Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Book What have I done? Hello, and welcome to Cool
Speaker 2: Zone Media book Club, the only book club where actually
Speaker 2: it's a bunch of podcasters playing role playing games instead
Speaker 2: of reading books. It's not at all a book, that's right.
Speaker 2: We are trying out something like that.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of books.
Speaker 2: I have so many books on my table because we're
Speaker 2: playing a role playing game this week. We are doing
Speaker 2: something new, and we're going to be doing it for
Speaker 2: more than just this week, because I don't know if
Speaker 2: you all have ever played a role playing game, but
Speaker 2: it lasts longer than an hour. I'm your host, Margaret Kildre,
Speaker 2: but I'm not actually the game master of this game,
Speaker 2: because the game master is none other than Jason Bowman,
Speaker 2: who's the lead designer of one of the best things
Speaker 2: to have up into tabletop role playing Pathfinder. If you're
Speaker 2: not familiar with Pathfinder, Pathfinder is like but it's not
Speaker 2: because instead I like it better than We're going to
Speaker 2: be playing fantasy characters running through a world full of
Speaker 2: I think frogs, because the game is called Dawn of Frogs.
Speaker 2: That's right. I don't know there's an exclamation mark because
Speaker 2: I don't have the book because I'm not the one
Speaker 2: running it, but I like to believe there's an exclamation
Speaker 2: mark after each and every word.
Speaker 4: Oh, there's definitely jazz hands.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, can we call them frog hands? Yes, I
Speaker 2: have a frog hat. Why am I not wearing a
Speaker 2: frog hat?
Speaker 4: You are wearing chain mail.
Speaker 2: It's on my character sheet. This is what I've been
Speaker 2: trying to explain to everyone the whole time, and they're
Speaker 2: asking why I'm wearing chain mail. It's on my character sheet.
Speaker 2: I have chain mail. So this isn't book Club. We're
Speaker 2: gonna call it the Cool Kids Table or cool Kids
Speaker 2: at the Table. This is not actually agreed upon. I
Speaker 2: just threw this into the script, but without further ado,
Speaker 2: I would like to introduce Jason, hazel Io and Robert
Speaker 2: who are our players and game masters. Only one of
Speaker 2: them is the game master.
Speaker 3: Well I guess that's my cue. Then, Hi there everybody.
Speaker 3: I'm Jason Bowman. I'm the director of Games at Pizo
Speaker 3: and boy, a long time ago, I wrote a little
Speaker 3: game called Pathfinder. These days, i'm the team lead for
Speaker 3: Pathfinder second Edition and all of our board games and
Speaker 3: card games and stuff. So yeah, and I'm excited here
Speaker 3: today to be running Dawn of the Frogs. It's a
Speaker 3: new adventure that I wrote actually, so I'm excited to
Speaker 3: run all of you through it, and I'm sure you'll
Speaker 3: all do just great.
Speaker 2: I keep calling it rain of Frogs in my head,
Speaker 2: but rain like r E I g h N. But
Speaker 2: that's because of rain of blood. I just keep.
Speaker 5: Thinking there will be no dawn for the race of
Speaker 5: Frogs like goth Mog and Return of the King, but
Speaker 5: instead some guy boys staff frogs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's probably what's going to happen.
Speaker 4: Hello. My name is Hazel Akisha. I am mostly just
Speaker 4: an assistant on this podcast. I help pick out the
Speaker 4: stories every week and write little scripts and write a transitions.
Speaker 4: But I'm excited to be in front of the mic today.
Speaker 6: Hey, I'm io. I have a CV and wouldn't you
Speaker 6: like to know it. I love to play the game
Speaker 6: of life and I'm a they them and over to you. Robert.
Speaker 5: I'm Robert. I sit on the Internet and do podcasts
Speaker 5: and sometimes, like right now, I play video games or
Speaker 5: not video games games via podcasts.
Speaker 2: That's me. There's my introduction. We're actually just we just
Speaker 2: live play video games.
Speaker 6: I've been trying to sell Margaret on this for years.
Speaker 5: Now, but without streaming, Margaret, I do want I don't
Speaker 5: know if there's a co op option for Cyberpunk twenty
Speaker 5: seventy seven, but.
Speaker 2: We could have some fun.
Speaker 6: I think you like it.
Speaker 2: I had to play it, and I hate when the
Speaker 2: game tells you what to do, but when the story
Speaker 2: is already in the game, it's not as fun to me.
Speaker 2: I like the game where you have the giant map
Speaker 2: and then everything is complicated and you run like sixteen
Speaker 2: different economies and you can do evil things if you
Speaker 2: want to, but I actually can't bring myself to ever.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you love like Stock Market Simulator, but in space games, yes, yes, Stilaris, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Stilaris. There were three weeks of my life.
Speaker 2: Ye, I'm totally neurotypical, but yeah, those are the players.
Speaker 2: What's the game, Jason, Well.
Speaker 3: Today, everybody, we're gonna be playing donather Frogs and without
Speaker 3: further ado, I think I'm going to just get us going.
Speaker 3: The dun Meyer is a gloomy and foreboding swamp. Yes,
Speaker 3: beauty can be found within. In some spots, the sun's
Speaker 3: light rarely reaches the water through the foliage above, while
Speaker 3: in others, brightly colored swamp flowers and insects seem almost
Speaker 3: to sparkle. The town of bog Bottom isn't a big place,
Speaker 3: but it's one the locals have called home for generations. Yet,
Speaker 3: now that some of the townsfolk have gone missing near
Speaker 3: an old mill deep in the swamp, someone needs to
Speaker 3: find out what happened to them. Spoilers. That someone is you.
Speaker 3: The journey to the crumbling landmark takes several hours, and
Speaker 3: while arduous, it's uneventful. Many predators lurk in the swamp,
Speaker 3: but there's been no sign of their presence so far.
Speaker 3: Far off, frogs chirp and croak, and flies buzz dreamily.
Speaker 3: The crumbling wooden mill stands amid the mist, half sunken
Speaker 3: into the swamp. The front door has been rotted away,
Speaker 3: but the entrance is mostly blocked by thick vines. Someone
Speaker 3: could possibly squeeze through these vines, or perhaps try and
Speaker 3: cut them loose. Perhaps a clue to the villager's fate
Speaker 3: lies within now. The group of you have been in
Speaker 3: bog Bottom for some time. You arrived there several days ago,
Speaker 3: having just fled from your most recent exploits, and when
Speaker 3: news came to you that these villagers were missing. You
Speaker 3: saw an opportunity, perhaps to earn some small amount of redemption,
Speaker 3: or perhaps even more importantly, to earn some coin to
Speaker 3: fill your empty pockets. The four of you have been
Speaker 3: traveling for a few hours. This old crumbling mill is
Speaker 3: not too far away from the swampy community of Bottom,
Speaker 3: and now you stand with the mill somewhere up in
Speaker 3: the distance. It's perhaps, you know, one hundred feet away
Speaker 3: or so, looking at each other, sizing up the situation
Speaker 3: and preparing for adventure. But before we do that, I
Speaker 3: think we're going to throw it around the horn and
Speaker 3: let everybody introduce their characters. Maybe tell us a little
Speaker 3: bit about what you look like and kind of what
Speaker 3: you're kitted out with. What do we see when we
Speaker 3: look upon you? Spite? Why don't we start with you?
Speaker 2: Well, Spite is my name, it's my given name. I've
Speaker 2: been named much like everyone else where I grew up.
Speaker 2: We get named after the virtues. You know. I probably
Speaker 2: talk about my sister Malice a lot. I really look
Speaker 2: up to her. Spite is probably all of nineteen or
Speaker 2: twenty years old. She's not one hundred percent certain, and
Speaker 2: the crash doesn't keep really exact dates. She's wearing chain mail.
Speaker 2: She has a helmet with a candle stuck to the top,
Speaker 2: you know, so she can see where she's going. I
Speaker 2: don't know why everyone thinks that's so strange. And she
Speaker 2: does a lot of things that she doesn't realize people
Speaker 2: realize are strange. All of her outfit is completely black
Speaker 2: and red, just like normal outfits should be, and she's
Speaker 2: wearing chain mail. She has a morning star that she
Speaker 2: almost always has out because it's practically a fidget spinner.
