The Glass Cannon Podcast - Time For Chaos S1 | E8 – Homeward Bound

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

The investigators try to replace the missing gold band over the rancid pool of filth. Watch the video here: ⁠⁠⁠https://youtu.be/c7iOTDhlaFg For a limited time, use code "TFC" to save 15% on Cthulhu products at ⁠⁠chaosium.com⁠⁠. Access exclusive podcasts, ad-free episodes, and livestreams with a 30-day free trial with code "GCN30" at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠jointhenaish.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Join Troy Lavallee, Joe O'Brien, Skid Maher, Matthew Capodicasa, Sydney Amanuel, and Kate Stamas as they tour the country. Get your tickets today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://hubs.li/Q03cn8wr0⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. For more podcasts and livestreams, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://hubs.li/Q03cmY380⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Watch new episodes when they premiere every Friday at 8PM ET on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/theglasscannon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, starting July 11th. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You are listening to the Glass Cannon Network, the premier source for role-playing game entertainment. Good evening everybody, happy Friday. It's time for Chaos. Quick question for the group. Are any of you very good drawers? It's a hard word to say, drawers. Is that a word? Or artists, I guess you'd say. But a drawer.

Can you draw? I can't draw. You're specifically the art of drawing, not painting or sculpting. Right, I'm talking about just like, here's a pen and a paper, go wild. You can draw something cool, Nora, what can you draw? I'm not bad, I'm not bad. I mean, I used to take a lot of art classes

and I always did, like growing up, I had a lot of art classes and then theater and choir, and then as I got older, it was like I didn't have time for all three and one had to take the boot. And I was like, I could always draw stuff on my own, but then I never did so I but I'm not I'm not bad What do you do? landscapes still life snooze

I like portraits. I like I like faces portraits. Yeah Do you are you good at like the whole body like you can do like? Like everything or you just like head faces. Is that your thing? I'm okay with the whole body thing, but I like faces. Faces. Yeah. That's alchemy to me, how anyone can draw anything. Yeah, I love to draw.

Yeah, you're a big draw. Ross, you're a bit of a cartoonist, if you will. Was that what you would call yourself or did I just insult you? No, no, no. My work hangs in galleries, Troy. No, it's East. No, I, yeah, I like to draw.

I love to draw cartoons and doodle and draw all kinds of things. When did you start getting into that? Because it looks like it's something that you kind of do. You're like a new, new age Gary Larson. Oh man, high praise indeed. And I, I started when I was a little kid. I was one of those kids that grew up in a household without a TV for a long time. Print and audio media made a very big impression on my kid brain.

I was very big into newspaper comics. I was a huge fan of Gary Larson, big fan of Bill Watterson, big fan of Burt Breed, like all the hits. And so just imitating them, like me and my little dork friends drew all kinds of little comics when we were growing up. Do you remember getting the Sunday paper? It was a big deal. Kids today, they don't care.

But I mean, my God, I remember it was like, ah, Dick Tracy, Garfield. Yeah, you'd have the order already figured out. I would settle into a routine. It's like, you say Garfield for last, because you know that's going to be a banger. And then Calvin and Hobbes, and you start with Family Circus. Because it's a shit. Burn Family Circus, really.

That's just a time passer. Yeah. Do Mary Worth and... Yeah. Get them all. Don't have any idea what's going on. Yeah. Work your way through Broomhilda.

Touch base with Mutts for a little touch of whimsy. See how Andy Capp is going to beat his wife or whatever is going to happen in that one. And Drunken Sod Andy Capp. Couldn't make that one today, Andy Cap. You know what's funny is... Great hot fries though. Excellent hot fries. And they're cheap, they're like 99 cents a bag.

You would read the ones that you didn't even like just because we were so starved for content. I remember I would read the ones like Mary Worth, I have no idea what's going on, that's so funny. Kate, obviously you play an artist on TV. Do you have any, are you a drawer? I have an art degree, and I have drawn many people before. Hey, we gotta play like one. In the pocket, yeah. It's like a dabble, I guess.

Well, professionally, I don't know. But that could be in anything. You could be like a Jackson Pollock painter. Can you draw a face like Nora? I mean, I'm pretty out of practice now. I'd probably do an okay job. Ooh, those are fighting words. Let's have a face-off!

Ooh, literally. I concede. I'll draw the face and I'll draw the body. I concede. Yeah. Sweet. I'm good. I'm good with doing what I do right now.

Draw Ross. I will pay any price for... Ross is the cartoonist. If Nora does the face, Kate does the body, and then I'll draw like a skateboard that they're on or something. I'll draw the sun with lines coming off in the background. It's got sunglasses on. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. That's always fun. Totally tubular. So Kate, what made you decide to go into art? Was that just your thing? That was just your passion about it? You're like, I wanna be an artist. I'm gonna go study art.

Passions. Well, like my passion is just like having a good time with life. But like. I hear that. I applied to college to either be go to like a science track or an art track. My physics teacher wrote my recommendation for college and I just ended up doing art and sex.

I got accepted. I was surprised I got accepted on my portfolio. So I was like might as well. That was I mean I'm here now, but like it was a poor choice for a while. Have you ever designed, like drawn any of your own tattoos? I know you're a big tattoo enthusiast. Everyone's like, here, do this.

Oh no, no. I come up with some of the ideas like, hey, I want a peacock galaxy. And I go to an artist the way that I like how they draw. And I'm like, you do it how you do and I'll love it. Yeah. The classic peacock galaxy. Now I want to go home to peacock galaxy. Reminds me of that like those weird AI things that you see on Google. Those are pretty amazing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. The Dalton.

My mother-in-law lives out in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and they live adjacent to about 20 farms. And there's this one peacock just kind of roams around. Like, he owns the joint, and sometimes she'll just open the door to her cottage, and peacock's right there. It's like, ah! They're very jarring animals, let alone a whole galaxy.

Well, you're not expecting one, yes. Right. Nobody likes an unexpected peacock. No. I want to see it coming before princes and preens. Rob, I'm not, I think you've fallen into my camp. I was, I feel like I peaked when I was 12 or 13. I had a good eye for copying things. Not like putting it on top of, but like looking

at it and then drawing it. Not tracing, but yeah. Yeah, so my big collection was of three Street Fighter II characters that really looked like they did in the magazine. Who were your go-tos? Ken, Chun-Li, and Blanca. Okay, Blanca. Those are the three.

Okay, Blanca. Yeah. I'm gonna take in some work. But you know, I was just looking at the, you know, sort of the art that was in the magazine and I just drew it and then drew the logo every time and put them up on my wall. And of course my parents being my parents,

kept it for 30 years. So. It's still on their fridge. Have them somewhere. Yeah, they're like, this is, you know, cause my mother, I was an only child. So, and Troy knew my mom so he can vouch for this where she was just like, everything you do is the best.

You know, it's just like, these could be in a museum. I don't think they're gonna put a 12-year-old's can up on the wall. I love how supportive that is. That's very sweet. But Nora, the problem is, it was like to a fault, right? Anytime I had a crush on a girl and she was not down, you know, it was just to a fault, right? Like, anytime I had a crush on a girl and she was not down, you know, was just like, did the like,

it's because I would rather be friends move, which is the classy move, my mom would be like, she's lying. Like, she's cool. Oh my god. She's like, mom. She's like, well, you're the, I mean, you are, she obviously does like you,

but she's not ready right now. What a special boy you are. It wasn't like she was. She wasn't encouraged me to like stand outside her house at night or whatever. But just but just would not let me believe that there was a chance that a woman would not be interested in five'2", 110 pound Tanny Kirkovich. It's like being chaotically supportive.

Exactly. Chaotically supportive. If you showed her your Chun-Li. Between her and the romantic comedies of the 80s, my impression of what dating was, was completely skewed. Really, yeah, they were very unrealistic movies in retrospect. Yeah, I wish I could draw. I remember I was really into comic books as a kid.

It wasn't like my main jam, but enough so that I would get that book, like how to draw comics, like Marvel. And you'd get the thing where you have to draw the oval and then make it three-dimensional and then like erase the lines or it looks like a body. I just couldn't, I couldn't get it. I don't have that muscle, that bone.

I hope one of my kids can draw. You have to train the muscle. You have to train your muscle. So draw, you have to just. Yes. Okay. We had an exercise in my drawing classes where you draw with your right hand

and then you do one picture where you draw with your left hand. And sometimes that picture is better because your right hand, if you're right handed, thinks it knows what to do, but your left hand listens to your brain more and you go slower. Son of a gun.

Anybody left handed in the group here? I am. Ooh, get out. I didn't peg you for a lefty. Little south paw, Nora. Yeah, yeah. Sinister Nora E. Yes, it all checks now.

Now things are falling into place. You know left-handed people die young. That's not true. No, I'm just kidding. That's so rude. Yeah. I make sure of it. I won't be happy until you're old enough.

No, that's very cool. Well, good for you guys that can draw and for those of us who can't, stop making us feel bad, Kate. And Troy, you know, a time period when cartoons and newspaper cartoons were maybe at the peak of their popularity was the 1920s. Wow. When maybe the most popular character in all of pop culture was Crazy Cat.

Crazy Cat? I gotta Google Crazy Cat. What's his story? Oh, Crazy Cat is I'm obsessed. Crazy Cat is a comic strip from it ran in the early 20th century. It was by a gentleman named George Harriman and it was hugely popular. And the premise of it can be described in one sentence and it doesn't give you a clue of how elaborate and beautiful it is. It's a love triangle. Crazy Cat is in love with a mouse named Ignatz. Ignatz hates Crazy Cat and every day throws a brick at them.

And Officer Pup is a police dog who loves Crazy Cat and throws Ignatz in jail. And that's the whole premise of the strip. Tale as old as time, very simple. Crazy Cat is spelled with a K, I noticed. Two Ks, yeah. Crazy Cat. I just Googled Crazy Cat and then pressed enter

and was like, oh no, and I just see a bunch of images of cats making weird faces. Yeah, I saw a cat with the body of a human dressed in a suit and it was very unnerving. It was just like smoking a pipe. Okay, I would confuse this with Fritz the Cat. Yeah, very similar kind of, sort of, and era too. Fritz the Cat. Yeah, very similar kind of sort of, and era too. Fritz the Cat.

Wasn't Fritz the Cat, that was like the Ralph Bakshi crazy. Well, Fritz the Cat is R. Crumb. You might be thinking of Felix the Cat, who's the earlier one. Felix the Cat, whenever he gets in a fix, he just reaches into his bag of tricks. Felix the Cat, the wonderful, wonderful cat. I think the cartoon cat market is saturated.

Too many cats. I feel this I think the cartoon cat market is saturated. Too many cats. I feel like this is gonna break. Oh I see Ralph actually was a played Pig Cop 1 in Fritz the Cat. You were correct. Yes. For us. Fritz the Cat was was pornography I believe was cartoon pornography. Did we mention Heathcliff?

Or a Chrome comic strip. We did. Oh yeah Heathcliff. Heathcliff was a Garfield knockoff right? Yeah. Yeah the go-bots to Garfield's case. He was going to terrorize the neighborhood. He would eat fish by dipping them into his mouth and pulling out bones. Classic. The street gang.

Nowadays, the comic strip of Heathcliff is an exercise in surreal insanity. The current actual Heathcliff comics are like bafflingly strange. Really? Worth a look. Wow. You're kind of like resurgence. In the way that you're like, is someone really, is the person drawing this like, are they at the wheel of what is going on?

It is very, very odd. I love seeing, you can find like Garfield strips where they took Garfield's thought bubbles out, so it just makes it on our book will look like an insane person I've talked about this another show this Garfield minus Garfield. It's just John He just seems like existential eggs Really really good there on Twitter Well, I missed the opportunity to segue from the 1920s back to our story, but I'm gonna do it anyways first though I want to talk about sanity because we it happened last week.

