discussion. Okay. Remind me, I know there's a formality. You can either start with a statement or you can start with a question. If you start with a statement, it's the only thing you say during the thing. Okay. But if I start with the question, what? Then you get the last word in.

What would you guys think if I said? Okay, here's the question. No, statement. If we dismantle the ascendance, these two lands will be cut off from each other. Are we ready to do that? these two lands have already been cut off from each other that chopped at the top off of that plateau and we need those resources are there people still up there uh to answer the outside of the conversation i think the ainar that like maybe a few ianar have showed up to camp but they weren't there everybody who was on top of that plateau got got spirited away there were some i nar you know out and about doing other shit you know out on supply runs or trade missions or whatever they are the only ones who not survived right because you got ghosts coming back and whatever but they're the only ones who are still in their bodies or whatever is this a point where I could

ask you Griffin for a clarification in something can we finish the discussion first or is it it's kind of connected okay that's fine um in what order did things happen did the so the the top of the plateau vanished right and we do not know what what caused it, correct? Just that there were some sort of zealot, like, fanatics about who, you know, were so close to the vestiges that they wanted to, they thought in order to evade the destruction of this world, let's just take our people to a completely different world. Okay.

Did that cause, but we don't know if that caused the vanishing or... Oh, it did. Yeah, that's absolutely what caused the vanishing. Okay, that's fine. I was just wondering about that because, yes, it's gone, right? There aren't any mortals up there. Yeah. But does that mean there are no materials ors or items up there?

I think that that is a good statement to make. Yeah. And that we have no idea of knowing. Okay. The engineering used in this structure is unlike anything we have seen in the modern age. And we should be studying this, not dismantling. it. I think that we need to take more time before we take it apart because it's, there's no going back. I believe this is the final card for spring, which is the six of spring. Are there children in the

community? If there are, what is their role in the community? Or how old are the eldest members of the community? What special needs do they have? Hmm. I mean, there are, I think there's both, right? I know I'll just answer one of the questions, but I, I wager there were, when the call went out, like, people brought their families to this. If it's the arc, you know, that they're going to escape apocalypse and they're not going to leave their kids behind. I don't know, Griffin. Kids can get pretty tiresome. Great point. I'll say there are children in the community and their role in the community is, I think they, ooh, you know what, I bet. they do? I bet they...

Frollick? They frolic? Yeah, they definitely frolic and scamper, for sure, for sure. Do they play tiddly wings and push a hoop with a stick? I think the kids mostly hang out in the tide pools.

And I think that the role they serve is like in wanting to be helpful in wanting to like contribute in some way. Like they are collecting salt, like they're picking up sea glass on the beach, like, uh, helping out in that way. I don't think the kids would just like sit back while everybody else is trying to, uh, do the work

required to avert the apocalypse. Yeah. So I think the kids are like, I think they kick it up in the tide pools mostly. Uh, maybe like, you know, um, uh, domesticating some of the weird, you know, mutant magic fish creatures, the little microorganisms and what have you of the tide pools. But yeah, I think that that's, I think we haven't really assigned that area any kind of purpose or anything. So I think I don't know why I drew a square.

Well, in this world, children are squares. It's our magical world. We can do whatever we want. I'm going to draw a baby. That's his belly button. That's a big baby. Big baby. This, and he wears a, he wears a diaper.

That a baby that represents many babies? Oh, boy. That's a soggy one right there. Yeah, that's a full dippy. It's a full load. All right, yeah, that's a huge baby, huh? We love that. It represents many babies.

That's good. Okay, we're going to count on some clocks. We've got a lot of stuff that's about to finish up. World clock drops to three. Shipyard is at one. That's very exciting. Bathosphere is at zero. What happens with the Bathosphere, Travis?