Speaker 2: There's a couple javelins strapped to her pack, and that's
Speaker 2: spite she's human. Yeah, she's pretty sure she doesn't actually
Speaker 2: know her birth parents are that kind of stuff as
Speaker 2: a bourgeois like keeping track of actual birth parents does
Speaker 2: not fly or spide is from squash.
Speaker 3: Why don't you go next?
Speaker 6: Well, imagine a halfling. Great, you're doing it now. Imagine
Speaker 6: a dog not so fast. This dog stands like a
Speaker 6: man does, but with thumbs the whole thing. He's a shooney,
Speaker 6: which are nasty little dog men. He's a sturdy trunk
Speaker 6: of a boy, three feet tall and shaped like a friend.
Speaker 6: He has a canine face. But if you like, smush
Speaker 6: down the snow until the sinuses were kind of a
Speaker 6: dead end where the air would go in and spin
Speaker 6: around the brain and shoot right back out. Fans of
Speaker 6: phrenology listening may describe his skull shape as fucked up.
Speaker 6: He has piercing green eyes positions somewhere between predator and prey,
Speaker 6: often facing the same direction. His friendly face is positively
Speaker 6: littered with jowls and folds and tufts of unruly bad
Speaker 6: boy cow licks that were you to see it in
Speaker 6: our world, you would think, ah, a monument to man's hubris,
Speaker 6: or maybe some sort of joke that God is playing
Speaker 6: on wolves. But in this crazy mixed up world of Pathfinder,
Speaker 6: he's a New York eight. He has long, flowing hair
Speaker 6: that can only be described as bitchin, and he wears
Speaker 6: a military style beret right on top of his damn head,
Speaker 6: a belly button so deep it touches his spine. He
Speaker 6: wears a half cape and a chain mail crop top
Speaker 6: with a Mediterranean chest hair situation trailing down to leather
Speaker 6: cut off breeches to cut a figure we can all
Speaker 6: agree is really really sexy. He's got a big knife
Speaker 6: that's also a gun with the serial number filed off,
Speaker 6: so it looks like the fucking buster sword taped to
Speaker 6: a derringer. He used to be a gentleman bank rob
Speaker 6: for the rev until he got caught because he kept
Speaker 6: shooting his name into the side of banks. But these
Speaker 6: fine adventures all busted him out. What else his pronouns
Speaker 6: any pronouns? Despite exclusively referring to himself as a he. Yeah,
Speaker 6: he's one of those kinds of guys, but don't let
Speaker 6: that fool you. This guy's great, and podcast listeners across
Speaker 6: the nation agree. He's got a lot of heart, a
Speaker 6: lot of chutzpah, and what the French call is certain.
Speaker 6: I don't know what his name is, squash. Please don't
Speaker 6: wear it out.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad I'm not following h.
Speaker 3: Murdy. I do not envy you, but you can follow
Speaker 3: up that.
Speaker 4: I didn't write myself a script for how to introduce
Speaker 4: my characters, so listeners please bear with me. I am
Speaker 4: playing Sister Murdragana Bow also as Murdy. She uses she
Speaker 4: her pronouns. I am a half org Cleric for you
Speaker 4: nerds out there, Technically I worship a rastal. However, I
Speaker 4: have found myself as part of an erstwhile soup cult
Speaker 4: to the God. You know, we're all about taking care
Speaker 4: of the community. We hand out food, we give alms,
Speaker 4: you know, maybe like food not bombs. Maybe like a
Speaker 4: Catholic workers to say, I would face cast Murdy if
Speaker 4: I was making the HBO special as tng Era Denise Crosby.
Speaker 4: I've got light green gray skin and jet black straight hair.
Speaker 4: Got triangle bangs, you know, the kind slick back lopu
Speaker 4: and if you care about that kind of stuff. I'm
Speaker 4: wearing a black linen dress which is aline insensibly swushy.
Speaker 4: I got leather pouches and pockets on a built around
Speaker 4: my waist, sort of like a waitress apron, again fitting
Speaker 4: with the soup nun theme. Got leather armor, so sort
Speaker 4: of like a cute, tight fitting crop top out of leather.
Speaker 4: Just imagine it draw me some nice fannert. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 4: I got one cool pauldron, very important. You can often
Speaker 4: see me wielding a soup ladle and a chef's knife,
Speaker 4: and I also have a cauldron full of a magical
Speaker 4: perpetual stew on a bindle for easy carrying Murdy.
Speaker 2: Soup Nuan soup nan.
Speaker 3: Last, but certainly not least trant introduce yourself.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, so, you know, unlike the boss where I
Speaker 5: come from, they didn't name us for our virtues. So
Speaker 5: I got named for my dad, and he was not
Speaker 5: a guy with a lot of virtues. Alcan stars in
Speaker 5: h city for some people, but not my family. My
Speaker 5: dad and my dad's dad made gunpowder, and they raised
Speaker 5: me not to make waves, not to complain, not to
Speaker 5: have an issue with the fact that, you know, my
Speaker 5: whole life was living in a fucking slum making gunpowder.
Speaker 5: The only thing they taught me that was of much
Speaker 5: use was how to make gunpowder, and I got too
Speaker 5: good at that, and then I did some things with
Speaker 5: it that made me have to leave town in a hurry,
Speaker 5: which is how I met up with this crew who
Speaker 5: had some ideas for how to use the stuff I
Speaker 5: knew how to make. That I preferred to the things
Speaker 5: I was raised to do, so that's what I do.
Speaker 5: I make bombs and allegedly other things that all have
Speaker 5: more or less the same goal, which is to cause
Speaker 5: problems for anyone in an area that I don't really
Speaker 5: like what's going on there, or I'm just kind of
Speaker 5: bored and I want something loud to happen. All of
Speaker 5: these things are acceptable. I'm about six foot, non into
Speaker 5: script looking, which has been helpful in the past because
Speaker 5: it's really nice not to get recognized. I try to
Speaker 5: wear a mask whenever I'm doing anything particularly interesting. I
Speaker 5: keep as many bombs on me as I feel like
Speaker 5: I can wear without exploding, and I usually avoid that,
Speaker 5: although not always, as you can tell from the scars
Speaker 5: on my hands and my neck and a couple other
Speaker 5: parts of my body that I don't generally share with
Speaker 5: other members of the adventuring troop because it's a bad
Speaker 5: idea to shit where you eat. I keep a couple
Speaker 5: of holdout pistols, one under each shoulder, and I keep
Speaker 5: a blenderbuss on my back in case, you know, I
Speaker 5: need faster solutions to problems, but I really prefer to
Speaker 5: solve things with the mix of gunpowder and alchemy. It's
Speaker 5: just easier that way. You don't have to be there,
Speaker 5: you don't have to see what happens afterwards. You can
Speaker 5: just watch the pretty lights and then run like hell.
Speaker 2: The reason we're in a backwater like bog Bottom is because,
Speaker 2: as people might have guessed from what they heard, we
Speaker 2: blew up a jail and let everyone out, and we
Speaker 2: thought everyone in town would treat us like heroes, and
Speaker 2: shockingly they did not.
Speaker 5: In my experience, they never do when you blow something up,
Speaker 5: even when you.
Speaker 4: Give them soup.
Speaker 6: I really can't thank you enough.
Speaker 3: So for the people at bog Bottom, they might see
Speaker 3: four fresh faced adventurers, but in reality they have four
Speaker 3: dangerous malcontents in their mist But there are villagers that
Speaker 3: need rescue. And as I mentioned before, your coin purses
Speaker 3: are very light right now. In fact, the sea captain
Speaker 3: that brought you to the Isle of Quartos dropped you
Speaker 3: off at the shore when he found you didn't have
Speaker 3: enough money to make it all the way to Absalom,
Speaker 3: so you were just kind of left at the shore.
Speaker 3: You're lucky he didn't drop you off in the middle
Speaker 3: of the inner seat.
Speaker 5: I offered to pay him with a bomb, and he
Speaker 5: took that as some sort of threat.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: As it turns out, boats don't really like bomb payments,
Speaker 3: not good food.