I'm surprised it hasn't happened earlier. I think part of me thought, well, we have some time, but oh, Vaughn was right on edge. I want to talk about the sanity mechanic real quickly. And then I want to go over some errata from last week's episode. I'll spoil that part for you. from last week's episode. I'll spoil that part for you. Carter is also indefinitely insane because Carter lost one fifth of his sanity,

his current sanity last week. And there was just so much going on with that moment with Vaughn, we forgot to address that. So let's talk about sanity real quick. I sent you guys this flow chart, which is pretty great. Someone made, I would give them props, but I don't know who it was.

When you are, and the reason I wanna go over this is this going to come up time and time again, and it's a very complex, elegant system with a lot of like, hey, let's just, let's figure out what this horrible thing is gonna be together, not me just being like, you've got this affliction now. It's a very like give-and-take system

When I say give me a sanity roll everybody rolls it if you fail it oftentimes you get take zero Sometimes you take one or less than that, but if that's if you succeed if you fail the roll You take some sanity damage. You guys should be rolling your own sanity damage. I shouldn't roll it It's a lot more dangerous because you roll it, that's what you get. But that is what should happen. Now, if you take more than five sanity points in one hit, that's when you make the intelligence roll.

That's the roll you want to fail. If you fail at that roll, you're fine for now. That happened to me. Yes. If you succeed at that roll, you're fine for now. That happened to me. Yes. If you succeed at that role, you become indefinitely insane. If you take more than one fifth in one day, you don't even get the intelligence role,

you just go straight to indefinitely insane. And what happens first is a bout of madness. Now that happened with Vaughn last week. I just said you go fetal. There's a million different things you can do. I can roll randomly on a table to see what that bout of madness is, or I can just pick something,

or you and I can work it out together. But oftentimes it takes you out of play when it's happening in real time, when there's combat rounds. You're pretty much gonna be out for one D10 rounds. Let's say you're all split up all over this pyramid and one of you is facing something awful, but it wasn't really happening in combat rounds.

Well, there's a different table for that. You may just end up running out of the pyramid and be found like a mile down the way by your people later. It's not like one to 10 rounds. It's more of like a something awful happens, but like the rest of the party may not know, or they may see you running and can try to stop you. But the point is something like temporary insanity, it's gone after 10 hours. Indefinite insanity lasts months. And so it's going to take treatment in life with like a

psychoanalyst or a therapist to try and remove that insanity from you. And God help you if you start getting phobias and manias, you have to roll to try and remove those phobias and man you. And God help you if you start getting phobias and manias, you have to roll to try and remove those phobias and manias. And what they do is, let's say last week, instead of having you go fetal, I said, you know what, you're gonna have a phobia that you always think someone's behind you, okay? Now, most of the time that wouldn't be a problem,

but if anyone ever like attacked you from behind, that whole combat you would take a penalty die because you were being faced with your phobia. Same thing with mania. If you had a mania where you like were an alcoholic and you had to drink, anytime you didn't indulge in that mania at all times, you would take a penalty die when trying to do things. So it's a very complex system. When we finish this part of the adventure, there'll be a chance to regain some of the sanity and hopefully go past your initial starting sanity. But once you go to zero sanity, it's as good as dead.

You are no longer a playable character in the game. Nora, I'm sorry, I think I steamrolled over here. Me didn't steamroll, I just wanted to say this when you were finished with your explanation, which is very helpful. I can't believe we were not sponsored by like Talkspace or any of those like therapy apps. I feel like that would be kind of appropriate. You know, we do have one.

What is it? Is it feels? I can't remember. Yeah, what is it? Can we get a sponsor? Is it feels? I can't remember. Yeah, what is it? Can we get a sponsor? Is it therapy? Oh, better help. Better help is one of our sponsors. Can we get a sponsor?

Yeah, I mean, it can get very dark, depending on how much we want to play it, but it really should be a give and take. And then sometimes, you know, when things get really bad, I may have to drop the hammer. But here's the added wrinkle about being indefinitely insane. and then sometimes, you know, when things get really bad, I may have to drop the hammer. But here's the added wrinkle about being indefinitely insane.

Now, any time before you get to rest and recover, any time you lose even one point of sanity, you have an immediate bout of madness. So once you go indefinitely insane, you're on the brink. You cannot be faced with another insanity without going. So if you go early in an adventure and you break, and you know that you're not going to have time to go commit yourself, you're going to constantly be having bouts of madness. So what may end up happening, if it happens early enough in a campaign, you may need to

go retire that character to go seek help. Not unlike what we do in Blades in the Dark. You kind of like put them on the shelf and then bring in a new character while your character gets mentally stable enough to come back. So it's very interesting the way it plays out. These characters are not meant to be played forever.

So be thinking of backup characters or I'll just hand you one and you can reskin it. So I want to say that. So Rob, yes, Carter, sadly, he is also indefinitely insane. And so I'm just going to give you a phobia instead of having you, you know, hand off the chess piece. When you were faced with this animated mummy, as it was in the book, this the Lovren side that brought it to life, and that is really what sent you over the edge

I think you took max saying or no something close to it like six six I think and then luckily passed my intelligence thing Right and that would I didn't even need to have you roll that because you had already gone over 120th in one day. So You have this phobia that you are afraid something is going to crawl up under your mask. And really is only going to come into play if it comes into play. Otherwise it's just a part of your life right now until you get it looked at. And you're both on edge. You guys are underneath the ruins of this pyramid.

Augustus Larkin is gone. You confronted him. Something within him came back at you, tried to tear open space and time to let some horrible creature through. But by killing Larkin, you not only closed that rift, you released him from whatever was possessing him. Of course, that didn't stop his severed head from letting you know that whatever was possessing him. Of course, that didn't stop his severed head from letting you know that whatever was possessing him

will see you again. Yeah, not before the end of the world. You go underground and you climb through a bit of dead bodies, carcasses that are either super fresh or have been there a long, long time, desiccated, victims most likely of these Kari-Siri. You go downstairs and you find a chamber with these two Kari-Siri. And at the man and the woman that you saw

when you were walking to the pyramids, they went up and vomited something into the crack at the top of the pyramid, and then crawled through this same pit of bodies to go to this room and sleep it off. You kill them in their sleep, burn them, chop them up so they will not rise again. You then walk down the hall and as I mentioned, you see a bundle of rags that is not a bundle of rags, it's a skeleton.

It comes to life! Fight ensues, you take care of that. Then you come around and around and you find this filth pool. It's a great image here. I'll show you on, I mean, I have no less than 300 images loaded into Roll20 here, but I found it.

Check out Roll20 if you wanna see kind of an image from the book of this filth pool. There's a crack in the wall that seems to be leaking this white viscous substance into the ground forming this pool that is blocking further advance down the hallway. The pool is just like moving strangely and it smells rotten.

Like everything is smelled here. But you do see, and it's even right here in the photo, just under that crack, the piece of the barrier that was ripped out. And you guys have the ward that Jackson Elias took that you can replace. This, you can replace it right here. The problem is, it's going to involve dealing with this pool of

filth. You'll kind of have to get right into it to deal with it. So talk to me about what you want to do here. Can we, okay, just thinking of this whole past experience with things needing to be lit on fire, can this pool of weird whatever it is, is it flammable? Can we check to see if it lights on fire? Sure.

I don't know if we should. I'm asking everybody else. Oh yeah. Yeah, if you want to. We can maybe get a little spoonful and see if we can light it up. Yeah. What do you think? I definitely don't think we should light it just because I think that like that whole

wall like might be full of, I feel like this is the vomit. Does anybody have a spoon? The vomit is flammable. Yeah. Yeah, it could be vomit. We could use like our machetes and like grab a little bit. Yeah, do a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Like a fun dip. Like a little dip. There you go. Yeah. All right, so someone wants to take a machete, kind of stick it in and then, what are you gonna light the machete on fire? Yeah. Just see if we can introduce.

Okay. Yeah, that's our first time, right? You guys love a good flaming machete. Not our first fire machete rodeo. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know about you guys, the only reason I ever got into TTRPGs is to light fucking melee shit on fire. Yeah.

When you're in Peru, make sure you light a machete on fire. Alright, who wants to stick that thing in this gross pool? I could. All right. Margot edges are way up to the edge here where it's just kind of boiling over. You can't tell, like, is it just a puddle or is it a pit?

It's unclear. But you very quickly find out that it seems to have eroded the passageway because you stick in and the machete goes in and down and it shouldn't, it should be floor there. So you stick it in, maybe halfway, you pull it out and it's just dripping this white rancid looking substance. And then you light it and It catches flame. Oh very quickly. Whoa

Bottle cap. All right. Well, we figured something out. Bonus time Yeah, it is it appears to be very, very flammable. What does it mean if it's flammable? Now, when we did that, did it burn away from the knife? Like, did it evaporate or is it still there? It did, it lit and disappeared and now there's just black scorch marks on the blade and a thin wisp of black smoke coming off the point.

Hear me out. I think we should all take a lot of steps back and try to extinguish, light it on fire to get rid of it before we put this thing back, maybe. The only issue there could be is if it lights up the crack and then goes up and then we end up trapping ourselves in a burning inferno of a temple. You know what I mean? Like who knows where all these other things are going? I can see how that is unfavored, yeah. It blows up quite a bit of the air in this tunnel.

Or goes back to its source and sends everything up in a massive configuration. I feel like we shouldn't touch this thing. Yes. Especially now that we see it seems to be more than knee deep. So what are you suggesting, Jackson says? I mean maybe we can go around and hopefully we don't run into any rag mummies because maybe we can run out faster that way I have to run all his way around.

The space, Troy, that the missing piece is in is right over the pool, right? I mean, it's not like the other side, it's not on the other side. It's smack dab. Yeah, it's right over the middle of it. And unfortunately, the map isn't really to scale. Remember, the hallways are 10 feet wide so you're not taking up the whole

hallway. When you fought the mummy you could fight side by side and whatnot. The point of that is the crack is inaccessible and not the crack so much as the the broken piece of the ward without getting into this pit or getting across. Can I do... Oh sorry, Noraore, are we gonna say something? I was gonna ask, are we blocked away from the room that had the treasure in it? Like, are there things that we could theoretically tie to our feet to like, you know when you're a kid and you put buckets on your feet and walk on them?

Like, just to keep her feet off of- Or like short round and- Yeah, keep her feet off of- Planks or things that you could kind of bridge the pool with to stand the top of. Yeah, a bridge would probably work better because I put my machete in there and it went all the way down.

So perhaps a bridge. Yeah, where Margo stuck that machete and you worry about how much, you know, much makeshift still you would need to make to not still go into the pool. You just don't know how deep it is. But yeah, there's certainly stuff back in that room that you could make a reach out of. Like a door that we could lay across

if that room had a door. There's enough stuff in there, tables you could make. It's gonna require a roll to try and fashion it across this pool. But let's say you go back over there and you guys just grabbing anything that looks like it can be used to make a little bridge and then you bring it back over.

And then I just need someone to make a mechanical repair roll. And remember, if you fail that, you do have the option to push it. If you just explain to me what you're doing differently, of course, on a failed push, bad things could happen. Who is good at fabrication? God is good at lies. I can lie about being good at fabrication. No, not good enough.

I have a 10 in mechanical repair, I'm assuming that's the case. Same. As do I. Oh, you know what? Let's do our luck roll, our daily luck roll. Oh yeah. Maybe this will change what you end up doing.