So the charismatic young woman and her, compatriots finish the repairs and then present it to the council, thinking that they will be heroes, they will be lauded. And while the bathers fear being completed is a boon, and the council is glad that that happened, the fact that it happened at the cost of the shipyard and without specific approval,

they are punished. Oh, no. Uh, they are, uh, they are, their sentences like community service where they have to clean up, uh, or sort through trash that has speared from the trash hole. Okay. I like that. You want to draw, uh, yeah. I don't know what that looks like. While you draw that, that's great, though.

We all did kind of forget that there is a trash hole there. I never forgot, Griffin. I didn't forget. Uh, the, uh, uh, probably, I think it was probably a sort of coming from multiple kingdoms and like multiple sort of areas of scientific and engineering expertise were, you know, sort of banging their heads against how to talk to these spirits that had come back. That was the other project that finished.

And no one can like give them a voice. No one can figure out how to like converse with them using voices. but because the spirits are able to move things is like the only evidence we've gotten of them so far like fully kind of stranger things like there is a physical almost like an abacus that they can maneuver so that we can talk to them. Maybe it's not an abacus and maybe it's a,

ooh, okay, I got it, I got it. It's armor that started to use like sign language, like a language that people in this world are familiar with. Like one or maybe multiple spirits or whatever is able to move this gauntlet to have a conversation with whoever is speaking to it. And folks are able to basically confirm what the other Aynar living here assumed happened with the Aynar Plateau. Oh, you know what, Griffin, can I say one more thing about the bathysphere?

Yeah. Now that it is complete and the people know about it, I motion that it should speed up Finney's Call's project by a week because now there is a usable way to go under the water. Motion granted. We'll bump that up to two. Okay. Whose turn was it? Oh, it was my turn, right? Discover something new.

I'm going to discover something new. Love. It's love. No, it's going to be a... Respect. It's going to be respect. In the tide pools, there was a baby who got away from whoever was watching it and started to crawl toward the water. And it was stopped by a creature that nobody had ever really seen before.

before that was kind of a horseshoe crab terrier that sort of stopped, stopped this baby, and then was very protective of this baby. And people find a few more of them. Maybe they find a nest or whatever. And these horseshoe crab terriers become sort of beloved friends of the children here. I should have maybe known how to draw a horseshoe crab before I started to say all that shit. It's too late now.

We can't edit. Yeah, that's true. And we're going to move on. I think I messed up the order last time, but let's just stick with it, Travis. Okay, I believe we're into summer now. Yeah, let's see. Yep, no more cards.

So we're going to hide spring and bring out the bad boys of summer. Let me give them a good shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. Okay. And the first card of summer. Now summer gets a little bit, every season gets a little bit more harsh moving forward. So let's see what summer's got in store for us. Summer is a time, the three of summer.

Summer is a time for production and tending to the earth. Start a project related to food production or summer is a time for conquest and the gathering of might start a project related to military radiation and conquest. So with the fish that were brought back, I'm going to do the first one, time for production. With the fish that were brought back to study, they set up like a fishery, like fish farm wooden pool. So that's what they're setting up to build. Basically fish farms to manufacture these filler fish as a food source because they reproduce so very quickly and they're so sustainable that we think we could use them as a food source. under the water. Okay.

So I guess start a project probably by those springs. Well, so they were able to transport back the container full of them and so they're attempting to build like boxes of them down here. Are you going to get us into some triple shit?

I mean, that's up to you. You're the DM, buddy. I was curious what a project related to military readiness and conquest would look like in our weird weaponless sort of diarrhea hole. What do you guys think about rocks tied to sticks? It would be some, we would be on an EWalk sort of level.

I came up with there. It worked out all right for the EWOX. It worked on them. Oh, gray. Most of them were killed. Yeah, but they were. There was already too many. George didn't have the guts to show it, but there were mass, mass perils after.

Um, there, so, uh, the fisheries, I think isn't gonna take that long. Really? It's just like making sure they're sustainable beds. I'm going to say two weeks. So our society that's about to relocate into the Z is working on fisheries. Well, so these are sustainable freshwater fish. Yeah. That we could.