Speaker 2: We're gonna pay him later anyway, possibly with a bomb.
Speaker 6: Oh, I'll pay him, Uh huh, that's sours.
Speaker 2: He's a pressing people. I'm a champion just by.
Speaker 3: The Yeah, he's oppressing people. By demanding that you pay him.
Speaker 6: Huh yeah, fucking fascists everywhere I look.
Speaker 3: So the four of you are currently standing outside of
Speaker 3: this old mill. The base of this mill is made
Speaker 3: of fieldstone, the upper floors look like they're made of wood.
Speaker 3: The entire thing is tilting kind of dangerously to one side.
Speaker 3: This is a windmill, and most of its blades are
Speaker 3: fallen off. There's like the fragment of one and the
Speaker 3: skeleton of another still attached to the front of the building.
Speaker 3: Although you can't imagine that the mills inner workings are
Speaker 3: intact at all. In fact, you can see one of
Speaker 3: the kind of blades laying in the swamp muck next
Speaker 3: to you. Up ahead, you can see the darkened entrance
Speaker 3: that goes inside the mill's interior. You're here primarily because
Speaker 3: the people who went missing were out in this area
Speaker 3: doing some swamp fishing, and they just never came back.
Speaker 3: So you've arrived at this kind of old, crumbling mill.
Speaker 3: As I mentioned before, the way in looks kind of blocked.
Speaker 3: There's vines. You could maybe squeeze through it, or perhaps
Speaker 3: you could cut them away. There are I'm sure other
Speaker 3: options as well. This being a swamp It is pretty
Speaker 3: damp and muddy around these parts. The ground underneath you
Speaker 3: kind of makes a squelching noise with every step, but
Speaker 3: as you get closer to the mill itself there is
Speaker 3: a bit more firmer round.
Speaker 2: Does it look like anyone's been here?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: Does it look like like are the vines disturbed in
Speaker 2: any way?
Speaker 3: It definitely looks like the vines haven't fully grown over
Speaker 3: the opening, So it's quite possible that something's been going
Speaker 3: in or out. But if you want to know more
Speaker 3: about whether or not perhaps anybody's been coming this way recently,
Speaker 3: I would ask for one of you to make me
Speaker 3: a survival check to look for tracks.
Speaker 2: Any of us any good at that I got plus three?
Speaker 4: I'm decent at that I've got plus four?
Speaker 3: All right, go ahead and give me a survival skill.
Speaker 4: Check though.
Speaker 2: A right first roll of the game?
Speaker 4: That is it ten on the dice, so total of fourteen.
Speaker 3: Looking around, you can tell that there are definitely some
Speaker 3: tracks in the muck, but it's a little hard for
Speaker 3: you to make out whether or not they're humanoid tracks
Speaker 3: or perhaps animal tracks. The ground here is just so
Speaker 3: soft that the recent rains and mists have kind of
Speaker 3: worn it into just kind of a morass. It's clear
Speaker 3: that there's been some traffic.
Speaker 2: Hey, squash, every time I step it sounds like your name, scorsh, scorsh.
Speaker 6: The swamp is alive with a sound of squash. Is
Speaker 6: this mill? This mill is pretty dilapidated.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it doesn't look like this mill has been
Speaker 3: in use for several years at least.
Speaker 6: Is there some like crumbling infrastructure. Maybe a cool dog
Speaker 6: could do a flip intwo like big holes in the roof.
Speaker 3: That's way too high up. I mean the mill itself
Speaker 3: is probably about forty feet tall.
Speaker 6: You don't know this dog, but point.
Speaker 3: Your acrobatic skills are truly legendary. But you're you're pretty
Speaker 3: sure you couldn't flip up that high. Your best bet
Speaker 3: is going to be to try to wiggle through the
Speaker 3: vines or cut them away or something.
Speaker 2: I take out a dagger and walk up and start
Speaker 2: cutting vines.
Speaker 6: Okay, this is gonna take forever, trance.
Speaker 2: You know I could do that faster. Good point, Good point.
Speaker 2: I step back. I'm gonna grab one of my u
Speaker 2: what are they called the uh bus?
Speaker 5: No, No, I've got I've got bombs. I don't want
Speaker 5: to use them. I've got a versatile flask. Can I
Speaker 5: use one of those to make a lesser alchemists fire
Speaker 5: and try to burn the shit away?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can give that a shot. So you you
Speaker 3: break out your versatile vial and using some of the
Speaker 3: reagents that you have on you kind of squirreled away
Speaker 3: in the many pouches that you have.
Speaker 5: See, this is why I've been collecting and drying pea. Everybody.
Speaker 5: By the way, saltpeter doesn't just grow on trees.
Speaker 2: I thought you just were composting it.
Speaker 5: Kind of The issue isn't that I didn't believe you.
Speaker 4: The issue is that I did believe you.
Speaker 3: So why don't you go ahead and throw a bomb?
Speaker 3: So go ahead and make unattack.
Speaker 5: Le Yes, okay, okay, I get my D twenty.
Speaker 2: I'm standing back by the way. I know I was
Speaker 2: up there with a knife a moment ago, but I leave.
Speaker 5: That's a good move because that role did not turn
Speaker 5: out great.
Speaker 2: That's a four.
Speaker 5: And then let's see here one of my plus plus
Speaker 5: so nine.
Speaker 3: Well, it doesn't quite hit the mark. The bomb kind
Speaker 3: of hits the wall next to it. And while it
Speaker 3: does sear some of the vines a bit you're gonna
Speaker 3: wager that they're so damp and kind of swollen with
Speaker 3: swamp buck that your bomb really probably isn't gonna have
Speaker 3: too much of an effect unless you want to use
Speaker 3: a lot of them.
Speaker 2: You know, there are problems that molotovs don't solve.
Speaker 5: I say, all right, I think I've got I mean,
Speaker 5: we could try a reverse Molotov. I could freeze them
Speaker 5: flov is, like drinking it or something that's called a
Speaker 5: good Thursday.
Speaker 6: Every time I throw a Molotov, there's one problem. And
Speaker 6: you throw a Molotov and boom right away, you got
Speaker 6: a different problem.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 6: Definitely stole that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anyway, Yeah, team, I'm gonna cut it with my name.
Speaker 6: Yeah, let's go back to sword, all right.
Speaker 3: So this isn't gonna be an attack role. It's more like,
Speaker 3: can you pry it open and use your blades and
Speaker 3: weapons to destroy it? So we're gonna call it an
Speaker 3: f LETEX check. Anybody got athletics you can try that.
Speaker 2: Oh I'm good at that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, why don't you give me an athletics check?
Speaker 2: In the crash? Would they make us? I mean, we
Speaker 2: choose to run every day and do a lot of
Speaker 2: exercises for the revolution and the glory of God. I
Speaker 2: am too busy saying that to actually be paying attention
Speaker 2: to what I'm doing. So I rolled it two and
Speaker 2: I got a total of naing right start, Yeah, I
Speaker 2: have a plus seven at this goddamn thing.
Speaker 3: The dice rolling here is just phenomenal.
Speaker 6: We're really screaming.
Speaker 2: This is actually a historically cursed die, but it's the prettiest,
Speaker 2: so I always use it.
Speaker 6: Aesthetics will be the death of you.
Speaker 3: I can't fault you. So you begin working at these vines,
Speaker 3: but you're just not having much luck. No matter how
Speaker 3: you try. There seems to be just more vines. There's
Speaker 3: just more and more here. Would someone else like to try?
Speaker 3: Someone with less cursed dice?
Speaker 2: I think this is actually impossible. I say, there's no
Speaker 2: way they could have gone in here.
Speaker 6: I spit on both my hands and rub them together,
Speaker 6: and I say, like, let's see your God try this.
Speaker 6: And I pull out my big, odd damn sword and
Speaker 6: try and pry this bad boy open.
Speaker 2: I step back again.
Speaker 6: Wait, what am I rolling?
Speaker 3: An athletics check?
Speaker 6: Okay, that's a fourteen.