Yes, yes, yes. I still can't believe, was it the first roll, Margo beat a one Because you rolled an 11 and could spend 10 luck like no one makes a success in a 1% chance You this is a roll you want to fail and then you get one d10 luck back oh You're a failure I got an 86 86 we roll that look In our Pathfinder game,

that means the best possible thing happens. It's a D10, yeah? D10, yeah. All right. Ross, what about you? Failed pass? I just barely succeeded. I'm so sorry.

Kate, you look sad. My luck is running dry in this adventure. I 13 under 35. Oh Yeah, save that roll. What about you Rob? I happily failed it and I got eight Eight great. I'm nor would you end up with I I ended up with four more points Your drink looks really good. Thank you Better than my lemon berry come boot. That's my favorite flavor. Cause it's the best flavor. It's the best flavor.

Can confirm. Oh boy. Another session derailed by Booch Talk. I'm just, I'm going to keep pumping them till they sponsor us. I got a lot of luck to spend. I only have 10 in mechanical, but if we've all got low mechanical repair,

I'm willing to, I'm willing to see how much luck I could spend on this. Will it roll the dice? Does anybody have higher than a 10 in mechanical repair? No. Okay. You seem to be the most confident, Mr. Braun. So I dare say I am confident in your abilities. I would love to say that I'm confident in them myself,

but as of the moment, I can't pull up my character sheet. It disappeared on me, even though I'm trying to pull it up right now. Look inward. Okay. Like it went away, and I don't know why it's not coming back up again when I click on my name.

I've got you here. What do you, you just want checking mechanical repair? I know it's 10 points and I got 74 luck, so let's roll this. Do it. Oh man. I'm not even gonna need it. I know it's ten points, and I got 74 luck, so let's let's roll this Having gonna need it I Rolled a 20 yes 20. Yeah, take it all the way down Ten points of luck All right, we're gonna haul some planks over this thing over this possibly

Some monster vomit. Some golden planks. Unbelievable. All right, so. Bridge on the ooze river. Here we go. Bridge on the river die. All, you use all this shit and you make a bridge.

Fae Rue's Jack of all trades. You're like, hold on, let me just make a bridge real quick. You get this going and you get it out there and you're so close to this water and it almost looks like it's bubbling from time to time. Like maybe something is breathing in there. You just see this movement writhing from time to time. It almost like seems to rise up

as you're just inches away from it, you know, pounding things together and checking to make sure they're sturdy. But eventually you create this little makeshift bridge over this gap and you're standing on it and it just, it feels a little unsteady, but you feel like it'll hold long enough for you to try and repair this ward All right, so you get there and you see the the hole is is very dirty

There's there's layers of filth and limestone that have been caked by this white substance So you're gonna need to clean that out and then So you're gonna need to clean that out. And then you can try and just hammer or wedge it into place. So talk me through how you do it. All right. Who's going out there? I thought I was going out there, but if somebody else would like to go, it's not totally up to you.

That works for me. I think you may... That works for me. I think you may, Von is maybe a little bit more reckless than you've seen him. It's like happy to oblige if you've done so well with the Outbridge building. Happy to go out there, sport. I absolutely appreciate your help, but I think if somebody would like to hand me the, what is it? Is it a bar? Is it a panel? Yeah. It's like a golden rod. I think if somebody would like to hand me the, what is it?

Is it a bar? Is it a panel? Yeah. It's like a- Golden rod. Yeah, it's a golden sheet. I'll bring up the photo, but yeah. Jackson has it in his bag.

He reaches and he's like, I'm glad I took this thing. Before she takes it from him, Faeruz will take off like this overcoat like a like a linen light linen overcoat she had and she'll use that to try to wipe away Whatever excess is on the wall Okay, you see The linen like dissolve as it hits the more fresh white substance it like Dissolves you turn it real quick and you're just scouring out this hole, so gross,

but eventually you clear it all away and you think you can slide it in there and just knock it into place. All right. Carter's like, you're doing great! Wish me luck. So good. And Vaughn leans over to Fräulein Sauer. It's like, he's doing an excellent job.

And no need to worry, if things go cock up, she can always come back. Right. No fear. Mm-hmm. Carter's like- Hurry. I think someone's wrong with Vaughn. He's being a little weird. And then he just turns and faces the wall.

We're all doing so well. I forgot I'm on this side with both of you who are both insane. And he's just facing the wall and still going, you're doing great! What could possibly go wrong? Famous last words. All right, let's give it a go. Hands it over to you and you just place it on there and what do you use and do you have like a tool or you just... I probably just move the back. I have that medium-sized knife so I'll probably use the the butt end of like the just just to hammer it in there.

Right, and so you're hammering away and they're all watching you and the bridge that you're standing on is just going from every time you slam against the wall, a piece of it like splinters off after you get the first edge in and you have to like restead yourself. And then you just keep hammering in and eventually

it's on there and it looks obviously like it was once broken but the ward has been replaced. If Nyara's myths about this place are true, then whatever evil seeped out of here may very well be contained. But when you get that into place, I don't know if you were waiting for something to happen or hear a voice or see anything different. Nothing seems changed. Where are the sparkles and the fairies

or whatever is supposed to happen? I thought there'd be a little more fanfare than this, yes. Yes, I dare say it's a bit of an anticlimax. Is the puddle still gurgling at all? Oh yeah. So she's like, Feroz, I think you should come back quickly. This puddle looks alive.

I absolutely jump back and maybe we should light it on fire and run. Yes. Now is the time. I'm thinking like because like part of it came out, like even though maybe whatever is behind the wall is now bound in, this part outside needs to be dealt with.

If it even works. Yeah All right, so you want to try and light it and then run or um if or if you dumb care to make good your Your departure I'm more than willing to stay behind and light it Be right at your heels. I feel that- Yeah, that works too. I feel like it'd be taking advantage of him in this moment, because it's like, what if he stays behind and lights it and lingers too long because of his death thoughts right now?

Well, he'll always come back. That's all I'll do. Just, it's, mm-hmm. Just put a hand on the lighter and throw it together. Yes. So Margo goes, if you want to make that sacrifice, okay, but as soon as you throw in the burning, whatever we give you, run, run, don't wait. Maybe we throw a matchstick.

Yeah. From a distance. All right, so I guess we give you a matchstick and we start heading out and as we do, I say, remember, run, don't wait, don't linger. I don't know how to bring you back. Something deep in Carter's feels weird about this situation. Something feels like, Carter's like,

stop, stop, wait, hold on, hold on. I'm having these, oh, these feelings. What's it called when you know the thing that you wanna do is probably not the right thing to do, but you're gonna you might do it anyway What is that? It starts with a G. It's like guilt. Yes. Yes. You're feeling that right now. I'm feeling guilt for the first time Situation should we leave him? I don't I don't know and then he Carter just turns to nobody else. He goes I don't what do you think?

He doesn't know. And then Carter just turns to nobody else and goes, what do you think? He doesn't know. I'm gonna stay, I'm gonna be, I'm not gonna let, I'm gonna hang it back. This is what you are. I have no desire for inclination to burn myself up. But if only one of us needs to throw a bloody match at this nauseous pool, then okay, I don't know how to describe to you what I know that what's been kindled in me, Mr. Tillinghast, is hope. Don't you feel some sense of hope, knowing that death is not the end?

Thorn, you're frightening me. That there is a way. We've seen it with our own eyes. So... I look hopelessly at Faerûs. Okay, all right, let's do it. Let's get a little bit of a head start, but let's keep an eye on him. You know what I mean?

Yes, yes, yes. I have no fear, right? I shan't burn myself up. Well, in the moment, you throw at you. If I'm to throw and run. Yes, please. All right, so you all back up around the corner, maybe, and let Vaughn step up and just... And yeah, throw and turn tail and run.

So Vaughn looks back at all of you, Carter's talking to the wall, and then you just light a match and you throw it. And we just see it like spin in the air, slowly make its way towards the pit and the second it hits the pit not unlike what it did on the machete it ignites but it ignites so quickly because there's such a massive volume of this that there's like a ba-ba-boom! And within seconds, black smoke starts filling the hallway as you guys are running away from it, and it envelops you. Everybody give me a con roll.

Hey, like we made a bad choice. Yes, hopefully that didn't dislodge the chunk that Fyrhuz took such great pains to. Oh, it's a good stat from me. We made the most Michael Bay choice around. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Oh no. Oh my gosh. Wow.

I rolled a 19 under 80. Wow. You're using a D20? I rolled a three under 45. Whoa, so that's an extreme success. And 19 under 40, did you say? 3 under 45. Whoa, that's an extreme success. And 19 under 40, did you say? 19 under 80. I think that's also extreme.

I think that's... I know that... That wouldn't be extreme, because that would be... Yeah, that'd be a hard success. Hard success, okay. And Carter? I got 46 under 70. Okay, regular success.

And then Margo. 73 over 60. I. Regular success. And then Margot. 73 over 60. I'm using luck. I'm using 13 points of luck out of my 35 left because I don't want to know what the bad part of this is. Okay.

So, both of you, Carter and Margot, succeed. Extreme success from Vaughn. Hard success from Feyrouz. This role required a hard success. And so what happens is, as the smoke overtakes you,

you see Jackson just like quickly grab something to put over his face, because all of you start coughing, and you look back and the smoke envelops Margot and Carter and both of you fall unconscious and just hit the ground and you guys lose them and now no one can see anyone in this black pit. Do you keep running or do you think you heard them fall? Give me a spot hidden. Ah! Vaughn and Faeruz. Yeah, because if I hear, I wanna drag somebody.

Yeah. Yes, yes. Think I made it. I rolled a four! Oh my gosh. Oh, nice. This is a ten minute. Oh my god. I rolled a 19.

Four under 75. Under 75, yeah. You're running and you just imagine, it's like a 19. 475. Under 75, yeah. You're running and you just imagine, it's like a wave. You see this black smoke coming and it just, you can't see anybody, but you both hear slap, slap, faces hit the pavement and you know your friends just succumb, so maybe you're able to quickly cover your mouths and you start feeling around

in the darkness. Yeah, we still have the things over our faces. Still have the rags. You do, yeah. But this was too much. It overcame you. So you're able to hold up. You feel around Vaughn.

You feel Carter, Feroz. You feel Margot. And with Jackson's help, you guys just start pulling, pulling, pulling and dragging. I mean, my God, you've got to drag them so far. You try to lift them. I'm sure Vaughn, you could, Vaughn, actually you're both probably pretty strong. What's your strength?

What's yours? Oh, let me see. I'm also smaller than everyone. I'm also strength is 75. Oh, strength is 75. All right, so you got just firemen carry them out with jacks and just kind of spotting you. One over each shoulder.

You get to the body pit. And now, because only one of those chimneys is open, all the black smoth only has two means of egress. So it's going out one of the chimneys and out the body pit. But where all the other chimneys are closed, it's really coagulating here.

So within by the time, we'll say by the time you get to the body pits, Carter and Margot start to come to and you're able to all just make your way out of the body pit. And as you do, you all just hit the ground and you're coughing and choking, spitting up phlegm, but you are out.

Carter's like, I think we made it. And he turns to you guys and from where he fell fell his mask is like cracked and pieces of it broke off and so you can see underneath this like hole of like dark Like like scarred over tissue It's like, you know, it's like when you get your tooth knocked out, but you don't know I like hey guys And you're smiling and he's like, where were everybody?

And it's just this gaping maw speaking out in a wondrous noise. Yes. Poor Carter. Oh, yes. I go on telling him, yes, yes. Is everyone alive? First thing we do when we do an explosion,

you must hit the deck. And we just, so much of that wretched smoke swept right over us. You can see a bloody thing. I think between the smoke and having to climb out of the body pit, I'm coughing so hard I throw up a little bit at least. Some Marga vomits, which is very popular at these ruins. Put it in the crack.