I mean, that's about to be a sure fucking supply, I will say. That's why they have to fucking study it, dog. I would say, I would say this is going to take a lot long. To create a sustainable food source. can survive underwater is more than two weeks. I'm going to say, you, when we're in the, sorry, I'm calling for a discussion amongst the elders. When we're in the ocean, we will literally be able to stick our hand on a window and grab lunch.

Oh, no, that's all poison. That's all poisoned. We talked about that. Dog. And hey, it's not your turn to start a discussion for, you know. Oh, there's, but you know how Reggie be. I do know how Reggie gets. I know how Reggie the Aynar is.

So how long time? I'm going to say, you know what, let's say five weeks. To make it like sustainable at what rate can we replenish? How do we like make sure? What do they eat? How much water do we need to feed enough people? All that stuff. Like basically figuring out the sustainable farming nature of these fish is going to take five weeks.

Okay. I'll give you five. And all the other clocks count down. Let me do that real quick. World clock is at one. The expedition clock is at one, and the shipyard clock is finished. Justin, what happens with the shipyard when he gets finished? It is incredible to behold, but in sort of a sad way, because we know that it's the last sort of structure of this sort that will ever build on land, at least for the foreseeable future.

but it is the last great hope of our society and the birthplace of a new one. So people take to calling it the cradle. So that is where our last hope will take root. That's good. I like that. That's good stuff. Okay. I think that's the only project clock that just finished.

So Travis, take a minute. Well, did we not knock a next row? I did. I knocked an extra week off the expedition. Oh, okay. Okay. I am going to start a project. Now that the bathosphere is fixed,

there are enterprising minds who, looking at the bathysphere and looking at the crystal ascendance are like, can we design, can we combine these two ideas? and design a system that rather than raising us up to a plateau could safely lower us down in a bathysphere-like elevator up and down. That's like a thing we haven't talked about. We've talked about like food and water and air underwater, but like there's going to be a lot of people to get down once, you know, the migration begins.

This is not building it. This is just like we're going to look at these two structures and attempt to figure out a design that we could like build something like it. And I'm going to say this is a huge project and it's six weeks. Okay. Could you restate the project, Tram? Yes. Delmer engineers are going to be blue sky engineering a potential design for a safe way to transport people to the bottom of the ocean using what is established in the crystal ascendance and the bathenium.

Okay, I've moved the bathysphere over to the crystal ascendance since that's sort of what that is and put a six by it. Okay. That is it for your turn and we are on to Justin, I believe, or dad. Dad. There's your card. Four of summer. Oh, boy. The oldest among you dies. Uh-oh. That's funny. What caused the death? Or. Number four, the eldest among you is very sick. Wait a minute. Okay. Caring for them and searching for a cure requires the help of the entire community. Do not reduce Project Dice this week. Take one for the team, Dad.

Befit. Take one for the team. The big wheel keeps turning. Beef it, Daddy. I like that they go ahead and include in this card. The eldest amongst you dies. what caused the dev like it was a parasailing accent i don't know he's wicked old um the eldest among us has died and he was assisting phineas call he was kind of the uh they've been using

the bathysphere right okay you got to have a way to lower the bathysphere um so um he had a very large and not like a raft or anything but a a craft like a boat that would lower the bathosphere and then draw it back up. And there was an accident. And this old man who were going to call mint clackerelroy fell, fell off, it was killed by blink sharks. Oh, man.

In the course of this investigation. You just set up a fucking final. destination like they were lowering the cable with the bathosphere down into the water on a rickety ship and the storm was rocking and a rolling and then a shark blinked up and ate him. Because of the bad weather, he fell off that platform and the blink shark showed up out of nowhere as they do by definition. Sure. And killed poor mint.

Okay. Well, rip. I guess blink sharks are still real jerks. Okay, do you want to draw that? Do you want to draw your own dead shark-eaten body somewhere on the map? Yes, I do. Okay. I, just to give this kind of ramifications, Dad, I imagine that is a man who has been bifurcated, it seems.