Speaker 3: So you continue to work away at these vines, and
Speaker 3: after a bit of struggle. You've managed to clear a
Speaker 3: wide enough way that you think everybody could possibly squeeze inside.
Speaker 3: That's right. Maybe it might take a little bit of effort,
Speaker 3: but you're wagering that everybody could kind of worm their
Speaker 3: way in there.
Speaker 6: I raise my arms and say Squash, and I wriggle
Speaker 6: on inside.
Speaker 2: I use the mud to say your name.
Speaker 5: I'm just saying we could use more bombs.
Speaker 2: Ie making squashing noises, and then I follow you. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I head in.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm also following You're right, we should have used
Speaker 6: more bombs. And everyone gets inside and they see Squash
Speaker 6: pissing freely into a empty soda can and giving trant
Speaker 6: to big thumbs up.
Speaker 3: So you all managed to squeeze inside. The floor side
Speaker 3: the old mill has rotted away, and the massive millstone
Speaker 3: has sunken halfway into the muck. A sagging staircase nearby
Speaker 3: leads up to the floor above. Suddenly, the mud stirs
Speaker 3: as a trio of dog size swamp beetles erupt up
Speaker 3: from the film Oh need, oh brother. All right, everybody,
Speaker 3: we are about to go into our first combat.
Speaker 2: It's too late to already have my shield a morning
Speaker 2: star out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm afraid it is, so it goes. So we've
Speaker 3: got three of these massive swamp beetles. Like I said,
Speaker 3: these things are about two and a half beat long
Speaker 3: and they just come burrowing up out of the muck.
Speaker 3: So what I'm gonna do is, I'm going to ask
Speaker 3: each of you to roll initiative. And in Pathfinder, you
Speaker 3: can roll a lot of things for initiative, but for
Speaker 3: this first fight, we're gonna have you roll perception. So
Speaker 3: go ahead and give me a perception check. Keep the
Speaker 3: number to yourself here just for a moment, and I
Speaker 3: will go around and collect it from you.
Speaker 2: Great ooh yeah, I don't think I'm gonna go anywhere
Speaker 2: without my shield out in the future.
Speaker 3: That is certainly something we can note. All right, why
Speaker 3: don't I go around and collect everyone's initiative? Murdy, What
Speaker 3: did you get?
Speaker 4: I got a fifteen on the dice, so that is
Speaker 4: twenty teen, so twenty.
Speaker 3: Two, all right, that's pretty good, squash. What do you got? Also?
Speaker 6: Twenty two?
Speaker 3: Which one of you would like to go first? It's
Speaker 3: your choice.
Speaker 4: I can give everybody like a pretty decent boon. We
Speaker 4: want to take advantage of that.
Speaker 6: I love a boon.
Speaker 3: Sure, all right, we'll leave it like that. Trance, what
Speaker 3: do you got?
Speaker 5: I got a seventeen seventeen and Spie, what did you get?
Speaker 2: Roll of fifteen for a total of nineteen.
Speaker 3: Well, you all beat the initiative of my poor, poor
Speaker 3: beetles who did very poorly. All right, everybody, here we
Speaker 3: are in the first round of combat. So we've got
Speaker 3: three beetles that have come burrowing up out of the muck.
Speaker 3: It looks like crawling up out of this swamp goo
Speaker 3: has really slowed them down, giving you all quite the
Speaker 3: edge at the top of the order. Squash, you'll get
Speaker 3: to go first.
Speaker 6: Squash trying to pull his pants up after trying to
Speaker 6: make what was sure to be a beautiful bomb. One
Speaker 6: hand shoots from the hip his big sword that's also
Speaker 6: a gun. His gun sword shoots whichever beatle's closest.
Speaker 3: So you're gonna draw your weapon and you're gonna fire.
Speaker 3: So that's two of your actions.
Speaker 6: Yeah bang.
Speaker 3: Looking at where you're at, it looks like you're gonna
Speaker 3: be firing at that first beetle over there on the left.
Speaker 3: It's kind of crawling up around the millstone, between the
Speaker 3: millstone and the ruins stairs so go ahead and give
Speaker 3: me an attack roller.
Speaker 6: It's not what I want it to be, so I
Speaker 6: rolled a six plus seven for a total of thirteen.
Speaker 3: The bullet from your pistol goes gliding right past the beetle,
Speaker 3: just barely missing it, impacting the muck right behind it. Now,
Speaker 3: I believe you're gonna have to reload that pistol, so
Speaker 3: you cannot fire it again for your third action, but
Speaker 3: you could reload.
Speaker 6: Ugh ah, I'm reloading. This guy's gonna fucking get it
Speaker 6: next time, all right.
Speaker 3: So you take a shot with your pistol, it comes
Speaker 3: up a hair short, and then you take a moment
Speaker 3: to reload. That is the end of Squash's turn. Next up, Murdy,
Speaker 3: We've got beetles all around you. They are uninjured, their
Speaker 3: mandibles are clicking menacingly. What do you do?
Speaker 4: Basing nasty? So I am gonna raise my shield and
Speaker 4: I'm gonna cast less, which as a spell, counts for
Speaker 4: two actions, and it's going to give myself and my
Speaker 4: allies a plus one status bonus to all its tact
Speaker 4: rolls as long as you stay with them.
Speaker 3: Fifteen feet of meat, all right, So that is currently everybody,
Speaker 3: because you just clustered in after crawling through the vine,
Speaker 3: so everybody has that bonus on attack rolls, and after
Speaker 3: calling down the blessings of aer still to the group.
Speaker 3: That is the end of Murdy's turn spite. We're turning
Speaker 3: it over to you. Will your name say?
Speaker 2: Hold up, I'm going to use my defensive advance that
Speaker 2: is blessed upon me. I learned it in school when
Speaker 2: I worshiped Milani, the goddess that I worship. So I'm
Speaker 2: going to raise my shield stride confidently forward, right out
Speaker 2: of range of the blessed spell, right next to that
Speaker 2: beetle to my right. And also, oh, before I do this,
Speaker 2: I'm drawing my morning Star, and then I'm using this
Speaker 2: two action thing that lets me raise my shield stride
Speaker 2: and strike. All right, So that's what I'm doing. And
Speaker 2: when I mentioned that this die does not roll particularly well,
Speaker 2: I would like to say that the total I got
Speaker 2: was an eight, but the number I rolled was a one.
Speaker 3: So that would be a critical failure. You swing wildly
Speaker 3: around your your morning Star, flailing through the ear nearly
Speaker 3: hitting trench right in the face, because he's right next
Speaker 3: to you and just within a hair's breadth of his nose,
Speaker 3: but but you otherwise don't suffer any ill effects. The
Speaker 3: beatle kind of looks at you like were you were
Speaker 3: you trying to hit me?
Speaker 2: Ill max on my damage. I rolled max damage because
Speaker 2: I rolled at the same time.
Speaker 3: You nearly did max damage to your friend's face. But
Speaker 3: the beetle is unscathed.
Speaker 2: That's my turn.
Speaker 3: Well, trans were down to you. Next up the Beatles go.
Speaker 3: The rest of your cohort has bravely not damaging any
Speaker 3: beetles yet, so it's down to you. All right.
Speaker 5: Don't worry, boss, I got this fire in the hole,
Speaker 5: and then I'm gonna throw up an alchemist fire at
Speaker 5: the nearest beetle right in front of spite.
Speaker 3: Now, I do happen to know that you were a bomber,
Speaker 3: and being a bomber means that you do have the
Speaker 3: option of having the splash damage from your bomb only
Speaker 3: hit the beetle, because when you throw a bomb, it
Speaker 3: caused a splash, so it damages the area around it.
Speaker 3: But you don't have to use that ability. The question
Speaker 3: I have for you is whether or not you are.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, it's the boss, all right, unless I miss,
Speaker 5: unless there's a mistake.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh I rolled a natural twenty.
Speaker 3: Well, that's definitely.
Speaker 2: Can we switch dice.
Speaker 3: The beetle, who was entirely missed by the previous attack,
Speaker 3: is kind of just looking around and I'm disoriented, and you,
Speaker 3: from just right over spited shoulder tossed this alchemist's fire
Speaker 3: directly into its little beetle face. So go ahead and
Speaker 3: roll damage for the alchemist fire.