I will put it in the crack on a shirt. put it in the crack. Yeah. Yeah. I want to put it in the crack on a shirt. Put it in the crack. Merch. You can have a crack. Nation-merch. So I imagine you're all just kind of like getting your bearings. You're still on your hands and knees.

Marco's vomiting. Jackson is like making sure you guys are all right. And he's really on you, Vaughn. Like you guys had a moment last, Epp, when the party didn't quite understand what we were going through and Jackson held you when that's what you needed most. And so he's really tending to you because he knows how fragile your state is. He's also keeping an eye on Carter and just making sure everything's all right. And as all of you are just getting your bearings and watching the smoke pour out of the two holes in the ground.

You all notice that there is someone else on the site. Let's say Margo, as you wipe vomit from your mouth, you're the first one to notice. Luis de Mendoza. No, I forgot about him. He's standing right near the entranceway into the ruins, not far from where the charnel pit is. And you see in one hand, he has like part of Larkin's

remains, maybe like an arm or something, maybe he chopped up his body, he's holding his remains in one hand, and in the other hand, he has this long curved sword that looks like it does not belong in this place or time. Not unlike a sword you would see a Conquistador carry. And he looks at all of you and as he starts to slowly walk towards you, you all watch his mouth start to swell and enlarge until it just becomes this jagged hole like his

head is too large, lamprey-like teeth poking out from all around the circumference. And he lifts up the blade over his head and just yells something in a language none of you understand and starts charging at you. But as he gets about halfway to you, suddenly the ground begins to shake. The ground begins to shake and you all hear like voices, whispers in your head just, ah shh shh shh shh shh shh shh shh shh shh shh shh shh shh and hear like a shh, he drops Larkin's remains, and suddenly like pieces of him begin falling off

and just like melting into the sand. And he starts yelling things in Spanish to the sky. He looks to that crack at the top of the pyramid is like, looks like he's begging for something, yelling something in Spanish. And then he just fucking melts and dissolves into the ground. Hell yeah.

Yes. It falls. Yes. We've reformed. We've reformed the barrier of old. It worked. It's a monumentum aere perennius. Lique se piramidum alius.

What? Whoa! It's a cardinal sword. What? Mwaaah! It's so good. It's so good. Ah, boom! Ah! Everybody give me a sanity check. Oh, Jesus.

It's not every day you watch a guy dissolve. Nope. Okay. But what if we wanted him to dissolve? That's true. There is the slight desire for that. Oh dear. Sadist bonus.

Okay. Oh my gosh. Ross, you on fire over there. Holy shit. Y'all, the past couple sessions, I've been in NBA Jam on fire. It's, I rolled a 16. I passed the sanity check.

You passed the sanity check. I rolled a 16 under 23 Carter look at my man. I got a two You guys have seen worse you've seen people way worse So you're gonna know I you're gonna have to get in that dog. I passed I got a deal yourself. So you. You're gonna have to be better than that dog. I passed. I gotta. Deal yourself. Oh, you passed, yes. I got 43 under 59.

I'm rolling the worst, but I passed. 70 under 84. You have 84 sanity? Yeah, I didn't lose anything and I had really high sanity when I started. I lost like two points or something. Wow. Look over at Jackson and Jackson just kind of walks up to the melted dust that's

been left behind that was Luis de Mendoza. Then he turns back and he's like, he just kept saying, save me. Save me, father of Maggots. Save me. And we black out. From Peru. He was entreating the thing. Father of maggots. So the ground was like rumbling and then kind of stopped after he melted?

Yeah. Or was it still going and we kind of ran? No, it rumbled and it stopped. And you have to wonder, did Kari Ciri Everywhere suffer the same fate of Luisa Mendoza? We saved the world. Now that the protective barrier, the sigil is put back in place.

We're heroes guys, let's go get some drinks. Hell yeah, let's get some Pisco Sours. You certainly are heroes, and there ends our Peru chapter of Mass of Nihilotho. Tap, give yourselves a big hand! All right! I wanna clap, but now I'm like, more chapters? Oh!

And credits roll. Next, the Troil of Amazement. Featuring... Carter Tillinghast. Introducing... The Star Wars Beirut Gibran. Musical guest. I hope to work with you all again. That was great. That was a good time. Thank you for joining us for these first seven and a half episodes of the series.

We're going to wrap it there. Yeah, it's over. You know what, let's have some fun. We're gonna go through the development phase for our investigators because now the adventure begins. Oh. What? That's right, the prologue is over.

Now we are entering the game. Okay. That was just the prologue? Are you telling me there's like 700 more pages? Prologue. So you're saying that was easy, moon? Once again, let me just show you this son of a bitch. Look at this guy!

And so the rest of our lives will be playing this. That was the tutorial. That's the campaign? That's the tutorial. Three books? Well, one of those is just handouts, Nora. One of these is just handouts, the middle one. It's just about 300 handouts,

of which you got through maybe 15. But yeah, now this is the whole campaign. This is gonna be multiple seasons, but we have finished the first part, and now things are about to get really crazy. And what's great is I feel like we've got seven, eight episodes under our belt. We're starting to learn the rules,

get a little more comfortable. Once again, shout out to my main man behind the scenes, Michael. Michael watches every episode twice, sends us all sort of rules corrections, and we're just, we're figuring it out as we go. But this is a really exciting point now, because now your investigators get to get better.

They're not superheroes. It's not like your bard is now a third level bard or your wizard gets new spells. You just get a little better and maybe a little more sane. So the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna go through all the skills that you checked while we were in Peru. And those were skills that you succeeded on.

And what you're gonna do is you're gonna roll a D100 and you want to fail these rolls. Not unlike improving luck, you wanna roll higher than your current score or a 95 or over. And if you do, you'll gain a d10 in those skills so you'll get a little bit better which is great so your best skills are hopefully gonna get a little bit better let's go through one by one here and see what people checked

obviously got you know about 12 hours worth of rolling here there should be some good improvement. Who would like to start? I can be a guinea pig since I think I probably made the least amount of successful checks. The least amount of successful checks. You know what it does is you start to quickly realize it really encourages you rolling and not just rolling your best skills.

Yeah, trying out everything. You know, because don't forget you're trying to fail these skills. So if you've got an 85 in something and you keep rolling that, it's going to be harder for you to fail an 85 than it is to succeed. So you want to give a, you know what, I only have

a 10 in mechanical repair. Maybe I'll spend that. And also don't forget, if you use luck to make a roll right, you don't get to check it. Unfortunately. Oh no. So I don't get to check it. Unfortunately. Whomp. Oh no. So I don't get the mechanical repair one.

You don't. That's the catch for the optional luck roll. Whomp and also Whomp. Whomp with a side order of Whomp. Oh man, I can't remember if, well, I'll trust Michael. Michael's all over this. We're decent with it. And at the end of the day, we're all friends here.

We're gonna figure this out. Carter, what did you... Let's just start walking through the skills that you succeeded on. Yeah, I succeeded on charm, which is gonna be hard to pass because that was a 75. Give it a roll. I wanna get above it, right?

Above or over a 95? Nope. Okay. This brings me back to character creation. This is so much fun. Okay, next one. You can uncheck it, by the way. And then everything is going to be fresh checks from here on out. Okay, so climb. I climbed at some point, guys.

I remember that. I had a 20 there, so this should be 46. Okay. So now I'm rolling a D10. A D10, yeah. Get a little better at climbing. I got seven points better at climbing, guys. Eight. You know what's fun now,

now instead of all your things being multiples of five or 15, it's all going to be like 17s, 14s, 13s. Cool, so was that it, just charm and climb? No, there's a couple more. I mean, we don't, you know, it's up to you if you wanna kinda like cut around to different people, I'll keep going. Yeah, if you wanna guys just start,

well, we can go through the highlights of these. What I'm curious about is what you improved on. So yeah, just start looking at them. Again, you wanna roll over it, or over a 95. And if you roll it exactly, you don't get to improve it. So it has to be at least one point over, or over a 95. And if you roll it exactly, you don't get to improve it. So it has to be at least one point over or over a 95. I improved my dodge by five points.

Oh, great skill. Hell yeah. Yeah, I improved my first aid by three points. Huge. Did not improve my brawl. I had a 30, I just rolled a 22. Damn it. Oh, brutal.

So are we rolling just one thing to see if all of them improve? No, you do each one individually. Each one. Oh, no. I've got a lot. Okay, we'll start, you know, just do a couple of them. I'll do a few of them.

I'll tell you which ones I succeeded in. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and just make a mark. This is really... This won't come into play too much until next week. This is more a... Oh, sweet. This won't come into play too much until next week. This is more for you guys. Now, also, if anyone goes above 90%

in a skill during this development phase, let me know. That could happen. You'd have to have a high skill, like an 85 and something, and you crush it somehow. Hell. That feeling when you get it over and then you roll one point of improvement.

Yeah, that just happened to me twice. Gross. So we're wanting to roll over, yeah? Yeah, over. I had, I succeeded a track thing at some point, which was only a 10 and I rolled a two. So I didn't get it. I didn't get to improve it.

I succeeded the most at the most important one, spot hidden. I got 10 extra points. Oh, huge. Very good. So, resolved all my failures. I got one extra point in psychology now. I got one extra point in library use

cause I rolled two ones to improve them. But I got 10 more of listen. So I bumped up 10 points in listen. Oh, awesome. Another huge skill. Wait, that's my listen. I got 10 more of Listen, so I bumped up 10 points in Listen. Oh, awesome. Another huge skill. Wait, where's my Listen? You guys used Listen when you went to Larkin's or Domendoza's door at the hotel. Anything in there? Alright, let's bust it down.

Yeah, I didn't roll a lot of different stuff. I tried to stay to what I was good at, which I guess is like, you know, I don't want to do. Yeah, I mean, you definitely want to play to your strengths. But you see in the development phase the importance of having a diversified portfolio of skills here, because you get better in the ones that you otherwise wouldn't use. I succeeded on everything but cryptology.

Cryptology was 70, and I rolled a 69. Oh my Jesus. So let me roll. Hey, that shouldn't be a win. You succeed on every single one, that's amazing. Yeah, but except for the one that I'm super good at, I'm like, no, you thought. But let me roll what I, go ahead.

So you're gonna D10 back in each of them, yeah. I got a 99. Oh, great, on what? Listen. Okay, what is your current listen? It was 60. Great, give yourself a D10. Awesome skill to improve.

While Nora's adding up doing all of her improvement, Nora's failed one roll in the last hour, by the way. If you're following along at home, take Nora to the nearest casino. She's on it. Hey. What's already there. What's it gonna say is, okay, so yeah, if you take a skill that's like an 84,

oh, I rolled six points of improvement, you bring it above a 90, you immediately roll two D six and add that to your sanity. Oh my god. Because it shows the discipline and self-esteem that you get from mastering a skill. Aw.

It improves your overall mental state. Now this is something that will probably happen in further development phases. I don't know if anybody had something in the 85s or something that was going to get that high. But I thought that's one of my favorite like little mini rules is you can get a sanity boost. That's cool. Do you want me to list off the stuff like my improvements?

Any tens? I did get a ten and I got a ten and listen. A ten and listen. Okay guys can be, you guys are great listeners. I don't care what anybody says. Now what was I going to say? Okay so obviously Vaughn and Carter are going to have some work to do here in the downtime. Downtime, which you don't know how long it's going to last, but I will tell you shortly.

However, you get campaign specific boons for succeeding as well as you did in this adventure. And these particular boons are all going to give you some sanity back. So for defeating Luis de Mendoza, everyone right now give yourself 1d6 sanity points. Oh, yeah. Starting to feel better already. I need it. Troy, I'm sorry, can I ask you one more time? You said if you get if you get above a certain, what number was it where you?