Bit and a half, right? That's a shame. I think maybe then the clock does not go down on the expedition this week. then. But still goes down on the other ones. I think on the other ones, yeah, those clocks still go down, but I don't think we would reduce it. You know, we got to have some sort of consequences for it. Okay. So the tower goes down to five. The fishery goes to four. That clock doesn't go down. The world clock drops to zero. This time, it's a pizza party.

Actually, I will handle that after dad takes his action. That's kind of how I did it last. time. Oh, you know what? I'll go ahead and do it now so that in case you want to do something related to it. So whoever your folks are in this this this little enclave who live closer to the outskirts of town, they intercept a convoy of wagons that are these huge, basically tanks. and they are manned by armored warriors and they're on the march from the north and at first there are folks who worry like uh-oh hominine's here and they don't like that we're doing this

but then an emissary comes out from that convoy and explains that they are the last expedition of the Delmer and they are there because they heard about what it is we're doing down here and heard that we were sort of developing specifically like self-sustaining techniques that they are very interested in because after this convoy gets back to the sort of mountains of the Delmer Wilds, they are going to seal themselves up in the subterranean city they have built into the heart of those mountains and nobody's ever leaving

again. That is how they are going to survive this, this, you know, this apocalypse as they are moving their Acropolis from on top of the mountain to within the mountain, and then they're just going to seal the whole thing up. So this will be sort of their last time to trade with them, but they are only going to stay here for one month before they return. So this is our last sort of chance to deal with the Delmer. That is what happened. Make a deal with the Delma. So all the Delmer are going to live in the skull? No, no, no, no. That's not here, not on this beach. All the Delmer are going back to the world map, we are down,

we are all the way down here. We're on the other side of the continent. And this convoy has come all the way down through Hamanine to our build site to trade with us. And then they're going back up to the Delmer Wilds and they're going to seal themselves into the mountain. Aren't there people among us who are from the Delmer? Sure.

Yeah. So they're being forced to go back? No. I mean, they're not here to, they are not here to say, hey, other Delmer, you better come back with us. They are here to say, like, we are about to move inside of a mountain.

and it would maybe benefit both of us since we are all doing our own sort of sustainable escape thing to like share information and trade for whatever resources we need. Okay. That is what's happening. Okay. So when you said,

I thought the same thing, Jason, you said all the Delmer no, no, no, no, we're going to go into this. The people who moved here of their own... I don't think the Delmer felt like that. I feel like the hominine probably do. I think there's probably a sort of sense of

nationalism maybe that goes along with that. But I think the Delmer are like, yeah, you go ahead and go live in the ocean. That'll leave more resources for us, you know, sane folks who are going to move into the mountain, right? These are the things that are, I just shared the resources with you again. Okay, now, Dad, now that that's out of the way, what is your action?

You can start a project, discover something, or hold a discussion. I'm going to start a project. Okay. I think a coalition of magic users from hominine, naturalists from In our Plateau, and technologists from Delmer Wilds are going to work together to try and create something that can house all the ghosts from the INR Plateau. okay when you say hows is there any i mean like provide like some kind of um construct oh oh to put the souls in cool cool cool all right i dig it yeah i think that work is uh we can talk about how long that takes but i think that some of that has already been done with the like how to how are we talking with these things exactly and and i come i'm just kind of

trying to play off of that okay um have all of all these unhappy souls. Because I have to assume that when the Inar Plateau was wiped out, not everybody was on board my inside of the island. That's what these souls are. These spirits that come back are the ones who, you know, without their consent, got spirited away to this realm where they no longer had physical form and said, fuck that.

And like, their disdain for that was so strong that they are able to, you know, pierce the veil back into our world. They just have nothing to do. So this coalition is going to try to build. automaton's or golems or whatever it's going to be. Okay. That would provide bodies for these wrongly destroyed people to be in. How long do you think this takes?

Well, I hadn't really thought that far ahead. That's why it's a coalition. A coalition of magic users, naturalists, and technicians. So I think that I'm going to need six weeks for this. Okay. So that is the end of dad strength. Justin. Yes.