Speaker 2: It out of the air with its mouth reflexibly as.
Speaker 3: If trying to play fetch seven seven points of damage,
Speaker 3: which is entirely doubled plus the splash damage you emilate
Speaker 3: this beetle. The alchemist fire lands on the beetle, shattering
Speaker 3: across its carapace and cooking it thoroughly. In one moment,
Speaker 3: the beetle has been destroyed.
Speaker 2: That'll teach you to be an animal.
Speaker 3: I just met.
Speaker 2: Oh we are in its house. I hadn't thought of
Speaker 2: the moral complications of this before.
Speaker 5: Oh gosh, boss, if you're God wanted that beatle alive,
Speaker 5: I wouldn't have hit it so hard.
Speaker 2: That's a good point.
Speaker 3: So that was only your first act because you have
Speaker 3: quick bomber. Uh huh, So you do still have two
Speaker 3: more actions.
Speaker 2: Can I throw another bomb?
Speaker 3: You can but remember in half Finder, each attack you
Speaker 3: make in one turn after the first takes a penalty.
Speaker 3: That penalty is usually five. Okay, I mean, but if
Speaker 3: you keep rolling twenties, it doesn't.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think I've got to throw it at the
Speaker 5: one most directly in front of me. I guess I
Speaker 5: can step up in front of Margaret and then take
Speaker 5: a throw.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you could move forward a hair if you want, Yeah,
Speaker 3: no problem.
Speaker 2: Then I'm gonna hurl another bomb.
Speaker 3: One of the Beatles is crawling up over the half
Speaker 3: sunken millstone, and you just lobbed the bomb directly at it,
Speaker 3: So go ahead.
Speaker 5: I brought a house swarm and present I did not.
Speaker 5: That's gonna be an eight for a total of I
Speaker 5: guess it's minus five plus plus your plus my bonus,
Speaker 5: which with these is five, So just an eight.
Speaker 2: That just can't that.
Speaker 3: Well, that's convenient. So this bomb goes soaring over the beetle,
Speaker 3: landing just behind him. Now, because it's a bomb and
Speaker 3: you missed, you didn't critically miss it still like explodes
Speaker 3: right next to the beetle and does the splash damage
Speaker 3: to it, So it is still going to take one
Speaker 3: point of fire damage there.
Speaker 1: You go.
Speaker 2: I got him started.
Speaker 3: So the beetle has been slightly singed, and that is
Speaker 3: the end of your turn.
Speaker 2: My moms did always say they hated the Beatles. This
Speaker 2: must be what they meant.
Speaker 3: Clearly. The Beatles, having seen one of their ill burned
Speaker 3: down to the exoskeleton, are clicking with furious anger as
Speaker 3: the first one comes marching up to Squash, It's mandibles
Speaker 3: clicking wildly, And it is going to come up to
Speaker 3: Squash and attempt to bite you with its mandibles.
Speaker 6: Good luck.
Speaker 3: So I'm going to get a grand total of eight,
Speaker 3: which is not going to be enough to hit you.
Speaker 3: I can't image in your issue. Is undoubtedly better than.
Speaker 6: An eight, Absolutely it is.
Speaker 3: So that is not going to do it. And with
Speaker 3: its final action, it's going to attempt to bite you again,
Speaker 3: even though it has a remote chance of hitting. No,
Speaker 3: that's definitely not going to do it either. So that
Speaker 3: beetle comes up and furiously attempts to catch you with
Speaker 3: its mandibles, but frankly you're able to dance away from
Speaker 3: its bite without too much trouble. The other beetle, this
Speaker 3: one was lightly scorched by the alchemist fire, is going
Speaker 3: to crawl up to the front of this millstone right
Speaker 3: next to Trent. Its beetle legs clicking across the stone's surface,
Speaker 3: and as it makes its way up to you, trant
Speaker 3: is going to attempt to bite you with its mandibles.
Speaker 3: Do you have an armor class of sixteen or less?
Speaker 5: Nope, seventeen, baby, better beetles than you have tried.
Speaker 3: Beetle desperately tries to get a hold of you, even
Speaker 3: getting so closest to get its mandibles around your overcoat,
Speaker 3: but it does not manage to connect and you pull
Speaker 3: away safely.
Speaker 2: You got to learn how to move fast when you
Speaker 2: make bombs.
Speaker 3: With its final action, it's going to attempt to attack
Speaker 3: once again. Terrible does a terrible job. It's it's mandibles
Speaker 3: close around nothing but air with a roll a grand tole.
Speaker 2: Of a four first level fights.
Speaker 3: Baby, Yeah, you know, hey, you live by the die,
Speaker 3: you die by the die. In this case, the Beatles
Speaker 3: are not looking too good. All right, we're back to
Speaker 3: the top of the order. Squash its back to you.
Speaker 3: What do you do.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna draw my glave and I'm gonna run this
Speaker 6: little bastard through, all.
Speaker 3: Right, So you draw your glove. That's your first action,
Speaker 3: and for your second action, you're gonna go ahead and
Speaker 3: make an attack, So why don't you go ahead and
Speaker 3: give me an attackle?
Speaker 6: Mmm, well it is one, is the thing?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I rolled the one.
Speaker 3: It is a complete miss.
Speaker 1: Then.
Speaker 3: Uh so you bring the huge glave down attempting to
Speaker 3: crush the beetle, but the glave is so long you
Speaker 3: actually missed the beatle entirely and hit the muck behind it.
Speaker 3: You can make another attack, but that had no effect.
Speaker 6: Mmmm, it's better than nothing.
Speaker 4: And you are still close to me. So you're taking
Speaker 4: plus one?
Speaker 2: Yeah, less, so total of a plus three, I think right?
Speaker 6: All right, one more again. I rolled at fourteen for
Speaker 6: a total of seventeen.
Speaker 3: All right, this one is going to connect. Your glave
Speaker 3: does manage to catch the beatles care pace, Go ahead
Speaker 3: and roll damage.
Speaker 6: That's a five and I get a plus two on
Speaker 6: my glave, so seven damage.
Speaker 3: Your glave catches the beetle in the back of its
Speaker 3: carapace and it splits open, spilling a sickly white goo
Speaker 3: into the swamp. The beetle is dead.
Speaker 6: Yes, And I get right up close to its ear
Speaker 6: and I say it's been a hars day's night and
Speaker 6: I've been working like a dog.
Speaker 2: But do you know what else kills?
Speaker 5: I mean the real ringo who killed you know or
Speaker 5: you know what was killed by the fake ringo? I
Speaker 5: guess so the fake ring the current ringo killed the
Speaker 5: real Ringo.
Speaker 2: Sorry? Who Also? I believe it's one of the ringos
Speaker 2: that sponsors our show? Is that? That's right? It's the
Speaker 2: dead Ringo. The dead Ringo sponsors our show.
Speaker 5: It was the only thing in his will.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think some other ads too, But the
Speaker 2: most important thing is that dead Ringo to sponsored the
Speaker 2: show and we're back.
Speaker 5: Yeah, quick correction, it was actually Pete Best that sponsored
Speaker 5: the show.
Speaker 2: Sorry, we make mistakes all the time. Unfortunately, there's no
Speaker 2: way to go back and edit.
Speaker 5: So, just like the Beatles when they replaced Pete Best
Speaker 5: with Ringo anyway, well when they recorded those songs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have nothing against the Beatles. I don't actually
Speaker 2: care one way or the other about this.
Speaker 3: These swamp Beatles beg to differ. Speaking of which, we
Speaker 3: are back in the middle of combat. Two of the
Speaker 3: three Beatles are now dead, and all that remains is
Speaker 3: one perched atop the millstone, slightly singed by a bomb. Murdy,
Speaker 3: it is your turn, all right.
Speaker 4: I am paying very close attention to my blessed bell
Speaker 4: to keep it up. I am going to run right
Speaker 4: up to the beetle next to Trent. Let's see if
Speaker 4: I can get this thing to move on a little
Speaker 4: twenty and that should be within my twenty five moves absolutely.