Above 90 in a scale. Okay, yeah, not on there. I got an 80 on one of them. Okay, well hey, if you get a 10 next time, that one will give you 2d6 sand back. But everybody gets 1d6 for defeating Demendoza, and I know I'm getting ahead of you, Nora, here, so I'll come back to you.

For killing Augustus Larkin, you get 1d4 sanity points back. All right. So 1d6 and 1d4? Mm-hmm. Okay. For releasing Larkin from whatever it was that had inhabited him, you get 1d6 sanity points

Here's a good one restoring the ward on the pyramid and destroying the Kari Siri 1d8 sanity points So you get a d6 2d D6, a D4 and a D8. Guys, I'm almost out of the 30s. Oh nice. Oh, I'm killing it now. I'm back, I'm at 59. Oh baby! I've gained 20 points.

Sandest guy in town. Unfortunately, we have a long lasting phobia and indefinite insanity that will last for months. Had you let Nyara die, you would have lost sanity points. There were also some other triggers where you would have lost, and perhaps some other things that you could have done that would have gained you more,

but those are your campaign specific boons. Nice. Okay, cool, I got 19 points of sanity back. Nice. Margo, how'd you do? I have 92 sanity. I had 84 or something before we went all of that. Wow.

I got 78 total. That's phenomenal. Okay, so you have a zero in Cthulhu Mythos, right? Me? Yeah, I think everyone has zero in Cthulhu Mythos. Yeah. Yeah, so the highest you can go is 99 in sanity minus whatever your Cthulhu mythos score is.

So you can get all the way up there. Okay, that's great. So you guys wanna lean on Margo, put Margo on the front. Yeah, man. Okay, so, downtime, what were you gonna say, Ross? Oh no, just, as a counterpoint, Vaughn is now working with a very respectable

36 points of sanity. Oh my god! What did you roll? I rolled like a one, a two, a three, a two. Oh, Vaughn. But he's struggling, he's struggling. Vaughn gonna Vaughn. Vaughn gonna Vaughn, baby.

Well, the good news is, you're able to spend some time trying to make yourself better. You pretty much, you have a couple different options for both you and Carter. You can seek private care if you want, maybe to not do this publicly. It might be a little more expensive. Have someone come to your house,

and month by month during this publicly, it might be a little more expensive, have someone come to your house and month by month. During this downtime, you can you basically would roll to see if you get stuff back. Or you can commit yourself to an institution, which is a lot less expensive. But then you're in it, you're in the system. Either way, you're going to have to seek some sort of professional help to try and deal with these long lasting effects. And for Carter, specifically, you're going to have to seek some sort of professional help to try and deal with these long-lasting effects and for Carter Specifically, you're gonna want to try and remove this phobia Yeah, we'll play on some of this some we won't what I'm gonna be interested in is finding out

What happens to these people? When they leave Peru and we will find out right after this short break And we will find out right after this short break. right! They're in the house baby! They're N.A.S.H. members themselves and they're running an awesome spring sale this year for one week only from Monday May 19th to Monday May 26th. Go over to HeroForge.com and you can get 10% off physical miniatures, even color printed ones, and up to 25% off STL files and digital miniatures. We used Hero Forge across the board for all of our iconic characters at last year's gauntlets at Gen Con, and this year will be no exception.

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to let adventure bloom. Before we get to what everybody's been up to during this time after Peru, there's one other little thing that I don't think is gonna apply per se but it's just a cool little rule in the book it's called getting used to the awfulness. So for seeing one of those carasiri larvae, by the way there were three of those in that pool of filth, had you failed on that mechanical

repair roll or fumbled it or failed a pushed roll, you would have fallen in and there's three of those larvas in the pit. Just for seeing those things when you first saw it when it came out of the professor, the sanity loss for that is zero on a pass, 1d3 on a fail. Basically, once you've lost the max that you can lose for seeing those, which in this case of a larva is three, you don't lose any more points.

You become like adjusted to the sanity of seeing these things or the insanity of seeing these things. But as time passes, that starts to wear down. So right now you guys are not, you would not be phased if a carousel or lava came walking into a bar, but after the next development phase, that goes down by one.

So instead of taking zero points, now on a fail, you would take one, and then after the next development phase, you would take two, and after that, it goes back to like you're no longer adjusted. So the way they write it is time heals all wounds even the ones that you don't want to heal in the case of like becoming adjusted to these monsters just really really deep system and then some of

it we're gonna get way into it some of we're gonna learn as we go but it's definitely worth especially for you at home if you want to play this game really digging in and revisiting a sanity mechanic and playing around with what interests you but what interests me is what goes on in these people's lives after Peru does does Margot return to Germany Vaughn to England and Carter and Faerus back to Massachusetts like where does everybody go and what do they do? The floor is yours. You guys, this is your time to kind of explain

this passage of time. Who's going first? Who's the getting pig? Who's got a hot one? Mine's not kind of hot mine's not My mind's very nerdy. It's very nerdy. Oh Mine's fine. I think yeah Ross we got okay put you on the spot. Um

Okay, um I have two ideas and I kind of want to leave it to chance. Or maybe I can make a roll out of it. Let's see how... It would depend on whether Vaughn wants help urgently and quickly, or wants the best or what he might perceive as like the most high quality, which would take a while longer. So um, give yourself a 5050 roll. Yeah.

I like it. Yeah. Uh-huh. I like it. Great. Okay. Great, I just rolled... So I'm getting the less... I'm getting the care that I desperately need right now, and I can't perhaps go all the way

back home. So I think Vaughn, having been exposed to everything that he's been exposed to. They're coming to pick you up right now. Yeah, they're coming to take me away. Haha. While I'm being exposed to everything he's been exposed to has had the foundation of that skeptical nature of his shattered. He is now maybe a little bit more prone to believe that there is something at work in the world that science can't explain, that the rational mind can't probe.

And so rather than go home to Eagle's Grange to seek professional psychiatric help, he goes, perhaps, and seeks recovery at a monastery down here in South America. Perhaps back in Belize, which would then have been British Honduras. Very on brand for Ross. It's both infuriating and impressive, do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, little Ross is hearing the like, get him! Nerd! You're one factor away from a wedgie! Yeah, so imagine Vaughn stepping through the doors of a type of building

he hasn't walked through in a long time without a big roll of the eyes a an Anglican, but a Catholic Church and Going through the motions in a way that like that that portrait of Vaughn in that beautiful artwork is based on, I was like, he looks like Eveline Waugh. And this is kind of like what happened, well, it's not like what happened to Eveline Waugh, but like he found Catholicism later in life. And this is sort of like happening to Vaughan.

And so maybe just see him in a small little kind of monastic room eating a simple meal provided by one of the brothers. And just like that schoolboy Latin coming back to him, and what you heard him muttering by the pit earlier, exegi monumentum aere perennius regulaque situ pyramidum altius. I raised a monument more lasting than bronze, in a royal sight more high than pyramids. But yeah. Wow. And so what, how do we determine whether or not he gets in how much sanity he gets back from this? Yeah, so I will lift the veil.

Or if you want to go in deeper to what's going on, we can do that too. Yeah, I kind of want to dig a little bit deeper, only because if I lift the veil a little bit, there is a lot of time that is going to pass between Peru and the next stage of your journey. So, I mean, maybe this is just a way station onto elsewhere. Yeah, yeah. There's kind of two different things. There's this just sort of narrative of what your life looks like afterwards and then there's a section called self-help, which is where you connect with something from your background. Could be your key connection

or one of your background things. You could also meld these things together. Great, great. Then in that case, yeah. Maybe the things I was thinking of our mutual links aren't, it's not an either or. So maybe that helps to kind of get him centered. And then if the time allows, Vaughn does

time allows, Vaughan does go all the way back to England. And if you see him there, like, you know, in a small Undurran monastery, communicating in English and schoolboy Latin. When next you see him, it's in a bedroom with a wrought iron window pane looking out over a beautiful garden. It's like something out of Howard's End. It's like something out of a Merchant Ivory kind of movie. I really liked Howard's End. I don't know why. I think a lot of people did. I don't think there's any shame there. But I'd never sit around now on a Saturday and be like, I want to watch Howard's End. I'm just doing a much fire up Howard's End.

Yeah. Let's do some peyote and watch Howard's End. Let's do it. You guys want to watch the works of the young Helena Bonham Carter? Anyone? No. Okay, fine, fine. We'll do room with a view.

And just like writing in a journal. And I think at this point in ensconced in home and comfort, he maybe would seek some professional counseling and he has the credit rating to do it. I bet he does so he can get the best of the best. Is this someone that maybe he's visited before? When he came back from the war or so it that not a new relationship? I think he had, let's say he had trauma when he came back from the war and he went to a hospital like the Craig Lockhart asylum that a lot of the World War One era poets went to, like Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen and like Robert Graves knew all these folks. And maybe somebody from that institution will make an exception and come to the come to the

Villiers house to just check in on on on Vaughn at his personal request. What do you think this doctor's name is? Let's see. Yeah, a good, good, good English doctor name of this time. Dr. Pritchard. Dr. Doom. Dr. Pritchard Doom. It's D-U with an umlaut. Umlaut, M-E, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Richard Doom, I'm from Sweden. Richard Von Doom. This is someone you have a relationship with, you go to him and which is the type of therapist that lets you do all the talking? Is that Dingingian or Freudian? Isn't there like two schools? You sit there and they don't say anything and it's right? I thought that was every therapist. Some of them are, I think, more engaging, but there's, maybe this is to, I'm dating myself, but in the old days, I think it was one or the other. I'm sure now it's a lot more robust. Let's say this therapist is a little bit more active and like probes dreams, especially. Okay. And, um... You come in there, he, uh, ushers you to your seat, and it's like, Vaughan, it's been

a while since I've seen you. You look like, you look as if you've got some color. Yeah. I'll say, Vaughan. I've been in climbs more equatorial old man. Yes. Yes, I have been a burnished a bit more tawny than last you saw me. I smoke without it. This has smoke as well. We all smoke in the 1920s. Yes. Three

year old walks by with a cigarette. Johnny? Yeah, good for the Cs. Yes. A three year old walks by with a cigarette. Johnny? Yeah. Good for the T-zone. Yes. Tell me, how have you been? That's the devil of the thing about it. I thought when I left Flanders I'd seen the last of them. What I believe I described to you is something of a something of a hell on earth I'm afraid I've seen something to give it a run for its money. You're going to think I'm quite mad, I'm afraid. Well, it's not my job to judge. It's just to listen.

What did you say? I've walked paths, Dr. Doom, that are right out of the stuff of legend, old man. What would you say if I told you that death is not the end? Well, I would say you share an opinion with most of the religions of the world. Yes, of course. And I've spent a great deal of time meditating on how the Savior promises us that the Kingdom of Heaven is forthcoming, that we shall be in his presence once again in glory in this mortal flesh that we all wear, we shall one day cast off and the spirit that is within us shall rejoin him in fields of light and everlasting peace. But when he walked upon this earth, did he not raise flesh from the dead? I say to you that I have seen it with my own eyes. Although the power that raised them from the dead,

I would not say was Christly. And if there is a Redeemer, if there is a Christ, if Mary and all the saints sit in their golden brilliance, then I say to you that there are other powers, principalities and thrones as well. In Legion, a raid against us. Taking forms and whispering to us in ways the mind cannot comfortably conceive.

And I know this because they have whispered to me in my own ear. And whether you want to call this the devil or something, I tell you that I have heard him. But I have seen the dead move again, and I can't help but admit that it does make one's life feel rather strange, knowing that given the right circumstances, you can shake off your dust and move. I told you, you think I was mad. No, no, not at all. It's very common to in times of stress and mental strain to turn to religion or to go back to the teachings of our youth and try and find meaning in these fables and tales. But what's important, Vaughn, is that you're able to separate reality from fiction or dreams.