Flip that card to this. You discover it. Wait. Yes, Dad, you need to draw something. You do need to draw something. I added a six near the sort of discussion with the ghosts thing, but you need to draw a, you know, something to represent. And dad's building ghost prisons. Well, he's building ghost bodies.

Okay. What it sounds like. Sort of elaborating on their ability to do sign language with gauntless. Right. Right, right, right. Okay. 10th of summer, you discover cash of supplies or resources add a new abundance, or a scarcity has gone unaddressed for too long. Start a project that will alleviate that scarcity.

I like that. I've shared you the setup notes that you should be able to see. For those of you at home, right now listed under scarcity, culture, food, shelter, unity, defense weapons, and code. And culture was what I think Justin added to the list at the beginning of like works of art and, you know, artifacts that, you know, may want to go down below. I am going to set up, okay, I want to work on unity. And the way I want to do it is I am going to set up a school for children. They're just playing in tight. pools all day. And I think that there's no reason, me and the other educators feel like there's no reason that we should spend a year with their brains idling. And we need to start to develop a common language and a common culture and a way that we can all sort of communicate after being

drawn together like this. So I want to create, yeah, I want to create an institute to educate our children in a very sort of like one-room schoolhouse, you know, scrappy sort of way. Yeah. But an education for our children to help to bring us together as a people. You know they're just going to bring their horseshoe dogs into class, though, cause a big fucking mess. I mean, they can try, but that's going to be one of our top rules. You got cubbies to put your horseshoe grass on.

There's no, during lunchtime, you can trade horseshoe. with your friend and go to collect all the horseshoe dogs. But that's not in the, it's not during class. Okay, so draw a, uh, kick ass school. Kick ass school. And then how long is this going to take? Um, I think it's going to take. Keep it, keep in mind that at this point, we don't really have in abundance any kind of building material.

So it's not, it's not going to be a building. It's like very open air sort of like, okay. Um, it's mainly about like the, the educational purposes. And I feel like survival is going to be a top priority. Like we're raising a generation that's going to have to fight for every scrap again. Okay. And I feel like that's going to be important for educating kids. Because honestly, like these are the kids that are going to be like that could be shaping the world that we end up like playing in.

Yeah, for sure. Down the road. So someone's drawing. Dad has been working on a robot body for the last, well, since his turn ended. Okay, I'm gonna make a school. That it looks great. Don't listen to it. It does.

It looks fucking awesome. I get why you're redrawing it. How long, juice, do you think this is going to take? Probably three weeks. Oh, wow. So this is going to be fairly ramshackle as... Hey, listen, bud. The West Virginia came up with like COVID protocols in a quicker time than that.

Yeah. Like, we have precedence. I'm going to leave this three next to the children until you have plopped to the school down somewhere unless I'm not seeing it and you've already started drawing. No, I want to put the score right here. Okay, I'm going to start going down clocks then. World clocks at three. The tower clock is at four.

The robot clock is at five. The fishery clock is at three. There's a lot of clocks. And finally, there were probably some people who thought this day would never come. The expedition has completed. and Now, Dad, did you give the robot little nipples? Those are lights, I think.

It's not canon. Well, they're not cannons. They're not laser cannon nipples. They might. Okay. Dad, this is kind of a probably a big one for map-making purposes. What does Phineas and his intrepid crew of sort of primitive ocean? floor explorers, what do they discover?

That the place where the calm sea would be a great place to start. The water is more heavily oxygenated for some reason in that general area. There's also much less concentration of the prestige salts. So they really kind of have staked out that that area right, there would be a good place to start where at least maybe they, whatever their preliminary efforts are in building a community underwater, at least maybe it'll be a little easier there and work out some of the kinks. So that, just to sort of condense down what you're saying, this patch of calm sea maybe isn't the best place to build the city, but we can set up a ship there or a, you know,

a flotilla of construction ships there, and they will be safe. And it will make construction of that city, like, possible. And not only that, but it would be like a staging area. Okay. Right. But you've also got this gigantic spiral staircase.