Speaker 4: And then because the beetles like up on the millstone,
Speaker 4: I want to take my soup ladle and like try
Speaker 4: to deck it and get it to fall off the thing.
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna roll my club. I rolled a seventeen
Speaker 4: on the dive, plus my three bonus is twenty.
Speaker 3: Twenty connects right with its little beetle face.
Speaker 4: Okay, and I do too damage.
Speaker 3: To damage, not enough to drive it from the millstone,
Speaker 3: but plenty enough to irritate it. The beetle looks at
Speaker 3: you menacingly. It's mandible snapping. You still have one action left?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm doing the eye thing. I've got to. I
Speaker 4: don't know how to describe this real podcast.
Speaker 3: They're matching its gaze with your fingers.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like a peace sign, but.
Speaker 2: All peace signs are for violence. That's how we get peace.
Speaker 3: Spite you are up next, ready for some more peaceful violence.
Speaker 2: I'm going to pacify this beetle. I'm going to use
Speaker 2: defensive advance. I'm going to step up to the left
Speaker 2: of murdy all right, and I am going to raise
Speaker 2: my shield, stride forward confidently, and this time remember how
Speaker 2: to hold the morning Star and get a seventeen on
Speaker 2: the die for a total of twenty four. You take
Speaker 2: twenty five twenty five? Is that a crit.
Speaker 3: Twenty five is a critical hit? You bring the morning
Speaker 3: start down, cracking it right in the middle of its carapace.
Speaker 3: Go ahead and roll damage and double it for me.
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 2: So I got three plus four is seven times two
Speaker 2: is fourteen damage.
Speaker 3: There is now a gooey smear where there was at
Speaker 3: one point in time a beetle.
Speaker 2: Oh that's kind of gross, I say.
Speaker 6: Ew yuck.
Speaker 4: Do you think we could eat this? Does any of
Speaker 4: this look edible like a lobster?
Speaker 3: Well, so there's one thing I need to resolve real quickly.
Speaker 3: When you smash this beetle, this beetle spatters when it dies,
Speaker 3: and it splashes all three of you. That would be
Speaker 3: all three of you that are right up next to it.
Speaker 3: That is spite Mrdy and Trant. All three of you
Speaker 3: gets spattered with this caustic beetle goo. All of you
Speaker 3: take one point of acid damage as the beetle's innerds
Speaker 3: scorch and burn your skin.
Speaker 5: You calling that acid down. I've taken worse acid damage
Speaker 5: from me.
Speaker 3: It is really more of a love singe at this point.
Speaker 6: I have a big handful of gear that I that
Speaker 6: I like shake off my hand. It's just like no
Speaker 6: goofer squash today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're lucky because technically squash I forgot they had
Speaker 3: that ability. You should have taken a point of damage
Speaker 3: as well when you killed the beetle next to you.
Speaker 3: What are you gonna do? I forgot, so I guess
Speaker 3: you're immune. You heard it.
Speaker 6: Everyone that's cannon forever.
Speaker 3: No, I'm gonna have a rit of that right now.
Speaker 4: I have so many rags in all of my pack
Speaker 4: and my cook wear for wiping down surfaces. We can
Speaker 4: get this taken care of. No big deal.
Speaker 2: I just like hold out my arms in hand for
Speaker 2: you to clean off.
Speaker 3: Fortunately, the acid the moment it's exposed to air, it
Speaker 3: apparently neutralizes pretty quick. It's just that initial exposure that
Speaker 3: burns for a moment. But yeah, the three beetles have
Speaker 3: now been defeated. The last of the beatles lies dead
Speaker 3: on the floor, leaving this area open for exploration. Although
Speaker 3: the ground floor of the old mill is now quiet
Speaker 3: and still somewhere above on another floor, two creatures are
Speaker 3: having a conversation. The only way up appears to be
Speaker 3: a rickety staircase that SAgs off the nearby wall, looking
Speaker 3: like it might collapse at any moment. So, now the
Speaker 3: combat's done and you're inside the mill, you can there's
Speaker 3: a lot of things you could do. Right. You could
Speaker 3: take a look around see if there is anything to
Speaker 3: be discovered down here on the ground floor of the mill.
Speaker 3: You could perhaps listen in on these voices and see
Speaker 3: what there is to hear. You could take a look
Speaker 3: at the stairs. You could even start trying to climb
Speaker 3: the stairs. But there doesn't seem to be any active
Speaker 3: threats down here on the ground floor.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna prep another couple of alchemists fires from my
Speaker 5: quick stashes while we were searching around.
Speaker 3: You're gonna get your versatile whiles back, because you're down
Speaker 3: at least.
Speaker 5: One, Yes, I'm down one, and yeah another, well two
Speaker 5: more actually say yeah.
Speaker 4: Does anybody care to be healed for a single healing point?
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm okay, it just stings a little. I kind
Speaker 2: of like it.
Speaker 6: Can I listen in to what the conversation is or
Speaker 6: is it just too faint?
Speaker 3: You can attempt to give me a perception check.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do this also, all right, I would also
Speaker 2: like to try to.
Speaker 6: Listen as a ten plus five for a total of fifteen.
Speaker 4: All right, I have eight plus seven, which is also fifteen.
Speaker 2: I have a nineteen plus four for total of twenty three.
Speaker 3: So murdy squash. The two of you kind of listen in,
Speaker 3: but between your kind of squelching in the muck below
Speaker 3: and just the general sounds of the swamp, you don't
Speaker 3: make out much. But spite your hearing is just a
Speaker 3: hair cleaner, And although you can't make out what is
Speaker 3: being said, you can make out what sounds to be
Speaker 3: like a low, rumbling kind of guttural sound. It almost
Speaker 3: sounds like.
Speaker 2: Croaking when you say croaking, Am I able to be
Speaker 2: like that? Sounds like a giant frog? Or is it
Speaker 2: like more of them? I don't think those are people talking.
Speaker 2: I think that there's a bunch of frogs upstairs. They
Speaker 2: probably got trapped here by the Beatles because if they
Speaker 2: came down, the Beatles would have killed them. And so
Speaker 2: we were saving the innocent frogs by killing those beetles.
Speaker 2: We liberated those frogs upstairs.
Speaker 6: Yes, great works fight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, whatever you say, boss, Sure that's what happened.
Speaker 3: So Trance still needs some time to finish making his vials.
Speaker 3: So while that's happening, the rest of you can look
Speaker 3: around the area, take a look at the stairs. If
Speaker 3: there's anything else you want to do, you have a
Speaker 3: few moments to do it. Trant's vials takes ten minutes
Speaker 3: to make.
Speaker 2: I'm Megan, one of them's asset. I'm just scooping up
Speaker 2: some beetle goop for it. If it's a ten minute thing,
Speaker 2: then I might heal myself with lay on hands and
Speaker 2: then refocus.
Speaker 3: Sure that could be what you do. Yeah, that's easy.
Speaker 2: And so I reached down and I touched my hand
Speaker 2: and I whisper Malani, I got burned. I was doing good.
Speaker 2: And then Malani magically heals my hand. And then I
Speaker 2: sit down and I take off my helmet and I
Speaker 2: light the candle and I pray over my helmet for
Speaker 2: about ten minutes, silently staring at everyone who gets too close.
Speaker 6: Squash is looking at this and it's just like, Damn,
Speaker 6: I should get into God or something.
Speaker 3: Maybe I should find religion.
Speaker 6: That seems pretty bitch. And I turned to Murdy and
Speaker 6: I say, you worship.
Speaker 3: What is it?
Speaker 6: Arasco? I'm a bit of a rascal myself. What's this
Speaker 6: guy's deal?
Speaker 4: What's a rascal's dealer? What's Malanie's? I don't know shit
Speaker 4: about Milani, And honestly, I don't even know that much
Speaker 4: about a rascal. I'm just kind of here for the soup.
Speaker 6: Damn. My kind of guy.
Speaker 3: Show up for the prayers about family and home and heart,
Speaker 3: stay for the soup. All right. So it sounds like
Speaker 3: Spike and Trent are busy. That leaves Murdy and Squash.