Do you think you're still able to do that? I confess that I do not. I find myself wondering if the friends of mine I left in Flanders, if there might not be some way to bring them back from wherever they have gone. And as you say that, you look past Dr. Doom and see out the window your friend whose letter you have in your pocket, and he's just standing at the window watching it. In fact, I dream it all the time, Doctor. No, I dare say these days I scarcely know whether I'm dreaming or awake. And we fade out of that scene. And we come up on Margot.

Margot back to Germany? Yes. Definitely back to Germany. I'm thinking it's like a two part type of thing too, where first she goes to Berlin for a bit, because she went on this excursion to get inspiration for her art. So she's like, all right, I should just put this to good use, I guess,

and go back to Berlin, make some art and have a show. So that's what she intends to do. show. So that's what she intends to do. And she starts making art and all of her paintings and woodcuts are darker than before. Some of the drawings that she does are made with ash. The street scenes that she paints, which are very common for, um, like the time and the scene that she's in, um, they're scattered with like people who maybe who have blank stares or people who are bloated or maybe really gaunt. Maybe you might think you see like someone with a leech face, but you're not sure because it's abstract. It's real creepy. Her portraits of people have maggots coming out of their mouths. Her figure drawings look like the figures might be in pain or like writhing or something.

So she makes body work and she has a show at a gallery in Berlin. And I mean, the art is received well. I mean, it's good. It's abstract. It's de Bruc. It's the bridge, but it's got like this creepy layer over it that people aren't expecting. So they're like, ooh, ah, wow. And they're all talking about it and mingling at the art opening. And usually Margo is like pretty bubbly and like good at networking, which is kind of what you have to. It's one of the skills you have to have as like someone who is an artist for a living

because you need people to buy your art and you need to get your art sold at galleries. Because you need people to buy your art and you need to get your art sold at galleries. But now she is still trying to be friendly, but maybe she loses her train of thought in the middle of speaking or is just a bit on edge when someone comes up behind her to greet her. So after that opening, she decides to go home home. Back to her family house, which is one of her meaningful locations. And that's located in Schiltach. Schiltach.

Schiltach, it's in Germany. It's in the Eastern area where like the Black Forest is. Okay. And who's there at that house? Is your family still there? Your mom, just your mom? Yeah, her mom and her daughter are still there. And it's like a small town. So she

is excited to go back because she knows it's not going to be as different as when she left it, like maybe like a little bit of just like stabilization, because maybe walking down the streets of Berlin, it's just like maybe because maybe walking down the streets of Berlin it's just like maybe she gets whiff of garbage and it starts to smell like rotting corpses in her mind

a bit and it's just getting too much with like the people around. She sees like the woman and the child from Peru that were normal and then weren't weren't normal and so yeah she wants to go back home. Is she painting at home or does she have a studio somewhere in that small town? I'm assuming she still has a bedroom at her family home and she'll paint and draw. But since she can really only paint these disturbing scenes, maybe she wants to take a break from it. And what she did when she was younger was she would explore the Black Forest. There's like talk of like myths and legends and stuff

like that that are tied to the forest, but she was never afraid of it. She grew up with it and she knows how to navigate it and she knows it's all hearsay and talk. But now that she's been on this adventure, maybe when she's in the woods having her alone time, she hears something behind her and she's a bit on edge. I like to think that she's reading fairy tales. I'm not sure when the brothers Grimm made their stories. So I could be like breaking time right now. But they did make their stories based on that area. They're creepy fairy tales. So I would imagine she's like reading creepy fairy tales

that are based on the area, but reading them, like when she was a kid, it was like, oh, these are teaching you a lesson and they're maybe creepy, but whatever. Their stuff was published in 1812 but they were still yeah they were still popular I'm sure. Nice so I'm imagining she was read those stories as a child by her parents and stuff so she's reading like maybe the nicer ones like Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella and Snow

White and then she like maybe starts reading Grumple Stiltskin, maybe reading it a little too hard. And like the creepier ones, like the Juniper Tree or like Fitcher's Bird. And then she starts thinking about how there's like sayings of like, like there's this guy, this king in the lake that like drags women down and like keeps them there and things like that and

Maybe being at home isn't helping. Maybe it's bringing out another layer of this Do you think you take the mask with you the mirror mask? What do you think? Who where does that go? I feel like when we saw it we put it back and I hate it because I wish I think you slid it under the mattress I hate it, because I wish I took it. You think you slid it under the mattress? I was in the impression that you guys took it. Yeah, I think it's like we said, like, I put it back,

but I don't remember. And I would love to think that I actually took it instead. Well, we'll have to go back and listen to the tape. But I think at the same time, as you're walking through this forest and being inspired as well as terrified by nature, you know, you keep having flashbacks of the things that you saw of the pyramid exploding into tendrils and dripping with maggots and then the orgy and murder scene that you saw that was just otherworldly, like the trees themselves began to look like these dancing people that were copulating

and killing each other. And after one of your many strolls through the forest, eventually you come home, we'll say, and you don't see your parents anywhere, but you can hear them talking. And so you just kind of walk, try and find out where they are, and they're in your room looking at your paintings. And you hear them talking, like it's just, it is so strange. She has changed her entire outlook on things. It's so dark and disturbing now.

And your mother's like, yeah, yes, but she's an artist. They must grow. What they do changes over time. This is not our little Margaux. This is just perhaps a frustration at the world coming out. Well, the father's like, I never understood art. I do not understand these things.

I do find it strange that she draws herself in all of these things, though. And the mother's like, yes, yes, she does seem to include herself. And as they're saying that, you think you've never put yourself in any of these pictures. You've drawn other things.

And the mother's like, yes, and she just said, it's her, but it's also not her. It is so strange. Oh, Margo, they see you. I'm so sorry, we were just tidying up. We brought in your laundry, and Father and I were looking at your paintings. It's very nice.

We love what you're doing. Isn't that right, honey? She nudges your dad. She's like, yes, we're very proud of you. And maybe they scuffle away. And you go in there and you look at these paintings and you're looking for yourself and you don't see what they're talking about.

So maybe you like really just focus in on one and you're looking, you're looking and looking. And finally you see yourself like, but your face isn't there. And then you just like you rub at it and you're trying to, you don't remember ever drawing this at all and you rub at it and then you start looking around and you one by one start to see a faceless version of yourself in every single one of these paintings that you have no memory of putting in there. And we just fade out as we see you rubbing

at all these etchings trying to figure out what's going on. Carter, back to Massachusetts? Buy a new face mask? Actually, I was thinking of at least showing the party splitting up. Yeah. Discussing that, because I think that that kind of speaks to Carter a little bit. Yeah, you eventually get back to Puno,

eventually back to Lima. Yeah, I would imagine we sort of, there was not a lot of chitter chatter on the way back after everything that happened on whatever donkeys still remain But I think when they're sort of at the Maybe the port maybe they're you know in back in in Lima. I think Carter's sort of affected by The group dynamic a little bit. I think he's definitely affected by

having done something that ultimately was in the better interest of people other than himself. You know, this idea of like, we have to go, we're going to go into this temple, we're going to put in this thing at the risk of our own very lives and sanity and all this stuff. And, you know, he eventually he went with it. And I think that provided him with like a new sense of morality that he didn't have before. So I think sure, yeah, mummies, floating heads, that's fucking with him. But I think like almost equally,

what's fucking with him is this idea of like, is the world not revolve around me? You know, like that kind of the life of a con man just merged with the life of a person who is part of a group of people who just did something for the betterment of humanity as far as they're concerned or what they've witnessed. And so I think when they're all sort of going their separate ways, you know, I don't... at this point, I would assume we'd never think we're going to see each other again.

Right? We just went through the shit. Right. Maybe exchange addresses to become pen pals. Yes, I'll write you and you'll write me and we'll send each other stickers. But I think that, and I don't know, maybe, maybe it's kind of up to Nora too, since we're both heading back to Massachusetts or I don't know where she's going, but maybe there was, maybe we ended up, this leg of the journey was, Faerûz and Carter were together a little longer,

but I think when he gets back, yeah, he goes back home, partially because he has no money. I mean, my credit rating is like 10. I basically did that to reflect, even though he's married to this heiress or whatever, Massachusetts royalty, he didn't leave with like full pockets, you know, when he kind of set off. His whole thing was trying to get money to pay back the gambling debts that he has that he thought he was going to be able to pay off when this old bird kicked the bucket. But you do, you are $2,000 richer with all that stuff. You could say I think I think upon arriving back in on the North Shore he

Immediately pays off. I mean I this would have been helped to figure out earlier I feel like he pays off a portion of what he owes, but he's not completely out. I think he bought himself time. Yeah So he was in deep if he was over two crates. Yeah. And obviously he's not gonna like give it all away. I think part of it wants to freshen up this mask girl. But just a phrase I never thought I'd say out loud. So I think he rolls in back into the manor house

over on the coast. And I think he throws the doors open. And he's just like, there's a part of him that's dying inside as he's like, Myrtle, honey, baby, I'm home. It's your Carter back. And he's kind of reverting back to that, like, oh fuck, here we go again, right?

But maybe she comes around the corner, she's like, is that you? I'm not gonna play five characters. Is that you, honey? Yeah, there you go. And he sees her, and actually for like a brief moment, it's not like, oh fuck, here we go again. It's more of like, oh shit,

it's like, I feel happy to see this person. Like, I don't know if it's, yeah, I think it's something like, I don't know, it's like, I feel happy to see this person. Like, I don't know if it's, yeah, I think it's something like, I don't know if it's like, this is my wife, I love her, necessarily, as much as it's a, this is a familiar thing in my life. And after what I just went through, holy shit, I feel like, so Carter just breaks down and starts sobbing, I think, when he sees her.

Tears kind of streaming through the cracks in the mask. Maybe his tear duct on the other side got inverted. I don't know what's going on. But yeah, he's got more drip in the back. But you know, I think that that's a very real thing that he's going through, this sort of crisis of conscience in terms of... It's always been about myself. It suddenly, for a brief moment, wasn't about myself. Oh, and oh, by the way, I saw like slugs entering people's faces and fucking mummies and shit. So I think there's a moment of that and then I think there's a little bit of a snapback of like,

maybe I need the best care possible. Carter's had a rough few weeks or whatever it's been. So I would think that, you know, and I hope, you know, you can rule otherwise Troy, if you think it's too easy. I just think given what we established about the money that he's trying to get from this woman, that she would pay for somebody to come, like an expert to come and talk to him at the house

on a regular basis to sort of deal with that. Yeah, I like this. I'll throw something at you. You know, you break down there and you see her and she's the same as before. And you're overjoyed to see her and you come to and you just hear a voice of a man say, oh you must be Mr. Tilling-assed. And you turn and you see a handsome man,

maybe a couple years younger than you, standing there and your wife is like, oh this is Bart. Bart is a new friend of mine. He's been very helpful while you were away. We met shortly after you went on your trip and Bard is wonderful. And he's like, yes, yes, I've heard a lot about you. Tell us of your travels. Where did you go leaving your lovely wife here all alone? I don't wanna be the first to answer questions in my own home, sir. I feel like I've just come back, I've got my luggage here.

I would ask, who the fuck are you? Your wife's like, Carter, don't you talk to Bart that way. I'm sorry for that language, baby doll, but I just came back. You don't know the things I've seen. And you got Bartholomew here hanging out. Are you the new groundskeeper or maybe you're a valet? I mean, no offense, Mr. Tillinghast. I'm just here to help.

You have a lovely wife and I mean no offense, Mr. Tillinghast. I'm just here to help. You have a lovely wife and I mean no disrespect. I was just here to help. I met her one day when she was struggling with groceries to carry them home and I just thought I would be of assistance. We struck up a bit of a friendship and I guess my services are no longer needed. And she's like, oh, Bart, don't you talk like that. I need you as much as I need Carter, as it were. Well, I don't have many friends, and you left me and went all alone. It was nice to have someone to talk to.