Yeah. Right next to it. Do they go deep enough to figure out what that is? I don't know if they figured out what it is. Yeah. But it's obviously something that is constructed and man-made. It's not something that just grew in a spiral out of nature. Okay.

But also has a number of workable materials to use. Yeah, okay. And see, I feel weird about this because the spiral staircase was Justin's. No, I mean, that's the nature of the game is we're going to build on each other's things. So basically what you were saying is that these two weird anomalies that have been here since the start are essentially good grounds for a like construction site. Not the city itself, but a launch pad to actually get this stuff done. But maybe even a temporary community that will, like I said, would be a staging area to build. I like that.

Yeah, no, for sure. I think that that is a lot cleaner than we live on the land. We take our boats out to sea. We go down underwater with our hammers and nails for a little bit. And then, you know, come on back for a nice campfire party by the trash. Geiser before I go back to bit. Like, that doesn't seem as feasible as here's the construction site and now there's people who live there and we just don't really see those people as much anymore.

That's what I was thinking. Okay. Do I need to draw anything? I don't think so unless you want to draw some sort of... Okay, I know what I can draw. Okay. I was going to say you could also just move the logo down to the, down to here. How do I do that?

I can do it. Do they hang out there? Does Phineas and his, like, crew of ocean explorers, do they kind of post up, like, in that area now that they, I imagine. I think there'll be site preparation. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not just him. I think that he was so impressed with the, the young woman and her crew.

Yeah. And he needed help after Mint got eaten. Right. And also could probably use some, you know, protection. Okay. That he kind of made them his team. Rad. Okay, that's good. Justin, now I think you get to take an action.

I don't like it when my card makes you take an action, and then I have to take another action right after that. Well, then you could discover something fairly benign. You know what I mean? Like, it doesn't always have to be, you know, some... I used took a contempt in case anyone was wondering. Oh, why? Do I have to tell you?

I... Guess not. I'm not wild about these ruffians who stole from... the shipyard getting to help build the new the new place. I don't trust them. Fair, fair. In the morning, we wake in the shithouse to find several beds empty. And there's a note from a group calling themselves the vanguard that says that they have

gone ahead and they will be the first to go under. Whoa They haven't waited for everybody else to be ready They haven't waited for a ship As far as we know We don't know how they're doing it All we know is that they're gone And they say that they will be

They basically want to be the first To set up A life under the sea They want to beat everybody else to the punch And they think that they've got a way to do it Do they take anything? They've looted I mean from the shipyard

They're small things. It's not enough to impede work because work has not begun in the shipyard, something we should probably remind me new before doing it. But they've looted some supplies. Didn't you name it?

Yeah, the cradle. They've looted supplies from the cradle. They've taken some of the like food stocks and the bathysphere is missing. Oh. Well, that's going to make this project. Well, they already have that is. signs.

There, it should be noted, by the way, it seems to be a large cross-section of the community. Okay. And there is not a consensus on whether or not these people will live to see. Right. Sure. Fucking, of course. So that is a question. Is it, I'm sort of curious about this cross-section of people, like, where they came from.

The only thing we know about, like, subgroups of this community are, the political leaders, the children up here, and then the gatherers with the cool haircuts are sort of like king shit. What we find out is that it's mainly gatherers. They feel like they've been doing the work to ready us, and they feel like they, and maybe they've been pocketing some,

haven't been bringing all of their discoveries to the community, and they decide that they're going to be the first to, first to set up and basically, establish. Like a land rush. Exactly. Exactly.

And I'm going to move them. They're the sooners of this. I'm going to move the cool collectors down here. I'm going to rotate him so he's like swimming into the water. Okay. Cool. I love that he's there swimming into the water. And meanwhile, dad's torn in half Samuel L. Jackson from deep blue sea is, it's, uh.

I hope he watches out for blink. Yeah, that's a good. Yep. We don't know how they're going to solve for that. But good, good luck, everybody. Comedy and Culture. Artist-owned. Audience supported.