Speaker 3: You've had a bit of a discussion about religion. Do
Speaker 3: you want to take a look around? Do you want
Speaker 3: to take a look at the stairs? There's anything you
Speaker 3: want to do before we just kind of move forward?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Do we want to try to climb the stairs?
Speaker 4: I have a climbing kit on me, and I could
Speaker 4: try to rig something to make it safer to climb
Speaker 4: the stairs.
Speaker 6: That's smart. I'm in the middle of being like, what
Speaker 6: do you think about like like God? Like I've been
Speaker 6: hearing about God too, the sequel to God. Oh you're
Speaker 6: getting out? Okay, Yeah, let's no, let's let's let's let's
Speaker 6: go up the stairs. But let's let's be really let's
Speaker 6: be stunny about it.
Speaker 4: Yeah. The God that I'm into is into doing things
Speaker 4: and not so much into thinking specific thoughts.
Speaker 5: I mean, if you're looking for something to believe in
Speaker 5: more powerful than yourself, I can suggest bombs.
Speaker 2: I glare at everyone for talking so loudly.
Speaker 3: Very trustworthy.
Speaker 6: Now do you have some pamphlets about this? Because of
Speaker 6: this second?
Speaker 5: I absolutely have some pamphlets. Now, if you get caught
Speaker 5: with one of these pamphlets, you will get in a
Speaker 5: lot of trouble.
Speaker 6: But yes, I do have zeeines.
Speaker 4: In my inventory, and I will hand one to Squash
Speaker 4: about how to make soup for three hundred.
Speaker 2: I have a similar pamphlet about bombs.
Speaker 6: I'm unzipping my backpack and taking a bunch of us
Speaker 6: on taking out lend us bread and stuff.
Speaker 5: Now, this is how to make bombs for three hundred pamphlets.
Speaker 5: So you just got to divide the amount of fertilizer,
Speaker 5: buy three hundred to make a one person bomb.
Speaker 2: Don't fuck that part up?
Speaker 6: Okay, taking notes?
Speaker 2: Are we going to make the food and bombs joke?
Speaker 3: Now? Why can't be both? That depends on how much
Speaker 3: chili you can make? Murdy, Can you give me a
Speaker 3: perception check as you're taking a look at these stairs?
Speaker 4: Sure can? That was a thirteen on the dive plus
Speaker 4: seven is twenty.
Speaker 3: So you take a look at the stairs and you
Speaker 3: notice that one section in particular looks kind of dangerous.
Speaker 3: The rest of it it looks safe and you could
Speaker 3: just climb it. I mean, it's stairs. You're like, you
Speaker 3: don't have to make a check to go up a
Speaker 3: set of stairs, But there is one part of it
Speaker 3: that looks frankly kind of rotten and rickety, and you're
Speaker 3: gonna wager folks could either jump over that or they
Speaker 3: could just kind of risk going across it quickly. Now,
Speaker 3: I'll say this. You have a.
Speaker 4: Climber's kit, you said, I sure do, Jason.
Speaker 3: So if you wanted to break out some of the
Speaker 3: pieces of your climber's kit and make me, let's say,
Speaker 3: an athletics check to kind of scale through the area,
Speaker 3: and put in some pitons. I'll give everyone that comes
Speaker 3: behind you a bonus.
Speaker 4: Jason, can I talk you into letting me do a
Speaker 4: crafting check instead?
Speaker 3: No, damn good guys. We're gonna go and start whittling
Speaker 3: out some new stairs. You know that's not a crafting check.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna need you to make an athletics check.
Speaker 4: I disagree, but all right, get them, get them. I'm
Speaker 4: gonna think really hard about my time in the equiment
Speaker 4: of Boy Scouts, but for a rastal when I'm gonna
Speaker 4: cast guidance, which gives me a plus one.
Speaker 3: Good idea.
Speaker 4: Because I don't have any acrobatics at all. We're rolling then,
Speaker 4: nice died listeners. That was a six on the die
Speaker 4: I have for all a seven.
Speaker 2: I'm looking and trying so hard not to get distracted
Speaker 2: because I'm like, I could do that better, but now
Speaker 2: I'm busy.
Speaker 3: So you're trying to make your way up these stairs
Speaker 3: and play some petons, but you end up standing on
Speaker 3: one of them that's pretty rotten and broken and it
Speaker 3: starts to give way. Can you give me a reflex
Speaker 3: saving thrown?
Speaker 4: I'm still thinking back about boy Scouts for the aristol.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm taking.
Speaker 4: On this too, and that was a fourteen plus three
Speaker 4: plus one is eighteen.
Speaker 3: Well, you didn't need to think about your days back
Speaker 3: and the boy Scouts at all because you made it so.
Speaker 3: You managed to kind of skip across. You haven't really
Speaker 3: helped anybody, but you have made it across yourself. You
Speaker 3: did kind of stumble across and make your way over.
Speaker 3: Now that you're there, you could at least toss a
Speaker 3: rope back so that anybody trying to make their way
Speaker 3: across would have at least a little guidance.
Speaker 6: I'm following close by.
Speaker 2: Okay, there's it been ten minutes. Where are we at?
Speaker 3: We're getting close to that point. The two of you
Speaker 3: will be able to come and help them after we
Speaker 3: find out what happens to Squash. So Squash, you can
Speaker 3: either just attempt to walk across the stairs and make
Speaker 3: a reflex, say, or you can make an athletics check
Speaker 3: to try and kind of jump across the rotten section.
Speaker 6: Could I talk you into an acrobatics check where I
Speaker 6: do a fun flip over?
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, that's right. It's not like you're trying to
Speaker 3: craft your way across.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry if tying knots not crafting. I've climbed trees before.
Speaker 4: That's all knots. I'm not really using my body.
Speaker 6: I look at Murdy and I say, what's this shit roll? Oh?
Speaker 6: Thank god it worked out. That's a sixteen plus seven
Speaker 6: twenty three.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you vault across seasl And so just as this
Speaker 3: kind of wraps up, the two of you down below
Speaker 3: have finished making your versatile vial and praying to your deity.
Speaker 3: So the two of you are now free to attempt
Speaker 3: to join the others. You're kind of left with the
Speaker 3: same situation. You either have to jump across with an
Speaker 3: athletics check or just attempt to reflex save to avoid
Speaker 3: kind of falling.
Speaker 2: And there's a rope that's been tossed.
Speaker 3: There is a rope that's going to give you a bonus.
Speaker 3: I'm just going to take that off the difficulty though,
Speaker 3: So don't worry about it, Okay.
Speaker 5: I mean, boss, I could set off some explosives behind us,
Speaker 5: and then the detonation of that will propel us upwards
Speaker 5: onto the ledge.
Speaker 2: I appreciate your willingness to think outside the box, but
Speaker 2: I think that actually what we need to do is
Speaker 2: just jump over these couple stairs.
Speaker 5: Is this one of those things they trained you to
Speaker 5: do in God School.
Speaker 2: Oh, jumping around. It's very important. We do jumping jacks
Speaker 2: every morning.
Speaker 5: All right, all right, I don't understand your faith, but uh,
Speaker 5: you know you haven't let us wrong often.
Speaker 2: So that we can be ready to kill the oppressors. Yeah,
Speaker 2: or whoever and the bourgeoisie. I don't know how to
Speaker 2: spell that one. I speak two languages and I don't
Speaker 2: know how to spell that one. But the important thing
Speaker 2: is we can just jump across, and then I jump
Speaker 2: across roll a ten for a total of seventeen, so.
Speaker 3: You easily are able to clear the distance and make
Speaker 3: your way to the other side. Trent. That leaves only you.
Speaker 3: I'm a little sad we're not going to get to
Speaker 3: see the explosion behind you. I'm assuming you've got at
Speaker 3: least a handful of like doves inside your jacket to
Speaker 3: release at the same time.
Speaker 2: I got a total of seven with my athletics. Not great, all.
Speaker 3: Right, So Trant attempts to jump across, but instead misses
Speaker 3: the jump entirely and falls through the stairs into the
Speaker 3: muff below. Take four points of damage.
Speaker 6: Okay, I grab Spie by lot of the pels. Why
Speaker 6: don't you talk about it?