I'm so glad you're back in One Piece, but I can't have you speaking to Bart that way. Carter. This is a ripoff. Carter goes up to Bart this fucker. Bart Vickers. Yeah. Walks up to him like real slow. Kind of looks at him and like gets up almost like nose to nose and goes like You've been using my cologne I'm sorry. I wasn't aware it was yours. I just thought I'd freshen up That's my cologne friend

I have to ask you to Leave my residence. Too sweet? Of course. Clearly you have problems of your own to deal with. Yeah, no shit. Don't want to stand in the way. He goes over to your wife and just grabs her hand and... Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, no, no. Well, I guess Carter's really just pointing at one eye. You're pointing at one eye? Well, Mr. Telling Assets, been a pleasure. I hope to see you again.

Both of you. Well, the feeling is singular. Sir. He walks out and gives you that little look. Yeah, I know who you are. Just at the end. got both know who you are And you just maybe walk up to the the edge of the door as you watch him leave I'm just closing it slowly He gets into his Ferrari

License plate says Vic Vic Man, number one. It lifts into the air and flies off. Did they have Ferraris? His hat flies off. Where we're going, we don't need roads. Something's gotta be done to a bunch of kids, Carter. Da da da. And we leave that scene.

And finally we come to Faeruz. Faeruz, do you go back to Massachusetts? Do you share part of this trip with Carter? I think there would be a part where we're just kind of consoling each other on the way back to the trip, but at the same time, I think Feyrouz is so, she's just trying to process everything. And so while during all this on the way back home,

it is comforting to have Carter for part of the trip, but the words just aren't there yet. Feyrouz goes back to Miskatonic University and given everything she's experienced, she becomes slightly suspicious of everyone that she encounters upon first glance and value. She just becomes consumed by everything that she has learned about. And so she goes back to the university, she's pouring through the libraries and it's not enough. And she looks back. Her whole life's work

has been to uncover occult knowledge. And so she's looking back on the secret like secret society that she's a part of. She's looking back on the secret, like secret society that she's a part of. She's looking back on all of these other parts in her life and everything that's been discussed behind secret doors in hushed tones and metaphors has finally been made material before her eyes. And she gets this overwhelming sense that the entire world, that there's this hidden world that's interwoven in this mundane world that we live in. And she can't make sense of it. And

it's consuming her. And so she feels like she's so close yet so far away. She's flipping through her mother's diary that was left to her, going back and trying to check through all of those weird hidden messages and weird symbols that she's written and trying to cross-reference that with the charcoal rubbings that she's made and trying to cross-reference that with the charcoal rubbings that she's made and trying to make sense of something.

And she even tries to break into her father's library to see if there's something there. Because at this point, she's willing to risk things to just to make sense of it. Okay, so she feels a little lost coming back, torn between what she experienced in Peru and her former life. She's wondering if she's been a pawn this whole time in her life into something larger

with everything that she's experienced. Imagine from time to time you're taking classes and you'll just look over at another student and you'll see Trinidad Rizzo sitting there smiling at you and then you look back again and she's smiling at you but she's in corpse form, desiccated like you found her below the university. And so you're, you're struggling with these memories and you finally decide to break into your father's office. Maybe something you got caught doing as a kid and were reprimanded. And so you knew even as an adult, it wasn't something to do, but you've been pushed towards it.

And you just start looking without even knowing what you're looking for. And maybe you stumble upon some books on Peru. And the first thing that strikes you is that you see images of those long faces, those statues that you saw in the ruins, the statues that when the wind blew through them, it sounded like people were whistling and moaning, but no one was there. And you eventually see reference to something known as the Father of Maggots. And it jumps out at you because you're like, that's what de Mendoza was yelling about, pleading to the Father of Maggots to save him when the ward was returned to the pyramid and scrawled in the margin area near it. One word with a question mark that just says, Nearlathotep? I very much write that down in my journal.

It takes you five minutes. It takes you five minutes. It's a very long word. Squiz it, Penmanship. I don't know if I take the book itself. It might get me into some trouble. I might get got so I take note of what this book is the author and Try to skim through as much of it as I can So we just see you Pouring over this book

Writing furiously camera pulls up we see you copying, reading, digging in as we fade out of that scene. A lot of time passes after your time in Peru as I've mentioned before. There's other things that we can do as part of this development stage that we can do via email where you can like take four months to train a new skill. You can get better at something. If you want to get better at brawling, you hire a trainer to teach you how to box.

If you want to get better at library use, you actually study that better at archaeology. You study that. So you take that time and then you roll to see if you get better. So we can do that. So you take that time and then you roll to see if you get better. So we can do that. Even with the sanity stuff, the reason I'm not going to have you roll it is because years pass after Peru before you find yourself called back in as it were. Since your adventure in Peru with Jackson Elias, all of you have kept in touch with your good friend,

Jackson. At least him. But, you know, maybe not each other. Or maybe Carter's messages have gone unanswered. Anybody? Jackson is very good at reaching out to you. So if you're like me, Troy, and not good at staying in contact with people,

Jackson is the friend you wish you had because he sends you letters all the time, updates on his journeys, what he's doing, and always asking about what you're doing. He feels a deep bond with you. And whether or not you four have kept in touch, you feel that bond with each other as well. Maybe in the back of your head you wish there'd be a little reunion even though

it's kind of like that it reunion, you know, you're like, I don't know if I want to see those people. You're torn. Trauma bonding. Trauma bonding with all your friends. Jackson, meanwhile, has just continued to travel the globe, just pursuing more weird and dangerous cults. He stayed in Peru for a long time afterwards, and he wrote a new book, which was well received. He left out a lot of the more, the kind of details that maybe normal society wouldn't be able to accept.

And he did not take Carter's advice. I was gonna say Carter's there like day one, just like, did the book come in? Did the book come in? And like opens it up and then just starts flipping through and it's page by page. The smile is falling. As he's like, this is, this is fucking nonfiction. But page by page, the smile is falling.

He's like, this is fucking nonfiction. But you do see that the dedication is to my good friends, God damn it. Ferruz, Margot, Vaughn and Carter. It's called The Hungry Dead. And the jacket is like, it's a book that exposes the modern day survival of a Peruvian and Bolivian death cult that started from the time of the Conquistadors. So he just kind of went along with his original hunch and seemed to have left out the cosmic

details. He also spelled Carter's name wrong. He's a K. A K. God. A K. Two R's. Cosmic details. He also spelled Carter's name wrong To ours It's Carter Co Tt Cotter tilling So eventually Four years pass and it's early January 1925, and each of you, Germany, England, Massachusetts,

receive a radiogram from our good friend Jackson Elias. I'll direct you to roll 20 to show you this telegram. Who would like to read it? And remember you can click the magnifying glass to pop it out on your screen. From the Worldwide Telegraph Service, dated January 3rd. Ross?

Very well. Yeah, and perhaps it even catches Vaughn looking through The Hungry Dead and filing it on his bookshelf right next to his copy of The Black Power. Yes. And looking at his correspondence with Jackson. And it's like knock, knock on the door and a valid comes in like telegram for you, sir. And takes it. Have information concerning Carlisle expedition stop.

Need reliable investigative team stop. Meet January 15, New York stop. Jackson Elias. You all received that. Now, again, you've been in contact with him for a while. He's sent telegrams before. This is the first time he's requested your presence in his hometown of New York. And last you knew he was in Peru, he was in Bolivia, he was in England, he was all over the place. Like he was always sending you missives. Always very vague on what he was working on, but you get the sense that like he was always,

he was on, onto something really big. He never mentioned the Carlisle expedition except for here. So I imagine you're all curious about this. It's early January. Can you make it to New York? By the 15th? I'll say yes. No, the end.

I'll be on the next Dirigible across the Atlantic. But how do you feel? Do you feel like you would want to go there? Do you is your connection strong enough that you would? Seek this out. Have you reached that point in this time between Peru and now where you're like I Need to do this. I need to see him. I need to see the others Yes, I think that um if you if you look like if the camera moves around past that bookshelf and see like a desk littered with um books about like Catholic mysticism

and uh other sorts of mysticism and occultic stuff and this will be what I will off camera train for is occultic stuff. And you can see as you look down books on necromancy, like the paths of waking the dead and this kind of stuff where he's been studying how this stuff actually works and correspondence between him and Elias. How did these rituals actually work, old man? What exactly did the natives of such and such a place do for such and such a purpose? And this has been like turning over in his mind all this time. So, yes, to go to the source. Absolutely. That's a big trip for you. Same for you, Margo.

When you receive this, where's your head at? I think she receives a telegram. She like comes home from something and you see her walk into her room, maybe put a gun on the nightstand like she was just practicing it and seats a telegram reads it and just furiously starts packing loading her suitcase with lots of film this time and a gun. Fae Rue's. When Fae Rue's gets this message, she's kind of shocked and has to read it a couple of times. And you see like her eyes kind of get watery, but she stops herself from crying. And it's this like call to action for her because this is,

this is her life's work and her life's purpose. She must find out. And she thought that she, she thought that this was a closed book for her that she'd never get to open again. And so without telling anybody, I think she may, she may be scribbling a note of like where she's off to and leaves it on her bed that she makes and hacks as quickly as she can to head out and meet everyone. Easy drive, do you drive or do you take a train?

Me? Yeah. Take a train. Okay. Yeah, so I don't leave my car somewhere. Right, not on the streets of New York. In this economy? What about Carter? Yeah, I think Carter, I think Myrtle has gone downhill

in four years. So maybe a little more nonverbal, maybe in some sort of rickety wheelchair. She's a little less mobile. Still not dying. Still not dying. Still not dying. But I think Carter, you know, when he like goes into town, I think somewhere buried in

this character sheet is like his place to get away was like the Gentleman's Club or whatever, just anywhere to like just get an escape. But I think he started over the four years he's witnessed things, you know, either going around his old haunts from growing up or just, you know, seeing around the streets like someone getting mugged or somebody, you know, getting swindled. Maybe he sees Bart has moved on to another mark, right? And he knows, he sees himself in Bart.

He knows what Bart's doing. But part of him is actually like, wants to say something? Like wants to actually out Bart? Where normally before Lima and Peru and the whole thing, he would have just been like, game recognize game. Like he's seeing like this morality thing is building up in him, but he hasn't done anything about it

Like he hasn't stopped the mugging. He hasn't stopped. He hasn't called barred out, but it's eating at him so I think he gets this telegram and suddenly there's like a Rekindling of like maybe I can actually make a difference as Weird as that feels I'm gonna puke in my mouth gross He you know, he he pretty quickly starts packing. I imagine all of you have at least heard of the Carlisle Expedition in passing. It was in the news, no matter where you were.

And all you remember when you see it come up in Jackson's Telegram is that this expedition perished a few years ago somewhere in Africa. It sounds right up Jackson's alley. Obviously it's something he would be really interested in. Why he wants to talk to you about it, you don't know. Those of you who have to travel by boat, you have plenty of time to kind of dig into this, maybe grab some reading materials before you leave. Do you guys want to just get to Jackson with all haste or do you want to do some diligence on this Carlisle expedition before you meet

up with him just to see what he might be cooking? If there's any knowledge to be sought, Faerûs would be trying to figure that out along the way. I think we learned our lesson from last time, just going into this fun expedition. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I think perhaps, yeah, Vaughn goes into one of the,

like the gentlemen's club to which he's a member in town and starts asking around as well as looking in the papers. Smoking a pipe. Oh yeah, very much so. The mustache that was very fashionable and small is much larger now. Carter doesn't look up shit. He got the telegram, saw it, was like,

babe, I'm gonna need a train ticket. First class. 23, skidoo. All right, so you're able then to, it's pretty easy to find information on this. It was in all of the papers. I'm gonna show you a bunch of handouts here. And they're all coming from the New York Pilar reposts,

but every newspaper that subscribes to Reuters has this identical wire copy about the expedition somewhere in its morgue files. So I imagine Margo is reading the German version and Von you're reading it from a different paper whereas, well, Carter, you're not reading it. So Faeruz you're just- I'm on Wikipedia. You're looking at Wikipedia. So I'll drag you to roll 20 and we'll go through these one by one because there's a lot of really interesting things here.

Nora, go ahead and read the Big Apple Dateline. The Big Apple Dateline. Roger Carlyle, the playboy whom everybody knows or knows about, is quietly leaving New York tomorrow to check out the tombs of Egypt. You've seen the cute- uh, the cuties. You've seen the cuties Roger has found in the night spots. Who can doubt he'll dig up someone or something equally fabulous from the Egyptian sands?

Mm-hmm. Great. I love the word er. I do. Who can doubt he'll dig up someone or something equally- I took the time to pause my thinking. Society page. Here's another one.

Kate, I'm going to let you read this one. Let's see. The Carlyle Expedition embarks for London, led by the fabulously wealthy playboy, Roger Carlyle. The Carlyle Exhibition departed this morning for Southampton aboard the British steamship the Imperial Standard. Contrary to earlier reports, the expedition will perform researches in London under the auspices of the Penhu Foundation before continuing to Egypt next month. Readers may recall the enormous party which Mr. Carlisle, now 24, gave at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel upon reaching his majority.

Since then, scandals and indelicate behavior have become Carlisle's trademark, but he has never became tarnished in the eyes of the Manhattanites. I fucked this guy, man. Members of the expedition have been reluctant to reveal their purpose in Egypt. And then another subheader, other exhibition members, renowned Egyptologist Sir Aubrey Penhoo is assistant leader of the team and in charge of excavations. Dr. Robert Houston, a fashionable Ferdian psychologist, accompanies the expedition to pursue parallel researches into ancient pictographs,

and Miss Hypatia Masters, linked in the past to Carlyle, hmm, will act as a photographer and archivist. Mr. Jack Brady, intimate to Mr. Carlyle, accompanies the group as a general factotum. Additional members may be secured while in London. He's rolling deep. I love how you could be a fashionable Freudian psychologist.

Right? All right, it's what everyone's talking about. Very trendy. I guess if they're friends with Carlisle, they must be like high society in some way. And these are all- Is that the Dr. Robert Huston? Wow.

Who are you wearing? Sometimes a cigar is just a word. Of the New England Hustons? These are all, if you look at the dates too, these are written in the spring of 1919. These articles came out. Here's one for Ross. Did I show this one yet? This is Carlyle Departs Egypt.

Great. From the New York Pillar. Cairo. Sir Aubrey Penhew, temporary spokesman for the Carlyle expedition, indicated Thursday that leaders are taking ship to East Africa for a well-earned rest. Sir Aubrey debunked rumors that the expedition had discovered clues to the legendary wealth of the lost mines of King Solomon, maintaining that the party was going on safari in respite from our sandy labors. Dr. Roger Carlisle, wealthy New York leader of the expedition, was unavailable for comment, still suffering from his recent sunstroke.

Discussing that unfortunate incident, local experts declared Egypt entirely too hot for Anglo-Saxons at this time of year, and suggested that the young American had not been well served by his democratic enthusiasm, rumored to have led him to personally wield pick and shovel. The shade.

Anglo-Saxons are above your middle east. Entirely too hot for Anglo-Saxons. The shade The Saxons are above your middle east Maybe Tyler's too hot for Anglo-Saxons Brought to you by Melanin Carter I know you didn't read anything, but you can read this one Rob. Yeah, he was looking for the Crazy cat in the back of the newspaper Where is he? And then accidentally saw this. Hello, darling. Important visitors, Mombasa Reuters.

Leading members of an American archeological expedition arrived here on holiday from digs in Egypt's Nile Valley. Our undersecretary, Mr. Royston Whittington, held a welcoming dinner for them at Collingswood House where the wit of Sir Aubrey Penhew, expedition co-leader, was much in evidence. Accompanying Sir Aubrey are the youthful financier Roger Carlisle and medical Dr. Robert Houston as well as socialite Miss Hypatia Masters. The party leaves inland today for Nairobi and hunting.

Guys are gonna have a lot of work to do just rereading these sessions. These assholes. All right. Here's another one, go back to Nora. Carlisle expedition feared lost. Oh, wait, is this the bombasa one or did I just? Yes. Important visitors, okay.

No, Carlisle expedition feared lost. Oh, why am I? Oh, there it is. visitors? Okay. No, Carlisle Expedition feared lost. Oh, why am I? Oh, there it is. Yep. Okay. Carlisle Expedition feared lost. Shmombasa Reuters. Upland police representatives today

asked the public assistance concerning the possible disappearance of the Carlisle Expedition. No word of the party has been received in nearly two months. The group includes wealthy playboy Roger Carlisle and four other American citizens as well as Egyptologist Sir Aubrey Penhew of the United Kingdom. The expedition left Nairobi on August 3rd ostensibly on safari but rumor insisted that they are actually where they actually were after legendary biblical treasures, treasurers. Carlisle and his party reportedly intended

to explore the portions of the Great Rift Valley to the northwest of Nairobi. Curious. A couple more here. Indeed. It's all too familiar. Here's one for Kate. Erika Carlisle arrives in Africa.

This is from March 11th of, I I guess this current, or no, 1920. So it's still like the year prior. Erika Carlisle arrives in Africa. In response to clues, Miss Erika Carlisle, sister to the American leader of the Lost Carlisle exhibition, arrived in port today abroad the Egyptian vessel Fount of Life. Several Kikuyu Villager reports recently have been received concerning the putative massacre of unnamed whites near the Aberdare forest.

Ms. Carlisle declared her intention to find her brother regardless of the effort needed. She brought with her the nucleus of a large exhibition. Detailing agents to coordinate supply and other activities with colony representatives, Miss Carlyle and the remainder of her party depart for Nairobi tomorrow. Her companion, Miss Victoria Post, indirectly emphasized Miss Carlyle's purposeful analysts by recounting the rigors of the voyage. Man, just too Anglo for where they were going. Here's a twofer for Ross. We're wrapping this up here.

Yeah, well. Carlisle massacre confirmed. Nairobi Reuters, the massacre of the long-missing Carlisle expedition was confirmed today by the district police representatives. Roger Carlyle, New York's rollicking playboy, is counted among the dead. Authorities blame hostile Nandi tribesmen for the shocking murders. Remains of at least two dozen expedition members and... Bearers are thought found in a remote region of the Aberdare forest.

Erika Carlyle, Roger Carlyle's sister and apparent heiress to the Carlisle family fortune led the dangerous search for her brother and his party. She credited Kikuyu tribesmen for the discovery, though police actually found the site. Among other expedition members believed lost are Sir Aubrey Penhew, noted Egyptologist, New York socialite Hypatia Masters, and Dr. Robert Houston. Many bearers are also reported dead. And one more here for Rob. Murderers hanged. Ooh.

This one, this guy's not as advanced as the other. This dude was not happy to have to type this. It took him an hour. Murderers hanged. Nairobi Reuters, five Nandi tribesmen, convicted ringleaders of the vicious Carlisle Expedition Massacre, were executed this morning after a short,

expertly conducted trial. To the end, the tribesmen steadfastly refused to reveal why they had slaughtered Mr. Carlyle and his companions. Mr. Harvis, acting for the colony, cleverly implied throughout the trial that the massacre was racial in motivation and that the fair-skinned victims were subject to the most savage treatment, preventing all but the most preliminary identification of the remains. Miss Erica Carlisle, defeated in her efforts to rescue her brother, left several weeks ago, but is surely comforted now by the triumph of justice.

So it paints a very interesting picture. The more you read about it, yeah, Jackson would be interested in this. But why would he want to bring you guys all the way out to New York? What could he be interested in and why does it need to involve you? You've got this young, hot shot, millionaire playboy that decides to go on an expedition to Egypt. He embarks for London funded by a thing called the Penhew Foundation and there is a renowned Egyptologist Sir Aubrey Penhew must be connected, involved along with some other people from England. They embark for Egypt. It seems at a certain point they decided to take a safari to Africa and they were massacred

by Nandi tribesmen who were then hanged for their murder. His sister went out there to try and figure out what the hell was going on and it seems like she found the answer. So you're reading all these things and digesting them and trying to figure not only what this is all about and why you're needed but why you decided to come. What is it in you that made you want to do this. Now we see lights come up on a busy street in New York. Cars honking, pedestrians jaywalking through traffic, and a lower third comes on the screen and says, New York City, January 15th, 1925.

Maybe we hear Jackson Elias' voice as we pop through all these city scenes. You know, you've come here, some via boat, some via train, some via car. You've settled in, you've found accommodations somewhere in the city. If you've got a lot of money, you can maybe stay at a nice hotel. If you don't, you can stay at a shittier hotel, maybe a friend's family you stay with. We can figure that all out. But at some point, today,

once you got settled in, or if you were settled in earlier, it's still, you all received a call from Jackson today. And so we hear his voice and he says basically the same thing to all of you. And he's like, I didn't wanna write the address, my address in the telegram that I sent you. So here's what I need you to do.

I need you to meet me at the Hotel Chelsea on 23rd Street between 7th and 8th Avenue tonight at 8 p.m. I'm in room 410. And he sounded very anxious on the phone, perhaps even frightened. And this is uncharacteristic of the Elias you knew in Peru and the man that you've gotten to know over the past four years. He gives out no further information over the phone. And if you start to question him or ask him anything else or if you say nothing, the call

ends abruptly. So I imagine each of you head to the hotel for the eight o'clock appointment with Jackson. For sure. Yeah. Pretty much so. Taxi? Taxi? Taxi? I do that whistle where you put your thumb and your pointer finger in your mouth that

I can't do in real life. The Hotel Chelsea is still around today. It's one of the really cool things about the Kalakathulu. They put so much research into keeping it historically accurate and using things from history sometimes people from history appear both fictional and nonfiction but the Hotel Chelsea is still there today it is on West 23rd between 7th and 8th and you all roll up to this 12-story red edifice. I can picture it right now. Magnificent

staircase inside. It was built as an apartment building in 1884 and then reopened as a hotel in 1905. A lot of cool history for any of you history nerds out there about stuff that's gone down in the Hotel Chelsea, mostly like lots of murders and deaths. Weird. Yeah. At this time, there's a significant number of the guests are still long-term residents, but it's based on the area.

It's a very popular hotel with artists, writers, musicians. And so it has sort of a bohemian reputation. It would make sense that maybe this is where Jackson lives. When you got to know him in Peru, he said he never really bought a place of his own. He kind of bounced around a lot, so maybe this is where he stays whenever he's in New York. He travels a lot. Maybe this is the closest thing he has to a home now. Maybe this is the closest thing he has to a home now. Also, you know, just to get into the racial stuff of the time, a lot of hotels wouldn't allow African Americans to stay there, but the Hotel Chelsea historically would, so it also makes sense he would stay there, which is also cool.

So anyways, say you all meet in the lobby and then head up. You go up the stairs and then once again, not unlike what we saw at the beginning, there is a dimly lit corridor, a long hallway with a single door at the end. The footfalls that we heard when we saw this scene play out eight episodes ago, we hear again and it's the footfalls of Carter, Farrouz, Margot, and Vaughn walking down this hallway. And as a door comes into focus, it says, 4 10. And we'll see you next week. Next. Next week. We'll see. It's time to make your membership official.

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