Speaker 2: The bombs A single tear rolls down my cheek as
Speaker 2: I can see my friend hurt.
Speaker 4: I set the bindle down and starts stirring the soup,
Speaker 4: making sure it's still going. Very important key thing about
Speaker 4: petwal Stew is it does need to be kept in
Speaker 4: even one sixty five. I think that's true in real
Speaker 4: life too. It's definitely true about magic soup.
Speaker 2: I'm going to jump back over and go down and
Speaker 2: lay on hands.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm assuming Trent can get up and make his
Speaker 3: way back.
Speaker 2: Can Yeah, I will attempt to do that.
Speaker 3: Okay, So if you didn't want to jump down, you
Speaker 3: can wait and see if Trent can make it across.
Speaker 2: Oh no, my character would absolutely.
Speaker 3: Rack down in that case. Give me another athletics check.
Speaker 2: If my friends are jumping off a cliff, spite is
Speaker 2: jumping off a cliff for a total of thirteen.
Speaker 3: Well, you joined Trent faster than you had hoped, as
Speaker 3: you fall through the stairs as well and also take
Speaker 3: four points of damage.
Speaker 5: All right, this doesn't seem to be going well.
Speaker 2: Well, now we can go back up together.
Speaker 4: Murdy always looks tired, but Murty has never looked more
Speaker 4: tired than this moment, furiously star at the soup.
Speaker 3: I can't wait for the other two of you to
Speaker 3: join them down there making the same mistake. I'm just
Speaker 3: excited for it.
Speaker 2: Can I toss? How strong? Am I?
Speaker 3: I am?
Speaker 2: Very strong? Can I toss?
Speaker 3: I would let you kind of give him an assist,
Speaker 3: like you know, as he's about to jump, you kind
Speaker 3: of push him to give him a bonus.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm gonna try and toss him, all right, assist him, spike.
Speaker 3: Can you give me an athletics check on the assist?
Speaker 2: Yeah, fourteen plus seven twenty one, that is an assist?
Speaker 5: Cool, all right, I'm gonna roll yep. I got a
Speaker 5: five this time plus anything plus my strength, so eight
Speaker 5: and then whatever the assist is.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, so you end up back down in the
Speaker 3: mud again.
Speaker 5: Look, I didn't go to climbing school. I didn't go
Speaker 5: to any kind to school.
Speaker 2: Can you just toss us a rope?
Speaker 4: I say, I did go to climbing school. I went
Speaker 4: to Scouts.
Speaker 5: I got one option here, and it's blow things up.
Speaker 5: That is not climbing inclusive.
Speaker 6: I drop a rope down.
Speaker 3: So the other way that you could do this now
Speaker 3: that you have two people across, and quite conceivably Spike
Speaker 3: could get across as well. Is that you could just
Speaker 3: tie a rope around Trent and pull Trent up?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think that that's the plan.
Speaker 4: I have pulleys. We can't rigs like a four to
Speaker 4: one pulley.
Speaker 3: I mean make me a craft check.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, finally.
Speaker 4: All right, that was a nine plus four US it
Speaker 4: is thirteen.
Speaker 3: Sure, Spike. Can you give me an athletics check to
Speaker 3: jump back across?
Speaker 2: Yeah, nineteen plus seven is twenty six, No problem. Can
Speaker 2: I like kind of jump back and forth like three
Speaker 2: times with the one check, just.
Speaker 3: To be like, yeah, bouncing back and forth, and then
Speaker 3: the three of you haul Trent up to the top.
Speaker 3: It's it's not the most glamorous way to reach the
Speaker 3: second floor of the tower, but it does get the
Speaker 3: job done.
Speaker 6: Hey, there's my guy, and I pat Trance on the back.
Speaker 6: But then I sneak up the stairs.
Speaker 2: I lay on hands on Trent to heal six points
Speaker 2: of damage. Thanks boss, or do you want to heal instead? Murdy?
Speaker 4: I have four slots of heel. That's up to you
Speaker 4: about which.
Speaker 2: Spells you want to I get mine back if I
Speaker 2: hang out for ten minutes.
Speaker 5: This is the wake up call I needed. I'm working
Speaker 5: on some sort of climbing bomb.
Speaker 6: Next.
Speaker 3: There are, in fact, you have heard of mutagens that
Speaker 3: make you better at like athletics and climbing. They make
Speaker 3: you more animalistic, allowing you to kind of make some
Speaker 3: of these checks easier.
Speaker 5: Is there some explosive delivery system for these mutagens?
Speaker 3: I mean, you kind of drink them.
Speaker 2: But I'll have to get creative.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll, we'll, We'll have to do some experiment.
Speaker 2: So I am going at half speed to have my
Speaker 2: morning Star and shield at the ready.
Speaker 3: Right at this point in time, considering the dangers of
Speaker 3: this place, I'm assuming everybody has their weapons drawn and
Speaker 3: shields out.
Speaker 6: I have a hand out ready to shake in friendship.
Speaker 3: So you continue making your way up the stairs up
Speaker 3: to the second floor of the old crumbling mill. A
Speaker 3: wooden shaft once pierced this chamber, connecting the machinery above
Speaker 3: with the millstone below, but now it lays ruined on
Speaker 3: the floor. On the other side of the room, a
Speaker 3: ladder goes up to what must be the top floor,
Speaker 3: But in front of that ladder there's a dark shape
Speaker 3: slumbering in the gloom. But before you can find out
Speaker 3: what that is, I think we're going to break this
Speaker 3: episode and you will have to tune in next time
Speaker 3: to learn what is slumbering at the foot of the ladder.
Speaker 2: Oh, no, all of us have to wait a week. Yes,
Speaker 2: that's how we're gonna do it.
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, it's going to be a whole week.
Speaker 6: I can't wait that long to find out it's a
Speaker 6: totuo or something.
Speaker 2: It's probably a toto, I don't I.
Speaker 6: Think it's a totaro.
Speaker 4: Guys on big Beetle, that Snorris somehow.
Speaker 2: Snoring beetle. There were four I don't know how many
Speaker 2: beatles there are. You say, big beetle.
Speaker 5: I'm now imagining like a Beetle CEO of some sort,
Speaker 5: like a Beetle industrial complex that we're going to take down,
Speaker 5: which makes me feel better about the fact that we
Speaker 5: just killed all those guys.
Speaker 4: I heard you say big beetle. I thought you were
Speaker 4: going like twenty foot tall John Lennon, but.
Speaker 5: I'd blow him up too. Fuck it, David Chapman on
Speaker 5: his ass.
Speaker 2: Well, that's it for episode one of whatever we're gonna
Speaker 2: call this. I'm still calling it cool kids at the
Speaker 2: table because there's a joke there about how actually it
Speaker 2: wasn't cool to play these games when I was younger,
Speaker 2: but it's cool now. And if you listen, next week,
Speaker 2: we're gonna wake up the Toto Giant Beetle and blow
Speaker 2: up John Lennon. But in the meantime, does everyone want
Speaker 2: to plug anything here? At the end of the first episode,
Speaker 2: I don't you all listen to me?
Speaker 5: Every week it's okay to break into people's houses and
Speaker 5: kill them as long as they're not humans.
Speaker 4: Ah.
Speaker 3: Yes, the message of Pathfinder comes to leave.
Speaker 2: That's probably legally true.
Speaker 6: Unfortunately, Second that I'm on the internet at bum Lung
Speaker 6: in some places it's probably it.
Speaker 4: I'm not on the internet. Don't try to find me.
Speaker 4: But you can find my zine about how to self
Speaker 4: vantage and abortion at Tangled Wilderness dot org. It's called
Speaker 4: how to Do It Anyway, printed out, give it to
Speaker 4: your friends.
Speaker 3: And I'm Jason Bulman. I'm the director of games at PISO.
Speaker 3: You can find me all across the internet, usually at
Speaker 3: Jason Bowman. That's b U l M a h N
Speaker 3: that h likes to wander on me. So get it right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's all I got right now. Thanks for listening, everybuddy.
Speaker 2: All right, bye everyone, see you next week.
Speaker 6: Bye.
Speaker 1: It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.
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